by Becky Durfee
“Got it,” Kevin’s brother Curtis said.
Jenny had to admit butterflies were jittering inside her, although she knew she needed to remain externally calm if this intervention was going to be effective. She took a deep breath to quiet her nerves as she watched Kevin and Amanda lug the footlocker toward John’s house.
As if reading her mind, Zack put a reassuring hand on her back. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He smiled at her mischievously out of the corner of his eye. “Or our son.”
Placing her hand on her belly, Jenny expressionlessly replied, “Our daughter says thank you.”
Watching from a distance, Jenny saw the door open and Amanda and Kevin enter the house. Not a word was spoken among the group who waited outside, and the silence was deafening. After a few minutes Curtis’s phone chirped and he glanced at the screen. “That’s our cue,” he said as he looked around. “Are you ready?”
“Let’s do this,” Rod said. The group headed toward John’s house.
The four men walked in first, single file, followed by Jenny. She closed the door behind her, and Zack immediately took his place in front of the door, blocking any attempt John could make at leaving. Curtis headed straight for the back door with the same intent. Jenny, Rod and Alex all entered the living room, prompting John to look up and say, “What the fuck is this?”
“We’ve got some things to show you,” Amanda explained softly.
“Who are these people?” John seemed angry. Rod placed himself between John and Jenny.
“These are my friends,” Amanda explained. “This woman over here is named Jenny, and she’s a psychic. She helped me find this footlocker.” Amanda smiled pleasantly as she gestured toward the navy and gold box. “It’s got a lot of our old stuff in it, John.”
John looked around apprehensively. “Why do you need all of these people just to show me some shit in a footlocker?” He sat further back on his couch as if to distance himself from the crowd.
“I wanted them here to protect me,” Amanda said, “in case you get angry.” Jenny focused very intently on Amanda as she added, “I have to admit, I’m a little afraid of you. Your behavior has gotten unpredictable.”
John didn’t say anything. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead as he quickly glanced from person to person like a cornered animal.
“Look at this, John.” Amanda spoke with the tone of a kindergarten teacher as she opened the footlocker. “Do you remember this?” She pulled out the picture of the future all-star and handed it to her brother.
He glanced at it for only a second before handing it back to her. “Yeah, I remember that.”
Clearly that was not the reaction Amanda had been hoping for.
“Mom and Dad kept it,” Amanda continued, undeterred, “along with this.” She gave him the honor roll certificate, which prompted him to roll his eyes and place the paper on his beat-up coffee table.
“I got good grades in elementary school,” John said bitterly. “Yay for me. That’s such an accomplishment.”
Jenny could see Amanda’s resolve starting to fade. “I thought maybe we could look through the rest together,” she said with a shaky voice, “and find out what else they kept.”
“What difference does it make what they kept?” John asked.
Tears started to fill Amanda’s eyes. With a whisper she replied, “I thought you would just like to know.”
John reached for a pack of cigarettes that was on the coffee table. He pulled one out, put it to his lips, and as he flicked his lighter replied with a clenched mouth, “Well, I don’t.” He sucked in a long drag and blew it out, never taking his eyes off Amanda.
“Don’t you see what this is, John?” Amanda asked with an element of hysteria creeping into her voice. She held up the all-star picture and said, “This is a boy with potential. This is a boy who was a good athlete and got good grades. And now look at you. You’re sitting in this house, wasting your life.” Tears fell freely down her cheeks.
John remained surprisingly calm. He took another drag, still looking square at his sister. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“No,” Amanda said, “I will not get out of your house. I will not get out of your house until you admit you have a problem and agree to get help.”
This time John actually laughed. “I guess you’re going to be sitting here an awfully long time, then.”
Jenny’s eyes shifted to Rod. He returned her glance, the look on his face displaying worry. Just as Jenny had feared—John’s presumably calm exterior masked something frightening and unpredictable that lived inside.
“Mom and Dad led her to this footlocker,” Amanda continued, pointing at Jenny. “They want to remind you of how great you could be. You had so much going for you, John. You could have been anything you wanted to be, and instead you let yourself become an addict.”
John held up a finger, his demeanor becoming slightly elevated. “You know what? I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. You may not be willing to leave my house, but I am.” He stood up and headed toward the front door.
Zack’s door.
Jenny felt intense fear for Zack’s safety as he took a step to the right, blocking the doorknob from John. “Afraid not, my friend,” Zack said.
“Okay,” John said. “Fine. I’ll just go out the back door.” He walked past the crowd to the back of the house where he received a similar reaction from Curtis.
“This is my own fucking house,” John said in a louder voice. “I can leave if I want to.”
“I’m afraid you can’t,” Rod said calmly. “This is an intervention.”
“An inter—what the fuck?” John’s temper was beginning to spiral out of control. “I don’t need a fucking intervention.”
“Yes, you do,” said Amanda, walking toward her brother with a trophy in her hand. “Do you remember this? This was your soccer trophy from when your team won the championship. Do you remember how proud you were that day? Do you remember that, John?” Amanda’s voice was pleading.
