I looked up the inspection ladder to the top of the pylon. I looked at the grey metal struts. I looked everywhere. Clive had vanished.
‘Clive?’
I checked all around. Then I went outside. I thought he might have jumped down, or fallen. He wasn’t there. I went back inside. Then I went outside again.
Spots of rain started to appear. I looked up at the wires, and they seemed to hum contentedly. I waited for a while until the rain came more heavily, and then I went home.
That night while I lay in bed, I heard the telephone ring. I knew what time it was because I could hear the television signature blaring from the lounge. It was the end of the late night news. Then my mother came upstairs. Had I seen Clive? His mother had phoned. She was worried.
The next day I was interviewed by a policewoman. I explained we were playing under the pylon. I turned my back and he’d disappeared. She made a note and left.
A few days later the police were out like blackberries in September. Half the neighbourhood joined in the fine-toothcomb search of the waste ground and the nearby fields. They found nothing. Not a hair from his head.
While the searches went on, I started to have a recurring nightmare. I’d be back under the pylon, pissing and happily talking away to Clive. Only it wasn’t urine coming out, it was painful fat blue-and-white sparks of electricity. I’d turn to Clive in surprise, who would be descending the inspection ladder wearing fluorescent blue overalls, his face out of view. And his entire body would be rippling with eels of electricity, gold sparks arcing wildly. Then slowly his head would begin to rotate towards me, and I’d start screaming; but before I ever got to see his awful face I’d wake up.
We stopped playing under the pylon after that. No one had to say anything, we just stopped going there. I did go back once, to satisfy my own curiosity. The screens had been ripped away in the failed search, but the nettles bashed down by the police were already springing up again.
I looked up into the tower of the pylon, and although there was nothing to see, I felt a terrible sense of dread. Then a face appeared over the Nantwiches’ fence. It was Olive. She’d seen me looking.
‘Gone,’ she said. It was the only word I ever heard her say. ‘Gone.’
Summer came to an end, and we went off to our respective schools. I saw Tania once or twice in her straw boater, but she passed me with her nose in the air. Eventually she married a Tory MP. I often wonder if she’s happy.
Inevitably Kev and I stopped hanging around together, but not before there was a murder in the district. The landlord of the Dog and Trumpet was stabbed to death. They never found who did it. Joy moved out of the area when her parents split up. She went to live with her mother.
Joy went on to become a rock and roll singer. A star. Well, not a star exactly, but I did once see her on Top of the Pops. She had a kind of trade mark, turning her back on the cameras to wiggle her bottom. I felt pleased for her that she’d managed to put the habit to good use.
Just occasionally I bump into Kev in this pub or that, but we never really know what to say to each other. After a while Kev always says, ‘Do you remember the time you hypnotised Tania Brown and....’ and I always say ‘Yes’ before he gets to the end of the story. Then we look at the floor for a while until one of us says, ‘Anyway, good to see you, all the best.’ It’s that anyway that gets me.
Clive Mann is never mentioned.
Occasionally I make myself walk past the old place. A new group of kids has started playing there, including Kev Duffy’s oldest girl. Yesterday as I passed by that way there were no children around because an Electricity Board operative was servicing the pylon. He was halfway up the inspection ladder, and he wore blue overalls exactly like Clive in my dream. It stopped me with a jolt. I had to stare, even though I could sense the man’s irritation at being watched.
Then came that singular, familiar thrum of energy. The maintenance man let his arm drop and turned to face me, challenging me to go away. But I was transfixed. Because it was Clive’s face I saw in that man’s body. He smiled at me, but tiny white sparks of electricity were leaking from his eyes like tears. Then he made to speak, but all I heard or saw was a fizz of electricity arcing across the metal brace on his teeth. Then he was the maintenance man again, meeting my desolate gaze with an expression of contempt.
I left hurriedly, and I resolved, after all, not to pass by the pylon again.
