White Trash

by John King

  She cradled him in her arms the same as she would a man knocked down by a car and bleeding to death in the gutter, or a woman lying in the precinct after a heart attack. She didn’t care about the blood rubbing off on her, would never forget what had happened and never be the same again, but she was a nurse, a professional, and all this talk about control and order was stupid. Jeffreys had no control. He was dying and right back where everyone started. She wasn’t going to think about the horror, there was plenty of time for that later, and when she looked into his eyes she saw arrogance, then fear, mixing and swishing around in a puddle. She couldn’t know for sure, not really, heaven and hell meant nothing to her as she did her best to reassure him in his final seconds.

  Jonathan Jeffreys was slipping away. He understood that he was dying and that nothing could save him. He also knew that he had to maintain control and shape his destiny. He summoned up what strength remained and forced himself to imagine heaven. His own personal version. Death was his trade yet he had considered himself invincible and never planned ahead.

  He was becoming a little confused. Fearful even. His heaven already existed on earth. His apartment. Gallery. Hotel room. His standing within the community. Most of all his work at the hospital. The power he wielded. He did not want to die and leave all this behind. He felt panic compress his lungs and found it hard to breathe. His investments would continue to grow after his passing and his property would be sold. There would be inheritance tax to pay. Many thousands of pounds would go to the government purse. His fortune could end up in the hands of the people he most despised, subsidising their misspent lives. He felt depressed. Intense, gut-wrenching depression.

  Really, he would like to recreate what he had on earth. In heaven. Relief replaced despair. This then was how he would spend eternity. He would retain his power but move out of the shadows. This excited him. There were no shadows in the celestial realm. He would glide through the corridors of the afterlife making decisions without the need for secrecy. The respect he received would increase a hundredfold when people understood his role and importance to the community. He would banish those he felt unworthy of a place in heaven to the dark horrors of whichever hell he deemed appropriate. He was firmly in control now and easing into the tunnel. The dull corridors of the hospital led to longer, illuminated corridors. Jonathan Jeffreys was at peace.

  The woman cradling his head in her hands was a dumb angel. This plastic doll of popular culture was allowing him the calm he needed to shape his future. She was too stupid to take her revenge. She was soft and would never change. He was fortunate. Thought of the deaths he had arranged, the hells he had created over the years. Oh yes. He was very lucky to have fallen into the hands of a weakling such as Nurse James. It could have been much worse. Someone who was cruel and vindictive, a sadist who could not see the bigger picture. Nothing could stop Jonathan Jeffreys from reaping his just reward. Neither God nor His son Jesus Christ. He was in charge.

  Mr Jeffreys could see ranks of citizens up ahead. He moved forward. Confident and at ease. He was laughing. Roaring with laughter as he entered paradise. There was a future and he was going to take full advantage of his opportunities. There was no limit to what he could achieve. He really was invincible and could do whatever he wanted. He had the power. Had always had the power. Now he would gain recognition. The crowd was bowing down. Paying homage.

  Except they were not bowing down. Something was amiss. An old man was pointing at him and hurling insults. Such obscene language. Fuck. Cunt. It was disgusting. He had to remain in control. It was a mental exercise, an internal struggle. But the crowd was in focus now. There were no ordered ranks. No beautiful landscape. Thousands of heads turned and he was being sucked towards a howling mob of men and women, boys and girls, thousands of skinheads and peroxide blondes screaming at him, old men to the sides with greasy haircuts and cut-throat razors, and they were moving as one, stampeding, they were making accusations and shouting that he was a murderer who attacked defenceless old ladies in their own homes and family men and spiritual men and pensioners and anyone he could get his hands on pissed in the mouths of single mothers and the knives were out and there were flashes of faces he recognised they were out for revenge and he turned and ran along endless corridors his heart pounding he urinated with the sort of fear he had never experienced and they were going to catch him he could smell their breath on his neck they smelt of cheese-and-onion crisps dipped in amphetamine and flat cheap beer he could hear the snarling of dogs mad packs of pitbulls and bulldogs and homeless rabid mongrels snapping at his heels small jabs in the base of his back the steel blade of a knife the thuggish element jumping on his back pulling him down into the gutter, his head still in the hands of Ruby James but this caring nurse unable to save him.

