Breaking Bad fic: The Empty Handed Painter
Title. The Empty Handed Painter (2/3)
Fandom. Breaking Bad
Characters. Jesse and Wendy.
Summary. Part two of my post Felina fic. Jesse is desperate to leave his life of crime behind him and yet crime is the only means of survival that he knows. What will it take for Jesse to break free from the person he has been?
Warnings. Sexual scenes in this chapter. Bad language. Even more trauma.
Disclaimer. Breaking Bad is not mine, but I needs must have my own Jesse resolution.
Beta. Thanks again to bessiemaemucho and celeryy515.
Chapter One. Yonder Stands Your Orphan.
“The highway is for gamblers you better use your sense,
Take what you have gathered from coincidence,
The empty handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you,
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.”
Chapter Two: The Empty Handed Painter
An hour later, Jesse sat outside the hotdog drive-in beating a rhythm on the wooden table with a Slim Jim and a screwdriver. God, he missed his drum kit. He never played it all that well but his drums had always been a great way to work off his twitchy energies. And Jesse really needed to keep his hands busy now...otherwise he would be roaming the streets trying to steal a car. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, as his Granny used to say. Jesse felt sure that if he did try to steal a car then the universe or God or the angry ghost of Hank Schrader would send a big squad of cops to surround him, beat him bloody and put him back in cuffs again.
And that’s just what Jesse would deserve if he stole a car from this crumbling neighbourhood. Jesse knew these streets well. He’d slung weed and crystal on these corners many an evening back in the old days. These were the same few blocks that Jesse had driven around throwing his millions out of his car window. Jesse wondered if he just waited by the Dog House long enough...maybe that old homeless dude would come back and he’d spot Jesse a few bucks so he could take the bus.
It would be light soon. The shadows and the folds of Jesse’s hood wouldn’t hide his face much longer. He felt like a vampire who was in danger of turning to dust when sunrise came. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He did know he wasn’t going to boost a car. He was pretty sure he couldn’t bring himself to pick someone’s pocket either. Jesse had stolen a wallet once before. Back when he was a teenager he’d slipped his nimble fingers into an old guy’s jacket and slipped away unnoticed. Jesse had needed to pay back his dealer. He’d been trying to avoid an ass kicking and his parents weren’t letting him wheedle any more cash out of them. But he’d felt horrible about it later, thinking he might have lifted that old guy’s pension for the week.
It’s not like Jesse was turning all Jesus loving and born again. He was just superstitious, that’s all. He didn’t want to be cursed with any more bad luck. If he tried committing just one more crime Jesse felt sure he’d be dooming himself. So what were his options then? He still needed money and Christ...he’d had money. Bags and bags of fat stacks. If Jesse had been smart like Mike he’d have made himself a getaway bag and hidden it someplace ready for the day he needed to get out of town fast. Jesse thought he might still have a rainy day fund tucked under the sink at his old home but he didn’t dare go look for it. The house had probably been seized by the cops. If his parents hadn’t stolen it back.
Jesse peeled the plastic wrapping off his last piece of real American cheese and folded it into his mouth. He had already finished the rest of the slightly expired food that Joe had rooted out of his fridge. Jesse packed the tools back into the kit box and abandoned them on the table, but he slipped the notebook into his coat pocket.
Okay...so who owes me money? Jesse thought.
With that notion in his head, Jesse started in the direction of Skinny Pete’s house. Skinny would help him out for sure. The amount of free crystal and strippers and pizza that Skinny had enjoyed on Jesse’s dime in the last two years was impossible to estimate. The dude owed him big time and Jesse figured that Skinny was decent enough to pay up. Skinny might even let Jesse hideout at his house for a few days so he could recover, ready to go on the run - for real this time. Yeah, it would be sweet staying with Skinny. So long as he didn’t tell Badger, of course. If Badger found out he would probably blow Jesse’s cover. And with that thought, Jesse slowed his walk.
The thing was...Badger might be at Skinny’s house already. The two of them were together more often than not. If they were at Skinny’s house right now they would either be crashed out asleep or they would be awake and tweaking. Either way, Jesse had to pause and wonder how his old friends would react if they opened the door to him...if they saw his long hair and beard and the scars on his face. Jesse thought they might be a little scared of him. No, they might be a lot scared of him. Jesse sure scared himself every time he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the windows he passed.
Jesse came to a halt. He realized there was another thing scaring him. It was old Joe’s warning that he shouldn’t trust his old friends not to sell him out. Skinny Pete and Badger were his boys but...but could he really trust them? Before he had always felt sure that they liked him. But that was before. That was when Jesse had money and a big ass flat-screen and sound system. That was back when Jesse had cooked the best meth ever. Would they still be his friends now if he came to them with nothing, begging for their help? Jesse wasn’t sure. Thinking about it, he’d been a really shitty friend to them in the last two years; always yelling at them, or just acting crazy and depressed. It could be that all those freebies they got out of him were the only reason they even stuck around.
Jesse raised a shaky hand to his ruined face. He didn’t want his boys to see him like this. He didn’t want to take their money. If they even had any money Jesse imagined it wouldn’t come from anywhere legitimate. So he was back to square one.
God, he hated being alone. Jesse knew he had to go to someone.
And why was it, when he was at his most desperate...he always thought to go to her?
~*~
Jesse reached the Crossroads Motel a little after dawn. There weren’t many places left in Albuquerque that Jesse could come home to but climbing the steps of the Crystal Palace felt like a homecoming. He came to the door of apartment 213. He knocked and prayed she answered. After his sixth knock he heard a few stumbling movements from inside. Then the door swung open and Wendy stood bleary eyed before him.
“Yeah?” she slurred. “What do you want?”
“Hey Wendy, it’s me. It’s Jesse...” For a good few seconds, Wendy just scrunched her eyes at him, her expression blank and confused. “Jesse Pinkman, remember?”
Wendy’s nose crinkled. “They said you were dead.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m not.”
“TV said you were dead,” Wendy insisted as though the television had greater authority than Jesse’s actual living presence standing in her doorway.
“Can I please come in?” he asked.
Wendy stood her ground, her arms clutching the door frame.
“You holding?” she asked him.
“No,” Jesse admitted.
“Well...you got any money?”
“No,” Jesse said again.
He was just realizing that he had never come to Wendy’s place empty handed before. He only ever came here to sell her meth or pay for her services.
But still, Jesse liked to think she was his friend.
“There’s a spider in my sink,” Wendy blurted out.
Jesse frowned. “What?”
