Eternity in a Pickle Jar
"I'm not trapped here with these people-
these people are trapped here with me!"
"Confession time," Jimmy hissed, fingers splayed as if they could ward off Edgar's very existence.
"What… What are you talking about?"
Edgar stood in the middle of the dark room, with the sinking feeling of a crash seeping into his bones. God, he should have known, he should have known this was going to end badly. And he never should have tried to kiss him. What was he thinking? Shit, he crossed so many lines…
"You…" Jimmy started, then he stopped. "That woman, she told me… she said you'd… if we… Screw this! There's shit you gotta know before you go any further."
Edgar said nothing. Frankly, he was confused and leaking regret from every cell, and he didn't think he could manage a coherent response anyway.
"I haven't told you—fuck, I haven't told you a lot of stuff. I almost did, a couple times, but I could never get the words out, an' you're always cuttin' me off with some sappy shit. The words just wouldn't… they just wouldn't… I didn't want you to, y'know, leave. An' you're gonna. But you need to know before you go kissin' me…"
"Jimmy," Edgar tried, "I told you, nothing—"
"I'm a horrible person, Edgar!" the teen shouted. "I'm a fucking murderer and you don't want to know what else! I've done things you'd never be able to forgive, 'cause you're a nice guy an' a fuckin' Christian an' I'm not either of those things, an' I've done shit you'd want to shoot me for…"
"Jimmy! I already know you killed people! It's alright, it's in the past and we're all dead anyway, and you're damned after all, so it's all fair, alright?"
The boy took another step back, his face twisted in pain. "No, no, you don't get it Edgar… you don't fucking get it! I don't want to talk about it, I don't wanna… shit, can't you just believe me? I've done awful things, and you'd better just leave."
Edgar didn't feel at all like leaving, not when Jimmy was freaking out like this—he tried to put a hand on his shoulder but the boy turned away, violently.
"Rape, Edgar," the younger man hissed.
The hand froze in midair.
"I've done it. Twice. Two fucking times, an' it's a helluva lot more than anybody ought to—even Nny… even Johnny said I was a monster. Johnny Fucking C said I was a monster! What's the difference, I want to know. What's the difference between the way he tortures people and what I did? But, hah, then I sat down and thought about it—you remember that subway I rode into Hell?"
Edgar nodded, mutely.
"I told you it gave me too much time to think. I've never thought like that before, an' I never want to again. Me an' my sins, surrounded by people, an' I've never been more alone than that… I sat down an' I thought about it, an' I… what's the difference? There's no difference! No absolution! We are the same, me an' fucking Johnny C. An' that's not good! I rode that goddamn subway for half an eternity an' all I could feel was dying, again, hearin' my fucking hero dress me down like one of his shitty victims an'…"
The teen took a deep breath, and turned back to Edgar. There was a moment of silence, while Jimmy collected his shattered thoughts and his friend tried to absorb it all.
"Johnny… Johnny killed you?"
"Yeah," Jimmy answered, a crack in his voice. "Told me how stupid I was an' then he killed me, ripped me open and—well, it wasn't pretty. Or fun. At all. I'm a monster, he was right—fuck, but he's a monster too! We're both monsters—we're all monsters, me an' the whole world! Except you. The girls… god, the girls, I didn't even know them. The first one, I'd just seen Johnny for the first time an' I… I fucking snapped, she looked so much like this girl I knew back home, this fucking cheerleader an' they're all the same, you know, all the same on the inside…"
Edgar took a deep breath and stepped forward again. "We… can talk about that some other time. We will talk about it some other time. But Jimmy, I knew, I knew from the first time we met that you'd done bad things. Horrible things. I mean, I didn't expect this, exactly, but I'm not as surprised as—"
"You're a psychologist," the criminal interrupted, eyes narrow. "You gotta know how fucked up I am. You know… you know what rape is, what it's like. You know…"
"It's awful," Edgar said shortly. "There's nothing quite like it in the world. It causes trauma and pain the likes of which most people will never understand, and it can warp the mind of the victim almost irreparably. I know, Jimmy. I know."
"Then how are you still standing there?" the younger man shouted, grabbing Edgar by the shoulders. His nails dug into skin, and the older man noticed for the first time that they were back in their own clothing. A minor detail.
"Because I know you too!" Edgar shot back, fists clenching. "And I know that you have problems, and I know that you are sorry, deep down, and I know that you're smart and you're funny, and you're my best friend! Because nothing you've done can erase that. Why does everyone seem to think that I'm a coward? Listen here, Jimmy: If I left you, if I walked out this door right now I'd be a monster too—I'd be leaving the person I care about most behind when he needs me more than ever, when I have a chance to help, to change something if it can be changed! You want me to stay, don't deny that!"
