Title: Cavanaugh Park
Author:
Disclaimer: Don't own it, probably never will. The song is Cavanaugh Park' by Something Corporate.
Rating: R
Summary: The interlude...step into the past and see the reasons behind why Jess ran. This is the one-chapter prequel.
Author's Notes: Huh. Well, here goes nothing. I figured a nice explanation on what Jess was like before Stars Hollow was in order, so here it is. I have no clue what NYC is actually like, so it might be wrong, but my whole fic is based on wrong, so it doesn't really matter does it?
Lyrics are in italics.
To everyone who has ever left me a review - I love you. Except for that one flame, because it was just a little too naive for my taste.
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At Cavanaugh Park
Where I used to sit
All alone in the dark
And dream about things
That I cannot say
Life isn't easy. If there was one thing that Jess Mariano had learned in the first seventeen years of his existence - it was that. For some reason, since he had been a child, he had found that escaping reality was the only way to exist in it. Take a break, absorb yourself in something else, and then move back into the real world.
And that was how he dealt with it. But then there was the harsher parts of reality that not even endless hours of solace could comfort him through. Fist fights, the aftermath of the substances he quite frequently abused, the cops.
Then worst of all things was his mother.
It wasn't the fact that she ignored him most of the time that was the problem. It was when she chose to pay attention. She had perfect timing, as if she could sense when he was vulnerable and she would strike. Her words sinking into his already festering wounds, stinging and scarring him.
At Cavanaugh Park
Where you used to take me
To play in the sand
And said to me, "Son, one day you'll be a man.
"And men can do terrible things."
Yes they can
She had never believed in him. Not once in his entire life had his mother expressed her appreciation for anything he did. Or even his existence, and perhaps that was worst of all. Because if there is one terrible feeling in the world, it is knowing that the person who brought you into it could care less about that fact.
Life wasn't easy. Not in New York City, not anywhere. But for some reason where he lived, people liked to turn life from something difficult into something impossible. Some people didn't make it out alive. And he hated it there, he hated his friends, and everything about his life, but it wasn't that easy to escape.
Living in New York City as a teenager was like living in a Black Hole, only instead of having such great pressure that it would crush you on arrival, it had forms of painful existence. Such that you often wanted to be dead, only you weren't allowed to leave. People rarely seemed to escape from the pull that it had.
And they would all lie and say that shooting heroin and failing out of high school was what they all wanted from life, and that stealing from 7-elevens and working on the street doing whatever they could to make money was really the best they could ever hope for.
But they all had hope. Unfortunately, there was no room for hope there.
And there was never any place
For someone like me to be
Totally happy
Happiness. There was no such thing as happiness. Love was bullshit, A lie, or a way to get money. But all of it - emotions in general - were inexistent. Everyone thrived on the negatives, hate, adrenaline, lust, bitterness.
Nothing else existed because they weren't brought up to believe that they could ever achieve any better. People never arrived, they just melded. And when people left it went as unnoticed as when it worked the other way. As if life had never subsisted any differently.
A tormented ring of blocks. Where everyone knew of everyone, but knew nothing about them. They knew who sold the best pot, but didn't know what their closest best friend's last name was.
People died, he knew that. The first time he watched someone get stabbed he went home and tried to get comfort from his mother, who slammed a door in his face. She wasn't much of a mother, but he wasn't much of a son, so who could blame her?
Life was learned the same way as a Driver's Ed. program- you learned to do it defensively. You would never let yourself become enveloped by anything more powerful than you could control. The control was pinnacle, because if things were out of your control then you couldn't be held responsible. Which was good, but at the same time you could also be caught being yourself, and that wasn't allowed in the society they had created.
Life was constructed of masks and lies and barriers.
Jess was sheltered. His heart was blocked and his mind was open. Open to the harsh, burning reality of the world. In all it's glory. But what was glory, really?
***
Jess rolled over, onto his stomach trying to ignore the person shaking his shoulder.
Jess! Get the fuck up! We've got issues to deal with today.
Fuck Nathan. What the hell? His dark brown hair was unruly and unkempt framing his face after a night of being slept on.
Like I said, he motioned towards the closed door across the room, We've got issues to deal with. He mouthed Let's go' and Jess climbed out of bed.
He walked the short way across his room to his dresser and threw a t-shirt over his head. He bent down, picked the worn pair of jeans off the floor and pulled them over his boxers. In an instant he had picked up his wallet, and he and Nathan were out the window, and half way down the fire escape.
Heading towards the apartment where his three best friends lived by themselves, Jess started inquiring about what exactly the issues' they needed to deal with were. Apparently, Toner had lost his mind and decided to go on a drug run for Jax Dimont and Kyle Lanley and it hadn't gone over well.
