Housepest: Chapter 4
Waiting for Joe to get home for the day was a new kind of hell. Jim had snooped through literally every drawer, cupboard and medicine cabinet at least twice in the past two consecutive days of being holed up in the bleak apartment during the better part of the day. He took inventory of the fridge and came up with two separate meal plans for dinner. He flipped through the dog-eared book of laws on Joe's shelf but it only made him angry and bored. He missed his books and wondered if any of them were still there in his old apartment. It took him a lifetime to build that collection.
Jim made his bed and shoved it back into the couch then sat on it. He took up the remote and turned the television on. Every station he flipped to featured news from one area of Mega City One or another under siege, on fire, in despair. There were high speed police chases and bloody, graphic murder scenes. It made his heart clench with fear for Joe who was out in the middle of the fray, attempting to drive order and justice between the frightened citizens and the ruthless criminals. He pointed the remote at the TV and turned it off, tossing the clicker to the floor in disgust.
Hugging his legs to his chest, he hitched out a sigh. He loved feeling safe away from the terror of the world, but he couldn't do this without his books. They were his saving grace. He adored the smell of their pages and the texture of the paper and the covers under his fingertips. The way they painted pictures of long forgotten or new worlds and gave his mind a place to play and rest was important to his mental wellbeing. He'd begged, borrowed and stole for his collection and he needed it to help him escape the outside world and the worrying that plagued his mind.
Curled in a ball, attempting to soothe his mind and forget about the lost books, he thought about the stars and what they might look like. When a person saw the light of a star, they were seeing light that had traveled for many years, so many that the star might be gone entirely. Every star was a glimpse into the past. From what he had read, the world before the radiation, the fall out, and the mega cities, was a pretty wonderful place. He thought about this while slumped onto the couch and made a bold decision.
He had to go and rescue some of his books. He had to save that knowledge lest the pages be used as rolling papers. If he was fast, he could be back before Joe.
Jim stood up steeled himself, clapped his hands once as if confirming his determination, and went in search of his sneakers. He looked under the bed and in every closet and drawer. He'd been over every nook of the apartment that very morning. As he began to face the fact that his sneakers were simply gone, he began to wonder if Joe had taken them on purpose to keep him from leaving. The thought made his mind go supernova. How dare he tell Jim he isn't a prisoner and then take away his resources.
Jim made fists and stomped to Joe's bedroom, flinging open the panels to his closet. He scanned the floor for shoes and found one pair of worn looking boots. They had emblems on them. He stuffed his feet into them and laced them up. It was his luck that while snooping, he'd found the spare key cards to the apartment. He stuffed them in his back pocket and went to the door, more determined than ever to show Joe Dredd that he wasn't a glass figurine to sit on a shelf. He was street savvy. He'd survived on his own his whole grud-forsaken life.
He opened the door and saw a swarm of Judges in the hall and promptly shut it again.
Okay. He leaned his back into the cold metal and breathed hard. So many judges.
He couldn't go out there wearing these government issued boots. Even without the boots, he wasn't sure he could answer their questions if anyone asked him who he was or what he was doing.
He thought hard and the answer dawned on him. His anger-addled mind accepted his solution eagerly. He clomped back to the bedroom in the boots and yanked Dredd's spare uniform out of the panel where it was situated. He grunted at how heavy the leather shell jacket was. Jim slid one arm into the sleeve and then the other and zipped it up over the cotton t-shirt joe had let him borrow. He was about the same height as Joe, so the length was good, but he was pronouncedly scrawnier. His hips were narrow and the notches of his spine were visible when he bent or stretched. His arms swam in the sleeves.
The pants were next, even looser so that Jim had to tighten the belt as much as it would go just to have it catch. He was grateful he filled them out enough in the back to keep the pants from slipping right off.
He sat and pulled the boots back on, the smell of leather and exhaust, mixed with the spicy undertone of Joe's own scent wafted through his nostrils with each crease and movement of the uniform.
Finally, Jim stood up and reached for the spare helmet that hung on the wall. He turned the heavy head gear in his hands, noticing that it was scuffed and dirty, dented from a bullet or something similar. Jim lowered the helmet on to his head and was surprised by how well he could see through the dark visor.
He went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked pretty good. His face needed to be tanner, and his neck looked a little thin. He wished he had a little scruff on his chin, but the badge on his jacket said 'Dredd' in thick block letters. Time was precious and the day was waning, but he spent a few minutes practicing the look of miserable anger that Dredd kept plastered on his otherwise-handsome, heart-shaped face. In this getup, he had to get back before Joe or he'd be toast.
He strode to the apartment door, checking to ensure he had everything he needed before using the key cards to open it.
