Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:32:34 -0800 (PST) From: Rick Beck Subject: BJJ/My15thYear -- Chapter 26 Billie Joe Journal/ My 15th Year Chapter 26 Road Rules Ty put his hand on my back and guided me to the kitchen. He fixed soup and a sandwich with lettuce, tomato and pickle. It tasted glorious. He told me about finding Walter the last morning I saw him. He said that's where he would go each morning, to check on Walter. He didn't like the kids knowing he was helping a gay guy with AIDS. He went back the next day after Walter was out of danger, and Barney told him the cops raided the room and took everyone to jail. Ty didn't even look for me until Gene told him I was on the street, because I was never arrested. Ty got me a towel and a bar of soap. He told me not to come out until all the soap was gone. It was a pretty big bar, but he told me he could smell me through the cologne and the deodorant and it wasn't pretty. I think it was my clothes. I stood in the shower for at least an hour. I looked at myself in the mirror when I was done. I could no longer recognize my face. The little boy I had been was gone forever. I knew that. There was no way I'd ever be that boy again. No way. I looked at my skin and my eyes. They seemed like they belonged to someone else. I looked at my skinny frame. My ribs poked out. My neck that was once so fleshy seemed narrow and skinny. My patch of hair around my manhood seemed to be half what it once was. The only thing impressive about me was the way I hung over my hairless balls. I seemed larger, thicker, more sexual than ever before. Just looking at myself got me aroused. I jacked off without ever looking out of the mirror. I studied my wide vein heavy cock. I examined the vein on top. It seemed twice the size it once was. I felt my incredible hardness and stroked myself furiously, watching the head swell and the piss hole open wide as I worked it up and down. I watched as I lined the inside of the sink with my handiwork. I watched the streams of liquid pulse out of me. I studied the hole and how it ejected the white thick sperm against the cold hard porcelain sink. The strange thing was I wasn't really turned on. I mean I got hard and I jerked off but there was no intensity to it. It was like I took a piss or something. It was a study in biological response. Do thus and so and thus and so happens to you. See the cum shoot all over the fucking place. This is a direct result of manual manipulation of the male penis. This is what happens when you pound your pud, jerk off, beat your meat. etc., etc., etc., but I hadn't been excited by it, only relieved. I examined the thick liquid to be sure it was cum. It was. It was in as great or greater a quantity as ever. My one real claim to fame, when it came to all the big boys I seemed to end up with. I could cum more than anyone I'd seen so far. I looked at my shiny black pubic hair and my softness that hung lazily down onto my balls. I was five three or maybe more by now. I wasn't much to look at in my mind. I looked at myself and felt really dirty again. I took another shower. I cried and knew the shower would never betray me, nor would I ever get clean enough to forget what I had done, what I had become. Where Ty had found me. What he had caught me doing. I had become one of them. I came out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around me. I didn't dare put on my clothes. Ty watched me as he poured me something to drink over glorious ice cubes. "Want to rest for awhile?" "Sleep? I forgot what it was. Yeah. I feel like I might not ever wake up. I've been sleeping with one eye open." "Can I lie down with you?" "No!" I snapped. "No. I want to go to sleep." "I won't bother you. Have I ever? You're still mad at me?" "No, Ty. I need to go to sleep, alone." "I'll hold you. Just hold you, Billie." "No. I don't want that. You shouldn't hold me. I don't deserve it." Ty knew me, and he didn't understand why I no longer wanted him near me. Only Ty no longer did know me or what I had done. He had no idea who I was. I no longer knew who I was. I just knew I didn't want to be touched any longer. I didn't know why. The loneliness was now intrinsic. I knew I'd never be rid of it. Touching was the last thing I needed. What I needed was to sleep sound for awhile. I slept all that night and well into the next day. Ty brought me food some time after the day was bright and at its peak. I ate and went back to sleep without wondering where Ty slept. There were only two beds in the apartment, and I knew Walter's was too small to accommodate two people. I didn't even think it was possible for them to be sleeping together. It just wasn't the impression I had. I would find out later that Ty slept on the floor next to my bed. He never asked to sleep in it with me. Once again I slept around the clock and well into the next day. Ty woke me in the middle of the second day. He said I had to eat something. He brought me coffee which