by Shaun Allan
My choice. I could have refused to follow Joy and in doing so missed this little show whilst waiting for either Them to find me or Never Mind The Buzzcocks to start on BBC 2. If I'd known for sure that Bill Bailey and Phil Jupitus would have been on hand to make me chuckle rather than the costume department of Loonies UK PLC, then Joy might have lost out. I still didn't see the point of my spectatorship here but hoped all would become clear. Or at least less opaque.
I doubted that Connors really thought this invasion of his inner sanctum that would no doubt have tainted the very air he breathed was nothing. It was something, hence the needle that was so lovingly being stroked behind his back. His fingers were running the metal needle, back and forth as if masturbating it, the forthcoming ejaculation of serum the closest a person like Dr. Connors might ever get to real orgasm. Maybe that was his problem. Maybe he just needed a good shag and he'd drop the demigod persona.
"So, Mr Jackson. What did you think to our friend's little story? Entertaining, no?"
I was pleased that he thought the tale of my terror was so enjoyable. I do aim to please, when I'm not, as I wished I was at that moment, aiming to tear his face off and ram it up his backside. If I can buy someone a birthday or Christmas present that will really make them smile, instead of the fake 'oh that's nice, hope you kept the receipt' kind of grin, then I'm happy. If I can help a little old lady across the road, make a cuppa with just the right amount of milk or pee straight then hunky-dory-do-dah-day. I may not be in the same league as my sister, but I do my bit. So if my file provided some small measure of amusement, jolly dee.
Jeremy frowned. Entertaining, it seemed, wasn't exactly the word he'd use.
"I don't know, sir." His head was bowed as he spoke, either because he was trying think what to say, or because he was trying to think what he should say. "It was unexpected."
Unexpected. I can imagine.
"Unexpected. Yes." Connors scratched his nose leaving a small smear of blood from where the needle had pricked his finger. Small boys shouldn't play with matches, and big ones shouldn't play with needles. You're gonna get burned. Well, I could hope that he'd somehow accidentally inject himself, freeing my friend from his ordeal and the patients from theirs. And me from this. Obviously he didn't. It's rare that the pyromaniac is caught up in his own inferno, the torch bearer becoming the torch. The doctor had wandered back behind Jeremy's chair. He made it appear as if he was simply ambling about, meandering while he mused, instead of stalking a prey that was presenting its throat for a quick slaughter.
"But believable?" A step closer to the orderly. A step closer to the kill.
"Believable sir?" Jeremy looked up but without turning in his seat, he couldn't see Connors. And turning in his seat wasn't something he dared do. Sit down, face forward, soldier. Chest out, back straight. Drop and give me twenty.
"Believable, Mr. Jackson. The wildly delusional claims your friend made. Did you believe them?"
Jeremy shook his head as, behind him, the doctor licked his lips. Dinner's ready kids. All you can devour. Tuck in.
"No, Dr. Connors. How could you believe any of that?"
"How indeed, Mr. Jackson. But he's your friend. Didn't you at least think there might be a chance some of it was the truth? Just a hint?"
"No sir. Killing people with your mind? Teleporting? There's no such thing."
"Are you sure about that?" Connors was fishing. He was making sure Jeremy was saying what he felt and not simply trying to escape the slowly tightening noose.
"Of course, sir. He was my friend, but he wasn't one of the X-Men. He was just... ill."
Bless him. If only he knew. Part of me was offended. Slighted by the fact that he, to some degree, should have known. But hey, teleportation? Come on. I could do it and I didn't entirely believe. I wasn't, as had been pointed out, an X-Man.
"X-Men?" Connors questioned. Of course he wouldn't know. His world didn't include comic books and movies, fun and escapism. Reality and realism were his world. I wasn't a superhero in a tight lycra/spandex suit. I couldn't fly or bring lightning down with a snap of my fingers. I was a mortal, more mere than most, and I was crazy as a loon.
Isn't that right, Sister Moon?
Wibble-me-ree.
