Crossroads for Donovan Cook

Behold the epitome of composure. A man so cold hearted that he could give Jack Frost himself shivers down his spine. Eyes as hard as steel, and as dark and empty as if looking down the barrel of a smoking gun… Not really. Honestly I’m nervous as hell, I’m sweating bullets and I think I’m going to vomit just from nerves. Calm down Donovan, you’re a man of the Cook family aren’t you? What’s the problem, what is there to afraid of? You’ve gone through police training, prison riots, and you’ve broken down doors to arrest people; what is there to worry about?
Well you’re ending a human life for one thing. Damnit, why me? Why was I assigned his job? Donovan you know why, you were chosen at random for execution duty. It seemed such an easy decision a while ago. The world was so simple, criminals are evil and had their chances, It’s not my fault if they wasted them right? It’s my job, a civic duty. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to think. He’s getting the chair so he must have done something to deserve such a thing right? Besides the electricity should blowout that circuit breaker in his head before he suffers too much right? The chair is probably quicker than the firing squad, less painful than the poison injection, less terrifying than choking out their least breath in the gas chamber. I’m doing society a favor by exterminating this scumbag, I’m doing him a favor by using this method. Yeah, that’s right. It’s for the greater good, he doesn’t deserve another chance, and besides it will be quick.
I can do this, I can do this. I hear the heavy jangle of his manacles before I see him come through the door. He’s average in everything except that he looks like a ghost with blood red eyes, he looks like he’s already dead. I quell the panic rising in my throat, It’s just an albino, calm down you can do this, I can do this. He’s sitting in the chair all strapped in. All I have to do is pull the switch and I can go home. Seconds pass like years, and nothing has changed. He looks at me with those unnatural red eyes of his and a grin pulls across his face. Why is he smiling? why why why WHY?! He’s deriding me with that stare, with that smile. How dare he mock me? Doesn’t he realize where he is? That I am going to end his life?! Hate erupts from my gut like a volcano and burns all of my sympathy and indecision to the ground. I pull the switch and let the bastard fry.
His grin is still their as his eyes go inside his skull, his pale skin sparks, its horrifying, He performs a macabre dance in his chair as volt after countless volts surges through is frame, it’s fascinating. I have to keep watching it’s compelling. Then there’s the smell, the acrid smell of burning hair mixing with a disturbingly appetizing barbecue smell. I can’t tear my eyes away, and I know I’m probably imagining it but I swear he’s looking back at me with those sightless eyes, it’s unbearable. The chair dams up its unforgiving torrent. It’s done, I can go home and sleep this nightmare away into a faded memory.
Except that he’s breathing… Oh god, he’s still alive. He’s no longer grinning just breathing, gasping raggedly. He’s slumped in his chair but still very much alive. His gaze reaches mine once again. As if asking me if that’s all I’ve got. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I have enough hate in me left to pull the switch again and turn off his light. What do we do now Donovan Cook?

Chapter 1

Journal of an Everyman

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Goes what I hope to God is the kitchen sink. I open one eye and roll over to see the digital clock turn to 3:44 AM. My first thoughts are where am I? Who am I? Am I going back to sleep? The answer was no and as the haze of grogginess dissipates my second thought is two and a half hours of sleep isn’t too bad, for me. Damn insomnia. I roll out of bed and follow the worn out path in the carpet. I trudge slowly towards the bath room. I see Jon Thomason; a black birds nest on top of his head, dark bags under his green sunken in eyes, a scruffy mess of a beard. He’s wiry, and just a bit too tall. He looks stretched out to me. My reflection stares back and says Jon Thomason needs a shower.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Goes the uncooperative shower stall. “Work Dammit!” I smack the shower knob and it responds with a familiar groan followed by an eruption of lukewarm water. As the stream of water heats up, my mind begins to wander. It travels away from this crummy two-bit apartment, past my job and vile manager, beyond summer, past Schrodinger Community College, it wanders outside of middle-of nowhere Schrodinger Missouri, outside of reality. It keeps drifting till I simply exist without consciousness. It’s almost like the sleep I never get, I don’t think anything, I don’t feel anything and bloody hell it’s glorious.

“Hey, HEY!” Oh man, I’m being snapped back to reality, good bye peace of mind. “Save some hot water for the rest of us, bro” I return to reality and the familiar voice of my room mate Alexander Id, he’s like a brother to me. “One second, hold your horses” I reply. His retort is so very typical of him “Since when was patience ever a virtue of mine, Jonny? Don’t you know me?” That wise guy of course I know you. I wipe away the water from my eyes and grab my towel. I see Alexander Id better known to me as Bishop, the most unique guy I have had the misfortune and privilege to meet.

I see my room mate wearing his trademark smirk. He’s pierced three times on the eyebrows, two on the left and one on the right. He’s got hair like the Cheshire Cat, short spiky and striped with dark purple. There’s plenty of muscle on his frame, good build. He looks like your everyday punk except for those eyes. At first they look terribly blood shot but its all a little bit off, then you realize his eyes are just dark pink normally. The rest of him is just white, not Caucasian or anything like that, Its just he has an absence of any color, he’s just white. I think the term is albino.