He had to remember to look and act like Dredd. He straightened his spine, squared his shoulders, and pulled the corners of his lips down into a trademark scowl. He adjusted his belt and strode confidently into the hall.
Confident was a relative term. Jim frowned menacingly and walked with purpose. But under the suit his body was leaking nervous sweat from fear. He felt big drops rolling down between his shoulder blades and pooled into the dip above his ass. He entered the elevator and saw that others opted to wait for the next one. Joe's famous disposition even made him an outcast amongst his peers.
When the elevator started to move, Jim felt his intestines turn to liquid. He knew this was a terrible idea. However, he had already taken the first steps and there was no backing down now.
Jim made it all the way out of the block without a single person talking to him or even looking at him sideways. Once he was out in the sun, he felt like he was trapped in the leather outfit. He tugged at his collar and pulled out his cards. He still had a bus pass with him so he made his way to the nearest stop. He wasn't sure if Judge Dredd had ever ridden on public transportation, or if any judge had, for that matter.
When the filthy, graffiti-coated bus rolled up, a thick puff of exhaust coughing out of the pipes, Jim stepped up to the door and climbed aboard. The bus driver refused his payment, waving him on with eyes like saucers. The other passengers curled in their seats at the sight of him. Jim had been on the bus hundreds of times and he'd never seen people huddle away in fear. He sat down on a bench near the front and watched people scurry to the back to get away from him. Shaking his head, he looked out the window, his helmet clunking against the glass.
Behind him, he heard whispers of, "It's not any judge, that is judge Dredd!"
It made Jim sad, which was good because he was fast forgetting to maintain a scowl. Joe wasn't such a bad guy.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Judge Dredd, the real judge Dredd, was stepping on the neck of a perp while he zipped the offender's hands together in the small of his back. He dragged the young man to his feet and tossed him against the wall to wait with his friends who were already zipped and leaning into the cement brick.
He pulled his fist up to his mouth and turned on his uplink to control and rasped out, "Got four for the cubes at my current location."
"Which location, Dredd? We're reading two." control replied, forcing Joe's plump lips to contort in surprise.
He paused to think, his mind exploding with the ramifications of this question. He pulled his wrist back up to his mouth and barked out the name of the block he was visiting.
"Copy that, Dredd," Control responded.
After incapacitated his four perps he turned on his heels. A second signal meant that someone was wearing his other helmet. He made his way to lawmaster as quickly as he could without running, even though he knew Jim was probably just wearing his helmet around the apartment. He'd have a little talk with him about it.
When he punched his own identifier into the screen on his lawmaster, he saw his current location blink to life. He looked toward his home block for the second signal but it didn't come. Instead, he saw a blip on the screen moving swiftly down a main city vein.
Operating his daily life with a measured amount of anger was completely normal for Joseph Dredd. He could seeth his way through something as basic as brushing his teeth as easily as he could calmly dispatch criminals worthy of the punishment. The fury that shuddered through his body at this moment was completely foreign to him. He was glad he was straddling his lawmaster, because his legs would no longer support him. He sat on his bike, his hands sweating and his neck swelling with red blotches. He couldn't even see straight, the world was blurred. He'd been shot clear through parts of his body and felt less pissed off than he did in this very moment.
Finally, Dredd pulled himself into some semblance of order by remembering that the penalty for impersonating a judge was thirty years mandatory. If Jim was wearing his helmet in public, he had to reach the little fool before someone else did. Heart kicking against his ribs, he revved Lawmaster into gear and headed for the fucking blinking light.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jim was in over his head. The bus was traveling along the main drag and there was a man, drugged out of his mind on too much slo-mo, harassing the other passengers. Jim used to make slo-mo in his apartment as was dictated by the gang leaders on his floor. He knew what happened to the brain on too much of the amazing neuro-drug. Become burnt out on the inhaler, and the world goes half-pace perpetually and it eats away at the mind like a crank gear pencil sharpener on a chewed up number two. This guy was nothing but a nub.
He was shuddering and ranting, brandishing a knife. His lips were burnt from the inhaler. He burbled at the other bus passengers despite several warnings from the bus driver. Finally someone shouted, "For the love of grud, help us, Judge!"
Jim agreed, they needed the help of a judge. Then he realized he was judge they were beseeching for help.
He didn't have a weapon. Or the knowledge or training to deal with this situation. Not to mention, this guy was out of his gourd on drugs and three times larger than Jim in seemingly every direction. He stood up slowly and said in his sternest voice, "Sit down, citizen."
