The Canal

by Lee Rourke

  “I would polish my TT most days, every day sometimes. I couldn’t stand the London grime, the pollution. I would wipe it away constantly. My car had to be pristine at all times. I wasn’t affected, there was nothing wrong with me. There was, and is, no meaning in my constant attention to cleanliness. I just wanted my TT, my car, to be clean. If I saw other TTs on the road that looked newer, cleaner, I would turn back, or pull up at the nearest car wash. Mine had to be cleaner, the cleanest …”

  “But it was only a car …”

  “It was … is … my car … my car …”

  “I don’t understand …”

  “You don’t have to. It’s all very simple. We were fused: my self … my car … fused. Atomised. I would polish my TT until I could see every wrinkle in my face when I peered into its finish. I had boyfriends who would become jealous of the time and attention I dedicated to it. They would complain to me. It wasn’t their fault, they could have never have understood.”

  “Okay, okay … So, if you loved the car so much, then why did you end it all by …”

  “By running into him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I could.”

  “You must have had a reason.”

  “No. No reason. Just impulse.”

  “Impulse?”

  “Yes.”

  I’ve always been able to understand impulse. It is something that is instantly recognisable to me. It is something that is tangible, that I have felt, intrinsically, throughout my life. Even as a young child I understood impulse. I understood that there were no real reasons to my actions, as much as anyone else’s. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a violent man, but, on impulse, I have acted violently. Such violent impulses have happened only twice in my life, and both incidences involved me hitting other people. The first time it happened I was a small child, I can hardly remember it. All I know is that it happened in a park, by a sand pit: I hit another child playing in the sand pit. The second time was a number of years ago. It involved my then closest friend. I will not mention his name here. We had been drinking happily all day and were walking home to the flat we then shared together in Hackney, near the elevated railway lines. We weren’t even arguing, and nothing had rankled within me. I just had the sudden impulse to hit him—maybe it was something he said, I don’t know. I hit him on the side of the head with my fist, a drunken right hook, executed with little, if any, technique that somehow landed with force and knocked him off balance. He fell sideways, landing awkwardly on his arm by the curb. His arm snapped like a twig. I am positive I heard the snap. He was in incredible pain. I don’t think I felt guilty at the time. I calmly escorted him to A&E. We sat next to each other in silence. People were shouting at nurses, teenagers were puking into buckets, drunks were lighting up cigarettes. Overworked doctors ran amok. He moved out of the flat shortly afterwards, and we have never spoken to or seen each other since. I often think of that night now; it haunts me when I am alone; it visits my dreams. The clear sound of his ulna snapping: it visits me when I walk down the street, or at home washing the dishes. I cannot escape it. It is obvious to me now that most acts of violence are caused by those who are truly bored. And as our world becomes increasingly boring, as the future progresses into a quagmire of nothingness, our world will become increasingly more violent. It is an impulse that controls us. It is an impulse we cannot ignore.

  “But I don’t want to talk about impulse just yet …”

  “No?”

  “No … I want to talk about Jonathan Richman …”

  “Who?”

  “He is a musician … The Modern Lovers … He wrote what is considered to be the first ever modern punk record …”

  “Oh, what was it called?”

  “Roadrunner. It’s probably my favourite song of all time. Do you have a favourite song?”

  “Not really …”

  “I was …”

  “What?”

  “I was listening to it when …”

  “When what?”

  “When I hit him …”

  “But why are you telling me all this?” Why? Why me? What’s the point in telling me all this in such detail? What’s the point?”

  “…”

  “Well? Why? What’s the point in telling me all this?

  “…”

  “…”

  “Music is important … It is integral to our understanding of things.”

  “Things?”

  “Yes. Things. Stuff. Everything.”

  “Oh.”

  “That song … Roadrunner … has stuck with me for a long time. I just knew that it would be around on such an important day.”

  “Why?”

  “It had to be …”

  “But, I don’t understand …”

  “I’ve told you before, you don’t have to understand. There’s nothing to understand …”

  “We’re going around in circles …”

  “That’s not a concern of mine. But just to listen to that song as you’re hurtling down an open road. Such an amazing feeling … Really. It’s originally about route 128 in Boston, a circular like the M25, although, it’s not exactly circular. Travelling north or south is just the same as travelling round and round in circles anyway, isn’t it? Anyway, it is Richman’s car journey I’m interested in, the journey he undertakes throughout each version of the song … the same song … There are many versions of it.”

  “There’s more than one version?”

  “There are many versions. All are a homage to the turnpike, the industrial park, the North Shore, the South Shore, the Prudential Tower, the Sheraton Tower, the everyday nothingness of the peripheries of Boston, noting each as he passes them by over and over and over again. I’ve read about the excitement he used to feel speeding over the hill, catching sight for the first time that day of the radio towers in the distance. He’d see beauty in these humdrum things … I used to drive listening to him, I used to look for the same things, the same type of beauty he did … It was everywhere I looked … I see that, too, I do, that same beauty in things … the ordinary things.”

