Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

At nine thirty Raphael lies down on the platform they made. He has the urge to unload the magazine and reload it, just to make sure everything is how it should be. The same urge makes him want to take apart the gun and put it back together. But ultimately there’s no point. It wouldn’t go any different to how he already has it-and he’s satisfied it couldn’t be any better. He looks at his hands for any sign of the shakes and doesn’t see one. He positions the gun and he waits for Joe and Melissa to arrive.

“Which one of you has children?” Melissa asks.

“What?” the woman asks.

“She does,” the guy says, “but I don’t.”

“Then that makes this easy,” she says, and she hands him a syringe.

“What is it?” he asks, without taking it.

“It’s your chance to live,” Melissa says. “You take that shot, and you get to fall asleep for the next hour. You don’t take the shot and I shoot you in the face right now,” she says, wiggling the gun a little. “Take your pick.”

“Is it safe?” he asks.

“Safer than this,” she says, wiggling the gun again.

“No,” he says.

“If I wanted you dead, I’d shoot you,” Melissa says. “The fact is I need you very much alive, but right now I need you very much out of the way. Now I know you’re confused and scared, so I’m going to give you five more seconds to think about how you’d rather be unconscious than dead.”

“And what are you going to do with her?” he asks.

“She’ll get the same option when I’m done with her,” Melissa says.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“James,” he says, “but you can call me Jimmy.”

“This is a silencer, Jimmy,” Melissa says, tapping the end of the gun. “I can shoot you both in the head and nobody would hear a thing. I can drive the ambulance myself.”

Her words have an effect. You Can Call Me Jimmy takes the syringe. He rolls up his sleeve and uses his teeth to pull the cap off it, then holds the needle upright and taps the tube to get rid of any air bubbles. He looks like he wants to stab it into Melissa. Instead he puts the tip into his arm and keeps pushing until the needle disappears, then he pushes his finger down on the plunger.

“I don’t feel so good,” he says.

“Climb over into the back,” Melissa says.

“I. . I don’t think I can.”

“Yes you can. Come on.”

He starts to climb over. He gets halfway then looks up at her. “I don’t feel so good,” he says again, and then proves just how un-good he’s feeling by collapsing.

“What did you do to him?” the woman asks.

“He’s only sleeping,” Melissa says, then drags him all the way into the back.

“What are you going to do to us?”

“Give me your driver’s license,” Melissa says.

“Why?”

“Because I asked nicely,” she says.

The driver lowers the sun visor. Her license is tucked into a pouch up there. She hands it over. Melissa looks at the photograph. It’s five years old. She looks at the name and at the address. Trish Walker. Lives in Redwood.

“This address still current?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Trish,” she says. “Rather than me explain everything to you, just listen in as we drive and you’ll figure it out.”

“Drive where?”

“You have a schedule, remember? Just stick to it.”

Melissa gets out her cell phone. Trish starts driving. Melissa dials a number that doesn’t exist and then talks to a person who isn’t there. Trish sits at a red light, which ten seconds later becomes a green.

“It’s me,” Melissa says. “Here’s the address,” she says, and she reads out the address from the driver’s license into the phone. “You got that? Now repeat it back to me,” she says, and she listens to nothing as the address isn’t repeated back. “No, I said sixteen, not fourteen. Repeat it back,” she says, knowing the small detail makes it believable. “That’s it,” she says.

She hangs up.

Trish has gone pale. Very pale.

“Okay, Trish, by now you’ve figured out that you’re in a very deep hole, and your children are in there with you. Think of it like this. Think of that hole slowly caving in, there’s dirt all around you, and you have one chance to claw your way out of it along with your children. Are we on the same page here?”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“If you help me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don’t do what I say. . well, then it gets interesting.”

Trish nods. Melissa glances behind her at Jimmy. Not too many places to hide an unconscious body, but she can make do. First she just has to strip him out of his uniform. She’s going to need it.

“I want you to tell me we’re on the same page,” Melissa says.

“We’re on the same page,” Trish says.

“Good,” Melissa says, “because we’ve got a few things we need to discuss on our way. And you can start by giving me your cell phone-best you don’t have it, because something like that in the wrong hands is only apt to see that hole of yours get a whole lot deeper.”

The police escorting the empty van are nowhere to be seen. It’s like a ghost being escorted into town. Except it’s not. It’s some kind of decoy van. There must be a crowd of people outside the courthouse. The police must be expecting trouble and are sneaking me through a different entrance. We reach the edge of town. Then we’re closer to the center. We can hear people. Lots of people. We’re on the one-way system heading toward the courts.

“Oh my God,” Kent says.

I look up out the window. I’ve managed to not pass out, which I really think deserves a medal. Protestors are lining the street close to the courthouse. They’re yelling and screaming at the police escort, which I can now see is further up ahead. The escort is swamped by a sea of people. Many of them are carrying placards, but I can’t read what they say. In a way it’s a relief to know all these people have come out here to support me. Nobody wants to see me punished. I’m too likeable. I wasn’t in control of my actions. I’m an innocent man, driven by needs that I’m not even aware of, driven to do things that I can’t even remember. I’m Joe Victim. The justice system is going to save me. A six-foot monkey is waving at everybody going past, a can of beer in his hand with a drinking straw, a big monkey grin on his face. So maybe I have passed out or crossed over because I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. But what I don’t understand the giant panda does, because that’s who I see next, and I guess it’s friends with the monkey because it runs up behind him, throws his arms around him, and starts humping him before the monkey turns around and they touch beers and then both of them are drinking.

“This is going to be worse than I thought,” Kent says.

“You think it’ll end today?” Jack asks.

Kent shakes her head. Are we all seeing the same thing? “Either today or this week,” she says. “University students like this can’t commit to much more than drinking and smoking weed and fucking. I just think committing to dressing up as wildlife and movie characters for more than a week is too much for them.”

I finally realize what’s happening-they’re university students in costumes, all of them have come along to support me. Young people get me, I suppose.

The van turns right. Beads of vomit run across the floor. We get to the end of the block and turn left. Beads of vomit run the other way. Now we’re running parallel to the street we were just on. There are people, but not as many. They are carrying placards. It seems like the entire city has come out to let the world know of my innocence, to let the world know that the real crime is our justice system.