Jerry
By:
Will B
(© 2009-2010 by the author)
Ably Assisted by Ed
The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's
consent. Comments are appreciated at...
Reprise from Chapter 24
Ricky, a fourteen-year-old boy has appeared at the Souchard Hotel, having been kicked out his step-dad’s car, because his self-righteous step-dad would not have a ‘disgusting fag-boy’ in his house. Both Trace and Jerry have found that they have almost started thinking of him as ‘son.’
Chapter 27
Author’s note: This chapter takes place the day after Ricky’s arrival, two days after Thanksgiving.
“Aaaahhhh! No! No!”
Trace and Jerry were awakened by the sounds from the room where Ricky was sleeping. They both jumped out of bed, stopping only long enough to pull on some boxer shorts, and went into Ricky’s room, where they found the young boy sobbing.
“What’s wrong, Sport?” Trace asked.
“I-I-I had a nightmare. I dreamed my step-dad was beating me!”
Trace sat on the edge of the bed and put his arm around Ricky’s shoulders. “Listen, Ricky, nobody, no-bod-y is ever going to hurt you again. Jerry and I won’t let that happen, believe me!”
“Trace, I think we’re going to have to call…,” Jerry began.
“Yeah. I know. Listen Ricky, we’re going to straighten this out today. The Sheriff of San Francisco County is a friend of ours. We’re going to call him and take some steps to be sure that your step-father will never be able to hurt you. He will want to ask you some questions. Just tell him the truth. He's our friend, and anything he asks you will be because he wants to help you. Understand?”
“Yes, Da-da- uh, Trace.”
“Good, let’s get up, get dressed, and get some breakfast,” Trace said.
The three did just that. Trace called the Sheriff’s office, and the Sheriff replied that he would be there in an hour.
The dining room was filled with happy, chattering guests who were filling their plates with food. Some of the guests feasting their eyes on the hot studs who were serving breakfast.
Trace, Jerry, and Ricky were eating when David approached. “Hello, Ricky. I’m David. I’m glad my clothes fit.”
“Oh, did you want me to give them back. I could take them off right….,” Ricky began, with a mischievous look on his face. (Ah, the resilience of youth! He woke up sobbing, and now he was relaxed enough to joke about doing a strip act right in the dining room! I think he was just joking. He was joking, wasn’t he?).
“Oh, no,” David grinned. “You don’t have to take them off. Not here! Not now, but maybe…uh, maybe later!”
“Gotcha!” said Ricky. “Uh, yeah! Maybe…later!”
David and Ricky bumped fists, and David went back to his duties with a smile on a his face, and just the hint of a wiggle in his sixteen-year-old firm butt cheeks.
As the three were finishing breakfast, Trace’s cell-phone rang.
“’Lo. Trace here….Oh, good morning, Sheriff…You’re on your way….twenty minutes….I don’t know, I’ll ask him.”
Turning to Ricky, Trace asked, “Ricky what was the name of your friend your step-dad caught you with?”
“George. George Jones. Why, Trace?”
Resuming his conversation with the Sheriff, Trace said, “George Jones…. Right….we’re ready for you….Bye.”
“Trace, why did you ask me…?” Ricky began.
“You’ll see. Be patience, Sport.”
Sure enough, in twenty minutes, Yussuf Hazmar, Sheriff of San Francisco County (known as Sheriff Joe), arrived at the Souchard. With him was a tall, good-looking man, whom the Sheriff introduced as Rod McElroy, a social worker.
Rod was 28-years-old, tall and well-built, with curly brown hair and blue eyes. Something about the way he carried his…brief case..and his body had T. Henry thinking, 'I'd sure like to take some pix of him. Maybe on the beach…with just his brief case! Hmmm.’
After the introductions were made, the Sheriff said, “We might as well conduct this business right here in the dining room, because everybody’s going to want to know everything anyhow. Is that all right with you, young man?”
“Sure, Sheriff Joe.”
“Okay, what is your full name?”
“Richard Johnson, but folks call me Ricky.”
“Ricky, tell me me how you came to be here?”
Ricky told the Sheriff about his step-dad and how he had kicked him out of the house and literally kicked him out of the car in front of the Souchard Hotel.
“Do you have any corroboration or witnesses who can back up your story, Ricky?”
“Well, no….I guess I don't Sheriff.”
“Hmmm. that’s too bad. If we just had someone who could back your story up….” The Sheriff snapped his fingers as if an idea had suddenly come to him.
“Jerry, there’s something out in my car. Would you mind going out to my car and bringing it in? Please?”