A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR
By Matthew Costello
Let me tell you. I was there. Saw the whole thing, heard the whole fucking thing. So, as they say, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, right? And what I’m telling you here is no bullshit.
Got that straight?
Good. Shows you got ears. Damn useful things, two leafy chunks of flesh that pick up sound. Pretty fucking neat design—except some people don’t seem to know how to use them.
Okay. So what was my deal, on that night? On a Tuesday night, heading down to Two Jays?
Well, I bet you can just guess. Girlfriend on the warpath. And it wasn’t even a red-flag day. Just another one of those times that the bitch-meter kicked in big time. Only this night—dunno what happened at work with her—but she was all over me about everything. Starting with how crappy the apartment is, and how we never have any goddam money, and whenever the hell will we be able to afford to buy a place.
Buy a place?
What the hell is she smoking?
(Actually nothing. That’s one of the areas we cut back on. That, plus she got in her head that a nightly doobie was sapping me of my ambition. Riiiight….)
So she wouldn’t let it go. Just kept it up.
Until, like a beacon of sanity, I pictured the warm confines of the Two Jays. Some quiet drinks, maybe a game on the tube. Wasn’t sure there was any Tuesday night football. Not that I really give a damn about football. But anything would be better than her screeching, working herself up, way up.
Not for the first time did I think…maybe it was time to bail. Time to cut this one loose.
But we usually made up. She usually apologized, even when it was my fault. I always accepted. Because certain perks came with accepting that apology.
If you catch my drift.
And you look like an intelligent type of guy, so I’m sure you do.
So I walk in, get a big hello from Ray, the weeknight bartender. Some old sitcom on his TV. No game on. A few stiffs at the stools, a couple of the younger guys in back shooting pool.
Ray gives me a big “hello” and a “what’ll it be.”
“Vodka on the rocks,” I said. “A double.” Ray nods and grabs the Stoli. Like I said, a good guy. Could have poured the Smirnoff and I wouldn’t have said a goddam word.
And since he knew my usual was a pint, I didn’t even get from him,…having one of those nights?
I had discussed my situation with him on previous nights when Mindy was in full throttle. Not tonight, though. Just a big fucking tumbler of vodka with a few rocks.
I put down a ten-dollar bill, and the evening was rolling.
Of course there’s only so long you can sit there with your thoughts. Soon you sort of sense your fellow bar mates, and you kinda let yourself drift into their conversation.
You know how it is? Sure you do....
In this case I didn’t have to do any drifting at all. Jackie Weeks, at the other end, let out one of those large phlegmy laughs that degenerated into a bone-jarring cough. Christ, I bet the only place you can hear that sound is in a bar. A mix of booze and bonhomie camaraderie.
Or some shit—
Anyway, when his cough sputtered to a close, I asked him—
“Jackie, what’s so fucking funny?”
And Jackie, like any good barroom stalwart, slid off the stool.
“I was telling Charlie here“—more sputtering laughter and Jackie walked closer – “what everyone with a dick already knows.”
Again, Jackie started his hacking laugh, his face reddening to that burnished glow that one of those d
ays was sure to deliver a nice fat coronary, right here on the crummy floor of the Two Jays.
“And what the hell is that, Jackie?”
Close enough so that he could plant his pudgy hand on my shoulder.
“Why, that a blowjob beats a fuck any goddam day of the week.”
I grabbed my tumbler and took a good slug.
“And why is that?”
“Because if you fuck ‘em, you have to look them right in the face. But with a blowjob, they’re out of sight, and you can get a good view of the tube at the same goddam time!”
Jackie exploded again, his barroom wit absolutely killing him, destroying him.
To be polite I grinned and nodded. Another slug.
“Too true, Jackie, my man. Too true.”
“Fucking A,” he said.
Anyone who saw his wife would know that in that particular case, option ‘A’ was definitely the way to go. I for one would have a hard time keeping it up looking at her.
