Dortmund Hibernate

by C. J. Sutton

“Give me the keys to the four-wheeler. I’m out of this town. Do that, and I might let this skinny biker see the sun rise out of this hell-hole.”

  “Can’t let you go, Reaper,” said Lonie, “and I can’t let you kill him either. I need what was promised.”

  Magnus noticed a trail of bloodied gravel leading away from the scene and into the boot of the four-wheel drive. Officer Clip was missing.

  Jasper appeared unfazed by the predicament, despite the gun pressed against his frontal lobe, despite his beard caught on Reaper’s belt buckle. He wore no damage, felt no fear and made no commotion…but with the stand-off no closer to a conclusion, he used his most powerful weapon available in the rusting arsenal.

  “Reaper, you’re in a bit of strife here. If you shoot me, Lonie will have two bullets in your skull before another thought about freedom touches that half-hairless head of yours. If you somehow manage to shoot him, there’s two spare guns the doc and Mr. Perch will scramble for, and I’ll have you on the ground with a snapped neck before my old friend bleeds to death. Now, the final option, which would be to attempt some sort of hostage situation, is a dead end. Once the sun is up, you’re through. Lonie hid in plain sight for all to see, and that was for ten years. Me; I just need a shave and I’m good to blend in. You…you’re unique. One side of your face looks like a leper’s…and the other is missing an eye. Talk me through your thought process here, because I’m failing to see it.”

  Reaper tightened his choke-hold, and Jasper reddened, but a relaxed smile broke across his face.

  “Put the gun down, now,” said Lonie, fearing Jasper would pass out from lack of air, “I swear I’ll make your death slow, Reaper. I’ll burn the other side of your face. Better yet, I’ll do what I did to that senile old fuck, Carter: pop out the eye, cut off the tongue, let you live the rest of your life in a cell blind, dumb and ugly.”

  Reaper twitched as Jasper’s feet struggled against gravel, smoothing the surface as the former kingpin fought inner demons.

  “You know what, Reaper, I’ll tell you a story. Lonie is going to put his guns down. Once the story is done, you can shoot me and anyone else here, and leave in the four-wheel drive.”

  “Like fuck I am,” said Lonie, wiping sweat off his brow with his shirt-sleeve, chewing gum rudely and clacking backward bubbles, gunshots in preparation for an honest release. Magnus and Walter slowly stepped forward, removing themselves from the line of sight and closer to the vehicle, an unspoken but clear plan to safeguard from ricocheting ammunition. Faces black and clothes filthy, they entered Jasper’s world.

  The Reaping

  What are your views on hope, Magnus? Are even the most twisted minds driven by its lingering presence? ‘All hope is lost’ may be the most incoherent sentence ever constructed. ‘All hope is lost’ means no green will sprout from the soil, all water has evaporated and the sun projects no more light. Hope is synonymous with life.

  “Lonie, guns down, or your chances of getting what was promised will significantly diminish.”

  Lonie cursed under his breath, spitting out a pink wad of gum and kicking gravel like a boy throwing a tantrum in a supermarket. Dirt swirled in the patient wind, small tornados, flies drawn to the flames and killed on impact. Jasper began.

  “There’s this drug dealer, right? A real kingpin. You probably know him. He sold to all the kids in my home town, kids as young as twelve, thirteen. Boys…girls…hell, he’d sell to a puppy if it could pay him paper. I’m not a fan of drugs, so my crew and I brainstorm on how we can end this prick. I’m about eighteen at the time, no fear, nothing to lose, trying to make my way in the world. Coming up against the drug lord of a big city doesn’t faze me. I seem to lack that part of the brain…fear. So I tip off this drug dealer, tell him that his partner is screwing him on the side, making the big bucks, enhancing the product. The kingpin, he gobbles it up. The innocence of a fresh face, hey. Funny; he’s so keen to kill them, yet allows his drug empire to crumble because of a hot tip from a teenage biker. I heard he chopped off his best friend’s hand and went mad. But as I said, I’m not a fan of drugs, not a fan of what they do to someone…someone you care about. My associate goes over to this kingpin’s house brandishing a bag of pills he knows should be absorbed by young bloods, and the bastard just assumes he’s being screwed over. Little did he know that we searched high and low, spending our hard-earned cash buying these mint-looking death-inducers to fool the top of the tree and make him climb back down to reality.”

