On the Edge of Wakefulness, Part 2
Chapter 14
The sight of the China Moon Motel rather shocked Téa. She parked in the lot and sat in her car staring at the single story place, seeing what a far cry it was from the Penthouse, from the Sun's fancy offices and Todd's enjoyment of expensive niceties. The peeling tan-painted buildings and weather-worn doors didn't reflect anything remotely Chinese nor astronomical. To bring Jedediah here, to show his apparent roommate to his son without regard or concern, was simply ... beyond ... words. What did this place say about Todd Manning...today? How unlike anything Téa knew of him.
It had been so many weeks. Somewhere along the line, his few days had become an eternity.
Gripping the steering wheel, she eyed the numbers on the doors and landed on Room 28. He's inside that room. Dead, maybe? Overdosed? Hanged in a shower stall? Cut up? Shooting up with this other woman? She closed her eyes a moment, said the words aloud… "Having sex with her?" No, no, he doesn't have sex. Taking advantage of her services, is how Jed put it. How would he know? The boy was being his father's son… being bitter and angry. And what does it matter anyway? Least of his problems.
I'll breathe with you. I'll die with you.
She left the car and walked assuredly to the motel room, crossing the weedy, lightly snow-patched parking lot, long-gone painted lines on cracked, ancient asphalt. There were lots of rooms, some with lights on, some not. Some with drawn curtains, some not. Some had televisions blaring, some silent as death. The closer she got, though, the less assured she grew. Her heart began racing and she strongly considered giving it up. Strongly considered trusting him for just ... a little longer.
And suddenly there was number 28 and she prayed he wouldn't be there. Hoped this was one big fat joke by Jedediah on her. That he'd yanked her chain just to see the misery on her face. For once in her life, that seemed the preferable option. She glanced up at the blue-black sky and prayed for strength. Wrapped imaginary rosary beads around her fingers and asked herself again, how much pain could she endure to have her prayers answered?
But he doesn't have sex, Tim. Why would he need this pamphlet on safe sex?
Least of his problems, least...
Téa knocked on the door and was taken aback at a petite light-olive-skinned woman in thrift-shop clothes, sporting the yellow remnants of what had to have been a hell of a punch to her pretty-ish doll's face. Long self-cut black hair matched black eyes… eyes utterly empty and sad. Téa felt ill.
"Hey, what you want?" Her voice was light, breathy. The words were spoken by someone with no education, no refinement. Once again, utterly the opposite of everything she thought she knew about Todd.
"I'm looking for someone," Téa said, her eyes unable to leave the woman's.
"Who ya' lookin' for?"
"I'm looking for Todd Manning – this is his room, isn't it?" Téa knew it was his room. She could practically hear him breathing, hear his stillness. She glanced beyond the woman and saw his black bag on the floor. Then the door got slammed in her face, slammed shut. Téa touched the door and in some ways was comforted actually. Todd wasn't alone just like Jed had said. There really was someone to perhaps watch over him. She remembered though that the comedian John Belushi had a woman watching over him, too.
He takes full advantage of her services.
The woman with Belushi gave him the hot shot that killed him.
I'll die with you. I will die upon hearing your last breath, the last thump of your heart.
Moments later, the door flew open and he was right in front of her. Oh my God, was all she could think. Todd stood tall and shirtless, forearm on the doorframe, so his armpit tuft showed. A light spray of brown hair fanned a finely muscled chest. She smelled an unfamiliar musky scent that she knew was HIM. His hair hung limp and stringy, longer now. There was more bruising on his arms than before, with the addition of reddish abrasions on his chest and neck – he looked so tired, so worn, pale with lack of nutrition. His beautiful, always-revealing eyes... looked as empty as the woman's. But he was trying to show something else. Head up, hard expression. It was so transparent, but ... still ...
"Todd...," she breathed.
His undress hit her hard. This was only the second time she'd seen him... undressed, the first time only weeks before when he stripped to prove his drug use. She'd been too upset to really pay any attention. But today… it struck her between the eyes. She realized that up until now, recently, she had no conscious awareness of the tattoos. He must have gotten them in prison, or since. These markings had to be part of his rap sheet. But she so respected his personal paranoia about his body that she tuned out inadvertent exposures, averted her eyes even. A year of marriage and he never showed himself to her, not once. A year of marriage and she did not know what this man smelled like at the end of the day. Or first thing in the morning… no idea.
