Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, page 10
“I know nothing these days. Just pay up soon or you might find the tap dry just when you need it”
“You sang a different tune five minutes ago.”
“I’m a bartender. I’m entitled to change my mind.”
“Fair enough. Next week, okay?” I lifted my tumbler in his direction before draining it.
“I’ll be here.”
“Me as well, I’m sure. Hey, Ziggy, you got any ice?” I was pouring another and I spilt some of the brandy in the process—the drinks were doing their job.
“What, you getting all white-collar?”
It wasn’t long till I was drunk as a skunk and wondering if Laurel had finished her Activities and whether I should drag her arse down here to join my binge—or just whisk her back to my place instead. For the life of me, I don’t remember if I made the call.
To the casual passerby, the fact that I’m curled around the toilet in a loving embrace, a trail of bile hanging from my lips, might clue them in to the fact that I’d drunk too much.
But while they wouldn’t be wrong, they wouldn’t be completely right either. If they had looked closer, they might have noticed the toilet seat was in the sink, ripped off its hinges. They would also have found the bathroom mirror was smashed, as was, sadly, the second bottle of synth-brandy Ziggy had gifted to me—its contents now decanted across the living room wall.
I heave again—but there’s nothing more inside of me. I fiddle with the toilet roll and try to mop my face and then I just squat there on the tiles.
Fuck, I think.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
No more.
No more.
Please.
I lean back on my haunches and bang my fists against my forehead a few times, then sag.
It should’ve been a routine Activities.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I finally pull myself to my feet and muster up the courage to hit ‘play’ again.
“Mate? It’s Hank. Listen, laddie, I’ve got some news for you—it’s about Laurel. I just heard her Activities went bad. Real bad. They reckon she was ambushed by the buggers. The shit-heads here were wrong. There were three of them. She—Floyd, apparently she was fucked up pretty bad. She didn’t make it back in to Branch. She’s not dead, not yet that I know, but—shit—she was picked up by the paramedics, they treated her, and then they—fuck, Floyd, I don’t even know how to say this—they Relocated her to a fucking Hospital. I’m sorry. Shit. I gotta go—?”
Message ends.
salt & vinegar
It’s the middle of the night and I’m all rugged up on the couch with the lights off and a litre bottle of no-name vodka beside me on the coffee table—along with a plasti-carton of artificial orange juice, an extra-large packet of salt & vinegar chips, an empty box of chocolate almonds, a choked-up ashtray, and a screwed-up pack of ciggies. There’s a cartoon character with a six-shooter topped off in a bright orange sombrero on the side of the OJ and he looks as liquored up as I am.
I have the last cigarette in my left hand and a large tumbler of a phony screwdriver in the other. On the telly are two each of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This was my umpteenth screening of Top Hat, a musical comedy that deftly mixes high style, romance, mistaken identity, and a bunch of gratingly catchy and annoyingly meaningful Irving Berlin numbers. Astaire’s character, Jerry Travers, has just started singing “Cheek to Cheek”, my favorite snippet of the movie.
I generally keep it on the down low that I love them just as much as the swashbuckling, debonair types of the ’30s and their noir brethren of the ’40s. Veronica loved this film too, and the nostalgia hits me hard. I rock back and forth singing along softly, tears streaming down my face.
Damn the alcohol.
das boot
I’ve parked myself on the uneven concrete doorstep of a dilapidated shop front with boarded up windows, and I haven’t got the faintest idea where I am. My guess is I’ve lost myself somewhere in inner city, which is definitely not the smartest idea I’ve ever had. The storefront has the number 7244 printed on a faded tin sign.
I notice that it isn’t raining, for the first time in weeks. The street here is one of those narrow alleyways that a car would have difficulty squeezing through. High-rise apartment blocks loom above me, their walls tangled in cables like vines. I’m not wearing my watch, but I’m guessing it’s late night and curfew’s kicked into gear as there’s nobody around.
