Jack, Juliette, Me and It

His friend had picked the other pocket for his old Nokia phone.

"Wassup retard, don't your Mom give ya no money?"

"No Paco," I said in Sean's voice, "she gives me my lunch and one fifty for a hot chocolate so long as I'm a good boy. I'm not allowed Coke or Pepsi because of the sugar."

"Two bucks a day motherfucker?" said the JR, "just this piece a'shit stone age phone?"

"My Grandma bought me it..." Paco started to glow, this was it.

"Shiiiiit!" I saw the phone in his hand and I knew it was about to be smashed to the floor, so I quickly snatched it from the unsuspecting hand and stashed it in the pocket it had been drawn from. "Why you fuckin'..." fumed Paco at this lack of respect.

I saw a knife flash out of his pocket but in seconds I was back to my old friend Sergeant Maguire USMC (Retired) and a thousand other fighters I'd been since some sand-filled arena's of my ancient memory and I grabbed the knife, still in Paco's hand and spinning my large, disabled but amazingly strong host around, plunged the knife up and into his best buddy JR's chest cavity, under his ribs, up into his heart, even giving it a slight turn and pull for extra cardiac damage.

Sean's spare left hand took JR's right, holding the small but glowing Chinese pistol he'd drawn from his belt the second the knife was out.

I passed it behind Sean, JR's convulsing but dying body making the thug squeeze the trigger putting three bullets into his shocked but sworn brother's chest, roughly where his knife had got him.

They both fell backwards, crashing to the floor, their last view being of 'that dumb fucking retard' they had both treated with so much contempt their whole lives smiling down at them; the boy that had killed them both in under two seconds.

Sean and I picked up his bus pass, Grandma's photo and the Wendy's voucher and tucked it all back into his wallet, walking back out onto the street and his regular walk home.

"Back you come Sean," 'It' said, and I felt that familiar constraint on thinking and action as the autistic boy took control again, no idea of what had gone on before in the alley, and thanks to 'It', no memory of it.

"Mom, I'm home!" said Sean as he hung his hoodie on his peg by the front door and putting his bag on the kitchen table. He walked to the downstairs bathroom, relieved himself then washed his hands, removing the tiniest trace of Paco's blood on his right thumb-tip and some gunshot residue from JR's automatic on his left.

His Mum walked in with a glass of milk for the boy sat in his chair with a big smile on his face, bouncing slightly in his expectation.

"You been a good boy today?"

"Yes Mom," he said, "I came straight home even though I saw Miss Green's dog by the bus stop."

Mom looked concerned for a moment, Chuck was never out without Miss Green, but she figured Sean might have missed her.

"Then you have been a good boy, here," she handed him his tablet and he searched for Thomas, fearing that today might be the day that Henry couldn't get out of the tunnel. As the theme music played he faintly heard the sound of multiple police sirens and put his fingers in his ears. He didn't like loud noises like that.

Mom stood out on the steps with a mug of coffee, hoping to see her neighbour and make sure Chuck was OK and accounted for. She watched with interest as two wheeled stretchers were brought out of the maze of alleyways behind the shop fronts across from her place, dark body bags that looked like they were occupied, loaded into a darkened police department truck marked 'City Coroner's Department'.

"Killings?" she said to the police officer making notes, resting his pocketbook on the roof of his marked police car.

"Yeah," said the policeman, "Couple of local kids, some kinda argument, one shot, one stabbed; weirdest thing." The cop had worked this precinct for years and while he had never really liked the two victims, this had just seemed strange.

"Hell," said Mom, "that's the last thing we want in a quiet street like this."

The cop chose not to mention the two Adidas sports bags full of individual packets of white powder they'd found by the bodies.

When the policeman got back to his precinct, he showed the pictures to the detective from the Narcotics team.

"Shit!" said the plain clothes man, "we've been watching them for weeks, the word was they was going to start shipping in some new Columbian cocaine, DEA has the whole gang on the other side, It was all coming over in imported Adidas bags, this is just what we need to shut down the whole racket."

"Columbian drugs?" said the uniform, "Paco and JR up in all that Cartel shit?"

The detective nodded.

"Been going on for month, a buddy of mine from the DEA say that particular market has closed down. One of the players was JR's uncle Juan. Word has it he was killed in a planned hit, probably another cartel because the shit they were gonna sell wasn't safe, can't have a new cartel killing all their customers can they."

