The sun was climbing high into the sky, where it would stay until evening, not sinking again until its relentless light and heat had beat everything under it into submission. Jae had to sit in his car for several minutes with the windows cracked and the A/C blasting until he could even put his hands on the steering wheel. He mostly drove with his right hand anyway; gripping anything tightly with the left for more than a few minutes would set an ache into his arm up to the elbow for the rest of the day. Having his one good hand slippery with sweat or just unable to stay on the wheel because of the burning heat wasn’t ideal.
He didn’t have a destination in mind, when he backed out of his parents’ driveway and began the slow roll through the neighborhood until he could get to the road proper. He didn’t have anywhere he needed to be. That was the freedom of summer vacation. It was the first summer vacation he’d gotten to have in a few years; the past few had just been summers.
Jae’s first year of college had gone… well. Better than most people had expected from him, probably. Thinking back, he was never sure how he himself had expected it to go. He’d mostly hoped it wouldn’t be a flaming disaster that ruined the vague expanse of the rest of his life forever. Ankle-high bar: cleared.
His parents had wanted him to spend the first part of the summer in Kingman, so they could celebrate his birthday. They had taken him out to dinner on Saturday night; there was a new place in town, one of those restaurants that served fancy, expensive meals which adhered to no particular culture. The food had been good. The atmosphere had been quiet. His parents had made a big deal of ordering him a cocktail and telling the waiter that it was his twenty-first, like this was his first-ever sip of alcohol.
As for Jae, he remembered with painful clarity the time that they had personally had to pick him up outside a high school acquaintance’s house, drunk and sick with vomit drying on his shoes, but he just smiled and agreed when they asked if he was enjoying himself. He had managed to hold the smile for a family photo.
Kingman had shifted, slowly and inexorably, as time crawled on. Nearly every time Jae came back to it, something new had replaced something familiar, like new cells generating and replacing damaged tissue in a worn body.
He didn’t walk around town anymore; he hadn’t really done so since he’d gone and made himself heat sick years ago. People paid less attention to vehicles. Jae’s shitty old Volvo, of which he was fond in the same way that people were fond of ugly dogs, didn’t attract attention as long as he didn’t park it outside someone’s house and hang around.
It had become almost ritual to make the slow drive around town, weave in and out of the city limits a bit, and look at the city without really having to see it. On occasion, he would drive at night and make more stops, getting out here and there to put up a picture on a wall or telephone pole. He always had a few on hand in the car. Sometimes, he returned to the same places and the one he had put up before would still be there.
That wasn’t his goal today. It was way too early, for one thing, but he was also going to try to enjoy just not having a goal. No assignments to work on, no obligatory social interaction to engage in.
He had gotten into the routine of cutting himself off from everything digital when he came back to Kingman. It was nice, in a way, to close himself off. He could pretend that Kingman was all there was, out on the edge of the desert, with nothing and nobody else out in the wider world. He didn’t really keep up with people from school in any meaningful way, anyway. He had garnered a reputation for being standoffish, he guessed. It wasn’t that different from how he had always been. He tried not to be rude, unless someone solidly established themselves as deserving of his rudeness, but he wouldn’t exactly say that he had friends. He had acquaintances, and some of them were of the friendly variety. They didn’t expect immediate responses from him if they bothered to reach out, even when he wasn’t in self-imposed social isolation.
It was fine that way. Jae was fine that way. He didn’t want or need to rush things, even if his ongoing personal journey of whatever was painfully slow. Forcing it was worse.
The radio was turned down low, and once he’d pulled out onto the main road, Jae turned it up. He skipped mindlessly through a few local music stations, and then he landed on the news broadcast.
He paused.
He lingered, hand still on the radio dial, as a cold sweat beaded at his hairline and dripped down the back of his neck.
The Hands Resist Him
June 11, 2018: Kingman, Arizona
The Hands Resist Him
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
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Screech.
Crunch.
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Screech.
Crunch.
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
“Sir?”
