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John had arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport quietly, at complete odds to how he left. When he left he wasn’t trusted to do even the basics for himself. Ironically, his first day back in Chicago and he felt just as alone as he had been in his hospital room after the attack. Loneliness, it’s ever present shadow seemed to follow him. It didn’t seem to matter where he went, it was still there, following him endlessly.
His counselors at the rehabilitation center kept telling him that his feelings of loneliness would pass and that eventually, with hard work and dedication he would get back a semblance of his previous happy self. But what did they truly know about him, about John Truman Carter. He knew that this feeling of deep-seated loneliness had seemed to follow even as a child. Hell, sometimes he felt like it would never leave.
He walked out of the airport runway ramp, momentarily wondering where to go. He looked around for a familiar face. There was none present. He wondered what he should do in a case like this. His last meeting with his counselor had assured him that there would be someone from the hospital to greet him. He waited for at least a half an hour before deciding to leave the gate. He briefly thought about questioning someone at the terminal’s counter to see if a message had been left him for him, then thought against it. After all, with all the pages he had heard in the last few minutes, surely they would have paged him.
John thought briefly of the plans his counselor and him had made. They had hinged on having someone there to meet him from the plane. He had planned on staying at Gamma’s but that was before he spoke to her. He deliberately hadn’t let his counselor in on the phone call, implying instead that his family would be there for him. After all there were some things he knew he could handle on his own. How his family felt towards him was just one. He knew he should be worried at his lack of funds, and his current homeless state. Instead, he felt a curious detachment, as if along with everything else in his life, where he went and what he did truly didn’t matter.
It would have been nice to go to his Gamma’s, he reflected. But his one and only phone call with her had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome. After the accident she had willingly taken him in. Now, however it was different. He’d hoped against hope that he would see her standing by the terminal gate. But it was a hope that died as soon as he realized that there was no familiar person waiting to see him. His grandparent’s mansion was the closest thing to a real home that he had. Now he felt like it was forbidden territory to him.
Home.
It was an odd sounding word, especially if you no longer had one. Briefly visions of Kerry’s small house assailed his senses, he determinedly ignored them. Kerry was his supervisor, his chief, one of the people he respected the most at the hospital. The Dr. Weaver he knew would never look down on him, but he also knew he had disappointed her. Dr. Weaver was one of the people he had tried hardest to hide his addiction from. After all if she could live with her chronic pain, shouldn’t he have been able to do so also? The hurt in her eyes just as the look Dr. Benton gave him when he had found out had wounded him to the core. How was he ever going to be able to face them again?
He walked towards the escalator, pausing slightly to let a women with a small child go first. He watched them as she spoke lightly, laughingly, at something her child said. He wondered how he would have turned out if his parents had shown the same love and consideration towards him and his sister as this unknown stranger obviously held towards her child. Consideration, he laughed at the thought. Consideration was a word his parents used unstintedly, especially if they wanted himself or his sister to do something.
“Have just a little consideration for others, John.” His mother would say. School plays, soccer games, or important social functions it didn’t matter to them. All were missed and it was John’s fault if he was upset or irritated, after all as his father had told him on more than one occasion “The family business must come first, have a little consideration for the other peoples needs in this household.” Consideration was a word that was used whenever someone wanted to get their own way, he thought bitterly.
He stepped onto the escalator, wincing as he inadvertently jarred his back. It was back again, this ever-present pain. He knew he would have to get used too eventually. Sometimes the pain escalated as the day wore on, until he was unable to find relief from it. He grabbed the handrail, holding on through the brief surge of discomfort. Pain. The very word conjured many different images to him. From the searing sensation that he felt when Paul Sobricki had slid the knife in his back, to the odd twinges he received at three a.m. The ever-present searing feeling he had when he woke up, to the inevitable throbbing sensations he felt when he went to bed.
Odd, he’d seen his boss Kerry in pain at home, when she let her guard down slightly.
One while he was trying to express how he was feeling to one of the counselors, that he got a brief image of her working in the kitchen. She had been cleaning a cutting board, and had accidentally dropped it on the floor. He remembered her laughing as she bent to pick it up, then suddenly, clutching the side of the sink. She never said a word, just waited a few moments then went back to cleaning the cutting board again. Just waved him off when he asked if she was ok.
He wondered if he would ever truly be able to handle suffering the way she did. Until the knifing incident he had never truly realized how she felt. He knew she managed to deal with the pain, but until recently he hadn’t even attempted to deal with it on his own. Now he had no choice.
He stepped off the escalator, walking towards the outer doors. One good thing about being rushed onto a plane he thought was the absolute utter lack of baggage. He’d been glad to wear the loaner clothes the clinic had, and was grateful that the outfit he was wearing was clean and still in relatively good condition. He opened the door and looked from row of waiting cabs, to the bus terminal nearby, he glanced nervously back at the airport he was leaving.
