The memory brings you into a grey room: dull, distant, and detached. That's the feeling, though it's a small space in reality, crowded by the small fold-out beds and the young men that occupy them, with a book or waiting on some next step.
There's one waiting there now. The one this memory is about, that you're drawn to, sitting on the edge of a bed with its thin dark sheet and no pillow. His head hangs and his hands are gripping into the mattress, foot tapping out of anxiety more than impatience. You can't see the signs of it, but you know he's in pain, a stinging in the exact place you'll notice it once he lifts his head.
'Alright, everyone we called for visitations, get up. Valasquez, Binder, Espinoza, Keene.'
He's bolted up onto his feet the second the last name is given, a painful hope rising in him. There's a bruise around his left eye, but you know the trepidation inside him is doing numbers inside his chest more than any sting left from the fight he had yesterday. That was bad, but today is important. Today, there's the glimmer of hope of something familiar -- of someone being there.
His dad.
You follow him with the line of other young kids, walking down halls until you reach a room that may be familiar in purpose, or not. It's lined with tables steel-grey and chairs white, but you know they're going to be hard as soon as you see them. Robby doesn't care, taking a place at one of the middle tables without a word; his head kept down, though a glance taken to examine the room once, the large window ahead of him that shows a camera room on the other side.
Everything about this is waiting. Every second obvious, every one that turns into minutes. Robby shakes his leg incessantly under the desk, only stopping when--
'--Hey. Robby?'
You only notice him because Robby does, a kind older man with a bald head, gentle eyes. He comes to Robby's table dressed in a black-blue suit, offering his hand.
'I'm Pastor Brown, a friend of your father. It's good to see you.' Robby's been hiding his face - or just his mouth - by his hands cupped in front of it, but he lets them go to take the hand offered to shake. The man sits down, with a joke about Johnny never being one to be punctual ('I see that hasn't changed'), and there's light talk of how Robby is, one he only answers with an 'Okay' that's reluctant to be said.
And then, the real wait begins. It's a memory of waiting for an agonising hour, sat there, and being stuck waiting with him. A glance taken at the door each time it opens (you might not look, but Robby does, and he does it every time it does open, sometimes when it doesn't), the crumbling hope inside the boy, though you don't see him change outwardly much. He stays sitting, hunched, hands in front of him and that leg always shaking.
All you have - and all Robby has - are his thoughts. Thinking about a school fight that brought him in here, how he'll explain to his dad that he tried to stop the fight, he did, and he wasn't trying to kick Miguel over the edge. He thinks about his face, how he might look; how he's fearful about seeing his disappointment, but he's hoping more for his father to look at him, see him--
Would he touch him? Put a hand on him, say something about his bruise? Robby's ashamed about that, the thought of the fight and how he tried to defend himself. But it was him against a room of others, how his fighting is about defence, not about escalation or punching back.
He thinks about his sensei failing him, the one who taught him that. But he's a thought and an anger (a hurt) that Robby doesn't want to think about for long, and doesn't.
People come to the other tables, you hear the hushed voices and the few sobs that escape; you hear the sound of hugs by the slide of fabric and the sounds of relief from loved ones. Robby never looks, but he knows, and even Pastor Bobby's expression comes less capable of hiding its concern.
He checks his watch, and Robby looks over at it, too. It's been nearly an hour. The pastor reaches over and touches Robby's arm, asks him to give a little more time.
But the last of Robby's hope has crumbled. He's not disappointed--he's bitter. At himself for thinking his dad would come in the first, that he ever would when he never has--that he doesn't blame him for Miguel's being in hospital, and why would he ever come for his screwed up kid?
'He's not coming,' Robby says, the first real words he has since this whole memory. 'I knew it.'
And it's to stand up, and leave the pastor where he sits, heading to out of the door -- and to the end of the memory, figuring that the only reason his dad had signed up to come was because someone else made him do it, first.
