Dirt Road

by James Kelman

  Aunt Maureen made a pot of coffee. Even the smell was strong. She said to try it like she did: half and half milk. He was happy with fruit juice. She poured an extra coffee: Hey Murdo you take this out to your father?

  Of course. I was just like – yeah, of course.

  That okay?

  Of course, I was just eh…of course.

  Nothing, he was just nothing. Dad didnt see him come through the doorway, didnt lift his head from the book until the coffee was on the table. Then he looked up: Okay?

  Yeah.

  Good.

  Dad reached for the coffee. Murdo returned to the house. While closing the glass doors he saw Dad lower the book and clasp his hands behind his head. He rinsed the breakfast bowl and spoon at the sink then downstairs to the basement, straightened out the sheet and duvet. Murdo did most everything back home, including supermarket shopping and laundry. One time making the bed he discovered the bottom end of the sheet was full of stuff; dandruff and old skin, flakes and flakes of it. Every night in life the body sheds skin and the movements ye make while sleeping causes it to reach the bottom, plus yer feet trampling it down. Ye flapped out the sheets and dust microbes were everywhere. Sunlight beamed through the ceiling window and picked them out like in funnels. Each time ye moved millions scattered into the air. Ye coughed and spluttered just to see it. Skin. Flaking old skin, dandruff, showers and showers of it.

  Hold yer breath!

  Except ye couldnt. Breathe or die. Imagine a lassie seeing it, she would just look at ye. Beyond disgusting.

  Maybe beetles lived off it. Parasites and living organisms. Back from the beginning of time. Some things were prehistoric and would have been here since the house was first built. Way before that, back when the Cherokee Indians pitched their tents. In this land the white man was the stranger who killed the Indians. Right where Murdo slept was their land, beneath this very house. Imagine a door leading down, if there was a cellar deeper than that, way way beneath the foundations. If it was a movie it would lead to some gruesome dungeon linked to unsolved terrors and murders beyond imagination. Hellholes and maniacs with chainsaws. Folk getting chopped up and sawn in two. Or black holes, ye open the door and fall to yer doom. If it was a proper black hole it turned a body inside out.

  Murdo returned to the stack of books he found earlier, and discovered another stack beside a cupboard; sci-fi tales and detective stories and a few religious ones, with pictures to illustrate the stories. Then inside a cupboard and stuck in at the back were more books, ones with sexy covers. Sexy inside too, jees, that would have been the sons. Ye would read them but not so people would see so like private viewing ye would hide them. Obviously. Murdo opened one and sat down on the mattress. Ye could just about read but were uncomfortable shifting about trying to see better. The light was too bad to be true. The high-up window didnt give enough and the position of the ceiling light didnt help.

  Maybe there was a bedside lamp. Stuff was piled into the two small rooms. Cupboards, boxes and bags. Old-style blankets and sheets; clothes and shoes but also plates and bowls, cups. Kettles, pots and appliances with these American-style electrical plugs that were so flimsy-looking ye would worry about explosions; and two electrical extension cables, one forty metres in length.

  Even a torch! If there was one he couldnt find it. He stepped over boxes to check out other places. Another cupboard; he knelt down and on the bottom shelf found an old-style top-loading CD hi-fi. He wiped it down with the edge of his T-shirt. No radio but two extra compartments for cassettes; one was for recording. Imagine it worked. Maybe it did. Why not?

  The plug was the usual two-pronged thing. He looked for a point and pushed it in. The set-up light came on.

  He got the two CDs Sarah had given him and put the first on immediately. It worked! Fast and rocking. Queen Monzee-ay! The tracks she played on the porch. He blasted the volume till jeesoh, people would hear! He turned it down at once. He unplugged it and sought an electrical point nearer the edge of the mattress. He found one and plugged it in, keeping the volume low. The second CD was all different musicians, all accordeon-led. Just brilliant; amazing-mazing stuff. Murdo lay down on the mattress to listen. That sound quality too, the wee sisssss, ssssses. That additional stuff on the old audio system: zzzzsih, sihhh, zzzzsih, different from MP3s, like picking up remote audio pointers. Guys looked for old vinyl records to get it even more. Sometimes it was good but other times ye didnay want it. They said it was better with the interference, like hearing a band live. But it wasnay a band live; just yer own ears connecting, surrounded by audio waves out the machine, with you at the centre – the minutest spec, think of that sonny boy, infinity plus 1. Forgive us our sins and trespasses. Jees, that was Milliken the maths teacher, lessons on compressed data. No such thing as interference. God is great. Infinity plus 1. God is greater. But it was true with the sounds, it wasnt interference.

