The Companion

by Lorcan Roche

  Then, just as suddenly, he stops, pops, smiles and says: ‘What music you hear in that oversize head?’

  I tell him I hear disco music – Sister Sledge, you know, ‘Halsten, Gucci, Fiorucci.’ – and he says, ‘Yeah, I can get with that.’ Then the two of us start dancing around in the dark and he’s laughing now at the way I’m moving to the beat in my head, he says next Saturday he’ll maybe bring me uptown to this place he knows, ‘put you in the middle with white shoes on like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. All the peoples’ll gather round to look at the crazy way your sneaker feet move, man, they be like albino alligators sliding ‘cross the dancefloor.’

  When he laughs you can hear the marijuana-wheeze in his chest, like bagpipes.

  Feels nice to be dancing, even if there is no actual music.

  When I open my eyes Jerome is leaning on the massive mop. He says it a pity I’m stuck upstairs with ‘the Munsters’ when we all could be down here, having us a blast.

  Then when the elevator doors are closing he snarls: ‘You know that Irish motherfucker make me leave my radio home, just so the night last longer.’

  I don’t know why he had to end it on that note, do you?

  Barney has a message. He says it’s personal and I should come down and see him.

  ‘Some, ah, black guy dropped by this morning. Said someone called Elroy or Delroy was OK. He was sorry, he’d see you at the Y.’

  The message hurts only half as much as the way his mouth curls in on itself and hisses, like plastic in a fire.

  5

  Dana has a new job at a Jewish hospital called Mount Sinai so she spends less time with us now, in fact she’s hardly ever in the kitchen with Ellie all she ever says is ‘gotta run’.

  I know by the way she avoids me that she has met a much older guy who doesn’t live in a servant room at the corner of the corridor; he has distinguished salt ‘n pepper hair, steady surgeon’s hands, the sort of privileged fuck who grew up confident that when he finally got married, when he finally grew tired of shagging buxom, groaning Puerto-Rican nurses, it’d be to settle down with someone who had alabaster skin, incredibly clear eyes.

  And hair that burned the air around it, like a halo.

  When I tell Ellie this, all she does is shake her head and roll her eyes, ‘You needs to get some action elsewhere, baby. If you don’t, you going to feel mighty sore and silly on the plane goin’ home. You know she ain’t the only fish in the sea, Clever. Chrissakes, this is New Yawk City, they got more single wimmins here than you can shake your Jonson at.’

  I’m beginning to believe they can smell the loneliness like a lotion on my skin at night when they turn to me after I’ve said, ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ their nostrils are already flared, they are already searching the bar air for some trace of God know’s what.

  Perhaps it’s dying Ed they sniff.

  ‘Get lost, loser.’

  I haven’t said this before but sometimes his smell clings to me, like a cloak, it is a cloying stink, it makes it difficult to think of anything on your night off.

  Except Death. And Alcohol.

  It’s easy for banana-bunches of jocks and stockbrokers to make a move, to break the ice; they have the safety-net of friends to fall back on. But if you get shot down on your own, even just the once, you feel like giving up and moving on. Except, when you elbow your way back out onto the street the summer air starts to needle with sarcastic questions: What’s the point pal, you’re not exactly a player, now are you?

  And all of a sudden the prospect of going on to some other fashionable joint where no one knows your name doesn’t exactly fill you full of hope, and if you stop and wait for Inspiration in the dead air, if you hang on for some sign, say some gorgeous mixed-race couple walking past who just happen to mention the name of a club where there are cocktails, soft leather couches and chilled-out sounds, I swear to Christ just as the gorgeous girl says, Hey, let’s go to such and such’s, then the screeching brakes of a subway, or the coyote-scream of the half-naked man who runs past (with a fuckin’ shower cap on!) will suck the words right out of her awesome Asian gob. And all remaining Hope out of your soul.

  And you’re back in your goldfish bowl, and the water needs to be changed, and before you know it your feet beat a retreat to The Subway Inn; at least they look up when you walk in, at least the barman knows what you drink, fuck it sometimes he even shares one of his fifty-year-old Jackie Gleason jokes. And as your shoulders move up and down in fake laughter at least you remember what it felt like.

