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Choices Made: Fathers and Sons

by Christine McMahon

257 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2695; ISBN 1-4251-0937-3; US$22.50, C$25.87, EUR18.48, £12.94

Is he Lord Chance/gang leader, Jamy MacGregor/motherless son, or someone he does not yet understand? Biological father or step-father? Strangers grow to love him, will his fathers learn to?

About the Book

In a world turned upside down on the streets, Jamy MacGregor, a.k.a. Lord Chance, seeks stability when he enters a Witness Protection Program that relocates him to the hometown of his once sought after biological father.

Placed in the home of the local sheriff, his father’s brother, Jamy struggles with the urge to reveal his true identity when he sees his life his father’s family lives while he craves acknowledgement and normalcy in his own life.

Breaking the shackles of secrecy, Jamy confronts his father who adamantly rejects him and wants him out of town. Blowing his cover in Witness Protection, his father sends the killers straight to his brother’s front door, and Jamy.

Retrieving Jamy from danger, the bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) Witness Protection Program returns him to St. Louis where he is forced to re-evaluate his future and face his step-father, the BNDD agent he has rejected.

His past as a Street Lord fully revealed while testifying against the Drug Lords drives a wedge between them, which his reunion with his own toddler son complicates.

His life a shambles, Jamy takes his child and runs, finding shelter with another MacGregor relative long exiled from the family.

Learning the truth of his birth and given time to evaluate his life, Jamy decides that sometimes the best future is one with a new name and no past.

About the Author

Christine McMahon enjoys the process of writing and took on the difficulty of a series with her very first book, Choices Made: The Street Years. Book 2 of the series entitled Choices Made: Fathers and Sons takes her character Jamy MacGregor further along in his life.

“Through Jamy’s hardships in the first book, his character kept coming to me. I never had a problem with knowing who he is and again, in this, my second book, Jamy has been taking me along on his story. His troubles with his step-father and biological family are an integral part of him as was his trouble on the streets. I am preparing the manuscript for Book 3 and his story just keeps coming.”

What Midwest Book Review said of Book 1: “Choices Made: The Street Years is the debut novel of Christine McMahon and clearly establishes her as a gifted storyteller able to take her reader into a gritty world of drug addiction, poverty, and life on the street.”

Christine and her husband, Joe, live in rural Wisconsin.

“Thank you for your interest in Choices Made: Father and Sons and I hope you will continue to join Jamy in Choices Made: Missouri or Misery (upcoming).”

Excerpts

BOOK 2 Choices Made: Fathers and Sons

CHAPTER 1

Depression.

That's what the doctor at the private hospital had said, acute depression caused by severe trauma.

Jamy drew an image of a tiny man sitting in an oversized chair behind a desk. The placard on the desk said, 'Nut Doctor'. Opposite the doctor, he sketched his dad, Paul, and their mutual friend, Syl Anderson, both with furrowed brows. The picture made him snort in derision, "Hrumph." Jamy could still hear the doctor's pencil tapping on the edge of his psychological profile. Taptaptap.

He needed treatment more than I did. "Obsessive Tapping Behavior." "Hrumph." "Did you say something, Jamy?" His dad asked from where he sat in the driver's seat of the Coppertone Dodge Charger racing south.

He didn't answer.

"Your dad asked if you said something," Syl growled.

Jamy watched as Syl's muscular left arm straddled the front seat. The fire-breathing dragon tattoo rippled as though alive. A ruggedly handsome face turned toward him. Though stern, Syl's lips twisted up in a nearly hidden smile. "No, I didn't," he answered and gazed out the window that still showed streaks from the recent car wash.

Trauma. What the hell did that pumped up Sigmund Freud know about trauma? Tapping that stupid pencil of his every time I said something. Making notes on that yellow pad he kept hidden from me as if the written language was only for Ph. D's.

Me? Jamy Chance Chaumbers MacGregor? Trauma? So that's what they call it when you're eighteen years old and you've been shot up. When a bullet is still jammed up against your shoulder blade and you can feel it burn every time you move. When every time you take a breath your lungs scream. When you can't look in the mirror anymore because your face got blown up. And, those are the good things. Things that had meaning. Things that got me away from the street.

