Jokers (standard:drama, 2494 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Mar 07 2005	Views/Reads: 3568/2326	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In a quest for oneupmanship, how far will these practical jokers go?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

luxuries and live in comfort, giving him many advantages over Steve, 
and enabling him to play his latest joke on him. 

The job seemed so perfect. Gary knew that at Steve's night school, there
was a message board in the main foyer with all kinds of activities and 
items being advertised. In one corner, there was a job vacancies 
section, which Gary knew that he looked at every time he came. He had 
told him, that was no secret. So Gary had made up a job that seemed 
perfect to Steve. Software engineer. It meant working in the animation 
industry and would lead to working in special effects for cinema. The 
line that nailed it for him was:        ‘We will pay you to train'. 
Basically, it was ideal. It was normal, full-time wages, whilst he 
learnt the craft. He rang up and got an interview the following day, 
upstairs in the college in a lecture room. He wore his best gear, got 
himself looking smart and presentable, and through nerves and tension, 
he had entered the room. There was a panel of three. Two men in their 
sixties, and a women in her forties, all quizzed him with the right 
questions, and conversed with each other, and in the end was told: 
‘You've got the job'. He wanted to hug each one of them, but settled 
for shaking their hands, and leaving the college to head straight for 
his local jobcentre. 

He signed off benefits, as he started the job in two days, and eagerly
anticipated his first day at work. When it came, he got himself smart 
again, and headed for the college where the job was based. He was to 
report to room B27 at 10am, and when he got there, found there was a 
meeting on in full swing. Somebody was halfway into a presentation. A 
projector was set up, pointing at a white-board, and everyone in the 
room was sat attentive, quiet, listening, until Steve walked in. The 
man giving the presentation simply looked at him, expecting some 
explanation. “I've come to start the job”, Steve had said. “What job?” 
said the man. Steve had then noticed someone in the room on the far 
side, a hand clamped over their mouth, trying desperately to stifle 
laughter. Who else other than Gary? A check at reception revealed that 
there was no job. Gary had obviously got a few of his friends to 
interview him, and had simply invented it all. 

What was he going to do? he had thought. What would really get him back?
It was when he went into a newsagents to buy a newspaper that he saw 
the answer. He could only smile. It was obvious. Gary always did the 
lottery, proclaiming that if he won, he was going to do this, he was 
going to do that. Imagine if he thought he'd won, only to find out he 
hadn't. That would be cruel. How he would do it though? Neither of them 
were averse to enlisting the help of others in their quest to humiliate 
the other. This one needed serious planning, and help, but he was sure 
it could be done. 

He was right, it was done. Gary was elated when he found out, as it was
a rollover week, and there was only one winner of £14 million pounds. 
Him. He quit his job, telling his boss exactly what he thought of him 
and what he could do with the job, bought a bigger house and a sports 
car. He basically got himself into debt, and it wasn't long before he 
had to show his ticket to claim his winnings, and it wasn't long after 
that before he got that sinking feeling. 

It was easier than he had thought, Steve had noticed. Two weeks after
his phantom job, Steve recorded the show where the numbers are shown. 
So with that week's numbers, he had paid a few of his college friends 
to make up a replica ticket with those numbers on. All he had to do was 
wait a while until Gary had forgotten about that week's lottery, and 
watch him become increasingly agitated at Steve's lack of response. He 
had found himself looking over his shoulder a few times. 

Steve had persuaded Gary's partner to let him make a replica of the
front door key, so that he could let himself in while they were both 
out. He told her he wasn't going to do much, nothing overblown. What he 
did do, was lift up a section of carpet, then remove some of the 
floorboards beside their television. He had bought a video recorder 
specially, and set it up so that he could play programmes on the TV 
without their video being on, so it looked like a normal programme. He 
set it up to play the lottery programme, and came to the house a few 
minutes before the numbers were due to be drawn. It was quite 
precarious his technique, and very unstable. There was absolutely no 
guarantee it would work, but he was desperate, he had to get Gary back, 
had to top what he did to him. Outside the window, as Gary clutched his 
ticket, Steve tried to get as close as he could to the TV, standing on 
flowers and weeds with a remote control. He had taken out his mobile 
phone and rang Gary. It was only two rings, enough to distract him from 
the TV for a moment, while he activated the programme. Gary watched 
with anticipation the numbers appear with the ticket that had been 
swapped for the real one, when Steve had used the key the previous 
night to enter the house whilst Gary was asleep. He had sneaked in and 
found Gary's wallet, and simply exchanged them. When he was certain 
that Gary was watching the show with the ticket, Steve had left as 
quietly as he could and was halfway along the road when he had heard 
Gary's cry of elation. Of course Gary couldn't wait to tell him, and 
tell how he was going to spend it, and spend it he did, until he had to 
pay up. 

‘I'm a wanted man,' he had said to Steve. ‘You'll never believe how much
debt I'm in. Carol's left me, my house is going to be taken off me, and 
there's no way I can get my job back. It looks like I'm behind you in 
the dole queue'. Gary, for a reason not even he knew, was not very 
angry with Steve. He was just lethargic and depressed, partly because 
he couldn't think of anything to top it with. He had moved in with his 
parents who were not happy at having debt collectors knocking every 
day. Meanwhile it was Steve's turn to constantly look over his shoulder 
for a reprisal which he was sure was imminent, and it was, when Gary 
rang him to tell him he had something to give him. Strange though how 
it could only be given to him at an abandoned car valeting garage. It 
had long been empty, and had been used by squatters and drug addicts. 
Now it had been abandoned by them, and was home to insects and 
occasional rodents. The place was larger than a normal house garage, 
with an office at the side. Steve had to pass through that to enter the 
gloomy garage. When he had,  he found he couldn't see properly so had 
opened the garage door, which he found opened quite easily, as though 
it had been used recently. The place had lit up, and Steve had turned 
around to see Gary hanging from one of the rafters, a knocked over 
step-ladder beneath him. He looked dead, his face white, a line of 
blood streaming from his mouth. Next to the ladder, in quite a 
prominent position, was an envelope bearing Steve's name. It took him a 
while to pick it up, his mind still in shock at seeing his friend 
hanging. He had torn it open and read quickly: ‘Steve, I hate you. 
You've cost me everything. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I hate 
you, I hate you, I hate you. You'll never know how much I hate you.' At 
that point Steve had dropped the letter in despair, looked around the 
garage and saw what he seen before, but didn't take much notice of. It 
was a rusty saw. His mind was confused, and it believed that this was 
genuine. Gary had killed himself in depression at what Steve had done, 
at the situation he had left him with. In the brief moments that Steve 
believed, he had torn the serrated metal edge across his throat. Had he 
read the note further, he would have seen: ‘By the way, only joking'. 
Gary had seen what Steve was doing, and had shouted out at him when the 
blade had gone beyond the point of no return. Steve had collapsed to 
his knees, clutching his pumping throat, his bulging eyes watching 
Gary, as he struggled to free himself from the noose. A chain had been 
set up alongside the noose that had gone into the back of Gary's 
jacket, keeping him up whilst maintaining the illusion of hanging. When 
he had seen what Steve had done, his struggling had torn the jacket, 
rendering the chain useless. He had begun to hang for real, the noose 
tightening around his throat. At one point in their death throes, they 
had reached out toward each other, but of course it was useless. 
Whether they continued their japery in hell or heaven, nobody knew, and 
in the end, neither of them had the last laugh. 


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