Bad Life

"……."
Britney Spears' hit was playing on the radio. James loosened his grip on the wheel and opened the windows wide. Only then did he finally start to relax and lean back in his seat.
"Tell me something funny."
I flicked the cigarette pack on the dash. When I put a cigarette to my lips, James lit it and grunted.
"Funny story? Like what?"
"For example, how you screwed Matt over."
The singer on the radio crooned that she wasn't that naive, seductive and slow. For a while we listened to the song in silence.
At last James asked, sounding disgusted, "How the hell did you end up mixed up with that punk?"
"I just… can't read people," I said. Saying it out loud made it sound true. I flicked ash out the window.
"I heard that kid even stole all your cash? How the hell did you let some wet-behind-the-ears brat do that to you?"
"I said tell me something funny, not lecture me."
"Just can't believe you got involved with such a nasty little shit."
I opened my eyes wide at that. "A nasty little shit?" James looked out the window and, when I gave no answer, glanced back at me. His face matched my own incredulous expression.
"Didn't you know?"
"What's that supposed to mean? He's not a prostitute or anything. He worked for some wind-power company or something…"
He stopped mid-sentence. A parade of Matt's reckless acts flashed through my head: taking advantage because I was kind, cleaning out my cash and the car, dragging Jerome into Labraham, and—rather than freeing me—standing nearby whimpering until Jerome's honeyed words won him over.
All the wind-power and affair talk had to be a lie. It was absurd. The reason they’d been so efficient at covering things up suddenly made sense… James clicked his tongue when I stayed silent, blinking.
"That punk used to sleep with married men in Wyoming, blackmail them and shake them down. Then he ran into the wrong person and got lucky."
My mouth tasted bitter. I nearly burned my fingers on the cigarette filter; I dropped the butt out the window with a jerk.
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"…I heard Caster and Acacia talking."
He'd shut his mouth with such a grim look that I didn't dare press further. I fell silent and kept driving.
All morning we'd passed only one other car; otherwise the road had been empty the whole way. James stared at the highway with a cramped expression, smoking occasionally.
Around noon we found a sheer cliff beside the road. Hungry, we pulled into the shade of the rock. We threw the doors wide, leaned the seats back, propped our feet on the dash, and sat back. Eating the canned food and bread I'd bought yesterday, we listened to the radio in silence. When I handed James a cola our eyes met.
He drank his lukewarm cola and stared at the can. Hesitating, he spoke.
"Before all that happened… I've only actually seen Acacia once."
I spooned canned pasta and looked at James. He shuffled the tin and muttered as he spoke.
"Caster asked about you first. Said he saw you hanging around my trailer. That spooked me. It was…"
He'd threatened to spread a rumour that I was gay. I nodded slightly. James kept talking.

"But Caster said he was on the same side as me. Then he asked if I was up for a threesome. Since Caster had threatened me anyway, I couldn't do much, but I thought it sounded like a funny idea at the time…"
"That turned into a pretty fucked-up situation," I said, playing along. But seeing James slump made me sigh; I tapped his shoulder.
"Just kidding. You cried enough yesterday. Keep talking."
"…That evening Caster brought Acacia. Acacia was… very polite. Caster said he'd help with clean-up. At the time I thought, sure, we need someone to clean up… anyway, since we didn't have your consent, if you got really angry, a big guy like Acacia could calm you down…"
If I got really angry? Jesus. I had truly had no thought in my head back then. It was foolish to the point of a sigh. But blaming every mistake on James' stupidity would be unfair. George had already laid a trap for me in Labraham; James had simply been an unforeseen variable. He couldn't have imagined I'd make a lover out there. If I disappeared one day, James would be suspected; making him an accomplice was convenient. To the top-floor boys, James had been nothing but a problem to be taken care of.
I said to the guilt-struck James, "You ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) can't say you didn't do anything wrong. You tied me up at first and, with Simon, tried to force a threesome on me."
James couldn't reply.
"I thought if I was perverted and forced into a threesome I'd enjoy it and wet myself, is that what you thought?"
"……."
"But I don't want to argue about your faults anymore. If our lives are already fucked, what good is it for the two of us to hash out who's at fault?"
"Raymond…."
"They were waiting for me in Labraham from the start. You and Matt both picked the wrong people. Still, you're better than Matt. That bastard went over to George… Acacia's side."
"I couldn't have gone over to Acacia anyway. Caster and Acacia didn't trust me. Or rather, they wanted to—"
James added bitterly, "They wanted to punish me."
"Punish?"
I asked without thinking, then found myself puzzled.
"Why punish you?"
At that question James went dark and couldn't speak easily. I realized again he hesitated out of guilt. I took the cola can from his hand and drank deeply, crushed the can and tossed it into the back seat as if nothing had happened.
"Anyway, you got me out. Forget the miserable stuff and tell me how you screwed Matt over. Give it to me straight."
