As he stood under the warm spray from the shower, some of the
anger from the night before began to creep back in. Without a doubt, that had
to be one of the stupidest things he’d ever done. In fact, if he were to rank a
lifetime of insanity and bad decisions, that one was floating somewhere between
number two and number five in a very long list.
It wasn’t like it was going to make a difference, the small
guy, what the fuck he’d said his name was, Denny, Danny, whatever, had probably
bailed the asshole out and was up making him breakfast and laying his shit out
for work. Dumbass.
Jax sighed and brushed the water out of his eyes. His sister
would tell him he was being a cynic, that not everyone was like their mom had
been. Fuck that noise, Steph saw rainbows and sunshine in everything. Even when
people pissed her off she just smiled and somehow or another managed to win
them over. That wasn’t him, had never been him and never would be. People only
showed you good when they wanted something, or when they wanted you to like
them. As soon as they’d suckered you in, who they really were tended to emerge
and he’d learned early on that it was safer to play with Pit bulls than people.
At least a dog wasn’t gonna bite you unless you provoked them to.
People on the other hand…
Turning the water off, he shook his head, sending water
droplets everywhere before grabbing a towel and quickly drying off. He’d barely
pulled on his jeans when someone began knocking on his door. For a moment, he
considered ignoring it, but the knocking grew more insistent and with a groan
he resigned himself to the fact that whoever it was just wasn’t going to go
away.
Muttering curses he stalked to the door and yanked it open,
only to see the top of Denny-Danny’s head. The smaller man looked up at him
with a sheepish grin, the bruises on his face and neck looking much worse in
the light.
“Hi, umm,” Danny stammered, as Jax crossed his arms and
leaned against the doorframe, wondering how long this was going to take.
“I umm, I just wanted to, ummm,” Danny continued, looking around
awkwardly. “You didn’t have to help last night, and umm, I just want to thank
you.”
“Is that all?” Jax asked abruptly, pushing away from the
doorway. “Don’t expect it to happen again.”
Danny took a step back, eyes widening in shock at Jax’s harsh
tone. “I-I don’t, I mean, I-I won’t.”
“Good. Do me a favor, try and keep it down the next time you
guys decide to fight. No one needs to hear that shit.”
Jax reached for the door, intent on shutting it, when Danny slammed
his hand against the wood, stopping him. Jax blinked, glancing from Danny’s hand
to his face and back again.
“Do you have a problem?” Jax asked, feeling himself tense,
readying for confrontation. He watched the mired of expression that played
across Danny’s face, from shock to outrage, to furious indignation, and
couldn’t be bothered to worry about where the whole situation might lead. The
coward had showed his true colors in the hallway. Nothing he did now would
change Jax’s mind about him.
“I didn’t ask for your help last night,” Danny sputtered, weight
pressed against the door.
Jax knew he could close it if he truly wanted to, but this
was almost amusing.
“I’m grateful to you, f-for what you did, but if you were
gonna be an asshole about it, why’d you bother at all? Or did you think you
were coming to rescue a woman? Sorry to disappoint you.”
“If you ever threaten him again, I’ll kill you.” That was the writing prompt that sparked …And All Shall Fade to Black, though the title of the book actually comes from one of my favorite Black Label Society songs, “In this River.”
This is one of those stories that gets to be called a happy accident, but only in the best possible way, because that day I set out armed with just that writing prompt, I was so frustrated with the way another one of my stories was going that I just…wanted to do something destructive and raw.
Enter Jax, who was more than happy to tear into a bully and save the theater manager in distress, though he honestly thought he was rescuing a damsel, a source of contention between him and Danny in the beginning as Danny has no desire to be the ‘victim’ or even be thought of as such.
Though physically, Danny had never been in a fight, he proved that toughness comes in so many different forms and not to let the packaging fool anyone, he was no one’s doormat and more than that, he was a strong, reliable shoulder to lean on when someone needed it, even the often times confusing Jax.
The more they revealed themselves, the more I realized that there was more story there than I anticipated. It grew past the 15,000 word one off that I was expecting to write and into something deeper and more involved. Jax’s issues started mirroring shit I was dealing with in my own life, and shit people close to me had dealt with growing up. There were moment in writing it that felt almost cathartic, when I cried and drank and cursed the page as the words flowed and I was confronted with things you just don’t talk about.
Like what it’s like to eat good and meet goals, only to binge and binge and binge because everything hurts and food feels good but you’re pissed because damn it all, you were losing weight, finally, only you F%^ked it up again.
Jax’s feelings, during and after were such a big part of me during the writing, while Danny and his play (which is a real play that I wrote during a playwriting class) took me back to another time and place in my life. As personal to me as Guitars and Cages but for so many different ways, …And All Shall Fade to Black is my first true stand-alone, but that doesn’t mean Jax and Danny won’t show up in shorts from time to time.
I know that there are moments when Jax comes across as
totally unforgiving when he looks at Danny’s situation and projects his own
experiences with domestic violence on him, especially when he reflects back to
his mother and some of her boyfriends and how they treated her as he was
growing up.
I think it goes without saying that our childhood
experiences define who we are and sometimes color the way we expect others to
deal with things. Sometimes, people grow up with so many unexpressed words, so
many hurts and grudges that they’ve been holding on to that not only does it
prove toxic to them, but it can also poison friendships and potential
relationships because they can only see a situation one way.
In …And All Shall Fade to Black, that is Jax in many ways.
For years, he’s distanced himself from his mother, until his interactions with
her boarder on hate. They are most certainly cruel, sarcastic and biting, but I
think that where they stem from, that place in Jax that watched and could do
nothing, is more important than the way he expresses it.
The way we express things can change, it’s more difficult to
actually get to the heart of why we actually feel things in the first place,
and that’s what Jax had to do in order to make progress not only with his
mother, but in his relationship with Danny as well.
Of all the characters, Jax was the one who had to grow the
most for things to change and work out in a positive way in regards to forming
a relationship, but he wasn’t the only one who had to change and grow. Danny
had to be willing to look at his own situation and the way he’d let it get out
of hand, and see that he should have squashed things even sooner than he did. It
was clear, right from the begging of his interactions with Jax, that he wasn’t
going to make that same mistake, and in doing so, forced Jax to really start
reflecting on situations both past and presence.
While at times …And All Shall Fade to Black was extremely
difficult to write, reaching the end and seeing where Jax and Danny were at
more than made up for some of the more angst filled parts of the journey.
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