  “I know you do …”

  It seemed as if we were melting into each other, her scent enveloping me, soaking into me like never before. I wanted to say so much to her; I wanted to do so many things with her; with no one else. I wanted nothing else to exist, so we could get up and walk somewhere together: a pub, a café, a park, even a gallery. Anywhere. I wanted to do something.

  But I couldn’t.

  I was truly spellbound.

  I started to think about those teenagers who attacked me, the Pack Crew. I wondered what they might have been doing at that precise moment. My body was aching all over because of them. They had acted on that same impulse. They had chosen to harm me, to hurt me for no other reason: boredom. They were bored. They always would be. They are never ending.

  I wondered to myself what they would do with themselves if only they knew what I did: I hoped it would be nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  “You’re thinking about why I hit him, aren’t you?”

  “No … I’m thinking about something else … Those …”

  “I hit him because I knew it would feel good … I was hypnotised … I truly was. I knew what I had to do … I just knew.”

  “How can it feel good? How can something like that feel good?”

  “You can’t imagine how good it feels. To wipe something out. To wipe something out completely.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’ve never done it.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “In the outskirts of the city, Blackheath way, on a lonely road … the light pollution from the city filling the night sky in the distance. It looked like it had been painted on by some amateur.”

  “What did?”

  “The light in the sky in the distance. It looked faked, inauthentic … I loved it because it was still real.”

  “Do you know anything
about him?”

  “The man?”

  “Yes, the man.”

  “I know lots. Before I hit him I knew nothing. Now I know everything. It was in the papers, on the local news. I found out all I needed to know about him.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I had to … I’ve never been caught. No one knows it was me. I have escaped my punishment … for the time being, anyhow. I needed to find out about him in order to understand his life … He was a pointless man, a meaningless human being. One of many. A security guard at a bank in the city. He’d worked there for twenty years. He was divorced, a small family. He was close to his son and a couple of lifelong friends he used to drink with. He was a season ticket holder at Charlton FC. That’s it.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said to you?”

  “Yes, that’s why I ask.”

  “T____ E_____”

  “Don’t you feel any guilt?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know … Maybe I’m scared?”

  “Just tell me why you did it.”

  “I had to do it. I saw him and … I had to obliterate him from my life. I had to make him obsolete. There was no other option … It felt good, butterflies in my stomach, that type of thing, some call it a buzz … My god, the sound of the engine as I approached him, dropping a gear, there was nothing I could do except hit him.”

  “Stop!”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just too awful. You killed a man!”

  “He was already dead before I hit him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He didn’t matter. We don’t matter. If you could have felt what I felt behind that wheel—just the rumble, the slight tremor of surface movement, of things, bitumen, passing beneath me. The speed … the engine growling … We are limited. We need something more, we need that added extra in life. Technology provides all we need. Technology dominates a large part of our unique relationship with the exterior world. I have never wanted to hide behind technology. I have always wanted to use it, to control it, to display it. It has always puzzled me why one would want to hide one’s hearing aid away from the world. Why do that? Do you understand? It is an extension. That’s all. Part of us … All of us should understand that technology will be the death of us, not our saviour … It’s leaving us all behind. I am just repeating the obvious.”

  “Just please explain to me what happened on the night you hit him?”

  “I am. I had an argument …”

  “With him?”

  “No, with the man I was seeing at that time. A good man, a man who knew nothing other than working hard for a living, providing for those he loved. A man who bought what he was told to buy. A man who simply lived. A good man. We argued … We hated each other, we wanted no part in each other. So I got in my car. I got away from him … I’ve never seen him since. I think.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve never wanted to, that’s why.”

  “You said I think …”

  “…”

  “So you have seen him since?”

  “…”

  “I thought so.”

