by David Scott
I don’t want to believe Lauren, but I can tell by her voice that this is true. I break down. I can’t help it.
Memories flash before my eyes; cuddling on the sofa, dancing together at a wedding, listening lovingly as I read the same stories out loud, calling me her brave little soldier, singing softly, and always there no matter what.
Lauren keeps repeating that I already know this and weeps a little herself, as if also experiencing this news for the first time. Or maybe she simply can’t cope with seeing me in this sort of pain.
I am unable to regain any sort of composure or take charge of my emotion, still sobbing uncontrollably, but this news makes me even more determined to find out what I am doing in this place.
Lauren, having steeled herself, tells me in a matter of fact tone that I have been locked up because I killed some people and “did some bad shit”.
The shock of this news stops every other emotion in its track. I don’t understand. I remember nothing. I tell her this can’t be right. She knows me. I would never hurt a fly, let alone kill someone. There must be a mistake. Lauren must do something about it and get me out of here.
I am angry and confused. Everything is foggy and my head hurts. I feel desperately empty.
Lauren hangs her head down low. The black curtain of her hair stares blindly back at me, its unnatural sheen hiding her from the changing looks of horror and grief displayed on my face.
We are told that time is up and I am taken away. Time means nothing to me now. I hardly recognise or understand its passing.
Later, a large, bulky man enters my room and leads me out onto a small concrete yard. The look of the yard stirs up the past.
I walk slowly around its perimeter, looking back at the man, who is watching me. A disinterested bluebottle buzzes lazily past me. I don’t know who this person is, but he is looking at his phone and lets out a deep, hollow laugh.
The sound conjures Easton into my mind. I feel an immediate pain from somewhere deep within my body.
The problem with first meetings is that you don’t know how important that new person is going to be to you. They could be the love of your life, passingly inconsequential, or the catalyst for your death. You just don’t know.
I try to remember the first time I meet someone, just in case they turn out to be important, like Easton.
Had I known then what I know now, then I should have run. Sprinted away and never looked back. If I had turned a different corner and gone into another bar, none of it would have happened.
But I didn’t and fate will have her way. In truth, maybe I would have chosen to take the same path, even if I did know the outcome, such were my feelings for Easton; I am not sure that anything could have dragged me away.
He found me alone at an empty bar. I was going through one of my low periods and I hadn’t wanted company, but he just sat down next to me and started to make conversation. I wondered how anyone could just walk up to a stranger and start talking, but he did.
Easton was not traditionally handsome, but there was something about him. An irresistible cocktail of striking features, commanding physical presence, and natural charm. An overall appeal, that words cannot do justice to. A toxic concoction for my thirst.
Easton towered above me and so leant his stocky frame against the bar to lower himself to my level. I noticed he was well groomed, with razor-shaped dark stubble, short gel-styled hair, a strong nose, sharp jaw lines and penetrating hazel eyes. A sort of leathery musk smell permeated around him, mixing with the stale scent of beer, to arouse the air. His skin-tight ice blue jeans and white t-shirt flattered his muscly features. He spoke in bass tones and regularly let out generous, deep laughs. I found myself instantly attracted to him.
As the afternoon mysteriously turned into evening and others swarmed around us, he continued to focus his attention on me. It would have been easy to turn a shoulder or walk away, but he didn’t.
From that moment on, Easton and I were pretty much inseparable and his intoxicating presence became necessary to me.
Likewise, Easton seemed to want to keep me close. Always watching out for me. He would deliberately keep a place for me next to him, bring me into conversations by asking for my opinion, and look to me to support his position. I was a willing follower; happy for him to pull on my puppet strings.
When I wasn’t with him, I didn’t know what to do with myself and would just hang around my flat awaiting his call.
The anticipation of seeing him was maddening. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, craved his attention and would do anything for him.
I knew it was love and equally knew that allowing someone to have that sort of power over me was dangerous, but it was too late and I was caught by his gravity.
Listening to these thoughts in my mind now, I realise the sentiments sound so clichéd, but maybe there is an authenticity in cliché. How many times have you held someone close, whether your mother, son or lover, and never wanted to let them go?
Cliché can be truthful and, in this case, it was; I had never felt before the way Easton made me feel. I was alive for the first time.
Easton always seemed to have a crowd of followers. I wasn’t really interested in the others, except to the extent they fought me for his attention, and then I didn’t like them.
They were all too loud, too brash and really not that much fun or interesting to be around. Their habits seemed to revolve around drinking, eating and the ladies.
But those things didn’t interest me and it seemed they didn’t interest Easton that much either.
Easton’s first improper request of me was small, but I recall it vividly because what he asked me to do was wrong and, until that time, I had been a real do-gooder.
He had won some money in a casino when the others were not around. He asked me not to tell anyone about it. I didn’t question why, but I knew we were supposed to be sharing any winnings and he had no intention of honouring this promise.
