Johnny told me once that Southeastern Alaska normally gets
far more rain than snow. Usually a
winter snowfall was like the one I’d experienced while visiting with my family
six years ago. Wet fat heavy flakes that blanketed the trees and bent their
branches, but that didn’t stick around long once the daytime temperature rose
above freezing. But Johnny had said every few years Eagle Harbor got hit with
an unusual weather pattern that brought colder than normal temperatures and
blizzards along with them. Lucky me.
This was evidently the year for that.
Trevor and I were in the barn feeding the animals by
six-twenty. It was still as dark as if
it’d been midnight. Trev said it wouldn’t be until eight o’clock or so that
we’d begin to see some daylight.
My breath came out in cold foggy puffs. “Alaska gives a whole new meaning to the
phrase ‘a long cold winter’.”
Trevor shot me a glance.
His crooked grin made him look like his father’s younger twin. “Gettin’ soft in your old age, Uncle Roy?”
“Nope. Just never
spent much time in a climate like this.”
I looked out a window. With the help of a bright yard light I saw the
snow still falling. “And now I know
why.”
“Just like you can’t imagine living here year ‘round, I
can’t imagine living where you do.”
“No?”
The boy shook his head. “I like winter.”
“Good thing,” I teased. “ ‘Cause it looks like you’ll have
plenty of it this week.”
“Looks that way.”
We hurried through the chores. Trevor rolled the barn door open so he could call for the dogs
he’d let out for a run when we’d entered.
A blast of cold air and snow swept in.
Right behind that came Tasha and Nicolai. Droplets of snow splattered the walls when each of the dogs gave
a mighty shake. They ran for their food
bowls as Trevor rolled the door shut and secured it.
We opened the service door that stepped into the garage
where the tractor sat. I studied the
instrument panel and various levers for a few seconds. When I was pretty certain I knew how to
start it, I climbed on.
“Open the door for me, will ya’, Trev?”
“Sure.”
Trevor crossed to the wall where the garage door opener was
mounted. He hit the button and I heard
the chains kick in that raised the door.
Trev ran back to my side, scrambling on beside me as I started the John
Deere’s engine. The silver lid on the
smoke stack bounced up and down with a smooth “clack clack clack” each time
exhaust was eliminated.
I shouted to Trevor over the sound of the engine. “You holding on?”
“Yeah!”
Trevor grasped the back of the tractor’s seat and leaned
against the metal wheel-well. I looked
over my shoulder. I saw nothing but darkness punctuated by white
snowflakes. I studied the big levers in
the middle of the tractor’s floor again, nodding when Trevor pointed to the one
closest to my right hand.
“I think that’s the gear shift!”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough!”
I pushed in and then down to the right. I slowly eased off the clutch. If the
tractor went forward instead of backwards, I wanted to stop it quickly. I figured my popularity with Johnny would
decrease even further if I ran the tractor through his garage wall.
I didn’t have to shove the clutch in or slam on the
brake. The tractor rolled backwards,
just like I’d hoped it would. I grinned
at Trevor.
“There! That wasn’t so bad. Now if we can just figure out how to make it go forward and then
get the bucket to work!”
Trevor laughed.
Neither of us was laughing though, when snow slapped our faces. I turned the steering wheel to the left,
then straightened it so the nose of the tractor was pointed north - the
direction I wanted it to go. Trevor
reached around my body, pressed in the gearshift, and moved it into what I
hoped was first gear.
“Got it?” I asked.
“Yeah. Go ahead! I
think we’re in first!”
“You think?”
Again, I got Johnny’s grin. “We might as well live dangerously. Go for it!”
I eased off the
clutch, smiling again as we smoothly moved forward at about five miles an
hour.
“Good job, Trev!”
“Thank…Stop, Uncle Roy! Stop!”
I slammed on the brake, the big tires spinning in the
snow. At first I didn’t know why Trevor
shouted. All I saw was snow driven at a right angle by the wind. But then I spotted him in the glow of the
John Deere’s headlights. Johnny. As far as I’d known, he’d still been in bed
when Trevor and I left the house. Now he was standing in front of the tractor
wearing jeans, boots, his winter coat, and gloves. I didn’t see his cane anywhere as he limped toward us.
