September 10th, 2016. 11:10PM
Burlwood, Indiana
Jake had driven forty miles around in circles, weaving down back roads and taking shortcuts that only the initiated of Burlwood would know. Unable to shake his feeling, he traveled halfway to Garthby before pulling a highly illegal U-turn, right in the middle of Route 7. That should've exposed whomever was after him, he should've been able to see them as he spun around and headed back into his home town.
Checking his mirrors all the while, scanning his surroundings like a bobblehead, he tried to figure out exactly who was tailing him and why. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, convincing himself that no one could possibly have followed him without being busted by his trickery, he started to wonder if this whole affair had been a false alarm.
If it was, it would've been the first time he was wrong. His sixth-sense was pretty accurate, and he trusted it implicitly. Despite his efforts, though, he couldn't zero in on any pursuer, couldn't catch his predator in the act. That didn't negate the feeling, it was still strong, and he was sure that someone was tracking him through the cloak of night.
Maybe it was a friend of the guy he'd stomped at the track... maybe it was some jealous ex or current boyfriend of Nikki's... maybe it was a cop looking for an account of what happened at The Downs... maybe it was Sheriff Ron Boudreaux himself, out to babysit and make sure the thorn in his side wasn't stirring the pot.
Whoever it was, Jake couldn't finger him... he hadn't been able to catch him red handed. Still, he knew there must be someone. To concede that there wasn't was to turn his back on an instinct that never steered him wrong in the past.
Conceding the fact that whomever was tracking him must be better at staying hidden in the shadows than he was at exposing them to the headlights of his Malibu was a tough pill to swallow. Having no other choice than to choke it down, he pulled off the road and into a parking lot he hadn't seen for many, many years.
Looking upon Butcher's Lane Provisions, he was shocked to find the lights of the storefront burning. Daryl Lane was apparently working awfully late on a Saturday night. That seemed suspicious, right out of the gate. Reading the Business Hours sign that hung on the building's door, he noted that the old man should've locked up and gone home over four hours ago.
Slamming the gearshift into park, he decided he was going in. Puffing another cigarette, he thought over what he would say and considered how he would broach the subject of suspicions. Plotting out how he would engage in the interrogation of a man he once saw as a victim instead of as a suspect, he wondered how he would manage to keep control.
Mister Lane had always seemed so kind, his son had been so sweet and full of love. The idea that Drake could've met his death at the gentle, familiar hands of his own father was as incomprehensible to him now as it was when Rambo first suggested it. His personal feelings aside, he owed it to Chucky to thoroughly investigate the allegation. If Mister Lane had been The Butcher, if he had killed Duncan, Banks, Dawson, Wade, Marshall, if he had murdered his own son... if he had killed Billy Marsh, he must be held to account for his deeds. As unlikely as it all seemed, it was possible... so he had to address it.
He knew this task wasn't going to be easy, but he was going to have to feel the butcher out. He was going to have to jam a probe way up his ass, just as he initially planned to do. That was going to suck, but it was a necessary evil.
Trying to dance the dance of conversation and deception in his mind, he worked to anticipate and scout out every avenue the discussion might go down. Knowledge is power, and planning is essential. Savoring his menthol, he calculated how he would control the flow of information. If he followed the tune, if he kept up with the rhythm and the beat, he could juice the man of every word he was worth. With his answers, he could determine Daryl's innocence or his guilt through careful observation.
When he felt as prepared for the exchange as he thought was possible, he discovered he had smoked another Newport all the way to the butt. Flicking it out the window briskly, he prepared to do verbal battle with an old friend.
Confidently, he stepped out of the car and approached the door. Absorbing everything he saw, he realized the entryway looked much the same as the one he'd walked through so many years ago, when he sought to pick up his friend for a day of raising hell on the haunted streets of Burlwood.
Reaching out his hand, he tried to turn the doorknob but found it rigid and locked in place. There were horizontal blinds over the window at the top of the door, so he tried to peer inside. Perhaps Daryl had simply forgotten to turn the lights off when he closed up shop for the evening. Unable to see anything, he was prepared to accept that this was the case when the sound of a power tool spinning up to speed startled him.
Clearly, someone was inside.
Trying the knob again convinced him that the door was truly and completely locked. Deciding to try knocking, he rapped softly on the wood several times in an effort to avoid spooking the old man. When there came no response, he pounded a bit harder. His hand didn't much appreciate it, as it hadn't recovered from putting the smackdown on Nikki's date. Nothing happened even then, so he switched over to his left and pounded with all he was worth. The racket he made finally won over the noise of a motor whining inside and the shop fell silent for a moment.
"We're closed!" an aged voice eventually called, muffled a bit by the door between them. "Come back in the morning!"
"Mister Lane," Jake shouted back, "it's me! It's Jacob Gigu?re!"
"Who?" the voice asked with a hint of recognition and disbelief.
"It's Darkwing!" he elaborated. "Please, I need to talk to you!"
The old building rattled as the man inside moved to the door. Suddenly, a set of chubby fingers split the blinds and the face of Daryl Lane appeared in the opening.
"Jacob?" he said, surprise and pleasure evident in his voice and upon his face.
There were several loud clicks and clacks as he worked the locks, the door swinging open thereafter with enthusiasm as the old man stepped out with a glowing smile.
"Jacob!" he repeated. "My God, boy, is it really you?"
Jake nodded and smiled, though no further convincing was needed. In his youth, Jacob had born a strong resemblance to Timmy Lane. The hair, the brow, the cheeks, the lips. They were all as they were before, all just the same as Timmy's. They were a bit more pronounced with age, a bit more mature with the passage of time, but they were still very familiar to Daryl.
In laying eyes upon the adult form of Darkwing, Lane imagined he was looking at what might have been. He was seeing what Timmy might have grown to be, had his candle not been snuffed out prematurely. It was gut wrenching to behold, but it was joyous... it was terrible, but it was divine.
"Oh, Jacob!" the man bellowed as he wrapped his arms around the visitor and squeezed him as tightly as his old body could. "Merciful Lord, I can't believe you're here!"
Jake struggled for a breath in the bear-hug, which was difficult because Mister Lane had become quite a burly man and had some power in his muscles. Wearing bloodied whites, the butcher seemed shorter than he had been before, but there was definitely more to his mass than in the days of old. It seemed he drowned his sorrows in buckets of ice cream and top sirloin, apparently seeking comfort in the stuffing of his belly, which took a toll on his figure. Behind the softness of his flesh, though, were muscles accustomed to physical work. Jake could feel their conditioning in the squeeze, and he could tell that the added weight provided additional leverage instead of being an incumbrance to him.
Daryl Lane in 2016 was a large and powerful man... one who was of sound mind and body. He was a man who could easily subdue a nine year old child, if that was his desire. That put his name above Evander Hughes on the suspect list. That left him in the game and in contention for the title The Butcher Of Burlwood, past and present.
"It's been a long time," Jake managed to squeak somehow with his ribs constricted,
shuddering at the thought of the transfer that must be taking place between his relatively clean clothes and the raw meat covered apron of the old man. "It's good to see you again, Mister Lane!"
"It's Daryl," the man said kindly, finally releasing his deathly squeeze. "You know full well it's Daryl, Jacob! My father's name was Mister Lane!"