  Vaguely.

  One of the regulars, this sixty-something Mayo man with cracked workman’s boots and a fine layer of grey dust on his face that makes him look like a statue come alive in the amber glow of the jukebox, puts on ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’.

  Without saying a word he leaves a shot of Jameson at my elbow, then from a distance he raises his own shot glass up, holds it there in the smoke-filled air and begins to stare without blinking. What the fuck is he trying to say? Not ‘cheers’ or ‘slainte’ or ‘good luck, me bucko’.

  No, I believe under the grey moustache his lips are saying; Don’t do what I did, son. Don’t stay here all your life, this kip is not your home, nor never will be, these people are not your people, I’m telling you these selfish bastards care for nothing or no-one only the Almighty Fucking Dollar. Do ya hear me now?

  I hear you. But where am I supposed to go?

  I tossed and turned all night my stomach burned, the whiskey rose up like a revolution inside its battle cry lay a familiar cold refrain: Why, why are you doing this to yourself, why don’t you just pack it in and fuck off home?

  When I finally drifted off, I dreamt I was at a swimming gala back in Dublin. Way up high on an Art Deco balcony I could see Ed in his chair. Then Jackie Gleason made a tannoy-announcement with a cheapo jibe aimed at Ed; he said, Ladies and Gentlemen, Roll up, Roll up for the Main Event.

  I could feel everyone staring including Squatting Guy and the black dude in the glass booth and even Mabel smiled as Ed’s mother was lowered into the water on the same contraption they use to lift cattle onto boats heading for the Aran Islands. Her bottom half was wrapped in bedclothes and, when the blankets fell aside, the spectators gasped in awe.

  She had a huge whale tail.

  Then the Judge appeared in his robes, and softly in my ear he whispered that it was my duty to be considerate and kind. He blew his whistle; when I dived in the water was too hot and way too heavy, like damp wool. And every time she kicked or flicked her tail I rose up and out of the pool, almost completely. Black and white people were laughing, pointing and whispering that I was a fool to try and change things.

  I had no choice. I had no choice but to turn into a silver-speckled fish with cold, slow blood and a small steady heart at the bottom on the white smooth tiles, and I knew if I waited it out – one, one thousand, two, one thousand – if I watched the shadow of her huge tail rising, that in between its great, slow spreading I would find an interlude just like the ones in between the waves pitching and breaking at home.

  Finally I was able to dart forward, finally I could rest, and bob behind the cold steel bar.

  It was Dana who lifted me up, Dana who kissed me in the light, Dana who told the crowd out loud that I was beautiful in the water – no, I really was something to behold. She placed me carefully on a podium. She stepped away, and all applauded as she stood there and watched me, gasping.

  When I looked up through my one dying fish eye, I could see Ed crying, in his hands a black boomerang wilting, like a stem.

  With lungs on fire I awoke and threw the little window open. I could hear the city whisper and accuse, We don’t care what happens to the likes of you or poor pathetic Ed. And by the way, it’s all in your addled head, the stuff with Dana.

  Down below in the silent street, a man my size was sifting through trashcans.

  6

  The Judge walks in when Ed is mid-seizure. It’s a real sinister fit o
f shudder this time an electric eel from the Sargasso Sea is scuttling down his spine is the branch of a tree, someone is shaking it ferociously – Come on ya bastard, drop – Jesus Christ, stop, I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do when his eyes flop like a Barbie doll tossed casually aside?

  See the egg-white eyes roll right ‘round in his stuttering head his accordeon player hands rap the sides of his chair, fuck, he says inside his twirling mind, where is this, shock, treat-ment coming from, Trevor where is my father gone?

  Out the door a fox sliding into a hole in the side of the night.

  The Judge doesn’t have the ability, which is American for he doesn’t have the inclination or the interest or the time will come when he takes an expensively framed photo of his dead son up off his antique desk.

  That’s when he will be forced to ask himself over and over, like a broken record playing way too late in the day: Why? Why didn’t I try harder when he was alive?

