Be My Slow Road To Ruin...

Billy:  You're leavin'.

Breathe?  What's that?

Deb:  Why?  What'd I do now?

Billy grinned, hugged me briskly and made my ribs creak.

Bill:  You're goin' on ahead to Lubbock.  Open up the house, get some food
in the joint, buy a bed.

Deb:  A bed?

Billy:  Yeah, a bed.  Need some room to operate.

Deb:  Oh, brother.

Billy:  I scare you?

Deb:  Yeah, you did.  I thought you were still mad and makin' me go home.

Billy:  That's comin', unless I figure somethin' else out.  Ryan says
Beerlander's just this side of wet sheets.  But you ain't goin' just yet,
I'm not done with you.

Deb:  I'm surprised poor Doctor Jake's lasted this long.

Billy:  Poor Doctor Jake, my ass.  He's gettin' money to take care of those
fools.  Somethin' else you do, wire the boy some cash.  Here's a laptop and
all the account numbers.  Ryan'll show you how to get it done.  

Deb:  You're giving me the feeling you don't exactly mind riding herd on
us.  If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a frustrated family man.

Billy:  Show me a family man, I'll show you a gutless wonder.  Somebody's
gotta make sure you four don't wander around trippin' over yourselves, you
couldn't find your way out of a damn wet sack.  Ryan'll ride with you to
the airport, he's got a flight of his own to catch.  I'll start out, and
see you in a few hours.  C'mere.

Billy yanked me roughly up against his chest and kissed me, something
he rarely did.  They were enormous, devouring kisses generally, and I 
almost had to consider myself lucky he was so sparing with them.  I walked
into one wall on my way out.  Ryan had to act as my seeing eye dog right
through to my boarding gate.  I could see, but not process what I was
seeing.  I wasn't even sure where Ryan was going - I knew it wasn't with
me, he had said something about someone named Jade.  Just when I was sure
dealing with Billy in the long term was going to be like dealing with a
wayward chimp, he reminded me of how incredibly smart he really was, and
of the power he had over me.

Sam finished loading the car and stood, fingering the flat box he carried
in his pocket.  Beth had said she would boot him in the rear if he even
attempted to come in and pay the hotel bill - he would get around that
somehow later - now he was simply waiting to start back to Lubbock.  But
first he would see if she would consent to wear what he had for her.

Beth:  All done.  Ready to go?

Sam opened the car door, then stepped up behind her as she moved to sit
down.

Sam:  Hold on a second, Honey.

Beth:  Something wrong?

Sam had the box out of his pocket and the necklace draped loosely around
her throat in a heartbeat.  He waited for permission to fasten it.

Beth:  What's this?  Sam, it's lovely!  Why?

Sam:  Because it was crying out to be worn by someone worthy of it.  Will
you wear it for me?

Beth unleashed a blinding smile on Sam.  She turned to face him and
stood close, taking hold of the lapels of his jacket to pull herself up
and fit the top of her head under his chin.

Beth:  Wear it?  I won't take it off.  I don't know why you bought it, Sam,
but thank you.

Sam fixed the clasp, then leaned over to drop a gentle kiss on the side 
of her throat.  She dabbed at the corner of her eye - instantly she found
herself with Sam's handkerchief.  As Sam headed north out of San Antonio,
he noticed her fingers were never far from the pendant.  She didn't seem to
need him to explain the meaning of the golden angel with the diamond heart.

I sat quietly, working busily with the laptop during the flight to Lubbock.
My business class seat allowed me to take care of the transaction I had
been assigned, and some other things as well.  I wired Doctor Jake two
thousand dollars, then I e-mailed the boys.  I continued on, e-mailing the
Skeptic at her home and Beth at her job.  After that, I had nothing to do
until I landed and no book to read.  I fooled around with the solitaire and
freecell on the computer until the flight attendant advised me to put the
computer away.  Inside its carrying case I found a wadded up piece of paper
with something hard in the center.  I smoothed out the paper and had to
scramble for Billy's Annapolis ring, which threatened to get away from me
the way he sometimes did.  On the paper Billy had written a single line:
'Keep it on you so you know who you belong to.'

Beth:  Sam, this is so pretty!  but...why?  You must know you didn't have 
to.

Sam reached for her hand. Someday, probably soon, he would tell her about
his failed marriage.  He had seemed more married to his job than to his
young wife and had been unable to meed her needs because he'd been too busy
living up to his father's expctations to recognize that his wife had a right
to expect things as well.  When he did tell her these painful memories, Sam
would know there was no turning back, but he suspected there was no way to
retreat now, anyway.  And he knew for a fact that he didn't want to. 

