Right Away Monday, page 33
And are you?
I made a stab at it. Made all the right moves. Stayed straight when I needed to be, played the game with the big boys, sang my guts out in every seedy bar from Trepassey to Port Alberni. Galway, London, Leeds. Paid my band, paid every last stagehand till I wasnt left with the price of a pack of smokes. Did everything by the book, signed it all over. Just to have it all swept out from underneath me by that fuckin dogan-faced Brooks.
So that’s it then? That all you got?
No by fuck.
So it’s just five grand then, that someone wants to hand to you. And you’re playing that night anyway? Beats the pay at the Ship doesnt it?
Yeah.
Well then?
31. Nose Dive
Brent busts into me sweaty room with the grand big announcement that Jim is after shootin himself, that he spent the weekend boozin and bawlin in some club in Torbay, drove his Jeep late, late Sunday night through gates at Robin Hood Bay, polished off a dozen beer way down in the bottom of the dump with the gulls and the rats, then blew his fuckin head to bits with a twelve-gauge.
There was no note.
The gun was registered to his father.
A picture of his wife in ’er wedding dress lay on the seat beside Jim’s body.
Jim McNaughton. Dead. That fuckin conniving bastard.
And yeah, although the gloom and commotion of a real live suicide weighs kinda heavy on me conscience, how someone you knows, even someone like Jim, is capable of such darkness, can face themselves to that degree, I dont know, I’m still kinda fuckin jealous. Cause he got there first. Like back in school when someone’d show up with a cast on their arm or leg, I’d get right fuckin cracked about it, everybody makin the big fuss over ’em. I wanted a broken bone too. Because that’s what got you in, for a while.
But at the same time, and Godspeed poor old Jim, not sayin nothing there, but I’m kinda pissed a bit too. Cause now what’s the fuckin good of doin it meself? Two suicides right in a row, right close together like that. Fuck that. Mine wont have nowhere near the shock value now, it’ll be all diluted cause where they’ll all have just gotten through Jim’s suicide. Not another one.
Jim, old fucker. Couldnt he have waited awhile? Let me get around to me own fuckin thing? Who’s gonna bother to analyze my situation now, my predicament? They’ll already have dug so deep into Jim’s story that they wont even have the energy to put into mine for fuck sakes. Mine wont have near the impact it shoulda had, not now. Not after this. Cause they’ll all have so recently come to the conclusion that there’s no real answers, that you cant turn back the clock, that there’s no one to be held accountable. I wanted all that, goddamn it. It’s all a part of the package, that they’d be replayin shit in their heads and wishin they had some time back.
And now too, with the whole Monica thing, sure my demise’ll only get swept up in it all and put to rest as a sign of the fuckin times or something. The Summer of Death. Depersonalized, if that’s a word. Reduced to yet another contaminant on the already foul history of the Hatchet. Monica’s body found in the woods near Dead Man’s Pond, Jim’s soggy brains and bits of skull splattered all over the inside of his rusty old Jeep. My nosedive. Another one? So tragic…
And the world moves ever forward.
Sure no one hardly mentions Monica no more. Even me, I pushes her face out of me mind whenever I catches it there. It’s only human. Christ, the night she slipped me the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, the lost fuckin anxious need in her eyes when she showed up after her shift. And didnt I lash out at that? Wearin her weakness on her sleeve like that, reflecting everything back on me, everything I didnt want to feel. I cut her down then, drove her away with nothing more than a glance. How she smiled when she was haulin her coat back on, her head high, the click of her heels down the long dark stairway. The way Brent looked at me when she was finally gone. Monica.
I’ve been comin awake lately with this feeling, this vague sense of…anticipation. The prospect of escape maybe. From me bedroom, if nothing else. Sticky, damp shithole full of dust and spores, mice. But I’m only really able to get ahold of this feeling when I’m just wakin up, or comin to, more like it. Cant really grasp it on a conscious level, as I’d like to. But it’s kinda like, I dont know, like the way you feels when you buys something different at the porn shop, maybe. Like some kinky magazine with women fucking horses or she-males. And just say you got the magazine tucked away on yourself somewhere, and you knows it’s looked upon by society in general as a filthy thing, perverted and near criminal, but you cant help but feelin this excitement about gettin home with it, that your thirst can soon be quenched, maybe. Or that escape is just around the corner. Well I’ve been wakin up lately with that kinda feeling hovering in the air, all the hurt and misery gone for that little moment while I’m comin back to the world. Like some twisted, sinister gardener crept into the twisted, dried-out jungle of me brain overnight and watered down me grief a little.
