I’ve seen their Cuban band so many times. I know: ten musicians in the band and I had eyes only for Sweet Jane and Red Reb. Call it obsession, I don’t mind. Without them, my life would have been a bottomless void.
It all started six months ago with a friend’s birthday. Karen was a great fan of Cuban music. She had seen every possible band of the genre around London at least once. Me, I can’t be bothered with remembering names. Except for Panama Francis, a jazz drummer I saw once playing for Helen Humes back in the mid-seventies. Yeah, I was still a bit of a kid, but that’s how I got into my mind that one day I’d be a successful drummer. Of course I’m a complete failure, and that’s beside the point anyway because Sweet Jane and Red Reb played in a Cuban band.
Jane and Reb were best friends. Jane generally followed Reb’s lead. That’s why I most of the times got talking with Reb. She was cool. She was great. I had respect for her. Yeah, we got a lot into mock arguments, but, hey, it was fun!
So, how did I get into Jane’s house? I can’t remember. It’s a complete blackout. Not the first one. How many mornings did I wake up in unknown parks, with dried blood under my fingernails, gasping for oxygen? It’s not alcohol. It has nothing to do with PMT. And the drugs, well, despite my hopes, they don’t help. I’m back to square one, or worse: a square before square one. The time before I learned to control myself.
As a child or a teenager, I’d lose control and get into a mad rage just like that, at the snap of two fingers. I think I scared many people, broke some noses and killed a few cats. I’m not sure. I’d get into a rage, would see so red, that when I’d come back to normal, I had no memory of it.
Nothing to do with the moon either. Like a wild beast inside, clawing at my ribcage to get loose.
At first, I didn’t know.
By my early twenties I’d learned to control it.
But a lifetime looking out for 100% control with no hope of redemption is a bloody long time. It got bad again when I got involved with this young anarchist last year. She didn’t want to commit herself, fine, the sex was great. Too great. My moods went on the rampage again. I had almost forgotten that I could hurt myself. That I could do worse than that. The young anarchist was a sweet and sensitive woman, too sensitive to see new scars on someone’s body. We stopped seeing each other.
One ill-chosen word from a stranger could trigger the rage. The beast within.
I turned to doctors for drugs. They have no clue.
I guess I’ve killed a few more cats lately. Or dogs. I’m not sure. I never remember. But sometimes I wake up in the morning with brown stains on my jeans. I know it’s dried blood. I know the colour. I know the smell. And I know what it means when I wake up still wearing rumpled clothes.
I wake up that morning with a weird taste on my tongue. I keep my eyes closed for a little while longer, feeling the heaviness of my brain. Drat. Another drunken night. Bright light creeping through my eyelids. Then I know I am not at home because my bedroom is as dark as a tomb. I’m laying on something as springy as a sofa. Not comfy.
The smell suddenly hits my nostrils, and my brain translates. The tantalizing blood. Ripped flesh. A whiff of decay, like rotten cherries in a too hot summer. Sweet and sour Death. The buzzing of flies. My eyes swing open, meeting the intense glare of the sun rushing through the French windows. I blink. There is a garden outside. A fine garden. I can hear birds joyfully chirping. I gyrate my neck to the left. Wow, bad kink there. And I see. The tale-tell splashes on the white walls. I gasp for oxygen. I am the only one who could have done that.
I crunch my abdominal muscles and sit up. I look again. It is no hallucination. It is real. Harsh reality. I get up and my stiff legs take me to her corpse. The flies fly away in sudden panic.
I kneel down in the puddle of blood. I have made quite a mess out of Sweet Jane’s body. I have broken a few ribs, ripped the chest open, punctured the lungs, and stolen the heart. Her clothes are in rags. I look around. So much blood and pieces of bones thrown about. Shit. I am probably still digesting the symbolic morsel. Her left leg is bent at an impossible angle below the knee.
