He kept telling himself what he could have been. His mother, to whom a place like Winfield and all it stood for was anathema, was always telling him he had his whole life in front of him. It didn't feel like that to him. Maybe he should never have accepted the scholarship place here. He was a fish out of water, a joke; a freak.
The taunts, jibes and smart remarks still hurt. He was close to genius level in mathematics. He loved numbers. He understood them. They spoke to him. They were his friends. He could see how they worked together, related, and synchronised. It was people he had trouble with.
If only he could have made quarterback instead of understanding transfinite cardinals. Then people would take notice of Ed Leeming; the right kind of notice. One day they would do just that. They would know all about Ed Leeming.
For the moment he hunched his shoulders in his familiar fashion and happened to glance at his reflection in a nearby window just as the sun peeped over the top of the roof. For a second his profile was etched to perfection, caught in a time frame.
The inflamed mark on his cheek was hidden, his squint appeared natural in the sunlight and shadow buried his projecting teeth till they looked just normal. For that brief second he was looking at someone else's face; someone he knew very well indeed; someone he hated with a fierce passion. Scott Stockton and Ed Leeming were opposites, yet in that brief moment in the spotlight they could have changed places. For that brief moment too Ed imagined just what it would be like to be Scott Stockton, who was a shallow and rampant Adonis figure, totally hedonistic and devoted to his own pleasure, yet with something of his father's natural acumen and sense of destiny. He was everything that Ed was not. At that brief and fiery instant, with sunlight drawing a bead along his profile, Ed Leeming fantasised that he was Scott Stockton, and yet himself. In other words, he had what Stockton possessed and more.
The sun moved over the edge of the roof drowning the gravelled pathway with light, drenching Ed with the full power of its illumination and dispelling the short lived illusion. A couple of girls strolled by, glanced at Ed staring into the window and giggled. Startled, Ed hunched protectively and shuffled off.
Coach John Jackson bellowed his instructions at the towering hulks sweating in the early morning team practice session. Where the hell was his star player, Mr God Almighty, my father owns the school Scott Stockton? He looked off for a moment over towards the school gate as if expecting to see the insolent and jaunty figure ambling across as if he owned the place. He does, near as be damned, Jackson growled to himself. And he had to admit he was a good football player. He had good hands and split second timing and could weight a pass with a delicacy, which seemed incongruous. Trouble was, the boy was quite simply in love with himself. That was his big problem.
'He should've been born poor,' Jackson muttered under his breath. 'Just wait till I get my hands on that arrogant asshole.'
At that moment Scott Stockton was indeed working out. He was also heavily stoned, spaced way out on pure Jamaican weed. He was kneeling on a large bed with an ornate headboard depicting a condor with outstretched wings.
He was naked and sweat was slipping down his body and trickling across his waist and down along his thighs as he ground his hips in regular thrusts.
Before him knelt a woman, buttocks raised like sand dunes. She was moaning quietly, deep in her throat. Scott could not remember her name at that moment but it didn't really matter. He sucked hard, drawing the smoke down into his lungs. He stared straight ahead, moving his pelvis as though he was on automatic pilot.
Scott's eyes dilated. He felt his own orgasm rising. When his seminal explosion erupted, he almost swallowed his joint. He just managed to spit it out at the crucial moment.
Later, Scott staggered around the room, picking up items of discarded clothing, chuckling to himself then humming a tune. He dressed himself, watched by the woman on the bed who was now lying with her feet tucked up sucking her thumb.
'That was great, really was,' Scott giggled. 'How was it for...' He broke off in a fit of giggles. The woman stared, saying nothing. Scott, now dressed, ambled to the door, turned and saluted her, searching for an appropriate exit line. His mind pictured the scene at the football training session he should have been attending, in particular the scowling face of coach Jackson.
'I'll be in touch, okay!' The remark amused him. He turned, walked into the door, swore, opened it and left with a theatrical wave.