I nudged his ribs playfully and James finally gave a weak smile. He grabbed my elbow and shoved me, chuckling softly, but the conversation trailed off.
After we finished eating and smoked one cigarette each, we resumed the trip. We floored the accelerator as the sun blazed over the horizon. The glare made our eyes sting; we both wore sunglasses. Windows down, we sped with the wind tangling our hair.
The road was ours. We listened to pop music with the volume up and changed lanes at will. James propped his feet on the dash, pushed his seat back, and continued. He began to tell how he'd shaken Matt off. Since lunch, the mood had lightened and he'd finally found the courage to talk.
"That night… when all this started… when Acacia said he'd pull your tongue out—"
"That bastard said that a dozen times. Big mouth, loud yapper," I said, and James gave a bitter laugh.
"When I heard that I realized something was wrong. Nothing like what I'd expected."
"You should've pulled out early."
"It was already too late when Caster found out."
Instead of answering, I listened as James slowly recounted the night's events.
"They locked you in the closet and Caster and Acacia went to get those horrible 'implements.' They made me watch you."
I lowered my sunglasses and looked at James. One arm hung out the window as he continued.
"But I was too scared to go into the trailer. To think there was someone locked in a closet and that I'd had a hand in it…"
"……."
"I just sat down outside and chain-smoked. Then suddenly there was this booming smash inside."
It was unexpected. If he was telling the truth, James would have heard me escaping and done nothing. I stared at him to confirm and he nodded.
"Yeah. Caster and Acacia knew I'd let you go on purpose."
"They wouldn't have left it at that."
That was why Simon and Acacia didn't trust James. If they were the ones we knew, they'd have taken revenge… James laughed hollowly.
"At first they weren't as angry as you'd think. I kept denying it, so they didn't push much further. You know that guy, right? The one with the crocodile tattoo from neck to shoulder. He was in on it from the start. While I was making excuses in front of the trailer that guy came over and tattled that you were running off somewhere. Both of them didn't even blink."
I understood why.
"They were in on it together."
"Yeah. That guy Jerome. Acacia called Jerome right there, and in less than an hour that guy dragged your unconscious body to the log cabin."
What followed is the story we all know. Half the workers there had been bought off by George like a noose. Even the unbought workers, swept up by the others' agitation, unbuckled belts and raped me mindlessly.
James said he thought my fingers would really be cut off at that moment. What was worse, though, was that when it happened only two people screamed: James himself and Matt. Everyone else didn't even flinch.
The more James chewed over it, the more it chilled him. Being in a place where not a single sane person reacted — that realization hit him. Only then did he fully understand he'd gone down the wrong path and that he was too deep to get out. But what made James receive the "real" punishment came next.
"Caster said I was the one who made you like that," James said in a tired voice.
"He said if you hadn't escaped you wouldn't have been raped or given drugs. The reason you got punished was because I let you escape. Caster said I should pay for ruining your life. So… I—"
His voice broke off. Behind his sunglasses I couldn't read his face, but he wasn't crying.
James rubbed his chin and stared at the horizon. After a short silence, he finished in a calm voice.
"He forced me to rape you."
"……."
"The problem was I couldn't get hard. Caster tormented me over and over. Because I couldn't get hard they fed me pills. All sorts of stuff. Drugs, weird injections, later even Viagra. They forced it somehow to make me get it up and rape you."
Even during the drugs there were flashes I could recall: a night when James wept and whispered he'd rape me and then help me run away, promising to get Simon out of the way.
After finishing his story James fell silent as if waiting for judgment. I had nothing to say. The pop song on the radio circled hollowly through the silence.
If I had to blame something, it wasn't so much what James had done as Simon's obsessiveness that made my skin crawl. Simon punished anyone who pitied me or showed even a bit of affection. He was brutal to Kal and to James, and he'd beaten Matt harshly once. He was cruel to anyone I got close to, as if I had committed some sin. I couldn't understand Simon's obsession — it could only be called madness.
I was silent for a long time before I spoke.
"Simon's real name is Kraus. Simon Kraus. He uses the name Caster now, it seems. If you'd ever said the name Kraus I might've suspected something."
"……."
"He probably wasn't that angry about letting me go. Well, he was angry, but not because I escaped—because you were close to me. He'd been like that since school. If I got close to a girl he'd make her avoid me, and if I grew close to another friend…"
I swallowed dryly.
"He kept people away. Matt earned Simon's hatred. I spoiled Matt on purpose and Simon grabbed him by the hair and beat him. You were just unlucky to get mixed up with a madman like that."
"Oh, that explains it…"
James muttered blankly and rested his head against the seatback, turning his face to look at me.
"Caster tried to kill Matt."
I was too shocked to ask and just stared at James.
"After an attempt on his life Matt wouldn't leave Jerome's side. When I went to pick you up yesterday I used Caster as an excuse. I told Matt that Caster had gone to California for a promotion and that Matt was keeping an eye on you for that reason. When I said Caster would be back soon that punk freaked out and ran."