  “But I’m not lying to you. This is the truth. I’ve never told anyone this before. I was driving … away … I just wanted to get away from him. I was taken by the views of the city. I could see everything there was to see. It was all sprawled out before me. I was alive. I felt connected to the night. My TT. Me, alone, away from him … And then I saw him, he was just standing there. I saw him. I passed him. He didn’t see me, so I followed the road. I knew it would take me back around. I knew it would take me back to him. I had been driving for about two hours, just around and around the M25. I sometimes liked to do that—eighty-ninety miles per hour and heading absolutely nowhere, just around and around, just driving along. I got off somewhere near Dartford. I found myself on Shooters Hill Road heading towards Blackheath. I circled the heath a few times, not really knowing where to go. The streets were completely deserted just off the main drag. I remember thinking it looked odd. I felt strange. It was maybe three a.m., but the reports in the media stated that he was hit sometime between one-thirty and two-thirty a.m. I saw him walking towards Wemyss Road from Paragon Place. He was walking slowly and looked like he had been drinking. The news reports said that he had been drinking with his work colleagues. Apparently he was far away from home and was probably trying to flag down a taxi. But he looked local to me. He looked like he belonged. Apparently he socialised with work colleagues each Thursday night … I followed along Paragon Place. He must have sensed me, as he started to quicken his pace. He didn’t look at me, not once … Not that time, anyway. I slowed alongside him, but he just stared at his feet. I crawled alongside him for about ten metres before I continued down Paragon Place and onto Wemyss Road. I immediately turned left onto Montpelier Row, continuing onto Prince of Wales Road. It was there that I decided to go back around to Paragon Place again, to see if he was still there, dawdling along. He had ventured onto Wemyss Road. I pulled up behind him and turned off all my lights … Just my stereo playing, that song, that perfect song … I think I hit him at about forty miles per hour just as he stepped into the road to cross to the other side. It was perfect timing, as if it had been rehearsed many times. It was like he’d been suddenly plucked up from the ground and flung mercilessly into the night. He hit the curb head first behind me and probably died on impact. I looked at his crumpled body through my rearview mirror. My heart was beating quickly, so quickly, so frantically. I backed up the TT to get a closer look. I got out. His eyes were wide open, just staring up into the night. And that smile on his face, I’ll never forget that smile. The one thing I regret—the one thing that haunts me—is that I should never have gotten out of the TT. I should have remained inside. I should’ve remained intact … I wasn’t too bothered about the damage at the front of my car. Like I said, I knew of places where I could get that fixed … He was nothing to me, just some random human being. I just had to do it … because I could. If they find me—which they at some point will—I still won’t be able to answer their questions. I’ll never be able to answer them. Not the absolute. All I can say, all that I could tell them, the one thing … his eyes … as I approached him, just as he stepped out onto the road, he turned and looked directly at me. At least this is how I remember it now. He looked at me … into me, you know? Just before I hit him. Just before I hit him.”

  “I don’t know what to say …”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just had to tell you this … It’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “I almost wish that I could go back … just to see …”

  “What for?”

  “To see if he was really looking at me …”

  I once looked up on the internet the most common injuries relating to hit-and-run incidents. There weren’t that many I could think of without help. The injuries were countless: traumatic brain injury, skull fractures and haematoma, along with extensive damage to hands, arms, forearms, shoulders, and wrists. Fingers are often crushed. Lower limb damage to legs, hips, knees, heels, and feet are also extremely common. Hidden internal injuries are manifold: torn spleens and severe damage to organs, such as the heart, kidneys, liver, bowels, lungs, and the aorta often lead to internal bleeding. The whole spectacle is a bloody, rotten mess. I have never stopped to look at car accidents for this very reason.

  The canal was silent. Not a sound could be heard. It was as if the wind had taken it all away. I looked to my feet. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I imagined it happening all over London, the entire country: gleaming cars hitting tired, worn-out random people, in random streets, in random towns, and random cities. I imagined it occurring all over the world: the cool exterior of each car smashing into warm living flesh.

  “Do you fancy coming to get something to eat with me …?”

  “I’m
not hungry. Telling you all this has left me feeling cold. I’m going to leave now.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Will you be here tomorrow?”

  “Yes … I will.”

  “Good. So will I …”

  - conversation two -

  “Where were you on Thursday, the seventh of July, 2005?”

  “The bombings?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was walking to work. The same job I have just left … recently … I was on Moorgate wondering why the streets were swamped, people walking in the road, police on every corner, and why the majority of people were walking towards me, away from Bank, away from the square mile, the City. I had no idea what had happened. This must have been around the time after the bus exploded, all the way in Tavistock Square … when people weren’t still too sure what was happening, or when they had realised the severity of it. Everyone seemed to have their mobile phones to their ears. I remember their faces, those people streaming towards me. It’s funny, I never give other people on the street a second glance, I don’t generally care about strangers. But that morning their faces penetrated deep inside me. Each and every one of them.”

  As I began to speak about what I did that morning she inched closer to me on the bench. She did this obviously and without trying to disguise the fact. It was a warmish day, and she was wearing a thin white dress that was almost transparent. When her left leg brushed up against my right it felt like it was her naked flesh touching me. She was wearing flip-flops. They were silver and black. She had immaculately painted toenails—jet black. I looked at them, each of her perfectly filed toenails. The toe immediately next to her big toe was longer, this was concurrent on both feet. Her feet were beautiful. I wanted to touch them, to plant soft, gentle kisses upon them, to caress them. To put each between my teeth, to bite down tenderly. I was aware of each of their movements: subconscious movements executed at the tips of the nerve endings.