Short Story: A Millennium Parable

Short Story: A Millennium Parable

In the Year of Our Lord 2000, three things happened to Jay. The first was that his father disowned him. This wasn’t too much of a problem as far as Jay was concerned. His father, Joe, was by trade a chippie, by nature a bastard, and in all Jay’s thirty years he’d suffered more torrents of foul-mouthed abuse, more thick ears and black eyes from Joe’s callused hands than he could count. Jay couldn’t count up to very much anyway, because he’d left school at sixteen, and hadn’t paid any attention when he was there. He wasn’t stupid, though - not Jay. Might not have any GCSEs, but he knew where to make a bit of cash when he needed to; knew how to charm the pants off the ladies; knew how to find somewhere to doss when he was thrown out of Dawn’s, or Tracy’s, or Annie’s bedroom, or the squat of the week. Jay didn’t like to stay in one place too long. Don’t get me wrong, not because he was up to anything, just because he had the attention span of a very small gnat indeed, and constantly yearned after new people, new places, new adventures.

The jury was out as to whether Jay was a particularly nice man (what a meaningless phrase, but everybody knows precisely what it does mean – sensitive, in tune with your inner self, a whiff of quiche in every action). Everybody agreed, though, that he was very easy-going. At the age of thirty it wasn’t really a problem if his father disowned him, but Joe being Joe, he had done it in an especially public and nasty way. He had stood in Jay’s favourite pub and bellowed in his sixty-fags-a-day-and-as-many-pints-as-I-can-hold-before-I-throw-up voice, “Don’t come scrounging off me again, boy! I’ve had enough of you, put up with you all these years when your whoring mother thought I didn’t know you’re none of mine. Well, you aren’t, never were and never will be. So piss off out of my life.”

And Jay did.

He did feel at the time that he ought to have smashed a glass and thrust it into Joe’s face, or at least punched him, but really it didn’t seem to matter too much, so he’d just shrugged, which seemed to further incite the apoplectic Joe. He never did find out who his real father was; his mum just laughed and said it was all a bit of a blur. Noisy party, lots of faces, lots of drink and she woke up the next day and Wham! Bang! Thankyou, ma’am! Baby! Well, the Baby! bit took a while to work out, she said ruefully.

Jay had tried very hard since he left school to be mentally as one with the group that he ran with. Or perhaps we should say ‘pack’ that he ran with, as they liked to think of themselves as the hardest, meanest and coolest that Basingstoke could offer. Why, they’d even forced water down a cat’s throat to see if they could make it explode once, until they’d got bored. Jay never admitted to his mates that he’d snuck back and taken the cat to the vet. Anonymously, of course. He hadn’t liked its pitiful, sodden screaming, made him feel all funny inside. Jay wasn’t good at expressing his thoughts, but he knew what he felt all right. And quite often it didn’t really match what the rest of the pack felt. Inside, Jay was really rather a good person. He had inherent morals and ethics that he just couldn’t shake off, however hard he tried.

Some of the lads had quietened down a bit as the years went on, one or two settled with a girl, one or two got jobs that they liked. Most of them still just behaved as they always had done. A bit of casual roadwork in the summer, bit of barwork in the winter, back on the dole when they couldn’t be arsed any more, a good session down the pub whenever they could afford it, bit of petty crime. Bit of dope or E or H or S&M or any other letter that might spell G O O D T I M E. As much sex as they could get out of the hard-eyed, multi-pierced harridans who thronged the stained and sweaty streets of Basingstoke in their short summer skirts and stabbing heels.

Jay always seemed to be more successful with the girls than his mates, which did annoy them a bit, but everyone liked Jay, so it wasn’t really a problem. Jay got away with a lot.

The second thing that happened to Jay in this momentous year was that he gave up the drugs. He’d always thought of himself as just dabbling, totally in control. Everybody had a toke of a joint here, a couple of tabs there, it didn’t mean anything. The H was just a step on from that, but only a step, a little technicolour, buzzyfizzymuzzy step, to a place where it was warmly coolly buzzyfizzymuzzy but the edges were all so bright, diamond hard. A cold, harsh moment of clarity forced itself into Jay’s muddled brain one day as he sat shaking and sweating by the window of a monochrome and distinctly smelly squat. He was shaking and sweating because he hadn’t had a fix that day, and he didn’t have any money, and he didn’t have the physical strength to go and find any – whether by licit or illicit means. He could only shake and sweat. And think. Spasmodically.

