The Other Side of Bad (The Tucker Novels) Read Online Free Page A

caliber bullet. The exit scar on the other side was not as perfect.    
    Sporadically spaced about the backs of both hands were scars of varying sizes, shapes and shades. The little finger on my right hand was bent under at the last knuckle, due to my first fight out of the ring when I was 13 (I never got past Golden Gloves). I didn’t close my hand tight to make a hard fist. Instead of hitting him with the first two knuckles, I caught him with the last two, and the force of the blow pushed the little finger into my hand and the bone decided to peek out and see the world.
    I knew at that moment, hitting a man in the head with my bare fist, while summoning the speed and strength I was capable of, wasn’t going to work for me. I was five- nine and weighed 160 pounds when I was 13. I wasn’t fat.
    The man I hit was 35 and about 185 pounds. The last punch of a five-punch combination was a straight right that caught him over his heart. He wet his pants on the way down. I got the knuckle sequence right that time.
    My cell phone rang. I pick it up, “Tucker’s.”
    “Hiii Paw Paw!”
    I felt my heart smile.
    I said, “Hey, Little Margie.”
    My mouth felt funny. I must have smiled. Smiling, according to some, was something I didn’t do enough of. It’s been said my smiling was often a precursor to violence. It may be hereditary. The Major use to smile before he smacked me.
    I remember the day my daughter, Shannon, called and asked my permission to name her firstborn after her mother, my late wife.
    I knew the inescapable red horned demons that stalked me in my slumber and crept up on me with the stealth of stagnant swamp water while I was awake, were not my daughter’s problem.
    I answered with, “Shannon, you don’t have to ask my permission. You name your daughter anything you want.”
    “But Dad,” she replied, “I’m worried that it’ll be hard for you. I know how much you still miss Mom.”
    Bowing to my ambiguous sensibilities, all I could do was reiterate,  “You name your daughter anything you want. I appreciate your concern. I’ll be just fine with it, really.”
    I also remember I wasn’t so sure of that at the time.
    Now, I love to say her name. Her being named Margie was a healing for me. Now, she’s my ‘Little Margie’.
    “What are you doing, Paw Paw?” Margie said, enunciating every syllable.
    “Oh, you know, just foolin’ around the office.”
    “Are you working on a gun? When are you going to take me shooting? I want to go hunting. I want you to take me fishing too,” she said, without taking a breath. Her voice, so mature for a girl not yet a teenager.
    “You’re not quite old enough to hunt yet, Margie. Besides, do you think you could really kill an animal, like a duck? They’re so pretty.” I figured to shock this burgeoning young lady with some hard reality.
    “Sure,” she chirped. “I love your duck gumbo. I could kill a duck for sure.”
    So much for shocking reality. She was so sure of herself. I couldn’t help but notice how much she was like her namesake.
    I did something alien. I laughed out loud.
    I said, “Maybe this summer we can start shooting a .22 rifle. You and Max (her little brother) can come out to the house, and we will make a day of it. Maybe you guys can spend the night.”
    “That would be cool,” she said, delighted.
    Cool, the word of generations. The fact that it still worked was cool in itself.
    “Paaaw Paaaw! Take me fishing!” Max yelled into the phone.
    I said, “Maxoman, can you hear me?”
    When he was just starting to say my name and I came into the house, he would yell ‘Paaww Paaww!” and I would yell back ‘Maaaxxoooommmannnn’. I sounded like someone that just spotted Superman flying through the sky. He loved it.
    “No, Paw Paw. He can’t hear you, I’ve got the phone,” Margie said, her voice dripping with ‘how stupid can you be?’
    “Margie, give the phone to your brother.”
    “Ohh. Okay,” she said, exasperated. As