Moral Zero

by Set Sytes

  She pulled away from him and asked him what the smell was. He said he didn’t know.

  She stepped back. He looked down and his boots were leaking out filth. It oozed out of the sole, out of his very soul, and there was a pervasive sense of unfairness, and the whiteness of the world shrank and creased like paper and seemed to acknowledge the unfairness and he nodded back sadly.

  The girl cried in front of him and kept moving backwards as the muck spread out from him and ran like plasma towards her. It twitched and bubbled and out of the mud poked what seemed like fingers and then hands, snatching, all splayed out and webbed.

  The fantasy is everthin, he murmured quietly. I’m sorry. The fantasy is everthin. Always was. Always is.

  The girl sobbed harder and he fell back into the sewage, his eyes closed and his face calm and almost expressionless, as though all the peace in the world was just something to cover yourself with like an old coat that was never yours. The mud closed up around him as though a sheltering mother beckoning him back to the fold and the curtains of flame blazed up once more into the whiteness.

  HOTEL

  The next day Red seemed quiet and sullen. As if through sleep he had had something stolen from him. He lay on his mattress and said little to nothing. Mr White went to the bathroom in the hall and showered and came back and Red was still lying there.

  Are you okay?

  Yeah.

  Are you sure?

  No.

  Mr White sat down on his bed and smiled sympathetically at Red. What’s wrong amigo.

  Red shook his head. It’s not just now. It’s all time. Runnin back and forth from the beginnin to the end. I don’t know if I can explain it.

  Try. For me.

  Red twisted his lip and took a deep breath and exhaled. I feel caged man, real fuckin caged all the time. It’s like, like I’m a bird of prey in the tiniest of damn cages, like it can’t even move not one feather but it’s got this strength y’know and the muscles never weaken not one bit, ‘stead they just get stronger the less it moves. And its eyes are black man, real fuckin black like some kinda jet stone I dunno. Red gestured vaguely like a magician as he talked.

  That’s how I feel see, and I don’t think that cage should break, no I don’t, part of me wants it to but I don’t think nobody else gonna want it to. This is my outlet, right here, shit like what I been doin since you met me. Way before you met me. This is keepin me safe, y’know, this is keepin everbody safe. Sure it’s not cool, I know that, but it’s the best opportunity. And maybe I don’t tell my girlfriend but maybe she don’t wanna know, or maybe she does, yeah she would, but fuck, a man’s gotta have somethin to keep for himself don’t he? It’s that bit of sanity left in a wounded man, and what’s better – that she don’t know or that I wreck her to fuckin pieces?

  Red stood slowly and reached for his cigarettes and lit one. He sat on the bed next to Mr White. A grey angel burst into being, shivering out of his mouth as he spoke.

  Not talkin about sex here, I mean this shit would break her but there’d be no end to it. Should a man or even a woman tell everone everthin? Fuck man. The closest person I ever got to was her and she don’t know half. Should she? If I say it all then it’s like it’s all flushed outta me, you know? Like I siphon it off to her and she cracks up and can’t handle it and I got nothin left. A man gotta have secrets cause, well, what else is there to keep in the cage with me? Fuckin magazines? Ain’t no room to read, ain’t no room but to brood and keep to myself and shiver in the heat. Yeah that cage gets real fuckin fierce inside. Don’t nobody else touch those bars.

  Red leaned back a little and crossed his boots. His cigarette blistered away in his hand but he had barely stopped to smoke.

  I dunno man, my mind just gets so hot it burns, it fuckin hurts man. Like, it’s like somebody struck up a fire inside and is stokin it about with every thought, like these thoughts ain’t passed through but engineered in this huge foundry with steam hammers and hissin metal and everwhere’s goddamn smoke, y’know, and you can’t see and you choke and you can’t breathe and it steams up your goddamn eyeballs and you can feel them turn to fuckin jelly. Well, yeah. I think and I can’t stop it and it comes in like swingin pokers. My brain man, it goes white hot and glowin like, like I dunno, and my brain starts bubblin like some fella not me placed it in a vat, and if I let it I feel like it’s turnin to glue, this white magma or fuckin whole fat cum at some alien temperature. You see man, my mind gets like this all the time and I feel like I can’t see anymore, like I’m blind with lust y’know?

