Camouflage(8)
“You won’t get anything out of him here.…”
“I know. That’s not how I’m going to handle it.”
Runyon waited in the living room for five minutes. When Bryn came back she said, “All right. But God, he’s still so apathetic. He doesn’t seem to care about anything.”
Bobby’s room was at the rear of the house, opposite her office/workroom. Runyon knocked on the door before he stepped inside. The boy was sitting at a small desk, a laptop computer open in front of him; video game images twitched and jumped on the screen and his attention stayed focused on them. He was a gangly kid, tall for his nine years, his brown hair cut in the current short, spiky fashion that made Runyon think of a patch of grass that needed mowing. He wore Levi’s and a faded red 49ers sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. There was a soft cast on his fractured left arm.
Runyon stood by the door, waiting. He didn’t want to start this off by pulling adult rank. Bobby was a good kid, shy at the best of times, and generally polite; he wouldn’t let too much time go by before acknowledging his visitor.
He didn’t. Less than a minute. Then, with reluctance, he shifted his gaze from the screen and said, “Hello, Mr. Runyon,” in a small, colorless voice.
“You can call me Jake if you want to.”
“I’m not supposed to call adults by their first names.”
“Not even if the adult says it’s okay?”
“… I don’t know.”
“Your mom wouldn’t mind. We’re good friends, you know.”
“I know.”
“Jake, then, okay?”
Short silence. Then, “I guess so.”
Runyon moved over to where he could see the moving figures on the computer. “What’s that you’re playing?”
“X-Men,” Bobby said. “Children of the Atom.”
“Challenging?”
“I guess so.”
“Bet you’re good at it.”
“Sometimes.” The boy glanced at the screen again, then clicked off. “Not this time,” he said then.
Runyon said, “What I wanted to talk to you about is your mom’s birthday. Coming up pretty soon.”
“Week after next.”
“You have a present for her yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Know what you’re going to get her?”
Bobby shook his head. “I can’t think of anything,” he said, and paused, and added, “I don’t get much of an allowance.”
“Well, I’m not sure what to get her, either. I thought maybe you and I could put our heads together, figure out what she’d like.”
The boy squirmed a little, not saying anything.
“Drive over to Stonestown,” Runyon said, “look around in the stores.”
“… I don’t know.”
“Don’t know if you should? I can fix it with your mom.”
Silence. But he was thinking it over.
“I’d really appreciate your help, Bobby. She deserves some nice birthday presents, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Then, making up his mind, “Okay, if she says I can go.”
“I’ll ask her. Give me a couple of minutes.”
Bryn was in the kitchen, fiddling with the arrangement of canned goods in a small pantry—make-work while she waited. Runyon said, “So far so good. We’re going over to Stonestown, do some shopping.”
“Shopping? How’d you manage that?”
“A little psychology.”
She stepped out of the pantry and shut the door. “You’re good with kids, you know that?”
“Well, I always thought I might be if I had the chance.”
She didn’t comment on that; she knew what he meant. He’d told her the whole bleak story of his relationship, or lack of one, with his son, Joshua. The mistake he’d made in not fighting harder for custody after he’d filed for divorce from Angela; how she’d taken Joshua away to San Francisco, riddled with vindictive hate and driven by the alcohol dependency that eventually killed her, and convinced him as he was growing up that he was a victim of adultery and careless neglect—neither of which was true. Runyon had never had another chance to be a father—Colleen hadn’t been able to have kids—and by the time he’d moved down here from Seattle after Colleen died, it was too late to mend the damage done by Angela’s malicious hatred. Joshua wouldn’t listen to the truth. He’d called on Runyon once professionally, when his lover was a victim of gay-bashing, but refused to have anything to do with his father since. Unbridgeable gap between them.
Bryn put a hand on his arm. “Be careful with him, Jake. He’s very fragile right now.”