“I don’t know why a god damn soccer trophy makes you think I need an intervention.”
“Don’t you see how far you’ve fallen?” Amanda begged. She shook the trophy in her hand. “The kid who won this was a great kid. Mom and Dad were so proud of you.”
“Fuck Mom and Dad,” John said angrily. “They’re dead now anyway, so who cares what they think?”
“I do,” Amanda said through tears. “And I care about you. I was proud of you the day you got this, too. And now…”
“And now what? Now I’m a piece of shit because I smoke a little crack from time to time?”
“A little crack?” Amanda laughed at the absurdity of the comment. “It runs your life, John. Can’t you see that?”
“I’m fucking done here.” John proceeded to walk toward Zack again, this time physically trying to move him out of the way of the door. Zack held his ground, and Rod and Alex quickly came and pulled John away from him.
“Sorry, son, buy you’re not going anywhere.” Rod once again spoke with the patience of a saint.
John shrugged the two men off of him, although he made no second attempt to walk out the door.
Jenny suddenly found herself speaking. “You wanted to be a writer.” Everyone in the room—including John—stopped and looked at her. With wide eyes she focused on each person in the room before zeroing in on John. “You won that writing contest in fourth grade. You came in third in the state. Your parents were delighted.”
Amanda spoke in a distant tone. “Oh my God, I remember that.” Once Amanda was able to peel her eyes away from Jenny, she turned to her brother and tearfully said, “Do you remember that, John?”
“So I won a contest when I was nine. Big fucking deal.”
Amanda looked at him with heartbroken eyes. “It was a big deal.”
“Okay, well, this has all been lovely, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave my own fucking house.” Once
again John tried to get past Zack, and once again the three men working together prevented him from doing so.
“Do I have to call the fucking police?” John asked.
“Be my guest,” Rod said. “Your house reeks of smoked crack. Call them out here, and you’ll be headed to jail instead of rehab.”
John cursed under his breath and began to pace in circles.
And so it went for almost two hours. The process was exhausting for everyone involved, including John, whose mood fluctuated from apathetic to angry several times within that time frame. During one particular attempt to leave, John got excessively violent, causing four of the men in the house to each take hold of one of his limbs and physically restrain him. He screamed and yelled, sweat pouring down his face, fighting with every ounce of energy to get free from their grasp.
As John fought to free himself, words popped into Jenny’s head. Inclined to repeat them, she spoke loud enough to be heard over the tussle. “Straight and narrow, Johnny boy.”
The fight immediately left John’s body. With him going limp, the men let go of John and allowed him to fall to the floor. He regarded Jenny with exhaustion and awe, asking, “What did you just say?”
Jenny looked at him with steel resolve. “I said, straight and narrow, Johnny boy.”
The silence that followed seemed to take an eternity. John wiped his hands down his extremely sweaty face before declaring, “My dad used to say that to me.”
Jenny swallowed. “He still does.” She never let her eyes look away from John. “You just can’t hear it anymore.”
Like a switch, something inside John snapped. He immediately grabbed the coffee table and turned it over. Alex, Zack and Curtis tried to restrain him again, but Rod shouted, “Leave him!” The other men looked at Rod who added, “Let him go; just guard the doors.”
They did as they were told. Rod ushered Jenny and Amanda out of the room as lamps crashed and fists found their way through walls. “God damn it!” John shouted as he punched and kicked and threw everything he could get his hands on. “Why the fuck did this have to happen to me? What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this?” His frighteningly loud voice reflected all of the years of hurt he had bottled up inside. “God damn asshole drives drunk and I pay the price for it? What the fuck?” Furniture flew around the room, something crashed through the window, and John’s voice was louder than it all.
Jenny looked up to notice Zack had slipped out the front door. With all the commotion his disappearance had gone unnoticed, and she believed that had been his intent, although she wasn’t sure what he was up to.
After several minutes of John’s outburst, the living room once again became quiet. Rod peeked around the corner before gesturing approval to Amanda, who walked in to the room followed by the rest of the crew. John sat on the floor in a defeated pile, surrounded by disarray, crying pathetically into his hands. Amanda sat next to him, putting her arm around him, rocking him back and forth.
Tears streamed down her face as well. She pressed her lips against her brother’s head and said, “It’s gonna be okay, John. It really is. We’ll get you the help you need.”
“I don’t want to live like this,” he sobbed.
“I know,” she said reassuringly. “And you don’t have to anymore.”
Jenny could feel the tension in the room melt away, replaced instead by a sense of melancholy. Amanda continued to rock John in her arms as they both cried, and the others stood by and watched helplessly. The room was in complete disorder; it seems John had left nothing intact. Jenny surmised the room looked the way John felt.
The front door opened quietly and Zack snuck in. He approached Rod and whispered something to him, and Rod nodded in reply.
Rod walked over to Amanda and John, kneeling on the floor next to them. “There’s an ambulance outside,” he said softly. “They’re here to get you help.”
“I can’t do it,” John sobbed. “I’d rather just be dead.”
“No, please don’t say that,” Amanda begged.
