Gone, Gone, Gone...
Summary: "I'll lie, cheat; I'll beg and bribe to make you well, to make you well." Jake Muller grew up substituting his own father, all while trying to be a decent son. Inspired by "Gone, Gone, Gone..." by Phillip Phillips.
– –
It's always been like this, and people keep asking me how I cope or why I deal with it all. But in all honesty, I've never had it any other way. My mother's always been a hard worker, and she works herself into an exhaustion induced sleep. Yet we still can't make ends quite meet correctly. I work twice as much as her, but she can't know that I've dropped out of school for her sake. She'd be furious. I spend my mornings and afternoons in a grocery store taking inventory and cleaning. It's pretty shit, but it's nice to see her smile when we have a little money left over when we've paid all the bills. She knows that I talked my way into a bar-tending job at sixteen, when the legal age is eighteen, but Edonia's always pretty lax on their regulation enforcement since it's too busy trying to catch those crazy Edonian Liberation Army bastards.
Today was no different. Erik ditched out on me and so I ended up closing again. I wipe down some of the tables and clean a few dishes. A woman emerges from the restroom; she's in some sort of shock, probably because her group left her behind. I carry on my business of cleaning. She watches me like a hawk. I just shrug her off as I weave from one room to the next, trying to get everything cleaned. Once the cleaning is finished, I quickly count my tips, hoping that someone decided to be a nice guy. Thirty dollars. Thirty fucking dollars, I've been here for over five hours beating ass and getting shit done, but still no respect. I sigh and shove the money in my back pocket as I grab my jacket from under the bar, along with the keys. I remind the woman that we've been closed for over half an hour. She just hauls ass out of the bar, and I don't blame her.
–i–
It's getting cold because winter's around the corner. I turn my key in the lock to the apartment. My other hand is juggling a jug of milk and a bag of apples and other fruits. I'm greeted by the sight of the kitchen light on and Mom passed out on a stool with her face pressed to the breakfast bar. A small chuckle escapes my lips as I put away the groceries and lock the apartment door. She's still sleeping.
"I'm home, sleepyhead." I whisper as I pick her up and carry her to her room. She slowly stirs awake.
"Jake?" She asks in a groggy sort of state of mind.
"Yours truly," I smirk as I place her on her bed. "I just got home, and you were sleeping on the breakfast bar."
"I wish you didn't work so late." She yawns as she slips under her covers.
"Well, I wish we didn't get hounded for money, but shit, we can only dream." I sit on the edge of the bed.
"Take a day off now and then, please." I shrug.
"I need to be able to pay off all these bills because what if you get sick or something? How else are we going to afford anything if you get sick?"
"And how am I going to explain to those debt collectors that my son worked himself to death trying to pay off my bills?"
"I'm also the man of the house, so I should do everything I can to keep us afloat." I remind.
"I don't want you giving up your childhood, Jake."
"I'm sixteen."
"Exactly."
–ii–
We sit in the doctor's office, the only place she ever mentions my father. She always says something like 'he never got sick' or 'maybe you got his amazing immunity' or some apology for her weak constitution. I remind her that it's not her fault, and I wish that doctors remembered that other people – their patients – have jobs that they can't be late to because some stupid doctor decided to take their Ph.D. granted time. I assure Mom that she's fine and that all her recent ill nature health conditions have been appearing because she's stressed. She squeezes my hand tightly. These are the times that I know she misses my father. The doctor finally appears with a solemn expression.
"Ms. Muller, I'm sorry to inform you, but –" The man begins.
–iii–
It was hard, but I convinced Mom to quit her job and told her that I'd come up with more shifts. That was definitely easier said than done. I've spent the past few days begging the store manager for a raise and more hours, and he curtly responded 'you can't always get what you want, Muller.' But I need this, but I chose to keep my job and not argue. I begged the bar owner for more hours, but she refused as well, saying she had a surplus of employees already. I walked along the streets reading a newspaper and biting into an apple; it's apple season which means the apples are dirt cheap. More propaganda against the ELA terrorists and barely a handful of job offers. I stop to read the fine details of each offer; my vision is failing now and then.
"Give me all your money and valuables!" A man whispers in my ear as he presses a gun to my back.
"Is that a gun or are you just that happy to see me?" I reply harshly.
"Shut the fuck up and empty your goddamn pockets!" I can hear the click of the safety being unlocked.
"I don't have anything." I lied. I cant let this bastard take all I have. I need to cover rent and her medication.
