"If I could change I would, take back the pain I would, retrace every wrong move that I made I would. If I could stand up and take the blame I would, I would take all my shame to the grave."
So much for being too chicken to run away from his parents.
Jay was clearly not meant to be a spontaneous person. A momentary, spontaneous decision to run from his parents and not come back had landed Jay in one hell of a pickle. He just had to chose to leave home for an indefinite amount of time, which was all fine and dandy, but he could have at least stopped long enough to gather some clothes first. A second pair of boxers would be nice and the money from his piggy bank, but it was too late now to go back and get those things. As if that wasn't bad enough for extra good measure it had started to rain.
It must be a law somewhere in Mother Nature's book that it absolutely, positively has to rain every single time something angsty happens. What a bitch, as if being homeless with only one pair of shorts wasn't sucky enough.
It could be worse. The rain could have been falling down harder and faster, but for now it was only a light drizzle, and his car ran swell too.
He didn't fully understand why he was sitting in the alley behind The Dot, at the time it had just seemed like a force of nature, instinct or something of the like. Maybe Jay's grumbling stomach had something to do with the choice of destination, but he wasn't about to waste what little money he had in his wallet on something less important than food. Sure, without food he'd eventually starve to death, but if there was no fuel in the gas tank that would trump a bloated, swollen stomach and ravaged muscles any day. Besides, there was a half-melted month-or-two old chocolate bar buried somewhere in the glove box.
If chocolate bars could become poisoned the longer they fermented, maybe Jay would be found in the morning dead and stiff with rigor mortis, one arm hanging out of the window. What a nice surprise for the person who went over to question what the car was doing parked in the middle of the alley. It wouldn't ever happen, but Jay still smirked while imagining the expression on that unlucky person's face when he or she leaned down to look into the driver's side window and made the shocking discovery of a very much dead and pasty Jason Hogart.
When that happened, the moment the Prime Minister heard about Jay's death, the day would be declared a national holiday from now until eternity. More people would rejoice about it than grieve, that much was fact.
Certainly Spinner Mason would be one of those many a rejoicer, for the look on his face when Jay walked around the restaurant and through the front door made that assumption very clear.
He had been glowering over a table by the window, scrubbing the Formica eating surface with such fervor it was a miracle the oaf hadn't worn a hole right through it. When he saw Jay enter his, Spinner's, place of employment his face went a sicklier shade of gray and he nearly tripped over several chairs when he stomped angrily over to the man who had caused the chain of events leading up to a punch in the face.
"What are you doing here?" Spinner sneered, failing to keep his voice in a level whisper. From his clenched hands the faint sound of tearing wash rag could almost be heard.
Jay shrugged one shoulder and made his way casually over to the bar counter, took a stool. "I'm hungry, why else would I be here?"
"You can eat someplace else." And again, more towel fabric began to shred.
"Now why would I do that, Gavin? I drove all this way with a sound machine of a stomach and it would be too much like work to get up and drive somewhere else, wou'nit?"
"I don't care," Spinner commented through his clenched teeth, his nasal tone of voice from Ilse's punch fading none.
"But," Jay said flatly, "I do."
Spinner, for being such a tubby guy, made a commanding effort of bulking himself up so that he might loom over Jay. "I don't give a shit," he replied in a low voice. "I want you to eat someplace else. Now. While I'm still young, if you don't mind."
"Actually, I do mind, thank you much." Jay rapped the counter with his knuckles impassively. "And you might want to watch your language there, Gavin; don't want to get yourself fired. Then where'd you be?"
"Christ. Stop calling me Gavin."
"Why not? That's your name, isn't it? Says so right on your name tag. Hell, who do I have to kill to get some service around here?"
Spinner took a menu from the pocket of his apron and slammed it down on the counter in front of Jay, completely livid.
"Thank you," Jay said cheerfully. He opened the menu and scanned its contents, muttering softly "Choices, choices".
"Why do you have to do this to me? It's bad enough you got me expelled."
"No, that was all you, buddy boy." Jay sighed through his nose. "Hot dog, a cheeseburger or pizza fries?"
"No. No, I don't think it was," Spinner protested. "You made it all happen."
"Oh, a BLT. That sounds nice, and it was totally your idea."
"Just because I thought of it doesn't mean all the blame should go on me. What does it matter, it doesn't make a bit of difference whose fault it is since we're both expelled."
"Maybe a Cesear salad."
"Just order something, will ya? Make up your mind!"
Jay calmly closed the menu and handed it back to Spinner. "Doesn't matter what I choose. I can't afford it anymore, not when I've left all my damn money at home."
Spinner might have looked confused, but Jay didn't turn to look at him to find out.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? Yeah, I ran away. I can't go back home and even if I could, it's not like they want me to come back."
"What the hell did you do, off someone?"
"In a way."
"What does that mean, 'in a way'?" Spinner switched tactics, instead of sounding enraged his voice had a repulsed tinge to it. "And why are you telling me? I'm not giving out free handouts, do I look like a friggin' shelter to you?"
Jay casually looked the restaurant employee up and down. "Certainly have more square footage than most shelters do, don't you?"
The wash rag might have been a fourth of the way to being ripped in half. "That was uncalled for."
"I was trying to be witty there, Spinster."
"If you're not going to order anything, just get the hell out of here."
Jay smirked. "Somehow I'm not surprised you hardly make any tips."
"Get out!" Spinner bellowed, yanking Jay off his stool by the shirt sleeve. "You've caused me enough trouble, Jay, and I won't let you just sit there and heckle me. The last think I need right now is to get fired!"