"Jesus," said the uniform, a career patrolman happy to walk the streets of his little precinct and keep the peace; cocaine on his streets didn't seem feasible, "so it's stopped now?"

"Yeah, we were waiting for the stuff to turn up, so we could track it back to the cartel. No one suspected these kids to be up in it. The word was these boys were talking about being the main dealers locally and how they was goin' to wrap up the market and make their millions." He handed the patrol officer back his phone with the pictures of Paco and JR. "But it still don't make sense, I mean..." the suit scratched his head, "those boys were close, I mean since birth, same schools, same jobs, same gang! Why the fuck would they want kill each other?"

"The medical examiner says that all the evidence suggests Paco stabbed JR and he pulled a pistol and shot him up close," said the uniform.

"Were they both high?" said the detective.

"Nope, neither of them touched the stuff, had no problem selling it though," said the uniform.

"Unless they were under orders from someone. Someone big?" said the suit.

"Soooooo big!" 'It' said as we pulled back. I saw the black Adidas bags going into an evidence locker, then into an incinerator, burning the contaminated powder that would have resulted in many deaths then the worst gang war that city would ever see.

Back in Sean's house, in his armchair there was that tiny rush of adrenalin as Henry the Green Engine was allowed out of the tunnel to help Gordon pull the express -- again.

In a final act she couldn't really understand, Sean's Mom sipped more coffee with Sean's Dad and chatted about the police cars and coroner's officers, watching her laundry through the circular window of the washing machine, not 100% sure why she was boil-washing her son's hoodie, T-shirt and jeans on a Wednesday.

I went from the table and her coffee cup to another one and a heartbeat I already knew; it happened very occasionally. Sat across from my current host with a faint glow was a darkly attractive mid-thirties lady. The last time we met I'd stopped her God-daughter getting married.

"You remember Miss Mills, Juliette to her friends, but unfortunately she doesn't have any. She is heading for loneliness, depression, isolation, illness and death from not caring for herself after an operation. We can't allow that to happen." 'It' said, "she has a future and children that will go on to great things."

I saw her and felt her anger at the man across the table from her and I remembered that anger from a few years before.

My hundreds of years of wearing so many uniforms had given me a text book insight into military traditions across the globe, and a whole mess of memories to flick through like my own personal onboard military library.

The groom was stood outside of the registry office and smoking a cigarette, his dark Blues uniform, and white topped cap with a red band telling me he was a Royal Marine.

The memories of a far-off Royal Marine sergeant major I'd walked around and through an IED-ridden alley in Baghdad popped into my head without me having to ask.

The cigarette smoking in public was instantly offensive to the military eye and I took a step closer, the sergeant major's memories looking him up and down and visually tearing almost every aspect of his uniform to bits.

He was wearing black elastic-sided boots with no shine to the toes under his too-short trousers and I felt an angry bile start in my throat, and it must have shown in my face.

"There a problem mate?" said the uniformed man pushing his chest out at my scrutiny and throwing his cigarette stub on the floor. The sergeant major in my memory fumed at that next.

"Your uniform," I said, "It's... aah interesting..."

"And just what do you fuckin' know about it?" said the Marine.

"Weeeeeell," I said, "More than you, evidently."

"I'm... a... foookin'... MARINE!" growled the marine stomping on his smoking cigarette end in the road, stepping forward into my personal space but my sergeant major persona wasn't intimidated in the slightest.

"Are you now," I said brushing at some fluff on his epaulette, "So were you issued with this uniform... Marine?"

"Course I fookin' woz," he said with a smirk.

"Ok then, let's have a look," I stepped to one side of the marine, and let the sergeant major loose, "Your boots are a fucking disgrace," I said pointing to the scuff on the right toe, probably from an accelerator pedal, "they're fine for a nineteen seventies disco, not for wearing with one of his majesty's uniforms," I stepped to one side, "and these trousers now."

"What about 'em?"

"You would have had this uniform tailored when while you were at Lympstone?" he nodded jerkily, as if unsure, "these are too short to start with and those craaaaaappy boots aside, a real marine wouldn't have left his room looking that scruffy..." I picked at one of the dozens of white cat hairs and the back of his thigh.