was almost straight from heaven. He said the beans were fresh ground for me, and it was a Colombian Supreme he'd just brought back from the market because he knew I loved my morning coffee. After four cups I no longer felt like sleeping. We served Walter some soup and herb tea. Ty was cooking a hearty beef stock for his evening meal. He showed me some steaks that he and I were going to eat. He told me Walter couldn't eat anything requiring too much digestion. He was still very weak. His system couldn't handle solid food. We listened to some old time music on the stereo. I think it was the Beatles and the Stones. Walter was almost forty, and it was "his music." After listening to it a while, I found some to be pretty good stuff. I took a liking to Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, even though it said forever, I doubted anything was. Walter confessed those were two of his favorites and we listened to them ten times that night. He seemed really nice. I suspected he wouldn't be around for long. Walt commented on how much better I looked cleaned up and in Ty's sweat pants, even though they were hiked up above my calves to keep them from dragging on the floor. I didn't wear the top because it was just too much material to haul around. Walt said I had a nice body if I'd put some meat on my bones. They measured my height and I was over five foot five inches. That was strange because I was only five foot three just before school ended. I weighed a hundred and fifteen pounds which was five more pounds than I weighed when I left home. Walter said I was growing up and looked skinny because all my energy was spent making me taller. He thought that is why my ribs were sticking out now. I was in my final maturation or something like that. Walt seemed smart and very aware, but he looked like he was just holding onto life. Sometimes when he spoke I could hardly hear the end of his sentence. When he ate, Ty was constantly wiping his chin and the sweat from his forehead. Ty was such a caring soul. I admired him and wondered how he managed to be so kind to everyone. Life had done nothing but give him a raw deal, and he took care of everyone. That sucked. I knew he hadn't left me on purpose. I understood there was something more important for him to do. It somehow didn't take away my anger. I still was mad at him, at myself, at life . . . something. We had popcorn and Ty brought the television into the living room. Walt liked music but he sat and watched a few movies with us. Walter choked on a piece of popcorn, and Ty sprang up and held him while trying to get it out of his throat. Walter seemed frail and said he didn't care, that the popcorn was fantastic. Best thing he'd tasted since being so sick. He ate a little more, but carefully, and then he fell asleep in the middle of Godfather II. I could understand that, my eyes were crossing from reading all the subtitles. Why didn't they just speak English? I'd heard De Niro do it plenty. When I excused myself and went to the bedroom, Ty stood in the doorway watching me. I didn't take off the sweat pants and slid under the sheet. He turned out the light once I was in bed. "If you want to lie down with me it's okay, Ty." "You sure?" he said, out of the darkness. "I just feel... I don't know what I feel Ty. I don't know anything any more." "It's okay Billie. I can sleep on the floor." "You sleep on the floor?" "You're in my bed. You didn't want me in it. I slept on the floor. You're my guest." "I'm sorry for what I said to you, Ty. I really am sorry. I don't know why I said that. I wanted to hurt you. I don't know why I had to hurt you." I cried. "It's okay, Billie. I knew you didn't mean it. Besides, it doesn't bother me anymore. It's just a word is all." "You're so good, Ty. Why didn't you make me sleep on the floor?" "Because I would rather you have the bed if only one of us can have it. I sleep fine on the floor. I don't want to crowd you." "Why didn't you look for me, Ty? Why did you leave me alone." "I did. I told you. Walter was dying. I had to stay with him. When I went to get you, they said the cops got you. I thought you was gone. On your way back to where you come from. I saw those posters. I knew they was looking for you." "You left me alone." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." "I know. You left me alone though." Ty sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on mine. I kissed it and held it to my chest and cried. I was still scared and lonely. I didn't know what I wanted. I was mad at Ty, but I knew he hadn't done anything to me. I was confused and didn't know what was wrong with me. "Please. Come to bed, Ty. We can talk tomorrow." I fell asleep in Ty's arms. He held me against his chest, and I was asleep in no time. It was the third full day I was at Walt's that Todd came by. Ty brought him into the living room where we were listening to The Supremes. There was something very stimulating about the music. My feet were curled up under me on the couch. I was still wearing Ty's hiked up sweat pants. "Billie, This is Todd. He works for social services. He's my case worker. He helps kids like us." "You know they're looking for you?" Todd said. "Yeah. I know." "I'd turn you in myself if I didn't know through a confidence where you are. You should be home, Billie Joe. You should be home with your people. Going to school. It's the only way you'll have a future. Any future worth having." "I can't right now. You send me home and I'll just run again." "I know that. Why do you think you're still here. When you want to go home, when you're ready to go home, Ty will contact me. Don't wait too long. Don't wait until it is too late." "Walt. You take care of yourself. No one would bust you for keeping these boys, but you know it isn't legal. You know there are DA's that would eat you alive and make a career for themselves out of you having young boys up here with you." "I know, Todd. I know. These boys have to make their own decisions thought. I make Billie Joe leave, I lose Ty and he's the only thing between me and the grim reaper right now." "Yeah, I'm aware, Walter. I appreciate you giving me the heads-up so I can cover my ass if the question comes up. I'll leave it alone because you're my friend, but having them here can get you in a world of hurt I can't protect you from should the courts get ahold of this." "I think I'll go along with the boys for now, Todd. If I can keep them off the streets, well, you know where they are if you want them." "Yeah! Unfortunately I do. It's my ass if any one else knows I know. My ass big time. I don't know why I let you kids work me this way. Don't know why I don't just bust all of your asses." "Because you know we're a hell of a lot safer here than we are in juvy," Ty said. "Yeah, that's a point. Just don't wait too long, Billie Joe. Don't let too long become too late for you." "I won't. I'm thinking on it. Really!" We listened to music and Ty fixed us soup and salad for dinner. Walt even ate all of his salad. The soup was onion and we had garlic bread. It was great. I'd eaten better in the past few days than in months. I started to feel alive again. I still spent much of my time in the shower. I still couldn't get myself clean enough. It was like after you have an operation and you aren't really completely awake, and you linger there in that world of bright light and movement, but you aren't really connected to it. That's how I felt. I was there, but I really wasn't there. It was nice not to have to be looking over my shoulder or begging for food. Ty asked me about the future that night, my future. I knew where he stood and I could almost understand why, but I wasn't sure where I stood any longer. "You going home?" "I don't know what I'm going to do." I looked up at Ty from under my eyebrows but staying away from looking into his eyes. "What are you going to do?" "Stay here with Walt. He needs me. I like Walt. He treated me good, when he was healthy. He takes care of me better an my own people ever did. I take care of him now. I'm all he's got." "Can't I stay with you?" "The guy's got AIDS, Billie Joe. He'll be dead in a few months. I'll be back on the street. Besides, his check just about pays the bills. You are another mouth to feed. I don't know how long we'll last." "I can make money." "Fuck you, Billie Joe! Not while I'm around you can't. I'll bust your ass I ever catch you at it again." "What do I do? I might have it, Ty." "Don't say that Billie Joe. Don't ever tell me that." "I did stuff Ty. I did a lot of stuff." "Shut up, Billie Joe. I don't want to know that. You go some place else to die, Billie Joe. I won't watch that. I won't watch anyone else die." "We're all, dying, remember? You told me we're all dying." "I didn't say 'we' meaning you. I said 'we' meaning the kids and me. We were all dying. You were fucking okay. You could live. You didn't have to be like us. You could go home." "I didn't, and I am one of you, and I might have it." "Go home. Like Todd said, go home. Finish school. You can go home. If you get sick, deal with it. Don't ever tell me. Don't ever tell me I failed. I want to think I saved one person from the street. That's all I wanted with you. I just wanted to keep you from getting it. Don't ever tell me, Billie Joe. I don't want to know you got it." We went to sleep but nothing was resolved. I knew I could go home. I didn't know why I should. I knew what was going to happen. It would be even worse now than it was before. They'd watch me like a hawk. Not that I deserved any less, but I didn't want to face it. I decided I would wait as long as possible. If I was dying, I'd never go home. Then there would be no need. I could stay in the street until my time came. Next morning was French toast and sausage. Walt ate at the table with us for the first time. His color was somewhat better and he ate without assistance, slow though, and it didn't take much to fill him up. He