Workin' Progress: Wahl Ball

Johnny Wahl was a charming toddler.  Eric first met him when he around 1 and still screamed bloody murder if he couldn't at least see his mother Rebecca, but very soon after that he calmed way down and did much to be good company.  Years later during one of the worst of her innumerable meltdowns, Rebecca accused Eric of loving Johnny and his own children more than he loved her.  Only someone with a severe cognitive disability could have believed that, but undoubtedly it was just Rebecca being stupid, and mean, ,and hateful, and a fucking cunt with ears.  Johnny grew up though and dulled remarkably with each new year.  Before he started school, he appeared to be very bright, with a large vocabulary and an ability to learn.  Each school year he grew more and more stultifyingly average.  Or worse.  He kept his bubbly and outgoing personality, but a whip-smart and outgoing kid was something completely different from a tubby, boisterous dullard.  Eric always figured that Johnny was a pretty representative mix of Rebecca Harris and Eddy Wahl; he'd never met Eddy, and that poor fucker had the good sense to both never actually marry Rebecca as well as drop dead when he was 50. 

Not that his own children were any better.  Elizabeth had never had a charming phase.  She was every bit her mother without any redeeming qualities which Rebecca may have ever possessed.  She worshiped her big brother Johnny, but she wasn't very bright.  And oh could she complain.  She hated Eric, but she was deadly afraid of him.  As soon as Rebecca finally left, Eric used his opportunity to bully her and Johnny into a semblance of obeisance.  Stephen, being the youngest and by far the smartest of the trio, was actually the least affected by the upheaval.  Unfortunately for Eric, he was a quiet and unsure child who was happy to be the follower, so he followed Johnny and followed Elizabeth in her worship of Johnny.  Stephen Anderson was by Eric's favorite, but he despised his father, not for the reason the other two idiots did, namely depriving them of their mother, but for the reason that Eric was an asshole and cold to all of them, but mostly to Johnny and Elizabeth. 

The best thing about becoming a father for the first time when you were 45 was that you had a reasonable chance of not spending so many years with your children.  Eric had honestly figured that he would drop dead long before Stephen finished high school.  He spent real time really wondering what would happen to those poor assholes.  Would Rebecca somehow be able to actually support them?  Not fucking likely, given her history.  Would they wind up in some sort of state care?  That would suck for them, but there was no family.  Would Johnny somehow be able to become a provider?  Eric couldn't figure out how; the kid was an idiot and probably didn't have much of a future at all.  Stephen was the loser in all this.  He was smart; he took after Eric but would have even less of a chance at finding some version of a useful, comfortable existence.