Page 33 of Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself)
Seventeen
“Ben, how does it feel to be back here?” New doc for group, but he’d seen this one around before.
“Hey, Doc.” Benny waved one hand as he flopped into the thinly cushioned chair nearest the door. “Feels like shit. How you doin’?” No laughter from the group, but he didn’t expect any. There weren’t any faces he knew. All his rehab cohorts had gone on to graduate, moving on. They wouldn’t be back as failures.Not like me.
“Well, let’s see what we can do to ensure this is the exception, shall we?”
Cup of coffee in hand, he lifted it to her in salute, letting the movement be his only response. Smoothly, she picked up the thread of the topic her group had been discussing before he walked in, and he listened as she covered strategies to recognize when a behavioral or environmental trigger was in play and how best to sidestep it, keeping to the sober side of the track no matter what. He found a way to contribute to the conversation when she asked for additional triggers they might think about. He snorted and raised a hand, waiting patiently as she worked her way around the semi-circle of occupied chairs. When she pointed to him, lifting her arched eyebrow in a question, he responded with one word. “Success.”
***
“Hey, shrimp. How’s it hangin’?” There was noise in the background, and Benny heard Ruby’s voice, then the cooing of a baby.
“I catch you at a bad time?” He had a favor to ask and didn’t want to rush to it if he didn’t have to. Ease into it as it were. Stealing attention from needy babies would not be the way to go.
“Naw, Ruby just took Dani to lay her down. Allen’s already snoozin’.” Slate laughed softly, affection thick in his voice and Benny knew he was watching Ruby walk away. “It’s never a bad time to talk to my baby bro.”
“You…you talked to Mom, right? About before, back when she was in Enoch?” The words came tumbling out, and Benny was already off script, not having meant to dive in so deeply from the start. “About before you…went looking for work.” He choked out the words, the phrase “left me” so close to escaping, he had to clamp his lips shut for a moment.
“Yeah, I did. She had it tougher than we knew, but we were kids, Benny. What the hell did we know?” Benny knew if he could see him, Slate would be standing with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck, pulling and massaging, trying to ease the decades’ worth of weight he carried for everyone around him. “She landed in Colorado. Found a program she could work, kicked her habits. Came out the other end stronger.”
“Did she tell you what worked for her? Doc says different things work for different folks. We were talking and she said not to get discouraged, because different doesn’t mean bad.” Now the words were coming faster, and he didn’t think he could stop the flood if he tried. “Like group seems to click for me. Better than the confessional of a meeting podium.” Meetings left him frustrated. Most people didn’t appear to want to talk about what was working, only about where they were in the program, or what the response had been from their families. Which worked for a lot of people, but not him.
“I feel like I need people to bounce things off, people who will give it to me straight, but all the time. Not only when I ask what they think. If I’m talking and what I’m sayin’ is shit, then I don’t want to spend time chasing a dung heap.” Mason’s face swam up from his memories, and Benny once again felt the weight of piercing grey eyes holding him in place as Mason made Benny’s situation clear. “I…you were talking once…about a…talking about…you know. A different thing.”
The words dried up; he was left with an incomplete statement, and he didn’t know if he’d given Slate enough to figure out what he thought he needed. As ever, his brother surprised him. “Sober companion. I’m way out ahead of you, shrimp.”
Air whooshed out of Benny, a breath he wasn’t even aware he had held in. “Yeah.” The single whispered word seemed to reassure his brother.
Sounding confident, Slate said, “I’ve talked to folks who’ve done this. The person has to be a fit for you, but also not. Because they need to have enough of their own brand of tough to stand against you if you need it. Not a pushover, not a friend. A paid companion on your path to staying sober.” Now he sounded relieved, and Benny was glad he could hand this to Slate, at least. “I have a few applications that came in yesterday. I’ll sort through the mess, and we’ll interview when you get home. But, Benny?”
Slate paused, and it seemed his name was a question because he didn’t continue until Benny said, “Yeah?”
“They work for me, not you. They report to me, about you. And it’s just how it’s going to be.” Iron and steel didn’t have anything on the strength of purpose populating Slate’s voice. “You understand everything upfront, we won’t have any problems.”
“I got it. I get it.” He swallowed. Words that once had come so easily now sticking in his throat. “Slate…Andy?” It was his turn to wait for his brother’s response, and he wasn’t left hanging long.
“Yeah, shrimp?”
His voice, strong in the beginning, trailed off to a barely heard whisper by the end. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I know you do.” He could hear the smile in Slate’s voice. “I love you, too, shrimp.”
