Chapter Text
JJ met John B on the playground in the third grade.
During recess, one could never fail to find John B up in the playground castle with the girls, teaching them how to scale the side of it so that they may sit atop the castle's peak (even though they weren't supposed to do that) or pushing them down the slide two at a time.
Just as frequently, one could find JJ sitting by the wire fence that surrounded the playground because time had been subtracted from his recess. He usually had to sit out at recess because he had spoken out of turn during class one too many times, or he had not-so-cleverly stolen a glittery gel pen from one of John B's girl friend's pink pencil box when she wasn't looking. One day, however, he sat out because he had hit a boy with uncombed, jet-black hair and clusters of freckles square in the face-- his first fight.
"What's that on your arm?" the boy had asked curiously, pointing to a large, blueish-purple colored mark that stained JJ's arm right above the elbow. "It looks like smashed blueberries."
JJ had wanted to bawl upon hearing those words. He knew what it looked like- all ugly and mean, a painful reminder of the night before, the color of a squished bug taking the shape of his father's fingers all the way around his skinny arm.
JJ knew exactly what it looked like.
He hadn't even said anything in return to the boy, which was unlike him because JJ always had something to say. He had just snapped, just shot his fist out without thinking and pulled it back to see the sight of red blood dripping from this boy's nose like a leaky faucet, a horrified expression across his face. He'd never hit anybody before, and he was taken aback by the power he had been able to put into it.
JJ had regretted it immediately. Just like Dad, he had realized very quickly as he cradled his right hand, the knuckles throbbing at the joints, his fingers nearly numb. Just like Dad, indeed, because Dad, too, acted on his anger in violent ways without considering any consequences.
The bitter taste of tears burned the back of JJ's throat, made his tongue swell in his mouth like a balloon. He thought for sure that he was going to cry, but instead he had coughed- the little kid type of cough, all gross and germy- and blinked away the tears before they had the time to fall.
But the other boy had cried-- in fact he had shrieked, reaching up to clutch at his nose with grubby fingers, and it had echoed in the dingy classroom, which in turn had notified the teacher.
JJ had tugged his sleeve further down his arm and turned the bruise away from sight when the teacher came running over, cheap lanyard swaying back and forth wildly. She'd asked desperately for an explanation, looking from JJ to the dark-haired boy to JJ again. The boy was leaning toward the teacher with one of his hands outstretched, silently asking to be held. It made JJ feel awful (because JJ knew that move-- the one where you reached for someone like your mother when you were in a moment of surprising harm), and when the teacher had repeated herself, he had simply hung his head and turned to the side, refusing to speak. The other boy couldn't bring himself to say anything, presumably through the pain and shock, so the teacher had just shaken her head and walked him down to the nurse's office with a certain worry in her step.
When she returned, she decided that JJ's recess privileges would be revoked for a whole week. His father would also be receiving a call, which was what he was more worried about.
He was planning a shortcut home, sitting out at recess with legs crossed and palms squished against his cheeks, so that perhaps he could intervene the call that would be sent to his father, when he noticed a brown-haired boy standing in front of him. JJ looked up, and the sun seemed to make a halo around the boy's head.
"Why did you hit Ethan?" the boy asked, hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of his shorts. He didn't look angry, rather a concerned friend, even though JJ knew for a fact that this kid didn't really qualify as a friend to the boy he had hit- Ethan, apparently.
"None of your business," JJ answered sharply. He put on a sour face, his eyebrows furrowed together in mock anger, his lips pursed.
"Why won't you tell anyone?" the boy continued, serious gaze not wavering, because JJ hadn't explained himself to the teacher, and he had refused to even speak a word to the principal when he was called to the hallway. "Ethan's not mean, so why'd you hit him?"
JJ looked away, over at where all the teachers stood together during the half hour recesses. None of them were looking at JJ or the boy in front of him, but it wouldn't be long before one of them did. JJ had a half-habit of running off from his recess-time-out spot, so all the third grade teachers knew to keep an eye on him.
"You'll have to sit out too if they catch you talking to me," JJ said, averting the conversation in hopes that this kid would leave him alone.
JJ turned and stared at him. It was a common thing for kids to sit and wait with their friend if they had to sit out, a sign of camaraderie and togetherness, a little kid version of sticking it to the man. No one had ever sat out with JJ before.
