TITLE: Pale September
CHAPTER: Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four: End of Days
CHARACTERS: Jeff, Emma
SUMMARY: Jeff fights for custody of his daughter.
DISCLAIMER: Language

Links to all chapters.

Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four: End of Days

Shrugging into the constricted ends of expensive, freshly unboxed leather loafers, he bent forth his lazily coiled muscles into action, sweat slicking the tips of his fingertips and pooling along those generous lines decorating the moistened surface of his palm. Brushing them alongside one crisp fold of his freshly pressed pinstripe slacks, he addressed with overeager concern the stringing threads of his shoelaces, form slacking them into the sloppiest bow he could recall tying since the deed was taught to him many decades before. He rose on uncertainly wavering limbs, a pang of tightened musculature bounding as a properly wrapped gift throughout the stretch of his thighs, and he winced, more than appreciative as well of this sudden grant of sensation buzzing through the deadened apexes of him, traces of wasted human flesh and fused bone that had, more and more, served no purpose. However, this renewal did little to inspire even the cardboard bents of a near shadow of a smile upon the clean, baby soft flesh of his face, he taking the most care ever the evening prior on a shave than he recalled doing before.

It was merely a part of the package, he thought calculatedly as he ran shaking and sweating fingers through the rock hardened surface of his hair, strands of chocolate pushed and glued together with immense globs of invisible gel and sprits of water to seal further the concoction. It had slicked back in a picturesque fashion, aging his sophisticated air with such flagrant ability that even he wound a double-take at the willows of his reflection, so matured over the course of a singular, self-obsessed evening he was stricken to even be of acquaintance with the man reflected upon the other side of the glass.

On that depressing note of acquaintances or lack thereof, he had strangled his phone overnight in a lawless attempt to wrangle forth Eddie, Stone or even Jack, yet none of his supposed ‘friends’, his purported ‘brothers’ had bothered to leave the soft embraces of their women, the breaking of a darkened bubble of alcohol and bad sports television to speak to him. In agreement with his best judgment he had declined clinging to Alyssa or her law knowledgeable father in lieu of his friends, determined to go this alone with Mike and his own fathering abilities only on his side.

Stepping uncertainly and stiffly from the extended rectangular glass of the mirror, he tugged incessantly upon the buttons holding loosely together his expensive suit jacket, by far the priciest purchase he had ever exhibited since his climb towards fame. The small plastic droplets threatened to topple with threads barely tied upon them since his nervous plucking, yet still they attached their pearlescent gleams to his otherwise drab slate dressing, though he attempted not to accrue too much to himself on such a solemn occasion as the one in which he was poised to enter. It would have been an utterly beauteous occasion to relish in the softened, glazing touch of a woman drumming her protectively supportive fingers against the natural shuddering of his shoulders, to sooth away the most of his worries with gentle words of encouragement. However, the only female fixture he had been afforded to gravitate about his life had been brutally ripped from such and all at his own beckoning, it sometimes seemed.

No matter though, for today was judgment day, and resolution was upon them.

The slim, lupine trace of a smile etched upon those turgidly reddened lips of his, drawing them upward into a twisted glint of happiness and hope. His frigid dry spell of loneliness was to cease about its luring pulls deep within the core of him this afternoon, as he turned, plain and stone faced amongst other soulless lawyers and judge to declare seething of Emma’s misconducts and his own monumental failings in the area of fathering, his brightest and largest shining achievement. He had little in terms of doubt that his simple mistake would equate not nearly as similar as Emma carting their precious baby around the States as though a door-to-door saleswoman, which had proved to be far more malicious and absolutely callous. His had been a mere slipup, a means in which his greater judgment had taken a leave of absence for a brief snippet of an afternoon, while Emma’s had been brutally and patiently calculated, planned out over bumps and divots that always revealed themselves in the execution. His misdemeanor was merely forgettable under such a rarified and criminal occurrence, and that thought alone suggested and explained the slight skip in his step.

He was far from arrogant though, knew not to transcend that boundary despite how mildly confident his insurance suggested him to be. He had to remain that nervous level head that tingled against the tightened bracing of his temple in this instant as he glanced unsettlingly towards the glimmering picturesque view from his window. The once blinding streaks of luminous, plush green had faded their pigments elsewhere, splayed with wonder amongst the bland sky. The browned blades wriggled and writhed in a patch of crunchy uselessness beneath the leaf littered canopy of rotten reds, oranges and pungent browns, all crinkling as winter tides swept through the stillness of autumnal peace.

