by John Goode
THE THINGS I found myself doing.
I mean there it was, Monday morning, and I was at the hospital watching Billy. Kyle had assured me that everything would make sense soon. I hated to admit the teenage boy might be the smartest one out of all of us, but there I was, waiting.
“So is this some kind of scam or what?” Billy asked me through his second cigarette. We had been standing outside, since neither of us was very welcome in Foster General right then. “Because if this is a waste of time….”
“You’ll what?” I barked at him. “Go back to your busy life of extorting family members for blood money?”
“Easy to judge when you’ve never been where I am.”
I gave him a shocked look. “You’re right, Billy, I have never been where you are. I have never become so addicted to drugs that I’m willing to hold an innocent woman’s life over my son to force money from him to pay off my debts.”
We didn’t talk after that.
Ten minutes past eight, both Billy’s and my phones rang.
“Yeah?” I answered, knowing it was Kyle.
“Make sure he signs the paper releasing his rights over my mom.” He sounded angrier than I had ever heard him.
“Okay, then what?” I asked.
“Nothing, just make sure he signs it.” And he hung up.
I looked over at Billy, who was hanging up too. “Okay then, seems we’re almost done here.”
“You need to sign that paper,” I reminded him.
“I know, I know, man. Let’s get this over with.”
We walked in and the security guard sighed and stood up. “Help you gentlemen?”
“Yeah, I need to sign some papers,” Billy said like he was a businessman instead of a crack addict talking to a secretary.
“Let me call Mr. Childs,” the guard replied. He picked up the phone.
“How much is he giving you?” I asked, hating that Kyle had to give in to this fuck.
Billy flashed a nasty, yellow-toothed smile at me as the guard hung up. “He’s on his way down.”
It was pretty obvious we were to wait in the lobby and not cause a scene.
Childs walked out of the elevator, looking like he’d gotten no sleep last night either. “Mr. Stilleno, I was informed there is going to be a motion made this morning on behalf of Kyle Stilleno and Linda Stilleno, challenging your rights related to Ms. Stilleno’s care.”
“Don’t need it,” Billy said. “I’m here to sign away my rights. Kyle can call the shots now.”
Childs couldn’t have looked more shocked if Billy had pissed on him. “Once you sign the waiver, you have no legal right to say word one about her condition.”
“Yeah, yeah, give me the paper and I’m outta here.”
“Wait here,” Childs ordered eagerly.
Another five minutes passed and Childs returned, followed by a woman in an expensive-looking suit. She walked up to Billy and said in a clipped, no-nonsense tone, “Mr. Stilleno, by signing this you are effectively surrendering your legal right to have any opinion whatsoever in regard to your wife’s medical procedures. If that is the case, all such decisions will be made by her son, Kyle. Do you understand?”
“I know that,” Billy snapped.
“Be that as it may, I want to make it crystal clear. Further, Mr. Childs, Mr. Parker, security guard Drake, and the head of hospital finances will sign as witnesses. The document will be notarized in your presence by Mr. Childs’s secretary. You will remain until the signatures are complete and notarized. A copy will be placed in public record, you will take a copy with you, and Hospital Records will retain the original.”
“You’re the lawyer, huh?” Billy asked with a lewd smile.
As cold as a glacier, she stared at Billy until he looked away.
“I got it. Give it to me already.”
She handed him a clipboard and he scribbled his name on the bottom line.
“Initial here,” she said when he tried to hand it back to her. “And there.”
He repeated the signatures on the three other original copies. Everyone signed as witnesses, and a quiet woman carrying an old-fashioned notary’s seal sat at the security guard’s desk to properly notarize the documents. By the time everything was done, Billy looked about ready to chew paper himself.
“Mr. Stilleno, your copy. Since you have caused several severe disturbances while on these premises, and since you have no valid reason to be here, please leave at once or prepare to be escorted out.” Never once did her tone change, and I realized something. Although she seemed to be looking at Stilleno, she was, in fact, looking straight through him as if he didn’t exist.
“Fuck it,” Billy laughed. “I don’t want to be here anyways.” He looked at me. “Well, there you go, jocko. Tell your boy it’s done.” With that he walked out of the hospital.
I called Kyle. He didn’t even say hello. “Did he do it?”
“Just watched him with my own eyes.”
“I just pulled into the parking lot. I might need some help.”
That didn’t sound good. “I’ll meet you outside.”
When I walked out, Billy was standing to the side of the walk, calling someone.
Kyle came running up. He had a grin on his face. A grin like a big cat that’s just eaten… which was no grin at all.
“Help with what?” I asked him.
“This might get physical,” he said under his breath as he watched Billy.
“What did you do?” I asked as Billy saw Kyle.
“Hey! Where’s Troy?” Billy shouted.
Kyle looked up like he was thinking about it. “I don’t know; he’s not here?”
Billy growled and took a step toward Kyle. “Where’s my money?”
“I gave it to Troy,” Kyle said, sounding as innocent as he could. “Why?”
Billy opened his phone and dialed again.
There was a muffled ringing from Kyle’s rear pocket.
