56

I was in a mess all weekend.  I could not eat, although my mother brought up tray after tray of food that just turned my stomach over inside of me.  I smoked jittery cigarettes out of the window, and gulped warm whiskey when no one was looking.  I felt terrible, like my body and my soul had been wrung out, twisted and distorted.  Everything hurt.  I felt nervous and on edge, unable to pinpoint exactly why it felt like the sky was about to come crashing down upon all of us. I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a minute.  I pulled my duvet over my head and shivered in the darkness for the entire day, sporadically breaking down into tears for no reason.  My mum came in and out, and she was always crying too, and demanding to know what the hell was wrong with me, and should she call the doctor?  I felt my mouth stuffed full of a million things I would never be able to tell her and it felt like I was slowly choking on them, and it was too late, it was all too late.  I could always see the shadow of Howard behind her, and I knew that all was lost, that everything was over.  I became utterly convinced in my paranoia that they had done this to me on purpose.  Jack and the guy in the baseball cap.  They’d sold me something rotten and poisoned and now it was eating away at me from the insides.  And Howard, he was behind it, he was behind everything!  He was the puppet master, controlling us all!  He had decided chopping me up would be too messy, that poison was a far easier way to get rid of me.    I was engulfed in this terrible blackness and could see no way out.  The only solution I could think of was going to find the guy in the baseball cap and buying something else from him, something that would put me right, but I couldn’t move, I was too terrified to leave the house.

Saturday night I slept badly.  I became certain that there were dark people hiding within every shadow in my room.  Howards people.  Watching over me.  Keeping tabs, in case I thought about escaping.  I hid under my duvet, trembling, hoping they would not find me there.  On Sunday morning I woke up feeling really sick.  My stomach kept lurching and heaving, and my mouth kept filling with hot, yellow saliva, but there was nothing in my stomach to bring up.  Howard came up to see me when my mother left the house.  He seized me by the neck and breathed his fiery rage into my sweating face.  “Whatever drugs you’ve got yourself fucked up on, you better not bring it here again!” He released my neck and I sobbed my tears into the duvet.  He stalked my room like a tiger in a cage. “Your mother does not need to see this sort of thing! She does not need the stress! We’ll have to ask for help if this carries on, we’ll have to get the social involved.  They have places for fucked up boys like you, you know.  Kind of like prisons.  I did warn you, didn’t I? I’ve warned you so many times how close she is to giving up on you!”

“I have to get out,” I croaked then, rising slowly up from the bed and testing out the floor with my feet.  I stood up, stiff and half crippled by the bruising to my middle, but I had suddenly remembered something, something really important. Something that started to fill me up with an almost unbearable level of hope. “Get some fresh air.”

“Good idea,” said Howard, folding his big arms across his chest. “Don’t come back until you are straight and then I want you to apologize to your mother.”

“I will, I will,” I chanted this gladly, pulling on the nearest jumper. “I’ll give you guys some peace, stay at a friends yeah? I am never touching that shit again, not ever.” I pulled the jumper down and stared at Howard seriously. “I mean it.”

He laughed at me, bright and hard.  He rolled his head on his neck.  “Yeah well little man, we’ll see about that won’t we?  We’ll see about that.”

I put on my headphones and ran all the way to the beach.  I don’t know where I found the energy or the strength, but it was there somewhere, lurking in my bones, swirling to life when I needed it, setting me on fire.  The music helped.  It always fucking helped. Liam’s voice was in my ears, as I ran and ran, as fast as I could, my stomach in my mouth, my guts churning as a desperate panic flooded my veins. Maybe I will never be, all the things that I wanna’ be! Now is not the time to cry, now’s the time to find out why!  I think you’re the same as me, we see things they’ll never see!  You and I are gonna’ live forever!  I was late and I knew it, so I ran faster and faster, gonna’ live forever…we’re gonna’ live forever…gonna’ live forever…I was late, she would have gone, she would have got up and walked away by now, she would have gone and given up on me like everyone else.  When I made it to the cliff top, I took the path down too quickly, nearly tripping over my own feet several breath taking times.  At the bottom, I stopped and scanned the beach.  I could not see her in the normal spot.  I walked out onto the sand, and my legs felt fucked, like they were giving up the game, calling time, saying no, no, no more. I bent down, clutching my knees with my hands, scooping air back into my lungs as my chest rose and fell rapidly.  When I looked up, I saw Michael, standing just behind me, leaning against one of the beach huts.  My mouth fell open and I gawked at him.  He wasn’t really there.  He couldn’t be.  I was hallucinating now.

“You looking for Lucy?” he called out to me, and I nodded my head silently, dumbstruck, wondering if I was going crazy. I felt wrapped up tight in misery and darkness and I knew none of this was real.  I was back in my bed and I was dying.  “At the shop,” he said, and jerked his thumb in the direction of the beach café and shop just to the right. I stared that way, and sure enough, there she was.  A slim, brown haired girl coming out of the shop with a plastic carrier bag swinging from one hand.  She saw me and she waved and beckoned.  I thought she was an angel, a real life angel.  I looked once more at Michael, who was fading out now, and then I looked back at her and started to run again.

When I finally reached her, I could barely stand. I was wiped out.  The run from home had taken everything I had.  There was nothing left.  It was all too much, and I collided with her, our bodies smashing together violently, and we fell down onto the sand together, and I saw her bottle of water fall from the bag and roll away.  Her eyes were alarmed and she touched my face and pulled me close. “Are you real?” I was asking her.  I could see Michael again. He was standing over us. “Are you both real?”  I buried my head in her shoulder and started to cry.  There was no stopping it.  I cried like a baby.  My face began to ache and my eyes stung and my throat grew raw, as my shoulders shook, and still I could not stop, I could not stop crying.  But it didn’t matter anyway, I thought.  It was a dream, and I was dreaming about them, and I was back in my bed, and just dying.  Lucy just held onto me, and Michael was saying something softly above our heads.

“Shittinghell mate.  Shittinghell.”

In the dream, they got me up and helped me walk.  They sounded alarmed and frightened and Michael kept saying; “get him to Anthony, get him to Anthony.”  I tried to tell them things as we walked, and I sung some lyrics at them for a while.  My feet felt thick and heavy when we stumbled in through the front door, and Anthony appeared like another angel, bright and tall and calm and resolute and he got me onto the sofa and told them to give me some space.

I was awful by then.  Just shaking violently, my face screwed up in pain.  “Alright take it easy,” he was saying to me.  I couldn’t open my eyes and look at him, I just couldn’t.  “What’s all this about then Danny?  Eh? What you been doing to yourself mate?” He squatted down beside the sofa, his hand touching my arm.  I curled up small, my knees drawn up to my chin, my arms wrapped tightly around my middle.  “Danny, what was it eh?  What you been taking mate?  Was it speed?”

I managed to nod, although I wasn’t exactly sure if this was true.  It was poison, I wanted to tell him, it was poison because they were trying to kill me.  “We should call a doctor,” Lucy said tearfully from across the room. “He’s ill!”

“Nah, he’ll be alright,” Anthony replied calmly, rubbing my back. “It’s a bad comedown.  Speed is the worst.  If he took too much, or if someone sold him something dodgy.”

“But he’s in pain!”

“He’ll be okay soon enough, you’ll see.  It can take a few days sometimes. Danny, you should leave that shit alone mate.  I’m serious.  Not worth it eh, is it?  Look at the fucking state of you.”