The nails in his arms retracted somewhat. "I don't."
"Then let me stay! Let me help you, or at least let me be there for you! Please. Tell me… tell me why?"
"I hate chicks," Jimmy snorted, looking away, bitterness layered over his voice. "You know that. I used to write their names in a book, y'know, all the bitches who screwed me over an' all the jocks who pushed me down the stairs an'… I saw Johnny just killing 'em, an' not worrying about cops or morals or… fuck, I just…"
"...Vindication," Edgar sighed.
Jimmy's hands fell away from his shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah. Sounds kinda shallow, doesn't it? Y'know, the more time I spend down here, the less I even believe myself. I think… if it wasn't for you, I'da gone crazy by now. Totally, no-solution crazy. Just me an' my thoughts, an' that shitty apartment, stealing booze an'… I would've lost my mind. I got memories, all kinds of stupid memories—being killed, killing, running away, being picked on, Carmela… I don't think I've got a single memory I'd keep, if I had the choice."
Edgar looked at his friend, searching for something else between the lines of rigid shoulders and tight shut eyes. Something about the story didn't quite fit, some detail was missing… He knew about these kinds of problems, a little, and what was more, he knew what made people tick. You don't go crazy because some kid in junior high pantsed you in the locker room. And, if you're mostly sane, you don't kill people without some broken cog in the back of your head. And you don't regret it either...
"Jimmy…" he murmured, "I understand why you killed those girls, I think, but why did you… why did you…"
"Rape them?"
Edgar had a horrible moment, remembering a conversation the two of them had once, outside of a restaurant. God, but this shed a whole new light on Jimmy's rape jokes—they had been jokes, hadn't they? Something inside of him shivered, completely out of context.
"I dunno," the younger man went on, "that's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? I, uh, I just…"
"You're lying," Edgar cut in, a shrewd note in his voice. "There's something else. Come on, what else have you got to lose at this point?"
Jimmy looked away, probably searching for an exit. "No, really, I was just following fucking example, I swear."
"Bullshit," Edgar insisted, and apparently the curse shocked something out of his companion. "I'm thinking… I'm thinking this was personal. You know what I'm talking about. Tell me. Now."
Jimmy blinked and, twisting his hands in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, replied, "You remember my stepmother?"
Edgar looked at him, carefully running through all the mental notes he had taken over the weeks or eons. "The one who gave you those scars?"
Jimmy laughed, bitterly, rubbing his shoulder in an absentminded way. "I told you that?"
"In passing."
"Yeah, well, that's the one. My dad married her when I was younger, an'…" the younger man trailed off. "Shit, I don't want to talk about this. I haven't told anybody about it."
"Please, Jimmy. Please. For me?"
The teen looked at him for a long moment, searching for something, maybe a sign that Edgar would be willing to use this against him one day just like every other person he had ever known. Apparently, he didn't find it. "Fine," he sighed.
Edgar settled in.
"They got married when I was younger, y'know, like early teens. They dated for about six months… I don't remember my mother, but I remember most of my dad's girlfriends—he was pretty rich, rich enough to get a nice long succession of playboy bunny types even when he was getting' near fifty. None of 'em really looked at me, which was fine. I didn't need a mom or a babysitter, and I didn't care where my dad went on Saturday nights. We weren't exactly close, y'know, but we were happy, I guess."
Jimmy shifted, eyes turning far away.
"Then Carmela came along, with her fake boobs an' her stupid-ass fake nails. God, I hated that woman. My dad just loved her. They dated about six months an' then I guess my dad was getting worried about gettin' old alone cause the next thing I knew, they were getting married. Married! An' she wore a white dress—I just wanted to paint that thing red more than I ever wanted anything since. They were married about a month before she started lookin' at me… I mean, she really looked at me. Like I was a designer purse or a parfait or somethin'.
"An' one night, she comes in… into my room… I was lyin' on the bed with my laptop, an' she comes in an' she locks the door behind her. She says, she says all kindsa shit about me an' I'm a horrible person an' my father'd be better off without me, an' she has all the power now… says, 'do what I say or I'll make your life living hell.' What the fuck did my dad see in her?"
Edgar murmured, "Maybe he was tired of being alone."
Jimmy snorted. "Maybe he needed to grow some balls. So, Carmela, she does this every night. She comes into my room an' she touches my things an' she threatens me, tells me how useless I am an' how she's making my dad so fucking happy. Then, this one night, she comes in an'… I think she'd been drinking, some, an' she starts the whole spiel so I kinda tune her out until she says, 'I've been talking to your father about military school. It's such a nice place for nasty little failures.' An' I'm like, what the fuck, woman? That bitch always knew how to hit me where it hurt. So I'm telling her there's no way in Hell I'm goin' and we'll just see about all that, an' while I'm talking she's moving closer and closer…"
Jimmy's hands clenched, and Edgar could almost see it, the boy on his bed in the near dark, ranting as his step mother inched closer and closer, a dark shine in her perfectly painted eyes.