“John, listen to me,” Rod said. “You have a rough road ahead of you, agreed. But it’s no rougher than the road you’ve already traveled. You went through more by age twelve than a lot of people go through in their lifetime. You’re a strong kid, John; you’ve already proven that. I know you can do this.” Rod paused and looked compassionately at John. “The question is: do you want to get better?”
John wiped his eyes and nodded slightly. “I can’t keep going like this.”
“Help is right outside,” Rod explained softly. “All you have to do is walk out that door and you can have it.”
“I don’t want to go to jail,” John declared.
“You won’t go to jail. We’ll put you into detox first, then rehab,” Rod explained. “We’ll get rid of the crack in your bedroom, and then you aren’t doing anything illegal.”
“But what about…”
“It’s under control,” Jenny interrupted. “Don’t worry about anything. We’ll take care of the house. We’ll pay all your bills, and I’ll make sure you have a place to stay when you get out. A nice place—away from here,” she added. “So you can start over.”
John continued to wipe his face, which looked frighteningly gaunt. He remained silent for a few minutes; then he glanced toward his sister and gave her a slight nod. Amanda and Rod helped him to his feet and walked him slowly to the door. Jenny noticed John’s hands were bleeding, but she wasn’t sure he had even noticed that. At that moment, physical injury was the least of his concerns.
Once John was walked safely out the door, Jenny released the exhale that had been inside her since they’d gotten there. Tears accompanied the breath, but she blinked them back. Through the blur, she was able to look out the window and see John voluntarily walk into the back of the ambulance with Amanda scurrying to her car, presumably to follow John to the hospital. Jenny turned back around to face the mess that was once John’s house. She didn’t even know where to begin cleaning up.
Zack emerged from what Jenny knew to be the bathroom. With a smile he asked, “Did you know crack floats?”
Jenny let out a much-needed laugh. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“It took, like, three flushes to get it all down. I got scared for a minute that I’d have to fish it back out and bury it in the backyard or something.”
Rod returned through the front door, looking troubled by the whole experience. Jenny approached him and put her arm around him. “You did great, Rod. You were a real life-saver.” Looking up and smiling at him she added, “Literally.”
Rod grunted. “I just hope he gets the help he needs.” Shaking his head he added, “It’s going to be a long road for him.”
“Hey,” Curtis said, climbing over some debris to approach Rod. “You did great earlier. I just have one question for you.”
Rod looked at him inquisitively.
Smiling slyly Curtis asked, “How did you know he had crack in his bedroom?”
Chapter 21
“This has been the longest day ever,” Jenny said as she curled up on an armchair in her living room. She munched on a french fry that they’d gotten from the fast food drive-through on their return trip from John’s.
“Agreed,” Rod replied. “Although, you still might want to clue Zack in on what you told me on the way to Benning. He still doesn’t know about Brian.”
“Oh my God, I’m not sure I have the energy for this.” Jenny shook her head rapidly, trying to rid herself of the sleepiness. “Okay, Zack, here goes…but pay attention, because I’m only going through this once.”
Chewing on a bite of burger, Zack saluted from his seat on the couch.
“When we were on our way to Benning this afternoon, I felt a pull that led me back to the pond. I assumed it was Patricia bringing me there, but I was wrong. I actually had this vision through Aaron’s eyes.”
Zack’s eyes widened as he tucked his half-chewed burger into his cheek. “You were contacted by Aaron?”
/> “Believe it or not, yes. And I actually got to see his side of the story. It seems Patricia’s last journal entry—the one that said she was going to stand up to Aaron—was really her way of saying she planned to kill him. The day she went missing in October, Patricia had brought a gun to the pond with her when she went with Aaron on a fishing trip. She tried to shoot him, but she missed. That’s when Aaron overpowered her. She was small, so that was easy for him to do.”
Glancing momentarily at Rod and then back to Jenny, Zack said, “I seriously cannot believe that’s what happened.”
“I know. Crazy, isn’t it?”
Looking deep in thought, Zack scratched his head. “Forgive me for saying this, but could Aaron be making that up? Are you sure it really happened?”
“I’d thought of that, too,” Jenny confessed. “But then I figured if spirits have the ability to twist the truth into their own inaccurate version of events, my gift is essentially worthless. Everybody would make themselves out to be innocent. I have to assume that I can only be made privy to things that have actually happened—exactly as they happened…Although, it appears the spirits do have the ability to make sure I only see what they want me to, so I have to be careful that I don’t get duped that way. Filtering out certain events can really skew the big picture.”
“Boy, I’ll say,” Zack muttered.
“But the good news is that I was able to find out what happened at the house the day Brian killed Aaron.”
“Really?” Zack sounded impressed.
“It seems that Brian moved out on his eighteenth birthday, and he had pretty much written Aaron off. He only went there that day to get him to co-sign a loan so he could go back to school. He said that an argument ensued and Aaron tried to choke him. The stabbing was a matter of self-defense.”
While Jenny expected Zack to rejoice, that wasn’t the reaction she observed. Instead Zack looked as if he was silently contemplating something.