"Why did you hit him?"
JJ sighed. "You promise not to tell anyone?"
The boy nodded, and leaned forward to give JJ his full attention.
"Ethan asked me about this," JJ explained, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt. The boy beside him didn't say anything, but JJ did notice his body tense up. When he reached forward with delicate fingers to touch the bruised area, JJ thought that maybe he should pull away, but he didn't.
"That's why you punched him in the face?" the boy asked, carefully retreating his hand.
JJ nodded his head. He wondered, for a brief moment, if explaining himself more would put him into deeper trouble, but this boy had made a promise. And why shouldn't JJ trust him? He was the only person to ever sit with him during recess after all. "My dad did this," he said, gesturing to his arm. He looked up at the boy's face to gauge his reaction. The boy didn't look traitorous, nor did he seem like a tattle-tell. "He told me not to tell anyone."
"Oh," the boy said, leaning back against the fence to put some breathing room between them. It was clear he was absorbing this new information, and it was even more clear that he'd never known someone who was beat at home. "I'm John B," he said suddenly, knocking his shoulder goodnaturedly against JJ's.
"I'm JJ."
I know, John B wanted to say, but didn't because he thought it would be rather impolite. All my friends talk about you.
"Cool," he said, standing back up and motioning toward the playground castle where all the girls from John B's class were leaning out of the plastic window to watch him, "I told them I'd jump off the top."
JJ gave him a smile, eyes squinting against the bright sun. "Cool," he parroted back to John B.
And then John B had run off toward the castle, button-up shirt hanging loose and dirty around his small frame.
The two of them had become quite inseparable after that point. They began to sit together on the bus ride home, and JJ had started playing with John B and all the girls that followed him around during recess. On most Saturdays, JJ would ride his bike to John B's house after he finished his weekend chores, playing cards loud in the spokes as he pedaled as fast as he could. They would fish together out behind the Chateau, and race their bikes together down dirt roads, and swim together, and take out the boat together with the help of John B's father.
John B's father was a certain type of paternal figure that JJ had never encountered before- not that he had encountered many fathers before considering he never had any friends' houses to go to. He insisted on JJ calling him Big John just like everyone else did, although referring to him by that to his face always made JJ feel slightly uneasy, like calling your teacher by their first name, or something like that.
Big John would sometimes play pirates with them in the backyard, a long stick in his hand acting as his sword and his baseball cap turned sideways on his head in a vague attempt to resemble a pirate's hat. When Spongebob came on in the afternoons, Big John would give them the remote and let them turn the volume up as loud as they wanted. The kitchen was free range, Big John had told JJ once, as long as you didn't take more than you could eat.
These were all things that wouldn't go unpunished at JJ's own house, as he quickly learned.
"Dad, where's the milk?" JJ had asked once after spending the weekend at John B's house. The cereal had already been poured carefully into a white ceramic bowl, a spoon sitting beside it on the counter.
JJ could feel the sudden mood-shift before his father had even stepped foot in the room. He straightened himself, turned away from the fridge to watch his father walk toward him.
"Put this mess up," he demanded after noticing the cereal, "You know you only eat what I put on your plate."
JJ had dropped his hopeful smile, gaze turned low, and closed the refrigerator door. His father knocked him on the back of the head as he went to put up the cereal. It wasn't hard, but it was with enough force to send little spikes of pain into his brain as his head fell forward.
"Big John lets us have cereal when we're hungry," JJ had said bravely, perhaps a little too much so.
His father stopped in his tracks, hand gripping the door frame of the kitchen. JJ knew his father was restraining himself from doing something bigger. His knuckles were ash white. "I'm not Big John," he said lowly, using the tone of voice that told JJ not to say anything else, "Now put the cereal away."
JJ did as he was told. He never again ate food outside of the three meals his father gave him, unless he was at John B's house.
By the beginning of fourth grade, JJ had officially labelled John B his best friend.
There wasn't some fancy ceremony where he had announced to everyone that John B was his best friend and no one else's-- although he had very much wanted that because it seemed that more often than not, JJ was fighting for John B's attention in the sea of other school children trying desperately to gain a few moments of the boy's focus for themselves, just as JJ did with his own father at home. The only difference with his father was that he wasn't fighting other children; in fact, JJ wasn't fighting anyone for his father's attention except his father himself.
