Vending Machine Lunch (21 page)

“Eliza, shut
up!”

“You shut
up!”

“Everyone, shut
up!”

“Please Jevaun,
don’t do it!”

“Get off me
Janet, I don’t need-“

“I think we
should all just sit down and-“

“-I’ll do
anything, just put it down-“

“-Shut it,
everyone you’re all-“

“-This is
nothing to do with me. I’ve done nothing wrong. It isn’t my
faul-“

“-ouldn’t be so
selfi-“

“-Just please
shut up-“

“-Please don’t
do it-“

“-oh God-“

“-ut it away
for Gods sa-“

“-shut it! Just
shut it gu-“

The situation
was rapidly breaking down. Jevaun and Jeremy, perfectly silent,
glaring at each other, the barrel of the gun he was holding still
firmly in Jeremy's view; whist everyone else yammered on amongst
themselves, trying to get their view, their opinion, their plea out
for everyone to hear. They were arguing amongst themselves, turning
against each other. Jeremy could see Jevaun was loving it. He
didn’t have to say a word to get them to confuse and hate each
other. At this rate, his final moments would be better than the
ones in CRT movies.

Throughout all
the noise of everyone screaming at each other, something made
Jeremy's ears prick up. It was Eliza, and she said something.
Possibly not as bad as begging Jevaun to shoot him to save herself,
the ginger bitch, but it would compromise everything. Everything
being Jeremy's life and probably everyone else’s.

“I’m getting
outta here,” she said. Pretty quietly, but he heard it. He glanced
over to her, she had begun to move towards the door as everyone
else was busy arguing amongst themselves.

He glanced at
Jevaun. He hadn’t noticed. He was still looking directly at Jeremy.
However, Jeremy knew it would be seconds, nanoseconds even before
he noticed Eliza was attempting to leave the room. He had to do
something and do something now. Something that wouldn’t make the
situation any worse and would maintain his outer calm nature.
NOW.

“Will you all
just shut the hell up!” Jeremy shouted at the top of his voice. He
was heard, most of them stopped talking, but Janet was obviously
too good to follow his rule, “All of you! Shut up! Christ!”

He looked
around at them all, wiping his forehead as he did so, removing any
possible sweat.

“Christ’s sake!
He’s attempting to give a damn while you all beg for mercy! All of
you need to sit down and shut up. This is my problem, it has
nothing to do with any of you. Do me a favour and just sit down and
shut up. I don’t want to hear another God damn word out of any of
you. Hear me?”

Jeremy
breathed. Those who weren’t already sitting, sat down. Including
Eliza. He continued breathing and resumed his usual position of
staring at Jevaun’s eyes and barrel. Phew.

“Where were
we?” he smiled. The anger had returned to his eyes. They were back
to square one, “Ah yes, I’m waiting for you to pull the
trigger.”

“You should be
begging for your life,” spat Jevaun in return, “You should be at my
feet with all them mobiles.”

“You’re not
worth giving the satisfaction to,” Jeremy replied, “You’re-“

“Beg!” demanded
Jevaun, interrupting him, “Plead for your life you puny weed! I
want you to do it!!” the gun was shaking in his hand as he spoke.
Jeremy knew he was at a possible advantage.

Breathing deep
again, forcing his mind to quit it with the panicking, Jeremy
continued.

“Too scared to
pull the trigger, eh?” he mocked, narrowing his eyes, “Why don’t I
put this another way then. You want to kill me? Do me a favour and
take my life.”

There was a
nasty silence. It was God damn nasty. To Jeremy's horror, Jevaun's
finger tightened around the trigger and began to squeeze. Jeremy's
mind desperately wanted to back off and beg for his life. He almost
did. He flinched, his eyes began to water as he knew this could be
his last possible moments. His last few seconds alive. His head was
hotter than ever, a new bead of sweat rapidly forming. The last
thing he wanted to do was to start crying and sweating. He wanted
to show him that he was out of his depth and just being stupid.

His finger
relaxed. Jeremy had called his bluff. Now it was time to start
verbally attacking him.

“Or maybe I
should rephrase that. Do me a favour and get a life,” Jeremy said,
grinning with slight relief that he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Jevaun's hand
was shaking again. He was beginning to break down. His eyes were
watering again, struggling to form a single word. Maybe the gravity
at what he had just attempted hit him, or maybe he was just baffled
and confused on why he hadn’t shot Jeremy yet, but the next bit was
a spanner to Jeremy's plan.

Jevaun’s hand
went to his head. The hand with the gun in it. He was going to
shoot himself.

