John Franklin has always been a handful. Born to a former military type turned salesman and his pretty wife in Chicago, Illinois, John (Jack, by 3 months) was a fussy baby, a troublesome toddler and a downright rebellious child. Though his father was long out of the Army and never spoke of his experiences, the elder John Franklin attempted to run his house with precision and discipline, both of which Jack promptly ignored. He tracked in mud, forgot his homework, broke bones. He was a boy’s boy, and though he drew the line at talking back to his mother, he wasn’t beyond staying out past curfew, riding his bike where he wasn’t allowed and generally giving both parents a headache that has yet to go away.
Jack drank as a teenager but never did drugs. He did, however, grow up watching the war on them on the nightly news in the evenings, and while he had nothing particular against the marijuana and later cocaine that would show up at various parties, he was a fan of the cool gear that he saw on agents during covered raids. Somewhere around 16, Jack put together that while soldiers got to shoot guns, the real money was going towards the still blossoming Drug Enforcement Administration. Ten years later, he had a degree from University of Maryland in Criminology and Criminal Justice, a decent commendation from his few years working the streets of Baltimore and an established job with the agency he had so boldly chosen. He also had a wife.
Working for the DEA was not always ideal. He missed holidays, time with his family, the birth of his only child. Upon learning he spoke fluent Spanish, Jack was almost immediately stationed in Venezuela. His marriage would last through most of the tour, though the seeds of divorce were already growing. By Nassau, his wife had left with their kid. Jack, in response, took up deep sea fishing and proceeded to enjoy a bachelor lifestyle he hadn’t quite managed as a teenager in fear that he’d lose his chance at the job. In Nassau, he learned to spear fish and drink beer warm after the day had ruined it, and the best way to stay permatanned. He avoided trips home, and missed part of his kid growing up. By 2004, it was obvious he needed a change.
Jack asked for Tampa. It allowed him to spend time with a teenager he now barely knew without having to give up what he had become accustomed to. He slowed down after hitting American soil, met a girl, married again. He spent a summer coaching little league. He could have been happy, but things unraveled as quickly as they had started. Wife number two walked out the door; in the same year, Jack got transferred. It was a promotion, though an unwilling one. The New York division office was serious and structured where his last outposts had been free rein. Jack has not taken it well.
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
