What No One Else Can Hear (10 page)

Drew and I went to talk to Mr. Davidson in the office. Again, Chuck had disappeared to I-didn’t-care-where.

A
SSISTANT
D
IRECTOR
Jack Davidson was a laid-back character who was extraordinarily good at putting people at ease even in stressful situations, so the discussion went smoothly. When emotions occasionally ran high, he calmly waited for us to regain our composure. We found out later Chuck had already been fired before we even said the first word, just on the basis of what we had told the doctor, even though Chuck had put his own spin on the situation. Of course documentation was needed for all the paperwork, so Jack took notes on everything and just let us talk it out.

At that time Chuck had, apparently, been cleaning out his locker, and he was just rounding the corner by the office when we came out. Chuck’s expression told us that if he thought he could get away with it, one or both of us would be lying dead on the floor. I’d like to think my own expression
didn’t mirror the anger I saw in his, but I wasn’t sure that was true. Drew’s was telling Chuck to bring it on and he’d get as good as he gave.

Drew would have too. He was one of the gentlest souls I’d ever met, but you didn’t mess with his kids and get away with it.

Chuck walked by, and just before hitting the bar to exit the hall, he flung a murderous look in my direction and said, “This isn’t over, Messiah.”

What a mess. Where did I go to vote for “the king of the jerks”?

Chuck just earned the undisputed title.

B
OTH
D
IRECTOR
Sara Marshall and Assistant Director Davidson urged me to press assault charges on Chuck for having slammed me up against the wall. After much contemplation I decided not to. I figured it wasn’t that much of an assault and the most he could get under the law would be a slap on the wrist. All that would accomplish would be to make him angrier and more out for blood than he already was.

My only concern had always been that he not hurt Stevie or Ryan. He was out of the way now and couldn’t hurt either one so I said, “Out of sight, out of mind; good riddance to bad rubbish,” and any other cliché that might apply.

That night in my apartment, Drew and I sat watching TV.

“You know, I think I would have pressed charges if I were you,” Drew told me.

“Yeah, I’m not sure. I just think it would cause more trouble than it’s worth.”

“You’re too forgiving.” He rolled his eyes and got up to change the DVD.

We were watching episodes of a cop show we both liked and we had just finished the last episode on the current disc. We were both pretty wound up and knew we weren’t going to get to sleep anytime soon, so Drew just put in the next disc without asking.

“I don’t forgive him at all,” I countered. “I just don’t think bringing the cops into it is going to solve anything.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” he admitted, and we started watching the new episode.

It featured a victim of a hate crime. Someone killed one guy and put another in the ICU because they were gay. I surreptitiously watched Drew’s reaction.

I had known I was bi since I was thirteen years old. I had had a few boyfriends in high school and college before Stevie started calling to me. Since then I hadn’t had time for anyone, and I certainly didn’t now, so the subject had never come up. I honestly didn’t know how Drew would react if he knew.

The episode went further toward helping me find out. The best friend of the guy in ICU hadn’t realized his friend was gay and was mad as hell. He was pissed he hadn’t been told, but he also didn’t want to have a gay friend. He refused to go visit the guy in the hospital. He even wrote him a note he asked the man’s sister to deliver, saying he wanted nothing more to do with him.

I took the opening. “I can’t imagine giving up on a friendship just because you find out he’s gay.” I turned to look at Drew, trying to hide the intensity of my interest. “Can you?”

“No, I really can’t.” He looked back at me. “I think I would want to know, but I know from exper—well, I just know… that it doesn’t come up in normal conversation and it’s hard to bring it up. So I can see both sides. I would be upset the guy hadn’t told me, but I can see why he didn’t. Especially in that case.” He waved his hand at the TV. “Homophobia that bad can’t really be hidden. The guy in the hospital probably knew his friend wouldn’t take the news well.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.
“How would you take it? If you found out a friend was gay?”

He chuckled. “Depending on how well I liked the friend, I’d be delighted.” He smiled even wider at my confusion. “I’m gay, Jesse. I felt sure someone would have filled you in on that by now.”

I laughed out loud. “When would I have had time for gossip?”

“Well, Chuck brought it up all the time.” He smiled.

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Because
that’s
a reliable source of information.”

“That’s true enough.” He laughed with me, but then sobered a little. “Is that okay?”

“It’s fine with me. I’m gay too. Well, bi would be more accurate, but—”

“Now why is
that
not big news around the center?”

“When would I have had time to do anything to make people think I might be gay? Or sexual at all, for that matter?”

We both dissolved into laughter. “Yeah, I see your point,” he agreed, and we went back to watching the episode.

D
REW
AND
I spent more and more time together over the next many weeks. When we weren’t working, he was almost always at my apartment, or we were both at Dottie’s. He went everywhere with Stevie and me when he could. Stevie seemed delighted so I didn’t feel like I was slighting him at all.

We found more and more that we had in common. We had the same taste in TV shows and movies, loved the same books and the same foods. All of Drew’s favorite restaurants in the area became my favorites as well.

“Bratwurst? Really?” Drew asked one evening at one of our now regular dining establishments, a new restaurant that served German cuisine. “Who goes out to eat and orders bratwurst?”

“Um,” I said while smiling sweetly, “me?”

“That’s not something you get at a restaurant, Jess. That’s something a mom serves her least favorite children when they go home. To keep them from going home too often.”

His face was plastered with that trademark Drew smirk again. The one that did interesting things to my insides.

“What can I say? I like bratwurst?” I dug into my meal and watched him make an exaggerated look of disgust.

“We can’t be friends.”

“Why?” I eyed him innocently and the innuendo was out before I thought. “Because I like to have a nice, juicy, cylindrical piece of meat in my mouth?”

He choked on his soda.

