Gently Go Man

by Alan Hunter

  Gently went on filling his pipe. ‘Sidney,’ he said, ‘you’d better sit down.’

  The youth got up on his toes. ‘What’s that tag again?’ he said.

  ‘Sidney Bixley,’ Gently said.

  ‘Say it again,’ said the youth.

  ‘Sidney Bixley,’ Gently said. ‘Six months in Brixton for armed assault.’

  He finished filling his pipe and lit it.

  ‘So just sit down, Sidney,’ he said.

  There was a squawk from Maureen Elton. ‘He’s that screw I was shooting about. The one they’ve got down from the Smoke. Like he knows about you, Sidney.’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ Sidney said. He’d fetched his hands off his hips. ‘I don’t know nothing about screws. Like cocky squares I know about.’

  ‘He’ll hang you up,’ Maureen said.

  ‘Cocky squares,’ Sidney said.

  ‘Like you’d better not flip your lid,’ Maureen said.

  ‘I murder squares,’ Sidney said.

  ‘Sid,’ said the older man, ‘keep it cool, man. Do as he says.’

  ‘Like making in here,’ Sidney said.

  ‘No, keep it cool,’ said the older man.

  Gently puffed. He came forward. He pushed Sidney to one side. Sidney staggered, went falling, got tangled up with a chair. He jumped up and stood swearing. His two followers did nothing. Gently spun a chair back to front. He sat down, looked round him.

  ‘Dicky Deeming?’ he said.

  The older man gave him a nod. ‘You’re well clued-in, man,’ he said. ‘Don’t seem to need introductions.’

  ‘I didn’t know Lister,’ Gently said.

  Deeming smiled faintly, said nothing.

  ‘You were all friends of his?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes,’ Deeming said. ‘We were his friends.’

  ‘But somebody wasn’t,’ Gently said.

  ‘So you tell us,’ Deeming said.

  ‘He was killed,’ Gently said.

  ‘Like that’s certain, man,’ Deeming said.

  He was around thirty, tall, with a large, gaunt-cheeked face, light hair cut close, slate eyes, big ears. He wore a white-trimmed black windcheater, black jeans, sandals. He had a hard, large-framed body. It showed well in the windcheater.

  ‘So what’s your theory?’ Gently said.

  ‘Like why should I have one?’ Deeming asked.

  ‘You’ve talked to Maureen, she says, you know what we think about Johnny. He made it, that’s all, he was out there with them. That’s crazy, it sends us. Johnny comes very big with us.’

  ‘Yuh, big, he’s big with us,’ several of them growled.

  ‘He was the mostest, coolest,’ said a girl with dark hair.

  ‘And as for this jazz about his being busted,’ Deeming said, ‘like we’ve seen enough of screws to know the action they make.’

  ‘You think we’re lying to you?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Throwing a curve,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s not lying, it’s trying it on, hoping it’s going to fit some place. You don’t like hipsters in Squaresville. You like to put the heat on them. So you make a deal out of Johnny and come pushing us around with it.’

  ‘And like we don’t stand for it,’ Bixley said, stepping up closer.

  ‘Cool it, Sid,’ Deeming said. ‘Pitching screws is for squares.’

  ‘He bugs me, this guy does,’ said Bixley. ‘Me, I could spread him on the wall.’

  ‘Dicky says cool it,’ Maureen said. ‘So cool it quick, you big ape.’

  Gently puffed a few times. ‘You know we’ve spoken to Betty Turner?’ he said.

  ‘The screws,’ Deeming said, ‘don’t keep us posted with the news.’

  ‘She confirms that someone rode them off the road that night.’

  ‘Like you could imagine things,’ Deeming said. ‘With leading questions when you’re muzzy.’

  ‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘So the police are lying their heads off. Lister crashed himself for the kick, and didn’t give a damn about his fiancée. And Elton ran away from nothing, because there was nothing to run away from. And there’s nobody here who smokes reefers or knows where reefers can be obtained.’

  Nobody said anything for a couple of moments. They were all scowling, but they didn’t say anything. Bixley was grinning a stupid grin and showing his teeth at Gently. The Italian had faded behind his counter but he still had his ear cocked. Deeming alone wasn’t scowling. He’d got the least bit of a smile.

  ‘It’s a kick, smoking,’ he said. ‘It’s a kick, and it touches. Jeebies go for the touches, they don’t give a damn for Squaresville. Like I’ve smoked myself, man, when I was up in the Smoke, and you won’t never stop it. If you could’ve done you would’ve.’

