SUFFERING THE INEVITABLE
But it didn't come out right. Des just couldn't do it. Sarah watched his struggle with sympathy for him, but with sorrow in her heart for Johner.
Des tried. He could see that it was the best deal ever likely to be offered to him, and he wanted to take advantage of a life without the need to struggle for every mouthful, every snatched nap. After a few days he even came to understand that Johner wasn't going to appear beside his bed in the night, wanting favors he wasn't prepared to give. He began to see that Johner's sexual energy was entirely centered on Sarah, although he hadn't believed it at first. He'd had experience with men who wanted to 'help' him.
Des understood that by accepting Johner's invitation, he had given tacit agreement to the three rules. He had no problem with that. He didn't do drugs, they made people careless of their safety. The one older man who had befriended him without ulterior motives had died because he couldn't come out of the drug haze quickly enough. Des was present and saw it happen. The man had done him a great favor by dying in that way. He didn't touch drugs.
There were many things around the house that would be very profitable to steal. He could live for a long time just on the firearms that were in the locked kitchen cupboard, but if he stole them he couldn't come back. He wasn't ready yet to do that.
There was no need for violence, everything he wanted was his for the taking.
The other things, things Johner had said he'd like him to do?
Lying wasn't a problem; he spoke very little, and when he did it was necessary. "Pass the salt." That sort of thing. Johner tried to draw him out a couple of times, but Des's reticence convinced him to let it be.
Politeness was pretty much beyond him. His experience just didn't include it, he had no idea how to do it.
Cleanliness was OK with him. He thought he looked better clean, and knew he felt better. There was a hot shower available whenever he wanted it, and he used it at least once a day. He thought that if he left that was the thing he'd miss most, next to eating regularly.
The problem was boredom. His friends, such as they were, weren't exactly the kind he could entertain in Johner's house. They hadn't agreed not to steal. He didn't miss them much anyhow. They were a convenience when he needed a group, as when he'd held up Johner, but he'd been alone most of the time most of his life, he was used to it, and it was really easier.
After he'd showered and eaten, what was there to do? He couldn't read, and although Johner had offered to teach him he had no interest in learning. After he'd caught up on sleep he couldn't stay in bed all day. He watched the TV obsessively for a few days, but one day he just turned it off, and that was that.
He walked around the neighborhood. There were kids his age around, but the little contact he had with them was enough. They understood almost nothing of what he said, nor did he understand them. 'Nothing in common' was a mild way to put it. As the days passed he began to rove farther afield. Soon he was spending part of his days back in the old haunts, where he could at least talk to people who understood what he was saying.
Johner was unaware that he was gone during the day.
*******
Sarah could see that he was eaten up with boredom, and she talked to Johner about it during their usual bedtime recap of the day's events.
"We've got to find him something to do. He's too bright to sit in front of the TV all day, and he's used to an active life. He's been here three weeks, and you can see he's getting restless."
Johner nodded. "I know you're right, but what the hell am I going to give him to do? He doesn't want to go to school, he doesn't want a job. Hell, Connor, what else is there? Hobbies? Oh sure, let's try to get him interested in collecting butterflies!"
"I know it's tough, but we've got to think of something." She reached over to touch his cheek. "You're the one who should know. He's so much like you…"
Johner lifted her over to sit in his lap, his powerful arms making the job easy. Leaning back against the pillows he looked at her, a long admiring look. "Yeah. In that case, I do know. What he needs is a girl." He grinned. "It sure did the job for me."
She grinned back. "Very astute. And just where are you going to find a girl for him?"
A brilliant idea struck him. "What about the girls in the neighborhood?"
"Jesus, Johner, you can't turn this kid loose on the little suburban twits in this neighborhood! You'll get us run out of town on a rail!"
His face fell. "Yeah, I guess you're right. He'd chew'em up and spit'em out, wouldn't he." He thought about it for a moment more. "I can't think of anything we can do about this. He'll have to find something to do on his own."
There was a pause as Sarah thought about what she was going to say. She wasn't entirely sure she should say it at all, but…well, maybe it could work. "Have you thought about taking him to the office? He'd probably be pretty good at some of the things we do."
Johner's face lit up. "Hoo! What an idea. You bet he'd be good at it! He'd make a hell of an undercover operative. There's not much about street life he doesn't know. This could work, Connor, this could…" He stopped suddenly, and his face closed in thought. When he looked up, the light had gone out. "No. Can't do that to the clients. Too much confidential information that he could use if he left us." He thought again. "There's no way to keep him separate from information he shouldn't see…nope, can't do it."
"Damn! You're right.' She was as disappointed as he.
"Have to think of something, though." He looked down at her and was suddenly struck by her beauty. "But I'll think about that tomorrow. Tonight….tonight…I want to think about you, and how beautiful you are, and how much I want to kiss you." His head dropped to hers, and he found her mouth.
