“Put that fucking thing down and I’ll tell you,” says Jay, his voice sharp, yet way too calm for the current situation. He looks at Brian, who isn’t putting the gun down, cocks an eyebrow, and goes to sit on a deck chair. “No? All right, then, you keep on pointing it at me if it makes your dick feel bigger.”
“You’ve destroyed my business, my career, my life! I will use this. I swear I will,” Brian yells.
Jay looks at him like he’s a hysterical housewife who just had her clean carpets trodden all over with mucky shoes. “I don’t doubt you, Brian. A man left with nothing has nothing left to lose, right?” he says, and there’s a vicious tone to his words.
Jay pulls a cigarette from behind one ear and a match from behind the other. Striking the match off the side of his boot, he brings it to the end of his cigarette and lights up. He exhales a long puff of smoke as he stares at Brian. When he does this, his eyes are different; his face is transformed into something hard and inscrutable. Undiluted hatred seeps from his pores, all directed at the man standing before him.
I’ve never seen him look like this before. A chameleon that can become someone else with nothing but a change in its facial muscles springs to mind. He looks dangerous. For the first time, I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of the tortured, pained soul that’s been hidden beneath the surface. And it is just as real as the witty charmer I’ve come to know.
“I suppose I should start off with the simple part,” says Jay. “Fields was my mother’s maiden name. Do you wanna hazard a guess at what my birth name was?”
“I don’t have time for guessing games,” Brian spits.
Jay exhales another puff of smoke and flicks off the ash. “No, I don’t suppose you do. My birth name was McCabe. Jason McCabe, ring a bell?”
Brian’s eyes widen, and his hold on the gun falters for a second before he rights himself.
“You’re lying.”
“Nope. You wanted to buy my parents’ house back in the day. Dad was being a prick about it, so you decided you’d start up an affair with my mother, then use it as blackmail to get her to push Dad to sell the house. You didn’t bank on what an evil shit my dad could be, and when he started making demands, you got angry. You wanted to do something that would force my family out of that house, and that’s when your little girlfriend, Una, began whispering in your ear.
“I like to think of her as your own personal Lady Macbeth, but with a much lower IQ. Una was jealous of the time you’d spent with my mother. In fact, she despised my mother for taking your attentions away from her. She wanted her out of the picture, so she convinced you that setting fire to our house would be a good idea. That the fire department would arrive in time to save our lives, but that once the house was destroyed, my parents would sell the land to you in a heartbeat. So, like men who let their cocks lead them the world over, you did as Una suggested. Only the fire department didn’t get there in time, did it, Brian?”
Jay stands now and takes a step toward him, his passion growing by the second.
“You orchestrated all of this because that fire killed your family?” Brian responds, and takes a step back, the wind gone out of his sails.
“Yes, but wait, there’s more,” says Jay. “You got our house, but there was another one you needed to buy up in order for your building project to go ahead. The family who lived in this neighbouring house were just as adamant not to sell, because they loved their home too much to move somewhere else. You were no stranger to threatening people to get what you wanted, so you had your men break into the house one night with the intention of putting the frighteners on them. One of your men took things a little too far, though, and shot the wife. Do you know whose wife that was, Brian?”
“This was all a long time ago,” Brian mutters, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“I didn’t think you’d remember, which only proves you deserve everything I’ve done to you. I know we’re not the only ones who’ve suffered because of the things you’ve done. You’ve fucked up so many lives that you can’t even keep count anymore. It made you rich, I’ll give you that. But you know what they say, Brian, behind every great wealth is a great crime, and your crimes are insurmountable. Still no idea whose wife it was?”
Brian lifts the gun higher. “Fuck you. I don’t care. I don’t bloody care. You’ve completely fucked me.”
Jay stubs out his smoke and gets up from his seat. What he says next makes me feel like fainting. “It was Hugh Brandon’s wife. The same man who represented me in court. The one who brought down your entire newspaper, everything you’ve built by being a selfish, evil degenerate. It’s all quite poetic, isn’t it?”
I turn around and sink to the floor as the puzzle pieces fit themselves together in my head. When I was little, my neighbours’ house burned down, and Jay was that boy, the one I used to play with and take care of. Una Harris and Brian Scott were the reason that house burned down. They were the reason my family was torn apart by my mother’s death.
The reason why Jay did this.
He did this for us. For my family and for his. Tears fill my eyes, grief and gratitude melding into one.
Brian’s voice is calmer now, but not in a good way. I try to pull myself together enough to pay attention to what’s happening. Slowly, I stand back up, scanning Jay’s apartment for anything that resembles a weapon. I still have the pepper spray clutched in my hand, but I’m not sure if it will help. What if Brian pulls the trigger as a reflex when I spray him?
Unfortunately, if what he says next is anything to go by, he’s going to pull it anyway.
“Thanks for clearing that up for me, Jason. Now I can do what I came here to do,” says Brian in a dead, monotone voice.
“You gonna shoot me? Go ahead,” says Jay, and that’s when his eyes move to mine. He knew I was here all along! He makes some sort of subtle nodding gesture to the spray I’m holding, but I don’t know what it means. Does he want me to use it? Not use it?
I only have seconds to decide, and right before Brian pulls the trigger, I dive out onto the balcony, aiming right for his eyes. Brian wails when the spray hits him, and the gun goes off. Jay jumps right over the edge of the balcony, and I gasp in shock. I think the bullet still hit him. Brian lets the gun drop as he clutches his face, and I grab it.
Sweat is pouring out of me and my heart is racing, my chest heaving. I have never held a gun before in my life, but I point it at Brian just as several uniformed men burst into the apartment. They take the gun from me, and I let them, shock kicking in. They handcuff me, but I don’t have words to explain to them what happened. I’m staring at the railing Jay just jumped over, but then I notice a pair of hands holding onto the edge.
Relief floods me as he pulls himself back up onto balcony.
He didn’t jump. He’d been holding onto the bar. There’s blood on his shirt from where the bullet grazed him. I focus on that as he talks angrily to the officers, instructing them to take the handcuffs off me right away. He goes on to tell them that the gun belonged to Brian and I was only defending myself. Once I’m uncuffed, Jay walks me over to his couch and sits me down, rubbing soothingly at my shoulders and staring at me with soulful, expectant eyes. I hear him telling the officers that there’s a security camera out on the terrace, and they’ll be able to see everything that happened in the footage.
Time passes.
I remain in my place, trying to figure out how the skinny, uncared-for young boy I used to play with as a child could be the same man I’ve come to know. How did I not recognise him? I know he doesn’t look anything like he used to, but I like to think there would be something in his eyes that would make me remember.
Something in his mischievous smile.
Because when I think of that smile, I suddenly realise that it’s the very same smile he often gave me when we played as kids. The tears spring forth again, my heart pounding.