Hey y'all - thanks for riding this one out. We're almost there now. And all the same sort of warnings I've been giving all along are attached to this chapter. It may be difficult for some to read.
I don't own the Dukes or Hazzard, and I earn nothing for what I post here.
Chapter 9 – Gonna Be Better For It
His oldest wouldn't look him in the eye. That needed to be dealt with, and soon, or Luke would live a lifetime of regrets. But right now it was Bo that stood in front of him, in clear need of – something. It was a good day, the kind where the old man could sit relatively comfortably, and enjoy the company that came. One where he could talk for hours, reliving his own youthful adventures and the childhoods of his charges. A day where every memory was coated in sunshine and laughter, even the ones that shouldn't have been.
But Bo. Jesse could tell that the baby of his family wasn't having one of those days. It was quiet now, Luke and Daisy out of the house, and no guests. Just him and the child that usually made them all smile. Who was currently projecting a heavy gloom, and this wasn't surprising, really. He'd been this way, with few reprieves, ever since hearing Jesse's diagnosis.
"What's on your mind, son?" As if he didn't know. But there were some things you couldn't do for your kids. Like make their decisions for them. Or tell them why they were so upset.
A slight shrug, looking down like the little boy he'd once been, standing in that very spot and confessing to dumping paste in the Griffin girl's hair because she'd called him a "foo-foo," whatever that meant in the jargon of first grade insults that year. Of course, not ten summers later he'd had to stand there again, just about as uncomfortably, and confess to dings in Jesse's truck, put there by Bob Griffin because the Duke boy had been somewhat late in bringing that same girl home from a date. The buckshot had missed Bo (Jesse knew it would – he'd never actually hit any of the fellows Daisy'd dated, either) but the truck, that had to be explained. By a teenager who looked every bit as miserable as the young man in front of him now.
"Find yourself a seat, Bo. Ah!" Catching his youngest just before he planted himself on the arm of the recliner, "Not there." Should have known that boy would want to get close. "Bring in a chair from the kitchen." Because the nearest existing seat was the couch and that would be just too far away for the most affectionate member of the family.
Doing as he was told, Bo found the compromise. A hard backed chair, but right up close where they could be side by side, shoulders almost touching. This way there didn't have to be eye contact unless they wanted it. And while Bo had nothing to hide, he wasn't sure he could tolerate looking too hard at the old man who was, for all intents and purposes, his father.
Pulling teeth, it looked like, would be the activity of the day. At least Jesse could hope it would end better than when he'd literally had to pull one of Bo's more stubborn baby teeth. There'd been lots of tears that day, and eating had been uncomfortable for a couple of meals, too. And Bo Duke was not one to pass up food. Of course, Luke had offered to punch Bo's teeth out for him, a suggestion that was genuinely meant to be helpful, but Jesse was glad to have intercepted that little discussion before it could germinate into action.
Luke. Maybe there was something there.
"How's things going with you and Luke, son?"
"We's fine, Uncle Jesse." We's fine. It was all he ever heard anymore. We's fine, how are you? Shoot, his kids could walk in the door minus an arm, and if he asked about it they'd say, 'We's fine, Uncle Jesse. How are you?'
"You boys been fightin'?" No matter how sick their guardian was, Bo would be forced to answer a direct question, he was sure of it.
"No, sir." Genuine surprise in that tone. So it wasn't Luke and that was just the best news the farmer had heard in weeks. He loved his boys, and he knew they loved each other. They were just too stubborn to admit it, most of the time. He really hoped they'd outgrown that, finally. They weren't exactly kids no more.
"Then why are you sitting there looking like you done lost your best friend?" Because Luke was, and always would be, his best friend.
His baby boy turned to look in his eyes, a long, solid look, like hadn't happened yet today, and wasn't that a surprise. Something close to skepticism, so unexpected in his youngest. Maybe just disbelief. "Because I'm gonna lose you."
Leave it to Bo.
Eyes half closed, not sure whether he was thinking or resting his brain after that little bombardment straight from Bo's heart to his, Jesse nodded. Nodded longer than it would take to acknowledge the words, because there was nothing he could think of to say.
"You know I'll always be with you." It was a start, anyway. Daisy was easy, she'd cry and let him comfort her. Bo was a wild card, never knew whether you'd get tears or fists or just straight-up honesty. But whatever it was, it usually came fast and lasted for only a few seconds, like a jarring and unexpected collision. Sure didn't make dealing with him easy, but his family members usually emerged with only superficial body damage. Jesse could ride this skid out.
"That ain't so…" It's just one of those things you say when you don't know how to say goodbye. Bo's profile stretched with the effort to remain both calm and respectful. Anger was under there, lurking.
"It's so," Jesse said with gentle conviction. "Just like your Grandma is always with me. Why, you boys wouldn't be anything like gentlemen now, if'n I couldn't hear her voice echoing in my head the whole time I's raising you."