She tightened her hands into fists. Didn't want to throw herself at him the way Jedediah said she would. She'd forgotten already about the woman. Nothing mattered when she could see that Todd was dying, that he was losing himself.
"What are you doin' here?" he asked. Téa could tell he was stoned again.
"I was worried – I had the call traced," she said, lying. "You scared me."
"Well, I'm alive and well. You can go now. Bye." He started to close the door, but Téa put her foot in the way, her hand on the door.
"Let me in."
Todd turned and must have looked at the woman because he was so focused on a single place and his face flashed concern. A simple act of intimacy.
"I'm busy," he said. Eyes on hers...
You will hate me. Let me show you why. Johnny jump up and taste the hell.
"Please ... I just need to know you're alright. I want to talk." She suddenly felt out of place, the little Puerto Rican girl crawling among the devoted, the one who couldn't make the path to the cathedral doors. It hurt too much.
Do you love him this way? Do you love him, no matter what?
Todd sort of smiled at her plea, looking down at her, sniffing and scratching at his chest lazily. "Yeah," he said. "I'm not that busy. You want to come in? Come in. Welcome to my home."
He stepped aside and Téa stood on the doorstep, looking into the dingy room. She curiously felt no emotion when she saw the bed sheets helter-skelter, Todd's clothes crumpled on the floor, some other clothes on the floor, too, all next to that single bed. Sometimes, there just isn't any reaction possible. The girl sat on the couch demurely, looking at her unpainted nails, tapping her foot in ragged high heels nervously. Téa felt sort of lifted up out of her own body.
She stepped further inside and Todd slipped behind her, shutting the door and leaning against it. He stuck his hands into his pockets. The girl raised her dark eyes and flashed a quick shy smile back at him. Then looked down, like she wanted to disappear into a poof of nothing.
Téa turned to him, "Who is she?"
"Brandy?" Todd continued to look at her, smiling a little, spacing a little. "She's my Johnny-girl. She's my sister ... my whore ... my mother ... my lover. Ain't that right?"
Brandy got visibly scared and glanced at Téa a second. "No, baby," she croaked, holding her head down. "You bein' silly. We jus' friends, Mrs. You ain't got nothin' to worry about. He just on, tha's all, and he talks silly when he's on."
Téa closed her eyes briefly–more intimacy. Baby. Todd was just ... "on." Oh god... she could practically feel the blood oozing down her legs, dripping onto her shoes. Did she have the strength for this? Would she make it to the cathedral doors?
Show me that pain, Todd. Show me your celestial suffering, your rapturous self-punishment.
Todd's face broke a little at the girl's words and so did a little of Téa's soul. He straightened up and sauntered over to her, "You don't gotta lie for me," he said. "I can handle my own messes ... my own shit. You don't have to cover for me – you are what I say you are ... it's how I see you."
Brandy looked up at him and shook her head fearfully, saying, "No, baby. I ain't those things to you. I'm nothin' but a broken down whore and nothin' else." The horrible thing about her denial, Téa saw, was how she prepared herself to be hit. She said what she did and then raised her shoulders a little and looked away. Téa couldn't do this. She turned to the door and put her hand on the door knob. She had no place here. What the hell was she thinking coming here?
What did she expect?
"That isn't true," Todd argued. "You just got done telling me… you're pretty and you're not too dumb and you can take care of yourself and you like baths and ice cream… and you're okay with who you are...and...and..." Todd started getting emotional, showing another levelof undress. His voice cracked. Téa let go of the door, drawn, as she always had been, to his misery. She could not stop gazing at the sight of him standing there so sad … a kind of supplication she'd never seen before. Never on him.
"No, baby ... don't you make me into something I'm not," Brandy said, starting to cry.
"NO! You mean something to me! You know what to do ... you know what helps and you don't judge me ... and you... you... you care..."
Brandy looked up at him and said in the softest of voices, in the barest of squeaks, "I'm only paid to be here. That's what I do." Her voice faded... "Tha's all I do..."
Téa walked to the bed with its messed up sheets and sat down in a daze, a tiredness coming over her. Dropped her purse on the floor. She smoothed her expensive jeans, caressed her cashmere sweater, eyed her high-end leather... boots...
