Mercy

Five days prior to his assignment of springing a cancer patient and a mentally damaged nurse from the morose structure that confined them, an unthinkably inconsiderate junkie smashed his way into Jakob Armstrong’s car to rip the radio from its wiring and quickly sold it to whoever was willing to buy. The moment the stranger’s cash had been exchanged for Jakob’s precious radio, said junkie went directly to his dealer to score for the first time in over a week. Hell, he would have taken a scalpel to his own flesh and torn a kidney from his inner workings to sell if it meant he could go right along supporting his disgusting habit. The man was a thoughtless bastard who deserved nothing more than to be locked in a cage with others of his kind, the dealers and the druggies and the careless thieves of the world, who littered the population like garbage, surplus and nauseatingly unnecessary. Poor Jakob longed for their expulsion from society through rehabilitation, therapy, and incarceration, but these particular pieces of trash were not primarily concerned with allowing themselves to be collected by the proper waste management employees. No, they were dead-set on evading their imminent demise by lying, cheating, and stealing from everyone and everything possible until they’re waist-deep in their own bullshit with any form of escape being so far beyond their grasp that they’d rather self-destruct than clean themselves up or permit others to do so for them.

Making up for the lack of a radio’s ability to keep our minds from the journey ahead of us, Billie Joe and I listened for well over a half-hour as the old bastard’s son tore every aspect of his elder brother apart. He was, after all, the one who’d smashed the window and stolen the object from Jakob’s car without so much as searching for the wallet resting visibly in the center console. How the younger man wished his brother had stolen the cash from his wallet instead, but when one is suffering from withdrawal that severe, they generally lack the common sense to lift something simple. All that mattered to Joey was the radio, for it was the first object he laid eyes upon in the first car he stumbled across. Paradoxically, the junkie had no idea he’d vandalized his own brother’s car until the younger man chewed him out for it the following day.

Throughout the duration of Jakob’s frenzied rant, Billie Joe was eerily silent. He kept his jaw firmly clenched and eyes set to the floor, a perpetual scowl blemishing his habitually mischievous demeanor. His brows furrowed as his son made point after excellent point pertaining to the blatant disregard addicts have for the lives of those around them, and it was instantly apparent that the old man felt accountable for his older son’s rapid downward spiral. Either that or he was so profoundly disappointed that he suddenly found himself uncomfortably dancing around the edges of total mortification. What parent wouldn’t be devastated by their child’s invariable failures?

“I think I’m gonna press charges,” Jakob muttered, knuckles whitening against the steering wheel as his fury towards his brother deepened greater still.

“That ain’t necessary, Jake. We need to let ‘im hit rock bottom on his own. It’d be more real that way. More…effective,” Billie mumbled, twiddling his thumbs in a small effort to calm the anxiety rising in his chest.

“Fuck that! At this rate, he’ll be dead before you are! Goddammit, Dad, he’s not your golden boy anymore! He’s a junkie and will be until you grow the balls to admit it!” the man shouted, though the elevated volume was incredibly superfluous considering how compact his car was. His argument could have been made just as easily if he’d whispered, but unfortunately, he’d chosen the more boisterous route. I was taken aback by his outburst seeing as my premier encounter with him had been so civil, so restrained. In fact, his brother had been the one to do most of the talking for him, so it was difficult for me to swallow Joey Armstrong’s dark secret. He seemed like a genuinely protective older brother, though I was notorious for misjudging one’s character.

Just mull over my initial notions of Elliot, and it’d grow increasingly clear as to just how dismally naïve I was wont to be when it came to creating an assumed personality for a person.

“He ain’t never been the golden boy,” the old man sneered, head snapping up to glare at his son through the rearview mirror, eyes blazing. “I seen addiction ‘n’ thievery worse than Joe’s, boy, and if you’re implyin’ I ain’t got it in me to admit my own flesh ‘n’ blood’s headin’ right down that road, then you got ‘nother thing comin’.”