“O-Off!”
“Johnny--”
He grabbed my arm and yanked. “O-O-Off!”
“Johnny, look, if you wanna climb up here I’ll help you,
but don’t pull me--”
“Off da-da-damn! Da-damn ‘ou! O-o-off!”
He yanked again. If
I hadn’t been hanging onto the steering wheel I would have ended up on the
ground.
“Papa! Papa, stop!”
Trevor started to climb down. “Stop
it!”
Johnny pointed a finger at Trevor. “Stay!”
Another jerk on my coat sleeve finally convinced me to jump
down. I had no idea what Johnny was
doing, but he was so upset that I decided it was best to follow his orders. I thought maybe he was confused by finding
Trevor and me on the tractor and simply needed an explanation. Snow stung my face as I yelled to be heard
over the engine and the storm.
“I’m just gonna plow the driveway! Trevor’s helping me!”
“No!”
“But I have to in order to get him to school! If you don’t
want him riding on the tractor, that’s okay.
I understand. He can go in the
house with you and--”
“No! Me!”
“What?”
“I-I-I-do!”
“Johnny, I don’t think--”
He glared at me, daring me to stop him from plowing his own
driveway. When I thought of it in those terms, I realized how ridiculous it was
for us to be standing in the middle of a snowstorm at quarter to seven in the
morning, arguing over whether or not Johnny should get on the tractor. I didn’t think it was a smart thing for him
to do given his weak left side and memory problems, and I especially didn’t
think it was a smart thing for him to do with Trevor riding along, but the
tractor was Johnny’s not mine. Therefore, short of attempting to reason with
him one last time, my ability to put a halt to his actions was limited.
“Look, Johnny, I don’t think now’s the time for you to do
this. In a few weeks--”
“No!”
“John--”
I watched as he struggled to get on the tractor. I motioned for Trevor to climb off. If Johnny was intent on killing himself
there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. But he had no right to take Trevor
with him.
Trevor started to climb down, I don’t necessarily think
because I was urging him to, but because he was uncertain of Johnny’s
intentions. He was scared. I knew he’d never seen Johnny act this way –
irrational is the only way to describe it – any more than I’d ever seen Johnny
act this way.
Johnny threw his right arm backwards, blocking his son’s
path. “No! Stay!”
Now I was getting angry. “Johnny, let him get off if he
wants to!”
“No!”
“Look, if you wanna kill yourself on that thing, then go
ahead, but you’re not taking Trevor with you!”
“Mi-mi-min- ‘ou go-go damn biz-biz!”
I wasn’t sure what Johnny had said. Between the wind, the
tractor’s engine, and his garbled speech, the best I could come up with was,
“Mind your own goddamn business.”
To punctuate that command, he lashed out with his left boot
and caught me in the center of my chest. I stumbled, barely staying on my feet.
“Papa! Papa, stop it!” Trevor looked from his father to
me. The poor kid. Once again he was caught between us. “It’s
okay, Uncle Roy! It’s okay! Just go in the house and wait for us!”
I wasn’t going in the house, but I backed up a few feet so
Johnny wouldn’t perceive me as a threat.
I wasn’t concerned about being kicked again. He didn’t have enough strength in his left leg to seriously hurt
me. However, if he was bent on driving
the tractor, I wanted his concentration focused on what he was doing instead of
on what I was doing.
I watched as the tractor took off with a jerk that threw
Trevor backwards. Fortunately he was gripping the seat and didn’t lose his
footing. Johnny’d opened the throttle
up too far. Whether that was a result
of his poor coordination or poor memory, I wasn’t certain. I watched as the tractor sped down the
driveway. I knew he’d never make the
curve just beyond the house if he didn’t slow down.
I raced behind the John Deere, slipping and sliding on the
fine layer of ice hidden beneath the snow.
“Johnny, slow down!
Slow down!”
Trevor screamed,
“Papa! Pops, stop! Slow down!
Slow down!” as he fought Johnny for control of the tractor.