Stepping back to take him in, Daryl looked Jake over as intently as Nikki had done back at Uncle Jim's. His smile was wide, still glowing and full of warmth.
Feeling a bit awkward at being examined so closely by a grown man, Jake let his lungs fill back to capacity and looked down to confirm what he feared. He was, in fact, sporting hunks of animal flesh on his shirt after the hug. Trying to ignore them, trying to resist the urge to brush them off, he put a friendly hand on Mister Lane's shoulder. "Can I come in?" he asked.
Daryl invited him openly, letting him step inside before setting about locking the door again.
"It's a shame, ya' know," the man said as he flicked bolts and fastened a safety chain. "Back when you were a boy, back when Timmy was alive, I barely ever locked this door! The people were different, then... different than the way the people are today. I swear, they'd cart my whole shop away in the night if I didn't have it as secure as Fort Knox!"
"Has it changed that much?" Jake asked curiously.
"Oh, it has!" Lane replied. "I can barely recognize this town anymore, I have no idea what's become of the place!"
Ron Boudreaux has become of the place, Jake thought but didn't say aloud. That was Rambo's problem, now. "I was surprised to see that you're here this late," he remarked instead. "Seems awful late for a small town butcher to be working on a Saturday night."
"Well, the carnival is on," Daryl explained, his inflection showing a note of displeasure. "I guess I'm lucky to get the business. They could've brought in their own fixings for the burgers, barbecue and their steak and cheese sandwiches. I'm grateful for the money and the work, I just wish it didn't bring back so many memories... Merciful Lord, the memories!"
Jake could sympathize, memories are a bitch. It was surprising that he hadn't noticed the carnival, he'd driven by Our Mother at least twice since he'd been in town. Apparently, his tunnel-vision had blocked out the rides and concession stands, had blocked out the church in its entirety as one of the things he wasn't ready to face yet. Knowing now that it was in town, he would have to check it out... he would be remiss in not checking it out, shaking it down and looking for anything out of place. Hell, maybe the new-age Butcher would try to snatch another child from it... the way The Butcher of old had snatched Timmy.
"Is it still just the one weekend?" he inquired, trying to work it into his agenda for Sunday.
"Yep," Lane confirmed. "Yesterday, today, tomorrow. I guess they're doing good business out there this year, I thought I had enough meat delivered to them last night to carry them all the way through -- with leftovers to spare. They called this morning and ordered a good deal more, though, so here I stand -- fixing it up."
"I hate to trouble you," Jake offered, "maybe I should just come back some other time."
"What?" Daryl asked. "No! You've been away all these years, you're not just gonna turn around and walk back out my door! No, you're gonna stay right here and chat a while!"
"But you've got work to do," the visitor continued, not really intending to leave at all, but doing a damn good job at putting up a front. "I don't want to be in your way!"
"You could never be in my way, Jacob!" the butcher insisted. "I can work and talk! I can chew bubblegum and walk at the same time, too! In fact," he continued, putting on a pair of safety goggles and retrieving a set of nitrile gloves from a carton, "you can help!"
Jake was mortified as the man held his box of gloves out, urging him to take a pair of his own. Not thrilled at the idea, he took two and snapped them onto his hands. Daryl then produced an apron, which would've been nice to have earlier, and a second pair of safety glasses.
Once he was all dressed up, he held out his hands as though to ask what he was expected to do. Lane stepped over to his bandsaw and pressed an illuminated green button, setting the blade in motion. Jake was mesmerized by it for a moment as it spun, quickly whizzing up to speed and humming softly with vicious power.
"Hand me one of those quarters," the craftsman said, pointing to large slabs of meat on a stainless steel table between the two of them.
Jake did as directed, finding the chunk of cow -- or whatever it was -- much heavier than he expected it to be. He felt bones inside of it, beneath thick pads of cooled flesh and fat. When he'd passed it to Mister Lane, the man slapped it on his cutting table and adjusted several metal guards around the saw's blade.
With only the softest push, he slid the meat into the blade and it went to work slicing through it. It was amazing how cleanly and easily the saw chewed through the flesh, chewed through the fat, chewed through the bone. It was like a hot knife through soft butter, just as Rambo had described it.
Daryl quickly had the slab cut into manageable pieces, flipping and slapping them against the steel to feed them to the mechanical beast at different angles, ripping and tearing it down with precision and finesse.
Before a minute's time had elapsed, he was asking for another quarter to break down. Jake watched in awe, and he couldn't help imagine something entirely different being devoured by that glistening blade. He tried to resist, but he couldn't help seeing Drake -- seeing little Timmy Lane -- his body cut in pieces, his arm being slid along those guides and so gracefully ripped asunder. His left hand passed through the teeth in Jake's mind, his thumb dropping to the table and being pocketed as a souvenir, as a trophy, as a prize...
If anyone had the stomach to do it, if anyone had the knowledge to do it, if anyone had the equipment to do it... surely it was Daryl Lane, surely it was Timmy's father, surely it was The Butcher, the man who just happened to be the butcher of Burlwood quite literally.
Christ, it could've happened right here.
It could've happened just like this.
It could've happened over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and Billy Marsh equals number seven, so one more over again.
"Tell me, Jacob," Daryl said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise of the saw. "What brings you back here, after all this time? I thought you had pulled up stakes, I never expected to see you here again!"
"Well," Jake began, struggling to take his eyes off of the spectacle as he fed the butcher another quarter to cut and shape. "I'm looking into something," he said, intentionally vague in his strategy and in avoidance of breaking the rules as laid out by Ron Boudreaux. "I guess you could say I'm taking a bit of a survey."
"What?" Lane chuckled. "So you want to know what FM stations I listen to on the weekends or something? You're interested in what brand of pasta I prefer when I cook spaghetti? Come on, Jacob! I know what you do for a living, I've heard the whispers about why you've come back home!"
This surprised Jake, caught him off guard. What kind of whispers was he referring to? Who was whispering? Still trying to maintain a degree of decorum, he danced the dance. "What's the word on the street?"
"They say you're out here looking into the old murders," the butcher replied. "That you're trying to tie them to what happened to little Billy Marsh!"
Stunned, Jake paused and thought. How the hell would word of that get around? There was only one answer, the answer he feared most.
"Don't look so shocked," Lane added, asking with a gesture for the final quarter. "It's a small town, Jacob! Word gets around!"
Immediately on the defensive -- which was not where he expected to be -- he recalculated and back pedaled with haste. "Actually, I'm just here to visit with some old friends. I heard Chucky was in trouble, and it made me think about how long it'd been since I was last out here. I guess I got to feeling nostalgic, I wanted to check out what had become of my old neighborhood."
"Right," Daryl smiled again. "Don't worry, Jake, I'm on your side!"
"My side in what?" he probed. "Who have you been talking to?"
"Ron Boudreaux was here, I'm sure you've figured that out by now."
"Yeah, I suppose I have," Jake groaned.
"He said he wanted me to call him if I saw you, wanted me to tell him if you came around asking questions that you didn't need to be asking."
With the last of his quarters cut down, Lane set to work on carving out slabs of ribs from the scraps he'd set aside. Jake digested the revelation as he watched, considering how best to counter.
