I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real...

Hurt ~ Nine Inch Nails

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After Ray is gone but not forgotten, Mutt and Jeff saunter back in with their superior smirks and are right back into their good cop/bad cop routine again. With Jeff waiving me down at the stainless steel torture table for another little chat. Mutt for his sake is already starting to crack his knuckles to administer his lie detector test beat down. 

"So we just have a few follow up questions to go over with you?" Jeff starts in slowly smiling like he has a secret to share. "Seems that you weren't actually watching this Jessica Jones show together with your aunt all night. According to your Aunt, she stopped watching TV and went to bed around midnight."

"Which begs the question where were you between midnight and the morning?" With his kind eyes sadly sighing back into me. "Maybe you decided to take a walk down to the Riverine clear your head? And that's where you ran into Tommy Edgars..."

Jeff leaves the last part of that accusation hanging out to see if I will bite back. To be honest, this doesn't sound like something I should shut up about. This accusation sounds a lot like something I should be denying until my last dying breath. But instead of denying anything, I go with Ray's second rule of dealing with defectives.   

"Lawyer," I reply evenly. 

"Excuse me? Did you just call detective Jefferson a liar?" Mutt cracks his knuckles. "Is it time for my little lie detector test already." 

"Law ...yer," I repeat extra slowly for Mutt's innate sense of stupidity. 

But Jeff doesn't say anything about this, he is just watching me intently now. Long gone is the sad but friendly father figure. Now there is something cold and cruel in his hooded eyes, that I really don't trust at all. But for whatever reason, instead of letting Mutt administer his lie sector test beat down, Jeff decides to play by the rules. I suppose that Ray showing up derailed whatever evil master plan they had to beat that big false confession out of me.

"Cuff him and cage him." Jeff finally concedes defeat for the moment. 

So Mutt grabs me and handcuffs me up again as hard as he possibly can. Ratcheting the handcuffs so tight around my wrists I can't feel my fingers anymore. After which they manhandle me, marching me out the door and back through the station. Down the long stairs to the station's basement to their seriously small jail cell cages, with floor to ceiling iron bars.

Of course, Mutt takes this opportunity to shove me face-first me into the front of the old iron bars, just to prove just how much of a tough guy he is. My head bounces off the bars painfully, leaving me reeling and seeing static stars for a couple of seconds.  

"Welcome to home sweet hell, asshole." Mutt shoves me into the cell and slams the bars behind me closed. "Better get used to your cage, killer. Cause your gonna be in one for a long long time."

"Put your hands back through the meal slot, and hold still so we can uncuff you," Jeff orders sternly.  

"Oops?" Mutt characteristically tightens the handcuffs painfully on my wrist bones one last time, before finally taking the cuffs off.  

As soon as the cuffs are off, I am back to rubbing the pain out of wrists. After which I took a look around my small cage and take everything there was to see of my new home at a glance. One long cement bench-bed set in the water-stained concrete floor, probably from years of all the fear tears. In the corner was a weird stainless steel toilet/sink combination thing, behind a low cinder brick wall screen. 

So far there is only one upside to my little slice of hell. At least now I have my very own nasty stainless steel toilet, that clearly hasn't been cleaned in forever. So as soon as the defectives are gone, I am over at the stainless steel toilet in the corner, taking the longest leak of my life. Yeah, there is nothing quite like the sound of a steady stream on stainless steel, to reinforce the fact that you're locked in a cage. 

After the longest leak ever, I sit down on the very cold concrete bed bench thing. With the thinnest mattress ever, that is more like a super cheap yoga matt. It isn't long before the cold concrete starts sucking the heat out of my bones, sending shivers up my skin. So I lie down on the yoga matt and try to huddle up, in a futile effort to conserve what little heat I have left.

I don't know if it was because of what Ray had to say in that room was overheard by the defectives or whatnot? But contrary to Ray's assertions, I wasn't put in a line-up. Or taken down to the morgue and forced to face the dead corpse of Tommy. Or put in a cell with some wick-wacky jabberwocky methhead trying to become my new bestie. Instead, I was summarily shoved in a very small concrete cage cell all by my very lonesome.

The rest of the day in the small cage cell is nothing but a blur of boredom. The monotony is only broken when Mutt brings a parade of other officers down into the cells to glare-stare at me from time to time.