The glow from the yard lights lining the driveway allowed
me to see a blur of green as the John Deere careened around the curve. I knew what the end result would be long
before I witnessed it. The tractor
flipped onto its right side, its occupants tumbling from my sight.
My lungs burned as I fought my way through the snow at a
speed I didn’t think I possessed any longer. All I could picture was Johnny, or
Trevor, or both of them, crushed beneath the massive weight of the
tractor.
I found Johnny first.
He’d landed in the snow a few feet from the John Deere,and didn’t appear
to be hurt. He was struggling to get up, frantically calling Trevor’s name.
“Tev! Tev!” A
father’s panic allowed him to get his last attempt out clearly. Trevor!
Trevor!”
I spotted Trevor fifteen feet Johnny. He emerged from the middle of a snow bank
with blood running down his face. I
waded through the deep snow. I was
panting when I finally reached Trevor and urged him to sit so I could check him
for head and spinal injuries.
“I’m okay!”
“Sit down, Trev!”
“I’m all right, Uncle Roy!
Where’s Papa?”
“He’s fine! He’s
right behind me.”
Trevor spotted Johnny hobbling toward us. The boy’s relief at seeing his father wasn’t
hurt quickly changed to anger. Johnny
grasped his son’s shoulders, only to have his arms thrown aside.
“What were you doing? Why’d you do that? Why didn’t you listen to Uncle Roy when he
told you not to get on the tractor? You
could have killed us! Why can’t you
understand that things have changed?
Why do you keep pretending you’re okay, when we all know you’re
not? Geez, Pops, get a grip, okay! Go to therapy like you’re supposed to! Do the exercises you’re supposed to do here
at home! Do the things you’re supposed to do in order to get better before you
do something stupid again like getting on that tractor!”
At any other time, Trevor wouldn’t have gotten away with
talking to Johnny like that. He’d have
probably gotten a smack across the face that would’ve landed his butt right
back in the snow bank he’d just climbed out of, and under other circumstances,
he should have. But under the current
circumstances his fury and disrespectful words were justified. At first I
thought Johnny seemed contrite, but then he came at Trevor with an equal amount
of fury and pent up rage.
“Shu—shu ‘ou mou-mouf!
‘Ou-‘ou don’ know wha-wha-what it’s ‘ike! ‘Ou-‘ou don’ know…don’ know ‘ow-how I feel!”
“That’s because you won’t let me know how you feel! You
shut me out just like you shut everyone out!
No one thinks less of you but yourself, Papa! You don’t have to prove anything to me, or to anyone else! I don’t care if you can drive a tractor or
if you can’t drive a tractor! I don’t
care if you can be the fire chief of this town again, or if you can’t ever go
back to work! I just want my father
back!” Tears mixed with the blood on
Trevor’s face. “I just want my father back instead of the stranger who took his
place the day you came home from the hospital!”
I couldn’t read the expression on
Johnny’s face. Whatever emotions
Trevor’s words evoked inside him, he kept well hidden. He turned and trudged
toward the house with Trevor yelling after him, “Yeah, go ahead and walk away,
just like you do every time you don’t wanna hear what someone has to say! Go ahead and walk away from me! See what I care! Just see what I care!”
“Trev, calm down,” I urged. “Let’s get you in the house so I can find
out where that blood’s coming from.”
Trevor swiped at his tears with the
sleeve of his coat. “I don’t care where it’s coming from. I’m fine. I gotta get the tractor up.”
The tractor was still running on its
side in the snow. I eyed it. There was no way Trevor and I could right it
without help. Before I had the chance
to tell him that the only thing we could do was shut it off and leave it like
it was until I figured out who to contact for assistance, headlights swept over
us.
At first I thought someone had heard all the yelling, seen
the flipped tractor, and called the cops.
Then common sense took over, reminding me that Johnny’s nearest neighbor
was almost a mile away. Whatever had
brought Carl Mjtko to Johnny’s this early in the morning, it wasn’t a
“disturbing the peace” call.
The big man shot out of the police department’s
Durango. He was in full uniform,
including a heavy winter coat his badge and nametag were pinned to. He looked from the tractor to Trevor’s
bloody face.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing,” I downplayed. “Just a little…accident. I guess I don’t know as much about plowing
driveways as I thought.”