“I did it with him once,” came Michael’s voice, tense and guilty.

“Well it better only be once!” Anthony snapped back at him. “I’ve told you before Mikey, grass is the only safe thing to mess with, and only then not too much.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I suppose I was just curious.”

“And?”

“Not worth it,” Michael said adamantly. “Felt like shit the next day.  Wanted to take someone’s head off.”

I heard Anthony sighing beside me. “Well learn your lessons boys,” he said. “This is fucking outrageous. These people are evil. He’s gonna’ get himself killed!”

“What’re we gonna’ do?” asked Michael in a small voice.

Anthony sighed again. “Right,” he said. “Make some tea and toast. Get him to eat and drink.  Then he’ll feel better.  Then just keep him here until he’s straight again.”

“What about Howard? What if they come looking for him?”

“We haven’t seen him.  And I answer the door. Might as well let him know I’m back again. But he can’t know we’ve seen Danny. He can’t know we’re involved, got it?”

A short while later I opened my eyes, and only Anthony was there.  He was sat on the edge of the sofa, right next to me.  He smiled down at me and placed his hand on my shoulder.  “You’re back,” I croaked at him.  He nodded.

“Fucking right I am.  Time flies, eh?  Now I’m back, you don’t need to worry okay?  You don’t need to be doing all this shit again.”

I had to close my eyes again.  The pain was coming and going in waves. “Ahhh shit it hurts…” I moaned, pressing my face back into the cushion.

“It’s okay, just relax,” he told me. “When did you take it?”

“Hurts…”

“I know mate, I know.”

“Anthony?”

He leaned over me. “What is it mate?”

I wanted to tell him everything then.  I wanted to tell him all the things Howard had said, and threatened, about how he ended up back in jail, about Michael disappearing, about killing my mum.  I opened my mouth and struggled to bring the words up and out, but the pain got worse again, ripping through my stomach muscles. “It’s in my stomach!” I panted, curling up even tighter. He rubbed my back again.  “It’s in my stomach Anthony…they poisoned me…it’s in there and it’s killing me!”

“It’ll get better,” he told me very firmly. “You just have to remember this Danny. Remember how bad this is and never fucking do it again, alright? Who gave it to you eh? This Freeman bloke Mike’s been telling me all about?”

“Someone else…” I shook my head. “It’s all gone in my stomach…I can feel it..it’s killing me Anthony…”

“It’s not killing you, I promise you. You’re just coming down really badly. You took too much probably, and you haven’t been eating properly by the look of you.  You’ve just got a bad stomach and the comedown is making it worse. You’ll be alright, I promise you. Just eat and drink something. Look, Mike’s made you toast.”

I didn’t want to eat anything, but they made me.  They got really angry with me and practically forced me, so I gave in.  I ate half a slice of marmite toast and drank half a cup of tea.  It hurt even more after that, but Anthony had little sympathy left. “You’ll be alright you little twat,” he laughed and patted my back. “You’ll be just fine.”

I slept after that.  It was a beautiful thing.  Deep, black sleep that claimed me suddenly and blessedly.  Every now and then I rose up out of it, felt the pain subsiding, and slipped back under again.  I was warm and safe and watched over.  I could hear the TV on low, and the murmurs of their gentle voices.  I was out cold when Howard came banging on the door, demanding to know where I was.

55

 

It was kind of horrible knowing that Anthony was back.  I showed my true cowardly colours and stayed away.  I knew neither of them would come to the house with Howard around, so I was safe.  I took a few days off school, and spied on them from the bathroom window.  If I stood on the toilet and cracked open the top window, I could see their house.  I watched the day he arrived back home, in the back of a yellow taxi, with his mother in the front.  Michael burst out of the front door to receive him.  I held my breath and bit my lip and watched them, and wondered if I would ever tell them I had been there.  I felt like I was sharing the moment with them.  Michael threw himself at his brother and they stood like that on the front path, locked and still.  I could see Michael’s black hair waving about in the wind.  Anthony had his head lowered on top of his.  Mrs Anderson paid the taxi driver and carried two bags into the house.  They all went inside together, Michael with his arm around Anthony’s waist, and then the door closed on me.

I knew he would call me soon after and I was right.  The phone rang in the hallway while I was still in the bathroom.  I came out onto the landing and saw Howard stood there, a strange look upon his face.  “They hung up,” he said, and he started coming up the stairs towards me.  “Funny that.”  He nodded to the open bathroom window.  “Close that, you’re letting all the cold in.”

I turned around, walked back into the bathroom and reached up to pull the window shut.  He made his move then, while I had my back to him, his fist shooting into my kidneys.  I grunted and hit the floor, pain exploding right up the back of me. He used his cowboy boot to push me over onto my back, and so I lay there and stared up at him, dazed and numb. “I wouldn’t think about going over there if I were you,” he said, his voice a dreamy drawl, his beady eyes all glassy. “That man’s a criminal. People like that never change. He’ll be up to no good again before long.  You stay away, right?” I nodded back at him.  I wanted to tell him that Anthony was no criminal.  I wanted to scream up at him to leave them alone, to never go near them again.  He held his hand out to me, and I took hold of it reluctantly and let him pull me up to my feet.  “Good boy,” he said, and patted the back of my neck.  There was a loose and drowsy smile upon his face, and his eyes looked far away.  “Washing machine’s just finished,” he said. “Your mum is at the hair salon. Go and get it out on the line while it’s sunny, yeah.”

I did what he said, but when it was done, I ran back up the stairs and back to the bathroom window.  I stood there and watched for hours, and if I heard Howard or my mother, I would just flush the toilet and come back out.  Towards the end of the day I saw them all out the front.  Anthony was leaning against the wall and lighting up a cigarette.  Michael had his hands in his pockets, and this endless burning smile upon his face.  Jake and Billy were there, laughing and grinning, all of them chatting animatedly.  It put this pain inside of me which grew and grew, and it was far worse than the blow to my kidneys.  I was completely on the outside, and Howard had made it very clear that I needed to keep it that way.  They looked like they were heading back inside, but at the last moment Anthony stopped and stared right back up at my house.  I was sure he couldn’t see me.  But he smiled.

I avoided school and kept my distance.  Billy showed his face after school one day, looking all nervous and jumpy as I relented and let him in the back door. “Mike’s worried about you,” he hissed at me, his freckled hands tightly gripping the strap of his school bag, as his eyes shot about the kitchen anxiously.  Howard and my mother were in the lounge watching TV.  I shrugged at him, conveying my confusion.  He rolled his eyes. “You’re not at school,” he said. “You can’t be sick all the time. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said. “How’s Anthony?”

“Fine,” he grinned then, his shoulder relaxing slightly. “He wants to see you, you dufus, but he can’t come over here can he? What about you meet us at the base, or the beach or something?”

I thought about it for a moment.  I wondered if any of them knew that Lucy and I met at the beach, every Sunday without fail, and had done since the day of my mothers wedding.  It was a secret, though I didn’t exactly know why it was.  “I’ll try,” I said, just to appease him.  He shook his head a little, looked like he wanted to say more, but then decided against it.  I didn’t feel the same around Billy and Jake anymore, and I had a hunch that it was a mutual thing.  They didn’t know what to say to me half the time.  They didn’t like to smoke weed anymore. Jake was always busy, rushing from school to his job, and then to his flat to get his schoolwork done.  He was taking it all very seriously, I suppose, life and school and work and getting somewhere.  I wondered he thought I would drag him down somehow.  He was pensive in my presence, and gave me the feeling that he was biting his tongue the entire time, not telling me what he really thought.  It’s all coming to an end, I thought, and said goodbye to Billy.