Outside it was a high pollen count day. Scott slipped on a pair of shades and vaulted in and slid down onto the red leather upholstery of his lithium supercharged Cobra convertible. He snapped an Eagles micro CD into place and slammed the car into gear. It hummed reassuringly as the first bars of 'Hotel California' jingled from the quad speakers. Scott turned up the volume and pushed his foot on the accelerator. The morning sun hung like a giant orange watermelon as the Cobra shot away from the secluded art-deco house, along a private drive and out onto an empty highway.
Up ahead, two roads joined, about three miles outside the small town of Floraville, from where a private road ran on to Winfield College.
Scott glanced over to his right as he came up to the intersection. A black Porsche suddenly appeared out of nowhere, ignored the stop sign, and raced in to run side by side with the Cobra.
The Porsche had its hood down. The driver was about eighteen and swarthy. He grinned over at Scott.
'Been working overtime have you, Scott?' he yelled.
'Dedication, Wayne,' Scott screamed back and his voice blasted off behind him.
Neck and neck the two cars hit a hundred and twenty, then a hundred and thirty. Both drivers were yelling and screaming and whooping with exhilaration. Up ahead, just before the Winfield junction, a battered green truck wheezed along at around forty. The driver saw the twin pillars of dust in his mirror. He saw two pairs of headlights flashing. He started to move into the centre of the road, hesitated, trying to make up his mind.
Slowing to ninety, the Cobra and the Porsche swerved in a figure of eight around the truck and out on in front, missing each other by a fender width. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, swerved and lost control. The old truck toppled on its side and screeched along the heat soaked road in a scream of ripping metal before coming to rest.
By this time the two cars were a memory. All that could be seen ahead was a flicker of tail-lights as they turned off onto the road to Winfield.
Scott Stockton and Wayne Krantz glanced at each other as their cars screamed through the college gates together, scattering gravel like shrapnel and screeching to a halt outside the main college building. Nearby the football team was trooping off wearily, being encouraged by an over anxious John Jackson. They chanted desultorily.
'Winfield Rockets go to war. We know what we're fighting for.'
Scott and Wayne jumped out of their cars. Jackson noticed Scott arrive, and was pointedly writing something in a notebook. Angrily he stomped over. Wayne winked at Scott.
'Looks like you're in his bad books, old buddy,' he whispered.
Jackson moved in on Scott, taking his arm forcefully and marching him several yards away from the others. The coach's lips were quivering as he fought to keep his cool.
'You mess with me again, Stockton...' Jackson left the rest of the threat unsaid. Scott stared bleakly back.
'Sorry, coach. Did you miss me? I sure as hell didn't miss you.'
'Don't be smart. You could be good, even though you're an egotistical little shit. You won't miss training again, will you boy? You'll do it for the team, Stockton, or if you don't give a damn about the team, you'll do it for the school. You know how much your father loves this school. You know how much pride he has in the football team.'
Scott looked suitably abashed.
'Sure, coach. I know how much he loves the team. I know how much he expects from the coach too: all that motivation and stuff. Can't be easy. A lot of coaches have been and gone, all because they couldn't motivate the team. Don't worry, coach, wh
en the chips are down you can rely on me.'
Jackson snarled with contempt, released Scott and strode off. Scott raised one finger at his departing back and returned to Wayne and to the hovering group of girls. Wayne nodded in Jackson's direction.
'Don't worry about him, Scott. Come the fall you'll be playing the markets.'
One of the girls, Troy, shimmied over to the two boys. She was blonde and pretty. 'Without your daddy's money you'd be sucking on air, Scott,' she said provocatively.
Wayne put his arm around Scott's shoulders as the two other girls, Casey and Ramona, joined Troy. 'Weren't sucking on air this morning, were we, old buddy? Maybe you should give us a try.'
'Good work out, Scott? We didn't see you at training,' Casey smiled.
'Didn't even break sweat,' he replied casually.
'Give you two a try,' laughed Ramona. 'Dream on, boys. Come on, Troy, Casey, we'll be late.'
The girls moved off whispering to each other, turning back to smile at Scott and Wayne who, with a quick glance at each other, followed the three sets of swinging hips through the main doors and into the building.
