Page 44 of Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself)
Twenty-Three
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Benny held the phone slightly away from his head and rolled his shoulders, trying to shrug off the tension that had ripped from the phone and into his body at Slate’s shout.
“You are not going out there alone, shrimp. Ain’t happening.” A sigh.
Benny waited, knowing from experience his brother wasn’t done.
“Give me a day. I’ll sort my shit here, go with you.” Ruby’s voice lifted in the background, questioning.Fuck. “Let me make a call or two, Benny.”
“I need something from you.” He was learning. It took a long time; he was a slow study at these things, but the lessons were beginning to sink in. Giving people the chance to help him gave them power, but it also provided them a sense of satisfaction he couldn’t deny. “Can you help me out, Slate?” While he still called his brother Andy in his head sometimes, Slate was a badge of respect, so Benny had to give it to his brother. Having heard a dozen slightly different stories about a gunfight and how he came to the name, after getting over being terrified that he could have lost Andy, Benny never tired of it, through it learning so much of what made his brother what he was. Strong, honest, dependable, loyal. Benny used another phrase he’d come to understand, trying to ensure his brother listened to him. “Love and respect, man.”
“Fuck me.” That was muttered, and given the tone of voice, it wasn’t a bad thing this time. He’d heard those two words used in so many ways by Slate, a go-to phrase of anger and love, rebellion and acceptance. “Whatcha need, shrimp?”
“I need to do this. Need to talk to her. If you aren’t comfortable with me going there, and I get it, totally get why you’d be hesitant about me doing that, Slate. But, I need to talk to her. It’s part of what I need to move forward, and given what I’ve learned of this whole fucking process, it’s going to be something she needs, too. Amends, brother, gotta make amends.” He drew a breath. “So let me bring her here.”
This conversation was a result of Chase calling him the previous day, when they’d talked far into the night, the kid letting go of a lot of bad memories about his mom. It wasn’t until the call was nearly done that he'd learned Chase's mom had been killed in a single-car accident a few days before. Chase, only now learning about it, had reached out, picking up the phone instead of the bottle, which was a good decision. Lying there in the dark after he'd disconnected, Benny had thought about his own mom, and how he might feel if she died without him being able to talk to her. The idea didn’t sit well, and Benny had come to a decision. He just had to get Slate on board.
“Benny.” The pain in Slate’s voice ripped through him. “The last time she was involved, you nearly wound up back in rehab.” Guilt colored the next words. “I wasn’t even here to see it happen, was in fucking Kansas.Fuck me.” That was an unhappy version of the phrase, and Benny flinched to hear it. “I’m not down with bringing her back into your life like this, bro.”
How to make him understand?Benny thought for a moment, and then hit on an idea. “Remember the ranch?”
Startled laughter, then Slate said, “Yeah, I remember it.” It had been in their father’s family for generations, was supposed to be the boys’ legacy. That was before their dad got sick; before their mom sold it.
“Were you…do you miss it?” Closing his eyes, he could see the endless stretch of the plains, feel the wind whipping past them as the two boys rode double on one of the ranch horses to the top section to check fence. “Was a lot of work, and I remember how you wore yourself stupid tired trying to do everything.” A grunt he took for agreement filtered through the line, so he forged ahead.
“You put yourself between me and that bull, remember? Mean fucker spooked the horse. I fell off, busted my knee open. You could have stayed up in the saddle, safe. But you didn’t. You got off, right then, no question in your mind. I wasn’t going to face it alone. And I knew,” he put stress on the words as he repeated them, “I knew, you’dneverlet anything hurt me.”
“Love you, shrimp.” Slate’s voice was thick with emotion and he hated doing this, but he had to make him understand.
“I know you do. I’ve always known it. I used it, brother. Took advantage. So fucking selfish. I hate looking back and seeing everything I’ve done to you. The lies. Fucking lies, everything out of my mouth a lie for the longest time. And all you ever did was try to make things right.” He swallowed, trying to compose himself. “I need to hear her. Hear what she wanted to say at the wedding, but I was too much of a pussy to listen. I need to know what tripped her up, what trips her now. Help me figure this out. It’s the next step in my path. I get not going out there alone, and won’t take you from your family. I’m done being stupidly selfish. I’ll be smart about it.” This got him a snorted laugh, which was good; it meant his brother was still listening, not planning how to word a careful refusal. “Help me.”
