Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“But Thomas,” Luke gives him a confused look. “All I wanted was to tell you we have the same father. Is that so bad? I haven’t asked you for anything. When he died, when they told me he’d died, I asked that you and Jenny not know anything about me. I wanted to tell you myself.”

“And you suddenly wanted to communicate something, huh? Normally you like to tell me things in quite another way.” Thomas raises his arm threateningly. “ Quite another way. .”

“But,” Luke takes a step closer, “it’s not my fault that Jacques got my mother pregnant. It was random. It was. . fate. I didn’t know until I was twelve.” Another step closer: “But he took care of me. He helped me. .”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“But he did.”

“I don’t give a shit!” Thomas roars. “And the two of us,” he points at Luke with a trembling finger, “we’re not brothers. You got that? You’ll get nothing from me, nothing!”

“But I’m not asking you for anything.” Luke seems to be on the verge of tears now. He walks dejectedly over to his birth certificate and scoops it off the floor, puts it in his pocket, and sits down on the stepladder. “Why are you so mad at me? It’s not my fault. There’s no reason for you to hate me.”

Thomas is suddenly at a loss for words. He parks himself in the chair opposite Luke. “No reason for me to hate you?” he says, low, almost inaudibly. “I can fucking assure you that I have a reason.”

Luke looks at him, bewildered, then fingers a cigarette from his pack. “But why?” He lights the cigarette with the blue lighter, his hands trembling. “What have I done to you?” Thomas drains his beer. He regards the young man who’s calling himself his brother. He feels sick. He recalls that constricting feeling he had when the two of them sat on the bench in Kristin and Helena’s sunroom. “ We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we / two, / We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy .” How pathetic. He was trying to give him a sign, to explain how they belonged together, to seal their brotherhood — the day before he raped Patricia! And what he said when they returned to the city, about his father not understanding him, that Thomas got on his nerves, and Thomas cried afterward, his shame and despair. It’s sick . Luke has been a monstrous bastard the entire time, and as his brother it’s even more vile and disgusting. Contempt swells and swells in Thomas. Luke says: “I was always by myself when I was a kid. I dreamed of you a lot, of you and Jenny. I used to imagine what you were like.” Thomas is close to retching. “Did you really see me with Andrea tonight?” Luke glances at him, a sad look in his eyes. “I’m really sorry about that.” At that Thomas leaps to his feet, shouting and screaming: “ Now you admit it, huh? You fucking rapist!” Luke regards him, puzzled, but now there’s also something uneasy in his eyes; he wants to say something. But Thomas gets right in his face, screaming. “Was it hot raping my girlfriend? Huh? Did you enjoy it? Did you feel big and powerful? Was it fun sending that letter to my sister, or ransacking my store? What is it that you think you deserve, Luke? Tell me. But when it comes right down to it, maybe you don’t have the balls. Maybe you don’t know how to do anything else but stand there fencing with your fishing pole and reciting stupid poems? Is that all you learned from your beloved father? That’s great, Luke, great! Catch a little fish and stammer a little poem. Fucking recite fucking haiku, and then go out and fucking destroy my life!” Thomas approaches Luke, and Luke gets to his feet, lurching backward a step. Thomas towers over him, feeling immensely powerful; he moves closer, so close to Luke’s face that he notices his almost vaporous heat, the scent of his skin. “But apparently you’ve also learned how to rape,” he hisses. “You’re much worse than Jacques. All that money you’d like to get your hands on — he hid it well. And it doesn’t seem like he hid it for you to find, because if that were the case, he would’ve told you where the money was, don’t you think?” His voice grows louder and louder. “But maybe you thought you could just pick up your prize later? Was that what you thought? That’s what you thought, right, Luke? That’s how you treat your ‘father’ and ‘brother.’ Fuck you!” Luke’s face is dark and emotionless now. He squints in that way of his, his eyes glistening and repulsive. Thomas looks at him, at the body he’s desired and dreamed of. It’s just flesh now, malevolent flesh, his disgust is total. Thomas advances and wraps his hand around the back of Luke’s neck, pulling his head close: “But there was just that one little problem — that I beat you to it. I beat you to it, Luke. Too bad. You’ll get nothing. I’m not sharing with you. I’d never dream of it.” Thomas breathes rapidly. He’s hot, his muscles tense. Luke’s face is so close that it blurs into a pale oval, his irises dark stains against white. With a swift motion Thomas lifts his right arm, draws it back, and punches his clenched fist with all his might against Luke’s jaw. Luke tumbles backward. “Get out! And don’t show your face around here again!” Thomas kicks at him and manages to land a blow to his thigh; he kicks again, but this time Luke gets out of the way. Before Thomas knows it, Luke has him pinned to the floor, and is sitting on top of him with his hands clasped around his throat. He’s young, and so strong that Thomas doesn’t stand a chance. He restrains Thomas’s arms with his knees, pressing them against the sides of his body. Thomas tries to get a foothold on the floor, but his leather soles slide on the smooth, newly varnished wood, and no matter how much he struggles to free himself, Luke doesn’t budge. He snarls at Thomas, spitting words between his teeth, his jaw already beginning to swell, red and shiny: “So you’re accusing me of screwing your girlfriend? You mean like this?” Luke makes sexual gestures, driving his groin against Thomas’s. “You think it was like this?” He drives again, and Thomas manages to slip one arm loose. He goes for Luke’s eyes, but Luke jerks his head back. Thomas squeezes his fingers into Luke’s chin. Luke releases Thomas’s throat with one hand and again braces Thomas’s arm under his knee. At the same time, he presses Thomas’s head against the floor with the other, holding his sweaty hand over his mouth and nose. And then once again he’s clutching Thomas’s throat. “So I fucked her and got her pregnant? If that’s what you think, then that means she’s going to have my kid, Thomas. Have you considered that?” Thomas gasps for air. His feet skate helplessly on the shiny floor. Luke stares at Thomas with pure hatred: “You know what I see when I look at you now? I see a real shit. You think I want a shit for a brother?” He jerks his head. “Ha! No! My mistake! Who the hell would want you for a brother?” Luke bares his teeth, then laughs brusquely and hysterically. “Nobody! Nobody wants you!” He laughs hysterically again, then tightens his grip on Thomas. Thomas’s chest heaves and heaves. Luke stops laughing. Thomas clutches his own thigh, pushing off, using all the strength he can muster to shove Luke’s knee away with his elbow, and actually manages to free his arm, and now the other arm. He tears at Luke’s arms and hands to get them away from his throat. And when he finally succeeds, he goes after Luke’s face and eyes again. But Luke leans over Thomas and pushes his cheek into his. His voice is unbearably close: “Because you have no honor, Thomas. You don’t even know how to take care of your girlfriend.” Thomas hammers on Luke’s back, punches his ribs with his fists, grips a handful of his hair, thrashes about under him, but Luke won’t be moved. Instead he presses his cheek deeper into Thomas’s. The sharp cheekbone, the swollen jaw. “It’s no wonder Patricia left you. You’re not a real man, Thomas. And you know what?” He lifts his head and gives Thomas an ice-cold stare. Thomas feels weak, his skin prickly, and his head’s light as a balloon. Still he tries to shove Luke off him with his free hand, but he doesn’t have the strength. “I hate your perfect shitty life and your tiny ridiculous stores. Who the fuck cares whether a wall is painted white or gray? You can take it all and shove it right up your sorry ass.” He squeezes Thomas. It feels as though his eyes are going to pop out of his face, as if they’re pinned on stalks. Thomas’s throat gurgles. “You don’t give a shit about your own family,” Luke hisses, “and now that I think of