What about the bad things? What do they call the rapes and beatings I took while being pimped? Men using me up and tossing me away with the garbage. What about the torture from the gang - and the drugs? Heroin racing through my body and wanting it so bad I could cry but hating it, hating it when it eased my pain and made me feel safe. What about watching kids die with knives stuck in them and no one caring? What about no one giving a damn - ever?

Trauma. What the hell do they know?

Well, there goes St. Louis. No more Arch. No more Forest Park Museum. No libraries. No more skyscrapers. No more JamyNick. His son's name lilted through his mind like music as he said it in his own way, ShamyNeek. No more, Nick. His friend's name echoed like another note of music, Neek. No more Professor Isaac Sands or Mr. Gene Bradley. My son, my brother, my friends, all left behind because I have to go into Witness Protection.

Jamy sketched from memory the last time he saw them all months earlier. He drew his little son, JamyNick, squealing with joy as Isaac, with his salt and pepper hair, played on the floor with a small truck. He colored the truck red with a pastel stick. Red Truck, translated to French, was their secret password, Camion Rouge. It had been hard to phone them with all the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) agents around, but a few days ago, he managed. All he could say was, 'Camion Rouge, Witness Protection'. In his heart, he knew they understood he was safe and headed away from them. Overhead in a cartoon bubble he wrote words to exemplify the sputtering noises of a worn out engine. He added small marks to make JamyNick's curls appear to bounce about his cherubic face. Taking two colors of pastel, he colored the curls auburn. He gently touched the sketched face he dreamt of every night, the son he loved more than life.

Another sketch brought Gene Bradley into the scene. Gene's right hand fingered the lapel of his vest. Jamy thought of Gene's old habit, which was all the man could do with his hands when not busy writing out sales slips at his art supplies business.

The sketch continued with Nick, his 'adopted' brother from the street, standing by the entry door of Isaac's house. The worried look he drew on Nick's face portrayed a boy who didn't know what to do next. Stringy black hair filled in the area about the face. A pursed mouth hid his usual crooked smile illustrating his dread at living in hiding with the kindly old gentlemen. Nick, who had saved Jamy more than once from dying on the street now needed saving, saving from the life he had dragged them into by becoming the favorite dealer for the most powerful drug lord in the Midwest. That same drug lord would kill them all, including his toddler son, without a thought.

He swiped at a rogue drop of moisture edging from the corner of his eye. These last memories made his heart ache. His little son, JamyNick, had to be left behind. It had been over two months since he'd seen him and had missed his second birthday, May 17, on top of it all. He had been left behind with Nick in their hiding place with the Professor and Mr. Bradley when he went to save Syl from that same drug lord who was intent on killing him. Another problem existed. They weren't only hiding from the drug lords but also from the BNDD agents who sat in the front seat of the Charger heading south.

How many times had Syl asked where they were? A million? Two? He didn't answer and wouldn't even though Syl promised not to tell his dad, Paul, or his biological father, James, to whom they were heading. A father he had never seen, always wanted, and who didn't know anything about him.

No. It was all a secret. Witness Protection. The BNDD would hide him with his

Uncle Sam MacGregor, the sheriff of Juxton Township, who didn't know he existed until a few days ago. No one knew he existed, he guessed. His dad told him that no one in Juxton knew he was James MacGregor's son, not even the MacGregor family, and everyone in St. Louis thought he was dead. The BNDD had seen to that. A fake funeral. Obituary. Headlines in all the St. Louis papers. Syl had shown him. "Street Lord of Forty-second Neighborhood Dies in Gun Battle."

Well, Nick, Professor Sands, Mr. Bradley and JamyNick knew he still lived, but no one else. It was too risky. If the drug lords, Granges or Robles, knew he breathed air..."

A POSSIBLE FRIEND: excerpt from Ch 8:

CHAPTER 8

"Looks like he's going to sleep all day, Sam," Jeanne MacGregor said while hauling the family's laundry to the kitchen table to fold and sort. "I don't intend to run a hotel here."

"Yesterday was tough on him but you're right, ten's long enough to sleep. I'll roust him out." Sam captured Jeanne in his arms and kissed her blond hair then turned her around to kiss her lips.

