Bad Behavior Chap 17
Fighting for the Future
There was a solemn mood in the Cohen house when Sandy returned home. Everyone knew it was the best outcome they could have hoped for. Ryan was facing a lengthy stay in Juvie until Blaine came to his senses in front of the Judge. Still, the house was quiet again and Ryan was gone, again. The next two weeks would be crucial to Ryan's future and since the Cohens couldn't visit him to see how he was doing, they were at the mercy of Father Time.
Sandy plopped himself down on the couch trying to regroup his thoughts. He kept seeing Ryan's face when he left him at The Ranch. That was one of the hardest things Sandy had ever done, walking away from him when he knew all Ryan wanted was to go home with him. Granted, it's not like he abandoned him. But he knew Ryan didn't trust people and being in a new environment, well, he only hoped Ryan would do what was expected of him.
"Hey, I didn't hear you come in." With some work files in her arms for distraction purposes, she seated herself next to Sandy. "You okay?"
"Yeah sure. I just feel for the kid. He's been through so much lately and, tough guy or not, I know it's getting to him."
"Did he say something to you?"
"He mentioned he doesn't want to go back to Chino." Sandy shook his head. "I never know what to say. I wish I could just tell him everything is fine and he can just stay here with us. But the truth is we don't know that for sure yet."
"Well since you brought it up," Kirsten initiated. "Ryan did ask me to talk to you after he left."
"About his custody case no doubt."
Nodding, "He said he wants you to put him in front of the judge so he can talk to her himself. He said if he doesn't do that and he ends up going back to Chino, he'll have regrets. What could it hurt Sandy? This is his life we're talking about. Wouldn't you want to have a say so if it were you?"
Nodding admittedly, "Yes I would. Okay, we'll let him talk to the Judge. I think I'm going to try to work on a few things myself before he comes home."
"Like what?"
Standing up from the couch, Sandy looked down on Kirsten. "I'm going to go back to Chino and talk to his Mom again."
"Do you really think that's a good idea? She was pretty adamant the last time we were there."
"It's like you said, this is his life we're talking about. I don't know that I can send him back there, if I have to, without knowing I gave it everything I've got."
Back at The Ranch, Ryan knew he was about to be put on display. As soon as Gina disappeared, Ryan's new roommates lost all interest in the football game. Ryan himself had become the new attraction. He expected that to happen, always does when you're the newest one on the cellblock…or in the farmhouse for that matter.
"So ah, I guess we should introduce ourselves. Name's Antonio," the talkative one shared. "On the couch over there you've got Jimmy, Tommy and Marco. That tattooed and pierced mess on the floor with the bad hair is Frankie," he laughed. "You're looking at Dorm 3…we're the Cruisers."
"So Ryan man, what's your specialty?" Marco intruded.
"What do you mean?"
"I did eighteen months in the L.A. Juvie for boosting cars and Jimmy over there put some serious time in at Riverside for joyriding. You do cars?"
Ryan looked from face to face across the room, unsure of just how much he wanted to admit in his first thirty seconds with his new roommates.
"I did two years at East Wills for boosting and working at a chop shop," Frankie added, chuckling. "There was also some hidden weapons and resisting arrest stuff in there. If you're gonna go on the inside, you may as well go big."
"And Tommy over there, he was the only one of us dumb enough to steal a patrol car and pitch it off the Santa Monica pier!" Marco added, laughing hysterically.
"Hey, it was a dare! You understand, don't you Ryan?"
Allowing his eyebrows to go up, "Sure," Ryan agreed, playing along.
"So, have you boosted a car?" Marco pressed.
Nodding finally, "Four actually. I got caught with the last one and did some time in Chino."
"You served time in Chino? Man that's a wicked place."
Ryan nodded again, wishing the conversation would end. "I guess that's why this place seems so strange to me."