  Oh but it didnay matter now anyway he had the music. He felt it so strongly how he could just relax, relax. Breathe properly. Not being able to play drove ye nuts. But when ye could listen! At least ye could listen. Yer eyes look and yer ears hear but what sees and what listens? Yer brains. Ye listen to the music but “you” is the brain. The brain listens, the brain works.

  That was the truth. Every night in life. Lying in bed and all the stuff going through yer mind whether from a gig or a rehearsal, how things worked and if they didnt work. If somebody was out on something, ye had to put it right. You could be asleep but yer brains werent. All these times Murdo woke up and had to jump out of bed and write down, “guitar in more” “fiddle to shut up” “bass too thump thump” “space space space”. What did that mean, “space space space”? Murdo knew.

  Then having to stop it all and go to school and listen to silly crap nonsense from people all younger than ye. Just shit, bla bla bla; guys all looking at each other and if their hair looks cool or what, what kind of shoes, what kind of trousers; talking about the same stuff all the time and even lassies like it was the same one they all fancied, aw look at her look at her, check her out!

  Murdo was sick of it. Ye just want to laugh. Then if a girl does look at ye, like a real look. Ye think they dont but they do. Girls look. That was Sarah in the shop when she saw Murdo: Who’s that?

  Me, shouts Murdo! Me!

  Who are you!

  Ha ha.

  Sarah was tough. Then ye knew her and she wasnt. How she was in the shop taking the money, just tough! Then Sunday morning, how she was then: beautiful. But she was beautiful on Saturday night too.

  She knew nothing about Scotland. Not even where it was. It was only England she could “see”. Murdo said to think about the top of England. She couldnt. That was weird. He was the only Scottish person she knew. So if she didnt know Scotland, where did she think he came from? Nowhere. He didnt have a country, it was just him. Murdo. The gig in Lafayette. Oh Murdo will come. As if it was up to him. Probably they thought that. Oh ask Murdo and he will come. How will he get there? Oh somebody will drive him. Who? His dad or his uncle. Maybe his auntie. Oh here he is, here’s Murdo. Hiya Murdo. All ready to play, and his accordeon sent from Scotland. Oh he got it air mail express delivery, where’s the gig!

  Ha ha, if that was true. Oh Dad are ye going to drive me? Oh yes, where’s my driving licence. I left it in Scotland. Maybe we can get a train or else a bus. Do buses go to the gig?

  Playing with Queen Monzee-ay was another world. The trouble was Dad knew nothing. It never would have occurred to him about the old lady sitting there that she was a beautiful beautiful player, just a brilliant musician. He didnay even hear her playing! When Dad arrived Sunday lunchtime she was sitting having a smoke.

  What did that mean anyway? a brilliant musician. For Murdo to speak about music with Dad he would have to start from the beginning, the very very beginning.

  *

  Later somebody was coming downstairs. Murdo reached quickly to stop the music, was lying on his side when the door clicked open. Dad. In
he came. Murdo pretended to be sleeping. A glass of orange juice balanced on a book near his head. Dad would lift it in case it toppled. A sexy book with a sexy cover. That was it without a lock, people just walk in. Dad waited without moving. Murdo opened his eyes and looked about.

  Hey, he said, ye coming upstairs?

  I fell asleep. I was just eh I was reading.

  Hey, said Dad, ye coming upstairs?

  Of course Dad yeah.

  Dad nodded. Ye done it last night as well.

  Done what?

  Ye disappeared! Ye left to go the bathroom and ye didnay come back. When we were in the garden. I looked in later and ye were snoozing. We were expecting ye back and ye never came back.

  I was just tired I mean I fell asleep.

