Grim

by Gavin McCallion

  Tom watched her hand over the bag and offload me onto him. I didn't wake up.

  'Oh, she must be getting her sleep in now, doesn't want to doze during Star Wars.' Dad said, grinning in a way that Tom assumed to be smug.

  He clenched a fist.

  'Same time tomorrow, yeah?' Mum asked.

  'Of course. Thank you, May.'

  She shut the door and spun around. Her nostrils flared. 'You're the fucking dumbest.'

  'Aye thanks, but we've got plans May.'

  'He's obsessed with taking Cora to that film. His Dad did it for him, it's a big deal. Sorry, but he's had this day with Cora booked for ages.'

  'Was that before my parents got married? Twenty-five years ago?'

  ‘It was before you remembered they got married twenty-five years ago!'

  'Aye very good...'

  Mum shook her head and stormed by, deliberately bumping his shoulder. 'Fucking dumbest.'

  'I'm just asking that maybe just once, I'm treated better than him. Maybe just once my plans get-'

  'Are you kidding?' Mum called back without turning. 'Seriously?'

  To be fair, Tom kind of knew he was pushing it with that one.

  'May, wait. Can we talk about this?'

  At the doorway to the kitchen, she turned. 'Go home, and stop telling me what to do with my kid.' And slam went the door.

  'Motherfucker...'

  Tom said goodbye to Grandpa in the living room, who gave him a knowing nod, then put on his shoes and left.

  ~

  Tom was back in the rain watching Dad try to fit his mobile phone in his mouth.

  He needed his other hand free to fasten me into the baby seat in his car but wasn't sure how to go about it. After he had spent ninety unsuccessful seconds trying to position the phone between his teeth, he decided to leave it on my lap instead.

  Tom wanted to hit him.

  Tom wanted this part of his life to be over. He wasn't being unreasonable. He wasn't asking much. If he were to parade an ex-girlfriend around Mum every other day, it wouldn't fly. Tom wanted similar courtesy.

  Dad's victory would only be bolstered by further confrontation. If he hit him, shoved him or even threatened him, he'd tell Mum, and it would take another chunk out of their relationship's lifespan.

  He knew he shouldn't approach Dad.

  When he did it anyway, he didn't feel like he was steering. The pebble in his stomach did the work. That little smear of anger moved his feet out of the garden.

  He knew he shouldn’t approach Dad, but he couldn't stop.

  'Hey, fuckhead.'

  Dad looked back at him from half-inside his car, putting together the seatbelt clip that held me in place. He saw Tom and nodded politely enough for someone who'd just been called a fuckhead. He fumbled his way backwards out of the car and shut the door gently as Tom approached. 'Thomas, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding-'

  'Fuck you.'

  'Okay.' Dad nodded rain off his nose.

  'You can't keep this up. You can't keep starting fights and then fucking off to leave me in the shit, you need to get to fuck.'

  Dad kept nodding. 'Okay, well I understand how that could be upsetting. I assure you I'm only here for my daughter. I don't want May anymore, she broke-'

  'I don't fucking care. I don't care if you're Cora's Dad. I don't care if you're shagging both May's sisters. I don't want to see you in that house ever again, right?'

  Dad (still nodding) said, 'I see, well yes. I can understand how that would be frustrating, but-'

  For the second time in ten minutes, Tom shoved him.

  Dad slipped down the door of the car, clattered his head off the wing mirror and hit the ground with the type of fwump only a man with Dad's brand of negative-mass could manage.

  He whimpered on impact.

  Tom thrust a finger at him. 'Disappear, mate. Take Cora to your daft film and bring her back tomorrow and then vanish from our lives forever. Do it, or I swear to God I'll show you how the pancakes are made.'

  Dad looked up through a dishevelled comb-over, nursing a grazed hand. 'I-I don't know what that means.'

  'I'll tell you what it means. Next time I want to hear about you is the invite to your funeral, get it? I never want to see you again, but I want to piss on your grave.'

  It was an unfortunate choice of closing statement, considering Dad would be dead by the end of the day.