“It wasn’t Uncle Roy’s fault. It was Papa’s. He--”
I elbowed Trevor, hoping he’d understand that I wanted him
to control his temper and keep his mouth shut.
Although I knew Carl was a loyal friend to Johnny, I also knew how
gossip raced through a fire department. Johnny would be humiliated if word got
around town about what had really happened that morning.
“I guess Trevor and I should have stayed inside this
morning,” was how I finished things.
“Is there someone we can call who’ll come and plow us out so I can get
him to school? I’ll pay whatever it
costs.”
“There is,” Carl nodded, “but you don’t need to do
that. I stopped by in the first place
to see you if you needed me to plow.”
“Oh.” All I could
think of was how much trouble I could have avoided had I known Carl was coming
over. And how I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of a snowstorm
shivering, while knowing I could have stayed in bed another hour. “Well…poor timing on my part, looks like.”
“Looks like,” Carl agreed.
He walked around the tractor, reached for the ignition, and shut it
off. “I’ll take care of this if you’ll
take care of that cut on Trevor’s head.”
“Now that I can do.”
Carl eyed me for a few seconds. His gaze shifted to the
imprint of a man’s body in the snow a few feet from the tractor, and then to
the set of boot prints headed toward the house. He looked at me again as though he was sizing me up. He already knew I was a good friend to
Johnny, but evidently I’d just moved up a few notches in that department where
Carl was concerned. He gave me a quick
nod, as if to say he’d put two and two together and come up with four, but he
never verbally acknowledged that.
As I put an arm around Trevor’s shoulders and urged him to
tromp through the snow to the house, Carl opened the Durango’s door and got on
the radio. I heard him place a
non-emergency call for a fire engine. I
assumed Carl planned to right the tractor with the aid of the engine and her
crew. Although I could have been of
help to the engine crew, my first priority was Trevor. He and I entered the laundry room, allowing
Carl to take care of what needed doing outside, while I took care of what
needed doing inside.
He ignored Roy’s calls of, “Johnny! Johnny!
Hey, Johnny, where are you?” as he buried his hands deeper into the
pockets of his coat.
He was seated on a log beneath a cedar tree in the lower
end of the National Forest that bordered the back of his barn. He didn’t answer Roy because he had no
desire to be found. He wasn’t a child.
When he was ready to return to the house, he would. But currently the house seemed like a prison. A place he spent too much time in, and could
no longer leave at will. Instead, he
had to wait for someone to come pick him up and take him wherever the driver
dictated. Well, Johnny was tired of
being dictated to. And after just
twenty-four hours, he was also tired of Roy.
Tired of the man being in his home.
Tired of the man telling him what he could and couldn’t
do.
And tired of the man trying to take his son from him.
He’d planned to show Trevor how to use the
tractor this winter. That was something
he’d wanted to do with his son. It wasn’t Roy’s place to take over and do it for him. Especially
not without asking. Just like it hadn’t
been Roy’s place to pick Trevor up from school the previous evening, or to make
supper.
Yeah, but you couldn’t even remember that Trevor needed a
ride home from school, Johnny’s common sense reminded him. And you weren’t going to make supper. If
it had been up to you, Trevor would have eaten a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich for the third night in a row.
Johnny scowled, angry at the internal thoughts that were
barraging him with the truth, and forcing him to face it whether he wanted to
or not. So far all he’d done was fail
the one person he’d never wanted to fail – Trevor. His son could have been killed when the tractor tipped over. Roy was right to urge him to let Trevor get
off of the John Deere, but Johnny’s pride wouldn’t allow him to listen – his
pride, and his jealousy over seeing Trevor on that tractor with Roy.
When Johnny gave it some thought, he had to admit it was
stupid. He was stupid. His own actions were pushing Trevor away,
not Roy’s actions. He hadn’t even gone
to the house to see how his son was. He
didn’t know when his absence had been discovered, but according to his watch it
was now twenty minutes after nine, so Johnny suspected he hadn’t been missed
until Roy returned from taking Trevor to school. They must have assumed he was in Clarice’s room and hadn’t
bothered to check.