Todd stood stupefied a moment, then knocked his head back and smiled, laughed actually, "Yeah ... that's right ... okay ... yeah Johnny-girl. You use me ... I use you ... yeah ... okay ... okay ... things are okay." He spun on his feet, and faced Téa, eyes bright and fiery. "See? I'm alright. Right as rain. Brandy here… has cured me. Of everything. Do ya' understand?" He looked her right in the eyes. "Everything."
The two gazed at each other a moment, or two. Téa breathed… calming, reaching into her innermost self for that strength because Jedediah was right from top to bottom-tonight Todd would be giving her all he had and he was starting with the deepest dig which was that he was no longer celibate. That's right… his self-imposed isolation had been specifically reserved for her.
He takes full advantage of her services.
"Todd ...sit down," she said.
"Sit down? What do I have to sit down for? So you can lecture me? So you can make me go home like a ... like a ... truant? Like Jed?"
You will hate me.
"No..."
"SHUT-UP!"
Téa and Brandy both jumped at his outburst. Then he started laughing again, raising his hands as if to block out light, of which there really wasn't any, "Oh Delgado ... oh ... there isn't anything for you to do here, don't you see? I screwed up … I AM screwed up and it's soooo permanent ... you know ... like… like cement shoes. There is nothing for you here… there never was. There never will be."
He rubbed his face, hiding really because all he wanted was to curl up in a corner and stare at nothing and listen to nothing and just exist. A water droplet with no past, no future. No nothing. He wanted his high. He wanted her gone. He couldn't look at her.
Brandy put her head down and Téa could see that she was crying silently and in that pain, Téa knew she had lied about not caring for Todd. Oh my god. She breathed deeply, a calm settling over her, and she glanced at Todd who was sort of spacing out again. Sort of looking around him, as if he wasn't sure at all what he was doing here.
"I hear you," she said.
He gazed back at her and for a moment it was just them in the room. "You can't possibly. You are... untouched."
The quiet was deafening. Their differences were… blaring, breathtakingly loud. She was not like him in any way and maybe that was what this motel was all about - to show these… differences. She looked him up and down, glanced at Brandy, looked at the dank room, the "trashiness" of it. Truth was, she'd never fully acknowledged how wildly different they were. From birth to this very moment. Utterly... different. As she sat on his messed-up bed, she wondered why she was here. She wondered what she had been loving these past six months. She'd promised him love over and over and over in the hospital… and now she wondered… what was she loving? What had she been hanging on to so desperately since the first day he offered her five million dollars to marry him?
He was standing over her now, eyes down on her. Quiet… quiet. She fought to not stare at his bare chest, those lines of muscle of his arms, abs, hips... the black tattoos she couldn't define because she needed to look closely. And she couldn't. Just kept her eyes on his.
Sublime he is in his self-crucifixion, in his self-flagellation. God, he is beautiful in his humbled state before that merciless God. Beautiful in his ugliness, in his slavery to damnation...
Perhaps that was it-she always loved his pain. She'd seen it from the very beginning. A tortured man… a man who wanted to be so much more than he was and she was the pathway to that higher self. But the blowback had been too much. She'd run to New York to escape his anger, but it was his pain that brought her home, it was his illness that had kept her in Llanview… and brought her here to the China Moon. Because in that pain… he always reached for HER.
Téa swallowed hard and bit her lip. Chewed on it. Then said, "You were doing better. You were-"
"You don't know shit," he interrupted, his voice ragged and worn out. "I was still having those goddamn flashbacks, I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't fucking breathe."
"And now?"
He chuffed, a hard disgusted noise. His face was crumpled with hurt. He shook his head, a hopeless plea in the way he held his hands. "Oh... same shit. Pictures all the fucking time, and they last longer ... 'cause ... I don't remember how to stop 'em. And this place sort of looks like home ... the carpet's the same ... it smells the same ... so it just goes on ... and on ... nothing has changed. Except for the dope. That helps. That ... changes things. So I've been making sure to never not be high. Brandy helps with that."
His voice was heavy. No, nothing was better. Téa bent, fingers rubbing in between her eyes, realizing that his phone call had probably followed a flashback. He was scared badly and called her. Just like when she first saw him at the hospital. To think of him in this room going through something like that alone, because surely the girl didn't know what to do for him ... and Téa did get the feeling that she wasn't here all the time... it was unbearable…
… and there it was again… more about their love. She loved his pain, and he forever, wanted her to save him from it. Only she couldn't, could she? Not anymore.
