Running Northwest (4 page)

However,
it worried him because ever since Daniel officially became his son, the boy would try and reach out to his new grandparents, his grandmother Grace especially. He often wrote her letters about different things, sending post cards, and calling her on the phone when Thomas would let him. Sadly, more often than
not,
they were never responded too and the phone calls seemed rushed. The exact opposite was true with Thomas’ dad Ed, who adored the boy and was nervously supportive from the start.
Daniel may have only been seven but was not dumb and had a good sense of people’
s emotions and how to read them. His mother Sarah was the same way
.
Moreover, Thomas was worried that Daniel had noticed his grandmother’s ambivalence towards him and would be hurt in the end.

Thomas
looked at the clock on the wall it was
7:20 am.

“All right Kiddo, we better get going, I don’t want you being late for school. Go and get your shoes on okay?” Thomas asked.

Lifting his leg in the air, Daniel responded, “They are Dad, Jeez, pay attention,” he said giggling.

Thomas smiled, “Well aren’t you just little Mr. Prepared,” he said, adding, “
Grab
your coat and let’s go.”

A few moments later the two of them were standing next to the truck.
Daniel stopped as his dad opened the door.

“What are you forgetting?” Thomas asked.

A second later Daniel screamed, “Layla, Harley!” as he opened the back door himself.

In a flash the two large dogs came barreling around the house, kicking up sand, barking and jumping up into the back seat of the truck; Daniel followed and got into the passenger seat with a smile on his face.

“Dogs, Dad,” Daniel said.

Laughing Thomas said, “I don’t think they’re gunna fit in your backpack, Kiddo.”

“Duh Dad,
its
Monday. They always come on Monday,” Daniel said smirking

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Thomas answered, smiling as he got into the driver’s seat and put his laptop bag on the floor at Daniel’s feet.

He drove down the dirt two-track that was their driveway leading to the main road. On the way to school during the week Thomas let Daniel control the radio. He listened to literally whatever the boy decided he wanted to listen to. Thomas felt it was important that his son learn to appreciate a wide variety of music within reason and today was no different. Apparently, Daniel found the Classic Rock station intriguing this morning. As they drove down the Pacific Coast Highway with Aerosmith and Lynyard Skynyrd blaring and the windows down, Thomas could not complain. In the back
seat,
Layla and Harley did what dogs do best in vehicles and drove the whole
20-minute
drive south into the town of Tillamook with their heads out the window, drool hitting any cars that had the nerve to get to close behind the large truck.

Daniel was in the second grade at South Prairie Elementary School. The class sizes were somewhat small, which was nice as far as Thomas was concerned.
In addition,
the school only did grades K-3, which Thomas also liked. The boy had many friends, and last week even had a girlfriend. However, she broke up with him on Friday before the weekend started; the relationship lasted for four days.

Some parents just dropped their kids off, and some kids took the bus, but Thomas preferred to drive Daniel to school as a sort of bonding time for the two of them. Even bonding over music was bonding he thought. Thomas always walked his son to his classroom while knowing that someday, probably even next year, Daniel would most likely begin telling him that he was “too big” for that sort of thing.

After pulling up to school at 7:50 am, the father and son entered the school through two large metal doors that were supposed to look like wood but didn’t at all. Holding hands as they walked down the hallway, Daniel’s classroom was the third door on the left. Standing outside the door was his teacher Ms. Laura Velasquez. She always greeted all of her students as they came in every morning and
chitchatted
with the few parents who took the time to make it this far with their kids. She was 27 and a very attractive woman of Spanish decent. However, what mattered most was that she was a great teacher, and great with his son. Thomas was polite with her and never intentionally flirted. Nevertheless, his being polite sometimes came off as a sort of flirting that she seemed to enjoy he thought but could never be sure. He did not really know how or what to think about it.

“Good morning Laura,” he said smiling and looking her in the eyes as he approached her, trying not to obviously check her out in front of his son; she was very attractive after all.

“Good morning Thomas,” she said with the slightest accent as she reached to shake his
hand, which
was already extending to meet hers.

“Good morning to you too, Daniel. How was your weekend?” she asked as she kneeled down to make easier eye contact with the boy.

“It was fine, we did cool stuff, and I got a post card from my grandma…she lives in Florida,” he replied excitedly.

“You did? Well, that’s pretty cool. Did you bring it for Show and Tell?” she asked.

“I know right? I brought it…Florida’s really far away. My dad says so!”

“Yes it is, I’m pretty excited to see it Daniel; we don’t get a lot of postcards from Florida in our class,” she said.

Thomas liked the fact that Ms. Velasquez would make a big deal out of little things like a postcard to make the kids feel important and special. She was a good teacher in his eyes, and Daniel enjoyed having her as a teacher. Thomas bent down to one knee as a few more of Daniel’s classmates shuffled by and through the door.

“All right buddy I have to go, give your old man a hug, okay?”

“Okay. Bye Dad, I’ll see you
later. Have a good day and
be safe,” the boy said in his squeaky voice as he leaned in to give his dad a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I will Daniel, I promise. You too, okay? Be good for Ms. Laura today,” Thomas said.

“I will,” Daniel said as he let go and turned to walk into the classroom as his father stood up at the same time.

“Ms. Laura,” Thomas said nodding and smiling as he started turning away.

“Mr. James,” Laura replied smiling and looking him in the eyes, as she turned into the classroom and shut the door.

Thomas walked down the hallway and out the doors and quietly said, “Shit!” when he realized what just happened with Laura.

