Page 132 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“Oh yes—”

“Galen?” she asked. She did love John’s boyfriend—he was just so charming with his suits and his southern drawl.

“We’re both fine, Isabelle,” he said, his voice taking on that gentle timbre that was probably why all the kids seemed to worship him. “It’s just… I’m going to need your help tonight. We’ve got another one.”

“Oh my,” she said. “What size? I’ve got a closet full of clothes, unless he’s bigger than Vern or smaller than Reg.”

“Closer to Reg than Bobby,” John said. “But he’s going to need a long bath and a haircut. Galen is sending Henry over with some antifungals and some lice treatments. Prep the bathroom and start dinner—we’ve fed him a burger, but he needs something real.”

“Oh my,” she said. Her voice dropped. “How young, John?”

“Fourteen,” John said softly. “Hit on Galen and me as we were coming out of a meeting. Swears he’s drug free, but I don’t think that’s always been the case. I’m going to have Henry sleep on your couch tonight, if that’s okay.”

“Of course,” she said, because sometimes it was necessary. “But fourteen! John, where is he going to go?”

“We’ll find a place,” John said. His voice lightened a little. “We always do, right?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go get things ready.”

“Thanks, sweetheart. We’ll meet you there.”

Fourteen was young, she thought unhappily. Usually when John got hit on by a street kid—and because the NA meetings he and Galen attended once a week were held in a battered church in a sketchy neighborhood, it happened far more than it should have—the kid was at least sixteen—old enough to understand how to behave in at least a transactional way. “Here, kid—we’ve got a place to squat, three hots and a cot, but you need to be niceto Mrs. Bobby’s Mom. We’ll try to find you a place that’ll let you get a real job and get back on your feet.”

Sacramento had one of the few shelters for LGBTQ youth in the state, and oftentimes, the kids had ended up there. If the kid was over eighteen, John offered him a job—not in porn, unless they asked, but at Johnnies or one of the other businesses he’d been developing to help the kids who either were ready to quit porn and needed a helping hand, or who had been out of the street and just needed a job and a place to stay. Isabelle understood that this was how the flophouse had started, although John had sworn her to secrecy about the fact that he paid the lease, and if any of the kids there couldn’t make rent, he made up the difference.

Isabelle knew that some of John’s favorite kids were the ones who’d jumped in to the business with both feet to try to “pay their own way.” She also knew, because John had confessed to her one quiet, melancholy night that this was one of the primary reasons John had stopped shooting scenes himself.

It just hadn’t felt right, when the eighteen-year-old who’d seemed too damned young to hit on him was suddenly naked and having sex in his camera’s lens. If Isabelle hadn’t come to regard John so highly already, that confession alone would have done it for her. It wasn’t only the kids who “aged out” of porn—John had matured beyond it too. He still thought it had its place, but the place was not for him.

So he’d passed the torch, and he and Dex had taken the business in a direction that gave the kids who’d fucked themselves silly on camera a place to now be mature, sober adults without the spotlight. Someday, she thought wistfully, Vern wouldn’t feel the need for that harsh glare showing the world who he was.

She knew that he was so much finer a man than the body God had gifted him with, but that was something he’d figure out eventually.

So Isabelle had become John’s way station as he was trying to place kids. Not every placement was a success, but she liked to think that having a kind voice, a place like a home—even a home they’d never had—and some good meals meant something to those who’d stayed with her.

And of course, she and John had gotten a routine together.

SHE BEATJohn to her apartment by about ten minutes, which—after greeting the kittens and then confining them to her own bedroom with the litter box and food and water in her adjoining bath—gave her time to put a trash bag in the foyer to gather the old clothes and to throw some plastic-coated liners on the couch and one of the kitchen chairs and the bed. She got the ones with the flannel on one side, so the liners were comfortable to sit on—and didn’t creak—but she’d had to get rid of a couch early on in this endeavor because lice were nasty little creatures whodidn’t go away.

She had the paper gown, booties, and shower cap on the counter in the bathroom—Henry would probably do the honors of shaving the poor boy’s head—and she’d laid plastic on the floor.

She’d also put a variety of bubble baths in the room with cartoon-character bottles. It was surprising and heartbreaking how a SpongeBob bottle would sometimes break down the kids with the hardest, most “been there done that” façades.

So very often these kids hadn’t had a chance to be children. They’d jumped right into sex work and trying to make a living on the streets because anything was better than being at home.

She was rummaging through the closet, deciding on a brand-new T-shirt and some gently used flannel pajamabottoms and briefs for the boy when there was a knock on the door.

The young man huddling in a used towel behind John was skinny, naked, and shivering—and yes, crawling with mites.

“Come in,” she said, gesturing to John and the young man, and Henry and Galen behind him. “Henry, I’ve set everything out in there. You may want to run the bath. Your change of clothes is in the basket in the hall by the washer.”

“Thanks, Ms. Roberts,” Henry said, because he tried to be humble. She knew he could be pugnacious and stubborn and irritable—but he was also a good boy, and she gave him one of her best smiles.

“No problem, Henry.” She lowered her head and looked their new friend in the eye. “Hello there,” she said. “I’m sorry—we’ll get you all cleaned up in a second. I’ve got some food in the fridge—I was planning on potato soup, homemade, and some homemade bread. Does that sound good when you’re out of the bath?”

The boy stared up at her, his mouth round and inviting in spite of chapped lips, his cheeks red and burned from days outside, but still fair. He swallowed a couple of times and said, “That sounds really good, ma’am,” and she saw his eyes welling up. “I… I shouldn’t be in your home.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “But let’s do get you clean. I’ve put covers on the chairs and couch and the bed, until we’re sure all the crawlies are gone, so wherever you see red flannel, that’s fair game. I know it sounds fussy, but as I’m sure you know, these things aren’t fun at all, and its best to get them before they get you.”

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