  Sometimes at the Clinic, the day patients, the ones who didn’t live in the leaking little wooden chalets, would be sitting outside in their chairs waiting for family cars to pull up with excuses and mobiles ringing, Sorry pet, traffic was absolute chaos.

  Once, one of the mothers – all ski-blonde hair, robin-red-breast tits and Gucci sunglasses in November – asked me how much I would charge, roughly speaking, to take her son for an extra hour or two in the evening. ‘Maybe you could see a movie, have a nice Chinese meal. He speaks so highly of you. My husband is really looking forward to meeting you; in point of fact, he has several furry interesting business propositions he’d like to …’ put the cigarette in your mouth and say nothing, Trevor, just watch yourself exhaling in her naff fuckin’ sunglasses, OK?

  And then the best bit, or maybe it’s the worst bit: the guy in the reflection chair ramming the side of her silver Mercedes screaming, ‘Could you not even fuckin’ pretend you liked me? Jesus, could you not even do that much?’

  Those were the days I’d head straight home to my mother’s room, I’d lie beside her on the bed with my feet sticking out over the end and she’d ask, ‘What’s wrong son, come on’ and I’d say, ‘Nothing.’

  Or maybe after a while I’d say, ‘This is purely a rhetorical question Ma, alright? But what the fuck is wrong with people? I mean, do you have to practise to become that selfish or does it just come naturally to some? Well?’

  And she would sigh and say, ‘You expect too much from this world Trevor, you take the whole thing far too personally. What you need to do now is put on a pair of runners and take the dog down the beach, get some sea air into your lungs. Go on, do as I say please feel the wind in your hair, go on, and when you’re running along at full tilt pretend you can you hear that Rocky theme song – you know, the one where he races up and down those granite steps with his little wool hat on? Tell us son, does he have a small dog with him in that scene?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Ma.’

  And she’d always quote Kurt Vonnegut: ‘how the sea can calm the ripples at the edge of the mind’ and I’d come back wet with sweat and happy again. And she’d have struggled up and put her face on and we’d install ourselves by the fire where I’d prise open a bottle of my old fella’s most expensive wine, fuck him. And I’d slowly pour three heavy Waterford crystal glasses full for me, one small glass with both blue-veined hands wrapped around for her.

  She’d get me to tell her again of the field trips, and the Cliffs of Moher, and the time this famous non-able-bodied poet with a wand on his head came to visit in his chair with his blond willowy Eastern European carer, how Dalek started staring the moment they walked in, how from down the back of the class The Captain started hurling instant abuse: ‘Sure yer man is a well-known fuckin’ fake, a charlatan, a chancer, t’is common fuckin’ knowledge his sister writes all his egg-head fuckin’ poems.’

  How Dalek’s whirring chair was suddenly smack in front of the famous poet, how both black wands on their clouded heads lifted up slowly like blow-pipes by the banks of the Amazon; man, you should have seen the way they stared. And all the while The Captain continued his tirade. ‘At least I’d be able to write about sex from experience, not the pie-in-the-sky intercourse you wank on about, Jesus Christ above, I’ve more talent in my fuckin’ toe.’

  How I had to light a smoke and try to stick it in The Captain’s gob, except he kept twisting his handsome head still roaring abuse, how my hands were shaking so much from the laughing I nearly missed his motor-mouth.

  ‘Shut up ya fuckin’ lunatic, or you’ll have me lynched. Now call that evil gremlin off, ya hear?’

  Ma would laugh, then get all serious and lean in to whisper I was doing great work, ‘No, you’re making a real contribution, this is important, Trevor listen: you should hold your head up high when your sisters’ friends come round demanding to know why you abandoned your studies at film school you should look them straight in the eye and say, “I’m doing something much more valuable now, something someone with a cold stone of a heart like you could never, ever do.” Alright?’

  ‘Alright, Ma. Thanks.’

