Run Faster Than My Bullet, or Destruction as a Finale (Part I)
Natalia Vodianova by Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton (2002), courtesy of @muglerize Twitter
Words: 5,500
Genre: Drama, Coming-of-Age
Mature Content: Moderate (Sexual themes; Violence/gore)
Was life always so damn hard? Is every decision meant to give me a choice of being alive or wishing I was dead?
A young boy lives a peculiar existence as an assassin with an ambiguous agency and when tasked with a hit at a Scottish junior high school, he discovers how different he is from other kids in painful ways.
So, a little backstory: this piece was written last year in October/November and was loosely inspired by R.O.D the TV, Episode 4: “The Seventh Grade Course”. However, Catcher first appeared as a supporting character in an unfinished mystery/thriller novel (November 2019 - June 2020), which was expanded from another short story “Chihiro”. Catcher was featured alongside his “family” Mr. Jonas and Miss Harley, although back then, Mr. Jonas was written as a man named Judge and Miss Harley was named Mathilda (Catcher simply called them “Mister” and “Miss”).
The original version of Catcher’s character was notably different as well where through disjointed diary entries, he seems to have been raised in complete isolation up until a certain point (to illustrate this, he meets a girl around his age when he moves into a new flat and is baffled by her Mickey Mouse pullover, apparently unaware who the character is). Later on, Catcher’s character was retooled and this element was dropped; in this story for instance, he makes comments on a variety of media, showing that while he may be lonely, he’s not completely unaware of the world around him.
All three characters would eventually be repurposed in some capacity for a separate project with a completely different genre and tone in mind, England Calling, Inc., a 16-episode adult animated action-comedy series (all episodes were initially written for myself last summer as an anime-inspired meta-referencing vent piece, mainly as a love letter to the Read or Die universe, so I can’t really say where it’s going to go at the moment, if anywhere).
RUN FASTER THAN MY BULLET
Or, Destruction as a Finale
_______________________________
JUNO DANTE NIGHT
Please, let me be dead.
Catcher didn’t want to wake up that afternoon. An unpleasant sensation festered beneath his skin like a fever ready to announce itself in the coming days. Was it... dread? Perhaps. He couldn’t say.
There was little choice to be found. Free will was not a factor. Was free will ever a factor? For as long as he could recall of his short life, Catcher already knew the answer. Mr. Jonas gave him a job and he had to complete it.
“Whatever it takes,” Mr. Jonas would say, “this is our point of no return. Do we choose the path of Abraham and defy God’s orders or do we comply and follow through? We are not cowards, my white soldiers. We do not breed fear, we do not need fear. God is in the details, my white army and...”
Will they mess you up? Well, you know they’re gonna try. Blah blah blah. Dammit, stop talking!
Catcher could never say it to Mr. Jonas’s face, but her (yes, her) constant references to God and Abraham and all these other names he didn’t care about was fucking annoying. A few years ago, Catcher would have listened intently and silently to everything the woman (yes, woman) had to say and perhaps, he’d even agree. Now that he was older and had seen more of what the world was like and how it operated, were Mr. Jonas’s words nothing but rambling bullshit? All talk and no substance? Yes, that was possible. He picked up a few tricks over the last several months. He discovered the best survival method to get through Mr. Jonas’s never-ending rants (which, truthfully, was all recycled material) was to 1) sit quietly 2) nod politely out of habit 3) don’t talk back unless spoken to and 4) if asked a question or for input, just pretend you’ve been listening the whole time, nod and simply reply, “Hm-mm.”
Less is more. Works like a charm.
It was a good thing Catcher kept to himself most of the time because the adults in his life, he felt, were not frankly interested in what he thought anyway. No one ever knew what he was thinking because they rarely asked. For that matter, quiet people could get away with anything. He wasn’t lying to Mr. Jonas when spoken to at the end of her tiresome sermons (yes, they were closer to church sermons than mission “briefings” because Mr. Jonas apparently loved the sound of her own voice). He would never lie to her, wouldn’t dare dream of the notion. He was only being himself. Less words are more.
