Fire Escape

By Sempiternus

Summary: One-shot. Pre-show. Jess centric. After holding on for so long to his old life, he finally gives up and flees.

Author's Note: Just a story centering around Jess Mariano's childhood and why I think he got to be the way he was during his time on the show during seasons one and two.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls; I am not trying to get profit off of the show. I do not own copyrights to the Russian lullaby used in a portion of this story.

Arevn ampi tak chi mna

The sun won't stay behind the cloud.

– Armenian proverb

The sharp pain seemed to ride through his body, never stopping on its ever-going journey to the brain to deliver the message of nerves being squashed for a brief moment. Maybe more than a "brief" one, but it was short nonetheless, even if multiple ones did follow. His mind was slower today than usual, and it took a while for him to rise. The kicking continued. He thought of screaming, but knew it would be no good. And, plus, there was no use. What the hell would happen, anyway? His fucking mother would come rushing into the room, try to get the thug off of her "baby" and end up getting beaten herself. No, it was better to just take it. Just to pretend like he was asleep, that was the only way. It would stop eventually, and, if it didn't, well, too damn bad. The latest thug would be doing him a favor that none of them before would do. Not like they didn't try, though, because they did. They just didn't give a shit enough to finish through. They didn't want the "trouble" as they put it when he was begging for his life to end and his mother was screaming while trying to get her joint lighted at the same time. That was if she was even home. Most nights she wasn't, and he was left with her latest thug. Those were the night he was most appreciative of his books he had stolen. They provided an escape, one of the only known to the child not even in his teenage years yet. Sure, more devices would come later, but, for now, the books were the only thing needed. To go to the great Spanish fiesta with Jake and his friends; to go hang out with his number one, conspiring droog, Alex, and get into mischievous trouble. Or, his favorite, to escape with his loving mother to Utah, and to evade the boyfriend who tries to hurt them. All he had to do was think about those books, and he drifted off to a world away from the kicking.

Soon enough, the elder man had exhausted all of his trouble's upon the young boy enough and turned to leave, muttering obscenely malevolent expressions while leaving. Ah, well, nothing the boy hadn't heard countless time's before, since he was able to remember. When he finally dared to move his body, he slowly tried to get his leg to operate. No luck. Panicked for a second, he tried again. Nothing. Cold sweat was now running down the boy's back and chest as he sat straight up—using only his mid-section—and looked at the destruction the thug had wreaked havoc upon. Sure enough, when he looked at his legs, they were in rather odd positions. One was twisted abnormally to the left—his left leg—and the other foot was pointed like he was pigeon-toed. He was horror-struck and his eyes seemed frozen in place. Was this really what he had been wishing for? No, it would have been better if the drunk man's legs would have flown toward the upper area, then his ultimate wish may have come true. Alas, though, only his legs had been torn up when he wasn't concentrating on keeping them on the floor and steady, instead of letting the thug do whatever he wanted with them, as he did when they flew all over the place, both ignoring it. Silently, he cursed at the poison that had coursed through the thug's veins and made him only aim for his legs. This could have been the night! All of this could have finally been over with! His long awaited dream—so closely realised and, yet, so far away.

Shaking his head, he tried to get his mind back on track on what to do with his current situation. Calling for his mother was out of the question, even though he knew that she would have kicked this thug out, even if he did offer free pills. But his mother only took that . . . medication . . . because he caused so much trouble. Maybe if he were better at school, and didn't try to steal so often, she would really be back to when she would come from work and just rest for a while, while he made them some dinner that he had managed to scrummage up. When did that stop any way? When he entered school, of course, and his teachers didn't know that he had to be home every day at two-thirty to make lunch, then, later at night, dinner. It was all those damned teachers' fault. If they hadn't of kept him behind in class, he could have run home, and things would still be as they were. Well, fuck them. Now, all he had to do was concentrate on how to get his mother into this room while not letting on that he was hurt. He knew that as soon as she found out that she was going to start to try and hit the thug, which would result in an injurious conflict. It had happened before. Sighing to himself, the boy slowly laid down and tried to think. However, a pain that had been blocked before began to leak back into his mind. Suddenly, his legs were screaming, and they took his mind along with them. On the outside, the boy clenched his jaw and grimaced. Maybe he would try and get his mother in the morning. If he pretended that he was sick, she would come in here by herself (the thug had always said that she'd better "keep that little piece of shit away from me. Full of goddamn germs and I ain't gonna be responsible for when he finally kneels over and dies. He'd better not give me anything, or else. And that includes trouble, you hear me!" he would shout first at his mother then into the closed bedroom door. The boy had heard the thug, loud and clear) then he could tell her in private. Yeah, it was a good plan. First, he just wanted to sleep. He slowly faded off, wondering when this would all finally end.

A loud commotion outsideof his door awoke the boy from a painful sleep. The last thing he remembered from his dream was God, at the pearly white gates (as they were so often described) telling his that he couldn't go on because he had stolen and committed the "deadliest" sin. Then, the gates closed in his face, scraping his nose (he was still flesh-and-bone) and the Devil came and took his away. The Devil was the thug, and said that he'd "take care of him" for the rest of eternity. And, like a cloud moving along the atmosphere, the dream was gone. Turning his attention back to the slamming and screaming, the boy began to catch words being said.