“You threatening me, Dad?” Jakob hissed, teeth clenched. “What’re you gonna do, club me to death with your cane? Bludgeon me with your oxygen tank?”

My stomach was in knots as I was subjected to the ruthless bickering, and I was certain Billie would never stand for being spoken to in such a way. Instead, however, he smirked at his son before declaring, “You got no idea, kid.”

The conniving old man peered curiously in my direction once he was pleased with Jakob’s inability to come up with a retort weightier than an aggravated grumble, noticing at once how my body was trembling. I wasn’t even conscious of the tremors until he wrapped an arm around me and compelled my body to lie against his, and soon enough, I was relaxed and completely immobile in his tattooed arms, save for my chest rising and falling with rhythmic breathing.

As my eyes rested upon a particular work of art displayed on the canvas of his weathered skin, I found myself questioning without realizing I was going to speak, “Who was she?”

Billie cocked an eyebrow in momentary confusion before his gaze followed mine to the filmstrip etched into his arm. His eyes immediately misted as he replied, “My boys’ mother.”

Despite how evidently his memory of the mystery woman pained the old man, I felt yet another prying inquiry pouring from my mouth like vomit. “What happened to her?”

The tension mounted in that car so rapidly I wished I could ooze right out through the broken window, never to be seen or associated with the Armstrong family ever again. I didn’t belong in their heated debate over Joey, nor did I have any place to question the old bastard about a woman who had clearly died or broken his heart somewhere along the line. Whatever possessed me to ask such interfering questions deserved to be slaughtered, though Jakob appeared thoroughly interested in his father’s answer to the demand looming in the air. His eyes kept flickering between the road and the rearview mirror, eagerly anticipating his father’s response. I myself had resorted to holding my breath until the old man spoke seeing as if he chose to ignore me, I’d pass the fuck out before the remorse was able to languidly eat away at me for the remainder of the car ride.

“She died a while back. Now either shut your goddamn mouth or be useful with it ‘n’ suck me off again,” Billie Joe growled, feigning immoral desire by nudging my head towards his crotch.

“Sorry!” I squeaked, scrambling to reposition myself against the bastard as to not invoke further sexual advances with my mouth so very close to the danger zone.

In my haste to abide by Billie Joe’s demand, I failed to notice how Jakob’s eyes had grown to saucer-like proportions as he gawked at the pair of us through that blasted mirror.

“Again?! Please, please, please tell me I misheard that,” Jakob whined, turning his vehicle to head down a road comprised solely of gravel.

“Nope. Fairy does this sexy little thing with his tongue that-”

“And this is where I interrupt you to save myself from being scarred for life. Thank you, Dad, for that…lovely…mental image.” Jakob shuddered, gagging as his father chuckled at his horrified reaction.

“Any time, kid.”

“So you’re officially not allowed to make fun of me for being gay, alright? Cuddling with your male prostitute puts you way past the point of no return,” Jakob asserted, shaking his head in utter disbelief.

I blinked, soaking in four deadly syllables that I was doomed to endure for the rest of my goddamn life. It didn’t matter why I’d commenced with selling myself for money, and it certainly didn’t account for anything that I no longer paced the dreary streets where I was guaranteed to make at least a grand each night. As long as one acquired the knowledge of my means of paying my way through college, I would never be anything more than a male prostitute in their eyes. Blinking again, I realized I would be unable to stem the flow of tears indomitably charging their way to escape my helpless blues.

Hostility lingered in Billie’s tone once more, however, when he spat, “Fairy ain’t a whore. Call ‘im one again ‘n’ I will club your sorry ass to a bloody pulp with my cane.”

The old man then lifted my face to regard his by gently luring my chin upward, and my glistening stare was met with transfixing emeralds. He swiftly wiped a tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb, proceeding to lean forward and place a tender peck soothingly on my lips. As his fingers entwined in my shaggy mop of dark hair, he brought his lips to my ear and reiterated his previous statement in a husky whisper.

“You ain’t a whore.”