  ‘Lister,’ Gently said, ‘had five sticks in his possession.’

  Maureen’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes went to Bixley.

  ‘Like you’ve answered it, screw,’ Bixley said, still grinning with his teeth. ‘Like he’d been smoking that night. Wouldn’t make him ride good.’

  ‘You were at that jazz session,’ Gently said.

  ‘So what does that make?’ Bixley said.

  ‘You were where you could see if he was smoking. And what he was smoking,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yuh,’ Bixley said, ‘sure. Like I went there just to watch him. Got my chick along, too, but I was watching Johnny Lister.’

  ‘Which is Anne Wicks?’ Gently asked.

  ‘That’s my tag,’ said the dark girl. ‘And it’s right what Sid says, we didn’t have no time for Johnny.’

  ‘There’s sticks about,’ said Deeming quietly. ‘But like where they come from is nobody’s guess. They get passed along from hand to hand, that’s how sticks get into the scene.’

  ‘Yuh, that’s how,’ Bixley said.

  ‘Like you touch your pals for them,’ said Deeming.

  Gently looked Bixley over. Bixley showed some more of his teeth. The record said he’d been a gang-member two years ago, in Bethnal. There was nothing against him here, Setters had said, skipping a couple of traffic offences. At times he worked as a casual labourer at one or another of the construction sites.

  ‘You digging me good, screw?’ said Bixley.

  Gently gave him his slow nod.

  ‘We’d have done you up in Bethnal,’ said Bixley. ‘That’s telling you, screw. We’d have done you up.’

  Gently puffed. ‘Someone did Lister up.’

  It’s a bleeding lie,’ Bixley said.

  ‘You passed the crash. Yet you didn’t see it.’

  ‘So like what if I didn’t?’ Bixley said.

  ‘Elton saw it, and he stopped. But you didn’t,’ Gently said.

  ‘Just needle me some more,’ Bixley said. ‘Just one more jab from you, screw.’

  ‘Sid,’ said Deeming, ‘take some ice.’

  ‘Like who is telling me?’ Bixley asked.

  ‘Take some ice, Sid,’ Deeming said. ‘And stop behaving like a cornball.’

  ‘This screw is pushing me,’ Bixley said.

  ‘Screws,’ Deeming said, ‘are always pushing. But cool it, man, and cool it good. Don’t get hung up over a square.’

  ‘I don’t go for pushing,’ Bixley said.

  ‘You listen to Dicky,’ Deeming said.

  He got up. He stretched himself. He looked a giant beside Bixley. He patted Bixley on the shoulder, gave him a lazy sort of smile.

  ‘Go and drop a nickel,’ he said, ‘let’s make with the music again.’

  ‘Crazy,’ Maureen Elton said. ‘You drop the nickel in, Sid.’

  ‘I don’t get pushed,’ Bixley said.

  ‘We all get pushed,’ Deeming said. ‘But you do the cool thing, Sid. Like keep it down and make with the music.’

  He started Bixley towards the jukebox. Bixley hung on for a moment, then he went. When he’d set the jukebox thumping he stood beside it looking sulky. Deeming turned back to Gently.

  ‘Like we could talk it up,’ he said. ‘Over in my pa
d if that suits you. We could talk it up there.’

  ‘We could talk what up?’ Gently asked.

  Deeming grinned. ‘The scene,’ he said. ‘What a screw should know about it. The real jazz. The cool thing.’

  ‘I might not get that,’ Gently said.

  ‘Sure, you’ll get it,’ Deeming said. ‘Then you’ll be all clued-in. Like you’re missing something now.’

  He signalled the Italian to come over.

  ‘Pack us a feed-bag, Tony,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a screw coming to supper, so make it crazy, make it wild.’

  Eastgate Street was the old town where it merged into the new, a crooked backstreet slanting into one of the overspill highways. It didn’t show many lights, a lot of the buildings were warehouses, but at the further end were new buildings, office blocks, a filling station. Deeming had rooms over one of the warehouses. They were behind the filling station and looked over it to an overspill neighbourhood. The approach from the street was down a side lane fenced from the filling station with square-mesh netting, then through a door and down an unlit passage to some bare stairs and a landing. Off the landing were two doors, one of them lettered ‘W.C.’, the other opening into two rooms which were the extent of the accommodation. Deeming had struck matches on the way up but inside the second door there was a light switch.