The concrete footpath is flooded in places. There’s a row of rusting bikes nearby and one pathetic ghost gum without leaves or branches. I can hear the sounds of a crowd roaring on a TV in one of the nearer apartments, but the announcer is speaking gibberish, possibly in Cantonese. Further along is a street sign that’s seen far better days but I squint and can just make out that I’m on Sutter Street, wherever that is.
I take a step and note that I’m missing my left shoe. My sock is caked in mud. Not to mention, the knuckles on my left hand are aching and there’s dried blood where the skin is torn in a few places. My clothes are wet through, I’m cold, and I have a case of the shakes.
Facing defeat, I check my pockets and discover that despite everything I’m still one very lucky sod. My wallet is still there, and, just as importantly, there’s a crumpled up deck with a couple of semi-intact smokes inside. I even have my Zippo. Hallelujah. I hear a dog yapping somewhere nearby, then catch the sound of a motorcycle in the distance.
Where the fuck was I, how’d I get here, and what happened to my shoe?
I continue, favouring my left foot, along a row of dilapidated houses, their windows patched up with corrugated steel. I eventually reach an intersection with a larger arterial that’s well lit despite being devoid of traffic. I breathe a fraction easier as another signpost indicates where I’ve marooned myself: this is Fawkner District, in the northern part of town, far from home. Great. No taxi would come anywhere near this place regardless of whether curfew was in effect or not, and there wasn’t any public transport.
There’s a phone box on the corner, but it’s been vandalized and stripped down—only the plastic shell remains. But it does remind me that I have my Mitt-Mate with me, though I have no idea who the hell I’m going to call. It’s looking a bit dinged up—and wet—and when I switch it on nothing happens. I give the contraption a good shake. Something rattles inside, but it stays dark. Switching it on and off doesn’t help.
I heave it out onto the road and it bounces a few times across the asphalt, and then whirs into life. Bingo. Just as I’m slap-bang in the middle of that empty highway to pick up the little beast, a spotlight ensnares me. The light’s so sudden, so full on and so dazzling that I’m startled and pinioned to the spot. And perhaps because I’m somewhat stunned, I stupidly peer up—thereby almost blinding myself.
“Stand still!” a voice booms through a speaker system. I shelter my eyes with my hands. “Do not move a muscle! You are under arrest.”
I decide it must be one of those new hoverchoppers they were talking about on the news earlier. It’s impossible to discern any details due to the floodlights, but the craft manages to give the impression of being bigger and blacker than anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s as quiet as a butterfly as it descends, though it does disrupt the water and mud and garbage around me.
I’m reaching for my wallet (and enclosed ID), when three figures clad in black body armour—with helmets that obscure their faces—jump down from the airborne vehicle and rush headlong towards me flaunting massive guns. Bold white letters on their chests read ‘CONTROLLER’, and beneath this, smaller and somewhat redundantly ‘DEVIANT CONTROL’, followed by what looks strangely similar to an H-in-a-circle Hylax logo. They look like no police unit I’ve come in contact with and the whole package strikes me as downright wacky.
“Relax, I’m a Seeker,” I start to warble, but one of them bludgeons me in the gut with the butt of his weapon and my wallet goes flying, and then I’m down for the count, on my knees, wheezing with pain as I wonder where the hell my wallet—with my all-important Seeker ID—has disappeared to. A bunch of hands grab me and shove me down hard, smacking my jaw on the ground. They’re twisting my limbs until they’ve got me spread-eagled, screaming obscenities at me the whole while. They snap plasti-cuffs onto my wrists, quickly followed by another set on my ankles.
As I lie there with my face pressed firmly against the asphalt, smelling the stagnant stench of the street all I can think is, Fuck, they’ve finally come for me, I’m going to be Relocated to a Hospital for drinking too much.