had good days and bad days, and as days went, this was the best one I'd seen. He spoke stronger and ate about twenty pills with breakfast. I never knew you could take so many pills. Ty squeezed fresh oranges to make juice. The meal was fantastic. Each day everything seemed better than the day before. There was no mention of the big A. I didn't know how much Walt knew about me, but he had enough problems without worrying about me. I didn't intend to mention the possibility I might have it. It just seemed best not to talk about it or think about it, but with someone as sick as Walt around, it was difficult not thinking about it. Sometimes you don't plan things and they just happen any way. "I'd like some ice cream for tonight, Ty," Walt said. "What flavor?" "Peach. I'd love to have some real peach ice cream." "Butter fats would be good for you. You must be feeling better." "Some. Leave Billie Joe here with me. I feel pretty good but I don't want to be alone if I don't have to be." "Sure," Ty said. "What else do you want?" "More popcorn would be nice. You could rent a good movie. None of that violent shit you like. Rent us something nice. A love story, maybe." "Geez, Walt! A love story? Nobody watches that crap," Ty intervened. "I do. I bet Billie Joe does. He looks like a lover." "Right," I said, stirring the third spoonful of sugar into my second cup of coffee. "Better get some more sugar, Ty. Billie Joe's storing the stuff in his feet." Ty and Walt laughed. I stirred. I took the dishes away from Ty so he could go. I wanted to keep busy. I was suddenly leery of Walt. Him getting stronger wasn't necessarily a good thing in my mind. Ty had been gone quite awhile when Walt asked for some water. I filled the glass with cubes and let the water run awhile before covering the cubes. I wiped the counter and the last dish before taking him the glass. "Sit," he ordered. I sat. "What's up?" Walt asked. "I don't know what you mean." "Here you are." "That's obvious. You mean you wish I weren't?" "What are your plans? What are you going to do? You can't hide out in San Francisco until you are eighteen. You can't hide out here. You know Todd is only loyal for so long. Then he becomes a bureaucrat again. He will come to get you or send someone. Then I got it all hanging out for keeping you." "He'll narc on me?" "He'll narc on you, and that's bad enough. But if he narcs on you, he also narcs on me. That could leave me a little short." "You want me to leave?" "I didn't say that. I tell you to leave Ty's goes. I'm not stupid. He cares an awful lot about you. You know that? I think he's in love with you." "I think we care about each other." "Yes. You both care about each other, but Ty will hang his ass out there for you. What will you do for him? How far will you hang it out there for Ty?" "Stay with him if he asks." "He asks. What will you do then?" "Hang out." "Until you're eighteen?" "Maybe. Or dead." "Look, kid. I'm going to lay it out here for you. Ty keeps me alive. If it weren't for him, I'd already be dead. My family disowned me when they found out I was gay. You know that story. When I was dying, Ty was the one that saved my life. That's why he is here." He seemed to look inward for a few silent minutes. "We dated...." Walt paused a long moment, recalling better times. "I used to buy Ty. He used to hustle me, you know. I liked him and thought that was the only way to have his company. That was a couple of years ago. Now I found out he truly likes me. Cause I never treated him like meat. I took him to eat and brought him up here to clean up and stuff. Now, I can't live without him. I've signed over my insurance policy to him. A few hundred thousand. It won't do a lot for him, but it will keep him alive awhile longer. He'll live maybe a few years. The apartment will be his. I tell you to leave, and he'll go with you. Of course he doesn't know about the insurance or the apartment. I don't want him helping me because he owes me. I want him to help me because he wants to help me. When he wants to go, I want him to go. You understand?" "Sure." "So, here we are. I got a runaway the cops are looking for and a throw away that the cops will take if they come up here. I doubt they'll bother me. They don't want an AIDS patient down in the lockup. I just think you'd be wise cutting Ty some slack here. If you care about him let him have a life. Don't drag him back to the gutter with you. I know you can. If it's important for you to do that, I'm telling you he'll go. Ty thinks he loves you. I think he loves you. He just doesn't need you right now. It's not in his best interest and I'm being up front with you." He paused, and drew a long breath. "That's it. Everything I had to say. Don't get me wrong, Billie Joe, you're a nice kid. You should go home because that is where you belong. This is Ty's home now. Don't take him away from it. I'm asking you to leave but only if you go home. I want to know you're safe. I want Ty to know you're