The Going Rate

by John Brady

  The man walking sidestepped the brimming puddles, but then he missed one. Fanning sniggered.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

  “Better that than yelling your head off,” said Cully, rolling down the window and blowing out a volley of smoke.

  The man stopped and drew out a map. He angled it, held it up, turned to the light to read it. Fanning knew by Cully’s stillness that Cully too was watching him.

  The man lowered the map and turned to face the end of the street. Then he turned back and resumed walking.

  “Talking to himself,” Fanning murmured. “Must be local.”

  Within a few steps the man had noticed them. His gait slowed slightly and he pulled the pack tighter on his shoulder. How amazing to be able to read a person’s mind by how they walk Fanning thought. How easy it was now.

  Every minute movement was apparent to Fanning now: steps taking him away from the curb toward the wall the closer he got to the car. The hand now holding the strap of the packsack tighter, the head apparently turned away but the lateral vision locked on the car. He heard the footsteps now, saw the white lines on his runners against the wet, glistening pavement.

  The man slowed and readjusted the strap.

  “What the hell,” Cully murmured.

  The man was almost stopped now, uncertain.

  Fanning tried to see into the shadows on the man’s face. The man sniffed the air and nodded appreciatively.

  “Good,” he said. “Is good.”

  Fanning’s mind teemed with detail: a foreign accent, twenty or twenty-one; pale with an excuse for a goatee; a smell of saturated clothes, cigarettes.

  “Ah, you can maybe give…?”

  The man mimicked a quick pull on a joint.

  “No much,” he added. “Just one, man?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Poland.”

  “Poland.”

  “Yeah man. Is like Ireland, you know? The people, nice. Cool, you know?”

  “You’re from Poland, and you’re looking for…?”

  “Fun, man. Good times. This I hear, Dublin is good times. People they are fun.”

  “Fun? You’re looking for fun?”

  The man made a self-deprecatory smile.

  “No much English. Fun is, cool, you know? Good times.”

  Again he raised his two fingers to his lips.

  “How do you know we’re not the Guards?”

  “The Guards? I don’t understand.”

  “Guards. Police. Politzei?”

  “Ah. Politzei is German. Yes. I go Germany but no like. Some Germans people cool, nice, but not all. No, no.”

  “Pretty high standards you have, haven’t you?”

  The smell of the man’s breath seemed to be everywhere now.

  “Uh-uh, no understand. Sorry? Is big problem, this English, I am–”

  “So you come here and you wander around the place looking to score?”

  “Shut up,” said Cully, “just leave him.”

  He turned the key. The engine didn’t catch at first.

  The man shrugged, and made another cautious smile and he nodded. Now the engine caught. Fanning’s chest felt like it was ready to explode. He tugged hard on the door release.

  “What the hell are you doing,” Cully said. “Shut the door.”

  “Did you hear him? Did you?”

  “You’re freaking out over nothing. Close the goddamned door.”

  “Like I’m some kind of dealer? Hey! I live here, you understand? This is my city? Irish? Dublin? You getting any of what I’m saying here?”

  The man had stepped back from the curb. Fanning got out slowly. He left the door ajar, felt the slight give of the wet curbstone underfoot. The night air worked around his neck and his chest.

  The man was walking away sideways, back to the wall. He was about to run. Fanning rummaged in his pocket.

  “Here,” he said. “Wait, I’ve got some. Here.”

  Watching the hesitation showing on the man’s face, Fanning began to marvel at how clear everything had become. Small beads of rain on the car bumper, the scuffing of the man’s runners as he made a tentative step toward him, the dank oily stink of the Liffey nearby. Cully’s leaning and stretching across the passenger seat to pull the door closed again. The sickly yellow light.

  “You’re on your own,” Cully called out before tugging the door closed.

  “Is problem?” said the Polish man.

  The hand out already, Fanning registered, the fingers almost twitching in anticipation of a joint.

  “No,” said Fanning. “No problem. No problem in the wide world.”

