Lethal Weapon Pt. 01

Martin easily got past where he pallets would have fallen, but as luck would have it, the top pallet of the falling stack clipped a small protrusion on an I beam. It veered off to the right, hitting one of the large fans and some other items stored in the area on the way down. The pallet, landing on it's edge, bounced once and cartwheeled along, cutting Martin down like a bowling ball taking down the ten pin.

The corner of the pallet struck Martin directly in the middle of his lower back and he ended up flat on the floor with the heavy wooden pallet on top of him. To add insult to injury (literally), he watched as the heavy industrial sized fan wobbled around on it's base, until it tipped and fell on top of the pallet and him. . . still running.

Danny quickly killed the motor on the fork truck and ran to find help. The paramedics arrived and stabilized Martin, putting him on a backboard, he was then taken by ambulance to the local hospital. Four cracked vertebrae and two ruptured discs kept him there for most of the rest of summer, and it looked as though he would probably be out of work for the rest of his life.

Martin had always tried to make the very best of every situation, he looked at the upside to every scenario. Here, he saw the opportunity to spend more time with Trish. The twenty years of midnight to eight shifts had literally kept him away from home at night for roughly half of his married life. His schedule was four nights on, four off, so Trish had spent an awful lot of nights sleeping alone. Two of his nights off were day shifts (8 to 4).

For the first three years of his career at ZMA, Martin worked the evening shift (4 to 12). He found it hard to go to sleep after coming home at midnight, and was usually awake until three or four am. He usually slept until at least noon, leaving only a few hours free before having to return to work. He pondered going to the midnight shift, but Trish wanted him home at night, she didn't want to sleep alone.

Then, in 1990 an opening became available, and it was Trish that had urged him to transfer to the night shift. She told him that she was almost always in bed asleep before midnight anyway, and on the evenings he worked, they only had a few hours during the afternoon together. She said that it was their evenings together that she cherished the most anyway.

Trish Told Martin that she'd done some thinking about it, and if he went to the night shift, they would have more time together. She explained that they could spend most of the day together after he came home in the morning and he could then sleep in the evening. Or they could spend the morning together, giving him time to unwind from work, and he could go to bed about noon and getting up about 8 pm. They would still have a few more hours together after he awoke, before heading back to work. She said that she was OK with him being gone at night, as long as she got to make up the lost time together by being with him during the day.

With those things in mind, when a spot opened up, Martin transferred to the night shift.

For most of their entire marriage, Trish had visited her mother at least four or five times a week, usually during the day when he was working day shift, or in the evenings when he was working 4 to 12, then after he changed shifts, whenever he was in bed asleep.

After Martin's accident, Trish had all but stopped going to her mother's so that she could be with and take care of him. After his hospital stay, and a few months rehabilitation, he and Trish were able to resume their sex lives. As long as he didn't strain his back too much, or try anything out of the Kama Sutra. Which he didn't expect anyway, since their sex life had been almost non-existent for years.

Martin noticed that the extended time together after the accident, seemed to energize their sex life. Ever since his transfer to nights back in 1990, it had been only once or twice a month, if he was lucky. Since he'd been home injured, it had picked back up to two to three times a week, and Trish had become adventurous like she used to be when they were first married.

It had been a full year since his accident, summer 2011. Martin was still having trouble standing up straight without pain. ZMA had given him a nice settlement, he was collecting the same as what his salary had been at the time of the accident, plus a little extra. He would also get future increases to match his salary just as if he would have continued to work. He found it hard to accept that he may never be able to go out and ride his four wheeler, or go deer hunting again. Or even fishing, he had tried going out for a few casts, but his back just hurt too much when he tried to raise his arm above his shoulder.

Martin and Trish had found the magic that their marriage had lacked for so long though, they'd made love more in the last nine months than they had in the previous twenty years. Martin was very pleased with that development.

It was July, Trish had gone with her mother to visit her older brother and his family in Northern Indiana. They had left for the two hundred mile trip on the preceding Saturday. It was now Tuesday, and Trish and her mother were due home sometime Wednesday afternoon.

