The Guardian

45
    Jack Gorman lived alone, mainly because he had money and he could. It wasn’t that he was unattractive or anything. Jack was a fairly good looking man in his mid thirties. He had thick, red curly hair that he kept styled. It just covered his ears and went down just over the collar in the back. Standing at five ten, he was of average build. He worked out all the time and was strong as an ox. He never smoked. He hardly drank and never had friends over. That was only because he had no friends.
    He never really knew his father. The old man had died when he was very young. He’d left his mother a ton of money and the wine business. At that time it was just a small busy little mom and pop thing.
    His father was never around. His mother’s so-called associates were constantly abusing him. From her lovers, business associates and others all the way down to the hired help.
    Being an only child, he was of course, a spoiled little brat. He had little or no respect for anyone, least of all women. He blamed his mother for the abuse and neglect that he had to endure while growing up. His mother was always too busy with the business. Therefore, like all professional, hard working people, she continually left him at the hands of others.
    One of the Mexican landscapers had sexually molested him. One of the housekeepers was a mean spirited Spanish woman that spoke little if any English. Or at least that’s what she led on. She was constantly slapping him upside his head for sneaking into the kitchen and stealing scraps of food. She’d grab him by the ear, rattling off her high speed Spanish, pulling him out of her kitchen. He didn’t do it because he was hungry. He did it because it pissed her off. Jack hated her.
    His entire life, bullied and shoved around, he learned resentment. He was made to do things that he didn’t want to do. Jack had tried to tell his mother what was happening. She just couldn’t believe that these people that worked for her would do such a thing. People that she trusted would do such a thing to her little Jack. If she confronted them, it was always, “Oh we love Jack, and he’s such a silly boy, always pretending.” It would infuriate him to no end. They never listened to the kids. You weren’t old enough, or smart enough to know what you were talking about. You were just making things up to get attention. That’s what the counsellor had said. His poor mother had such a busy work schedule. There were meetings and business lunches. He was surely only doing it for her attention. “You know, negative attention is better than no attention,” she would say. Therefore, the abuse and mistreatment went on. He endured it as best he could. He made up his mind that one day he would be the one in charge. He would be the one that would control everything.
    His mother had left him a sizeable amount when she died, just as his father had left it to her. Only she had made sure it had grown a great deal more profitable. Southern Wine & Spirits on south Jones had been her baby. The old lady had devoted all she had to it. She had amassed a fortune in the wine business. With all the new casinos going up with all their fancy restaurants, she could barely meet their needs. She even had a wine Cellar built into the large piece of mountain behind the mansion where they lived out on SR160 towards Pahrump.
    Once the old lady was gone, Jack set about firing everyone that worked for her. They didn’t get any severance pay. They got no references, kiss-my-ass, go to hell, nothing. All they got was a kick in the ass as they went out the door.
    The estate was out there in the middle of nowhere. At least what used to be nowhere? It was quiet, peaceful, and isolated from everything and everyone. There was nothing around them but desert. Now look at it. It was pathetic. There were housing tracts going up all around them. They couldn’t even be original. They used generic names like Trail Ridge, Sterling Ridge, Mountain’s Ridge, Wine Ridge. That’s what they did all right. Las Vegas was growing so fast they were building right up to the ridge of the stupid mountain. It was disgusting. They didn’t even have the common sense to put the roads in first. No, they were in such a damn big hurry to get their money and get the houses sold. Now they’re putting the roads in after the fact and traffic is not only a mess but it’s become a hazard. There are deaths on that stretch of road as regular as clockwork. It had gotten so