Nonetheless, JJ did think of John B as his best friend. He could tell John B anything and trust that it would be kept a secret between the two of them. He had fun while he was with John B, whatever it may have been that they were doing. John B never asked about his bruises, or teased him for his dirty clothes like the other kids at school did. They had even created a handshake that was all their own. So how could JJ not think of John B as his best friend?
He began to refer to John B as such, and in turn, John B did the same to him.
It was exhilarating to have a best friend. JJ had never had one before, and he'd never before known what he had been missing out on.
Things at school got better for JJ after this. Rather than avoid him, JJ's classmates began to invite him to their games of tag and their lines of red rover and their floor circles of inside recess. They seemed to no longer care that he was reading slower than the rest of them, or that his tennis shoes were noticeably getting too small, or that sometimes he would be in a seemingly unshakable bad mood. It was like being best friends with John B made everyone like him, and JJ had simply added it to the list of good things that had happened because of John B.
His peers began to find him funny and a good playmate. Some of the girls that used to tag along behind John B had become dedicated admirers of JJ's instead.
"I think Isabella likes you," John B whispered in his ear at recess when they were alone once, pointing across the playground to where the dark haired girl was walking with her friends.
JJ followed his finger and looked at her too. "Really?" he asked, although JJ thought that John B was just saying that because he wanted to talk about her. Indeed, it seemed to him that John B brought her up quite a lot, usually to suggest that JJ 'ask her out', but JJ got the idea that John B himself had a crush on her and just didn't know how to go about it.
"Yeah," John B answered, grinning at JJ.
JJ smiled back at him, and blushed when John B refused to look away.
"I don't think so," JJ replied. He flinched when John B threw out his arm in Isabella's direction again.
"She's looking at you, dude!" John B said, a little too loudly for his liking.
When JJ turned to see, she was in fact looking at him. John B had run off toward her, presumably to pester her into giving him any clues that may be evidence enough to prove to JJ that she was crushing on him. JJ didn't follow him for a moment, though, just stood still, unable to move until finally his mind was caught up with him and his legs were carrying himself after John B.
Things at school got better for JJ, but things at home got worse.
His mother's mother had died unexpectedly around New Year's and it had put quite a damper on the already tensing situation at home.
The funeral wasn't as bad as little JJ had thought it would have been, but it was awkward and sad, and the rented black suit his mother made him wear was itchy and too tight around his neck. The worst of it was when they were out in the cemetery, and he cried while his grandmother's casket was lowered into the ground.
When his mom noticed, she had handed her purse over to Luke and leaned down to pick JJ up and hold him. He hid his face against the skin of his mother's cold neck and held on tightly even though her bulky necklace was uncomfortable on his cheek. His mother hadn't picked him up like that in years, but she made up for it by kissing his head and telling him that it would be alright.
JJ could feel his father's eyes on them, and somehow he knew that his parents would be arguing about it when they got home.
His intuition had been correct, and that fight seemed to set off a chain reaction for whatever reason. His parents started arguing on a regular basis. His father had begun to raise his voice more often at little things that he ordinarily wouldn't have raised his voice over. He started to request things of JJ that he had never requested before, like telling him to mow the lawn or sending him to the store alone to pick up a few forgotten groceries (sometimes without money, which, if he had to guess, was where he picked up his thievery habits).
His mother stood up for JJ when Luke would go too far and demand unreasonable things.
"Luke, he's a ten year old kid! Let him go play with his friends!" she had said loudly when his father had decided to not let JJ out after school, "That's what ten year old boys do."
Usually, his father would back down when his mother snapped at him about being easier on JJ, but he almost never let up when he was arguing with her about money or his addictions.
One night, when the fight had been particularly bad, JJ had hid in his room. He jumped when he heard the front door slam shut and stared intently at his own bedroom door waiting for something to happen.
His mother came in a few moments later, with no tears on her face. It wasn't uncommon for her to keep a composure during her arguments with Luke, but JJ was always surprised when she was able to not break down in tears after his father yelled such harsh things at her.
"Hi, baby," she had greeted, sitting on the bed beside JJ.
"Hi," JJ said, leaning toward her when she reached out to stroke his hair. His anxieties seemed suddenly nonexistent.