"It's a film, sir. It's based on a comic."
"A comic? Like Spiderman?"
I was impressed. I didn't think he'd know comics existed as, from conception, he'd had his head inside the pages of Megalomania for Dummies. But I supposed he would know Spidey. After all, Connors was adept in capturing people in his web.
"Yes, sir. Like Spiderman. They're a group of super..."
"Mr. Jackson, we're not here to discuss popcorn pap cinema or the futile methods the masses employ to escape their dreary lives. I don't care what an X-Man may or may not be. I don't care if my postman can read my thoughts as if he's prised open the envelope of my mind. What I do care about is do you believe the deranged ramblings of a psychotic man."
He was good. He was, wasn't he? The envelope of my mind? I might use that one myself some day. I think he knew exactly what the X-Men were, and had secretly wished he had an adamantine skeleton like Wolverine or dated a beauty such as Storm. I bet he'd had a box under his bed crammed with Marvel and DC comics and had hidden under his quilt with a torch whilst reading how Lex Luthor had smuggled kryptonite into Superman's cornflakes. Or something.
In fact, it might still be a guilty pleasure of his. Something he did late at night whilst other men were surfing porn or pleasuring their women in the good old Viking way along Testosterone Terrace. He'd never admit it, of course. Oh no. An intellect and ego as inflated as his? It was his own private form of fornication. Anyone who discovered it would have to be disembowelled whilst writing out one hundred times on a blackboard "Dr. Connors does NOT read comics. Dr. Connors does NOT enjoy himself." Life was for the common man and the good doctor would definitely not class himself as common.
Jeremy shook his head. The rest of him was shaking too and for a moment I thought he'd shake himself apart. Well, it was one way to get out of this.
"No. I don't believe it, sir. Sin was, unfortunately, ill."
He sounded so sincere I felt my stomach fall away inside me, leaving a hole the size of... I don't know. What's big? Besides Connors' ego. The Empire State? The doughnut of Homer's dreams? J-Lo's bum (in a nice way, of course)? He really didn't believe me. He really did think I was lying or delusional. At least he was referring to me as ill and not insane or doolally or a sandwich short of a picnic, meat short of the two veg. I'd take those small mercies wherever they were served.
I saw Connors relax. His shoulders, normally so fixed in place they could have been stand-ins for the Dallas wardrobe department, dropped a fraction and the syringe was returned to his pocket. From the corner of my eye I saw Joy relax too and felt a sense of relief wash through me like the falls of Niagara.
Nice one Jezzer. A bit touch and go there, walking the tightrope of terror up in the heights of the big top, blindfolded and sans safety net, but you got to the other side with barely a slip. Take a bow.
A "Thank you, Jeremy" from the poised cobra allowed my friend to join the ranks of the relaxed and he visibly slumped in his chair, his tension spilling out onto the floor to lap at my ankles, mixing with the waters of my own release. Finally the doctor believed him. As did I. He thought I was first mate on the slow boat to Crayzee. Cheers bud.
I couldn't blame him, could I? I hadn't sprung from the prolific pen of Stan Lee or been bitten by a radioactive cheesy wotsit. I didn't rescue cats from trees, swipe children from the path of oncoming buses or make the Earth spin backwards to save the woman I loved. No. I split the cat apart along with the tree. I threw the bus through the window of a post office, taking the child along with it. And as for making the world spin in reverse to change the course of time, I'd probably cause its axis to shift and plunge us all into the next ice age. The Day After Tomorrow would be today. But Jeremy wouldn't, and couldn't, believe this. I
was ill. I was delusional. I was raving and rabid and unreasonable.
And I wanted to leave. I'd had enough of this. Connors had played his games. Maybe he did know how to have fun, and reducing grown men to quivering wrecks was his idea of a good time. His equivalent to ten pints and a kebab. Either way, the show was over and I wanted my taxi home. What use was this? I'd learned that I was on my own. My only friend of the past months thought I was demented. My only support was a ghost. I wanted to leave. I wanted to turn my back and hey, maybe keep that appointment with the furnace.