Scott glanced over to the right at one of the colonnaded walkways. Bright sunlight and deep shadow combined to produce a monochrome flickering effect, like in those early movies. The throng of students, teachers and staff milling around appeared to Scott's suddenly addled mind to be dappled by a fierce strobe. A memory of smoke itched inside his lungs. He was disoriented by a brief drugged relapse. The hallucination was riveting. They were all dead. They were all moving on a strip of celluloid, replaying their lives in thirty-five millimetres. But they were going nowhere. They were all just images on some movie reel.
A shiver speared him along his spine, turning his bowels to water. He saw himself in the crowd, not striding with his shoulders back, not stepping out with his usual arrogant poise, but hunched like a dwarf recoiling from a blow. It was him and yet it was not him. For the briefest of instances, Scott Stockton tasted his own death.
NEXT, A SAMPLE OF METAPHYSICAL THRILLER 'BODYSWITCH'
BODYSWITCH
the year's most disturbing metaphysical thriller
SYNOPSIS
IF YOU THINK YOUR BODY BELONGS TO YOU - THINK AGAIN
Jack Madigan has the perfect life. He runs a mission in the Bronx helping New York's poor and homeless, the lost souls of the city. His wife Kerry works on a campaigning newspaper. They are not rich but they are fulfilled. And they are about to have their first child.
Sadistic sociopath Ernie Mason is released from prison, the poor black kid from the Bronx who has been brutalised by a lifetime of abuse, drugs and crime until he becomes a killer; a walking time-bomb. He gets drunk, steals a car and goes joyriding in central Manhattan.
Jack says goodbye to Kerry after a routine medical examination and she crosses the busy street.
Ernie Mason hits Kerry full on, killing her instantly and killing himself.
The bottom falls out of Jack Madigan's life. But then he is made an offer no other human being has ever received. The chance to say a final goodbye to Kerry on 'the other side'.?
But there is a price to pay.?He must allow a recently departed soul to occupy his body while he is in spiritual limbo to be given one last chance of redemption.?That's when the cosmic switch clicks and a dark soul enters Jack Madigan's body.?
Guess who?
When Ernie Mason wakes up as a white man and Jack Madigan roams the spiritual realms there is only one outcome when Jack wants to come back.
CHAPTER ONE
There were only a couple of days left before Christmas Eve. The white flakes of snow turned grey almost as soon as they hit the ground. In the streets around the East River, there wasn't much in the way of Christmas spirit. The snowflakes had to concede defeat and turn into grimy, polluted slush. One of the few beacons of light in a bleak cityscape was the Refuge, a converted warehouse near the river, a haven for the poor and the homeless, for the lost souls of the city.
This was desolation row, America's third world. This was where the spirit of free enterprise lost its soul and dumped its waste product.
Jack Madigan was preparing for his busiest time of the year. Jack was young, only twenty-eight, but he had run the Refuge for over a year and was its chief trustee. Without Jack the Refuge would have closed. Only his faith and driving force had persuaded the City authorities to grant the license renewal.
He was standing in the ramshackle storeroom that passed for his office speaking excitedly into his cellphone.
"Harry, you're a miracle worker. A million dollars, right?" He paused and listened with a triumphant grin on his face "You know what this insurance policy means to us, don't you?"
He clenched his left fist and lashed out in celebration. "Exactly. We can keep this place going." He lowered his voice. "It gives some real security to the homeless and desperate and it meets our license stipulation. Okay, I'll meet you in your office to sign the paperwork."
Jack terminated the call and walked out into the main hall of the Refuge. Right now he was preparing for the annual Christmas rush. Although he hated doing it, he would have to turn people away. The queue to get in for a Christmas dinner of turkey and the trimmings and a bed for the night began early. Jack's own Christmas celebrations usually had to wait a couple of days.
He had a lot of helpers, all volunteers, but he planned to be there on Christmas Day with Kerry.
It was eleven o'clock. Time for Jack to hand over to his night shift. In the semi-darkness, an orchestral cacophony of snoring rose and fell from the sleeping bodies in the four long rows of beds. Some men were crying in their sleep whilst others muttered to themselves in the midst of mind-locked nightmares.