"Yeah, that's him ...the kid that killed Tommy Edgars. But his liar hasn't let him confessed yet? But we already know he did it, so he's as good as dead now." Mutt mugs down at me through the bars. "Can't wait to see how popular this cute kid is going to be in the juvie jail showers. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears in your future killer." 

To wit, all the other swine all shake their heads in disgust. Either at me, or Mutt's sick shower scenarios. Either way I am starting to see that I might have been wrong about that "good cop/bad cop" bullshit. That may be the real game was "bad cop/crazy cop" all along? 

Once upon a time, when I was in fifth grade, I took a school field trip to the zoo. Where we saw a lion named Leo pacing around in a small cage, not totally unlike the one I am in. The other boys in my class, we're roaring at Leo trying to make him roar back. At the time, I actually felt sorry for Leo the Lion. Trapped in a cage with a bunch of ten-year-olds giving him shit, all of who he could have easily eaten. Now I am starting to think that Leo might have had it better than me ...at least he got to sleep. 

When I finally can sleep, that was the first night the nightmares started. My dreams are filled with nothing but nightmares of being buried alive. I end up waking up heaving and disorientated in the dark, not knowing where I am anymore. Then it all comes crashing backing in on me like a cold wave. My not-so-fun field trip to the local swine station, to star in the Mutt and Jeff shitshow. Which is right about when the walls start to push in, slowly suffocating me under the weight of all this concrete.  

Over the course of the next day and night, Jeff stops by my cage several times a day under the guise of bringing me food. Which turns out to be McDonald's crappy happy meals for breakfast lunch and dinner. Probably because he thinks I am a kid and will be happy about having McDonald's? Even though apparently someone has stolen all the secret toy surprises inside for themselves? Personally, I am going to go with Mutt on that score. He seems like exactly the kind of clown that would steal toys from kids and call it Christmas come-up.

Jeff is back to trying to pretend to be my friendly father figure, here to help me through this trying time. All under the guise of just dropping by to give me an update on the ongoing investigation while I eat. According to him, all the evidence was being processed at the crime lab as we sit there eating. He continually keeps insisting, that they are getting closer and closer to catching the killer. 

"That anyone who killed Tommy must have had a good reason, right? That it would be better for them to get out in front of this thing. Control the conversation, rather than have the conversation control them."  

"You know that I can help you out of here, Christian. If you would just trust me with the truth?" His ancient water eyes try to bore into mine making me blink first. "To tell the tale your way, instead of having the story told for you."

But I don't trust this fake friendly defective further than I can throw him. So unfortunately for his dreams of storytelling time, the only response he ever gets back from me is my new one-word mantra.

"Lawyer," I grunt back at him.

After which he just stares at me and shakes his head almost sadly, as if he actually cared what was going to happen to me. It takes just about every fiber of my being to resist flipping him off to reemphasize Ray's rules of warfare. So instead, I turned away from his sad soulful staring and eat my crappy happy meal in silence facing the toilet from hell.

At dinner on day two, Jeff brings me a brand new present to ruin my crappy meal diner. Some pretty gruesome color photos of Tommy's murdered and mutilated body. 

"I want you to look at this and tell me what you see." He shoves a picture of what I can only assume is Tommy Edgars at my face.

But I don't recognize the kid laying face down in the dirt with an axe still sticking out the back of his skull. Unfortunately for me, I do recognize the tale-tell bite mark I left on his bicep from our big fight at the pool. Sad to say, but the upside-down bite mark looks a little like my smiling laughter.

The one thing that strikes me about the end of Tommy Edgars though, were the "more gruesome details" that had been left out of the newspaper article. Because all over Tommy's backside are what looks like a lot of stab wounds all over his ass. The entire seat of his jeans is soaked in black blood. 

"What's wrong, nothing to say about that, sport?" Jeff pushes for some sort of reaction.

The only thing I have to say is my new one-word mantra back at him. Needless to say, my Big Mac meal wasn't exactly appetizing after that horror show. That was the first night I had a nightmare about Tommy Edgars, but sadly not the last time. Some surreal warped version of what happened at the pool that day. 

That night in my new nightmare, Tommy seems smaller than he was when we first fought. He is shadow coming out of the sun, so I can't see his face clearly. He immediately starts swearing and attacks me, but then suddenly stops. Stands stone still then suddenly pitches forward on his face, with that axe embedded in the back of his head. Screaming bloody murder as he is hacked to death by some unseen dark force.

