CHAPTER 32 #3
“So what, you thought you’d just sneak out and go to a bar?”
Johnny nodded.
Victor grabbed the truck door and tossed it open. “How many times have you done this before?”
“None. This is the first time.”
“Oh, really? You expect me to believe that?”
“I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“Don’t you have someone you call about this? Someone in AA?”
“Haven’t been going to AA for a couple months now.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Johnny’s face was eerily blank, his voice also. What was Victor supposed to do with that? He had no clue if he should be mad or worried. “Toldja, there’s too much God shit, and I don’t really need those people.”
“No? That’s why you’re getting up at three in the morning to get drunk?”
“I didn’t go. I’m just sittin’ here.”
“If it was one in the morning, you probably wouldn’t be.”
Johnny’s face turned so pained you’d think Victor had just told him the worst news of his life. “I don’t know.”
“Why? What the fuck is going on? I want to know why you’re so desperate to drink right now. Is it because of work?”
“No. I just…” Johnny sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “I just feel too much.”
“I have no clue what that means.”
Johnny pulled the keys out of the ignition and slid out of the truck seat, turning away from Victor to close the door. He didn’t reply.
“Johnny,” Victor pushed, stuck between despondent and enraged. Why did this man have to be so fucking complicated?
“I wish you didn’t care about me so much,” Johnny finally said.
“What?”
“The more you care about me, the more I’m gonna disappoint you.”
Victor sighed. “Can you please go inside? It’s too early for me to deal with this.”
“I’ve always had shit taste in women, but the fact of the matter is that I don’t date anyone I can’t stand to lose.
Because I lose everyone. It’s how I’m built I guess.
” Johnny sniffed, rubbing at his face. “Part of me wonders why I even bother with this sobriety shit. I’ve been drinkin’ since I was thirteen.
My daddy was a drunk, and my grandaddy. Why fight this hard against somethin’ that’s a part of me?
If it don’t get me now, it’ll get me in a month, or a year.
But by then you’ll like me even more than you do now, and I’ll hurt you, and that’ll be on my conscience for the rest of my fuckin’ life. ”
Victor stared at him, though it wasn’t easy since he’d turned off the truck and taken the headlights with him. Now there was just the motion-sensor light on the porch, and that’d probably shut off at any moment if they didn’t go inside.
“How long have you been thinking about this?” Victor asked.
“I been a piece of shit for a long time,” Johnny responded. “But I guess I only put it together recently.”
Victor wanted to tell Johnny to get a proper therapist because all of this was too much for Victor to handle, but he knew that the proper reply to Johnny’s emotional honesty was not to refer him to someone else.
So he tried to come up with a response that was insightful and helpful even when his brain was low on sleep.
“Was your grandfather abusive to your dad?” Victor asked.
“Yeah.”
“And your father was abusive to you. So who have you abused lately?”
“Drinkin’ and abuse are different.”
“What I’m saying is that you aren’t doomed to do the same shit your dad and grandfather did. You’re already better than both of them.”
Victor’s words didn’t seem to land, because Johnny still looked lost and dejected. So Victor did what was natural and went to him, grasping his head with both hands and pressing their chests together.
“I already love you,” Victor said, voice shaky but determined. “So if you think you’ll hurt me more the longer this goes on, it’s too late.”
“Vic,” Johnny choked out, grabbing Victor’s hands with his own and clasping them between his palms as if in a prayer. “Please don’t.”
“Please don’t what? Don’t love you?”
“You’re always doing so much for me,” Johnny blurted, voice fragile. “It only makes me feel worse. You’ve got so much to give and I don’t got nothin’.”
“What have I given you?”
“A fuckin’ horse, for one.”
He had Victor there. “I also got a horse for your niece.”
Johnny’s laughter was shaky but genuine. “Add it to the list.”
“It’s not like I splurged. I didn’t get you a trained horse. I bought you a fixer upper. That’s different.”
“It don’t fuckin’ matter what the horse is, it’s a horse.
You brought my horses here so I didn’t have to pay board.
You helped me clean out my house, made sure I got sober and got my roof repaired.
You cook me food and give me foot rubs. You look after Taylor when no one else will.
What the fuck have I done other than fuckin’ drink and disappoint you?
” Johnny pulled back, rubbing the butt of his palm against his mouth.
“And don’t act like you don’t have a clue, cuz I see it on your face.
Every time I pull away, every time I try to keep you at a distance, I see you there lookin’ so got-damn hurt, it fuckin’ kills me.
You make me feel like such a piece of shit, and it ain’t even your fault.
It makes me wanna drink. I just don’t wanna feel this way.
” Johnny’s arms slithered up over his head as he squatted in the dirt, like he wanted to make himself as small as possible. “When I’m drunk I don’t hate myself.”
“Johnny—”
“And I know what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna come over here and comfort me and tell me all the things I wanna hear, cuz that’s what you do. That’s the kinda person you are. I don’t deserve it.”
The porch light clicked off, bathing them all in darkness except for the one square of golden light through the kitchen window.
Johnny had put Victor in an impossible situation, when offering comfort felt the same as offering condemnation. If Johnny was bound and determined to hate himself, then there was no way Victor could stop him.
“If you don’t love me or want my love, then you can get in the truck and drive home,” Victor said. “Get drunk and be miserable, if that’s all you think you’re worth.”
Johnny stood, outlined only by a thin sliver of light from the kitchen. He reached for the truck door but stopped. “Vic…”
Victor felt a sudden well of tears in his eyes, so he turned around and marched back to the porch.
The light flicked on again, illuminating the path to the front door.
Victor expected Johnny to come after him, but then he heard the sound of the truck door opening and closing.
By the time Victor turned around, the truck engine roared to life and the headlights cut a blazing path through the dark.
Victor watched it make a three-point turn and then trundle down the driveway, the cloud in its wake drifting silently into the blackness of night.