And left a little seed of hope behind.
Maybe I’ve been hopeful.
And now of course, with Jim’s inconsiderately timed suicide to contend with, I got no fuckin hope at all. Fucker.
I’ve been milkin this image of meself climbin the fire escape up to the roof. I has me last smoke. Then I does the big nosedive, right smack down onto the hustle of mid-afternoon Water Street. I’m pretty sure too that if I makes the jump right and proper, maybe tie me hands somehow, that the building is high enough so that I’d be good and dead when I hit the street. I’d need to land on me head of course. Face first. Right there in front of the door of the Hatchet. Me blood stainin the sidewalk for years to come. Cause that’s the only way to go: preposterous and public and historic and horrifying and fuckin depraved. The big fuckin melodramatic war cry.
I dont know sure, how to fuckin express it no more, the black panicked globs of misery sloshin through my head all the time. How do you really and absolutely convey that? Especially when people dont even want to understand. Cause they dont wanna have their own shortcomings brought into the light. Cause what if my slop and shit matches up with theirs? Well then sooner or later it means they’ll hafta look it all in the face. And what if they cant take it, cant deal with it? Well then, they’ll be tossin themselves right off the roof behind me.
And I mean, I aint no self-pitying hard-done-by young savage, sulkin and screamin for no good reason. Or at least I aint just that. But that’s what they likes to reduce you to isnt it? That’s the easiest, most comprehensive and accessible approach.
But hey, they all loved it first, loved me. When Isadora first fucked off and they all saw me with me head down on the bar, there were all kinds of sympathetic shoulders to bawl on. Lotsa free drinks too. Not two months later then and you can tell they’re all right weary of me, cause I’m just such a fuckin drain I s’pose. Just cause I aint afraid to show me human side and have a good bawl every now and then and I likes to beat shit up. It’s good though, to get it all out that way. I mean I’m only after smashin a few glasses. That’s half the problem with this crowd from Town, they cant take it. They thinks violence and aggression comes from the TV, they wont believe it’s happening right in front of their faces. Like they thinks too that they can say whatever they like to you and you’ll just find some way to take it, that you wont really smack ’em in the face.
Anyhow, that’s how I finally got the boot at the Hatchet. I was up here in me bedroom, hangin out the window with a beer glass and I slung it empty down at Water Street. It smashed right at fuckin Silas Lawlor’s feet and a shard of glass nicked his cheek. It was some fuckin funny. Silas looked up then and saw me laughin. And that was “the last straw” of course. And I shouted back:
—That’s fuckin original aint it.
He was supposed to have fired me anyhow, when he first took over. But he kept me on cause Mike recommended it. And Monica too, he kept her on for a while. Till she fucked off with the float. And didnt I try me fuckin best to get the heave anyhow? I was robbin beer and little bits of cash and then arguing right loud in Silas’s face when he asked me about it the next day. I’d come into the bar on me off night and pick rackets with the new little daisy-queenie boytoys Silas had lurkin about. I did it all, pissed in the sink in the women’s toilets, smashed a load of ashtrays one night, stogged up the toilet with the eight ball. Generally for a while there I was just goin around bein a little prick lookin to get me face smashed in.
Cause that’s always what it comes back to aint it? If you cant get through to ’em either other way, like lettin yourself be vulnerable and sad, then you might as well turn on ’em, push ’em to the point where they’ll at the very least do ya the favour of smashin your face in for ya. And that’s all I’m lookin for I s’pose, someone to bash me teeth out, if ya wants to stop and analyze it. Either fuckin shut the fuck up and stop lookin at me, or fuckin well kill me.