Nah. Maybe not, but I'd seen and heard as much as I wanted, and more. I'd been a captive audience to a ritual humiliation and Dignity had left the building. I felt Joy take my hand and let her. My body hung there as if it was the remains of the practice dummy on a rugby pitch. No, this is how you take an opponent down! Run, smack, crack. Again. Run smack, thud. Again. Run, smack... Back to the house and stare at a spot on the wall for a few hours until I decided what I was going to do, or Judgement Day arrived, whichever came first. If that happened, I figured I'd be at the back of the queue. Sorry, Sin, we're full up. I believe there's room for one more down below.
Connors had stepped forward. He was now standing behind Jeremy, his hand on my friend's (yes, a sense of betrayal hadn't changed that) shoulder.
"Thanks you," he repeated. "I'm so glad we agree."
It happened so fast I didn't realise what was going on until it was already underway. Until Connors' hand had left his pocket, holding the hungry needle, desperate for its vampiric bite. Until it had pierced the neck. Until the thumb had pushed the plunger. Until Jeremy had gasped, stiffened and slumped.
Where was slow motion when you needed it? If John Woo had written this scene, I might have had time to intervene before the syringe had completed its fatal fall. If Spielberg was bankrolling the action, I could have leapt to his rescue, Matrix-like, taking the doctor's arm and twisting it, the needle puncturing the throat of the attacker instead of the attacked.
But this was reality. Or it was reality's closest relative. Brother. Cousin. Whatever.
I stared. Joy stared. Dr. Connors smiled.
"I believe you, Mr. Jackson," he was saying. "I really do. But for me to be safe, you must be sorry. I'm sure you understand."
He pulled the needle from Jeremy's neck. He tossed it onto his desk as if it was nothing more than an eye gouging pencil. Jeremy didn't move. He didn't breath. Of course, being dead, he couldn't.
Connors returned to his own chair. He was humming. Almost whistling a happy tune.
I looked at Connors and Jeremy, first one then the other as if I was watching a macabre tennis match. A rotting heart was being volleyed back and forth, my attention captured like a dolphin in a tuna net, unable to take my eyes off the decomposing flesh as it was batted to and fro. Except the only rotting heart was deep inside the doctor's chest. And I so much wanted to rip it out. Finally, deuce. Match point. Game. I turned to Joy and I saw the tears in her eyes. She hadn't know my friend. I don't know if I'd ever spoken about him. Said his name. Hinted that he existed. But the tears were there. I had none. I had nothing. Rage had wiped remorse out like the nuclear blast of a Terminator film.
I wanted... I needed to hurt Connors. A pencil in the eye wasn't enough. Decapitation. Slow. Not enough. I wished, briefly, that I'd lived on a farm when I was younger instead of a flat on a council estate, where the nearest greenery was the square of grass that I'd played football on, using the 'No Ball Games' sign as a goal post. I wished I'd learned how to skin a rabbit or pluck a pheasant. He would have been plucked and skinned. Boiled perhaps. Alive, obviously.
But my visits to farms were restricted to the play farm at Rand with its pig pens and lamb feeding days. And its trampolines and witches' hat rides. Taking the foil off a chocolate Easter Bunny was the closest I came to skinning a rabbit.
Joy breathed in deeply, exhaling slowly. It was a version of my own method of focussing. Breathe in, and on the exhale move your index finger away with the breath. Banish the bananas, you might say. Well, you might not, but hey ho daddyo. My impotence at being able to only stand and watch was threatening to screw me up into a tight little ball and play ping pong with me. What was the point? What was the reason?
"Come on," I said. "Let's go."
Let's go. Simple as that. Leave Doctor Death and his victim and just walk away. No calling the police - not that I'd be able to use the phone - and no goodbye to my friend. I'd had enough.
"Wait," said Joy, her hand gripping mine.
