Like it Matters

by David Cornwell

  I was on my knees and I stretched out my hand into the darkness and started groping around. I shuffled after my grasping hand, and then finally my knuckle bumped against the fibreglass side of a horse.

  I knelt there next to the shape and I found its face with my hand. I tried closing my eyes and then opening them again but there was no difference—the strangest feeling—and I tried to picture the horse painted in one of her designs, one of my favourite ones, the harlequin or the warhorse or the midnight-blue one with the orange mane and the flames on its flanks and the silver sickle moons on its cheeks.

  I was so tired, and I promised myself I’d go to sleep in a second—

  I just knew I had to touch that horse’s face for a while. I knew I needed something there.

  Don’t ask me why, but I clenched my jaw and jerked my sore, heavy hand up to the other side of the horse’s face.

  With both hands on it, touching that smooth, warm, unlacquered shape

  In the pitch dark it could’ve been her face—

  Hers, my father’s, my mother’s, my own, everyone’s face, god’s face—

  And at last

  This terrible stab of pain in my heart, and this tumbling feeling, like I was going over a black wall

  And then this searingly bright thought

  Right between my eyes

  You’ve been so wrong.

  Your whole life, you’ve been so wrong.

  The words going round and round in my sleep-fuddled head—

  As I crawled away from the carousel, slipping the backpack off my shoulders, my head meeting the warm, damp grass, my sore arm tucking in against my body like I was holding something precious there.

  Your whole life, Ed.

  You’ve been so wrong.

  And it’s ridiculous, but before I did drift off, I made my brain replay that first day when I went to her dad’s place with her, when everything she did was bathed in light and when things seemed like they could’ve gone in a million different directions and all of them were glittering.

  Because I knew I’d just been in a wreck—

  The smoke hadn’t cleared yet and those things, those flickering, guttering little things that I’ll lose someday, I’ll forget them, already their edges have disappeared

  And when they really go, what then?

  No more pretty embers, just cinders and smoke, and a pitch-black road—

  And a cold wind

  And me alone, limping on in the dark, with nothing to light the way.

  BIRTHDAY

  THE SUN WAS OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DAYS—

  And it was nice, weak sun—even though it must’ve been around lunchtime, judging by the traffic, it wasn’t dazzling at all.

  It was only because I needed matches or a new lighter that I was outside in the first place, and it was only because the corner shop had the newspapers laid out on the counter and the headline of the Daily Voice was TIK PERVS RAPED MY DOG TO DEATH!—so I had to pick it up

  And there across the top, stamped plainly, I saw that it was my birthday.

  Twenty-eight.

  It had been nearly a month since that night with Charlotte and Freddy.

  Four weeks on a long-stay rate at the Daybreaker Hotel, hungry always but unable to eat much because my mouth was still so sore, barely getting out of bed, succumbing all the time to nightmares and bleak daydreams, crying fits, bouts of despair about the past and fear for the future—staying clean, but more by default than any conscious will or effort.

  I thought about Charlotte all the time, and it still bothered me that I’d probably never know if Dewald really was TJ, or if that was just a febrile fry-up all of my own

  And one day, in the middle of the afternoon, I had a dream where me and Derek were chained to chairs in this damp room with a forty-watt bulb swinging overhead. Then these weird doctors came in, they were dressed half medieval and half modern, and they unchained Derek and one of them came over to me and put his hands on my face and pushed my eyes open—so I had to watch while they put a pitch cap on Derek’s long head, and then I had to watch while they poured the hot, sticky tar into the cap and then I had to watch while Derek ran around the room screaming in blind agony, the doctors all laughing, before he just ducked his head and ran straight into the wall and fell, limp, his head still smouldering. I went out that day and tried to score something—I thought I had, but when I brought it home to cut it up and smoke it, as soon as I opened the bag, I could smell I’d just been sold rock salt and washing powder.

  So even though I was, right then, in a state where the importance of days and dates shrank from the significance of being either awake or asleep, of feeling together or falling apart—

  Still, I thought, a birthday is something.

  And the whole way home to the Daybreaker Hotel, and after I was back in my room, lying in bed with the thick curtains I’d bought drawn all the way, I sweltered like I had a fever. My mind was humid and I felt doom in my heart, and no matter what I tried to think about, no matter how far I flung my thoughts, it didn’t matter, they all kept circling the same drain.

  But that’s the thing about birthdays, isn’t it?

  They’ve a fucking bad habit of reminding you who you are.

  And where.

  Twenty-eight.

  More alone than ever.

  When it got unbearable I sat up and leaned over and I fumbled around on the other bed, my fingers looking for the big, round button on the cheap CD player I’d bought when I moved back into the room. I pushed the button and the disc started spinning, a red light saying 01 started blinking—

  But I’d forgotten what I had in there, what I’d been listening to the last time, and the second I heard that drugged-out choirboy voice, then that awesome spacy guitar

  I knew I couldn’t do “Crimson and Clover” again—and I got all the way out of bed and started jabbing at the machine in the dark, anything to stop the music before the first verse kicked in.