The wind had died down when dawn began to break. The woods grew so quiet that it had been
easy to hear men’s voices calling directions back and forth about how to right
the tractor. The piercing “beep beep beep” that followed indicated a fire
engine was backing down his driveway.
Then the tractor’s engine came to life again, and he was able to follow
its sound as it traveled up and down the driveway more times than Johnny
bothered to keep track of. He wasn’t
sure who was plowing, but his money was on Carl. Not long after the sound of the tractor ceased, Johnny’s Land
Rover started, and he surmised Roy was leaving to take Trevor to school. Roughly forty minutes after that, Johnny’d
heard Roy call his name for the first time.
Now the call came again.
“Johnny! Hey,
Johnny!” but Roy was moving away from him.
By the way the sound was growing more distant, Johnny could tell Roy was
headed toward the grove of Sitka Pines that grew in front of his house and
formed a barrier between his property and the road.
The snowfall had slowed now, the flakes fluttering from the
sky like tiny cotton balls. He hadn’t
bothered to put a hat on before leaving the house. He hated hats, and only wore one on the coldest days of
winter. He had a navy blue headband
around his skull like the kind skiers wore, and while it kept his ears warm it
didn’t prevent the snow from landing on his head and soaking into his
hair. Nonetheless, Johnny didn’t bother
to pull up his hood. He barely noticed
the discomfort of the cold snow melting between his neck and his shirt, or the
way his toes and fingers were growing numb, as he remembered the last time he’d
felt this alone and out of place.
Johnny leaned against the wooden frame with his arms
crossed over his chest, staring out the picture window of his second floor
apartment. His eyes traveled from the
scraggly yard in front of the building where a few children were playing, to
the tops of the leafy trees that lined the sidewalk. The oranges, reds, and golds of a Colorado autumn were in full
beauty. The brilliant colors and nip in
the air that reminded Johnny of Montana was one thing he’d missed during the
years he’d lived in Southern California.
The October temperatures in Denver were ten to fifteen degrees warmer
than the October temperatures in Johnny’s hometown of White Rock, but still, it
was cooler than the average temperature in L.A. at this time of year. It was “sweatshirt weather,” as Johnny’s
mother would have said, and taking note of how the kids below were dressed
proved his mother correct.
Johnny’s gaze turned from the narrow street to the stark
white walls of his living room. The
apartment was given a fresh coat of paint after the previous tenet moved out,
but that only seemed to emphasize the marred wood trim of the floor boards and
the stains in the beige carpeting that even a steam cleaning done by
professionals hadn’t been able to remove.
The living room was long and narrow, serving as living and dining room
both. The kitchen was to the right of
the table and chairs Johnny had set at the end of the living room, and so tiny
that he could barely maneuver in it.
That didn’t matter to the paramedic though. He hadn’t been in the mood to make himself a meal since arriving
in Denver that went beyond pouring cereal into a bowl, or slapping together a
cold sandwich. If he wasn’t eating at
the fire station while on-duty, then he was grabbing something at a fast food
restaurant for his supper and eating it in front of the T.V. set.
To the left of the living room was the bedroom. Johnny’s triple dresser and king sized bed
dominated the cramped space. He had to
shuffle sideways around the bed in order to reach the closet, and it was
impossible to open the bottom row of drawers because they hit the bed when pulled
out. At the other end of the short hall
that housed the bedroom was a tiny bathroom.
In these two rooms as well, bright white walls offset scuffed woodwork,
and in the bathroom, beige vinyl flooring flecked with gold that was dried and
cracked with age.
Nothing about the apartment spoke of home to Johnny, but
then, he hadn’t done anything to make it his home, either. All of his personal items were in storage
other than the daily necessities. He hadn’t even bothered to bring his box of
pictures here in order to hang some on the walls. Many of the photos contained
members of the DeSoto family, as well as other memories best left behind and
forgotten in Los Angeles.
