Right Away Monday, page 17
Dawe keeps shufflin down Bannerman Street. I shouts all manners of sauce at him but he wont turn around. I scoops up a handful of snow, packs it tight into a ball and lets it fly at him. The snowball explodes against a telephone pole not a foot from Dawe’s head. I laughs and turns to go back inside, but just as I does so, Izzy tosses me coat onto the sidewalk and slams the door in me face.
—Go.
—Isadora? For fuck sakes. It’s Christmas Eve girl. She opens the door once more and throws the black fleece blanket at me.
—Iz? C’mon…
—Juzz go.
She’s abandoned her wine glass and is now standin there drinkin straight outta what looks like a fresh bottle. A new heaviness to her eyes and the swivel style motion of her head tells me that she’s left the grey zone altogether and is now officially out of it. That’s her way, one minute she’s fine and the next she’s just not there anymore. I knows there’s no sense tryna reason with her.
—He was fuckin askin for it girl!
—Well I din ass for it…
—Look girl…
—GO AWAAYYY!
I hangs around and boots at her door for a while, till I spies a cop car cruisin past and decides it’s time to make a change of plans for the evening. I stumbles down her steps and feels me head go heavy again, something I cant quite grasp. I was thinkin so clearly back at Needs about all this, but I cant seem to no more. How this night should live on, this moment in time. Christmas Eve. Bannerman Street. This night will survive in my head, but not hers. She wont remember a fuckin thing. So I might as well not even have shown up at all. Or not existed in the first place.
The crack is almost worn off completely now, me mouth dry and sour from the wine. I leans into the wind and follows Dawe’s footsteps through the fresh-fallen snow. Isadora. Jesus Christ. A child is cryin from inside one of the only houses along the street that has no Christmas lights up. A man’s knotted voice is shoutin:
—Shut him up will ya. Shut him up.
I hangs a left when I hits Gower Street and realizes without much surprise that I’m circling back to Val’s place. Cold sweat trickling down me spine.
I tries to remember who spoke first, me or Dawe.
18. Spillage
Just pullin up to the scales at the landfill out in Robin Hood Bay and Mike starts back muttering and cursin under his breath. He goes:
—Now, it’s a truck goddamn it. Dumpsite A.
—What?
—I dont know. They always send me to B, where the cars go. This is a fuckin truck.
There’s a gruesome city garbage truck on the scales ahead of us and the driver seems to be just havin a lark, some chat about the weather with the guy behind the glass. Mike leans on the horn and the driver flips him the finger in the side mirror. Mike grabs the door handle and pops the door of the truck open. I grabs his arm:
—Fuck Mike man, calm down. Fuck it.
He looks at me like he’s gonna chomp the head right off me shoulders and squish me brains around in his mouth like Listerine. He slams his door closed. I moves closer to me own door. He’s on edge lately. He’s on the brink. The other night I was workin the bar when this scruffy fella came in for a drink. Looked like he was off the boats. Mike was sittin in the corner readin through some papers, had his eye on the guy from the moment he walked in. Fella kept to hisself though, never gave me no trouble. And that’s all that counts really, that you dont fuck with the bartender. Mike watchin, sendin out the evil eye. Then I slaps on the White Album by the Beatles and this scruffy fella starts tappin his boot against the bar, just keepin the beat. Mike charges across the room and gives the fella a fuckin hard, solid tap in back of the head. Buddy gets the big fright, but when he turns to see the look on Mike’s face he decides it’s likely best not to react. Mike tells him to settle down, no trouble, no hassles in his bar. Buddy just nods and goes back to his drink, Mike watchin the whole time outta the corner of his eye. But then a few songs into the album and buddy starts doin this strange hippie shit with his hands, twirlin his fingers and swishin his wrists like he’s on acid. Coulda been too, I heard there’s good acid on the go. Anyhow, Mike sees this and makes the second charge across the bar, grabs buddy by the shoulders and pulls him off his stool, drags him like that across the floor and into the porch, then throws him so hard against the door that it pops open and buddy lands out on the sidewalk. And all the while the guy never said a word, never made a peep. Mike standin in the porch, locks the deadbolt on the door. Then the guy starts shoutin for something, only he’s not speakin English, more like fuckin German or some such Nazi shit. I sees that his jacket is there on the floor of the bar and it was freezin out that night so I says to Mike:—His jacket. Right there on the floor Mike.