"And how did you respond to that directive?" he wondered, watching the master do his thing.
"I nodded and smiled," Lane replied, "then when he was clear of the door, I told him to blow it out his ass! You know me better than that, Jacob, you know I don't just fall in line and jump when the man says to jump! Especially when the man is Deputy Ron Boudreaux!"
"Thank you," Jake said, relieved.
"Besides," Daryl continued, still at work with the saw. "I'm all for somebody looking into what happened to my boy... to my sweet little boy, merciful Lord! Timmy is still owed justice. He deserves justice! If Boudreaux can't find the answer, why wouldn't I want someone else to dig in and try for themselves?"
"Excellent," the visitor replied, his wheels starting to turn and spin up to speed. His mind whizzing and whining, as the saw blade had, and preparing to breach raw flesh. "Then you won't mind answering a couple of questions for me?"
Lane was wrapping up his work, setting aside perfectly cut half-slabs of ribs, blocks that appeared to be brisket, three shanks and many strips of chuck. He piled everything onto sheets of wax paper atop a stainless table to his right, surveying the quantities and calculating in his mind.
"I'd be happy to," he said. "But I'm gonna need a few more quarters, first. I have two halves hanging in the cooler, that should cover it. Since I'll be doing you a favor in answering your questions, one I was told not to do, maybe you could give my old bones a break by pulling one of the halves out here for me?"
"Yeah, no problem!" Jake answered. "Is the cooler still through the far door?"
Daryl nodded and chuckled. "Right where Chucky found it, back in the old days!"
Moving to a heavy insulated wall panel, Jake figured out that he needed to slide it in order to gain access to the cold room. Grabbing hold of a handle at its right side, he gave a mighty tug and was greeted by a blast of chilled air. Riding upon the surge was a pungent smell that was unmistakable to him. It wasn't foul, it wasn't spoiled, it wasn't putrid, but it was still the odor of death... a sweet and sour aroma of passing, chilled and preserved.
Upon seeing what was inside, his heart fell to his ankles. It was a remarkable physical sensation, like a cone of coldness that rolled from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and it left him reeling. In the cooler were two quite literal halves of a cow.... and they were hanging from the ceiling, suspended by chains wrapped around what would be their ankles. They spun lazily in their postmortem repose, stripped of their innards and their flesh, twirling and swirling slowly, swirling, swirling in the forced breeze of glycol chilled air.
Clink, clank, twirl...
Click, clack, sway...
Following the chains up to the ceiling with his eyes, he saw large metal hooks that intercepted each of them. The hooks were in turn bolted to some sort of metal collar that was rectangular and held a captive steel caster at its top. The casters were locked into a track that ran along the ceiling. It was a trolley system of sorts, which ran in a zig-zag pattern throughout the cooler. Near the door, the maze of rails came together and fed into a single beam that led out into the work area of the shop.
Having scanned the works above, Jake looked down towards the ground, where drops of chilled blood were falling to the concrete sporadically. There was moisture all over the floor, a mixture of condensed water and the fluids of death. Occasionally, a horde of tiny drops would join forces and form a glob. When such an uprising occurred, a shallow and barely visible grade would pull the liquid to the very center of the room, where the glob would be swallowed by an old and filthy looking drain cover.
To keep the mess, if you will, contained, the voice of Clyde Rambo spoke in his head.
Yes, this would be the perfect place for a ritual slaughter... the perfect place to hang a child from his ankles, to lay open his throat with a swift and definitive swipe of the blade... to let all of his blood, all of his life, all of his essence spill from his wounded body. The mess would ride the slope down into the drain, where it would presumably find a path to the sewer or a grease trap of some sort. A quick pass with a floor squeegee would erase all signs of anything suspicious, a rinse of bleach water would restore a semblance of cleanliness and normalcy... no one would be the wiser.
Is this where the boys met their deaths?
Is this the land of Bismilah, and it's over?
Is this the place where The Shechita, where The Dhabihah was carried out on the six fallen children?
On the seventh fallen child, little Billy Marsh?
"Hey!" Daryl Lane's call startled him, snapping him back to reality. "You okay in there?"
Jake took a breath, trying to erase an image of naked children dangling on the trolley from his mind. It was like a nightmare, like a horror movie produced in the confines of his mind and distributed in limited release, for his eyes only.
He could see all of them in there, all together, like some macabre extended family. Seven dead children crammed into the confined space, their necks sliced wide open, their faces cold and lifeless, their arms dangling down and swinging in the frigid air, swirling, swirling. Seven innocent children dangling, seven victims of a monster in repose, seven bodies waiting for their turn, waiting for their number to be called, waiting for their final disposition. Waiting for their time to be butchered by The Butcher. As their hands swung lazily on the breeze, their fingers nearly brushed the floor where there was so much blood... gallons and gallons of blood. A pass with the squeegee, a splash with the bleach, a thousand revolutions of a razor sharp saw blade, and bring in the halves because this place is clean...
As he stepped inside and laid hands on the nearest half cow, he saw the children's faces. Locked in terror, locked in horror and in pain, their jaws were agape, their eyes were rolled back and hanging open, their blood was dripping in rivers of bright crimson that rolled down and colored the pallid white flesh of their brows. It drenched their hair, changing it from blonde and brown and black to burgundy, painting them with the Masque of the Red Death, painting them with their necrosis and their end.
Pulling the mass of bovine forward, the trolley track rumbled with friction and the strain of moving weight. There was a clack as the caster transitioned from the system in the cooler to the lone rail that led into the workspace of the shop. He could still see the children in there as he started to slide the door closed behind him, and just before it thundered into place he saw a flash of movement.
He gasped as the arms of one particular corpse fired up in a wild seizure of cracking rigor and reached out for him... reached out in begging, in longing for the peace that only answers would bring, in desperation for that final rest that they could only achieve through justice being served. It was Timmy, of course, who snapped to life. Both of his hands were extended to Jacob in a cry for help, his left thumb nothing but a bloody stump, and oh God, I can see the bone in there!
Christ, his heart was pounding and his blood pressure soaring as he turned to Daryl Lane. Feeling feint, he wondered if his flesh had turned as white as the dead bodies drained of their blood. In the heat of the moment, he felt he might break down and accuse the butcher of being The Butcher plainly, blowing any chance at gleaning tangible information to help him build a case. He couldn't do that, he had to resist the temptation to do that...
"Thanks!" Lane praised him as the half rolle
d along the track, moving towards the bandsaw and the workspace.
Jake said nothing, just tried to steady himself and the tremors he felt throughout his body, his muscles weak and throbbing under the strain of horrors. Daryl picked up a different type of saw, a corded one, which was made of heavy metal and had a long blade like the electric knifes that were all the craze in the nineties... the ones that people carved their turkeys with at their holiday tables.
Positioning the cow over one of his tables, he pulled the trigger on the tool and a loud vibration spoke out with the violent reciprocation of the blade. As though the carcass was made of Jello, the blade chewed through the flesh. Before long, the half itself was cut in half. Lane left the upper portion hanging from the ceiling and slid the lower, which crashed to his table with a clap, over to his bandsaw to continue the process.
"What kind of questions have you got?" he asked simply, preparing to work over the fresh quarter.