“A spider. A really big one. It’s been there since yesterday.” Wendy’s curled a finger around the lank locks of her greasy blonde hair. “I don’t like killing the things but I got a really bad phobia.” She nodded to herself, seeming to have reached a decision. “So if you can get the spider for me then I guess...I guess you can come in.”
Jesse nodded, accepting the deal. He realized this was the reason he always came to Wendy. In the back of his mind, he remembered she was kind.
The spider wasn’t all that big. Jesse caught it easily between his cupped hands and then took it to the window to be released. Another little Godforsaken creature freed into the night to go anywhere it pleased. Jesse wondered if there were any more bugs he could rescue from Wendy’s room. He liked this job already; Jesse Pinkman’s humane pest removal services. He could give those Vamanos guys some competition for sure.
“Spider’s gone,” he said stepping out of the bathroom.
“Finally I can shower...” said Wendy, pushing past him to get to the cubicle.
“Hey, you think maybe I could grab one after you?”
Wendy was already stripping her clothes off in front of him.
“Err...I guess. There’s not much hot water.”
Jesse nodded and decided to leave it. He’d already caught a chill from that first night he spent in the desert. He couldn’t afford to get sick now. Wendy didn’t seem to mind that he smelled bad. There were a lot of bad smells in Wendy’s motel room, drifting up from the layers of trash littering her carpet. Jesse’s eyes drifted over to her windowsill and the face of a little boy on a stray Polaroid. Her son. That’s right, she had a kid.
“How’s Patrick?” Jesse asked as Wendy stepped under the trickling water.
“Oh, I...I haven’t been allowed to see him these last two months,” she answered tonelessly. “Not since I got a little drunk at his last birthday party...”
Jesse quickly gave up on conversation and flopped down on the bed. He must have drifted off for a moment because the next thing he knew Wendy was standing by the door, fully dressed, her hair dry and her makeup thick. She checked her lipstick in the mirror and slipped a bottle of mouthwash into her purse. Jesse raised himself on his elbows.
“Can I like...crash here for a while?” he asked. “I could, like...do more chores for you. Like, I could clean up and scrub your sink and all that...”
Wendy shrugged. “Whatever. I gotta work.”
Jesse watched her leave. The clock by the bed said it was a little after 8am and Jesse knew that Wendy could spend most of the daylight hours out in that parking lot, turning tricks for the many lonely drivers who knew she was always there waiting. Jesse stayed true to his word and set about tidying up. Every so often he’d stop, sneezy with dust and heavy with exhaustion. He would lie down on the bed, lose a few hours and then he’d get back up and keep cleaning. It wasn’t until late into the afternoon that Jesse thought to turn on the TV. It took him ages to find the remote. Then the picture was all fragmented until Jesse figured out how to retune it. But he got the thing working and...
...and that was when Jesse saw his own face flash up on the news.
“...the confession tape was found yesterday among the belongings of Todd Alquist, one of the nine killed in the meth lab shooting. Jesse Pinkman was last seen alive in the custody of Agents Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez; the missing officers of the Albuquerque DEA. Agent Schrader’s wife confirmed that Pinkman was a former criminal associate of Walter White who had been aiding the DEA in their attempts to bring about the drug lord’s arrest. Pinkman, along with Agents Schrader and Gomez, has been missing and presumed dead since the day Walter White fled from New Mexico...”
Jesse’s mind clouded with white noise again. He stared at the still from his confession tape. He hadn’t expected to see it again. He was shocked that Todd had kept it and yet there was part of him that wasn’t surprised at all. The sick fuck must have considered it a trophy. The newscast wasn’t showing anything more than the still of his face for now, along with promises of more details to follow and hints that they’d finally got their big scoop on Walter White’s criminal career. It looked like the story was coming out after all. If the old bastard only knew he’d probably be thrilled. He was going to be remembered, that was for sure.
There was part of Jesse that felt relieved the tape had been found; relieved that it hadn’t all been for nothing, even if it had been found too late. At least Drew Sharp’s parents would know the truth now. Jesse was also glad to hear that Mrs Schrader was seemingly still alive. When Jesse had cracked and told Todd about the tape, he’d feared he’d be adding another name to the long list of people who were dead because of him.
Jesse sat numbly on the edge of the bed, watching the news channel and waiting for more updates on his own story. Eventually he heard Wendy’s key rattling in the door. Jesse thought about turning the TV off, but decided not to. He didn’t want to hide things from her. Wendy had a right to know who she was harbouring.
“Hey, I...I got your TV working,” said Jesse as she stepped inside.
“Fucking things been busted for weeks,” Wendy muttered.
She dropped a bag of hamburgers and two cans of root beer on the bed. Jesse was touched to see that she had bought home enough for him to share. They both climbed under the blankets, feasting on the junk food and soda. About ten minutes later the news swung around to the meth lab murders story again, including the segment on the confession tape.
Jesse swallowed and hung his head. He waited for Wendy to call him a rat and kick him out of her room. He remembered how Wendy hadn’t crumbled the time when Schrader had been sweating her for hours. She probably thought he was a coward too.
Wendy didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did speak her voice was trembling.
“Does this mean there won’t be any more of that blue stuff?” she asked.
Jesse blinked. It seemed this detail was the only thing that troubled her.
“Um, yeah...I guess,” he answered.
Wendy clenched her head in her hands.
“Shit...” she hissed.
Jesse watched her with concern, worried she might start crying. Jesse wished he knew a way to comfort her. Sure, he could tell her it was better that the blue was off the streets and the temptation was gone but he knew Wendy wouldn’t want to hear that right now. Jesse knew how she felt. He’d loved the blue stuff too once. It was the bomb.
Jesse decided to change the subject. Well, there was actually another subject he really needed to get into with Wendy. There was another reason why Jesse had gone to her instead of anyone else, though he was terrified to say it out loud.
“Um Wendy...I got to ask you something...you know a lot of johns, right?”
She hissed again like she was angry at Jesse for reminding her.
“Yeah, so?! What about it?” she snapped.
Jesse took a deep breath and told himself not to pussy out.
“Because I was just wondering...” Jesse swallowed and forced himself to continue. “Do you know any johns who are looking to get sucked off by a guy?”
Wendy finally raised her head from her hands, blinking at him.
“Oh,” she said. “So that’s why you’re here. Okay. Um yeah...I guess I could set you up with some of the queer ones.” She shuffled closer on the bed, reaching out a hand to stroke his beard. “You’d probably have to shave first.” Her fingers ghosted over the scars on his cheeks and she sighed. “Shame what’s happened to your pretty face.”
Jesse cringed a little when she touched him. Wendy’s hands were kind and gentle, motherly even. Jesse hadn’t been touched with this kind of tenderness in a long time.
