Mercy

On the fifth day of Billie Joe’s dreadful disturbance of the hospital’s oncology ward, both of his sons stayed as long as the visiting hours would permit. Frankly, the pair looked stunned that their father had neither attempted to escape from the facility, nor had he verbally harassed any of the medical personnel enough to get himself thrown out. The two young men were so flabbergasted by what they fondly described as uncharacteristic good behavior that they couldn’t help but ask what medications I had to force-feed Billie to render him so pleasant. With wide eyes and a snort of disbelief, I told the boys if such behavior was what they considered pleasant, one of them should strangle me. Of course they laughed, so quick to assume my dark request was nothing more than a sarcastic ode to a miserable old man, but they were sorely mistaken.

If I ever had the misfortune of witnessing Billie Joe on a bad day, my coworkers would surely find my body swinging from the rafters of the basement, corpse long cold and defeated by an old bastard who was near death’s insatiable grasp himself…or they would stumble across Billie’s lifeless form, a victim of supposed unexplained respiratory arrest, while I high-tailed my cowardly ass to Mexico.

Oh, it did not end well for either of us if Mr. Armstrong upped his repulsive game.

Once the boys had finished gratefully marveling over my so-called breakthrough with their father, the three of us returned to the old man’s hospital room where he was aimlessly tracing one of those ridiculous tattoos on his arm. From where I was standing, it vaguely resembled a photo-strip of…a woman? A young couple? Rolling my eyes, I realized I honestly didn’t care what the photo-strip contained, seeing as the images carried no sentimental value to anyone but Billie. With my arms crossed angrily across my chest, I felt my nails digging into the already-scarred flesh of my arms as a punishment to myself for actually wasting a precious moment of my life deciphering a faded ink stain on a scrawny, pale arm. Billie Joe spotted me staring at the way his fingers absentmindedly re-drew the tattoo into his skin, and at once, he withdrew his hand and hid that specific tattoo from view. His sons also noticed the quick cover-up, and the pair of them adopted similar pained expressions, as if they both knew exactly why the old bastard was hiding whatever the photo-strip contained.

To distract us all from a rare moment of vulnerability, Billie announced gruffly, “Fairy! I don’t think I’ve properly introduced you to my offspring yet.”

The younger groaned while the older chuckled, neither surprised in the least at being referred to as offspring. I also noted how they both appeared indifferent to my charming nickname, Fairy.

“No, you haven’t,” I agreed, realizing I didn’t know either of their names.

“Didn’t think so. That tall, gangly thing is Joey. Thirty years old and still smokes more pot than a teenager…I do believe I failed that one,” Billie sniggered, waving an arm in the elder’s direction as his face reddened in slight embarrassment.

“Dad, was that necessary?” Joey hissed, though his tone was more playful than malicious.

“Nope, but that’s what makes it so goddamned hilarious.” The old man smirked at Joey before glancing over at the smaller boy and waving lazily in his direction as well. “Now the other one, Jakob, he’s the baby. Kinda looks like a Pansy Fairy like you, but if you say it to his face you’ll be pickin’ yourself off the ground in pieces, courtesy of his temperamental little boyfriend.”

Jakob remained silent, and his eyes fell to the floor. Rapidly noticing that their father actually struck a nerve, Joey snapped, “It took you all of five minutes to out Jake? Honestly, Dad, what the fuck?”

“What? So I’m not a fan of his boyfriend. I figured Fairy here would be as good a person as any to bitch about him to,” Billie scoffed.

“It’s none of your business!” Joey growled, hands quickly balling into fists to further accentuate his disdain. I could do nothing more than to gawk at the family drama playing out before me, oddly fascinated by how swiftly Joey stood to protect his brother.

“Joe, it became my business the first time that controlling prick-”

“Dad, please. Don’t,” Jakob’s small, practically inaudible voice begged, looking as if he were on the verge of tears.