Mike picks up the jacket and brings it back to the porch. He holds it up in the window and the fella starts noddin and almost smilin. And Mike laughs at him through the glass. This finally sets the fella off and he starts shoutin some more Nazi shit and gives the door a couple of boots, pointin at Mike the whole time. Mike cups his hand around his ear like he cant hear what the guy is sayin, beckons for him to come closer, closer, a little closer. When the guy gets handy enough to the glass Mike hauls off and gives it to him, right in the fuckin mouth. And I’m talkin through the window too, and not no regular window either, this is one of them shatterproof ones with the wire mesh runnin through it like what they got in schools and government buildings. Mike brought his hand back then, all fulla blood, from the fella’s face or from the glass I couldnt be sure. Buddy flat on his back on the ground and Mike opens the door and tosses the jacket onto him. Then, get this, sly fucker that he is, Mike reaches around and pushes all the glass back the other way, so that it looks like the window got broke out from the other side. Slick bastard. Calls the cops then, says somebody’s after rammin his face through the door of his bar, after knockin himself out. Mike hauls a glove on over his hand and goes back to his paperwork. Ten minutes later the cops are loadin buddy into the back of their car, no questions asked. And like I said, he was a decent enough fella for how long he was in the bar, never gave me no trouble, and that’s the main thing. Cops prob’ly kicked the shit out of him too. I never said nothing to Mike about it. I knew better. All I can say is that it’s a good thing he’s gettin outta the bar business, the sooner the better too.
The garbage truck pulls off and then it’s Mike’s turn on the scales. The old guy behind the glass in the booth has a glance in the back of the truck and goes:
—Dumpsite A.
And Mike’s spirits does a complete one-eighty, big grin stretches across his face, and as he tears past the big green garbage truck he thumps the horns a couple of times and waves up at the driver. I dont think you’re supposed to pass people on this road.
I says to Mike:
—So is it true that Silas Lawlor is takin over the bar soon?
—Six weeks time, if all goes according to plan.
—And so are we all out of a job then?
—Not all. I advised him to keep you on. And Monica. Dont know if he will or not.
—Right on. Well thanks.
—Well I figured it’s in my own interest to make sure you got money coming in, I’ll still own the building. And I’ll still need rent.
Right, and I thought there for a second that he was doin me a favour. Prob’ly a blessing though, come to think on it, if I did get the boot. Isadora’s been talkin about me movin in anyhow, and I dont know about this bartending racket. Although I must say I kinda like the power. And if you thinks a bartender got no power, especially on Friday night, think again. I controls everything, depending on what mood I’m in and what music I plays. I can pump up the volume and get the biggest kinda rockin party on the go or turn on some Tom Waits and scrunch me brow and ignore people’s orders till everyone wishes they were dead or someplace else. I usually just jacks up the music though, better tips. And I likes bein busy too. Mixin up the weird drinks with shakers and strainers and milk and brandy and cherries and shit. I likes it when I got ten drinks to make and they’re all shoutin for more, wads of cash comin in over the bar, when I finds meself in that fuckin zone where I’m just spinnin on me heels and not thinkin about what Izzy’s up to or who she’s with. I’m unstoppable then, on me own and in fuckin charge. Course then Mike walks into the bar and it all goes to shit on me. Really. I’ll be clippin along just fine, in the groove like I said, mixin up some fuckin girlie drink like a brandy Alexander and Mike walks in and I’ll drop it or shake it all into me own face. I did that one night, didnt tighten the shaker enough and Mike walks in and I gives the big old shake and the whole works exploded in me face, milk and Baileys drippin from me chin and the whole crowd around the bar in the knots laughin. Mike didnt laugh though. He looks at me and says:
—That’s called spillage Clayton. You’ll have to write it down next to the tabs or the stock’ll come up short tomorrow.
And he walked away then, and I never fucked up the whole night long till he came back and I was walkin across the bar with a tray full of dirty ashtrays and dropped the whole works on the floor in front of him. Broke nearly every one of’em too. Cheap fuckin things. But yeah, Mike has that effect on me I s’pose. Like what’s his face, old Randy.
