‘Vern called later,’ Almeric explained.
‘What time later?’
Al consulted his watch. ‘About seven,’ he said.
Ed spread his pictures on the floor at his feet. ‘And what time's it now?’
‘Two thirty,’ Almeric said. ‘But I've got a hunch.’
Edgar selected four of the photographs, each ten by twelve, and arranged them in a square. The first showed the field behind his father's house, two young girls chasing butterflies. The second was of a tree just come to leaf, the mellow green of new shoots hung with cobwebs and blossom. The third captured a red poppy as it was visited by a bumble-bee. And the fourth, fuzzy and out of focus, pictured a man blowing up a balloon, the two girls in the background, the sun to their rear, golden haloes of spring light in their wind-ruffled hair.
‘Who's that?’ queried Almeric, indicating photo number four.
Edgar dug his nail in his chin, peered closer. ‘Kevin,’ he said. ‘I'm not certain though; I haven't seen him before.’
‘So how do you know his name?’ Almeric kneeled to get a better look at the pic.
‘Hey, that's one of Vern's balloons. See? It's got his company's logo.’
‘I don't,’ confessed Edgar. ‘I mean...’
‘That's okay, Ed,’ Almeric murmured. ‘You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.’ He rose and slouched back to his bomb, screwdriver dangling.
Edgar watched him suspiciously a moment, avoiding his pleasant stare as he sat at the cluttered table.
Eyes lowered, they came to rest on the balloon.
Stay Fixed, it stated.
‘I'm not going to the pub,’ said Edgar. ‘You can tell Vern when he calls.’
‘I already did,’ Almeric replied.
‘When?
‘Later.’
‘You should have told me before.’ Photo number four, Kevin, the two golden girls drew him. Edgar swallowed.
‘There is no before,’ said Almeric. ‘And there'll be no after when this goes off.’
‘It won't. ‘
‘Like to raise the stake?’
‘Yes,’ said Edgar, ‘I'd like to double it.’
‘You're on.’
The city on wheels travels round the world, crosses land and ocean, divides forest and mountain, creates and destroys as its masters see fit. They have laid a strip of grass a mile wide. It serves, this flat plain, as their city's road. Once every year the nameless city circumscribes the globe. The earth shakes at its passing and the sea rumbles...
4 - KICKS TO THE HEAD
Vern has his bath and dresses in his not so clean shirt. His flat is really a bedsit, one of four, the house an end terrace. The pay-phone at the foot of the stairs has been recently vandalized and he struggles with fingers and penknife till it clicks; then he dials.
Almeric Jones replies. They talk. Vern hangs up. The telephone clicks once more, but surrenders no valuables...
‘Oh well,’ Vern said.
‘So I was an hour out,’ said Al to Ed. ‘That's still pretty good, you have to admit.’ He pocketed his screwdriver.
‘Don't slam the door,’ said Ed to Al. ‘I said...’ The door slammed. Edgar gloated. ‘Never mind,’ he added to himself, ‘you forgot your keys.’
The four photographs stared up at him from the floor. Edgar, an apple in hand, stared back. He walked round the pics and studied them from a multiplicity of angles. They composed a quartered image twenty-four inches by twenty. He sat on the sofa and bit the apple. Juice ran down his chin, followed the curve of his throat and soaked into the collar of his blue sweatshirt, a print of Frank Sinatra eating spaghetti on its front.
Vern leant on the polished bar and ordered two pints of lager and a ham sandwich.
‘Make mine Guinness,’ said Almeric. He toyed with a beer mat, peeling off its backing.
‘Two pints of lager and a Guinness,’ said the barmaid.
Vern shook his head. ‘One lager, one Guinness,’ he corrected. ‘And a ham sandwich, please.’
‘No ham left.’
‘No ham?’ Vern said.
‘Beef or cheese,’ the barmaid told him, pouring a second pint of Guinness.’
Vern sighed resignedly. ‘Cheese then.’
Almeric carried their drinks to a table while Vern waited on his sandwich. The pub was nearly empty: five old men and a young girl dressed in a long grey Mack by the bar. The interior was dingy and, thought Vern, too quiet. He wondered if it mightn't liven up. Perhaps later on the old men would get drunk and make improper suggestions to the young girl. Or maybe Almeric would beat them to it. Vern could see his eyes shining from fifteen feet away.