Such a sight potentially could have rounded back ounces of serenity aghast that blackened, beady gaze of his, so worn out as the voyeur, the watcher, the director of a life that no longer was tagged as his. However, he turned from the hazy, glassy smudges revealing a deceivingly warm day when the Seattle chill would rock him beyond and to the very bone, procuring a familiar ache there.

His ribs had already throbbed in such anticipation, tenderized against the turning tides of temperature. Jeff had considered with mild disinterest popping a couple of painkillers for such, yet he wanted the cleanest and most fluid mind he could possibly propagate for this afternoon’s trial. He had even avoided his tendency for an overabundance of caffeine to roil his morning into speedy existence, so terrified his overeager attitude would spill upon his tongue in exactly the wrong instant. Still, his own motions were uncertainly fast as he ejected himself from that beautifully evasive enclave in which he had hidden, holed up inextricably for days in lieu of his best interests, avoiding even Kayla so as not to cloud his mind with any more dotting and hazy emotion than absolutely possible. As he strode woodenly towards his stalling vehicle, the churl of his mobile phone sprang angrily from the briefcase of files he had gilded to his side. The device was to be abandoned in the plushy folds of his vehicle’s backseat, and he counted not on it to shrill its piercing cry, for no one ever called the likes of him.

Determining it to be a deterring wrong number, Jeff flipped open the line with acrid insistence.

“To make this fast, I’m not really interested in whatever your service is, so thanks but no thanks.”

“Oh, I think you are interested in my service, Jeff, given that you hired me weeks ago. Don’t you want to hear about how your little subjects are doing?”

Jeff’s heart seized menacingly in his throat, sweat sheen once more lining his palms, coating and boiling beneath the now too heavy hanger of his suit. “Wh-what are you talking about? We had an arrangement, that you scare them, that’s it. It was to be a one time deal on Halloween night and nothing more. I figured that that was why they had left the house the last I heard, and that I couldn’t even get an answer on the home line. Please tell me that’s merely the case, that they’re either laying low and not answering or they found out I am behind this and won’t answer if I call.”

“Not at all. You told me to scare them, and quite frankly, your idea of pictures of the house was pretty damn pathetic. I decided to take it up a notch. Can you believe their buddy, the one with their dogs, actually gave me information as to the city of their whereabouts? It was fairly easy after that; rock stars are never hard to find.”

Jeff choked upon the gathering pressure against his Adam’s apple, effectively suffocating him in this instant. “What the hell did you do?!”

“Calm down. I did merely what you asked of me. I gave them a little run for their money through another country and lost them there. I imagine they are long gone for the house by now, but I plan to check-"

“Fuck you, you’re not doing anything. You are officially un-hired, do you understand me? You go to either any of them again and I will personally see to it that you wind up in jail. I’m recording this conversation and have every other we’ve had as we speak.”

A nervous, pregnant pause against the static line gratified Jeff into believing the bait had been taken. “No, fuck you, Ament. You go soft on me because you’re a little scared I took it too far? You better fucking watching yourself.”
The line deadened with a harsh click stinging the gaping hollow of Jeff’s ear until the chirp of mechanics recalled of him to dial an operator to make a call. It was in that instant that he was shaken of the time wasted and jumped, terrified and stressed, into the driver’s seat, blitzing from the asphalt in a plume of carbon monoxide and glancing upon his rearview mirror with far more successive blinks than one would deem necessary upon their own street.
It was of the most sense though given his running through the gun in terms of spent, precious moments and seconds all since expired as his dirge burned through the razor phone lines, forcing through with urgent ire his message. His mind frazzled as he sped along, the corners of his eyes detecting the blaring red of the stoplight long before his body physically reacted, he coasting along on his brakes yet far too late, even in such a rapid succession as he pumped his heel. Vehicular horns blared as mocking scorn on either side of him as he blasted through the light, and though he squinted his gaze narrowly enough to blind him to impact, he coasted along unscathed, merely breathing heavily and hollowly.

“Okay, calm down, calm down. Don’t let this fucker scare you. You have your daughter’s life on the line today, Jeff, get yourself in order. No more blowing red lights, no more anything that could end up on your record and fucking up your life,” he chided himself as he skidded to a slower, residential pace to restore his frazzled nerves. “He’s not gonna do a goddamn thing, and if he tries, you’ll break his fucking neck. That’s all there is to it. For now you worry about Kayla, and that’s it. No more fucking up. Just worry about Kayla.”