safe. He'll look for you if you just go off. That's not an option. I'd rather have you stay here than go back to the street but it's going to come to the door one day, and then we'll all be shit out of luck." I was surprised. Walt was very honest about his feelings. He went to a closet and dragged out a green box with a lock on it. He unlocked it and flipped the lid back. He set down some official looking documents in front of me. "I had these done while Ty was out one day. My friend is an attorney. This tells the insurance company Ty is my only beneficiary. This one shows Ty as the co-owner of the apartment. There is a little money in the bank accounts but it will mostly be gone by the time I'm dead. AIDS is an expensive disease to have. That will leave the insurance policy to take care of Ty. Maybe when you are eighteen you can come back and live with him here. I would like to know Ty had someone with him at the end. I don't want to think he stayed with me until I died and then he died alone. I don't want to think about that." "Maybe he won't die. Maybe they'll find a cure." "Wishing and hoping is nice, Billie Joe. Reality says we are both going to die sooner than we'd like, but I'm starting to look forward to it. At least I had some kind of a life. I had twenty good years out in the world. I loved and was loved. Maybe longevity wasn't one of the big things for me, but I had my share of love. I hope Ty can find that at least once. He's so young. He'll miss out on so much." Slowly, he replaced the documents in the green box and locked it. "Well, I can't dwell on that. I want you to know that Ty will be taken care of financially, but I can't do anything about the other stuff. He was the only one that cared and I want him to know I cared about him. This is between you and me, of course." He sat back and looked straight at my eyes. "I know you'll make the right decision." "You are putting me in a corner." "Yes. I guess I am. I'm making you make the decision. It's the only decision that gives everyone exactly what they need." "You mean my going home. Ty staying here with you." "You going home. Ty staying here with me. Exactly. It's not the easy thing for you to do but it's the right thing." "You were handsome?" "No. Cute maybe, when I was younger. I was never a prize. I did okay. Sometimes it is best not to be too handsome. You never know if some one wants to be with you or to be seen with you. I never had that problem." "What did you do?" "I was an insurance account executive." "Wow! Sounds pretty important." "I sold insurance. From a fancy office though. No door-to-door shit." "You make a lot of money?" "Not so much I couldn't spend it all between paydays." "I don't know what I want to do." "Go back to school and you'll have a better shot at figuring it out." "How'd you get it? AIDS." "I think it was about four years ago . I'd been with a guy for seven years. We broke up. I didn't like the bars or clubs. I liked the baths. It was around the time they closed them, but they didn't close them soon enough. I got into drugs and alcohol. Feeling lonely and alone, I couldn't stand it. I went to the baths and had sex with four or five guys at the same time. I mean sucking, fucking, the whole nine yard orgy." I thought of my time in the hotel with sex in every hand and orifice. Walt continued. "It only lasted a few weeks, maybe a month, then I stopped feeling so worthless. All these guys wanting me made me feel better about myself. Of course, it also killed me. It was an expensive way to get over being alone." "So you got it by doing it with a lot of guys?" I leaned my chin on the backs of my hands on the table, looking up at Walt as he remembered his past. I remembered the nights I did things with people I hardly knew. "You can get it by doing it with just one person if that person has it." "I mean it is more likely if you did this for, say, just four or five days, or less likely than the way you did it." "What do you mean?" Walt asked. "Say a guy got drugged up and spent a few days fucking and sucking everybody in sight. Would he be more likely to get it that way, or the way you did it with the bath thing?" "You don't understand Billie Joe. You get it by doing it with someone that's got it. You can do it with a hundred guys a night and won't get it if they don't have it. You do it with one guy and he's got it, you can get it. It doesn't pass every time. Some guys don't get it as easy as others." "Oh!" "Ty said you were clean. You hadn't done anything to get it. Have you, Billie Joe? Are you telling my you're that guy doing it with everyone in sight?" "I think so. I think I might have it." Walt got up and came around the table hugging me weakly to his side. I could feel him sob a couple of times as he held my face against his shirt. "I'm sorry, Billie Joe. I didn't know. Ty said.... I didn't think you would go that far down in such a short time. I mean I didn't really think at all. You've got to be tested. Not now. It's