He had been up most of the night running around the godforsaken city for three hours straight in order to find the Enemy and blow his bloody face off. Although, the plan fell through when he cornered the Enemy south of the River Clyde at the Queens Park railway station. Catcher stood still near the tracks as the last departing train bulleted behind him. He had his mask and hood up to protect his identity from the Enemy and he was certain no one could make him out beneath his dark, non-reflective wardrobe. He delicately scanned the empty station. Rectangles of yellow light brushed over him as the remaining carts rolled out of the station. His only source of illumination were the rows of buildings behind the brick wall around the station and the flickering street lamps. He couldn’t see the Enemy, but he knew he was there. The train was gone and Catcher jerked his head towards a faint click several feet ahead. The Enemy appeared from around the wall, though only for a moment. The Enemy’s pistol was held at the ready. His finger never had the chance to pull down on the trigger.
Catcher expected this and released a can from around his harness. Shooting his own pistol, he figured, was useless. The can produced a loud clank as it made contact with the station floor and rolled towards the Enemy. The man’s squinty brown eyes drifted down to the can’s cylinder body. He lowered his pistol, terribly confused, but his bewilderment was just as rapidly drowned out by sick realisation. He was swallowed by a cloud of gas. Catcher moved in like a ghost, unaffected by the gas. He thought he had the upper-hand when the Enemy’s arm materialized from the cloud, swung at his face and drove him down. The Enemy covered his mouth with the collar of his tan trench coat and fled over the wall, exiting the station. Catcher just sat there in a disorientated daze. He held his bloody nose in frustration, knowing he failed.
I’m so stupid. I can’t do anything right.
“No, it’s quite all right,” Mr. Jonas had told him when Catcher reluctantly contacted her ten minutes later through his earpiece. Catcher tore off his hood and mask, his hair damp with sweat despite the brisk weather, and trudged miserably through the streets back to the two-storey five-room luxury holiday apartment he shared with Miss Harley in the West End Glasgow area. It was an hour away from the station on foot. The Lynedoch Crescent near the Glasgow School of Art, one on the cleaner neighbourhoods in the city. It was no secret that Mr. Jonas was born into a wealthy military family and while she was in the midst of crippling debt and bankruptcy since the summer, she would never settle for anything less (at least, she put on a convincing mask that she was still rolling in dough); she went out of her way to scour out the loftiest apartment possible (in a city that was the poorest in the United Kingdom) for Miss Harley and Catcher, believing that now he was (maybe) twelve and not eight, he needed the space and privacy (Mr. Jonas and the rest of their “family” were staying elsewhere).
Catcher checked his mission watch: two forty-five in the morning.
Brilliant.
He half-expected that Mr. Jonas would be cross, but the woman had the uncanny ability to appear calm (well, most of the time. No one needed to remind him of the disaster in Hong Kong three years ago and while Catcher vaguely remembered the nitty gritty details, he knew too well from Abel, David, Frankie and the rest that it got pretty tragic over there. Now, everyone in their unit harboured an irrational hatred of the city).
“You did well,” Mr. Jonas said. “Get some rest. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. I’m thrilled.
The thick purple curtains were drawn over the rain-stained windows of his bedroom (which faced the rooftops of Sauchiehall Street five minutes away), although he could detect slivers of golden light.
Shit, how late did I sleep?
He glanced at the blue Roman Numeral clock on the floor: two forty-five. Afternoon. Obviously. He rarely slept this late. He didn’t want to move from the comfort of his bare mattress, but had no choice. When did he ever have a choice? He forced himself to crawl off the mattress in his underwear and onto the hardwood floor towards the little mirror nailed to the wall. Each side was papered with a peeling floral pattern that might have been pink-and-white at one time, but now shown yellow and purplish-grey. Revolting. The flowers were mutilated by years of rain and cracks and the cracked ceiling was in no better condition.
The paper was not his choice in decoration. It had been left by the previous owners of the flat. Mr. Jonas promised him that she would tear it off, but she never did. Probably forgot. It didn’t matter anymore. Save for his neatly folded wardrobe underneath the mirror and the Rubik’s cube Abel gave to him a few years ago sitting beside his clock and lamp, the room was otherwise bare (unlike the rest of the lavishly furnished apartment filled floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with half of Mr. Jonas’s insane fucking book collection she shipped personally from London on a private plane, fifteen hundred and counting-how was that behaviour remotely healthy?).