Two days later I had to go back to school.  I went in alone, as ever.  Headphones on, eyes down.  I didn’t get very far across the playground before Michael caught up with me, grabbing my elbow and bundling me away from everyone else.  I caught a glimpse of Jake and Billy lingering in the background, hands in pockets and expressions cautious. Michael held onto my arm and looked very serious, so I pulled off my headphones. “Alright?”

“We know why you haven’t been around, but that’s fine,” he said to me.

“Right.  Okay.”

“Look, Anthony wants to see you, he needs to see you, I’ve filled him in on everything!” I frowned at him and started walking again. He walked with me.

“What’s everything?”

“You know, Howard marrying your mum, buying the house and the entire club, and about the way Freeman turned up exactly the day Anthony was set up.” Michael glanced over his shoulder at Billy and Jake who were following from a safe distance.  “It’s all very convenient, don’t you think? And then Howard keeps you away from us, and Freeman gives you drugs and shit, I was telling Anthony, he said for fucks sake, get you over to see him now! He’s really worried about you Danny, really worried. We all need to get together and talk.”

I stopped walking and shoved my hands into my pockets.  I nodded at Billy and Jake. “What’s their problem these days?”

“Hey? Oh shit, forget it, don’t worry. They’re just being babies.  They think you’re always high. I’ve gone mad at them lately.”

“Don’t do me any favours,” I retorted angrily. “Tell ‘em it’s my life and I can do what the fuck I want if it makes me happy.”

Michael was frowning heavily. He shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other and appeared restless and confused. “Forget about that, that’s not important. Anthony wants to see you mate. He doesn’t blame you, you know, not one little bit.  You know that right? He just wants to see you mate, just please, please say you’ll come over or something.”

“It’s not safe to,” I told him.  He opened his mouth to argue, but I put my headphones back on and walked away from him.

That Friday night I felt far away from all of it.  I was at the club, out the back, washing glasses with my shirt sleeves rolled up above my elbows.  Towers of glasses stood next to me, waiting to be dunked into the hot soapy water.  Howard was very particular about the glasses.  He would appear in the kitchen sporadically throughout the night, lifting a wine glass up to the light to check for smears or fingerprints.  My back ached and my hands were sore, but I didn’t care, because all I thought about was the money.  Every now and then someone would yell at me to go out and collect some more, and so I would dry my hands and roll down my sleeves, and go back out into throng of writhing, bustling punters that filled the club.  I would never really see, or notice them, as I slipped between their bodies to retrieve the empties.  They were nothing more than moving, shifting shadows of people, whose voices became lost beneath the thumping music, and whose faces were blurred by the darkness. They were just forms to me, as they bumped and grinded against each other, oblivious to me I moving among them.

The only thing that reached me, the only thing that could sometimes break through, was the music, if the music was good.  I hadn’t given up trying to suggest songs to the Friday night DJ, although most of the time he just rolled his eyes at me and turned away.  That night though, as I reached in between two heavy set men in their twenties to retrieve their pint glasses, I heard the opening chords of Supersonic ripping up the speakers.  It came out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise, and as the electricity shot down my spine I could feel the people rushing past me to get to the dance floor. I paused and stared at nothing, my eyes bloodshot and huge, my pulse leaping in my veins. The people knew all the words, I need to be myself! They all sung, they all thought it was about them. I can’t be no one else! They jumped about, and the men held their drinks aloft to sneer; you can have it all, but how much do you want it? Pure rock and roll, I thought, utterly dazed by the simplicity of it.

I bobbed my head slowly up and down, mouthing the words to the song I had requested.  And then I felt a presence close behind me, and became dimly aware of someone leaning in towards me.  I felt a warm, rough hand close around my wrist, tugging and pulling me away.  I wanted to resist, because I needed the music, and then I heard Jack’s voice in my ear, raspy and hoarse. “Quick word?”

I felt vague.  I’d had a smoke earlier, and the world looked soft and fuzzy around the edges. I let him tug me along, and I could see him looking at me, sort of squinting down at me, as if he needed glasses but could not be bothered to wear them.  “We’ve got a little problem,” he started to say. “With our arrangement? Think Lee is getting suspicious and that’s no good.” I stared back at his face, trying and failing to absorb what was being said. “You with me?” he asked. “Thing is, I can’t risk him finding out, so I’ve found you another supplier, how’s that? Nothing changes. It’s just you deal with someone else, alright?” The hand on my arm again.  I looked at it in confusion as Jack pushed through the double doors that led out to a small corridor.  The mens toilets were just to one side, and to the other, a winding staircase which led up to the next floor and the womens toilets. Two young men were talking to each other, leaning up against the wall.  When we came through, one of them immediately pulled away and slouched on up the stairs, not looking back.  The other man was thin and wiry, with an England baseball cap pulled down low on his head. He wore pale blue jeans, Adidas trainers and a Ben Sherman shirt.  He nodded at Jack. “Jaime,” said Jack, looking down at me. “Danny, this is Jaime alright mate? He can take care of you, alright?”

I didn’t understand.  Not one little bit.  I just looked blankly from one man to the other. Jack sighed and shook my shoulder a little. “Yeah? Tell Jaime what you need yeah? He’ll sort you out. I need a drink.” He clapped me on the back and left us to it, pushing back through the double doors.

I realized then that my arms were cold, and I wondered if someone had left a window open somewhere, because normally it was so hot in the club, normally it was too hot. Or maybe it was just the air that rushed through every time someone bundled through the doors. I found myself gazing at the black and silver walls, as if I had never really noticed them before.  The young man in the baseball cap leaned towards me in a very conspiring way then, a half smile on his thin lips.  He had a very bony angular face, a bit like a pale rectangle, all sharpness and angles, and his eyes were a murky sea of grey.  “Alright mate?” he asked me, but there was no real interest in those grey eyes.  “Danny yeah?” I nodded at him, because this was something I did know the answer to.  “Bit of whizz?” he asked then, in a far lower tone. “That all you need tonight?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” I said, suddenly finally my voice as I remembered what I had been looking forward to all day. “That’s right, yeah.”

“No problem mate.” He stepped closer to me, until our arms were touching, and then he took my hand and shook it in his, pressing something smooth and plastic against my palm. I grasped it and he pulled back, touched the brim of his cap and winked at me.

“I don’t get paid ‘til later,” I remembered. He slipped his hands into his pockets and shrugged his loose, lanky shoulders at me.

“It’s alright. I’ll still be around later. Tenner yeah?”

“Ten? It’s normally five!”

“Tonight it’s ten, sorry mate,” he said with another loose limbed shrug, as he turned away from me.  “Seeya’ later mate.”

I turned around and pushed my way back into the club. The good song had ended. Some awful banal dance track had replaced it.  I worked my way back through the crowds, picking up glasses, avoiding faces, until I found myself back in the kitchen.  I ran a fresh sink of water, and placed the glasses next to it. Then I took the wrap and pushed myself into the small space between the fridge and the window. I didn’t have any papers on me, so I decided to just lick the powder off the Clingfilm.  I stayed where I was for a few minutes afterwards, and I zoned out, just imagining the speed working its way down through my digestive system.  I was not sure exactly what had just happened out there, but as usual I decided to not pay it much thought. What was the point?  I had what I needed, that was the main thing.