Jake gathered his thoughts and prepared to get the conversation back on the rails he had envisioned. Working from a mental checklist, he began his questioning. "Tell me what you know about Billy Marsh," he said. "I really don't have a lot of information on him, it's hard to proceed without understanding who the victim was."
"You probably know more than I do about him," Daryl said, pushing the meat through his spinning blade. "I wasn't very well acquainted with The Marshes. I know they have money, they live out in Bumfuck Burlwood. I only saw them in here once, they bought a few pounds of top sirloin and filet."
"Did you ever run into them at Our Mother?"
Lane chuckled. "I haven't been to church in fourteen years, Jacob," he explained. "When Timmy was taken from me, I thought I might find some answers in that ever mysterious God of ours. It didn't go that way... in fact, you could say it went the opposite way."
Jake nodded, understanding. "Yeah, for such a benevolent creature, he sure does like to turn that cold shoulder, doesn't he?"
"At least to me, he does." Lane acknowledged. "I suppose you must've had the same experience, you must know how badly it can hurt."
"Tell me about Chucky, then," Jake countered. "What's his life been like since we all left town?"
"Chucky?" Daryl said, cutting out another brisket. "He's much the same as he always was, still a sweet and innocent boy. It's been hard on him, since his mother died. Getting along, I mean, without her. He's always tight on money, always rubbing nickels together to pay the bills. He doesn't get very much between Social Security and his work at the church. He straddles that poverty line, but he could make it work, if he really tried. I think it's asking too much of him, though, he's just not cut out for life on his own. He can't really process the whole rationing thing... money burns a hole in his pocket when he's got it, and it's gone in short order. I can't tell you how many times I've had to give him meat, because he's run out of money and doesn't have a scrap to eat."
"Yeah," Jake replied, "that reminds me of something I wanted to ask you. Did he bring you a deer in his trunk a while back? A deer he found on the side of the road?"
Lane nodded, working a slab of ribs. "Yeah, he did. The thing was nasty, I don't know what the hell he was thinking!"
"But he had it in his trunk, right?"
"Yep."
"Was it bleeding? Could you tell if it left any blood behind in his car?"
"Oh, I dunno," he answered, moving the guides on his table to adjust his cut and mulling the question over. "It had blood around its mouth, but it seemed pretty dried out to me. I suppose it could've leaked some gut fluids or something in there, but I can't say for sure. I take it there must be some question about it?"
"Yeah, Boudreaux found blood in his trunk and surmised that it was Billy Marsh's. Chucky couldn't explain it, shy of saying it could've been from the deer."
"I would believe it was from the deer before I believed it was from Billy," Daryl suggested. "I feel like I know Chucky pretty well, and he doesn't seem the type to do something so awful. I can't imagine him doing anything like what was done to that poor little boy. I certainly know he didn't do anything to my Timmy, why should I believe he did it to this Marsh boy?"
This made the hair stand on the back of Jake's neck, and he was immediately uncomfortable. What did Daryl know of what had been done to Billy Marsh?
The report Louie Rambo furnished wasn't publicly disclosed, how the hell could Daryl Lane know of any similarities between the boy's death and those who came before him? How could he know that Billy was treated much the same as Timmy? How could he know that there was a common pattern that linked them?
"What was done to Billy Marsh?" he asked, trying not to show his suspicion.
"He was killed!" Lane answered plainly. "Killed and cut up, just like before!"
"On what do you base that assumption?" Jake countered, his tone carrying notes of accusation that escaped against his will.
"What assumption?" the butcher asked, setting the shank of his quarter aside. "The assumption that he's dead? Hell, it was all over the news! The assumption that they found him cut up in the woods right across the street? I work here, Jacob, I saw them bringing his little body parts out!"
Finished with his cutting, Lane turned off the bandsaw and moved his strips of chuck over to an industrial sized grinder that was fixed to the counter. When he flipped its switch, a loud hum overtook the shop. His black gloves were bloodied, so the first hunk of meat he tried to lift into the hopper nearly slipped from his grasp. Catching it before it could fall to the floor, he fed it into the mouth of the machine and forced it down. Immediately, the solid chuck started coiling out of the grinder in finely marbled strands.
"So you just assumed that his death was similar to that of the other boys?" Jake asked. "You just figured that this was the return of The Butcher, just like that?"
"Is that a stretch?" Lane wondered, using a weighted tool to force every bit of the first strip through the grinder before feeding in a second. "I didn't think it was, it only makes sense! What are you insinuating, Jacob?"
"Oh, nothing," Jake lied. "I'm just trying to get a full picture, that's all. It seems to me that most people around here are hesitant to speak of The Butcher. They certainly were back in the day, you know that as well as I do. With that said, I guess it just struck me as odd that you would fall back to it and believe this was some kind of rebirth."
"I don't know that it is a rebirth," he offered, "I guess I just figured the song remains the same, ya' know? We had six murders happen out here, the only six that've ever occurred in our little town. When a seventh comes along and the victim fits the profile of the first six... it's simple math, to me. "
Jake nodded.
"Maybe I was too presumptuous, but if anyone has the right to be... wouldn't it be me? Or the parents of the other boys? We've been through it, we've been haunted by it. Maybe, as a result, we're not so apt to hide from it as the others are, because the demons of this town have already hurt us as badly as they possibly could! Why try to take cover from a monster once it's already disembowled you? What more can it do to you? What sense is there in being afraid of it? When you've lost everything, what is left to lose in facing the facts?"
"I guess I hadn't thought of it that way," Jake replied. "It makes perfect sense, I suppose."
Daryl shrugged and fed a third piece of chuck into his machine, sliding a loaded sheet of wax paper out of the way and placing another to catch the next deluge of meat. "Maybe it's wishful thinking," he continued. "Maybe I hope it was the same guy, and that they get him this time! Nothing would bring me more pleasure, Jacob, than having an officer of the law march in here and tell me that this Marsh boy's death was linked to my Timmy's, and that they finally caught the motherfucker!"
When the curse left his lips, he blushed dramatically. Jake had never heard such intense language spewing from his mouth, he was always a well controlled and reserved man.
"Sorry, Jacob," he sai
d, burying his head in his hands and wiping his brow. "You'll have to pardon my language! I'm still a little sensitive about that whole thing, sometimes my emotions get the better of me!"
"No need to apologize," Jake said.
In the moment, he felt instinctively that this was the window, that this was the time for making the first cut. The man's guard was down, his emotions were getting the better of him. If ever there was an opportunity to look inside of him for answers, it was now. The idea pained him, and he knew it would pain Daryl even more, but it had to be done... there was no room to protect anyone's feelings.
"Nothing would make me happier than being the one to catch him," he explained. "That's what I intend to do, that's why I came back home. I'm going to do it, Daryl, whether Ron Boudreaux likes it or not."
"Good for you, son!" Lane applauded as more beautiful hamburger poured from the mouth of his grinder. "And believe me, I'll do whatever I can to help! Just say the word, and I'll jump!"
"Great!" Jake replied, planting his feet and preparing for the dive. "But I don't know if right now is the best time for us to discuss it. I'd like for us to sit down somewhere, with no distractions, and have a nice long conversation about everything."