Catcher despised the new flat in this city, particularly his bedroom which functioned better as a walk-in closet. It was clean and modern, but otherwise boring not unlike a featured spread in Good Housekeeping. It was just a flat, not his home. Hong Kong may have been tragic according to his “family” and events were hazy, though Catcher recalled the two apartments they rented were pleasant. Cute, maybe. Like straight from a Ghibli film. At least, there they had central heat. In fact, he didn’t want to leave and return to Mr. Jonas’s depressing mansion that belonged to her dead mother in London. He hated London and he most especially hated Mr. Jonas’s “haunted” mansion. He wouldn’t have minded starting a new life in Hong Kong, but the others were against it and wanted to go back to the Island of Underbaked Colonialist Biscuits That Believe We’re Better Than the Rest of Europe Because We’re Not Really Europe (But We Actually Are). Though he didn’t think they’d ever go back there. Not now. Last summer, Mr. Jonas fell behind on the rent and the property was reclaimed. A load of other shenanigans took place and Mr. Jonas decided to flee the city with Catcher, Frankie and Ruth before shit got too real (the others were overseas someplace). Yeah, they weren’t going back. No way in hell. Would they live in Scotland forever? Who could say?
Catcher sat up on his knees, which were a little bruised, and worked at combing through the tangles of his waist-length silver hair. He wanted to cut it. It was a nightmare to take care of and it shed like crazy, but Mr. Jonas (he supposed) had her ways. His nose was bruised from the night before and as he dressed and strapped his harness with his grenades around his body, he detected a greenish bruise on his right breast. How that managed to get there was beyond him. How does one even go about bruising their breast? He gently pressed his thumb on it. He felt nothing. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Or was this a symptom of numbness? Did he not feel anything or did he not want to feel? How could one tell?
No, he was certain he could still feel. He felt the sting violate his nose when the Enemy hit him last night and he definitely felt the sting when he accidentally dropped Miss Harley’s blue razor over his right nipple a few nights ago. He noticed lately fuzzy silver hairs sprouting from underneath his arms, thicker than the hairs that appeared on his legs (but not as thick and dark as the patches growing in around his groin; those hairs were brown like his eyes). He never knew how exactly old he was. Mr. Jonas never told him when his birthday was and who knew if she even knew? Twelve, perhaps? That seemed about right based on his height and size (he was almost five feet). He didn’t want to tell Miss Harley that he was growing hair on his body besides his head (or Mr. Jonas, God no!). He was mortified and would rather die. He couldn’t fantasize the conversation-no, sorry, the exchange that would take place (“Um, excuse me? Miss Harley? Yes, um, you see...” Her icy blue eyes would scrutinize him and even though he thought she was very nice, his skin would flush and his heart would hyperventilate and his organs would declare war and his brain would scream: Bad idea, Catcher! Abort! Abort! But now, words failed him. His mouth refused to talk while his insides were having a private stroke and remaining still was even worse. And then, he’d tear his face in two like a sheet of paper and the room would go up in flames and the entire city would explode because... Wait, what?).
No, he couldn’t go through that torture. Not telling was better. He decided he could take care of it himself. He never shaved, but he watched Miss Harley shave many times before (being half-Indian, she grew a decent amount of hair, thick and curly). Nothing hard about it, correct? Wrong. He didn’t know a damn what he was doing.
He knew the skin and hair had to be wet and he knew soap was a good alternative to shaving cream because Miss Harley always used soap to shave, never cream. Where did he go wrong? Well, he shouldn’t have stood at the sink topless and he may have lathered on too much soap and that’s when the razor took a skydive out of his soap-covered hand and out of all the possible ways it could have landed, it fell razor-side-down against his skin. No, not his skin. His fucking nipple. To say it burned like a fucking bitch was putting it mildly. He didn’t scream. He bit his lip hard, squeezed out the dark beads of blood (as much as he could) and a sticky bandage did the rest. Just as long as Miss Harley and Mr. Jonas didn’t see the sticky bandage (or the fact he removed hair from under his arms and legs; he didn’t trust himself to put a blade near his groin, not after what he did to his nipple), they couldn’t ask questions and that’s the way it was going to be.
Never again.
Was life always so damn hard? Is every decision meant to give me a choice of being alive or wishing I was dead?
