OOM: Javert

[spit_it_out]

Bruce has been spending a fair amount of time outside. It’s easier. It’s even relaxing, especially after dark. He’s heard he should be careful about going near the woods at night, so he avoids them for the sake of everyone else’s safety. He prefers the calm of the lake anyway, and sometimes, like tonight, to just wander near the bar. There’s something about the light from the door, and the knowledge that there are people in there, talking and eating, just a short distance away. It doesn’t make him feel isolated. The idea of walking among them, and talking to some, still makes him nervous. But that it’s an option – yeah, it helps.

Tonight, he leaves the lakeside when the light finally dims. It’s not too late, maybe about ten in the evening. He takes his time; by the time the bar is in sight, the first stars have begun to show. He looks up, and as he does, movement catches his eye. He stands until the shape becomes clear, then smiles wryly. Somehow, he’s not surprised. He changes direction casually. Maybe twenty feet from the wall of the bar, he looks up again.

‘Hey. Mind if I come up?’

Javert barely glances at him. He’s walking the edge of the roof, the narrow flat ledge at the highest point there is. Bruce supposes he should worry, as Guppy did. But there’s nothing in the man’s demeanour that says he might jump. He just seems deep in thought. His leg swings out over the drop, sure, but it looks like a practised movement. If anything, he appears more calm than Bruce has ever seen him.

‘I cannot stop you.’

He takes it as the invitation it probably isn’t, and heads to the ladder. When he gets to the top, he doesn’t interfere. He sits, legs dangling over the edge, and palms laid flat under his thighs. For a long time, they both just watch the sky. It grows darker by the minute, and Bruce plays a game; lays bets with himself on where the next light will emerge. The futility of it makes him want to laugh as the stars appear in a rash, patches here, then there, as the sun disappears entirely. It isn’t long before the heavens are nothing but pinpoints of far-off worlds, moons, planets. These days, he can even say for sure there must be life on some of them.

‘Are you expecting me to talk, monsieur?’

‘What? Oh…no, not if you don’t want to.’ Actually, the interruption jars a little. He had almost forgotten Javert was there. The man has stopped though, and simply stands with his arms by his side, looking up. It’s an oddly vulnerable stance; open, as if waiting for something to happen to him. Like something has been switched off inside, and he cannot operate until it is flicked back on.

‘I saw you. You were a green monster.’

Oh.

‘You, and half the bar.’ He shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter. ‘That won’t be happening again, don’t worry.’

At least, not tonight. Javert doesn’t seem worried though.

‘Are you a demon?’

‘No. I had an accident, that’s all.’

There is no reply. Javert appears to accept this, though it’s hard to tell what might be going on in his head. There is no expression on his face.

‘Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer it, and I won’t tell anyone if you do.’

‘You may ask. As you say, I may not answer.’

‘Why did you jump off the bridge?’

He’s read the book, albeit a long time ago. He does remember why. But it’s not the same as hearing it from the horse’s mouth, and it wouldn’t be fair to make assumptions. Javert is looking at him, he can tell, but he doesn’t look back. It is partly that he doesn’t want the man to feel he’s being interrogated, and partly because talking about this scares him.

‘The brown one asked me this. The creature that reads my mind pries also. Why is it so important?’

‘Guppy, you mean. And the other man is Charles.’ Bruce shrugs. ‘They’re asking because they’re trying to help you.’

‘And you?’

He hesitates. It’s a good question. He’s not sure, really. He just knows he was uneasy about Javert from the moment he found out he was a suicide attempt, and that was before he tried it himself. Now…maybe it’s about finding someone who knows what it’s like, like Charles said. He knows X understands. But she’s virtually impossible to kill, and always has been. Javert is just a man, as he used to be.

‘Because…I tried it too. Not a bridge. But…honestly, I don’t know.’

Javert is quiet. And then, ‘you think we will help each other by talking of it?’