I look at her face. Her blonde hair matted and brown-looking now, spread in every possible direction. I can see some clumps are missing. I guess the glistening skull where big shreds of skin are gone. And her eyes, her gorgeous gray eyes. One is still there, staring at me, not even accusing me, just staring and wondering. The right socket is empty and blank. Great. I eat eyes now. Deep cuts across both cheekbones, red and sticky. I decide not to bet, but I know the nose is in pieces. Dry blood like frozen rivers down both nostrils. Split lower lip.
My dirty fingers slide gently down her neck. There are purple marks across the still-skin-covered ropy tendons and strong muscles. I feel for her Adam’s apple. It is crushed. I let my fingers fall down by my knees, into the gooey puddle of blood. How many pints of blood in a human body…….
I feel tears pricking my eyes and fight them back. I never wanted to kill her. What did I want then?
I have no memory of what happened. I look around. She has tried to defend herself. A glass coffee table is in shards. Music magazines marred with blood lay in disorderly heaps. A big flowerpot on its side, still spewing black soil and a gigantic rubber plant. She was strong, with all the working-out she used to do when she wasn’t bending over some plants in her green garden or…….
Sweet Jane’s warm and pulsating skin. A golden shade of suntan. The life animating her muscles. The determination and concentration in her fingers sliding along the fretless bass, blonde hair falling over her face, hiding her beautiful eyes. Sweet Jane, my shy muse…….
I have to go, leave the “scene of the crime” before anyone else turns up. I notice blood passing for messy brown stains on my black jeans and T-shirt, but really blood-looking on my skin. Where is the bathroom? I feel dizzy. Last night was the first time ever Sweet Jane invited me in. I gently close the eyelid over the remaining eye.
I look around, spot a set of wooden stairs and decide to climb up. It would make sense.
A huge mirror confirms how matching I am to the scene in the living room, just in case I don’t know yet. I sigh and start to undress for a shower, thinking that her style of clothes will never suit me. See, I wear men’s clothes, or unisex clothes, the baggier the better. Sweet Jane, even without going for the 100% feminine look had a very different approach to fashion.
After the Cuban gig as excellent as usual, we decided to go for a drink in the next street’s pub. I liked this pub. Loads of punks hanging out there. I especially loved the huge metal spider hovering over the door, inside. And all the fancy skulls and heavy metal posters. Everyone went there so Sweet Jane was like everyone else. She was wearing a tight fitting T-shirt contrasting with her baggy blue jeans. Red Reb had on a black waistcoat over a white T-shirt and nice chinos. I had my usual punk ripped black trousers, sleeveless leather jacket, and a few chains where I could fit them. I guessed we were gonna have a few drinks too many as usual. We’d talk to some wasted people from various genders, and we’d argue among us, especially Reb and me. It was a game.
I am ready to face the blazing of the sun, wishing happy naps to Jane’s neighbours. I don my dark shades and pull the door open. Push it back immediately and run for a closet. Shit. Here comes Red Reb, walking up the pathway, blissful and wide awake, oblivious.
Oh no. Even better: in my hurry I have left the door ajar. I hear the hinges screaming for DW40. A step in. She calls out:
“Jane! Are you in?”
Silence, as heavy as tons of tanker boats rushed over the shore by a tidal wave of angry ocean.
After another step, louder:
“Jane! Where the hell are you? Your front door is open!”
She walks in. I can hear the metal clicking of her cowboy boots. She passes by my closet. Then silence again. I open my door a tiny crack. I see her tense back. She is studying the mess I have left. She breathes in deeply and breathes out. Like a long sigh. Oxygen must be good. O
ut of a pocket she slowly gets her mobile phone. She dials an emergency number. I am feeling sad. Her voice is close to breaking, but you can always trust Red Reb to keep any situation under control. She asks for the cops. After a silence, she uses the word “dead”, in the middle of a carefully constructed sentence. Suggests an ambulance, even so Jane looks dead. And is dead. Repockets the communication tool.
I open my closet door more widely. I want to get away before the cops get the echo of their sirens into the neighborough. The door creaks. Reb swiftly turns around and faces me.
