Three.
That's how many people had visited his blog that week. After three months of promoting it, his website, he'd had three visitors. Well, three visitors were better than none. One of the visitors had clicked on the link to an ad for low cost cell phone services.
Dexter stared at his website wondering what he could do to increase traffic to it. He knew the site lacked that essential something that would draw people. The problem was that he didn't know what was missing.
The website was basically a bitch site in which he proclaimed loudly against what he felt were the evils of corporate life in a service economy. There were a lot of complaints captured on the website, but no answers. People didn't want to visit a website to look in a mirror that showed them how unhappy they should be. They wanted to find something that would make them happier.
The fact was, that Dexter had not tried to identify what he was trying to accomplish with the website. There were problems in this world and he wanted to fix them. He knew that you didn't sell by convincing people that they had a problem. You sold solutions! People saw that it solved a problem they knew they had, and they bought.
"I used to be an engineer. Why am I not acting like one?" Dexter said after staring at the screen for five minutes.
He let go of the mouse and picked up a pencil. It was time to think, rather than act/react. He looked around for an engineering notebook. He didn't find one. Grumbling, he turned to his computer. He realized that it wasn't the best medium for organizing one's thoughts. Sure, there were word processors and drawing programs. However, they weren't as fast or as easy to use as a sheet of paper, a pencil, and an eraser (Oh, YES!! Thank God for erasers!).
He got into his car and headed for the 'super' office supply and electronics store near his old home. It was a monster of a place, with office supplies, computers, software ... anything and everything there that might appear in a regular, or home, office. Entering it he looked around, taking in the vastness of the place.
He muttered, "So many toys, so little time!"
He went outside and picked up a shopping cart, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to leave there without spending at least a thousand dollars. He pushed the cart over to the computer hardware accessories. There were eight rows of stuff there. Of course, printers and scanners ate up two of the rows. Home networking was another row of its own. One whole row was taken up with keyboards, mice, cameras and drawing tablets. Another row had every kind of storage medium on the market with thumb drives, network drives, hard drives, and CD/DVD drives.
Dexter pushed his cart along each row picking up little items that caught his attention. One was a pen that could write on a special paper. It would record the pen motions, for storage on a computer. There were several variations of the item, and he spent ten minutes reading each box and comparing features. In the end he decided that they were all the same, and picked the cheapest one.
He picked up a network and a USB drive for backing up his files. He was amazed at how cheap a terabyte of storage had become. He remembered the days when a twenty megabyte drive cost two thousand dollars. At that time he thought he would never have enough data to fill twenty megabytes of storage. Now he wondered if a five terabyte drive was big enough.
He wandered over to the drawing tablets. He figured that might be a way to get the speed of using paper to capture his ideas with the persistence of a computer. There were half a dozen of them on display. He read the packages and compared the features. After standing there for ten minutes, he purchased the one with the largest drawing area.
There were two aisles of software covering everything from operating systems, productivity software, and games. He headed over to see what they had over there that he might want to use. He wasn't sure what he wanted, but thought that browsing the selection would give him ideas. He slowly walked along pushing his cart, while eying the software packages.
A guy standing standing him shouted, "Hey, Asshole!"
Curious about what was going on behind him, Dexter turned around. The next thing he knew was that his nose had exploded in pain. He stumbled back into his cart, and then fell to the floor. His eyes were crossed. His hands were covering his bloody nose.
"Get up!"
Thinking this had to be a case of mistaken identity, Dexter looked up at his attacker.
Shocked, he said, "Will!"
"Get up, Dad!"
"What the hell. Why did you do that?" Dexter asked. It sounded more like, "Wha da hell. Why'd'ya do dat?"
His son glared down at him and shouted, "You fucking walked off without a word!"
"I think you broke my nose," Dexter said. It sounded more like "I tink ya boke ma noze."
By this time quite a crowd had gathered around them. The store manager was trying to push Will away from Dexter to prevent further violence. Will didn't want to move, but wisely didn't swing at the guy. There was a little pushing back and forth though. A big security guy arrived and that brought a quick end to the situation. Will was led away to the store office.
Dexter remained on the floor holding his nose to cut off the flow of blood. It was throbbing, and it didn't seem like the blood was ever going to stop flowing. He had experienced bloody noses before and wasn't worried. He would get the bleeding stopped and then clean up his face.