too soon. Six months. You've got to be tested in six months. If you want to stay with us, that's okay. I won't force you out. Not now. I won't do that. We'll just take the chance together. One of us goes down, we'll all go down together. I know that's the way Ty would want it. We'll have to talk to him. Does he know anything." "He won't even listen to me. He keeps telling me to shut up. I tried to tell him about it." "He loves you, Billie Joe. He wanted to get you out of here safe. I guess maybe he can't do that now. I'm sorry, Billie Joe." "I guess I was pretty dumb." "It only takes one stupid night. You're so young, Billie Joe. You still need to go home. You need to be somewhere where you can get treatment. If we try to get you treated here, they'll just take you into custody. You're too young to get treatment without your parents. You still need to go home." "I don't know if I can, Walt. I might be better off on the streets. My parents'll kill me." He walked back around and sat down in his chair. He wiped tears from his eyes. "I don't know how to go home. I don't want to just go to the cops," I said. "Maybe you could give me the phone number. I'll see what I can do. I'll tell them I can contact you. I'll tell them that you're a friend of a friend, and I'll try to talk you into talking with them." "There's a reward." "A reward? You're parents want you back pretty bad." "I guess. They never seemed to care much when I was there. I never did much right." "It gets better, Billie Joe. You're only what, fifteen, Ty said?" "Yeah! I'll be sixteen August twenty second." Walt started laughing and shaking his head, "August twenty second was the night you came. Today is August twenty sixth." "Guess I missed it. Does that mean I'm fifteen another year?" "I don't think it works that way. We'll have to send Ty out for some cake. Sixteen is a big deal you know. You can get a driver's license now." "You got to be kidding. I'll be lucky to get out of my room by seventeen. I'll be on restriction from now until I'm forty if I go home." "You give me your home phone number. I'll try to make peace for you. I'll talk to Todd. He'll see to it they don't get abusive. He's pretty well respected around town. He looks after the homeless kids. Especially the gay ones. He lost one when he first started. He never got over that. Always thought it was his fault. Now there isn't anything he won't do to help a gay kid." "He gay?" "No. I don't think so. I don't know. Never asked him. Subject never came up." Ty came back a few minutes later, shortly after Walt put the box away in the top of the closet. He brought a half gallon of peach and a half gallon of rocky road because he knew that was my favorite. "You've got to go back out, Ty." "What? What did you forget to tell me?" "Birthday cake. Our boy here was sixteen four days ago." "The night I brung him home?" "Yep." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I didn't know what day it was. Wasn't sure what month it was. Never thought about it." "He's going with me. I'm not walking back down there alone." "Yeah. I'm okay. You boys go ahead. Here's a few extra dollars. Stop at the bakery and get something real nice. That's a lot closer. Better bring some milk back. I want some whole milk with my birthday cake. How about you, Billie Joe? That sound good to you? We'll have a party." "Milk sounds great. Party sounds good." We went back down the stairs and headed for the bakery a few blocks away. My cake was chocolate on chocolate with chocolate flowers decorating the top. Walt had just enough candles to get to sixteen. I watched him place them one-by-one on the cake after we finished dinner. Each was one year. They didn't look like much. There seemed to be far too few of them for the way I felt. I remembered the day I turned fifteen, the beginning of my sixteenth year. I remembered Ralphie standing across from me with the beaming smile he always wore. He had been my best friend forever. I remembered my father lighting the candles and stepping into the background. There were a few family friends that had come for dinner and to drop off presents. It wasn't a party. Just people. My world was so much smaller then and Ralph was still alive. I remembered myself being such a little boy just a year previous. Not that I was so much bigger or so much wiser now, but there seemed to be no relationship from the then me to the present me. I felt like I had seen too much and gone too far from that little boy to ever find him again. I didn't know if I'd live to see the end of my seventeenth year. I was sure Walt would not be alive if I did. It came to me that Ty might not be alive either just as Ralph was alive when I hit fifteen and he had killed himself before I reached sixteen. A year ago I had thought Ralphie would always be alive. The value of life had changed as I had changed. What was important to me only a year ago was not important to me now. There were no presents and yet there was a gift