“Kay, you’re ok? What happened?” Stepping one step closer to me, then stopping, taking in the cleanliness of my skin. One of the things I like about Reb is that she’s got a brain and knows how to use it.
I keep utterly silent, utterly frozen on my spot. I feel the fog rounding in my brain. I hear Reb’s voice, soft:
“Kay, what’s the matter with you?”
Whatever happens next, I can’t remember.
Five vodkas each and we were still arguing. Sweet Jane was unusually bright and sparkly. She was the loudest of our lot. Vodka drowning cranberry juice. Five was our minimum. That was, Red Reb’s and mine. Five was more likely to be Jane’s extreme maximum. She was rather bubbly and was not gonna be able to walk straight. But wasn’t it her favorite joke: even sober, she couldn’t walk straight.
The dizziness fades. I rub my eyes and quietly feel the evening light washing over me. Then I see the blood under my nails, down my fingers, eating at my hands, shiny and barely sticky. Again……. I look ahead of me and stare soundlessly.
The previous tenant of my flat was probably into s/m fun. The chains solidly fitted in the wall are mementoes of this time before my time. I had decided not to bother with getting them off and opted for a pair of heavy black drapes. The drapes are open. Red Reb is kneeling with the wall watching her back, her hair hanging from her bent head. Her arms up, not by choice but held up by the chains. I walk slowly towards her, feeling empty and doomed. There is blood on her jeans outfit, criss-crossing her white shirt.
I fall on my knees. Have I done it again? Have I killed Reb like I killed Jane? I glare at my bloody hands, my killer’s hands, willing them to go away, far away from me. I feel pain swelling in my heart.
She slowly moves her head up, one eye closed, with eyelids so puffy that it will certainly take on many fancy colours soon. The other one opens and prods mine. I can see pain in the brown iris. Pain and questions.
“Kay,” she sighs and gulps some oxygen. Her lower lip is split, with a trail of blood at the corner. “Kay, I’m asking you again. “ Her voice sounds raw and slow. “What’s wrong with you?”
Her head falls down again. I push it up with tainted fingers, a sob ready to explode out of my throat, and answers, with all the sadness of the world in my voice:
“I don’t know, Reb, I really don’t know.”
She looks at me, tired and weary. I carry on, carefully:
“It’s like sometimes I am not myself anymore, and I don’t know what I’m doing. And when I am myself again, I don’t remember anything.”
With my other hand, I gently push her curly red hair away form her face.
“Reb, what have I done to you?”
“You broke one of my shoulders and cut a few slices elsewhere. I’m not gonna mention the punches, they were just snacks, I guess.” With the hint of a sarcastic smile twisting her mouth into a grimace. She winces reflexively.
Did she cry out or is she the strongest woman on Earth as I have always imagined her to be? She whispers:
“Kay, unchain me. Let me go. We are friends. I’ll help you.”
I let go of her head. Her hair falls down, following the down movement of the neck. And then I feel the change starting again.
“Kay?”
“It’s happening again!” I almost scream. The dizziness is stronger than ever.
“Kay, fight it. You can beat it. Fight it, bloody hell. Fight.” In a whisper.
I remember falling backwards.
“Our dear Jane is rather drunk!” Red Reb stated with a bright smile. “She’s gonna need help to get home!”
“No! I’m not!”
“Hush, Child, let the adults decide, they always know better.” I n a mock tone.
“Alright, alright, let me get a cup of coffee and it’ll be my privilege and honour to be her chauffeur. If I remember where I parked my car!”
Red Reb, a tiny bit tipsy too, burst into uproarious laughter.
In my next moment of consciousness, I discover it is too late for Red Reb. She is dangling from the chains like a broken puppet. A huge and red splatter marks the spot on the wall where I have smashed her skull open. Fragments of brain matters interspersed with her hair, fragment of brain matters soggily stuck to the wall, fragments of brain matters exposed on my red carpet. Blood red carpet.
Well, I have made quite a mess of my favorite friends within the last twenty-four hours. They trusted me and they loved me. Tears will never bring them back and there is no god to implore for forgiveness.