it, I almost think I hate you.” He nods, smiling grimly. “I do, Thomas. I do hate you!” Thomas can barely breathe now. He lashes desperately with his head, rips and punches Luke’s arms, but he can’t wrest himself free. “I fucking hate you.” Luke hocks a wad of phlegm onto Thomas’s face. At first it’s warm and soft, but it quickly turns wet and cold. Thomas wriggles in Luke’s grasp, his arms pawing for the floor, and one of his hands miraculously finds the ladder, and it falls on the two men. When the ladder connects with Luke’s back, he briefly loosens his grip on Thomas’s throat, and Thomas uses the opportunity to rip Luke’s hands away. Gasping for air, he throws Luke off. He tries to get up, and whirls onto his side, but Luke grabs him again; they roll around on the floor: Luke knees Thomas in the groin, and Thomas twists Luke’s arm over his back, Luke bites Thomas’s right ear, and Thomas screams in pain. Then Luke’s sitting on top of Thomas again, his hands around his throat, but this time Thomas’s hands are under Luke’s; he tries to pry them off as best he can, and Luke isn’t able to tighten his grip as much as before. He can’t quite stop Thomas from breathing. They’re close to the wall now. Thomas’s head bonks into some empty cans of varnish, which the workers left behind. They skitter around noisily between them. “Was it you?” Thomas’s voice is hoarse and thin. “Say it,” he croaks. “Was it you? Did you do it?” Luke laughs. Opens his mouth and smirks. His battered jaw looks grotesque in the bright light, bluish-red, abnormal. “Was it me ?!” He drops his head back, grinning. He glares at Thomas with a demented expression on his face, an evil clown, madness in his wide eyes: “Rock, paper, scissors, Thomas! I win! Give up. It’s too easy beating an old fuck-up like you.” Thomas’s anger grows again now, and maybe that’s why he’s so inattentive for one moment, a short, short moment that allows Luke to get a better grip. And now Luke’s able to squeeze his hands tighter around Thomas’s throat. Thomas gurgles, the pressure behind his eyes is unbearable. He kicks his legs and thumps Luke’s chest, claws at Luke’s face, is almost lucky enough to jab a finger into Luke’s eye, but Luke’s fast and moves out of the way. Desperately Thomas tries to find something to strike him with. His hand smacks against a can of varnish, it’s empty, and then another can, also empty, and now he hears something rattling around, in this one here, a screwdriver. He snatches it up. Luke says, “How was that again? You didn’t want to be like Jacques, right? Now look at yourself.” He sneers. “And now you feel bad for yourself. Oh, how awful for poor little Thomas.” Thomas holds the screwdriver in his hand, out of sight, beside Luke’s hip. He’s making raspy, squeaking sounds. Luke’s voice becomes distant and indistinct. Thomas’s vision is going black. And with his last remaining strength, Thomas makes one single, sudden movement, swiftly raising the screwdriver and sinking it into Luke’s throat. It penetrates his skin surprisingly easily and disappears into his flesh. Luke lets go of Thomas, and clutches his throat. For a moment, his eyes are shocked and lucid, and then comes the fear of death. Horrible rasping and clucking sounds escape him. Thin jets of blood pump from him and splash across Thomas’s face and torso with each beat of his heart. Warm blood drips into Thomas’s mouth and he pushes Luke off, then with some difficulty he scrambles to all fours. He coughs and coughs, deep sounds rising from the barrel of his throat; he gasps and spits, his throat is dry and raw as sandpaper. Another coughing fit and he’s about to throw-up, hoarsely gulping for air. He clambers to his feet, wobbly. Luke’s lying lifeless on the floor of the well-lit room. Blood has stopped gushing from him, but it’s pooling around his body now, a large red flower. The dark, polished floor, the red flower. The bright light on Luke’s face. The bruised jaw. His wide open, dead eyes. Thomas is terribly dizzy. He struggles to breathe. In and out. In and out. Come on. In and out. His heart thumps. Oxygen fills his lungs. He slumps over the figure on the floor. He hugs Luke close: his blood smells metallic, fresh. Thomas buries his face in Luke’s greasy hair. He can feel his own hot breath.