“Fuckin’ loser,” one grunts, as he lays in the boot.
plastic fantastic
I was being hauled along, still shackled and now hooded as well. I could make out the sounds of an electronic keypad, then a door grinding aside. Visions of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil rattled in my head, though between the booze and the beating I’m not positive I could have told you which was which.
“We got a pissed-up poofter for you,” a female voice laughed. “You should see the hilarious pics we got on the way over here.” Then something struck me on the back of the skull hard enough to conjure up stars, and after that I was shoved away from one person and roughly caught by another who wasted no time before starting to gruffly push me along.
I was marched along for perhaps a minute before being thrown into a wall and landing hard on my coccyx, with a jolt that reverberated up and down my spine. A knee was pressed up against my chest as someone hissed in my ear, “Hold still, you motherfucker!” He rolled up my sleeve and then the joker jabbed my arm with something big enough to be a bloody pen.
At this point, I was expecting the worst, but instead they left me to myself. It was freezing here—wherever the hell here was—and I still only had one shoe on. I also had an itch behind my ear I couldn’t scratch. Damn.
There was a wall behind me, so I leaned back against that and waited for god knows how long. I was starting to think they’d forgotten about me, but I also suspected that was probably the idea. I could make out the sound of an echoing PA and every so often the noise of footfall passed me by, but it all seemed abstract—nothing was distinct, nothing related to my particular situation. I knew it was all over. I’d always feared the horrors of Relocation—the only question was when they’d come for me.
I wondered what my sister would feel, what my mother would pronounce, what my few friends would eulogize. I even mulled over Ziggy at the bar, how much money I owed him. If this is what they mean by your life passing before your eyes I sure got the short end of the stick this go round.
Take it like a man, I heard Bogie’s voice demand in the back of my head, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember which film that was from. Don’t play it like a weak sister.
Shut the fuck up, my own voice railed back—you’d be wetting yourself too in this situation.
It was a relief, then, when rough hands grabbed me, yanked me to my feet, and propelled me along for another minute before depositing my arse on a hard bench, removing my cuffs, and ripping my blindfold off. The room was lit by an intense fluorescent globe mounted on the high ceiling and I was blinded (again) and forced to squint. Someone leaned close, just a vague silhouette. “You’re a Seeker, eh? That’s what you get for passing out after curfew in Fawkner District, you stupid cunt.”
They left me alone again, though a camera watched me from a corner. Veronica must’ve been locked away somewhere like this. And now Laurel might be too. Did they feel as lost as I did? I wasn’t sure. They were stronger than I’d ever be.
Hours later, a curious couple joined me in the cell. First in was a slender, elderly man dressed in a pristine white outfit that hadn’t quite made up its mind whether it was a suit or a uniform. He was shadowed by a bulky security guard with a holster on his right hip and an electro-nightstick on his left. Centered between them was a shiny belt buckle with a large H on its face.
The guard placed a chair about a metre in front of me before retreating to the door and turning his back to us. The elderly gent gave me a look, then scooted the chair even closer. He leisurely sat down, resting a plasti-clipboard fat with paperwork on his lap. He looked as if there was no place he’d rather be.
“Mr. Maquina, your blood-test revealed an inordinate amount of alcohol and chemical compounds in your system.” His voice was so rich and crisp it actually helped sooth me and perked up my spirits, akin to listening to Basil Rathbone explain away a mystery. “Tell me, do the names Demaratus and Xenathon mean anything to you?”
“Sorry, I don’t know my Greek mythology.”
“Indeed?” His eyebrow raised just a fraction. “Demaratus and Xenathon are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, one for clinical depression and the other for dieting, yet you have no prescription for either. There’s no mention of depression in your medical record and your blood-fat ratio is normal. Would you mind explaining the presence of these compounds in your bloodstream?”
“I had a migraine and a friend gave me some pills. I thought they were aspirin.”
“Yet you took quite a few pills, did you not? And mixed different kinds.”
“They didn’t look so different.”
“Demaratus are blue and oblong whereas Xenathon are white and circular.”