I would even have—whatcha call ’em?—qualms about sticking my dick into that mouth. Too fucking—I dunno—mangy. Like she might go postal and chomp it right off.
I’d have to ask Jackie sometime if he ever had that particular concern.
Not now though.
Sometime when he was sober.
Which, as far as I could tell, was hardly ever.
“Gonna drain the snake,”
“Thanks for sharing, Jackie.”
And the jokemaster general of the evening walked back to the Two Jays’ cesspool of a men’s room. I mean, I think they clean it once a month whether it needs it or not.
Which was when the door opened.
And, as they say, a guy walked into the bar.
First of all, I gotta tell you I’m not prejudiced.
I mean, I’m not an idiot. I know that the world is changed, that Brooklyn has changed, and that—well—the way we thought of things when I was growing up in Bay Ridge…, that was just plain wrong.
And if you believe that load of bullshit I just dumped on you, then I got a great fucking bridge to sell you.
But seriously, anybody who walks into the Two Jays would get served. Nobody would make any kind of big deal out of it at all. Live and let live. The laughs might get a little lower in volume…and the feeling that it was one great secret club of assholes might disappear. But otherwise no biggie.
So this guy walks in that I never saw before. I noticed Ray clocking him. The guy had dark skin, I guess what they would call a Latino. Half the fucking city’s Latino these days, right? But on second glance, maybe he was something else, from somewhere they didn’t have the pasty white skin of us micks.
Everyone looked at him for a minute. The guy, standing still for a second, looking at the room, the bar…before walking to a stool.
Oh man, almost forgot. Shit, I’m supposed to try and remember everything, right?
So he had on clean white shirt, like a businessman’s shirt. But he was all sweaty like he’d just jogged here from freakin’ Eammons Avenue.
He took the stool, and Ray, ever the professional, was right there.
“What’ll be?”
I tried not to stare, but something was off with this guy. The sweating, the big wet patches under his arm, like he’d been digging a ditch or something. The guy looked up.
“A beer. Maybe a shot. Something.”
Ray nodded. “Seagram’s okay?”
“Sure.”
No accent for our new guest.
He did look to his left though, and I had to stop staring.
Give the guy some space to enjoy his drink.
Everyone deserves that, don’t they? That’s what places like this are for.
Enjoy a quiet drink.
Mine, meanwhile, was gone, so I ordered another. Way too early to go home and face Mindy. Wanted her well in bed, snoring her ass off, before I got back, no matter what kind of hangover I cooked up for myself. Wouldn’t be a first time I sat at my desk in the Transit Authority building with goddam jackhammers drilling to China via my frontal lobe.
“Another, Ray. And a bag of nuts.”
Always good to eat while drinking, they say.
And for a while, the bar was quiet.
* * *
But it’s one thing about drinks. Get enough of them out there, and things happen. All sorts of things. Guys talk, they fight, and on weekends when the occasional asshole brings his girl to this dive, they even fuck in the back, tying up the pisser.
So…I’m guessing this was more than a few drinks later.
In bar time, it was one drink after two. Three drinks to four.
In bar time, it was late.
Jackie had shifted topics, to one I would warm up to.
“But what is it with all the bitching? As if I don’t work hard. Christ.”
“Amen,” I said.
“Trouble at home too?” he said to me.
Now I laughed. “Why the hell do you think I’m here…with you freakin’ losers?”
I looked right and saw the newcomer, the sweaty patches shrinking, his sleeves all rolled up, looking at me.
“But what’s your broad up to?” I asked Jackie.
Broad….thank god there are still places where people use that word. So fuckin’ descriptive.
“You know—typical wife bitching. Like we don’t have enough money. And we don’t do enough goddam vacations. Why can’t we fix up the place. And I’m like—what do they call it—a reality check. Like does fucking money grown on a fucking tree?”
Jackie slapped a hand on me.