  Reaper’s singular eye was wild, as though touched by the soot circling Dortmund and recoiling from its past. The dying flames on the building danced across his face, and he embraced the heat, the anger, the hatred, the memory of being fooled by a teenager, the very age he targeted on his rampage in a club so many years before, killing free minds yet to fully understand life.

  “You…fucking…cunt,” he breathed, chest heaving, panting with the effort, shocked into stupor.

  “The story isn’t finished,” said Jasper, collected despite the nozzle of the gun rubbing jagged red marks onto his temple. He continued without hesitation.

  “The line of production needed to stop, the brand needed to diminish. My associate The Goat, who Dr. Paul over there supposedly cured, made the kingpin ruin his reputation. Those dead bodies in the club, that’s what unfortunately happens when you meddle in drugs. We did not save them, because each death was collateral, insurance that ensured the kingpin with grim reaper symbols on his pills would rot away behind bars for eternity. Now look; he’s holding me at gunpoint, and we both wasted years in Dortmund Asylum as equals. Watch how the building burns. Even the fire and the wind curses this foul place. I spent my years with you, separated by mere walls, and I forgive you for the pain you caused to thousands. The world is sick, Johnson Morgan. High School students have the same anxiety levels as insane asylum inmates of the 50s. What does that say about our levels? Does it make a place like this justified? Are we really better as ghost stories with numbered danger ratings?”

  Reaper dropped Jasper to the gravel, speaking in a language not recorded in history, a gibberish no translator could decode. He waved the gun dramatically, his broken and self-induced cut torso straining in agony. And he slammed the gravel with his free fist, snapping his little finger backwards, ripping off the nail on his thumb. No pain matched that of what Dortmund Asylum had permanently indented onto his psyche, a branding iron of searing bright orange set onto his brain as smoke fled the wound. Nobody ever tried to help Johnson Morgan, for the brand could not be removed.

  “I…can’t…help…it,” he growled, one word for each pummel. Jasper’s eyes were fixated on the gun, serious now, aware that the rope was lit and the small burning tip slithered towards the dynamite.

  “Of course you can’t. None of us can, Johnson. But when you get the same emblem that is printed on your drugs tattooed on you, what are they to think? When you carefully plan a drug empire without a care for deaths, what are they to think? When you purposefully want to poison thousands, what are they to think? Society sees you as a monster that doesn’t deserve parole. They mark you sick in the head, because what sane person opens fire on a club full of peakers? These places,” said Jasper, signalling to what remained of the crumbling Dortmund Asylum, “are dying out. It’s no longer acceptable to lock mentally ill patients in rotting old nut houses. How was a place like this, ever going to positively influence any of us? We come out loaded with an arsenal of disgust.”

  Out of his periphery Magnus noticed Walter creeping closer to Lonie, who was motivated by Jasper’s words, aware his own life followed a jagged track to Dortmund.

  “Say you kill us all and hop in the vehicle. You drive through Dortmund and manage to escape the barrier. You spend hours on the road, days maybe, trying to reach a big city. What then? You’ve been out of the game for so long, no dealer or gangster will take you in. None of your crew would remain prominent. There will be cops and all sorts of news teams tracking you down. They’ll either k
ill you, or catch you and make your death seem like an accident. Tell me, friend; what is your plan?”

  Reaper looked up, tears welling from his available eye. The man’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. Spit dribbled down his chin and wet the earth beneath him, a haunting shadow cast against his figure. From a gun-wielding drug lord to a gun-toting toddler, Johnson Morgan wept, running his dirty hand through his half head of brown hair and surrendering himself to society. He turned to Magnus Paul and crawled to the doctor on all fours, shuffling through the gravel and staining what remained of the jeans stolen from some poor citizen below. His free, grazed, bloodied and broken hand latched on to a pocket from Magnus’ pants, and Johnson wailed.