"Yes," she then said softly, eyes on him. "The heroin does change things. You're right, I can see it all over you."
Todd was about to say something, but stopped. He scratched absently at his chest, looking down at himself. Shuddered with a rush of cold. His breath caught in his throat. It suddenly dawned on him that he was barely dressed and his bruising was exposed and he was a mess. Don't look at me, Delgado. He rubbed at his nose and pulled his hair back and muttered, "Why the fuck did I let you in..." He wandered to his black bag and dipped down, jerking out a hoodie jacket. He put it on hastily, the thing still zipped. The drug was slipping away and the edges of blackness closing in. He walked slowly into the bathroom and flopped onto the floor. The door had cracked from his fight with Jed and he touched fallen plaster from when he punched a hole in the wall. Fuck. He leaned back, staring at the turned-out lights, still as death... still... as death.
Téa had watched the let-down, watching a like-Brandy sinking into herself more and more with every word out of Todd's mouth. She got up tiredly and walked into the bathroom. Sat in front of him. "Todd?"
"Go away," he said. "Leave me to my fucked-up life, please."
"I can't. You called me for a reason."
He rubbed his face and stared quietly again at nothing. Saying nothing more. Brandy was on the telephone now and she was arguing with someone, but she couldn't really. All it ended up being was fear and nervousness. Téa could see her and almost felt sorry for her, that is, if she wasn't ... what she was. Brandy was trembling when she hung up. She'd canceled her date apparently. She lay down on the couch and closed her eyes, reminding Téa of an alley cat. One of those skinny, whining ones that rubs up against your leg as you walk along, the ones that don't care if they're stepped on, just so long as they get some warmth and a bit of stolen affection. Two mangy alley cats, Téa thought as she looked at both of them. They were a pair of broken, destroyed people who had somehow connected.
It was obvious.
Todd eyed her… said, "I drunk-dialed you… don't make it more than it was. Now... this shit is going away fast and I'd really fuckin' appreciate it if you'd just step off."
Téa felt slapped… like old times. She watched him wilfully sink into a state of disconnect, and Brandy curl up even more on the couch… and Téa plopped onto her ass. Helpless. She could not save him. She could not help him. She could not fix this. Their love… had brought them nothing. Those damn tears started up and she found herself weeping. She was so into her own catharsis that she barely noticed Todd had moved to her, had settled next to her, petting her hair. Touching her cheek. She looked at last through the blur at him.
"You're so perfect and beautiful like this with all those tears. You cry ... like a painting ... like art." He tilted his head and sort of smiled.
"I'm sad for you, Todd. For so many things, for us, for your babies."
"Yeah ... it is sad. It's like ... an opera. It's all so fucking tragic." He chuckled and then stopped. Gazed at the woman on the couch. Murmured, "Brandy's been hooking since she was 13. Never had a pimp."
Téa wiped her eyes and looked at Todd.
"You know what she calls being raped?"
"Tell me."
"A not-so-paid-for fuck. On the streets these people get raped and the cops can't do anything about it because there's no way to tell the paid-for-fucks from the not-so-paid-for ones."
Téa reached up to hold Todd's hand against her cheek. He let her do that. "She just moves along," he said, looking out the bathroom door, towards Brandy. "Let's people do shit to her and when it gets too much, takes a night off and has a bath and eats ... ice cream. Ice cream to get over being abused and pissed on and shit on and fucked in the ass and pussy and anywhere else anyone wants to do it. All so she can support herself. So she can be independent."
"Oh Todd ... you're not like that ... you don't let people do that to you ..."
He laughed bitterly. "Not literally… but it's just the same. I made a hell of a mess outta my life just so I could say I beat Peter, I don't need anybody. Don't need no pimp."
She shook her head and he let go of her. He looked at all of her, wishing shit could be different. Looked down and itched those itches under the jacket, scratched at them until Téa reached out and stopped him, holding his hand.
Do you love his pain, now? Do you love him now that he's bound himself to his twin-in-pain? Pray, little girl, pray hard with rosaries and say your Hail Mary's in the cathedral aisle with your bloody knees and your cramped thighs and your stigmata and your talking-in-tongues. Do you love him... this way?