Almost ten years
had passed since John Gage lived in an apartment. He hadn’t thought he’d miss his ranch as much as he did, or find
apartment living as boring and lonely as he was. He didn’t remember feeling this way when he’d lived in his
apartment in Carson, but Johnny acknowledged the reason behind that. He’d had a
young single man’s lifestyle then with no ties to property or a mortgage
payment, and with plenty of friends in the fire department like Chet, and
Marco, and various paramedics, all of whom were single too, and always looking
for something to do on a Saturday night if they weren’t on-duty or didn’t have
dates.
After Johnny bought his ranch he’d left behind that single
man’s lifestyle to some extent, because as a homeowner he was always busy
fixing things, remodeling things, and rebuilding things in his spare time. Now he wasn’t in his twenties any longer,
like he’d been when he’d lived in his previous apartment. He was thirty-nine.
There just weren’t many single guys in his age group to do things with who
weren’t gay, and he certainly wasn’t going to seek any of them out just because
he was new in town and had nothing to do when he wasn’t on-duty.
As far as being on-duty went, it was too early for Johnny
to pass judgment on his co-workers, or the Denver Fire Department. He’d been on the job just three weeks. Things were going okay so far, and Johnny
was getting to know his partner, Greg Kulmeyer. He liked Greg, and was thankful he hadn’t been partnered with
some jerk that would remind him of Craig Brice, but it was still too soon for
Johnny to tell if he and Greg would eventually become good friends, or if their
relationship would never extend beyond two men who worked well together, but
had little in common outside of the fire station. As for anyone else within the department – they were still just
faces to him, with the exception of the other guys assigned to his shift at
Station 28. As with Greg, Johnny was
just now getting to know them better and observing how they worked as a
team. They seemed like a good bunch of
guys, but Johnny supposed it would take a few more weeks before he was fully
comfortable around them, and vice versa.
It had been years since Johnny had been the “new guy” and he’d forgotten
what a shitty feeling that was.
The man moved away from the window, regretting now that he
hadn’t taken more time to find himself a decent apartment when he’d visited
Denver in August. A well-kept building
would have been nice, with bigger rooms, new carpeting, and a patio where he
could step outside and enjoy the fall weather.
Instead, he’d settled for the first apartment he could find because of
his haste to leave L.A.
Johnny sighed as he walked toward the phone. What did it
really matter anyway? It was just a
place to live for the time being. Just
until he found something more to his liking – whatever that might turn out to
be. Another apartment. A house. A small ranch. A condo. He hadn’t ruled
any of those possibilities out, but until he was certain he wanted to stay in
Denver there was no need to make any more hasty decisions than he already had. Not that he regretted moving. That was the one thing he didn’t
regret. It had to be done. For the sake of Roy and his family there
hadn’t been another choice.
The paramedic dropped to his couch. He stared at the phone on the end table for
a full minute before finally picking up the receiver. He dreaded making this call but had no choice. It had been over three weeks since he’d
talked to the man. Usually he talked
to him several times a month. If Johnny
didn’t call soon, he knew his lack of contact would cause a lot of needless
worry.
Johnny forced himself to punch the numbers in. The phone rang four times, then a familiar
voice came on the line that was a bit out of breath, as though the man had run
in from outside.
“ ‘Lo?”
“Hi…Hi, Dad.”
“John! John, son,
where are you?”
Johnny’s was puzzled by his father’s question and frantic
tone. The last time Johnny’d talked to
his dad was a few days before leaving California. Although Johnny had spoken to the man several times since Chris
was shot, he hadn’t told his father about that incident or all that had
transpired after it. Nor had Johnny
told his father he was leaving Los Angeles.
He’d decided to wait until he got settled in Denver to make that phone –
to make the phone call he was now engaged in.
“Where am I?”
“Yeah, where are you?
I’m been worried, your sister’s been worried, your grandfather’s been--”
“I get the picture.”
Johnny tried to affect a light tone meant to convey humor he wasn’t
feeling. “No need to worry though, Dad. I’m fine.”
The paramedic concluded that his
father must have called his ranch - his former ranch, that is - sometime in the
past three weeks and gotten a hold of Natalie or her husband. Naturally Chad Gage would be confused and
upset when he was told his son no longer lived there and that no one knew where
he’d relocated.