  Ye could have fell asleep later Murdo it would have been nice if ye had come up the stair. Uncle John and Aunt Maureen were looking to say goodnight. It would have been good if ye had been there for them. For Aunt Maureen especially. That great meal she prepared.

  Dad I’m sorry.

  Yeah I know son but that’s the reality. It’s not anything to be sorry about. Ye just have to think about things. It’s a kind of respect; ye respect the person.

  Dad I do respect them, what d’ye mean! They’re great, Aunt Maureen and Uncle John are great.

  Well they like you son that’s for sure. Dad stepped to the door but then paused there. He looked again at the old hi-fi. Its set-up light was showing. Is that a CD player? he asked.

  Yeah.

  I thought I heard music.

  I found it in the back room.

  Huh!

  I was playing it low.

  Right… Dad was looking at the CD player again.

  It was lying in a cupboard, said Murdo.

  So ye just took it?

  Murdo gazed at him.

  Did ye ask Aunt Maureen?

  …

  Did ye ask Aunt Maureen?

  Dad what about?

  About taking it.

  No. I just found it I mean I just found it, it was lying in a cupboard.

  If it was lying in a cupboard ye went looking in the cupboard. Know what I mean son ye dont find things lying in cupboards. Not without looking inside: ye went looking inside. Which isnt a nice thing to do, being honest about it. Ye dont go into people’s houses and look about in their cupboards. It’s not something ye do son, not in people’s houses. Ye’re here as a guest. Ye should have asked first: that’s all I’m saying.

  Sorry.

  It’s no a question of “sorry”.

  Well I am sorry.

  It’s for future reference Murdo that’s how I tell ye these things. Dad closed over the door. The creaks of the footsteps up the stairs; the bathroom door opening then shut and snibbed.

  Murdo had waited a moment then stretched out on the mattress again, clasping his hands behind his head. He didnt want to go upstairs yet. But where else?

  Nowhere – except down through the dirt.

  That was the trouble with the basement. Ye were already in the earth. On the ground floor wee chinks of light came in but not down here. At night the dark was like the densest black ever. Ye could have been floating in outer space, falling backwards, so ye couldnt see what was roundabout, just looking up the way and like how ye never look up the way, ye never do. Ye always think about sideways like how the universe goes; a straight line going on forever but horizontal, never up and down like vertical, so infinity again. Discovering America, that was tides, going sideways and thinking sooner or later, going sideways ye’re bound to hit India.

  A different world. That was America. Ye thought ye knew it from the movies but ye didnt. How the Cherokee Nation was till the white man came and stole the land. People fighting and dying. Men, women and children and the stuff they leave behind. Soldiers, cowboys and indians, slaves. Black people. Chains and prisons, getting hanged. Wee babies. Martin Luther King and the cops just battering and killing people. Alabama and these places, and here ye were. People had their beliefs. Were any of them right? They couldnt all be right. Except they believed them. Even that stupid bird

  although it wasnt stupid.

  Of course it wasnt, just a wee bit unusual how it looked at him, if it did. Murdo thought so. Whatever a person was to a bird. Birds didnt know. Maybe some do, like a parrot. If you were interested in a bird the bird would be interested in you. Cows saw people as giants. Some animals only saw black and white. Bats were blind. If ye had a pet bat it would know ye by the sound ye made. Every person has a different sound, a different face, a different voice. The instruments they use have the same sound but how people play them makes the sound different. Birds too. Birds look at ye. People say “bird-brain” but that is the last thing. Birds are clever. Back home it was seabirds squawking, big gannets and gulls; oystercatchers, guillemots, ducks; all kinds, it depends where ye were. Ye heard them calling to one another. The same sound going all the time, just repeating and repeating be careful be careful

  Here comes a stranger, a stranger,

  Here comes a stranger.

  Here comes a stranger, a stranger,

  Here comes a stranger.

  *

  Aunt Maureen was in the lounge area when he came upstairs; the television on. Murdo had thought she was cooking but here she was knitting, sitting on one side of the settee with a knitting box beside her, a cup of tea set closeby, and a magazine near enough to read. On television the islands in the Caribbean Sea were illustrated in diagrams relating to storms; and the Gulf of Mexico too, and the weather coming in from there: tornadoes. He called: Hi Aunt Maureen.