There is a quiet sneer in his voice. Bruce ignores it. He can only ask, and if the guy doesn’t want to, then that’s OK. But at the moment, he’s beyond the point of trying to pretend it didn’t happen, that it doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t mean anything.

‘I don’t know. But that’s kind of the problem. And I was wondering if you felt it too.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘I don’t know anything.’ He glances up, to find Javert watching him intently. ‘Since it happened, I don’t know what to do.’

The man resumes his pacing. Bruce leaves him to it. He walks the length of the roof, then back. Then halfway along again. ‘Nor I,’ he says, at last. ‘But then, I cannot fathom my role in this place, where you seem to have one already.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You are a doctor, are you not?’

‘Oh. Yeah – but not a medical one. I’m just helping out in the infirmary.’

Javert shrugs. ‘You are of use, then. For my part, I am looking after a horse for a queen of some land I have never heard of. That is all. But it is something.’

‘Yeah, it is.’ He watches the lake, and the moonlight shining off the ripples. ‘But that’s not what I mean.’

‘No. You mean, what comes after? And I do not know.’

When Javert is not being a stubborn ass, it appears he is capable of insight. Tonight, Bruce is ridiculously grateful for it. Maybe this is what Charles meant by people helping, even unlikely ones. Simply not having to explain the things there are no words for. ‘You don’t want to tell me? It’s OK.’

‘I cannot refuse, if you ask. I will conceal nothing. I have no right to myself, in this place.’

He wants to tell him he’s wrong; that everybody, everywhere, has the right to themselves. In some places, it’s the only right. And no one realises how important it is until it’s taken away.

But telling Javert he’s wrong only makes him shut down, so he says nothing. And then, a split-second later, realises he's being selfish and has to speak. ‘You do. You shouldn’t give yourself away.’

‘It is of no matter.’

Bruce feels like a heel. But there is no anger in the man, for once. He sounds calm, and even stops pacing. ‘I was shown that the foundation I had built my life on was…at least had the possibility to be, wrong. And that one of my fundamental beliefs was at odds with a certain reality placed before me. It…I did not know what to do.’

There is tension in him now, though. Bruce closes his eyes, and Javert turns away to resume his beat. He walks to the end, then returns, his pace never less than measured. ‘There was no way to go forward. But I could not return to the way things were. If I obeyed my conscience, I would betray the law. If I obeyed the law, I could not live with my conscience. It was impossible.’

It was the easy way out. But Bruce cannot say that, and while his mind has supplied the cliché, he does not feel it with any strength. Doing what Javert did – that is never easy. And can he really blame the guy for not being able to live with himself, either way?

‘And you, monsieur? What is your bridge, and your reason for it?’

‘I put a gun in my mouth.’ He shrugs again, embarrassed even in front of someone who has been through it too. ‘You saw the monster. That’s what happened.’

‘Ah.’ A pause. ‘No, this does not make sense to me.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. ‘I had an accident at work. When I get angry, or hurt, I turn into the thing you saw. He’s…very angry. I guess he protects me too, because he spit the bullet right back out. And then I ended up here.’

‘So, you failed.’ Pace, pace, pace. ‘You have not said why, though.’

‘He kills people, sometimes. I don’t think he means to. They just get in the way. He hurt someone I love. And I can’t get rid of him.’

‘You thought a gun would work?’

‘I hoped so.’

Javert walks away, then back. Then he turns, and stares up at the sky. It seems he has no more questions. Bruce wonders how he sees this world, through the distorted lens of religion. That maybe in this man’s head, this conversation is guidance from above, or some kind of vindication of his actions from Hell.

‘I do not recall your name.’

‘Bruce.’

‘Bruce. Do you have faith in God?’

‘No.’

Javert’s face turn towards him. ‘Even here?’