Sam:  I wanted to.  I felt like I had to.

Beth:  Had to?  You don't have to do anything for me you don't want to do.
I'm happy if we keep on just as we are.

Sam:  I want to.  Something in me...wants to, I don't know, mark you as 
mine.  You're not available, and you're not Strannix' concern anymore.  And
I want you to have something of mine to remind you of me when I can't be
with you.

Beth laid her free hand over Sam's.  She could barely hold it in both 
of hers.

Beth:  Sam...Dear Sam...I don't need anything to remind me of you.  All I
have to do is close my eyes.  I know I belong to you.

Sam:  Humor me then, Honey.  There are a lot of years between us and I don't
know how many more good ones I'll have to give you.

Beth's grip on his big hand tightened.  Her voice sounded frightened
when she spoke.

Beth:  I don't want to hear that talk, Sam.  You're in your prime.  You're
all I want.  You're all I need.  I don't care about anything else.

Sam hurried to gentle her down.  He hadn't meant to upset her, and it was
plain that he had.
 
Sam:  You'd better learn to care about other things.

He was grinning and Beth was hugely relieved to see it.  The mood was
about to lighten.  From that moment onward, any discussion of the age
difference between Sam and Beth was going to be resolutely avoided, if Sam
was going to sound like Father Time whenever it cam up.

Beth:  Such as?

Sam:  The Bears...

Beth:  Not Da Bears?

Sam:  Only in Chicago.  Also how I like my pasta, whether my socks match
my tie, and whether or not I'm going to be stuck in St. Paul once the snow
flies.  God, I don't want to be up there come winter.  Colder than a witch's
tit up there come winter.

Beth:  So come down here.

Sam:  I mean when I'm not down here.

Billy's Annapolis ring only fit the index finger of my right hand without
a liberal application of yarn, so it was there that the ring went.  It was
a huge knucklebuster and I was acutely conscious of it weighing my hand down
as I rushed from Billy's to the supermarket to a furniture store and back.
But it never once occurred to me to remove it.  Not even when I bounced it 
off a couple of doorframes and got it stuck between the bedframe and the
king-sized box spring I was wrestling with and nearly broke the finger
did I consider taking Billy's ring off.

Billy:  What the hell you doin', woman?  You're gonna go to wash your face
one mornin' and knock yourself flat. Here, put the stupid damn thing on
this.

Billy produced a long gold chain.  I threaded the shank of the ring onto
the chain, fastened the clasp, and dropped it over my head.  I knew better
than to wait for Billy to slip it on me.  I would be an old woman before
that happened.  I fingered the ring shyly just the same, as a schoolgirl
just pinned by the BJOC would.

Deb:  Thanks, Billy.

Billy:  Thanks, Billy?  Thanks, Billy, that's all I get?  Thanks Billy?

Deb:  What do you want, a Presidential Citation?  C'mon in here, I need
some help with this.

Billy:  So what else is new?  Help with what?  Maybe I oughta ask you what
you don't need help with, it'd be quicker.

Deb:  Don't need any help with your zipper, smartass.

Billy:  Anybody needs help with that it's me, keepin' you away from it.

Deb:  Oh, hah! 

I reached for the fastener under discussion.  Faintly I heard a purring
sound as my shirt disintegrated under Billy's strong hands, then I was
flying through the air to land in the center of the bed.  Billy landed on
me, finishing off my shirt and starting in on the flesh he had exposed.
Before I went with what the big bugger beside me was making me feel, the 
words to an obscure song came to me, something by Del Amitri.  It was only
part of the chorus but it fit my situation so well it was almost uncanny.
The words were 'be my downfall, be my great regret, be my undoin', be my
slow road to ruin tonight.'  That was Billy alright.

Deb:  Billy...where's the sheet?

Billy:  On the floor.  You want it?

Deb:  I guess so, I'm freezin' my tail off.  I guess I want it.

Billy:  Then get it.

Deb:  And they said chivalry was dead.

Billy stared at me out of one eye.  I stared back.  Finally, Billy 
snorted, then reached down alongside the bed and fished up the sheet.  He
flipped it over his back and chucked it at my head.  I had to claw it off 
and untwist it enough to cover myself.  Billy yanked it down to my waist,
I pulled it back, he yanked it down and we went through this enough times 
to make me think Billy might be mad enough to tear up the sheet, so I gave
up.  I didn't know if I wanted to laugh or pound on him or...well.