On the third morning of my imprisonment, I am still in my small cage laying sideways on the concrete torture rack bench-bed thing. Staring silently at the spider web cracks in cement two inches in front of my face. In the last three days and two nights, I have actually started to become accustomed to the strange sounds of the police station. 

The ratchety sound of steel keys being forced into old iron locks. The sound of grating old steel doors on rusted hinges, followed by the rattling slam-bang-clang sound of metal doors. Echoes of voices talking and laughing in the open office up the stairs.  

My only source of entertainment in this place so far is the ceiling ventilation grate which connects to the locker room on the other side of the concrete wall. From the grate, I can hear the locker talk of the police as they change shifts. Talking loudly in their cop shop, mostly about Tommy Edgars murder. Seems that they are all pretty convinced that Mutt and Jeff caught their killer. But I am thinking that this is just another one of Jeff's Jedi mind game tricks.

Locker talk is always followed by the clamor of morning roll call. Which always ends with the same prayer for the force faithful. "While I walk through the valley of darkness, I shall fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

Apparently, just another day of law and order, going out to go get some justice for Jesus. Maybe if they are lucky they might get to shoot an unarmed urban kid in the face for fun. Not that I have seen any of these so-called "urban kids" around town. Probably because unlike me, they are all smart enough to avoid this place like the plague. But I suppose even a crazy cop like Mutt can still hope for a Christmas kill. So he can sing some more of those slaying songs with his brothers in blue around the ol' yuletide bonfire. Which I am oretty sure that moron probably calls a "bone fire" thinking he is funny.

Based on the routine of the last two days, it won't be too much longer now until Jeff shows up with my cold Mcdonald's crappy meal breakfast and his even colder eyes. To start yet another day of: "I just have a few more follow up questions. So if I was you, I would get out in front of this thing and control the conversation before it controls you."

But apparently, our friendly father-figure/adoptive-cage-son bonding time has come to an abrupt end. Today both Mutt and Jeff show up in front of my small cell, but without my usual morning Micky D'z crappy meal. Or any of Mutt's sick shower time love fantasies at juvenile hall. 

"Stand up and turn around and place your hands back through the hole in the bars." Jeff is short and to the point this morning.

"Com'on let's go, little pole hole." Mutt snorts snidely.

Of course, Mutt has to put the cuffs on sadistically too tight. Making me some nice new bruises bloom around my wrists. Only after that crucial cop task is complete does Jeff swing open the cage door. In order, to let Mutt pull me backward by the neck, then shove me against the wall for fun.  

After which Mutt proceeds to muscle me up the stairs again and back through the maze of detective's desks. With all the staring glaring cops circling around furiously shaking their heads in disgust. Probably at the pageantry of the perp parade, as we march through their "mutherf-ing house" of justice.  

We head towards another thick steel door, with its little mini window in the corner. As usual, Mutt has to walk me face-first into another wall just for fun. He gives me another nice shove up against the wall by the back of the neck. Then orders me to stay still or else he will beat my ass. This is painfully reinforced by his thumbnail he has rammed right into my neck, at the sweet spot just under my ear.

Oddly enough he uncuffs me, then the door swings open the steel door. After which Mutt gives me another solid shove through the open door, and out into what turns out to be the lobby of the police station. Where I find Ray lounging in the lobby waiting area reading a newspaper and apparently waiting for my release.

"See you soon, kid." Jeff waves me away.

"Sooner rather than later, killer." Mutt mugs arrogantly.

"Oh, and counselor, I don't think this needs to be said. But just in case your client is thinking of skipping out town? Don't even think about leaving Vineville until we tell you can." Jeff adds dryly, just before Mutt slams the steel door shut. "Or after this case is resolved to our satisfaction."

Righting myself up, I start to scream back at their arrogant faces. "Fuck you! Be here all summer...mutherfucker!" But Ray throws his meaty arm around my shoulder and turns me around towards the front exit out.

"Not a word, until we are all the way out of here." Ray cautions me of screaming back at them, while pulling me along out of the lobby. 

Little did any of us know at the time, the mystery of Tommy Edgar's murder wasn't going to be solved that summer. The truth was that the mystery wasn't going to be solved for two more summers. Even then the story was going to turn out to be even more twisted than any of us could have predicted. And by then we would all end up being a lot stranger for it, then when we started this danse macabre.

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