The Summer Job - 74. Recovery

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Time flies when you are busy and having fun. Phillip was busy with the Barracudas, getting ready for the upcoming lock in and having fun with his charges.

What the younger Barracudas needed was stamina and Phillip addressed that with weight training. Swimming and weight training did not often travel together, but Phillip had seen an article that piqued his interest. The theory was to use light weight with many repetitions to build endurance.

After their main practice in the mornings, he led his boys through the weights in one of the rooms he and his assistants had rehabilitated. They looked askance at the light weight he put on the bars. After four sets of fifty reps, they were feeling it. They soon discovered what the hot tubs were for.

Tuesday at two in the afternoon Sandra Hammond arrived, set up shop in an empty office and began to seeing Jeffry Cummings and the four brothers Green. Phillip had his first session at four.

When he sat down across the table from her, he was nervous as a cat.

Mrs. Hammond smiled and said, “I know it's hard to talk about. You’ve spent years sitting on the secret. What most kids do is blame themselves and that’s not fair. You were the kid. He was an adult.”

Phillip fidgeted in his chair. There was no way he would burn David or Juan and said, “No, he was just an older kid. The thing was, I kind of got addicted to it. We both did. We had sex every chance we got until he went away to college.”

Hammond said, “So he was a teen, and not an adult?”

Phillip replied, “Yeah. He was the older brother of a friend. He was totally cool, good-looking, and I had a huge crush on him. It started over a spring break. I just couldn’t say no to him.”

She smiled sadly and asked, “Are you gay Phillip?”

“Yes. I was just figuring that out. When I was with, let’s just call him John, it’s like I had no control. Anytime I saw or though about him, I got erect. I didn’t want to. I started feeling used soon after we started but, it’s like my body was telling my brain to shut up and do it.”

Sandra Hammond grimaced and said, “How old were the two of you when it started?”

Phillip lied and said, “I was almost twelve, and he was sixteen.”

She shook her head and said, “I’m sure you were cute as a button. That’s one of the reasons the law discourages sex between teens that are more than three years apart. You weren’t ready for a sexual relationship. You felt out of control because your hormones were driving. Carrying the shame and the guilt around for years does bad things for your self-esteem. You did a good thing providing an example for the other boys but, I think you might be the one that needs this the most.”

“Me?”, Phillip squawked in protest.

She said, “Yes, you. When other people look at you, they see an intelligent kid that habitually does good. You are an outstanding young man, but you are compensating for feelings of inferiority and that something is wrong with you.”

Suddenly, Phillip felt terribly exposed. He blushed an alarming shade of crimson and felt naked. It was like Mrs. Hammond was reading his deepest thoughts.

Mrs. Hammond said, “No, I’m not reading your mind Phillip. This is simply one of the ways many sexual abuse survivors respond. We call the way you responded as a hero. You go out and compensate for your internal feelings of brokenness and inferiority by doing good. You attempt to prove to yourself and others that you are, in fact, a good person. This is certainly not the worst way many people cope.”

“There are many other ways young men compensate that aren’t so healthy. Chemical dependency and all sorts of self-destructive behaviors are common.”

Phillip said, “Wow. For a minute there I thought you could see right through my head and see the hamster wheel turning. So, what can I do?”

With a grin Mrs. Hammond said, “I’d like to see you once a week until school starts, and then we’ll decide where to go from there.”

Late in the afternoons, the Lost Boys began to appear after their work in Grissom Park. Cade Brock and Kevin Sutton appeared first. On Wednesday, they were joined by Miguel Gomez and Dale Moss sporting a new pair of glasses. Thursday they were joined by Jeremy Aubrey, Tony and Angel Benardi and Frank Ballard.

It made sense as the YMCA was an easy place for all of them to gather supervised for their foster parents to collect them.

At first, Phillip worried about hard feelings over the tension at school the year before. There was some of that, but most of the kids knew what had happened. Phillip’s inner circle had let all the kids know that the boys who were such a pain the year before had many problems. Besides, it was all over the news.

