Everyone who knows me knows Jeff. They see me sitting by myself at lunch. They see a harmless boy with average brown eyes and brown hair, wearing a bright-red hoodie, jeans, and worn-out sneakers. They see me drawing in a notebook in the back of the class, already finished with my test. Then the bell rings. After school, I ride the bus and walk home from the bus stop. The autumn leaves breeze past me in the wind as I stroll through my quiet countryside neighborhood. I take a right turn down the road, arriving at my street. Then I'm stopped by Billy and Marcus. Billy is tall, with a bad-boy leather jacket and messy blonde hair. Marcus wears a red football jersey of our High School team. His hair is brown and cleaner, but not by much. These pinheads see a small, defenseless boy. They see a victim. I try to walk past them, but Marcus steps to the side and blocks my path. I see Billy start cracking his knuckles,
"Where d'ya think you're goin'?" Marcus mocks. I break into a sprint past Marcus from the other side, but he grabs the back of my hoodie and throws me into a nearby tree on somebody's lawn. Billy laughs like a hyena, and Marcus raised his hand to punch me in the face. In a few seconds I'm on the ground, suffering kicks to the face, stomach, back, and groin. I cover my face with my arms, and if there is anyone watching, they don't dare to come and save me. Marcus and Billy stop for a moment, only for me to lower my arms from my face, giving the perfect opportunity for one final kick in the nose. They leave me crying, blood mixing with tears.
They see Jeff. What they don't see is who else I am. They don't know Jack.
I first heard him in third-grade gym class, when the pain struck the back of my head during a basketball game. I fell to the ground and broke my nose, and clutched my bleeding face as I turned to see Allan laughing as he caught the basketball he had thrown at me. Others crowded around me and laughed too. I felt sad, alone, scared. Like a child no one wanted. But then I heard him.
"Get up." The voice seemed to say. It was a booming voice, a voice that sounded loud and angry, but still calm and smooth like butter.
"What's the matter? Get. Up." The voice repeated. I slowly got to my feet and looked around. I saw children around me still laughing, but couldn't find the voice's source. It sounded like it was right by my ear, leaning next to me as words flew to me, but no one else was by my side.
"Duck!" The voice shouted, and I obeyed a lot quicker this time and dodged another ball that flew over my head. I looked up to Allan, a cocky grin was on his ugly face. He had blonde hair that was sticking up in all directions, freckled cheeks and a crooked nose. The voice in my head made a spitting noise as if he was cursing the boy that dared to harm him. To harm me. To harm us.
He said, "Let me take care of this." The next thing I knew, my legs started running at Allan. I didn't know what kind of look was on my face, but whatever he saw in my eyes made him terrified. Good. He turned to run away, but I was closing in on him too fast. I tackled him to the ground and started beating him. I didn't even try to hold myself back. To hold back the maniac inside me that swung my fists.
Of course, the teacher found out and called my mom. It felt like they were talking in that room for hours, my mom holding my hand with a pale face looking at the teacher who described what had happened. My mother only nodded. I could imagine my dad would be disappointed in me if he had chosen to stay with me and Mother after I was born. I stared at the floor the entire time. The voice in my head stayed silent until later that night when I was asleep, and he visited me in my dreams.
He is a tall man wearing a black trench coat, a top hat and black leather gloves. His face is concealed by a mysterious shadow. We appeared to be in a dark place, inky blackness all around us, with no walls, floor or ceiling.
He told me, "You may call me Jack. We have been joined to a single body. I am inside you, now and forever." I said nothing as he continued speaking.
"We need each other. We can help each other. Let me… take over, once in a while." As he said this, he reached towards me with an outstretched hand and started walking towards me. I backed away.
"Who are you really? Why are you in my head?" Jack returned his hand to his side, and he clenched his fists, but soon relaxed and explained himself.
"The papers referred to me as Jack the Ripper. I was punished for my crimes in the afterlife, but was offered redemption in a new one." He tried to sound sweet and caring when after what I just learned from him, he clearly was not. "Please. Just-" he reached again to me, but I swatted his hand away,
"No!" I shouted, then woke up suddenly. Every night for the past seven years since, he has repeated the same dream. We would stand there in a dark room, him waiting for me to take his outstretched hand and shake it, letting him take full control over my - no, our body. Every time in this dream I would shake my head, he would drop his hand in disappointment, and I would wake the next morning, nothing changing.