“I...I just gotta make some money fast,” Jesse stammered. “Just enough so I can get a ticket on the Greyhound bus...you know, just to get me far away from this town.”
Jesse knew if he went through with this he’d be breaking his new sacred vow not to commit further crimes. But at least blowing a few lonely fags was a crime without any victims, except maybe Jesse himself. And what did that matter at this point?
“Right,” said Wendy. Her hand slipped from his face and stroked down his chest, dipping under the covers. “So...you want me to give you a few tips, hon?”
Her hand lingered uncertainly on Jesse’s stomach. He forced himself to nod, because yeah, if he was really going to do this then he could use a teacher. Wendy certainly was the expert here. Jesse felt her hand slip into his underwear and her skinny fingers coiling around his soft cock. Wendy tugged gently at first and then firmer, faster. Jesse’s dick wasn’t responding like it was supposed to. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t had any action in months so he should be horny as hell. But no, Jesse felt nothing. Well actually...he felt sick. When Wendy ducked her head under the blankets to see what was going on down there, Jesse just straight up panicked. He wrenched her hand away and jerked his knees into his chest, willing himself not to throw up those hamburgers.
“Sorry, I just...” he said. “I need to stop.”
Wendy frowned. “You okay?”
Jesse shrugged. “I don’t even know.”
It really was no fun for Jesse discovering there were more things that were broken about him. He was panting and drenched in cold sweat. Wendy’s hands retreated to her lap.
“Baby, if you can’t do this with me...then I don’t think you’ll want to be doing it with any of the creepy old perverts that I’d be setting you up with.”
Jesse nodded. “I just...I need the money.”
“Yeah but...why not stick with what you know?” Wendy got on her knees on the mattress, looking him right in the eye. “I could get you what you need. I know a couple of smurfs who could get you the pseudo and then hit a bunch of hardware stores to get all the chemicals and glassware. It...it wouldn’t be any kind of major league meth lab, but I bet that you’d cook the best shit ever even if it’s just shake and bake. We could do it that way, right? I know this guy who’s got a huge basement. He could hide you from the feds. I could bring you hamburgers. And then after you’ve cooked a few batches and we’ve sold it for you, then you’d have your money...then you could get your bus. What do you think?”
Jesse just stared at her, the panic and paranoia rising in him again.
“Wendy...who did you tell I was here?”
“What?” she spluttered. “Jesus, nobody. I’m not like that.”
Jesse nodded apologetically because, yeah, he knew she wasn’t like that. But still, what if Jesse let Wendy tell a few of her friends that he was willing to cook for them? What if those friends did let Jesse hide out in one of their basements? What if he made them a lot of money with a few more batches of clean crystal? And what if, when Jesse asked to leave, these friends of Wendy’s just stuck a gun in his face and told him to keep cooking?
Jesse knew that this probably wasn’t what Wendy had planned for him. But she didn’t know how these things worked. She just wanted the blue stuff back. She didn’t realize quite how many times Jesse’s one and only talent had led to him cooking under fear of death.
“I’m not making meth anymore,” Jesse told her firmly. “I’m sorry. I know you’ll miss it. I know it’s the only thing I’m good at, but...I can’t. And honestly, you should be glad it’s gone. It’s poison, Wendy. It’s poisoned every part of my life. You’ll be better off without it. When the blue meth is off the streets maybe you could think about getting clean. Maybe you could even look into getting a real job. Then someday...you might get Patrick back.”
Wendy just scowled and shook her head.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
She turned away and threw her legs over the other side of the bed. Jesse closed his eyes. He waited for her to tell him to get the hell out. An addict always stays on friendly terms with their dealer, but if Jesse wasn’t dealing anymore, it looked like they weren’t friends either.
But the order to leave never came. Instead Wendy sat rooting through her bedside drawer. Jesse watched as she took out a bag of white powder, a needle, an old burnt spoon and...oh fuck. Wendy hadn’t been into heroin the last time that Jesse had seen her. He always thought she was just a methhead. But then Jesse never thought he’d get into junk either. He kept his knees hugged to his chest as he watched Wendy cook up, fill up the syringe and then tighten a belt around her thin bruised arm. Jesse reached out to catch her as she slumped back against the pillows and then he turned her over to sleep on her side, pulling her hair out her face to be sure that her airway was clear.
Jesse sat in the dark for a long time, watching Wendy nod. The shadows fell into the lines of her face. Jesse could tell she’d been young and pretty once too, not so long ago even. Somewhere under all the smeared lipstick and yellow teeth, Wendy had been beautiful. Occasionally, Jesse’s eyes flicked from Wendy to the stash that she’d left (either carelessly or despairingly) in full view in the open drawer. Jesse couldn’t say he wasn’t tempted. There were many times that he had longed to spike his veins again and slip back into that divine drugged sleep, not even caring if he woke up again. But he couldn’t steal it from Wendy. He could see this was all she had left now. It was crazy that she was still alive.
So Jesse stayed and watched her sleep. He watched the flickering of her eyelids and waited for the high to wear off. He didn’t want to leave her while she was still in danger of throwing up and choking. When the first light of morning began to seep through the windows, Jesse switched the TV on again, quickly pressing the mute button.
There had been more updates on the meth lab massacre during the night. A breaking news item was scrolling across the screen under the news reader.
Jesse Pinkman’s fingerprints found on a gun at the Aryan meth lab compound.
Jesse read the bulletin and he laughed. He put a hand over his mouth, not wanting to wake Wendy because he couldn’t stop giggling. Honestly, this shit was just funny to him now. He hadn’t thought it could get much worse. Obviously he was still underestimating how much the universe had it in for him. That fucking gun. Jesse hadn’t let himself be manipulated into shooting Mr White, but it looked like just picking the damned thing up had been enough to doom him. There were more words like ‘manhunt’ scrolling under the screen and then Jesse’s picture was flashed up again. So that was it then. There was no way that Jesse was getting on a bus without being ID’d now. It was over. He was done.
Jesse felt a strange calm settle over him. His laughter died down and he turned off the TV. He checked Wendy one last time, making sure she was still breathing. He stroked her hair and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. He whispered goodbye.
Then he left her bedside and stepped out the door.
~*~
It was a Friday and that much was a relief. There was always a place where people like Jesse could go on Fridays; those who wanted to get on the right path. It looked like the group still met at the church early on a Friday evening, at the end of the hard working week when it was most tempting to blow your wage packet on a night of drugs or drinking. The notice on the door said the NA meeting would start at 7pm as usual; open to all, with refreshments. Jesse glanced up at the church clock and saw it was a little before 10am.