Jack used a couple of ex-boxers as overnight wardens. Marcel 'Golden Boy' Nixon and Clyde Rydell were big, black and tough, a couple of reformed characters who had learned to trust the 'honky with heart' as they called Jack.
"Night, Marcel, night, Clyde," Jack said in a low voice.
"See you tomorrow, boss," growled Marcel with a large grin.
"Looks like you've had some good news, my man," whispered Clyde opening his eyes wide.
"All in good time, guys," said Jack as he headed for the front door.
Jack looked out into the night. Snow was still falling, steam rising. Jack's car was parked securely behind a heavily reinforced door. He unlocked the makeshift garage, stepped inside and eased the old Studebaker out of its concrete silo, then locked it behind him. Jack took a look around at the streets. A couple of drunks were staggering towards the Refuge. In dark recesses and in doorways, shapes were moving, a match flared. Music throbbed from somewhere.
"Come on, Jack," he muttered to himself, "time to go home."
At that moment a tall, wizened figure shuffled through the flickering street lights, long matted hair dressed with a topping of snowflakes. Like an Old Testament prophet, Abraham was making for the Promised Land. Jack smiled, wound down his window. "Evening, Abraham," he said. "We've kept your reservation open as usual."
"Ah! Jack, you startled me," Abraham walked over to the car. "Nearly Christmas and soon you'll be a father. Such times we live in."
"Three months. I can't wait. It's all I seem to think about."
Abraham looked around then glanced at the Refuge where Clyde was waiting for him. "This is no place for a young man like you. You've made your point. You've built up some good karma, my young friend. Believe me, it has not gone unnoticed by those in higher authority." Abraham raised his eyes into the white night. "I for one have much to thank you for."
"Don't even mention it. It's good to have you with us. The guys seem to respect you. You've never been mugged; people leave you alone yet they tell you their troubles. You're a natural psychiatrist, Abe."
"I like to be of service. Give my best to your beautiful wife."
Abraham's expression suddenly turned serious. "Look after her, Jack, especially now."
Jack glanc
ed at him curiously. "Sure, of course I'll look after her."
Abraham shuffled through the slush to the door. "Goodnight," he said.
"Goodnight, Abe," Jack smiled to himself and revved up.
Kerry Madigan stared at the flickering screen, her face clouded. "Shit, what's the matter with me?" she muttered.
She glanced up and smiled as Bill Sherman came into the office. "Leave it for now," he said, "it'll come to you tomorrow."
"It's a damn good story, Bill. We can really nail Mancini this time; an Insight exclusive. We have evidence of chemical dumping he can't refute. This is going to ruin the bastard."
Bill Sherman, editor of Insight, a radical magazine that hovered on the verge of bankruptcy with every issue, regarded Kerry with the eye of friend and colleague.
"Don't get so worked up. We'll get him. He's not going to get away with poisoning half the Bronx. Listen, Kerry, don't you think you it's time you packed up work. Three months to go, that's all. It's time you were putting your feet up."
"Maybe you're right. I know you're right. I just can't seem to help myself."
He laughed then. "How are you going to be for money? I pay you a pittance and Jack can't take home a fortune?"
"We'll survive. We've got some put by. We don't pay any rent for the apartment in the Village, don't forget, courtesy of my father. Jack takes a salary from the donations and bequests. He's done incredibly well you know, Bill, I mean, getting money out of all kinds of people."
"He's a natural entrepreneur. He's in the wrong business. If he wanted to make money..."
"But he doesn't," Kerry interjected, "that's not what either of us care about," she paused, "but you are right. This little life inside me is more important than the Enrico Mancinis of this world."
She spun round slowly in her chair and caressed her stomach. "It's fantastic you know, Bill, to think another human life is in there."
Bill watched her. The rest of the staff was packing up for the night. Snowflakes were clinging to the window; each one an individual; each one clinging to life as long as possible; each one succumbing to its fate and dissolving into the sea of creation.