Jae blinked, and he was standing on the side of the road, off in the grass.
“Sir, can you understand me?”
“I-” His voice came out raspy. He felt short of breath. His chest ached, he realized, like he had been punched hard. He was drenched in sweat; his t-shirt was soaked through and sticking to his back. His hair likewise stuck to his face and neck. “What?”
Jae blinked, and he was standing on the side of the road, off in the grass, and someone was standing just ahead of him. A woman with dark skin and hair in cornrow braids, pulled neatly into a ponytail. Her expression was a mask of gentle calm. She was wearing a navy blue uniform, and Jae’s lopsided thoughts supplied cop, but her hands were raised in supplication. Invitation, even.
“I need you to sit down, okay, so we can get you some help.”
Jae blinked, and then his legs decided to comply for him by buckling underneath him. He sat down hard on the ground, grunting as he jarred his hand trying to catch himself.
People closed in around him, bringing reality back in with them. Jae became aware of how his pulse was thrumming, racing, and of how hard he was breathing. There was static in the edges of his vision, but it was clearing now. His head hurt. Flashing lights, red and blue, muted by the sun and the blue of the sky.
There was an ambulance parked on the side of the road, lights on. Jae realized fuzzily that he’d heard the siren approaching, but he hadn’t registered it. Its echo still rang in his ears, but the vehicle was quiet now as additional people piled out.
Jae was sitting in the grass on the side of the road. Some distance back behind him, far enough that he had to squint to make it out when he looked, his car was sitting slightly fishtailed in a ditch. The driver’s side door stood open. An unsteady, zig-zag path wound through the overgrown, yellowed grass up to where he now sat. He had wandered that distance without even being aware of it. Someone must have seen him staggering around in a daze and called 911.
“Can you tell me your name?” Someone asked.
“I, um. Jae Parker.”
“Can you tell me what today’s date is?”
“It’s… Monday? June tenth- eleventh. 2018.”
“Can you tell me the president’s name?”
“Man, don’t make me fucking say it,” Jae wheezed, and someone holding him steady snorted. He blinked again and a little more of the reality around him clicked into place, and he realized who exactly was taking his pulse just then.
Kasey was wearing the same uniform and deliberately neutral expression as the woman who was now at his side, with only the furrow between his eyebrows betraying anything else. “Do you know where you are?” He asked, voice even.
“Kingman. I don’t know the number of this road, it’s one of those things,” Jae trailed off, and then because his mouth always worked even when his brain didn’t, “You’re purple.”
The corner of Kasey’s mouth might have twitched. His hair was indeed purple; it had grown out a little since Jae had last seen him and was now long enough to fall into Kasey’s face but short enough to keep escaping when he tucked it behind his ear. “Yeah. Can you tell me how you got here?”
Jae could remember the fading traces of the color among the natural brown of Kasey’s hair more vividly than he could remember what he’d just been doing. “I was driving. What are you doing here?”
Kasey’s mask of calm dissolved into exasperation. “This is my job, dipshit.”
The female paramedic keeping Jae upright barked out a laugh and quickly scrambled to recover. “Kasey, you can’t tell patients they’re dipshits.”
“It’s okay, I know I’m a dipshit,” Jae said. If his other senses had been working half as well as his stupid mouth, he would have processed before that moment that the insignia on their uniform sleeves read KINGMAN REGIONAL HOSPITAL in bold letters instead of referring to the police department.
“Do you remember what happened while you were driving?” The woman took over asking questions, tone lighter than Kasey’s. The velcroed-on name badge on the front of her shirt read Rodriguez. Jae glanced at Kasey’s shirt and confirmed that his name tag read McLain. He had been unsure for the past year whether it was McLain or McClain, and it hadn’t ever seemed like a good time to ask.
“Mr. Parker,” Rodriguez prompted him again, bringing him back to the matter at hand. “Can you tell me what happened? Do you remember?”
“I, uh.”
He could remember, sort of. He could, but his thoughts tangled into a dark snarl, and then recoiled from the moments before he swerved into the ditch like he had dug his fingertips into a fresh bruise.