  Mr White didn’t say anything but nodded vaguely and Red took a heavy drag on his cigarette and coughed. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fuckin rapist or nothin cause that ain’t how I roll, but that don’t mean to say the deviance in me couldn’t get stirred up so fierce that bad fuckin shit could go down. I mean shit does go down, but I fair don’t think I seen the worst of it. No man, there’s fuckin danger signs stamped up around my brain like a broken fairground or some goddamn industrial accident waitin to happen. I mean, I dunno, maybe Johnny has the right idea. In a way. Killin someone, the ultimate expression of affection. Lettin out the demons. Extreme violence as, like, a desperate display of love, you know what I mean?

  Mr White frowned. If it’s so bad all this, could you not change, somehow? Is it possible?

  Yeah I could change, well no, ah shit I dunno, but I’d have to want to and I don’t. I just don’t want to. See I hate it, I really hate it man, but I love it too, I love it cause it’s me. It’s like a drug and turnin my mind up to a thousand and droppin out is my fix. I need it. I would be someone else without it. I’d be you man.

  You wouldn’t be me. You’d be someone else. You wouldn’t be me.

  Whoever. I fuckin hate it but it’s me and I wouldn’t change that for nothin and she couldn’t change that and she wouldn’t even if it fuckin killed her, even if her heart split into a thousand bloody bits and she killed herself she wouldn’t tell me to not be me. That’s why I fuckin love her, and that’s why sometimes a man gotta keep some things to himself.

  I think we all do, maybe. I don’t know.

  Yeah, I know man. I don’t know either. Red let out a long sigh that was half yawn and half exhaustion from life and Mr White had to fight the urge to yawn himself.

  A drink? Mr White offered.

  Red grinned at last, and twirled his feet something ridiculous, whisking them around like the blades of a chopper or like some terrible breakdance until he fell off the bed and rolled to his feet where he stood up laughing a little. You buyin? he asked, his eyes shining. Yeah you are. I’m gonna find me some real hot ass tonight. Needs fuckin must.

  Mr White wondered how he could go straight back into it after his troubled rant, but he guessed the rant itself answered that one.

  Frustrations? said Mr White, smiling a little sadly.

  Always, buddy. Always.

  BAR

  They went to the bar, Red telling dirty jokes and laughing along the way, while Mr White smiled, happy that Red was in a better mood. When they arrived he ordered Red a drink as prompted, and Red ordered two more for himself.

  The feeling of relief in another’s lifted spirits soon changed.

  Red got drunk quickly, very quickly. He did not stay in Mr White’s company but moved about trying to pick up girls. Within a couple of hours sat watching him Mr White couldn’t bear the sight. Red seemed desperate, a strange, lost dog, shot down by girl after girl in his frustration. All charm seemed a caricature, his grin almost pained, his laughter hysterical, his tomfoolery causing others to shake their heads out of embarrassment on his behalf, or pity, or contempt or disgust. To say Red was trying too hard was an understatement. Mr White could not say whether the observation was more cringing or depressing.

  After two hours Mr White left Red to it and returned to the hotel, feeling defeated on Red’s behalf, as if somehow tied to his soul, if there was indeed a part of Red that was acknowledging his own failings t
hat night.

  HOTEL

  I think I’m a bad person White, Red said, his head lowered and his hands rubbing over the sides of his face, contorting his cheeks about like a waxwork and his eyes all bleary and downcast. He had returned two hours later from the bar, looking drunk and tired but not altogether insensible. Mr White correctly judged he must have stopped drinking, perhaps run out of money. He came in and sat down with abject weariness on the floor, his back against the wall and his legs splayed, looking sorry for himself.

  Mr White looked over at him. Why do you think that?

  Cause I am. Red sighed. Sometimes I think I’m even worse than Johnny.

  Don’t be crazy.