I couldn't touch or see. I completed the ceremony of blowing out the candles after Ty lit them with a torch of a lighter he brought out of his pocket. They could tell I had no enthusiasm for anything more. We ate cake and ice cream in smiling silence. I had a second piece of cake, still thinking I might not eat tomorrow, more ice cream followed. For days now I had felt like I couldn't get enough to eat. I worried I'd weigh a ton by the time I was seventeen. I made no effort to curb my eating habits. Maybe I would go hungry tomorrow. I ate everything I could get my hands on, and even after I was full, I ate. "Ty, Billie Joe has given me his home phone number. Tomorrow I'll call and see if I can open the door to getting him back home." "Good! Maybe I should talk to Todd." "Yes! I think we better let Todd know what we are doing. That way he won't get into any hot water if Billie Joe's family is looking for someone to blame." "I'm to blame. They're to blame. Don't worry. I'll straighten that out," I said. "Some people don't want things straightening out. We need to cover our ass here," Walt said. "We need to make sure Todd is clear." We listened to more sixties music and I sat with my legs tucked under me on the corner of the couch. I wondered what that first meeting would be like. I didn't look forward to hours of traveling and knowing all the time I had to face my parents once I was home. What was I going to say? How was I going to explain where I'd been and what I had done? How much did they already know? How much could I leave out? Bad things always come right away. I'd have to wait for Carl for almost forever before he came home. The next morning Walt sat in his easy chair with the phone on his lap and my parents phone number in his hand. I sat on one side of the couch, Ty sat on the other side. My feet were tucked up under me and my mind was rushing inside my head. There was only a cold fear that laid in the pit of my stomach. My brain wasn't able to settle on anything but the phone and where I knew it led. In this case it led directly to dread. The phone must have rung ten times on the other end. "Hello, I'm Walter Amos Rhodes. No, you don't know me. No, sir. If you'll give me a second I'll explain. I'm calling you from San Francisco. Yes, I do. Yes, I have. He's okay. That's why I'm calling you, Mr. Walker." "Mr. Walker. . . . Mr. Walker! If you'll listen I'll explain to you why I'm calling. . . . Mr. Walker?" Walt held the receiver of the phone, with its sound of angry bees, down to his chest. He looked at my face. He tried to smile, but it didn't take. He put the receiver back to his ear. "Yes. I'm still here. If you'll give me a chance. Yes, I know you can have me arrested. Yes, sir, I know you know people in San Francisco. One of them is your son, Mr. Walker, and if you'll listen to me for a minute maybe we can get Billie Joe home where he belongs. Thank you." "No, I can't let you talk to him right now. I know someone that knows him. A friend of mine is quite close with people Billie Joe knows. Yes, I've seen him. He gave me your phone number in fact. He's afraid to call you himself. Mr. Walker you'll have to ask yourself why he is afraid to talk to you. I'm merely in the middle of this thing. I'd like to get him home and off the streets. That's my only interest here." "Yes, I know there is a reward. No, I don't expect to collect it. That would go to Ty Pruett. He'll set up the final details. He's the one who knows Billie Joe best." "I just know he's willing to return home if you aren't going to make it too tough on him. That's why I'm calling you." "No, I won't give you my number. You'd have the police up here in half an hour." He listened to more of the angry buzz. "Your phone may have been tapped two months ago, but I doubt there is still a tap on after this length of time. The police have better things to do. All I want to do is get him home to you Mr. Walker." "I'll tell you what. I will call you tomorrow at this time. Todd Dorsey is a social worker in San Francisco. He knows about Billie Joe. He also knows Ty very well. I think between the two of them we can get him to come in. We can get him home to you. You wait for my call at this time tomorrow. I'll see what we can set up. You can trust Todd. He gets kids home to where they belong all the time. It's his job." He listened again for a moment, and then said, "You have a nice day too, sir. Yes, very nice talking to you." Walt hung the phone up. He looked at me squirming on the couch. "Quite an old man you got there." "Ain't that the truth! He was pretty mad?" "I guess. I don't really know. He tried to do all the talking. Wanted to tell me all he could do." "That's my dad. He's always in control." "We'll get Todd on it tomorrow. He won't be overpowered. I don't have the time to argue." ***** quillswritersrealm@yahoo.com website: www.writersrealm.net My Book: Antiques & Homicide/Homocide By: Rick Beck Available at Amazon.com under the above title