“I think we need to talk, don't you?” The visitor grinned at the look of shock on his oldest friends face as he let himself into the lounge. Well he had better buckle up, because no one could lay down the law like a Taylor.
To say that he’d been surprised to receive a call from Sally Tracy requesting his presence was an understatement, but after eight years of thinking his friend was dead he was more than happy to drop everything at a moment's notice to spend more time with him. He’d been conscious of the fact that it was more important for Jeff’s sons and family to see him than it was for him so after their initial, and very emotional, reunion, he’d stepped back and waited to be invited, not wanting to step on any toes. He’d thought it important for Jeff to find his place within the family again but from what Mrs Tracy had said on the phone Jeff had been trying a bit too hard. He hadn’t found his place, he’d stolen one.
“Lee Taylor,” Jeff smiled, pushing his chair back from his desk and getting to his feet. “Great to see you, though it’s a little late for a social call.”
“Late schmate, late is the perfect time when whisky is involved,” Lee held up the bottle he’d brought with him as evidence of his claim.
Jeff groaned goodnaturedly, but still opened his desk drawer to take out two glass tumblers, sliding one across the desk in invitation. “Then fill em up.”
The first gulp went down a little roughly, causing Jeff to wheeze. It had been a long time since he’d drunk neat liquor like that, but the second was smoother and he was able to take his time and appreciate the smokey, woodsy taste of the aged malt.
By the end of the first glass they were both deep into the reminiscing and laughing at the memories of their youthful exploits.
“So,” Jeff began. “I heard that you’ve been keeping yourself busy since your retirement.”
“Indeed I have, you know me, I don’t like to sit on the sidelines, I like to be where the action is.”
“I hear that, I’ve been trying to get back in on the action myself, but do you find that you still miss the old days?”
“Yeah, I do, but you know something, these new days, they aint so bad. You gotta move with the times or get lost in the past.”
“The past doesn’t sound too bad to me,” Jeff mused, running the tip of one finger around his glass.
“If it wasn’t for your boys I’d be dead because I was clinging to the past,” Lee reminded him.
“I highly doubt that,” Jeff chuckled. “Not much could take you out.”
“They say there’s no fool like an old fool, Tracy, and I was being an old fool,” Lee shrugged, unashamed to admit it. “I refused to leave Alfie even though in my heart I knew I should have given up on him long ago, but he was a link, you know? Something we built together.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jeff sighed. “Things you build are often the hardest to leave behind.”
“Yeah, they are, but sometimes it’s necessary,” he sipped his drink, debating for a second on the best way to approach the situation. Sally had warned him that Jeff was at his most stubborn and wouldn't be easy to approach. But then again, when had he ever been subtle? “So, I hear you’ve been taking the role of an old fool too seriously?”
“I beg your pardon?” Jeff spluttered, choking on a sip of the good stuff so that it burnt his throat as it dive bombed his lungs. It took him a few wheezing moments to catch his breath and recover his ability to talk.
“I said you’re acting like a fool.”
Jeff threw him a glare so deadly that not even John could hope to better it.
Lee however, was made of sterner stuff and remained completely unaffected. Picking up the bottle again he topped up his glass and leaned over to do the same for Jeff. Jeff moved his glass away before any of the amber liquid could make it in.
“When your mother called me and told me that half your boys had moved out you could have knocked me down with a feather. Figured you must have done something mighty shitty to get them to act that way.”
“Why are you automatically blaming me? They were the ones that walked out on International Rescue, abandoning their family and their duty because of pride.”
“Their pride, or yours? Because, to my way of thinking, those boys don’t give up easily, they take after you like that.”
“So you’ve already made your mind up, huh? You’re going to sit there, in my home and judge me?”
“Ain't my place to judge, only God can do that, but I can be of the opinion that you’re a might soft in the head. But you’re right, I’m thinkin’ I’m needing to hear the whole story from you before I make up my mind.”
Jeff didn't want to talk, he didn't want to have to explain himself or his actions in his own home, within his own organisation, but he also knew his friend and was certain that he wouldn't shut up until he knew everything that had happened down to what Jeff had eaten for breakfast that morning.
"This is my organisation, my dream, something I did to help my family and others and I've waited eight years to get back to it. It was only the thought of my family that kept me going, the memory of them kept me sane."
"You did good, boy, you survived."
"Yeah, and I came back to everything being different, some of my sons are now grown up and I don't have a place in my own life anymore. I had to find myself again. And I've done that, I've found my purpose again. I'm helping people, I'm continuing my dream."
"Continuing it by crushing theirs?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Jeff snorted, grabbing the bottle and pouring another inch into his glass, it looked like he’d need it. “They can continue to do what they’re good at and help people, I don’t see what the problem is.”
Lee sighed, knowing this was going to be hard. Jeff was a tough nut to crack at the best of times and this certainly wasn’t one of them. He knew that his friend probably needed careful handling, but unfortunately that wasn’t something Lee was good at, so he’d have to deal with the bald truth.
