Logan, page 2
part #2 of Tough London Series
Murderers and muggers.
I start cashing up, totting up all the notes and coins in the till, and I start to wish, not for the first time, that I had someone to help me looking after the shop.
A couple months ago I applied for a government scheme. The idea is to give people in long term unemployment a chance at some work experience. So they get to work at a local businesses like, as an intern type thing. It’s a second chance for them, and a chance for me to get some help without it costing me anything. With the way the shop’s finances were going, it had seemed like a perfect plan.
Sadly, nothing has come of it. The guy said he’d call me when they had someone interested in working in the world of art supply. Then he snorted out this annoying laugh and hung up shortly after.
I’ll have you know that the world of art supply is actually very glamorous, I’d thought to myself.
I also wonder just how picky the terminally unemployed can afford to be. Maybe they’re happy to work in a bookshop, but art is just out of the question.
Something catches my eye from outside. A dark shape, under a streetlamp. God, big men really give me the creeps. The figure shuffles along. Or at least I thought he had. When I look again, he seems closer to the shop window. Is he staring in? I can’t see his face, as the shade from his hood casts his features too darkly to make out.
A grim cold grips the back of my neck, like a pack of ice has been dumped on me.
I feel like I can’t move.
Don’t panic, Clark, it’s just a creepy hobo, but he doesn’t mean you any harm, he’s just hungry and cold, and scared, just like you. He’s going to turn and walk away any second now.
But he doesn’t walk away. He takes one step closer, and then another.
I take a step back, but then, suddenly illuminated by the dim light of the shop, I notice that I can see his face. And in that instant, I realise that I recognise him.
It’s him. The man from my dreams, my waking obsession, the man who’s been stalking my thoughts for the past three years.
Logan Grimes.
I don’t know why, but something inside me just snaps at that moment. I let out a yelp, shrill and child-like. He hears me, and a pained expression fixes his face. Then, a moment later, his expression changes to something else. Is it recognition? Is it remorse?
But before I can work it out, he’s gone into the night, as sudden as the scent of roses, as dark as lost memory.
2
LOGAN
* * *
No fucking way. There is no fucking way in hell it’s him. Of all the sick, demented jokes life could play on me, this has to be the sickest, most demented imaginable.
He’s still got those ice-cool blue eyes. Those ruby-red lips. Those pale, smooth cheeks. That pout.
That fucking man. He’s haunted my thoughts ever since prison. Not a day goes by that I haven’t wondered where he is, what he is doing. Whether he still looks as good now as he had then. Turns out, if anything, he looks even better than when I’d known him at the prison.
Maybe it’s just because I am out of that shit-hole that he looks so good. I found that, after I got released. Things that weren’t special before I’d gone in have now taken on this rosy glow. Simple shit, like a tree, or even more idiotic stuff like, I don’t know, a pack of smokes. They have this glow to them now. Maybe it’s just because I know that if I want to I could go up to that tree and smell it, or grab that pack of smokes and light one, and that no prick guard is gonna give me any shit for it.
So if normal things look extra special, you can imagine how good something extra special must look to me.
It was shit enough being locked up in that place with those animals. But having to see Clark once a week, it was like being given a slice of freedom, a glimpse of the bright blue sky when all I was meant to look at was the grim grey floor of my cell.
It was torture, to put it simply. Like showing a starving man a thick juicy steak behind a bullet-proof glass window, wafting the smell of it through to him, making sure he knows he’ll never be able to sink his teeth into it.
I can’t believe that this tiny store is the place I am meant to be at. The shop that creep told me to check out. I have to read the sign a couple times to make sure of it. But it’s the place. There’s no doubt about it.
Kahlo’s Krafts. There’s no way that two art supply shops could be called that for fucks sake.
At first glance, I hadn’t been sure the man inside was Clark. I was so shocked, so lost in the moment, that I moved closer. And then closer still. When I was finally close enough to see him clearly, I was so close that he could see me, too.
And then he screamed.
Not the fucking response I’d been hoping for after all these years. Not exactly the romantic reunion I’d been dreaming of. Oh, I’d imagined screams of course. And groans, too. But screams of a very different kind.
This art shop is meant to be my big chance to finally get back on my own two feet. A chance at some work at a respectable place. I’ve had some work as a bouncer at a nightclub that my friend Hunter hooked me up with. But working in gay clubs isn’t exactly the kind of scene I’m into. And when the boss found out about my past, I just stopped getting shifts.
So when I found out about this scheme, it like it was my last chance.
Sure, I’m not going to be paid for my time, but believe me, the chances of getting a normal job are basically nil. I’ve tried everything. As soon as a potential employer even gets a whiff that you might have done some time, you become nothing to them.
I got told that jobs had mysteriously disappeared, that there had never been an opportunity in the first place. Hell, one guy even just told me to my face, ‘The tattoos are bad enough, but the fact that you’ve done time means I just can’t take the risk.’
‘You know you’re not meant to discriminate. It’s illegal,’ I replied, indignant.
‘Well,’ he said, with a curl in his lip, ‘why don’t you take me to court if you feel that strongly. I guess I’ll be hearing from your lawyer.’