  He took his hand out of his pocket and held it out, still clenched. He watched the man’s changing expression, how he looked back from the fist to Fanning’s face. Fanning opened his hand and spread his fingers and he smiled.

  “There’s your fun,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  The young man said something in Polish, and he glared at him.

  “You too,” said Fanning. He began to laugh. It felt like he hadn’t laughed for years.

  “Is joke?”

  Fanning nodded. He felt twice his normal height. The laughter seemed to have let all the pressure out of his chest. He eyed the Opel’s exhaust hanging in the air.

  “Asshole,” Fanning heard from the young man as he ran.

  Then he was standing back, watching the Pole hobbling on and trying to flex his knee where Fanning’s kick had landed. Again it astonished Fanning how clear and sharp and predictable everything was. He could not remember running after the Pole, much less kicking him.

  “Is that cool now? Man?”

  The Pole stopped and glanced at the lights of the Opel getting smaller. He made a feint in that direction and then he ran.

  Fanning watched and smiled. Then he turned to watch the car’s progress away into the distance. Even from here he could hear every detail of the car’s tread as it rolled and hissed over the pavement. Amazing.

  “Fack you! Facking Irish asshole!”

  The Pole had slowed. He was massaging his knee now as he walked, his packsack sliding awkwardly off his shoulder.

  Fanning pretended to make a dash toward him and as soon as the Pole saw him on the move he let go of his knee and began to move.

  Fanning slowed to a walk. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to get the last bus. He heard the sound of the runner tripping and looked up to see the Pole crashing hard on the footpath. He even heard the breath go out of him, the scratching of fabric and shoes as the Pole skidded along the flagstones.

  “Idiot,” he muttered. “Serves you right.”

  Chapter 40

  THE MAN WAS BREATHING HARD and pushing himself up when Fanning caught up to him. “That feel cool? Good times now?”

  Panting, the man got one knee on the pavement under himself. He grimaced and muttered as he tried to examine the torn flesh on his hand.

  “Did you like that, did you?”

  The Pole grabbed awkwardly at his packsack. He wouldn’t look up at Fanning.

  Fanning’s kick landed under the side of the man’s ribs.

  “Who told you that you could go around calling people names?”

  “No,” the man wheezed.

  “Liar! I heard you calling me names. You know what a liar is, do you?”

  The man was trying to get up now, scuttling sideways toward the wall. Fanning stepped around him and the packsack came up.

  Fanning’s kick hit something hard in the packsack.

  “Who’s an asshole now?”

  The Pole reached the wall. He placed his back against it, but stayed in a crouch.

  “No, man,” he said. “Is no problem! No say nothing. Is okay! Okay? Okay, man?”

  Fanning grabbed the packsack and yanked on it. The Pole spun until he was sitting on the pavement. Fanning jerked it harder and soon the man was sprawled and scudding across the pavement. Fanning let go. His
next kick reached under the armpit. The man let go of the bag and pulled up his knees. His feet kept moving, trying to get traction to spin him away.

  “It’s not okay,” said Fanning, and he stood back and watched the Pole get to a sitting position. “Got that message? You don’t come here, to my country, insulting people. You get that? Have you?”

  Then Fanning felt suddenly weary. Something was dropping out of him, and he slouched. The Pole was watching him through clenched eyelids, drawing in harsh breaths through his teeth. Fanning nodded at him.

  “Now,” said Fanning. “It’s okay now.”

  He took a step toward him. The Polish man curled himself up tighter and put his head down between his knees.

  It was no use, Fanning decided. He could never explain to this guy that he wasn’t really mad at him. But he wasn’t pretending either, was he. This guy deserved a bit of a hiding. So what if he was a foreigner, or just plain thick in the head. A doper, an addict even, with a circus going on in his head.

  “You’re lucky it’s me,” he said. “I’m telling you. But you had this coming to you. You learned your lesson and you go back home. Poland.”

  “Polska,” said the man, quietly.

