by Irvine Welsh
— We got the lowest taxes—
— And that’s our choice, I cede, — but the cost of that choice is a ghost town in the sun.
Mom’s hand tightens white on the wheel. — You will help me out, pickle? she begs, as we leave the car on the empty sidewalk, not even bothering with the building’s off-street parking at the rear. She opens the glass-fronted door of the block with one key. — All you need to do is come in once a week, check everything’s okay, pick up the mail from the boxes downstairs and dump it back at the office. Only for a month, honey, well, six weeks . . .
— You and Lieb will be on this cruise together for six whole weeks and you barely talk to each other now?
Mom’s voice goes so high it almost breaks. — It’s a big risk, and both Lieb and I are aware of that, and she takes a deep breath, dropping several octaves. — I guess it really is the last-chance saloon; it could be the end, or maybe a new dawn. Her eyes mist up. — Whatever, we owe ourselves that shot. Also . . . we need to explore real-estate possibilities in the Caribbean, she says defiantly.
— Oh, Mom . . . I hug her, wincing at the scent of the garlic-heavy dressing on her breath. Mine will be the same. I need to pick up some Listerine from CVS.
— Baby, baby, my darling pickle. She pats me on the back, as a boing announces the impending presence of the elevator, thankfully breaking our grip. We step inside and feel our legs tingle as it accelerates impressively to the fortieth floor.
The apartments all have two bedrooms and great views out over Miami, parceled off into its blocks and streets, all the way across to the bay. But the design in this show apartment, which Mom calls “neoloft,” just totally sucks. I bite my tongue, but a separate galley kitchen, situated off a hallway, is just lame. If it’s “loft,” it should be open-plan, flowing into the spacious living room, utilizing the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. The only thing “loft” about it is the fake exposed brickwork on one wall and the thick steel beam running along the ceiling, held up by three pillars, one at each end, and one in the middle of the room. The only rad thing about that is you could hang a heavy bag there. It has a big stone fireplace, and a polished, dark, hardwood floor. Mom explains that the industrial “neoloft” style was designed to appeal to northern transplants. I’m sure it seemed a good idea at time, and the architect and developer had a lot of fun when they did all that coke together, but down here in the tropics, it feels like an incongruous mess. There will be no rush to buy or rent these places.
Mom fusses, rubbing Canute-style, at some mark on the window with her sleeve. I’m looking out across to Miami Beach and civilization. That’s where I’ll have my new crib when the money from that TV deal comes in, one of those killer blocks at South Pointe. Kick fucking ass! Succumbing to the burn of excitement, I call Valerie, nodding curtly to Mom in apology, but there’s no need—she welcomes the attempt to get straight into her own iPhone.
Valerie picks up in three rings. — Lucy, glad you phoned, she says, her tone making something inside me slide south. I’m braced for what comes next. — Thelma and Waleena at VH1, and there’s no other way of putting this, have basically crapped out on us. The heat from Quist has got the channel nervous. They are trying to go with somebody else for Shape Up or Ship Out. I wish now we’d signed those fucking contracts, but I never anticipated this . . . I’m doing all I can to get them to reconsider . . . Lucy? Are you there?
— Yes, I tell her curtly. Botoxed fuckers! Those vagina flaps as stiff as rubber doors in a fucking abattoir. I force down my rage. — See what you can do, and keep in touch.
— For sure. Remember, they ain’t the only show in town!
— Thanks, I say, clicking off the phone.
Mom’s real-estate agent nose can smell a Florida disaster a mile away. — Everything good, pickle?
No. On the contrary, everything is going to fucking shit, but I’m not going to tell her that. — You know, I sing, looking around, — I’m thinking what a great place this would be to work out!
— There’s a gym right here, on this floor. Mom points through the wall. — It has some cardio equipment. I don’t suppose anybody would mind if you made use of it.
— Well, there’s nobody here to mind, I tell her, watching her face fall again as we head next door to check it out. This is an open-plan space (as the apartments should be), containing two pristine treadmills, standing criminally idle. They are both still partially wrapped in polyethylene sheeting, the packing around them discarded. There’s also a set of dumbbells on a rack. My head starts to buzz with the possibilities.
