The Caller

Forty-Seven

Mr. J was born John Louis Goodwin, the unplanned only child to the parents of Bruce and Sally Goodwin. He was born in Madison, Nebraska, under the sign of the Crab, which was intriguing, because according to recent research done by the FBI, Cancerians were by far the most dangerous and the most cunning criminals of all the zodiac signs. The really peculiar fact was that in second place came Taurus, followed by Sagittarius then Aries. Mr. J’s father was Taurus, his mother, Aries.

The birth of a child was supposed to bring joy to a family, but in Mr. J’s instance, it seemed to bring the exact opposite. His mother, a trivial drug user since her mid-teens, who at first truly believed that a baby would bring her salvation, was struck by a debilitating case of postnatal depression. Her answer to it, completely disregarding the wellbeing of her newborn, was to upgrade her drug use from mild to junkie. In one quick step, salvation became damnation.

His father, who had never really wanted a child, preferred the bottle to the needle and the fist to dialogue. As a result of such a volatile mix, John Louis Goodwin grew up the neglected child — the proverbial ‘invisible boy’ — of a complicated, love — hate relationship.

All of that lack of love and affection didn’t go unnoticed by young John and from a very early age he realized that he just didn’t fit into his parents’ plans. The beatings he got became more and more frequent as he grew older, but to his mother’s surprise and to his father’s anger, instead of crying and running for cover, he would always stand his ground and take the beatings fearlessly and in silence.

But all of that came to an end one rainy summer night, just days before John’s fifteenth birthday. That night, after another drunken beating from his father, John returned to his bedroom, packed the very few items of clothing he had into a small rucksack and sat on his bed, arms hugging his knees, eyes focused on the dirty wall in front of him. For hours he listened and waited, until total silence took over his house and he was certain that both of his parents had passed out drunk in their bedroom. Without an ounce of regret, John opened his bedroom door and tiptoed into the kitchen. He knew exactly where his mother kept her drug money. After collecting the whole stash, he forever left the ‘living hell’ he was never able to call home.

For John’s plan to work, he needed to get out of that backwards town he lived in, pronto. At the city bus station, the only bus going anywhere that rainy night was heading to the city where angels were supposed to live — but instead of angels, all he found as he got there were demons.

At first, John roamed the streets in a fog, sleeping rough and eating out of garbage cans and back alley dumpsters, but the funny thing was that, in those dumpsters, he would usually find a better meal than any he ever had when he lived with his parents.

Life on the streets of LA was never easy, and though John had seen first-hand the destructive effects that drugs and alcohol could have on a person, at fifteen and homeless, he was literally powerless to escape the pull of those two vices. Soon, John also discovered gangs, girls, money, parties and a life that was exciting, frightening and dangerous in more ways than one. It was then that John came face to face with his first internal demon — his addictive personality.

It was that demon that made him grab on to that life of vice like a parasite, and he fell into it like an anchor into the deep sea. For three years that life was all he had and he lived and breathed it with every atom in his body, but the madness of it all was destroying him inside, eating away his brain, obliterating his emotions. He needed to escape it before it was too late. At the age of eighteen, John Louis Goodwin joined the US Army.

During his first tour of duty he acquired the moniker Mr. J. Three tours later, and after two medals and several commendations, John finally returned to Los Angeles, deciding he’d had enough of the military life. John was twenty-five then and, upon his return, he found out that without his fatigues, his country, the country he fought for, killed for, and would’ve given his life for, had decided to treat him as if he were diseased, and for the second time in his life he became the ‘invisible boy’. For the second time in his life he experienced neglect on a scale he never thought possible. No one would hire him, people looked at him as if he were scum, and his government did very little to help him out. Suddenly John found himself in the same situation he was in when he first arrived in the angel-less city, but this time he knew the streets and he knew whom to contact.

To John’s surprise, some of his old friends had elevated themselves to the very top of their ‘street’ organizations, and those organizations were stronger and more powerful than ever. Some had joined forces, forming a cartel. They had distanced themselves from their old ‘street trade’, acquiring several distinct businesses, including but not limited to casinos in California, Nevada, Louisiana and New Jersey. They were the ones who approached John.

‘We could use someone like you,’ he was told. ‘Someone with the kind of knowledge and skills you acquired while you were away.’

John considered himself betrayed by his own government, and that played a major part in his decision to join the cartel.

‘What we can offer you, if you make the right decision, no one else can. You know that, don’t you?’

‘If I take your offer,’ Mr. J had replied, ‘there will be a few conditions. One — I always work alone, not as part of an outfit.’

‘Go on.’

‘I want to lead as much of a normal life as I can, so I will need a front... a legit business that will pass any sort of scrutiny.’

‘That can be very easily arranged.’

‘And I’ll also need a new identity. The name I have is no good for me.’

‘But of course.’

Two years after that, Mr. J met Cassandra.