“You’re awake already?” I ask him, he gives that little smirk and shrugs his shoulders. “I just got in actually, not that it matters.” I take in a familiar smell, he doesn’t reek- but I can’t mistake the smell of booze on him. For a moment I can imagine him at one of the singles bars and I pity the poor girl that actually thinks he’s going to call her back the next day. The pity was fleeting and the next thing that rolls of my tongue is “You went drinking with out me? I guess you can pay for a round next time. By the way did you at least get her name this time?” Over the dull roar of the shower I can just make out what he’s saying. “I think it was Alice or something like that. I don’t really remember that many details Jon. How was work?” I snort and spoil the ending before I even open my mouth “It was an abomination, I was supposed to train some new girl, but she never showed up. So we were short staffed and I had to run most of the kitchen because the managers so freaking cheap that he doesn’t want to pay us more than he has to, goddamn scrooge.” Thinking about it brings back remnants of the day’s anger.

Alex steps out of the shower and shakes his head like a dog. He gives a me grin “Sounds like a good reason to get blazed, while I was out I stopped by Teague’s place. Dime bag of pure sticky. Whaddya say Jonny Boy? It’ll help ya sleep.” He looks just like a kid who just bought a toy and wants to play with it right away, with a silent chuckle to myself I head out to grab the bowl. “Sure thing Alex, I don’t have work tomorrow, I check the clock, today. Might as well catch up on my beauty sleep, God knows I need it more than you”

We reenact a ritual from our high school years. We pour the water, we light the leaf, we breath it in deep, hold it. Holding, holding, holding, gone. And everything coherent in our heads float out of our mouths. Thoughts like the smoke rings I blow are spinning lazily in the dimly lit living room. Time… goes… funny… I’m hungry, What time is it? Alex is talking about how art is sexist against men… I don’t get it. Did we play chess? I think we did, who won? Meh, Let’s go get a pizza. We barter and intimidate drawing lines, using diplomatic tactics on the other in an arms race of pepperoni and mushrooms. Holy Shit! Who put that sofa there? I’m tired. Did that Wall just move? And the disjointed thoughts begin to drift off to sleep one by one. Bloody hells I’m so tired I feel like I’m dying. Maybe I’ll feel alive in the morning. I’m drifting off and Alex is already out cold on the floor. I’m going, going, going gone. I exist without consciousness and I’m dead no more.

First Fights (Ties that Grind)

"Alex? Alex? Alex Id, Oy!" I need to raise my voice with him, my roommate, my oldest friend. "Yeah, what is it?" I now have his divided attention. "I want to talk about the past" I say to the back of his head. "What about, Jon?" I now have his whole attention...for now. "You remember our first fight? You know that one back in third grade?" a half grin slowly tiptoes onto his face. "Yeah I remember it, my first fight in a new town. Who was that other kid again...? Kevin Dooney? Or was it Dalton?" I think about it wading through hazy flashbacks "Cormac Turlough actually, Dooney and Dalton were his gang, if you could call it that." he lets out a laugh like a barking dog. "Yeah, yeah! He tried to beat me up at recess because I was new and albino. Then you showed up to stop him because you're Ma had given you a talk the night before about racism. You thought I was white. Heh heh, a misinterpretation saved my sorry ass."

"Ha! I know Alex; the best part was that they were so surprised when I stood up to them..." He suddenly hijacks my "That’s when I smacked Cormac right in the face with my boot. He was out cold before he knew what hit him. Ha ha! The look on..." You could tell he was getting into this retelling of our younger days. That crooked grin of his is wider than ever as he goes on. "Then the teacher finally finished her smoke break and found us waling on Dalton and Dooney. Oh man, that was a hoot, you remember that right?”

I remember all of it so vividly, that first moment of combat, the blast of adrenaline that wild way of the young not knowing how far they could've gone, how much pain could be done to another, and how easy it was. Though to be honest I'm just glad Dalton and Dooney were too scared when they suddenly lost their leader, though I can't argue with results, we won. Then I remembered how my Mom and I started arguing about the results. I remember her yelling at the top of her lungs." What on earth were you thinking! A boot for Christ’s sake! What happened to being a pacifist? This would have never happened back in China! You are in so much trouble young man, so don’t even think of getting out of this!" I correct myself. We won the fight but Mom won the battle, and the war began after that night.

You see my Mom was a very traditional Chinese woman. She expected me to be the filial son. Which meant no fighting, being straight laced, and a dedicated academic. I really wasn't any of those things and this fact brought her much aggravation and disappointment, feelings she never allowed me to forget. Dad still tries to keep in contact with me while he's not working abroad, Mom on the other hand avoids talking to me by raising my little brother Simon in the hopes he'll turn out better. I wonder how he's doing.

Alex on the other hand had it easier in a way; he hardly got into trouble with his folks since his very Irish family had a tendency towards "shenanigans" so to speak. He and his four brothers were the thorn in Officer Cook's side since the day they moved into town. His family was also very Catholic. That wasn't a bad thing at all, but there tend to be two kinds of Catholic children, those who follow the good book throughout their whole lives and then there are kids like Alexander Id. Right before high school graduation he announced to his family that he was an atheist. His family promptly disowned him, and told him to never come back until he "comes to his goddamn senses and stops being a heathen". His response to that was to change his last name from Macpherson to Id, a namesake that would motivate a majority of his life’s choices. He is still dead to them.

"Jon? Jon Thomason. Oy! Stop spacing out on me!" I snap out of my recollections. "Sorry Alex I was just thinking". He grins at me "Now that I have your hopefully undivided attention, let’s go out to eat I'm starving" I look at the clock it’s been about four hours. "Time flies when you’re reliving the past huh?" He looks at me funny as he throws on his coat "Whatever you say Jon, let’s go eat already- mushroom pizzas don't order themselves you know." I chuckle to myself as we head out. I can't argue with that logic and away we go.