He looked up to find an EMT there and wondered who had called them. By that point in time, he didn't really care. He couldn't make out too many of the guy's features since he was wearing a surgical mask and gloves. All he could tell was that the guy had brown eyes and dark skin.
The EMT packed his nose with cotton. He put some pressure on the bridge of Dexter's nose for two minutes. He then removed the packing and checked to see if there was any more blood. There wasn't. He felt around the nose and then declared that it wasn't broken. Dexter already knew that.
After picking up the medical supplies, the EMT said that he needed to see Dexter's driving license. Wondering why the man needed it, Dexter handed it to him.
About the time the EMT backed away, a police officer was there. After getting Dexter's name and contact information, he said, "I've watched the surveillance videos. You were sucker punched. Are you going to press charges?"
"He's my son," Dexter said thinking that was answer enough.
The police officer didn't seem to think that was an answer.
"So? Are you going to press charges, or not?"
"No," Dexter answered.
He wondered how many parents pressed assault charges on their teenaged kids. He guessed that there must be quite a few, or else the policeman wouldn't have been so insistent on a yes or no answer. He imagined that there were households where the kids terrorized the parents.
The policeman said, "Since you aren't pressing assault charges, I'll write him a ticket for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. I guess, as his parent, you'll be responsible for making sure that he gets to court."
"Oh," Dexter said.
"Have a nice day," the policeman said before walking off.
Dexter sat there on the floor. The EMT guy returned and handed him a couple pieces of paper along with his driver's license. Dexter asked, "What's this?"
"The bill and some instructions on taking care of your nose," the EMT guy answered.
"Oh," Dexter said.
He looked down at the paper and saw that he had been charged seven hundred and seventy-five dollars for the call. He wondered when ambulances started charging for going out on a call. It would have been nice to know that he was getting charged for a service that he hadn't requested. He wondered if he was supposed to tip the guy.
The other paper had some general advice on how to deal with a bloody nose. Effectively it said to call a doctor if problems appeared. It was still throbbing. He knew that wasn't a problem. It would be sore for a while.
"You can mail in the payment or pay online," the EMT guy said.
"Thanks," Dexter said numbly.
He stood up from the floor using the shopping cart as a support. He folded up the sheets of paper and put them into his back pocket. His drivers license went back in his wallet as he watched the EMT guy walk off.
He then looked down at his bloody shirt and pants. He was a mess.
"What in the hell am I supposed to do now?" Dexter asked.
One of the bystanders answered, "Go home and change your shirt. You look like shit."
"Thanks," Dexter said.
It had been a rhetorical question and he hadn't expected an answer.
Leaving the shopping cart where it was, Dexter headed to the front of the store. His grand shopping expedition had come to an inglorious end. He made his way to his car, noticing that people avoided getting anywhere near him. It took him a minute to realize that they were more afraid of his blood, than they were of him.
His son was standing outside the store, next to Dexter's car.
Will said, "I want to talk to you."
"I'll meet you at the International Cabana of Pancakes in an hour. I've got to get cleaned up," Dexter said, pointing to a building at the edge of the parking lot.
He was rather surprised by his son's actions. He hadn't figured that the boy would feel strongly enough about his absence to get physical. Occasionally he checked his old phone to see if anyone had called him. His kids had never called, so Will's actions were really unexpected.
"I could follow you to where you're staying," Will said.
Dexter said, "I'd rather you didn't."
"All right. I'll be there in an hour," Will said bitterly.
Dexter watched Will get in a car and leave. He wondered when Will had gotten a car. It must have happened while he was traveling.
He gingerly touched his nose and said, "I sure didn't see that one coming."
Moving stiffly, Dexter got into his car. He had banged his back on the shopping cart, and it was starting to feel a little tender. He figured that he would have a bruise. He drove to his apartment. While driving, he tried to understand why Will was angry. It didn't make sense to him.
The apartment was only fifteen minutes from the store. Upon entering his apartment, he undressed, since his shirt and pants were bloody. His threw his shirt in the trashcan after deciding that it was a total loss. He figured the dry cleaner might be able to save his pants.
