………………………………….One Way or the Other

I stood near the door and thought of something my mother always said, "More than you bargained for," and I've found this consistently to be true. Everything is more than I expect it to be. I remember scanning the papers, looking for a case. I never dreamed it would bring me here.

Dallas had gone over to the mattress Johnny sat on and sat down next to him. I felt like maybe I shouldn't be here, that I'd come in on the third act of these boys' lives. Who was I to them? Just a lawyer. But I couldn't look away.

Johnny and Dally were so different. Dallas' long blond hair fell toward his eyes. Johnny's short black hair lay flat except for the slight cowlick he had toward the front. Johnny was small, and his weeks of not eating enough and the suicide attempt made him look smaller still. Dallas was sharp, his eyes darting, almost cunning. Johnny was depressed, suicidal, and drugged.

"Johnny, what the hell happened?" From the almost tender way Dallas was looking at him I was surprised at the question, his rough tone.

With effort Johnny jerked his gaze to Dallas' face. The bandages on one wrist had loosened and I could see the stitches.

"Aw, Dal, I hate it here!" I was surprised at the vehemence in Johnny's voice, but I supposed it was better than the flat, expressionless way he usually said things. Was this awful place actually helping him?

"Why, Johnny?" Dallas said, not as rough as before but nowhere near gentle, as I would have asked him.

Now Johnny's eyes slid to the side and he took a deep ragged breath.

"Because! Because I have to go to groups and I have to talk to some lady about my stupid parents and the, the," there was a hitch in his voice, like he was fighting off tears, "the soc I killed, and why, they ask me why…" He put his head down on his arm, and his hair looked jet black next to the white bandage.

Dallas looked up at me then with alarm, and I saw he was scared, too. The roughness and the confidence…it was an act. I held my hands out, palms up, and looked at him with wide eyes. 'I don't know,' I mouthed the words.

Johnny was sobbing, his whole body wracked with it, and I tried to remember if I'd seen him cry before. Had I? When he first told me about killing Robert, or about his parents, had he cried? I couldn't remember.

He looked up, eyes red, breathing hard.

"What else, Johnny?" Dallas said, just short of sharp. Dallas' tone seemed to suggest he'd had enough of the bullshit.

"It's, it's this medicine, whatever it is, I can't think right, I can't move right. I hate it! I don't want it, and when I say no they, they just…they make me take it anyway,"

Johnny's head was tilted down and Dallas stared at the top of his head. I felt all but invisible.

"So is that why you're in this room? What happened?" Dallas said, and lifted Johnny's chin up so he'd look at him. The way I'd wanted to do so many times with him.

"Yeah. Just when I start to feel a little…clearer…they come around with those fucking pills, man. I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't gonna take that shit no matter what. So I fought 'em but they, there's just so many of them and they tied me to the bed and shot that shit into me…long fucking needle…" His eyes drifted from Dallas' face, and I could tell he was seeing that needle.

"I kicked one of 'em, or something. If you do that you gotta come to this room,"

He'd calmed down a bit, wasn't crying anymore. I didn't know, it seemed to me he hadn't been all that clear when he sliced through his wrists. Seemed to me that he wasn't in the best position to judge what he needed.

But then, I didn't think they should be traumatizing him by tying him down and injecting him with the medication he refused.

He picked at the taped edges of the bandages. Dallas scratched his nails along the plastic surface of the mattress.

"Look, Johnny…" Dallas started, glancing at me, then back at his friend.

"Johnny, you gotta get outa here. You can't, you can't keep fighting them. Take the meds, talk to whoever they want you to talk to. Tell 'em you're better, or feel better, whatever, so they'll let you go,"

"You don't understand, Dal…"

"Johnny!" Now Dallas' tone was frightening, sharp. Both Johnny and I snapped to attention.

"Cut the fucking crap, Johnny! I do understand. I've been in jail before. It sucks. You can't do what you wanta do. I know about that. But you're never gonna leave here until you start doing what they want you to. Then the trial can start again, and this thing'll be ended. It'll be done,"

Johnny breathed deeply and looked almost resigned to doing what Dallas said to do.

And I realized, as Dallas and I slowly made our way out of the hospital, that Dallas hadn't told Johnny how this thing would end.

He just said it would be done, and I guessed it would be. If Johnny could pull himself together enough to leave this place, I guess it would end. One way or the other.