Dirty Beat

by Venero Armanno

  What emerged wasn’t music at all. Instead, clear as bells tolling across the kingdom, was this: I poisoned my father the king! I poisoned my father the king! Heaven forgive me, I poisoned my father the king! And in his voice too.

  Well, soon enough, this horrible, worthless king was tried and hanged by the subjects who used to adore him. His body was quartered and fed to pigs, then the pigs were slaughtered and their remains thrown into the sea. All the royals were exiled to desert lands. They died the deaths of nomads and paupers. The kingdom disintegrated. Such was the effect of not being able to hold your tongue.

  Now, he told me this story so that I’d know the value of secrets, and never, ever give my private thoughts away. He told me the future of our perfect little world was right in my hands. It was up to me if it ended up being destroyed or not.

  For a while I was young enough to believe it really was a sort of perfection. I was young enough to believe that the attention a man gives says something about his heart. I didn’t know how naïve it is to think this way. The day came when I learned my lesson, once and forever.

  He always was a talker. During sex he liked to describe what he was doing to me, or what he was going to do to me. Soon enough he was whispering weird fantasies of what he’d like other men to do to me, or me to do to women. It did turn me on, but there’s a difference between talk and action. One afternoon I went to his house in the usual way. He had visitors. I could tell they were friends of his from the city, not country types at all. They got down to it. Each man offered me fifty dollars to have sex with him.

  At first I didn’t know what to say, where to run, but then I looked at his face. At the expression in his face. I felt a rage rising up in me. Really, the sort of rage that could make you smash a mountain. That look in his face.

  I took their money. I wasn’t doing it because he wanted me to, but because I knew it would hurt him, really hurt him deep inside. And I was right. Soon his expression changed. It was like his own mind rebelled against him. Here was everything he’d set up, had planned and imagined, but he’d never really thought what the reality of it would be like. It didn’t take too long before he got cold feet. He tried to stop it, but things were out of his control now. You know what it’s like trying to call hungry dogs off fresh meat? That’s how much hope he had of getting them away from me. And I didn’t lift a finger or say a word that might make them want to forget it. I gave them what they wanted in exchange for their money. I wanted him to see it all and I wanted him to eat his own guts up.

  Hurt, you bastard. Hurt bad.

  So he stayed out of the way like a man witnessing a murder.

  I went home with my one hundred dollars, more money than I’d ever seen in my life, but I was sick in my heart. I sat in the bathroom crying and then I tore the notes into confetti that I flushed down the toilet. Except it didn’t all flush. My father came home and found some floating bits of cash. Now, there was a surprise. Well, I was in the world’s worst trouble, and it was the only time I was close to getting caught. Then I thought, Why does this deserve to be a secret any more? How much have I really hurt him yet? Maybe not so much at all.

  My father sat on the side of my bed, wanting to know where I’d got that money and why I’d destroyed it. So, it was like the king in the story. I was standing and I leaned down to my father’s ear and whispered the truth. My father nodded gently, like a reed in a stream, and after I told it I knew that everything was ruined.

  My father went to see his friend and he hurt him a lot. Three days later he left town. His wife stayed to sell the house then she moved away too, but in a completely different direction, taking Roxie.

  That was my revenge, but in return I didn’t have a home any more. I remember months of crying and staring out the window. I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t want to do anything. It was as if there had never been a farm, pets, livestock, or a single field of sorghum anywhere. One more thing was different too: my playing was better. All that anger, that vengeance, and my playing had improved. Huh. As soon as I turned sixteen I guess you could say I set out on the journey of my life. Some journey. I got as far as Thornberry and let myself be rescued by Phil the plumber. I am a fool, Max, an utter fool, and don’t I know it.

  But I’m telling you these things and you’re smiling at me. What is it with you? The thing that gets me. What do you see in me that I don’t? Or do you forgive every dumb step I took because each of them brought me closer to being here with you?

  Whatever. I don’t care, Max. This is where I’m staying. Right here. I’m sick of highways. I’m sick of doing wrong when I should be doing right. Here’s a new secret that’s bursting to come out. I have to say it. I’ll whisper it. Lend me your ear.