  ‘What they’d call in the Village a cold-water walk-up pad,’ he said. ‘Like it’s de rigueur with the beatniks, but jeebies aren’t so hung up.’

  ‘You’ve lived in America, then?’ Gently asked.

  ‘I had two years there,’ Deeming said. ‘Me, I’m a nowhere sort of cat, but I came from Sidney in the first place. But like I couldn’t groove in that scene and I kept on kicking along eastwards. I went up the islands and across to ’Frisco, then coast-to-coast, then away here. Like I was searching for something, screw, and maybe I’ve found it, maybe I haven’t.’

  He plugged in an electric stove, waved his hand to a chair. Then he fetched a plate from a cupboard and unpacked Tony’s sandwiches on to it. The room was large with a high ceiling and had probably been an office once. The walls were painted a yellowing cream and the woodwork brown, which was beginning to blister. The wood floor was naked, was kept swept but not washed. The furniture comprised six bedroom chairs, two tables, two cupboards, a dresser and a bench. At one end was a sink and an old gas-cooker. The windows didn’t have curtains. There was an obsolete typewriter on one of the tables, stacks of paper, typed MS. On the other table was a record player, a record case, a guitar. On the floor and everywhere there were books in piles. Most of the books were new, had review slips sticking out of them.

  From the other cupboard Deeming took two balloon glasses and a bottle of Spanish Sauternes. He drew the cork, poured into the glasses, put the plate of sandwiches on the table between them. Then he switched on the player, put a record on the turntable. He turned it down very low. It was Grieg’s piano concerto. He sat down opposite Gently.

  ‘Like you shouldn’t have kept pressuring Bixley,’ he said. ‘That guy couldn’t have busted off Lister, and he flips his lid in two shakes.’

  Gently said nothing. He sipped the Sauternes. Deeming sipped his too.

  ‘He’s a hothead,’ Deeming continued. ‘We all know about that. He was on a jail kick for pitching. Like it’s easy to see how. But you know something,’ Deeming asked, ‘something that isn’t quite so obvious? We’ve cooled him down since he’s been with us, and like he isn’t pushed, he stays cool. And then there’s nothing wrong with that guy. He keeps it down, he’s a cool jeebie. So don’t go pressuring him unless you have to. We don’t like him ribbed into flipping his lid.’

  He looked level with his slate eyes, reached for a sandwich and began to eat.

  ‘We don’t go for flipping lids at all,’ he said. It’s too square, man. It’s torrid.’

  Gently nodded, kept sipping. ‘Where were you on Tuesday?’ he asked.

  Deeming finished chewing his sandwich. ‘Up at Tony’s,’ he said. ‘Not busting off Lister.’

  ‘Have you a bike?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Deeming said, ‘the mostest going. I ride a Bonneville with all the action, sank a year’s loot in it. But man, it hasn’t a scratch on it, nor any notches on the butt. And Johnny wasn’t bust, you know. Let’s talk up things fundamental.’

  ‘Murder,’ Gently said, ‘is fundamental with me.’

  ‘You like salami and garlic?’ Deeming said. ‘Latch on to one of Tony’s sandwiches.’

  Gently latched on to a sandwich. The Grieg went on thumping and tinkling.

  ‘Now the way you see this action,’ Deeming said, ‘is delinquent kids kicking it up. The war generation, you say, cocking the stale old snook at their elders. They’ve got a fresh curve, maybe, but it’s the old complaint they’re hung up with. They want to poke the old man’s snot. They want to act themselves big. That’s the way you see this action, and man, you’re not seeing it so good.’

  ‘I can see it being lawless,’ Gently said.

  ‘You’ll never change that,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s a perpetual factor in civilization where every law is an experiment.’

  ‘An experiment backed by consent,’ Gently said.

  ‘But still an experiment,’ Deeming said. ‘And backed by the consent of its generation, not by the generation that follows. With them the experiment continues, or as you say, they are lawless. And then the laws become modified by a new act of consent. Today they hang you for a shilling, tomorrow they lock up the hangman. Like you’re merely stating the obvious by calling any man lawless.’

  ‘Yet people suffer because of it,’ Gently said.

  ‘Sure,’ Deeming said. ‘I’m with you there.’

