Dortmund Hibernate

by C. J. Sutton

  “Where is…”

  “Stacy isn’t feeling well, she’ll be in later,” said Jasper, nudging Magnus forward. They forgot the doctor was behind them, but she spoke.

  “The cancer has progressed, it has spread through her pancreas, bowel, liver…”

  Jasper gave the doctor a cold stare, freezing her throat. She nodded and left the room, solemn.

  “Mag, my little Magazine, you look tired,” she said, using a name Magnus heard since he was a baby, trying to raise her hand to touch her youngest child’s face. Jasper helped, lifting it to his cheek; with a bony finger she caressed, wiping away the stray tear. “Has Stacy been cooking nice meals? Is she getting you to school on time?”

  Magnus tried to smile, and failed. Jasper went to speak, but stopped to hear his mother: “Brothers…stick together. They look after one another. Stacy…she doesn’t understand family the way you two do. The way you two always have. Brothers…always help each other. Promise me, Jas-bag. Promise me, Magazine. Promise me that when I’m gone, you’ll keep each other safe.”

  “I promise,” said Jasper, without hesitation. Magnus didn’t speak. He reached in and hugged his mother, trying to be careful but wanting to feel her warmth one last time, to remember her singing in the kitchen as she cooked their favourite meal, of picking them up from school with treats in the glovebox. She kissed him on the forehead, and he didn’t let go.

  “Brothers…stick together.”

  Two years later…

  Magnus opened the door, sighing in relief after another long day of school and dropped his backpack onto the floorboards, the thud signifying the heaviness of text books. Stacy wouldn’t be home, off on another escapade with a man who could flash dollars, drive fast and inject deep. But a faint cry echoed from the basement, a room not often utilised by Stacy or Magnus, a storage room for all that once seemed so joyful.

  “Hello?”

  Magnus pushed the basement door open, creaking in its lack of use, and now heard two voices competing for dominance; one in pain, the other in control.

  “I won’t hurt you, but I need to know where you store the drugs.”

  “I can’t…I can’t…”

  “Listen, my friend. How can I report back to The Goat without any information? How can I let the drugs keep flowing into the blood of my townspeople, when you know the location?”

  A loud crack, a broken bone, a wail.

  “Jasper?”

  Magnus saw his brother in the failing light, standing over a thin man missing two front teeth, blood pooled beneath him. Red footsteps circled the chained body.

  “Mag, you’re home early. Come down here, c’mon.”

  He wanted to go back upstairs. He wanted to pick up his schoolbag and start the next day. He wanted to carry the text books like a packhorse to the other side of the city. But his legs descended the old steps. Jasper wasn’t supposed to be here. He didn’t live here anymore. Stacy was of age to care for him until he turned eighteen. Stacy kicked Jasper out less than three months ago.

  “You see this man,” said Jasper, yanking on the thin man’s red locks, “he sells the drugs that could cause Stacy to choke on her vomit. Or to pass into a coma. He won’t tell me where he keeps these drugs so I can destroy them. Do you think that’s fair?”

  “No,” he answered, merely a squeak, but the gore didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Exactly. Maybe you should ask the man, Mag. Maybe he’ll tell you. Give it a go.”

  Magnus opened his mouth to speak, wondering how to approach this individual who sobbed and dribbled and pleaded.

  “Kid, I’m innocent, let me go. I won’t sell drugs to your sister, I promise. I’ll give you two hundred bucks, what do you say?”

  Magnus looked to Jasper. He always had a beard now. It aged him five years. He nodded, urging the interrogation forward.

  “Where are the drugs?” asked Magnus, calm.

  “If I tell you, my boss kills me. If I don’t tell you, Jasper kills me. He has a reputation for—”

  Jasper launched a boot into the thin man’s face, snapping his nose and spraying Magnus’ school uniform with blood.

  “How dare you talk ill of me to my family? I was going to move you on, but now…now…Mag, here’s fifty bucks,” said Jasper, handing his little brother a note, “go buy dinner. I’ll cook.”