So...it looked like he had a bit of a wait ahead of him.
Jesse crossed the street to the neighbouring cemetery. The graveyard seemed like a fitting place to hideout...or to just wait to be caught. Yeah, Jesse felt like belonged in the cemetery in more ways than one. He wanted to be here with the other mourners, here with the other ghosts. It was a cold dry morning and there were hardly any other visitors to be seen. The people who did pass through the gates didn’t linger for long. So Jesse was largely left to haunt the place by himself. He drifted to the far side of the yard, heading straight for the stone that he had visited there most often in the last four years. It was looking a little dirty and neglected. It seemed like nobody had left her any flowers in months. Jesse stroked a hand over the engraved name: Virginia Ellen Pinkman.
“Hey Aunt Ginny,” Jesse murmured.
Jesse had seen a lot of death in a short time, but Ginny’s death had been the first and he’d never stopped missing her. He was only sixteen when he’d first moved in with her. That was after his folks had caught him stoned in his bedroom one time too many and decided that it wasn’t safe for him to be around little Jake anymore, even though Jesse liked babysitting and Jake had never been hurt on his watch. But he hadn’t minded so much. Ginny’s house was better anyway. After Jesse was done with high school, Ginny didn’t rag on Jesse to get a job or apply for college or any of that. So long as Jesse kept her company and he didn’t bring any trouble to her door, she seemed to like having him around.
When the cancer came, Jesse had driven Ginny to her appointments, he had made her lunch and much more besides that. Smoking weed was better for her headaches than any of the painkillers the doctors prescribed. Jesse would roll her joints and Ginny would bake cookies for when they got the munchies. They would get high together and then sit around drawing by candlelight. Ginny always said that Jesse was an artist, even if his parents didn’t see it. She made him promise not to let his talents go to waste when she wasn’t around anymore. Ginny kept asking Jesse to promise her right up until the end; even in those horrible last weeks when she had been dying in little bits and pieces, when her thoughts kept scattering, when she was getting confused by phantom smells and hallucinating animals, she would still clutch at Jesse’s hand and she would whisper; “Promise me, kiddo.”
It was in the week after his aunt died that Jesse had smoked his first bowl of meth. Weed just hadn’t been enough to numb the pain after Ginny went. His grief was like an itch deep inside that only the crystal could reach in and scratch. Soon just tweaking wasn’t enough. With his aunt and her health insurance gone, Jesse had needed to find his own way of making money. So he’d partnered up with Emilio and he had learned how to cook. Not only did making meth pay the bills, it also widened Jesse’s circle of friends. Yeah, Captain Cook had had a lot of friends. Jesse didn’t have to feel lonely living in Ginny’s house without her. His new friends made fun of his old lady furniture, but Jesse couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. He clung to her memory and just like he’d promised…he hadn’t given up on being an artist.
Jesse left Ginny’s grave and shuffled along the path. He read the names on every stone and he felt bad for all of them. It felt like every death in this town might somehow be Jesse’s fault; the drug addicts, the dealers and the plane crash victims. Jesse remembered that Combo was buried somewhere in this cemetery too. Or ‘Christian Ortega’ as it said in fancy letters on that pearly slab of marble his family had bought for him. It was Jesse who had left Combo’s mom a fat stack of cash in her mailbox, but it’s not like Jesse could have given it to her in person. What could he have said? Here Mrs Ortega…real sorry I got your son killed but at least you can pay for a really sweet coffin now. Plus, I already owe you for that RV I stole. Jesse shuddered and walked on. Reading the headstones wasn’t doing anything to settle his nerves, but he had nothing else to do to pass the time. So he kept walking. And eventually he came to it. He came to the last stone that he wanted to see.
Andrea Cantillo
Tu hijo y tus padres no te olviden...
The name and the epitaph that Jesse couldn’t read were engraved on a simple white cross. Tomas had cross just like it, right alongside hers. Jesse remembered Andrea telling him that their church community had helped to pay for her kid brother’s funeral and burial. He guessed the church had done the same for her too, another poor young victim of a gangland shooting and nobody even knew they were both killed because of Jesse Pinkman. There were flowers on Andrea’s grave at least; yellow ones. And among the flowers there were pictures drawn in crayon. Pictures of a girl with curly dark hair and one word scrawled underneath; Mommy.
Jesse clutched his stomach like someone had just shot him in the gut. Half blinded with tears, he retreated to a tree in the far corner of the cemetery and he sat under its branches, rocking himself and trying hard not to scream while every nerve in his body was screaming.
He felt something pressing against his hands. It was the notebook that he’d been given by old Joe with the pen clipped between the pages by its lid. With trembling hands, Jesse turned to a fresh page and he began to draw his own picture of Andrea. He had to stop and start again several times over. His shaky fingers were ruining the lines. He was also struggling to remember what Andrea had looked like. Or rather, it was hard to picture Andrea in his head without flashing back to the night they had killed her. It terrified Jesse to go back there, even just in memory. In the end he just focused on her dark wavy hair and her big dark eyes. He tried to make her perfect; he tried to make her pure.
A dozen screwed up balls of paper littered the grass when Jesse finally rose to his feet and returned to Andrea’s grave. He slipped his own picture between the flower stems next to Brocks. He knew Brock would recognize Jesse’s drawing style the same as Jesse recognized his. They always used to draw together. They never would again.
The sky was growing dark now. Jesse had exhausted all the tombstones. There were plenty more dead people who Jesse thought about who didn’t have their graves here. He knew that Jane was buried somewhere up in Santa Fe near where her mom lived. Jesse had never been to visit Jane’s grave. He didn’t have the heart to go to Santa Fe without her. Then there were all the missing ones who didn’t even have graves...Krazy 8 and Emilio, Drew Sharp and Mike. There were Agents Schrader and Gomez still lost in the desert. Gale’s grave had to be somewhere close too. Jesse briefly wondered where Mr White would end up being buried and if anyone would ever leave flowers for him.
Then Jesse felt Mr White’s voice whispering in his ears.
“You’ll be in the ground with us soon enough, Jesse,” said the voice, dripping with spite and condescension. “I’m the only reason you even survived this long.”
Jesse winced and shook his head. He wished he could forget what Mr White looked like, what he sounded like, what he was like...he knew he never would. He rubbed his eyes and he made his way back to the cemetery gates. He saw the lights in the church doorway. It looked like the meeting was already in session. Jesse didn’t plan on intruding. He knew he wouldn’t be welcome, not after what he had admitted to doing the last time he was here. But he could wait until the meeting was over, after they came out and then...well...
Jesse didn’t really have many choices left to make.
If his last choice was picking a person to surrender to then...then Jesse wanted it to be him.
