by Craig Taylor
Both parents agreed that, as long as he wasn’t having long-winded conversations with the air and his friend wasn’t a black caped devil who told him to strangle small animals, it was okay. They assumed he would grow out of it, but he hadn’t yet.
John noticed a young couple walking hand-in-hand and talking quietly, leaning in and whispering in each other’s ears. It reminded him of when he first met Janine. It wasn’t in a park like this, but in a pub after work. They were both intoxicated and, although he thought at the time no good will come of a relationship formed during a drunken party, they actually stayed together for seven years. The first two years were the best. Frequent sex, dinners out, weekends away and no real money hassles. Then they got married. That set them back fifteen grand, the honeymoon another five. Then the house that they couldn’t afford, but purchased anyway to try and match what their friends had. Eventually they were financially crippled.
Janine was one of those women who wanted it all despite being brought up middle-class with a mother who was a teacher and an engineer father. She probably wouldn’t have been with John had it been a setup or a different social gathering, but because she was as drunk as he was, it suited them both at the time. They got Jason out of it, which John would never complain about. The hell Janine put him through during the last year, with her tantrums and moods, was cancelled out by the joy of his son.
The young couple passed directly in front of where he sat, and smiled directly at him. He smiled back, remembering that when you’re in love everyone is a potential friend. It reminded him of walking on the beach with Janine in their early months. He even smiled a little when he thought of the time they argued over baby names. Janine was the one who came up with Jason. She said it was funky and modern to have all their names beginning with a J. John thought it was dumb, but didn’t fight it too long—just enough so that if Jason ever complained about the three J’s when he was older, he could honestly say he didn’t agree with it and voiced his opinion accordingly.
The sound of Jason running up to him laughing snapped him out of his daydream. It was getting a bit dark and cool, and they hadn’t eaten much that day.
“Time for dinner, I think,” he told his smiling, energetic son.
“Okay,” came the quick reply as he zoomed around John’s legs with his arms outstretched like a plane coming in to land.
They walked back to the apartment hand-in-hand as the last of the Sun’s rays competed with the city’s skyscrapers, creating long dark, cool patches where they walked through the shadows and then back into sunshine.
They both enjoyed a dinner of John’s homemade pizza. He had a beer and Jason a Coke. It wasn’t the healthiest of meals, but he knew that when Jason came to visit he wanted food like that, because Janine was so strict with what he ate. She expected their five-year-old son to eat the same diet as she did, while seeing all of his friends get treats like the occasional pie or chocolate muffin, and it upset him sometimes. John always made sure they ate balanced diets. Treats every now and then and healthy ninety percent of the time, was his motto. Jason was staying the night so John would send him to school the next morning with a healthy sandwich, fruit and a muesli bar.
As he did the dishes, John thought about the conversation over the phone he and Janine had had the night before about Jason staying the night. He was supposed to be dropped back the same day, but John had asked if Jason could spend the night and be dropped off to school in the morning. At first she refused, but when he kept calm and merely suggested another night would be fun for Jason, she relented. He got the feeling she suddenly realized she had something on and would appreciate Jason staying out the night with his father. He was determined to show her he was responsible and could be trusted with Jason’s well-being.
He couldn’t really blame Janine for being a little worried. When they first split, she took Jason and played the doting, stressed solo mother, working and taking care of their son. He, on the other hand went out, and drank his sorrows away, picking up women as often as he could. Some nights he was successful, other nights he bombed, but he always got drunk. He came home more often than not with a young, dumb, drunk woman.
Janine had been in the bar one night after they had separated, and watched him in action. She talked to one of the regulars about this, who gave a funny, very damaging commentary of John’s antics over the preceding weeks.
As he scrubbed the plates, he couldn’t help thinking about some of the women he’d picked up. He smiled to himself about Lisa, the nutter. She seemed nice in the pub, was a little drunk. She was a pretty, tall redhead with large breasts and cute little dimples that appeared when she laughed at his lame jokes. When he got her home though, it became apparent she liked sex very rough and would swear loudly in his ear, ordering him to pound her harder “like a man, not like a pussy with a strap on.” At one point she hit him in the head because he slowed down. He didn’t call her back.
Then there was Paula, the skinny thirty-five year old, who was petrified she was running out of time to have kids and forced herself to have sex; it was obvious she abhorred physical contact with men. She refused to let him go down on her, wouldn’t go near his penis with anything but her hand during foreplay, and wouldn’t even look at it. When he made love to her, she turned her head to the side, closed her eyes tight and made little squeaking noises each time he thrust inside her. She also didn’t get a return call.
There was the occasional one he would have called back; but in the end he was using them for sex, to take his mind off his failed marriage. As far as he knew, they were using him as well.
When he finished the dishes, he walked down to Jason’s room. His son was fast asleep and snoring very quietly. John grinned. Just like his Dad, he thought; a snorer. He covered Jason in the Spiderman blanket he bought when Jason begged endlessly after seeing it on television.