It’s fuckin hard you know, to get someone to have a go at ya. But I s’pose once you’ve crossed over to where I have, once you’ve announced to the world that you couldnt really give a fuck if you lives or dies, that no pain, no punch in the face or knife in the guts or bottle in the throat or transport truck in the nuts can possibly compare to the heartsickness you’re feelin right now, then even big hefty longwinded pricks like that Clyde Whelan cunt are more of a mind to keep their distance. And I mean I knows it’s just weakness, that it’s scrawny and stupid of me not to just pick meself up outta the rubble and get on with it, but they all thinks it’s me gone cracked, that I’ve no fear left in me. That I’m fuckin insane. And I reckon you can capitalize on that if you knows where to draw the line.
Couple of weeks back, the night after I got back from her place in Port Rexton, the night of the big downpour that almost saw me dead, the night I finally did fuckin die, I walked into the Hatchet to see that Toddler Dawe hunched over the bar with his chin stuck out and that fuckin underbite, showin off his disgusting jagged row of rotten bottom teeth. Smackin his hand on the bar for the music to be turned up louder, louder. Screamin nonsensical senile gibberish at a group of women in the corner.
Philip and that greasy Jane Neary and Charlene what’s-her-face and that Clyde Whelan cunt at the other end of the bar shakin their soggy heads and gigglin at Dawe’s latest drinkin fit. Pisses me off, how that old prick is still allowed to get away with carrying on like that, how he’s allowed to be this obnoxious fuckface just because he put out a couple of crappy records. I dont get why he’s considered fuckin “eccentric” when I’m just dismissed as some kinda punk drunk. And how fuckin dare they say we’re anything alike. For one thing, I have a fuckin conscience, dont I? And how fuckin dare any one of’em think for a second that she actually gives a black fuck about the likes of Toddler Dawe. That just because she wont have nothing to do with me no more, then he’s all of a sudden back in the running, that he’s just as significant a contender for her fuckin affections? That she cant decide between the two of us? Go fuck yourselves.
When I walked into the bar that night and saw him there droolin and mumblin like that, I dont know, I wanted to kill him. I did. Cant remember ever despising another human so much. I hated him like the way I fuckin hates meself sometimes, like I hates her, for not havin the guts or the heart to see this thing out, for terminating shit before we even got a chance to see where it might go. And I mean, she fuckin exploited him, that’s all. Used up his money and free drinks and coke in return for her company. Just served his sick, twisted need to obsess. So he could keep on writin his stupid middling so-called poetry. Because, like it or not, as Val says, even if St. John’s could tell the difference between mediocrity and greatness, they wouldnt want you to be great, wouldnt want you to stand out. They’d want you to be mediocre. If they could tell the difference.
Dawe’s just lucky he knows how to exploit the town’s lack of common sense.
How fuckin retarded, how fuckin absurd that anyone could think for a second that me and Toddler Dawe were rivals for her bed.
I pushed in next to him at the bar.
—I hear you took her out to dinner.
He wouldnt look at me, but he knew what I was talkin about. He stopped his rantin and slobbering though. It’s all a fuckin act with him. Maybe that’s why no one pays him no mind, cause maybe they can all see right through it, who knows. I leant right next to him and whispered so no one else could hear:
—She thinks you’re a pathetic old man you know. She pities you. And in case you’re interested, I slept with her last night. And when we were finished, I fell asleep inside her.
Of course she never even let me in the fuckin house, but Dawe couldnt know that. Got ’im though, I thought his face was gonna explode, the veins on his fuckin forehead like big old nightcrawlers squirmin just under his skin. He grabbed me then, just like I wanted him to, right in front of everyone and for no reason that anyone could tell. He grabbed me by the collar and shook me and tried to lift me off the floor even. I was surprised, didnt think he had the strength in them piddly soft townie arms. And I came back at him of course, just defending meself as far as anyone shoulda been concerned. I booted him in the shin and latched me hand onto his throat and started squeezin. C’mon, gimme death if you can divvy it out. Give it to me you old second-rate prick. I tried to get ahold of his ponytail but it was too slippery, too fuckin slimy. Dawe gruntin and wheezin, tryna breathe, tryna cut off the circulation to my brain at the same time. And the bar, that fuckin comatose, apathetic little bar, came right to life then, all hands in a frenzy. Next thing though, that Clyde Whelan cunt and Silas Lawlor got me by the arms, draggin me out into the porch. Shoved me onto the street. Told me to go home and sober up. And me, more sober than I’d been in weeks, hadnt had a drink all evening. And havin to go in to me shift then the next day and pretend I felt bad for doin what everyone must, on some level, wanna see done to Toddler fuckin Dawe. I never apologized though. No fuckin way. I looked Silas straight in the eye, me head high and me two feet planted firm on the floor. I was just waitin to see if he’d fire me. Cause then I woulda went off in his face too.