I spend the next hour sobbing, the flat is wonderfully soundproof. My neighbours will never know. They might start wondering about the foul stench in a while. Darkness is now all around.
I look at Reb, what I have done to her. I haven’t destroyed her ribcage; even so she is covered with blood I can see that. I haven’t touched it.
Then I know what to do. There is only one way, even if it is too late for my friends, I have only one possible way to get rid of the beast within. Forever.
There is a bridge in Bristol, the Clifton suspension bridge. I have been told about depressed students jumping off.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I wanna belong / I wanna be someone // If I could just be strong / Until the morning comes” (Nikki Lamborn and Catherine “The Been” Feeney)
In the corner of the neatly printed paper, Sid had scribbled in a moment of sleeplessness: Please, forgive me. And she meant it. She never wanted to hurt Dawn nor Terri, but she had deliberately killed the two characters the musicians had inspired her.
It was some time in the middle of the night and the moon was missing from the starless sky. Dreams and oblivion were eluding Sid. She felt knots tightening in her throat, in her heart, in her stomach. The music she had switched on, the first Second Look album, was no balm to her bruised soul. Her hands were opening and closing into fists spasmodically. She felt anger, hate, frustration, defiance, shooting through her mind back and forth. Paranoia hot on their trail. She got up brutally, kicking a pile of music tapes forgotten by the side of her bed. They crashed onto the black carpet and into oblivion. Tension was running along her limbs, clawing at her abdominal muscles, tensing her nostrils. Used to darkness, she walked to the kitchen, eyes close to tears she refused to shed. She opened the small fridge fitted into the too small kitchen, almost wrenching the door out of its hinges, and grabbed fiercely the bottle of pure vodka she always tried to deny herself. No fruit juice left. Who cared. She had just killed the most sacred people.
No, she reminded herself, I haven’t REALLY killed them, I only killed the characters they inspired me. And in actual facts, she had failed, because in order to kill Dawn, she had to start the story with Dawn already dead. No, she admonished herself. It was just one of the many characters she inspired. And I couldn’t even kill a character of fiction……
She drank a long sip of vodka, still crouching in front of the open fridge, blind to the various items of food necessary to her attempts at a balanced diet, albeit fresh vegetables. She violently got up. The alcohol swirled in the bottle. She slammed the fridge door and kept on drinking, long sip after long sip, pure vodka burning her taste buds, slowly, but surely, clouding her mind.
She knew she wouldn’t escape, she couldn’t escape, the tantalizing call of the razor blade calling her from the cabinet in the bathroom, where she kept it, along with the first aid kit. And the call felt louder by the minute, almost screaming in the silence of her
flat.
She stood for a minute or two in the short corridor, exactly positioned between the two painted doors, trying to gain strength. Begging for the strength to leave unscathed this strange plateau where she landed sometimes, this field of insanity, this other realm where there was only one logical action. And blooded consequences. But the Native American spirits were busy elsewhere.
She drank more forcefully out of the bottle. Waiting for the madness to overcome her weakness. She knew she couldn’t fight. Resistance was futile…….
A digital clock swung to 3 am. Sid was now sitting on her dark bed, in her darkened bedroom, her favorite CD playing on a loop. She had no T-shirt on to hide the Navajo symbols tattooed on her chest and abdomen. She had no T-shirt on to protect her naked breasts from her deep hate. Was it self-hatred or was it really what doctors denied her. She would have so gladly gotten rid of her…….breasts. She hated the word as much as what they designated. No, she wasn’t female, she wasn’t a woman, she couldn’t identify, in a world where she was denied her real self, real life. But she wasn’t a man. She couldn’t identify as such either. In a world where choice wasn’t given, in a world where without money she couldn’t obtain the full mastectomy she would have gladly done with, in a world where you HAD to be male or female, one or the other, but you were not allowed, never allowed, to stand in the middle and be yourself, just you, yourself. Me, myself, I. NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE YOUR LIFE!
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