“Ah. I didn’t notice.”
“Your friend’s name?”
“Well, he wasn’t really a friend per se. Actually, more of an acquaintance.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Probably? The truth is, I only just met him in a bar yesterday—or was that the day before yesterday? Something like that.”
“I’m sure you can do better than that.”
“Hey, it’s not entirely my fault—you boys haven’t helped by bashing me unconscious then making me cool my feet in here for god-knows how long, and—”
“Please try to remember his name.”
“Okay, Doc. Lemme see. I think it may have been George-something.”
“George-something.”
“In fact I’m certain it was. But I don’t think I ever caught his last name. Did I? Maybe I did. Sanders? Yeah, I think that was it. He went under the name of Sanders. S-A-N-D-E-R-S. I think.”
“I see. George Sanders. Something for a migraine.” He scrawled some notes, then looked back up at me. His eyes were grey in hue, similar to his beard.
“With an ‘S’ on both ends.”
The man ignored me and went on, “Do you often ingest a dozen or more unidentified tablets, provided to you by people you barely know?”
“It was a fairly determined migraine—and I’d had a few drinks. Probably wasn’t the best decision in the world, I’ll give you that.”
“Perhaps your alcohol intake was related to the migraine?”
“That could be.” I rubbed my eyes. One was swollen up pretty bad, as was my nose and lower lip. I had no idea if the cops had done this to me or if I was that way when they found me.
“Are you obsessive, Mr. Maquina?”
“Aren’t we all, Mister—?”
“Doctor. Dr. Kern. And I’d like you to please answer the question, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Right. I don’t know. Any chance of getting a glass of water? I’m parched.”
“Soon. So alcohol is an ongoing problem?”
“Well, I guess the hangovers are never fun.”
“Then you have an addiction?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“A dependence on liquor, then?”
“Nah. More a vague compulsion that’s in hand.”
“The truth, as they say, may be in the eye of the beholder. Your mother believes that you do have a habit.”
“My mother?” Oh, great—they’d nattered with the old battle-axe and she’d ratted me out.
“We conducted an interview earlier today with Mrs. Iva Maquina. In that consultation she mentioned an ongoing drinking problem, something she says she’s been concerned about for the better part of three years.”
“My mother is known to exaggerate. It’s one of her gifts.”
“Even so—are you an alcoholic?”
“Nope.”
“Good for you. What exactly was it you were drinking, Mr. Maquina?”
“Vodka. Wait—Gin?”
“I see.”
“Possibly shōchū.”
“Memory loss,” he commented as he jotted more down. “And why were you drinking?”
“What can I say? The wheels fell off. Well and truly. Everyone has that happen now and then in their lives, don’t they? It’s nothing serious. It was nothing more than a wee bit of a bender. By the way, it was gin.”
“Gin. A wee bit of a bender. I see.” The pen worked its magic across paper. “Did your ‘bender’ have anything to do with the Relocation, three days past, of your former coworker, Nina Canyon?”
“Laurel.” I was more than a little unsettled by this new angle. The mention of Laurel’s birth name rebooted all the grief I’d tried damned hard to obliterate.
“Mr. Maquina?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you.”
“What do you say, then?”
“We used to drink out of the same bottle.”
“Meaning?”
“We’re friends. Were friends. Are.”
“We’re aware of your relations with Miss Canyon. Miss Canyon confirmed some of the details during her Relocation interview.” He flicked through his pages. I loathed him.
“You’re inferring that we slept together?”
“That is the general idea. Yes.”
“She said that, huh?”
“Yes, she did.”
“And you believed her?”
“Shouldn’t we? Would you like to go on record contesting her statement?” He had his pen ready to write more notes. So was this my own Relocation interview?
“No. I don’t deny it.”
“So, to be absolutely clear, you admit there was a relationship between you and Miss Canyon that went beyond the auspices of Seeker Branch employee regulations?”