Wheezing a concerted breath to calm the jackhammer galloping of his heart, Jeff expertly maneuvered the wheel against the slickness of his gripping palms, slitting the windows to allow sifts of air through to cool his overheated and shell-shocked system. He strode nearer to King County Courthouse with his anxious pressing against the acceleration. The case was to bend into fruition at half past three, and yet the hour lingered slightly before two o’ clock currently, as he glanced absentmindedly at the digital display blurring across his dashboard. Momentarily the hour was ripe and plentifully upon his side, which explained his undetermined calculations upon the road, affording him at ten after the striking of a fresher hour in the starkly empty parking lot at the courthouse. Securing his vehicle against the plaintive fencing of white painted lines, Jeff drew in a palpable breath along the edging of his chest, the heavily weighted lead of his lids dropping in concerted meditation.

A skittering beyond where he sat threatened his quieted state and plastered forth his freshly rigid eyelids, alert pupils racing about with a studious glare, looking about the premises for signs of unease, of activity in the fiery grey the day had grown to encompass, oversized bushy clouds amassing against every last ounce of color. However, not a single facet had faded into activity, he sutured to fear at the mere shuddering of life, and so he stretched the aching cramp of his limbs and surveyed once more the parking lot as a curt procession of vehicles rounded in. Jeff investigated them carefully, eyes glazing necessarily about the make and model as though he would recognize such as familiar metal scraps, the silhouetted drivers as old faces. Deeming that parade of solemnity occurring beyond and about him as completely unthreatening, unwarranted strangers allowed him far easier to gulp his next shoddy breath of shaking air, his shoulders lurched in protection of all he stood about.

Momentarily, and foolishly so, he deemed it his best cushioning to confide against the hazy emptiness of the lot, yet as it filled, so did he with a sense of determination for chokehold escape against the marble gleam of the courthouse building, statuesque in its ethereal perfection, yet daunting in its inhabitants and activities. He shook at them now, those suited, soulless moneymakers trouncing about with stiffened expressions as hardened and trained as the expensive leather briefcases that swung about as though trapped upon their own force of gravity. He recoiled his spine against the base of a flat paneled wall that sprouted its echoing existence towards the ever-expanding ceiling, arching outwards to the heavens, eyes scanning timidly about for his lawyer, though his breath resigned suspension. Heaving his it nervously, he proceeded into the courtroom, every last muscle taut within him screaming for nervous liberation as he weaved against a plain wooden bench as nervously tightened as he, every last inch of him threatening implosion upon this afternoon.

Hoisting upward the wrist that supported the silver strapped watch, Jeff stared carefully the time as his breath was snatched by the hovering of an outside force, the reentry of his heart burbling desperately along. Sheathed along in an expensively boxy dark mauve-the skirt grazing her thighs and the cut far along enough to reveal a lacy black undershirt-and black razor heels was Emma, arms bedecked in glimmering golden baubles crossed upon her hips, and disdain emanating as heat from her overly made up features. Flanking her was a middle-aged, ratty lawyer, yet Jeff focused only on the former flame of his undeniably whole desire, crestfallen in this moment as he was then to ever have fallen for such elicit devilish charm and overly plastic falsity. All that was about her repulsed him in this moment, yet revealed even further his stretch of straying confidence wrangling back to his heartland, utterly and completely where it belonged. He had foolishly uttered confident consistencies regarding Alyssa and their nonexistent soul mate element, yet upon these lonesome days he felt his most clear-headed in years.

It was of the greatest shame though that it had taken a moment of recorded weakness to transport him amongst such a perch.

Before Jeff was granted an instant to ponder upon that, he was tugged aside by his lawyer, and, in a breathless, simple fell swoop, the rug of time was swept beneath his polished heels and he and Emma took the stand.

“Where can I start in declaring Mr. Jeff Ament as a bad father,” the golden haired coquette gleamed a slithering, toothy grin. “From the very day I met Jeff, I bristled somewhat at his arrogance. From what he had told me of his background, he described himself as a small town rural kid from Montana who was into sports, skating and bass. However, meeting him where I did, in Seattle, I never would have guessed that the man he was speaking of was himself. I met him in the middle of his band, Pearl Jam’s, huge career shift, around 1994. This was the period in which they were biggest, and though Jeff swore up and down that he hadn’t allowed the fame to get to his head, I had seen otherwise. Sure he wasn’t into material excess; he didn’t own ten mansions on the Puget Sound or drive expensive Italian vehicles, but it was the attitude that got me, and really, that was enough to begin to turn me off in the relationship. I of course hadn’t intended to ever date a big rock star, but considering that Jeff insisted time and again that he wasn’t interested in fame, only in making music, and he was only the bass player, I figured it wasn’t a problem.