“Why the hell shouldn’t I? Jake, he doesn’t love you, he loves controlling you, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let this go any further!” Billie Joe’s eyes were blazing at that point, threatening to emotionally cripple everyone in the room with one scalding glare…but Joey stood his ground. The elder son clung to his defiance in order to protect his brother from any further verbal lashings.

“It’s not your decision to make,” he spat, pulling Jakob into a consoling embrace.

A moment of silence passed with continued glares of a heated staring contest. Whoever tore their gaze away first was sure to lose the upper hand of the argument, and by God, Joey was just as hard-headed as his father. In fact, I was fearful of how this visit might proceed if I permitted for the dispute to continue much longer. If it turned violent, which I was almost certain it would, then it would be my ass for not kicking the old bastard’s sons out the moment Billie’s unorthodox introductions turned testy…which begged the question as to why he was so determined to push the subject in the first place. Why did he feel comfortable enough to present the problem in front of me when a normal human being would find the act of starting such a conversation awkward even in the privacy of their own home, behind closed doors? There was a significance to the old man’s methods, but I had yet to fully grasp just what he was attempting to convey.

Weeks later, when the answer finally did click in my mind, it was so simple I nearly cried.

To break the menacing quiet in the room, I cleared my throat in an unnecessary, exaggerated manner to bring the Armstrongs’ attention over in my direction instead of shooting daggers at each other. When I had their full, yet angered, attention, I simply stated, “I believe visiting hours are over now.”

“Oh thank God,” Jakob gasped before damn near dragging his brother out of the room with him. In seconds, they were gone, without so much as a parting phrase to dismiss themselves from the room.

Billie stared after his sons with a saddened look in his eye that could have easily been mistaken for remorse, but I thought I knew better. I was so convinced that the man was such an asshole that even the lives of his own flesh and blood were irrelevant pawns placed before him that he could fuck with at will, as if prying into the intimate details of their privacy was nothing more than another of his selfish games. I would have continued to believe so, but a simple confession shattered the notion right before my very eyes, turning Billie’s remorseful grimace into a deeper, overtly concerned expression of a truly worried parent.

“The baby’s in danger,” he murmured, hands curling angrily into fists much like Joey’s had mere minutes before.

“Jakob? How so?” I asked, relishing the fact that he was opening up to me instead of cracking jokes about my profession and sexuality.

“His boyfriend…he’s got some emotionally abusive shit going on there. Like Stockholm Syndrome shit, Fairy. It’s serious,” Billie explained, eyes glistening with a moisture I thought I’d never witness.

“Oh. I’m…sorry,” I mumbled, unsure of what else to say. What could I say, honestly? It wasn’t my place to offer solutions or even offer my help, seeing as the situation was sensitive in nature and threatened a severe emotional backlash to those involved. I couldn’t afford to infuse myself in such a thing.

“I keep tellin’ him and tellin’ him that boyfriend doesn’t love him, but of course Jake won’t listen. His mind’s already been warped by that sonuvabitch, and he seriously believes that he can do no wrong. No matter how hard he beats him, my little baby cries and cries that he loves him. He loves that sonuvabitch,” Billie continued, volume rising just enough to cause a disturbance in his damaged lungs. As the coughing fit claimed his vocal chords, I noticed a single tear slide down his cheek. Whether it was from the force of the coughing fit or from the dire position his younger son was in, the tear still shed so much light onto the true man hidden behind the jackass visage. He was human. With feelings.

The thought alone blew me away, seeing as I went from plotting this man’s demise to actually pitying him in less than an hour.

“Fairy, you gotta help me. You gotta help Jake, ok? I’m afraid…my baby might end up dead one of these days,” the old man declared, staring so intently into my eyes that it was virtually impossible to turn him down. Despite how risky it would be to involve myself into the lives of a patient and his family, I felt compelled to aid the man any way I could.

Besides, he was dying. I would be an incredible, heartless bastard if I couldn’t do him at least one favor.