Jay thought that he really didn’t need to be doing this. Life had better things to offer him than shaking and sweating. Jay wasn’t exactly sure what it had to offer, but he knew it was better than this in his heart. He tried to think back to when his brain was last clear of drugs, but the thought faded. He tried to think back to when he’d last seen his mum, but couldn’t quite catch the memory. He tried to think back to when he’d last had a square meal (Magda made a particularly good breakfast fry-up, with sausages AND crispy bacon AND mushrooms just the way Jay liked them.) The memory danced annoyingly out of his grasp, although the saliva washed weakly around his mouth at the thought.

He sluggishly came to the conclusion that he couldn’t remember very much at all and that this was a bad thing. He suddenly remembered how the cat had scratched him in terror, but as he’d held on to it firmly it had finally settled exhaustedly against him, part in apathy, part in trust, and how that had felt good. Jay thought it might be preferable to have more good memories to counteract the bad.

Not all of the pack scoffed at Jay’s decision to go cold turkey. At least two of them were clean anyway and said they’d help out. Matt and Markie were as good as their word and had sat with him, feeding him Big Macs to give him energy, locking the door when he tried to escape their smotheringly good intentions, stoically ignoring his wild outbursts of hatred.

He’d started on his mum’s birthday, 20th June. The days up until 30th July, forty days later, were long and painful for all concerned, with many a demon perched on Jay’s shoulder, whispering and cajoling, happyfuzzymuzzyeasy. Jay told them to bugger off and wouldn’t listen, but lay and rode the waves of sad and cold and miserable that washed repeatedly over him. The shores gradually receded and the waves lapped lower and lower. And on 30th July Matt and Markie unlocked the door. You’ll do, they said. Good lad.

Luke and Pete turned up as well for the ceremonial unlocking, with a six-pack of Stella, and Magda came as well. There was general rejoicing, although some of the tougher lads of Jay’s acquaintance were unimpressed at his inner strength. Jude especially was heard to say in the Nags Head that night that he thought Jay a ‘right bleeding sissy’ and he’d get him back for making them all look a laughing stock. Nobody was quite sure what Jude meant by that so he was generally ignored. Magda said that she was dead proud of him and that she’d certainly be giving him a good seeing to and an even better breakfast the next day, and that shut Jude up.

Now that you’re in the know about the first two important things that happened in Jay’s life that Year of Our Lord 2000, you’ll be wondering what the third is. After all, those two are really enough for anybody in one year, you’d have thought.

Well, the third thing didn’t happen until much later on, and in between, several much smaller things happened – insignificant in themselves, fraught with retrospective meaning later on. Certainly Jay himself didn’t attribute anything at all to them. He just thought that giving up the drugs had changed him – definitely for the better, he went round to check up on his mum most weeks – and that he noticed things more now.

There was the time when Pete and Karen were getting married at the registry office (she was seven months gone, but nobody could quite see why they were going so far as to get married). They had a big do down the Working Mens Club afterwards and three of the barrels had run dry at the same time. Unprecedented, and wouldn’t have mattered except the delivery of bottled beer hadn’t turned up in time, so the whole wedding was in danger of running dry. Jay went down to the cellar and fiddled about a bit with the barrels (he’d done a three month stint last winter at the Fisherman’s Arms, so he knew a bit about it), and suddenly there were shouts from upstairs – the beer was gushing, frothing, fizzing from the taps. Karen’s baby had hiccups that night, the amount Karen put away … Jay had a hangover next day from all the free pints …

And then there was the time when that weasel came into the pub and demanded his money back from Matt. Matt had borrowed a grand off him to pay back his betting debts and couldn’t repay it, but Jay didn’t think that was worth a beating. Matt was a good lad and he would repay it, some time. Jay didn’t even have to get too nasty, he just stood up and faced the weasel and told him to get out, that he’d help Matt and that the weasel would have his money. He chucked a few tables around to make his point, certainly, but the landlord was okay about it. Matt’s look of gratitude made Jay feel all warm inside. Quite a few other people came and slapped Jay on the back afterwards as well.

If he was on a downer – bad hangover, fight with a girl, whatever (but no drugs) – Jay would think about when he’d gone and helped out when Karen’s wee sister had been so ill. They’d thought she was a goner, and the doctors couldn’t say what it was at all. “It’s a virus, Mrs Stanfield, we can only let it run its course and pray for her. We’ve done all we can.” Jay had gone in there a few times and sat by her bed, just sat quietly, and held her hand. He liked the kid, she’d tagged after them and looked up to them and nicked the occasional bit of food for them. She was a good kid and she didn’t deserve to be lying in this cold white bed, tubes sticking into her, greasy hair splayed out on the pillow. She was always dead proud of her hair and wouldn’t have liked it being greasy. Cold white nurses didn’t care. Cold white doctors didn’t know.