For a few blissful months, Jeff and I were quite happy with one another, but, as you know, those first months in any relationship, I think, are just an act, a preview of the shape of things to come. After he got comfortable enough his true self came out, which, as I said before, was arrogant, full of himself, and had an air of superiority. Add that to the fact that he was on the road all but about a quarter of a year, and during that time his main concern was either resting from the road or recording, and I felt very quickly like the second fiddle.

Now, I suppose that’s what some may say would result as a yield of dating a rock star, but for a while, a short while, I believed that Jeff and I were truly in love. He spent most of the next year, last year, with me, doing side projects in music as well, but mostly focused on me, which was nice. Earlier this year he went on tour, and before he disembarked, we broke up. It was before that time that I realized I was pregnant, and, believing it was another man’s baby was a major decision in the split. However, the man I believed to be the father insisted on a DNA test, and when we did that, we found out he wasn’t the father. I was positive then that Jeff was the only other possible candidate, yet I was hesitant to tell him in fear of his outspoken attitude and bad temper. I was with another man at the time, someone I’m still with today, who helped me through all the stages of the pregnancy while knowing he wasn’t the father, all the while quietly insisting that I tell Jeff of his fatherhood. A few months after Kayla was born and Jeff was back from his tour, I informed him of such. Jeff was, at the time, living with his band friend, another male roommate, who had a bad history of drug and alcohol abuse.

This was something I didn’t want my daughter around, yet I wanted Jeff to have the chance to invite her into his life. He was quite reluctant at first, if not downright unwilling, though eventually he changed his mind. However, in a very short number of weeks, a little over two months’ time, Jeff has had limited experience with Kayla, and none of them have been overly good. His babysitter, a young neighborhood girl named Robyn Boyd, has had bad experience with Jeff, claiming him as ‘suspicious, careless, negligent with the hours he left her with and often arrived home late, sometimes up to hours after the agreed time.’

The main offense Jeff has endured though was being arrested just over a week ago for drinking and child neglect. He passed out on the couch in the middle of the afternoon drunk and left Kayla sobbing until neighbors called the police and social services picked her up. I have searched the depths of my soul for a reason why a man like that, a man that I once truly loved and saw and understood the best of, would deserve custody of our child. Not only has this incident proven him as an irresponsible father, but so has his budding interest with a young female acquaintance that he and his numerous rock star buddies have tossed around. He clearly has no regard for women other than as toys, as eye and arm candy, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for my little girl to be exposed to his endless parade of women trampling through with their disregard and utter lack of what’s best for Kayla. My final point as well is in Jeff’s lifestyle, his profession and the company he keeps as a result of such. He’s a rock star, and he’s either spending over half of the year touring or he’s recording, either with his band or others on the side.

Also, if you look it up, as well as Pearl Jam’s insane touring schedule, which has been known to stretch for almost a single year, the company he keeps within and as a result of the band aren’t exactly the best cast of characters. Their drummer had a spat with his wife months ago that resulted in the police arriving on a domestic abuse call. Both guitarists have dabbled in and are currently curbing drug and alcohol issues. The singer has made public his affair with a girl barely eighteen years old when still married, and he’s in his mid-thirties. None of the people that Mr. Ament chooses to spend his professional and personal time with are viable, honest people. They are all sexist hogs who toss around young women as though trophies and do copious amounts of drugs. One glance into the scene in which Jeff’s music was birthed, and its slew of drug-related deaths is enough detail for that, I think.”

As the hard-boiled glances of those about the room glanced to him, he tried to wrangle back his better senses though he gaped as nakedly exposed as possible at the revelation of his friends’ exposé before his very eyes, and how Em’s sleuthing had hit below the belt.