"I know what you mean," Tommy added. "Sometimes people don't get why we think it's weird here…but when you come from a place where they yelled at you 24-7, you come here and see Gina's smiling face, you wonder when you entered The Twilight Zone."
"Exactly," Ryan acknowledged.
"Well listen our dorm is pretty tight so you don't have to worry," Antonio offered.
Ryan just looked at him skeptically. "I guess we'll see."
"Sure. But for now," Antonio stood up and extended his hand to Ryan. "Congratulations, you're a Cruiser."
Shaking his hand, Ryan forced a small smile. He didn't want to be a Cruiser, he just wanted to be left alone so he could put in his time and go the hell home. Feeling like he'd had enough bonding for the time being, Ryan used his unpacked suitcase as an excuse and made a quick exit back to his room.
It didn't take long at all before all his roommates appeared in the dorm. Ryan had to remind himself that they all shared a room and privacy for the next two weeks would be out of the question. Pulling his new jeans out, he shoved them in one of his drawers. As quickly as possible he relocated his socks and underwear to the bottom drawer. He wasn't in the mood for underwear jokes. Removing his toiletries bag from the suitcase revealed a large yellow envelope. Frowning at it, Ryan picked it up and opened it.
"Ryan, you get mail already?" Frankie inquired, noticing the envelope in his hands.
"No, this was in my suitcase. My foster Mom packed everything for me because I was in Juvie. She must have put this in there."
"Well open it man!" Frankie cheered on. "Let's see what she gave you."
Without any prompting, the rest of the Cruisers crowded around to get a look as well. The close quarters made Ryan feel extremely self-conscious considering he didn't know what was in the envelope.
"It's not that we want to ruin your privacy exactly, it's just, anything from home is usually a pick me up, you know?" Antonio explained.
Ryan hadn't thought of it that way. Gina mentioned that all the guys were in the same boat, but it didn't occur to Ryan that they missed home as much as he did. Considering a few of the guys had been at The Ranch for quite some time already, Ryan felt they were being genuine when they spoke about home.
Pulling the flap out of the envelope, he tipped the envelope so the contents slid out onto his bed. Seth had obviously given Kirsten the new comics to include. Ryan hadn't had a chance to read them before he left. There was a copy of a coupon from Chocolate Heaven, the store where Kirsten got his chocolate cake. A sticky note on the coupon read: 'How sweet it is to have cake when you come home!" The note made Ryan smile and the photo of the cake on the coupon made his roommates drool.
"Aw Chino look at that cake!" Tommy piped up. "Chocolate man!"
"They got me that cake when I got out of Juvie. By the looks of it, she's gonna get another one when I get home from here."
Under the coupon was a Ziploc bag with popped balloon pieces in it.
"What the hell is that for?" Jimmy asked, perplexed.
Ryan laughed to himself when he considered the source. "We had a water balloon fight the night before I left. Stupid, I know, but it was fun. My foster brother sent this. His note says, "Ry, I wanted to send a real water balloon but my Mom said it would flood your suitcase and ruin your new clothes. So much for that idea! My Dad and I want a rematch. Be prepared to have your ass handed to you when you get home. Miss you already man. See you soon. Seth"
Finally, the bottom envelope had photos in it. There was a photo of Sandy, Kirsten and Seth with the ocean in the background. A photo of Seth and Ryan that Ryan had no idea she had even taken. And lastly was a photo of Ryan sitting on his bed in the Pool House.
"Is that your family man?" Antonio asked carefully.
Ryan just nodded and kept looking at the photos. The last note was simple and to the point. It read: 'We love you Ryan!'
"That's a nice family Chino," Marco added. "Thirteen days and you'll be home eating that cake and we're all gonna be here hating your guts!"
"Yeah," Ryan replied, quickly putting the photos away. Grabbing the other items he shoved them all back in the large envelope.
"It's cool man, you don't have to be embarrassed," Marco spoke up. "I haven't heard from my family in about a month and Frankie hasn't heard from his since he came here."