  ~

  Tom ran home feeling like the man.

  The way he saw it, he was only protecting his family.

  His family had a virus. A few more instances of the 'Dad has rights' argument and the relationship would die. It wasn't tough enough anymore. It had been taking a kicking for almost three years.

  Tom saved it.

  When Mum phoned him - which she would - to go off her head about what he did, he'd take a stand, hold his ground, and make her see it his way.

  She didn't want their relationship to end either. She wanted a future with him. She'd understand that Dad disappearing off the face of the earth was a hundred percent the best option for everyone. He felt sure of it.

  Mum phoned him, and he primed himself for the chat. He prepared himself for the fight of his life.

  With a deep breath, he answered.

  Hysterics greeted him.

  Dad had been in a head-on crash with an ice-cream van. It killed him.

  It saved their relationship.

  ~

  Three

  Just Derek, Making Changes

  On the morning Derek changed everything, he woke up nervous. The alarm sang at him, but he had been awake for an hour.

  It was August 1998. Elsewhere, I was a month old and both my Dads were still alive.

  Out of bed and on his feet, Derek began his trudge from the room but caught himself when he realised he wasn't using his new walk.

  'No... no, Derek,' he muttered as he straightened his spine, put his hands behind his back, stuck his chest out, lifted his chin, leant back and then walked with his legs stretched way out ahead of him. He specifically designed this goofy-looking walk to appear more professional; it was his professional walk. His head bobbed with each step as he professionally left the room, professionally walked down the hall and professionally entered his bathroom, where he turned on the light.

  'And that is how you walk from today on- hrmm.' He shook his head. 'No, no, all wrong...' A cough, and then he spoke exclusively through his nose. 'And that is how you walk from today onwards, Derek.'

  Much better.

  The light in the bathroom flickered at five-second intervals. Five seconds on and five seconds off. Derek had become adept at shaving in this pattern.

  Light on. Shave. Light off. Splash the blade. Repeat.

  A small mirror sat propped on a shelf above the sink that showed him only small parts of his face at a time.

  Derek's face wasn't fit for a full mirror.

  Daddy used to tell him frequently. 'MUCH TOO UGLY FOR A BIG MIRROR,' he would say, ripping a chunk of overcooked steak from his fork.

  Derek tilted the mirror to the lower half of his face as he shaved and brushed his (crooked) teeth, upwards to his battered nose as he plucked hair out, up to his lopsided and bulging eyes for the monobrow, and then some time on each batwing he called an ear to make sure they hadn't yet started to sprout hair.

  When he finished, he put the mirror away under the sink in case he accidentally caught a glimpse of his face when he came home, and then he professionally walked back to his room.

  'Today,' he said in his new nasal voice. 'Today.'

  ~

  Derek's Daddy was JUSTICE when he lived.

  A tower of a man, a width of muscle and testosterone with a giant moustache living under his nose and a police officer's badge living on his swollen chest. He was an angry man with a truncheon. And man, did he swing that truncheon.

  He was basically a superhero, but each of his identities involved him knocking the holy fuck out of criminals. By day he was a police off
icer knocking the holy fuck out of criminals, and by night he was an angry civilian knocking the holy fuck out of criminals. He didn't sleep, and he only ate eggs and steak.

  When he took a night to relax, he taught the virtues of professionalism to Derek as he drank a bottle of whisky. He believed in a world where the only thing that mattered was a man's duty, whatever he chose to do. Day and night, there's no clocking out. He lived and breathed professionalism.

  'ALL THAT MATTERS, DEREK, IS WHAT YOU DO. WHO YOU ARE MEANS NOTHING, WHAT YOU DO MEANS EVERYTHING.'

  Derek sat cross-legged in front of him as he swigged whisky straight from the bottle and ate boiled eggs whole.

  'SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO??'

  Derek wanted to help people, just like his Daddy. He would be somewhat limited by his broken skeleton and crippling weakness, but he knew he had the ability to do something important.

  He might not be JUSTICE, but he could be something.