"Fine by me," Lane said, "so long as we can find a time that doesn't interfere with my business. I still run a one man shop! These cows won't break themselves down!"
"I'll give you a call to set it up once I've got my schedule worked out. I'm staying at Chucky's place, so I'm near by... I can work with you, it won't be a problem."
Jake paused on that note, letting the grinder do its work for a few seconds, letting the hook find a comfortable spot before he would tug the line and set it in. Lane seemed oblivious to what was coming, he didn't seem to see through the front that Jake was putting up... he didn't seem to see him coiling like the ground beef, like a rattlesnake, preparing to strike.
"I wonder if I might ask a favor of you, in the meantime," Jake continued, maintaining a calm in his tone.
"Sure, what do you need?"
"Well," he hesitated. "I don't know whether you can help me or not. You see, Chucky's house is empty when it comes to food. I guess I must've caught him at one of his low points with money, because the cupboards are bare and the fridge is totally empty."
"Ah!" Daryl smiled, feeding another strip into the machine. "Of course I can help you with that! You're in need of a care package! Just like the old days!"
"You could say that," Jake answered. "But I'll pay you for it, I'm not after a handout."
"I wouldn't think of taking your money, Jacob!" Lane declared. "You brought a lot of joy to my son when he was alive. I'll be forever in your debt for that, and giving you some good food is the least that I can do in return!"
"I insist on paying," Jake replied. "Especially since I'm after a specialty product."
"And I insist on giving, even if you're after ten pounds of prime rib!"
"Well, actually, it's a bit more specific than that," he said, letting it simmer. "It's a bit more specialized than that, which is why I'm not sure that you can help. You see, I've altered my diet a bit since I left town. A few years back, I bought some tainted meat and got very sick. Ended up in the hospital, actually. Since then, I'm very picky about what I eat. I'm on a very strict regiment that consists of only thoroughly inspected and carefully handled foods. To that end, I only consume kosher products..."
Lane froze, solidly and instantly. His eyes darted up from the grinder and stabbed at Jacob, stabbed him over and over again with daggers of anger and resentment. Without shifting his gaze, he reached out and yanked the plug of the grinder from the wall. There was a thud as he carelessly dropped the cord, the humming of the machine dying slowly and leaving them surrounded by the sounds of silence.
"What?" Jake asked carefully, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead stinging his ears in the hush. "You do have kosher products... don't you?"
Daryl's chest rose and fell sharply, the man breathing the thickened atmosphere in through his nose and exhaling it with ire, as invisible flames of rage, from his mouth. He didn't speak, but the silence shouted out his fury... shouted out his anguish, his torment.
"Did I touch a nerve?" Jake inquired coldly, fixing his stare on the butcher as intently as the butcher's was on him.
The crickets were deafening as they stood for what seemed a long, long time. Neither of them saying a word, they were engaged in a contentious sabre dance for control and for dominance. The old sage and the young fool, they clashed violently over a breach of familiarities. It was a staring contest for all of the marbles, a game of chicken in which the first to flinch was damned for all time.
Eventually, Daryl spoke. His voice was no longer raised with his trademarks of happiness and warmth, it was deep and frigid... icy and cruel. Jake had pierced him to his soul, all of the veils were torn and cast aside. For the first time in many years, the man that lived deep inside of Daryl Lane was exposed to the world at large. His front was down, his forced kindness was slaughtered and left to rot in a heap.
"Look at me, Jacob!" he said in his true voice, a voice that was deep, primordial and full of Hell. "Look long and hard, young man! Take me in with those intense eyes of yours!"
"I am," Jake countered.
"Then tell me what you see!" Lane demanded. "Do you see a monster, boy? Do you see a savage? Do you see a butcher? A man who could murder his own son?"
"I'm not exactly sure what I see," he replied sedately.
"Well, I'm looking at you and I see a lot!" the butcher barked. "I see that you've been talking to Clyde Rambo! Or maybe it was Alberto Gomez? Whichever it was, did they tell you that those bastards followed me everywhere I went from 1993 to 1997! They were like my goddamned shadow! I couldn't fart without them noting the time in a fucking log!"
"I'm aware of that," Jake advised. "I'm also aware that there was only one murder during that time, the murder of your son! I also know that Timmy wasn't the sort to climb into a car with a stranger! That's the one thing I never understood," he bluffed. "How the hell did someone get him into that car to take him away?"
"I don't know either, Jacob!" Lane snapped. "Maybe you can tell me! You were the one watching him that night! You were the one responsible for him at that time!" Angered and hurt, he pulled in a deep breath and let it loose in the form of a shout. "You told me you would watch out for him!" he cried in a booming howl, a concussive blast that made Jake's ears ring immediately.
"What did you do with the fucking car?" Jake shouted back accusingly.
"What car?" Daryl retaliated.
"The fucking Cadillac you bought from Evander Hughes!"
"What?"
"The Brougham, Daryl, The goddamned blue Brougham you took the children in!"
Jake studied the butcher's face for any signs, for any clues of understanding. Watching it carefully, he focused in an effort to detect any attempt at deception he might make in the face of facts. There were no such signs, though, he couldn't see any indication that he was lying. All he could read behind the animosity and the agony was pure confusion... Daryl Lane had no idea what he was talking about.
He hadn't been behind the wheel of any Fleetwood Brougham, his eyes would've betrayed him if he had. The eyes always tell their secrets, but there were none in Daryl's that he was after. He held no secrets of sodomy, no secrets of slaughter, no secrets of butchery in his heart. Those things didn't live inside of his eyes, it was only heartache and pain that took up residence there.
Regret and dismay, sorrow and suffering... those were the tenants, each on a long-term lease. This man was the butcher, but he was not The Butcher. That was obvious to Jake as he looked upon his defeat, upon his surrender under the crushing weights of loss and suspicion.
It was Jake doing the stabbing with his eyes now, the tables had turned. It was Jake doing the cutting, doing the dirty work, doing the damage. He was beating a d
ead horse, pounding on a busted drum and adding insult to an existing layer of insult, further irritating an old and mortal injury.
Daryl Lane was tired, he was worn down, he was broken. Tears rained down his face in a deluge, as though a faucet behind his eyes had been thrown wide open and left to spew forever.
"You really think that I could do that?" he asked incredulously through the tears, his voice cracking with sadness. "You really think that I could take my boy, my sweet little boy, and hang him upside down? You think that I could damn near cut his head off with a sharp blade? That I could stand there and watch him bleed out? You believe that I could cut him up? That I could run him through this saw? Is that really how you feel about me, Jacob? You've known me for a long time, son, do you really think I've got that much evil inside of me?"
"I don't know what I believe anymore, Mister Lane," Jake retorted. "But if it looks like a duck..."
"NO!" the butcher shouted, throwing his hands in the air like a child and bending his neck to gaze up to the ceiling. "Jesus Christ, HELP ME! I can't TAKE IT anymore!" he sobbed.