Moments later I felt better.  Brighter.  Quicker.  More with it.  I found my Walkman in my jacket pocket and put it on.  I had a big smile eating up my face while I washed the dishes singing along to Whatever; “I’m freeeeeee, to do whatever I…whatever I choose, and I’ll sing the blues if I want.!  I’m freeeeeee…”

Howard was stressed that night.  I picked up on it as soon as he barged aggressively into the kitchen to find me.  I pulled down the headphones, pressed stop on the Walkman.  His big face was flushed red and rolling with beads of sweat.  He gave me a withering look, his hands on his hips.  “You need to be quicker! I don’t pay you to stand out here fucking dancing!  Get back out there and collect some more! Just had a load go crash out there, fucking glass everywhere!”

“Okay,” I said, realizing that although I had pressed stop, the music was still playing in my head. How amazing was that?  I could still hear those beautiful violins, and it made me sway my head from side to side as I walked.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked me. I stopped.

“Um, nothing, I’m fine!  I’m fine, and having a good time, why, aren’t you?”

“No,” he said, slowly and darkly. “I’m not as it happens. Are you drunk? You’re acting like you’re drunk. You better not be fucking drunk!”

I couldn’t stand still.  I was trying not to make faces as my feet danced me from one to the other. “I’m not drunk,” I assured him. “I can stay at Jacks tonight yeah?”

“No you can’t,” he shook his head. “Your mum wants you home.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Because she’s had the school on the phone again, complaining that you’re never there!” He pushed his face towards mine as he spoke, and his small eyes seemed to roll around in his head like marbles.  I stared at them, transfixed. “The truants officer and a teacher are coming over at some point to speak to you.  You need to be there.”

“Oh,” I said, attempting a sheepish smile. “Whoops.”

“I haven’t got time to discuss this now,” he snapped then, rubbing the heel of one hand into his shiny forehead. “Get out there and get some more bloody glasses!”

At the end of the night, Jaime Lawler was still hanging about, sat at the bar nursing the dregs of a pint, and keeping his slate grey eyes on me the entire time.  I started to sweat a bit down my end of the bar, where I was gulping coke like I had never known thirst before.  I started to shit myself that Howard wouldn’t pay me as he usually did, and this strange sea-eyed fellow would come loping over to me to demand his money.  Just as I was working up a real shaky little panic about it, Howard passed by and dropped two ten pound notes onto the bar in front of me.  Jaime Lawler lolled forward from his stool, and made his move.  He slid in beside me, and before I even knew what was happening, he had closed his hand over one of the tenners and slid it into his own pocket. I looked at his face and he met my bewildered expression with an eerie smile and faded eyes that peered out from beneath his cap. “Thanks mate,” he said. “Here’s my number if you need anything.” He left a piece of paper on the bar and walked out.

I was still happy and buzzing when I got home and fell into bed.  My mum was nearly always asleep when we got back.  I put my music on low, going for Definitely Maybe yet again, needing to hear it in its entirety after having Supersonic ripped away from me at the club.  Nowhere near sleep, I bounced up and down on my bed like an over excited child.  I felt wired.  Every nerve and cell in my body alive and humming with energy.  My heart beat like a drum in time with the music.  I had about a million really important and intelligent things I wanted to say, to anyone, to everyone!  I decided to write them down, and I wrote and wrote until I had rubbed a blister onto my finger.  I still felt good.  Like the King of Happiness, bouncing around on my bed, playing album after album, just like that.  I devoured every single lyric sung, gobbling them up, along with every note played, every screech of the guitar, every beat of the drum.  I devoured all of it and I felt myself glowing from the inside.

In the morning my mother started rapping urgently at my door, and as I stared at it, and at the sunshine outside my window, and at the piles and piles of loose paper floating around my bed, it dawned on me with slow and nervous horror, that I had not slept at all.  All I could do was stare at the door she pounded on, totally confused, trying to picture myself spread out asleep, or curled up under my duvet, but the pile of tapes on the floor, and the ridiculous amount of paper, told a different story.  I had stayed up all night.  Okay, I reminded myself, it was okay, it was Saturday. I could sleep all day if I wanted.  I would fall asleep at some point, surely I would.  It was just a matter of time, and relaxation.  Stupid me.  I tried to think then, clawing my way back to the moment in the kitchen.  How much had he sold me?  The same amount or more? Had I taken too much?

She came in then, suddenly and intrusively, and she hurt my head with her screeching and wailing, as she moaned on and on about how the truants officer had tracked her down. “Like a criminal!” she was crying at me, her eyes all wet and running.

“I’m not going there anymore!” I decided to tell her then.  I screamed it without meaning to.  I was feeling all desperate and panicky and she was making everything worse.  I wanted her out.  I looked in desperation to the window, and thought seriously about jumping out of it, risking broken legs just to get the hell away from her face.  I was shaking my head and rubbing my eyes, and trying to tell her that it would all be okay if she would just get the fuck out and let me sleep, but that made her worse.  She started wailing and crying really hard, and the noise in my head was so bad it felt like the walls were coming down on me, and I had the constant urge to shield my head with my arms.  I felt like I was going to be buried, so I started throwing things at her.  And then what happened next was mostly a relief, because Howard came storming in blowing out his breath like a bull, and he told her to get out, and she did, and he kicked the door shut and then I felt his hand around my throat.  I laughed at him, because it was all so fucking funny, and he was hissing at me through his little spiky sharks teeth, and I could see him changing into this huge wet snake, writhing and gleaming on my bed.  I laughed at the snake through my constricted throat, and this sound made him wild, and the fear of it all was eating its way through my bones, one by one, and when the snake began to pound me in the stomach, it was a relief.  I was relieved, because when the pain arrived, it was familiar, and it was a comfort, and it made sense, and it made everything else just fall away.  I finally fell asleep when the snake had gone.  The steady throbbing of my smashed up gut took over where the music had ended.

54

 

I went to Jack Freeman’s flat nearly every day.  I had a little routine.  I would go to school, try to get through as much of it as possible, and then leave and walk into town.  On the way to Jack’s I would stop in The Record Shop.  I would stay in there for as long as Terry allowed me to.  It was all that occupied my mind at school, and at home.  The boys still asked me to go to the base with them, or the park, or the café where Jake worked, but I usually shrugged them off.  Those places felt out of bounds to me for some reason.  The base and the park, the things they talked and worried about such as girls and school and exams, all seemed childish and pointless to me.  They moaned about their parents, and talked about TV programmes I never watched. In some ways, I felt sort of unburdened and free compared to them, because I rarely worried about anything.  I turned up at school when I could be bothered.  I faked sick notes from my mother, and slipped out unnoticed when the day was taking too long to pass.  The rest of the time I put in hours at the club, which generally made me feel too tired for school anyway, and I went to the record shop, and I went to Jacks flat.

