Let's Get Lost

V. Johnny

V. Johnny

     I HAD BEEN wanting to call him, waiting to call him, but my body and my mind were both torn.  I ordered my hand to pick up the phone, but I couldn't.  I'd been damned if I hadn't tried and though I did, I already felt like I was going to Hell.  Part of me felt like it was my fault Dad was dead, even though everything in my heart knew it was because of my mother.  In all honest, I was surprised her big mouth had managed to keep quiet about the whole affair, because she told Dad every little thing else that was going on in her life.

The only reason I'd found out about it was because when I was younger, watching Ryan grow, I'd noticed the differences and I demanded she tell me the truth or I would tell Dad I saw her with another man -- even if it wasn't true.  I'd known he'd been over to the house when Dad was at work; I could smell him when I ate my cheerios in the morning . . . and she finally broke down and told me her and another daddy were having a baby together, but my daddy didn't know about the baby's other daddy.  I'd pieced it together as I grew; learning about sex; understanding sex; having sex; being the man girls pulled the pregnancy card on. 

It pissed me off, not only because I knew for a fact it wasn't true, but because my father seemed so happy when my mother told him she was pregnant with "their second child" and he never thought to question it until after he found out that my mother was still having the affair -- even after Ryan was born.  She irked me in so many ways and I found myself hating women simply because of her.  After all, weren't they all the same? 

Sighing, I stood from the curb and headed over across the street to a motel I'd been watching for the past two hours.  There was very little action going on around here, aside from the occasional prostitute loitering the corner or the family that came in and left to go somewhere, before coming back, again. 

I rented a room until the thirteenth, only having enough money until then.  My job was not fixable.  My relationships were not fixable.  My head was not fixable.  My life was not fixable.  I figured this motel room would give me enough time to try and straighten out or start over, though it was only ten days.  I had called a friend earlier and had him drop off a bottle of Jack Daniels for me in exchange for three rolled cigarettes and a blunt, to which he gladly agreed, since he couldn't get his hands on anything except for hard liquor at the moment.  I found it strange, but I was there when the original situation threw down, so I knew he wasn't bullshitting me. 

It was a good deal.  Besides, I had enough cigarettes and weed to last me until the twentieth of this month.

At least I'd graduated high school last year, so I didn't have that to worry about in the morning, anymore.  I couldn't say the same about Ryan, though.

Just then, my phone rang and I picked it up without even looking at the caller identification, though after I heard his voice, I'd wished I had. 

"John?" 

I groaned out of habit, though I could hear the cracking depression in his voice, "What do you want, Ryan?"

"I know . . . about Dad not being my dad," he muttered, "I just don't understand." 

"No surprise there," I sarcastically retorted. 

It was always like this; when he was whole and put together, he was fine and didn't need me.  However, the second something happened and he felt like a broken little boy, he came crawling to me through a phone call.  I would always be the one to help him through his shit and that wasn't fair; I simply wasn't doing it this time. 

"I'm sorry I ever called him Dad," he sounded like he was choking on his own tears and I sighed, not wanting to give in to the pleading his voice had been doing to me while his words said something completely different.  He was stuck between wanting me to come get him and wanting me to stay away . . . but the thing was, from the way he was talking, so broken and damaged, I could tell he wasn't at home, which only made me wonder why he hadn't been at our mother's very beck and call, like he usually was.