Martin decided that a quick trip to the market for a few groceries was in order. He made a list, got into his car and headed for the store. After he arrived, he grabbed a grocery cart from the parking lot and headed inside. When he first entered, he looked up to see Roger Murtaugh's older brother, Joshua walking towards him. Martin mused how Joshua had always told everyone to call him Mr Joshua.

They nodded at each other as they passed, then Martin, being polite and genuinely caring about everyone, did something that he now regretted. . . He turned to Joshua and told him that he had never had the chance to tell him how sorry he was to hear about his younger brother, Roger passing on the year before.

What Joshua responded with in return completely ruined Martin's day. . . and maybe even his life. His appetite now gone, there was a change of plans, Martin now intended on getting very drunk. Crumpling up his list and throwing into the shopping cart, he pushed it aside, walked over to the freezer section and just grabbed a frozen entree. . . Only because he thought that he probably shouldn't drink on an empty stomach.

A quick trip to the market to stock up on a few groceries, had turned into a microwave meal and a quick detour to the local liquor store. Once he got there, he grabbed a twelve pack of Bud Lite and a bag of ice and walked up to the counter. After Martin paid, the clerk noticed that he was struggling to carry the two items,

"Here, as soon as were done here, let me carry those out to your car for you," said the clerk.

"Thanks," said Martin.

After the clerk put the beer and ice in the back floorboard of Martin's car, Martin thanked him, then got into the driver's seat and headed home. On the way, he was so pre-occupied, that he ran two stop signs. Luckily there were no cars coming or cops nearby.

His mind was racing and his heart was about to pound out of his chest, this couldn't be, could it? But he couldn't shake the feeling that it might actually true. he kept trying to recall instances when it could have taken place. Once he got home he could relax and get this sorted out in his head.

At home, Martin opened the garage and placed a cooler onto his small four wheel cart and headed back to the car. He managed to pour the ice inside and put the beer on the cart beside. Heading around to the back of the house and to the deck, he slid the cooler off of the cart, and placed the beer down beside it.

He walked back around front, put the cart back inside of the garage, then walked to the car and grabbed his frozen entree, heading inside. Martin put his dinner into the microwave, set the timer for four minutes, pushed start and went back out to the deck to put the beer inside the cooler.

By the time Martin had the cans arranged so that ice covered them all and got back inside, his meal was ready to come out of the microwave. He grabbed a hot pad, removed the meal from the microwave and placed it on the kitchen table. Then opened the silverware drawer and grabbed some utensils, and just as Martin sat down to eat. . . the telephone started ringing,

"Go figure!!" he said, irritated.

Getting up and grabbing the cordless phone out of it's base, he sat back down at the table, and placed the transceiver to his ear. . .

"Hello."

"Hi sweetheart, I just called to make sure you felt OK, hows your back today?" said Trish on the other end,

"It's fine, is that all you want?" he said coldly.

"What's wrong Martin? Are you alright?"

"I told you, I'm fine, just a little down is all," he replied.

"I knew something was up, what's going on?"

"What's NOT been going on."

"Martin! I know from the way you sound, that something's wrong, what is it honey?"

"We'll discuss it later, my supper is getting cold and I have a twelve pack of Bud Lite waiting for me out on the deck."

"You have beer? You know that you don't ever drink more than a couple at a time, Martin! Why do you have a whole twelve pack out on the deck. . .? What's going on?!" she asked in a worried tone.

"Just don't worry about it, I told you. . . I'll be fine!"

"OK, if you say so. . . I'll see you tomorrow sweetheart, I love you," said Trish.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow. . . Bye," and he hung up.

Trish knew that something was wrong with Martin, he was the eternal optimist, and he'd never skipped out on telling her that he loved her after talking on the phone, "What on earth is wrong with him?" she thought.