And just like that, I was hopeless again.
With the sound of Clark’s scream still ringing in my ears, I duck away from the shop, into a nearby alley. I walk past a couple of cybergoths, freaky looking kids in black outfits rimmed with neon green piping. My heart is beating like I’m running a marathon, an incessant thump in my chest.
I know it’s just my imagination, but the rhythm sounds like a dull fu-ck, fu-ck, fu-ck inside me.
I walk across town, to the tube station, my head spinning.
I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve not violated any parole. I haven’t hurt anyone. Nothing bad has happened.
In fact, I’ve done exactly what that guy, Tom, told me to do. I remember the conversation perfectly, cause at the time I’d been really fucking excited.
‘If you’re not sure about it, Logan, why don’t you just go check the place out?’
‘It’s not that I don’t want the work, you know, it’s just…’ I wanted to say I was nervous, but obviously I didn’t say that, ‘I’m just not so keen on art. It’s boring, you know.’ Much easier to lie than to tell the truth: that art means so much to me that I’m nervous to be involved in it again.
‘Sure,’ said Tom, ‘but just because you’ll be doing some work experience in an art shop, don’t mean you’re training to be the next Van Gog.’
It’s Van Gough, I thought. Jesus, How did this guy have a job when I didn’t?
‘OK, I’ll do it,’ I said, eventually.
So that was my plan. I’d go, scope the place out, to see what it was like. I decided that it would be best to go after hours, so that it’d be empty. I hadn’t expected there to be a fucking light still on in there, let alone someone working.
And the last person I’d been expecting to work in there was Clark.
The city is alive with the first touch of winter tonight. Snow’s falling — that skinny snow, you know the type, like thick dust, falling quick and sure through the dark, dancing under streetlamps, settling thinly on cool surfaces.
The tube station is a warm, welcome respite from the chill of the evening. I’m only a couple stops away, in King’s Cross. People on the train give me funny looks. I’m used to it. I know I’m an imposing figure. Big, and scary looking. I don’t exactly try to put people at ease, either. The tougher I look, the less shit I get.
It’s not long before I’m out in the cold again.
I walk away from St. Pancras, down the small alleys that lead to my place. It’s a shit-hole, but at least it’s my shit-hole. King’s Cross ain’t the nicest part of town. It used to be pretty much the worst, and it’s still sort of dangerous, if you take the wrong turn. But, to be truthful, I like it here. And I’m lucky to live in the centre. There are problems here, sure, but everywhere has problems.
I guess a lot of people would think of me as a problem. Actually I’m sure of it. Former drug user, former prisoner, former homeless bum. It isn’t exactly the best resumé.
But I’m trying to change all that.
I keep thinking about Clark, of course. I’d been close enough to smell him, separated just by glass. For a moment I wonder if he could have recognised me.
Don’t flatter yourself, Logan, he doesn’t even know about you fucking exist.
Suddenly, a dangerous thought pops into my head. Maybe I could go work at the art shop. If Clark really doesn’t know who I am, then what’s the problem? I could help out, get to know him. I’d just be the intern he’s expecting. Sure, I’ll have to smarten up before my first shift, trim my beard, maybe cut my hair. I didn’t want him to remember me as the tramp outside his shop, of course.
I don’t know. If he ever finds out, I’m sure he won’t be too happy about it.
I get out of the lift onto the floor of my flat. I’m up on floor nine of a high rise. The view from the windows slightly makes up for the cramped living conditions.
As I near my front door, I catch a whiff of something pungent on the breeze. It’s spliff smoke — unmistakable. It’s a pretty common scent in my tower block, as most of the kids who live here at least dabble in the stuff. But smelling it always makes me nervous. It’s the smell of who I used to be, the man I am trying to run away from.
As I get closer, the smell seems to be getting stronger. There must be a bunch of toe-rags around here or something, I decide, before slipping the key into the lock of my front door. When I turn it though, I get another nasty shock. My door is already unlocked! I instinctively move my hand to the waistband of my pants, ready to grip the handle of the knife that isn’t there.
I push the heavy door slowly, as gently as I can, trying to make no noise at all. It’s tricky of course, especially with an old door like this, and there is a tiny creak as I move into the flat.
The hallway is heavy with reefer smoke. Thick layers of the stuff hang in the air like grey, weightless blankets, waiting to fall.
At least whoever this prick is, he’s gonna be high as a fucking kite, I think to myself.
As I move further into the flat, I try to think of old enemies, people who might want to cause me harm. Honestly, I can’t think of anyone who’d know where I am, that I’m out of prison. More likely it’s just some random tramp, looking for a place to rest his head. But what’s that? Is that fucking music?
It’s tinny and quiet, and clearly coming from the sitting room.
OK Logan, I think, time to make an entrance.
I kick open the door and step through, shouting as loud as I can, ‘Freeze motherfucker!’ It’s the first thing that comes into my head, OK?
But I can’t believe what I see when I open that door.
3
CLARK
* * *
It’s a full hour before I manage to pluck up the courage to leave the shop. I have the lights off all evening, and have to keep peeking out to see if Logan is still out there. Presuming it actually was Logan.
