The Absconding Boyfeiend

                                           The Absconding Boyfriend

by

Austin Mitchell

            “Just sign the form for me as my guarantor, Darlene. You know                               I’ll pay back the money. I’ve never let you down yet,” Jeanie appealed to her friend, Darlene.

            They were at her apartment in Washington Meadows. Darlene had gone there right after work having gotten an urgent call from her friend.

            “What are you borrowing so much money for?”

            “I want the money to help pay Jack’s legal fees.”

            Jack was Jeanie’s on again, off again boyfriend for the past three years and he had gotten himself in trouble with the law after the police caught him driving a stolen car.

            “Are you sure that they’ll lend you so much money? And why are you going to so much trouble to help Jack after what he has done to you? And what about Karl Reidy?”

            Jeanie glared at her.

            “Jack’s a good man. I care a lot for him despite his many faults. If I don’t get this money to help him and he ends up in prison I’m going to feel guilty. As for Reidy, he’s not my type. Sure we have gone out together but he just doesn’t do it for me, if you know what I mean.”

            Darlene was experienced enough to know what Jeanie was talking about. Reidy was working with one of the phone companies and she had always encouraged Jeanie to go with him. But it appeared like Jeanie had made up her mind to go with Jack.

            Both women were in their late twenties and had been friends from high school. Darlene was tall while Jeanie was of medium height. They had done some amount of athletics in high school and still found time to workout. Jeanie had been Darlene’s

bridesmaid at her wedding six years ago. Darlene had two children while Jeanie was still unmarried but the mother of a little girl by her childhood sweetheart.  However they had broken up soon thereafter. After another failed relationship, not counting Reidy, she had fallen in with Jack but despite Jeanie’s optimism it seemed to be going nowhere.        

            “I’ve lent you money already, and you’ve always repaid me but I’m not sure about this one.”

            Darlene stopped short of criticizing Jack for getting in trouble with the law again. It was true, she had lent Jeanie tons of money down the years. It hadn’t been like that during high school as Jeanie’s father used to send her loads of money which she would spend freely on her friends. Maybe if he hadn’t married that young American girl and died leaving her all his money, Jeanie would be a wealthy woman today. Darlene thought that maybe she was the only one around of their circle of friends still helping out Jeanie.

            Jeanie’s head was bowed.

            “I don’t know who else to go to, Darlene. I’m maxed out as far as my mother and sister are concerned. I can’t even let them know that Jack’s in trouble again.”

            “He seems to take to trouble like a duck to water,” Darlene remarked and Jeanie jumped up.

            “If you are going to behave like that, it’s okay. I don’t want your help again.”

       Darlene stood up her hands akimbo and her face red at Jeanie’s dismissive tone.  

         “You’re in money problems again. Why is it that you have to be helping out Jack all the time? Look how many times he has been unfaithful to you are still with him.”

            “I think I might be in trouble because I stood as his guarantor for him to get a loan to start a business.”

            Darlene opened her mouth but couldn’t say anything as she stared at her friend in shock. She retook her seat, Jeanie also sat down.

            “So what are you going to do? Okay so you bail him but does he have money to pay a lawyer?”

            “I think the lawyer will get him off. He had borrowed the car from a friend of his after his car broke down.”

            “So where is that friend now?”

            “He’s vanished into thin air.”

            “And you believe Jack?”

            “Why not, I don’t know him as a thief.”

            “How’s he going to prove his innocence if he can’t find the guy?”

            “He says that if he gets bail, he knows lots of people who know the guy so he should be able to find him.”

            “He just borrowed the car to go to Morant Bay to see somebody. On the way the police stopped him and told him that the car had been stolen,” Jeanie stated.

            “I hope he finds the guy,” Darlene declared.

            “I’m sure he will. As I’ve told you, I have every confidence in Jack.”

            Darlene stared at her.

            Presently the two women sat down to discuss their business transaction.  Two weeks later, Jack was out on bail.

            Jeanie followed him to where Clifton Mendes, the who had lent him the car formerly lived. The owner of the premises denied that anybody by that name ever lived there. Even when Jack showed him the man’s picture, the landlord shook his head in denial.

            “No, I don’t know him.”

            Jeanie was beginning to have her doubts. She decided to keep them to herself.

            Two weeks later, Jack called her. He had found the guy but the man denied that he had lent him any car. Jeanie was in disbelief.

            “So okay, this guy, Mendes denies lending you the car so what are you going to do?”

            They were seated in Ricky Chin’s sports bar in Eastwood Park Gardens.

            “I know a policeman who says he’ll talk to him for me.”

            “How long have you known this guy?”

            “You mean the policemen?”

            “No, not him, the guy who lent you the car.”

            “Remember I told you that I once lived on Red Hills road, he was my next door neighbour.”

            They left the sport’s club at eleven o’clock that night.  For two weeks Jeanie saw no sign of Jack. He wasn’t answering his phone and when she went to his apartment it was locked up. The landlady couldn’t tell her about his whereabouts. She managed to get the lawyer to get the case put off.

            One evening she got a call from an unexpected source, Jack’s sister, Dania Burke. The two women were hardly friends.

            Jeanie was at her wits end. Jack was in the States! He had bought a visa with the money she had lent him to pay off the policeman. Based on what Dania told her she could only jump to those conclusions.

            Then something hard hit her. Jack had absconded bail, she could go to jail if she didn’t find the money for the bail bond.

            Six months later and Jeanie was coming out of the loan agency where she had just finished paying the balance of the loan that Darlene had guaranteed and she met Darlene.

            “I’m finished paying off the loan now, Darlene.”

            Darlene was thankful for what Jeanie had done. They had decided to have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

            “Jeanie, don’t say I’m inquisitive but I’ve spied you out with Reidy a couple of times.”

            “After, what Jack did to me, I should be contented with my child, but Reidy’s been so good to me. I sometimes wonder what I saw in Jack to have preferred him over Karl.”

            Darlene laughed.

            “By the way, have you ever heard anything about Jack?”

            Jeanie glared at her and Darlene wanted to apologize.

            “It’s okay, Darlene. Jack’s in jail in New York. I don’t even know what he did this time. When they deport him I won’t be sorry for him again.”

            “Are you sure about that?”

            “Karl has asked me to marry him and I’ve agreed.”

            “Oh my gosh, congratulations girl!”

            The two women embraced each other before leaving the restaurant. The End.