I had to see you. Had to come and make myself look you in the eye. It shouldn’t be hard. After all, I know that none of this had anything to do with me. If anything, I was the innocent bystander in this whole melodrama; the wounded party, the victim.
I hate being a victim.
So I’m here to see you. I came here to look at you, to look into your eyes and see if I hate you. See if I can hate you enough that it banishes the self-hatred I carry around. You see what you did to me? You made me question my abilities, my life. You made me question everything.
Maybe I shouldn’t see you. Maybe seeing me will let you know what you’ve done to me and maybe that will give you more power. Power over me. Over her. Over us. You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?
I’m standing here now, knowing that I’m about to go in there and see you, see what being in here has done to you. I’m sure you’ve changed. You can’t not change. I wonder if I’ll care. I wonder if it will bother me to know what you’re going through. I wonder if it will be a shock to see you.
I step through the door and I find out.
Your hair is shorn so that you’re practically bald. There’s a tattoo on your arm that I can’t quite fully see, but the bit of the image that sticks out, lets me know that I don’t want to see anymore. You’ve been beaten, I would imagine fairly recently. There are bruises and cuts on your pale skin and your eyes…
They used to be like mine. Blue. Deep blue that people would always get lost in. Blue that raged. Now they’re ugly. They’re full of secrets and lies and pain that seems insurmountable from my position here on the other side of the table.
I sink down into my seat as I look at you, wondering what you’re thinking. You watch me like a lizard or a snake, poised to strike. “Hello, Pacey.”
“Doug.”
Even your voice is different in here. Raspier, harder. Maybe it’s the acoustics of the room, the cement, the lack of windows. Maybe it’s just that I hear you differently. Maybe because you’re no longer my little brother.
Now you’re a prisoner.
“I’m sort of surprised you agreed to see me.”
“I wanted to. I wanted to see your face. See if you’ve changed.”
“Why would I have changed, Pacey?”
“Because of what I did.” You lean forward and watch me, coiled and tense.
“Do you think I’ve changed?” I don’t want to hear your answer, not really. But I know that I have to. It’s what I came here for. “Did you change me?”
You look at me with those flat eyes. They’re dead except for the violence brimming in them. I wonder if that was there before or if this place has given that to you. “I don’t know, Dougie. You still fucking Joey?”
“What does Joey have to do with me, Pacey?”
“That’s been my question.” You stand up and pace the floor on your side of the table, pulling out a cigarette and tapping it on the back of your hand. You stop when you reach the wall and lean back against the cold gray. “You’d be popular in here. They’d like you. They’d like you more than they like me.”
I don’t rise to the bait, which I can tell irritates you. Part of the reason the gay jokes just kept on coming was because I got so pissed off about them. Now I don’t let you get to me.
“Doesn’t it bother you that she made love to me? Doesn’t it stick in your head? Doesn’t it make it tough to look down at her when you’re fucking her and know that she’s thinking about me?”
“I see that the time in here has done nothing for your delusions.”
“My delusions?” You come off the wall toward me, slow enough that I stay my ground. “She needed me to fuck her to get her pregnant, Doug. You couldn’t do that job.”
“And what does that have to do with the rest of our lives, Pacey? What does the one time you fucked her have to do with the hundreds of other times she’s been in my bed? What makes you think that when she was fucking you, she wasn’t thinking of me?”
This time you move fast, angry. As soon as your off the wall, You reach for my throat, but you’ve forgotten what I do. You’ve forgotten I’ll be ready for you. I grab your hand before it finds me, before the correctional officers can move from the door, and I use it to propel you toward the wall. You slam into the hard surface with a satisfying smack and I brace my forearm across the back of your neck.
Your tattoo shows now and my breakfast roils in my stomach. I’m sickened by what this has done to you, frightened that it hasn’t really done anything. Sickened that you were like this before you even entered these walls.
“You ever try to touch me or my family again, and I’ll kill you.” I don’t recognize my own voice now. Perhaps this place has changed me too. “Got me? Little brother?”
I release you and move to the door of the room, noting that the guard has been watching the entire time, ready to move in if necessary. You back away from the wall slowly and rub your neck, the flesh of your cheek eaten away by the rough concrete. Your blue eyes are alive again, fires I don’t want to identify burning inside them.
I’m not a victim anymore, am I Pacey? Now I’m an enemy.
I walk out of this place, shedding layers of hatred as I get closer and closer to the entrance. You got 40 years, Pacey. I wonder if you’ll ever see the entrance again.