  When it’s finished … when Mr Jeffreys is dead … I lower his head down on to the couch … looking at the expression on his face … and I see fear … panic … sheer terror frozen in his features … and the staring … blank … eyes … and for all his arrogance in life … when it came to dying he was gutless … a weakling … and there’s some people who look proud in death … I’ve seen it enough times … they have this inner dignity so you know they’ve done their best and made the most of their lives … they die exactly how they lived … accept that their time is up … some have a belief in God … or are just tired … and they drift away … their deaths peaceful … a spiritual experience … and you get to learn about different beliefs … how death is treated … respected … a special time … and there’s other people who are broken by the sadness … drugged against the pain … eased into a restful state … their time has come early … and it’s not fair … and the thing is they love life … they want to keep going … and there’s people who are terrified … and Jeffreys was one of those … maybe there is a hell waiting for the wicked … and if there is then that’s where he is right now … I don’t know … how can anyone know? … but I do know that his death was hard … and he lacked dignity … in death … in life … he fooled me … I suppose I’m not as good a judge of people as I thought … but he fooled everyone … Dawn and Sally and the rest of the girls … they’ll say it was his accent that conned people … the breeding … expensive clothes … but it wasn’t … it was something simpler … it was his manners … he was humble and polite and hid his arrogance … and I reach down and close his eyelids … adjust his cheeks so he doesn’t look so scared … try and give him some sort of dignity … and he’s so white … the blood drained out of him and soaking the couch … and I look around the room … with the light coming in from outside I can appreciate how big this place is … and the polish on the floorboards makes me think of pine trees … Danny Wax Cap and his magic mushrooms … and it’s a mausoleum … done up like a showroom but still a mausoleum … and I stand up … pull Jeffreys off the couch by his legs … his head banging on the floor so I wince … tell myself that he’s dead and can’t feel a thing … drag him over to this big carpet with all sorts of patterns … and he probably paid a bomb for it … I can see that it’s expensive … it seems a shame to ruin something so beautiful … but I have to cover his body … he was a loony but still a human being … a long smear of blood trailing across the floor … lost in the darkness of the wood … I turn him on to his back and adjust his arms … lay the hands together … then roll up the carpet … and it’s an effort … I’m aching all over … when it’s done I walk back over to the glass cabinets … see one of those things you pluck a guitar with … Sun Studios written on yellow plastic … and I’ll never know who it belonged to … I think of Charlie and wish he was here … and the funny thing is I feel calm … I should be screaming my head off but I’m not … it’s shock … that’s what it is … slowing my thinking down … and I don’t want to tell anyone about what’s happened … not yet … I have to clear my head first … think it through … wait for those words to go away … move back a bit … and none of these people in the cabinets have a name … I t
urn off the spotlights and leave all those unknown victims in peace … go back and collect the things that matter … to me … sit on a chair … with the ring … locket … dice … watch … look at them one by one … taking my time … moving from plastic … to silver … to wood … to gold … and I’m shutting out the room and its cold designer atmosphere … closing the space down … concentrating … conjuring up the dead as I run my fingers over the string looping through a plastic ring … and it’s something you’d find in a Christmas cracker … the snap of powder … a joke and a hat … a family occasion … or in a pound shop … the bazaar on the high street … next to the pliers and pads of paper … I pinch the knot between my thumb and middle finger … hard … squeeze till it hurts … and Steve Rollins tied this ring around his wrist and never took it off again … sweat and bath water turned it to stone … like a prehistoric fish that ends up a fossil in a museum cabinet … like it was never alive … and there’s a new knot that’s weak … it doesn’t belong … this has to be where Jeffreys tied the string back together after cutting it off Steve’s arm … once he’d injected him with whatever it was he used … his magic potion … on the children’s ward they call antiseptic a magic cream … medicine a potion … a fairy-tale world … easing a kid’s fear of something they don’t understand … we all do it … and I think of the way Jeffreys murdered Steve and filled his head with poison … laughing at the man while he died … whispering like an obscene phone caller … Jeffreys a dirty old man … and I never spoke to Steve … only ever saw him on the ward but knew about him from Dawn … she’s friends with his wife … Carole … and I saw his daughter as well … could tell he was proud of her … and I suppose what I’m really seeing is a younger version of my dad … a decent man with a tattoo … a hard worker who liked a pint with his mates and a night in front of the TV with his wife and child … someone who loved his daughter like nothing else in the world … and he carried me on his shoulders when I was little … read me stories … played games … all the usual things … and Steve’s crime was having a shaved head and a flag