  ‘And it has to be checked,’ Gently said. ‘Or the next stage is anarchy.’

  ‘I’m still with you,’ Deeming said. ‘But that’s the process, for better or worse. Society acts, the individual reacts, there’s a percentage of suffering, and there’s modification.’

  ‘And there’s individual responsibility,’ said Gently.

  ‘There,’ said Deeming, ‘is the ground of contention.’

  He refilled the glasses, took a long sip from his. From the player came a long trumpet-call melting into the note of a single instrument. Deeming paused, listening to it. He caught Gently’s eye, smiling.

  ‘Like I’ve made a point,’ he said. ‘Don’t knock this action for kicking the law. They kick it in Sunday school circles and all over Squaresville in general. But maybe it gets kicked less with us, I wouldn’t know, I don’t see the figures. But the cool thing, screw, is to keep it down. We aim not to get hung up with the squares.’

  ‘You’re still cocking a snook at them,’ Gently said.

  ‘Sure,’ Deeming said. ‘But let’s get on from there. Because cocking a snook is all the squares see of it, and it’s the way it’s cocked that really matters. Like there’s a change they haven’t noticed. Like it isn’t just growing pains any longer. Like it’s a historic reaction going on against a life direction that’s played itself out. You dig it, man, what I’m giving you?’

  Gently nodded. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘Crazy,’ Deeming said. ‘I figured you were smarter than some of these screws. Like there’s a revolution going on, not just in Russia but everywhere. In Russia and China it’s a mass revolution, but in the West it’s individual. Like we’re dragged to death with this society and its nowhere aims and its chromium shop-front. We just don’t go for it, we’re opting out, we’re leaving it be to hang itself up. We want to live it real, man, to touch the real. We’re sick and tired of the illusion. Christ-ish jazz, we’re tired of that, and piling loot, and conning our neighbour. You can knock Russia for being a police state, but hell, it gives a Russian some real to live with.’

  ‘But you’re no Communist,’ Gently said.

  ‘Like I told you, we’re personal with ours,’ Deeming said. ‘The Communist deal makes the state a family, but like in the West we’re asha
med of our family. So we kick it, we’re individual. We go for it way out with the birds. That’s making the touch on a personal basis, keeping it down with having relations. You dig relations? It’s overvaluing someone, making yourself too vulnerable. When I feel I might be having a relation I pull up my stakes and get easting again.’

  ‘That way,’ Gently said, ‘you’ll finish up under a Bo tree.’

  Deeming nodded. ‘You’re with me, screw. It might be a Bo tree at that. Like keep it down in every way and go for the final kick in the book. I sometimes think I’ll make that scene. I’m only part way out, yet.’

  ‘With a begging bowl?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Right,’ Deeming said. ‘A good Buddhist must beg.’

  ‘If all the world were good Buddhists,’ Gently said, ‘who would fill the bowls for them?’

  Deeming chuckled. ‘Like you’ve put a finger on it,’ he said. ‘But all religions are contradictory, and the Buddhist jazz is the least so. I don’t know. I go some way with it. It’s got a logic that sends me. The Christers counter fear with faith, the Buddhists stare it in the eyeballs.’

  ‘It asks you to be ahuman,’ Gently said.

  ‘Don’t all religions?’ Deeming asked.

  The Grieg thundered to a close. Deeming rose, turned over the record. The muted second movement began, a gentle, nostalgic meditation. Deeming sat down and ate a sandwich, sat listening, his yes beyond Gently. Gently also ate another sandwich. A motorbike blasted by on the highway.

  ‘I’m sorting it out,’ Deeming said, ‘I’m writing a novel, sorting it out. Like it was time it made the record, what I’ve been giving the jeebies here.’

  ‘I thought it had been done,’ said Gently. ‘By Kerouac.’

  ‘Kerouac,’ said Deeming, ‘like he’s John the Baptist. But I’m way out further than Kerouac was. I picked it up where Kerouac dropped it.’ He ate and drank some more.

  ‘I’ll try to give it to you,’ he said. ‘You’re the only screw I could ever talk to, so I’ll lay it on the line for you. Now the big jazz is touching the real – you dig me, man, touching the real?’

  Gently nodded slowly. ‘Breaking through the illusion to the essence,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ Deeming said, ‘that’s how a square would define touching. You make some action and grab a kick and like it’s wild enough, you’re touching. Now keep with me. Did you ever have a shock off a D.C. system?’