  Magnus snatched the note and took a final look at the thin man, his red hair matching the crimson leaking like a dodgy faucet from multiple parts of the face. This man helped his sister get her hits. He endangered her with every moment he held information from Jasper. Magnus felt no remorse.

  “You should tell him,” said Magnus as he walked up the wooden staircase, towards the light above. “I’ve seen what happens.”

  As he exited the basement, Magnus saw his sister, Stacy, staring at him from the kitchen with her arms crossed. Her eyes were wide, all pupil, while her hair was frayed as though electrocuted an hour prior. The fold of arms pushed her exposed cleavage higher, and as she walked to Magnus her heels clinked on the floorboards.

  “He’s down there, isn’t he, Mag…isn’t he!”

  Another wail, groan, sob escaped from below.

  “This is fucking bullshit. I kick him out but here he is, bringing this shit into our house. HEY JASPER, GET UP HERE, YOU BASTARD!”

  Kids at school spoke of their parents arguing, of divorce, of spending weekdays with their mother and weekends with their father. Such normality confused Magnus. Jasper came out of the basement with his hands in his pockets, feigning guilt. Magnus supressed a smile, aware the act was for him. Stacy didn’t hold back.

  “I told you three months ago to fuck off. Your little brother doesn’t need to be around your violence, your Chill Squad or your crusade against drugs. I don’t care that you’re second in charge of some tosser bike club. In this house, you respect my rules.”

  “And what are they?” he answered, not raising his voice, “the rules of drugs? One pill when you wake up, one at lunch? Heroin as a nightcap? Weed to help you sleep? You tell me I’m a bad influence on our little brother, but you’re the one bringing drug dealers over and doing all that shit in front of him. C’mon Stace, he’s fifteen.”

  They spoke about Magnus as though he was at school, no ears privy to such open arguments.

  “So…wait. You think he’s better off with you than he is with me? You say this while you’ve got a man downstairs screaming!”

  For a moment there was silence between the three siblings, each pondering the questions hanging in the air, repelling the tension pushing outward.

  “Mum—”

  “Don’t you dare, Stace,” said Jasper, and it was the most serious Magnus had ever seen his brother, and he’d seen his brother pin a man twice his size against a wall, bash another’s head like a basketball and break a drug dealer’s nose not minutes prior.

  “I want you to leave, Jasper, and I don’t want you to contact Magnus until he’s eighteen and responsible for himself. If I see you in this house again, I will stab you and call it self-defence. How long before the cops are after you? This house may be many things, but it will not be a torture chamber.”

  As Jasper went to get the crippled body from downstairs, Magnus shoved his hand into his pocket and withdrew the note. Jasper smirked to one side; he didn’t have to lean down, for Magnus was almost his height now: “Keep it, little brother. Look after your sister. When you next see me, I’ll run the Chill Squad. Drugs won’t be an issue in this city. And we’ll buy you a house, away from the chaos.”

  To Stacy he whispered: “If I hear you’re bringing drugs into this house, I’ll end you myself.”

  Every day after that, Magnus would leave school to see his brother Jasper whizz past on his motorbike with the Chill Squad emblem woven into his back, leading a parade of bikers on towards the highway. He never stopped. He never spoke. He never even gave a ‘thumbs up’. But his presence was noted, and Magnus knew if ever there was trouble on his journey between scho
ol and home, his brother Jasper would see that it ceased, and never occurred again.

  Stacy coughed up a vile green substance as Magnus cradled her head into a red bucket on the side of her bed. Outside the sun rose, but neither sibling found sleep before its yellowish tinge broke the horizon. Vomit covered the floorboards, the queen-sized bed, the path to the toilet and every piece of clothing in the vicinity, litres of murky liquids combining to form the green sea, threatening to swallow the Pauls up into its stench.

  “This needs to stop,” said Magnus, using one arm to aim the bucket and the other to keep Stacy on her side. She grunted in response. Jasper had not stepped foot into their home for nearly three years, and Stacy’s state was bordering on a three-times-weekly occurrence. Magnus would come home from school either hearing vomit, hearing the voice of a strange older man or, worst of all, silence. Those initial moments, every day, were the worst. She was always here. Silence was a clock out of batteries.