Terry seemed to tolerate me more as time wore on.  Maybe he even liked me just a bit.  He’d bring out two cup of teas instead of just one, and he’d sling magazines at me when I walked in, ordering me to read the reviews section.  Sometimes, if he was too comfortable on his stool, he would send me out the back to make the tea.  We would talk and argue endlessly about which was the greatest Dylan album, or the greatest Smiths.  I continued to consume music, old and new on a daily basis, as if on some great quest, as if attempting to quench some great and endless thirst I had.  I discovered that there was very little music that did not have some kind of effect on me.  When I had enough money to purchase music, I tried to always buy something old and something new.  One week it would be Captain Beefhearts Safe as Milk and Radiohead’s Pablo Honey, and the next week Frank Zappas Hot Rats alongside Blur’s Parklife.  I’d buy them in any format, tape, vinyl or compact disc.  It didn’t matter, because I could play them all at Jacks.  I still listened to Nirvana at some point every day, out of pure respect.  I just had to.  But I had managed to move on, I mean, it was inevitable when new music was getting so exciting.

I tried to tell anyone who would listen how important Oasis were. “For one, they are British, they’re just like us,” I’d insist while Billy laughed at me.

“They’re from Manchester,” he’d say, as if this was another country altogether.

“It doesn’t matter,” I would cry and shake my head. “It’s just a place, it’s just a town, like millions of other towns, just like this one! Where there’s nothing to do and no jobs and everything is shit and boring! And they’re singing about getting out!  About being rock and roll stars!”

I’d watch them on the TV, transfixed to Top Of The Pops, feeling like I was watching a slice of history being made. What amazed me was how such stillness from a frontman could still convey so much arrogance, so much self-belief, and passion, so much of everything.  I’d kneel on the lounge floor right in front of the screen to watch him sing. I wanted to be him, I wanted to sing like him, and feel like him, invincible and snarling.  And the songs, they spun electric tingles down my spine, they followed me about as I trudged through my days, they thrummed and hummed and beat at my mind at night, they made me imagine what I could be one day.  I sometimes just lay on my bed, or sat on the floor, with my eyes closed, so it was like the lyrics and the vocals were made just for me, and it felt like with every song they were speaking to me, about me, like they knew me, knew everything.  Is is myyyyy imagination, or have I finally found something worth living for? I was looking for some action, but I all I found were cigarettes and alcohol... I’d laugh my fucking head off, light up a smoke and slosh a measure of whiskey down my throat, just to agree, just to feel it.

I bought or borrowed music from Terry every day, then took them over to Jacks to listen to.  His flat was overcrowded with randomly placed furniture.  There were three tatty sofas, two arm chairs, two coffee tables, various mismatched bookshelves and fold down tables.  He blamed the mess on his late mother.  He had to get all her furniture out of her home when it was sold, and he hadn’t got around to selling or dumping any of it yet, or so he said.  I had never seen so many books in one home before.  They were everywhere. He even had a little dark oak bookcase in the bathroom, within reach of the toilet, no less.  It was in there that I discovered Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit To Brooklyn.  Whilst having a shit.  He made a bit of a face and laughed at me when he saw me with that one.  “Did you know they took that book to fucking trial?” he asked me, with a wheezy grin. “It was banned for years!  For being so indecent.”  Of course, that only made me want to read on, and so I did, and by the end, I could well believe him.

I read J.D Salingers Catcher In The Rye one day when I should have been at school.  When I had finished it, I went right back to the beginning and read it again.  I think that was the first time I actually fell in love with a book.  I wanted to crawl into it.  I wanted to be poor old Holdens friend, and be able to tell him not to worry so much.  I got it though.  I mean, when he was going on about fakes and phonies and how depressing people were, I really understood what he meant.  On the rare occasions that I made it into school, I just found myself in increasingly disgusted with these children I was supposed to have things in common with.  I looked at them and didn’t understand them one little bit.  They were all the same, I thought, flashing fake smiles at people they despised, constructing gossip to pass the time, making up filthy rumours to destroy the people they walked home with.  The fake concern they showed each other made me want to writhe in embarrassment.  The constant never ending mantra that this was the last year, that they would stay friends forever and never forget the best years of their lives…it was bullshit!

I discovered that Jack had loads of good books, interesting books, naughty books, books they would never let you read or study at school.  Books that were like good songs, books that pulled you in and held you tight and didn’t let you go free again, even after you had finished reading them.  Charles Bukowski became a literary hero of mine around that time.  I just loved the man.  Every word he wrote was poetic self-destructive beauty, and fucking hilarious.  I devoured Post Office and Tales of Ordinary Madness.  I wanted to write like him; fuck the rules and the grammar and the useless tedious soulless shit they pump into you at school, just write!  Just let it come! And he was right too…you did write better when your veins were full of booze, because you just didn’t give a shit, and you just felt….William Burroughs was another, and Jack Kerouac.  I read On The Road so many times that Jack let me keep it in the end.  It drove me wild, that book.  I got caught up in the mad and restless energy of it, the scrapes they got into, the characters they met, and the beautiful way he described ordinary, mundane things…It made me dream, just like the music did, about escaping, about getting away and being someone, living a life on my terms, a life full of adventure and joy.

Jack remained a man of few words.  He came and went, shuffling about as if lifting his feet from the floor presented too much of an effort for him.  He did not believe in cooking, or shopping, but survived on takeaways and cups of tea and whiskey.  Unlike Howard, mess and rubbish did not offend him, or set him on edge.  The flat remained in a constant sticky and mucky state.  The coffee tables were always covered in food wrappers, which he would simply sweep to the floor to make space for the next greasy meal.  The tiny kitchen had a smell all of its own.  Stale sweat and warm whiskey, mingled with sweet and sour chicken balls, and dead flies.  On the nights that I stayed over, I made myself a bed on one of the sofas, always the grey one, the one that sank in the middle so that you slept in a c shaped position.  It had pale yellow stuffing spilling out of one arm. I would cover myself in blankets that reeked of smoke, or my own jacket, and fall asleep with the record player on softly.  Jack rarely bothered me.  We had a simple relationship which I appreciated.  I only thought about how little I knew about the man, when Michael turned up occasionally, firing his dark eyed questions at me.  What did it matter?  I would shrug at him and say, who knows?  Who cares?  It was cool that we had somewhere private to go.  Somewhere we would not be bothered by parents, or little kids, or anyone else.  There were no rules.  We could smoke a little weed, drink some booze and listen to music.  Michael was always so bloody suspicious.  If it was just the two of us, he would start to relax after a while though.  We would roll a joint or two, neck some lagers and put music on.  For a while maybe, we would laugh and joke like we used to, before there were so many unsaid things between us.  But if Jack rolled in, Michael would change.  He would become dark and surly and tense.  I would just try not to notice, try not to let it get to me.  I was always so pleased to see Michael.  It meant a lot to me that he still looked me up.

One night, a few days before the new school year started, I was alone at the flat, relaxing on the grey sofa, with my feet up, listening to an early Dinosaur Jr album Terry had passed to me earlier in the day. “If you like it, you can pay me later,” he had said, as usual barely glancing up from his music magazine, “and if you don’t like it, just bring it back.” I was two songs in and already hooked when there was a knock at the door.  I instantly recognized it as Michaels knock and rushed to answer it and let him in.  He was smiling for once, really smiling, bright light dancing in his dark brown eyes as he bundled excitedly past me and into the flat.

“Guess what?” he asked, following me over to the collection of knackered sofas. “Guess what?  I’ve got some good news Danny!  Some amazing news!”

“Yeah?” I grinned. “What is it?”

“Anthony gets out next week!” he cried, clasping his hands together and jumping up and down like a little kid.  His face looked manic, with his wide eyes and this big grin plastered across from ear to ear.  I shook my head, disbelieving.