Anyway, Jay had sat there and held her hand and it had felt so warm – hospitals are always too warm, that’s why so many people get bugs there - but his hand wrapped around the kid’s hand felt energetically warm, meaningfully warm, mystically warm, and as Jay dozed through the dark small hours of the night, colour crept back into the kid’s face.

There had been a chaplain at the next bed, reading bits of the Bible to some skinny old blue rinse about to snuff it, and words and images had flickered through Jay’s head constantly through the night. What powerful words there were in the Bible, and why were so many of them bad, he thought, hazily. Woe unto you, saith the Lord. Troublous times. The wrath of the Lord … He smote them down … Jay felt the warmth of his hand and although he couldn’t express himself in the misty depths of that dim, quiet night, he knew that he was protecting the kid against those big, bad words. The wrath of the Lord, was turned away. Suffer the little children. And there was rejoicing. That felt good. Karen and her mum were well chuffed too when the kid came out of hospital a week later.

Jay’s good memories were beginning to win.

Magda said in the pub that she was dead proud of him, that people were beginning to say he was lucky, that good things happened when Jay was around. There were, though, still those who didn’t agree, those who spat and whined and dripped poisonous little darts of spite into people’s ears about him. Strangely, there seemed to be more of the poisoners around now that there were more people talking about Jay’s luck. Lucky Jay. Plucky Jay. Fucking Jay, said the poisoners, Jude amongst them. Jay felt strangely calm as the comments ranged about him. Talk didn’t hurt anybody. He knew that he’d made people happy, that he’d helped and that he’d turned away the Woe, the Wrath, the Troublous Times for some of them.

He thought more and more about those frightening, powerful words as time went on and how he could protect those that he loved against them. He’d even gone into the Library and had a look at a Bible once, although he’d never mentioned it to anyone. They’d laugh, wouldn’t they? Lucky Jay, have a pint, Jay, give us a kiss, Jay – reading the Bible, Jay? They’d take the piss, wouldn’t they?

But Jay knew, in his heart, that taking the piss wouldn’t stop him wanting to help people, wouldn’t stop that warmth that came from deep inside. The cat trusted him. The kid grew strong. Sticks and stones. Love will conquer all. Love will tear us apart. Joy Division. Jay didn’t actually like them much, he preferred Jamiroquai, but that was definitely a good song. Love will tear us apart. Was love that strong? Was that what he felt when he made other people feel good? Did he love people? Jay thought that perhaps he did. Even bloody Jude, who was always sniping about him behind his back now. Jay just felt sorry for him because nobody liked him and it just seemed a bit cheap, really, all that bad blood for no reason. Better to be kind to people. He’d even bought that bastard Joe a pint the other day. Not that he’d thanked him.

Jay didn’t really understand it, but there seemed to be people crowding around him all the time now. A few months ago, he couldn’t find the money for a Chinkie takeaway (unless he nicked it), but now there were all these people, and there always seemed to be a bit of food on the go. Magda would come out of the kitchen in the squat (which seemed a bit brighter now – had someone given it a lick of paint?) with a tray loaded with sandwiches and fish and chips and there’d always be a bit for everybody. Amazing, really. Must be something to do with giving up the drugs and going straight.

Pete would play the guitar, and there’d be a bit of a sing-song, and Jay would tell a few stories about the good stuff that had happened lately. There was always another story. And sometimes he’d feel a hand on his, not a pawing, grasping hand, but a hand that meant something, that felt something. Not Woe. Not Strife. Not Grief. But Love.

Magda got a little sticker for Pete’s guitar case that said ‘PEACE AND LOVE’. She nicked it from Woolies. It made Jay happy when he saw it; the round, curling letters, the warm, bright colours …

Those were good times for Jay and Magda and the PEACE AND LOVE rest of them. The lazy, hazy days of summer rolled past, and more and more people came to see Jay. They said they’d heard about him at Glastonbury, or they knew somebody who Jay had helped, or been kind to. Jay just smiled and Woe and Strife and Trouble backed off a little bit more from those around him.

But slowly, insidiously, the poisoners’ darts dug deeper. Magda said she’d heard Jude bad-mouthing him in all the pubs and there was a Chapter of Hell’s Angels who were roaring around Basingstoke on their motorbikes, decorated with skulls and crossbones, smashing and trashing everything in their way. Then they’d laugh and disappear, shouting. “Get your lucky Jay to sort it out, then!”