He wondered why it was that an entire group of people could sit in an intervention, force him to get onto an airplane. Yet that same group of people could care less when it came time for him to start his “new and improved life” he thought bitterly. He knew that their intervention was meant as a kindly measure to help him, and not hurt him, but the feeling of betrayal he felt no matter how irrational was still there. Yet another item the counselor had claimed he needed to work on. The counselor he had made his vague plans with had assured him someone would be here, he had half expected to see Dr. Benton, or at least Dr. Greene.
Friends, who needed them, he thought bitterly. There wasn’t one person in Chicago he could cheerfully call a friend. Friends just bring pain. John had a vision of Lucy’s face as she lay on the floor. Lucy had wanted to be his friend, the bitter thought jumped to the forefront. He hastily tried to ignore it, but as usual it just returned as it always did.
Friends, they let him down, or he let them down. He would be better off not having them. He knew he needed to learn to be tough and strong. Tough and strong like Kerry Weaver. The mere fact that she was the loneliest person he knew never once entered his mind.
He looked through his wallet; he was down to his last twenty. That should carry him over for the night he laughed to himself. Once upon a time I had enough money to buy a few of those cabs. He looked over at the public transport. Looks like it’s the bus, he thought to himself.
He took the handful of change he had in his pocket, carefully counting how much he had left. Just barely enough he thought a whopping 2 dollars, plus the twenty. He sighed wondered how long he could stretch the 20 into food. He stopped at the bus terminal, and picked up a transit schedule someone had thoughtfully thrown on the hard cement sidewalk. He glanced through it, wondering where he should go.
He knew that life at one time was harder, but now it seemed pretty near impossible. He glanced through the schedule. He had another week before he had to return to work. He wasn’t sure in his heart if he wanted to return. The thought of going back to the E.R. scared him, to be precise it terrified him. It wasn’t the stares that his so called friends and associates would give him. It was the thought of a place that had seemed so secure. That all he had to do was show up, and do his job then he go home, there was security in routines he thought. Unfortunately he no longer believed in security.
He was no longer safe, and he could no longer trust those around him. John knew he was utterly alone. He glanced through the bus schedule again; wondering where to go, he noticed the corners were bent where someone had kept the page open a bit longer than normal. He idly turned the pages to see where the creased page was. He noticed as he turned the pages an advertisement for a homeless shelter. He laughed to himself, if ever there was walking advertisement for homeless people he was the epitome of one.
John noted the address and doubled checked the bus schedule, to make sure he had the right bus. Now was not the time to waste money on the wrong bus. All he had to do he thought to himself was survive long enough to get to a pawnshop. His laptop should bring in enough for cash for at food for the next few weeks, mabey enough extra for an occasional hotel room he thought.
He watched as the bus pulled closer, then stopped in front of him. He thought of his future plans… Should he go back to where he had been? Working in a place that terrified him most of the time with people he no longer trusted, who he knew no longer trusted him. Or should he just leave, and go elsewhere.
If you’re down to your last few dollars, and even your family isn’t talking to you, it doesn’t really matter where you go, he thought. He forced himself to place one foot after the other. He paused briefly at the step of the bus. That was when he heard a piercing whistle followed by a voice he hadn’t heard in several months. He stopped and looked over his shoulder to see a diminutive female, short red hair, and leaning heavily on a crutch.
“John.” She said quieter this time. She waited for him to come near, then watched him silently.
He walked closer until he stopped a mere few feet from her.
She said softly as he came nearer. “I’m sorry I was late. I had a flat tire.” She grimaced slightly still irritated at how long it had taken Malluci to fix it. She had worried obsessively the whole time she drove over about being late.
“Oh.” He replied not sure what to say next. He was sure she would try to take him to his grandparents and he was not sure he wanted to go into the details on how he felt he was no longer wanted there.
“I spoke to your Grandmother yesterday, I hear you need a place to stay.” She told him quietly.
John said nothing, his face unreadable. He watched as her a slight breeze in the air fluffed her hair and whipped it in front of her face.
“Are you offering?” he asked his voice rough and uneven betraying his uncertainty. He was pleased on one level that she cared about him enough to contact his gamma, and upset on another that his Gamma no longer wanted him near.
Kerry smiled briefly at him, as she moved her hair out of her eyes. He has a right to be distrustful of her she thought, after all she had kicked him out once before. The reasons why no longer seemed to matter to her. Her status at the hospital was more assured than ever. She had other reasons then for asking him to leave. Now she knew however, that they just weren’t as important as they had once been.
“Do you have any suitcases we need to get?” She asked him, taking a quick glance around. She hadn’t seen any, but she still felt obligated to ask. After all he could have kept them in a locker at the airport intending to come back for them.
They both looked up as the bus driver yelled. “Hey mister you gonna get on or not.”
John looked at the driver and replied, “no thanx.”
The driver looked at him in disgust, then closed the doors and drove off. John looked over at Kerry and for the first time that day allowed a brief smile to show on his handsome face.
“Ah, no,” he said softly. “No suitcases.”
She smiled back, relieved that at least part of the old John was returning.
“Let’s go home then.”
The end!