“No way! Does he really?”  I tried to think back in my head, how long it had been.  How many weeks and months had passed since that terrible, confusing day.

“Yep,” he informed me proudly. “Sentenced reduced for good behaviour.  It’s all definite.  It’s all arranged.  I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure.  But he’s coming back Danny…he’s really coming back!”

I couldn’t help but smile of course, but inside I felt a mixture of emotions.  I sat back down and picked up the joint I had started to roll.  I twisted one end up and popped the roach into the other.  “So it’s been about a year?” I asked, unable to look at him as I spoke.  I picked up a lighter lying on the coffee table and sparked up, shaking my head. “Fuckinghell Mike.  I can’t decide if it’s gone fast, or slow.” I stopped then, halting my words for fear of saying the wrong thing.

“Can’t believe it,” Michael said dreamily, as he jumped down beside me and dropped one arm lazily over the back of the sofa.  “Gonna’ be so amazing to have him back Dan. I can’t wait.  I can hardly sleep I am so excited all the time!” He looked at me then, and his smile was hesitant, so I looked down, and there it was again, as usual; all the things left unsaid, all the things that were never spoken of.  I thought of something then.  I was just desperate to end the silence and liven things up, so I passed him the joint and swept my little tin up from the table.

“Hey, this calls for a celebration then!”

Michael toked on the joint a few times and passed it back.  I took it from him and placed it in the ashtray to smoulder. He was eyeing me curiously. “What you got there?”

“Something cool.  Something very cool.” I took out a small package of Clingfilm, unwrapped it in my palm and showed him the delicate pinkish white power that sparkled inside.  He recoiled from it, frowning.

“Oh what the fuck is that?”

“Speed. You want to do a speed bomb with me?”

“A what?”

“A speed bomb.  Look.”  I pinched some of the powder between my fingers, picked up a cigarette paper, dropped the powder into the middle and screwed it up into a tight little ball.  I held it up between my thumb and forefinger to show him.  “You eat it.  See.”

He was looking concerned. “Speed?  Since when did you start doing speed?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “Since whenever. Someone gave it to me.  I don’t want to waste it.  Come on, you gonna’ do one with me?”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Yeah, a few times.  It’s no big deal, honest. What do you say?” I held the ball out to him and he took it unsurely and rolled it between his fingers, before placing it on his other palm and poking at it with his index finger.

“Who gave it to you then?” he asked me. “Oh let me guess. Your amazing new friend Jack.”

“So what?” I shrugged again. “It helps keep you awake. Makes you wanna’ talk and talk for hours! The characters in On The Road did stuff like this!  Just stayed awake for days and days and days, just talking and learning!” I made another one and looked back at him. “What do you say then?”

“I’m not sure about this,” he replied, peering distrustfully at the ball in his hand. “Weed is one thing you know.  This is something else.  Anthony always warned me not to, you know?  He said nothing else is safe, not ever. Why is Freeman just giving this to you Danny?  Why didn’t you have to pay?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I laughed at him, rolling my eyes. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again do you?  Come on, it’s meant to be fun!  Don’t you want to have fun Mike?  Just live life by your own rules and not give a fuck!” I laughed, hoping he would laugh with me, but he didn’t.  He eyed me sternly, his forehead furrowed under his hair.

“The guy’s a drug dealer then?” he asked me. I sighed and turned around to change the record over.  Jack had a fold down table behind my sofa with the record player set up on.  I got on my knees and flicked through some records before deciding it couldn’t be anything else other than Definitely Maybe.  “This place is a shit hole and it stinks,” Michael complained huffily beside me.  I held up the twelve inch Definitely Maybe.

“Look I got it on vinyl too!” I told him. But he didn’t care.  He didn’t care about music like I did.  It didn’t make him feel better, or make him feel like he wanted to laugh out loud, or like he wanted to hold someone and cry tears into their eyes.  It was just me.  Maybe I was mental.

“So he’s a dealer then?” he went on. “That’s what he does?”

I jumped back down and grinned when the opening chords of Rock and Roll Star kicked in behind us.  “I dunno and I don’t give a shit,” I told him. “Look are you gonna’ do it or what?  ‘Cause I am.  We’ve only got one life Mike, then we’re dead and gone forever. We might as well try everything once.  I fucking am!”

He watched me as I popped the small ball into my mouth and swallowed it.  “Oh shittinghell,” he groaned then, and promptly did the same.  I wanted to slap him on the back and congratulate him, but I didn’t.  We just smiled at each other dopily, and then rested our heads back on the sofa, waiting for something to happen.  “I’m gonna’ kill you if this fucks me up,” he warned me with a half-smile.  I nodded and tapped his knee.

“You’re gonna’ love it Mike.”

Next thing I knew, we were having this really strange and animated conversation about what songs we would want played at our funerals.  It happened to be a subject I had put a lot of thought into.  Michael was sat cross-legged on the floor, swaying from side to side with the music and tapping his open palms against his knees as if drumming them.  “Live Forever, obviously,” he was saying. “But I bet everyone chooses that from now on.”

“You’d have to have it wouldn’t you?” I agreed passionately, sweeping a sweaty hand through my hair so that it all stood on end.  “Fucking Live Forever man!  You and I are gonna’ live forever! I love that song Mike, god I want to hear it every day, I think it might be my favourite song ever, you know?” I was scratching at the same spot on my head, back and forth with my fingers, while trying to decide if this was a massive betrayal of Nirvana or something. “It is joyous,” I said then, biting my lip. “That’s what it is…lifts you up, like The Stone Roses too, just joyous and uplifting, I don’t know how they do it though..But at my funeral I’d have Lithium too, course I would, it’s so amazing that song, I’m so happy ‘cause today I found my friends, they’re in my head!  Brilliant, I have to listen to it every day out of respect for him you know? Hey, what do you reckon he had played at his funeral?”

Michael didn’t answer me. His eyes looked huge. “I’d have Supersonic or Cigarettes and Alcohol as well,” he was saying, sort of talking and babbling over me.  His voice suddenly sounded very down and low and far away.  For some reason he found himself funny, threw back his head and hooted laughter at the ceiling.

I got up then and stood on the grey sofa.  I was waving my arms about to keep my balance as I stepped from one sagging cushion to the next. “Fuck! I nearly forgot!  How could I forget? I’d have I Am The Ressurrection as well!  Love that song! Hang on I’m gonna’ put it on, we have to have it on Mike, right now, we have to have it really fucking loud to appreciate every genius part of it!”  I turned around and started scrambling through the records to find it.  “Wait,” I was saying breathlessly. “Wait for this, wait for the drum intro…” When it started I whirled around, back on my feet and playing the drums in the air while Michael curled up with laughter on the floor. “Down down you bring me down! I hear you knocking at my door and I can’t sleep at night!”  I bounced down onto my bottom, sweat now pouring from my forehead. When the chorus kicked in I screamed along with it. “I am the resurrection and I am the light!  I couldn’t ever bring myself to hate you as I’d liiiiiiiiike!” I went into the guitar, holding aloft an invisible one, plucking the strings, and then back to the drums again.

“I need water,” Michael announced and got onto his knees to grab a can of coke from the nearest coffee table. “Is this safe to drink?”