‘I’m not dead, Javert. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I tried, and you saw the result. If you shot me now, or ran me through, or pushed me off this roof, you’d see it again.’ He pauses, and then quirks a tiny smile. ‘But please don’t try. I don’t know if Molly or Thor are around to clean up this time.’

The man is walking again. He wonders if that’s what he’s always done, just walked around and around in circles, safe in what he is sure of and never venturing outside those lines. It fits with what he remembers, and with his actions when faced with a decision he couldn’t make.

When he returns; ‘if it is true, monsieur, then I do not know what to make of where I am. And it could simply be that I am locked in a prison of my own making. Until I find my way out, anybody may say anything, and none may be true.’

‘That’s not logical.’

‘Oh?’

‘If it’s a prison made by your own mind – or presumably, by God manipulating your mind – then it has to hold the key to release, doesn’t it? It would be like a labyrinth.’

‘…yes. I suppose you are right.’ He doesn’t sound happy to be admitting it. Bruce feels a little sorry for him; that it is easier for him to believe that everything is a lie, so he doesn’t have to make a decision on what, or who, to trust.

‘What does the bible say on the matter?’

Javert almost smiles. ‘Any number of things, monsieur.’

‘Example?’

‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.’ He recites it dryly, without inflection. ‘That is a pertinent one, I feel.’

‘So, that’s your plan?’

Javert turns on the ledge, and stands on one foot, the other hanging loose over open air. Bruce watches it casually, unsure as to whether it’s a game of daring the man likes to play with himself, or if he is trying to garner a reaction. But there has been no evidence the man means to do that in any interaction they’ve had so far.

‘As you said yourself, monsieur, and as I agreed – neither of us know what to do. You do not believe in God, but you cannot die. You-‘

‘-I don’t know that I can’t.’

‘But you have tried, and you said it also – we all saw what happened. So perhaps it does not matter what you do, or what you believe, because there is no judgement waiting for you. You may do as you will, and God save you for it. It is not a path I envy.’ Javert puts both feet on solid stone now, and sticks his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘In your case, you must simply make of life what you will. For me…’ he looks up again, and his voice loses its focus, ‘…I can, and have, died. All I can do is follow what makes sense to me, no matter how many people tell me I am wrong. They are naysayers, and there was no shortage of them in life.’

Bruce hasn’t got the heart to tell him, again, that’s he’s not dead. He will not believe it anyway. Also, there is no certainty here either; while he knows that Guppy saved the man, he remembers certain parts of the book. The door from here can only lead to the river, and there is likely no escape from that. Maybe Javert really is a dead man.

‘So, you do know what to do. To thine own self be true.’

A frown. ‘I do not recognise this passage.’

‘Not a passage. Shakespeare.’

‘Ah. The poet.’

He might as well have said, that scum-infested layabout. Bruce swallows the urge to laugh. ‘Yeah. But maybe he has a point?’

Javert frowns more, but he seems to be thinking. And then, reluctantly, ‘…perhaps.’

 

They stay, then, in silence. Javert returns to his walk. Bruce stares over the water. So, maybe there is a point to be taken. Maybe the guy’s right. He can’t die, or at least,  not yet. So maybe it’s about what he does with his life. He can’t kill the Other Guy with what he currently knows, and there are no new developments on the horizon that he can see. Maybe it’s about finally letting go of his old life, and starting completely anew. He thought he was trying to do that anyway. But he’s never given up hope of finding freedom from his problem, has he? All his dreams centre around getting rid of it. Maybe…just stop. Focus on living, not dying.

His heart sinks a bit. It doesn't answer the question of what to do, and the whole thing seems like an effort he’s not up to. But…it’s only been a week or so. He seems to have no shortage of time. Maybe if he stops looking, the answer will come on its own.

His eyes flick sideways to Javert. He’s standing at the far corner now, lost in the heavens, and untouchable. He wishes he could help, but he thinks that guy’s labyrinth might never be clear to anyone else. But, still. If there’s hope for him, there’s hope for both of them. Maybe.