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I Love You

Carl Chapman

    Sitting on his ragged-looking brown couch, John tries to focus his sight on the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels precariously balanced at the edge of the coffee table. Just slightly out of reach and appearing even more fuzzy is a bottle of pills, his final refuge.
    Conversations from his past keep resurfacing, probing his psyche, like an ebony wolf circling him, looking for the opening that will end things, ripping into his throat and tearing out his insides for the last time. Dialogue that has rolled about in his mind increasingly since his 25^th birthday. Why, he doesn’t know, and the words won’t leave him alone, nor will the night paralysis and nightmares that intrude upon his sleep night after night. Words from his mother and his Uncle Henry, the man who started it all, but who was most enabled by his mother, the same mother who never had time for him, never seemed to see him or even acknowledge his existence.
    “Look what I drew in school today, Mom! The teacher gave me a gold star!”
    “What? Can’t you see I’m busy, Johnny. Go outside and play and leave me alone. Why do you always bother me like this? Go watch out for your brother and make sure nothing happens to him. And throw that trash away.”
    John takes a long never-ending drink, bringing the bottle down to a half of what it was.
    “Johnny, this is your Uncle Henry,” says his mother. “He’s going to take care of you and your brother for the next two weeks. He loves the two of you very much.”
    John drinks more to help dull what he knows is coming, the same nightmare that plays itself out every night anymore. The nightmare he knows has only one way to escape it.
    “Hello, Johnny, we’ll aren’t you a handsome boy. Now that your mother is away, why don’t you sit next to me? It’s okay for us to be close. Your little brother’s asleep, so no one can hear us. I just want to chat with you for a while.”
    John almost finishes off the bottle of Jack, leaving only a swallow of golden-brown liquid, all that he’ll soon need.
    “Why don’t we get you out of those pajamas, Johnny, they must be confining. No, now take it easy, everything’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. See, watch, I’m taking my clothes off too.”
    His mother’s voice slips back inside, just like it always does at times like these. “This is your Uncle Henry. You need to listen to him and do everything he says. He’s going to take care of you. He loves you.”
    “You see, Johnny?” Exclaims his uncle, “You and I are just alike. We’re both boys. No, don’t pull away, Johnny. Just relax. This will be fun. I promise. I love you, Johnny. This is how people show they love each other. Your mother has told you to do as I say. You don’t want to make her angry, do you?”
    John picks up the bottle of pills and stares at them.
    “I won’t hurt you. See? This isn’t so bad. Why don’t you touch me too? It’ll make both of us feel good. You want me to love you, don’t you? Everyone needs love, Johnny.”
    John tilts the bottle of pills back and swallows them, followed by what’s left of the Jack.
    “That’s good. That’s nice. You’re a beautiful boy, Johnny. This is what love is, Johnny. What we’re doing now is showing our love for each other, and it’s just between us. We’ll never tell anyone else. No one will ever know. It will be our little secret. Do you hear me, Johnny? I love you.”
    As John drifts away, feeling a warmth overwhelming him, he realizes that he’ll never again have to hear the three words that brought him so much pain.

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