He couldn’t be happier than he was now. Although he was separated from his wife, living in a very small inner city apartment, and single after a failed marriage and disastrous one-night stands, he had his son. He was a miniature version of him and Janine. An innocent, happy boy. He would grow to be a good man if it was the last thing John could do.
The next morning, John was up before sunrise and on his treadmill. He had the TV on a documentary about killer ants on the animal channel. It was the only way he could exercise long enough to be beneficial, so he watched television every morning while he worked out.
Once he had finished and showered, he woke Jason up and made him take a shower. Jason was not very good about getting up in the mornings and getting ready for school. Soon, however, he was at the table eating apple flavored porridge and drinking orange juice. He never spoke much in the morning. John and Janine used to joke he had to have at least an hour before his brain kicked in.
While Jason ate, John got ready for work. He gathered the papers he needed for an early meeting, double-checked his facts and figures. At 8.30 they walked out the door together. He held a briefcase while Jason had a backpack, he was wearing a suit while Jason was in school uniform. Both were freshly showered and ready for the day. John smiled at the sight.
“You have a good time staying over last night?” he asked.
Jason looked up and smiled as they got to the elevator. “I had the best time,” he replied. “When can we do it again?”
“I’ll talk to your mother. When she sees how much fun you had and how well we did, she shouldn’t mind.”
“Cool,” Jason said.
The traffic was light as they drove towards the school. John knew one of the reasons Janine was okay with him getting Jason to school was she knew how close his apartment was to the campus. They listened to the pair of morning DJ’s ring an unsuspecting man and pretend one of them was the man’s wife’s lover, while she waited on the line secretly listening. When the man began to get angry and was crying and swearing, the DJ’s let him in on
the ruse, and the wife apologized on air. She explained she did it to get them a free trip away for the weekend, with five hundred dollars spending money. The man forced a laughed, but John could tell he was faking being happy because he knew he was on the air.
“Idiots,” John muttered.
“Idiots,” Jason echoed.
John found a parking space down the road from the school. They got out and, after handing Jason his bag, they walked in the same direction as the other children and their parents. The parking space wasn’t too far away, but they had a busy road to cross to get to the main gate, which meant John would have to drive quickly to his meeting. He knew if his presentation was successful, he would get a bonus big enough for the deposit on a house. There was no way he was going to be late.
As they got to the crossing and prepared to cross the road, John heard a shout from behind. It sounded like someone was calling out a name, but he couldn’t quite hear who. He turned, and saw a young boy in the same uniform as Jason running away from his father toward the busy street. The father was chasing him and shouting for him to stop, but the boy kept running. The man screamed the boy’s name in desperation, his face plainly showing anger mixed with fear.
“Alex, stop! Stop now!”
John could see the boy wasn’t going to stop. The road was busy with fast-moving cars moving through a green light. He held his hand out in front of Jason and told him to stop. “Wait here.”
As the other boy got to the edge of the road, John grabbed him before he could run into traffic. He was running fast, and there was no doubt he would have run straight into the cars had John not stopped him. He could feel the boy’s heart beating as he grabbed him. The boy nearly lost his balance, but John managed to hold him upright.
Then came the screeching of tires and a sickening thud. John was confused. He had stopped the boy from running on the road. There was no need for cars to screech to a halt. The boy’s father ran up to them and stopped. He didn’t say anything, or even look at John or his son. He put his hand on his sons shoulder and stared past John to the road.
A sudden feeling of dread came over him. Somehow he could sense Jason was no longer standing there. He felt sick; the world seemed to move in slow-motion. He knew something was wrong. He saw people running past him onto the road. He couldn’t hear anything anymore. As he turned it was as though he were moving through half-set concrete.
The sight that greeted him made him feel like the world had stopped and wouldn’t start again. Jason was lying on the road in front of a car with a caved-in windshield. Jason’s unnatural body position and the obvious injuries to his head told John he wasn’t alive. John couldn’t move; he tried to run to Jason, but his legs were like blocks of stone. People were standing around Jason, who was lying on the road. One lady was checking for a pulse, talking quietly in his ear. Another lady was on her cell phone calling for help. Others were standing there, staring at his tiny body, crumpled in the twisted mess of glass, plastic and blood. One mother shielded her children’s eyes, and moved them away from the scene as fast as she could.
The last thing John remembered was moving in Jason’s direction, then blackness. As he fainted, he realized his life was over. Nothing would matter ever again.
Chapter Three
Five weeks later
John took a taxi home. He was tired and sore, and had just been lectured by his doctor about correct diet, avoiding excess alcohol consumption and looking after himself. The beautiful nurse wasn’t there when he left; in fact she had not returned since their first encounter. He looked for her and hoped she would enter every time his door opened. Instead, he ended up with a very old, very fat and very angry nurse who had little patience for people who ended up in the hospital because they ‘couldn’t resist the temptation of the bottle,’ as she told him more than once.