"Bring that girl with you," she said, sounding braver than she felt. "Heal yourself with her. Maybe the two of you can find some peace."
Todd laughed, "You're so full of it."
"I am not!"
"Come on," he rasped, "don't let this buzz of mine disappear on that thought."
"I'm not suggesting you form a harem-what I'm saying is that you need to come home and get help. And if you feel tied to this person, then bring her with you."
He stared back at her and then looked away, the funniness of the moment passing, the joke popping out of the picture the way a cartoon thought does. Poof. Did she have any idea what was really happening here? Twin nothings fucking to feel good… I won't tell anyone what we do in this room… what you want, baby… you wanna fuck… you bite me and I will fucking kill you… like that, yeah, like that… He glanced around the darkness of the bathroom. Rubbed fingers in the dust. He licked the white off his fingers.
"You don't care what we do in this room…?"
Téa could see that Todd was drifting, thoughts flying behind those light eyes, muscles in his face twitching ever so slightly, reacting. My god. He was trying to rub the sex thing in her face but it was coming out all wrong. This was terrible illness. His relationship with that woman was warped and strange and based on absolute mutual desperation. Rapturous pain indeed.
"I want you safe and healthy," she said. "And when you reach that point, when you can wake up in the morning and have coffee instead of a hit; when you talk to me about your day instead of having a flashback or reliving some horrible thing ... then, and only then, will I kick your ass up one side of the street and down the other for what you're doing here. But not a minute before."
Todd smiled sadly at that, "Now that sounds more like you. You scared me. I thought maybe you didn't care... that you stopped... loving me."
Téa shook her head…love. Here they both were, in a lousy motel room with hardly enough of his belongings to fit in a drawer, him living with a prostitute, bingeing on heroin, and she was in the midst of it, offering a home to him and Brandy… and they were both worried about love. Their love.
Impossible love.
She got to her knees and even though he was shaking his head, no, no, no, to her, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, holding him to her, holding him like he was flying apart. Todd dropped his head, shaking it back and forth sadly, slowly.
"You don't have to do that," he whispered.
"Yes, I do. I do it because I love you and and I'm scared to death for you."
"What are you scared of, Téa? That I'll die?"
"Yes," she said, tearful all of a sudden.
"You think that's the worst thing that can happen? Huh?"
"Yes."
"It's not. Life ... is so much worse. God, I wish every day to die. I come close, every time I stick myself, I hope it's the last."
"Don't say that, please..."
He rubbed his head, shaking her off, almost cringing from the pain of her. Touching was still so difficult for him... when it came to Téa. He couldn't say why... and he felt her familiar hurt... but it didn't change anything. He gazed at her beautiful brown eyes, so smart, so very... strong. And so not deserving of the hell he brought her.
"Just know," he said, "that it's the best feeling in the world. And I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I'm not going home. You're gonna have to have me arrested to stop me from using."
Téa looked away, knowing she'd hit a wall. She sort of understood him, though, how relieved he might feel. What a break from illness he must be experiencing. But there was no safe way to stay here. Based on what Viki had said earlier, he was overdosing. There was only one end to that.
He brooded as Téa considered her options. The high was fading, she knew, and the fear was growing. She could feel it. All of a sudden, he got to his feet and stepped outside the bathroom; shuffled around for some clothes in his bag. Sat on the bed and pulled on socks. Boots. Buttoned his jeans all the way up. He pulled on his outer jacket. He was cold again. Téa felt invisible, like he didn't even know she was there. She stood at the bathroom door.
He got to his knees next to Brandy and sort of nudged her with his head, resting next to her. Brandy looked at him and shook her head. "I ain't got any more, baby," she said. "I told you, I have to meet Paulie."
"We gotta go then."
"But what about your wife?" she whispered.
Todd looked confused a second and then turned to Téa. "Doesn't matter, I gotta go. I gotta take care of this. I don't want to get up in the morning and not have anything. I can't take that."
Téa got up and moved to the front door. "I can't let you go," she said, feet firmly on the floor, chin up.
Ahhh... his Delgado. He sniffed away his love of her. A frown turned his lips and he got to his feet. "And what does that mean?" He took some steps towards her. One step, two steps.
"It means what I say. You can't leave here to go get drugs. I won't let you."