“Oh yeah,” Kyle said, pulling out a phone. “Troy wanted me to give this to you.”
“Where is my son?” Billy asked, snatching the phone.
“I don’t know,” Kyle said, his whole demeanor turning serious. “I mean, he wouldn’t take the money and just run, right?” I saw Billy’s face go pale. “I mean, where would he learn such deplorable behavior as to say “fuck it” to family and just think of himself? Where in the whole wide world would he learn that from? Huh, Billy?”
“He wouldn’t,” Billy choked out.
Kyle shrugged. “Maybe he would. Maybe he heard that you were ready to leave him with those creeps as collateral and figured it was every man for himself. Maybe he got sick of you blaming him for being a drug addict when he isn’t. Or maybe he was sick of your shit and left.”
“You can’t do this,” Billy protested.
“I didn’t do anything. I gave Troy the money, just like we agreed.”
Billy reached out to grab him, and I slapped his hand away. “You little fuck. You can’t do this. I’ll….”
“You’ll what? Threaten not to let them operate on my mom?”
I chuckled as I realized Billy was fucked.
“You better start running, Billy,” I said, making sure Kyle was behind me. “Those guys who’re looking for you have to be on their way.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Billy raged as he reached into his hoodie.
Sheriff Taylor’s voice boomed from across the street. “Take your hand out of your pocket or I will open fire.”
The sheriff and two deputies huddled behind an unmarked car. Their guns were drawn.
“Yeah. I might have called the cops and told them we were meeting,” Kyle said. “I mean, you never know who you can trust.”
Billy slowly took his hand out of his hoodie and raised his hands even before the cops ran across the street.
“You come into my town and threaten my family?” Kyle said in a low growl. “You really thought that was how it was going to go down?” I saw Billy blink twic
e, as if he was seeing his son for the first time. “Want to know the fucked-up part? All you had to do was ask. Be a human being and ask for my help and I might have done it. But instead you wanted it this way, so congratulations.”
“On what?” Billy asked as the cops got closer.
“On losing both of your sons in the same day.”
“Billy, what’s in your pocket?” Sheriff Taylor asked in a casual tone.
Billy sighed. “A pistol.”
The two deputies moved like they were blurs. One grabbed Billy’s arms and yanked them behind him to cuff him, and the second pulled the same gun he had drawn on me out of his hoodie.
“Loaded,” the second deputy told the sheriff.
“Tell me you have a permit.”
Billy said nothing.
“You’re under arrest.”
“Big mistake, you little fag,” Billy snarled at Kyle.
“You don’t know this, but I just did you a favor,” Kyle said without an ounce of fear in his voice. “The guys who are looking for you, they can’t get you while you’re in lockup. So pray they keep you locked up for a long time.”
Billy said nothing as the cops dragged him away.
The sheriff looked at Kyle. “You okay?”
Kyle nodded. “I am now. I need to go in there and tell them to operate on my mom.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” the sheriff said with a smile.
Kyle ran into the hospital while we watched.
“That kid really is going to take over the world, isn’t he?” he asked me once Kyle was gone.
“Oh yeah, big time,” I agreed.
Troy
AS THE cops put my dad in the back of the car, I felt a twinge of guilt hit me.
I’m not gonna lie, my first instinct was to run out there and do something. But before I could, Kyle’s words from that morning came back to me and I paused.
“So let me ask you this. If you could do anything with your life right now, what would it be?”
I had a feeling my answer wasn’t the words he’d been expecting. “What does it matter? What you want to do is always trumped by what you have to do.”
There was sadness in his eyes, and for some reason it didn’t look like pity. “Let’s imagine, then. Pretend that you can do anything. What would it be?”
“Look Kyle, no offense, but I’m here to get money. I appreciate the effort, but I hate fairy tales.”
He made a face, no idea why but I really didn’t care. I just stood there outside the bank with him, waiting for him to get this done with.
“Wait here, okay?” he asked.
“Is this a scam? Because I don’t have time for—”
He held his hands up. “Trust me, just wait here. I’ll be right back.”
I watched him go up to the teller and hand her a slip. For all I knew, it said he was being robbed and to call the police. A couple walked by and gave me a look, no doubt horrified that their perfect little town had been invaded by a hoodlum.
Kyle came out with an envelope in his hand.
“There’s five thousand dollars in here,” he said, not handing it to me.
I cocked my head. “My dad needs a lot more than that.”
“I know, so I’m going to leave it up to you,” he said. “You can take this money.” He handed me the envelope. “And just go. Get in your car and drive away and start a new life somewhere. Get a GED, join the Army, anything you want.” I opened my mouth but he stopped me. “You need more? I’ll go back in and get it. But that money is yours.”
“What do I have to do?” I asked skeptically.
“Nothing. Just leave. Your dad is going to end up in a bad place, and if you continue to stick by him, you’ll end up there too. I’m giving you an out right now.”
“You want me to just abandon my dad?”