"Yeah... well..."

"And this thick red stripe on the edge here," I plucked at the two-inch-thick red stripe running down the outside seams of his too-short trousers, "This what they call a 'band stripe', worn by Marine bandsmen and some officers, not by ordinary Marines. You a musician?"

"Oh," he said, his bottom jaw dropped, "I... I borrowed them from a mate, had to, mine weren't back from the cleaners, my mate... Dave, he's a drummer."

"OK that explains that," I said, "He evidently didn't lend you his belt either then?"

"No... we... err... we don't wear them with this suit," he bluffed. My internal Sergeant Major would have been laughing at that.

"Really, well that's a first; right then, let's take a look at the jacket then, this is definitely yours is it?"

The Marine nodded slowly, not able to hide his concern at my level of knowledge.

"Right, I see you are a parachute-trained by the nice set of wings on your shoulder, both shoulders in fact." I pointed at them, "They must have cost you a fair amount of money from eBay where you bought them from."

The just-arrived prospective bride was next to us now with her father and looking interested.

"I got them from Brize Norton... where I took my para course."

"Really. You're wearing a Royal Marines number one dress, but the wings sewn to your both of your shoulders are the green ones to go on a Royal's Lovatt dress."

"They..." he stammered, coughed, tried to recover, "they were all they had in the store at the time, the red ones..."

"Gold braid," I corrected him.

"Yeah them," he said, "they're on order..."

"And by the way, they are only worn on the right shoulder, not both," I stepped around to the arm with the offending wings, "And you're wearing this little black triangle with the red commando dagger."

The man that might not now be a Royal Marine now started to look a little concerned,

"Well, I'm... I'm a bloody commando in' I!" he snarled but with an added gulp.

"I'm not convinced," I turned to the Dad, "You see, ALL Royal Marines are commando's, so they don't wear the little dagger on their blues or their Lovatt greens, that's only worn by soldiers, men from the army that is, that have passed the all-arms commando course.

And this cap that you've bought," I plucked it from his head and showed the Dad, "it's too big to start with, soooooo wrong!" I grinned, "you see that the little crown is separate from the rest of the Globe and Laurel badge?" I pointed at it and Dad nodded, "This is the cap that an officer wears, and finally!" I smiled, ready for the coup de grace, "the bit that really pisses me off, these medals..." the sergeant major was a faint memory, but I could feel his anger coming through as I flicked at the pair of medals and one single one above his left breast pocket and they clattered together. "Says on the clasp 'Northern Ireland."

"Yeah?"

"You're... what... Twenty-four, twenty-five?"

"Twenny four?!" said the uniformed man with more of a challenge, "What the fuck has any of this..."

"The stopped issuing medals for Northern Ireland in 2007, when 'Operation Banner' ceased. So you served in Ireland with the Marines when you were..." I fabricated some maths in my head, "ten? Eleven perhaps?" I flipped the one next to it, "This is the medal for the Gulf War."

The man looked to his fiancé and his prospective father-in-law and gulped.

"I... I served in Iraq!" he all but screeched, a very good hint at his righteous anger.

"I'm sure you did, but this medal is for Gulf War One... biiiiiiig mistake there mate; because if you'd looked on the back of it you'd have seen the date 1990 to 91, so you served there... let me see... before you were born?" I stepped right up close to him, "now that's real fucking commando tactics that is..." My Royal Marine Sergeant Major thoughts wanted to kill.

The separate one was a new Operational Service Medal with a shiny bar inscribed 'Afghanistan'.

I turned up the edge of it and read the engraving.

"And this medal was presented to someone in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, not to some Walter Mitty pretending to be a marine."

The man's bottom lip started to flap somewhat and suddenly the Bride, her father, her brothers and two of her Uncles were fronting up the young man.

"So, all of that shit about you fighting in the Gulf, and then Afghanistan?" said the girl in the white dress, "That was just a load of shit?"

"Babes!" said the now exposed non-marine, "This... this gear, yeah I borrowed it just for today like, borrowed it from a mate, I have served Babe, my medals are still..." he paused to try and come to something realistic, something believable, "I was in..."

I was getting the feeling I'd known since the third century and my dealings with money changers, there was that taint of bad money.

"How much money has he borrowed off of you Sweetheart?" I said.