“I think I blacked out.”
Rodriguez made a noise in the back of her throat that informed Jae that wasn’t the sort of answer she had been hoping to hear. “I might have had a panic attack,” he tried again, but her face had settled into a more serious expression.
“Have you had anything to drink today? Any substances or medication we should know about?”
“No.” Jae momentarily considered asking if the single cocktail he’d had two nights ago could have affected him, and then he realized that he was a fucking idiot. He managed not to say anything else out loud.
“Have you had a concussion before?”
“...Yeah. A… a few years ago.”
“Alright.” She turned away from Jae, keeping one hand on his back to steady him, and waved towards two other EMTs who were standing by the ambulance that had been parked by the side of the road. “We’re going to get you to the ER, sweetheart, so that someone can look you over. We can’t rule out concussion right out here,” she informed Jae, voice still gentle but with a new, businesslike edge.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Jae immediately protested, but even trying to pull away from their hands informed him that he hurt, and he was dizzy, and maybe he did, in fact, need to go to the hospital.
“Sorry bud.” Kasey didn’t sound especially sympathetic, but he patted Jae’s leg with a bit more familiarity than professionalism. “You failed the quiz, and now you have to go for a ride in the wee-woo wagon.”
“The- don’t call it that.” Jae looked back at him incredulously. The movement was a bit too fast, judging by how it made his head throb.
Kasey smiled at him for the first time that morning. “Are you scared? I can hold your hand.”
Jae opted not to respond to that, in part because the idea of being closed into the back of the ambulance did rouse a faint curl of panic in the pit of his stomach, and acknowledging it out loud would only make it worse. “What’s going to happen to my car?”
“Police’ll have it towed after they come check out the scene, most likely. You can get it back later after they confiscate all your drugs and guns,” Kasey answered as he moved to support Jae under the arm and Rodriguez did the same on his other side as the other two EMTs approached with a stretcher. The four of them helped Jae onto it despite his protests. The distant, foggy feeling that had enveloped Jae while he wandered on the side of the road in a daze had faded away completely, giving way to the press of bodies and snatches of conversation that overlapped each other as they all moved into the vehicle and began securing things.
“If it makes you feel any better, any damage probably isn’t going to make your car look worse,” Kasey offered. His hand had settled on Jae’s wrist, and the weight of it was comforting.
Someone else, a guy with an auburn crew cut and face and arms covered in freckles, had gotten hold of Jae’s wallet and ID in the shuffle. “Hey, twenty-first birthday this weekend? Happy birthday, man.”
(And the question would always be there, wouldn’t it, whether they were commenting on that because they couldn’t reasonably say anything about who he was, even though they knew who he was, even though they had the proof.
What did they all really want to ask him?)
“Yeah,” Jae grumbled, sinking back in displeasure and defeat as he stared up at the ambulance’s ceiling. “Happy fucking birthday to me.”
With the way Jae’s day was going, he half-expected Angel Brand, the officer in charge of keeping a security beat around his old high school, to turn up at the hospital to question him about the wreck. Thankfully, it was some other police officer that didn’t know him on sight. He was easily satisfied that Jae had driven off the road due to some medical episode and not because he was drunk or high, and since nobody else had been hurt, that was most of what there was to it. Jae’s parents would take care of the rest. Like they always did.
(Like all it took was one incident to throw him back into helplessness, like he’d never be a real person who could stand on his own two feet.
What did it say about him that he could feel resentful while he was laying in a hospital bed on their insurance, and going to college on their dime, and flying overseas to take refuge from the parts of the world that knew him too well with the people who were their family too?
One thing to rip all the stitches open and reveal a wound still bloody and raw even after all this time.
Was this how it would always be?)
His mom and dad had freaked the fuck out when someone finally contacted them, of course, but he didn’t have a concussion. That was the good news. He did have a bruised sternum and ribs, thanks to the airbag deploying, but he would have had things a lot worse if it hadn’t. They wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Just in case.