As long as the cut on his nipple didn’t invite itself as another member of his numerous scars... Yes, he had many. Too many. He lost count overtime, but he remembered he stopped at forty-eight. Forty-eight individual scars. Some were faint, others were more noticeable. He didn’t have a story for all of them because strangely, he couldn’t recall where he received most of them. The faint white ones behind his arms and down the sides of his hips that resembled chicken scratches had always been there. The one he sported on the left side of his stomach and over his right eye were new. Well, “new” in the sense that they hadn’t been there long. The one on his stomach was deep and folded inwards like dehydrated lips; it resembled an old man’s pout and was incredibly hideous. Freddy Krueger’s burned face couldn’t hold a candle. The one on his eye was mostly white with faint pink scar tissue around the sides. It looked more like a rash than a scar, but it wasn’t too bad save for the fact that while his pupil appeared normal, he couldn’t see too great anymore. On missions, he relied on his left eye for accuracy, although he held his gun and knives in his right. The corner of his right eye obscured objects and anything that could come up from behind him and potentially hurt him.
It was an inconvenient side effect, but little could be done about it. Mr. Jonas balked at the possibility of having him wear prescription glasses on his last doctor’s visit, which sent her and Miss Harley into a pointless argument for days. While the doctor looked embarrassed as did the other patients and nurses in the waiting room when the petty argument staged its act two out there, Catcher was more amused than anything. The two rarely argued and for once in his life as the couple posed as his parents on the paperwork (Mr. Jonas was naturally the “father”), he got a glimpse into what he thought other families were like. Mothers and fathers, like the ones in the soaps and American sitcoms on the telly. Mothers and fathers get on each other’s nerves and argue, more often than not in front of their TV children. Cue the laugh track now. He didn’t have either a mother or a father and here Mr. Jonas and Miss Harley were, arguing like a “real” family.
You two should argue like this all the time; life would be way less boring, he wanted to tell them, but didn’t.
He asked Mr. Jonas some months ago how he had gotten the scars on his stomach and eye.
“Hong Kong,” Mr. Jonas said and didn’t further indulge.
The pout on his stomach hurt sometimes. He had to lie down or sit just right otherwise the soreness would erupt through his entire body. He discovered he could only eat certain foods that didn’t assault him through his skin; that was annoying because sometimes, he didn’t know a hamburger, for instance, was a death sentence before it was too late. The scar on his eye felt like nothing. It was numb, like most of everything he felt. While the pain in his stomach was unwelcome, sometimes it was a wakeup call. It reminded him he was still human.
He finished dressing in his non-reflective attire and assembled his gun, placing on the suppressor. He didn’t want to do what he had to do. Nevertheless, he was ready.
* * *
“Lord child, did you sleep?”
That was naturally the first thing Mr. Jonas said to Catcher on the (largely) silent drive to their destination. Three-fifteen p.m. Miss Harley was behind the wheel of the classic Hudson Hornet, as usual. An accident some years ago prevented Mr. Jonas from driving. Something happened to her legs, her knees, her hips, whatever. She was far from old, but she walked with an elbow crutch. She had to. She could barely stand up without it. A scar etched along her left brow was the only tell-tale sign to Catcher that an accident occurred at all. Was it a fire of some sort? He couldn’t recall precisely, though he reasoned that the less questions, the better.
Catcher barely registered the woman’s voice in the seat beside him (the backseat being Mr. Jonas’s idea of a mini-library) as he brushed his gaze on the uncharacteristic grey and brown buildings that made up the city. Colourless and lifeless and dull except for the rays of golden sun that assaulted the structures as the light diminished. Catcher’s silence prompted Mr. Jonas to reach over and tap the boy’s right shoulder (she did so with three fingers instead of one as if she were trying out an instrument, like always. He had known Mr. Jonas all his life and the woman exhibited peculiar, compulsive habits. Does my shoulder appear to you like a keyboard, Mr. Jonas, sir?). Catcher frowned and adjusted his shoulder slightly. He refused to look at the woman and kept his eyes locked on the boring grey street beyond the glass. He swept his eyes over a group of five children, about six or so. All girls (with short brown hair) except for one boy. They stood in coats and stockings on a cracked pavement at the corner. Behind them was a bar covered with graffiti. Seemingly alone and unsupervised, the children appeared happy somehow. The girl on the far left clutched an open bag of crisps and passed the snacks around to her companions.