— There are plans to get a full set of gym equipment eventually, Mom nods.
— Once you get a few units rented and bring in some revenue, I suppose.
— Yes . . . Mom winces as if I’ve just kidney-punched her. She hands me the keys, then drops me off back over on the Beach.
In my cramped apartment, I stretch out and lift some hand weights for an hour, then flop onto the small two-seater couch which practically fills this crappy space. The asshole downstairs is pounding out some butt-fucking techno, forcing me to switch on the TV and drown it out with an infomercial for a faddy home gym, like the one they are supposedly going to send me, which, in any case, is just designed to gather dust in a lardass closet.
I’m thinking about that great space Mom has. Some folks have everything and appreciate nothing. I can feel my own new apartment and car slipping away. I look outside. No paparazzi, except that creep whose camera I trashed. It was a mistake to make it personal; now that soiled fuck will never let go. I feel a steady rage burning inside me. I call Thelma at the TV channel and it goes to voicemail. — I know why you’re avoiding me. Well, I’ve dealt with fake assholes before. Fake, frightened assholes. They never stood in my way. They won’t this time. Show some fucking balls!
Fuck . . . I shouldn’t have done that! I’m floundering, switching off, when a call from Sorenson comes straight up. She tells me she’s started getting back into her work and she’d love me to come over and look at her stuff. — I’ve sooo much energy since I started this program, Lucy. I know that we met under terrible circumstances, but you know, I sometimes feel it was destiny that brought us together!
— Okay, I’m on my way, I hear myself saying. Jeez, when your best offer is a creepy dwarf, you know your social life is on the slide.
— All righty, she sings. — See ya!
Little does this beetchball know that I’m not in the mood to be fucked with. I’m going to inventory the contents of her refrigerator and cupboards, and if they ain’t up to shape her Scandinavian ass will know the meaning of the word “pain.”
With the Cadillac’s engine wheezing all the way, by the time I get to Sorenson’s I’m in no mood for bullshit. I decline her offer of coffee and tell her to make some green tea from a proferred box of bags I picked up earlier. She grudgingly complies, asking me about my day. I tell her all about the television bullshit. — Media assholes. They have no goddamn balls and no enthusiasm, unless it comes to cheerleading some Bible-belt, needle-dicked fascist!
— I hate them all, Lena says, and suddenly tears across the room, picking up a large piece of black curtain material from the dining table, which she starts hanging over the window curtain pole, trying to turn Florida into Illinois or Minnesota. — I don’t want them shooting their long lenses in here . . . I know I keep going on about it, but I am just so sorry about that video clip. It’s an artist’s thing, we have to record, we have to exhibit . . . but I feel so cheap—
— Chill, I tell her sharply, exasperated by her constant fucking apologies. — Look, I’d really like to see what you’re working on.
Sorenson’s face crinkles in pain. She lets the curtain fall. — I don’t feel right about showing people . . . I mean, I—
— Why the fuck call me up and tell me to come see it if you don’t want me to? What kinda games are you playing here?
— I do, she flushes, — it’s just . . .
> — Just what?
— I get nervous!
— I’m not a fucking art critic, Lena, I tell her, rising out of my chair, resting the mug of tea on the polished wood floor. — The only criticism you’ll get from me is centered on your lifestyle. I don’t have the qualifications or inclination to criticize your work. So either show me what you were gonna show me, or don’t waste any more of my fucking time. What’ll it be?
— Okay . . . she groans, and reluctantly takes me out to the garden. — You must promise not to touch anything, she says, as she opens the studio doors.
— Why would I touch something, Lena? It’s your shit.
— I’m sorry . . . I guess I have trust issues.
— I guess you do, I agree, which doesn’t cheer her, as we step inside and she clicks on overhead lights which blink awake, exposing the space. Then she goes over to the wall and pulls open a series a series of thick, dark window shades. The sunlight pours in and she switches off the lights.
