by Amy Lane
Joy exploded behind their eyes like stars.
THEY WERE exhausted when they got back to Reg’s house, though, and grateful that Rick and Skylar were ready to take off for the flophouse, where they could, in Rick’s words, actually look at each other without hearing the F word.
That sobered them both, and Bobby could see Reg’s neck droop as they turned the lights off and went to Reg’s room.
“She’s going to have to go back in,” Reg murmured. “I don’t know how—I mean, she’s not good enough right now to put her in the good place, or even to agree to go. I….”
Bobby pulled his back flush with Bobby’s front and dropped a kiss on top of his head. “Maybe call a social worker?” he said softly. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Reg sighed. They took separate showers a few minutes later, but for that moment, Bobby didn’t want to let him go.
They fell asleep quickly, in boxer shorts and nothing else because it was hot. They were tired and distracted, and Bobby forgot his resolution to sleep with one eye open.
He didn’t wake up in time.
One minute he was fast asleep, and the next minute he was sitting up in bed, watching as V swung a shovel at her brother’s head.
Bobby lunged, throwing himself on top of Reg as the blow fell, taking it on the back of his shoulder. He screamed and continued to roll, coming to his feet and standing in front of Reg with his arms out, warding off V and the wild swings from the shovel.
“What are you faggots doing in my house?”
Oh Jesus.
“Reg! Reg, grab the phone and call the police! We need some fucking help!”
She swung again, sideways, and the shovel, dirt encrusted and sharp, ripped a slice across his stomach, even as he tried to wrench it out of her hands. Behind him he heard Reg scrambling for the phone, and he clenched his scream inside.
“Did you get this out of my truck?” he asked, trying to dodge, trying to protect Reg, trying not to hurt V all at the same time.
“Shut up! Shut up! All the fucking people, screaming at me all the fucking time!”
Oh Jesus. Jesus, she almost caved his skull in with that last one. His ribs were on fire, and his arm ached from one of her first blows, and he was running out of room. With a concerted effort, he woke up and timed his grab with her thrust, yanked the shovel out of her hands, and handed it backward to Reg to guard.
She screamed—and then, oh holy God, reached for the knife tucked into the waistband of her pajama bottoms, and Bobby swore. He’d never even seen that knife. Where the hell had it come from? He grabbed at the bed, coming up with a throw from the top, which he whirled around his arm and used as a shield.
She got through once, twice, but Bobby knew he was bigger, knew he was stronger, and the second time the knife ripped through the sheet around his arm, he yanked it out of her hand, and then, hating himself, he backhanded her, cracking her across the face, and throwing her into the far wall.
As he straddled her, held her hands behind her ass, put her in a three-point restraint, he could hear her sobbing, hear her curse the strangers in her house…
Hear her call for Reggie, her little brother, because he disappeared in the night.
In the distance sirens blared, and behind him Reg fell to his knees, phone still in his hands, and cried.
“Bobby,” he said, sounding young. “I’m bleeding.”
Bobby turned toward him in horror, seeing the dirt on the side of his head, the blood in his hair from where the first blow, the blow Bobby had slept through, had landed, just as Bobby had sat up in bed.
“Oh God,” he whispered. He couldn’t get up, couldn’t risk that he’d let her up, let her hurt him again. “Come here, Reg. Come here and lean on me. They’ll be here in a minute. Just one more minute. One more.”
Reg leaned up against him, his back to Bobby’s sore side, and that’s where they were as the cops broke in, guns drawn, and both of them had to lift their hands over their heads.
They obeyed slowly, and as the police helped V up, asking her if the two of them had hurt her, Reg toppled sideways in a dead faint, and the ambulance arrived soon after.
THE COPS wouldn’t let him alone.
One of them hopped in the ambulance with him and Reg and battered the two of them with questions while the medics worked until Reg started to cry.
“Make him stop, Bobby. Make him stop. My head hurts, and she was so still, and calling my name. Make him stop, Bobby, please!”
“But sir, we don’t understand—”
“She’s mentally ill!” Bobby snarled. “She’s mentally ill, and we got her from the adult care home a month ago because she stopped taking her meds, and she stopped taking them again and lost her shit. Can you just leave us alone!”