  In 1988, a pair of vengeful arsonists broke into their home and set it ablaze with his family inside. Daddy never got out, and neither did Mum or the arsonists themselves (they didn't stand a chance), but Derek did.

  He scraped Daddy's truncheon from the ashes of his home.

  At fifteen years old, with a brain full of dying screams and pyrophobia developing, Derek vowed vengeance.

  He applied for the police as soon as he hit eighteen.

  For seven straight years, Derek failed the entry test because he couldn't run four steps without needing water. In the meantime, he had been working applications for the Court of Reapers.

  In his living room, Daddy's truncheon sat - pride of place - on a TV stand in the middle. Decrepit furniture huddled around it, and the walls of the room seemed to lean into its gravity. It was heavy, brutal and unsightly. The idea that someone ever swung it one-handed had baffled Derek since he was a boy. But that was Daddy; he did things no other man could.

  Derek stood before the truncheon dressed in his only suit, which he kept in a fireproof bag hanging on his wardrobe. He took a small tub of pills from his inside pocket and opened it up without paying attention. 'Daddy, do you hear that? Do we have a leak?' He shook a single pill into his palm and paused, cocking an ear to the air. 'Yes... I hear a drip.' His shoulders slumped. 'Oh, Daddy.'

  The truncheon didn't respond.

  Derek popped the pill in his mouth and gulped it down. Daddy called it his "straightener." One pill a day kept him right. It steadied his nerves, dealing mainly with his anxiety, but it took the edges off his pyrophobia and adrenaline-induced narcolepsy too (though typically the best treatment for the latter two was to avoid any adrenaline-inducing activities and anywhere there might be an open flame).

  'I'm going to change it today, Daddy, I'm going to take us away,' he said, sneering at his moulding walls and bare floors. 'I'm sorry I brought you here. I'm going to change it today, Daddy.' He kissed his hand and placed it gently on the truncheon. 'Okay? I'm going to make you proud.'

  Derek said goodbye and left for work.

  Off he went, to change his life.

  ~

  Now, allow me to intervene.

  It could be argued (I guess) that Derek has the most unfortunate section of this story. His tale alone could be regarded (I suppose) as upsetting, uncomfortable, and downright awful (or whatever).

  Derek was a broken, ugly man with a troubling childhood, a paralysing obsession with his father's pride and several mental health issues.

  Taking all this into consideration, it's easy to feel a bit of sympathy for Derek.

  But, and I can't state this enough, it's important to resist.

  I’m telling his version of events where he was led, almost against his will, into a life of murder; I believe about forty percent of it.

  Derek might not be the worst in this story, but he's still a fucking monster.

  ~

  Derek's little hole of a flat was on the outskirts of a modern city called Hadleigh. It teemed with buildings that looked like massive shards of glass twisting into the clouds. The sun bounced around the reflective surfaces all the way down to the entitled population of the city. Everyone in Hadleigh had somewhere to be, and where they had to be was more important than where anyone else had to be. It was a city of shoulder-bumps and sneers.

  Derek never liked the attitude, but he could only live there for so many years before he adopted it himself. As a prime example, on the bus to the Courthouse, a pregnant woman got on and shuffled around Derek's seat expectantly. She stood there the whole journey as Derek looked out of the window.

  As a sad consequence of this ignorance, he saw his whole reflection.

  Dear God, he was ugly.

  Derek wondered what cosmetic surgery he would be able to afford if he were successful today. He wanted to be okay-looking, a face blending into the crowd. He didn't need to be handsome, he just didn’t want to look horrific anymore.

  He sighed.

  The pregnant woman coughed at his back.

  The Courthouse sat on the far east of the city. It was the headquarters of the Court of Reapers and a glowing white, marble-built cube in the middle of the tall silver buildings covering the rest of Hadleigh. It had no windows and one large door.

  Derek got off the bus across the road, put on his new walk and took it to work.

  He entered the building and professionally walked the length of the narrow lobby. At the end, between two doors, was the reception desk at which sat a young girl with tattoos and - Derek's words, not mine - far too much breast showing.