  I mean it. I mean, Johnny is cold and rational or thinks he is and does things according to some bullshit purpose. I’m a man of passion. I should be doin good. Johnny does all this extreme stuff right, stuff you kinda can’t comprehend, kinda don’t even fit on the scale of good and evil, it’s just somethin way out there right? Like some bushwhacker way out there on the plains on his own in some storm. I’d say Johnny’s got no morality at all, that he just like observes it from afar as though it’s somethin fuckin foreign and amusin, but he does. You ever see him hold a door open for a girl? Or all these little other things he does. He’s got manners and such forth. I reckon he’s got this, this appetiser of good morals he carries around with him on a big silver platter, and the big fuck-off main course of killin is somethin different, and he hides it with this appetiser on a platter. Or like some necktie and clean shirt to try and disguise the fact he’s covered in blood. It’s like he thinks he can stave off judgement. If he prances about doing all these little bits of goodness it’ll distract everone from the death and keep him on the fuckin right.

  Mr White tried to imagine Johnny Black prancing, and shook his head. How does this make him better than you?

  I dunno, Red sighed. I mean, it’s like he’s a nice guy somewhere. I mean he’s a psychopath of course, but a nice one. Ah fuck, what am I sayin. He’s psychotic. But he’s off the scale. He ain’t even human. That’s what makes me worse. I’m as human as they come and what have I done with it? I done bad things, that’s what.

  You never struck me as having done anything really bad.

  Maybe, maybe not. It’s little things become big things. I bet Johnny never lies. I bet Johnny stays true on all the little things, but it’s the little things that’ll fuckin get you. Red glanced at Mr White and his face looked sad and red and beaten. Did you see that chick come outta my room in District Twelve? You know the one.

  Yeah.

  She was cryin a lot.

  Yeah.

  That’s what I mean man. She was kinda drunk, well so was I, and I persuaded her to cheat on her long-term boyfriend. I persuaded her and I persuaded her and it weren’t hard and I fucked her. When we were all done she wouldn’t stop cryin, I mean really sobbin her little heart out. You know what I did? Fuckin nothin. What could I do? I were the son of a bitch who’d got her into this in the first place. I just sat there sayin nothin doin nothin starin at the wall. All about me she is gatherin her clothes and puttin them on and cryin black makeup down her face and I’m just sittin watchin the wall.

  Red crawled to the mattress and lay on it and smeared his face with his hands. He pulled the blanket over him. Then he turned to his side, away from Mr White, and he looked at the wall just as he’d said he’d done.

  Did you want to do something? asked Mr White softly.

  More than anythin, said Red, and his words were muffled and cracked. He curled up in the blanket like he was much younger than his years. You know how I told you that my brain just asks me if I give a fuck, and I never do. Well that’s a fuckin lie. I give ten tons of fucks, at least I do when I’m not fuckin turned on. I wish I didn’t. I wish to hell I didn’t, but I do man. I wanted to hug that bitch so goddamn hard, but what could I do? What could I fuckin do. I was the son of a bitch. And I been it all my life. And I didn’t feel nothin for her, nothin but guilt and pity. Pity that she let a bastard like me into her life.

  You could change, said Mr White quietly. He felt sad, but more than that he felt confused and distant. As though he relied on Red to guide him through this world. To tell him that the real things were fake and the fake things real. That nothing was true except what was believed to be.

  Yeah? Red said bitterly. If I wanted to, right? But there’s too much of me don’t want to. I can’t change man. I got this illness in me and I’m all torn up inside. Y’know, I push everthin into bein as sexual as it can be, and it’s like I wanna live in a world where everone fucks everone. Where everone cheats on everone. Where everone is a stinkin bastard and bitch and nobody cares and everbody fucks like pigs and nobody fuckin cares. And if I weren’t feelin such a sorry cunt right now I’d be fuckin turned on just by that. Fuck.

  Red sniffed and moved a hand up to his face, seemed to scratch it or something and then moved it back down to his side. He shifted his weight about as though it was a dead weight and his body was something to lug sullenly around and connected to his mind only by a thin chain.

  I’ve led a good life, he said at last. But I done a lot of bad things. Can you be a good man and do bad things?

  Sure you can, said Mr White soothingly. It’s the intent that makes the man, not the actions. He wasn’t sure if he believed this or not, but he said it anyway.