Clearing his throat with a precarious growl, Jeff focused innately upon his own points of impact.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the court, while what Ms. Wilke has provided you is interesting and slanted commentary about me, to say the least, I think that you should know that instead of relying on insulting jabs about Ms. Wilke or the company that she chooses to keep, I want to mention instead my merit of fatherhood and parenthood in general by refuting her statements and adding some of my own. You see, right off the bat Ms. Wilke has explained plainly why she is the irresponsible candidate for the job of sole custodial parent of Kayla by mentioning how she bothered to hide her pregnancy from me until months after Kayla was born, despite the fact that she and I lived in the same city, no more than thirty, maybe forty minutes from one another. She also knew my address, knew of a way to contact me immediately upon learning that the baby was not fathered by the man she was seeing but by me instead. However, that was not the course of her actions, instead she choosing to evade honesty and plain humane responsibility for the sake of using our dear daughter as a pawn.

This fact was further illustrated when, after granting me marginal visitation rights, she booked with Kayla and took off halfway across the US before the cops and a personal investigator were able to track her down. For days, both she and my daughter were declared as missing persons, and I didn’t sleep, eat, breathe or live even a wink until my baby girl was returned safely in my arms. I have with me this afternoon a copy of the initial police report filed over Kayla’s kidnapping and Ms. Wilke’s disappearance, and all of the corresponding documentation is attached there as well for your review. Yes, it is true that my last babysitter and I didn’t get along, which is why she has since been terminated, but using the commentary of a young teenage girl as a witness in a custody case seems to me to be misguided at best. And no, I will not for even a second deny my occupation nor the rigors that it encompasses on a near daily basis, because I am utterly proud of what I do for a living, the fame or not. Instead I invite you to turn to Ms. Wilke and her occupation, or lack thereof.

You see, Ms. Wilke was between jobs when we first met and established a relationship two years ago in 1994, and though she held a series of small, odd jobs when I was touring, she grew comfortable midway through our relationship to mooch off of me. She did it with her next boyfriend as well, the one in which she thought fathered her child. This is another reason why I think that Ms. Wilke is truly an unsuitable parent because she has not for nearly two years now held up a reputable job, and even prior to that, when she was employed, it would be for brief intervals. If you were to look up her resume and contact any further employers, they probably wouldn’t remember her since she worked so infrequently and for so brief a time. Mostly Ms. Wilke’s mooching helped her support her drug habit, which included mostly marijuana, but she was known to dabble in cocaine from time to time. I think that is a far more detrimental deciding factor than a number of band friends that I don’t see on a daily basis.”

“You have no proof of that,” Emma interjected, seething and utterly embittered, which drew internally a smile from Jeff’s arching, cradled soul. “Jeff here has done his fair share of drugs as well, since the people he hangs out most with are overly concerned with doing hardcore drugs and alcohol.”

“You also have no proof of that. Ask anyone in my band, Your Honor, and they’ll all attest that pretty much I have stayed clean. I drink in social settings as everyone else, and when I’m home or after a gig when I’m alone in my hotel room, I enjoy a good beer as well as anyone else. I have never taken up cigarette smoking though, a habit that doesn’t bode as well for Ms. Wilke here. I also have not touched harder drugs since I was a teen going through the same experimental phase we all went through. Ms. Wilke though still to this day is on drugs though, as I mentioned before. And while I understand that my occupation may come in the way with my best interests in terms of taking care of Kayla, I would not be the first musician with a child who managed to balance both career and parenting.”

Emma glanced annoyed at him. “Except you won’t. Your Honor, Jeff had his chance; I granted him trial visitations with Kayla since September, even offering overnights sometimes. He blew each of those chances chasing the skirt of a young girl around town, emphasis on the young. Nothing ever became of them, and he messed up each and every opportunity he had to prove himself as a good father, most recently with his subsequent arrest for drunkenness and child neglect after Kayla was taken away, screaming while she was in his possession.”

“And,” Jeff underlined, “the only reason she was in my possession was because Ms. Wilke was spending time in jail because of her kidnapping of Kayla. I admit I made the mistake, but, compared to kidnapping, mooching, unemployment and drug addiction, it seems but a minor scratch along the surface.”

In the midst of their quarreling though, the judge seated patiently upon the pulpit had reached a decision. Jeff gleamed cheerily, confidence searing his veins as molten lava.

“After some deliberation amongst the courts, we’ve arrived to a conclusion about custody of the child.” He nodded patiently along, his name ringing patiently upon his ears. “King County Court would like to grant sole custody of Kayla Christine Wilke-Ament…” The scratch of breath bounced its autonomy against his throat. “…to Ms. Emma Wilke.”