"You fucking liar!" He shoves the gun deeper into my back.
"Amsel, he said he had no money, and besides, we don't want you paying your debts by taking away from another." A man demands. "Let him go." The man – supposedly 'Amsel' – releases his stance and begins to walk away. The second man grabs Amsel by the collar and throws him to the ground. "And if you disobey me again, I'll set you in front of the police station ass naked!" The two begin to walk away.
"Hey!" Amsel flinches, but the other man turns. "Who are you and what do you do?"
"I'm Aleksander," he extends his hand in kindness. "I'm in charge of managing the ELA." He eyes the newspaper in my hand. "I'm sure that you are well aware of our work."
"I am. What do you pay?" This seems to take Aleksander off balance.
"Depends on what you're willing to do, champ." A crooked smile pulls across his face.
"I need to make three grand, monthly, at a minimum"
"That could be arranged, but why are you interested? Hate the government? Don't have anywhere else to go?" He narrows his eyes in curiosity.
"I just need money." He laughs and tells me that he will contact me.
–iv–
I walk into the doctor's office and glimpse the end of her treatments. Mom closes her eyes as the IV drips into her bloodstream. The doctor said she wouldn't be able to function very well with the dosage from today's treatment. I shrug. I sign all of the papers to confirm that the treatment was administrated and that the check was passed over to the hospital today. After all that is said and done, I walk over to her bed, pick her up, and carry her out of the hospital. When she regains consciousness, she wraps her arms around my neck and presses her head against my chest. What would she think if she knew that you just paid that check with blood money? We walk towards our apartment where a social worker awaits, impatiently for that matter. The social worker gives me a once over and frowns. I return the favor. It's Edonian Law that a single mother cannot withhold custody over her child because a single parent household is rendered incapable of supplying a child with the right conditions to be an upright citizen.
"Ms. Muller and this is?" The woman eyes me strangely.
"I'm her boyfriend." I lie. "Aleksander Schmidt."
"Ah, nice to meet you, sir."
"Pleasure's all mine." I feign through gritted teeth.
The social worker does her inspection and takes her notes. After she confirms that she is done, I offer to escort her out of the premise, and she takes me up on the offer. I follow her to the entrance of the building. She stops and stares at me and then inspects her clipboard.
"Your mother is a very good mother for you to want to lie to me like that." She smiles.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I reply quickly. Perhaps I was suspiciously quick.
"This is you, isn't it?" She holds a picture up of me from Sophomore year of high school. "You look like her."
"Look, you probably here this a lot, but I can't be taken from her. She needs me more than ever, so I –"
"When I was a child, I was taken away from my father by a social worker, but my father was a bad man. You're mother truly loves you, as you love her. So I'll make an exception for this one two-year period. She must really need you." I nod and shake the woman's hand and watch her walk away with her clipboard. "It was nice meeting you, Jake Muller."
–v–
My eyes open, and the sun is already high atop it's perch in the sky. I stumble out of my room; Mom's making lunch or breakfast. She can't hear me. I walk towards her, and to my shock, she falls. I lunge to catch her. She has a frustrated look on her face.
"Are you okay?" I ask as casually as I possibly can.
"I swear, Jake, I was getting better. I'm fine." She replies as she tries to stand up alone. She falters a bit but succeeds none the less. She must be low on her medication and is rationing it out without telling me. I wander into her room. Her dresser is covered in orange bottles, all empty. Concern races up my throat. I grab one of the bottles, but I didn't mean to get angry.
"You were getting better because of this! So why didn't you tell me that you ran out?! Why don't you ever tell me what you need?!" A meek smile graces her lips.
"I can't make you do all of this for me, Jake."
"But I want to."
"And one day, you won't want to anymore."
"I would do anything to make you well. You have no idea what lengths I would go to just to make sure that you are better and happy." She laughs weakly.
"Your father said the same thing, and then, he was –" gone.
"I'm not like him! I will do everything, anything to make sure you're getting better." But in the end, I'm just an echo of my father.
–vi–
"FUCK!" Aleksander shouts as he slams his fist into his desk; the desk protests with a cracking noise. "How many goddamn men do I have to send to do this stupid job?!" I stare at him from across the room.
"What's the job?" I ask, thinking perhaps this has a lot of money behind it.
"The assassination of Fredrick Gottschalk, fucking politician bullshit." He applies pressure to the top of the bridge of his nose. "Muller, you're good with this stuff, and it pays good money. Do your job."