Once, when I was fifteen and stoned on weed, I climbed a tree in Cape Broyle. All us young crowd useta pass the nights in a scraggly patch of woods behind the ball field, just drinkin and screwin. And one night I climbed the highest tree, a massive, half-dead evergreen in the middle. I’d just had a great big blast and it wasnt fully kicked in yet, so on the way up the tree it was like I was racin the buzz to the top. It was pitch-black but me hands and feet knew exactly where they were goin, every notch and groove, every isolated little pimple in the trunk that could pass for a foothold and had the strength to hold me, was just waitin for me. I went up and up, smooth and fluent, me joints and muscles more than happy to obey. I had no limp then either. I was made for that tree.
No one saw me climb it. I never made a sound. And when I got high up enough I sat there on a good sturdy branch and looked down at the crowd, listened to their conversations, listened for me own name and generally enjoyed the power of spyin on ’em all. I watched the cars pull in down on the road, people lookin for dope or droppin off young ones or sellin beer outta the trunk. I never budged. I felt whole. I coulda jumped and controlled the speed of me descent and landed in the middle of ’em all without a sound. I was cozy in me own body. I sat there and listened and watched, potent and prepared for anything.
Then an all-too-familiar car pulled up, and I felt me heart quicken, a little jolt of anxiety to rattle me calm. And out he fell, Randy, the old man. He opened the car door and actually fell out onto the ground. The crowd below me laughed and pointed:
—Look at buddy, look, cockeyed.
I watched him crawl up the bank towards the crowd. That old grey jacket that still stank like a mixture of fish guts and diesel and sewage, I could smell it from me perch. He burst into the crowd like a man who’d been lost in the woods and was setting eyes on the first human life forms in weeks. He was bleedin, but I couldnt tell where the cut was.
—Who got all the draws then?
The crowd all stepped away from him at once and a couple of young ones squealed. I sat and watched. That was my old man down there.
—Who got all the fuckin draws then?
He could barely hold himself up and was sort of swingin his arm in the general direction of the crowd whenever he spoke.
—Where’s my Clayton to?
And I heard someone say Oh, that’s Clayton’s father. He’s fuckin cracked.
Someone shouted my name. It died in the trees. I sat perfectly still, directly above ’em all.
—Clayton! Come get your father!
And then Randy, lookin up:
—There he is! Look at him.
And he pointed. And they all turned and looked.
—What the fuck are you doin up there, ya foolish article? Get down b’y.
And I dont know why I listened to him. I coulda just sat and stayed and ignored him, nested in me little bubble of calmness. But I went down, suddenly clumsy and uncertain, me foot testing the dark for a safe place to step, branch ends gougin at me palms, painful, me legs shakin, a fresh stutter in me brain. I hooked me pants in a branch not four feet from the ground. I tried to jump before I realized I was caught, and turned bottom up, me head bouncin off the spongy ground while me leg stayed up in the tree. The crowd laughin. Randy:
—For fuck sakes Clay, are you stunned or something?
The crowd laughin. And Randy, loaded, looking for draws off teenagers, his own son there amongst ’em. I got me leg free from the tree and took off runnin into the woods. He was too drunk to give chase. I heard him yellin after me:
—Something wrong with you b’y. You’re off your head, you are. Clayton? Clayton?
The cops picked him up that night. Drunk driving. He had to sell off yet another Monte Carlo. Fucker. I’d love to go back, you know. Go back about fifteen or twenty years and meet him face to face, the way I am now. I’d catch him off guard too. He’d nod at me, recognize me vaguely from somewhere. And as soon as he acknowledged me I’d whip off me belt and say now, which end do you want? This end or the buckle end? Them’s your fuckin options. Then down with his pants, his hairy white arse, his face pressed into the floor or the couch or the bed or wherever I takes him. And then I’d nail him till he bawled and then nail him for bawlin. And of course I’d use the buckle end, for badness. I s’pose I’d go till he bled, then I’d stop, and then I’d vanish. Call him up later and ask him if it was still stingin. And if he said yes I’d say good and if he said no then I’d do it all over again. Yeah. That’s what I’d do. But I know there’s no goin back now. Maybe the next time around, if you believes in that sorta shit.