“John, you should have told me.”
“I know, I know. Look…I’m sorry. It all came up kind of sudden like. I got this job offer and it was just…just too good to pass up,” Johnny
lied, while at the same time trying his best to sound convincing. “Things moved along pretty quickly once I
made the decision to move.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Uh…it’s not?”
“No. I mean you should have told me what happened to Chris. What happened between you and Roy because of
it.”
“Oh.” Johnny swallowed hard, resisting the temptation to hang up the
phone. He didn’t feel like talking
about this to his father. If it were
possible, and Johnny had been hoping it would be, he would have kept the truth
behind his move to Denver from Chad Gage for the rest of the man’s life. “How…how did you know?”
“Joanne called me.”
Johnny closed his eyes, giving a
slight nod. Of course Joanne had called
his father. It made perfect sense that
she would.
“She was worried about you,
son. She called me a few days after
you’d moved. She wanted to know if you
were here.”
“In White Rock?”
“She thought maybe you’d moved back
home.”
White Rock hadn’t been home to
Johnny in so long that it sounded funny to hear his father refer to it that
way.
“What’d you tell her?”
“What could I tell her?”
Johnny smiled at the way his
father’s voice rose with indignation, the same way Johnny’s own voice rose when
he was feeling like his dad was right now.
“John…John, why didn’t you tell me
about Chris? Why’d you keep it a secret?”
Johnny’s smile faded. Silence lingered over the phone line before
he finally stammered the only explanation he had.
“I…it was…it’s just not easy to talk about”
“I understand that. But it wasn’t your fault. I don’t care what
Roy says, it wasn’t your fault.”
Chad’s loyalty meant a lot to
Johnny, but it didn’t prevent him from saying, “Don’t blame Roy. He’s been through hell these last few
months because of what happened to Chris.”
“And you haven’t?”
By Chad’s tone, Johnny knew Joanne
hadn’t left any details out regarding the events that had taken place from the
day Chris was shot until the day Johnny left L.A.
“I--I’m okay, Dad.”
“You don’t sound okay. And Joanne
wouldn’t have called me if she thought you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” Johnny reiterated.
The paramedic heard his father’s
heavy sigh, a sign the man didn’t believe him, but also knew there was no point
in pursing the issue.
Chad shifted the subject. “Where’re you living?”
Johnny hesitated before answering.
“John? Where are you?”
The voice held that no-nonsense tone
Johnny remembered from his childhood.
“You…Dad, you have to promise me one
thing before I tell you.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell Jo where I am.”
“I won’t lie to you. I told Joanne I’d call her back when I heard
from you.”
“That’s okay. Call her. Let her know I’m fine. Just don’t tell her where I’m at.”
When Chad didn’t respond, Johnny
said, “Look, Dad, Jo won’t pressure you to tell her more than that if she knows
I asked you not to. Just tell her I
made you promise not to say where I’m living.”
“But why? She and the kids’re worried about you.”
“I know. And I’m sorry about that.
But it’s because of Joanne and the kids that I had to do this. That I had to
move away without saying where I was going, and without giving Jo or the kids a
way to contact me. I won’t come between
Roy and his family. He can’t help Chris
and get things back on track with Joanne if I’m there. If somehow I’m always coming between all of
them, even when I don’t mean to.
There’s been so much…anger. So much upset. Everyone’s torn apart over what happened to Chris. They’ve got to come together again as a
family in order to help him, Dad. In
order to help each other. It’s
just…it’s better if I’m not there.”
“Why? Because Joanne and the kids are mad at Roy for the way he’s
treated you?”
“That’s part of it,” Johnny
admitted. He left the other part
unspoken. That it hurt too much to be
around Roy – to see him at fires, or fire department functions – all the while
knowing that if he approached the man who had been his best friend for thirteen
years, that man would turn his back on Johnny.
“Just…just promise me you won’t tell her.”
There was a long contemplative silence,
yet when Chad said firmly, “I promise, son,” Johnny knew his father would never
go back on his word.
“So,” Chad asked, “where are you?”
“Denver.”