Just in case, just to see. Always had to watch in case things got worse.
It never took very much to convince Jae that things were about to get worse.
Jae blinked, and he was standing on the side of the road, off in the grass.
“Sir, can you understand me?”
“I-” His voice came out raspy. He felt short of breath. His chest ached, he realized, like he had been punched hard. He was drenched in sweat; his t-shirt was soaked through and sticking to his back. His hair likewise stuck to his face and neck. “What?”
Jae blinked, and he was standing on the side of the road, off in the grass, and someone was standing just ahead of him. A woman with dark skin and hair in cornrow braids, pulled neatly into a ponytail. Her expression was a mask of gentle calm. She was wearing a navy blue uniform, and Jae’s lopsided thoughts supplied cop, but her hands were raised in supplication. Invitation, even.
“I need you to sit down, okay, so we can get you some help.”
Jae blinked, and then his legs decided to comply for him by buckling underneath him. He sat down hard on the ground, grunting as he jarred his hand trying to catch himself.
People closed in around him, bringing reality back in with them. Jae became aware of how his pulse was thrumming, racing, and of how hard he was breathing. There was static in the edges of his vision, but it was clearing now. His head hurt. Flashing lights, red and blue, muted by the sun and the blue of the sky.
There was an ambulance parked on the side of the road, lights on. Jae realized fuzzily that he’d heard the siren approaching, but he hadn’t registered it. Its echo still rang in his ears, but the vehicle was quiet now as additional people piled out.
Jae was sitting in the grass on the side of the road. Some distance back behind him, far enough that he had to squint to make it out when he looked, his car was sitting slightly fishtailed in a ditch. The driver’s side door stood open. An unsteady, zig-zag path wound through the overgrown, yellowed grass up to where he now sat. He had wandered that distance without even being aware of it. Someone must have seen him staggering around in a daze and called 911.
“Can you tell me your name?” Someone asked.
“I, um. Jae Parker.”
“Can you tell me what today’s date is?”
“It’s… Monday? June tenth- eleventh. 2018.”
“Can you tell me the president’s name?”
“Man, don’t make me fucking say it,” Jae wheezed, and someone holding him steady snorted. He blinked again and a little more of the reality around him clicked into place, and he realized who exactly was taking his pulse just then.
Kasey was wearing the same uniform and deliberately neutral expression as the woman who was now at his side, with only the furrow between his eyebrows betraying anything else. “Do you know where you are?” He asked, voice even.
“Kingman. I don’t know the number of this road, it’s one of those things,” Jae trailed off, and then because his mouth always worked even when his brain didn’t, “You’re purple.”
The corner of Kasey’s mouth might have twitched. His hair was indeed purple; it had grown out a little since Jae had last seen him and was now long enough to fall into Kasey’s face but short enough to keep escaping when he tucked it behind his ear. “Yeah. Can you tell me how you got here?”
Jae could remember the fading traces of the color among the natural brown of Kasey’s hair more vividly than he could remember what he’d just been doing. “I was driving. What are you doing here?”
Kasey’s mask of calm dissolved into exasperation. “This is my job, dipshit.”
The female paramedic keeping Jae upright barked out a laugh and quickly scrambled to recover. “Kasey, you can’t tell patients they’re dipshits.”
“It’s okay, I know I’m a dipshit,” Jae said. If his other senses had been working half as well as his stupid mouth, he would have processed before that moment that the insignia on their uniform sleeves read KINGMAN REGIONAL HOSPITAL in bold letters instead of referring to the police department.
“Do you remember what happened while you were driving?” The woman took over asking questions, tone lighter than Kasey’s. The velcroed-on name badge on the front of her shirt read Rodriguez. Jae glanced at Kasey’s shirt and confirmed that his name tag read McLain. He had been unsure for the past year whether it was McLain or McClain, and it hadn’t ever seemed like a good time to ask.
“Mr. Parker,” Rodriguez prompted him again, bringing him back to the matter at hand. “Can you tell me what happened? Do you remember?”