Mike is flyin by the time we comes to Dumpsite A. The sign said maximum 20 at the entrance. Mike dont give a fuck though. We rips right down to the bottom, the very bottom of this fuckin stinking cesspool of sludge and filth. The truck dont even feel steady no more, the ground squishy and kinda empty beneath the wheels, even though it should be froze solid this time of year. There’s hardly any snow on the ground either, whereas back in Town there’s mountains of it, piled up seven and eight feet onto the sidewalks. And in the hills surrounding us now there’s all kinds of snow too. Aint that some kinda fucked? There’s millions of gulls, scroungin and squawkin and pickin at the ground and swoopin at the truck. Mike swerves at one and for a second it seems like the gull gets sucked under the truck but then it pulls up at the last second. Some fuckin stink too, this real thick, sweet, fermented, sour-yogurt kinda smell that makes you wanna hold your breath for the rest of your life, or die on the spot. Mike’s gotta spin the truck around to back in alongside the other trucks, the other Men. A guy with a white facemask and hardhat and an orange vest guides us in and lets Mike know when to stop. Mike cuts the engine and we both jumps out, me holdin me breath as long as I can and then takin deep breaths through me mouth when I finally needs to breathe again. Mike dont seem too troubled by it though, he’s in his glory. He says:
—Could be worse Clayton, you could be working down here.
And when he says that, the guy who waved us in, the guy with the facemask, he glances over at us. I cant see how he heard Mike over the screech of the gulls and the grinding of the trucks and the backhoes, but he did. He looks over and squints at the two of us and his eyes sort of bug out for a second. And he’s fuckin familiar too, yes by Christ. I’d recognize that broken, slumped frame and them despairing, sunken permanently bloodshot eyes anywhere. That’s Jim McNaughton, I’m sure of it. He meets me eye for a second and I’m positive it’s him. I nods but he sort of shakes his head ever so slightly and starts walkin backwards and around the side of another truck till he’s outta sight. Mike, heaving a box full of what looks like baby stuff, clothes and busted toys and blankets and shit, down into the smouldering mess behind us, he nods and says:
—McNaughton. Poor fucker. Thinks no one knows why he stinks like he do.
And holy fuck, that smell, this one in the air, I knew I recognized it. Every fuckin time Jim walks into the Hatchet lately he brings it with him. Mike says:
—I think it’s temporary, till his union clears things up for him.
—What’s that all about?
—Never mind…
And just as he says that I’m reachin into the back of the truck and I cuts me index finger open on a big slice of broken glass. I lets out a yelp and pulls me hand back. There’s blood, but not too much, it’s not a deep cut atall. But it still feels pretty gross, cuttin it open down here amongst all this toxic shit, down here in the wasteland. Mike lets out a full-bellied roar.
—Ha! Well now, that’s fuckin karma for you.
—What’s that mean?
—That’s a piece of the frame from that picture you tossed out your window.
—I dont know what you’re talkin about.
—C’mon Clayton, I’m not stunned.
He’s not. I knows that. But neither am I.
Sometime after Christmas me and Iz had a racket upstairs in me apartment. Just one of them bullshit rows that pops up outta nowhere. She was talkin about goin sober again. And I was wantin to go downstairs for a drink. Then her eyes locked onto that big painting propped against the wall in the kitchen above the fridge. She laughed at it, said it was the tackiest thing she’d ever laid eyes on. But I kinda kept it around cause I liked it, it was challenging. It had this dandy border of Celtic knots, which is likely why she took a dislike to it right away, where she resents anything Irish, especially the fact that I had such a wicked time over there. The picture itself was this huge snarled white hand squeezin a crow. It was pretty detailed. The crow had this strange look in its eyes, like it had some kinda secret and wasnt the least bit concerned that it could be crushed any second atall. Isadora said the painting was juvenile and started pointin out places where the artist fucked up or didnt mix the colours properly. Of course I couldnt give a shit about that, I was more interested in what was goin on with the hand and the crow. I’d sat around and stared at it lotsa nights before she ever laid eyes on it and I got to figuring there was some kinda message to it, how the hand was havin this dilemma about whether or not to crush the crow or let it go free. But the crow didnt seem to care too much, so it was deceptive, which of the two players was in control. I never did get a firm grip on what it was tryna tell me, but I kept it around cause I liked to look at it, simple as that. Isadora kept bitchin about it, criticizing the frame it was in and the background colouring and how it was so pretentious for someone so obviously amateur to use oil when they hadnt the first clue how to use it. She kept snickering at it, laughin at me for likin it. I knew she was only tryna rile me up, but I said fuck it anyhow.
