allamericanboy (allamericanboy) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-02-16 13:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | democratic party, johnny rebel |
Who: Mark and Johnny
What: Their version of, "You are not allowed to go to so-and-so's party on Friday night, young man!"
When: Tuesday morning, 8:00am
Where: Mark's office at CNN
Warnings: None
Mark had his first fatherly lecture in over twenty years planned out to a tee. This one would consist of more than, 'you're going to boarding school, and that's final.' Granted, that one seemed to have worked wonders on a teenaged Malcolm. He'd been planning on asking to see Johnny anyway, just to talk. The kid's impending trip to Elmira only made the situation more urgent in Mark's mind. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand any logic behind the decision to go back to that place and so long as he had any sort of parental control over the teenager, he wasn't setting foot on that side of New York State.
He had a complex. He wouldn't admit it to himself, but he was developing a serious complex. It all centered around his seeming inability to escape his past and the pain it continued to cause people around him. Glibt thought of him as a slave owner and a racist. His mother had left him several messages that morning demanding to know why there were rumors circulating that he'd been seen in Georgia with some woman, and why on earth he'd not come to her President's Day dinner the night before. Johnny was the worst, cast aside for a century because Mark couldn't face that part of his past. He still couldn't, but he'd managed to separate Johnny from it, or so he'd thought.
The thought of Johnny as a Northern POW dredged up too many unwanted thoughts. It was anger, mostly, at his brother and his mother for ever treating their own family in such a way. Mark told himself that any feelings of rebellion he had were leftover 'gifts' from Ate's lure into recklessness and ruin.
He slumped in his seat, tired from the weekend, Valentines Day, his talk with Glibt, and now this. A son determined to do something that bothered his father more than it had any right to. When had he started caring for Johnny this much? It wasn't a bad thing, at least not when it was an innocent worry. But this... Mark had never seen Elmira for himself, but like everyone else, he'd heard about it. Bad enough Johnny'd been there once. He wasn't going back. Mark would tie him to a desk chair if that's what it took.
"Is that what parents do?" Mark muttered to himself, reaching for a warm, bagel filled deli bag. "No, they ground them. That's it. I'll ground him."