*******
It was inevitable that Des would go. The first time Johner was aware that he was gone it was just overnight, then it became two or three days at a time. Johner worried and waited, and breathed a great sigh of relief when he reappeared. He tried to talk to the boy, tried to find out what he could do to help, but Des just couldn't communicate. He was unable to say what help he needed because he didn't know. All he knew was that he had to get out.
As much as Johner wanted to believe that Des was a carbon copy of Johner himself, he wasn't. He was physically very close, and that was a great part of what led both Johner and Sarah to be deceived in him. He was reasonably bright and he was streetsmart, but he had neither Johner's intelligence nor his emotional depth. His life experience and his intellect didn't lead him to introspection; he only knew he felt stifled at Johner's house. The comforts of the way of life were just not worth the constriction, and inevitably he went back to the streets.
After about two months, when he finally left not intending to come back, he took everything he could carry with him. The gun cupboard didn't withstand his determined onslaught, although Johner had thought it was pretty well protected. He'd worked at it for a long time, from the number of tools strewn around the kitchen, and at last he had been successful with the aid of an axe from the garage.
"God damn it! God damn it!" Johner strode around the kitchen, kicking pieces of the gun cupboard out of his way. "The ungrateful, miserable, lazy, lying, two-faced, double-dealing little son of a bitch! God damn it! I'll climb down his throat and pull out his kidneys! The treacherous little rat couldn't even think of a better scam than lifting a few guns? Jesus, at his age and with the opportunities he had, I'd have cleaned this place out to the bare walls. Stupid little bastard wasn't worth the time I spent trying to straighten him up. God damn it! Didn't have the brains to pour pee out of his boot, and if I get my hands on him I'll shove his head…" He paced for a long time, swearing steadily
Sarah watched silently. She knew he was hurting, and he had to get it out.
He finally wound down, sat himself at the kitchen table, shook his head hard as if to clear it, and began to talk sense. "Now we'll have to change all the locks, doors and windows. It's a miserable job, I'll get Ken Perkins from the office to do it for us. It'll take him half the time it would me. I wonder if Des duped my car keys? Better change 'em, and yours too. Is there any material from the office here that he could have got his hands on?" He answered his own question. "No. We don't bring much home, and nothing crucial that belongs to the clients. But the office keys? Oh God, they're on the ring with my car keys. We'll have to change all the office locks too. God, what a headache!"
His eyes left hers, his head dropped down and a hand came up to shield his eyes. Suddenly his whole body slumped and he buried his head in his crossed arms. For a long minute he said nothing, then his voice came out softly, muffled and hoarse. "I wanted to help, Connor. I just wanted to help."
Sarah put down the coffee cups she was carrying to the table and sat down across from him. She reached to put a caressing hand on his bent head. "I'm sorry, Johner. I'm so sorry." What else could she say? She knew how much this attempt to change a life had meant to him.
After a minute he looked up at her. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"
"Well, I thought it was pretty probable." She couldn't lie to him, she had thought exactly that. "As much as we both thought he was like you, Johner, he is not you. He's a separate person, and he has to work out his own destiny, I guess."
His head bent again as he pulled his coffee cup to him. "I wanted to help. I wanted to help so much, Connor. If I… if I had just…" He stopped, staring down into the cup.
She reached her other hand to his. "I don't think anything you did would have made a difference, Johner. I watched the way you handled the whole thing, and I was amazed at the understanding you showed. I think it was him, Johner. I think he just didn't know how to be helped."
He turned his hand up to clasp hers. "Maybe. Maybe."
********
When Johner was
in trouble he didn't sleep. and Sarah began to wake in the night and find him
gone. When she joined him at the kitchen table, he was willing to talk, and
the talk always came around to the same thing; what he could do to fix what
Sarah believed to be an unfixable situation.
"Do you think I should go and look for him? Do you think he'd come back?" Johner looked up from his cup hopefully.
Sarah had to tell him what she thought. "No, I don't think so. He stole from you, big time. Neither of you could forget that."
"Hell, Connor, it's only money. What difference do a few guns make?"
"It's not the guns. It was a betrayal. That's the difference, to both of you."
"Yeah. But maybe…"
"Johner, quit it! You're driving yourself nuts. Go look for him." She got up from the table and reached for his car keys on the counter. "Here. Go. You want to, you have from the beginning. I'll cover for you at work tomorrow. Go!"
He took the keys and got up. "You're all right with this?"
"Yes, of course I am. I love you, and I can't bear to see you tearing yourself to pieces like this. You need to find a solution, one way or another. I'll go along with whatever happens."
He put his arms around her. "I love you. You always know." He kissed her softly, looked down at her for a moment more, and then was out the door.
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