Psychopath by Keith Ablow Page B

from the mall.
    But Billy wasn’t thinking any of those things.  In those two minutes of silence, staring out his window, he was thinking what it would be like to open his door and leap out of the truck.  He imagined a powerful mixture of panic and pleasure just before hitting the road, much of that pleasure deriving from how horrified Clevenger would be.  He heard the screeching of brakes as Clevenger skidded to the side of the road, the sound of footsteps as he ran to where Billy lay facedown, bleeding on the pavement.  And although Billy could not fully explain the satisfaction he felt turning over and seeing the grief and panic in Clevenger’s face, he knew it was connected to the fact that Clevenger was not willing to hurt him nearly so badly as he was willing to hurt himself.  That was his end run, his ace in the hole, even if he could not say what game he and Clevenger were playing, even if he missed entirely the fact that Clevenger’s self-restraint was something called love and that his own lack of it was something called self-loathing.
    Billy Bishop could worship his physique and hair, and the little gold ring through his nose, and the blue-green letters and the skull and cross bones tattooed across his back.  He could gloat over being a good fighter, a great football player, and a magnet for pretty girls.  But his vanity was just a defense against what he felt inside — ugly, rotten to the core, worthy of every beating he had ever taken and would ever take.  Like nearly every abused child, deep in his soul he had given the benefit of the doubt to his abuser, to the man with the strap.
    But Billy didn’t end up on the pavement.  As the two minutes of silence came to a close, he leapt in another direction.  He turned to Clevenger. "We don’t need to get this drug test," he said.
    "We’re getting it," Clevenger said.
    "I can tell you what it’s gonna show."
    Clevenger glanced at Billy and saw he was serious.  He swerved into the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts and threw the truck into park.  "Okay. What will it show?"
    "Marijuana," Billy said, resisting the impulse to smile.  "I smoked a couple joints I couldn’t sell at school."
    Clevenger’s heart fell.  For a few seconds he felt utterly powerless, foolish to be trying to father a boy when he hadn’t been fathered himself.  Who was he trying to save anyhow?  Billy?  Himself?  Why not just admit the two of them were hopeless together, the blind leading the blind?  "How much have you been..."
    "That’s not all it would show," Billy said.
    Clevenger let out his breath, wondering what else was coming.
    "Marijuana..." Billy went on, watching the way the word seemed to injure Clevenger all over again.  "And cocaine... and steroids."
    Clevenger could tell from Billy’s tone that he had intended to hurt him, that he was trying to engage him in the only way he knew how — negatively, through confrontation.  And that reminded him that rescuing Billy had never looked like anything but a marathon.  The opposition of the Department of Social Services to his adopting Billy had at least helped him see that much.  More than half the kids adopted at Billy’s age, with histories like his, ended up homeless, jailed, or dead before the age of twenty.  Winning the fight for his soul meant holding his hand while slowly, painstakingly uprooting his demons.  It meant fighting for years, losing plenty of battles.  "So what do you figure we should do?" he asked.
    Billy shrugged, still watching Clevenger’s face intently.
    "You figure that’s my job," Clevenger said, mostly to himself.
    Billy turned and stared through the windshield.
    Clevenger did the same.  "There is the standard response, ’You’re grounded,’" he said.  "Which won’t work here, if you ask me.  I think you’d be pretty content up in the loft for a month with your weights and your stereo, sneaking in girls."  He paused.  "There’s another one that goes something like,