  I went and put on the light and flipped through my tiny pile of CDS, craving something young and dumb and spirited. The closest I had was Nevermind.

  While it played my skin started to itch

  And some dark imp started running around in my mind, knocking on doors I promised myself, after Charlotte, were going to stay closed forever

  And I went over to the chair and I picked up my set of nice new clothes—I’d bought them the same day I got the CD player but I hadn’t worn them yet—and I threw them onto the bed. Then I went and stood in front of the mirror and undressed.

  I was completely naked except for my socks, but I never took those off inside the room. I’d been showering sort of on and off down at the YMCA—every few days quickly in and out before someone tried to bum me or sell me yellow crack—and it’d actually been a long while, I realised, since I’d looked at myself naked. The mirror had some big shards missing, so one of my legs looked amputated just above the knee

  But mostly, there I was.

  Not quite naked as the day I was born, because of that stupid tattoo, and the socks—

  And because the day you were born, Ed, you were so soaked in your mother’s blood they were scared you were going to drown in it.

  Jesus.

  Why’d he ever tell you that?

  I was looking thin, and I mean thin even by my standards. But better this way, I thought. My bones still stuck too far out, strung together by muscles that still looked like hinky ropes, the veins still showing very blue, like streams of ink running right beneath the skin—the big stuff’s not going to change on its own—but at least I didn’t have any of that sad, limp flesh around my nipples and my gut and my hips anymore.

  But how come you’re still so hairless?

  When’re you going to get a man’s body, Ed?

  I peered in and looked at my beard, and saw how similar it looked to the spread of hair I had around my belly button. I looked at my dick, hanging there, and wished it was bigger—then thought, Well, be honest, at least no
one sees it that much.

  A sense of now-or-never wrenched me away from the mirror and off to the bed, where I sat down and put on the cold, clean clothes. Some jeans, a decent checked shirt, new socks, sneakers that looked like a pair of Converse but only cost me eighty bucks from a place on Brickfield Road.

  I was dressed and from where I sat, looking at the other bed, I could see my keys, my lighter and the cigarette case I was also using as my wallet. I knew from earlier that there was enough money in there for a good night out.

  Not a wild one though.

  I lifted the sheet on the other bed, and from the slit in the mattress cover I’d torn with my own hands, I grabbed out some of the cash I’d brought back with me from Muizenberg that night. I hadn’t made much of a dent in it yet.

  I was on my feet and I had everything except enough cigarettes. I was going to stop for another pack and then try walk as far as I could into town before I had to hail a taxi. I brushed my teeth using a bottle of water and a small bucket I spat in and then poured out the window into the gutter than ran along the wall outside. I turned off the CD player and checked my pockets again to make sure I had everything. Then I looked around the room, out the window and back, my stomach knotting like when I was a kid and I had to go to other kids’ parties, and then I went and stood in front of the mirror again.

  “It’s your birthday, Ed,” I said out loud.

  I hit the lights and then I said it one more time.

  “It’s your birthday.”

  MEETING

  IT’S BAD TODAY, THE ITCH—

  And I’m so worried I’m going to be early—

  I heard the cannon go off like ten minutes ago at the most

  And I don’t have any money on me because there might be some sharks swimming around in the parking lot afterwards, and so I can’t even go buy a cigarette or a Stoney or a newspaper and kill any time like that.

  It’s happening at the old Seamstress College around the corner on Greatmore Street—I know exactly where it is, about a year ago I met a guy there a few times to score pills

  And if it’s only going to start at twelve-thirty I am going to be early, they might even make me help set out the plastic chairs or fill the water urn.

  God.

  What if they make you hand out pamphlets?

  I get to the corner of Greatmore and there’s no shade around. The pavement’s a crush and Main Road’s busy and that fuming noise is giving me a headache, and I stare down the road and I see the old stone building, and I figure whatever, I’ll just try get lost somewhere inside, I’ll hide in the bathroom or something till it’s clear things have started and I can walk in late.

  It really is a beautiful old building. I don’t know how architects do it, but I’ve always seen buildings as either men or women—mostly they’re men—but the Seamstress College is definitely a woman, an old dame with graces.

  Since the last time I’d been there I see they’ve cut the ivy away, but the tracks of its vines are still showing on the paint like intricate tattoos. They’ve replaced some of the windows downstairs but on the top floors it still looks like a haunted place, birds’ nests in the window frames and dusty stained glass hanging skew. The front doors are wide open and they open onto blackness.

  I walk in and it’s like a cave inside and my eyes see bright spots in the darkness, my headache peaks, I hear a voice singing out of the gloom, “Hi! Welcome!”

  Fuck sakes.

  Americans.

  No wonder you saw signs up and posters and stuff.

  She takes me through to a bare, square room with high windows lining two of the walls and enormous clocks facing each other on the other two.

  “Is this where they trained them for the factory?” I say.

  And the girl, bravely but cautiously—I can see this is like her first or second time doing this—says, “Are you okay, sir?”

  “You mean am I high?”

  She literally gulps. “Are you?”