on his arm … that’s enough for a tosser like Jeffreys … he reckoned Steve was a Nazi who wanted to kill children … knife men and women in the street … but Jeffreys didn’t have a clue … he goes on about his superior intellect then does a parrot routine repeating everything he’s been told by the media … by outsiders who don’t have a clue … the same as him … outsiders … pedalling cheap stereotypes … and he’s taken their prejudices to the obvious conclusion … he’s their hitman … he works for the newspapers and the politicians and the television … an assassin living out their fantasies … dressing up murder and sadism as some sort of public service … he was slow and calculated … perverted … with Steve I suppose it was jealousy … Jeffreys had the silver spoon but no strength … one punch and Steve would’ve knocked him out … Jeffreys was a wimp and Steve was a man … more than that he was content … had everything he wanted … while Jeffreys was restless … needed the sort of power money can’t buy … Steve was easygoing … living his life and not hurting anyone … holding this ring tight I can feel how delicate it is … so fragile that I just know it was given to him by his little girl … an innocent present … money didn’t come into it … the ring too small for Steve’s fingers so he tied it around his wrist … knotting the string tight as he could so he’d never lose it … and I wonder how Carole coped … imagine his daughter thinking about her daddy every day and waiting for him to come home … and this ring was precious and now it’s worth nothing … I can see Steve’s head on a pillow … in a hospital bed … hauling his big cancer-scarred body up and smiling … really grinning … turning to mush as his child hugs him … then sits up on the bed … Carole kissing him and trying to be strong … he’s coming home soon … the worst is over … but it’s been a worry … just as long as the cancer hasn’t spread … he’s weak but will get stronger … Carole’s been going to the chapel to pray … she tells Dawn how Steve did that years before … how she copied him … and he’s going to be all right … everything back to normal … a video to watch on TV … food … drink … warmth … that’s all they want … as long as everyone’s got their health … but she doesn’t really believe it … not really … Carole gives Steve a cold drink from the machine … the freezing aluminium burns his mouth but the Coke on his tongue makes him feel alive … a drink with no goodness in it … just taste and sensation … and I close my eyes and run through his story … a version of Steve Rollins that’s just as much my dad … putting things in their place … and I’m shaking imagining what I’d feel like if Dad had been murdered when I was small … that could’ve happened if Jeffreys was around … at least I had a few years … every day important … memories I’ll keep for ever … and Dad could’ve been killed for having a tattoo and a belly … because he was happy … enjoyed his food … for being big instead of skinny … for having short hair … or he could’ve been committing Danny’s crimes … Wax Cap’s hair was too long and his body was too thin and he kept off the drink and was watching what he ate … Steve and Danny couldn’t win … it didn’t matter what they did … Steve a character … a homeboy who loved the simple things … and I suppose Jeffreys killed family life when he murdered Steve … ruined the lives of a lot of other people as well … the rest of his family … his friends … a trail of misery that will run through the years … and Jeffreys was the sort of person who harps on about traditional values but practises something different … usually you can laugh these people off … big speeches and no action … but there’s no way you could laugh off Jeffreys … and from killing a family man he killed Pearl … whose big sin was not having a family … and so he labelled her a spinster and a lesbian and a twisted old maid … bitter and vicious … but he never had a clue about her either … and I knew Pearl all right … I looked after her … talked to her … and she was a good woman and full of love … if Charlie hadn’t died she’d have had kids … lots of them … but Charlie was the love of her life … no one could ever take his place … she was a romantic the same as Steve … different generation … different sex … but she did have children … hundreds of them over the years … and while she couldn’t cuddle and hug them like a mother she was still giving … just didn’t expect anything back in return … and no way was Pearl bitter … I put the ring down and pick up Pearl’s locket … run my fingers over the silver … feel the texture … and the locket is older and chosen by a young woman who’s grieving … she can’t believe what’s happened … doesn’t know how to go on … if she even wants to … and there’s little patterns on the edge of the locket … grooves … like flowers … and I click it open and look at the face inside … see Charlie laughing … happy … maybe saying something for the camera … and the rest of his body has been cut away so his face fits … maybe he was on his bike when the photo was taken … and I lean my head back and feel the fabric on my head … Jeffreys had so much money … so much luxury … why couldn’t he just be happy and leave us alone … and I run through Pearl’s story … fitting it together … when Jeffreys murdered Pearl it was because she was a strong woman … who controlled her own life and really did put something back into society … she had a strength he couldn’t handle … he was jealous of her independence … but really he was killing love when he killed Pearl … personal love but also the love that made her a teacher … a willingness to help others … she was honest and believed in the system … she was a giver while Jeffreys just believed in taking … doesn’t matter how much he dressed it up … people like him grab everything they can … preach all sorts of high-minded morals but have none themselves … and Pearl had loads of visitors come to see her in hospital … more cards sent to her than I’ve ever seen … from the children she was still teaching to those who’d grown up … plus her friends … and other teachers … and I think of Jeffreys going into her house like that and I hate him … really hate him … I try and imagine the terror she must’ve felt … tormented in h
