……………………………..One Step Back

I'd taken to visiting Johnny twice a week, once with his friends and once by myself. I felt almost guilty, visiting him alone. But he'd sit and talk to me, his voice soft, and sometimes he'd smile a little. I couldn't believe Dallas had got through to him.

It's funny how quick you get accustomed to things. I hadn't realized how I'd gotten used to the improvement in Johnny until one day I visited and it wasn't there.

I shouldn't have been that surprised. I had talked to the nurses and psychiatrists at that hospital before, and they said to expect setbacks.

"With someone like Johnny," a middle aged salt and pepper haired nurse said, "someone who's so depressed and so young, it's going to be two steps forward and one step back,"

I was visiting alone and he was sad, I could tell. He barely spoke, mumbled softly when he did speak. It broke my heart, no matter what that nurse said.

"Johnny," I lifted his chin like Dallas had. He looked at me, hurt and angry.

"What's the matter?" I didn't think he'd tell me. He never had before. He turned his head and bit his nail, his index finger.

"My old man came to see me," He said it in a shockingly calm voice.

"Your dad came here? Really?"

Johnny's dad was almost a mythical dark figure. I'd never seen him. I doubted if many of his friends had. Though hadn't Ponyboy told me once of seeing Johnny whipped with a two by four? Or had Dallas told me?

Johnny was still chewing on his nail, his eyes kind of glazed, from the medication or remembering, it was hard to say.

"It's kinda funny," Johnny said, "how awful he can make me feel without even hitting me,"

………………………..Revisiting Ms. Johnson

He'd be okay, I thought as I steered the car out of the parking lot, straight into the setting sun. He'd seemed down, a bit upset, but nowhere near as bad as I've seen him. And he'd always have to deal with his parents, in body or spirit. His parents, and the abuse, would never fully go away.

I wondered why his parents treated him that way. A boy so obviously in need of love and affection. I mean, I didn't get it. It started bugging me so much that I called Ms. Johnson, ostentatiously to have a drink, but I planned to pick her brain. She'd be meeting me at the Curtis house, where I'd been going for supper lately.

I guess I'd been lonely, no company anywhere but with these teenagers. Although Darry wasn't a teenager, he was 20. And he came home looking like he'd worked harder than I'll ever work.

"Is it a date?" Soda said, winking. Ponyboy chuckled. Darry cleared the table but smiled ever so slightly.

"No. She's a colleague. It's kind of like a business meeting,"

"I'm sure," Soda said, falling into Ponyboy. They both laughed. Then she knocked on the door.

"She has good timing," Darry said, and Soda and Ponyboy suppressed giggles. I opened the door.

"Hello," she said, so dignified and serious, dressed in a suit skirt similar to what I'd seen her wear before.

"Hi," I introduced her to the boys and they were polite, but looked at me knowingly when she wasn't looking.

"Let's go,"

We went to a bar, and I found out her first name was Jennifer, and she'd taken to calling me D.K.

"I saw you on the news," she said, and the bullet wound gave a little throb. She raised the wine glass to her lips and sipped on the pale gold liquid.

"Oh yeah?" Her and all of Oklahoma saw me on T.V.

"I thought you were dead," she said it calm but a little twinkle in her eyes lead me to believe she was glad I wasn't.

I sipped my bourbon on the rocks, clinking the ice cubes together. The drinks were hitting me fast, I hadn't been drinking much since the accident.

"Did it hurt?" she said, and I felt almost like one of her specimens.

"No, not much," I finished off my drink, felt it burning in my stomach and into my bloodstream.

"I visited Johnny today," I said, and eyed the waitress. She had yellow hair and a tiny waist. I hoped she'd remember us.

"Oh yeah? I'd heard he attempted suicide," Again calm, just a touch of pity to her voice and eyes. Nothing shocked this woman.

"Yeah, he did," I nearly shuddered, thinking of the stitches on his wrists, how he was tied down and injected with the medication he kept refusing.

"How is he?" She looked at me carefully.

"He's, well, he seemed to be getting better but his father came to see him today,"

She nodded, sipped her drink, little tiny sips like a humming bird at a fountain.

"Why do you suppose his parents, um, act that way?"

She rolled her eyes up like she was scanning her brain for the answers, the reasons. I clinked the ice in my glass and sipped on the tiny bit of bourbon left, it was mostly water.

"Well, abuse like that, it runs in families. One or possibly both of his parents were abused as children. I'm sure his father was, most likely one of Johnny's grandparents was an alcoholic as well,"

I nodded. It made sense.

"But then, if it happened to them, wouldn't they want to treat their child better? I mean, not put their kid through the same pain they went through?"

She finished off her drink, took her time lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, that's the really sad thing. Adults who were abused as children often want that, they want that more than anything. In a way they can't help it, it's almost a conditioned response,"

It was dark in this bar, as in most, and I felt the rhythmic throb of the wound that meant I'd missed a dose of pain medication. But I did it on purpose so I could drink.

"Johnny will have to be careful," Jennifer said, "he told me he tries not to drink not because he doesn't like it but because he likes it too much. He said drinking makes him feel normal and happy,"

He'd have to be careful, alright. If he survived long enough to have to be careful. I beckoned the waitress over. My mouth was dry, suddenly. I needed another drink.