The man turned on Jim, sizing him up. His glassy, sparkling, slo-mo addled eyes roved Jim's uniformed body. He puffed out his chest but forgot to pull his mouth down. Instead chewing on his bottom lip painfully. The addict hopped his blade from one hand to the next, asking the Judge in a garbled tone, due to his time distortion, "You wanna dance, Judge?"
Jim didn't want to dance. He wanted to ride the bus undisturbed, get some of his books somehow, and make it home in time to peel out of this uniform before Joseph Dredd came in the door. Ideally, he'd like to have dinner on the table, as well. This knife-wielding hop-head was putting a kink in his already precariously timed schedule.
Jim scanned his brain for what a judge might say. Joe might say, put the knife down, creep or threatening people with a weapon, a million hours in a cube! Jim shook his head. He really wasn't cut out for this. His hands fumbled across his utility belt, his too-large gloves turning his fingers stupid and slow. He dove to the side in time to avoid a wild thrust, the knife narrowly missing him and stabbing into the bus seat instead.
While the man wrestled to yank the knife out of the seat, Jim, while gulping at the air for breath, loosed a canister of pepper spray from his belt and pointed it at the large assailant. The super concentrated spray coated the man's face and he screamed in pain, abandoning his knife to rub furiously and unproductively at his searing eyes. The little closed bus was overcome with the fumes of the spray. Jim felt his own eyes begin to tear up and the spice entered his nose like a sharp stick.
The bus driver was forced to veer off the road. All the passengers swayed and nearly fell over. Once the doors opened, everyone ran off the bus except the slo-mo addict who dug at his eyes still while shouting.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Jim said frantically, trying to help the man now that the bus was empty except for him.
"I'll kill you, judge!" the man said, pawing at the air dangerously close to Jim. There was a crowd forming around the bus. Jim knew one of the flying news droids might be attracted to this scene and he began to panic. He didn't need this to be on the television. His nose ached, his eyes wept in the spiced air, and he fully regretted the last three hours of his miserable, inconsequential life.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Dredd turned the corner on Lawmaster and sped toward the mob of people standing around the bus that was bumped half up onto the sidewalk. His first thought was that something terrible had happened to Jim. Worry was another new emotion for him, he wasn't sure what he was feeling, so he turned it into anger. If Jim Kirk was on that bus, and he wasn't dead, Dredd was going to kill him.
"Bike," he rasped, pulling to a halt right behind the bus, "Initiate crowd control."
The Lawmaster began to instruct the crowd to move back in a robotic female voice. Dredd opened the bus door and immediately turned his head as a wave of pungent air assaulted his face. He pushed past it and found the big man sitting on a bus seat, his eyes bright red and soldered shut with gluey tears and swollen eyelids, more tears draining his face. A knife stuck in the plastic seat in front of him. Dredd snapped the dagger from the seat and closed it, tucking it into his belt.
He looked around and walked to the front of the bus where he found a judge on the floor, his helmeted head tucked down, his legs and arms wrapped into a little ball.
"Jim?" Dredd asked, staring down at the pathetic creature in front of him.
Jim lifted his heavy, helmeted head at the sound of Joe's voice. For a few glorious seconds, his heart leapt for joy. He was saved. He latched gleefully onto Dredd's leather-clad leg.
Joe sneered down at him. Jim lifted his head and looked up at Joe through the vizor. He swallowed hard and let go of Dredd's leg cautiously, flinching as the older man reached down and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, dragging him up to his feet.
"Joe, I-" Jim chokingly began. Tears, not all of them from the spice, leaked under his chin, down his neck and disappeared into the field jacket he wore.
Joe prodded him toward the exit, disinterested in anything he might have to say. Before going he zipped the big man to the railing of the bus and called on his com, "Control, one for the cubes, current location."
He paused a moment looking at Jim in his helmet. Jim was tall, too and would almost look like a real judge if his suit fit his waist and his face wasn't sloppy with tears.
He grimaced and added to control, "My current location for both signals."
"Copy," control informed.
Dredd walked Jim off the bus, looking at the crowd that now stood at a proper distance thanks to the lawmaster's threats. Joe climbed onto his bike and stopped the program telling people to stay back. He looked at Jim expectantly and watched with a stoic grimace as the kid climbed onto the back of the bike, his arms locking instinctively around Joe's torso.
They took off down the road. Even at the high speed on the bike and through the thick layers of hot, malleable leather, Jim could feel Joe's wrath.
Jim laid his face on Dredd's back, enjoying what may very well be his last embrace. He felt Joe's muscles tense beneath him. It was obvious that things were about to get ugly, so he closed his weary, aching eyes and squeezed his arms tighter around the sturdy, brawny man in front of him.
So things are heating up a bit, ne?
Jim Jim Jim.
Soooo, do you know me well enough to know what is coming next week?