Note: This story contains some graphic content and may not be suitable for sensitive individuals. Taking place after “Clean up Your Mess.”
Jail. What is jail? A single room for confinement. Solitary punishment for committing a crime. What kind of crimes? Who sends someone to jail? Judges send people to jail. Jason wanted to be a judge.
After school, Jason would assign his younger siblings chores around the house. They would clean while he watched TV or played Nintendo games. He was sometimes oblivious to the younger kids rebelling by refusing to the do the work, or cleaning in a haphazard way. His younger brothers and sister were really beginning to resent him living there.
The kids had overheard a conversation recently between Jason and their father. Dad had agreed to pay Jason weekly for watching the kids after school and to help keep the house clean. It was a pretty good deal for their older brother, but did their father know that Jason did little to no cleaning around the house?
Eventually Jason noticed the chores he delegated were not getting done. Or at least done to his satisfaction. Consequently he decided to implement a judicial system to “press charges” against his younger siblings when they refused to cooperate in doing their chores. There was a small sitting room in the front of the house, where Aunt Krista kept her knick knacks and several plants. It was the first room anyone saw upon entering the house, it didn’t size up to be a good place to play so the kids hardly spent any time there.
When Jason came up with this idea of being a judge to prosecute his siblings for their “crimes”, he would approach whichever child he was upset with and verbally serve them to show up in the sitting room to await trial. He would sit in the barcalounger located in left the corner of the room, while whoever was being served would sit in a chair across from him. Jason was always quiet, astute, and very pretentious when he played the role of the judge. His speaking was unusually normal, never raising his voice, when he carefully articulated announcing charges and asking questions. He used a hammer from his father’s toolbox as a gavel, and always tapped it on the arm of the recliner he sat in.
Jason and his cousin Damien was pretty close in age, and Damien liked the idea of this little game so he was more than happy to play along. He frequently played the prosecutor. Going to trial was intimidating, and taxing for the kids who already were pretty miserable. But when they fought back or contested against their babysitters, it just made things worse. They were always found guilty of their crimes. Anything that conveyed disobedience was a crime and brought before court. Anything Damien or Jason didn’t like was liable to be a crime. After being found guilty, sentencing constituted going to “jail” or receiving a “public beating”.
Next to the wall on the west side of the sitting room was an empty table. Aunt Krista sometimes used it for her purse or car keys, and there were two plants on either back corner of the table; but aside from those few items, the table was usually vacant. Jason utilized the table as the place for the kids to receive their punishment if they were sentenced to a public beating. He would instruct his younger siblings to place their hands on the front end of the table, while he slapped a belt on their backsides. The “public beatings” were disconcerting, but they went by fast. If you didn’t cry, it wouldn’t last long. If you cried out in pain, Jason would hit harder.
And then there was jail. Serving a jail sentence took more time. Jason was tawdry when he sentenced his younger siblings after being pronounced guilty of their crime. Whichever punishment he knew was the most unbearable each child, he would implement to that child more frequently. Playing dead usually made it go by quicker, but the punishment wasn’t any less painful.
The kids weren’t stupid. Jason couldn’t make a jail cell. Not a real one with bars. So what was jail? Where were the kids confined after being sentenced? The closet. When Jason first utilized the closet in the hallway next to the bathroom, he put each kid inside and waited for a reaction. The kids weren’t stupid. They picked up quickly, that the more you cried, the more you fought against being put inside the closet, the longer you stayed in there. All you had to do was play dead. Don’t cry, don’t fight back. Just play dead and it would be over soon.
Unfortunately, the youngest children couldn’t fight back their tears. You could hear Rafe crying throughout the house when he went to jail. Howling like a lonely dog without an owner, wondering the streets looking for shelter. When Rafe cried, Jason cracked a smile and sometimes laughed. Why did Jason think it was funny? It wasn’t funny. Going to jail isn’t a game. Who put Jason in the closet?
The story continues in “Half Alive.”