“Sure.” Jerry went out to the car and in a minute came back accompanied by a young boy, who appeared to be about four-feet-eight inches tall, with sandy hair and of slender build.
Ricky looked up and his face broke out into a grin. He jumped up and went to the boy and hugged him and said,. “Oh, George. I’m so glad to see you, but how?...But where…?”
The Sheriff also had a broad grin on his face. “As I was getting ready to come out here, this young man walked into my office and said he wanted to report a missing person….his best friend, Ricky Johnson. He told me how Ricky’s step-dad had found the two of them and had thrown him out of the house and told him never to come back.”
George took up the story, “Ricky, your step-dad called my Uncle. You know they’re both elders in that Church of the Living Beacon of Light. My Uncle has thrown me out of the house too. I spent the night on the streets and this morning I went to the Sheriff’s office….and well, here I am. Here we are.”
The two boys hugged again, and Ricky said, “George, we are together, and I think we’re going to be all right. I think.”
Rod McElroy put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, cleared his throat, and said, “Sheriff, it looks as if we have two abandoned young men here. We will have to do something about this most irregular situation. Most irregular! Hmmmpf!”
Rod may have spoken in a pompous manner (I think he did it deliberately), but while he was speaking, his eyes were dancing in merriment and there was a smile on his face,
“Oh, yes,’ thought T. Henry. ‘Just the brief case, the glasses and his hot body on the hot sand…the idea just makes my mouth water…Hmmm, and something else is watering…Uhhhh-Ohhh!’ T. Henry got up and walked out of the room, rather quickly as if he had some special problem that needed immediate attention!
Rod said, “Ricky I want to ask you some questions, and first of all, do you want to go back to your step-dad?”
“Absolutely not. I have nightmares thinking about him.”
“If it were up to you, Ricky, where would you like to stay?”
“I want to stay with Trace and Jerry. They have been so good to me….but I want to stay with George, too.”
Looking at George, Rod asked, "George, what about you? Do you want to go home?”
“I have no home, sir. If I went back to my uncle, he’d probably beat me all the time to ‘get the wickedness out of me.’ I just want to be with Ricky. Please….can you help us?”
Trace said, “Mr. McElroy and Sheriff you should know that Jerry and I would like to have Ricky…and George, too… stay here. I know that as a gay couple we would probably never be able to adopt a child, but we have a residence, a safe house, where we already have ten young men living. We have two certified teachers who act as combination house-fathers and teachers. We can see that Ricky and George are loved and cared for, educated, and I just wish that…” Trace couldn’t go on, he was choking up.
“Hmppf!” said Rod, in a very good imitation of a pompous bureaucrat, “Well, Sir, what you want is not the most important issue here. I have to think of what’s best for these two boys. There’s always the possibility of sending them to Juve…”
“NO!” burst out from five mouths. Even the Sheriff joined in the protest!
“However…harumpf…, however (and here Rod broke into a grin) I think it’s in the best interest of the boys if I have them placed in temporary custody of Mr. Trace Mackenzie and Mr. Jerry Taylor.”
Ricky and George hugged each other again. Jerry was all smiles, but Trace had a frown on his face. “Only temporary, Mr. McElroy?”
“Oh, yes, that’s the best I can do,” said the Social Worker. “You see our office is so busy that after I fill out some papers granting you and Mr. Taylor ‘temporary custody’ and give copies to you and to Sheriff Joe, I will have to go back to my office and put the originals in a safe place….someplace like the bottom of an overflowing file cabinet at the back of the drawer, right where I can get at them in, oh say, about ten years or so….”
“Thank you, Mr. McElroy, thank you so much,” said Trace.
“Yes, well…harumph…, as I say, that’s the best I can do. And you know what, some of my co-workers don’t call me ‘Absent Minded McElroy’ for nothing!”
Now everyone was laughing.
Sheriff Joe said to Ricky and George, “Is there anything either of you want to get from your former homes? “
“Just some clothes a picture of my brother,” said Ricky.
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” said Rod. Is he likely going to want to have custody of you?”
“No, I don’t think so, sir. He’s my older brother. He was a teacher, but he enlisted in the army, and now he’s in Afghanistan. The last we heard he had been wounded, but I don’t even know if….,” Ricky stopped, not wanting to express his concern and worry for his brother out loud.
“George, do you have anything you need to get from your Uncle’s house?”
“Just some clothes and my computer.”