To be continued...
Fandom. Breaking Bad
Characters. Jesse and Wendy.
Summary. Part two of my post Felina fic. Jesse is desperate to leave his life of crime behind him and yet crime is the only means of survival that he knows. What will it take for Jesse to break free from the person he has been?
Warnings. Sexual scenes in this chapter. Bad language. Even more trauma.
Disclaimer. Breaking Bad is not mine, but I needs must have my own Jesse resolution.
Beta. Thanks again to bessiemaemucho and celeryy515.
Chapter One. Yonder Stands Your Orphan.
“The highway is for gamblers you better use your sense,
Take what you have gathered from coincidence,
The empty handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you,
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.”
Chapter Two: The Empty Handed Painter
An hour later, Jesse sat outside the hotdog drive-in beating a rhythm on the wooden table with a Slim Jim and a screwdriver. God, he missed his drum kit. He never played it all that well but his drums had always been a great way to work off his twitchy energies. And Jesse really needed to keep his hands busy now...otherwise he would be roaming the streets trying to steal a car. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, as his Granny used to say. Jesse felt sure that if he did try to steal a car then the universe or God or the angry ghost of Hank Schrader would send a big squad of cops to surround him, beat him bloody and put him back in cuffs again.
And that’s just what Jesse would deserve if he stole a car from this crumbling neighbourhood. Jesse knew these streets well. He’d slung weed and crystal on these corners many an evening back in the old days. These were the same few blocks that Jesse had driven around throwing his millions out of his car window. Jesse wondered if he just waited by the Dog House long enough...maybe that old homeless dude would come back and he’d spot Jesse a few bucks so he could take the bus.
It would be light soon. The shadows and the folds of Jesse’s hood wouldn’t hide his face much longer. He felt like a vampire who was in danger of turning to dust when sunrise came. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He did know he wasn’t going to boost a car. He was pretty sure he couldn’t bring himself to pick someone’s pocket either. Jesse had stolen a wallet once before. Back when he was a teenager he’d slipped his nimble fingers into an old guy’s jacket and slipped away unnoticed. Jesse had needed to pay back his dealer. He’d been trying to avoid an ass kicking and his parents weren’t letting him wheedle any more cash out of them. But he’d felt horrible about it later, thinking he might have lifted that old guy’s pension for the week.
It’s not like Jesse was turning all Jesus loving and born again. He was just superstitious, that’s all. He didn’t want to be cursed with any more bad luck. If he tried committing just one more crime Jesse felt sure he’d be dooming himself. So what were his options then? He still needed money and Christ...he’d had money. Bags and bags of fat stacks. If Jesse had been smart like Mike he’d have made himself a getaway bag and hidden it someplace ready for the day he needed to get out of town fast. Jesse thought he might still have a rainy day fund tucked under the sink at his old home but he didn’t dare go look for it. The house had probably been seized by the cops. If his parents hadn’t stolen it back.
Jesse peeled the plastic wrapping off his last piece of real American cheese and folded it into his mouth. He had already finished the rest of the slightly expired food that Joe had rooted out of his fridge. Jesse packed the tools back into the kit box and abandoned them on the table, but he slipped the notebook into his coat pocket.
Okay...so who owes me money? Jesse thought.
With that notion in his head, Jesse started in the direction of Skinny Pete’s house. Skinny would help him out for sure. The amount of free crystal and strippers and pizza that Skinny had enjoyed on Jesse’s dime in the last two years was impossible to estimate. The dude owed him big time and Jesse figured that Skinny was decent enough to pay up. Skinny might even let Jesse hideout at his house for a few days so he could recover, ready to go on the run - for real this time. Yeah, it would be sweet staying with Skinny. So long as he didn’t tell Badger, of course. If Badger found out he would probably blow Jesse’s cover. And with that thought, Jesse slowed his walk.
The thing was...Badger might be at Skinny’s house already. The two of them were together more often than not. If they were at Skinny’s house right now they would either be crashed out asleep or they would be awake and tweaking. Either way, Jesse had to pause and wonder how his old friends would react if they opened the door to him...if they saw his long hair and beard and the scars on his face. Jesse thought they might be a little scared of him. No, they might be a lot scared of him. Jesse sure scared himself every time he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the windows he passed.
Jesse came to a halt. He realized there was another thing scaring him. It was old Joe’s warning that he shouldn’t trust his old friends not to sell him out. Skinny Pete and Badger were his boys but...but could he really trust them? Before he had always felt sure that they liked him. But that was before. That was when Jesse had money and a big ass flat-screen and sound system. That was back when Jesse had cooked the best meth ever. Would they still be his friends now if he came to them with nothing, begging for their help? Jesse wasn’t sure. Thinking about it, he’d been a really shitty friend to them in the last two years; always yelling at them, or just acting crazy and depressed. It could be that all those freebies they got out of him were the only reason they even stuck around.
Jesse raised a shaky hand to his ruined face. He didn’t want his boys to see him like this. He didn’t want to take their money. If they even had any money Jesse imagined it wouldn’t come from anywhere legitimate. So he was back to square one.
God, he hated being alone. Jesse knew he had to go to someone.
And why was it, when he was at his most desperate...he always thought to go to her?
~*~
Jesse reached the Crossroads Motel a little after dawn. There weren’t many places left in Albuquerque that Jesse could come home to but climbing the steps of the Crystal Palace felt like a homecoming. He came to the door of apartment 213. He knocked and prayed she answered. After his sixth knock he heard a few stumbling movements from inside. Then the door swung open and Wendy stood bleary eyed before him.
“Yeah?” she slurred. “What do you want?”
“Hey Wendy, it’s me. It’s Jesse...” For a good few seconds, Wendy just scrunched her eyes at him, her expression blank and confused. “Jesse Pinkman, remember?”
Wendy’s nose crinkled. “They said you were dead.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m not.”
“TV said you were dead,” Wendy insisted as though the television had greater authority than Jesse’s actual living presence standing in her doorway.
“Can I please come in?” he asked.
Wendy stood her ground, her arms clutching the door frame.
“You holding?” she asked him.
“No,” Jesse admitted.
“Well...you got any money?”
“No,” Jesse said again.
He was just realizing that he had never come to Wendy’s place empty handed before. He only ever came here to sell her meth or pay for her services.
But still, Jesse liked to think she was his friend.
“There’s a spider in my sink,” Wendy blurted out.
Jesse frowned. “What?”
“A spider. A really big one. It’s been there since yesterday.” Wendy’s curled a finger around the lank locks of her greasy blonde hair. “I don’t like killing the things but I got a really bad phobia.” She nodded to herself, seeming to have reached a decision. “So if you can get the spider for me then I guess...I guess you can come in.”
