Chapter Eight

"Ein heller Schein am Firmament Mein Herz brennt."

The sun exploded, sending down a fiery deluge of bitter rage. Everything once beautiful in the world was now blackened with soot, burning to the charred ground, becoming piles of ash. Beauty was no more, now all beauty was hideousness.

Jay was the last one standing, right smack dab in the middle of the ruins of the world. Everything other than he, who on the surface appeared unscathed and clean, was gone forever. Jason Hogart was now the King of Nothing, the only source of light being his burning heart that shone brightly on the heavens.

Well, that's what was going to become of him, anyway. At the moment the sun was as it always was: a somewhat young, bright yellow star high in the sky.

He had only been imagining things, the heroin working through his system sending forth images before his mind's eye about what might be to come. Talking to his parents while high wasn't one of Jay's better ideas, but he needed to calm himself down, he needed to be prepared for what was going to happen.

For the time being Jay's father was far too upset to notice just how out of it his son was.

"Didn't we raise you better than this, Jason?" that's what Dad kept repeating over and over again. Mom was standing beside him with her arms crossed, never saying anything but shaking or nodding her head grimly.

Sitting at the dining table in the apartment Jay so far had said nothing in response to anything his father had said. He kept his eyes focused on the white Formica table top, picked at his nails. The words being spoken to him rolled off his back, he heard them but he never grabbed hold of them because he didn't want to.

A part of Jay was only slightly convinced that if he just didn't say anything at all his parents would ground him out of frustration and try not to get any answers out of him. Fattest chance in the world, so obese the thing was physically unable to get up off the couch, but it was still worth a try. Even if Jay did answer some of his parents' questions he wouldn't be able to get the words correct.

How the hell was Jay going to explain everything when even he didn't know why he had done half the things he'd done?

Silence was far better at the moment than "I don't know", but evidently by the way his father kept right on speaking neither of Jay's parents could, unfortunately, read his mind.

"Why would you do something like that?" Dad asked, his voice strained with emotion. "That's not how we raised you, Jason. Where did we go wrong? What happened?"

Jay wanted to laugh, wanted to scoff and say "Where to start!" but his lips remained sealed and chapped.

If there was any kind of justice in the world Spinner was getting his, that's what Jay thought about instead of what to eventually say to his parents. Maybe Spinner's parents were ripping him a new one and that thought alone helped Jay convince himself his situation wasn't really all that bad – he wasn't alone, not yet at least.

Jay would be alone the very moment he mentioned anything as to why he was as fucked up as he was, if he could even find a way to put it. Was he suppose to say raped or molested? The latter probably, he was only seven at the time. But he hadn't been just touched, it was full blown rape. Fucking Christ, why was he thinking about it? If he kept thinking about it the clip show would start up and all the black tar heroin in the world would not be able to stop those moving pictures.

Panic suddenly set in, began coursing through his veins though his face stayed blankly calm.

If Jay ever told his parents they would want to press charges. He'd have to sit in the witness chair and recount that night to a room filled with strangers, he would have to look into Mark Jacobs's face all over again, he would have to explain just what had been done to him to every last minute detail.

A lump started to form in Jay's throat, he was unable to swallow it away.

But then again hadn't the statute of limitations run out? Hopefully it had, hopefully time had run out and a trial would have no chance to form. Jay didn't want to set foot near Mark Jacobs again, not ever, he didn't want to see the look in Mark Jacobs's eyes that would surely be there when he would comment on how much Jay had grown. But most of all Jay didn't want the people in the school to know what had happened to him.

Most likely people would treat him even more like toxic waste than ever before. There was a stigma against men who'd been raped by other men that Jay didn't want associated with him – at least Jay thought he saw a stigma there and even if there wasn't he didn't want anyone's pity. He didn't want anyone to treat him differently, he'd rather be burned alive on the stake. No one could ever find out.

A loud noise shook Jay of his thoughts. When his eyes focused, when he looked up, he met his father's face. Dad had slammed the table with both fists, leaned forward to confront his son.

"You're high!" He was by far more disappointed than angry. "What in God's name has gotten into you, Jason? Why are you doing this? Answer me!"

Jay shrugged, trying to force himself numb to how his mother and father were looking at him. "Words don't come out right."

"Don't give me that, Jason. Please, just tell me why you're doing this to youself. I thought your mother and I raised you better than this."

Here it came. Funny, how one can build up a disguise to hide behind and find that one day the mask has adhered itself to one's face.

"Yeah, a lot of fucking good your raising me did. I thank you for the effort, though," Jay replied dryly.

His mother finally got shocked into talking. "You don't speak like that under this roof, young man."

"I'll say whatever I goddamn please, it's not like you're ever around enough to do fucking shit about it."

"That's not fair to your mother, Jason, you know that."

Jay laughed. "So now we're going into fair now? Shit, like you're really the one to be talking."

Father clenched his teeth, let out a pent up breath. "No one's perfect, Jason. Your mother and I had problems just like anyone–"

"Exactly!" Jay exclaimed, pushing his chair back from the table. "If no one's perfect why the fuck do you have to jump on my back?"