“Do you have a drug problem?” he asked. I had to look shocked, because he added, “Are you the one with the drug problem and the reason he needs money? Because you know that’s the excuse he told Childs. Do you have a drug problem, Troy?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. So, then, how long you going to stand by a guy who will sell you out every chance he can get?”
“Your mom never used you as an excuse?”
“My mom never used me as a reason or an excuse while she was holding someone’s well-being over their head. He’s a bad man, Troy. I know he’s your dad, but he is bad. This is your chance.”
My eyes stung. “To do what? I have nowhere to go, no family, no nothing.”
He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “Well, you have a brother. You have a car and you have five thousand dollars. You need anything else, call me.”
He was serious; this guy who had known me all of two days was giving me five grand and an exit strategy. And, yes, I know what an exit strategy is.
“I mean it. You don’t have to do this alone. And you don’t have to do it with him.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s going to go to jail, and if he’s lucky it’ll be for a long time. Long enough so the people who are looking for him will realize that there is nothing gained from hunting him anymore. See, Troy, you’re going to be alone no matter what goes down. The difference is, you can be gone and not have to deal with any of your dad’s crap. The choice is yours.”
And I did make a choice.
I rolled up the window and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. No one saw me, no one missed me, and that was good. I had a life to figure out. And who knows… maybe I’d get used to having a brother out there who really cared about me.
Life was full of possibilities.
Part Four:
Jean Grey, Love, and Disco
Name three things that will always come back no matter how many times you think they’re dead.
Kyle
“SO LET’S talk.”
I was standing in front of Brad’s house at the crack of dawn. He was staring at me, hair completely jacked, sleep still in his eyes, wearing a pair of green sweatpants and nothing else.
It was a sight to behold.
“Really?” He yawned. “You couldn’t wait until… I don’t know, morning?”
“It’s morning,” I said, holding out a Red Bull because he hated coffee.
“It’s morning somewhere, I agree,” he said, popping the top open and downing it in one gulp. “Let me change. I’ll be right back.”
“Can I come in?” I asked, sounding like a beggar from a Dickens novel.
“I’ll be quick,” he said and closed the door.
I already didn’t like where this was going.
About ten minutes later, he came out in jeans and his old letterman’s jacket. I realized he must have left all his stuff back in California. “Where’s your car and stuff?” I asked.
“Well, all my stuff was already packed,” he said as calmly as if he was talking about the weather. It still hurt me to hear it. “We put my car in long-term parking. I’ll figure things out in a few.”
“You could come back to California with me and you wouldn’t need to figure anything out.” I gave him a smile.
He didn’t return it.
“Look, Kyle, I’m not going back to California.”
“Why?”
He looked at me in disbelief. “Because there’s nothing for me there.”
“There’s me,” I offered and instantly knew it was the wrong choice.
“I’m not getting back together with you either.”
“You don’t love me anymore?” Every word I said hurt like pulling a tooth out of my skull with a pair of pliers.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign he was frustrated. “Of course I love you, Kyle, but that isn’t what this is about.”
Him admitting he still loved me was the tiny ember of warmth in an otherwise cold, cold place in my life.
“Then what’s it about? Explain it to me.”
“This doesn’t bother you?” he
asked suddenly.
“Us not being together? Of course it bothers me.”
“No, the fact that we broke up. Again. This is tiring, Kyle. I mean, we’re a fucking Taylor Swift song on repeat, and I can’t do it anymore.”
“It won’t happen again! I swear it won’t!” I pleaded with him.
“You say that now, but what happens the next time you think we aren’t going to work out? Or that you think I’m going to leave you? Or that I have a friend who you think is better-looking than you? You’re fine now and you want to get back together, but then you end up snapping and I’m the one who pays. Every time, I have a ring thrown at my head or I’m kicked out and forced to find another place to live. I can’t do it. I can’t keep doing this when you don’t have faith in us.”
I was wrong: this was like getting your teeth pulled out with pliers.
“This is the same fight we’ve been having since the night I dropped you off,” he said. “Where I stand very still and try to convince you I love you, and you think this is insane and isn’t going to last. This is the same fight we had that night at the lake. The same fight we had in the parking lot. And I’m sorry, Kyle. I can’t do it anymore.”
People say I’m smart, which isn’t true. I don’t think I’m smart at all. What I have is a quicker processor than most people. Time moves differently in my head, which means what sounds like a brilliant comeback off the top of my head is really me mulling it over for five or six Kyle seconds and then saying the best thing I can think of. To the outside world it appears I’m clever; the truth is I’m as stupid as they come. It’s times like this that I’m reminded of it in a big, bad way.
Brad was right, of course. We have been having the same fucking fight since he dropped me off and I told him he didn’t have to talk to me at school. Then we’d make up, but not really. All we’ve done with kisses and hugs and finally sex is try to cover up the fact that the way we are isn’t working. This entire time it had been my fault, and I had no idea.
See? Pretty stupid.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a few seconds. “I’ll leave you alone.”
He looked like he was going to say something to stop me, but he didn’t and I probably wouldn’t have stopped anyway. I got in my rental car and drove away, knowing I was leaving the best part of my life behind me.