Snicker. I ain't no gentleman.
Jesse ignored it. Or ignored the sarcasm and enjoyed the half-laugh. It was as close a thing to Bo's giggle as he had heard in a long, long time.
"Them boys is gettin' a mite rough, she'd remind me, and I'd switch your behinds until you behaved. Then, when you was bleatin' like a baby billy goat, she'd be tellin' me, they's gonna be better for it. Was the only thing that kept me sane, was my Momma."
The snicker was gone, and along with it, any traces of happiness from Bo's face.
"I'm gonna be there, Bo, reminding you forever, 'bout how I love you and I'm proud of you. And if'n you do wind up with kids, I'll be there tellin' you just how great they're turnin' out, just like their daddy."
Slump. No fight in those shoulders anymore. Maybe it hadn't been fair, reminding Bo just how much he was loved right now. Might've been better to let him holler for a little while, if it made him feel better. Too late now. And Bo's shoulders were just too big and broad to reach around now. A hand – it would have to do. Picked up a hand and held it. Felt Bo's head drop onto his shoulder and the moisture of tears. As if he could have missed the sobs so close to his ear. Probably hadn't been fair to tell Bo he loved him like that. Let go of the large hand in his, and reached up to stroke soft curls.
A walk with Daisy. How did that happen? Not that he was opposed, not really. It just wasn't in his plans. He'd wanted to walk, sure. But alone.
"How you holding up, Luke?" And that was exactly why he'd wanted to be alone.
"M'fine." And so she'd have no time for the second part of the question, whatever that might be, "How about you?"
"I ain't exactly fine, Luke Duke." Accusation in that, and he deserved it. When your cousin asks you how you're doing, you can't be fine, not if your uncle is dying. Noted that, but didn't know when he'd ever use it again. Soon it'd just be the three of them.
"M'sorry," he conceded, slinging an arm around her. He got yelled at a lot, sometimes just because he was the oldest and no matter what he did, people expected more of him. But sometimes he really deserved it. "I didn't mean I was fine. I meant I was okay."
The weight of her head on his shoulder for just a minute as they walked, then she lifted it.
"You still ain't said how you're doing," he pointed out, hoping it would keep the conversation focused on her.
"I'm dealing with it, which you ain't." He loved his family, he really did. But sometimes it was just danged hard to breathe around them. He pulled away slightly, kept his hand on her, but not so tightly, and the warmth between them was gone.
"You ain't got no call to talk to me like that." Downright chilly the way she felt on his arm. Which was weird, because normally Daisy radiated warmth, like the sun itself was in her, somewhere, just making its way out through her smile, her eyes, her touch. Shoot, Enos had even been burned a couple of times, getting too close to her.
"No call, huh?" The words were heated, but the tone wasn't. "You ain't hardly looked at Uncle Jesse in a week, Luke. What'd he do?"
She was being nice. She could have been yelling, but she was asking. (Still ain't gonna answer her.)
A shrug he could feel in his hand, across the muscles of her back. More of a deep breath, actually.
"Luke." She waited until she could be sure she had all of his attention. "When L.D. left me, he didn't say nothing. He was just gone. And even now, even while we's going through this divorce? He ain't saying nothing he don't have to." Instinctively, his arm tightened around her. Half to comfort, but somewhere in his mind he knew the gesture was part anger, wanting to hit L.D. right then and there. Daisy pulled away, not far, only enough to see his face, shaking a finger.
"Don't you go and get all protective now, Luke. That ain't what this is about."
Of course not. Everything with Daisy was about something, and it was never what it ought to be about. How could this not be about that creep leaving her? And there she was, talking again, interrupting his mental rant.
"It's about how not talking hurts. L.D. ain't talking to me, and that hurts. Hurts enough that you want to go and pound some sense into him." Just quiet walking for a little while, then –
"But you ain't talking to Uncle Jesse, neither. And that hurts all of us, and makes me wish I could pound some sense into you."
He might have laughed, if she hadn't been so completely heartbroken about it.
"Could be that out of the blue, maybe ten years from now, L.D. will call me up and explain all this. Could be he makes his amends someday. But, Luke, you ain't got ten years, and you can't wait for someday. You got to make it right, whatever it is."
He had no words. But as they put one foot in front of the other, his hold on her softened, and he ran his hand up then back down her back.
I'll think about it, everywhere in that touch.
Bo and Daisy were suspiciously out, and Luke was suspiciously right there. Not an ounce of subtlety in this family anymore.
"Must be bad," the old man observed. "You ain't been able to look at me in more than a week." As if Luke had gotten caught going for a joy ride in the sheriff's car or something. That thought took the old man back, and today's memories were about as uncomfortable as that dull pain he sometimes got, low in his gut. Had it today, actually, his body reminding him of things that none of them wanted to talk too much about. Only two days ago, he'd felt pretty much fine, but today he knew, could feel it in his bones and his stomach, that he didn't have long. Funny how a man's body could turn on him like that.