  “Save me, doc. You came here to cure me and make me better and not have these thoughts, I’m not a bad man I just have bad thoughts and anger and stubbornness and I can’t change these thoughts, I can’t change this when they lock me up and guards look at me like a monster and throw me food like an animal and call me Reaper, I’m a man I need help so much help can you help me, doc? Please help me I’ll do anything, I’ll listen, I’ll try I’ll do what you say.”

  Magnus watched the single eye dart back and forth from Magnus’ two, seeking an answer and pleading for a quick fix. But Magnus knew he couldn’t help Johnson Morgan, for he couldn’t save Claude Simmonds from wanting to be reunited with an anaconda; he couldn’t save Greyson from deep religious dreams; he couldn’t save Astrid from her unsavoury desires, or Chaos from his rage. Their sickness was incurable. For he couldn’t even save a guard from false imprisonment; he couldn’t even see it when the man was trying to make a case without eyes and a tongue, ten years later. Magnus didn’t need to answer Johnson, for silence stamped ‘insanity for life’ on his tormented torso. And so did the powers that be.

  “I’m not going back in there!” he screamed, pointing to the Asylum with his gun, “and I’m not going down there,” he continued, pointing with his free hand to Dortmund. “I’m not going to be a freak for everyone to shake their head at.”

  Johnson brought the gun up to beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. Magnus flinched from the bang as blood splattered against his shirt and face as though a paintbrush was waved before him. The sound caused Walter to spring into action, spear-tackling Lonie to the ground and away from the two handguns resting on the gravel. Johnson’s hand with gun intact fell to Magnus’ feet.

  “Pick it up!” yelled Walter, pinning a surprised Lonie to the ground as the old man tried to bite any part of skin close enough to his face, “pick up the gun and shoot Jasper. Quick!”

  Jasper James didn’t run to Lonie’s free handguns, or attempt to grab the weapon still in Johnson’s dead hand. The man stood in the same position, grinning smugly, not helping his comrade or using words to persuade an outcome. A ball of light shot out of the Dortmund Asylum entrance like a dragon breathing fire, blowing the steel door off its hinges and causing the wall to shake uncertainly, a threat to all who were in its range. One strong gust would take down the final upright section of the building. Magnus leaned down to pick up the gun, his hands shaking, prying the metallic piece free from the dead inmate’s powerful grip, even with the holder departed.

  “I know you came here to save them, I know you don’t want to kill anyone Mag, but we can’t let Jasper live. He’ll talk his way into freedom, I know it. Lonie can rot in prison, he needs to suffer, but Jasper is too much of a risk. Kill him!”

  Walter’s brief was laden with emotion, every word choked on, every syllable an effort during his restraint of a man allowed free reign for a decade. His face still bled openly, washing away the black marks left by smoke. The guard wouldn’t be able to hold Lonie down for much longer, his body fatigued from the night. Magnus lifted the gun, aiming at the chest of Jasper, the gun wavering like the wall behind him. Jasper did not speak. He shrugged his scrawny shoulders, beard rising in the breeze, as calm now as he had been when delivering his speeches in the Asylum, and beneath the nook of Reaper’s arm, and talking atop the hotel with a clear goal in his sights.

  Magnus was cold. Even with searing fire at his back, pain in his joints, pressure from all angles; never had he been this cold, with frostbite setting in.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Walter, urging the shot.

  “Should I tell him, or would you like to?” asked Jasper, glancing apologetically at Walter. Magnus moved the gun away from Jasper…and aimed it at the two men scuffling for dominance on the ground. Both stopped. Both didn’t understand. Either man could have reached for the guns and the other wouldn’t have cared. Jasper walked forward for the first time, standing alongside Magnus. The gun wasn’t shaking anymore.

  “You’ve spent this long with both of us and still you cannot see,” mocked Jasper, shaking his head.”

  “Everyone is capable of losing their mind, I guess. Can’t you see the resemblance? Magnus is my little brother.”

  Magnus Paul

  Separation Anxiety Disorder: Prominent level of fear or anxiety in relation to separation from attachment figures.

  Magnus sat on the back of the motorbike, hands on his brother Jasper’s hips. With their sister resting at home, recovering from her heroin hit and the treatment of Marlon, the Paul brothers sped down the highway on the open road. Jasper’s beatbox, installed into his new pride-and-joy bike purchased with his hard-earned from a job not discussed, blasted slow soul.