“You tell me what happened the last few rescues, Sally said there were issues.”
Jeff sipped. “There were no issues on my end, we received the calls, I took the details, coordinated and then gave them their orders, same as always.”
“You gave them their orders?” Lee repeated, unable to believe what he’d just heard. “Like they were your employees or something?”
“Technically they are, they all get a healthy salary from International Rescue and from the Tracy business itself.”
“A business they have continued to grow in your absence, a rescue service that they not only kept going but improved on?”
“That’s beside the point-”
“Is it though? Or are you just trying to justify what happened?”
“Nothing happened!” Jeff exploded, knocking back the remainder of his drink and slamming the glass down on the side table, his anger helping the liquid go down far too easily. He got to his feet, needing to move, to pace, something that Scott and Gordon took after him with. The thought of Scott made him wince. To say that he wasn’t a little hurt and betrayed by the actions of his eldest would be lying to himself. Scott was the one he saw himself in the most, the one that he had always been able to count on to have his back and take his side.
“So they just upped and left because they wanted a vacation?” Lee didn’t look convinced, lounging back in his seat with that look on his face that said ‘boy, I know you’re bullshitting me’.
“No,” Jeff scowled. “I meant that the rescue itself was fine, or it would have been if they had listened to me and done as they were told. They seem to forget that I have a few more years experience than they do.”
“That you do,” Lee agreed pleasantly. “But you know what these youngsters are like, always think they know better,” he broke out into a sudden grin. “Why, do you remember that Colonel we had at Cape Kennedy? He had a wealth of experience that one. Remember the stories he used to tell us? The drills he’d put us through?”
Jeff chuckled, remembering. The memories were enough to calm him and he took his seat again, feeling tired all of a sudden. “Yeah, he thought he knew everything.”
“All I remember about him was how frustrating it was to have him regale us with his stories and know that none of it would work if he were doing it in our day and age and with our equipment. Old fuddy duddy with his fear of new technology, sometimes it seemed like he just didn’t want to learn.”
“Stuck in his ways,” Jeff agreed, recalling how annoying it had been for them trying to use the upgraded systems when Colonel Richards was insisting they did it his way. “He didn’t understand the advances in technology and just wouldn’t let us do things our way.”
“I guess in that respect we were the youngsters who thought they knew better, he must have hated us,” Lee laughed.
“He probably did,” Jeff agreed.
“Kinda like how your boys must be feeling now,” Lee added slyly.
Jeff paused, letting that sink in for a second, realising that he had walked neatly into Lee’s trap. “You bastard.”
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” Lee saluted with his half full glass. “Ain’t no hiding from the truth, boy.”
Did Lee have a point? Honestly, Jeff didn’t want to look too closely at it for fear that his friend might be right.
“Richards was just trying to look out for us, just the same as I am for my sons,” Jeff argued, determined to stick to his guns. He wasn’t like that old man, he wasn’t stuck in his ways. He’d always been a modern thinker, pushing the limits and demanding the most up to date technology and the freshest ideas. Hell, that was why he’d chosen Brains, an untested engineer, fresh out of university and had taken a gamble on him. Sure, he’d been young, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. A tiny thought nagged at his mind, that although his sons were still relatively young, they weren’t idiots either, but again, he refused to let himself examine that too closely.
“I get that, but do they?” Lee continued, pulling him out of his musings and back to the current conversation. Jeff found that that happened to him a lot, his mind would wander, going off in its own direction. He supposed that was another side effect of spending so many years alone in conversation with himself, you could talk to yourself about anything. Out there he’d only had himself and his brains to rely on, his enginuity, his problem solving and survival skills. He had done the best he could with what he had, something that he and Lee had always excelled at.
“They are my sons, It's my job to support them and to protect them,” he sighed, dropping his head into his hands. How had things gotten so messed up so quickly? He felt like he was a stranger in his own house, in his own family, like he didn’t belong. He’d fought so hard to home, to hold on for them but now he felt like it might have been better if he had died on that asteroid, or in the Zero-X itself.
“All I wanted to do was to take some of the pressure off them, to look after them like I used to. Now I’ve got one son that’s so wound up he’s losing his head in the middle of a rescue, throwing punches and taking it out on other members of the family. Another that’s thinking only with his heart and focusing on his woman and the youngest is following in their footsteps.. Thankfully the other two are sensible enough to see the error in their ways and stay put.”
Lee scratched his chin thoughtfully, his fingers rasping on the stubble there, reminding Jeff of just how late it was.
“What?” Jeff asked, growing frustrated when his friend had yet to verbalise what he was churning over in his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it, you know you want to. Don’t try to spare my feelings, you never have before.”
“Well,” Lee drawled, stretching out his words as if he were thinking about how to form his next sentence, something Jeff knew was a stalling tactic, because Lee never thought anything through before he opened his mouth if he could help it. “I’m just finding it hard to equate a reckless, over emotional idiot with any of your sons, especially not the ones that you just spoke about.”