  “I’ll call the doctor,” said Magnus, but he knew what they would say. Stacy had been rushed to hospital by ambulance three times already this year. Four times the cops had called in to the house due to a complaint from a neighbour. Magnus wished he had the help of his brother. Brothers stick together, right?

  “No,” she said, strands of brown hair attached from her tongue. “Water. More water.”

  Magnus knew every drug. He knew every state; one look at Stacy’s eyes, her manner, her walk, a listen to one sentence.

  “Sorry,” she managed, “sorry, little brother.”

  She was coming around, trying to sit up against the black framing of the bed, eyes capable of fixing on to the face of Magnus Paul.

  “How were your exams?” she said between gulps of water. “I bet you didn’t get an answer wrong. You got the brains, Mag.”

  He nodded, confident of his results. His lack of confidence remained in his siblings and their ability to lead a safe life.

  “He’ll come for you, when you turn eighteen next week,” she said, on the verge of tears. “I tried my best, but the truth is you have been the most capable. Without a parent you managed to complete every bit of homework they dished out to you. Where others would have lashed out, or left, you remained here and studied hard.”

  “Knowledge is how I can help people,” he said, placing the bucket on the floor as his sister took his vomit-etched hands in hers, “I can make a difference, I’m not sure how, but I can make a difference.”

  “Of course you can,” she said, smiling, and Magnus saw the sister that had been lost since their mother died, “and I’ll try my best to help you.”

  After a handshake with the principal and various other birthday wishes, Magnus left the school grounds for the last time. It coincided well; the end of secondary college and his 18th birthday occurring on the same day, a Friday that promised so much as the final steps in secondary education left an imprint on the grass.

  It sounded like a raid, but the roar of the engines were like a school bell to everyone else. Magnus had heard the chorus of bikes every school day for three years, and today was no different…except today, one bike pulled to a stop as the others continued forward and onto the highway. The man, no longer a boy, had authority. There was an air about him that caused the blades of grass to bow, and he dismounted his steed and removed his helmet. Jasper, wearing the outfit of the Chill Squad, nodded to his younger brother after adhering to his sister’s law for three years.

  “Happy birthday,” said Jasper, beaming, “today you become a man. You can drink, you can drive, you can do with your life what you will. What say you?”

  “Thanks,” said Magnus, accepting the hand of his brother. “How have you been?”

  The answer to one thousand questions was found as Jasper patted the rear of his seat: “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Jasper Paul

  Everyone is afraid. We all know that courage is being afraid but pushing on anyway. Now, you will face cases that have manipulated fear to be an ally, Magnus. Have they conquered fear? No, but they’ve embraced it.

  Walter Perch couldn’t find the necessary words to articulate a question. He moved his sight from Magnus Paul to Jasper James, and in their eyes he saw it: the icy look of family reunited. There was no doubting the confession.

  “But…” was a squeak from the lead guard, yet he wasn’t the only one in shock; the revelation lessened Walter’s grip on Lonie, and the old man had not moved, unable to divert his attention from Magnus and the gun still pointed at his skull.

  “Go on,” said Jasper, eager to hear what the man had to say, leaning in with palms aloft.

  “But he killed your sister.”

  The statement was directed at Magnus, but regarded Jasper. It didn’t ask of death despite Magnus’ story suggesting Jasper was slain when cornered by cops. It didn’t ask of delays, or motive. It only questioned murder, the slitting of the throat.

  “I did,” admitted Jasper, shaking his head as the fire lessened behind him, “but I didn’t have a choice, Mr. Perch. She placed Magnus in danger so many times…man after man after man…I got tired of intimidating drugged up boyfriends and rescuing Magnus from their clutches. Nothing would change from one dick to the next. I promise you, Stacy was a time bomb strapped to Magnus’ chest. Any longer, and BOOM!”

  Jasper clapped, and everyone jumped. And then the wall came down. Lonie and Walter had to scramble away to avoid the connection of Asylum with gravel, dust covering the four men from boots to hair. Lonie panicked; the unexpected crumble buried the guns. One remained, and it was held by Magnus Paul.