–vii–
I can see now why Aleksander had such a hard time getting men close to this paranoid bastard. The guards are sharp and apparently former members of some secret service of somewhere. All I can assure is that there's a tweed bag pulled over my head and a gun pointed at my brain, ready to fire at a moment's notice. They keep talking in some sort of code of euphemisms. They laugh a bit, and I move my arm a bit. The gun pushes its way back firmly against my skull. I flex my fingers to prepare for the one chance I have. The guards go back to talking. I inhale, exhale, inhale. I can't hesitate. "This is a terminal stage of her condition, and most of the current research cannot do anything from here on out. And if there is any solution, it's wicked expensive, way out of your price range, kid." 'Listen, honey, there's nothing we can do, so don't worry about it.' That's right; I can't fuck this up. I bite my lip and in one swift movement grab the knife in my coat pocket and stab it into the guard's leg. I pull the bag off of my head as I stab the knife into the stomach of the second guard. The first guard begins to call for back-up, but I swing my leg around and kick him unconscious. I can't forget why I'm here and what's important. I wander the halls, taking down the guards one-by-one.
When I finally get to the door of Fredrick Gottschalk, I slip my knife up my sleeve and grab one of the guards' guns and stick it in my coat pocket. I push open the doors to find the man pretentiously sitting in his high horse leather chair. He laughs as he turns around to face me.
"You have to be the first out of all of the 'king's' men to make it to me." He has a strange pitched voice but still arrogant.
"You better believe I'm the last man you're going to see." He jumps over his desk, accepting my challenge.
"'Last man,' says the boy to the man." He catches me off guard with his agility. His hand is on my neck. As he lifts me off of the ground, I kick my boots against one another to kick out the hidden blade in the right toe of my boot. I kick my right foot forward until my toe is against his chest. He loses his grip, and I fall onto my ass while regaining my breath. "What makes children like you join the ELA?"
"I'm no child!" I protest as I swing my leg around to bring the man onto his back. I roll on top of him with my hands around his neck, a sort of revenge if you ask me. His body struggles with the decreasing amount of air. His hand pounds repeatedly against the ground and then, stops. My guard falls as the man below me loses his last breath. His hand appears in my peripheral and drives my knife into my left cheek. I can taste the copper of my blood in my mouth. My left hand tightens around his neck while my right hand balls into a fist and punches him repeatedly. He loses consciousness, and I take my knife and drive it through the man's heart. "If you can get the money, I'll get her the treatments." I wipe the blood off of my face; my cheek stings from exposure as I sneak my way off of the premises.
–vii–
I open, close, and lock the apartment door quietly and then proceed to sneak towards my room. I peer into Mom's room, and she's asleep. A smile pulls at my lips. It wasn't all for nothing; she'll get better. I hear her mumbling in her sleep, and I make my way to her bedside. I lie down next to the bed, making a makeshift pillow out of my coat. She keeps saying something about a man: how much she loves him and how much she misses him. Blood from my cheek trickles down into my coat; I wish life was just a little bit easier for her.
–viii–
The treatments were bullshit. I watched her get worse and worse, and as she got worse, she started to become delusional. She mixed me up with my father too many times to count and so I played along with it all. It made her happy, and that's all I've ever wanted for her. I just wanted to see her smile. And in those last few months, she smiled a lot. Yes, she referred to me as 'Albert' and didn't acknowledge me as me, but she was happy. I keep trying to tell myself this, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work because no matter what I say she's still in the ground, six feet under, and I won't ever see her again. I stare at the words embossed on the plain gravestone. 'Anita Jessika Muller.'
She left a letter for me. I didn't want to read it, ever, but I realize that I cannot act so childish. I ripped open the letter and began to read. It was the end that got me."I love you, Jake. I'm so sorry to have to leave you like this. Please forgive me. And please, don't hate your father. I'm sure he loves you and is thinking about you, and I know you two will find each other someday. Stay strong." But I know the truth because she said it all too often on nights when she couldn't differentiate me from him. I know. "I should have never lied to you. I should have told you that you have a son because then you'd be here and enjoy watching him grow up. I feel like it's mocking me because he looks just like you. He has your eyes and your determination. Albert, I truly miss you and wish that I had told you all these things when I had the chance." After all, I'm just an echo of my father.
A/N: I heard this song and unconventionally thought of Jake's situation with his mother rather than his situation with his father.