Wandering

by Daniela Jackson

  “Fuck off.” I sit on the floor, leaning against the wall, my folded legs splayed.

  “Okay, no talking about Lisa.”

  “No talking at all.”

  “I’m tired with all that easy trash we fuck,” Coyote says like he hasn’t heard me.

  He sits beside me and tips his bottle up to his lips then takes a sip of beer. A scar running across his cheek wavers, a souvenir after the fight outside one of the pubs in the town where we lived when we were younger, very poor and anonymous.

  I was fucking a bouncer’s girlfriend in the bathroom and he caught us. Coyote jumped onto his back while the guy was kicking the stomach out of my abdomen. Old times.

  “Really?” Sarcasm coats my voice.

  “I want something real,” Coyote says. “Something delicate. Something—“

  Hale tumbles into the room, a bottle of vodka swinging in his hand. Two chicks looking about twenty-five are clinging to his back and the ginger is keeping a hand in his pants.

  Coyote and I clink our bottles.

  “Something unique?” I say.

  Coyote nods. “Yeah.” He puts the bottle on the floor and stretches his legs out. “More long-term, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Maybe it’s not that difficult.”

  “Some people do that in life.”

  “Maybe we could do that too.”

  I inhale deeply. “Look at us. It’s very difficult for us.”

  “But not impossible.”

  Hale bends one of the girls over the table, gathers her jeans skirt up and drives his dick into her from behind as food and drinks fall down onto the floor, splashing, banging, and clinking. Hale kisses the blonde, squeezing her breast and pounds into the ginger.

  Coyote and I exchange glances and go to the back of the pub, settling ourselves between two wheelie bins. They exude the smell of rot, but we don’t mind. It’s quiet and private so we can get drunk together. Stars twinkle at us and the hum of car engines comes from the city, blending with the human voices from inside of the pub. A chill creeps under my t-shirt. A rat runs across the parking lot stretching in front of us. Then another, bigger. It stops, cocks its head up as its eyes gleam. Coyote growls at the animal, startling it.

  “She smelt of jasmine,” Coyote says in a drunken voice. “Like a fucking miracle.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Eavan smells of green tea and roses. And of mystery.”

  “Drink,” Coyote rushes me.

  We don’t talk as we down two more beers. Then Coyote starts burbling about some chick, but I can’t grasp him, at all. Another bottle of beer makes the world a funny and hazy experience for me. My eyelids grow heavy and a wall of blackness cuts me off from reality.

  The next morning, I wake up in the bus beside Coyote. His face looks greyish, eyes swollen, suffering and thirst pervading his glance.

  “Drink,” he says in a hoarse voice, offering me o bottle of spring water.

  “Thanks,” I rasp as my hangover hits me in a pulsating pain around my temple, nausea and the sensation of a desert in my chest.

  Since that moment, my life turns into a grey agony. Nameless mouths I’m fucking, faceless pussies I’m fucking, grotesque figures of my fans-everything is blurry, distorted by my anger, by the fumes of alcohol and weed.

  Yet I can’t forget Eavan even though I’m trying. Trying every night, embraced by a woman, by two women, sometimes even three women, but none of them is able to give me relief from the agony stabbing my heart each time Eavan’s face flashes through my head.

  She’s a ghost, a memory, a mirage, and will never appear in my life again, but I can’t forget her. I should, but I fucking can’t.

  The agony torments me until Tania invites to a nice restaurant for lunch. I’m late. Normally I’m good at time keeping, but since everything is fucked up in my life because of Eavan, this positive character trait of mine I’ve always been proud of, has deteriorated as well. The waitress leads me to the table. Tania is sipping her drink but she is not alone. Tony is with her. I didn’t expect him to be here. That means it will be serious as hell.

  I drop into a chair and put my elbows on the table.

  “It will be very serious, huh?” I say.

  I order orange juice and chicken fajitas and the waitress flashes me a seductive smile that wakes an urge of murder inside me.