  Hey Murdo. You have a lie-down huh?

  Yeah.

  Your Dad was saying.

  I thought ye were cooking…

  Yeah son I’m having a break.

  Murdo walked to sit on Uncle John’s usual armchair. Is that tornadoes?

  Tornadoes, sure; low-risk in this state. You go to Texas now you got it bad, up through Oklahoma. Here you’re talking hurricanes, coming in from the gulf shores – you heard of Orange Beach?

  No.

  We got a coast here you know, but they squeezed us out. Look at a map son you’ll see what I’m talking about. Got a map book someplace. Wherever it is! Aunt Maureen laid down the magazine and her cup, lifted her knitting and a knitting pattern book; she glanced about the room.

  Murdo watched the Weather Channel for several minutes. The focus had moved now to New Mexico and Colorado, Arizona into California and the coast down there, the long peninsula into the Pacific Ocean. So they had good sea there, then the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean too, and the Atlantic Ocean. It was interesting. Good stuff about America he hadnt known. All the places. Aunt Maureen, he said, I was wondering about walks roundabout here?

  Walks?

  Walks, like where people can go.

  Oh walks huh. Sure. They got a park. Aint much of a drive. During the day is good. There’s some funny people go in the evenings.

  Yeah but what about round here? Just going a walk?

  You want a break son huh! We got you cooped up. How long you been here a day? Aunt Maureen smiled, paused a moment in the knitting.

  Honest Aunt Maureen I wasnt meaning that.

  We’ll go to the mall tomorrow son that’s the plan. Got some things to buy for tomorrow evening, got some people coming over. What they call a pot-luck, you know what a pot-luck is?

  No.

  That’s some of the cooking I’m doing now, for the pot-luck. You’ll see. Kind of nice. Neighbourly. I got some things to pick up. You’ll like the mall. Got all kinds of stores, all the big ones. Hey now Murdo they do the power-walking there! Folks older than me. Round and round they go, elbows flashing. You see their elbows? They’d knock you for seven.

  I was just meaning a wee walk, just round the streets.

  You need to get out son that’s what you are talking about. Temperature’s up now though, pushing on eighty, be hotter than that in an hour. Evening’s better; early morning: p
eople go early morning. What about your father, you ask him? Him and your uncle’s going for a beer later. He’s taking him to a bar.

  To a bar?

  Aint fair huh? Got to be twenty-one for that. Aunt Maureen glanced up from her knitting. I got a friend takes buses. She takes buses everywhere.

  I thought there werent any.

  Oh there’s buses son; of course there’s buses. I dont go on them. But she does. Then she dont drive. I always did.

  You! Did ye! Murdo chuckled.

  You surprised about that! Since I was twelve years old.

  Twelve years old!

  My Daddy taught us all. For when he got too drunk to, like the song says. Aunt Maureen paused. No, he didnt get drunk hardly at all except with your Uncle John there now, he liked your Uncle John; for as long as he knew him. My Daddy’s people were from Kentucky, him and his old father came here to work, talking about my granddaddy now Murdo we called him Poppo. My Lord! Aunt Maureen nodded. It’s poor people goes on buses Murdo. You know what that means? Huh? Taking chances is what it means.

  Murdo shrugged.

  Now son you dont know what’s going to happen. And who’s there. You dont know anything about that either.

  Yeah but Aunt Maureen if ye need something in a hurry and ye dont have a car, like I mean if ye cant afford a taxi.

  Aunt Maureen continued knitting. I hear you, she said.

  Have ye got a local store here, a local one?

  Sure.

  How far away is it?

  Too far.

  So do ye not go to it?

  Not much.

  Murdo shrugged. I would go, if ye needed anything. It’s me does the shopping back home. I always walk.

  Oh you do?

  Yeah. I dont mind at all. I quite like it. Except if it’s raining like heavy, if it’s lashing down.

  Lashing doon! Aunt Maureen chuckled.

  Well it does lash down. Murdo grinned. So then ye’ve got to take a bus. Seriously but, if ye ever need anything I mean… He shrugged.