"No more," I said. I didn't see how there'd be anything left to show me. Anything that I'd care about, anyway. Anything that mattered. No more. Done. Enough.
"Sin," she said, her voice hushed, which seemed strange since we couldn't be heard anyway. "Wait."
* * * *
Chapter Fifteen
Well. Joy had her ways. With a look you'd be walking on clouds, almost paddling in the break waters of the sky. But she also had a way of, when she meant something, you knew it. It was more than a woman's whiles. More than one of those stares you get that say, just because I haven't told you how I feel, doesn't mean you shouldn't know how I feel! Was it an inflection in her voice? An underlying tone that grabbed you by the shorts and made them curly if you didn't stop, look, listen and not bother thinking because she was going to do it for you? Was it a shadow in the glitter of her eyes? A slumbering demon that you really didn't want to be stirred? I don't know. I don't think it was any of them. When Connors spoke, people listened. He pretty much commanded it - or demanded it. When Joy spoke, if she spoke in a certain way, people also listened. But she didn't command it, she deserved it. Or requested it. Or maybe it was just that you could feel everything she'd done, and you knew without knowing that she'd earned it. I wouldn't say that to her face though. She'd dig me in the ribs and tell me to get a grip.
But Joy had spoken. So I listened. When it came down to it, what else could I do? I wasn't, as had been pointed out, in Kansas anymore. I'd neglected to pick up an A to Z to help me find my way back to the land of the living, if Grimsby could be called that. For all I knew, if I stepped back through that door, I could end up like Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis in Beetlejuice. Open the door and try to escape, and I'd find myself in a vast desolate land of sand with huge razor-toothed snake like creatures hungry for a piece of Sin Steak Pie, just like mamma used to make. Yum.
Sod that. And besides. I think any fight or life left inside of me disappeared with Jeremy's final breath. Strange how that could change in a second. Only a moment had passed since I wanted to feed Connors to a pack of the giant rats that wandered the Seven Hills. Now I was suddenly deflated. Fine. We'll wait. We've paid the entry fee. Got the popcorn and drink. A small tub of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream. The main feature had been on, or at least I hoped it had, and now perhaps they were going to show some trailers. Maybe a cartoon.
Click, click, clickety click.
Connors' finger tapped his mouse button in quick, successive strikes. He didn't look over in the direction of the body on the chair, which seemed now to be someone other than the orderly who'd been nice to me on so many occasions. Jeremy had done his best Elvis impression and had left the building. What remained now was a husk, the cast off skin of a snake in human form. No, not a snake. The doctor was the snake. The doctor had waited, played his game, got his answers and struck anyway. Why? Why kill him? He'd admitted he thought I was crazy. He hadn't used those words, of course. 'Ill' was a much nicer way of putting it and I did appreciate the effort, even though I had plastered over the disappointment with a trowel the size of the QE2. But he didn't believe me. So why? What did it matter? Why kill him?
Click, click... pause... Connors leaned into the screen, his icicle inducing smile playing across his lips. Something had captured his attention.
Click. Drag. Click.
Voices.
Something was playing on the computer monitor. I heard Connors' voice as it said...
; "Do it, Sin. Do it for me. Do it. Do it. DO IT!"
Did I run? Ask me another. I only know that one moment I was standing next to my sister and the next I was behind the doctor's chair, staring at his screen, not entirely sure what I was looking at, but at the same time very sure.
CCTV. The miracle of the modern age. They say in the UK there's one camera for every 14 people. You get snapped something like 3,000 times a year. Say cheese! Sizzling Sausages! Monkey’s knickers! Of course none of this would mean anything to the viper sitting so close I could wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze. I could imagine the uses he would put hidden cameras to, all under the umbrella of care and healing of course.
The camera angle was awkward. The room was being viewed in isometric, from a high corner and the lens seemed to have a curve that was distorting the picture - not quite like looking through a fish bowl but having at least a hint of the aquatic. Two people were in the picture. One was the doctor, white coat and tight spectacles. The other was me.
Or it looked like me.