"What would you like for dinner?" she asked sweetly, "It's just me and you tonight. Your dad's going out somewhere, so we can have whatever you'd like."
JJ smiled, tapped his chin playfully in thought. "Pasketti and meatballs."
"Mmm, good choice," she replied, shifting to look at a colored piece of paper sitting on the table beside JJ's bed. "What's this?"
"A drawing," JJ answered, picking up the paper and putting it in his mother's patient hands. "That's me," he said, pointing to one of the stick figures, and then the other, "And that's John B."
"Oh, I can see the resemblance," she said smiling, tracing her own fingers over the crayon markings. "You like John B?"
"Yeah. He's my best friend," JJ answered happily.
She returned the picture to JJ's nightstand and mussed his hair, a slight showing of worry etched into her expression. "Cool beans," she said, "Wash your hands and you can help me make the meatballs."
His father had stayed out the entire night, and most of the next day too. When he returned, both of his parents refused to acknowledge the tension that was left hanging around in the air.
At the end of fourth grade, JJ's mother had left.
It had been culminating, JJ was certain of it, because most nights he was awakened by his mother and father arguing. He would manage to fall back asleep eventually, and usually by the next morning, his parents would either be in quite chipper moods or they would both be oddly passive aggressive with their silence. JJ never completely understood it. He supposed that it was just an adult thing-- he just hoped that he would never be that type of adult.
JJ came home from school one day and his father was no where to be seen, which was unusual. Luke was always there when JJ got home after school, typically working on the kitchen sink or in the backyard with his head under the hood of a car.
His mother wasn't there either, but there was a note on the coffee table in the living room written in her pretty, looped handwriting. With a little trouble, because the letters seemed to jump around the page, JJ had been able to read it.
Luke,
I'm going to stay with my sister in Illinois for now. I don't know when I'll be back. I think some time apart will do us both some good.
As for JJ, please look after him. He's still a little boy, he needs his father to be there to teach him the ropes. Things will get hard for him sometimes, but be easy on him, Luke. He looks up to you more than you know. Tell him that I love him.
Until next time,
Clara
JJ folded the note back up and returned it to the table just as he had found it. The note wasn't for his wandering eyes, so he thought it would be best if his father didn't know he had read it.
While he sat at the kitchen table and tried his luck on his homework, he wondered how soon his mother would be returning. She had never left like this before, but JJ was positive that she would come home by the week's end. He wondered what she meant by saying that things will get hard for him, wondered if maybe she knew something about himself that he didn't.
Tell him that I love him, she had written.
It sounded a lot more like a true, honest-to-God goodbye.
I love him.
JJ smiled, cheeks pink. He wasn't able to finish his homework.
It had been almost two whole weeks since JJ had read the note before he realized that she might not be coming back at all. He had hardly seen his father during that time because he was out doing 'adult things', as Luke had put it. He gave no further description of his whereabouts or his happenings.
It was always quiet in the mornings because Luke wasn't there, and neither was his mother. It was quiet when JJ got home from school because Luke wasn't there, and neither was his mother. It was quiet when JJ sat at the kitchen table and tried (really tried hard, because it seemed to him that his reading skills were fading somehow) to do his homework in the afternoons.
That's about the time that Luke would come loudly through the front door, boots thumping on the hardwood floor. JJ could tell that he was drunk even though Luke had never really been drunk around him before. He would have his after-dinner beer or two every day, but that was the extent of it until his mother left.
Sometimes Luke would bring home fast food, and sometimes he would come home with an arm-full of grocery bags that would contain ingredients JJ had to put together himself. His father never seemed to be hungry anymore, or at least he never was in the presence of his son. It was usually boxed macaroni and cheese, or frozen dinners that he cooked in the microwave because he wasn't old enough to use the stove yet, or white bread and bologna slices.
JJ would go to sleep at night to the sound of Luke watching TV in the living room or shuffling around in the kitchen, but when he woke up the next morning, he was never there.
His mother's note was still on the coffee table. It didn't even look like it had been touched since JJ had read it, so he developed an idea: take the note for himself, so that perhaps he could have the last artifact of his mother's person. After hiding the note for two days in a shoe box under his bed, his father hadn't said a word about it, nor did he seem to even be curious about its location. Surely his father had read it though, because he had never left JJ alone like that before his mother left, had never made him prepare his own meals like that before his mother left.