er last minutes … and like all of them I hope he was wrong about the effect of what he was saying … hearing all that filth as they were dying … in the presence of a nonce … the sort of man who should be locked up with child molesters … and what did she think when he was carrying her up the stairs? … then throwing her back down … I don’t want to think about it … start crying … fight to keep back the tears … close the front of the locket and pick up the dice … think of Danny now … his life … situation … and as well as the way he looked and how he spent his day Danny was killed for having HIV … and Jeffreys thought he was gay when it was dirty needles … and the funny thing is … if anything can be called funny … is that he got Danny so wrong he set him up in the sort of life he’d have liked … stuck him back in the Green Man with Bubba and the rest of the lads … playing pool … gave him a job and the knowledge that he was never going to develop AIDS … never going to die … and I laugh despite everything … it was a shame Jeffreys didn’t know that Danny got HIV from using heroin … that he was looking for answers to spiritual questions … that would really have done Jeffrey’s head in … he couldn’t have handled that one … and I talked to Danny a lot when he was in hospital … I knew him from outside work … he lived near me … drank in some of the same pubs … I knew his views on life … what he was saying about the mushrooms … a complicated character who did his own thing … never thought he was better than anyone else … he’d calmed down but still had this turmoil inside him … something he was trying to control … for me things are more straightforward … the drink and the drugs are for fun … and I’ve never asked too many questions … just taken life as it is … but Danny was different … I liked him … he was a thinker … an intense person … spiritual … I’ve never been like that … and there was a softness in there … you have to be hard to brush all the worries away … to focus on something to get you through … and I’m harder than he ever was … I can keep going … like Pearl … push myself through the bad times … I lose myself in my work … the same as Pearl … block out the sad times … keep busy … moving … and with Danny you wanted to look after him … this tormented look on his face sometimes when he was trying to work something out … he was good to talk to … could point things out you wouldn’t notice … he was definitely a character … same as the others … a spiritual man … and I laugh again … thinking of how Danny used the term … and the dice is rough on my skin … I let it settle in the palm of my hand … the gritty feel of rough wood … and I hold it up in front of me … for a split second seeing the paintings on the wall opposite … a maze of patterns that show me nothing … and I wonder how he cut the dice … maybe he made it in prison … I don’t know … or someone gave it to him … I just don’t know … the dice is a mystery … it could be anything … maybe it was made for him by his dad … his grand-dad … left over from a woodwork class at school … it meant something to Danny anyway … and he was an easy target for Jeffreys … bad blood that had to be eradicated … and the dice should have belonged to Ron really … he was the gambler … with his life … and then on the horses … and Ron was a threat to everything Jeffreys believed in … and I pick up the gold watch he was given by his workmates … think about his life … and out of them all I suppose I liked Ron the best … he was a lot older but had done so much … really used his life and never surrendered … he did what he wanted … was easy to talk to … he did most of the talking … telling me things I’d never have known if I hadn’t met him … he’d seen and done so much … his life was rich … he could’ve lived to be a hundred … what a way for a proud man to die … murdered by a snivelling little shit like Jeffreys … a nobody … and I close my eyes for a long long time … feel so bad for them all … every one of them loved life so much … that’s what they had in common … and I think of the smug grin on Jeffreys’s face as if he was something special … a big brave man instead of a mental case … a coward who bullied people when they couldn’t protect themselves … with all these people he killed it was to do with innocence and trust … in his world none of his victims were worth their treatment … and he said it was official policy … that he worked for the government … and maybe he was telling the truth … it seems impossible … but maybe not … maybe not … and there’s time to worry about that later … I have to move … get out of this place and think about what’s happened … and I stand up … put the ring … locket … dice … watch … in my pocket … feel the plastic … silver … wood … gold … go over to the door and open it … taking a last look behind me … before I leave.