His sandwich arrived. Vern traipsed over and sat at the table with Almeric. ‘I hate Guinness,’ he complained.
‘Guinness is good for you,’ said Almeric. ‘Puts hair on your chest.’
‘I have enough trouble shaving my legs.’ He took a bite from his sandwich. Released from its cling-film wrapping the bread seemed somehow less attractive.
‘You've taken the gloss off it,’ Almeric said.
‘I hate beef,’ answered Vern, chewing.
‘I thought you asked for cheese?’
‘No, ham.'
‘Ham?’
‘No ham left - then I asked for cheese.’ Vern sipped his beer, going over recent events. ‘I think,’ he added.
The doors burst open and a party of revellers stumbled in, laughing and cheering, a manacled young-executive type hustled at their van.
‘Stag night,’ observed Almeric, draining his glass. ‘Same again, Vern?’
Vern was attempting to reseal his sandwich. He'd hardly touched his pint. Foam speckled his upper lip. ‘What? No -yes! Lager this time, okay?’
‘Okay.’
The girl in the grey Mack rose from her stool with a bored expression. She unbelted the long coat and draped it across the bar. Almeric froze in his tracks. A lurid cheer went up from the party crowd.
Clad only in red lingerie the girl began singing.
Vern turned to see, spilling beer.
The inevitable fight started; inevitable because one of the revellers made a lunge for the girl, her red lingerie, and one of the old men, a balding ex-military type possessed of noble stirrings and too much alcohol coupled with an aggrieved disposition towards modern youth in his high-pressure blood and a guilty conscience having sworn at his wife earlier that night, it being her birthday which he'd forgotten.
Noses broke.
‘Two pints of Guinness,’ said Almeric, leant on the polished bar. ‘And a cheese sandwich.’
The girl jumped onto a table to escape being molested. Vern's and Almeric's. The young-exec and two others gave chase. She kicked one in the gut with her pointed red shoe. He crumpled. The second grabbed her foot and ran his other hand up her long leg.
Vern said, ‘Hey!’
The manacled reveller knocked his drink over. ‘Shut it!’
The girl tore at hair. ‘Bastards!’
Almeric, returned from the bar with two pints of shandy and a ham sandwich, yelled, ‘Cops!’
Nobody cared.
Vern stood. ‘Let go of her...’ He pushed the groper whose shirt he thought overly clean and the man fell, lost his footing in a pool of shimmering Guinness.
‘You tell 'em, Vern!’ shouted Almeric. He put down the pints and unslung his screwdriver, brandishing it.
Nobody cared. Noses broke.
The old men waded in.
‘Cops!’ the barmaid screeched.
The revellers fled empty-handed. The young girl climbed from the table and walked casually to the bar, grabbed her Mack and proceeded to the ladies.
‘I hate ham,’ said Almeric.
‘I'll swap you,’ Vern offered.
They moved tables, drank and chewed. The old men at the bar became old men once more. The cops came and went.
‘They went that way,’ the barmaid had told
them, indicating the doors.
The girl reappeared. She stood a moment, straightened her red hair, and then came and sat at Vern and Almeric's table.
‘I hate it when that happens,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Vern.
‘Yeah,’ said Almeric.
‘Does it happen often?’ Vern asked.
‘Only this side of town,’ said the girl, pouting.
‘Yeah?’ said Almeric.
‘Yeah, but I get danger money.’
‘Yeah?’ said Vern.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ Almeric asked.
She smiled. ‘If you like.’
‘What do you want?’
She spread her hands on the table and peered intently at her cracked red nail-varnish. ‘Guinness,’ she said.
When Almeric had gone to the bar Vern said, 'What's your name? Mine's Vern by the way, and that's Almeric.’
‘Hello Vern,’ she chimed. ‘My name's Lucy.’
Almeric returned with a glass of white wine. The girl didn't seem to mind.
‘Her name's Lucy,’ Vern informed him.
‘Hello Lucy,’ said Almeric.
‘Hello Vern,’ said the girl, not looking up. Her reflection gleamed in eight out of ten fingernails.