Friends, Catcher thought. Is that what friends look like?
He caught but a faint glimpse of Mr. Jonas behind him in his reflection, her green eyes hard and unreadable.
“Catcher, did you hear me? I asked you a question.”
Catcher said nothing and nodded. His eyes briefly flicked over to Miss Harley and he turned away when he found her icy blue ones judging him crossly through the rear-view mirror.
Why do adults stare at you like you’re some subhuman species? How old do you have to be before you’re considered a person like them?
“Catcher,” Mr. Jonas said, “you know, I can’t afford for your health to be seedy right now. You understand? Please, take care of yourself. I ask so little of you. Honestly, that’s all I ask.”
Through his window’s reflection, Catcher detected Mr. Jonas slicking back her already neat, short sandy brown hair (as always). It was no secret she was obsessive-compulsive and her hairline was receding worse and worse each day (it seemed) as a result.
You keep doing that, sir, I’m afraid you won’t have hardly any hair left. No offense.
“Catcher,” Miss Harley said (now, it was her turn; oh joy), “you’re being rude to Mr. Jonas.”
Catcher frowned and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s quite all right, Harley,” Mr. Jonas said. “He’s in a mood. I can tell. No harm done. Remember, he may be my agent, though he is a child after all. Are you anxious, Catcher? About the job?”
“You don’t need to make excuses for him, sir. He’s not five. He’s old enough to know how to respect an adult. Especially you.”
That unpleasant hot prickling sensation bred under Catcher’s skin. He sunk lower in his seat and lowered his eyes to his knees. She sounded stern. He knew he did something wrong and hated himself for upsetting her.
“I understand that, darling, I do,” Mr. Jonas said to her. “Really. Though he’s nervous and you’re not helping.”
Miss Harley said nothing more, her silence wrapped in bitterness. Mr. Jonas leaned over again and stroked Catcher’s knee. The warm touch was unexpected and he fought to contain his surprise.
“Look, I have faith in you, child. I know you’ll do fine. I trust you.”
“That’s the thing, sir,” Catcher said almost in a whisper. He couldn’t make eye contact and focused on the woman’s large pale hand moving along his leg. He narrowed in on each individual vein and muscle and tendon and wrinkle and freckle protruding through the woman’s skin.
It’s alive. The hand. It’s its own creature. It thinks for itself. It wants to-
His chest tightened. His cheeks flushed. Sweat tickled his scalp. He couldn’t breathe. He heard wasps buzzing in his head. He saw the world bleed inside violet light. He didn’t tear his eyes from Mr. Jonas’s hand. He couldn’t. While the vision of his right eye was hazy and he closed it shut, his left zoomed in on the little blonde hairs upon the skin. He could single out each one glistening in the sunlight. It was just one of those things he could do that he couldn’t explain. “Special” was the word Mr. Jonas used all the time, but Catcher didn’t want to be called that. “Special” meant he was different.
I don’t want to be different, Mr. Jonas. Stop saying that. I’m just an ordinary dumb kid. I’m stupid as shit. I make mistakes. I don’t know anything.
“One... two... three... four...” Catcher counted under his breath. Counting always relaxed him a little. He went higher, multiplied by one hundred, counted four hundred. He moved along and counted another four hundred.
“Eight hundred hairs and counting,” Catcher said to himself.
“Come again?” Mr. Jonas asked.
“You expect me to do a good job, sir, but I know I’ll mess up. Somehow, I always mess up.”
In his head, he counted nine hundred.
“I don’t expect you to be perfect,” Mr. Jonas said. “You’re only human. We all are... unfortunately. Listen to me: the trouble is, Catcher-you have no confidence in yourself. You’re rather talented for as young as you are and you give yourself no credit for it. It breaks my heart. Terribly. I don’t tell just anyone this...”
Mr. Jonas moved closer and brushed the boy’s silver hair behind his shoulder. Catcher detected the scent of peppermint mixed with chocolate emitting from Mr. Jonas’s blue jacket. Yes, it was definitely chocolate. Mr. Jonas always kept chocolates in her pockets (along with other bits n’ bobs from combs to pens to wet wipes-yes, wet wipes. Frankie was in the habit lately of teasing Mr. Jonas that she was a good candidate to audition for a revival of the TV show Monk where an ex-detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder routinely used wet wipes. “The Wipe Guy” he was called in one episode. Mr. Jonas didn’t find the joke amusing, however).
