Johnnies 04 - Black John by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TORY’S FIRST trip to rehab almost wiped them out financially, so the second time, Tory decided to try to detox on his own.

“I thought I could do it,” he said dreamily. They’d sold their furniture to pay the rehab bill the last time. This time John came home from a full day at school to find Tory on an obviously soiled mattress, the needle and the spoon next to him, three new punctures in the wasted veins of his arms. “I did. I thought, just a little. Just a little. John would never know.”

John would ask him later how long he’d been thinking “just a little,” but he’d recognized the signs. The dreaminess, the sleeping, the short temper, the weight loss. He’d been taking “just a little” for the past three months. He’d only been out of rehab for the past six.

“Oh, Tory.”

“No rehab, Johnny. You just started making money again.”

“Fuck money.” John knelt next to the bed, reluctant to touch anything there but Tory’s dirty hand. “Man, we’ll do it again. This time we’ll make it stick.”

“Let me try it myself,” Tory begged. “It’ll suck, man, but… just detox. I can do the outpatient when I’m done, the voluntary ten-day, okay?”

Twenty-eight days had obviously been so successful.

Oh God. John had only just confessed to Nana, only just told her why they were barely scraping by. He’d had to. Crosby had done their taxes—he knew how much money they’d made and which crappy apartment building in Orlando they lived in.

“John, tell me truly—are you using?”

He didn’t tell her about the occasional cocaine, because it was just that—once every other month or so—or about the times he’d tried smack and hated it and simply walked away. His conscience felt completely clean when he said, “No, Nana. It’s Tory—it’s… you know how he is.”

Her eyes went dark and compassionate, even as her mouth pursed grimly. Oh God. They’d tried to be his family, both of them, and even Crosby too. But Tory… he could never be alone, ever. In the evening, when the house was quiet, he would go into his room and turn the television up really loud and sit outside and do his homework. John asked him once what he was doing, and he said, “Pretending it’s my family.”

During college John had needed to buy noise-canceling headphones to get anything done after five o’clock.

He tried. He worked hard, made Italian for dinner, set schedules, planned something for them to do every night, even took Tory to the park on Sunday so he could hear little kids playing and moms yelling. These things had never turned John’s key in particular because his mom had never kissed and played and cuddled, but he would do about anything to be Tory’s family. Nana had them to dinner at least once a week. But Tory’s parents had never called, never written. Tory had sent them Christmas cards, and they had only been returned. Sometimes he would disappear for just long enough to drive to their old neighborhood, sit for a half an hour, and drive back.

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