The House that Jack Built

by Malcolm James

  I sauntered back to my car. As I left Metro, I ignored the phone while it rang repeatedly.

  Mal, I need your help.

  The Guy Code.

  I need her!

  Chapter 10

  ‘Animus gemella’ is Italian for ‘soulmate.’ Elizabeth’s mother was Italian and she spoke a little herself. I smiled when I discovered what it meant, and it made my orgasms even more incredible when I masturbated to memories of the cabin.

  But I had a crisis. The Guy Code was coming to kick my ass.

  What I’d done was unforgivable, regardless of the circumstances. If Jack discovered my deceit, he was well within his right to pound me to a pulp. In the state he was in, I had no doubt that if he found out, that’s exactly what would happen.

  Of course I didn’t tell him what we were doing. He knew how close we were, so I didn’t have to skulk in the shadows. Besides, sometimes he didn’t care and her name didn’t come up. But then he’d crash like a wingless passenger jet from 36,000 miles.

  He’d show up at my door at two or three in the morning. Screaming and crying. Begging me to give him some advice that would help him win her back. His fingers would curl up into claws as he sat on the edge of my bed, sobbing it out: he would get her back.

  “Whatever it takes,” he’d snarl as he looked at me through crimson eyes. I’d shudder and wonder how long I had. When he found out, Jesus…

  I didn’t want to think about it. But I had to turn him off that path. The path that had him stalking me like a determined hunter. If he only knew who his prey was.

  Four nights a week he’d call and ask me what I wanted to do. And four nights a week I’d have to come up with a lame excuse. Elizabeth and I had planned conversations which we tried to stagger so there wouldn’t be a pattern for him to latch onto. But my excuses got lamer. I began to worry that he’d figure it out, regardless of the drugs.

  I hoped that his flip-flop was just a glitch. A blip that would disappear off the radar in lieu of other exploits. But for weeks he grilled me about her. Asked me if she was alright. Implored me to be his ambassador. I did everything I could to convince him that it was a bad idea, but he called her anyway.

  She had call display, but he blocked his number. After the first call, she wouldn’t pick up so he tried calling her from my phone when I was in the bathroom. That was enough for us to decide that she would have to call me. I didn’t like crawling in the shadows, but even if I had a choice, I wouldn’t have done it differently. I loved her, and that was everything to me.

  His mood and mannerisms grew ugly tentacles. He’d laugh one minute and burst into tears the next. He’d pick up a stray chick and screw her, and then land on my doorstep in the middle of the night in a dark funk. It terrified me, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  But sometimes things have a way of dealing with themselves.

  It was in October. Our freshman year at College. I tried to tackle my studies but Jack did everything he could to make that a lesson in futility. When the doorbell rang one night, I cursed and threw my Psych text on the floor. I’d been reading a chapter on psychoses. It was Two AM, just around the time that Jack normally came calling.

  But when I opened the door to two solemn-looking Police Officers, my mind exploded with possible explanations for their appearance.

  “Officers?” There was confused surprise in my voice, but I had a vague suspicion as to why they were there.

  “Can we come in?” I nodded and vacated the doorway. As we sat in the dimly-lit living room I thought about Jack’s face and the last time I’d seen it. It was the night before, when he banged on my door until I answered. We sat up until five and I watched him fiddle with the Icarus amulet while his mouth raced to the finish line. He may have crossed it, but Elizabeth still wasn’t there waiting for him.

  “Do you have a friend named Jack?” I nodded in silent dread when the Police mentioned his name. In that moment of trepidation, I wondered if he was dead, and I couldn’t decide how that made me feel.

  “And a friend named Fred Phillips?” I nodded again. Trepidation became morbid curiosity. Fred was a buddy of ours from school. We hung out at parties and such, but Jack knew him better than I did.

  “Yes. What’s this about?”

  “Son, your friend Jack paid Mr. Phillips a visit tonight. He had a gun and was saying something about Fred stealing his girlfriend. Someone named Elizabeth. Do you know who that is?” I closed my eyes.

  Oh God.