  Leaning over the counter in front of her, a Judge signed herself into the building.

  A Judge of the Court could be recognised a mile off. For some reason, they're the only people who dress like they do. This one dressed in red from her tall haircut, over her three-piece suit, to the heels of her boots. She wore pale make-up, but her lips were black. At her back stood a smaller man in a suit with whom Derek shared a career interest.

  Judges were a big deal. They were the immortal overseers of mortality. They got the final say on who lived and who died in their region. They had a terrifying amount of responsibility, but they were paid to reflect it. To lighten the load, it wasn't uncommon to find a Judge accompanied by someone like the gentleman in the suit behind her. A man-servant, someone to follow her around and keep her shit together for her.

  Such a job would usually have live-in benefits with the district Judge and all their money. To be a man-servant for a Judge would pay very well.

  A few months prior, Derek caught wind of an opening by the side of Judge Hugh Rabbit, who looked after the island of Wilson's Well. He passed the application stage and the interview stage - he just had to pass a simple sit-in evaluation of his work and everything would change. He would have a new home, a new bank account, a new face and a new profession he could tell Daddy about.

  Day to day, Derek interviewed candidates for a position as Reaper for their region; every region of every country on the planet needed its own Reaper.

  The job kept Derek busy, a fact that surprised most people. He never knew why. To be a Reaper, one only had to be alive, apply for the spot, die peacefully, and be lucky enough to get selected. Getting chosen for the job meant resurrection. The job meant a second chance at life lasting exactly as long as the new Reaper liked. Everybody applied. It was daft not to.

  Derek, with his professional walk in full swing, reached his office door and took a breath. He couldn't puff his chest out further. He couldn't lift his chin higher.

  An assessor would be in his office by the time he arrived, and Derek had been told to behave as though he weren't there. Derek didn't consider taking these instructions with even the slightest pinch of salt.

  He entered his office and only briefly noted the presence of someone in the corner of the room, reading a book and snacking on something he didn't quite catch.

  The man glanced at him.

  Derek looked away. He heard the familiar hint of an 'oh!' that he had gotten use
d to over the years. His face had been known to catch people off-guard.

  Derek closed his eyes and shut the door behind him.

  He worked in a glorified cupboard, not dissimilar to his conditions at home, he supposed. Grey, bare walls in a room angling itself to a point at the back. His desk sat between the assessor and him, with only a leg's room to shuffle past on one side. A single bulb kept the place lit, barely. All of the interviewers' offices were like Derek's, as though they weren't paid enough to be given one, but their role kind of demanded it.

  Derek tried to prepare his papers for the day while ignoring the assessor behind him, but the cracking of what sounded like pistachio shells proved too much of a distraction.

  It was a slap in the face, really. The man came to assess Derek, and he couldn't stop snacking for half an hour to do so.

  Derek decided, when he was allowed to acknowledge the assessor's existence, he'd give him a proper talking-to. He needed a lesson in professionalism.

  It never happened, that man was not an assessor.

  He was Judge Hugh Rabbit of Wilson's Well.

  And he was a bad, bad man.

  ~

  Ten minutes passed, then came a knock at the door. The desk girl with the “unfortunate” amount of boob showing poked her head into the office and told Derek his interview was here.

  He put on his new nasal voice. 'Yes, yes, bring him in.'

  My dear Dad entered when the desk girl stood out of the way. He wore a brown suit that hung badly on his shoulders, his hair was pasted back over his head, he carried his application folder with both hands held to his chest; the whole package made Derek feel ill.

  Dad's walk, though, that was the deal breaker. He walked leant over like he was constantly in the middle of trying to stop himself falling down. Derek imagined that walk in a Reaper's cloak and decided he wasn't getting the job.

  Sadly, it was that easy to pass judgement on a Reaper candidate.

  Technically, every applicant got added to the talent pool. The interview was designed to assess how deeply they'd be plunged. Derek could tell, from the way Dad walked, he was going deep.