After finishing up his supper, and rinsing out the plastic tray that his nuclear meal had been in, he tossed it into the recycle bin. Grabbing the cordless phone, Martin went out onto the deck and slid the cooler of beer over next to his reclining deck chair, sat down, reclined back and adjusted the pillow behind his back. Grabbing a Beer out of the cooler, he popped the tab. . . His night of getting wasted had begun.

Trying to get the events of the last twenty five. . . Actually closer to twenty seven years straight in his head. . . Martin realized that he'd come to a crossroads in his life, and if accurate, what Joshua had told him at the market, would devastate him almost to the point of no return. His entire world would be turned upside down. What was he going to do now that he knew the truth? Or was it really the truth?

If it was, how could he have been so blind? Had it gone on right under his nose? Had the people that he had considered his family all of these years, known all along what was happening, but never let on, or said a word to the contrary.

There may have been some subtle hints. Yes, now that he searched his mind, there may have been some hints to what had been transpiring, and he'd had suspicions. But never. . . never in a million years would he have ever suspected that almost his whole married life had been a total fucking lie.

"How could I have been so fucking stupid?" Martin thought to himself.

His emotions went from anger and hate and back to extreme pain and sense of loss, then wanting to strangle someone to wanting to harm himself.

"I wish that damn accident would have killed me!" he said out loud, "Why!?"

Martin downed his first beer quickly and thought about his life with Trish. . . God, how he loved that woman. He reminisced about the day they saw each other in Dairy Queen and how her old car wouldn't stay running. . . He could picture in his mind how the restaurant looked inside and seeing her there by the counter for the first time. God, she looked so beautiful. . . and innocent.

Since that day, the building had been remodeled once and then torn down and a new one erected in it's place. The whole area didn't even look the same now, that saddened Martin, it was as though his memories of that special time and place had been stolen from him.

He thought about the years they'd had together before. . . Except for the birth of his children, the years before 1990 had been the happiest times of his life. Then, he couldn't explain it, but Trish seemed aloof all of the time. He wanted to say that it was because of her mom, he remembered how badly his inlaws treated him at first, they had pushed really hard for Trish to work it out with Roger. Martin felt like the enemy for the first several years, then, after Trish's dad died, her mom started treating him better all at once. It was after all of that, that Trish's demeanor changed.

From the time they first slept together, up until the time his in laws started playing nice, Martin and Trish had had a very active sex life. He taught her all about the ins and outs of sex and she would almost do anything to please him, and he would do the same for her. She became very proficient at giving head and after some reluctance (and a lot of KY Jelly), she tried anal and found that it was quite pleasurable. It then become a regular part of their love making. They had sex at least five or six times a week or more, sometimes twice a day. Martin had routinely joked with Trish that they were going to go broke because he keep having to buy so many condoms,

"We go through a big box a week," he told her.

Since birth control pills messed with her hormones, she couldn't take them, so they used condoms to prevent pregnancy.

Martin opened another beer and thought about how that had all changed, "I know it was in '90. . . could it be. .? Joshua said twenty five years, that would have been '86. . . I think maybe Joshua just had his years screwed up, after all he is a drunk and a druggie."

Martin also remembered that during that year, a short time before transferring to the night shift, Trish had come down with a very bad urinary tract infection, and that they had gone several weeks without sex. Once she was over the infection, they resumed their love life, but something had changed, she just didn't seem as enthusiastic as she had been before. At first, he thought that it was because of the death of her father, or maybe she was having some issues because of the infection, but their sex life never recovered.

After a few months of once a week, or every other week and only straight intercourse, no oral or anal, he asked her if there was a problem. She told him that since she'd had the infection, she didn't feel the same 'down there' and she had a hard time becoming aroused.

When he pressed further, Trish told him that she'd watched a documentary about venereal diseases and AIDS on tv while he was at work one evening. It had brought back bad memories of her time with Roger, since he was a drug user and the piece on AIDS really scared her, creating a mental block, and keeping her from enjoying sex like she had before.