Jesse nodded, accepting the deal. He realized this was the reason he always came to Wendy. In the back of his mind, he remembered she was kind.
The spider wasn’t all that big. Jesse caught it easily between his cupped hands and then took it to the window to be released. Another little Godforsaken creature freed into the night to go anywhere it pleased. Jesse wondered if there were any more bugs he could rescue from Wendy’s room. He liked this job already; Jesse Pinkman’s humane pest removal services. He could give those Vamanos guys some competition for sure.
“Spider’s gone,” he said stepping out of the bathroom.
“Finally I can shower...” said Wendy, pushing past him to get to the cubicle.
“Hey, you think maybe I could grab one after you?”
Wendy was already stripping her clothes off in front of him.
“Err...I guess. There’s not much hot water.”
Jesse nodded and decided to leave it. He’d already caught a chill from that first night he spent in the desert. He couldn’t afford to get sick now. Wendy didn’t seem to mind that he smelled bad. There were a lot of bad smells in Wendy’s motel room, drifting up from the layers of trash littering her carpet. Jesse’s eyes drifted over to her windowsill and the face of a little boy on a stray Polaroid. Her son. That’s right, she had a kid.
“How’s Patrick?” Jesse asked as Wendy stepped under the trickling water.
“Oh, I...I haven’t been allowed to see him these last two months,” she answered tonelessly. “Not since I got a little drunk at his last birthday party...”
Jesse quickly gave up on conversation and flopped down on the bed. He must have drifted off for a moment because the next thing he knew Wendy was standing by the door, fully dressed, her hair dry and her makeup thick. She checked her lipstick in the mirror and slipped a bottle of mouthwash into her purse. Jesse raised himself on his elbows.
“Can I like...crash here for a while?” he asked. “I could, like...do more chores for you. Like, I could clean up and scrub your sink and all that...”
Wendy shrugged. “Whatever. I gotta work.”
Jesse watched her leave. The clock by the bed said it was a little after 8am and Jesse knew that Wendy could spend most of the daylight hours out in that parking lot, turning tricks for the many lonely drivers who knew she was always there waiting. Jesse stayed true to his word and set about tidying up. Every so often he’d stop, sneezy with dust and heavy with exhaustion. He would lie down on the bed, lose a few hours and then he’d get back up and keep cleaning. It wasn’t until late into the afternoon that Jesse thought to turn on the TV. It took him ages to find the remote. Then the picture was all fragmented until Jesse figured out how to retune it. But he got the thing working and...
...and that was when Jesse saw his own face flash up on the news.
“...the confession tape was found yesterday among the belongings of Todd Alquist, one of the nine killed in the meth lab shooting. Jesse Pinkman was last seen alive in the custody of Agents Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez; the missing officers of the Albuquerque DEA. Agent Schrader’s wife confirmed that Pinkman was a former criminal associate of Walter White who had been aiding the DEA in their attempts to bring about the drug lord’s arrest. Pinkman, along with Agents Schrader and Gomez, has been missing and presumed dead since the day Walter White fled from New Mexico...”
Jesse’s mind clouded with white noise again. He stared at the still from his confession tape. He hadn’t expected to see it again. He was shocked that Todd had kept it and yet there was part of him that wasn’t surprised at all. The sick fuck must have considered it a trophy. The newscast wasn’t showing anything more than the still of his face for now, along with promises of more details to follow and hints that they’d finally got their big scoop on Walter White’s criminal career. It looked like the story was coming out after all. If the old bastard only knew he’d probably be thrilled. He was going to be remembered, that was for sure.
There was part of Jesse that felt relieved the tape had been found; relieved that it hadn’t all been for nothing, even if it had been found too late. At least Drew Sharp’s parents would know the truth now. Jesse was also glad to hear that Mrs Schrader was seemingly still alive. When Jesse had cracked and told Todd about the tape, he’d feared he’d be adding another name to the long list of people who were dead because of him.
Jesse sat numbly on the edge of the bed, watching the news channel and waiting for more updates on his own story. Eventually he heard Wendy’s key rattling in the door. Jesse thought about turning the TV off, but decided not to. He didn’t want to hide things from her. Wendy had a right to know who she was harbouring.
“Hey, I...I got your TV working,” said Jesse as she stepped inside.
“Fucking things been busted for weeks,” Wendy muttered.
She dropped a bag of hamburgers and two cans of root beer on the bed. Jesse was touched to see that she had bought home enough for him to share. They both climbed under the blankets, feasting on the junk food and soda. About ten minutes later the news swung around to the meth lab murders story again, including the segment on the confession tape.
Jesse swallowed and hung his head. He waited for Wendy to call him a rat and kick him out of her room. He remembered how Wendy hadn’t crumbled the time when Schrader had been sweating her for hours. She probably thought he was a coward too.
Wendy didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did speak her voice was trembling.
“Does this mean there won’t be any more of that blue stuff?” she asked.
Jesse blinked. It seemed this detail was the only thing that troubled her.
“Um, yeah...I guess,” he answered.
Wendy clenched her head in her hands.
“Shit...” she hissed.
Jesse watched her with concern, worried she might start crying. Jesse wished he knew a way to comfort her. Sure, he could tell her it was better that the blue was off the streets and the temptation was gone but he knew Wendy wouldn’t want to hear that right now. Jesse knew how she felt. He’d loved the blue stuff too once. It was the bomb.
Jesse decided to change the subject. Well, there was actually another subject he really needed to get into with Wendy. There was another reason why Jesse had gone to her instead of anyone else, though he was terrified to say it out loud.
“Um Wendy...I got to ask you something...you know a lot of johns, right?”
She hissed again like she was angry at Jesse for reminding her.
“Yeah, so?! What about it?” she snapped.
Jesse took a deep breath and told himself not to pussy out.
“Because I was just wondering...” Jesse swallowed and forced himself to continue. “Do you know any johns who are looking to get sucked off by a guy?”
Wendy finally raised her head from her hands, blinking at him.
“Oh,” she said. “So that’s why you’re here. Okay. Um yeah...I guess I could set you up with some of the queer ones.” She shuffled closer on the bed, reaching out a hand to stroke his beard. “You’d probably have to shave first.” Her fingers ghosted over the scars on his cheeks and she sighed. “Shame what’s happened to your pretty face.”
Jesse cringed a little when she touched him. Wendy’s hands were kind and gentle, motherly even. Jesse hadn’t been touched with this kind of tenderness in a long time.