"Sam, don't. What if he gets up?"

"Let him. If you think I'm going to let you turn into an old school marm just because there's an adult kid in the house, you're crazy. I'm not changing my life. He's got to change his, remember." Sam kissed her pertly then continued the kiss until she pushed him away.

"Then, you have your work cut out for you. Go start changing him," Jeanne laughed.

Knocking on the bedroom door received no answer. Knocking harder only had the same result, quiet. Wondering if Jamy skipped out, he stepped in. Jamy, knees to his chest, lay on one side, facing away from the entry door as he had the night before. Now, the brightness of the day filtered from the skylight above Jamy's bed; Sam sucked air in between his teeth in a sympathetic hiss. Long vicious scars covered Jamy's back. Some were more than a foot long and the stitches that had at one time held the flesh together, made ragged paths on either side of the raised scars. His back was a maze. "My God, who did this to him?" Sam sighed. He reached a hand out and touched Jamy's shoulder.

Jamy's subconscious panicked. Hands in the night tearing me from my bed. Feeling me. Hurting me. Raping me. Like a shot, he bolted from the bed, fell onto the floor and scrambled away from the touch. Cowering like a wounded animal in a cage, Jamy crouched near the wall. His voice whispered a plea, "No. No. Don't touch me anymore. Don't hurt me."

"Jamy, it's me. Sam. It's okay. I knocked, but you didn't hear me." Coming to his senses and recognizing the man, Jamy pulled a sheet from the bed and covered his naked lower self with it. Sitting on the bed, he waited to see if Sam would advance toward him, when he didn't, Jamy apologized. "Sorry, Sam," but didn't offer more explanation. The nightmare was just that, a nightmare. The hands touching him, hurting him, were years ago and far away now.

"Jamy, my wife wants to finish up breakfast before lunch time. We're running late today. Get some eats. Then we'll get moving."

"Do I have time for a shower?"

"Shower up, get going."

Sam returned to the kitchen and whispered in Jeanne's ear, "Honey, treat him with kid gloves. I want him to like it here. I want him to know he's safe. We'll take it easy with punctuality and such for a few days, okay?"

"Thought you were going to change him. Sounds like a different story now. What's he done to make you go soft on him already?"

"Nothing. I just saw things in a different perspective and I think a soft touch will get us where we want to go. Like a skittish colt. Dad always said even the most skittish colt will give you his heart if you treat him right."

PLANS GOING AWRY: excerpts from CH 11

CHAPTER 11

"Camion rouge," Jamy whispered the code words into the telephone and waited for a reply. He kept an eye out for Sam who had walked up to the MacGregor House to see his mother.

"Chance? Everything okay?" Nick asked excitedly.

"Yes, can't talk long. Things are going well. I'm working at my father's ranch but he hasn't talked to me yet about anything. The sheriff, he's my uncle but doesn't know it, is nice but he's always around. I'm not supposed to call anyone in case Granges tries to find me."

"You shouldn't call me."

"Had to. Need to know how you're getting along. Need to know about JaNick." He slipped into the familiar soft pronunciation - ShaNeek, as he said his son's name. "Do you tell him every night that I love him?"

"Every night. I show him your picture and he kisses it goodnight."

"I want to talk to him."

Jamy waited while Nick put JamyNick on the phone. Hearing the toddler's voice say, "Hi, Papa," brought tears to his eyes. It hurt not to be there with him. "JaNick, my little son. I love you. Mon petit fils. Je t'aime."

Jamy talked a moment to JamyNick then heard Nick return to the phone. "Chance, you can't be on long. You said. Have to tell you something."

"What?" Jamy clutched the telephone hard wanting to pull them through the line to where he stood in the kitchen alcove of Sam's house.

"My name's not Nick Bucharelli anymore, it's Nick Bradley. Nick Eugene Bradley."

"Why did you take Mr. Bradley's name? Was someone suspicious?"

"He adopted me. He talked to my ma and she signed some papers. He's my dad. I call him that. Dad."

Jamy listened as Nick explained. He tried to grasp all he heard. Adopted - Nick? Mr. Bradley? Hair cut, wow. Can't imagine Nick with short hair. Braces on his teeth. Tutor for his G.E.D.

