I was sparring with Dust daily now. He’d hated it at first, but I’d tried hard to make it fun, working on technique, just making it a new skill set, telling him this was simply like any other tool he had to learn to use, and that it could be useful as such if and when the situation called for it.
We didn’t do any hitting when sparring. He could hit when he was working on the heavy bag. He’d watched me working out with it and pleaded with me to be able to do so, too, and I’d finally given in, but there were strict rules he had to follow. Hitting a heavy bag really isn’t good for kids because their bones and muscles are still developing, and the heavy bag requires a lot of power to move.
I did let him hit the bag without too much power, hopefully to encourage growth of his frame and so he’d learn the right form. I told him that in a fight, he should look to hit the soft spots with his fists if he had a choice. Hit the hard spots with elbows and knees and forearms and shoulders. I told him he wouldn’t always have the choice, but once he’d broken his wrist or hand by hitting a head with it, he’d be hurting as much or more than his opponent would be.
But mostly he was working on his technique with the bag so I could make sure he was setting up and punching correctly, using his body to get behind his punches and not just using his arms—that sort of thing. I taught him how to jab and move, jab and move. The sparring we did was to teach him to watch the opponent’s feet and hands and body positioning and weight shifts—and his eyes. Sparring was to get a sense of the dynamics of the dance two fighters perform. Sparring was for feeling the air move in and out of the chest, for learning the emotions involved when facing an opponent.
I talked a lot about speed. About being quick. About how fast things will happen once they start—about being ready. I told him he had to keep his head, to expect the rush of adrenalin and to always keep thinking.
He’d hated it at first, but he learned and started to like it for the artistry of it. I had no idea what he’d do if he actually had an opponent looking to hurt him. None of us can know that till we encounter it.
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He was inside the 9 ring from 150 feet pretty regularly now with his .22. His form was good. Even standing, he did everything right. This was a kid who had thought he was totally inept at everything. He’d never had a chance. Given one, he’d blossomed. But even more than the skill he’d attained at most things he’d tried, what made me so proud of him was his growing confidence. He had started to believe in himself. Two months earlier, I’d only hoped he could stop feeling so utterly worthless. He’d passed that point pretty quickly and was still making strides forward.
He took the rifle from his shoulder and started walking toward the target. I walked with him.
“You ever go hunting?” he asked.
“Just for people,” I said. “Animals don’t deserve to be shot. I’ve met lots of men who do.”
He glanced at me, not sure how to take that comment.
“Have you done much of that? Shooting people?”
“Well, I was in the army, and spent time in the Special Forces. I was involved in some action. I shot people. You know, shooting when using a scope and a high powered rifle and your target is taking cover a half mile to a full mile away and is shooting back at you—that’s a lot different from shooting with a handgun. You have to be pretty close to be accurate with one of those. The shorter the barrel, the less accurate the handgun. You’d be much more dangerous with this rifle than a guy with a short-barreled but larger caliber handgun would be because you could stay 100 feet away and it’s very unlikely he could hit you, and you’d never miss him, as good as you are now.”
He shuddered. “I could never shoot at a person.”
“I hope you’ll never have to,” I said.
We reached the target, but he kept talking. “But that was just the army. You’ve shot people with a handgun, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but always in self-defense. I don’t like shooting people, but when I had to, I was always glad I was able to. If it was him or me, well, it’s not that hard a decision. I’ve never shot anyone who didn’t deserve it, never shot anyone when I didn’t have to.”
He didn’t respond to that. I wasn’t sure we were on the same page on this subject.
We checked his target. Six shots inside the 9 ring, one in the X. The kid was good. Better than good. Maybe even better than I was.
Well, he’d had a good teacher. I could at least tell myself that.
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Pat had been coordinating with my lawyer because she’d been in town while I was working on the house; she told me he was ready. I called Cramer, Dustin’s father, and set up the meeting. Since we were going to meet in a lawyer’s office, I told Dust it would be appropriate for him to dress the part. He didn’t have any formal clothes, so Pat took him to the mall. When the time came, she’d accompanied us to the appointment.
Dust looked nervous. He also looked great in a dark-blue blazer, grey dress pants and a red tie with thin, darker-red stripes. His hair, blonder now from being in the sun much of the summer, was long, too long in my mind, but he’d grown it out since being with me. It was brushed and combed, and he looked, well . . . let’s just say I could see in why Travis was so smitten.
He was just 14, however, and was meeting the man who’d verbally and occasionally physically abused him for most of his life. In the process, the man had stolen any self-esteem the boy had. The man had made him feel worthless and was to blame for every bad thing that had happened to him.