"Hm. That's not too smart, though. I can do a lot of damage to you and I don't want to. Now ... Brandy and I have to go. I have some business to attend to and ... well ... you can't stop me."
"If you step out of this door, I will report you as mentally ill and a danger to yourself and your children. You will be arrested and placed in custody at the lock-down ward of Llanview Psychiatric Hospital. Just like old times."
"You are such a bitch. I knew you were lying when you said all that I-love-you crap. All that ... bring-Brandy-with-you crap, all that ... hugging crap. It was all bullshit, huh?"
"No, it's not. I love you so much, I'm willing for you to hate me."
Todd walked up to her and leaned in close, whispering hoarsely, "You want me to hate you?"
"No, I want you to be safe. And if you walk out this door, I will do what I have to do to keep you that way."
"If I walk out of this door with cops behind me, you'll never see me again. Got me?"
"I will do what I have to do to keep you safe."
He leaned in and licked her mouth, "You taste so good for being such a cunt."
"God," she groaned, stepping back. With hurt, angry, hot tears, she repeated, "I will do what I have to do to keep you safe."
"Fuck you. Fuck Viki, fuck Tim, fuck the LPD. You blackmail me, you lose, bitch."
Giving her all he had, getting as disgusting as he could. Téa was shaking visibly; how did this happen? How did she get so close to him only to lose him in a flash? In an instant?
"It's your choice. You stay with me, there'll be no cops, no lock-down wards. Just me and Tim and Brandy, too. You can bring her along, you can share a bed with her if that's important to you. But you'll be free. You walk out the door and you'll be arrested."
"You're killing me, Delgado."
"No Todd, you're killing yourself, your children, the people who love you so much." And then the thought popped into Téa's head, the temptation, her trump card. Evidence that he wasn't just killing himself. The question was, if she told, what direction would it push him? He was still so sick... but he needed a cold dose of reality. She stepped aside, conceding her physical inability to stop him.
"Do you want to know where your son is?"
Todd swallowed and said nothing, staring at Téa's suddenly cool eyes.
"He's in a juvenile detention facility. He was picked up for possession of heroin. And I know that was your stuff, your ... dope. Despite the fact that he's denying it with everything he has."
Brandy sighed some words, holding her hand to her mouth, "Oh no, your boy, baby."
Todd stared at Téa for a few moments, shocked. He scratched his head, his mouth. He turned around slowly and felt it happening. That noise again in his head. Static. Pictures flashed like crazy, the room sort of occupying every other second and in between … someplace else, many-places … else. He shook his head, trying to clear it to no avail.
"Shhh...," he said, sitting down on the bed. He was perspiring suddenly and couldn't breathe. He did it. He let his son be taken to jail on his account. They call it a juvenile detention center, but he knew the truth. He knew it was prison and his kid was there. The kid he made with Michelle, the kid who'd been forced to live a lie, who'd been on his own for so long. Who...
Gasping, he stood up, saying, "I gotta get outta here...out... out… out…" He didn't know where to turn, what to do. Couldn't find the door, couldn't see, couldn't breathe... he just couldn't breathe. The horrible reality played out on his features, every thought taking hold of him, pinning him in place.
Brandy was horribly frightened, plopping down on the couch, her face a mask of fear.
Téa suddenly wished like hell she hadn't said anything…but he needed to understand…she approached him slowly.
"Todd… I'm handling it…" She took hold of him by his upper arms, trying to get him to look at her, "Over here, baby, look at me, come on… I'm going to see him everyday but it would be so much better if I could tell him you're home. It'll make every minute there tolerable for him. You can help him."
He could hardly hold her gaze, but he tried, saying, "No...no...no...he can't stay there... they're gonna hurt him... you don't understand!"
Todd pulled out of Téa's grasp and got on the bed, slamming himself against the pillows. Huddling, huffing, a hand out. As if someone was after him.
"You can change it. Come with me. Together we can fix it."
Todd turned to her, "You have no idea what you're talking about. I was in prison… I was with those kids from juvie… I know what they went through."
"No ... it's changed, I promise…it's very temporary. But it would be so much better if you could come home with me. You know? Don't you think? Huh?"