When he finally got himself under control, he answered. “We can’t be friends because you’re going to kill me with statements like that.”

Our eyes met and we smiled. I felt we communicated something important in that moment, but then we let the conversation twist and turn as it wanted and didn’t belabor the point.

We could talk about anything. Nothing seemed taboo, and we were comfortable in each other’s presence, whether we were talking or not. I didn’t know if Drew was right about me being an empath, but I could see what Stevie meant when he said Drew felt good in his mind. He felt good in mine too. He fit in my crazy life in a way no one ever had before.

We had become best friends. I think both of us were a little afraid of taking the first step toward more than friends, but to me it felt right, destined to happen, and I knew we’d get there. No need to rush it.

S
TEVIE
WAS
improving by leaps and bounds each day, and as an unexpected consequence, he was taking Ryan with him. This nine-year-old boy, before his friendship with Stevie, had hardly spoken to anyone. He had enough words to identify numbers, letters, and colors, give his personal information, ask for help with his basic needs and for favored food or activities, but didn’t simply converse at all. With Stevie, he started to have small conversations that had limited vocabulary, to be sure, but Ryan was talking about nonessential things and starting to initiate the conversations.

He’d seek Stevie out and ask him to play. They had started playing with more than just blocks too. Stevie was trying to teach him to draw. Ryan loved all the colors, and loved spending time with Stevie, but really wasn’t much of an artist. Nevertheless Stevie insisted Ryan ask to have his artwork put up on the walls, and encouraged him to give the pictures to people. Seems the importance of that hadn’t escaped Stevie after all, even though he still didn’t ask for the same treatment for his own artwork. I inquired once why he never asked to have them put up or gave them to anyone. He told me he didn’t need to. They were put up on the walls anyway, and people took the ones they liked. For him the system already in place worked, so why fix it?

Dottie was a budding moviemaker. She insisted on taping the boys’ interactions whenever she had a spare minute. She was puzzled when she discovered fewer empty DVDs than she thought she had. She found a couple that had been misplaced but still couldn’t account for one. We all figured that having one less than the inventory said we should wasn’t really a big concern. We noted it missing on the weekly report of items used, but otherwise put it out of our heads and enjoyed the quiet lull that seemed to have settled in on the hall.

I should have known the quiet was too good to last.

One evening, after dinner, the kids were busy on various activities in the living room area. We would have normally had them outside playing at this time, but it was raining again. It seemed to do that a
lot
in Lynneville.

What I didn’t know then was that the weather would fit my mood by the end of the evening.

T
HE
DIRECTOR
appeared out of the blue with two police officers. That got everyone’s curiosity going and captured Stevie’s attention right away. He loved anything to do with cops, and having two right here in his home was exciting to him… at first.

“Jesse McKinnon,” one of them stated.

The director shot him a look. Later I found out she had told him
she
would do the talking, but this guy was a real Sergeant Friday type—no nonsense, down to business.

“We need you to come with us.”

I stepped forward, curious. It had occurred to me that Chuck could actually press assault charges against me too if he wanted to. I had grabbed him and tried to pull him away from the door. I doubted they would stick, but he could make trouble, so I figured that was what this was. “What’s the trouble, officer?”

“You’re under arrest for the sexual abuse of one Steven Liston.”

Stunned silence fell on the hall, and then everyone spoke at once.

“
What
?” “You’ve got to me kidding me!” “Where did you get
that
crap?” “What’s going on, Sara?”

“Bear, arrest is
bad,
right?”

I addressed that last one while everyone else continued to babble shocked statements. Kneeling down to Stevie’s level and putting my hands on his shoulders to ground him in case he became upset, I told him, “Arrest is usually bad, Stevie. This is a mistake, though, so we’ll get it all straightened out. No problem.”

Sergeant Friday took exception to my being that close to the child I had supposedly abused and took my arm. “Step away from the child.”

I rose quickly. I didn’t need to make this situation worse than it already was. “Officer,” I started, “this is all a big mistake…. Tell him, Sara.”

“I
did,
Jesse. Repeatedly and loudly. Neither of them would listen to me.”

“Enough evidence has been submitted to issue this warrant for your arrest, Mr. McKinnon.” This started another round of incredulous statements. “There’s no mistake about that,” the officer continued. “I need you to come with me now.”

“Evidence?” I managed to be heard above the din. “What
evidence
could there possibly be?”

The officer ignored me and reached for his cuffs. The silent guy I had mentally dubbed “Officer Gannon” handed Sara another warrant. These two were so much like the cops on
Dragnet
that I almost expected the talkative one to say “Just the facts, sir.” But apparently he thought he
had
the facts and wasn’t going to listen to reason.

Damn, this was serious.

Sara read the paper handed to her, and in the biggest burst of anger I had ever seen from her said, “No, absolutely
not
. I don’t care
what
your subpoena says—I will not subject Stevie to that.”

“Ma’am, you don’t have any say in the matter. The boy’s father has signed for the exam. Either
you
will arrange a trip to the emergency room for that child to be examined… by a nonbiased doctor… or we will take him.”

“Okay,
you
take me. I want to go with Bear.” Stevie didn’t know what was going on any more than I did, but I couldn’t let them take him too.

“Stevie, hush a minute, buddy.” I was too flustered to say much to Stevie without upsetting him more. He was already having trouble handling the emotion in the room. Fidgeting and dancing around, he had started to scratch his arms, but his shirt was still over them so I hoped they weren’t deep scratches. At least he wasn’t screaming yet. I certainly didn’t want to be another source of distress. To the officer I continued, “I’m assuming this exam will be checking for signs of sexual abuse—anal tearing and stuff like that.” He said nothing, just nodded. “You can’t
do
that. That would be as traumatic for him as what you’re accusing me of.” I looked for support. “Sara, you can’t let them do this.”