  You won’t be getting rid of me, little drummer boy. Can you live with that?

  III

  I can live with that. Could have lived with that. And the answer to what I saw in her that she didn’t see was exactly what she’d said: anger and vengeance coming out of that small frame, pouring from her violin and bow, transformed into music.

  A birthday passed without her and another Christmas came and went. During the day my rooms were sunny and at night they were dark and nothing happened inside them. I was alone and I had no friends left, not a single one. Sometimes I could convince myself I was fine, then I’d start some simple activity, like sweeping the floors or cutting down strangling vines in the front entrance, and a wave would crash down on me out of nowhere. I had a constant pain in my stomach and slept, at the most, two or three hours at a time, then I’d walk around, then I’d try to get to sleep again. When I couldn’t stand the silence any more I played records at top volume. None of them made me feel better. Each piece of vinyl was tainted by a dream that hadn’t come true; these were the heroes I’d wanted to emulate and look instead at what I’d become. Sometimes I tortured myself and played my copy of DC; sometimes I hid the album under a stack of others.

  Then the walls were too much for me and I started going out, to the lousiest drinking holes, to sit in bars with drunks and watch racing and boxing events on the television. That’s when it started happening, just as Debbie Canova had told it to me. So much time had passed and still the truth was bubbling up, wanting to come out. I had to confess my crime, tell someone what I’d done. The first person I spilled it to was named Henry or Harry or something, but it didn’t really matter who he was. All that was relevant was his hairy ear-hole, into which I poured the story of the breaking of Iron John’s bones. For a few days after that I felt better, but it didn’t last. So I told another drinker in another bar; then another night, someone else. It went on like this.

  The thing is, these men I met wanted to listen. Their responses differed. One would say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I would have done if I had the guts,’ while another would sigh, ‘And you wonder why the world’s so fucked, with people like you in it?’ Many, more than I could have imagined, told me their own stories. Infidelities, acts of cruelty, petty betrayals and lives ruined by a split-second of unexpected violence. It struck me how these men seemed victims too, victims of nothing but themselves and the unbreakable cycles they’d created. At their core you found unhappiness, desperation and, more often than not, booze. These strangers and I would exchange our stories then need to move on; ashamed of ourselves, disgusted by the other, blindly seeking an absolution, or simple sense of brotherhood, that was impossible to find.

  I told a stripper named Suzy Sunshine who’d taken a liking to me and wanted to take me home. ‘Women need men like you. All this liberation stuff is bullshit. Men were made to stand up, and that’s what you did.’ I stood up all right, made an excuse and tried to escape. The last thing I wanted was to be thought of as some kind of champion. Suzy wasn’t to be put off, at least not until she got me in her car and discovered my soft cock. I was definitely no champion to her after that and was kicked out of the passenger seat, left to stagger home.

  My talking went beyond simply trying to get something off m
y chest. I wanted someone to punish me. The expected result finally arrived on my doorstep. One afternoon two men came to the house and showed me their identification. Someone had reported me. The two detectives drove me into the city watch-house and interrogated me for hours. Relieved, I confessed everything, probably the first time I’d done it sober. They kept looking at me like I was crazy; they checked my arms for track-marks.

  ‘You’re skinnier than Jesus Christ. What’s your drug? It’s really just booze?’

  I agreed, yes, booze. Booze is my drug; alcohol is my Lord; my church is the lowest stinking bar you care to name.

  It was clear they didn’t believe me when I repeated my story as many times as they wanted to hear it. The confession just didn’t wash. The weapon that might convict me was long gone – I’d thrown that mattock handle into the river. The detectives were annoyed at me for wasting their time.