Ryan raised his head slowly to Frankie who seemed to get the question telepathically.
"I've been here for six months," he acknowledged. "After the first three months I stopped thinking about it."
Feeling his blood pressure suddenly going up, "So that's how this place works. We end up here thinking we're making progress and we're gonna get out and everyone just forgets about us instead. It's a God damned orphanage! I should've have fucking known better! I let them make me think that…" Exasperated, Ryan turned away from the other boys and stared out the window.
"Ryan it's not like that, at all," Antonio stated, trying to run damage control. "The Ranch is a good place. It is. None of us want to admit it but, most of us in here…our families could care less about us. All of us except maybe Marco have dysfunctional families and I mean that with a capital 'D'."
Still fuming Ryan let his head fall and he stared at the envelope, his heavy breathing still voicing his anger for him.
"You've got a good family man. You think any of us got an envelope in our bags like that? The answer is no my friend. Everything they sent you is good, the pictures, the water balloon thing. Marco is the only one that gets regular letters from his Mom and half the letter is usually complaining about the fact that he doesn't write home often enough."
"Ain't that the truth," Marco laughed.
"The point you're missing is that four out of five of you were brought to The Ranch and forgotten," Ryan raged.
"No man, the point you're missing is that four out of six of us don't have families that are worth going home to," Antonio surged back.
"Ryan man you just got here," Frankie jumped in. "Just wait and see what they do. Not to mention, you're sentence is only for two weeks. Me, dude I've got two years here. I'm telling you man, a family that doesn't care does not waste their time with little notes that say 'We love you!' They mean it man. Don't write them off just yet."
"Finish putting your stuff away man and then come downstairs for dinner. We'll save you a seat." Antonio patted Ryan on the shoulder before walking away. He knew what Ryan was feeling. There wasn't a boy there that didn't go through those same feelings when they arrived. The difference was Ryan's family cared. The Cruisers just needed to find a way to prove it to him.
When the boys finally dispersed, Ryan put his suitcase away and caught himself a quick shower. Closing his eyes he let the hot water pelt his head, hoping it would wash away the hurt. It didn't. His thoughts were cluttered and he felt confused. With his hair still wet, he went downstairs and right out the front door where he parked himself, alone, on the front steps to get come air. He gaped at the parking place where Sandy had dropped him off. He had to pull his eyes away from the site because he could feel the anger building all over again.
Ryan heard the door open behind him and he frowned with disgust. Without looking, he knew it would be Gina.
"Ryan, dinner is ready. You're roommates have a seat saved for you," she coaxed.
"I'm not hungry."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No," he stated curtly.
"Okay, well, if you change your mind just stop by the kitchen. Tomorrow we'll get you started on your project."
"What's the point? You've got me now. I'm part of the system all over again."
Tipping her head with curiosity, "What do you mean by that?"
"I didn't come here to be forgotten!" he raged again.
"Oooookay, let's back up a second. Who says you're going to be forgotten?"
"The guys in my dorm haven't heard from their families in months. Months!"
"Ryan calm down," she soothed sitting down next to him. She could see he was extremely upset about what the future on The Ranch would hold for him. "You will not be forgotten here Ryan."
"How can you say that? None of them hear from their families. Frankie hasn't heard from his family since he came here. I would have rather stayed in Chino than to be left here as some homeless kid!"
"Listen to me. First of all, the other boys have longer sentences than you and that's why they have been here for so long. Secondly, this is not an orphanage. This is a working Ranch where the court assigns Juveniles to come and work off their time in a productive manner rather than sitting in Juvie doing nothing. Lastly, you barely know these boys. You don't know anything about them or their lives yet."
"I know enough."
"You think so? Just how honest were you with them when they were asking you questions?" Off Ryan's glare, "That's what I thought. You're not the only guy in this place who has his guard up. Making up your mind about them, about your family or about this place after only four hours is not exercising good judgment. That's not sufficient time to make a real decision. It would be no different than me contacting Judge Whitney right now and telling her you're a brat and I have no use for you. It's a little ridiculous isn't it?"