This was why Jess tried to avoid shit like this. Now one of his best friends was camped out in his tiny basement apartment waiting for two of the biggest jerks in town to find him and beat him an inch from death. It may have been exciting, but it wasn't the kind of exciting he was looking forward to.
***
Problems seemed as though they were unavoidable in this city of concrete and people in a hurry. There was hardly even time to step back and take a breath before you had something else to deal with.
The kind of people who lived in New York City were either there to disappear, stand out, or because they had no other choice. And the city would eat away at you, no matter who you were. Because it was a part of everyone, and everyone was a part of it.
That city was like a lust-driven teenage boy, eager to mark his girlfriend. Make her nothing but his own. That was what New York was about, at least, the part he came from. The portion of New York City where he lived...it wasn't the place you would want your children growing up.
The damage that could be done in the pinnacle years could leave you internally wounded. Jess had been irreparably scarred. He somehow forgot how to love, or perhaps, he had never learned to in the first place.
A mind wounded and a heart closed. It didn't matter how you felt inside, as long as you won the game of life in the end. But the thing was, you were never given a chance to win. You started the game without all the pieces - because you were missing hope and you were missing love. And without those two things it was hard to try to feel anything.
You would live silent; void; emotionless.
It was hard to imagine anyone ever being able to trust, to love, after living there.
***
You have to get the fuck out of here! Nathan was now screaming at a frantic Toner who was pacing back and forth and staring at the place where his best friend lay. Antony was lying on his back covered in the blood that was oozing out of the knife would in his leg, completely motionless.
We're leaving okay? Toner said, We just need to...to, somehow get the blood to stop and then we can go somewhere and chill before anyone can find us and then...then... he was out of breath and sat down on the edge of the bed beside the injured teenager.
Jess walked over to the two and pulled a spare sheet out of the shelf to their left. He ripped the pieces quickly and tied them around the already improvised bandages as tightly as he could. You guys need to run, and run far. Get out of this city before it eats you up.
You've done this before. Toner was mumbling half-incoherently, You could always do it Jess, you could do it so we thought we could. He looked up at him wide-eyed. You've never left.
Nathan hurried back into the room in the basement where the other three were. We got a cab, let's go.
Toner and Jess helped get Antony to his feet, but Jess was doing most of the work. By the time they got out onto the street the day had turned into a watery mess, and all hell was raining down on them as they tried to get Antony across the crowded sidewalk and into the cab. The first three got in at about the time that Jax Diment and Kyle Lanley began approaching them from the end of the block. Nathan, who was half in the car stared over Jess' one shoulder, then switched to the other.
Now we're got some serious trouble. he said lightly under his breath. Hop in.
Jess just shook his head, I'm not going with you.
Nathan nodded, understanding. I'll come get you soon. You'll make it out.
Jess pushed away from his friends and looked around in the direction of the expected attackers, but as they were still some distance away Jess tapped on the cab and as it took off, so did he.
He was running around a corner about three blocks later, his face pale and his his clothing drenched when he ran (literally) into a police officer.
What's the rush? he said looking down on Jess from where he stood.
Nothing, I... he raised his hands to make a point and realized that they were still covered in Antony's blood.
You know the drill I'm assuming? he said pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
*
The cell was bleak, and unclean and the fluorescent lights that hung above would swing every time someone leaned against the cold, metal bars. Which was often in this case because it was summer, and there wasn't any source of air movement. For the obvious reasons there wasn't air conditioning, in fact, Jess thought that if the entire police station had central air they would probably remove it from this room just to make it as uncomfortable as possible.
They brought him into a small, nearly empty room not unlike the ones often seen on crappy cop TV shows. Jess simply sat not saying anything, and it wasn't until someone pointed out that if he didn't start talking there were roughly 50 unsolved murders from the past week that they could pin on him, so he talked about what happened. Well, he outlined the events and left out everything illegal. Jess wasn't one to talk much outside of his own head.
When all the scenarios had been played through over and over again they finally agreed to release him. Liz had come to put up his bail as he was attempting to leave. Apparently it had taken her a day to pick herself off the floor and listen to the message he left with his one phone call.
*
The story from there was pretty simple. Liz had never had faith that he would turn out okay, but now she had run out of patience and effort. So he was shipped off. The end of his time in New York City, and the knowledge that while his friends tried to get away, they would invariably be back, and while he tried to stay where he was - invisible - he had lost everything he had ever known.
Luckily, he had never learned to love, so at least he didn't need to worry about missing any of it.
You always said destiny would blow me away.
Nothing's going to blow me away.