Vern, perversely, was reminded of an advert for cat food.
The doors burst open again and in staggered Edgar, his face all beaten up.
‘Hey, Edgar,’ Vern called. ‘What happened?’
‘I don't remember,’ he replied, leaning for support on a polished table.
‘Did someone beat you up?’
Edgar held his head in both hands and weaved towards them, blood down his Frank Sinatra sweat-shirt, blood and apple juice and spittle. ‘Yeah,’ he said; ‘that's what happened.’
‘Who was it?’ asked the girl.
‘He doesn't remember,’ said Almeric.
Edgar flopped into a fourth chair and stared at Lucy. ‘Who's this?’ he wanted to know.
‘Her name's Lucy,’ said Vern.
Edgar was spellbound. ‘Hello Lucy,’ he said. ‘Are you real?’
She considered her cracked nails a moment, pouting.
‘Yeah,’ said Vern, ‘she's real.’
‘She got you beaten up,’ Almeric said.
‘Yeah? ‘
‘Yeah.’ He fidgeted with the screwdriver. ‘I thought you weren't coming to the pub?’
Edgar wiped his eyes. ‘I changed my mind...’
‘Into what?’
‘You forgot your keys; I decided to bring them.’
‘That's nice of you,’ Vern said.
‘But I lost them,’ Edgar continued, ‘when I got beaten up.’
‘My keys?’ said Almeric.
‘The whole bunch.’
‘That was clever,’ said Vern. ‘The whole bunch?’
‘Yeah,’ said Edgar. ‘We're locked out.’
Almeric folded his arms.
Lucy said, ‘I'm sorry.’
Edgar squinted at her through a haze of sweat and blood.
‘This's Edgar,’ Vern told her. ‘He's in love.’
‘Hello Vern,’ said Lucy. ‘In love with whom?’
‘You,’ said Almeric.
‘Me? He's in love with me? I never had anybody in love with me before.’
‘Well you have now. Right, Ed?’
‘Yeah...’ Edgar took his eyes off her a second. ‘Does anyone want those sandwiches?’ he asked.
Almeric checked his watch. ‘Quarter to nine.’ He tapped the screwdriver on the rim of his glass and slouched. To Lucy, red beneath grey, he said, ‘Do you fuck? I'd like to oil your hinges and measure your tongue.’
‘I think my nose is broken,’ mumbled Edgar. ‘Yeah, I remember now, these coppers beat me up!’
The four of them drink shandy and white wine. The old men at the bar tell each other war stories. The barmaid swears, gives wrong change, and scowls at Vernon.
For his part, Vern closes his eyes, opens his mouth and puts out his tongue.
I'm dead, he says...
Almeric opened the door with his screwdriver. ‘Easy.’
Edgar tripped behind. ‘Don't say that.’
Vern helped him to his feet. ‘Easy, Ed.’
‘Don't say that!’
Lucy winked at Almeric. ‘If he loves me,’ she said, ‘why won't he talk to me?’
‘He's shy,’ explained Vern.
‘He's not sure if you're real,’ added Almeric. ‘Come in.’
Lucy stepped over the threshold, catching her right heel in the rug. She winked again.
‘Watch the rug there,’ said Almeric, winking back.
‘Can I use the toilet?’
‘Yeah - just be careful of the rug.’
‘In the toilet?’
Almeric shrugged. ‘They get everywhere,’ he said.
The hydrogen bomb sits quietly on the table. Vern makes tea, black, because there's no milk, in mugs, because there're no cups and he doesn't like drinking tea out of cups anyway. The girl in red lingerie falls asleep on the sofa. Vern drinks his tea and leaves for home. Almeric unscrews a plate on the bomb casing and sprinkles in sugar and flour, tops up the reservoir with boiling water, and stirs. Edgar quickly undresses, sits naked on the floor with his camera mounted on a tripod taking Lucy's picture, wincing every time she moves as he's using a time exposure...
‘Why don't you use the flash?’ quizzed Almeric.
‘I don't want to risk waking her.’
‘Is that why you dimmed the lights?’
‘Yes. ‘
‘But I can't see.’
‘You don't need to,’ Edgar told him. ‘The camera's watching for you.’ He licked his bruised lips as a red-stockinged knee protruded, edged in grey Mack.