  “I’m going to be very straightforward,” Tania says. “You need a break.”

  “I’m fine,” I snap.

  “You aren’t,” Tony says. “We’re worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth.

  Are they my parents or what? I’m a grown up man. I can take care of myself.

  My eyes slide over Tony’s face and guilt jabs the side of my chest. The guy is really worried. Not pissed off as always. Worried.

  “Take a break,” Tania says in a cold voice. “A few days. Or even a week.” She takes a deep breath then clears her throat. “Hale is an absolute nightmare, but he’s still useful. You have just stopped being useful.”

  “What?” I explode.

  “The last two concerts were a disaster,” Tania continues. “Your lifestyle is affecting your voice. Did you think about it? You were drunk on stage.”

  “Your lifestyle is dangerous for your health,” Tony says. “Boy, you have a life to live, a future. You want to have a wife one day, kids, don’t you?”

  Tania leans against her elbows. “What’s going on, Seafra?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  Tony shakes his head. “Is it because of that girl?”

  “No,” I say.

  I feel horrible, lying to Tony, but I don’t want to confess anything to Tania. It’s none of her business.

  “I will put my life back together,” I say. “From today.”

  I fucking don’t care about Tania’s opinion, but Tony’s opinion matters to me. I don’t want to make him more upset.

  “Good,” Tania says and looks down at the expensive watch on her wrist. “I have to go. See you later.” She kisses Tony on the cheek, shoots a stern glance towards me and walks off.

  Tony nods at me and grins. “So, let’s talk.”

  “There is nothing more to say.”

  “Really?”

  I run my fingers through my hair. Tony is my best bodyguard and much more. He’s my friend and deserves my honesty. I want to respect him. “I thought I would forget her.”

  “But you couldn’t manage, huh?”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “It was like a snap of lightning. Bang and you can’t get the chick out of you head.”

  “Something like that.” I roll my fingers into fists. “I don’t know her full name, her address, her telephone number. Nothing. She vanished like a ghost. And she fucking took my telephone number, Tony. I know there is a lot wrong with me. But she could have called me at least. One stupid phone call, Tony.”

  Tony lays his hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. “Throw all the bad stuff out of your life so there is room for the good stuff. Sometimes life can surprise us in a most unexpected way.” He tosses my hair like I’m his son. “Did I tell you how I met my wife?” He starts his monologue, not waiting for my response.

  He’s told me this story more than one hundred times, but I don’t interrupt him. He loves talking about his wife and kids and I’m always touched by the fire in his eyes each time he mentions his wife’s name.

  Nicole was seventeen, Tony was eighteen. He saw her on the bus. They talked, but Tony was too nervous to ask for her telephone number or her address. She got off and Tony lost hope to see her ever again.

  A year later, Tony met Nicole again at the club where he worked as a bouncer. He asked her to marry him on that night and she agreed.

  Since that moment, they’ve been deliriously happy together. A lot of chicks have sought Tony’s attention, but he’s never cheated on his wife.

  Shame burns my insides and I
feel like I’m the lowest being of the lowest.

  Chapter 4

  Seafra

  Coyote and I stand in front of his parents’ house. My eyes sweep over the sash windows and stone walls and a sense of nostalgia surges through me. Memories float through my head-my aunt yelling, my uncle working in the garden, Coyote and I sneaking out of the house through the window at night. Hale bringing girls to his bedroom and his mother going mad because of it.

  “It’s quiet,” I say. “Like fucking deadly quiet.”

  “And empty,” Coyote says. “Like fucking deadly empty.”

  “You think Hale will come to join us this time?”

  “No, he definitely prefers his big glass house filled with half naked bodies. He hates this place.”

  “Well, it’s his loss.”

  We visit this house two-three times a year, when we need solitude to charge our batteries. Coyote has been nagging me to buy something in the mountains, but so far, we haven’t decided yet. Hotels, Hale’s place and Alice’s place are our shelters to crash in.