"Nick," again familiarity leant the name to sound as 'Neek', "what about our plans about living together and being a family when this all gets straightened out?"

"Me and Dad talked about that. He said it'll be awhile before you straighten things out and I should start working on my future.

PROOF: excerpt from Ch 24:

CHAPTER 24

Jamy waited until James finished with the other men and watched as they headed away. He warily moved closer until he stood only a few inches from him. James turned; their eyes met. James blazing black eyes bore into him. "What are you on? Your eyes look weird, you on something?"

Jamy instinctively knew his eyes had changed like a chameleon to a haunting translucence that he had seen in the mirror only a few times in his life when he was upset or angry.

Not knowing how to explain, he ignored the question and said, "I'm Jamy." "I know what you're called. What's your point?" James snapped.

"I'm your son, Jamy," he said calmly but felt an urgent need to flee. Words filled with anger bit at him, "You son of a bitch. I told you - " Reaching into his pocket, he removed the precious letter that was his only connection to his father. He knew James would never believe a copy of a birth certificate. The written words were of a father loving him, wanting him. He extended it toward James. "I have a letter you wrote to my mother. I'm Jamy. "That's why I was cool toward Katie when she was always hanging around. I know she's my sister, but I wanted to give you a chance to tell Molly about me."

Snatching the letter from his hand, James quickly scanned the page.

"Dearest Chatelaine,

Our Jamy is a handsome lad. Pride fills me each time I see the two of you*

You are my loves,

James

"What the hell is this? Where did you get this?"

"You wrote it to my mother. I'm Jamy." He didn't know what else to say. Certainly, his father must recognize the letter.

"I'm your son. I wrote to you when I was younger. My mother mailed the letters to you. I'm him, I'm Jamy."

"Anyone could have written this. There's no last name." James grabbed the envelope. "No return address. This is nothing but blackmail bullshit." James crumpled Jamy's precious letter and tossed it to the ground.

"No. I'm him. I'm not blackmailing you. I'm him."

"You've waited a long time. It must have killed you to wait until I got some of the stock sold and this bumper crop harvested before you hit me up with this. Blackmail. You white trash are all the same. Get out of my sight and off my property now! I'm calling those agents and if they don't get you out of here, I'll run you out myself," James roared.

The urge to flee grew stronger. He suddenly remembered the strong hand striking him to the ground days earlier. I have to make him listen. I have to convince him. Jamy's words burst from him, "Sir, my mother's name was Chatelaine Chaumbers. I was born December 21, 1954, here in Juxton."

"You two-bit thief."

James raised a fist. His countenance terrified Jamy. Blazing eyes, tense stiff body movements and his words sent shock waves through him. Fearing he didn't know what, Jamy tripped backwards and fell to the ground. James grabbed his shirt and pulled him up, screaming in his face, "This is your last warning. Shut your lying mouth.

ANALYSIS: excerpt from Ch 35:

CHAPTER 35

"Chatelaine's death. I should have been there for Jamy. None of this would have happened."

"You can't change that. Why do you think he shut down emotionally when he gave you the key rather than when she died?"

"Haven't a clue. Like I said, he was safe."

"It's because he knew you would read his picture diaries. You would know, Paul. You would know everything about him. All the things he did. The prostitution. Drugs, taking and dealing. You would know and they were things you've spent your life fighting against."

"Of course I would know, but why would that make him shut down emotionally? I mean, he still has emotions. He cries."

"The panic attacks he experienced just before and during his time in Juxton resulted from suppression of emotions. He cried in his sleep because he couldn't control his emotions then. The plan was to get out, give Syl the information of the deals, and walk. After he rescued Syl, the BNDD wanted more than a few dates and places; they wanted the entire drug ring, including Robles.

"He said he gave up the keys to the lockers with instructions that only some were to be taken as evidence and Syl was to store the others, his personal items. When the lockers were cleaned out, his personal diaries were taken, too. Giving up all the picture diaries and testifying weren't in his plan. He never wanted you to know what happened to him.

