THE OPERATOR

Just as Andy supposed Johnny, too, had given up on sleep.  He tried all night but finally sat up and slid his feet over the side of the bed and paused, trying to determine if fitful dreams or disturbing semi-conscious thoughts had hounded him these past few hours.  He even considered the possibility that his own inappropriate actions donned demonic masks and stalked him from the darkest shadows of the night.  With gritty determination he looked the bastard creatures in their vicious eyes and prepared himself for their best shots.  Perhaps in the future he would heed Kathleen’s good advice and have just enough sense to avoid these scenarios but probably not.  Right now he had to get out of this one and somehow, someway, he would, despite Bart, whether Andy showed up or not, despite himself, even because of himself, because down every dark alley, across every stupid gauntlet, ultimately he had only himself to rely on, only himself to blame, and though he loved his friends he accepted that, knew that in the end, in these horribly intimate moments of imminent doom, in these anguished soul searching traumas he would find himself, often alone, but still standing, daring them to keep on coming, and if they did, if they came by the hordes, they would still not knock him down, never once, not ever.

“Kind of early to get up, isn’t it?”  Kathleen’s voice came through the harsh hard night soft and warm, a whispered breath of compassionate assurance, without anger, without demands.  That fleeting moment touched his heart like a beautifully fragile stream of light that glanced through the storm of his demoralized spirit leaving an elusive warmth in its shimmering wake.  In that instant he understood that life needed no more meaning for him than this kind gentle woman who cared more about his welfare than anything else in the world despite the selfish stupid things he did.  He felt tears well up inside, choked them down.  He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him and how sorry he felt about sucking her into yet another whirlwind but the tenderness of the moment cramped his throat.  He leaned over and hugged her tightly.  “Are you ok?”  She whispered, stroking his hair.

He nodded against her soft neck, sucked up her sweet feminine fragrance.  When the knot in his throat loosened he sat up and took hold of her hand.  She lifted herself up to face him in the gray not light of pre dawn.  “I’m sorry,” he said, softly, not wanting to destroy the tenderness with his voice.  “I’m sorry for making you suffer through all the stupid things I do.”

Kathleen leaned forward and hugged him.  Johnny certainly had an ample disagreeable side to him but these scattered flashes of tenderness restored her belief that beneath it all his noble heart would always prevail.  She stroked his head again to comfort him.  “You always manage to work things out in the end.”

He sighed deeply, giving into her.  “It just makes everything so hard.”

She laughed softly, affectionately.  “You like it that way.  You make things harder than they have to be all the time.”

“I know, but I don’t mean to make everything hard for you.”

She laughed again, louder this time.  “I’d rather be included in your problems than left out of them because you think you’re protecting me.  Remember, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”

They sat in silence for a while as the contents of the room, a large wooden dresser, a small TV on its stand, walls streaked with white spackle because he never got around to painting them, emerged slowly from the vanishing darkness, made the world more real and tangible, less frightening.  “You will get out of this one, right?”  She asked, not hiding the concern she felt.

He nodded on her shoulder.  “I have to.  You’ve made it a whole lot easier.  I love you.  I really do.”  He kissed her neck and stood up, unable to sit still any longer thinking and talking about it, anxious to do something to get it over with.  He leaned back toward her and kissed her mouth softly.  “I might as well go down to the yard and get this over with,” he said, sounding like a gunslinger heading out to the OK Corral.

“Is Andy going to be there?”  The pretty saloon girl with the heart of gold asked.

“I don’t know,” Johnny answered.  “He better be.&n