Then a few nights later I tossed the glass out me window and got the official boot. I was sittin on the big red couch afterwards, fuckin fried on that liquid codeine shit, body-stoned, on me own. And I dont know, maybe I had one of them breakthroughs or something. Just a little bit though. Just sittin there thinkin about why in the name of fuck I’d let her get to me that much that I’d go sabotage me job, me only source of income, get on like that in the place where I works. And I started thinkin that maybe I could slow all this down if I wanted to, decelerate things. But then I lost it, the moment, it got all fuddled up again, me head. Anyhow, it’s me own business, all this. Cant deny me own nature for the sake of appearances. If I wants to lash out and stir shit up I fuckin well will. No crime in speakin me mind from time to time is there?
Brent said to me a few weeks back, big philosopher that he is, that it’s like I just dont want nothing good in me life. That I dont want nothing to be thankful for. That I wont be satisfied till I’m flattened out on me back on the very bottom. But I just thinks, you know, that the top count for much if you havent punched a shift or two on bottom? And besides, I’ve been way up there too, havent I? I’ve been on top. Yes. And I knows what it’s like when someone kicks that ladder out from underneath you. So what’s the point of bein up there, tryna keep your balance amongst all them vultures who just wants to see you plummet anyhow? When you’re on the bottom you got nowhere else to fall.
Mike Quinn came by, few nights back. Lookin for the rent. Jesus, I s’pose it’s six or eight weeks in the red now. But the apartment is just fuckin destroyed. And I dont mean destroyed, like if I took out a mop and a broom and had a go at the place it’d be in shipshape in a few hours. I means it’s fuckin destroyed. Like I’d need to hire a bulldozer just for starters. So I certainly didnt want Mike to see it did I? I mean, he’s usually pretty good about rent and shit with me, I wasnt afraid of hagglin with him. I coulda just said how I’ve been partying too hard and that I’ll cut down and get me shit together. Offer him some definite date when I’d have a chunk of cash for him. He’d appreciate that kinda talk. I just didnt want him to see the apartment. The murals that were here since Keith had the place, me and Brent went mad here one week and did ’em all over with the darkest kinda shit, covered every conceivable inch of the walls, even the ceilings in some sections. Demons and creatures gettin their limbs tore off and sharp cutthroat angles on everything, all black and brown and blood red. And there’s holes fuckin everywhere and I dont know where half of ’em came from. Furniture smashed to bits and piled up, snarled in the corners. Gouges in the floors. And the toilet, fuck, that’s smashed this months now. But I dont think I done it. I got a bench set up out on the roof and just lets go down in the alley between the two buildings. If Mike ever went out on the roof and had a whiff and glanced down, fuck, he’d lose it, he’d kill me. There’d be no written eviction notice or nothing like that, he’d just heave me right out over the roof onto the concrete. Save me the trouble of doin it meself though.
And it’s not really that I’m afraid of him or nothing like that, like I could manage his presence if he was just cracked and tryna kill me. But knowing Mike he’d milk it a bit. He’d be so disappointed and betrayed. And I just dont have the energy to take on them kinds of situations these days, them kinds of emotions I s’pose. Anger and violence, yes. But the other stuff, no, too intense. Mike’s been good to me over the past year, I knows that. And me beatin up this place got nothing at all to do with him. Maybe it’s just my reaction against this whole fuckin scene. The ahhh…physical manifestation of my fuckin disgust for all this downtown artsy, theatrical, fuckin filmic and musical slop. It’s Monica’s dead corpse rotting in the woods near Signal Hill. My own self-loathing, hunger, failure. Yeah, I’m aware of all that. That when I looks around the main room it screams I hate this life, please just kill me now. I just dont see no other way of expressing meself. But how can I explain that to Mike Quinn? Besides, I reckon I’ll be long fuckin gone before anyone other than Brent has a chance to survey the damage in here.
