Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 11:03:24 -0500 From: Jeff Wilson Subject: W.A.R. Part Five Chapter 12 W.A.R. Part Five - Secrets Chapter 12 -- Wounds that Don't Heal by Jeff Wilson With everything going on with Dustin, my driving opportunities were few and far between. On Thursday, my dad got home early and asked me if I wanted to get out and do some driving. I was eager to finally get a chance to get my hands on the wheel again, so I was happy to accept his offer. Dustin was taken to the hospital after his incident. They took him to the our local hospital, Mon Valley General. It was the hospital where I got my head x-rayed after I broke my eye socket, and later, mom transferred there and has worked there ever since. I asked dad if we could stop there during my drive and dad said that would be a good idea. Dad didn't say much while I was driving. It was quite a change from when mom was my co-pilot. She wanted me to drive to WalMart in Belle Vernon with her. It was supposed to be a simple little trip across the river and a straight shot on a four lane highway. But you would have thought she was expecting me to crash the car and burst into flames at any moment. We made it just fine, but she was a nervous wreck the whole time. Dad and I found a handicapped space to park when we got to the hospital, so dad didn't have to threaten to smash any windshields with his cane. We walked into the hospital and found out where Dustin's room was. It wasn't a big hospital, but it was still a lot of walking for dad. We walked into the elevator and rode to the third floor. "You nervous, boy?" Dad asked while we waited for the elevator to climb to our floor. "Not really." I said, feeling my stomach drop. It was a sure sign that I was feeling nervous. "I can't blame you. Seeing how you saw him the last time. Don't worry. Just treat him normally. Don't treat him differently. I know I sure hated when people treated me like I was an alien after the stroke." The doors opened and we started looking at room numbers as we walked through the hall. We found the nurses station before we found Dustin's room, and they directed us to the hall where Dustin was staying. I was surprised to see someone walking down the hallway toward us. "Amanda! What are you doing here?" I asked foolishly. "Nice to see you too, Billy." She said sarcastically. "Why do you think I'm here?" "I know, stupid question." I replied. "Good to see you again, Amanda." Dad said. "Are we able to go in to see him?" "Sure. It will do my mom some good to see you. She's really taking everything hard." "I'm sorry we weren't able to help before things got out of control." Dad said. Sure… There was nothing that he could do… "Things were always out of control, Mr. Roberts." Amanda replied. "But at least things are going to get better now." Amanda invited us to walk with her into Dustin's room. I was worried about how Dustin would look. I pictured him hooked up to one of those heart machine beeping things and hooked up to IV's and tubes and wires. So it was a relief when we walked in to see that he wasn't hooked up to anything at all. I guess he had pretty much fully recovered physically. His hair was cut. The greasy black hair was gone and all that was left was his neat red hair. He looked like himself again, except older and tired. He was more pale than usual, and his wrists were bandaged up, but he looked like he could go right back to school. He was watching tv and he briefly glanced at us before going right back to watching. Mrs. Smith was sitting in a chair beside him and quickly rose and walked over to us when she saw us. "George! Billy!" She said happily, then hugging us. When she hugged me she whispered, "Thank you for what you did Billy. I can't ever thank you enough. Thank God you were there." We walked to the bed and dad said hello to Dustin. I noticed one of his charts on the table was labeled Dustin Dwayne Smith. Another mystery solved. Dustin said "hi" and went right back to watching tv. Mrs. Smith tried to get him to be more polite, but he wasn't going to say much. He would occasionally glance away from the television, but then he was right back to ignoring everyone. Mrs. Smith and my dad talked a little bit about what was going to happen to Dustin after he got out of the hospital. "Once he's released here, he's going to go to a school in Pittsburgh for a while. It's a really nice place that Dr. Reilly recommended. I know he's not happy about it, but it has to be done. We can't just send him back to school after this, and we have to get things taken care of at home. We'll see what happens after that. Of course there will be the trial and all of that." "Mom, can you go get me something to eat from the cafeteria?" Dustin said suddenly. "Well, we can send Amanda to get something for you." Mrs. Smith replied. "Why don't I go with you and Amanda to get him something to eat?" Dad said. I guess he figured that Dustin had probably had enough of his mom for a while. I remembered how he was happy when mom left him alone for a little while when he was in the hospital. Mrs. Smith grudgingly agreed to go. She kissed Dustin on the forehead and found out what he wanted, then dad, Mrs. Smith, and Amanda left me and Dustin alone. "Thank God." Dustin said after they were out of earshot. "She hasn't left me alone for