As Luck Would Have It

28) Liberty

6 YEARS AGO

A few years have past since Lonnie and his mother had made a pact to work hard and have a healthy relationship with his father. In that time, Lonnie had stopped playing video games and started playing sports like football and basketball. On the field and court, he was a force to be reckoned with. As he grew, his figure became large. His chest was beefy, his shoulders broad, and his hands like vice-grips. In his time on the football field, he caused two opposing quarterback concussions. In basketball, he played power forward and center, mostly because of how strong he was in the post and how aggressive he was on defense. Nonetheless, he played with sportsmanship and a fun personality.

His home life was better too. The beatings from his father were less common than they were before, but he didn't know that it was because he was much larger. His father still could beat the living crap out of him if he wanted to, but Lonnie and his mother didn't give him much of a reason to recently. This gave Lonnie the motivation to work on his school work more often. His grades were slowly on the incline and he was much more attentive in class.

One day, he came home from school after basketball tryouts. The house was filled with urgent shouting, his parents calling out to each other from different rooms. From the sound of things, it didn't seem extreme, just a bit of frantic panicking. It seemed to Lonnie that they had lost something and were in the process of searching for it. He made his way into the kitchen to find his mother shuffling through a large pile of papers on the table. She found nothing and shifted her attention to the kitchen counter as Lonnie opened the fridge for a snack.

"GOT IT" his mother shouted behind him. Lonnie turned back to find his mother looking down at another pile of papers while holding a collection of paper bags.

"Where was it?" he heard his father ask as he came from the other room.

"Underneath all these food bags you keep leaving out" she sassed him. Lonnie's father couldn't bother to strike her or insult her here, time was tight, and he just waved away her reply. "Forget that, when's the deadline?"

"Tomorrow"

"Thank God!" he exclaimed, smashing a celebratory fist onto the countertop. The sound of the impact almost made the house completely silent, making Lonnie question what was so important. "What deadline?" he asked calmly.

"Our monthly payment for the house" his mother answered. Lonnie raised his eye brows in response, he knew that his parents weren't always the most punctual people when it came to things like this. He had even seen his father having sit downs with people from the bank. So he knew this wasn't the first time that they were scrambling to get the mortgage paid.

There was a bit of silence for a while. His father was reading the bill over to make sure he wrote an appropriate amount in his checkbook. His mother rummaged around the kitchen cleaning up any piece of trash that would be covering up anything of importance, and Lonnie had pulled out some pizza bites too warm up. Finally, his father noticed Lonnie and spoke, "where'd you just come from?"

Lonnie felt that his eyes were piercing straight through him. He turned around with his eyes wide to find that they were in fact still looking at the checkbook as he wrote down the payment. "Uh... basketball tryouts" Lonnie let out.

His father looked up from his checkbook, giving a half smile and a chuckle. "You on the team?"

"I'll find out tomorrow"

His father hummed a bit, considering the possibility of his son's chances and what being on the team meant for him. "Are you keepin' up with school?"

Lonnie smiled a little bit, hoping that his father would be happy. "I have a 2.89 GPA, and I have an exam tomorrow that will maybe bump it up more." His father's response was a little less than what he was hoping for, but it certainly showed some confidence. He nodded his head with a hidden smile on his face, one that possibly said, "that's sounds good." His mother on the other hand, was a bit more vocal about the whole thing.