Over the summer, Dust had made great progress. It had come from a combination of learning that he could do things that he’d been sure he couldn’t and of learning that with effort and help, he could be successful at all sorts of things. The only thing he’d had any pride in before had been his intelligence; now he was proud of much, much more.
Being with Pat had helped. She made it quite apparent that she loved him unreservedly, loved him for simply being a great kid and not for anything he did. Finding Travis, who I was sure also loved him, had helped him, too. He was more confident now, but from what I’d seen and read about abused kids, it would take much more than one summer to come to terms with who he was and what he was capable of and to learn that the person he had to please to be a healthy, fully functioning person was himself—not a distant and unloving father, and not even the adults he was with now. I was trying to show him that he pleased me by doing what he wanted to do, not simply by doing what he thought I wanted him to do. That was a difficult lesson for a boy whose only hope of survival when he’d been young had been through trying to please his father.
Now he was meeting the man who’d had such an impact on his ego, and he was nervous. I was, too. If things went badly between them, I wasn’t sure if I should step back and let Dust handle it himself or step in. I could see where stepping in could be very harmful. It could tell Dust I didn’t have faith in him to handle his own problems. It seemed to me that this was a crossroads for Dust: it all depended on whether or not he would be able to stand up to his father, or whether all his gains over the summer would be undermined.
I’d talked to my lawyer, and he’d spoken with Cramer’s lawyer several times. In the end, Cramer had completely caved, giving me everything I’d asked for, which on reflection was more than he’d agreed to when we’d been talking in his house. I’d added an irrevocable commitment to bequeath his estate to Dustin. Surprisingly, Cramer hadn’t even argued the point. He’d just wanted to get it all over with.
We walked into the office. Cramer and his lawyer were already there. I preceded Dust, with Pat bringing up the rear. My lawyer was at the end of a table, the other two on one side. We took seats on the opposite side, with Dust sitting between Pat and me. My lawyer got up and stepped into his outer office for a moment, then returned with his secretary who was carrying her notary equipment.
No words were spoken. Cramer was looking hard at Dust. Dust wasn’t meeting his eyes. My lawyer had several forms waiting, and all he had to do was pass them to Cramer, who didn’t bother reading them. He dropped his eyes from Dust and simply started signing.
When they were done, Cramer started to rise.
“Hold it,” I said, looking at him. “Just a moment. This well may be the last time your son ever sees you.” I turned to Dust and softened my voice. “Do you have anything you want to say?”
Dust looked at me, and I saw his nervousness was gone. He’d just seen his father do what I’d demanded he do and do it without any emotion at all. He’d seen a man he’d only known as an ogre and a bully capitulate and do something he had to hate doing. Dust had seen the man do what he’d told me I’d never make him do. He’d seen his father defeated.
Dust stood up and faced to his father. “I knew I’d see you today, and I was wondering what I’d feel when I did, or if I’d be able to say anything at all. I thought I might chicken out.
“I lived my whole life with you. You were larger than life to me. But I watched you today and for the first time saw who you really are. I’m not afraid of you anymore. That’s amazing, because all my life, you terrified me. Not now. Not after this.”
Cramer looked like he was going to say something. I could tell that Dust wasn’t done.
“Shhhh,” I said, giving him a hard look. He dropped his eyes.
Dust just plowed ahead as though there’d been no interruption. “I don’t really want your money, but I’m going to take it. It’s important to you; to me, it’s just money. But you’ve lived your life accumulating it—thinking it made you powerful, showed you were smarter than the people you got it from—and you didn’t care who you hurt or what laws you had to break to get it. You got it by taking advantage of people, so I sort of like the fact you’re being taken advantage of now; you’re feeling what those people you cheated felt.
“You hated me all my life because I wasn’t hard like you are. I ended up hating myself, too, and probably would have all my life if it hadn’t been for Briar and Pat and Travis. I’m not over how you treated me, but I’ve been working on putting it behind me. Working on forgetting all about you, too.”
Dustin stopped to take a deep breath. Cramer started to rise and I held out my hand. “Wait,” I said.
Dust smiled at me, mouthing a silent thanks. “There’s a special place near where I live now,” he said, turning back to his father. “It’s high on a hill on the edge of a cliff. From there you can look out over the city. I stood there and looked and looked and realized that I couldn’t see the house I was brought up in. I searched for it; I knew where it was, but it was too small for me to see. I think that was the first inkling I had that the house, and you, weren’t as big or important as I’d always thought they were. I used to think you were the most important man in the whole world. Looking down at the city below me and not even being able to see your house, I realized there was a vast world out there, and that in that greater context, you were insignificant.