  “Irish people,” said Fanning. “We’re nice, you know. But you don’t want to insult them. Us I mean.”

  The Pole tilted his head up and nodded.

  “Right? You understand?”

  “Yes. Nice. Irish peoples nice. I say sorry, yes? Okay?”

  “Sorry is good. Good, you’re getting the idea.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Stop saying okay, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Okay, yes. Peoples nice.”

  Fanning looked up and down the street. The hum and the whisper of the city around him was barely audible. Not a trace of Cully and his stolen car. The whole centre of the city, emptied by the rain: deserted. A wave of despondency washed over him.

  The sounds of the packsack being dragged across the pavement brought Fanning back. The Pole stayed in his crouch still watching him wearily. Slowly he put the strap over his shoulder.

  “Don’t forget now,” said Fanning.

  “Is good, yes. Peoples nice. Okay?”

  Fanning rolled his eyes. This heaviness wasn’t going away. He closed his eyes. He could hear the blood coursing around his head.

  Running footsteps made him open his eyes again.

  “Irish Fack,” the Pole shouted. “Fack Irish, asshole. Fack.”

  Fanning watched as the man slowed and turned.

  “Fack you!”

  So Polish people use the middle finger, Fanning reflected.

  “Facking Irish asshole!”

  And the Italian arm. Interesting. No, not interesting.

  Fanning made a lunge, and pretended to run after him. The shouting stopped and the Pole began to run again. Fanning slowed after a couple of steps. The Polish guy wasn’t hobbling now, was he? It had all been an act.

  But wasn’t he acting too?

  That thought struck him with great force, its clarity roaring in through him: he had been acting. Acting for…? For Cully, to show he knew a thing or two about how to act on the street? Or that he wasn’t just a feeble voyeur trying to write about things he knew nothing about?

  He’d miss the last bus if he didn’t get a move on.

  He began walking again, and soon broke into a slow jog. Ahead of him the Pole looked over his shoulder. Fanning waited for a yell, but instead saw the packsack go up as his leg went out from under him. The Polish man fell sideways. There was a shout or a yelp and then he was on the roadway. A dark sprawling mass clear against the sheen of the street lamp.

  “Christ,” said Fanning. “Not again. What a complete idiot you are.”

  He didn’t slow his jog, but he kept his eyes on the Pole. This time there were no limbs coming out slowly for the man to pick himself up. Fanning passed a drain, his ears filling for a few moments with the sound of distant underground gurgling. So this is coke, he thought. You notice everything, you’ve got no obstacles, everything is clear, and everything fits. Fits?! Here he was actually jogging, something he hadn’t done for years. Maybe he could even jog home.

  “Get up,” he called out as he closed on the Pole. “Get up you gobshite, and buy yourself some new shoes.”

  The stillness of the figure on the pavement, his splayed legs seeming to draw light from the street lamps.

  “Here I come, you better get up, you iijit.”

  Fanning slowed to a walk, his breath steaming now after this short run. He saw the eyelids flutter and a frown come to the man on the ground.

  “Get up and go home,” he said. “You’re too stupid to be out, you can barely stay on your feet. And buy yourself some shoes, you thick, so you don’t be falling over.”

  It was Polish words he was hearing now, groaning and then tense whispers.

  “You hit your head on the road. Get up. And go home.”

  The man’s arm moved and he leaned on one elbow and felt at his face with his hand.

  Fanning put out his hand.

  “Come up,” he said. “You’re such an idiot.”

  But the man flinched. He gave Fanning a look of loathing and bewilderment and then continued to examine his hand.

  “Go home and wash that,” Fanning said. “That’s what you have to do, do you understand me? Wash?”

  The man reached awkwardly into his jacket, sighing. Fanning listened to the city around him again, the wet murmur of the traffic and the empty dripping hush of the rain. Anyone with brains was at home in bed or in front of a television.

  He glanced down again.

  “Look, if it’s any consolation, I’m soaked too. Now are you happy?”