Mary Poppins’ magic bag. Or rather, Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. That was Mr. Jonas’s pockets. The thought made Catcher smile a little.
Mr. Jonas whispered in his ear, “You’re my best agent, Catcher.” Her hand tightened around his knee.
Catcher swallowed hard. A few months ago, he suddenly grew afraid of Mr. Jonas touching him. Catcher blamed Agent Narcissus, the (then) new field agent. A slender, tall man with a pointed chin, messy auburn hair and a crooked smile that made Catcher feel violated. It was during a brisk winter stakeout in the Canadian woods and the two of them were alone. Frankie, Mr. Jonas’s second in command and best computer hacker (unless one counted Ruth) was their only support line through their transmission bugs. For miles, they were on their own. Catcher couldn’t remember the details of the mission, just that they were behind a dead brush on a blanket with two sniper rifles prepared, but he did remember what Narcissus said to him.
“That Jonas bloke,” he began in his thick accent that Catcher didn’t recognise, “you like her, lad?” Narcissus looked away from his binoculars and grinned at Catcher beside him on the blanket, sucking loudly on his rolled joint.
Catcher frowned and shrugged, not making eye contact. “Yeah. Why?”
“No reason. I think she likes you, too. She kinda ugly for a lass, though. If she were a man, on the other hand...” Catcher temporarily tuned him out, annoyed. “I think she likes you too much, lad, if I have to be truthful.”
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon, lad. You’re like VIP material, the way that bitch treats you. The rest of us? She works us like dogs. Worse than dogs. We’re like a... a trained roach farm, no?”
“She raised me,” Catcher spat.
“Yeah, I get that. But you wonder why she’s touching you all the time?”
“So does Miss Harley. Sometimes.”
“Eh, not like Jonas. And she touches Harley, all right. Ain’t no secret those two fucked at least once. You know how lesbians fuck?”
“Are you done?”
“Don’t say I didn’t tell you, lad. I reckon she wants to fuck you like she fucks Harley. That broad wants to see you naked and she wants to fuck you hard. I say you one lucky little bastard.”
Agent Narcissus then leaned over with an ugly smirk, thrust his arm between Catcher’s crossed legs and grabbed his crotch. Catcher couldn’t feel anything through his thick layers of clothes, but he screamed nevertheless, kicked his boot into the man’s backside and made a run for it down the hill. Narcissus laughed, chased after Catcher and grappled for his arm, tackling him into the snow. “C’mon, I was messing ‘round, lad!” Catcher barely recalled what happened afterwards, but the man finally got off of him and told him not to say anything to Frankie. “I’ll rip your fucking throat out, kid,” Narcissus whispered. When Frankie called twenty minutes later to get a status report, Catcher sat beneath a tree by himself, his knees to his chest and held back his tears.
“Catcher, you all right over there?” Frankie asked. “Sounds like you’re sick or something.”
“Head cold,” Catcher sniffed. “I’m fine.”
Ruth said faintly in the background, “He’s crying.”
Frankie told her, “Are you serious? He’s not bloody crying. He’s a boy.”
“Wow, what century is this?” Ruth said.
David said in the background, “I know, right?”
Catcher wanted them to all shut up. “I’m not crying,” he snapped and they left it that.
A few days later, Catcher found himself alone in the backseat of the Hudson Hornet with Mr. Jonas as Miss Harley ran errands in town. Mr. Jonas was preoccupied with a thick novel. The silence was unbearable as Catcher clawed his trousers and stole a glance at Mr. Jonas. He turned his head towards the sound of a shopping trolley scraping against the ice in the car park, praying that it was Miss Harley returning to the car. It wasn’t, only a stranger. He breathed hard. A tap fell on his right shoulder and he violently jumped, meeting Mr. Jonas’s green eyes.
“Something wrong?” she asked tonelessly.
Catcher shook his head and avoided her eyes. He heard the woman light a cigarette and roll down her window. He breathed out and dug his nails into his knees.