  ‘Says here, ’75 you did six months in a prison farm for breaking into a bottle shop. They found you asleep on the floor. Psych report says you’d suffered a bereavement and were off your head with grief. Man who was your stepfather got killed in a single vehicle accident and you went on a binge. Lasted a week. In that store you drank the better part of a bottle of tequila then laid down. We were able to stick three break-and-enters that week on you. Now it’s ’82 and look at the shape you’re in. What are you, going on twenty-six? You’re a kid but your life’s fucked. You tried to get any help for your problem?’

  I said, ‘I did it. I did it I did it I did it.’

  His partner replied, ‘Then tell us why the victim, Mr Tempest, supplied a very clear description of an individual who looks nothing like you. Not even your big toe matches. Why? Because his attacker is not Caucasian. So what makes you want to tell us this cock-and-bull story? You one of those people who likes to confess to crimes they didn’t commit?’

  I told them the reason I’d done it was because I didn’t like the man.

  ‘Anyone else you don’t like who better watch out, Killer?’

  I made sure there was nothing in what I divulged that could have hinted at a girl being a part of the tale. Debbie Canova had begged for it to be over. Wherever she was now, she was far away from all of this. I wasn’t about to let her be coerced back to be questioned or to give evidence in court or something. So even I could understand how I must have sounded like I was off my head. Ravings of an alcoholic. They didn’t even invite Iron John in to see if he’d pick me out of a line-up. Unlike the king Debbie told me about, I blabbed but received no punishment. That’s the difference between fairy tales and life for you.

  IV

  The process of lifting me up started with two red stickers.

  One was attached to the rates bill, another to the electricity bill. I’d missed their due dates and when I checked my bank balance to see if I could pay them, I saw I was a long way short. Even living frugally needs a certain amount of income. I could have sold Conny’s prized EJ Holden Premier, of course, but even though he’d died in it I hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it. He’d loved the thing, so instead the minor damage was repaired and it was always ready in the driveway. I even kept the radio tuned to the AM station he liked, the one that played his style of music all day and night. I rarely felt strange driving around in that vehicle; if anything, the leather interior with its musty, aged smell made me feel good. It was all Conny. I was going to keep it.

  No one had shown any interest in buying my drum kit. Someone was missing out on making a smart purchase, it was a great setup. I’d have to find another way to make some money. First thing to do was get my expenses down even lower than they were now. I finished the last of the whisky in my house and swore off buying any more. The very thought of that made me sweat; those detectives had been right. I had a problem.

  I was only doing two or at most three nightshifts a week at the supermarket, but really needed more. They didn’t have the work so I went to a rival store further down the road. There they could give me seven graveyard shifts straight, if I wanted them. I signed up, barely thinking about it.

  The work was as mind-numbing as ever, but I liked having a new purpose. It was a simple one: earn enough to pay my bills, otherwise lose the house – and that was one thing I would never allow to happen. So I spent my days and nights in blameless sobriety, but always with a gnawing hunger left in my belly, reason being that I still couldn’t bring myself to eat properly. After the graveyard shifts, my daytime sleeps were short and jagged, a funk of sweaty twitches and bad dreams. Worse, the people who used to be close to me seemed hidden in the shadows and corners of every room, keeping me edgy.

  Another great commercial occasion was about to arrive, so I signed up for double-shifts. That means I turned myself into the Phantom of the Supermarket, this black-eyed, pasty-faced ghoul always lurking somewhere, always stacking shelves, no better place to go.

  Easter. There were gaudily wrapped eggs and bunnies of every size and description, all to be presented beautifully and sold as quickly as possible. Jesus Christ is rising from the dead so go buy yourself a chocolate egg. Just as soon, it was all over and the leftover eggs and presentation boxes were going into the discount bins. I remember picking up one of the largest bunnies, which must have been the size of a small child, and hurling it down, smashing it to pieces. The aisles were moving and the fluorescent lights seemed to be eating my skin. I thought I was about to faint. Then I did fall, cracking my skull on the floor.

  What was it, three a.m.? I lay there blinking, feeling the lump on the back of my head. There were slow footsteps. Someone came around the corner of the aisle, which I remember clearly was number three: condiments, soups, canned vegetables and discounted Easter eggs. She looked at me lying there. Some middle-aged woman.