I didn’t tell them. It is so ridiculous looking back at it now, but I did it because I wanted to please him and having our own secret somehow brought us closer together; I was the trusted, beloved one.
I willingly accepted Easton’s malicious infection. He was a tonic for my soul. Something I needed. I was happy for his roots to penetrate my foundations, leading to the inevitable crumbling of my core.
One evening when we had all been to a bar together, one of the crowd mocked me and asked why Easton kept me hanging around; his implications were clear, there was something more to this relationship, something physical or some kind of love.
I was furious and my pride had been dented. But I sat in silence, which made it worse. It confirmed my cowardice to my embryonic bully.
Easton jumped out of his seat and floored him with one punch. He kicked him in the face, over and over again. Spurts of crimson, mixed and diluted with saliva, spewed all over the laminate floor. One of the onlookers threw-up. But for me, this was a welcome horror. A shameful pleasure.
The blood stains on Easton’s white trainers would not come out, no matter how hard we scrubbed them. I was happy to keep the souvenir; a permanent reminder of Easton’s protective act.
Easton reminded me of some type of adorable wild animal. Something you just wanted to get close to and cuddle, but which you know could quite easily take off your face with one bite if it wanted to, or if you caught it in the wrong mood. But the temptation to get closer is always there, and you don’t really believe it would ever happen to you.
No one ever spoke to me like that again. In fact, most of them didn’t talk to me at all, which was just fine with me.
Easton never spoke a word of it, but I loved the fact that he fought for me. No one had ever done that before. I decided then that he could have my life and do with it as he pleased.
A few days later, Easton and I were in some cheap clothes shop. Easton casually picked up a red and black checked lumber jacket and just walked out with it.
I was frozen
to the spot, certain the security team would run out after him. But no one seemed to notice, overly intent on their own affairs, or maybe nobody cared what happened to these misfits.
Easton was leaning against a wall outside and laughed when he saw the shock on my face. He dared me to do the same thing. I would never normally steal, but this seemed important to Easton. He thought it would make a point us both wearing the same stolen shirt. Or at least that is what he said.
I wanted to impress him. The fear of letting him down suppressed the hot flush of anticipation I felt knowing I was about to commit a crime. His wish was my command.
Sure enough, the same outcome happened. We were stood side-by-side wearing the same over-sized shirts, like some ridiculous comedy act.
He casually put his heavy arm over my shoulder as we walked out of the mall and down town.
Later that night, still wearing the same outfits, we walked by some recently rejuvenated canal.
The lights reflected purples and blues and beautified the dirty water; the plain brown moth transformed into a pretty butterfly.
A distant saxophone played an old forgotten love song about love letters from the heart.
I deliberately moved closer to Easton, so our shoulders occasionally touched. He didn’t notice or, at least, pretended not to.
I noticed Easton watching a man walking towards us. I have to admit that my immediate reaction was one of jealously.
Why was Easton transfixed by this stranger? Why was he so intent on following his every move? It soon became clear.
As he came closer and approached us, without any warning, Easton sprung and grabbed him around the neck in a ferocious choke hold.
Easton shouted for me to grab the man’s wallet. I hesitated. Easton raised his voice and demanded my compliance. I just did it and quickly lifted the wallet out of the startled man’s jacket pocket.
Easton let him go, grabbed my wrist and dragged me away, sprinting off together, away from any light, into the darkness.
Rain started to fall as we ran. Lightly at first, but then it became torrential. We slowed down and stood close together under a tree to get some shelter. For me it felt romantic, but I think Easton just wanted to stay dry.
Easton smiled at me, wide-eyed and happy. He was talking incessantly. I wasn’t listening to what he was saying; too busy enjoying his excitement and the steamy closeness, as the heat from our animal bodies evaporated the dampness from the rain.
I recall a sense of overwhelming guilt mixing with the delight I found in pleasing Easton. This was something else we were in together and I wanted more.
Our criminal acts became like a shared addiction. I felt an increasing need to please Easton. He seemed to need the exhilaration he felt by having power over others, not to mention the financial means to live.
We carved a career in petty muggings and moved around town to keep the police at bay.
Once you have committed a crime, it seems easier and easier to commit others. And once you set the bar at a certain level, you seem to need to go above it to get the same high. It is a steady and progressive escalation. It is an addiction from which there is no coming back.
Easton would quickly exculpate us from any guilt by referencing historic morals. Why should we be judged by today’s laws and standards?
In the past it was kill or be killed and only the strongest survived. Animals take what they need and do what they have to in order to survive. We are created this way, and who are we to fight our nature?
If there are gods, they designed us. If not, then why worry. Easton’s logical reassurances always quelled my guilt.
But it wasn’t all Bonnie and Clyde. I remember one time when I was full of cold and couldn’t get out of bed. Easton propped himself up right beside me; I was under the blanket and he was on top.
He didn’t leave my side unless I needed something and we sat mindlessly watching television together. I think it was some irrelevant sporting event, like a third-round curling match, but we became transfixed in the competition.