That's the only way he ever remembers Robby, anyway.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[ JUVIE: WAITING FOR JOHNNY LAWRENCE, mentions of violence ]
There's one waiting there now. The one this memory is about, that you're drawn to, sitting on the edge of a bed with its thin dark sheet and no pillow. His head hangs and his hands are gripping into the mattress, foot tapping out of anxiety more than impatience. You can't see the signs of it, but you know he's in pain, a stinging in the exact place you'll notice it once he lifts his head.
'Alright, everyone we called for visitations, get up. Valasquez, Binder, Espinoza, Keene.'
He's bolted up onto his feet the second the last name is given, a painful hope rising in him. There's a bruise around his left eye, but you know the trepidation inside him is doing numbers inside his chest more than any sting left from the fight he had yesterday. That was bad, but today is important. Today, there's the glimmer of hope of something familiar -- of someone being there.
His dad.
You follow him with the line of other young kids, walking down halls until you reach a room that may be familiar in purpose, or not. It's lined with tables steel-grey and chairs white, but you know they're going to be hard as soon as you see them. Robby doesn't care, taking a place at one of the middle tables without a word; his head kept down, though a glance taken to examine the room once, the large window ahead of him that shows a camera room on the other side.
Everything about this is waiting. Every second obvious, every one that turns into minutes. Robby shakes his leg incessantly under the desk, only stopping when--
'--Hey. Robby?'
You only notice him because Robby does, a kind older man with a bald head, gentle eyes. He comes to Robby's table dressed in a black-blue suit, offering his hand.
'I'm Pastor Brown, a friend of your father. It's good to see you.' Robby's been hiding his face - or just his mouth - by his hands cupped in front of it, but he lets them go to take the hand offered to shake. The man sits down, with a joke about Johnny never being one to be punctual ('I see that hasn't changed'), and there's light talk of how Robby is, one he only answers with an 'Okay' that's reluctant to be said.
And then, the real wait begins. It's a memory of waiting for an agonising hour, sat there, and being stuck waiting with him. A glance taken at the door each time it opens (you might not look, but Robby does, and he does it every time it does open, sometimes when it doesn't), the crumbling hope inside the boy, though you don't see him change outwardly much. He stays sitting, hunched, hands in front of him and that leg always shaking.
All you have - and all Robby has - are his thoughts. Thinking about a school fight that brought him in here, how he'll explain to his dad that he tried to stop the fight, he did, and he wasn't trying to kick Miguel over the edge. He thinks about his face, how he might look; how he's fearful about seeing his disappointment, but he's hoping more for his father to look at him, see him--
Would he touch him? Put a hand on him, say something about his bruise? Robby's ashamed about that, the thought of the fight and how he tried to defend himself. But it was him against a room of others, how his fighting is about defence, not about escalation or punching back.
He thinks about his sensei failing him, the one who taught him that. But he's a thought and an anger (a hurt) that Robby doesn't want to think about for long, and doesn't.
People come to the other tables, you hear the hushed voices and the few sobs that escape; you hear the sound of hugs by the slide of fabric and the sounds of relief from loved ones. Robby never looks, but he knows, and even Pastor Bobby's expression comes less capable of hiding its concern.
He checks his watch, and Robby looks over at it, too. It's been nearly an hour. The pastor reaches over and touches Robby's arm, asks him to give a little more time.
But the last of Robby's hope has crumbled. He's not disappointed--he's bitter. At himself for thinking his dad would come in the first, that he ever would when he never has--that he doesn't blame him for Miguel's being in hospital, and why would he ever come for his screwed up kid?
'He's not coming,' Robby says, the first real words he has since this whole memory. 'I knew it.'
And it's to stand up, and leave the pastor where he sits, heading to out of the door -- and to the end of the memory, figuring that the only reason his dad had signed up to come was because someone else made him do it, first.
That's the only way he ever remembers Robby, anyway.