  ‘Well, just look at you, Max. What the hell’s happened – are you sick or something?’

  Hey Patti, I tried to say. Good to see you again.

  V

  Well hello again, Max. What do we have to call this aisle, then? Aisle number one, I guess: coffins, cadavers and carnations. Hmm, no, that’s wisteria you’re adorned with. Well, you know what I mean anyway.

  I’m so glad they’ve got the lid sealed. You go to any number of funerals these days and the departed is right there for you to see. Take a good long look at the dead face of the person you used to know and, believe me, you’re seeing your own. Max, can you even imagine how old I am these days? I can’t. But do you think I’m not counting the days till it’s my turn to lie down in the big aisle?

  Would never have thought you’d go first. Knowing you’re in there really does remind me of that horrible morning I found you spread out with the condiments and leftover Easter eggs. Not to mention the big bunny smashed on the floor.

  Well, just look at you, Max. What the hell’s happened – are you sick or something?

  Today I wish you were just a bit sick. Bet you do, too. And I wish I really could lift you up and take you home. Get you out of that box, look after you one more time.

  I looked down at the way you were lying there and I could see there was madness in you. And to you I must have looked like an old woman worse for wear, but I was still recognisable, right? Maybe more recognisable than I am now. Do you see me, old friend? Do you know that I’m here for you? Back then it would have seemed as if some cruel clock had accelerated exponentially. I was a hag; I was a crone; the seven years since we last met were cruel. And I was fifty-two years of age. What’s that make me now, Max? Do the terrible arithmetic.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I whispered down to you on the floor. The mad look in your eyes said I was standing twelve feet tall and five feet wide. ‘Have you got this AIDS shit?’

  ‘No,’ you replied. ‘Just a little tired. Too many shifts.’

  I pulled you to your feet, then got you to lean against me. ‘Tired? You’re ill.’ You stared at the crags of my face while I tried to figure out what was wrong with you. A floor superintendent came by, this twenty-year-old kid with a waist lik
e an hourglass, name of Angus. ‘Angus, you Goddamn twit,’ I said. ‘Don’t you check the state of your night employees? Can’t we be sued for making people sick like this?’

  The poor kid looked like he’d been hit with a shovel. ‘Yes, Mrs Baxter, do you want me to personally drive him home?’

  ‘No, I want you to personally go fucking sign him off at the end of the shift. I’ll look after the rest. This man needs care.’ Outside the supermarket I threw you over my shoulder. Oh, to have the strength I used to take for granted in those days. Max, you were a doll and I was that Italian puppet-maker, Gepeto. I could have had you do anything. ‘You weigh nothing,’ I told you, getting furious. ‘Nothing!’ We were in my car. We were driving. You lolled in the passenger seat, but I made you direct me to your place.

  ‘Let me guess. You’re still single, but you don’t live alone any more, you’ve got a houseful of deadbeats. You eat takeaway roast chicken off some greasy rotisserie and you all drink too much. Correct?’ I pulled up outside the house that I thought was the one you meant. ‘And you don’t take care of yourself at all. You’ve picked up some autumn virus. I hope that’s all you’ve got.’

  You shook your head, Max. ‘Not sick. Just not eating,’ and you said it like it ought to make sense.

  ‘Not eating? Why?’ I had you at your front door. Guess what? It was unlocked. It was a wonder you could even dress yourself for the supermarket. ‘Not over a woman,’ I said. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve got yourself into this state over a girl.’

  But you had.

  I staggered inside with you and let you fall into your bed, which was unmade and quite filthy. That would have to wait. I helped lay you straight and you were barely conscious of the way my hands arranged you so that you lay snug and safe. Shoes and socks off, shirt opening, the belt holding up your baggy jeans being unbuckled and whisked out from under you. Then I didn’t even think about it, I crawled into your disgusting bed too, an old, big woman with a craggy face against a skinny young man with sickness under his skin. I left you alone a while, but you were mumbling, so very gently I lifted your head and laid it against the lumpy pillow of my chest.