Why had he come here? Was it just chance, dumb bad luck that a criminal from my old life has managed to track me down? Could it really be just chance?
I can’t think why else he would have been here. I mean, is he just really into art now?
Actually, when I really think about it, there’s only one good explanation for why he was standing outside my shop. He’s tracked me down to kill me. Obviously, he’s had some kind of vendetta against me, which is why he started the riot in the first place. And now, after being released from jail, he’s come to take gruesome revenge on me.
I wonder for a moment how he’s going to kill me. Whether I’m at least going to get to feel those big, muscular arms squeezing around me before the end.
Ugh, Clark, you sicko. Am I really finding the thought of Logan Grimes throttling me to be erotically exciting?
Finally, much later than I’d usually leave, when I’m convinced that I’m finally safe, I make the journey across Camden, to my little flat in Kentish Town.
It really is a very modest place. I’ve had to cut back on home size in order to afford to continue running the shop.
I live in the top half of an old council house on Lawford road. It had been built in the 1960s to help accommodate the influx of immigrants flooding into London. It’s a little best its prime now, and my landlord isn’t exactly forthcoming when it comes to the upkeep of this place. The only reason I can afford to live round here is because the house I live in is the most dilapidated, run-down place on the block.
To be honest, I’m lucky I can afford to live round here at all. After the prison job and some other, interesting stuff which happened in my life, I needed somewhere that I could start over fresh.
There are definitely bonuses to living round here, too. In a massive stroke of luck, my neighbour downstairs turned out to be an absolute sweetheart.
Her name is Franca, and we very quickly became good friends. Franca’s exactly the kind of friend someone like me needs — she’s smart, tough and doesn’t take any crap from anyone.
Kind of the opposite of me in that respect.
I remember the first night we hung out. It had been about a week after I moved in, and I’d seen Franca a few times, heading out to work at about the time I was coming home. We’d given each other a so you’re my new neighbor look and gone our separate ways. I didn’t think much more about it until I heard a knock at my door.
I hadn’t been expecting anyone, so obviously my immediate reaction was to feel anxious. When I saw Franca’s diminutive form holding a bottle of red and two wine glasses, that anxiety quickly disappeared.
‘Hi neighbour!’ she said in a cute, high-pitched voice, ‘Welcome to the neighbourhood!’’
We bonded quickly over a shared love of the finer things in life (mainly red wine) and very soon we were chatting like we’d known each other for years. I’d never had a neighbour I could also call a friend before, and it was honestly great.
I know it’s dumb, but having someone downstairs who has my back, even someone as cute and un-threatening as Franca, makes me feel a heck of a lot safer in an unfamiliar neighbourhood.
Tonight, after seeing Logan at the shop, I feel really lucky to have a someone I can count on for a chat and some reassurance. So, after I dump my bag on my bed, I head down to Franca’s place and bang out our secret knock on the door. I know, it’s lame, right, using a secret knock.
I’m basically a kid still, though, so cut me some slack!
I only have to wait a few seconds before Franca opens up. Her big brown eyes widen as she sees me.
‘Clark my boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?’
Franca has a funny way of speaking. She’s from Argentina, and she’s still got this sultry Latin twang, rolling her ‘r’s and elongating her vowels. If I were straight, I swear, I’d be eating her up. Regardless, I could listen to her speak for hours.
‘I’ve had a rough day, Franca. And I mean rough.’
‘Well let’s pour ourselves a couple generous samples of the finest Malbec and exorcise those daily demons.’
Daily demons is what Franca calls the tiny little evils we have to go through every day. Inconsequential things like getting splashed by a careless driver or (conveniently for me) being accosted by a rude customer. She believes that by moaning a little bit, you can feel a whole lot better. ‘You don’t want to let the daily demons build up,’ she always says, ‘or they can end up with you for a much longer than a day.’
I always feel much better after talking to Franca, and as soon as we sit down on the sofa, I feel myself begin to unwind. I explain what happened with Marco, the pushy customer from earlier. Franca laughs as I describe him as half-rat, half-man, and gets appropriately enraged when I recount just what a nightmare he’d been.
‘I swear,’ she says, ‘there are so many people who feel like they’re just better than you, aren’t there?’
‘Thing is Franca,’ I continue, ‘that’s not even close to the weirdest thing that happened today.’
Of course it’s not the first time I’ve spoken to Franca about Logan. She kind of knows him as a guilty secret of mine. The most off-limits guy I’ve ever met, but the most desirable, too.
When I start to tell her about some shady guy, watching me from the front of the shop, her hand moves instinctively to her mouth. Then, when I say who it was, her mouth opens wider than I’ve ever seen before. She swipes her hand at my shoulder in a friendly swat.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ she cries. Her eyes narrow and I can practically smell the dirty thought wafting through her mind. ‘You boned him, didn’t you?’
‘I most certainly did not…’ I stop short of saying boned, ‘do that.’
‘Well why not, mister? I’ve been saying you need to get laid for about five hundred years.’
I can’t help but laugh. Even though it’s a ridiculous thought, talking like this with a friend is definitely making the day seem less threatening — a more manageable type of terror at the very least.