“I got this, baby brother.” A heavy sigh, then Slate told him what he needed to hear. “I’ll call, set it up. Let you know when it’s going down, yeah?” A pause, then a question. “You still there?”
“Yeah. Just basking in the submission of my favorite big brother.”
“I’m your only brother, assbag. I’m thinking I need a video game session soon, shrimp. Need to whup your skinny white ass. PWN the noob.” Benny could hear the grin and knew it matched the one on his face.
“You’re white, too.” He laughed, then Ruby’s laughter rang in the background, and he knew she’d told Slate the same thing.
“Fuck me.” This one was the best, happiness reverberating down the call and Benny smiled.
***
Waiting in the airport lobby, his attention was focused on the toes of his shoes. The rubber tips were scuffed, needed cleaning, and polishing if the sneakers were to last much longer without looking like total crap. Footsteps echoing through the building brought Benny’s gaze to the escalator beyond the security checkpoint, where arriving passengers entered the unsecured world again. He’d finally won an argument with his brother, and it had to be about who would be picking their mother up. He scoffed. Not that Slate was happy about it, but he’d given Benny what he needed. This was a button he didn’t want to push too often, but right now, he needed this meeting to be on neutral ground, wanted to see and talk to her without Slate around. Needed it, and it wasn’t a bullshit line he’d fed Slate.
When he’d seen her at the wedding, he had been shocked in a good way. She wasn’t back to the beauty in the pictures papering GeeMa’s walls, celebrating the marriage of her son to Susan, but she was far from the haggard specimen of addiction he remembered from his last years in Wyoming. She’d looked the part of mother of the groom, older and conservatively dressed, deferring to the bride’s mother. He remembered thinking what a lie it was, what a lie she lived, every day, pretending to be a decent human.
Gaze to the steady stream of people moving down the stairs and into the hallway, he watched and waited, finally spotting her. Thin. Thinner than she’d been at the wedding and he wondered what it meant. Hair in a ponytail, scraped away from her face, leaving nothing for her to hide behind. She was looking through the airport, clearly nervous, her head swinging in short arcs back-and-forth. The greeter at the door offered her the airport’s trademark cookie, and she paused a moment to accept. This was when Benny took a blow he wasn’t expecting, his heart clenching so hard it might jump out of his throat. She smiled at the older man standing there beside the display, mouth moving to thank him, and that smile was everything good he remembered about his childhood. Every good thing that happened to him bracketed on either end of the experience by his mother’s smile, missing from his life for so long.
Turning to the main lobby, smile fading, she swept the room again with her gaze and he knew when she saw him. When she recognized him in spite of the shades and hat worn in a shabby disguise against the scant fans he had in this town. Knew it when she stumbled, catching herself but not before the misstep gave her away. Slate said she sounded good on the phone, was happy to come to Fort Wayne, pleased at the chance to reconnect with her youngest son. She might be all those things his brother said, but she was also scared as fuck, and her face had been stripped bare in that instant, showing him all her cards.
He waited, feet planted wide, letting the mass of people part and move to either side of him, the clicking of their roller bag wheels sounding like playing cards pinned to his bike’s front wheel.Clickity, clickity, clack. The sound her heels made as she walked up the hallway towards his room in the middle of the night, stinking of booze and men.Click, click, thud.This last the sound her shoulder would make as she stumbled sideways, catching herself against the wall. He stared at her, seeing her face pale as she approached and he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t give any indication he gave one shit about her being there.Jesus, give her something. You asked for this, asshole.
Stopping several feet away, she looked at him, and her bottom lip disappeared into her mouth, nervous fear oozing from her in a way he could never miss. Modulating his breathing, making it so the sound of it surging in and out through his nose was the only noise inhabiting his head, holding that moment until echoing through the years he heard her heels again.Click, click, thud.
Benny shook his head and then allowed himself to smile at her. Not a real smile, but his rock star one, and he knew she knew the difference when she flinched. “Susan.” He used her Christian name, pulling another flinch, but not wanting to offer her the thing he wanted most in the world, a connection to his mother. He reached out and took the handle of her bag, clasping it tightly.