“Very well, guys. This is what we’ll do. The four of us will go to your step-dad’s house, inform him that he is facing charges of abandonment of a child, but we’ll forget about those charges provided he allows you to go into the house to get what you want. I’ll have some back-up there, so there won’t be any problem.”
“Cool. Thanks, Sheriff,” Ricky said.
“Ricky, what’s your brother’s name?” Trace asked. “What unit is he in?”
Ricky told him, and Trace looked at Jerry and mouthed the words ‘The Sheik.’
Sheriff Joe told George that they would tell his Uncle he was facing charges of child abuse, but the charges would be dropped if only he would agree to renounce all claim on George.
“Thanks, Sheriff Joe. My uncle’s a bully but he’s also a corward. I don’t think he’ll give us any trouble.”
As the four got ready to go back into the City, Trace said to Rod, “Anytime you’d like to come out for a weekend, there’ll be no charge. Bring a friend. You’re always welcome here.”
“Thanks, Trace, I’d like that. I do have a friend who would enjoy a weekend here…, with me.”
As the four left, Rev. Chet came into the dining room, holding a letter he’d been reading.
“Trace, Jerry, I’ve got some great news! I have a friend who works for … well, he works at Lambeth Palace in London. His boss is setting up an international conference to discuss the problem of abused children and especially young men and women who have been abused because of their sexual orientation.”
“Lambeth Palace, huh?” said Jerry “Isn’t that the headquarters of the Archbishop of …?”
“Yes, but how did you know that?” asked Chet.
“Oh, that was the answer to a question on Jeopardy ® the other night,” said Jerry.
“Oh, good for you,” said Chet. “Anyhow, my friend told the Arch…, his boss…, about my concern, and so I’ve been invited to attend. My airfare is taken care of, and I’ll be leaving in a day or so…. And say, where is Ricky?”
Trace and Jerry told Chet their good news and that the two boys would be coming back in about four hours.
“I’m so happy for you all,” said Chet. “I know that the two of them will be happy. And, God bless you both!”
A few hours later, a grinning party of four returned to the Souchard. Sheriff Joe reported that all had gone fairly smoothly, although Ricky’s step-dad wanted to give him a pamphlet detailing how anybody sinful enough not to belong to the Church of the Living Beacon of Light was doomed to go to perdition.
Rod filled out the necessary papers, and handed them to Trace and Jerry.
Trace said to the two youngsters, who were grinning from ear to ear. “Now, then, my boys…. (How beautiful those words sounded to Trace and Jerry!)…, my boys, there are a few house rules. Ricky, you and George will have a room here in the hotel, near Jerry’s and my room. You will attend classes with Bruce and Chad and the other ten guys. You will keep your grades up. Understood?”
“Yes, Trace.”
Jerry added, “You will keep your room neat, and when necessary will put your sheets in the wash, and I hope you don’t have to do more than two loads a day!”
Ricky and George looked at him with puzzled looks on their faces, and then the ‘penny dropped,’ and they broke into big grins.
“Yes, Jerry, we understand.”
* * * * *
That evening in a far country, thousands of miles away from the Souchard, Chet’s friend, Gerald Winterson, was talking to his boss.
“I think all the arrangements have been made, Your Grace.” *
“Excellent, Gerald, excellent! And here’s something I just learned. You know who was very interested in the problem of abused children and was very active before her untimely death, all those years ago?”
“Yes, Sir. I remember her. Such a gracious lady.”
“Look you, Gerald, her son is also interested in the problem, and he wants to attend at least one session.”
“You mean…the Heir…?”
“No, Gerald, the Spare! He’s the one coming.”
“Heaven bless us. Bless him, too. That will give this program some good publicity.”
“It will that, Gerald, it will that! And now, perhaps a nice cup of tea before we close up shop.” And the Arch-episcopal hand picked up a bell and rang for tea.
To be continued.
* “Your Grace” is the style of address for English Dukes and English Archbishops.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my ‘Alpha Reader,’ Ed, and my ‘Beta Reader’ for their hard work on keeping my stories up to snuff.
I want to thank Henry and Chet for their many suggestions.
Finally, I want to wish all of my webmaster, Chuck, and all my readers my best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.
To be continued...
Readers should know that chapter 28 is blocked out in my mind, and that they may want to skip chapter 29, which will be devoted to another conference at the Souchard, attended by members of the NCCJ. What’s the NCCJ? Why, it’s the National Conference of Circle…., oh, well, wait and see.
Hugz to all.
Will
E's comments: This chapter certainly was packed full of fun things.
Posted: 01/01/10