  Jaw clenched, I nodded. I looked around the room. Leather furniture and a Baby Grand sat atop hardwood floors that beseeched me to crawl beneath them. The garish piece of modern art that hung over the fireplace looked just like my mind.

  “Is Fred okay?” One of the cops nodded.

  “Yes. Apparently, Jack just wanted to scare him. He threatened him, but left not long afterward.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “We were going to ask you the same thing. He’s not at home. Any ideas where he would go?” I shook my head. At two in the morning, he’d normally be here.

  They asked me a few more questions and then left. I called Fred, who was still shaken. He grudgingly admitted to pissing his pants when Jack put the barrel of the revolver to his temple. Of course, Fred had no idea that I was seeing Elizabeth. Thankfully, for he would have spilled the beans and I’d be the one pissing my pants.

  After I got off the phone with Fred I considered calling Elizabeth, but thought better of it. This would just terrify her and she didn’t need that. I wondered where Jack was when the pounding on my door began.

  I sprinted down the stairs. When I opened the door he was teetering in front of me with eyes like broken saucers. For the first time, I saw what he looked like with messy hair, and the gun hung in his hand like a friend who’d deserted him.

  “Jack!” I grabbed his jacket and pulled him inside. He looked like crap but didn’t seem to care. I guided him into the living room and sat him on a leather easy chair. He plopped into it like a quarter plops into a fountain.

  I watched the gun. It still hung limply in his hand and I wondered if I should try to separate the two. As my hand gently closed around his fingers, he shot into consciousness and I jumped back reflexively.

  “Jack? Are you alright?” He peered at me through vacant saucers of something dark, almost black. A small smile formed on his mouth like ivy.

  “Is Elizabeth here?” One of my eyes was focused on his face. The other on the gun that began to take a life of its own. I shook my head.

  “Jack, Elizabeth’s in Boston. You know that.” I was astonished at how firm and calm my voice could be when my life was at risk. Suspicious fires were quelled by cooling confusion as his understanding tried to process my words.

  “Give me the gun.” My tone was steady but it belied my heart. The mere mention of it caused Jack to look at it, as if he just remembered that it was there. He lifted it and held it loosely in front of me. I found myself moving my body to stay away from the line of the barrel.

  “What, this?” He chuckled and held it out to me, less like he was giving it to me and more like he was daring me to take it. I took a deep breath as my hand reached out. I guess my calmness was limited to my voice, for my fingers trembled as I anxiously pried it out of his outstretched palm.

  Jack slumped into the chair and his head hung limply on his left shoulder. He was obviously beyond exhaustion and I sighed when I held the gun. As much as I hated the things, I liked it better in my hand.

  But when I examined it, I realized that it wasn’t a gun at all. It sure looked like one, but it was just a cap gun. They make the things look so realistic, but it’s hard to fire a bullet out of a solid barrel.

  Unaware that he was going into shock, I still did the right thing by placing a blanket on him. I realized that my choices were limited, so I called the Police Officer who left his card, and he and his partner arrived within minutes. A quick examination of his condition warranted an ambulance, and Jack was
admitted into the St. John Oakland Hospital in Madison Heights.

  Fortunately, Fred decided not to press charges. Since Jack didn’t use a real gun it wasn’t a Felony, and so he was admitted into twenty-eight-day Detox. For once, he was going to take drugs that actually helped him.

  During that time, Elizabeth and I talked frequently, and while neither of us liked the fact that his twisted presence dominated our conversations, we had no choice but to consider the consequences. We agreed that there was no way he could ever know about us. An impossible proposition perhaps, but it gave us an added sense of caution and comfort.

  I’d like to say that he was a new man when he got out. But twenty-eight days of detox and group therapy can’t undo the curses of a lifetime.

  Chapter 11

  While Jack dried out, we planned for Thanksgiving and talked about the future. And we shared our fears.

  Our initial trepidation morphed into somber realization as we traced the events that had transpired since the day she walked right past me, in Ninth Grade. Of course, she wasn’t able to justify her actions. But she didn’t have to. I had no choice but to understand. After all, she was the hottest girl in school and Jack was the richest, hottest prick.