  “I…” started Walter, wondering if it was worth asking.

  “I loved my sister, just like Magnus, but I lost faith. I couldn’t handle her addiction to drugs. I couldn’t understand it. But Magnus…he was always there for her. And he would have continued to support her for the rest of his life, while his own wellbeing was sacrificed.”

  For the first time on this fateful night, Jasper lost his grin.

  “Why did we fucking wait this long then?” asked Lonie, fed up with the situation and not knowing every aspect of the end plan. “This doctor arrived nearly two weeks ago, why did we spend that time with our dicks in our hands?”

  Jasper shook his head, letting out air through his nose.

  “You waited ten years, what was a fortnight?”

  “Fuck you,” said a battered Walter, etched with blood and soot and dust. “It still doesn’t make sense. Magnus spent time with you in there, and I listened…”

  “Well—” started Jasper.

  “Shut the fuck up, I want to hear it from him!”

  The finger aimed at Magnus like a gun cocked for murder. Magnus still held the gun aloft, but its direction faltered. The doctor took a deep breath.

  “I hadn’t seen Jasper for so many years, not since that night he killed our sister, followed by the four cops, and then I escaped into darkness. I spent that time studying something I realised I was passionate about. I couldn’t save my sister, but I also couldn’t blame Jasper for what happened. He changed his name to Jasper James to protect me. I skipped town. I changed my life, but I held my name. I enrolled in a top university, I didn’t falter. And when the opportunity came to see The Goat, I found out where Jasper was. We hatched a plan to make me look like an all-conquering young psychologist capable of saving anyone. But when I finally came here…I wondered if Jasper would remember me after so long behind these bars in such a terrible environment. To throw you off the scent, Walter, he displayed no recognition. It threw me off too. But in his eyes I saw it, knew I could achieve my mission. Of course, I didn’t know how that was possible with guards lurking, but with Jasper locked up for so long I knew there’d be some elaborate plan involved…and here we are.”

  “Here we are,” repeated Walter, on auto-pilot.

  “Okay, you two can dance around the flames reciting family history for all I care,” said Lonie, stepping forward and spitting dust into the dirt, “but I’ve been promised s
omething, and it’s time to leave this town so we can get it done.”

  The darkest part of night continued to diminish across the sky, the stars leaving the cinema as the lights signified the end of the film. Magnus knew nothing of Lonie’s needs and why Jasper was an integral part to them; he wanted to never see the old man again, or the desecrated town beneath him.

  “Mr. Perch, it’s about time you made that call to the cops,” said Jasper, eyeing the guard, “you know what to do.”

  Walter dropped to his knees, shaking his head, wondering when he’d wake up from this cruel joke of a dream. He pleaded with Magnus in a way Jasper couldn’t see; the helplessness of a friend and the need to save him. But the doctor gave no sign of reciprocation, waiting for his brother to ask again.

  It wasn’t Jasper that moved. Lonie backhanded Walter so hard he grabbed at his own wrist in pain. Blood sprayed across the gravel and another loose tooth dropped like a coin in a well. Magnus tensed, aiming the gun at Lonie once more. He would gladly make an exception to his moral code to stop Old Man Lonie from wreaking further havoc.

  “Enough of that,” said Jasper, “that’s not how we operate.”

  The notorious criminal closed in on Walter as the sky continued to brighten with dim slashes of yellow and orange.

  “You’ve heard stories about me, Mr. Perch. Some may be lie, some may be true, but I promise you I’ve killed men. I don’t enjoy it the way people say I do, but when there’s a purpose it is as easy as knocking off the lid on a Coke. Now…I don’t want to torture you; break finger by finger, make you swallow gravel, get a burning rod and sodomise you. I’m past all that…until I need to use it. Make the call.”

  Walter Perch, with bloodied face and broken morale, recited the tales of Jasper James within. Skinning men alive. Slow, seven day tortures. Fear made him reach for the radio, which still worked. Fear made him press the button, clear his throat and begin to speak. For Jasper’s gaze had strings, a puppeteer that knew how humans worked…and how they could be conquered.