“Mr. Jonas? May I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“Well... maybe I heard it somewhere... I’m not saying it’s true or anything... but, like... Do you like me?”
Mr. Jonas took a long drag and kept her eyes out the window. “Of course, Catcher.”
Catcher breathed in and held it. “Like, do you want to fuck me?”
The question nearly caused Mr. Jonas to choke on her cigarette and she stubbed out the fag. “Do you know what that means, Catcher?” she calmly asked after a pause. He hadn’t thought of that. Feeling her eyes burn his skin, he shook his head. “I don’t know if Miss Harley gave you ‘the talk’ yet,” Mr. Jonas said, “though seeing as you’re at that age now, it’s best you know now. Do you know what sex is?”
Catcher shrugged. “Like, kissing and stuff?”
“Well, it involves more than that.”
What followed was the most uncomfortable conversation Catcher was subjected to in his life. He learned how babies were made, what “good touch” versus “bad touch” was and a prompt sacking of Agent Narcissus was in order (much to Catcher’s relief) when he told Mr. Jonas what he did. He now knew Mr. Jonas would never hurt him.
He had the slightest intuition that Mr. Jonas would embrace him and plant a kiss on his ear. She didn’t and removed her hand from Catcher’s knee. He heard the wasps buzzing in his head gradually die away with the rumbling car engine. He balled his hands into tight fists and allowed his overgrown nails to pierce his palms. Finally, he breathed deeply and the violet colour penetrating the world around him slipped away, too. Mr. Jonas reached inside her pockets and no surprise to Catcher, she unearthed a chocolate sweet wrapped in gold and handed it to him.
“It’ll make you feel better. Trust me.” Mr. Jonas smiled and handed Miss Harley a chocolate as well. She took it reluctantly. “Here you are, darling.”
“Remus Lupin,” Catcher said softly and took the candy.
“Sorry?”
“That’s who I was thinking of, sir. I was going to say Willie Wonka, but no. Not really. Didn’t Professor Lupin give Harry chocolate or something when he was attacked by the Dementors? Because like, chocolate combats dark magic or something?”
Mr. Jonas studied Catcher blankly then tapped her right temple. “Ah, yes. Right you are. Been ages since I’ve read that book. Yes, you’re correct, Catcher.”
Catcher was overcome by Mr. Jonas’s praise. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was actually thinking of the movie and not the long-ass book (while Mr. Jonas expected Catcher to read at least two hundred books per month, he didn’t like books, not at all) and unwrapped the chocolate. Melted, of course. “Are you like Professor Lupin, sir?”
Mr. Jonas grinned and slicked back her hair. “Afraid not.”
“But if given the choice, you’d be defensive against the Dark Arts, right? Unlike Professor Snape who was knowledgeable enough to recognise the dangers but kind of embraced it. That kind of love for something-toxic, unhealthy appreciation and borderline obsession-that was his undoing, wasn’t it? That was what drove Lily Evans away, right? And racism, maybe. Obsession... His obsession filled this hole, but it hurt him in the end. Obsession blinds people, doesn’t it?”
Mr. Jonas flashed a knowing smile and said nothing.
They were nice to him, Catcher reckoned. Mr. Jonas and Miss Harley. Most of the time. He couldn’t remember an instance where either have yelled at him or hit him. He regarded himself as lucky. Not all children were so fortunate. He always had nice things, nice clothes, lived in nice flats, never went hungry. They looked after him. It had always been these two women. He never asked questions. Whoever Mum and Dad were-well, they were dead (most likely). Better not to dwell on trivial matters.
You can’t miss someone when you never really knew them, can you?
At the same time, he was afraid. Afraid of what? He couldn’t answer that. He was afraid to look at the woman, yet he wished Mr. Jonas had kissed him. She wouldn’t hurt him.
He licked the chocolate clean from the gold wrapper, folded the wrapper neatly and placed it inside his hoodie pocket. Like the rose-printed envelope Mr. Jonas’s French cousin Margaret sent him for Valentine’s Day last year, he couldn’t throw it away. He rarely received anything and Mr. Jonas would never understand his desire to keep not just the cards and presents, but the scraps of seemingly useless envelopes and store-bought wrapping paper.
He counted one thousand hairs.
To be continued...
Run Faster Than My Bullet Copyright © 2021 by Juno Dante Night
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