"You did that, you fucking piece of shit, you! You hurt my little boy, and now I'm gonna fucking hurt you!" The boy grimaced once again. So, his mother had seen before he could come up with a cover story. Damn.

"You bitch! You don't talk to me like that! After all I've fucking done for you!" He heard a loud smack and shuttered. "I was just teaching your little piece of fuck a lesson! Did you know that your 'baby' stole another goddamn book from the school library? Yeah, I gotta fucking 'nother call from that school of his. I swear, that kid is headin' to some trouble! You should be thanking me!"

"Thanking you? Thanking you? Did you even look at his legs? I bet my poor baby can't even walk!" I can walk, Mother, I'm sure I can! Don't get him mad, please, just . . . I'll walk and I won't steal anymore and I'll even come home early from school to help out! Just don't get him mad! he silently pleaded in his head as he squeezed his brown eyes shut and lay back down. He knew his pleading would do no good. All that was left now was to go back to sleep. He definitely didn't want to hear what was going on out there. Humming a song he had heard at school during International Day, he tried to lullaby himself to sleep, even rocking the best he could.

Sleep-sleep-sleep.
Don't lie close to the bedside.
Otherwise a gray wolf will come
And bite you.

The voices faded off into the distance and the boy was lost in his own fantasy world.

An earthquake was coming! It sped throughout his entire body as he gripped onto the rough edges on the rocks for safety. Here it came, back and forth it rocked him! He tried to hold onto the dream about an angel coming to save him, but the earthquake kept on. But, all of a sudden, light began pouring in, and the boy inside his mind—of who he really wanted to be: a brave night—slipped into his ever active imagination and was pushed to the back of his mind. Someone was roughly telling him to wake up; that it was time. Time for what, he wondered as his eyes began opening a little bit more from panic. He felt weary. Where was his mother? As the focus returned to the light brown surrounding the expanding pupil, the boy turned. Or, at least, tried to turn, until he recalled his current situation. The voice talking seemed to take no heed of the pain that suddenly appeared on the boy's face and evaporated just as fast. Showing pain was not a good thing. He'd learned that lesson from his mother. The shaking then stopped when the owner of the voice seemed to realise that the boy had awoken.

"Are you okay?" the distant voice said. On the other side, the boy, still groggy, was hearing him through a partly dream and partly reality sense. The boy merely nodded when he realised that this was, in fact, reality. He hadn't been so sure at first. When his eyes finally adjusted to the abnormal amount of light pouring into the room from the window that was usually kept closed, he looked at the man in front of him. Immediately, the boy panicked, as it was his fashion, when he caught on, very quickly, that this man wasn't just a concerned neighbour. Wearing a dark blue uniform and having a badge right on that color tipped him off that this man was the police. The police weren't going to be able to help him, he knew that. It had been seared into his mind ever since he asked once, when his mother had come home in a good mood from work and let him go to the museum—which was his favorite place—for a while. He had been so exited, and his mother seemingly was, too, because she even asked about his day at school. This is when he learned the universal lesson that the police couldn't—wouldn't—help people like him, or her. That they were just there to make sure that the people with money were protected from people like them. He had looked up at his mother (whom he called "mom" at the time until one of the thugs threatened him every time he did because, apparently, "mother" showed more "respect") why the police were like that, because his teacher had said that the police care about everybody and wanted to help every single person live a happy life. His mother had actually laughed—a rare moment for the boy, who gazed up at her, eyes shining with happiness that his mother had done this remarkable thing—and told him, in an ominous yet mollifying voice that the teachers were paid to say that, and if he believed that then he might as well just run away right now, because if he had ever told the police about their situation, they would separate them. The boy being especially young at that time, didn't understand, and asked why they would separate them. His mother merely told him that it was the law. If you're not rich, you're not allowed to have children. That was just how it was. Not wanting to agitate his mother at all during this special time, the boy dropped the subject, and turned with youthful curiosity towards the hidden treasures that the museum mystically held. It was definitely his favourite place. He could recall everything he saw that day. It was the last day they had spent as just a team of two together. Later that month, the first of many thugs moved—this one, the boy actually thought would become a full-fledged parent until he suddenly moved out one day. He remembered that his mother had been dejected—more than usual—and that's when she began to take her special "medication." At least, that's what she called it when he caught her taking it once. ("Don't worry, baby, it's just medicine. Like you take when you're sick.") It would still be a couple of months before the boy opened his eyes. A couple of months for a life to turn around.