Martin and Trish's sex life, from then on, was never the same, once a week (maybe), bland, straight sex. It had resulted in two more children though, even though they were using condoms. Nicholas was born in March of 1991, and Damon in January of 1992.

As Martin popped the tab on his third beer, he thought about his earlier conversation with Joshua at the grocery store.

Martin had seen both Joshua and Roger Murtaugh around town and knew who they were, but had never actually met either one of them. He had no hard feelings towards them either, after all, Roger was the biological father of the son Martin called his own. Just trying to be nice, Martin told Joshua that he was sorry to hear about his brother. Then Joshua smiled at him and said the words that brought Martin's whole world to a screeching halt,

"You never had a clue did you?"

"About what?" Martin replied.

"About your wife and my little brother, man."

Joshua had been heavily involved in drugs for most of his life, and was also a recovering alcoholic, had he forgotten? Wondering what on earth he was talking about, Martin said,

"Oh, I knew they were married, and they had a child together."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said anything," Martin thought to himself as he turned to leave, now just wanting to get away from Joshua, ,

"They were fuckin' man. . . they been fuckin' for about the last twenty five years or so. . . ha, they were fuckin' all the way up until when he died, man. . . You didn't know?"

Martin walked on, but Joshua got in one more dig in as he walked away, "Check around man, I'm not lyin.' Hell, go ask her family, they all knew about it. . . God, what a dumbass!" Joshua laughed.

The words rang over and over in his head. . . "They were fuckin' man. . ."

"What am I going to do. .? DAMN IT!!" Martin said, as he reached for beer number four.

Was there something in the water? It seemed like this small in southern Ohio town was nothing but a haven for cheaters. There were more infidelity stories floating around than he could keep up with, especially at the factory where he had been employed. It seemed as though all of his acquaintances at work had either cheated on their wives, or their wives had cheated on them.

Except for the head bosses, the office employee's at ZMA were exclusively women, of course out on the floor, men out numbered the women working at the plant ten to one.

There were plenty of stories about the endeavours of a few of the bosses in the front office and their secretaries, but since the time Martin had started working there in 1987, every single female that had worked on the floor at this company, had slept with one or more of their co-workers. Most of these women had already been married at the time, and almost all of the men they had cheated with had been married too. Some of these 'cheaters' were married to each other now, amazing that they trusted each other after what they'd done, but to each his own. . .

Martin always prided himself that he wasn't one of those people, he would never cheat on Trish, and he was confident that she wouldn't run around on him either. Martin was one of the lucky few that had a solid marriage. . . Had that all been a pipe dream?

Martin polished off nine beers before falling asleep in the chair, he awoke at three AM, needing to piss really bad and headed inside. After using the bathroom, he collapsed onto the bed. It was one the next afternoon, before he crawled back out with a horrible headache.

At first, he thought that running into Joshua Murtaugh the day before had all been a dream, but then, reality set in. Martin looked at the clock and wondered what time Trish would be home from her trip. His first thought was to confront her when she came in, but he realized it was the words of a drugged out drunk that put these fears into his head. Had he lied? Something in Martin's subconscious told him that what Joshua had told him was the truth, or at least it somewhat was.

"I'll have to play it cool, and not let on until I can find out more," he thought.

Who on Trish's side of the family could he trust? Then again, did they really know anything? Or was 'Mr Joshua' just blowing smoke up his ass?

"Jackie! I'll talk to Jackie, she seems to be a little nicer than the others. . . Hell, there all devout Catholics, why would they ever condone her cheating on me to begin with! Bunch of damn hypocrites!"

Jackie was the wife of Trish's oldest brother, Melvin. She had always been nice to him, even back when Trish's parents were trying to get Trish to go back to Roger, Jackie had always taken Martin's side.

Martin picked up the phone and dialed Jackie's number. Jackie picked up, and he asked if they could meet for lunch the next day, there was something important that he needed to discuss with her,

"Sure Martin, where do you want to meet?"

"Just meet me at the Dairy Queen at about half past noon."

"See you tomorrow then," she replied.