He collected his bag from the trunk of the cab, then made his way to the door. The door mat he vomited on had been replaced by a new one. This one read ‘Welcome To My Home’ in bright blue lettering. Just as he wondered what had happened to the old one, the door opened, and Christopher was standing there, still dressed in the blue suit and tie, still immaculate, still smiling as though there was nothing odd about him being in John’s house.
“Ahh, what are you doing here?” John asked, knowing he’d probably been evicted for unpaid rent.
Christopher smiled and motioned for him to come in. “As you can see, the place is clean, and everything is fresh.”
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my house,” John said, looking around, actually impressed with how nice it looked.
“Actually, technically it’s my place. Your landlord wanted to know where you were and where the rent was, last month’s as well as this month’s. I told him I’m a friend of yours and paid him the money. He still wanted to kick you out. I offered to take over the lease.”
John just looked at him, not sure what to say.
“I’m your new roommate. Due to the circumstances in your life, it just turned out this way. Life’s quirky like that sometimes.”
John picked up his bag and walked toward the door. Christopher followed. “Where are you going?”
John spun on his heel and said, “Anywhere but here. I have nothing here. All this furniture was here when I moved in and I didn’t bother with many clothes either. I’ll come back for them when I find a new place. Welcome to your new home.”
“You have nowhere to go, John,” Christopher replied. “Stay here. Your room is your room. It’s just a roommate situation.”
“No thanks. I’ll stay with my friends or family for a while. I don’t even know you.”
He stopped dead at the door when Christopher said, “You know you have no one to turn to. You know your family is not prepared to forgive you, so unless you plan to sleep on the streets, you have no place to stay.”
John stormed, “Who the hell are you? You show up on my doorstep as I collapse, you show up in my hospital room—which, by the way I’m aware you paid for—then you end up in my house. Not only inside, you are on the lease and are technically my new landlord. This doesn’t make sense; it’s too weird! It feels like a Twilight Zone episode.”
Christopher just smiled calmly. “It makes all the sense in the world. Things happen for a reason. People come into your life for a reason. Situations happen for a reason. Go with it and see what happens. Stay here for a week. I’m not a homicidal maniac. It’s just a roommate situation, as I said. Adults live together all the time. They may not meet like we did, but you know I’m reliable and pay my debts. It seems to me you could do with some company.”
“How do you know about me?” John asked. “You know about my family, my friends, my finances, and just about everything else in my life as well. Are you some sort of stalker?”
“No. See me as a guardian angel if you like. You know, ‘Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.’”
John didn’t return the smile. “Don’t get me started on the Bible, Christopher. God left me a while ago, and took a huge part of me with him. I’m not interested anymore. You are right, though, about my friends and family, and my money situation. I guess I’ll stay here for now and see how it goes.”
Christopher held out his hand. John shook it wearily.
“Welcome to the beginning, or the end,” Christopher said.
“Stop talking in riddles,” John replied.
He was tired, despite all his sleep over the last few days in the hospital. He took a shower and went directly to bed. He slept restlessly for about an hour before deciding he was hungry. He went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. On the middle shelf was a plate covered in plastic wrap. Through the plastic, John could see a freshly-made salad and some chicken. Next to that was a bottle of water with a note. He thought it would read, ‘Don’t touch – Property of Christopher!”
&
nbsp; “Here we go, I knew it, one of those people who start out seeming normal, then little things happen like notes on food, locked cupboards and strange smells from the bedroom.”
He opened the note and was surprised. A little fresh, healthy food for you for when you wake up restless – C.
He shook his head. This guy was a real oddball, he thought. He looked around the house for Christopher, but he was nowhere to be found. John ate the chicken and salad, drank the mineral water and went back to bed. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep again, but again it was a restless and light slumber.
He dreamed. Not dreams he wanted or hoped for, but dark dreams, memories and fiction rolled into uncomfortable, hot pantomimes in his head. He rolled back and forth in the bed, sweat dripping from his body, saturating his sheets, muttering in his sleep.
In his dream he was trying to shout, but his jaw was locked and would hardly move. His legs were solid as rock and refused to budge. He knew he had to run from something, but couldn’t see what. He could sense the darkness all around him, hear voices; some he thought he knew, but not most.
Intermittent screams emanated from the gloom, as though there were others suffering along side of him. He struggled and tried to shout, but the darkness got thicker and started to get in his lungs, eyes and ears. It was thick and sick and smoky. A thunderous rumbling sound boomed off in the distance. It sounded like a million horses’ hooves pounding on concrete, advancing toward him. Whatever it was, it was wicked and angry, and it wanted him. The screams and cries got louder and louder until it blended with the evil rumbling, reaching a vile crescendo.
Just as he thought he’d be trampled by whatever was threatening to pound over him, it and everything else—including the screams and cries of the others—stopped. The darkness faded and suddenly light shone in the distance. It was a cool, comfortable light which generated a peaceful calm outwards. There was nothing evil about it and he realized it was the complete opposite of the darkness.
