Hopeless Prisoner of Loneliness

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Chapter II



Two

In an upscale strip mall not far from the local college campus was a shop like all the rest; posh, high middle class, slightly snooty and offering the finest goods around. Half the shops were closed up for the night the others sporting “Open Late!” signs. The ones that were closed had a few lights on in front, their bars drawn down all in an attempt to keep away any and all possible burglars or petty thieves.

In the back of one shop stood a skinny 6 foot two inch tall man. He was leaned up against a beautifully crafted butcher block counter hopping around a bit as he lifted wiry yet well shaped arms. His tan nearly matched the well oiled wood as he brought the large metal bowl in his arms a bit higher. “Take the Money and Run” was playing in the background and the man was whistling along to it, singing the chorus of Woo-Hoo's. Despite the dark hollow eyes and the near skeletal appearance you'd never be able to tell that this man was haunted, his past a constant and at times literal ghost laying heavy on him. He'd struggled with suicidal depression and was still in the throws of PTSD, for good reason, but you'd never be able to tell it from his current actions.

No, right now he was free, as free as his family had allowed him to be after he'd been dishonorably discharged and nearly court-martialed.

John Sheppard had been born to a poor couple his father leaving “like literally the minute after I'd been born” to hear it from the ex-solider. Soon afterwords his mother ended up meeting then marrying a rich aristocrat. He was the owner of one of America's biggest and most renown beer companies, Anheuser-Busch.

Now you'd think that from this point on John's life would be set, with a silver spoon in his mouth there would be no worries, no cause for weeping or strife, sadly this was far from the truth. Not long after marrying his mother had her second child, by this time John was around six years old. His new dad wasn't so new in age and it wasn't long before he bought a large plot of land “for the kids” and took early retirement. John's mother had several more children by his adopted father and with each one John was seen as more of a “bad egg”.

Having been born of a man who was irresponsible enough to leave his own child John's parents made sure that he would not go astray, repeating what his biological father had done. Everyday at the early crack of o'dark thirty in the morning his new step dad would get him up to work in the fields alongside the immigrant workers they hired to help them run their “small” farmland. As the family grew John's new siblings were taught that John was lesser than them and that he was not to be trusted or even listened too. When it came time to blame someone for anything at all, even something as small as the coffee pot going dry John was the culprit. John's mother was happy, well cared for, and more then glad she had managed to procure a good life for John, John saw it a bit differently.

Being seen as the “black sheep” of the family his adopted father made sure to keep his hands busy working him hard every minute he spent at home. As John's dad always said, “Jose'! Physical labor is a way to purge the soul of evil and make an honest man out of anyone; even you.” he'd wink then and John never understood what the heck the guy was saying with that, as if it were some magic trick the guy was trying to pull off making him into some perfect … who knows what.

Time passed and John was soon sent off to boarding and finishing schools, all the while spending every waking second working his fingers to the bone when he was home for any length of time.

When he asked why his brothers and sisters weren't made to work as hard or at what he was having to he was brushed off.

Because of his life John had always loved looking at the stars and the sky, needing to ride the wings of the air and be a part of the total and complete freedom that he saw up there. When the chance to become an air-force pilot was offered he signed up. This enraged his father, his son was not going to become “cannon fodder” as it was called in upright circles; in other words the rich and old money circles which his father and now the rest of his family were a part of.

His father had intervened as best he could and nearly got John recalled from his service. Thankfully it hadn't worked out and the old coot had died before he'd accomplished his goal.

To say the armed services didn't go the way he wanted or even expected is kind of an understatement. A bad trip to Afghanistan, a downed chopper and he was back in the states being “dishonorably discharged”, but not for what you would think. As it turned out nearly a year earlier John's true self had shown through and Don't Ask Don't Tell had come up to bite him, literally.

It had been found out by someone (John still wasn't sure who and to this day was sure that it was his father in some odd way) that he might be gay. He'd been more then celibate and had not even thought about sex since he hadn't dared put the ability to fly in danger. The literally two to three rare times he'd even allowed himself as much as a beer with a fellow understanding man was on leave, so to think that he'd so much as had sex while serving was such a fallacy that well, there's just no comparison. Despite this a case was being built against him, with witnesses being collected and evidence being corroborated. John was sure that it was his fathers last desperate attempt to get him back home and under his thumb. It was during this whole case that he'd been assigned to do a black ops mission and gone down behind enemy lines. He'd been lost, a Prisoner Of War (POW) and had barely lasted six months before he was finally dragged out of there, not by his military but by another army. He'd made it back to the states on his own and quickly found out he'd been written off as dying in combat.