“I can assure you, it’s true,” Jeff snorted.
“You know they’ve saved my life on more than one occasion?”
“Yes, I read the reports.”
“And that I helped them out one time too?”
Jeff nodded.
“And not one time did they display anything like you’ve said. They were completely professional even when I wasn’t being that way myself. They were competent, courteous even though they probably wanted to shout at me, especially your Steve-”
“Scott,” Jeff corrected.
“That’s right, Scott, especially that one. I’ve never seen a better bunch of boys, if we could have had them in the service with us things would have gone a lot more smoothly, I can tell you that much. They came up with things that I never would have thought of. I’d trust any of them to have my back just as I would you”
“They’re still young, they still make mistakes.” As soon as he said it he wanted to take it back, he knew it was a paltry excuse.
“In your opinion,” Lee insisted. “Hell, I’m old and I still make plenty, I’m just grateful your boys are around to help get me out of them.”
“They aren’t right now though, are they?” Jeff sighed, letting his friend’s words sink in.
“Like I said, there’s no fool like an old fool, Jeff Tracy.”
“And I’ve been an old fool,” Jeff stated quietly, realising that it was the first truthful thing he’d said all evening.
“Yep, reckon you have.”
“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” Jeff said dryly. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
“Well I know that, but the fact remains that you undermined them, you refused to see that they might know better than you, that they might now have more experience than you, because you thought you knew better.”
“Want some salt to rub into that wound?” Jeff held out his glass for a top up. “It’s just hard, it’s been hard since I got back. They didn’t need me anymore, I felt like a burden. I guess I thought that if I could slip back into my old role it would take some of the pressure off them and give me a purpose too. That’s the big thing, I feel useless, like I don’t have a reason to be here anymore. They don’t need their old dad.”
“Sure they do.”
“They don’t, you just said so yourself, they have more experience, a better working knowledge of the equipment and they can get the job done without my interference.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t need ya. Kids always need their Pa.”
Jeff made a soft noise of disagreement in his throat. He found that very hard to believe, they didn’t need him, they had made that perfectly clear.
“All your boys need to know is that you are there for them, they need to be able to count on your support. They need to know that if they have a problem they can come to you, but they don’t need you to be the problem. You need to trust your boys to know what to do and to make their own decisions. Remember what it was like when someone tried to tell you how to do your job and when you had to go from giving orders to taking them. Wasn’t fun, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t, it was awful. I guess I didn’t realise I was treating them that way. I was just trying to help. What’s the good of having all this experience if it's no good? It’s not easy to come to terms with the fact that you no longer have a purpose.”
“Bullshit,” Lee declared. “You’re gonna get off this pity train at the next station, this isn't the track for you.”
“You sure know how to make a guy feel better,” Jeff grumbled.
“Sure I do, you just ain’t given me the chance yet.”
“Feel free to start any time.”
“You ain’t useless, boy. No more so than I am. You think that your experience and knowledge is worthless? Well, I’m here to make you think again. I’ve been where you are, when your boys came and got me off the moon I thought I was nothing but a washed up old has-been. But I soon learned otherwise. I got to repay them when they called on me for help and my expertise, we got a transporter ship to Mars and I spent just over a year there helping the colony. See, what happened there? The boys reached out and asked for my help, they aren’t too proud to ask for help or advice when they need it, they just don’t want you shoving it in their faces.” He stopped to take a sip of his drink. “I have a proposition for ya.”
“You do? What is it?” Jeff set aside his glass, not wanting any more, three was already over the limit of his tolerance.
“I want you to come and work with me at the GDF as part of their space training program.”
Jeff made a face. “I don’t know, I never really saw myself in a training role.”
“Neither did I, which is why I don’t do that. I’m a consultant, we devise the program and others implement it. We wrote the book on space survival, now we’re writing the books on space training and travel.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Sure ya can, take yer time,” Lee got to his feet. “It’s getting late and I’m not as young as I used to be, I feel one of your visitors beds calling me. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you then,” Jeff responded automatically.
“Oh, and, Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“Call your sons and apologise. I want to see them at breakfast too.”
Lee didn’t give Jeff time to argue, leaving the room as suddenly as he had come in.
Jeff swirled the remaining inch or so of amber liquid still left in his glass, pondering over everything his friend had said. He’d been right, he knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier a pill to swallow. It was hard to back down, something that Jeff had never been good at at the best of times and this wasn't one of them.
He needed to step back again, he knew that, and more importantly, he needed to make it up to his sons. He just needed to man up, get his head out of his ass and do it.
He knocked back the last of his drink and retrieved his phone from his desk.
I typed out a group text and sent it to all three of his sons that we’re currently ignoring him.
Please, come home tomorrow, we need to talk.
His boys deserved an apology and they deserved it face to face.