The manager didn't look as though she was around, but surely given enough time to scoot her butt over to the bar area Spinner would be hoisted up the flagpole by his undies in three seconds flat.
"Fucking Christ, watch the goods, man. I just came here to tell you us outcasts have to stick together." Jay straightened out the only shirt he now owned, silently hoped that no seams had been ripped worse than that wash rag, and began walking away before Spinner really got angry and tried to throw a doughy punch.
As suspected, the restaurant manager showed up on cue and shrilly asked for an explanation for whatever the hell just went on in her grill.
Jay smiled inwardly about this, how someone else in the world was feeling horrible and not solely him. Really, that was the only reason as to why he came into The Dot, but then again he was starving and thought he'd snatch some leftovers from a nearby table when no one was looking.
With everyone's attention on the dramatic scene being played out before them, Jay took a plate of what might have been a chicken sandwich and French fries drizzled in vinegar with his right hand. A third of the sandwich had been uneaten and even more of the serving of fries, but it was good enough for the moment.
Wanting to stay and watch the possible firing of Spinner Mason, but knowing he wasn't nearly that stupid to do so with a stolen lunch in his hands, Jay shuffled quickly to the front doors. He was so busy looking down at his meal with the eyes of an anorexic staring at her stash of appetite suppression pills Jay didn't notice that Ilse Miller was entering the same door he was reaching his hand out to open.
Door collided with hand and plate, plate upturned crashed into t-shirt, ketchup and vinegar and grease soiled cotton blend.
Jay, crazed with a now ravenous hunger and disdain toward his entire day, let out a word that sounded more like what the first caveman might have tried to say than anything in any known language. Everything else came out just fine.
"You bitch, look what you did! I can't afford to get this fucking thing clean!"
Ilse was beautiful, well, all the time, but especially so when she was feeling a surge of anger – the kind of anger brought upon by something completely different than what caused the explosion.
"That's not my problem, is it, you incompetent jerk? Watch where you're going and maybe things like this wouldn't happen to you or, better yet, maybe next time the door'll hit you in the face with such a force as to cause your demise!"
"What the fuck is this, Lash Out At Jay Day?"
"No, it isn't, but you're certainly much easier to yell at than the government so it most certainly should be! Who the hell lets someone walk out of jail after only four years for good behavior? Are they blind and deaf to go along with extremely dim witted?" Ilse asked loudly, apparently forgetting where she was or why because she turned sharply and left the diner with an enraged scoff.
Jay had never liked being confused and he wasn't about to take it lying down, reasoning being for following Ilse out onto the sidewalk.
"What?"
Maybe she had forgotten who she was talking to, or maybe she didn't even know she was speaking her thoughts out loud. "Get suspended until tomorrow, come home and find that son of a bitch standing in the kitchen with his hands all over my favorite mug – I'll have to burn it – and drinking my coffee with that grin on his face! Four fucking years, unbelievable, not even half of what that prick was suppose to serve and they just let him go because he was a model prisoner, my achin' ass."
"What are you talking about?"
She was walking in circles, her right hand formed into a fist and grinding against her left palm. "Did they not see the reports, did they not watch the fucking trail tape? My father didn't even tell me until this morning and neither of us believed it, thought they'd look back through the fucking papers and not let Luke out. The Pope wouldn't have let that kid out."
"Enlighten me, please."
Or maybe she was completely aware of her surroundings and what she was doing, for Ilse stopped walking, stared hard at Jay. "I should've known something was up when I had to meet the guy who has the doppelgänger set of his eyes on my first day of a new school, when I felt like fucking Harry Potter and feel like my scar was ripping open."
"What the fuck are you going on about?"
"My brother came home this afternoon."
Jay pressed a hand firmly against his head, forgetting about the French fry sauce blood all over the palm. He swore and let his arm drop back to his side. "Shouldn't you be happy about that? I mean…." Jay didn't know what he meant.
What Jay disliked more than being confused, was a person being cryptic.
"I'm a fluke, Jay. I wasn't born a 'fucking lezbo' and maybe I apologize for that."
&&&
In the movies no one stops to address the audience and, in their monologue, explain how uncomfortable sleeping in one's car really is. Not one person sheds the light on just how much like a pretzel one has to be in order to lay down on the seats – uncomfortably and, no, there is not one single comfortable position to be found – and just how shallow one's sleep will be in that horribly contorted position.
Not a soul takes the time to talk about how badly the back and neck stiffen, how heavy and tingly the arms and legs get for being in one placement for far too long and the fact that there's no choice for that because there's only so much room in the vehicle for a tired body to lie.
Only contortionists can have sex in a car, of that Jay was becoming more sure of by the second.
His head was pounding, his stomach screaming, and the smell of grease, vinegar, and sugared tomato paste so thick in the Civic that even with the windows open Jay could hardly breathe. His dreams, albeit strange ones filled with dancing ketchup and vinegar bottles hoping into deep fryers one after the other, were always so close to the surface of wakefulness that it was pointless to have dreamt them at all.
Jay wanted to go home, but home wasn't an option anymore.
Mothers and Fathers want pure children untouched by mold with all their pieces present and eyes shinning with untainted life. They want children with clear, beacon-like laughter who smile missing teeth or gum filled smiles of sheer joy. They want children who will grow up to do something great for the world, not bring it down by inevitably becoming the man they hate. Parents don't want broken children, raped children covered in mud and bruises and blood and spider bites. Parents don't want children who cry themselves to sleep on a moon lit path littered with the carcases of dreams long since dead.