  “Who was that man, the leader of your group?” asked Magnus, remembering the big biker and the way his presence changed the mood of all in the room, even before signals of violence were cast out, even before Marlon’s head became a dry-wall battering ram.

  “He’s the leader of the Chill Squad, they call him The Goat. I joined them a few weeks ago, helped one of their crew out when he was cornered by some dealers. They saw my new bike, and I was in. I’m going to run that outfit one day, Mag. The Goat is intimidating, he’s honest but he lacks the ability to make the Chill Squad the top biker gang around. I’ll do what he says, abide by their clubhouse laws, and then take the mantle when it’s time. I don’t want drugs in this city. I don’t want men doing that to our sister. And I don’t want her putting you in danger with pricks like Mitch, pricks like Marlon.”

  The bike lifted against the terrain, with Jasper swerving onto the footpath and brushing past an elderly couple, kicking up dust in their faces as they scrambled for sight.

  “I have these moments, brother. Moments that are like dreams. I see a man and I want to dismantle him. Not just physically, but mentally. I can see all of his working parts and I have this way…where I can snap every tube, blow every motor, just by talking. This voice comes into my head…it’s like a news reporter being fed lines through a wire. I do it because there is no pause, no filter. It comes in, and it goes out. Blood, violence, pain, fear…they are no different to the flowers you see in that garden bed over there, or the old people we almost knocked over. It’s all the same to me. I just want it all, Mag. And if I need to bring people down, so be it. Can anyone stop me from having this process? Can you stop me from this? I don’t think anyone will…”

  The rise of the skyscrapers reached above the hill in the foreground, towers that caused the neck to crane and the mind to wonder; how are men able to build such beasts? A faster-tempo tune hit the beatbox and vibrated through the bike.

  “Will she be okay?” asked Magnus.

  “I’m sure she will, a bit of rest is all she needs. The drugs will wear off, and Marlon is in no state to claim her.”

  “No, I mean mum.”

  Jasper went silent. They mounted the hill and saw the illuminated red cross atop the hospital, brightly lit in the falling horizon, a beacon in clouds calling to the helpless. Jasper parked in a disabled zone and the brothers dismounted. The exiting crowd made no remark, they committed no stare. Magnus felt safe with Jasper, a protection that extended beyond the throwing of fists and the bluntness of words. Once he saw a smile dawn on Jasper’s face, he knew he was oka
y, for the world submitted to his brother like a servant to a king. They marched, side by side, to the receptionist at the desk.

  “We’re here to see Ms. Paul, what room is she in?” asked Jasper, politely.

  “Visiting hours are over, sir. Please come again in the morning.”

  Magnus was behind Jasper, he didn’t see his brother’s face or hear the sound of words. But ten seconds later they were walking down a white corridor. In one room a lady screamed so loud Magnus covered his ears.

  “It’s okay, Mag. That’s not mum.”

  Jasper leaned down as the leading nurse walked on. He took both hands away from Magnus’ head and spoke softly.

  “You’re a kid, but you’re smarter than me. You’re destined to do things that will help the sick, that will cure them from illnesses that haven’t been discovered yet. Life is scary. Some of us make it a scarier place, but others can make it nicer if only for a fleeting moment. Never block out the bad; just find a way to make it good.”

  Magnus nodded, the icy eyes of Jasper freezing the unknown horrors from the hospital. They continued to the nurse, who stopped at a door and knocked. An aged and weary female doctor came out, scolding the nurse. She looked to the boys, changing her tone to a sincere whisper: “Jasper and Magnus?” she asked, knowing the answer, “come in.”

  Jasper put his arm around his little brother and they entered room 409, a sickly smell twisting their noses, but neither boy stopped until they saw the state of their mother. She was bed-ridden, face sunken in on both sides, cheekbones protruding and threatening to break skin. Her eyes were peas in a crater, retreating from the place of decay. But within, the ice blue colour remained, the love and care and passion for family.

  “Boys?” she said, merely a breath. Magnus hadn’t seen her for five days; she was unrecognisable, if not for those eyes.

  “We’re here mum, how you feeling?”