  Coyote puts the key into the lock and turns it with a rasp then pulls the door handle and kicks the door open. The cool smell of damp settles in my nostrils.

  “It needs airing,” Coyote says, switching on the light.

  “And a good dusting.”

  We put our bags on the floor in the hall, roll our sleeves up and tidy up the house. Coyote brings some food from the local grocery shop. We cook, eat and go to the burial ground around the medieval chapel. The bench under the crown of the old oak offers us a view over the entire village. The old mill works by the bottom of the hill as the visitors move across it like ants.

  I sigh and a sense of loss surges through me. Hale and Coyote’s parents died in a car crash two years ago. They were cremated and buried in the town fifteen minutes’ drive from here, but Coyote and I visit this graveyard to reminisce about them.

  “They’d want me to help Hale,” Coyote says.

  “You heard what that psychologist we saw six months ago said. We have to leave him on his own otherwise, he won’t wake up.”

  We’ve tried a lot of things, threats, pouring out alcohol into the sink, leaflets, swearing, silence.

  Coyote’s jaw muscles twitch. “Leaving like leaving the band?”

  “I don’t know. I like singing, but I’m tired with all the shit that comes along with fame.”

  “I don’t know.” Coyote puts his elbows on his thighs. “The money is good.”

  “Yeah, the money is good, but the life coming along with this money isn’t. I like small pubs with a small audience.”

  “Me too.” His eyes wander off to somewhere in the distance. “We could buy a small pub and we could be business partners.”

  “We could.”

  Coyote kills a mosquito feeding on his forearm and stretches his legs out, crossing his ankles.

  “I was thinking, Coyote.”

  “When were you thinking? Like now?”

  “Earlier in the house. I was thinking, you know, that there was some fucking higher purpose for Eavan to appear in my life.”

  “Fucking hell,” Coyote says and looks at me with concern. “You okay?”

  “Listen to me and don’t interrupt me.” I inhale deeply and huff out. “I want something different in life. I thought I would sing with the band for a year or two more years max then buy that small pub of my dreams or something.” Coyote’s face sharpens and he gives me his full attention as I continue, “I don’t want more shit in life from now on. No sex, no weed, no alcohol.”

  “No beer?” Fear flickers in Coyote’s glance.

  “Beer will be fine I guess. My point is that Eavan made me think. I will probably never see her again, but I want someone like her. Maybe if I’m well-behaved, someone like her will appear in my life.” Maybe some higher being will even bring Eavan back to me if I’m well-behaved. “If I throw the bad stuff out of my life, there will be room for the good stuff.”

  “Well said,” Coyote says.

  “I want to grow old with somebody nice, you know. Like Tony and Nicole.”

  “Me too.”

  “You won’t find somebody nice if are standing in the shit reaching up to your neck. The odour will scare away every nice person.”

  “So from now on no shit?” Coyote says and nods several times.

  “No shit. Beer?”

  “Yes. ‘Monopoly’?”

  “Beer and ‘Monopoly’.”

  We rise from the bench and walk towards the house. Coyote enters it first and goes straight to the kitchen as I visit the bathroom. We settle ourselves in the living room on the floor, four cans of beer on the coffee table, the Monopoly spread between us.

  “The loser is going to clean the pool,” I say.

  “You always lose.”

  “I fucking never lose. You always lose.”

  “The loser will also give a half of his monthly earnings to a charity that supports cancer research.”

  “As always,” I say.

  “Maybe we should be greedier. Did you think about it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If we were greedier, we would be happier with the shit in our life.”

  “I think I prefer to be poorer and unhappy.”

  Eavan

  The car lamps floodlight the trees we pass. The rain taps against the roof as the windshield wipers emit a hypnotising sound. This sound brings memories to my head.

  My mother’s hysterical voice. “They are our daughters.”

  My father’s harsh voice. “I had no other choice.”

  “You coward.”

  “You fucking stupid cow. What do you want me to do? Hang myself?”

