Jay

by Mike Grimes

The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.

I guarantee you nobody else is ever going to write a story about this man.

For years I have been nagged at by thoughts of him, the memories bubbling over the brim, trying to escape.

   Yes, he's dead, let's get that out of the way quickly.
   This is not meant to be a memorial for the man, just a mystery that needs solving. Once you hear the story, I doubt you will care that he's gone.
Maybe you will.

I don't.

But I do, at least a little bit. Enough to write a story about him.

**********************

I worked at a local mom and pop butcher shop when I met him. His name was Jay.

Jay was roughly 300 pounds, yet he moved with a delicate swiftness. He had a clean shaven head that constantly glistened with sweat. His attire was unchanging. Different color variants of a three-button polo shirt with billowy black slacks.

His arms were covered in grotesque tattoos. One depicted a cleaver dripping with blood, buried partially in a chopping block.

He was a skilled butcher, quite methodical and precise, each movement executed with dainty care.

   He was boisterous, confident, and prone to sudden fits of anger. His demeanor could change in an instant, from jovial to dark and unsettling.
   He was proud of this unpredictability of his, and often would laugh maniacally to emphasize his craziness.

He acted like a professional lunatic. It seemed like acting to me, yet others found it genuine.

   Given the close quarters we worked in, we inevitably got to know each other well. Despite his apparent lunacy, he was intelligent and friendly.

     We spoke of family, of Buddhism (Buddhist butchers sounds like an oxymoron) and cooking.

     These talks of family were always tinged with foreboding of twisted secrets that he wouldn't share. Over time, he would share more than I wanted to know.

   He told me his father had left when he was too young to recall. He said he remembered being visited by aliens on multiple occasions from a young age into his teenage years.

     He claimed they (the aliens) had imprinted an alphabet of symbols into his brain that he could find no record of on Earth.
   After his father left, his mother remarried a real scumbag. Jay said he witnessed the man beating his mother repeatedly. One night, he just snapped.

     Jay said that while the man was on top of his mother, strangling her, he walked up behind the man with a metal baseball bat and hit him in the head. Then he hit him again. Then again, until the man was deceased.

Apparently the court ruled it to be self defense, and Jay would receive counseling and medication for the trauma caused by this event.
Jay said he was 9 when this happened.

Supposedly.

I say supposedly because everything Jay said seemed to be a well rehearsed story.
It was all just too outlandish, yet his stories were delivered fluently. It was as if he considered his real life too boring, so in place of real memories only the wildest tales would do.

Jay was a Marine, or at least he claimed to be. He had a brother who was in the Marines as well and served in the same unit as Jay.
The only proof Jay had of his service was an unrecognizable photo of himself (supposedly) in full uniform and a faded military I.D.

   Both pictures could have been of his brother for all I know.

     Or, he was a Marine, formerly fit, but currently riddled with health problems, due largely to the metal plates he had all over his body.


   Once at work, Jay had a fainting spell (of which he had many) and another vet at work offered to drive him to the V.A. for treatment. Jay refused, saying that he didn't trust them. Just one more reason to believe he didn't serve, yet he was VERY convincing.

It should be noted the other veteran we worked with was sure Jay DID serve in the Marines.
     I know it's damn near impossible to fool a veteran about whether you served or not. But it's not completely impossible.

     He said he was stationed in the Philippines, and he witnessed atrocious things. Bodies of men, women and children scattered everywhere, the most horrendous, nightmarish stuff you could imagine.
   Of course, these events are not public knowledge because the government covered it up.

Which could be true.

   He also claimed to be a serial killer.
     His victims were strictly convicted child molesters.
He would lure them to a chosen location, do the deed, then with his knowledge of butchery, would dismember and dispose of the body parts in different locations.

     He was a murderer for the good of the world, cleansing humanity of pedophiles, one at a time.

   I was not the only person he spoke to about his killing, which really makes me think it was all a farce, because that's generally not what serial killers do.

The fact that he was ending the lives of these loathsome individuals made it completely acceptable, and those he told would thank him for what he was doing and not tell a soul.

Who would turn in a man so beneficial to society?

That brother of Jay's went on to become a police officer in a town nearby. He apparently knew of Jay's sinister actions and kept quiet about it as well.

Most people might avoid a man who made claims such as these, and they would be right to do so, but Jay and I had a special connection.
Not because I had murdered anyone, but because we both felt at ease when speaking with each other, which is a rare thing to come by.

   Jay even bought a car battery for my wife and came over to install it. I didn't ask him to do this, I merely mentioned she needed one and wouldn't be able to get it till payday, which was fine.

     He made my wife feel a bit awkward, and nearly had a heatstroke in the late December sun, but he did it.

   I visited Jay at his home just once. It was well kept, with a large collection of action DVD's prominently displayed in the living room.
   We sat and smoked a little weed, chatting off and on while I looked through his movie collection.

   He went to his room and returned with two sheets of paper.
   On one sheet, large symbols were drawn that looked completely foreign to me. They resembled Jivvanese or some other primal text of characters. On the other sheet was sentence after sentence of this text.

     Jay claimed to have no idea how to interpret them.

I asked Jay if everything he told me was true. He swore, hand to God, that it was.

************************

Shortly after that, I quit working at the butcher shop and lost touch with Jay. I heard from an old coworker in a text years later that he had passed away.

Jay was a friend, but not a close one. How could you get close to a man who told you he threatened his girlfriend's boss with physical violence for making her work too much?
Or told you he threatened two Jehovah's witnesses with his handgun because they parked in the street PARTIALLY obstructing his driveway?

   If Jay was indeed a Marine, then I thank him for his service.
   If Jay did kill pedophiles, then I commend him for that as well.

     As a father, the thought of these criminals walking around sucking air makes me shudder.
   That doesn't excuse the fact he was a murderer.

Maybe.

At worst, he was a homicidal maniac.

At best, he was a splendid liar.
Yet, he was a human being, and I'm sure his family mourned his passing.

To this day I have no idea if anything he told me was true.

I guess he'll take those secrets to the grave with him. He stood to gain nothing by acting this way, so I can't say there's any motive. I can't say that I miss him either.

He was a scary man.

If there is an afterlife I don't know if he'll be rewarded or punished, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

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