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What Benny doesn't know is that Johnny's only got eyes for Benny. There's nobody else in the club who's gonna be good enough to take over, and somebody's gotta take over. Somebody's gotta take over because Johnny's not gonna do this much longer and there's nobody else he trusts but Benny.
'Cause he's younger. That's one of the reasons. 'Cause he's younger and he doesn't take other's shit and he's got the respect of the old and the young, and Johnny's not got that. He don't respect the kids. He don't fucken understand 'em. And there's more of them young kids than there are the old these days.
The club's not the same as what it was. It's gotten too big too wild too fast. Kids shootin' blue on the porch of the house they drink at. He can't have that. He can't have that spreadin', ya know. He wasn't ever about drugs or guns but they're finding him in this business and he don't want it to follow him home.
That's what Brucie always said. Don't let it follow you home. That's why Gail weren't allowed in at his funeral 'cause nobody in his home life knew that she was going out with him. Johnny weren't allowed because Brucie's family, ya know, they thought it was a hit. That if Brucie weren't out on his bike all the time that he'd be alright and the kick of it were that Brucie, that it was an accident.
No, The Vandals, they did the right thing lining up the way they did. Brucie was theirs as much as he was Gail's even if she never spilled into the rest of his life the way the guys did.
He just don't think he cares enough anymore, ya know? He doesn't want to be the guy, the head guy, the decision maker responsible for everyone. He's got a wife and two girls and he's gotta think about them and what if these new kids they come to his house and the fuck up his girls the way they almost fucked up Kathy?
No, it's no good. But he's not got the care anymore, to stop it. It's this pathetic thing. Soon it'll spill into his own house and he can't have that. Nobody goes into Johnny's house except his wife and his two girls and they're seperate from anything he does. They're not in what he's in and that's why nobody goes into his house.
Nobody except Benny.
He comes in the backyard. Metal gate creaks in the early morning. Sits on the tiny plastic chair of a swing set much too small for him and the girls who oughta be playing with them. A thing Johnny hasn't thrown out and a person Johnny can't throw out for trespassing.
He was in the kitchen at the time getting a glass of water and he'd seen a guy walk down the back alley and hop over the gate and sit on the swing set and he'd thought the day had come until he realised it was Benny.
"Benny," Johnny hissed as he clambered down the back steps, the late night dew dampening his slippers.
Benny's smoking. He looks up at Johnny and he doesn't say a word about how he looks. Johnny's in his wife's dressing gown and his boxers and he's looking down at Benny in his colours, no sleeves, jeans slick with oil and it blends in with the shadows that black out the overgrown grass.
Benny doesn't say nothin'. Johnny takes him inside.
"You gotta be quiet my girls are asleep upstairs," Johnny explains to the man who's said nothing at all.
Benny's sat down at the round dining table and he's tapping out another cigarette. Johnny sits down too and bums a cigarette. He don't like smoking this time of night but Benny's here and he's gonna do what Benny's gonna do.
He's tired.
"Benny," Johnny presses. "You don't look good, kid. What happened? Something happen to you?"
When Benny chews on his cigarette and can't look up from the ash tray, Johnny remembers visiting Benny in that motel Kathy squared him up in when he busted his ankle. Kathy was there, ya know, makin' a fuss about drinks but it was all background noise to him. Johnny was there to see Benny and now Benny's here to see him and his girls sleeping upstairs become background noise. Nothin' to worry about. It's just him and his boy.
He called Benny a queen once but he ain't lying. He'd serve Benny like he was his king if Benny asked him too. He would burn down buildings, nations, for him.
"I don't ask for nothin'," Benny tells him.
It's the principal. He don't have to ask.
"There's a couch. In the basement. Take it."
Benny looks at him then. Blue eyes under blonde lashes. He never looks vulnerable and he never looks grateful. He just looks. And Johnny don't know what it ever means. Can't read the kid's mind. But he lets him stay downstairs and it's about as close as his home life and club life gets.
He thinks later, when Benny leaves him, and leaves Kathy, that he just don't know how to look after Benny. He don't know how to the way Kathy does and ya know, it's not nothin' he can't learn. He learnt how to raise girls, he can learn how to care for a man. But if he learns, it's not what Benny's gonna want from him, he knows that. He knows that Benny don't want a guy like him. Not that way.
He hasn't seen Benny in a year.
"It's yours," he said, one time, to Benny. He was offering Benny his position. Johnny was telling him to get into position, but he wouldn't. Benny wouldn't do as he said, what anyone said.
He was in position, Johnny was. Metal around his knuckles. In the parking lot with that kid who wanted the top job.
And as he lay on the ground, a bullet in his heart, he thinks that he should have said, "I'm yours, Benny."