Ryan ran his hands through his wet hair without answering.
"No one is going to make any decisions about any one or any thing after only four hours. You have got to give it a chance." Standing up from the steps, "I'll allow you to sit out here for up to thirty more minutes then I'll expect to see you in the kitchen helping your roommates out. It's your dorm's turn for kitchen duty." Pausing before she approached the door, "Oh one more thing, nice glare! I haven't seen one that good in a long time!"
Rolling his eyes at the sidewalk, Ryan just shook his head and waited to hear the door click. When it did, he finally straightened up a bit and took a deep breath. Maybe she was right. He had only been there for four hours, even though it felt like a hundred. Rubbing his hands together his eyes drifted to the empty parking lot again. He knew it wasn't true but he couldn't shake that abandoned feeling. Shaking his head again, he stood up. He had to get moving, there were dishes to dry. The last thing he needed was to be reprimanded on his first day and have additional days tacked on to his sentence. Still brooding, he walked back into the farmhouse and headed to the kitchen.
Ryan remained quiet for the rest of the evening. He did what he had to in order to keep his chores current and keep his roommates happy, not to mention keep Gina off his back. His roommates understood what he was feeling and gave him some space. He'd most likely come around eventually.
Hanging back a bit, Gina also kept a close eye on Ryan. History spoke for itself and over the years she'd learned that a boy's first forty-eight hours at The Ranch could tell her almost everything she needed to know about them. New boys coming to The Ranch were almost always inclined to make their mark somehow. That was one of the side effects of coming from a Juvenile facility. They always arrived still in survival mode where they only consider what's best for themselves.
Ryan, however, was not the classic case. He was one of the most guarded people Gina had come across in a long time. He knew how to walk that very fine line between doing what you had to in order to get by without revealing much of anything. There weren't many boys that shared that talent. Even though he talked very little, she could tell he was paying attention to everything around him. He seemed to have a problem with adults, authority figures…then again, what boy at The Ranch didn't? He also seemed to have a problem with people just being nice to him. Gina had seen that many times before with other kids from abusive homes. So much of their lives prior to The Ranch had been consumed by mental and physical pain, as well as disappointment, that it just becomes a way of life. It becomes a coping mechanism to shun things or embrace things because they feel it won't last. Yep, Ryan was going to be a tricky one. Gina's first order of business would be to calm him down a bit and get him talking. She saw how he acted when his foster Father dropped him off. Between the two of them they couldn't have faked such genuine feelings for each other. Ryan had a lot to learn about love and being a participating member of a caring family. Smiling to herself, Gina took out her pen and started drawing up Ryan's schedule for the next day. With only two weeks to work with him, she was going to have to kick his tail into gear, and fast!
With his roommates watching a bit more TV before lights out, Ryan went up to the dorm and threw himself down on his bunk while the room was quiet. Lights out was still forty minutes away but he was beat. It had been a mentally taxing day on many levels. Saying goodbye to the Cohens and meeting the guys, it was a lot of adjustments to make in a single day. He felt overwhelmed. The corner of his eye caught something and he turned to look at the wall. Raising his head off his pillow, he was surprised at what he found. His roommates tacked up his photos that Kirsten had sent, as well as the cake coupon and Seth's Ziploc baggy full of broken water balloons. Someone had written 'Now that's a reason to get back home!' on a piece of paper and tacked it on the wall above all the other things. Ryan managed a smile at the collection. Turns out the guys just might be on to something.
"Kirsten always said all I needed was the right motivation," Ryan said out loud to himself in the empty room. "Maybe I'm looking right at it."
Nestling against his pillow, still looking at the photos, Ryan dozed off before his roommates returned.