days." "Well I can't blame her. You scared us to death." I replied. "You should have let me die." Dustin said flatly. "What?" I asked, shocked. "Look at me." Dustin held up his bandaged arms. "I'm going to be scarred for the rest of my life now. I knew I should have used a gun. Mom hid them all. I think she was afraid that dad would use them… Or she'd use them on him." "How can you say that?" I asked. "You don't even have a clue what happened to me, Billy. You think you saved me out there? All you did was keep the hell going. I'm fucking scared, okay. I'm scared. My life is ruined. Everybody knows what happened. Now no one's ever going to treat me like a normal person again." "You don't know that." I said. "Fuck you." Dustin replied. "Why did you have to get involved? You should have just walked on by." "You know I couldn't do that!" I said. "Well you should have! You haven't got a single clue what kind of life I have to live." "Well why don't you tell me about it then?" I said. "Okay. You want to know what it's like? They've got me on drugs to keep me from feeling anything. All that talk about not doing drugs, and then the minute you do something they don't like, they put you on drugs." "They're trying to help you." "They're trying to keep me from killing myself for real." "Well I can't blame them." I said. "We all want to help you." "I don't need shit from you, Billy. You've done enough, I think. You and your boyfriend can just go on and live your happy little lives and leave me the hell alone." "We're not going to do that. Whether you like it or not, we care about you and we're not going to let you hurt yourself." "Well you sure did a hell of a job keeping other people from hurting me." Dustin replied. I was left speechless. "I know you knew what was happening. That's why Brett knew. You and Mike are both assholes for what you did to me." "We didn't know what to do." I said. "So instead you let me get my ass fucked for two goddamn years! You might like to get it up the ass, but how would you like it if it was your own dad who was doing it? Do you think for one second that I wanted that?" "No." I replied. I was having a hard time thinking of anything to defend myself. "You think you're some kind of hero but you're not. You knew all along and you did nothing! You pretended everything was fine and all the while you knew and you didn't do a thing to help me. In my eyes, you're just as bad as he is, and I'll hate you until the day I die." "Dustin, please… What was I supposed to do?" I said. "Look at what you did to Brett when he told. Look at what happened to your family because of it." "You sat on your ass and did nothing while I was getting fucked by my dad. You're a little coward and you always have been. You're a scared little bitch who's afraid to help a friend who needed you. You're scared that people are going to find out that you're a little fag who likes it up the ass. Well where were you when I needed you the most? You were busy getting fucked and pretending that I didn't exist." "I never did that!" I protested. "You wouldn't want anybody to know that you were friends with a thug, now, would you? Well screw you! I couldn't get him to stop, Billy. I needed you to help. I needed anybody to help me. You, God, Mike… Somebody to make it stop. I used to try to fight it. I used to tell him no and that I was going to tell. That's when he broke my arm." "I thought you said…" "Amanda was always trying to help me. But at the same time, he threatened to kill us if we told mom. I tried to grow my hair longer before and that's when he shaved my head. When mom saw that I told her Amanda did it. And that's when he knew I was never going to tell." "Well why didn't you ever just tell me? I would have helped you somehow." "I tried." "If you'd have asked for help, I would have helped. I didn't want to ruin your life if I was wrong. You think you're mad at me now? What if I had told and been wrong?" "But you wouldn't have been wrong. You would have been right." "But I didn't know that until it was too late! Would you have told if you thought I was being molested by my dad?" I asked. "You're a son of a bitch for even asking that question." Dustin replied. "You don't know what it's like to live in fear every single night. Is this the night he's going to hurt me? Is he getting drunk? Is he coming upstairs? And then when he'd come in, he'd tell me to take off my clothes. Do you know how humiliating that is when you know what's going to happen to you next? And then when you ask him to stop you get punched in the guts. He never hit me in the face after Amanda moved out. It's no wonder he hurt sent me to the hospital. I was always getting hit in the stomach. And if I started to get fat he made me run laps. He didn't want to fuck another fat ass." "Oh my God…" I whispered, stunned by the extent of what had been happening to him. "God didn't do much to help, did he now? I asked. I begged. I cried my damn eyes out and God just let me get my guts split open. Dad said he'd beat me to death if I went to the hospital when he made me bleed. He was more pissed off that he didn't get to get his rocks off than he was concerned about me. Well when I finally puked my guts out the day after I went to your house, mom took me to the hospital because I passed out. I didn't care any more. I just