He took a lukewarm shower. He was careful while washing his face. He didn't want to bust anything loose in his nose. He then dressed for a visit to the Cabana of Pancakes. He stood in front of the mirror. His nose definitely looked like it had been hit. It had swelled in size.
Dexter arrived at the International Cabana of Pancakes to find Will and Sarah waiting for him at a table. He wasn't expecting Sarah to be there. He looked around to make sure that Janet was nowhere to be seen, before sitting down across from them.
Sarah said, "You really did bust him a good one in the nose."
"I told you," Will said.
"You sucker punched me," Dexter said.
Will said, "Yes, I did."
"Why?" Dexter asked.
"Because you're an asshole," Will answered.
Dexter shook his head in disgust. His wife gets a lover and asks for a divorce and he's the asshole? He wasn't going to accept that.
"Look. I didn't screw around on my marriage. Your mother did. She asked me for the divorce. I gave it to her. How does that make me an asshole?"
Sarah said, "She didn't screw around on you."
"Why else would she ask for a divorce? Huh? Tell me that. I wasn't abusing her. I wasn't screwing around. I wasn't losing money at the race track. I didn't give her any reason to throw me away," Dexter said hotly.
"She didn't tell us why she did that," Will said.
Sarah said, "She expected you to talk to her."
"No. She texted me that she wanted a divorce. I gave it to her," Dexter said. "How does that make me an asshole?"
"You didn't tell us," Will said angrily.
"You didn't notice me when I was there. I was the original invisible man. I was probably gone a month before you noticed," Dexter said.
"We knew you weren't at home the next morning when you didn't wake us for school," Sarah said.
"You probably figured that I was on a business trip," Dexter said.
The two kids looked kind of sheepish. They hadn't really paid much attention to his absence until their mother had gotten emotional. As far as they were concerned, he was in and out according to the needs of his job.
Dexter said, "You did, didn't you?"
"We did assume that, until mother told us that you had filed for a divorce," Will admitted.
Sarah said, "You could have told us about the divorce."
"I figured that since your mother wanted it then she should have been the one to tell you," Dexter replied.
He definitely would have done that if he had been seeking a divorce. He wouldn't have told his wife via a text message, either.
"You could have let us know where you were," Will said.
Dexter said. "I didn't think you'd care."
"Sure we cared," Will said.
"Really?"
Dexter rolled his eyes in disbelief. The fact that neither one had called his cell phone, suggested they didn't care.
He asked, "Would you have taken an afternoon away from your game for a visit?"
"We don't play Saturdays and Sundays," Will said.
He was a little uneasy with his father's charges only because he knew they were true. He probably wouldn't have done anything about his father leaving. It just would have been nice to know.
"What do you do on the weekends?" Dexter asked.
He didn't see Will or Sarah around the house on weekends. He knew they were out with their friends, but he didn't know what they did while away from home.
"I go skateboarding," Will answered.
"You'd have skipped that to see me?" Dexter said.
"Probably," Will answered lamely.
He didn't really see himself missing an afternoon skateboarding to see his father. He might have called, though.
Dexter asked, "Why aren't you playing your computer game, today?"
"We finished the campaign. I was in the store to buy the next release of the game," Will answered.
"So you really didn't miss me at all," Dexter said.
Will said, "I missed you on my birthday. I kind of expected you to be giving me the car with mom."
"I guess I did miss your birthday," Dexter said. "Of course, I don't even know what month it is, much less the actual date."
"Why not?" Sarah asked.
"I haven't paid attention to that, since I got fired," Dexter said.
"You got fired?" Sarah asked.
There was a look of terror on her face. She had friends whose fathers had gone into a destructive mode while trying to deal with a divorce. They quit their jobs, disappeared, and never provided child support. Her friends had to move out of their houses and into low cost apartments. Their standard of living had dropped considerably.
"I was fired ten minutes before your mother dropped her divorce bomb on me. You might say that was a bad day," Dexter said.
"You're kidding?" Will said. "What is that going to mean in terms of child support?"
"Now I know why you were worried," Dexter said bitterly.
Dexter was giving his wife money through his lawyer to avoid any charges of being a deadbeat dad. All he needed was to end up in jail for failure to support the kids.
He looked around and asked, "Where in the hell is the waitress?"
"She'll be here," Sarah said.
"Service economy, my ass," Dexter said muttered darkly.
Edited By TeNderLoin