Jake watched in awe as the man buckled at the knees and collapsed. A terrible crunch sounded out as one patella met the tile, and an awful smack when the second hit the ground. Daryl Lane, a fifty-something year old man, was reduced to an infant before him. He was forced quite literally to his knees by the weight of everything he'd carried through the twenty-two years since his son was murdered, and he was considered a prime suspect.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God! PLEASE, why do you do this to me, you BASTARD!" he wailed, spittle firing from his mouth and rolling back down his upturned face. "DAMN YOU!" he cried, holding clenched fists up at whomever he believed was looking down at him. "DAMN YOU GOD! You fucking LIAR! You took him from me, you fuck! You took him and you left me with THIS! This cross I cannot carry ANYMORE!" Purged of rage, he fell back to sorrow and wrapped his arms tightly around himself. Like an inmate in an asylum, bound in a self imposed straight jacket, he rocked violently back and forth. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" he declared tearfully. "Jacob, I SWEAR TO YOU that I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"
"Daryl," Jake called out, moving to him and scooping him into a tight hug. A hug tighter than he'd ever given Chucky, tighter than he'd ever given his mother, tighter than he'd ever given his wife or to his son.
He felt the stinging in his eyes, but he knew there would be no more. He would shed no tears, he was no longer capable. If he had been, he would've let loose in this moment. He would've shared a complete loss of emotional control with a man who he believed to be a victim once again. He would've cried in comforting an innocent man, a poor soul who'd worn the black spot of guilt for so long.
"Jesus, I tried to tell them!" Lane sobbed. "The truth is supposed to set you free, but they wouldn't believe me! MERCIFUL LORD, they wouldn't believe me! I LOVED my son! God, my son! I would never hurt anybody, God, I would never hurt MY BOY! My boy, my sweet little boy, they TOOK HIM from me! GOD took him from me, he took my boy and he cut him up! Jesus, Jacob, they murdered my little boy! Oh God, my son! My INNOCENT son! Then, they came for ME! As if I wasn't already in Hell, they came to DRAG ME DOWN deeper! FUCK! Do you know HOW HARD it is, Jacob? How hard it is for me to continue living while my poor son is dead? GOD, I wish it could've been me! I would've died for him, Jacob, I would've died A THOUSAND TIMES for him! God, I miss my son!"
"It's okay, Daryl!" Jake tried to comfort him in vain.
"It's NOT okay!" he bleated. "Because they don't believe me, Jake! They NEVER believed me! NOBODY believes me!"
"I do..." he offered, and he was being fully honest. "I believe you, Daryl... I believe you..."
Daryl Lane's suffering was heavy, the toll everything had taken was immense. As he cradled the man, he felt tremendous guilt at what he'd done... tremendous regret at having torn the bandages off so harshly.
Christ, how did he manage to fuck it up so badly? He'd gone in like a three-hundred pound gorilla -- just like he always did -- and he'd fucked it up, just like he always did... just like he'd fucked up everything else in his life. He'd brought pain to another, which seemed to be all that he was proficient at doing. If there was a trophy for breaking people down, he would have it. If there was a champion, it would be him. If there was a medal, its pin would be dug deeply into the flesh of his chest.
Racked with contrition, he sat with Daryl until he'd cried more tears than most men shed from birth to death. There were certainly more than Timmy Lane had been allowed to shed, certainly more than Billy Marsh and all of the others. It took a long, long time, to finally get him settled. When he was back on his feet again, determined to finish his work like a working man does, Jake apologized to him for what he'd done. Lane waived it off, but he refreshed it with a new one. In parting, he promised to see this thing through... promised to find out who had murdered Timmy, promised to finally let the dead rest in peace.
Now, he was on two hooks... the hook of Chucky, and of Daryl Lane as well.
Hoping he could do right by them, hoping he could ease their pain, he climbed into his Malibu and set off for Chucky's trailer. Distracted in the emotional fallout, he drove right by Nikki's place and the one that sat beside it... fourteen-thirty Applewood, the former home of Tracy Swete and her blessed family.
Once inside his temporary abode, he flung himself on the couch with malice. Stretching out, he sighed and felt a throbbing he'd neglected while at Butcher's Lane. It was a powerful pulsating that hadn't ceased since he beat his fists against the face of some drunken fool and felt blood spattering onto his clothes.
His thoughts were not of Nikki, the temptress, the succubus... they were not of Tracy, neither young nor old. In fact, he didn't fantasize about any female at all as he pulled his erect penis from his pants, and none passed before his eyes as he set about his task with it. He thought only of the adrenaline, only of the rush, only of the fury, only of the anger. And the pleasure in that, God, it had been so long since he felt such pleasure.
It was incredible, it was transcendent, and it held out until he climaxed with an intensity he hadn't known for many years. When it was done, he simply closed his eyes... closed his eyes, and rested. It would be a deep rest, a deep and refreshing rest free of the ghosts that hounded him... free of the night terrors, free of the nagging feelings of inadequacy, free of the influence of liquor. It would be a rest in which he was free of everything... free of himself.
It would be a preview of the final rest that awaited him, when the puzzle was solved. When order was restored, at least as it related to Burlwood. When it was time for double indemnity, in the not too distant future...
TWENTY-EIGHT
Acetone
January 21st, 1995. 7:30PM
Garthby, Indiana
"Beeeeeeeeeeeees GOAL!" an overly enthusiastic voice declared over the public address system of The Garthby Icehouse. "Scored by number sixteen, Ja-Ja-Ja-Jacob Gigu?re! His tenth of the season, assisted by Jarrod Ambrose and Martin Scholl, at nine-minutes and thirty-two seconds of the third period! Give it up, for your Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Burlwood Bees!"
The two or three hundred people gathered at the Icehouse applauded, but their limited zeal was odd in juxtaposition with the uninhibited excitability of the PA announcer. Among the crowd were four people who were as thrilled with his goal as the commentator, and their cheers were almost embarrassing to Jacob in their fervor.
Looking up to them in the stands as he skated the bench and slapped gloves with his teammates, he begged them with his eyes to quiet down. They were on their feet and clapping like brain damaged seals on display at Sea World, all four of them. Chucky, Tracy, Nick and Nancy Swete. He was glad to have them there, pleased to be supported, but they didn't have to act like idiots... that was too much.
In the days since that fateful Thanksgiving, The Swetes had be
come his adoptive family. With his mother, Janet, being involuntarily committed to the psychiatric hospital for ninety days after her nearly fatal overdose, Tracy's family had stepped up to the plate and welcomed young Jacob into their home. He was deeply grateful for that, because they were under no obligation to take him in. They could've let him be placed into what Sheriff Rambo called the system, which he didn't speak very highly of when he laid out the options.
At thirteen, Jacob was not old enough to care for himself in the eyes of society. Of course, society wasn't aware that he had been required to be self-sufficient from the moment his father left this world. Society didn't appreciate the fact that he was the one who kept the Gigu?re household together, that he was carrying his mother's weight, as well as his own, all along. All that Janet Gigu?re had been good for in their existence was the cashing of her survivor benefits checks and the redemption of their food stamps. Shy of those things, Jacob was well versed in getting by and getting on with life. Even when Deputy Ron came around, his mother was checked out of day to day life. He would've been fine on his own while she was away, but that wasn't an option.
Bound by the principles of law, The Sheriff had a problem to deal with in young Jacob. When it became obvious that Janet would survive the incident, it was time to deal with the consequences. Rambo told Jacob he figured the penalty would amount to a minimum of ninety days in the hole, if not more if she was found to be so deficient in mind that she needed further help.