wanted it to be over. I thought that if I was sick maybe he'd stop and we could be a normal family again. But then mom went and tried to kill Mike and Brett told and everything unraveled." "If you were hoping that it would be over, then why did you beat up Brett?" "Because things were going to be normal. He told me that it was going to stop. Things were finally going to be back to normal. He told me he wasn't going to do it anymore. Then Brett went and ruined it all. I was mad because I really believed it was going to be okay, and then Brett told. But I know now that it would have started up again eventually. That's when I did this to myself. I drank all of his beer and I just wanted to be done with it all. Now instead, it's just beginning." "Dustin, I am so sorry that I didn't say anything. You've got to believe me. If I knew for sure that it was really happening, you've got to know that I would have told. I just didn't know what to do." "I know." Dustin said. "I shouldn't have said that I'd hate you forever. I think the drugs they have me on make my mind work differently. They fuck me up. I don't hate you. I'm just so angry, Billy. And I'm scared. Who knows what's going to happen to me now? It hurts so much." "I wish I would have done something sooner…" I said. "Yeah… Well, you didn't. I guess we just have to live with it. I don't want to go to that school Billy. I don't want to be treated like a freak." "They won't." I said. "If Brett's mom says it's a good place, it must be." "Sure… He was here the other day, you know." "Brett?" I asked. "He was actually nice to me. It was really weird. Did you see what they did to my hair?" "It looks good." I said. "Well, I was ready to change it back anyway. Don't go thinking that I'm sexy or anything." "It looks better now than it did. You really did look like a thug." Mrs. Smith, Amanda, and dad walked back into the room with Dustin's food. Dustin ate in his usual way, inhaling everything. Dad told me that it was time for us to go. I said goodbye to the Smith ladies and Dustin. Mrs. Smith thanked my dad for everything and we walked away. "So what did he have to say?" Dad asked. "A lot of stuff." I said. "Not telling, huh? Listen, if he said anything that you…" "He's pretty fucked up dad." I said. "'Fucked up' huh?" Dad asked. "Well, I guess that's what you'd have to expect. He's been through hell." "Tell me about it…" I mumbled. "Did he tell you about what was going on?" "Yeah… It was pretty sick what happened to him." "I reckon so. I volunteered you to mow their grass in the spring. I guess Brett already said he'd get their driveway if it snows again. I also told her that we'd help if anything broke down." "That's good." I replied. "I don't want you expecting to get paid for…" "Oh, of course not." I interrupted. "Good boy." Dad replied. "Dad..." I said when we got back to the car. "Do you think he'll be okay?" "I don't know, boy. Look at me. I'm still walking with a cane and I can't feel anything below my knees. That's what happened to my body. What happened to Dustin is not something to get over easily. I'm hurt physically, he's hurt mentally just as badly. He may never be the same again." "But how do I help him?" I asked as I started the car. "Just be there for him, I guess. Let him talk about his problems without judging him. You've got a gift for being concerned about people. I guess you'll just have to use it. Now why don't you drive us to WalMart? Your mother asked me to pick up some stuff there." "Okay." I said, turning the car toward the four-way highway. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Well, that wraps up this chapter, and Dustin's story for this part as well. Two more chapters to go in this part and then part six and then that'll be the end of the story. I rewrote this chapter a couple of times. It was hard to find the right way to show just how angry and messed up Dustin is while showing how hurt he is too. One thing about Dustin in the earlier parts of the story was that through it all he was almost always optimistic about things. Eventually he always had hope that things were going to get better for him. We have seen in this part glimpses of how over the years that hope slipped away from him. And once it was gone, there was nothing left for him to live for. Now we can see that thing really are starting to get better for him, but he's too beat up to realize it. One other thing about Dustin... People often have asked me if he's gay or straight. I've always tried to show that he's straight. But he loves Billy, you say! Well of course he does. He loves him very much. But that doesn't mean he's in love with him like Brett is. He's experimented with Mike, but just trying gay sex out doesn't make you gay. It was something that he tried because he knew he could. Dustin doesn't have a lot of people in his life that he has power over. But he knew he had power over Mike and he used it. Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. Send an email or join my group! Here's the addresses: vicioussquirrel@hotmail.com or jkwsquirrel@yahoo.com The yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squirrelwriter Next Chapter - Observant readers have noticed that something Billy said in another chapter left a plot hole so big you could drive a truck through it. Well, here comes the tractor trailer.