Chapter Text
Jesus of Fucking Suburbia
“You’re fucking crazy.”
Steven had stated it plainly. I liked him for that.
“And?” I waited for a response. Maybe I was smiling when beating the shit out of some drugged-up sonofabitch. Maybe I wasn’t. I couldn’t tell. “What else?”
“A maniac.”
“You’re more creative than that. Surely.”
“A delusional sonofabitch who only cares about himself and no one else.” Steven had backed himself against a wall. “That’s what you are, Motorcycle Boy. The Jesus of fucking suburbia. Hope you’re happy, ‘cause no one else is.”
Maybe he was right about all of that. The Jesus of Suburbia had a nice ring to it, insult or not.
Steven was shaking. Poor kid was petrified. I had lost that sensation years ago. Not that I miss it, feeling, but it makes being human just a tad bit harder.
I took off my jacket, blood stains and all. None of the blood was mine. If I remember correctly.
“Here, Steven.”
I tossed it to him, but he missed the catch. Steven shakily reached for it on the ground. He looked at it from under the busted street lamp. I don’t quite understand how he and Rusty-James became friends. Steven Hayes was afraid of anything new, anything unique. Perhaps that’s why he resented me.
“Did you kill him?” Steven motioned to the man on the ground, eyes rolled into the back of his head. “Is he really dead?”
“Most likely.” I knelt down to see the damage I had done. The front of his head was split open, just a crack. “Did you know that brain matter wasn’t pink, Steven?”
Steven’s response was by retching into a nearby trash can.
I thought of moving the body so it could decompose elsewhere. I had read somewhere that bodies decomposed differently in large bodies of water. Perhaps the river would’ve been a suitable resting spot, but I didn’t want to taint the water. Not with this disgusting piece of trash.
I must have gone deaf, for Steven hit me on the back.
“… he’s your brother, for god’s sake, you should care!”
I had forgotten about Rusty-James. He was lying there in what I assumed to be an uncomfortable position. Not like it particularly mattered. It’s funny, thinking that the dead would care about how they were placed. I recall that my father wanted to be buried with a whiskey bottle in his right hand and a book of law in the other. He was funny.
“They killed him!”
Steven hadn’t stopped with his yelling. It was, admittedly, beginning to wear on me. I had couched down, half-carrying Rusty-James to a brick wall.
“He ain’t dead,” I said. It had been originally to shut Steven up. But it soon became a statement of truth. “He ain’t dead.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Rusty-James had known me longer than anyone else until that moment. And that made me realize that I cared for him. Perhaps poorly. But it was never meant to be my role. I am only me. That is all.
.
I lit a Marlboro to pass the time.
Steven sobbed.
“Will you stop that crying?”
Steven looked up from his corner. That look was the same one I gave myself in my reflections. Hatred. “Will you go to hell?”
I had smiled. I believe that scared Steven, as he shut up.
I never hated Steven. He and I were simply different. But he hated me, to some extent. I could never identify if it was fear or confusion or envy.
“What a funny situation,” I said after a moment of silence, “I wonder what I’m doing here, holding my half-dead brother, surrounded by bricks and cement and rats.”
Everything is just fucking hilarious when you don’t know anything. Like with babies. They laugh because they don’t know what else to do. It’s hardwired into us.
“Although I suppose it’s as good a place to be as any. There weren’t so many walls in California, but if you’re used to walls all that air can give you the creeps.”
Rusty-James groaned, trying to move. He was dying, yet not dead. I envied him in that moment. Dying, but not dead.
“Steven, why did you come with us?”
Steven looked at me with large eyes. He fumbled with his words. “I don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t hear you.”
“You’re a horrendous liar, Steven.” Perhaps my perception of the world is a bit skewed. But I’m usually right.
He slumped down. “I know.” He sighed. He took off my jacket. “I just wanted to avoid my old man. After my mom had a stroke, I just never want to be home. It sure as hell doesn’t feel like a home anymore.”
“I suppose I can relate to that.” Who would’ve thought. We had common ground.
“What was your mom like, Motorcycle Boy?”
I shrugged. “Like me. Or so I’ve been told.”
“So a legend of sorts?” He titled his head in confusion.
“I suppose so.” I tossed out the old cigarette and lit up a new one. “Maybe that’s why we’re both here. You’re supposed to be the father you never had, and I’m the mother I never knew.”
Steve sat back. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He almost looked me in the eye. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“You and me both.”