“I’d have some Dylan too,” I started to ramble again, and somehow, I don’t know why, but somehow I felt just so desperate to make him understand about the music.  I kept looking over my shoulder at the record player, panicking and thinking about what to put on next, about how to make him feel as I felt. “Positively 4^th Street,” I was nodding emphatically. “Or maybe Forever Young…I have to write these down! Billy, fucking Billy, if he takes the piss out of Bob Dylan one more time I’m gonna’ thump him one..Stupid, stupid, he won’t even listen!  How can you dismiss a whole catalogue of work without even properly listening to any of it! Oh and The Smiths. Got to agree with Terry. Just genius Mike. Hilarious. The Boy With The Thorn In His side, that’s me that is!” I pointed to myself happily as I stared down at Michael.  His face had gone very pale, making his eyes look even darker, like lumps of black coal shining in his face.  “That’s what they call me you know, those fuckers…you’re a bloody thorn in my side! Oh I’d have loads..Panic, and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out and Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before.”

“Don’t know any of them,” Michael said, looking blank.

“’Cause you don’t listen, you don’t listen!” I insisted, my voice rising up high above the music. “I keep playing you stuff, all the time, I keep trying and you don’t listen! You’ve got to give it a chance!  Oh at my funeral it’s gonna’ be one huge fucking party!”  I turned back to the records and the tapes, hunting through them. I was frantic, and it was getting worse.  I was realizing with dawning horror that there was not going to be enough time in my stupid little life to listen to all of the music, that I would never be able to hear everything, and that it was endless, because new stuff, amazing life changing stuff was coming out every day, and I didn’t want to miss a thing! “I have to just lie down and listen to it sometimes,” I was saying, my back to Michael. “So I can properly listen to it, properly concentrate.  I lie down and put the speakers to my ears and turn it up really loud…oh anyway, until fuck face comes and tells me to turn it down!”

Michael was drumming his hands against his knees again. “Oh right,” he said. “God, he would wouldn’t he? How are things with him mate?”

“Oh I’ll show you,” I said enthusiastically, spinning back around and standing up with my chest puffed out and my hands on my hips and my head cocked to one side. “I can do a really good impression, get this…Turn that fucking shit down you bastard! Sit down when I’m talking to you!  Stand up when I’m talking to you!  Look at me!  Don’t look at me!” I laughed helplessly and tugged at my own hair in frustration, while Mike looked on, his eyes slowly narrowing.  “I can’t do anything right…He took the fucking lock of my bedroom door a while ago, you know.  So now he can come in whenever he wants, ‘cause now he owns the place you know, it’s his fucking house!” I rolled my eyes and laughed. Michael was watching me uneasily from the floor. He had stopped drumming his knees, and pulled them up under his chin.

“All your shit is here,” he said then, looking around. “Do you like, practically live here now, or what?”

“Well,” I shrugged and rubbed at my face.  I was so hot I felt like my insides were ablaze.  “I just come here as much as I can to get away from the arsehole.”

“Doesn’t he give you the creeps though?” Michael asked, shivering suddenly and wrapping his arms firmly around his legs.  “I don’t think I could stand it. He’s like a dirty old man, creeping about, and this…” he gestured to the room, and the mess. “It’s such a shit hole.”

“Who cares about stuff like that? You don’t normally care about stuff like that.”

“But he’s creepy Danny, I’m telling you, there’s something about him! He’s always watching us for one thing. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed!”

“Who Jack?”

“Yes! The way he just comes in, and doesn’t say anything, but then he just sits there and looks at us.”

I laughed. “Mike, it’s his flat, he can do what he wants. He’s just not a talkative person.”

“But it’s creepy,” Michael said rather miserably, glancing at the door. “Why’d you have to be here so much?”

“It’s better than home that’s why!” I yelled, with a laugh.  I turned back around, uncomfortable with his questioning eyes.  I started rummaging through my music again, looking for something that would get us on our feet and feeling wild.  “He lets me do what I want,” I said. “He leaves me alone.  He never goes on at me to do the washing up, or the hoovering, or tells me to the music down, or anything. That’s why Mike.  I can relax here. He’s hardly ever here anyway for fucks sake!” I looked back at him, this huge smile eating up my flushed and sweaty face. “At home, everything has to go through him.  Anything I want, he just says no to.  Mum has to check with him first. Like, a while back I really wanted guitar lessons, I mean I want them so bad, but he said no didn’t he?  Waste of time and money he said. Anything that matters to me is like a joke to him. He’s obsessed with ruining me. He just hasn’t figured out how to do it yet.” I put on a record and turned back to him. “Hey, listen to this. I really like this.”

“Who is it?” Michael shrugged. I started to bounce up and down on my backside again.  I felt too wired up, too crazed to sit still, I just wanted to keep listening to music, keep talking about it.

“James Taylor,” I told him, sniffing. “You like it? I want this at my funeral too please.”

“Listen, what you were saying, about Freeman.”

“What was I saying?”

“He’s Howards friend, Danny.”

I frowned, still bouncing. “Yeah, so?”

He shook his head at me. “So, this is all weird crazy bullshit, and you need to be careful Danny.”

I stopped bouncing and stared at him in wonder. “Do I?”

“Yeah.  Really careful. Look, I know we haven’t talked about it in ages, but we both know what an evil cunt Howard is, so you need to be careful, right?”

“Careful?” I threw back my head and snorted laughter. “Okay Mike.  I’ll be careful, I promise, I really will.  Actually I have been very careful, for ages now.  Haven’t had any falls off that stupid bike have I?” I looked at him and winked and grinned, whilst feeling like I was shrivelling up with guilt on the inside.  I didn’t want him looking at me too long then.  I felt like if he looked at me too long, he would see the truth, he would see the truth of me and how wretched and pointless I really was, and then he would leave.  He would get up and stalk out of the dirty flat he despised so much, and I would never see him again.

“You know what I mean,” he said, with this awful, sad sigh, as he tore his eyes away from me, and gazed around the room.  “You should know what I mean.”

It was all fine and good, like most things, until we woke up the next morning feeling like death.  It was a horrible way to wake up, believe me.  It was like a slow misery awakening inside of you, and your body.  I could see it on Michael’s face as he groaned into life on one of the other sofas.  I felt an instant slam of guilt then too.  I had done it to myself, that was one thing, but I had roped him in as well, and now he looked and felt like shit, and I was swamped with self-loathing.   I wanted to turn over and go back to sleep and wake up when I was feeling normal again.  Michael sat up slowly, his nostrils twitching, his lips curling up.  He looked at the blanket lying over him and punched it away as if it suddenly and violently offended him.  He looked pale and sick and angry.  I smiled at him weakly from my sofa and he shook his head at me. “I am never fucking doing that again,” he said.

“It’s not that bad.”

He raised his eyebrows at me and looked amazed. “Fucking is!  I need to go home.” He shuffled to the edge of the sofa, pressing one hand to the side of his head as he moved, closing his eyes briefly against the pain.  Then he looked across at me and I felt scared when I saw his face, because it looked for a moment like he really and truly hated and loathed me.  I was lying on my back, with my hands laced on my chest.  I was trying not to move too much, because everything seemed to hurt.  “Did he come back?” he whispered then. “Freeman?  Is he here? I don’t remember him coming back.”

I nodded. “It’s alright.  It was really late.  He just went to bed.”

I watched him shiver and he got to his feet quickly, as if knowing Jack was somewhere in the flat made him want to get out of there even faster.  He stretched out his limbs one by one and picked his leather jacket up off the floor. “Are you coming with me?”