  Whenever I slide the log of my hours under the Judge’s door that same day a cheque gets left out on a varnished table in the hall. When I go to the bank sometimes Mabel smiles; on one occasion she put her hand under the glass, like a talon, then she tapped it in time to what she was saying, ‘The work you’re carrying out is God’s work … I can understand how ya might sometimes get vexed with outside people … What I’m saying is, you’re alright, OK?’

  ‘OK. Thanks, Mabel.’ Then as I counted out the money in front of her she smiled and said, ‘Make sure you treat yourself to something nice now, ya hear?’

  You have to admit New Yorkers are weird the way they veer from one extreme to the next; it’s as if all the passing through, all the strangers coming and going, makes it impossible to be just one steady continuous thing all the time.

  Hooked up to the mask and the breathing-machine in the corner he sucks the energy right out of the room. Maybe it’s a gift he inherited from his father I don’t know, but he just sits there in his chair, polluting.

  And sorry Mabel, but this is not God’s work: this is God’s fuckin’ cock-up.

  And I’m sick and tired of being all magnanimous. Do you know what the little turncoat told me this morning? He said I was misshapen, he said I was ugly, and really clumsy, that I hurt him all the time with my stupid big hands, that I had no friends, no outside life, that I was a fucking para-site, I was living off him and his family, it was his money I wanted, it was clear there was no friendship, he could see it in my eyes how much I fuckin’ hated him.

  I tried hugging him, holding him, shushing him. That’s when the little bastard sank his soft little teeth into my T-shirt. It felt like I was being attacked by a gummy vampire.

  Then eventually he just leaned against me, sobbing.

  I waited for a while I stroked his thinning hair, then I told him he had crossed the line. He could cross it once, and once only. If he was going to pull that kind of shit again he could shove his job up his hole and then he could stick his poxy fuckin’ ad back in The Village Voice, alright?

  ‘Alright. I’m. Sorry. Man.’

  ‘I’m taking the rest of the day off, OK?’

  ‘OK. It. Will. Never. Happen. Again. You’re not. Ugly, you’re not …’

  ‘Whatever, Ed. Later.’

  When I came back that night he’d made me a card, which must have taken hours because he can’t really draw properly; his figures are all unformed and wavy, like in that famous painting The Scream by what’s-his-face …

  Munch, Edvard.

  There was me with a big sad face and a square head the size of a TV set, then this crazy little bat creature sucking at my shoulder. The creature was suspended in mid-air. It had long hair.

  And no chair.

  In his madness Ed had forgotten who and what he was.

  Inside the card he’d scrawled:

  Please believe me. You ARE my
friend. I am TRULY sorry.

  Americans are really shite at apologizing; they think the mere fact they bring themselves to mouth the words absolves them. They’re not interested in the rites of penance, in listening to precisely how they hurt you, in understanding how small it made you feel. They want to move on, they want closure which is American for wanting things to go swiftly back to the way they were before. Inside their heads. They cannot comprehend that because they don’t really know what they did wrong, that because they don’t really need to know, the rest of us find them truly terrifying.

  7

  I met an Australian girl in The Subway Inn last night. She wandered in looking for directions and the barman pointed her to my table.

  She was looking for a faded restaurant called Arizona 206, a Tex-Mex place where I’d occasionally scored margaritas from yuppie couples in exchange for tabloid tales about Ed, the more horrific the better. People like to hear about his tepid baths, his wet porno rags, the breathing machine in the corner, the pervading smell of Death; it makes them feel wholesome, healthy and suddenly happy with their lot. I’ve seen couples start to hold hands and squeeze meaningfully as I talk about our monotonous daily grind. And when it comes time to settle up, the guy will always pat my back softly and say, ‘No, let me.’

  The Australian girl was not my type – she had tattoos on her biceps and a large spider’s web etched upon her downy, peeling neck. Plus, her entire demeanour was one of passing through. She reeked of impermanence and her conversation centred ’round places she had been and I had not, around scores of fascinating characters she had bumped into on boats planes and trains, characters I would never ever sit beside. And yet after three or four beers I started to forgive the overuse of fascinating, the fact that she never even offered to buy me a glass, the presumption that somehow I’d be the one to stump up.