"We didn't do what you did, Jason. We don't want you to make mistakes like we did, but you're certainly far down that road," his mother explained. "Why? Why did you do something like that to that poor boy?"

Jay stood up and tugged at the collar of his jacket. "Because it was funny that's why. Seeing that fucking pussy drenched in pink paint and feathers, it was funny as shit."

"This isn't like you," Mother said softly.

"How do you know what's like me, Mom?" Jay yelled. "You don't have a fucking clue to what's like me! This is like me, but you wouldn't know that because you're never around and you wouldn't know because you were fucking other douche bags behind Dad's backs while he was doing the same to you with brainless cunts! This is like me and it's your fucking fault I'm like this!"

His father started toward him and Jay backed up. "Jason, you don't know what you're saying. You don't even need to tell me what you took, just sit down."

"Why should I? So you can keep yelling at me and make me look like the fucking bad guy here?"

Dad changed tactics on him. "Why aren't you happy anymore, Jason? Didn't you used to be happy?"

"Used to being the operative words," Jay remarked flatly.

"Then why aren't you anymore?"

"Shit happens."

Jay stared at the window behind his parents, focused so hard on the power lines swaying in the breeze that his eyes began to hurt. He couldn't bring himself to look into his parents' faces, he knew what parts of him that hadn't withered away that night would do so if he ever saw the look on his mother's or father's face.

This wasn't how this was suppose to go, but then again Jay had never had a strong grasp onto any kind of planning for this either. His throat was dry, legs weak. All he needed was to get out of the room, to find a place where there was air. If he could breathe again maybe Jay would be able to come up with something, anything, that would keep his head above the water.

Wheels and sprockets were rusted, they hardly turned if at all. The rabid animal of a heart pounded against its cage, screamed and roared and shrieked for escape. The world was spinning faster than the wheels of an Indy car at top speed. The waves of the sea in the stomach were green with nausea, swells crashing against the shore like the people in Galveston, Texas surely saw that fateful night back in 1900. Moist skin had hundreds of thousands of wasps crawling all over it, crossing every inch and crawling into every crevice. Ice water hardened around the spine, made running out the front door a pathetic dream.

For a brief moment Jay was certain it was his own hands that were around his neck, but quick finger twitching proved they were at his sides. No one was throttling him, it was just the lack of oxygen in the apartment kitchen.

It was almost as if by miracle Jay was able to speak. "Shit happens," he repeated gravely.

His father took a tentative step forward, but stopped with his right foot in the air when Jay backed up farther. "We still love you, Jason. No matter what happens, no matter what you've done, you'll always be our son and we'll always love you more than life itself."

"There are some things you can't love someone for," Jay said softly. "Some things, that after they happen, make it impossible to love that person again."

This time it was Mother's turn to try to move toward her son, without success. "Where'd you get a ridiculous notion like that, honey? What you did to that boy and your actions caused by your guilt because of it, we're upset that you could do such a thing, but your father and I could never stop loving you, could never love you any less."

Jay's voice cracked severely, his vision yet to blur. "It's not about that, you dumb fucks, it's never been about that!"

"Then talk with us, Jason," his father pleaded, making no attempt to hide his desperation. "Tell us what's wrong, what's going on. That's all we ask of you, just to talk with us. We won't think any less of you for it."

His head was getting foggy, throat thick, nasal passages heavy, eyes almost itching like they do before one starts to cry. "I don't believe you."

"For the love of God, Jason, just talk to us!"

Either not caring or forgetting that her son would back away each and every time either one of his parents made a move to him, Mother came toward Jay with her arms moving up and out in a hugging position. Ice melted. Jay looked away from the window and made his way quickly to the front door and put his hand on the knob.

"What happened to you to make you be like this? Why are you so afraid?" Mom asked in a faint voice.

Jay's bottom lip was bleeding, he had been biting down on it so hard without realizing it. Now his vision was starting to blur. "You wanna know what happened, Mom?" His voice was wavering horribly, cracking worse than thin ice under a weight. "You really wanna know what happened so god damned badly? I was raped, that's what happened, and it's all because of you! You offered that gay fuck you'd been sleeping with to babysit me and then he raped me! And you were both so fucking focused on the image of who the fuck I was suppose to be back then that you didn't even notice I was still fucking bleeding when you two got home! You didn't care to fucking ask why I was walking so fucking strangely because you two were too caught up in your bullshit circus-like marital issues! And you still didn't fucking notice me falling ever since! That's what happened! I'm fucking broken, shattered into a trillion blackened bits and neither of you ever fucking noticed the pieces of me you were stepping on!"

Somewhere along the line Jay had opened the door and stepped outside into the hall. He was glad his was crying, thrilled to not be able to see his parents' reaction to the news as he looked back. "There! I told you! You don't love me anymore, do you? You can't, can you? Don't worry, I'm not coming back!"

The door slammed with such force he heard the framed photographs decorating the hallway walls shake. Several neighbors were leaning out of open doors to see what the fuss was about and Jay quickly turned away from them, started for the stairs as quickly as possible.

The fresh air did him no good, for Jay was choking on it.