Anger surged
through Jeremy. He wasn’t going to just let him get away with it
now. He’d somehow got a gun into the land and tried to shoot him.
He had another thing coming if he wanted to get out easy.

“Christ! Oh no
you don’t!” Jeremy muttered, before laying into him.

All his energy,
all the adrenaline, all the testosterone went into one clean punch
on the side of Jevaun's chin. His head went flying backwards, as
did the gun.

Both Jevaun and
the gun hit the floor. The room took a sharp intake of breath,
expecting the gun to possibly fire. It didn’t. Before anyone could
react, Jeremy was pulling Jevaun back up by the front of his
t-shirt.

“Christ, you’re
an idiot!” Jeremy shouted in Jevaun's face, “You God-damn pathetic
fool! You pathetic coward!”

Jeremy head
butted him in the face. His forehead crunched with Jevaun's face.
He tried to escape, or fight back, Jeremy couldn’t tell which. He
was just flailing around, his hands trying to grab whatever they
found.

“Are. You.
Listening!?” Jeremy growled into his face, “Are. You. Listening!?”
he repeated pulling him a little closer. He threw Jevaun on the
floor, he landed on the shattered pieces of mobile phone and
instantly got up to try and escape. As he was getting up, Jeremy
grabbed his hair and sent his face flying into the wall.

Jevaun moaned
in pain and his face felt the power of Jeremy's unstoppable force
meet the immovable object. His nose crunched inwards, instantly
streaming out jugs full of his blood. Jeremy fell backwards as the
impact happened, landing on more bits of broken technology.
Scrabbling back up, bitter hatred still burning in his head, he
dragged Jevaun to his knees by his t-shirt again.

“You’re
pathetic,” Jeremy seethed as he groaned, obviously rather dazed, “I
hope-“

He smashed
Jevaun's face against the wall, red blood that oddly reminded him
of blackcurrant juice exploded from his face.

“-you-“

Smash.

“-burn-“

Smash.

“-in-“

Smash.

“-hell!” Jeremy
yelled, his eyes stinging, blood down his t-shirt, feeling somewhat
satisfied but enraged at the same time. He breathed for the first
time in a long time. The air smelled sweet. He blinked and a tear
rolled down his cheek.

Jevaun was on
the floor, blood pouring from his mangled face, letting out slow
and painful moans. Jeremy had only broken his nose. He wanted to do
so much more to the guy, he wanted him to feel some pain. He wanted
him to feel what life was really like. He wanted him to grow up and
stop being a self-satisfying fool. He wanted him just to be normal
and get on in life without being a total moron because the rules
don’t quite live up to his spoilt expectations.

Still breathing
hard, Jeremy looked down at Jevaun. He was still moaning on the
floor, attempting to roll over onto his back.

“That’s
enough,” said Jade, looking down upon Jevaun tearfully, “He hasn’t
got the gun anymore, let him be.”

“Is it rubbish
enough,” Jeremy said, suppressing back tears and breathing heavily.
The world was spinning around him, he couldn’t quite believe what
he'd just done. What he'd just managed to pull off, “It’s never
enough. Not for him. Never. Ever. Ever. Enough.”

“You’ll be no
better than him if you carry on,” said Jade, “Please, just stop it
Jeremy. Let someone else deal with it.”

Overwhelming
relief ran through his veins. He glanced at the black gun, still
laid proudly on the floor; intimidating him with its shininess and
its realness, inscribed on the side was the number '0110'. Jeremy
had no idea what the relevance of the numbers were, but they
gleamed at him, almost communicating to him. Despite the drama, the
gun had managed to hold its own. It held its barrel high, proud of
what it was. It didn’t care for anyone else, it achieved a certain
class that no-one in the room would ever achieve.

As much as
Jeremy tried, he could not hold his head high. He could not be
proud. He could not achieve the class. Despite winning this certain
battle, he collapsed against the wall and slid down it. The gravity
and reality of the situation came down upon him like
constellations. He'd been just as bad as him, despite being very
nervous and panicking like a dog about to be put down, but still
acting like he was in a movie. Not anymore. You either die a hero,
or live long enough to see yourself become one. Jeremy wasn’t a
proud gun. Jeremy was a human being.

Now crouched
against the wall, his hands to his face, Jeremy burst into
tears.

“You can call
the Enforcers now,” he muttered through tears.

The gun looked
at him blankly, as though to ask what in the hell was wrong with
him. Man up and grow a pair for goodness sake. Jevaun had made it
onto his back, he was crying with the pain.

No-one could
have said anything. And that’s why, everyone else remained
silent.

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