“You have a job? ‘Cause if you
don’t, I can always use help here on the ranch.”
Johnny smiled at the way his father
was subtly asking if he needed money, and then readily providing a way for him
to obtain it without losing face.
“I’ve got a job.”
“With a fire department?”
“How’d you know?”
Johnny could tell it was his dad who
was smiling now when Chad answered with, “Lucky guess.”
“I got hired by the Denver
department.”
“Doing what? Teaching, like you were in L.A.?”
“Some teaching. But more field work than I’ve done in a few
years now.”
“As a firefighter?”
“When I’m needed as one, yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will be. It’s just that
I thought that part of your career was over.”
“Well…sometimes things change.”
“Sometimes they do,” Johnny’s father
reluctantly agreed.
Johnny wished he could spare the old man worry. His dad had been happy when Johnny’d taken
the paramedic instructor position in L.A. What father wouldn’t want the
assurance that his son would never have to run into another burning building?
“How’d you find out about this job in
Denver anyway? You know someone there?”
“Nope.” For the first time since
he’d picked up the phone, Johnny relaxed against the sofa cushions. “I saw an
ad in a trade journal the Denver department was running for experienced
paramedics. I applied, got a call for
an interview, flew out here, and was hired a couple a’ days later.”
“Like it?”
Johnny put just the right amount of enthusiasm in his
answer. “Yeah. Yeah, I like it a
lot.”
“You working with good guys? Guys who know what they’re
doing?”
“Yeah, they seem like decent guys. They know what they’re
doing.”
“You got someone to watch your back the way Ro…”
Given Chad let that sentence die unfinished, Johnny knew
his father realized he was on the verge of putting his foot in his mouth. The
paramedic took pity on the man. It
would take all of them some time to get used to the fact that Roy DeSoto and
his family were no longer a part of Johnny’s life.
“I’ve got a good partner,” Johnny assured his dad. “Name’s
Greg. Nice guy. Knows his job all the way around.”
“Glad to hear it.
So, when were you planning to tell me you’d moved?”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “That’s why I called you, Dad.”
“Oh…oh, well, okay. Good. Your sister and grandfather will
be happy to hear everything’s okay.”
“Tell them I’m fine and that I’ll give ‘em both a call
soon.”
“I’ll do that.”
Father and son spoke for a few more minutes about things in
White Rock – cattle prices, the light dusting of snow that had fallen the
previous day that was likely a predictor of an early winter, and how many times
a week Chad was eating at the café owned by the woman who’d been Johnny’s
mother’s best friend – Marietta Parker.
Johnny briefly wondered if there was something his father wasn’t telling
him when Chad grew more and more animated while talking about the woman who’d
been a widow for a number of years now, but he had too many troubles on his
mind to fully focus on what it meant when his father talked about a woman
non-stop for ten minutes. Something Johnny hadn’t ever heard his father do.
Johnny tuned back into his father as the conversation began
to run its course.
“How’s the weather there?”
“Nice. Kinda
chilly, but not too bad.”
“How do ya’ like it?”
“What? The weather?”
“No. Denver. How do you like Denver?”
Johnny’s eyes flicked around his dingy apartment while
thinking how out of place he felt in all aspects of this new life he’d chosen.
“Uh…fine, Dad.
Fine.” Johnny closed his eyes
and lied, “I like Denver just fine.”
I spun around when the door
opened. I was struck silent long enough
for Carl to ask, “Roy…Roy, you still there?”
I pulled my attention from Johnny
and spoke into the telephone’s receiver.
“Uh…yeah, Carl, I’m here.
Johnny just walked in.”
“He’s all right?”
“Other than looking like Frosty the
Snowman, yeah, I think he’s okay.”
“You need me to come out there and
talk to him? Maybe knock some sense
into ’im for you?”
“No,” I said to his first question,
and to his second I said, “But don’t renege on your last offer. I might wanna
make use of it at some point.”
Carl chuckled. “The offer’ll stand
as long as you need it to.”
“Thanks for everything. Talk to you
later.”
“Yeah, later. Hey, when you get the chance call me and let
me know where he was. What the hell he
was thinking by wanderin’ off like he did.”