“What we don’t understand, Mr. Roberts, is what you were doing there.”
“He’s my boyfriend—do you need me to draw you a picture?”
“So, you two were engaged in….” The cop was middle-aged and worn, white with a sort of permanent sneer on his jowls.
“Young folks call it sleeping, sir,” Bobby snapped. “You may have heard of it.”
“That residence is not the one you gave the officer on the site,” the guy said, relentless.
“I haven’t moved in yet,” Bobby told him, feeling like this was too private for words. “Veronica obviously doesn’t like me.”
Reg started to cry some more, and Bobby nudged the paramedic aside as the ambulance jounced down the road. “Sorry,” he whispered, looking at the bruising on Reg’s face and hating himself for falling asleep. “I didn’t wake up in time. I thought I did. I thought I stopped her. I didn’t realize she got you first.”
“Hurts, Bobby,” Reg said. “I’m so weak. It hurts.”
“You’re not weak, baby. You called the cops. You were hurt and bleeding and you called the cops.”
“She got you,” Reg moaned. “She got you too.”
The medics had already wrapped Bobby’s arm on scene and tried to tend his stomach. They’d managed to irrigate it but told him they’d need to wash it more thoroughly before stitching it.
“Yeah, but we’re both tough. We’re both tough, okay?”
“Yeah, you looked pretty fucking tough when you were sitting on a helpless woman,” the cop snarled, and Bobby lost his temper.
“She almost killed us!”
“Okay, okay—but if you think I’m bad, wait until the social workers get hold of you. And don’t think I don’t want to help them out. You two, carrying on when a respectable woman lived under the same roof. Fucking perverts.”
Bobby stared at him, realizing that here was the hatred he’d feared his whole life in Dogpatch, smacking him in the face when he’d least expected it in Sacramento—and he didn’t care.
“I’m not talking to you anymore,” he decided coldly, turning his shoulder away from the cop. He’d managed to snag his cell phone and a pair of jeans on the way out of the house. “Reg, baby, hold on. I’m gonna call Dex. He’s got that lawyer guy. We need some fucking help.”
Reg nodded sadly. “Where’s my sister? Do you know?”
“We took her to booking,” the cop said. “You assholes said she tried to kill you.”
“Oh Jesus.” Bobby closed his eyes. “Mentally fucking ill. She needs the psych ward and restraints. Get her out of jail, you asshole. Fuck. Just fuck.” He pulled out his phone and dialed Dex’s number. “Dex?” he said weakly into the phone. “Dex? Yeah. Bobby. No, the gig went fine but….” He grabbed Reg’s hand and clung. “We need some fucking help.”
THE COP kept up, relentless, in the ambulance, in the hospital. A social worker arrived—nobody Bobby knew—while Reg was being triaged in a curtained chamber. A nurse was injecting Bobby’s wound with lidocaine, and Bobby’s world became a whirlwind of questions, of insinuations, of accusations, while Bobby listened to people ordering tests for Reg and tried not to whine like a baby about his own hurts.
“So you just woke up and she
was beating you with a shovel?” the cop said for the umpteenth time.
“How is it Mr. Williams got care of his sister?” the social worker asked.
“Yes—she got it from my truck. I was landscaping. And their mom left when he was a kid. V sort of tricked him into signing her conservatorship papers.”
“She tricked him?” The social worker was an older woman, looked like she’d seen the wars. Well, if this was her job, Bobby imagined her whole life felt like a war.
“He was sixteen! She told him that hospitals were real shitholes, and he loved her, so he faked their mom’s signature to say he was taking care of her.”
“But he’s not sixteen anymore,” the cop said. “He knows better now!”
“Have you been there?” Bobby snarled. “’Cause we were. We went to the shitty one to the better one to the better one, and I gotta tell you, they don’t seem all that awesome to me!”
“No, they’re not nice places,” the social worker soothed, but she had a sarcastic edge too, like what did he expect? “So your friend, he’s been trying to keep his sister out of them. Do you have any proof she’s been skipping her meds?”