  The man’s movements were slow and he was breathing hard. He muttered as he fumbled. Fanning looked up into the night sky bronzed by the city lights. He felt neutral now, not ashamed of what he had done. This surprised him a little. He and this fellow were here: circumstances were the way they were; it rained on everyone equally, just like Beckett wrote in that poem. He tried to see individual raindrops coming down through the light.

  “You haven’t a clue what I’m saying, have you,” he said to the Pole.

  He caught only a hint of the sudden movement below. The Pole grunted and said something as he lashed out. Fanning was late stepping back. Whatever it was, it was hard, and it had run across his shin. Then he saw the reflected light on the knife as the man lunged again.

  “You bastard,” Fanning said quietly.

  He kicked at the arm and connected, drawing a muffled yell. There was a burning pain in his calf now. He didn’t want to think about what it might be. His second kick got under the man’s arm and hit something solid. The man drew his legs up and tried to put his arms over his face. He shuddered as Fanning kicked him again but he said nothing.

  Fanning’s breath came out in fast, separate clouds as he panted and cursed. He paused, stepped back, and looked down at his feet. Turning his leg toward the lamplight he saw the stain and the cut across the denim.

  “Look what you did,” he said. “You lousy bastard. Look it!”

  He wondered why it didn’t hurt more, but he didn’t want to lift the end of his trousers to look. The headlights that turned onto the street drew his gaze up. His whole chest felt unbearably tight and hot, his throat too tight to breathe or to talk. The car cruised down slowly toward him, too slowly. He shielded his eyes and squinted through the glare. There was no Garda sign on the roof anyway. He looked back down at the Pole, who was now propping himself up on one elbow and rubbing at his mouth.

  The Pole said something thickly and he spat, and groaned softly and began touching his mouth.

  The car had stopped. The driver stepped out slowly, left the door open, and began to make his way over.

  Fanning began to walk away, ignoring the feeling in his leg but he knew the voice calling out.

  Cully stood next to the man on the ground.

  “He took out a kni
fe. A knife?”

  “What? On you?”

  “My leg, I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait– he knifed you, this bloke?”

  A gloomy disgust had swept out of nowhere and taken hold of him. He was exhausted.

  “You’re serious?” he heard Cully say. “Talk to me. He knifed you?”

  Fanning nodded. Before he turned away he saw Cully kick out sideways. The Pole’s head jerked back and he rolled once. The sound came to Fanning late, and it sickened him. Cully had leaned over and was feeling around on the pavement for something. He kicked something metallic on the wet roadway until it stopped in a pool of water.

  “Leave him,” Fanning shouted.

  Cully raised his arms and he began kicking again, alternating his feet.

  “He’s not moving,” Fanning yelled. “Leave him alone.”

  His whole body ached, as he made his way back.

  “Stop,” he said. “Enough, this is just stupid.”

  Cully was stomping with his heel now. Slowly and selectively. Fanning hesitated, pushing his fingers further into his ears.

  “Stop it!” he yelled.

  Cully lowered his arms and he stepped back.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Fanning said. “You should too.”

  “Why are you covering your bloody ears?”

  “There’s no need for this, I gave him a going-over.”

  “A going-over? You?”

  “We should never have come down here.”

  Cully’s face twisted up. He stepped over to Fanning quickly.

  “He knifes you, and you’re apologizing?”

  “There’s no need to do any more.”

  “You’re shaky, aren’t you?”

  “It’s the coke.”

  “Shaking like a leaf, you are,” said Cully and looked down at the Pole.

  “I’m going to phone for an ambulance,” Fanning said.

  “An ambulance? You can walk, can’t you? As far as the car?”

  “For him, he’s not–”

  “He’s not supposed to bloody move,” Cully said. “What do you think this is?”

  “He’s unconscious, he’s hurt.”

  “I should bloody hope so! A bloke tries to do for you, some foreigner here, and you want to tuck the bastard into bed or something?”