He would have to talk to Derrick about it, get his advice on it…Laura was cute
after all
.

At 11 AM,
Thomas was sitting at a table in his coffee shop called Big Tom’s Sunset Café holding a hand of nine playing cards.
On the other side of the table sat Derrick Pazinkski, who was holding fourteen cards in his hand. Three times a week the two grown men would meet for coffee before the shop opened at noon and sometimes play Rummy, but usually just to talk. Today it was a bit of both.

Derrick Pazinkski moved out west to Oregon at 28 years old, a little less than two months after Thomas got there. He was 33 now and about 5’10”. He had a somewhat bulky build to his frame with tattoos on his forearms not to mention a few other places, and gauged ears. The two friends, for people who
did not
know them, looked like total opposites and found their friendship confusing. The pair had talked for a long time about moving away somewhere new, somewhere that was not Michigan. They both had wanted a fresh start for a long time. Italy, then England, then Florida, then Alaska where Derrick had lived in his early twenties had come up.

Eventually, after Thomas had his heart broken, he just left Michigan for Oregon, and then called Derrick shortly after getting there.

Thomas had literally said, “Quit your job, pack your shit and get your ass out here…you will love it, I promise.”

That, in a nutshell, was all the convincing Derrick had needed to just up and go to join his friend at the other end of the country. The two friends had been through a lot together as friends since they got out to the Oregon Coast. Opening up this coffee shop actually came from necessity when Thomas adopted Daniel. Later Derrick and Thomas opened a successful local bar called the Whaleback
Pub just
a few blocks away from the coffee shop. Thomas owned a small part of that business also. They were also able to integrate themselves into the community and became viewed as true locals. This was not something easily done in small towns like this on the Northwest Coast – a place where the difference between locals and tourists was like the difference between Northern and Southern California. It was two different ways of life, two different perspectives on how people should live their lives.

Some things they did not do anymore though, or not as often at least. Road trips every other weekend, camping in the mountains, drinking all day on the beach, chasing women, pulling all-nighters, motorcycle rides that took them all over the Northwest. All had become things of the past except on a rare occasion. Derrick, who swore off women for a few years, was now living with his girlfriend of two years, Erin Bowens. She was 27 and divorced. Erin was actually a friend and former employee of Thomas. She worked for Thomas for a year and a half at one of his coffee shops that he owned in Oregon in his mid-20’s.  Thomas was the one who
introduced Derrick
and her to each other.

Derrick was known to Thomas’ son as “Uncle Derrick” or just “Uncle D” and was as much a part of the boy’s life as a real blood uncle would have been. To a very large degree since Sarah, Daniel’s mother, died a few years ago, Thomas and Derrick were the only family the boy had.

Derrick knew what his friend Thomas had been through back in Michigan and the real reason why he left. Moreover, he was aware of certain other aspects of Thomas’s past that only two or three other people knew about. What Thomas and his son had been through in the last few years caused Derrick to be very protective over the two whom he considered family. The feeling was mutual for Thomas and Daniel towards Derrick. One of the ways Derrick was protective was keeping Thomas’ actual location in Oregon a secret from certain people back in Michigan that Thomas would not want to see again, or rather, that he should not see again. Thomas and Derrick had started a new life in Oregon they were determined to keep what was back in Michigan in the past and far away from their lives here on the Pacific Coast. Moreover, with the exception of family, they had become virtual ghosts to almost anyone they knew from Michigan. Thomas and his adopted son had built a good life together after Sarah died and did not want that interfered with, and neither did Derrick. Derrick protected their life and privacy as well as his own with a
fierceness, which
only Thomas could understand and appreciate.

As the Rummy game went on – Derrick was losing badly – the pair’s conversation switched from family and business matters to the subject of Daniel’s teacher Laura Velasquez, after a brief explanation of what happened at Daniel’s school earlier in the morning by Thomas.

“So are you gunna ask her out, Bro?” Derrick asked.

“No; Hell no, I can’t do that,” Thomas answered.

“Really, and why the hell not, man? It’s pretty damn obvious she’s kind of into you, why I don’t know,” Derrick said laughing.

“Well neither do I,” Thomas said emphatically, adding, “I can’t because she is my kid’s teacher man. That would look bad I think, this is a small town and you know how much people talk and gossip and you know how private I am. Besides, I don’t know if I’m ready to date again or even try for that matter,” he answered his friend with a sigh.

Derrick looked up from his cards, set them down on the wooden table, took a drag from his cigarette, and looked directly at Thomas.

“If not now, Tom, then when? Seriously think about it at least. What are you scared of? And as far as what people are going to say or think, I don’t believe you have anything to worry about. You will never admit it but just about everyone in this town thinks you’re
great, Bro. The ones who don’t
are scared of you. Besides, when the hell did you really start caring what people think of you? Are you getting soft on me in your old age?” Derrick said trying to make it sound like a joke even though it wasn’t.

Thomas leaned back in his chair and took a long hard stare into Derrick’s eyes, raising his eyebrows and growled a little bit under his breath. The look worked letting Derrick know that Thomas was getting irritated.

“I’m not getting soft, Derrick,” he said in a very deep tone.

“I’m not trying to push ya, you old fart, honestly, so don’t get all pissy with me. You have never been a fast mover with women as long as I have known you and it is probably a good trait especially now. I’m not saying you should ask her to marry you or have her move in with you or anything crazy like that. I am just saying a date, simple like dinner or something. Hell, you can double with Erin and me if you want
,
if that will make you more comfortable. Besides, Erin is always complaining that she never gets to see you enough anymore,” Derrick said.