“Yeah—we figured last week. We’ve been forcing her to take them—”
“Forcing?” the cop sneered. “’Cause I’d want to hit you with a shovel too!”
“I wanna hit you with a fucking shovel right now, and I haven’t had so much as an aspirin! Fucking ouch!”
“Sorry,” the nurse apologized. “I’ll go get you some painkillers when we’re done here.”
“Answer the question, junior. What’s it look like, this ‘forcing’ her to take her medication?”
To his relief, the social worker came to his rescue. “Exactly what you think it looks like, Officer. The only difference was her brother and his friend holding her down and keeping her calm instead of a bunch of strangers with handcuffs and a straightjacket and a needle full of Demerol. Managing the severely mentally ill isn’t for the weak.”
Bobby wasn’t expecting tears to start, but that did it. “Reg tries so hard,” he said.
“Yeah?” the cop came back in his face. “Your little buddy tries hard? That’s pretty fuckin’ weak, considering from what I can see he’s a retard who can’t keep his dick in his pants!”
Later, Bobby would think back to that moment, to his kneejerk reaction, wondering if he gave the cop the opening he needed. But then, all he knew was that his vision went red, like it had when he’d backed off with Trey, when he’d been hitting Keith. Except this time he was in pain, and panicked, and angry, and this guy had just used the biggest, scariest word in Reg’s world.
“He is not retarded!”
Bobby didn’t make the conscious decision toward violence, but it took two cops and a three-point restraint to pin him to the ground.
“Nice!” the cop howled in his face when they’d jerked him up. “Nice! We got you on assaulting an officer! Do you feel like a big man now, not jumping on a hundred-pound woman?”
“She’s dangerous!” Bobby sobbed desperately. “She’s sick. And he can’t do it. He wants to do it—he’s worked his whole life to take care of her, but he can’t. It’s killing him! And it’s killing me. I don’t care what you think of me, but don’t let her go home with him again.” He caught his breath, aware he was crying and shouting and—oh fuck—Reg was right on the other side of the curtain. “She’ll kill him,” he whispered, pressing his face against the floor. “She’ll kill him without me. She’s killing him slow as it is.”
The social worker crouched in front of him, sudden compassion on her face, but Bobby didn’t care. She was the enemy.
“Are you saying he’s incapable?” she asked, her voice loud in the sudden silence. “Are you saying your friend is too impaired to offer good care?”
He knew what she was asking. “He’s smart,” Bobby said, his breath coming in shuddery pants. His open stomach wound stung on the floor. “But she’s so cunning. She’s going to kill him.”
“Honey, this won’t work unless you tell me he’s incapable. Is your friend capable of taking care of his sister?”
He heard it—Reg’s betrayed voice on the other side of the curtain, calling his name just as he said, “No.”
HE DIDN’T remember much after that. They rewashed and stitched up his stomach wound while Reg sobbed and cursed his name, hidden from view. When they were done, the cop yanked him roughly up, and he begged to go see Reg, to talk to him, to explain—but the cop said he needed to be processed for assaulting an officer first.
It didn’t matter.
Bobby heard the final things he was shouting. “Fuck you! I don’t fuckin’ need you! Fuck off, Vern Roberts—your promises mean shit!”
The words rang through his head as he was taken to the local jail, arrested, and processed. They gave him his one phone call before they threw him in the cell, and he paused for a moment, trying to decide.
In the end there was only one person he could think of who would make sure both Reg and Bobby were taken care of.
Dex was coming for Reg. Bobby needed his mom.
SHE CAME to get him in the morning, and for a moment he couldn’t meet her eyes. Then Dex walked in behind her, and he wondered if he could die, right there, melt into the floor.
“Did you see him?” Bobby asked desperately. “Is he okay? They wouldn’t let me see him. They wouldn’t let me talk to him.”
Dex nodded, looking tired. “He’s got a major concussion and some stitches.” He grimaced. “He was pissed at you, so I told him he’d have to do his observation time in the hospital.”
Bobby groaned. “I… they asked me if he was capable,” he said, the shame biting him deep. “It was yes or no. And all I could think was—”
“Nobody was capable,” his mom filled in for him. Her hands fluttered at his shoulders. “Honey, you don’t even have a shirt on.”