"An' then she's on the bed, in front of me, an' she's saying how maybe she could change her mind, if there was… if I'd do something for her… an' at this point I'm real freaked out, 'cause I've heard about this kinda stuff before, but it doesn't usually go like this. An' then she's got my laptop knocked to the floor an' she's leaning over me, but I'm like, 'no, no, get the fuck off,' an' of course she ain't listening.
"I couldn't move. Can you imagine? I hate her. I hated her. She's my fucking step-mother and she's unbuckling my pants and telling me some shit about how I owe her, an' I just wanna stab her in the eye with a pencil, but my dad'll see it an' who's he gonna believe? I can't do anything. I dunno, maybe there was something I coulda done, maybe I was missing something. I don't like to think about it. I kept telling her to get off, I think I threatened her but she just laughed 'cause we both knew I couldn't do anything."
The teen looked up suddenly, a fierce gleam in his eyes. It made Edgar wince.
"I can't even tell you what it was like. I was fourteen, Edgar. Fourteen. And I hated her so much. But she touched me an'… fuck… I'd just hit puberty, you know? I hate her. I hate me. She was fucked up an' she fucked me an' she fucked me up too. It was like… I remember her on top of me, looking down at me like it was, like it was my fault an' I deserved it. Hell, I probably did. I don't know. It wasn't every night. Sometimes she'd go a month without even looking at me. That was the worst part 'cause then I'd start to think, 'maybe she's bored now?', an' I'd get all relieved, an' then she'd be there again that night with that fucking smile an' a gag—'cause, y'know, I tried scream for help the second night—an' I'd know it wasn't over at all."
Then he smiled, and it chilled Edgar to the bone. "Sometimes she really hurt me. How pathetic is that? She wasn't even strong, she didn't have any kinda training. But she could give me one look, just a look, Edgar, an' I couldn't run. Couldn't think. Knives, she loved knives. She liked little cuts that healed in a week, all over my body until I was dripping blood, she thought it was so funny… an' then she'd fuck me an' god it was painful, everything was pain an' I still got it up. What the fuck was wrong with me?"
It was horrible to hear, horrible because there was nothing Edgar could say, nothing that would help. Not now. Maybe, maybe later.
"I told her, once, after it had been going on a while—I didn't like to think about it like that, but, y'know, she was basically raping me. An' I told her, 'I'll tell, and they'll put you away for child abuse', and you know what she says?"
Edgar shook his head.
"She laughs, and she says, 'You came, Jimmy. As far as the courts're concerned, you raped me. Imagine how it'll look to your dad, you forcing yourself on his helpless wife. I'll tell him you tied me down an—'"
Jimmy stopped, choking on his own imitation. His nails dug into his skin so hard that Edgar could see blood around the rims.
"That's when I stopped fighting. Fuck, I hate her so much—she's still alive, up there, living it up while my stupid dad foots the bill. I hope she gets hit by a train. No, I hope she gets captured by Nny and he keeps her barely alive in his stupid basement for the next thirty years without any of her precious fucking makeup. I know why she did it. It's about power, it's about control. It's about provin' once and for all who's better than who, who's got the right... who's got the right to live."
"…How long did that go on?"
"Hell, I don't know. Years. They got married when I was like, fourteen, and I ran away when I was eighteen. So four years or something."
Edgar sat back in his chair, eyes closed. He had expected, well, something like this. A psychology degree prepares you, a little bit, and confidants from the Academy of Science how shown him on a few occasions that such things did go on, in the same world as him. Still, though he had cared about his students—of course, how could he not?—Jimmy was… Jimmy was different. This time, it was almost personal. It made him angry.
"See?" the boy demanded, jumping to his feet once more, "I told you I'm a monster. I told you. And now you get it." His voice cracked.
Edgar's eyes snapped open and he shook his head, almost violently. "No, you aren't!"
He supposed it was the confidence in his tone that made Jimmy pause, a disbelieving look on his face. "Don't lie," he ordered, almost begged. "This is fucking hard enough without you playing martyr. I told you, I told you all of it. You know what I've done, you know what I've… you know. I'm a rapist an' a rape-victim an' a murderer, an' a helluva lot of other shit. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody more fucked up than I am."