"If he doesn't allow his emotions to rise to the surface; his upset, fears, hate over all of it; he doesn't face your possible criticism. If he doesn't talk about it, it doesn't exist between you. He can try being fourteen-year-old Jamy, the helpful polite boy you left behind. Hiding Chance's tough personality is costing him his emotional health."

RUNNING: excerpt from Ch 57

CHAPTER 57

Jamy eased in the hidden door that led to the bomb shelter in the basement of the Linders' home. So many houses built during the cold-war years had such strange rooms. Granges' secret room was another such bomb shelter. Listening for any unusual activities in the house and hearing none, he quietly made his way up the narrow staircase to the studio over the garage. He always figured there must be another entrance to the shelter from the first floor but found no other secret panel elsewhere in the house, and the concrete room offered only one entrance and one exit; those he used now. An ear to the panel door of the studio told him no one had broken the lock to enter, and he could return to it.

Once inside, he quickly gathered the essentials he would take with him, a paint box that carried sketching tools, the oil paints and brushes that were gifts from Isaac, and the single-mast easel Paul had given him. Picking up a sharp paint knife, Jamy cut the canvas he had painted of his family from the frame and rolled it up. Around this, he placed another canvas, a portrait of Isaac Sands and another of JamyNick, then tying them with a heavy string that he looped into a carrying handle, he stepped across the hall to the bedrooms. JamyNick's toys were too many to take so he gathered a few special ones along with a few of his favorite books. In his own room, he tossed some clothes into an old duffel bag Paul used during the Vietnam War and stashed the few remaining possessions he had from his mother in with them. A photo of Paul, Jamy, and JamyNick, padded with an old fatigue jacket Paul once wore dropped into the bag. With the bag full of possessions, Jamy started back across the hall to the studio when Syl, standing on the step, asked, "What's that for?"

Heart skipping more than one beat, Jamy recovered saying, "Packing for tomorrow. I need to get some sketchbooks and I don't want to forget them in the morning. I thought this was good to put some of that heavier painting equipment in. I don't want anything broken."

"Good idea. We'll have plenty to do in the morning," Syl said, turning to go back downstairs.

"Syl," Jamy reached into his shirt pocket, "I started some interview notes. Just a couple. Want to see?"

"Sure." Syl took the note, read a bit and laughed, "This is some criteria. 'Must bake good chocolate chip cookies like the kind I had at home as a child. Must allow chocolate milk with meals."

"It's important. JamyNick loves those things."

Chuckling, Syl answered, "And, so does Jamy."

"Is that wrong?"

"Nah, kid. Nothing wrong with that. Keep packing."

Syl returned downstairs while Jamy dragged his stash into the studio and crammed the painting tools into the duffel bag. He slipped across to Paul's bedroom and stepped into the closet . With a houseful of BNDD agents, Paul wasn't wearing his service revolver, which Jamy now pulled from the holster, checked for a load and slipped it into his waistband. Back in the studio, he did a quick inventory, then re-locking the studio door, he took one last look around and slipped back down the secret staircase.

WHERE TO NOW? excerpt from Ch. 58:

CHAPTER 58

Ian drove the Cadillac slowly past the park Jamy had described in their conversation, but didn't see anyone waiting. Moving further down the block, he nearly passed the park when a sudden noise from the rear caused him to hit the brakes and look in the rearview mirror. A quiet tap on his driver's window had him looking into the barrel of a gun.

Lowering the window he said, "Won't need that nephew. I'm not the bad guy." He leaned over and pulled up the lock on the passenger door.

Jamy stretched an arm in and opened the lock on the rear door then stashed his few possessions in the back seat. Taking his place in the front seat, he said, "Glad to see you, Uncle Ian."

Ian smiled the charming MacGregor smile, the same smile that won John MacGregor his real estate clients and Sam MacGregor the returned smiles of the ladies in Juxton along with plenty of votes when running for office. Nothing in his smile foretold of a genetic link to James' stern mouth. "Let's get something understood. The gun goes into the glove box or we're not moving." Nervously, Jamy set the gun in the glove box and closed it.

Running, put Jamy on the street. Running from the drug lords put him in Witness Protection. Running again, where to now?

JOIN JAMY ON HIS CONTINUED JOURNEY IN: CHOICES MADE: FATHERS AND SONS

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