Deb:  I'm soaked and freezing...you have to have the air conditioning on
meat locker down here.

Billy:  Beats hell out of havin' the climate set to meat locker for six
damn months out of the year.

Deb:  Does that mean you won't come up?

Billy:  You got a furnace.  You got a waterbed with a heater.  I'll be
there.

I lay quietly beside him, finally moving close because the thought of
that big body so near was too compelling.

Deb:  You don't have a loving bone in your body, do you, Billy?

Billy:  No, Baby - I don't have a romantic bone in my body.  Anybody who can 
hate can also love, but romance is overrated as hell.  D'you think there's
any time for romance when the person you've spent your life with is rotten
with cancer and dyin' by inches?  

Deb:  You sound like you've had some experience with that.

Billy:  More than I like to think about, baby.

Beth was asleep by the time they made her apartment.  Sam lifted her 
easily in his arms and carried her to her door.  She awoke as soon as she
left the seat.  She offered no protest, in fact seemed to enjoy it.  Sam
made a big production out of pretending she was heavy when she hardly 
weighed anything at all.  He unloaded the car and got back to the apartment
in time to see her flipping through a phone book to find some take out food.
It was as though she'd read his mind.

Sam:  You always seem to know what I'm thinking.

Beth finished her phone call to the Italian place and turned to him.

Beth:  I don't try, Honey.  I just...do things.

Sam:  I know you don't try.  It's too effortless for that.  But I want you
to know how important it is to me that you do it.  And...it's important to
me that I tell you.

Beth looked at him speculatively.

Beth:  I get the feeling this isn't about me anticipating what you want so
much as it is something else.  Talk to me, Sam.

She took her place beside him on the couch.

Sam:  I don't want to ruin what we have.  It would be very easy for me to 
do that if I wasn't constantly on guard.  You've noticed how intensely I
do things...it's something I learned from my father.  

Beth kept her voice soft.  Something about the look on Sam's face, and 
in his eyes, told her that what he was about to talk about wasn't something
he liked bringing up.  At the same time, maybe some of what he was going
to say would give her the key to who he was, so that she could get at the
man beneath the tough exterior.  She was convinced that man very much
needed and wanted what she had to offer him.

Beth:  What was he like, Sam?

It was like opening floodgates.  She sat for an hour, maybe two, she
didn't know how long, listening to him talk about his father.  She got a
picture of a cold, distant man who worked hard and didn't much believe in
playing.  Sam's mother had been a loving woman, in her way, but she'd been
so busy attempting to live up to Sam's father's requirements that she had
been unable to show young Sam as much affection as she might have wanted.

Beth:  And what happened after your dad died?

Beth had paid for the food when it was delivered and had brought Sam
his dinner but he'd barely touched it.  While he talked, she had taken the
food to the kitchen and put it away, brought a bottle of wine and uncorked
it.  She had turned Sam's back toward her, pulled him back against her and
tucked his head under her chin, then she had rubbed his shoulders and the
vast expanse of his chest with gentle hands.

Sam:  What happened?  Mom blossomed, that's what happened.  It was like
she was a different woman.  Dad left her quite comfortably fixed...she
sold the house and moved into a retirement community, traveled all over
and did all the things she'd never got to do when she was young.  I hired
somebody to clean her house for her.  She'd had forty years of picking up
after my dad and washing his socks, I decided she was never going to do it
again.

Beth:  That was very loving of you, Sam.  You don't have anything to be 
ashamed of.

Sam:  I'm not ashamed, I'm afraid.  I'm more like my dad than I ever
intended to be.  I'm intense, I don't quit, people say I'm cold and
inflexible.  Everything my dad was.  I don't want to do to you what my
dad did to Mom.

Beth:  I don't think you're any of those things, Sam.  Maybe in your job,
but then you'd have to be.  For myself, I couldn't ask for a more loving
man.

Sam:  I have to try, Baby, every minute I have to keep reminding myself not
to close up.  I promised myself that if I ever found a woman I wanted as
much as I want you, that she would get it all.  I wouldn't hold a thing
back.  But I'm not sure I know how to give as much as that.  I don't want
to disappoint you.

Beth:  I won't let you close up, Sam.  You're not in this alone, you know.
You won't disappoint me on purpose, I know that.  I trust you.  You kept
telling me to trust you, and once I decided to I discovered just how wise I
was to do it.