Fifteen days after his mother had left, Luke hadn't come home at all that night. JJ was worried, eyes wide with something akin to fear as he laid under the covers at his bedtime like he was supposed to. When he checked the glowing fish clock on his wall at 12:30, he decided to go to John B's house, his mother's note tucked neatly into the pocket of his shorts.
He knocked on the front door when he arrived because he didn't know if he should try climbing in John B's bedroom window like he had seen on television. Big John was the one to open the door, eyes tired behind smudged glasses. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping well.
With a worried twitch of his smile, Big John stepped aside and let JJ in. The Chateau looked pretty trashed, what with thick textbooks laid open on a table that had been pulled in from one of the back rooms and maps with messy scribbles tacked up on the walls and half-eaten takeout boxes strewn across the room.
"Sorry about the mess, kid," Big John had chuckled in his husky, tired voice. "What brings you here this late?"
Without missing a beat, because he hadn't thought anything of it, JJ answered: "My dad didn't come home tonight. I didn't know what else to do."
There was an awkward moment where Big John was silent and unmoving and JJ didn't know what to do with his hands or his eyes or his feet. So he shuffled in place, stared up at Big John and waited for him to tell him what to do.
"Uh..." Big John said, scratching the back of his head. "That's okay. You can stay the night here. John B's asleep in his room but you can sleep in there if you'd like."
JJ nodded, smiled gratefully at Big John. "Thank you," he said, turning with his hands tucked behind his back to go to John B's room.
The door was closed and the room was dark, but John B was not asleep. Instead, he was sitting up and staring expectantly at the door.
"Hi," John B had said.
"Hi," JJ repeated, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Spending the night," JJ said, stumbling in the dark toward John B's bed until John B reaches over and turns on the lamp beside his bed-- the one that casts spaceships of light on the ceiling. "My dad never came home."
"Oh," John B replied, jumping out of bed to throw a fake punch JJ's way and run over to his dresser to pull out an extra set of his pajamas. "Here you go."
In the bathroom, JJ put the pajamas on and then he pulled out the stool to look at himself in the mirror. His father hadn't hit him since before his mother left so there were no bruises on his body except for the one on his left arm that he got from slapping it against one of the playground castle pole's at recess. He looked sleepy though, even JJ could see that.
His mother's note sticking out of his shorts' pocket caught his eye, and he took it out. He read it again, faster than the first time because he had spent a long time looking at this letter, rereading it, trying to engrave his mother's words into his brain so that perhaps her beautiful handwriting would be what he saw every time he closed his eyes.
Tell him that I love him, his mother had written, something that he never really remembered his father ever saying to him.
He folded it back up, put it in the pocket that it belonged, and rubbed his eyes until the skin around was red and raw.
He put the stool back under the sink, and quietly returned to John B's room even though the lights in the kitchen and living room were still on and JJ could hear Big John mumbling something.
John B was sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting patiently for JJ to come back. JJ sat down beside him after he had thrown his day clothes in the floor.
"Where's your mom, John B?" JJ asked suddenly, whipping his head to the side to look at him.
John B didn't look upset like JJ thought he might. Instead, he just shrugged. "Daddy says she left when I was still a baby," he answered, looking back at JJ, "I don't remember her."
"Oh," JJ replied, huffing out a sigh because that wasn't the answer he was expecting. There was something burning at the back of his throat that made it difficult to swallow. "I think my mom left too." His eyes were suddenly wet.
John B didn't say anything, just threw his arm around JJ's shoulders when he noticed the tears on JJ's face. And it's all JJ needed really, because he had never been one to just openly say things about his home life or his father or his mother.
When he was done crying, JJ rubbed his eyes and John B kept his arm around his shoulders. JJ stared at him for a moment, and then, with a sudden burst of gratitude, leaned up and planted a childish kiss on John B's cheek.
John B laughed, although it sounded more like a chuckle that adults liked to use sometimes, and patted JJ once, twice before lifting his arm and settling himself under the covers.
It seemed that John B was growing up a little bit faster than JJ was. It made JJ feel stupid for kissing him on the cheek, like perhaps he shouldn't have done it at all. He waited for a moment before getting under the covers too, chest tight and eyes dry like he might have to cry again.
But he didn't, and when he laid down beside John B, the blankets were warm and the pillow was soft.