The second guy that his mother brought home was even worse than the first one. First of all, the second one didn't wink at him, and say that his mother was "the most beautiful woman on the planet." No, the only thing he could recall this one saying was, "Go get my beer, bitch!" That didn't go well with the child who was still heartbroken over the first guy. For as long as he could remember, it had been he and his mother. Nobody else. And he liked that. He liked that they were a team against the atrocious police and the people who were constantly trying to separate them. He was a knight, protecting his family. Back then, he didn't have to read so many books. And, slowly, steadily, as the years passed and the boy entered grade school, the men just got worse and worse. The worse of them all, however, would be the fifth one, who entered the first grader into the realm of what he had heard his mother going through almost every night. The fifth one was the person who first called the boy a "thug" or a "punk" because he had stolen his first library book: The Gammage Cup. It was the first tale that brought his alter-ego, the valiant knight, to life. It was the first book of escaping. It was the first call home from the school. That night, the fifth guy, who, unlucky, had no job and just sat around watching television all day, answered the telephone. The moment he heard the strain in the fifth guy's voice, he knew he'd been caught. The man had charged into his room where he was sitting on the floor, behind the bed, hiding from the man and reading The Gammage Cup at the same time. Of course, the boy had been found. Dragged out to the living room where he caught the unpleasant sight of his beloved mother sticking a needle into a blue part of her arm (he had shuttered, and tried to erase the first condemned vision of his only constant in life) he was put in the middle of the floor, near the armchair and television and told to strip. Petrified, he did as told. In only underwear (his mother had said, slurring, "Don't take off your underpants, baby. He don't need to see that") the fifth man came back with a belt. Right then, the black pupils of his eyes had never gotten spherical and more thunderstruck. Feeling tears building up, the young boy, then not knowing any better, let them go freely. It was a mistake not to be made twice. Before the whipping (the ultimate slashing of innocence) the fifth man had called the boy a "useless thug who won't grow up to be anything." Turning into the brave knight from The Gammage Cup, the boy spat back, in a moment of sheer stupidness, "Yeah, well, I think you're the 'thug'! All you do is sit on the chair all day! Drinking beer and watching television." Mistake number two. Never made again. Every man who sat in front of the television, drinking beer and calling his mother a "whore" or a "bitch" was now a "thug," in honour of the boy's push (forceful thrust) into his mother's world. ("Mom. . . . It hurts . . ." he had cried afterwards. She just turned back to her pills.)

"We got a call about a disturbance. Your mother's pretty bad off, son," the police man said, interrupting the boy's daydream. Wearing an adapted face of indifference (newly used today), the boy turned to face the man with steeled eyes. Showing no backing down, the man looked at him directly in his eyes. The boy panicked, and felt the sickness rushing back up. Nobody had ever done that. "Anyway, right now, she's at the hospital a couple a' blocks down. When she woke up, she said she's got a kid that's in bad shape, too. So, we're just waiting here for the ambulance." Glancing down, the man looked disturbed for a moment, before trying to meet the young boy's eyes again. No luck. "So, how'd that happen, son?" he asked warmly, a contrast from his former tone of voice. Because of not getting a response, and the boy just turning to look out the window that his mother had always said to keep closed, (there were more dangers out there than in his own small world, she had said), they waited the remaining time in silence.

The ambulance came, got them, and drove to the hospital. When they got there, the boy was immediately put into the Emergency Room to check out his legs. He didn't get to hear the final doctor's report. They all thought he was too young, that he wasn't old enough to hear the details. That he was too youthful, wouldn't understand. The boy just kept silent. It was his trademark. They thought he was mute.

Later on, when the boy, fully clad in a wheelchair (only a couple of torn tissue fragments and a sprained ankle were the reason he was in the damn chair), was brought down to his mother's room for a visit, unsupervised, as no eminent threat had been established, she turned to the young face and said, with slit eyes and a steeled face, "Jess, you fucking got us into this. You . . . after all I have done for you. This is all of your fault. You know, Cyrus got sent to jail 'cause a' you? I'm never gonna forgive you for this. Cyrus was hooking me up with everything . . . everything!" She shook her head and turned away from the boy whose face was steeled. No emotions playing, nothing. She apologised later, said they had her on all kinds of different drugs which made her say the things that she had said. He knew better. They moved a couple of months later. Jess was in the fifth grade. He had begun smoking. He no longer put up with the shit thugs. He now had a use for the window in his room that had been opened by the police man, leading to a fire escape. ("Did you want me to get beat, Mother, did you want me as your decoy? Did you not want me to escape through my window? Is that why you kept it closed?" a childish mind asks, privately, to itself. There's no answer. He hears his mother crash through the front door, another's tongue shoved down her throat. His face is emotionless.)

In the car ride to another city in New York, his mother is chattering incessantly. Briefly, his mind wanders to the last museum trip when he was six. It flashes back. Memories are dangerous, he tells himself. Looking down at the book he had been rereading for this trip, he glances at the worn back cover. No more flashbacks, he reminds himself as the read's the summary, "Divorced mother escapes to Utah with her son to escape an abusive boyfriend. When she remarries, the main protagonist finds himself battling against his new abusive stepfather in a battle of wills in which each is evenly matched. Deception, disguise and illusion are the tools the protagonist uses when growing up." Jess breaks from reality, and begins the book at the beginning. He is no longer paying attention to his chattering mother. A ratty, torn copy of This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff—it was a stolen gift to himself as a nine-year-old. Three years have passed. Time has moved on. Jess no longer believes in fantasy. The Gammage Cup is buried; the valiant knight is gone. With a steeled face, he has opened the fire escape window and fled.

Inspiration:

"Jimmy" by Tool

Completed 1 March 2006