Jeff The Killer: Scars of Corruption

Before we begin this journey, I want it to be known that when I remember my brother Jeff, I remember a friend. I remember a big brother who taught me how to climb a tree, throw a baseball, play video games and about a million other things. He never beat me up, never took my share of the spending money our parents would send us off to the mall with or made me feel like the tag-along when he'd hang out with his friends.

He was my best friend, someone that, should I live to be 100 years old, can never be replaced.

Lane Dermott turned the key in the door of his mother's modest home in Mandeville, LA. Walking into the foyer of his home, he threw his backpack to the floor, creating a loud thud as the heavy books contained within strike the hardwood floor.

"Lane, what have I told you about throwing your books down like that, we just had the floors done!" his mother, Nancy Dermott scolds, unseen but most certainly heard, from the nearby kitchen.

"I'm pissed mom!" Lane replies, voice laced with the sort of angst that only a teenager who feels slighted by society can produce.

His mother lets out a patient sigh. "What happened now Lane, are those kids still giving you a hard time at lunch?"

"No, I told you already I don't care about them!"

Lane's book of poetry, which also doubles as his journal, had recently been fished out of his backpack by some mean-spirited peer or another and shared with the rest of the school. He'd had some problems with bullying since then, but Nancy had sincerely believed it was starting to slow down. Kids can only stay focused on one thing for so long in her opinion, and the expiration date on her son's latest abuse should, in her mind anyway, be nearing.

She'd been raising Lane alone for some time now. Paul Dermott, her former husband and Lane's missing-in-action father, had been out of the picture for the last four years or so. Since then she'd been doing her best to raise and support him, but Lane was not always an easy son to support. His obsession with what his mother thought of as "dark things" drove a divide between them. He was at an age where he felt she couldn't possibly understand him or his interests, and had quickly established that she was an outsider looking in.

His room, adorned with strange books on the occult, disturbing art and posters for strange foreign horror films caused her to avoid going in there unless absolutely necessary. She'd tried a time or two to explain to him that perhaps his interests in these disturbing pieces of culture are what caused him to become a target at his school. This, of course, only served to drive a deeper wedge between them, as he would insist that she didn't know or understand him.

Now, on this otherwise lovely day in Mandeville, it would seem that Lane Dermott had found something new to be furious about. Nancy reached into her purse and fetched her favorite coping mechanism, her bottle of Xanax.

"This sounds like a two pill problem," she thought to herself as she washed the medicine down her throat with a glass of tap water. Forcing a smile and resigning herself to play therapist, she proceeded.

"Come in here and tell me what happened?" she called to him.

"This happened!" her son replied, stomping into the kitchen and throwing two articles of literature on the breakfast table. "Mr. Kimble rejected my book report, he said that the subject matter was inappropriate!"

Nancy looked down at the table and saw the book report, neatly typed and placed into a document binder, and then observed the book that the report had been based upon. She quickly realized that she should have allowed the Xanax a bit more time to start working its euphoric magic before engaging her son.

"Lane... that book is banned in schools, you know that. The school sent out letters informing everyone. Why would you do your report on that?"

"It's freedom of expression mom, why can't any of you understand that?"