  The squeal of the brakes. Ruby’s cry. My mother’s cry. Silence then heavy breaths.

  My fear and helplessness.

  My desire to die.

  I move in my seat and correct the blanket around Ruby. She’s fast asleep, her breath steady. I glide my palm over her cheek and she shudders in her dream.

  “How much longer?” I ask.

  “About an hour,” Jack says from the driver’s seat and corrects the rear-view mirror.

  The lights of the cars passing us in the opposite direction blind me. Jack changes gear and the engine roars as the car outruns the truck.

  We’ve been driving for six hours and have stopped twice to pee and eat.

  “You will like it there,” Jack says.

  “I have no other choice but like it there.”

  “I’m trying my best.” There is a hint of anger in his voice.

  “I know,” I say gently.

  He is tired so I fall silent, not to evoke any argument between us. The pause is filled with Ruby’s snoring then I listen to the sound of the raindrops tapping a monotonous song that makes me feel suffused with a sense of loss.

  “You haven’t been very talkative today,” Jack says.

  “Maybe I have nothing important to say.”

  Jack inhales sharply. “I told you not to socialise, not to make any connections.”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “So, listen to me.”

  “I always listen to you.”

  Jack growls as I turn my face and stare at the objects we pass, a pub, a high wall of an estate, a church. Historic houses made of stone, a supermarket. We turn into a narrow road, guarded by two walls of vegetation. A fog surrounds us like it’s alive, magical.

  My thoughts travel to Seafra. He must have waited for me at the Randell’s in the morning. I couldn’t call him even though I wanted to.

  Sadness strips me of energy. It must be like this. It had to be cut in the very beginning before I felt something.

  My fingers travel to my mouth and I glide them over my lips. I yearn for Seafra’s kiss, crave his voice whispering into my ear and his skilled fingers on my body. He knows how to touch a woman. Of course, he knows. Women crowd in his life, throw themselves at him.

  I would have been one of them; I would have been forg
otten after just one sex.

  This realisation doesn’t evoke my negative emotions though. I can’t afford to be even a one night stand for anybody.

  Seafra wanted to eat breakfast with me. Me? He’s a rock star. Not the most famous one, but still a star. They don’t eat breakfasts with some unimportant people like me. Warmth washes over my heart. I think he can be really nice and normal, but I guess I will never know. Jack is taking us to another hole where Ruby and I are going to rot in solitude.

  “Are you hungry?” Jack asks.

  “No.”

  “I need to stop anyway to piss. I can buy you a sandwich at a petrol station.”

  “Sure. I’ll have a sandwich. Buy one for Ruby as well.”

  Ruby straightens and yawns. “Where are we?”

  “Only ten miles left to reach our destination,” Jack says.

  “I need the toilet,” Ruby says and covers me with the blanket.

  Five minutes later, Jack turns into a petrol station and stops to fuel the car as I help Ruby attach her prosthetic legs. Jack helps her get out and offers her his elbow as they walk to pay and use the toilet.

  I take my phone out of my bag and choose Seafra’s number from my contacts. My hand trembles. I can’t. I fucking can’t.

  I throw the phone back into the bag and lean back.

  Prison would be more bearable. In fact, I’m living in prison even though there are no walls around me.

  Chapter 5

  Eavan

  It’s been four months since we moved out of that small town I loved so much. I’m working in a flower shop now. This is my third day actually. The old woman who’s the owner is teaching me to create arrangements of flowers like wreaths and bouquets with patience. I think I’m more of an entertainment to her than her employee.

  “Go to the beach, child,” Anna says and her wrinkled face lights up. Wisdom and calm radiate from her pale grey eyes as her tiny hands covered with brown spots tremble against the white counter. She touches a pile of red roses at her right elbow and grabs scissors. “Off you go.”

  The scent of roses, orchids, and lilies hangs heavy around me as the whole palette of bright colours pleases my eyes.

  I shake my head. “But—“