Even the most vociferous of Vice Principal Chuckle’s critics had been astonished to discover he had spent six years tracking down and putting a toe-tag on David Wayne Allen. Stacy Scott’s stories about Farmer and Sturgis/Turner’s arrests had been picked up and had gone national. Kelly said his big sister had a book deal.

There was a big change in the Lost Boys. The chaos they had lived with was gone. They lived in stable homes with regular meals. Some of them were on medication and were having their needs met for the first time. One of the perks from the Lost Boys Foundation was to hook them all up with a laptop, phone and clothes so their old eighties Road Warrior look was gone.

Thursday afternoon a letter postmarked from Somerset Village, Bermuda arrived in the pile of mail Amber Latham collected and dumped on her coffee table. After making a screwdriver with vodka and orange juice she sat down on her couch to go through it.

Doug was supposed to be home Wednesday, but she wasn’t panicked. It would be ammunition later when she needed to motivate him.

She would have tossed the letter as junk mail but, it was handwritten. On closer examination, it looked like Doug’s handwriting. She opened the letter and read:

Dear Mom,

I got a better offer than taking care of an alcoholic. Don’t bother looking for me, I don’t intend to be in the United States again until I’m eighteen.

I’m sorry that it came to this, but I need to have a life too.

The man I’m working for is a good man. He understands and is taking good care of me. He only let me sign on if I agreed to continue my schoolwork. He will send me to college when the time comes and is the Dad I always wanted.

At the bottom of the letter is an eight hundred number for a good in-patient rehab center. There’s a paid place there for you if you want it.

I had to learn a lot about alcoholism beyond what you taught me. It only gets uglier from here. I love you, and it would kill me to watch you drinking yourself to death.

Call them. You deserve a life too. Maybe we can start over in a few years but only if you are sober.

Love,

Doug

(800)555-5555

After a quick shakedown cruise to Bermuda and back to Wilmington, North Carolina, Lucky Star went to sea. Their first destination was San Juan, Puerto Rico to pick up another crewman, and they would pick up their last during the crossing through the Panama Canal.

The big, fast ship handled like a dream and Bobby Davis knew every system inside and out.

Billy, Pops and Bobby were all gathered on the bridge cruising at forty knots on a heading of one-thirty East-South-East. Bobby was teaching them the systems and what was required to stand a bridge watch at sea.

Bobby explained, “Lucky Star is a Courtney class diver service ship. It’s designed to take divers to precise locations, and it has all the electronics and gear to support them and underwater drones.”

Pops asked, “I understand that there is some history of this class I should be aware of?”

Bobby answered, “Yes. The British Special Boat Service sat down with the builder and designed it. It’s named after Roger Courtney, the founder of the SBS. There was a production run of twenty-four. SBS got some of them and the rest were sold on the commercial market. This one was purchased by an elderly gentleman who passed away before he got to make his around the world cruise.”

Billy said, “It doesn’t sound too lucky to me.”

“He was eighty-eight”, Bobby rejoined. He looked at the radar and saw a track heading North. He picked up binoculars and saw the sharp, raked outline of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer headed North.

The radio crackled to life, “This is USS Ramage on Guard to Lucky Star. Are you going to hold that speed and course? Over.”

Billy asked, “How did he know who we are?”

Bobby said, “It’s our transponder. Go ahead Billy. Answer him.”

Billy reached up to the overhead and pulled down the mike, “This is Lucky Star to Ramage. That’s affirmative, sir. Over.”

“Thank you, Lucky Star. You are looking ship shape and well handled. Good voyage to you.”

Billy answered, “And to you Ramage. Out.”

He put the mike up and said, “That was so cool!”

Pops said, “Let’s see how you like bridge watch in the Pacific. That’s a great big ocean.”

Billy said, “What was it that guy said? ‘Give me a fast ship because I intend to go in fun’s way.’”