Had he known about the frosted glass, had he known the real truth, it probably would've been a good deal more than just the ninety. He didn't, though, because Jacob told him bald-faced lies when he asked what happened. Just as Deputy Ron instructed him to.
Presented with a case like this -- handed a juvenile who would be left without a parental figure or guardian for at least three months -- the average officer would've simply filed papers to have the boy declared a ward of The State and walked away. If Ron Boudreaux had been the sheriff, that's almost certainly what would've happened.
Rambo, however, was a special sort of person. Being a good man, a good police officer, he treated Jacob like an adult -- which he appreciated -- when he spelled out what entering the system would entail. He shared a handful of horror stories about foster situations gone wrong, and generally explained that he didn't want to resort to that option, if it was at all avoidable. Expressing his regret that he couldn't take Jacob into his house, because there was no room with Louie and he didn't have the time to supervise, he asked if there were any aunts or uncles that he might be able to stay with. There weren't, because both of his parents were only children, and all four of his grandparents were dead.
Not one to give up, The Sheriff asked if there was anyone he could think of that might be willing to assume responsibility for him in the short term. Grasping for straws, he mentioned The Swetes.
With an I'm going to make this work attitude, Rambo called them to the hospital and presented his case like an expert in the art of coercion.
After a preamble describing the basics, telling the tale of the overdose and what was to follow, Rambo started his pitch. "We're in a bit of a pinch, here, folks," he began. "Jacob's mother is going to be unable to care for him for just a little bit while she sorts herself out."
Before he even had a chance to ask the question, Nick Swete spoke up and declared "he can stay with us".
Pleased and a bit flabbergasted at the man's decisiveness, Clyde smiled and thanked his benefactors with hugs. Jacob had never seen a police officer give a hug, but it seemed right as he did it... it seemed fitting, seemed heartfelt and genuine.
As of one-thirty in the morning the day after Thanksgiving, The Swetes had a son on loan. They treated him just as they would their own, just as they did Tracy, and they brought him comfort beyond anything they could possibly imagine.
Nick took a special interest in Jacob, taking him under his wing and showing him what it meant to be the man of the house. His example was something entirely new, something Jacob had never encountered... and it was wonderful. If there was ever a time in his life that he felt was perfect, it was the period he spent as the honorary Jacob Swete. If only it could've been that way from the beginning, how different his life could've turned out.
The whole family got behind Darkwing to prop him up in his time of need, and he loved every second of it. They were always the loudest people in the audience at his junior league hockey games, which was nice -- but just a bit much for his humility, sometimes.
As he skated back out to center ice to take the face off at the direction of his coach, they finally sat back down and stopped cheering. His goal had tied the game against the Burlwood Bee's bitter rivals, The Blackmoor Wizards, and he knew there would be lots of chirping when he squared off with the opposing center.
"Nice shot, Darkwing!" a bigger, more burly boy than he was teased while they waited for the linesman to arrive and drop the puck. "Looks like it really got your big retarded friend Chu-Chu-Chucky excited!"
Jacob didn't say anything, he was wearing his game-face and wasn't about to have it broken by some fool of a goon. Had the damned referee hurried and restarted the game, it would've ended there. Unfortunately, there seemed to be some issue with the time clock, so all three ice officials were conferring in the ref's crease... there would be more time for trash talk.
A defenseman from The Wizards skated into the circle laughing, presumably at his teammate's jab, and started up himself. "I bet he can't wait to get home and celebrate by rubbing dicks with his big dumb faggot butt buddy!"
That made the center laugh too, and it pissed Jacob off just a bit. Still, he would've kept his cool... had it ended there.
"Did you hear about his mother?" the goon preparing for the face off added. "Bitch is in the nut house, stupid whore snorted too much coke off Deputy Ron's cock!"
"Must've been a loooong line!" the defenseman said. "I hear Boudreaux's got a baby's arm, bet his momma loves when he gives her a deep cavity search!"
His anger building, Jacob clenched his teeth around his mouthpiece and considered pouncing. The officials were still jerking off. What the hell was taking them so long?
"Hey, back off!" the center joshed. "We don't want the little pussy to go home and hang himself, like his loser da--"
Pushed to the limit, young Jacob Gigu?re just couldn't stand to hear anymore. Before the goon finished his sentence, there was a hand locked around his throat. It was Jake's left, of course, leaving his right free to smash at the bastard's face. Shaking off his glove, he started swinging wildly at the exposed portion of his chin.
All three officials on the ice started blowing their whistles like they were Chuck Mangione, but it was far too late for that. The goon proved to have a glass jaw, and he collapsed to the ice after the very first blow Jacob landed cleanly. Seeing nothing but red and fire, Darkwing fell upon him like a blanket of napalm and repeatedly blasted him in the face, taking out years of bridled fury on the unconscious teenager.
Every player on the ice joined the linesman and referees in trying to peel him off of the boy, but he wasn't finished yet. Pulling back with all the anger in his heart, he drove punch after punch after punch into the asshole's crumbling skull. In his rage, he sought to kill the kid... sought to see him dead, to see him mangled, to see him FUBAR, as it were. In the moment, his awareness was suddenly pulled away from his body again, as it had been when he stood in his mother's kitchen trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. From a place high above, from an angle just below the scoreboard, he watched himself assaulting the Wizard center. It was bizarre and it was frightening, and he was no longer in control.
Only when he was gassed, only when his fist felt broken, only when he was finished with his task were the people able to pull him off of the boy. Feeling powerful arms tugging at him, he was reintroduced to his body and back at the helm of control. As they towed him toward the locker room and he saw
through his own eyes again, the world was still painted in dark hues of red. Wrestling an arm free, he wiped at his visor and realized that this red wasn't anger at all. It was blood, and it was a lot of it. Looking back toward center ice, toward the fallen tyrant, the bully who now lay on the ice in a mangled heap, he saw that there was more red beneath him than there was the white of the ice.
Christ, what if he had killed the kid?
As the fit started to subside, as his nerves started to cool, he wondered what he'd done. He wondered what the fallout of this would be, for him and for The Swetes, whom he didn't want to let down or hurt in any way. Looking to the stands before he was pulled off of the rink altogether, he saw the family standing again.
This time, it wasn't in celebration. This time, it wasn't in praise. This time, it was in shock and in horror and in disappointment. Nick looked particularly disturbed, his face contorted in disbelief. Nancy was covering her mouth with her hands. Chucky looked confused, and Tracy... Tracy looked to be crying.
Before he was able to process the image and absorb the shame, he found himself being planted on a wooden bench in the smelly locker room of The Bees.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" one of the referees shouted in his face. "Are you some kind of fucking psycho or something?"
He didn't answer. How could he answer?
The next voice he heard was that of Fred Boyett, his coach, and he sounded just as angry as the officials were.
"Move, let me by! Let me in there!" he shouted in the corridor.
Jacob looked down at his skates when Fred entered the room. A tear fell from his eye in self loathing, a single drop of salty excrement that blended in with the sweat dripping from his body, hopefully going undetected. The coach had a spirited exchange with the officials, denouncing what he'd seen happen on the ice and blaming the refs for the delay that caused it all to simmer over. Assuring them that he would redress his player, he dismissed the zebras and directed that the game could resume in his absence.