Once they’d all been sitting down by the river and more and more people kept turning up until Jay couldn’t even see the edge of the crowd. It had all been peaceful until some Angels had got stuck in and started fights, and eventually the pigs had turned up and there’d been quite a few broken heads and arrests. The pigs had taken Jay to the station and kept him there for hours, asking him what he was up to and what was he saying to all these people. They didn’t understand when Jay just smiled calmly and told them he just liked helping people and he couldn’t help it if people wanted to be helped by him. They let him go. They had to – they didn’t have anything on him. But they weren’t happy.

Jay’s mum said it was called turning the other cheek, and just to ignore Jude and the Angels. It was difficult sometimes, though, and Jay would lie awake at night wondering where it would all lead. Sometimes, in the small hours, he’d get this really bad feeling, like something huge was going to happen and it was all getting out of control. The shadows were thick and dark and ominous in the corners of the squat. But Jay didn’t know what to do or who to turn to; what could he do, except keep smiling and reaching out to all those people who seemed to love and need him so?

And so it was that the third thing happened to Jay in the Year of Our Lord 2000, in Basingstoke.

There’d been a crowd of them all enjoying an Indian meal in the squat. It was a dismal autumnal evening, the rain lashing down outside and the candles they’d lit guttering in the draughts that came through the cracks in the windows. All Jay’s friends were there – Magda, Matt, Markie, Luke and the rest. Pete and Karen weren’t there because they’d stayed at home with the baby, but that was OK. They’d got some red wine from somewhere (although they didn’t have enough glasses so they’d had to keep passing the few they had around). There were a few bits of naan bread still lying about, and someone was playing the guitar quietly, and Jay was telling them a story about a little girl he’d helped last week.

Then suddenly the door slammed open and there were Jude and some bikers that Jay didn’t recognise. Black leather. Black boots. Black hearts. Jude came right up to him and grabbed his hand, smiling slyly.

“Hello, mate,” he said. “Hello, Jay. Long time no see.”

And then there was nothing but chaos and screams, as the bikers punched and kicked Jay, crushing his friends contemptuously underblackbootfoot. The candles fell unheeded to the floor and the wine puddled in a corner. It looked like blood. It was Jay they were after. Why me? he thought faintly to himself as another boot landed in his kidneys. They don’t know what they’re doing.

And then he felt fresh air, rain pattering down onto his bruised face and puffed eyes. Troublous times indeed. Woe. Jay knew in his heart that something bad, very bad was going to happen, as he felt himself being dragged along, to where he didn’t know. He was too weak to resist, but he wouldn’t have anyway. It must be a misunderstanding, they couldn’t really be after him – he hadn’t done anyone any harm. Turn the other cheek, Jay.

Pete and Karen were just coming round the corner. Pete did a double take, saw Jay’s face, and saw what was happening. He walked on and didn’t look back. Grief. Guilt. Fear. Karen hadn’t seen.

When he came to, it took him a minute to recognise where he was. He couldn’t see much through the slits of his eyes, and he kept getting trickles of blood in them from cuts on his forehead. He thought they were on the half built flyover, the one they’d run out of money half way through and left, looming uselessly over the shopping centre. It was all cordoned off, DANGER signs everywhere, but his captors had carelessly flung the signs aside and dragged Jay right to the edge. He was leaning over the temporary parapet, staring dizzily 40 feet down.

Jude was pulling his hair back in hard, painful, handfuls and hissing at him. “All gone right for you, now, hasn’t it, you do-gooding bastard? Well, it hasn’t for me, it’s all gone wrong, and you like sharing everyone’s pain, don’t you, bastard. You like helping people, don’t you, bastard. Well, d’you know what would help me right now, bastard? D’you know what would make me feel good right now, bastard? Seeing the back of you would REALLY make me feel good right now.” Jude hauled his head back and slammed it down again with every bastard. Flecks of saliva sprayed onto Jay’s battered face and he understood, as he looked into Jude’s glittering and maddened eyes, that this was the end of the road.

As the knee in his back pushed him, oh it felt so slow and gentle it didn’t really hurt any more Jay saw the ground spiral lazily up towards him. Odd, he thought he was falling, but it was the ground rising. A split second before that final crushing union, a tear slid slowly from Jay’s eye, and he whispered through his broken mouth, “He didn’t know, wasn’t his fault …”.

Jude looked down and laughed when he saw the insignificant little figure crumpled far below. It had fallen in a sort of spread-eagled shape. He realised that he didn’t actually feel any better, though.