"Six and a half grand," she snarled at him, "he needed it to buy himself out."

There was a new glow to the now exposed Walt's right pocket and it screamed 'car' at me,

"I get the feeling he bought that new car he arrived in with it really," I said.

Dad and both of her brothers pinned him to the wall, reaching in to take the car keys.

I felt myself start to draw away from the scene just as I heard a voice.

"So where does all of your extensive military knowledge come in," said a very nice-looking lady to my left.

I came back temporarily, I felt 'It' getting involved again.

"Oh, a bit of a uniform Nerd I'm afraid," I made my host say and I plucked some useful stuff from his memory, "Matt Davies, I teach history at the college over the road there, I'm only out getting my lunch when I saw that abysmal eBay Royal Marine there knocking around like he owned the place, my conscience wouldn't let me walk past it I'm afraid."

"Thanks Matt, I'm Juliette. My Goddaughter Caren was just about to marry that arsehole and you came along just in time." She gave me a really nice smile, "Matt, I'd really like to buy you a drink to say thank you," she smiled at my host, "as they say in the movies 'what time do you get off work'?"

'It' pulled me away and I had visions of a group of very angry people at wedding reception turned commiseration party that my host Matt would turn up at after five o'clock as the party was being cleared away. Juliette did indeed buy him a drink and walked through to the next bar for a chat.

I also saw him shake her hand and leave twenty minutes after they finished their drinks and he felt cross, and it was about her.

That had been strange, I could see a happy future for her and my heartbeat.

Weird.

I was back in the room and history lecturer Matt wasn't there.

I looked across the table at the angry woman, at least the woman that was angry with me. No glow around her, just a small one high on her waist on the right-hand side, too high to be a pocket, nothing clipped to a belt.

Hmmmmm...

"So what's your bloody PhD in?" Juliette snapped at me.

There was a sudden pause as 'It' withdrew from the moment and all became grey and faded, and I heard the words. Yes, we've all seen that effect it films. Yes, that effect was 'Its' idea.

"This is Juliette," 'It' said, "you've met before when you were the history lecturer stopping her goddaughter from being conned. The man you were then had a drink with her, but he was such a nice easy-going bloke, with an arm-load of qualifications, he couldn't put up with her self-centred, imposter syndrome ridden, extreme lack of self-confidence and the aggression she put out there to make up for it."

"What's her problem?"

"She has second stage ovarian cancer, due to be operated on the day after tomorrow, only you know but you can't say anything because you found out from your consultant surgeon ex-wife, and if you blab, she'll get in the shit, lose her job and want more money from you in settlement.

You're Simon Robinson, known to the world as 'Jack', and believe it or not, you're even nastier than she is."

"So, what's my job here?"

"Oh don't worry 'Jack', it'll come to you trust me."

"She's really angry," I said.

"Yeah," 'It' added, "some rotten bastard has messed up her cocaine supply."

"She an addict?" I thought about Sam the addict days, or a day, ago.

"No," 'It' said, "but she has Cocaine like normal people like pizza. Ordered in, something nice for the weekend and meaning you don't have to do to much. She used to smoke some weed but that shit is just for poor people, you'll see, honest..."

The lights came back up and the conversation started again. I spoke

"Psychology of Business Juliette, what about yours?"

"You've actually got a PhD?" she sniffed haughtily and some humorous disbelief.

"Yes, haven't got the certificate with me, but I can send you a link to my thesis if you'd like to check it?"

"Some of the dumbest people I know..."

"Don't tell me," I cut in, "you're going to say some of the dumbest people you've ever met have got college degrees," she stopped talking, "leastways they do when they've taken that quote straight from a Facebook Meme, because I got my degree, my masters AND my PhD from a University, a rather good one actually." I looked down my nose at her, "yeah, I'll send you the link to my thesis," I looked across at the gorgeous brunette sat to my right that I somehow knew to be MBA graduate Sophie, "don't worry Juliette," I smiled falsely, "if there's any words you don't understand, you can ask Soph here to translate."

Juliette looked boxed in, the only non-graduate in this room full of people younger, brighter and probably with more confidence.

"Some of us didn't get the chance..."

"Chance? What, you think my millionaire parents just bought me my qualifications while I drank chilled cocktails on the beach of their private island?"

"I had to learn the hard way..."