“I...I just gotta make some money fast,” Jesse stammered. “Just enough so I can get a ticket on the Greyhound bus...you know, just to get me far away from this town.”
Jesse knew if he went through with this he’d be breaking his new sacred vow not to commit further crimes. But at least blowing a few lonely fags was a crime without any victims, except maybe Jesse himself. And what did that matter at this point?
“Right,” said Wendy. Her hand slipped from his face and stroked down his chest, dipping under the covers. “So...you want me to give you a few tips, hon?”
Her hand lingered uncertainly on Jesse’s stomach. He forced himself to nod, because yeah, if he was really going to do this then he could use a teacher. Wendy certainly was the expert here. Jesse felt her hand slip into his underwear and her skinny fingers coiling around his soft cock. Wendy tugged gently at first and then firmer, faster. Jesse’s dick wasn’t responding like it was supposed to. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t had any action in months so he should be horny as hell. But no, Jesse felt nothing. Well actually...he felt sick. When Wendy ducked her head under the blankets to see what was going on down there, Jesse just straight up panicked. He wrenched her hand away and jerked his knees into his chest, willing himself not to throw up those hamburgers.
“Sorry, I just...” he said. “I need to stop.”
Wendy frowned. “You okay?”
Jesse shrugged. “I don’t even know.”
It really was no fun for Jesse discovering there were more things that were broken about him. He was panting and drenched in cold sweat. Wendy’s hands retreated to her lap.
“Baby, if you can’t do this with me...then I don’t think you’ll want to be doing it with any of the creepy old perverts that I’d be setting you up with.”
Jesse nodded. “I just...I need the money.”
“Yeah but...why not stick with what you know?” Wendy got on her knees on the mattress, looking him right in the eye. “I could get you what you need. I know a couple of smurfs who could get you the pseudo and then hit a bunch of hardware stores to get all the chemicals and glassware. It...it wouldn’t be any kind of major league meth lab, but I bet that you’d cook the best shit ever even if it’s just shake and bake. We could do it that way, right? I know this guy who’s got a huge basement. He could hide you from the feds. I could bring you hamburgers. And then after you’ve cooked a few batches and we’ve sold it for you, then you’d have your money...then you could get your bus. What do you think?”
Jesse just stared at her, the panic and paranoia rising in him again.
“Wendy...who did you tell I was here?”
“What?” she spluttered. “Jesus, nobody. I’m not like that.”
Jesse nodded apologetically because, yeah, he knew she wasn’t like that. But still, what if Jesse let Wendy tell a few of her friends that he was willing to cook for them? What if those friends did let Jesse hide out in one of their basements? What if he made them a lot of money with a few more batches of clean crystal? And what if, when Jesse asked to leave, these friends of Wendy’s just stuck a gun in his face and told him to keep cooking?
Jesse knew that this probably wasn’t what Wendy had planned for him. But she didn’t know how these things worked. She just wanted the blue stuff back. She didn’t realize quite how many times Jesse’s one and only talent had led to him cooking under fear of death.
“I’m not making meth anymore,” Jesse told her firmly. “I’m sorry. I know you’ll miss it. I know it’s the only thing I’m good at, but...I can’t. And honestly, you should be glad it’s gone. It’s poison, Wendy. It’s poisoned every part of my life. You’ll be better off without it. When the blue meth is off the streets maybe you could think about getting clean. Maybe you could even look into getting a real job. Then someday...you might get Patrick back.”
Wendy just scowled and shook her head.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
She turned away and threw her legs over the other side of the bed. Jesse closed his eyes. He waited for her to tell him to get the hell out. An addict always stays on friendly terms with their dealer, but if Jesse wasn’t dealing anymore, it looked like they weren’t friends either.
But the order to leave never came. Instead Wendy sat rooting through her bedside drawer. Jesse watched as she took out a bag of white powder, a needle, an old burnt spoon and...oh fuck. Wendy hadn’t been into heroin the last time that Jesse had seen her. He always thought she was just a methhead. But then Jesse never thought he’d get into junk either. He kept his knees hugged to his chest as he watched Wendy cook up, fill up the syringe and then tighten a belt around her thin bruised arm. Jesse reached out to catch her as she slumped back against the pillows and then he turned her over to sleep on her side, pulling her hair out her face to be sure that her airway was clear.
Jesse sat in the dark for a long time, watching Wendy nod. The shadows fell into the lines of her face. Jesse could tell she’d been young and pretty once too, not so long ago even. Somewhere under all the smeared lipstick and yellow teeth, Wendy had been beautiful. Occasionally, Jesse’s eyes flicked from Wendy to the stash that she’d left (either carelessly or despairingly) in full view in the open drawer. Jesse couldn’t say he wasn’t tempted. There were many times that he had longed to spike his veins again and slip back into that divine drugged sleep, not even caring if he woke up again. But he couldn’t steal it from Wendy. He could see this was all she had left now. It was crazy that she was still alive.
So Jesse stayed and watched her sleep. He watched the flickering of her eyelids and waited for the high to wear off. He didn’t want to leave her while she was still in danger of throwing up and choking. When the first light of morning began to seep through the windows, Jesse switched the TV on again, quickly pressing the mute button.
There had been more updates on the meth lab massacre during the night. A breaking news item was scrolling across the screen under the news reader.
Jesse Pinkman’s fingerprints found on a gun at the Aryan meth lab compound.
Jesse read the bulletin and he laughed. He put a hand over his mouth, not wanting to wake Wendy because he couldn’t stop giggling. Honestly, this shit was just funny to him now. He hadn’t thought it could get much worse. Obviously he was still underestimating how much the universe had it in for him. That fucking gun. Jesse hadn’t let himself be manipulated into shooting Mr White, but it looked like just picking the damned thing up had been enough to doom him. There were more words like ‘manhunt’ scrolling under the screen and then Jesse’s picture was flashed up again. So that was it then. There was no way that Jesse was getting on a bus without being ID’d now. It was over. He was done.
Jesse felt a strange calm settle over him. His laughter died down and he turned off the TV. He checked Wendy one last time, making sure she was still breathing. He stroked her hair and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. He whispered goodbye.
Then he left her bedside and stepped out the door.
~*~
It was a Friday and that much was a relief. There was always a place where people like Jesse could go on Fridays; those who wanted to get on the right path. It looked like the group still met at the church early on a Friday evening, at the end of the hard working week when it was most tempting to blow your wage packet on a night of drugs or drinking. The notice on the door said the NA meeting would start at 7pm as usual; open to all, with refreshments. Jesse glanced up at the church clock and saw it was a little before 10am.
So...it looked like he had a bit of a wait ahead of him.