“I started, right then, trying to forget about you and all you’d done to me. Some of that is still part of me, but I’m past you now, and I know you for what you are, and I’m happy you’re no longer a part of my life.”
Cramer face had been getting redder and redder as Dust had been going on. He’d looked ready to interrupt more than once, but he’d glance at me and then remain seated.
Dust was continuing. “I’m going to take your money, and you can go back and live in that house with a wall around it and pretend you’re still powerful and rich, but you’ll know that I’m outside that wall, that I’m happy and living with other happy people, and that you’re inside, hating everything and knowing, while you did your best to totally control me like you did my mother, you failed. That’s what you are: a failure.”
He stared at his father. His father had signed away a fortune to his son in defeat, but for some reason, seeing Dust stand up and say those things, that was what got to him. His son was talking to him in a way that proved all those years of intimidation had come to naught. The boy was no longer under his thumb, and the boy he’d hated because he was gay and weak and not hard and unsentimental like he was had blossomed in spite of all he’d done. He had failed at holding the boy down. Dustin was living proof that the father was the one who’d been the weaker of the two, and Cramer simply couldn’t take that quietly. He’d reached the point where even my presence wasn’t going to deter him.
He’d passed the point of red and now was puce. “You’re a goddam faggot,” he screamed. “You always will be. You’re nothing, and you can’t talk to me like that!”
Here it was. His father was verbally attacking him in anger. Dust had always backed down from that before. He’d run away from it in terror. I could see why; Cramer was a huge man, and to a little kid, he’d have looked like a giant. Dust had been that little kid and had cowered before his father’s angry power. I was staring at Dust. If he pulled back into himself now, if he lowered his head, if he showed fear, I’d have to act, whatever the long-term consequences were.
I was ready to say something, but Dust spoke up. He was still standing, still staring into his father’s eyes.
Now he leaned forward, hands on the table, so he was even closer to his ranting father. “Sure I can,” he said calmly. “I can say anything I want to you. There’s nothing you can do about it, either. You just showed how strong you are by completely giving up and signing all those papers. I think you’re scared. And you know why?
“Briar told me about what happened when he came to your house and stripped you naked and made you agree to what we’ve done here today. You tried to have him killed, and he’ll always have that evidence. I think you signed all those papers today so he won’t get curious about the other things you’ve done, things that have made you rich.
“You’re the one who needs to be afraid of us. Not us of you.”
I stood up. “I think we’re done here,” I said, and rather dramatically, I thought, we marched out as a trio.
We left the office, and I stopped outside the door. “You know, Dustin, you made me think of something in there. You’re quite right: he has to be afraid of something to sign all that for us so easily. It could be the evidence I have of his planning to kill me, but as it never happened, he could argue that it was all a joke, and who knows what would come of that? But what if your supposition were true? Maybe your mother didn’t overdose on pills. Maybe your father put something in with those pills, and when she thought she was taking her regular medicine, she got that something else instead. I wonder if the police checked all the pills in that bottle, or just one or two? Your mother’s death is something like the threat of killing me. It’s a hard fact that she died. If her meds were tampered with. . . ”
I probably should have waited till we were in the car to talk to Dust about that, because Pat poked me, and I turned to see Cramer had come out right behind us. From the look he gave me, he’d overheard what I said. But we’d accomplished what we’d come to do and everything else was water under the bridge. We had more important stuff to do than worry about Cramer. We were done with him.
» » »
“You were great,” I told Dust, walking to the parking lot where I’d left the car. “I thought you were nervous, going in.”
“I was,” Dust said. “And maybe I didn’t show it, but when I began talking, I was scared to death. But the more I talked, and the more he didn’t jump up and hit me, that fear seemed to go away. By the end, even when he stood up, I wasn’t afraid at all.”
Dust was walking between Pat and me, and Pat put her hand on his shoulder. “Do you know what real courage is, Dust?” she asked him.
“What?”
“It’s going ahead and doing what needs to be done even when you’re afraid, when you think you’ll probably get hurt, but doing it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.”
Dust didn’t say anything, taking the time to digest Pat’s words. When he did, there was a tentative quality in his voice. “I’m not sure I’m brave. I probably couldn’t have done it if you two hadn’t been there.”
“I think you would have,” I said, and he looked at me seriously, then grinned.
“Thanks,” he said.