“I, uh.”
He could remember, sort of. He could, but his thoughts tangled into a dark snarl, and then recoiled from the moments before he swerved into the ditch like he had dug his fingertips into a fresh bruise.
“I think I blacked out.”
Rodriguez made a noise in the back of her throat that informed Jae that wasn’t the sort of answer she had been hoping to hear. “I might have had a panic attack,” he tried again, but her face had settled into a more serious expression.
“Have you had anything to drink today? Any substances or medication we should know about?”
“No.” Jae momentarily considered asking if the single cocktail he’d had two nights ago could have affected him, and then he realized that he was a fucking idiot. He managed not to say anything else out loud.
“Have you had a concussion before?”
“...Yeah. A… a few years ago.”
“Alright.” She turned away from Jae, keeping one hand on his back to steady him, and waved towards two other EMTs who were standing by the ambulance that had been parked by the side of the road. “We’re going to get you to the ER, sweetheart, so that someone can look you over. We can’t rule out concussion right out here,” she informed Jae, voice still gentle but with a new, businesslike edge.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Jae immediately protested, but even trying to pull away from their hands informed him that he hurt, and he was dizzy, and maybe he did, in fact, need to go to the hospital.
“Sorry bud.” Kasey didn’t sound especially sympathetic, but he patted Jae’s leg with a bit more familiarity than professionalism. “You failed the quiz, and now you have to go for a ride in the wee-woo wagon.”
“The- don’t call it that.” Jae looked back at him incredulously. The movement was a bit too fast, judging by how it made his head throb.
Kasey smiled at him for the first time that morning. “Are you scared? I can hold your hand.”
Jae opted not to respond to that, in part because the idea of being closed into the back of the ambulance did rouse a faint curl of panic in the pit of his stomach, and acknowledging it out loud would only make it worse. “What’s going to happen to my car?”
“Police’ll have it towed after they come check out the scene, most likely. You can get it back later after they confiscate all your drugs and guns,” Kasey answered as he moved to support Jae under the arm and Rodriguez did the same on his other side as the other two EMTs approached with a stretcher. The four of them helped Jae onto it despite his protests. The distant, foggy feeling that had enveloped Jae while he wandered on the side of the road in a daze had faded away completely, giving way to the press of bodies and snatches of conversation that overlapped each other as they all moved into the vehicle and began securing things.
“If it makes you feel any better, any damage probably isn’t going to make your car look worse,” Kasey offered. His hand had settled on Jae’s wrist, and the weight of it was comforting.
Someone else, a guy with an auburn crew cut and face and arms covered in freckles, had gotten hold of Jae’s wallet and ID in the shuffle. “Hey, twenty-first birthday this weekend? Happy birthday, man.”
(And the question would always be there, wouldn’t it, whether they were commenting on that because they couldn’t reasonably say anything about who he was, even though they knew who he was, even though they had the proof.
What did they all really want to ask him?)
“Yeah,” Jae grumbled, sinking back in displeasure and defeat as he stared up at the ambulance’s ceiling. “Happy fucking birthday to me.”
With the way Jae’s day was going, he half-expected Angel Brand, the officer in charge of keeping a security beat around his old high school, to turn up at the hospital to question him about the wreck. Thankfully, it was some other police officer that didn’t know him on sight. He was easily satisfied that Jae had driven off the road due to some medical episode and not because he was drunk or high, and since nobody else had been hurt, that was most of what there was to it. Jae’s parents would take care of the rest. Like they always did.
(Like all it took was one incident to throw him back into helplessness, like he’d never be a real person who could stand on his own two feet.
What did it say about him that he could feel resentful while he was laying in a hospital bed on their insurance, and going to college on their dime, and flying overseas to take refuge from the parts of the world that knew him too well with the people who were their family too?
One thing to rip all the stitches open and reveal a wound still bloody and raw even after all this time.
Was this how it would always be?)