Standing too, now, Edgar took a step closer to the younger man. "I'm not lying, Jimmy. I'm not. There's no such thing as monsters. Horrible things happened to you and you did horrible things. I'm not saying you didn't. I'm saying… I'm saying…"
He stepped forward again, and reached out for Jimmy's hand. The criminal tried to shake him off, looking close to tears, but Edgar held on tight, taking the other hand too, so now they were face to face.
"Look, you asked me once, whether you still get a second chance after you die. You asked me, and I didn't have an answer then. But I know, now, that everyone gets a second chance. Everyone. Always. You're sorry, don't try to deny it. You've been sorry for a long time! And I know, there's three things everybody gets—" the older man held up three fingers "—and that's a soul mate, death, and a second chance. It's only fair."
"Life ain't fair, Edgar," Jimmy replied, looking away.
"Yes," the older man replied, "But… we're dead."
His friend was silent for a moment, and when he looked up again it was clear that he was fighting tears tooth and nail, now. "You're serious," he whispered, almost to himself.
"Of course. You believe me, don't you?"
"Why?" Jimmy asked, stepping closer, urgent now. "Why should I believe you? Why do you care? Why, why in God's name does it matter what happens to me? I need to know why you're doing this."
Edgar didn't reply for a moment. Well, what was the answer? It was the shared secrets between them, and the way his blood burned when they danced, and the countless days they had spent bickering over everything from the price of alcohol to the best kind of movie, the way Jimmy held doors open for him when he would have shut them on anybody else, early morning conversations about sodium laurel sulfate, the thought of an eternity without someone to make fun of his clothes or call him a faggot…
"Because," Edgar started, whirling with reasons and memories, "because I don't want to lose you, and I don't want you… I want you to be happy. No matter what. I guess, sometimes I'm not logical, I just …"
"You're so totally in love with me."
That brought Edgar up short.
Jimmy was grinning, now, though his eyes still looked suspiciously wet. At Edgar's shocked silence, the grin grew wider. "My life is such a freakin' joke! You're in love with me—Me, the absolute worst human being either of us has ever met—barring Johnny, of course—an' you, you're the absolute nicest guy I've ever had the misfortune of meeting."
Edgar scowled. "Misfortune? You're the one who's been hitting on me for the last however-the-hell-long stretch of eternity. Granted, I knew you weren't serious, but—"
"Totally serious, man. I'd screw you in about two seconds flat."
"…It's nice to know you think so highly of me."
Jimmy broke down laughing, a few tears mixed into the mirth, and after a few moments of attempting to look offended, Edgar succumbed to it too. It was all too surreal.
"Okay, okay," Jimmy finally said, as the last giggles faded out. "So, really, you still love me even though I did all that shit?"
Edgar looked down at where their hands were still intertwined. "Er, yes. I suppose so."
"..Sweet."
And, in the end, love was a good choice in words—they say that love makes people do crazy things, after all. And Love… It would be very difficult to step back from everything you understood—prejudices, vendettas, values, paradigms—and really see it through somebody else's eyes, without it. That was love, wasn't it? Acceptance? Probably.
"So, does this mean you'll sleep with me now?" Jimmy asked, a sly note in his voice.
Edgar stared at him. "What do you think?"
"…Right. Well, fine then, you're still sleeping on the couch."
"Somehow, I think I'll survive. Let's go home, Jimmy. I'm a little drained, you understand."
Later, Edgar would think back and remember the way the crowd changed, wondering what exactly was in that punch. Distilled apple of Eden? Vice of humanity? Cocaine?
He'd look back and he'd think that, even though at the time he didn't think much of it at all, there was definitely something darker about the glares they got as they left that shadowy room. Narrowed eyes and whispers bounced their way, fingers pointed and the path in front of them cleared as they sought out the exit. At the time, Edgar though it best not to question the good fortune or the new attention.
But looking back, he'd remember a few faces in particular—one woman, her hair drooping out of its curls, following them with the eyes of a woman scorned. Another, a man, whose teeth clenched as they passed by, who muttered something to his still in-stupor date. Woman, who did a double, then triple take. Man, whose anger was positively radioactive.
At the time, Edgar was tired. At the time, Edgar was recovering from the revelation that his best friend was the worst kind of criminal, recovering from having someone else inform him that he was, in fact, in love. At the time, Edgar was more tired than he cared to admit, and still just a very little bit intoxicated.
So he ignored the glares and whispers, more concerned with the man whose shoulder was brushing his own. The mass of anonymous damned were, as always, sublimated so he could focus better on the man beside him. After all, there were so many of them, and they were always hateful—it took another morning to make him wonder why they were so focused on him and Jimmy when, usually, there was enough animosity to go around and around.
But at the time, Edgar just wanted to go home.
And by home, he meant Jimmy's place.
TBC