Sam rolled over and looked down at her.  She slipped her arms around his
neck and looked serenely up at him, as though she was in her most favorite
place on earth.

Billy:  My parents had the marriage everybody else wanted.  My dad brought
flowers on their anniversary, on her birthday, on MY birthday...they were
so wrapped up in each other sometimes I felt like an intruder in my own
house.  But I knew they cared about me.  It was why it was so easy to
perform, to be the good student and the star athlete and the guy who got
appointed to Annapolis.

Deb:  Did you resent what they shared?  Is that why you...?

Billy:  Turned out to be such an ardent supporter of late twentieth century
democracy?  No, that came later.  I was just finishin' up my required hitch 
after graduatin' from Annapolis and was thinking about re-uppin' - I was in 
the intelligence end and was pretty damn good at it - when I got a call 
from the Red Cross.  Mom was terminally ill, I was told, and I had to get 
home because my Dad couldn't deal with it.

Deb:  Did you get compassionate leave?

Billy:  Flew home on a Navy transport, you name it, I got it.  Mom had
cervical cancer and there wasn't anythin' more they could do for her except
fill out the death certificate.  She wanted to go home because my Dad
couldn't handle her bein' in the hospital.  They wanted me to come home and
take care of her cause Dad couldn't take watchin' her hurt.  They discharged
her, taught me how to give the morphine injections cause Dad couldn't stick
her...

Deb:  Sounds like your Dad was pretty tore up.

Billy:  I know that now.  At the time I was just pissed off that he was 
makin' me take care of her.  I didn't mind doin' it for Mom, but I figured
it was his job and he was jackin' off on it.  After a couple of weeks I
could tell the morphine wasn't doin' the job.  She needed a continuous
drip, and they wouldn't let me mess with that, said she had to be in the
hospital.  But she wouldn't go, said it would upset Dad if she did.

Deb:  Billy...I'm so sorry.  What did you finally do?

Billy:  I was givin' four hours worth of dope every hour and a half or so
and I knew the doctors were gonna start askin' questions when I had to go
for more two weeks before I was s'posed to need it.  So I walked in that 
room, picked her up, carried her to the car and made her check herself
into the hospital.  She stayed there the last month she was alive and I
don't think Dad went home once. 

Deb:  Then what?

Billy:  She wouldn't let herself die.  She was in such awful pain...it's
why I've never been afraid to die, or to kill anybody else.  Nothin' in the
world I can do or have done to me could ever be as bad as dyin' like my
Mom did, or havin' to watch her.  But she hung on, said every day she could
scrape out was one less day Dad would have to get along without her.  I
moved him into an apartment - said it wouldn't remind him so much of Mom. 
I got his house ready and put it on the market - he gave me power of 
attorney.  Whatever you say, son.  Leave me with Mom now.  That's all i
ever got out of him.  You ever come down with that shit I'll shoot you
myself.

Deb:  Billy, if I ever come down with that shit I'll tell you if I want
you to shoot me.  As long as I have my brain and I'm breathing, I want to
stay with it.  If you can't watch...don't.

Billy:  You'll be singin' somethin' else if you ever get it.  Anyway, Mom
finally died...and a year later Dad found the damn morphine I forgot to
shitcan.  It wasn't near enough for Mom but there was plenty there to take
out ten other people.

Deb:  Don't say it, Billy.

Billy:  I can see I don't have to.  That was when I decided to accept the
little offer the CIA was makin'.  No family...if they cut me loose they
could take me out and there wouldn't be anybody to know.  I never thought
they'd need to, but that was then.

Deb:  So everything you ever trusted and believed in betrayed you.

Billy:  Don't make it sound like a cheap novel, baby.  That's what went
down.  They sent a few somebodies to take me out.  I took them out instead.
I always wanted a boat...that didn't work out so well, but I've got a few
other irons in the fire you don't need to know about.

Deb:  Where do I come in to all this?

Billy:  I don't have the least freakin' idea, but we're cool as long as you
do what you're told.  So don't try fallin' in love, cause it won't make a
damn bit of difference to me if you do.  Piss me off, you're gone.

I had no reply to that, and I waited until Billy fell asleep.  Then I
curved myself around him and cradled his head against me.  He'd gone
through so much...he reminded me of a little boy who just wasn't going to 
risk it any more.  I would do my best to earn what trust he had left.
Because it was already too late.

TO BE CONTINUED...