‘What's the camera see that I don't?’
Edgar turned his swollen head. ‘Plenty,’ he stated.
I fade in and out, unseen by all save the camera. The night sky, the stars peek through a gap in the curtains.
In my world the stars are different. The nameless city travels below them as it circles the globe, soil and water, grass and air its rails.
In my world the brown ponies flee the crushing wheels, their slow-turning death.
In my world the silver eagles stay well clear of the city's rising towers.
In my world...
5 - OLD GRAFFITI
Today is a Tuesday...
A week ago Vern had scratched his name on the reverse of an inspection plate forty feet above a factory floor strewn with paper bags and confectionery. He opened that same plate now, seven days later, and saw his title crudely etched in shiny aluminium, gateway to drive-bands and electric motors. The inspection plate was on the side of a box suspended by rusty bolts, home to a ventilation system. Beside him on the narrow gangway was Stan, weaving erratically as his personal-stereo crammed his skull with noise.
Stan had picked him up as usual that morning.
‘Thanks, Stan,’ Vern had said.
‘My pleasure, Vern.’ He'd taken a deep breath. ‘Like it? I left the windows open all night so as to make sure you got to breathe good air.’
Vern nodded. ‘Nice.’
They stopped at the lights, red like Lucy's lingerie. Stanley would have put the radio on, but it had been stolen.
They parked in the usual place. When it came time to clock in, Stan couldn't find his card.
‘What is that?’ said Vern.
‘Doors,’ said Stan, lifting the tiny headphones from his ears. ‘You want some?’
Vern told him no and began poking around inside the oily box, making his own music as he twanged the frayed, sagging belts.
On their way home that evening Stan took a different route, turning left instead of going straight ahead at the lights. He smiled at Vern, said, ‘Detour.’
‘Where to?’
‘You'll see.’
About ten
minutes later the Honda pulled up outside a disused cinema, its facade covered in ancient movie posters, spray-paint and pigeon shit.
Stan got out and sat on the car's dented wing. Vern couldn't loosen his seatbelt.
‘Come and look at this, Vern.’ Stan pointed at the cinema with his thumb and walked off.
Vern was trapped. He reached behind the seat and searched for something sharp with which to cut the strap amongst the discarded tools on the floor. A wood-chisel did the trick. His door was jammed. Vern clambered over to the driver's side and fell to the pavement when his foot caught in the pedals.
Stan was nowhere to be seen.
He thought about stealing the Honda, but he'd driven it once before, when Stan got drunk one afternoon, and crashed into a lamp-post. Thus the dent.
The cinema stood alone amidst the rubble of its neighbours, demolition still in progress, the picture-house no doubt next.
‘Vern!’ Stan appeared in the ticket kiosk. ‘Come on, we'll miss the start.’
Vern looked around. ‘What's playing?’ he asked.
‘The Guns of Naverone,’ Stan replied. ‘It's packed.’ His curly head vanished within.
Vern stuffed his hands in his pockets and pushed open the doors with his shoulder. Inside was dark. Dust hung in pencil beams of yellow light, spotting the littered foyer with globs of littered sunshine. A brass banister curved to his right, ending abruptly in midair. He walked towards the next set of doors and into the theatre beyond.
‘Took your time,’ said Stanley, invisible.
‘Are you the usherette?’
‘That I am. Two seats is it? Or perhaps just one?’ His shade moved against the imperfect blackness. ‘Front row, sir? Right this way. ‘
Vern proceeded down the aisle.
Stan lit a match, its light exposing the torn screen. He indicated the front row of seats and Vern obediently sat, throwing up a cloud of dust.
The match went out. There was a thud, the scraping of boots on wood and then the sound of someone clearing their throat. The screen was lit again. Stan's monster shadow danced across it in a parody of silent action.
‘Did you ever come here, Vern?’
‘No.’ He crossed his legs. ‘This's my first visit.’
‘They used to show horror pics all night; the old stuff; and Harold Lloyd on Saturdays.’
‘I've seen him on the telly,’ said Vern.
‘Not the same,’ Stan muttered. ‘Just not the same.’
‘What's this place called, anyway? I don't remember seeing it before.’
He received no answer.