Part Three: Chip

Jamie wasn’t angry. Why should he be? Everything was going as well as it could for someone like him. He was an only child with a pushover of a mother that adored him and a father who was a high school linebacker; a giant of a man who taught him that you didn’t need to hit someone to get your way- but it was always an option. Most people hate confrontation, but that’s where Jamie thrived. You want to cut him off in traffic? No problem; he’d just follow you until you apologized. You want to close the elevator doors instead of hold them? Don’t worry, you’ll see him everyday for the next week and he will make sure you are always late for work. In the office, he was one of the highest paid most feared supervisors; one toe out of line and you’d lose your whole foot.

Jamie had been called a lot of things in his life: crazy, out of control, an overcompensating idiot who wouldn’t amount to anything (thanks Dad). It didn’t bother him; he knew exactly how to make the world bend to his will. He couldn’t make himself taller, but he could pack 250 pounds of muscle on his five foot seven inch frame. He couldn’t play basketball, but he could drive a better car than any player in the NBA. He couldn’t make people look up to him, but he could wield his power and wealth in a way that meant he looked down on everyone as far as his eyes could see. The only imperfection that he could fix but hadn’t was Maggie. She was too soft, too giving, too much like his mom for him to love her and respect her at the same time. So he chose to do neither, keeping her around to hopefully, one day, toughen her up the way he wished he could’ve toughened his mom up all those years ago, before… just before. No sense in dwelling on it.  

Some people told Jamie he walked around with a chip on his shoulder. Jamie decided if that were true, it was a 24 karat gold diamond encrusted chip. And who wouldn’t show that off?