I tugged the blanket up to my chin and shook my head. “Nah. Think I’ll stay here for a bit.”

“What for?” he groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead this time and wincing dramatically.

“Just to hang around,” I shrugged.

“Oh okay fine, suit yourself,” he snapped, rolling his eyes and rubbing aggressively at the small of his back.  “You always do,” he added, heading for the door.  I blinked in hurt and surprise and said nothing.  He stopped though, and looked back at me as if waiting for something.

“What does that mean?” I heard my weak voice asking him.  Though of course I knew, I knew what it fucking meant, and he was right.

“Nothing.  It’s just…you always do what you want…Fuck anyone else.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do, look at you! Just gonna’ hang around this place all day with your creepy drug dealer friend!”

“He’s not my friend,” I replied, childishly, scowling at him and his accusing eyes.

“Why’d you hang about with him then?” Michael cried, throwing up his arms in frustration.  “He’s an old man Danny. It’s not right!  And you and that bloody club!”

I felt myself shrinking under the blanket.  I could see it all in his face, everything I had known was there all along, everything that I deserved. “What about it?”

“You working for Howard. I don’t get it.”

“He pays me.”

“There is no amount of money worth working for him for,” Michael snapped. “You fucking hate the guy, or you should do, after what he did to Anthony. I don’t know how you can stand to be around him.” He slipped his arms through his jacket and zipped it up. He looked so dark and angry and sulky, he reminded me of the boy I’d watched from the window all that time ago.  Circling around and around, keeping his hard flat eyes on my house.  I just stared down and said nothing.  What the hell could I say?  I’d just fucked him up with drugs and he was taking his bad mood out on me.  No problem.  Come on, I felt like saying, give me some more.  Come over here and pound my fucking face in.  It’s no less than I deserve. When Anthony gets out send him right over to me.  Tell him I’m ready.  He sighed then, and opened the door. “It’s just..look I’m sorry Danny okay?  It’s just I think there’s something going on here, but you just don’t wanna’ see it. You just wanna’ stay high and not talk about anything.  We never talk about anything anymore.”

“What do you mean, something’s going on?” I asked him quietly.

“It doesn’t matter, forget it,” he said, shaking his head and stepping out onto the yellow landing outside the door. “Look I’m gonna’ find Jake and Billy and go down the beach or something.  That’s where we’ll be, if you can tear yourself away from this joyous place.” I didn’t say anything else.  I just watched him go.  And then I was alone.  The flat was cold and silent, and my bones throbbed under my skin.  I closed my eyes and let it all go because I had to.  I turned my mind to other things.  Like music, and a little shot of whiskey to warm me up.  Anything to make it all go away.

53

 

September 1994

I was feeling good.  Satisfied.  Everything was as it should be, finally.  During the months that came after the wedding, I had become the sole owner of Nancy’s nightclub. Phillips had become seriously ill and his doctor had told him his liver was calling time on him.  In a fit of snot and tears he had more or less begged me to buy him out and take the club off his hands for good.  I had been waiting patiently for the moment, and when it arrived, I savoured every second of it.  I renamed the club K.  It was my name above the door.  My word was final.  The honour and the adulation was all mine.  The success as word spread, the queue of people outside that grew longer every night, the money that rolled through in larger and larger quantities, was all mine.  I suppose I had an extra strut to my walk, a brighter gleam in my eyes, but it had been a long time coming.  My bank manager was as happy as I was, practically wringing out his sweaty hands in glee.  The house came next.  The deeds signed and sealed and delivered into my beautiful wife’s hands on the morning of her fortieth birthday.  The house, the club, the woman, all mine. All as it should be.

So you can see, things were good.  They were as they should be.  Every now and again I had to make myself pause, just to appreciate the glory, just to bask in it a little, and reflect upon how easy it had all been.  Even the boy was in line.  Oh yeah, he knew the line, he knew the line alright and he did not cross it.  He had turned fifteen and started his final year at school.  Kay murmured constantly in my ear about his attendance and his truanting and his crappy grades, but I placated her whenever I could.  They were not major concerns of mine.  As long as he behaved for me, then I was happy.  He worked hard at the club, so I increased his hours and his workload.  He was allowed to come along and open up, and help collect and wash glasses until closing time.  He seemed to prefer coming along on a Friday night, which I assumed was something to do with the Friday night DJ being preferable for some reason.  I often spotted him leaning in to chat to him, perhaps trying to suggest songs, to which the DJ often just shook his head at.

I kept a close eye on him though.  You had to with kids that age.  They’re open to so many other influences you see.  There were bad influences everywhere, so I had to keep an eye on things.  I hadn’t been lying when I told him that day that I kept tabs on him and his friends.  Damn fucking right I did.  I had to.  Currently it seemed that he did not mix with his friends much, but could often be found at either the beach, the record shop, or Jack’s flat.  I kept an eye on it all.  Where he was, what he was doing.  I taunted him with the possibility of everlasting peace.  I taught him that if he stayed beneath my wing, everything would be fine.  I didn’t miss the wondering look of hope in his eyes when I questioned him about his opinion on bands I was thinking of hiring for the club.  There was the edge of fear and caution, just slightly softened by his desire to be needed, and valued.  He would offer up his opinions then, and if I was receptive, he would come out with suggestions too, and this gentle hue of red would spread across his cheeks when he talked about music he really loved.  I never pretended to understand any of it.  He had been right when he had accused me of not liking any music.  I didn’t really.  There was nothing that particularly called out or spoke to me like it did to him.  But it amused me, the desire in his eyes, the innocent belief he held onto that he could convince someone that some band, or some song was really important, really life changing.  He still dressed like a homeless person most of the time.  With ripped jeans, checked shirts, band t-shirts and shapeless hoodies, but Kay and I had noticed he had some new heroes these days.  At one point we had joked that he would never come out of the mourning he had gone into after that idiot singer shot himself.  But then he started putting up these Oasis posters, playing their music, and one day he even went and got his hair cut a bit shorter.  We had to hide our giggles until he had left the room.  It was amusing though.  The way his music filled the house, and sometimes you could hear him singing over the top of it, and I liked the look Kay got on her face then, sort of fuzzy and dopy with love.  We had a normal teenager in the house, and all was fine.  All was as it should be.

Kay was always relieved when he came scurrying back from Billy’s house or the record shop with an armful of tapes, or records.  She would breathe out her relief, and I would feel the grateful love pulsing from her when she curled into me on the sofa.  Sometimes she got a little worried about where he was, who he was with, but I knew there was nothing to be concerned about.  Most of the time he was at Jack’s flat, smoking weed and getting high, having the time of his life.  It was fine by me, and I let them get on with it.  It kept things calm, I suppose, subdued and in order.  It kept him out of my business, and I didn’t have to worry anymore about him kicking off and threatening to stab me in the eye.  He was too fucking out of it to care.  Jack and I had a mutually beneficial friendship alright, although sometimes I did wonder how he could possibly see it the same way, being confronted with sweet temptation on a daily basis as he was.  His greedy eyes lit up when he told me if the Anderson boy had shown up or not.  It always put my back up a bit, because I didn’t trust that boy at all.  He had a major problem with me.  A big axe to grind.  But Jack liked him coming over and waved my concerns away dismissively.  They’re just stupid kids getting high and talking about music, he would inform me, nothing to worry about here.  And so things were rolling along nicely.  I had not had to clench my fist in a long time.