“Trust me, if I had the bucks I’d gladly spend it all on that crap just to keep her big mouth shut.”
And then—
An amazing moment, even in the Two Jays, where there were rules, compadre. Thing you did, and things you didn’t do.
The guy down at the end, the new guy with his crisp white shirt and sweaty armpits, laughed.
He freakin’ laughed.
Jackie’s hand was still on my shoulder, but I could feel the ripple go through him.
You don’t spill your guts in the Two Jays, even a little, then have someone laugh. We’re brothers in arms against the world and bitchy wives, and it’s not one of those times for a chuckle.
And this guy laughs?
Jackie let his hand slip off my shoulder. I spotted Ray, at the other end of the bar polishing his shot glasses, and he looked over, alert. Like I said, as things got late, stuff could happen. Enough talk, enough booze, and things could happen. The regulars knew how to avoid that shit, dodging any confrontational bullets.
But this guy….
Jackie walked past me, down the five or six stools, and stood facing the guy’s left side.
Meanwhile—none of us enjoying this—we waited.
And Christ, here’s where it got interesting. Real interesting.
And yeah…I know—that word doesn’t really fit what happened.
Jackie spoke, the wires in his voice pulled tight.
“Something funny, pal?”
Pal.
Never a good word, that one. I had seen my older brothers crack many a head using that word.
Pal. Pallie.
Mr. White Shirt turned. Like I said, he looked like he might have been a Latino, but after he spoke—well, I’m figuring he’s something else. A whole world now filled with people who don’t look like they came from County Clare, know what I mean?
The guy looked at Jackie, still a smile on his face, no look of alarm. Nothing to show that this interloper—that’s the word, isn’t it?—knew that he might be in deep shit here.
“Yes,” the guy said. “It was funny, what you said.”
Jesus Christ, I thought. We’re in goddam Goodfellas here. Pesci asking, demanding…did I say something funny, something to amuse you?
We all loved that picture. What’s not to love?
And here it was for real.
But Jackie—maybe aware that he was about to replay that scene—simply
said:
“Yeah, what was funny? My bitchy wife? The fact I got no money or—”
The guy put up his hands, stopping Jackie. Good, I thought, he’s going to end it. Except that smile on his face didn’t look scared. Guy looked happy as a clam.
“No. Not that. But when you said…reality check. That was funny. Made me laugh.”
The guy picked up his glass and tipped it to Jackie before taking a sip. And as drunk as he was, I saw Jackie begin to ease.
“Yeah. I was her fucking ‘reality check’ alright.” Then, thank god, a laugh from Jackie. “Guess that is a bit funny.”
Jackie looked back to me, to Ray—and one of two things—and two things only—were about to happen.
He’d either keep laughing and walk back to his seat.
Or he’d raise a ham fist and send the poor bastard in the white shirt flying backwards like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
But instead, sports fans, there was this third thing….
Jackie stood there a moment. He looked at that guy.
“Guess you know, hmm? You got problems at home too, eh mac?”
Mac….
The guy turned and looked at Jackie, and I didn’t like the way the guy looked. Something about his grin. Like he had a secret, and maybe—if we were all good—he was about to reveal that secret.
“Problems. Me? Not anymore. My problems…”—he licked up his beer glass and tilted it—“are solved.”
Like I said, a freaky smile on his face.
Nobody could like a smile like that. Something was definitively not okay with this guy, know what I mean? But Jackie was too bombed to stop talking.
Jackie looked back at us and laughed. “What’d you do—off your old lady? God knows, I’ve wanted to do that.” Another laugh. “What the hell she do anyway, your old lady? Another queen bitch?”
The guy shook his head and then dug into his left rear pocket and pulled out his wallet.
Opened it. Slid something out, and handed it to Jackie.
For a few seconds Jackie did nothing.
“Shit. I mean sorry, this your wife?”
“I think ‘ex‘ might be the operative prefix.”
Mister October Page 4