His mom and dad had freaked the fuck out when someone finally contacted them, of course, but he didn’t have a concussion. That was the good news. He did have a bruised sternum and ribs, thanks to the airbag deploying, but he would have had things a lot worse if it hadn’t. They wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Just in case.
Just in case, just to see. Always had to watch in case things got worse.
It never took very much to convince Jae that things were about to get worse.
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
The sun was climbing high into the sky, where it would stay until evening, not sinking again until its relentless light and heat had beat everything under it into submission. Jae had to sit in his car for several minutes with the windows cracked and the A/C blasting until he could even put his hands on the steering wheel.
The radio wasn’t working properly. It faded in and out of static, jumbled voices and discordant notes popping into existence for a few seconds at a time before they sank again. Jae fiddled with the dials, but nothing brought the signal into focus, so after a few minutes he gave it up.
Hazel was sitting in his passenger seat. Her face was gray and bloodless, and her hair hung lank and tangled around her shoulders. She stared straight ahead, with her hands folded in her lap.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Jae told her as he pulled onto the road. She didn’t respond.
The road crunched underneath the car’s tires until gravel and loose dirt gave way to pavement. Jae had no destination in mind. He had nowhere to go.
“Still no word,” the radio said before its voice became too garbled to make out again.
There was a bump. Cracks in the pavement, leaving it sitting at uneven elevations. Other cars were standing abandoned all along the road, doors open, but Jae didn’t have to swerve around them. They closed him in, rather than impeding the way forward.
“Representatives of President Canon’s cabinet and the FBI have issued statements, but the suspected-” the radio said, voice warped and tinny.
“Shut up,” Jae told it, not looking away from the road. The sun glinted off the carapaces of the empty cars. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
Hazel didn’t say anything, but she finally moved, lifting one hand. There were slivers of dull, rusty red under the edges of her fingernails.
“-the unexplained disappearance just outside Washington, D.C., of over one-hundred and fifty students from a Chattanooga, Tennessee high school this past Friday-”
Hazel reached across the center console and squeezed Jae’s knee. Her grip was icy cold.
Jae finally took his eyes off the road and looked into her face.
The steering wheel jerked under his hands
The radio wasn’t working properly. It faded in and out of static, jumbled voices and discordant notes popping into existence for a few seconds at a time before they sank again. Jae fiddled with the dials, but nothing brought the signal into focus, so after a few minutes he gave it up.
Hazel was sitting in his passenger seat. Her face was gray and bloodless, and her hair hung lank and tangled around her shoulders. She stared straight ahead, with her hands folded in her lap.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Jae told her as he pulled onto the road. She didn’t respond.
The road crunched underneath the car’s tires until gravel and loose dirt gave way to pavement. Jae had no destination in mind. He had nowhere to go.
“Still no word,” the radio said before its voice became too garbled to make out again.
There was a bump. Cracks in the pavement, leaving it sitting at uneven elevations. Other cars were standing abandoned all along the road, doors open, but Jae didn’t have to swerve around them. They closed him in, rather than impeding the way forward.
“Representatives of President Canon’s cabinet and the FBI have issued statements, but the suspected-” the radio said, voice warped and tinny.
“Shut up,” Jae told it, not looking away from the road. The sun glinted off the carapaces of the empty cars. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
Hazel didn’t say anything, but she finally moved, lifting one hand. There were slivers of dull, rusty red under the edges of her fingernails.
“-the unexplained disappearance just outside Washington, D.C., of over one-hundred and fifty students from a Chattanooga, Tennessee high school this past Friday-”
Hazel reached across the center console and squeezed Jae’s knee. Her grip was icy cold.
Jae finally took his eyes off the road and looked into her face.
The steering wheel jerked under his hands
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
-and he jerked awake with a scream dying in his throat, ripping his arms out from under the bedsheets like they were trying to drown him.
There was an arm resting against his back. Someone next to him moved.
“Jae-” Came a groggy voice. Jae jerked his elbow back, driving it into the ribs of the person at his side and getting a startled, pained grunt in response.