Jesse crossed the street to the neighbouring cemetery. The graveyard seemed like a fitting place to hideout...or to just wait to be caught. Yeah, Jesse felt like belonged in the cemetery in more ways than one. He wanted to be here with the other mourners, here with the other ghosts. It was a cold dry morning and there were hardly any other visitors to be seen. The people who did pass through the gates didn’t linger for long. So Jesse was largely left to haunt the place by himself. He drifted to the far side of the yard, heading straight for the stone that he had visited there most often in the last four years. It was looking a little dirty and neglected. It seemed like nobody had left her any flowers in months. Jesse stroked a hand over the engraved name: Virginia Ellen Pinkman.
“Hey Aunt Ginny,” Jesse murmured.
Jesse had seen a lot of death in a short time, but Ginny’s death had been the first and he’d never stopped missing her. He was only sixteen when he’d first moved in with her. That was after his folks had caught him stoned in his bedroom one time too many and decided that it wasn’t safe for him to be around little Jake anymore, even though Jesse liked babysitting and Jake had never been hurt on his watch. But he hadn’t minded so much. Ginny’s house was better anyway. After Jesse was done with high school, Ginny didn’t rag on Jesse to get a job or apply for college or any of that. So long as Jesse kept her company and he didn’t bring any trouble to her door, she seemed to like having him around.
When the cancer came, Jesse had driven Ginny to her appointments, he had made her lunch and much more besides that. Smoking weed was better for her headaches than any of the painkillers the doctors prescribed. Jesse would roll her joints and Ginny would bake cookies for when they got the munchies. They would get high together and then sit around drawing by candlelight. Ginny always said that Jesse was an artist, even if his parents didn’t see it. She made him promise not to let his talents go to waste when she wasn’t around anymore. Ginny kept asking Jesse to promise her right up until the end; even in those horrible last weeks when she had been dying in little bits and pieces, when her thoughts kept scattering, when she was getting confused by phantom smells and hallucinating animals, she would still clutch at Jesse’s hand and she would whisper; “Promise me, kiddo.”
It was in the week after his aunt died that Jesse had smoked his first bowl of meth. Weed just hadn’t been enough to numb the pain after Ginny went. His grief was like an itch deep inside that only the crystal could reach in and scratch. Soon just tweaking wasn’t enough. With his aunt and her health insurance gone, Jesse had needed to find his own way of making money. So he’d partnered up with Emilio and he had learned how to cook. Not only did making meth pay the bills, it also widened Jesse’s circle of friends. Yeah, Captain Cook had had a lot of friends. Jesse didn’t have to feel lonely living in Ginny’s house without her. His new friends made fun of his old lady furniture, but Jesse couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. He clung to her memory and just like he’d promised…he hadn’t given up on being an artist.
Jesse left Ginny’s grave and shuffled along the path. He read the names on every stone and he felt bad for all of them. It felt like every death in this town might somehow be Jesse’s fault; the drug addicts, the dealers and the plane crash victims. Jesse remembered that Combo was buried somewhere in this cemetery too. Or ‘Christian Ortega’ as it said in fancy letters on that pearly slab of marble his family had bought for him. It was Jesse who had left Combo’s mom a fat stack of cash in her mailbox, but it’s not like Jesse could have given it to her in person. What could he have said? Here Mrs Ortega…real sorry I got your son killed but at least you can pay for a really sweet coffin now. Plus, I already owe you for that RV I stole. Jesse shuddered and walked on. Reading the headstones wasn’t doing anything to settle his nerves, but he had nothing else to do to pass the time. So he kept walking. And eventually he came to it. He came to the last stone that he wanted to see.
Andrea Cantillo
Tu hijo y tus padres no te olviden...
The name and the epitaph that Jesse couldn’t read were engraved on a simple white cross. Tomas had cross just like it, right alongside hers. Jesse remembered Andrea telling him that their church community had helped to pay for her kid brother’s funeral and burial. He guessed the church had done the same for her too, another poor young victim of a gangland shooting and nobody even knew they were both killed because of Jesse Pinkman. There were flowers on Andrea’s grave at least; yellow ones. And among the flowers there were pictures drawn in crayon. Pictures of a girl with curly dark hair and one word scrawled underneath; Mommy.
Jesse clutched his stomach like someone had just shot him in the gut. Half blinded with tears, he retreated to a tree in the far corner of the cemetery and he sat under its branches, rocking himself and trying hard not to scream while every nerve in his body was screaming.
He felt something pressing against his hands. It was the notebook that he’d been given by old Joe with the pen clipped between the pages by its lid. With trembling hands, Jesse turned to a fresh page and he began to draw his own picture of Andrea. He had to stop and start again several times over. His shaky fingers were ruining the lines. He was also struggling to remember what Andrea had looked like. Or rather, it was hard to picture Andrea in his head without flashing back to the night they had killed her. It terrified Jesse to go back there, even just in memory. In the end he just focused on her dark wavy hair and her big dark eyes. He tried to make her perfect; he tried to make her pure.
A dozen screwed up balls of paper littered the grass when Jesse finally rose to his feet and returned to Andrea’s grave. He slipped his own picture between the flower stems next to Brocks. He knew Brock would recognize Jesse’s drawing style the same as Jesse recognized his. They always used to draw together. They never would again.
The sky was growing dark now. Jesse had exhausted all the tombstones. There were plenty more dead people who Jesse thought about who didn’t have their graves here. He knew that Jane was buried somewhere up in Santa Fe near where her mom lived. Jesse had never been to visit Jane’s grave. He didn’t have the heart to go to Santa Fe without her. Then there were all the missing ones who didn’t even have graves...Krazy 8 and Emilio, Drew Sharp and Mike. There were Agents Schrader and Gomez still lost in the desert. Gale’s grave had to be somewhere close too. Jesse briefly wondered where Mr White would end up being buried and if anyone would ever leave flowers for him.
Then Jesse felt Mr White’s voice whispering in his ears.
“You’ll be in the ground with us soon enough, Jesse,” said the voice, dripping with spite and condescension. “I’m the only reason you even survived this long.”
Jesse winced and shook his head. He wished he could forget what Mr White looked like, what he sounded like, what he was like...he knew he never would. He rubbed his eyes and he made his way back to the cemetery gates. He saw the lights in the church doorway. It looked like the meeting was already in session. Jesse didn’t plan on intruding. He knew he wouldn’t be welcome, not after what he had admitted to doing the last time he was here. But he could wait until the meeting was over, after they came out and then...well...
Jesse didn’t really have many choices left to make.
If his last choice was picking a person to surrender to then...then Jesse wanted it to be him.
To be continued...