Just the briefest flicker of a smirk across Luke's lips, still not looking at him, but a little closer now, just over Jesse's right shoulder and down the hall. Like an acknowledgement that they had a long history between them. It was a start. Figured he'd been through enough with Luke to know when he was going to give in.
"Can't be as bad as that time you had to tell me that you got Bo arrested." Watched that old guilt make its way up from the tension in Luke's shoulders, across his jaw, through the muscles of his cheek and right into those eyes that wouldn't meet his. Jesse's own mother in those eyes, passed them straight down to her oldest grandchild, and he wasn't going to leave this world without getting a good look at them again.
"It was a long time ago, Luke. You can let that go." Shouldn't have brought that up because whatever was hurting Luke now could be carefully disguised behind old guilt. This boy was good at that, hiding one thing behind another until he had all his pain lined up in a neat row that looked like nothing, when it really was a whole lot of something.
In the end it was a simple story, and one Jesse should have let lie. They'd been young to the point of foolish, too big for their britches and too wild for the Boar's Nest, but that was where they'd gone. Luke had started the brawl, and Bo had gotten arrested for it. The problem was not even that Bo spent the night in jail, but that Luke let him do it alone, didn't get himself arrested, too. Oh, he'd tried, but half-heartedly, it seemed, because if a Duke wanted a night in jail, he pretty much had a free pass to get in there.
But this was an ancient transgression, one that he'd made up for with years of protecting his cousin, and now Luke was hiding behind it.
"Luke." Old irritation, as old as the man in front of him, boiled up in Jesse. He didn't have time for Luke's shell-game emotions today. Didn't help that the chair was uncomfortable and he was thinking he should have stayed in bed – "Sit down. And start talkin' to me."
A curt nod, that was his boy. Give him an order and he'd likely obey. Not without his own form of protest, though. A sigh, still looking away.
"I quit my job, Jesse. I'm stayin' here in Hazzard. Even after." After. A word that seemed to end so many sentences these days. But that could be dealt with later.
"Well, now, that's good news, boy. I'm proud of you – if'n it's what you really want."
"It's what I want." All of the strength of Luke in that.
"Well, good. I'm glad you decided that. But it ain't why you've been lookin' for stains on my walls lately. Out with it."
Deep swallow, and there were those eyes, staring right into his with all that beauty – and anguish.
"Whyja make us go, Uncle Jesse?" Standing, pacing, because there was no way Luke would just sit there and talk, not when his pain was all exposed like this. "These last couple of years, we coulda been here with you. But you sent us away, and now you're going to be gone soon…" At least he didn't say after this time – "We coulda had more time together."
"We coulda," Jesse allowed, "but then you boys woulda never knowed what else was out there." Didn't even sound right to his own ears, and before that thought was through, Luke was already turning on him.
"What else was out there? Uncle Jesse, ain't nothing out there more important than family. You raised us all to know that!" There they were again, those eyes, just boring into his own tired ones.
Hand up, half concession, half asking for a chance to try to explain. And just watch how Luke backs off, all guilt now. A whole spectrum of emotions in the human race, and the only two this boy seems to know are anger and guilt.
"Simmer down, Luke." Managed to make his voice very gentle with that, something he'd never done with this boy before. "And come here. Please?"
A mess of contradictions. That was Luke. Don't touch me everywhere in his stance, and yet, touch was the thing that would settle him down the fastest. Bless Bo for having taught them all how to handle Luke's rough side. Seemed like throughout their lives, Bo always had one hand somewhere on Luke's arms, back, shoulders, and as long as that was the case, Luke could keep his temper.
The please had done it. Luke was in front of him, now. Squatting suddenly, eye to eye. Jesse placed a hand on his head, just for a moment, before it tiredly slid down to the boy's hard forearm.
"I was tryin' to give you boys some choices. And tryin' to let you grow up a little, too. As long as you was here, together, you was just doin' the same things, makin' the same mistakes, over and over. You was grating on each other, too." And quick, because Luke was getting ready to defend his own case, and Jesse had yet to tell him the most important thing. "But I didn't know… I thought we'd have years before… Before I had to leave you. I thought we had time, Luke. I was wrong. Maybe I was wrong about all of it. But… I didn't want you to live a lifetime of regrets."
Regrets. If those weren't regrets starting to drip from Luke's eyes now, he didn't know what was. "I'm sorry, Luke. You know I don't want to leave you."
And it had been decades since this had happened. His oldest was now kneeling, his head on Jesse's thigh, expressing his answering sorrow without words. Ran his hand through his older boy's curls (getting some gray in the back there son) and waited for the anguish to pass. Hoped, when it was done, that he'd get to see those bright blue eyes one more time.