After I'm sure they're gone I slowly stand up. I pick up the papers spilled out of my backpack. Everything hurts, aches and sores sting me like hornets that never stop assaulting me, but I keep moving on.
"You know I could've taken him. Both of them," Jack says in my head. I ignore him and sling the backpack over my shoulder, only to fall back down from an ache in my left knee.
"You can't let them treat you like this forever. Just let me get my hands on them!" Once again, I don't respond.
"Are you trying to piss me off?! Answer me!" I sigh, and walk - well, limp - down the sidewalk as I calmly respond,
"No one else needs to get hurt," I remember Allan from third grade, and how Jack beat him until he stopped moving. Being told Allan almost died because of me. Because of him.
Jack seems to read my mind and say, "That was one time. It won't happen again. Just-"
"Shut up!" I abruptly shout at seemingly thin air. I continue walking, and Jack stays silent until we get home.
I got to the house, and my mom is at work. This gives me time to go upstairs to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and see myself bruised and bloodied all over. I feel sad. Alone. Scared. Like there wasn't any place in this world for a person like me.
Then I hear Jack, "It doesn't have to be this way." I stare at myself in the mirror and quietly say,
"Yes. It does."
After a second or two, I ask, "Why are we together? Did you choose me?"
Jack explains, "I didn't choose you. You were lucky. I am here because someone somewhere wanted us to meet, and become one." I sigh and open the bathroom cabinet, trying to find what I need.
"Back when you were alive, did you ever feel like nothing you did mattered? Like the world couldn't care if you were to suddenly vanish?" He takes a second before responding.
"You've read about my work. I knew what I was, and I never cared what others thought of me. Murdering was my talent, my destiny. Because of my work, everyone remembered me, and I always felt important." That was the first time in seven years he had been honest with me without bothering to defend himself. In those four sentences, he'd given up trying to convince me that he's a changed man. I close the cabinet, then reach into the drawer under the sink and pull out a small razor blade. I stare at it. It looks so small, yet it can cause so much pain. Sometimes the pain is all I can feel. Pain in the flesh to ease the pain of the heart. Jack says nothing as I touch the blade to my arm.
After I clean myself up and put the razor back in the drawer, I slowly descend the stairs to see my mother's home and putting her coat in the closet. She looks up to me with a loving smile on her face, says the usual "hi, sweetie" and "how was your day?" I answer every question about the day with a variation of the same words.
"Everything's fine."
"School's fine."
"I'm fine."
I'm fine, alright.
After dinner, I walk upstairs into my room and sit at the study desk. I pull out a piece of blank printer paper from the ever-shortening pile, grab a pencil from a cup, and start sketching. Times like these are the only time I let Jack be free. To an extent. The killing he loved to do, the harm he lived and breathed for causing now being channeled into a simple sketch. He guides my hand as I focus on only letting him draw, not daring to give him more power over anything else than this small canvas. Hours pass by, and by the time I gain control of myself again, I look at the picture and feel like I should be sick. Nowadays though, the disemboweled woman lying in the streets of London barely moves me. The blank expression on her face seems to gouge into the very soul, the entrails pouring out of her stomach form the letter J on the black pavement. She's wearing skimpy clothing with high boots and a small jacket, implying she was probably a prostitute.
"What do you think?" Jack asks, awaiting praise.
"The hair doesn't look right." I critique. It's true, the hair seems too thick like noodles instead of thin strands. I sense Jack, though disappointed, still takes notes for next time. I crumple up the picture and dump it in the trash bin, which has become overflowing with similar murder portraits all crunched into paper balls, and go to bed.
Tonight, the dream feels different. Jack stands before me, but he doesn't offer his hand for me to give control over my body. Instead, he slowly walks towards me. I don't move as he gets closer to me, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. He speaks,
"Listen, Jeffery. We've been in each other's shoes for a long time now. I know you. Every day you feel like a prisoner. I feel it too. We understand each other, probably more than anyone else in the world ever has." He removes his hand from my shoulder. "Maybe I was wrong. I'm not here for another chance at life. My purpose here is to help you." Now the familiar scene takes over again. He offers his outstretched hand.
"Let me help you," he says simply. "And I promise you won't regret it." I sit. And think. I feel broken every day, and I can never escape it. But I'm tired of the sadness. I'm tired of the loneliness. I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of being the boy nobody wants, not even myself. So I look Jack the Ripper in the eyes and shake his hand.