Ch. 5 Polonius

On a couch looking across the room at a psychiatrist was probably the last place Jameson Denmark wanted to be right now, especially after last night's episode. Jameson didn't exactly want to spend time hanging out with a plump man who had a bald, baseball shaped head. Jameson thought about what would happen if he suddenly started to act like a wacko by telling the doctor what he really thought about his mother's death. He thought about what Clark would do - probably send him away for good so he didn't have to be bothered anymore. But there was no way Jameson was going to let that happen. He was good at pretending to be something he's not. He should have been by now, anyway.

"So Jameson, how has your last week been? Last time I saw you, you were talking about your stepfather Clark. You mentioned some suspicions about him and didn't really expand on them. Do you care to explain further?" His voice was like an air conditioning system trying to sing opera – monotone as a robot, with inserts of inflection as an attempt at some sort of animation. He had to squint sometimes because his glasses would fall down his nose, and he would neglect to push them up until his question was answered.

Jameson avoided the question and instead examined the movement patterns of a few pieces of lint he could see because of the slits of light coming through the blinds. He couldn't help but think about how he was breathing those little particles into his lungs. By the end of the session, his insides would probably feel like they'd been gathering dust for years. He examined Dr. Polonius' desk, lit with a dim lamp, probably to set some sort of aura, but it seemed to have the opposite effect which any regular psychiatrist would want. He was also dressed like a regular psychiatrist: slacks, sweater vest, penny loafers, glasses. But Dr. Polonius wasn't regular. He had pictures of all his patients lined up on a shelf behind his desk, some in orange uniforms. Jameson gave a shudder as he saw the stacks of papers piled up on his desk, probably filled with the crazy thoughts of a thousand psychopaths.

Jameson had been suspicious at first, but instantly knew what was going on the first time he had walked into this office. He thought about leaving, but Clark was not someone who was easily challenged. So for the time being, Jameson really did not have a choice. Instead, he'd just have to pretend like he was normal and try and get out of this mess. Maybe he could prove Clark wrong, and show him that he really can pretend better than anyone thought.

"Jameson? I asked you a question?"

"He's the biggest jackass I ever met."

Jameson then looked down at the green couch, patterned with tiny little square tufts of cotton. It was still smooth enough to be recognized as cotton, but hinted at the fact that many a maniac had put their hand in this spot, and the couch probably hadn't been washed or years.

"Well, people aren't always jackasses when we get to know them better. Why is he such a jackass?"

"He killed my mom." Oops.

Dr. Polonius finally pushed up his glasses and looked down to write something on Jameson's file. Jameson felt that in front of his eyes his doom was being sealed on that document.

"Blaming the surviving parent for the other parent's death is never the answer, Jameson. It's not Clark's fault. Cancer killed her, not your stepfather."

Jameson just looked down at the couch again silently.

"Well your mother never would have married a jackass, would she?"

Jameson looked up at this, and gave Dr. Polonius a confused look.

"Of course not. Obviously she never knew who he really was, until he killed her."

Jameson thought about how... happy she'd seemed when Clark was around, and he thought about the first time she laughed since his father's death. They had been sitting at the dinner table, and Clark cracked a stupid joke that was somehow hilarious to her. It was like she was a completely different person, without that black hole in her soul. The laugh almost seemed like it came from an alien; Jameson wasn't used to a mother who laughed. But she had certainly been happy with Jameson's father. Much happier than she ever was with Clark. She was really happy then. He'd served in the military, been a successful businessman, an avid biker, and still spent plenty of quality time with his family. She had adored him, every last part of him, and said so to Jameson and Brett all the time. The only man on the earth that could have made her that happy was his father, and he was gone.

"What are you thinking about, Jameson?"

Jameson looked up and around again to avoid the hard stare of the man across the room.

"Jameson?"

"My mom."

"What about your mom?"

"Just trying to figure out why she ever married that creep."

"Maybe she remarried because she got lonely. People get lonely sometimes."

Genevieve, lonely? But she was with Jameson all the time, she'd practically devoted her life to him. What could possibly make her feel alone? With this thought, Jameson began to feel his heart rate rise, and his palms to sweat on the cotton tufts.

"HOW could she feel LONELY? I was there. BRETT was there. We were FAMILY. What do YOU know anyway? My family was CLOSE, and we didn't NEED anyone else - we were provided for, we were happy, we were together, we were doing great."

"Well what I mean is that..."

The thoughts of anger towards this bumbling idiot and his stepfather that had been building up behind a secret internal wall seemed to suddenly expand and burst into a thousand little pieces in this moment. The man talked too much. He had no place, no RIGHT to be talking about these things, and Jameson needed SILENCE.

In a second, he was on the floor, with a red ring about his neck. Something had cut off the air in the man's esophagus. There were red marks in the shape of hands.

Jameson looked down at his hands. Red. So he could do it. Jameson was capable of taking real human life, and he rejoiced in this epiphany. Plus, there was no evidence that he had ever been there. All it took was a simple swapping of his file, because Clark had luckily paid the Doctor in cash for "discretion" as he had so aptly called it that morning.

Satisfied with this renewed sense of confidence, and exhilarated with the rushing feeling in his lungs and the quick beats of his heart, he finally felt himself able to fulfill the challenge given him.