I was expecting an arty-crafty chick haunt, but this place is more like a dude’s workshop. The first thing that hits me are the smells—vaguely sulfurous, catching in my nose—and I find myself rubbing at my watering eyes. The space has two big benches with loads of power tools—saws, drills, and some shit I’ve never seen before. There are piles of tins of paint, and bottles of chemicals, obviously where the pungent aroma (which Sorenson seems oblivious to) originates. She notes my discomfort and clicks on a powerful exhaust fan. I’m looking at a huge, steel boxlike device. — Is that a kiln?
— No. She points at a smaller contraption in a corner. — That’s the kiln over there. This is my incinerator.
— Right, I nod, impressed, now looking at these huge fucking molds, like they are made for the bones of prehistoric animals. It gives me the impression there’s more to Sorenson than meets the eye, another side to this silly girly-girl. There are some big sculptures, with bones set in a fiberglass-like resin. On heavy-duty shelving sit glass jars and plastic containers full of animal bones. It’s like a Holocaust scene; you can imagine Dr. Josef Mengele’s lab being like this. All those little monster men, being constructed from those cleaned rat and bird bones . . . this bitch is fucking psycho! Is this the same person who looks at animals on Cute Overload?
— This is where I . . . sort of work . . . she says apologetically.
And there are some standard Miami paintings, all bright colours reflecting the light, but nothing you won’t see in any gallery. What really grabs my attention is a tall structure, which looks like a figure, with a sheet draped over it.
— What’s under there?
— Oh, it’s just a work-in-progress. I don’t like showing it at this stage.
— Fair enough, I tell her, again examining her smaller bone sculptures on the benches and shelves.
Sorenson’s lip turns down, and she says to me, — I strip the flesh from the bones of animals and birds, and clean them.
I must be looking in some sort of horror as she’s moved to explain, — I don’t kill them or hurt them, they’re all creatures who have perished naturally.
— Right, I say, bending down and looking at a cluster of little figures of lizard-men.
— All the fur and features, skin and tissue and organs go into the incinerator, and she drums with her fingers on the big iron furnace. — I keep the bones, reassembling the ones of different species into my new skeletal structures, modifying them, giving the creatures, say, maybe longer legs. I’ll sometimes recast anatomically correct fake bones in my molds. But I much prefer to source the bones of another animal if possible.
— Wow. Where do you get the animals? Like, you don’t go into a pet store and ask for half a dozen dead rats? I start thinking of Miles’s dog, poor Chico, how his bones seem to be little bigger than many of the ones Lena has here.
— No, of course not, she laughs, then shrugs and says, — Well . . . yes, in a manner of speaking. After they’ve died of course. I go around and pick up the dead ones. Parrot World is a good place for me. I also get around the zoos. Obviously, I pay for them.
— But why animal bones?
— It gives the composition authenticity. I’d like to think that some part of the spirit of those poor tiny creatures goes into my figures, and she points to her little mutant men and women on the shelves. — I’m thinking, she says wistfully, — you’re a kind of sculptor too. I guess I’m your work-in-progress.
For some reason that strikes me as a creepy thing to say. — I’m just glad I’m making progress with something, I spit, suddenly stung again by the weakness of those TV assholes.
— I believe in you, Lucy, Sorenson responds as if reading my mind, and I’m more touched than I should be. — That man was crazy. He’d have just kept on shooting.
— Yes, he would, Lena, I nod in agreement, now shamed by the power I’ve ceded to her, which compels me to look her in the eye. — You say you believe in me?
— Yes, she says, disconcerted, — of course I do. I thought I’d said—
— Do you really believe in me?
— Yes, she repeats, now all excited and brushing her fringe out of those eyes. — Yes, I do!
I stare right into her loser soul. What do I see? A weak, bullied wretch. — Then will you stop fucking around and help me to help you get better?
Sorenson is so taken aback her breath catches as her hand reflexively flies to her chest. — What do you mean? I am getting better, she whimpers. — I . . . I think I am . . .
— No. You’re a liar.
— What?
— Follow me! And I storm out the workshop, across the yard, and back into the house.
Sorenson is in frantic pursuit. — Wait, Lucy, where are you going?
