Phone calls

I felt the urgent need to go and see my house.
I felt the urgent need to call my parents.
I felt the urgent need to kill Mark.


I felt the urgent need to do anything, so I screamed at Emma. "I want my fucking mobile phone line back."
"I can't really..."
"I want it back, now!" I said. I was slowly succumbing to the Mark side of the Force again. Emma looked at me like she was starting to get bored of dealing with me. I was trying my best to look like I had something that could back my threats, though I knew she could probably kill me just by staring at me. And then she did so, and didn't at the same time. Suddenly she was looking at me, but in a strange disconnected way. Her eyes seemed focused on an area a few inches in front of me and she seemed spaced out for a fraction of a second. This actually distracted me from my wrath.
See, it's quite possible that I didn't follow Mark's footsteps because of my short attention span. I was unable to stay angry for more than a couple of minutes, and Emma spacing out served to calm me down.
"OK," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"Your phone, reboot it and it'll work."
So, then I remembered by I had been angry and I decided that yes, thank you very much, I would reboot my phone right then. It rang as soon as it got connection: My parents.
"Jay, are you alright?" said my father as I answered.
"Yes, I'm fine, did you see the news?"
"We did, oh my god, your mother was so worried. Are you alright, then?" he asked.
"Yes, dad. I'm fine. Is mom OK then?"
"Thanks goodness. So, you're alright, aren't you?"
I decided not to answer until he had calmed down and did a short, grunting noise.
"Wait, why weren't you home last night?"
Crap. I needed to come up with some believable answer fast so I looked around the room and saw Emma on the kitchen grabbing a beer.
"Sorry to frighten you, dad," I won't say that I didn't enjoy lying to my parents but it did seem like it was going a bit too far this week. "I was actually at a friend's house. I've been in a sort of bad shape, because... I actually kind of overdid drinks because of... Well, I was really affected about Mark, and I needed to, you know, stop thinking for a while. I got drunk and stayed at Ro's."


Dead silence at the other end of the line. Fucking hell. My brother was a mobster and my parents were going to tell me off and be disappointed because I got drunk? And then my father caught me off-guard again.


"Jason," he said (and no, you're not allowed to call me Jason. Nobody who didn't give me half of their DNA is allowed to call me Jason, thank you very much). "I shouldn't say this on the phone, but your brother... Well, you need to know this, Mark is still alive."
I said nothing. I was starting to get really angry again, this time at Mark. Emma was simply looking at me for the other end of the room and smiling.
"He came home a couple of days ago," he said. "This is all a clever stunt to avoid some trouble with some business associates that were getting out of hand."
"Wow," was all I managed to say.
"You should probably come home. Spend a couple of days at home, we'll take care of you."
"No, dad," I decided to cut off the conversation. "Thanks but I will be fine. Wow, that's a relief. I think I'm going to be fine now, thanks for sharing." I was trying really really hard not to sound sarcastic. It was hard. I made some excuses and hung. As I did so, the phone rang again, Mark.
"You wanker!" I shouted as I picked up.
"You arsehole!" he shouted. "Why the hell did you get your house bombed? I really hope this isn't on speakerphone or I will kill you."
"What? No! What the fuck are you... What do you mean get my house bombed?"
"OK," he said, and I could feel he was having a hard time trying to control himself. "This probably wasn't your fault. I just wish you would realise that this is a major setback on my plans."
"A major...? My fucking apartment was blown to bits and I am pretty sure it had something to do with you, you wanker!"
I heard him take a sigh. He was being dramatic. I hated it.
"We'll get your apartment replaced. You will have a set of keys and an address on your mailbox in a couple of hours. My men will make sure that the police clear the area soon."
"That's not the point..." I was actually going to say that's not the point, Mark but something told me I shouldn't. Stupid paranoia.
"Look, I'll tell you what. Go do this, relax, grab the keys, go to your new place. I'll call you back soon."


I realised I was not even pissed off anymore.
"Jay," he said. "I really need you to kill someone for me."


Great, now I was pissed off again.


"What? I thought... I'm not... What makes you think...?"
"Listen, Jay," he said. "This is important. This is someone I don't know how to deal with. He's one of yours. This guy made a fortune with computer stuff and the Internet. No one even knows what he looks like."
"Why do you want to ki..." Paranoia once more, "to do something like that?"
"New business. Jay, I've met a girl, she's actually given me some feedback on some new developing technologies that are going to give us a bit of money."
"Keep me out of it," I said. "I really do not want to have anything to do with this."
"We'd better talk later. I'll drop by your new home later on. Love you, Jay," and he hung up.
I cursed under my breath and looked at Emma. She was still smiling at me.