Jack was approached during his first year of post-secondary and offered a very unique opportunity – would he like to fight for his country to help defeat the Communist Threat? Jack was disappointed after explaining his career ambitions only to be told his aptitudes would be better suited in a different field. Once he accepted, he was sent out West for 6 weeks Basic Training with the military.
Jack was told never to reveal his true identity and was provided a cover story. He worked in a bookstore and was, I thought, a door-to-door books salesperson. [What follows is what I was told by various sources. Many of the sources, are the characters themselves so, believe what you will. Those suffering from narcissism often embellish and the 2 people who raised me were experts at it; however, these ‘facts’ have remained consistent throughout my childhood and believe me, these events were repeated ad nauseam].
Jack complied with Management’s instructions and did not reveal his true career to his parents or close friends. Jack had told Monique on their wedding night that he was a secret agent and not a translator, as he had previously told her. What he also neglected to tell his new bride was that, just the week before he had been living with an informant – Concubine Informant No1 (C.I. #1, if you like). I recently discovered this was closer to an 18-year relationship because he was still seeing her while married to Monique. Jack was and is very charming; it is how he is able to manipulate people with ease. Jack rose quickly through The Party ranks. He soon rose from Bodyguard/Enforcer/Bouncer to No 2 in The Party of Canada.
Jack, charming as he is, also has a natural talent for story telling and deflecting. He has a great memory for dates and facts, and remembers small obscure details. He is self-taught in martial arts, and at the height of his career could converse in 7 languages. Jack has always been comfortable in the presence of women and men. His complexion, unassuming size, and affinity for languages allow him to blend in nearly any culture or nationality. He is friendly, chatty, disarming, and very observant.
In the late 1960s to early 1970s, The Party had
a rising star, Jakob. Jakob is a Cannabis smoking hippie, a true believer in the common good, free love, free speech, and labour unions. Jack dislikes him immediately. Jakob has intelligence, magnetism, charm, he is an excellent orator; he has presence. Jakob has a sister who is also in The Party, a man-chaser, and a lab assistant turned Personal Support Worker, though she will try to convince you she was a nurse (she does not hold a degree or diploma); I introduce C.I. No2 (or Big M as I will refer to her later in life). She was always infatuated with Jack and all that she could not have. Eventually, she did win her prize.
Jack is able to gather a lot of information from C.I. No2 given she has zero filter or ability to be discreet. She works for the phone company and is able to listen to conversations and report to Jack if he asks. She is also a huge supporter of The Party and considers running in the local election in 1979. For many years, Monique had no idea these women existed until she began to suspect. She has never told me why she suspected, a gut instinct perhaps; or maybe, like Jack’s young daughter, she found something.
Jack was a shitty husband and an absentee father. I remember waking up early one morning and sneaking in to my parent’s bedroom while they slept. I saw my father’s wallet on the floor poking out of his pants. I opened the wallet and found a square wrapper, thinking it was candy like the lollipops Derek used to give us, I opened the packet. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to find a balloon. When he woke up and I asked him about it, he told me it was a glove. I remember thinking there were no fingers for that and “how odd”, but I was no more than 3 years old and moved on. Only as an adult do I know it was a condom and as a strict Catholic, he never used condoms with my mother. She put herself on the pill when she did not want any more children.
After Monique left Jack that fateful February morning in 1979, we went to stay in an apartment building with Derek’s wife (Derek, my father’s work partner). Derek and Sheila have 2 boys, and I think they’re now divorced when we temporarily move in. I remember the boys were mean to us and I remember eating plenty of lollipops. I remember always needing to sleep after eating the candy. I do remember eating plenty of hot dogs too!
One day, I went to explore the apartment grounds and ended up climbing over a very tall chain-link fence to pick some beautiful yellow flowers I found dotting the grass. Mom was pretty pissed when I handed her a fistful of dandelions. That was the day I discovered that my mother isn’t really ‘into’ living things. To this day mom is not a gardener, or much of a pet owner. She enjoys her clean, tidy, quiet space. Don’t misunderstand, my mom is an absolutely work horse; smart, resourceful, a little naïve, and she enjoys her wine a little too much, but it really isn’t my place to judge her choices, actions are different.
After
nearly a month of renting different cars every day hunting for his wife and
children in the Big City, Jack finally hits pay dirt. Jack does not approach when he finds us. He realizes that Derek knew where his family had been hiding
the entire time Jack had been frantic to find them. Once Jack knew we were living in the same apartment
with Derek’s wife, he approached Management.
He tells Management that Derek can return his children to him or he
will deliver Derek to Management “dripping in blood, if my children are taken
out of the country.” Derek’s family were very wealthy and owned a large well
known global corporation making a widely used household kitchen product.
According to Jack, Derek and Monique had planned to run off together to
Acapulco where he would never see us again.
He told us that Monique was Derek’s girlfriend. In all honesty, I had no idea what any of it
meant when I was a kid. To this day, my father maintains that Monique had an affair with Derek; while Monique maintains that Sheila and Derek helped her leave my father, nothing more.
Jack contacted Monique and made it clear that it would be in her best interest to meet and hand the children over to his custody. She obviously agreed because the next day we met Jack at the mall up the street. I remember sitting on a bench at the mall with my sister and my mother waiting for dad to arrive. I turned my head, looking, searching, hyper and super excited to spot him, and then, off in the distance, I saw him. I saw dad coming through the mall doors, the way the light shone down and through the glass, if made it look like he was an angel descending from heaven coming to rescue me. Rescue me from THWACK! We ran towards papa so happy to see him.
Jack looked at my sister and I and our dilated pupils and immediately knew something was off. He looked at my mom and demanded to know what was wrong with us, but she had no response to give. Jack packed my sister and I in his rental car and drove us to the nearest Emergency Room. The attending informed Jack that both my sister and I would need to stay overnight for observation due to irregular heartbeats. My sister and I, apparently, had nearly died because of the lollipops – they had been laced with some sort of substance that caused us to pass out, essentially. Jack was understandably very upset to hear his children had been drugged. We were released and taken home the following day.
I remember dad bathing me and gingerly tracing my welts, looking pained and very angry. I missed my mom and he was not too happy when I asked about her constantly. When dad took us home, he said I refused to part with a very large stuffed animal; thinking this behaviour suspicious, as I had never before been attached to a stuffed animal, he took it outside after I had fallen asleep. Once outside, my father took the stuffed animal apart and found a listening device embedded inside its head.
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