Category:

PROLOGUE

Thanksgiving Day 2018 dawned dark, cold, rainy, and windy as hell in Seattle, Washington. That's hardly surprising. November in the Pacific Northwest is always dark and rainy. But on this day in particular, the steady downpour was accompanied by a raw wind blowing down from the north. A seemingly endless line of people stood outside a dilapidated brick warehouse on Seattle's somewhat seedy waterfront where there was zero shelter from the weather. They hunkered down there, hoping that once they stepped into the warehouse turned food bank they'd find a little warmth from the bone-chilling cold as well as a free Turkey Day dinner.

Inside an army of volunteers from various churches all over the city scurried around arranging tables and chairs, setting up serving lines, and putting out the food. By the time the doors opened promptly at ten A.M., the people waiting outside had been there for so long that a few of them were becoming belligerent.

That was not unexpected, and several of the heftier members of the volunteer crew had been drafted to provide security and maintain order. One of those was Darius Jackson, a member of the crew from the Mount Zion Baptist Church. He was six four and two hundred and eighty pounds. One look from him was generally enough to settle whatever trouble might be brewing among those waiting for their share of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

Not long ago, Darius would likely have been on the receiving end of one of those free dinners. Now thanks to his grandmother Matilda Jackson, he was out of jail, back on the straight and narrow, and working as a bouncer for a popular but sketchy bar on Rainier Avenue South. The place was owned by someone who was a friend of one of his grandmother's many friends and acquaintances. When Darius had agreed to accept the job offer, Granny had taken him to the woodshed and given him the lay of the land.

"It's a job," she told him, "and you need a job right now. I don't approve of drinking, but there aren't that many places that will give someone like you so much as a second chance to say nothing of a job. But just because you work in a place like that doesn't mean you've got a license to be drinking. You're living with me now instead of out on the streets or in some homeless camp. You come home with booze on your breath, you're out. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Got it."

"And on Sunday mornings you'd best be dressed in your good clothes and have your butt on the pew right next to me when services start at Mount Zion."

"Got that, too," he replied.

That conversation had occurred months earlier, but Darius was still taking it to heart. He was working the same job and was still living in his grandmother's place just off Martin Luther King Way in the Rainier Valley. As a seventh grader, abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, living with Grandma Jackson had been mandatory rather than optional. The judge had given him a choice—go to juvie until he turned twenty-one or take probation and go live with his grandmother. He had chosen door number two. No matter how late he got off shift on Sunday mornings, she made sure he was present and accounted for at Mount Zion's morning services, but back when he was a kid and there under duress, he'd slept through a lot of it and paid scant attention to the rest. At the time all that crap about loving your neighbor as yourself just didn't grab him.

Unsurprisingly, once in high school, Darius had taken up with the wrong crowd, which had led him straight into the arms of the wrong kind of girl. Gypsy Tomkins had been bad news from the get-go. She was a wild child who was beautiful but tough as nails. Once she had Darius in her clutches, everything his grandmother had ever tried to teach him went out the window. Compared to him, Gypsy had been tiny—five two and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet—but from the time Darius was fifteen, he had been putty in her vividly manicured hands.

Eventually, since Gypsy's family was involved in the drug trade, Darius was, too. As for their personal relationship? It lasted for years but had become more and more volatile over time until recurring bouts of domestic violence between them became the order of the day. Gypsy always knew exactly which buttons to push to drive Darius over the edge. As soon as she succeeded, she'd call the cops on him—screaming into the phone that he was beating her or threatening to kill her. Once officers showed up, she would somehow manage to convince them that he was the one at fault. As a consequence, he was the one who usually got hauled off to jail. The next day, of course, when they'd let him out because Gypsy hadn't gone through with pressing charges, she'd laugh it off and act like it was all some kind of joke.