  But thinking about it only incensed me. Chronic pain doesn’t subside. It tore at me, nights when I lay in bed after masturbating to the memory of her nudity. I burned as I remembered what it felt like to be a lap dog.

  Can you blame me for letting it slide? Even if you can, you have to remember that mine was the last one that she sucked. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I had to forgive, if I ever hoped to have her suck it again. Besides, I wasn’t about to hold hostage the adolescent mistakes of Ninth Grade. My entire life’s meaning depended on it.

  And so Thanksgiving came. It came fourteen times over three days. There’s a reason why I love Boston, but it wasn’t for the Commons, it wasn’t for Fenway Park, and it certainly wasn’t for Old Ironsides. I never even saw the city, for we were too busy fornicating.

  Have I mentioned how much I love Boston?

  But after Thanksgiving, the reality of Detroit set in when I stepped on the flight back to Hell. Jack was getting out of Detox, and I had no idea what to expect.

  The meds changed him. I just wasn’t sure if it was a positive change or a step to the left. Before the meds he was manic and volatile. That had the dubious benefit of Jack not thinking clearly. But after the meds, he was calmer and somewhat grounded. His personality took on a whole new form. He didn’t talk about Elizabeth. Instead he became obsessive in a way that seemed wholesome enough.

  If I’d only known.

  His love for the coveted Icarus amulet spawned a newfound interest in ancient folklore. Initially surprised, I quickly got online and was happy to debate Greek, Roman and Norse mythology with him. When we got tired of those ones, we switched to Biblical, Eastern, Aboriginal, Mayan, Incan and as time progressed, even more obscure cultural legends.

  Our discussions would turn into heated debates about interpretation and significance, reality and fanaticism, and ultimately, religious metaphors and their role in modern Dogma. Our heated tete-a-tete’s often ended with no obvious resolve, and we both became more incensed in our stances. Neither of us would give quarter and in many instances, the conversations ended in sullen silence, without so much as a ‘good-night.’

  I found these exchanges particularly interesting, because they allowed me to see an entirely new dimension of Jack. He had graduated into the school of considered thought and serious social issues. I relished these conversations because I could sense something beating inside his head and heart. It was a refreshing perspective, for one who had only known the three dimensions of him for so many years.

  But in the wrong mind, an interest can mutate from desire into obsession. Since Jack didn’t do anything half-assed, I suppose it was inevitable that this interest wouldn’t be any different. I can’t count the number of times that we’d be talking and I’d look at him, only to catch him in the act. Clasping the amulet in his hands. He’d stare at it in a trance-like state that I was rarely able to break.

  I’d watch him for several minutes. When he broke out of the trance, he wouldn’t even acknowledge that he’d been gone. I was forced back to the troubling conversation that I’d overheard on his birthday. He tried to kill him! He’s not well.

  I chose to ignore that conversation. It was too uncomfortable to think about. But while I denied it his obsession grew, and now it had a catalyst in the form of a tiny amulet carved into Platinum. It seemed to be a lightning rod for his addictive personality. He would quickly dismiss my concerns, always with a witty comment or a quick segue into some topic that interested me. He kept me off guard so that I never got too close to the chilling truth.

  But like the life of every autocrat, dictator and tyrant, Jack’s life was bound to discover its meaning in a revolutionary event. And change forever as a result. Jack’s ‘meaning’ came on his eighteenth birthday.

  The first of his Trust Funds was released. He must have thought the money would evaporate if he didn’t spend it, and I suppose a cobalt blue Jaguar X-Class was the condensation.

  He’d fire off phrases like ‘twelve cylinders’ and ‘Blaupunkt’ without knowing what they meant. But he convinced and impressed, and that was all that mattered to him. ‘C’mon. Let’s cruise babes.’ He’d storm off in a huff, when I told him to quit bugging me so I could study.

  Things were far worse, because suddenly he had whatever he wanted, and his needs and desires were excessive. He loved the stares that he got when he drove the car, and he bragged about it to any female freshman who was willing to listen.