Waiting until he was sure they were gone, until he heard the sounds of the puck dropping and the game restarting, he lowered himself to Jacob's level and tried to force eye contact.
"Look at me," he said firmly, but calmly. "Look at me, Gigu?re!"
Jacob didn't want to, he wanted to avoid facing up to what he'd done in shame. Fred wasn't afraid to put his hulking hands on him, though. The callouses raked at Jake's face as the man pulled his sweat and tear drenched chin up until he had no choice but to concede and meet his gaze.
"What happened out there, Jake?" he asked, staring deep into the soul of his charge. "Tell me, son, what happened?"
Unable to hold back any longer, unable to keep the cork in the bottle, the young man burst at his seams and started sobbing. Tears rained down unchecked, unfettered and with haste.
"Let it out!" Fred ordered. "Just let it out, son! You can't keep it all inside, NOBODY can!"
The coach took Jacob's hands and squeezed them, lowering his shoulder to receive the boy's face. He planted it there, knocking his bloodied helmet from his head as all the sorrow of his days spilled from his eyes. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd cried, but these tears weren't the same as any he'd shed before. They came from deep within him. They were primal, and they were stale. They were old, and they were overdue.
"Look," Fred advised after several minutes, while the bout was still raging, "You're gonna have to pull it together, son! I want you to get out of here before the game is over, I don't want you running into any of those Wizards out in the lot! I want you to get changed and go out the back, I'll tell The Swetes that you'll be waiting by their car, okay?"
Jacob nodded, gasping back what remained of his fit and assuming control of his faculties as well as he could. He felt different in the passing of the episode than he had when it began. He felt altered, he felt changed. Uncertain as to the nature of this transformation, he felt confused.
Fred left just as the five-minute buzzer sounded, he wouldn't have much time to change clothes. Hurriedly, he stripped off his uniform and gear, stuffing it into his bag recklessly. There was no time to take a shower, he would have to pull his clean clothes over his stinking, sweaty body. It was uncomfortable to feel his filth trapped under fresh garments, just as it was uncomfortable to feel the blackness of his soul screaming and begging for escape through the melting facade of his decent and innocent flesh.
There was a stain on him, now, he thought. His body wasn't as innocent as it had been this morning, his skin wasn't as inexperienced as it once was. He'd crossed a line on this night. He'd let his dark half take the helm, had let it come out to play in the public square among people who weren't prepared to look upon it. People who didn't know that blackness was living and festering inside of him at all.
There was no hiding it anymore, the cat was out of the bag. Everyone in the building knew of the ugliness and the monster that bubbled just underneath his cloak of human skin. Everyone in town would eventually hear that Jacob Gigu?re had totally lost his shit. There was now a clear point of demarcation, everything before this incident would be the past, and everything moving forward would be different, because he was different, now. He was blackened, he was stained, he was forever altered, in reality and in the perception of those around him.
How could he live with them, now that they knew what he really looked like?
Slamming his locker shut, he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror on its door. It was an ugly face, one he didn't like at all. It was a face of hate, a face of disgust, a face of loathing, A face he would have to look at for the remainder of his life, from this moment forth.
It was the face of a man, now. He was no longer a boy, that time had passed. The man that he was going to become, whether he liked it or not, was depicted in the reflection of that mirror. The die were cast, the runes were twirling on the cloth and would settle into a picture that was none too flattering to behold. This was him... this ugliness was him.
Turning his back to the reflection he didn't want to accept, he stormed out the back door with his bag over his shoulder. It was frigid outside, and he felt the sweat and tears all over his body starting to freeze upon his flesh. The cold felt good in his lungs, though, so he drew a deep breath and tried to press his internal reset button.
It was with this breath that he smelled the smell... the odor of nail polish remover, pungent and strong. Looking to his right, he saw what he assumed was the condensation of someone's breath in the chilly evening spilling around the brick corner of the Icehouse. As he walked towards it, in the direction of The Swete family station wagon, he realized that it was, in fact, smoke billowing about. The smoke wasn't like a cigarette, it wasn't even like a joint... it was different, and it was the source of the nail polish smell.
Rounding the corner, he saw the Burlwood Highschool Varsity team gathered there. They had a game tonight as well, they were scheduled to hit the ice at eight-thirty. It looked like all of them were present, each standing by their own bag of gear as they talked and laughed amongst themselves.
They seemed surprised to see Jacob. Seemed frightened to see him, actually. When he appeared, one of the guys closed his fist around something, as though he were trying to hide it.
"Oh," another of them said, sounding relieved. "It's just Jake!"
"Shit," a third exclaimed. "We thought you were fucking Rambo!"
Jake smiled and shook his head. He liked the guys from the varsity team, he wanted to engraciate himself, if possible. He aspired to play for them one day, to represent his town with pride, when he was of adequate age to do so. Apparently satisfied that he wasn't a cop, the one that had closed his hand opened it and shook it wildly.
"Fuck!" he cried. "Damn thing burnt the shit out of me!"
One of the other players reached out for what he was holding, taking what appeared to be a glass pipe from him and pressing it to his lips. "Who's got the
lighter?" he asked, and another boy handed him a red cylinder.
Jacob watched, dumbfounded, as the boy flicked the Bic and held the flame under the pipe. As he drew a deep breath, the fire danced around the glass and something glowed inside of it. It was something that looked familiar, something he had seen before. In its molten incandescence, it resembled the frosted glass he'd seen spread all over his mother's coffee table. It was a piece of what he'd seen caked and powdered all over her face as she frothed and foamed. This piece was solid and turning molten in the heat, but it was clearly the same stuff.
Letting the flame flicker out, the player drew a bit more breath and seemed to strain to hold it in.
"Yeah Jonezy!" a teammate encouraged. "Take it to the head, baby!"
When he finally exhaled, the air around them was flooded with the chemical smell of the smoke. It wasn't a pleasant odor at all. To Jacob, it didn't seem like something that anyone would ever want to have inside of their body. The coughing recipient of the last drag seemed thrilled at it, though. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, which was beyond Jacob's understanding and comprehension.
"God, it stinks!" another player commented.
"Yeah," the one who took the drag coughed, "but lemme tell ya', the shit is right on time!"
Studying the team, he realized that all of them seemed just a bit off. Every one of them was high, like his mother when she was popping her pills. In observing their pleasure, Jake wondered exactly what this frosted glass was and what it was all about.
"What is that?" he asked his potential role models naively.
The team looked at him in unison, as though they weren't sure that they should say. After an uncomfortable moment, one of them finally opened up and spilled the beans.
"It's called ice," he explained. "Do you wanna try it?"
Jacob shook his head, he didn't want to. He couldn't imagine wanting to.
One of the biggest players among them stepped forward and reached for the pipe, taking the lighter and preparing to have his turn. Just before he hit it himself, he spoke a warning that Jacob had heard before. It sounded more threatening in this instance than the last time it was uttered, but it was the same warning with the same connotations nonetheless.
"You'll keep your mouth shut about it, though... if you know what's good for you!"
TWENTY-NINE