Physically I felt like I was dying, mentally I was buzzing and on top of the World. However, I am not sure his closeness helped in my healing, as it was sending my blood pressure and temperature into the stratosphere.
I didn’t want this closeness to ever end and pretended to be ill longer than I was to make it last.
Another spectre enters my mind. I remember one night when Easton and I had been waiting for the night bus. It was dark and silent, Easton and I standing in comfortable silence.
I saw a man in a suit walking ahead of a group. I think there were about five or six of them, and their pace was quickening. The man ahead pretended not to notice, but he also stepped up his pace. All of this in silence.
As they came closer, I could see the panic on the man’s face and it was clear that he was searching desperately for an escape route.
He looked across to me and Easton. We were staring back. He quickly changed his direction and marched purposefully towards us.
The gang just kept walking on the same path and didn’t even glance across at us. The man had probably crafted devils out of a bunch of harmless nobodies, but the mind will have its fun and torment us in the blackness of the night.
The man said hello to us and made some passing comment on the evening. I responded politely and smiled. He let out a sigh, probably both from over exertion and relief, and physically relaxed; lowering his shoulders, rubbing the back of his neck and leaning against the bus shelter.
I don’t know what he thought about us, but he had obviously looked us over and was suitably happy that we were no threat; that he would gain safety from numbers and increase the carrion available to any predators.
Easton turned to the man. The man looked up, probably thinking Easton was going to engage him in conversation, ask for the time, or something like that. Instead, Easton slowly reached out and took him by the throat.
No sudden movements, no nefarious glares or loud threats; just a simple act, almost gentle, like a mother cat picking up her kitten by the scruff of its neck. His grip tightened.
The man was snared and had a look on his face like a rabbit caught in headlights. He looked at me for help but realised none was coming; his flight instincts had betrayed him.
His camel coloured chinos darkened. He had wet himself from fear.
Easton laughed and I joined in, not because I found it funny, quite the opposite, it disgusted me that we could do this to someone, but I was part of this, part of Easton, and too weak or pathetic to do anything else. I needed Easton’s approval and wanted him to be happy. If that meant laughing in this man’s face, then so be it.
Easton encouraged me to take an even bigger part. He took out a knife and put it in my hand. I looked at Easton, then at the man, who closed his eyes, and seemed to know that the worst was yet to come. Or maybe he had simply given up and resigned himself to his fate.
I could have just robbed the man like we usually did, but for some reason unknown to me, Easton wanted to take this one further. Maybe he needed to go to the next level to get satisfaction.
Easton placed his hand tenderly over mine and guided the knife slowly into the man’s stomach. Blood spilled from the puncture hole. Easton grinned.
All that I could think about was Easton’s hand over mine. It was electrifying and the trip-switch of my mind had turned off the consequential horror.
Easton had taken the knife from me, raised the man’s t-shirt, and carved out our initials in his skin, as a young lover might sketch out their initials in the sand or chip them into a tree, seeking to create a romantic gesture or permanent reminder of a special time and place.
Perhaps this was special to us. The man just stared at me, wide-eyed and in shock. All I could do was smile when I realised what Easton had done.
Nearly killed, betrayed and humiliated. I wonder now how the man would have survived this. How could he ever again find the confidence to go out or face himself in the mirror?
The stab wound I expect healed quickly, but mental scars can be much worse than physical ones. We probably destroyed him. Maybe he destroyed himself or was sport for another predator, fate having not finished her cruel game with him. Maybe he is ok. It doesn’t matter now.
That was the first time I stabbed someone, but by no means the last. The brutality seemed to heighten with each subsequent mugging. Like other addictions, you always want more and more; the escalator perilously increases speed.
Easton’s addiction seemed to be violence and power over others. Mine was simply Easton.
Soon the cold hard steel of a knife seemed routine and I could tell Easton wanted something different.
The possibility of his boredom terrified me. If he got bored with our common sport then he could just as easily get bored with me.
Easton needed some reinvention, something new, and I was determined not to be the discarded part.
I went to the store and came back with his surprise present. Still cold hard metal, but this was a gun. It was time to go to the next level. The exhilaration of courtship was over and now for the comfort of commitment.
I justified this by persuading myself that this would relieve both of my concerns; it would give Easton a new toy to play with and should lead to less harm. The gun was not meant to be used. It was just to threaten. No more knife lunges and plunges.
To say that Easton loved his gun would be an understatement. It was tantamount to some sort of divine courtship. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it, turning the gun over and over in his hands. Caressing its shapely curves. Teasing the barren bullet chamber. Fingering the impotent trigger.
However, it was clear to me that his frustration was growing, and this would not satisfy him for long. Easton wanted more.
While he assured me he would never use it, Easton decided that he should at least understand its mechanisms and practice aiming and firing it, just in case it proved necessary to defend us. After all, it was better to be prepared for such an eventuality.