  I was resentful, because my father was much more judicious with his money, and wanted me to ‘learn the value of a dollar.’ Although I never wanted for anything, we didn’t have the money that Jack’s family had. The luxuries I craved weren’t within my reach, and so I found another reason to resent Jack – as if I needed one.

  I have to plead mea culpa here, for I remained his friend. Even though he fucked me over repeatedly. Even though he raped the woman I loved. Why? I don’t know. And that bothers me intensely. But not as much as the fact that I didn’t do a Goddamn thing about it.

  I never called him on it. Call him on it? Jesus…I should have kicked the shit out of him. Or at least tried. I should have threatened to call the cops, even though it was far too late to do anything about it.

  I should have stopped being his friend.

  So here’s where we all have to remember the Guy Code. I had no moral ground to stand on. It crumbled down to a tenuous precipice the night I undressed her in the cabin. And it teetered every time after that, when we made love or when Jack begged me to help him get her back.

  In hindsight, I’m sure that passive-aggressiveness was my way of making him pay for raping her. Sometimes I was really hard on Jack. While he can be faulted for many things – like his haphazard mistreatment of women, his lack of forethought or consideration, and his general apathy toward humanity – I never let him forget it. I told him what a fuck-up he was and called him an asshole on a frequent basis.

  But my admonishments were fired upon a fortified wall with an impotent cannon. He’d convey innocence. ‘Who, me?’ He’d laugh, and my ire would bounce off the ineffable gleam in his eyes, the dance in his step, and his ability to make you think that he sometimes cared what you were feeling.

  No matter how angry I was with him, all he had to do was put his hand on my shoulder, look at me and begin to talk. Instantly, it all washed away. And if I was feeling down or dejected, he could pick me up in an instant and make me wonder what had bothered me in the first place. Unbeknownst to me and everyone else he knew, that was his way of controlling people. He was quite accomplished at it.

  Jack was gregarious, a trait which developed and matured. He was a natural ‘babe magnet’ because women liked his nasty, playful side. None of his ‘relationships’ lasted and always ended in a trail of tear-st
ained bed sheets and moist lace panties. He laughed and joked about his conquests. Right to their faces, too.

  ***

  Jack’s predilections for attention and the conquest of the moment were the stuff legend is built on. One legend that still permeates the walls of WSU happened in our freshman year. It was early March, but quite mild. Since Christmas, Jack had his eye on a hot little thing from his History class, but she wasn’t about to throw her panties at him, for she too came from money. But he ate challenges like they were peanuts, and when she threw a party at her parents’ mansion in Bloomfield Hills, Jack casually popped another one in his mouth.

  I’d been looking for Jack all night. We arrived together but he quickly disappeared, mumbling something about the ‘set-up.’ I had Elizabeth on the brain, and was contemplating going home when Jack stormed in with a frantic and horrified expression on his face.

  “Somebody get a towel and some hot water!" Everyone stopped and looked at him like he had two heads. People muttered ‘what’s his problem?’ and turned back to socializing. But Jack was not to be dismissed.

  "My car just hit a cat!" He was extremely flustered. Even though most of the guests couldn’t give a shit about a stray feline's untimely demise, morbid curiosity dominated. A host ran outside to see for themselves why Jack was so freaked-out. Mob mentality took over, and I ran outside to share in the bizarre desire to see a dead cat.

  A crowd congregated around Jack's car. Chuckles from some were silenced by the hushed awe of others as the circle tightened. I hastily burst through the crowd, anxious to see what had struck the boisterous crowd silent. And was myself stopped dead in my tracks.

  Lying in front of Jack's X-Class – its engine purring and headlights beaming – was Jack's 'cat.'

  It was a cat alright.

  A black panther lay in front of the headlights. It was at least ten feet long from nose to tail. It wasn’t dead at all. Breathing slowly and steadily, the creature was quite conscious, but obviously drugged. Its teeth were drawn back in a vicious snarl, and its razor-sharp incisors caused me to draw back involuntarily.