Chapter 12: Meeting the family
By the time they each pulled up in front of the house, Sam seemed to have got his psycho alter-ego under wraps, and he was back to being the nice, sympathetic young man you wanted to confess all your secrets to. And Bobby was starting to think he'd turned into a girl with a crush.
Bobby unlocked the front door and ushered Sam in. The house, for once, was warm. And the hall light, when Bobby flicked it on, glowed warm and steady. Sam fished something that looked like a walkman with delusions of being a 50s era Caddy out of his duffle bag and flipped it on. There was a high, steady whine and the lights across the top all lit up.
"What the hell is that?"
"EMF meter," answered Sam as he wandered around the first floor. The whine kept up at a steady pitch. "Stands for electromagnetic frequency. Ghosts give off electromagnetic energy-that's why your lights sometimes flicker-so it's a good way to tell that one might be around."
"Jesus. I really am in a scene from the Ghosts Busters," muttered Bobby. Sam just grinned at him, and then peered up the stairs. "Can we go up?"
Bobby waved him on, and followed behind, suddenly remembering Sam's voice saying you're walking down stairs and you suddenly trip, or feel like you were pushed. Stuff like that. If something pushed Sam down the stairs he'd come down right on top of Bobby and they'd both break their necks. The guy was massive.
When Sam got to the top of the stairs, the sound from his gizmo ratcheted up a notch. Bobby came up behind him while Sam was turning a slow circle in the hall. "God dammit to hell," Bobby said softly. Sam's head jerked up to look at him. But Bobby was staring at Jacky's bedroom door. It wasn't just open, it was off its hinges.
"Approach with caution," Sam had said. Bobby felt like he was a zoo keeper trying to get close enough to the tiger to feed it without losing an arm. He and Sam walked slowly towards Jacky's room, Sam's steps light and sure like a boxer's, like he was ready to pivot instantly in any direction, and Bobby's steps hard and angry, as if that wrenched-open door was something he could intimidate into behaving. But nothing happened, and they ended up crowding each other in the empty door frame, looking in.
"I'm guessing this is Jacky's room," said Sam, taking in the rock posters, the band photos, the piles of CDs, the guitar propped up against the bed. "Yeah," said Bobby, a fresh wave of grief washing over him. God it hurt to look at this stuff. Everything that Jacky was…everything he'd made of himself, just ended. Bobby just wanted to close the door and seal it all in, so that things would never, ever change.
Sam stepped into the room for a closer look, his eyes resting on the photos pinned with tacks over the bed: Jerry, Jacky and Angel when Jerry's first little girl had been born. Jacky and Ma at his high school graduation-Jacky was playing air guitar in his cap and gown and the look on Ma's face…god she looked happy, and so, so proud of him. The four of them on the ice with their sticks-Jacky was standing behind Angel pretending he was about to whack him on the head. Bobby, smiling a bloody smile that was missing a couple teeth and holding the league trophy cup. Bobby, sprawled on the couch and flipping the camera the bird. Bobby and Jacky, arms around each other's shoulders and laughing at each other-faces so close that if you didn't know they were brothers, you might think they were something else altogether.
Sam's eyes lingered on that photo, and on the photo with Ma. "Would you say you and Jacky were close?" he asked. Bobby glared. "I mean," he tried to explain, "I can tell you guys are all real close. But was it especially true of you and Jacky? Like if there was something wrong was it you that would notice first? Was it you Jacky would come to first?"
Bobby sat down on the bed, causing a small puff of dust to float up into the air. Sam sat down next to him, still looking at all the photos. "It was kind of like that," Bobby said.
"It's just…," he went on. "we were the lost causes. All of us. The kids no one wanted. Ma had a rep for being able to place kids from the system into permanent homes, but no one would touch any of us." Bobby sneered. "We were all too fucked up, in too much trouble too much of the time. Damaged goods."
"But Ma, she wouldn't let us go back in the system. She kept us." Bobby pointed at the photo of the four of them. "Jeremiah's dad was some kind of religious wacko. Believed in scourging." Sam's face darkened. "You know, Jerry refused to set foot in a church until the day he got married. One of his foster families tried to make him go to mass and Jerry set fire to the church the night before just so he wouldn't have to go there the next morning. And Angel," Bobby pointed at the next figure in the picture, "his mom was a crack addict. Angel used to hustle just to feed them both. But he put a knife in a guy that got too rough and ended up in Juvie. He used to say that was a step up because you could see the assholes coming."
Bobby looked at the photo of him and Jacky. "Jacky's mom was a drug addict too, didn't mind selling out her baby boy for a fix." He looked up at Sam's solemn face. "We don't know for how long it went on before CPS got to him, 'cause Jacky wouldn't ever say. But Jacky came to us when he was twelve, so you do the math."
"God in heaven," muttered Sam.
"I don't think so," said Bobby.
"So what made you two so close?"
"Let's just say, I knew where he was coming from," said Bobby levelly. His own step father had either been drunk or horny. If he was drunk he punched. If he was horny he fucked. "When I was old enough to fight back, I took a crowbar and put my step dad in the hospital," Bobby told Sam, smiling with vicious satisfaction. "He's in a wheelchair now. Nothing works from the waist on down. He shits into a bag."
-##-
Bobby was watching Dean, just like he'd watched Sam, as he talked. Back then, Sam's eyes had been dark and angry, but all he'd said was "Jeez. Ghosts and demons I get, but people are just crazy." It had freaked Bobby out a bit…the fact that he couldn't freak Sam out. Now he knew a bit more, so he wasn't surprised when Dean - eyes the same kind of dark as his brother's - just shook his head and said "Christ. Ghosts and demons I get, but people are just crazy."
"Amen to that," said Bobby.
-##-
"When Jacky came Ma told me to look out for him," Bobby went on. "And he kind of became my responsibility. I taught him the ropes, you know? How to play basketball and hockey. Got him his first pair of skates. Taught him how to fight dirty. Taught him what to do with a girl. Covered for him when he got drunk, showed him where to hide his pot. I'd dropped out of school by then but I used to hang around the yards and watch out for him…made it clear that anyone who laid a finger on Jacky would get it broken. Warned the pushers off from selling him the hard stuff. Stuff like that."
"And you helped with the nightmares," Sam guessed. Bobby just shrugged. "Jacky felt safe with me. For long time we shared a room because Jacky couldn't sleep unless I was between him and the door."
-##-
Bobby looked across the table at Dean, who was staring at him with a fixed expression. "Sam didn't say anything after that, not for awhile. I guess I hit a little too close to home."
"I guess you did," he answered.
-##-
Eventually Sam seemed to shake himself out of the reverie he'd fallen into listening to Bobby talk about his brothers. "Why were you keeping the door locked?" he finally asked. Bobby shifted uncomfortably like he didn't want to answer, knocking his knee into the guitar, making a discordant note. "I told Angel and Sophie it was because I hadn't had a chance yet to pack up his things," he said. "But they knew I was lying. I just couldn't stand to see all this. Every time I come in here it hurts all over again like the day he died." He turned to face Sam with a fierce expression. "It was my fault. I didn't look out for him. I dropped the fucking ball."
"You didn't shoot him," Sam pointed out.
"I didn't stop him from getting shot," Bobby said. Sam didn't have an answer for that.