  “No.” I start to move off to the ring of plastic chairs in the middle of the floor—there’re six or seven people sitting there already—but then I stop and I say to her, “Listen, and I’m not trying to knock your confidence, I promise. But I think maybe you should switch with someone. This is a pretty bad side of town. There’ll be some rough dudes coming in here.”

  “Worse than Lavender Hill?” she says.

  I say, “I’ve never been to Lavender Hill.”

  And she smiles in this quiveringly righteous, oddly sexy kind of way—then turns and walks out the room and I hear her calling, “Hi! Welcome!” as I move off to the chairs.

  I set my sights on one that’s got a lot of empty chairs around it.

  I raise my eyes just enough to nod quickly to everyone who’s sitting there—only a couple of them are talking, one lady’s mumbling to herself—and I sit down and look at my shoes.

  What the fuck’re you doing, Ed?

  You’re a joke.

  This is ridiculous and you know it.

  And on and on, while the room fills up—most of the seats get taken, I hear more chairs getting dragged in—and whenever I look up a guy in a bright-pink wig and a push-up bra and zebra tights and high heels is staring at me.

  Then all of a sudden there’s an American in the middle of the full circle, clapping his hands. It takes a little while but people stop talking and the punk kids are shamed into muting the music coming out their cellphones. The guy in the middle—in reality probably about twenty-five but looking about sixteen, curly black hair, sweating dark stains into his sky-blue shirt—tells us his name is Pastor Tom and he’ll be our leader today.

  He says he can tell from the turnout that the Lord is with us today.

  He says he knows it’s corny, but he’s got a football he likes to throw around at these things—and he jogs back to his chair, and sure enough, there’s a football lying underneath it. Painted red, white and blue in stripes. He says, “If you want to say something all you gotta do is call for the pass.”

  For at least two long minutes, nothing happens. It’s a lead balloon and I can’t take the hopeful look on his face, and I just keep my head ducked low

  Until eventually one of the helpers—he’s standing at the back next to the American girl who gave me sass earlier, I see now they’re both wearing the same T-shirts:

  LET’S

  OVERCOME

  RAPE +

  DRUGS

  —he calls, “Ja, over here, Tom,” and Tom launches the ball over the crowd to him and he catches it and there’s lukewarm applause.

  And then it starts. “Dag julle, my name is Shwayne”—

  And who am I to judge? The guy’s got scars and prison tattoos on his hands and his neck, he’s got the right—

  But his skin’s so good, so are his teeth, he’s obviously been clean for years and years, I doubt he even remembers anymore what it feels like to want

  And the speech is so thoroughly rehearsed, full of dramatic pauses and improbably ironic, moralistic twists—it’s the kind of thing they make you sit through in high school

  But when he’s done, everyone claps. Pastor Tom even does this super-sincere slow clap that he extends for a little while after everyone else has gone quiet. “Thank you, Jesus,” he says.

  “Ja, who’s next?” Shwayne says, holding the football above his head.

  And then it goes round and round.

  First it’s a working man, in orange overalls with reflector strips down the sides of his pants. “My name is Joseph. I’m good one hundred forty-three days now. Thank you, Jesus.”

  Applause, and then he passes to Cliff who, the way he tells it, was a model citizen before the demon took hold and next he knew, he was naked on the lawn outside his ex-wife’s house and she’d turned the sprinklers on him.

  Then to Francois, who started off with a few lines of coke on the weekends after he got retrenched, then slid from there

  And then to Aziza, who whispers through a horrific story about
how her uncle used to abuse her and then slip her roofies—she breaks down about halfway through, loudly, and I nearly do too

  And then to Wathiq and then to Yaaseen, basically two good souls besieged by drugs

  Another one like them

  Another one

  All of them scrupulously thanking Jesus—either all on their own, or else because Pastor Tom keeps prompting them with things like, “Can I tell you who brought you here today?” and “So who do you think can give you light on the dark road ahead?”

  And then, while a thin guy about my age is deliberating about who to pass to, the woman with the stringy blonde hair who’d been talking to herself when I came in stands up and shouts, “Give me the ball! Give it now!”

  And she gets it, and then launches into maybe the worst story I’ve ever heard in my life. She’s on her feet while she’s telling it, holding the football in her hands and talking to it like it’s there, it’s listening—

  She had two daughters, once. Never a husband, but she had a boyfriend—and then one day, the boyfriend just drove over one of the daughters, reversed and drove back over her again, just out of the blue one day while she was opening the garage door at home. And that sent the woman on a bender and somewhere along the line she got raped, then addicted to pethidine, then unga—and at some point the other daughter ran off and joined a cult that turned out to be a snuff porn ring

  And the story ends with her just screaming

  And throwing the football down into the ground

  And it bounces off at a crazy angle and skips over the floor and I’m still in shock and I can’t move my foot before the ball bumps up against it and rests there.

  Instinctively, I pick it up, and start looking for someone to pass it to—

  But no one’s got their hands out—

  They’re all looking at me, they’re waiting.

  I shake my head and I try give the ball back to Pastor Tom but he says, “Hi there, friend. What’s your name?”

  I almost lie.

  “Hi, Ed. This is your first time with us, isn’t it?”