Almost three hours away from Ryan, a very different scene was unfolding. Dawn realized she was becoming a little too coherent for her liking and she made her way to the kitchen to scrounge up another bottle of booze. Searching the cabinet, she found her regular supply had run dry. Angry, she slammed the cabinet door shut and whirled around to swear at the ceiling. In doing so her eyes zoned in on a lone bottle on top of her fridge. Smiling, she bit her lower lip and crossed the kitchen. Stretching her arm tall to reach the bottle she leaned up against the refrigerator door and came face to face with an old photo of Ryan.
Still biting her lip, her smile faded. Sliding her arm down to the photo, she allowed her fingers to graze his face. The photo had been up there for years. The corners were either torn off or curled and it had faded somewhat from being in the sunlight. In one of her few sober moments, her mind questioned when the young boy in the photo turned into the nearly grown man who wanted nothing to do with her. For the first time it hit her that years had passed and easily three quarters of that time was lost in alcohol-induced blackness.
She studied Ryan's face. There was no smile and his eyes were empty. She observed that he had strategically tipped his head to hide some bruising on the side of his face. There was no happiness in anything about him. Backing away from the photo, she walked quickly to her living room and snatched up another old photo taken at the holidays. The photo showed her sitting on the couch, smiling with each of her arms around each of her sons, and a cocktail in the hand around Ryan. Her older son, Trey, looked entirely put off in the photo. Clearly the photo was snapped against his will and he was less than happy to be a part of it. Ryan on the other hand wasn't even looking at the camera. Instead, his concentration was drawn to the drink in Dawn's hand, which was spilling on his shoulder in the photo.
Suddenly panicked, Dawn ran to the hall closet. Flipping the overheard light on, she frantically searched the shelves for her family photos. Not really the type of Mom to hang onto keepsakes, she finally came across a small shoebox. Gently she took the box out and sat down on the couch, staring at it momentarily as if she were afraid of what she might find inside. Finally finding the courage to remove the dusty lid, she lifted a total of approximately fifty photos from the box. That was it. That was every photo she ever took, or managed to save.
She flipped through the photos, slowly at first but which each photo her heart raced faster and swelled with hurt. Every single photo of her family demonstrated the same facts, over and over and over again. Trey looked pissed off. Ryan looked sad, if he was looking at the camera at all. And there was Dawn. Each photo portrayed her either happy with a drink in her hand, or red-eyed and smashed…still with a drink in her hand.
With her emotions reaching an unbearable level, she chucked the photos and their box across the room and screamed in frustration. Grabbing fistfuls of her hair, she held onto her head and rocked herself on the couch. Her family was the way it was…because of her. It was a horrifying revelation. Trey had left when he was seventeen. He called her a variety of names when he left but at the moment, 'drunk-ass useless bitch' came to mind. And here they were, a year and a half later, and her other son was doing everything in his power to leave home as well. It hurt. It hurt to know she had failed not one, but both of her kids. It hurt to know she'd lost years she could never get back. Most of all, it hurt to realize…she didn't care. The bottle controlled her entirely…mind, body and soul. For as long as she could remember, achieving numbness was all that mattered. Still rocking on the couch, she started crying hysterically. When she couldn't take it any more, she jumped up, ran to the kitchen and yanked the bottle off the top of the fridge. Ripping the cap off, she tipped the bottle to her lips, closed her eyes and drank. By the time she stopped roughly a third of the bottle was gone.
Frazzled by her emotional outburst, she stumbled backwards against the sink. Her eyes drifted back to Ryan's photo on the fridge. Raising the bottle again, she sucked down more lost memories and walked up to the photo.
"I am what I am Ryan. But I'm still your Mom. You can't take that away from me."
Feeling a little woozy, she slid down against the cabinets until she was sitting on the floor. With her legs spread out in front of her, she raised her bottle to toast Ryan's photo.
"Here's to you kid. We'll see who wins this one."
(TBC)