“She attacked us in our sleep,” he said. He looked at Dex, begging for forgiveness. “Nobody could take care of her—not one person or two. We needed help, and he wouldn’t ask for it, and I could either….”
The holding cell had been quiet. Basic cinder block, six other guys, three of them drunk. Bobby was built like a tank and apparently looked badass. Nobody touched him.
But nobody talked to him either.
Now he realized it was a good thing he hadn’t talked. One word about what he was talking about and he’d be dead, because his voice would break, and he would have been crying in the jail cell like he wanted to cry in his mother’s arms.
“You could tell them the truth or send him home with his sister like a time bomb,” Dex said on a sigh. “I get it. What I don’t get is where assaulting a police officer comes in.”
They were walking out, down a long hallway, toward daylight. Bobby blinked at the daylight, his eyes feeling sore and sensitive and small.
“He… when they busted in, I was sitting on her, her hands behind her back, my elbow on her shoulder. I… she’s tiny, Dex. It looked like I beat the hell out of her. But the cop wouldn’t listen. He kept trying to get me to say I beat on her. And the social worker was there, asking me if Reg was capable, and the cop called him retarded and—”
Dex grunted. “Yeah. I get it. Not retarded. Your arraignment is in three days. We got you out on bail now, and I’ve got the lawyer working on the particulars. John’s friend in Florida might have a take on it too. He’s sort of a shark. We’ll see what we can do about no jail time, okay?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said, voice rough. “Jail I could do.”
He looked out to see where they were taking him and realized Dex’s truck was parked at one of the meters nearby. Thank God. He was shirtless and bandaged and looking like a thug from a movie. He’d rather get on his knees and give someone a blowjob on the lawn than look like a violent offender released from jail.
But he was going… to his mom’s apartment, he thought mournfully.
Not home. But somewhere safe.
“Thanks,
” he said to Dex as he felt a strong hand on his elbow, helping him up into the back of the cab. Dex helped his mom up too, and Bobby leaned back in the jump seat and wished for death. Sleep. Oblivion.
Anything to drown out Reg’s pitiful voice as Bobby’d been dragged away.
Dex got in and started the truck immediately, pumping cold air into a destructively sweltering June morning. He turned in his seat before putting on his belt.
“Bobby, I know it feels like… like the end of the world right now.”
“Yeah.” Bobby closed his eyes and fought tears again. They’d been lurking, apparently, all night. He only needed some safety to set them free.
“But Reg, he’s got the biggest heart in the world—”
“And I just broke it, Dex,” Bobby said, eyes still closed. “He thinks I think he’s… he’s retarded, and it may be a medical word, but it’s his worst goddamned fear. That he’s not smart enough, strong enough to take care of his sister. And he just heard me tell the world he’s not. Trust me. He’s better off without me, if he thinks I don’t respect him.”
Dex grunted in frustration. “I get that you’re feeling low, okay? But don’t give up. Please? He’s…. John and I worried about Reg a long time. Guys grew up, grew out of Johnnies, and Reg just kept on, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, but I saw the changes. Didn’t know you were a couple until last night, but I saw them.” Bobby grimaced because he sounded damned bitter, but Dex kept talking. “You made him think beyond that. You gave him faith to do that. Don’t… don’t discount that, okay? Just give him time.”
“Sure.” For a moment he hoped Dex’s lawyer would lose in court. That after the arraignment he’d be put in jail for a year, maybe two, and he could spend a year beating the shit out of people—or blowing them—just to stay alive.
He’d never have to think about the thing he’d done, the way the red haze had blown over his eyes and taken his life away.
“I mean it, Bobby,” Dex snapped, and Bobby’s eyes shot open. “Don’t give up. You got a month, you hear me? A month—you and Reg get a month to cool off, and then I fucking intervene. I’m not shitting around here. I got John in a good place, Ethan in a good place, Chase and Tommy are good. Kelsey’s due any minute, but she’s good. All my people, Bobby. You and Reg are the last. I’m not letting you blow this for me. Me and Kane are fucking exhausted, and we need a year of rest.”