It was not long after this that, as John saw it, the Ghost of his Dad popped up and had his last laugh.

After-wards thinking it over John managed to piece together what had really happened, or close enough to what had really gone down. Whatever the original mission had been it hadn't been planned out well; if at all. When it went FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Belief/Reason) John had been sent in to get specific items and all of the people out. He'd been required to blow the entire crash site to kingdom come or be blown to kingdom come himself if he didn't make it out in time. That right there should have been the obvious sign that this was not a mission to be going on. Unfortunately he'd been a bit to trusting, innocent and willing to get out of doge with the whole DADT investigation about to be underway. The fact that they let him go should have been the other sign, usually he'd be in a prison cell or worse off, instead he was allowed to get out for one last, as he thought, “career, name and reputation saving mission”.

Wow had he been wrong.

When John finally got back to the states and to some form of military base it had been one heck of a sight to see men's eyes go from wide and shocked to narrow eyed boiling animosity in the span of a few seconds. It looked as if John and the whole crew who'd “died” with him were rather famous, at least in the more upper circles.

The first place he was sent was a prison holding cell, and the rest of the time he was forced to spend re-living over and over again the explosions, the dying of some of his closest friends and then the “most shameful” part of it all; how he'd been gay; and through some of his own “magic” weaseled out of being court-martialed and gone on a wild goose chase for downed men; against orders to do otherwise.

That last part had been truly new and John looking back wondered if it had been thought up after he'd come back or before, it almost seemed spur of the moment, some creation of lawyers trying to make sure all asses were covered.

Overall it became instantly clear to John Sheppard, he was being blamed for the U.S. Military's screw up, his name used to cover their internationally shamed asses.

In the end it was somehow found out that he never should have gone on the mission anyway since he had, upon his departure flight to Afghanistan, been at that moment dishonorably discharged for being gay.

…

Thankfully because of that odd screw up (and more then likely some kind of somewhat benevolent and loving person higher up) instead of wasting away in a military prison for the rest of his life John Sheppard was let go, walking free after merely eight months of mental (and emotional) torture.

Since he was not technically “part of the military” when the whole debacle happened the military was able to say that it had never happened in the first place. In the end the U.S. and it's armed services were able to cover their asses that much better.

Or that's what John figured after sorting it all out.

Either way it meant that John was allowed to “slip through the cracks” if you will and go free, since he was not with the military and had not “gone on the flight in the first place” when it all went down. Anyone else, as John testified, that had been involved with the mission was dead.

Either way it didn't stop the never ending sleepless nights, night terrors or flashbacks that plagued him. He wandered around for about one to two years, which he never knew; homeless and starving then broke and went literally crawling to his family mansion.

He sat outside for far to long, wasting away more then he already had been.

He wasn't recognized and no one believed him at first but thankfully by another twist of fate they finally relented and allowed him through the front gates.

His brother had met him on the front step of the house, given him his inheritance, some bags and told him to get out.

It was at that point that John broke, literally weeping out his whole life right there. At least as far as he could recall.

By the time he woke up he was being coddled by some strange woman on his father's couch and his brother was no where in sight.

Thankfully he was cared for and his brother had informed him that he'd be more then welcomed back in if he was willing to tow the line.

John couldn't take being jailed again, even if it was gilded; and with the air growing thick and the walls closing in he said no and fled for the open outdoors.

In the end John's brother rented him a tiny run down apartment, paying for it John found out, with part of his inheritance.

After about another year or so John had finally calmed down enough to decide that he wanted to open a shop and drew up the business idea. He presented it to his brother, his brother telling him the money to do such was always his and John could do with it as he wanted.

His jaw dropped and he took the money and ran, turning his back on it all.

As a last middle finger to his old man and his ill treatment of him and how he'd raised John's siblings to see him as some lower filth, either to be stepped on or pitied, John opened a “joint shop” as he called it.

Coming back to the here and now John blinked and lifted the bowl in his arms to the highest point letting the last of the chocolate drizzle out of it.

Currently the way he felt was that yes, he was as free as the free fall he was still currently in, but he felt and hoped that it was starting to slow, maybe if he could just get it to stop entirely now.