"Oh god … oh god … no ... no ... what if they find out who he is? If they know he's my kid? Do you know what they'll do to him? Do you know what they do to rapists and their spawn? Do you know? Do you … do you … do you … know? Do you know … do you know …" He groaned and kept repeating random phrases. He finally got up, stumbled into the bathroom, and threw up the little he had in his stomach. Moaning in between the heaves that people were going to get to Jed. That his innocence was going to be taken from him ... and that was worse than death. Téa couldn't help him, or even comfort him, because she knew he didn't want anything... human.
He calmed down after that, washing his face, spitting water out in the sink. Staring at himself in the mirror. He wasn't quite all together, though, focusing on the water running over his hands for long minutes, not paying any attention to Téa's intermittent requests to come home, then, to help Jed. The only other sound in the motel room was that of a sniffling Brandy, now sitting on the couch, covering her ears and rocking a little, clearly unhinged by Todd losing it. Her situation seemed to move him, literally, getting him out of the bathroom.
He walked over to her, walked slowly, shivering. He pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her, the two intertwining like those alley cats Tea had thought of.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. It's okay. Nobody's hurting anybody."
Brandy nodded, finally gathering herself and saying tearfully, "Okay, baby ... okay … I get real scared when you … I thought maybe you …"
"I know. I'm sorry. We gotta get outta here. Ok?"
"Ok." She separated from Todd and started picking up clothes and whatnot and basically clearing out.
Téa got close to Todd, taking his hand in hers. "I love you," she said. "I know you don't believe me. You will be picked up. It would be so much better if the two of you come to Viki's. That way you can be involved in getting Jed out, in seeing him. It will mean everything to him that you're getting well because of what happened."
"I gotta think. I gotta think. I can't think there ..."
"What are you saying?"
"I gotta go, I need to think. This is my fault ... if something happens to Jedediah, it's because of me ... and and and I ... don't know what I'm gonna do ... but I gotta think."
Todd looked all around, at Brandy moving about, at the wreckage of his life. What he wanted right now was to be done up so he didn't have to feel anymore. That's what he wanted. He wanted to be sliding into heaven via a needle and powder, chemical fucking salvation. That's what he wanted. And he wanted it fast because he couldn't handle being responsible for destroying his own kid. He couldn't take that. There wasn't any logic to his thoughts but somewhere inside him he knew that's what happens when a brain is infused with the Princess's love.
Uh-uh. No way...no how. So...fuck me up, man! You make me feel better about this or else I might just jump off a fuckin' bridge and a dead man ain't really no good for nothing. But a fucked-up one, well, I might just be able to think better. Yeah. 'cause...I can't think like this ... 'cause ... and ... but ...
Do you still love me this way? Sick and tracked and responsible for Jed's destruction?
Téa just watched him, realizing that telling him about Jedediah made no difference. That every goddamn road led to heroin. She didn't know what to say, how to save him with the few moments left, now.
He suddenly took Téa's hand in his and smiled weakly at her, "I love you. I love you more than anything, but I'm not worthy of all you go through."
"Todd…"
"Shhhh. Lemme talk. See, I'm shit and you're not. I belong with shit, you know? You send the cops out, I don't care. I don't hate you for it, I like it. I like that you say that you love me. I like that. They won't find me so easy. You can feel okay about that. Téa, death isn't the worst than can happen. God, I pray Jed doesn't learn that in juvie. I think it's kinda sweet that you think it is the worst thing, I'm so thankful for that. I love that about you. I love your innocence."
"Todd, don't go."
"I can't stay here - I have a lot of thinking to do - I gotta take care of myself."
"Please…"
"You tell Tim I sometimes think about him, that I sometimes hear him call me, 'kiddo.' I gotta go."
With that, he kissed Téa on the mouth. Kissed her lips like it was the last time he would ever see her. He turned around and walked out the door, leaving Téa behind him. This time, she ran to the door and tried to get the license plate of the car, but it was too dark to see. She at least recognized the make. And knew that Paulie was still hanging around obviously. She booked it to her own car and tried to follow them, but it was too late.
They were gone.
Madre de Dios, I am on my knees. I am but a child asking for your grace at this time. I bleed for you; I ache for you. I will ache until my prayers are answered. I ask that you save him. He's but a lost child himself and he's confused and broken. Can you heal him? I offer my pain to you as an offering, as an exchange. I offer myself to you.
The question is ... do I still love him this way?
To be continued….