Ignoring her, I march into the kitchen and pull open the cupboards. Knew it: she’s stocked up on shit again. I pull out a box of crappy cereal and open it up. — Sugar. Nothing more, nothing less, I pour it into the garbage can. I shake my head slowly and point to the bathroom. — The scale, Lena. The bathroom scale can be your best friend or your worst enemy!
I move back down the hallway. Some family photos sit on a bookcase. Parents, friends, student types, though no boyfriends or lovers. But you can almost see the space they’ve recently occupied. There’s some of Sorenson, slim, and a closet hottie if you got rid of those black bangs, and that tense, worried face. I’m gripped by a sudden urge, an inspiration that almost shocks me in its violent intensity. — I want you to take off all your clothes. Down to your underwear.
— What? She looks at me, first a nervous smile, which drifts into horror as she can see I’m not joking. — No! Why would you want me to do that?
— That good shit back in there, I point to the workshop, — this fucking sham in here, I nod to the kitchen. — How do I reconcile the two, Lena? Because it isn’t the same person who is producing the fucking sick shit in the workshop who is vegging out here. The person in the workshop has fucking balls! I’ve seen your exhibition stuff, and now I wanna see what you are exhibiting every day to the world. And I want you to see it too. All your clothes! Take them off!
— No! I don’t want to!
— You said you believed in me. You record me and exhibit it to the world, and you won’t even do this! You lied, like you’ve been lying about everything!
— I . . . I’m not . . . I can’t . . . she gasps, and fuck me, the whackoid bitch starts convulsing, struggling for breath.
I begin to get worried. — You’re okay, I soothe her.
— I’M NOT! I’M NOT OKAY! Sorenson cries out in pain.
I lower my voice. I’m stroking her arm. — No. And that’s why you have to do this. You should not be reacting like this.
— I know, and she turns to me with the most pathetic, beaten nod I’ve seen, her face creased in pain, — it’s just that Jerry, he made me—
I freeze: what the fuck . . .? — Okay, I’m sorry. Forget it.
Then she half turns away, but starts to tug off her top. A bra
rips into wobbling, white goosebumped flesh. A muffin belly and love handles hang disgustingly over her sweat pants.
— You have to take off all your clothes, Lena, I almost whisper.
She pouts for a second, then shrugs, now ludicrously almost like a defiant hooker, faced with the attentions of a kinky, psychotic john. I’m feeling sick. I think something is going to come up but I force it down. My eyes water as Sorenson pulls down her sweat pants and steps out of them. God, she repulses me. I can barely look at her, my body tense as I grab her fleshy wrist and pull her through to the bathroom, positioning her on the scale.
— The scale, how I hate to stand on that fucking scale, she says, anger giving her face structure and character.
I’m looking at her blazing, hateful eyes and thinking of the park, Abbie Adams Green, the smell of freshly mown grass in my nostrils. It’s nothing to do with that. I catch my breath. Get past that shit. Seize control! — What does that say?
— Two hun . . . she sobs, — two hund—
— Two hundred and two pounds! I drag her, traumatized and tearful, to the full-length mirror. I snatch an old framed photo from the bookcase, and hold it up to her face. — Who is that?
— Me.
— Who is me?
— Lena . . . Lena Sorenson.
I point at the blobby mess in the mirror. — Who in the name of fucking hell is that?
— Mi-mi-mi-meee . . . Leee-na—
— Lena who?
— Lena Sorenson!
— THAT IS NOT LENA SORENSON! I point at the blobby wreckage in the mirror.
— No . . . Sorenson’s hand goes to her eye. She’s shaking.
I’m feeling stronger now. Drawing power from the righteous mission. — That is some fat, crazy, obnoxious, sweaty monster who has swallowed Lena Sorenson! Lena Sorenson is in there, I poke at her gross, doughy gut and stare into those frightened eyes in the mirror’s reflection. I whisper into her ear, — We have to set Lena Sorenson free. You and me.
— Free . . . Sorenson mindlessly parrots.
— Will you help me set Lena Sorenson free?
