“Come on in,” I tell him as I step back so he can enter.
Jimbo walks into my humble abode and turns around once. Yup… he’s seen everything. A small kitchen on one side that merges right into my living room that abuts one wall. A double bed takes up the other wall, and the bathroom takes up another. It’s four hundred and fifty square feet of cozy living, situated right above Mabel Fisher’s three-car garage.
Miss Mabel is older than Methuselah but has been a friend of our family’s since I was a baby. She’s eccentric, rich as hell, and loves to thumb her nose at polite society.
And by polite society, I mean those people here on the islands that look at me in disdain because I killed someone.
Not Mabel though. She was at my parents’ house within forty-eight hours of my return home, giving me a hug and a papery kiss, then making me sit down while she drank tea and filled me in on all the Outer Banks’ gossip for the past five years. She’s a trip… a breath of fresh air, and one of the few around here willing to give me a chance. When she offered to rent this apartment to me for a ridiculously small amount, I couldn’t say no.
“Nice digs man,” Jimbo’s deep voice rumbles. “All moved in?”
“Yup. Bag of clothes and some groceries. I’m settled.”
Jimbo chuckles and moves to my small kitchen table that seats only two people. Sitting down, he motions to the other chair so I do the same. “How does it feel to be out of your parents’ house?”
I crack a small smile and tap my fingers on the kitchen table. “It’s good. I mean… I love my parents, but it was time for me to get my own place.”
“Heard that,” Jimbo agrees, and then transitions into his next question. “How’s work going?”
“Going great,” I tell him, because it is. I enjoy working at Last Call, and I’m thankful as fuck to my brother that he gave me said job. Most parolees struggle to find work, or get shit jobs that scrape the bottom of the barrel. When they can’t find work because no one will take a chance on them, they go back to a life of crime. If I had a nickel for every repeat offender I met in prison, who was there just because they couldn’t make an honest living on the outside, well… I’d be buying Mabel’s house from her rather than renting this apartment.
Jimbo doesn’t seem satisfied with my short answer, so he delves a bit more. It’s his job to make sure I can acclimate to life on the outside, so I’m not bothered when he asks, “Any problem being around the alcohol?”
“Nah,” I tell him genuinely. “No desire to drink at all.”
“That’s good,” he says with a smile. “Seeing as how that’s a condition of your parole.”
“Look, man… doesn’t matter if it’s a condition or not, there is nothing on this earth that could get me to drink a drop of alcohol.”
“And why is that?” he asks, but he knows the answer.
I tell him anyway.
“Because it shattered my life. Because it killed a man. It left a mother without a husband and a little boy without a father. Do I really need any other reason?”
“No,” Jimbo says quietly, staring at me with those light eyes. “That’s a good enough reason.”
I hold his gaze, waiting for the next question. We’ve had this same meeting on three other occasions since I came home, but today it’s being done at my new home so he can check it out. As a parole officer, his role is part jail keeper, part counselor. It’s his responsibility to keep me on the straight and narrow, but to also do what he can to make sure my head is clear when I’m making my choices. So that involves talking… a lot. Just to make sure that the emotional and psychological toll of reentering the real world doesn’t cast me in a downward spiral.
Yeah, I talk a lot to Jimbo. He knows more of my internal struggles dealing with life on the outside than my family does. For whatever reason, I’ve been able to open up to him—somewhat—in a way that I just haven’t with my family. I suppose that boils down to the simple fact that Jimbo asks me questions… asks me how I’m feeling and how I’m coping. My parents, my identical twin, Hunter, my baby sister, Casey… while they love me more than the air they breathe, well… they’re just not sure what is open to talk about and what may be taboo. So they walk on eggshells around me.
“Tell me some of the problems you’ve had adjusting?” Jimbo leads in.
Heard this question before too, and my answer the last time was, Not anything to tell.
I start to tell him the same thing, but the look on his face stops me. It says, And don’t hand me any bullshit, either.