  I been lyin mostly. That’s the real sin ain’t it. The world breaks down from it. What kinda world is it where a guy can lie? One of betrayal. There’s no trust in anythin and it’s cause of people like me. No wonder Johnny hates me.

  Johnny likes you. In fact I bet he’d warm to you a fair bit more if he heard all this.

  Red sniffed again. Yeah, he’s got a funny way of showin it.

  He’s got no way of showing it. It’s just his way.

  Yeah. Well. I don’t get him at all. I don’t get why he does all that shit. How he can kill someone, just, just for its own sake, y’know? Just for the fuckin fun of it.

  I don’t think that’s why he does it.

  What then.

  Mr White paused, feeling the wretched sadness in Red’s voice. He looked down at him. I think he knows that the best anybody can be is when they’re dying.

  Red didn’t say anything for a while. Then, How’d you mean?

  Mr White shrugged. Just that. I don’t think he’s got any hope in humanity but for that. Seeing the best in someone. When they finally come true. Nothing else matters then, I guess.

  Mr White climbed under his sheets and stripped. Come on, off to sleep with you. You’ll feel better tomorrow.

  Alright. Red took off his blanket and sat up and pulled his boots off, and fell back down. He sat up again and then stood up, looking at the window. His hands were clenching and unclenching. Mr White looked at him and his face was pained and confused. As though held by some secret agony. He stood that way for a minute and just when Mr White was about to say something his face dropped to nothing and he laid himself like an old man back down on the mattress and turned himself away once more.

  He let out a deep, long sigh, as if the world had betrayed him. I don’t know how to live White. I don’t know to live a good life. I mean what’s a man without lies? How can you go through life and not lie? Ain’t a single person anywhere that could do that. He coughed to himself and then added, like the afterthought of a child, Life is hard.

  Mr White looked at the back of Red and felt really sorry for him. He knew that maybe he shouldn’t but he did. He looked like an animal that had lost its mother. He wanted to hug Red but he didn’t. He didn’t know why he felt so sorry, he couldn’t put real words to it, but it was as if Red was not a man but some broken idea, some sense of freedom lost and betrayed and tethered in the name of goodness, in the name of some fucking thing. There was once a man called freedom, and the man had been forced to live.

  Minutes dragged by in silence and they both settled further into bed. At one point Mr White thought he hea
rd a muffled sob, but when he opened his eyes and listened intently he heard nothing more. He fell to sleep.

  Mr White woke up some indeterminable time later, as if roused by some sound, like the shutting of a door. He looked around blurrily, muddled. Red was gone. No thoughts passed through his dream-addled mind, and in his tiredness his eyes dropped shut again and in the morning he would have no memory of this waking.

  STREET

  Red moved slowly through the district. He did not make eye contact with others. He saw but he did not observe, did not understand. His feet moved without his control. Things appeared to him only in their image, without depth or value, useless in any respect but visionary. It seemed to him that he moved through water, but he did not feel perceived as such by others, in fact he did not feel perceived at all. They were only images, not really real, and they blurred and melded with his own dreamings and all mental ideas and prompts that burst like bubbles from the muck.

  He saw hookers and trees. He saw girls and shadows. Mud and lights. Tits and dogs. Lust. Pink light and erection. Girls and lights. Grey and red. Buildings and erection. Anal and mud. Cop. Stone ground. Tree like a skeleton and a beggar. Laughter and crying. Someone stabbed. Red and grey. Rats around overflowing bins and hookers. Smashed glass and drugs. Men in coats and pink light. Blue light. Lust. Anger. Lust. Water.

  Bench. Cat.

  He sat down and petted the cat. It was thin and black and it purred at him, seeing no danger in his dull, unfocused eyes, in his sunken, zombie movements. He was another animal, an animal lost in the night. It looked up at him with shining white eyes.

  You don’t have to be sick, Kidd Red, it spoke, without moving its mouth. It was low and rumbling and comforting, as if the earth itself was conversing.

  Mmm. He smiled strangely. His hands stroked the cat’s head with submerged grace. He tickled it behind the ear.