“Jae, Jesus fucking Christ!” Kasey snapped. His voice was as good as a slap in the face, waking Jae up fully.
Jae yanked the sheets off of his legs and staggered up, and then he just stood there, shaking.
He was in Kasey’s apartment. He’d come over because he’d gotten sick of his parents hovering over him at their house, making themselves sick with worry because of the wreck. It had been like that for the past few days. He knew where he was. He knew when he was. He was here, because there was nobody else in Kingman that he could call a friend, and he needed- space. He needed space to breathe.
The bruises on his chest and ribs throbbed as he stood next to the bed, breathing hard. Glancing back revealed Kasey frozen halfway to sitting up from where he’d been sprawled on top of the sheets, dressed in a tank top and basketball shorts with his shock of purple hair in disarray. He must have gotten back from work while Jae was asleep. One hand was half curled into a fist, arm tensed like he’d had to stop himself from hitting Jae back on reflex. As Jae looked at him, Kasey seemed to notice his own tension and made himself relax, dropping his arm back to his side.
“It’s okay,” Kasey said, though he didn’t manage to hit the reassuring note he was going for, still somewhat disoriented and aggravated from being jostled awake and then struck.
“Turn on the TV,” Jae said hoarsely.
Kasey sat up fully, rubbing his face. “What?”
Jae snapped his head around, trying to locate the remote for the TV situated on the other wall. “The TV, turn on- turn on the fucking news!” His eyes landed on the remote where it was sitting at Kasey’s bedside table, on the opposite side from where he was standing. Kasey followed his gaze and picked the remote up before Jae could decide to dive across the bed for it.
“Turn on the news,” Jae said again between heaving breaths, less frantic and more resigned.
He was so fucking stupid. When had anything ever gone away just because he didn’t want to acknowledge it?
“It’s happening again.”
((Continued in Anger Wants A Voice, Voices Want To Sing))
There was an arm resting against his back. Someone next to him moved.
“Jae-” Came a groggy voice. Jae jerked his elbow back, driving it into the ribs of the person at his side and getting a startled, pained grunt in response.
“Jae, Jesus fucking Christ!” Kasey snapped. His voice was as good as a slap in the face, waking Jae up fully.
Jae yanked the sheets off of his legs and staggered up, and then he just stood there, shaking.
He was in Kasey’s apartment. He’d come over because he’d gotten sick of his parents hovering over him at their house, making themselves sick with worry because of the wreck. It had been like that for the past few days. He knew where he was. He knew when he was. He was here, because there was nobody else in Kingman that he could call a friend, and he needed- space. He needed space to breathe.
The bruises on his chest and ribs throbbed as he stood next to the bed, breathing hard. Glancing back revealed Kasey frozen halfway to sitting up from where he’d been sprawled on top of the sheets, dressed in a tank top and basketball shorts with his shock of purple hair in disarray. He must have gotten back from work while Jae was asleep. One hand was half curled into a fist, arm tensed like he’d had to stop himself from hitting Jae back on reflex. As Jae looked at him, Kasey seemed to notice his own tension and made himself relax, dropping his arm back to his side.
“It’s okay,” Kasey said, though he didn’t manage to hit the reassuring note he was going for, still somewhat disoriented and aggravated from being jostled awake and then struck.
“Turn on the TV,” Jae said hoarsely.
Kasey sat up fully, rubbing his face. “What?”
Jae snapped his head around, trying to locate the remote for the TV situated on the other wall. “The TV, turn on- turn on the fucking news!” His eyes landed on the remote where it was sitting at Kasey’s bedside table, on the opposite side from where he was standing. Kasey followed his gaze and picked the remote up before Jae could decide to dive across the bed for it.
“Turn on the news,” Jae said again between heaving breaths, less frantic and more resigned.
He was so fucking stupid. When had anything ever gone away just because he didn’t want to acknowledge it?
“It’s happening again.”
((Continued in Anger Wants A Voice, Voices Want To Sing))
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."