by Declan Burke
‘Busted?’
‘I kind of jumped in the air, it’s what they teach you in class, so you’re coming down punching on top of the nose. It’s like hitting a tomato.’
‘Nice class. Needlework?’
‘So I’m sacked. This is even before the manager comes running. I know it, there’s no way I’m keeping the job. Which I’m happy about. Meanwhile Bob’s on his knees pumping blood, Rich Bitch is on the mend, learning to breathe again. A crowd gathering around. I go, “Bob, you’re a turd molester.” I say, “You’re the most God-awful excuse for a sick monkey that ever fell out of a tree and I’ve taken just about all the shit I’m ever going to take from you, them and every other fucking bastard on the planet. But I’m starting with you. If you’re not out of my way when I start walking, I swear I’ll bite your fucking throat out.”’
‘You really should be in politics.’
‘The whole place is dead. I mean, for a supermarket, it’s tumbleweed time. Everyone looking at Bob, Rich Bitch, then me. So this woman pushes forward, with her hand up? I say, “Yeah, what?” She says, “Can you type?”’
‘And this is Madge.’
‘She wanted to know where I’d learned the jump-in-the-air thing. Drove me home, told me about Frank, she wanted someone to keep an eye on him in the office, Frank the philanderer. This is back when Madge gave a shit. Saying how I’d be right up Frank’s street with me being the, y’know….’
‘Blowjob queen?’
‘The boobs, Ray. Frank likes ’em perky.’
‘So now, instead of whaling on Bob, you torture Frank.’
‘Frank tortures himself. It’s not my fault I’m curvy.’
‘God bless random genetics.’ Ray forgot himself, rolled closer for a quick squeeze and got a head-butt for his troubles, Anna capable of little else while wearing the muzzle. Ray’d seen smaller masks on ice hockey goalies.
When his vision cleared again he said: ‘What d’you say we dump the sabre-toothed tiger and go somewhere quieter?’
Karen scratched Anna under the chin. ‘Okay by me.’
Rossi
‘Christ up a lollipop, now she’s petting it.’ Rossi poking his head out of the Volkswagen’s window to train the binoculars up the side of the valley. ‘Last thing you want with a hound like that,’ he fumed, ‘is to soften it up. I don’t mind telling you, first time I saw it, I damn near shit myself.’
A sailor choking the beast down the gangplank, the chain as thick as Rossi’s arm. The hound dragging the sailor all over, a leather belt around its snout, growling like it was about to explode. The sailor didn’t speak much English, talking in this voice that sounded to Rossi like he was all the time hawking a spit, but Rossi got the message – the hound’s evil.
‘How much did he want?’ Sleeps said, taking the binoculars.
‘Five hundred. I threw down a ton. So the sailor chains the hound to a container, tells me to wait. This is three in the fucking morning, I’m hoping the Russians take better care of their choke-chains than they do their ships, the rusty pieces-a-crap.’
The monster straining at the choke-chain, amber eyes blazing and fixed on Rossi.
‘So the sailor comes back with this other guy, this one sounds like he’s coughing up coal. He says his piece. I put down four hundred there and then.’
‘It’s more than evil?’
‘It’s a four-legged Panzer,’ Rossi said, ‘that doesn’t mind the cold.’
‘She’s tugging your Panzer’s ears now,’ Sleeps reported. ‘Scratching its throat.’
‘Fuck.’
The Russian reckoned Stalin had been about a year old, year and a half, when it got caught in a bear trap, the trap breaking its right hind leg. The hunter laid it out with a rifle-butt between the ears, the hunter with a connection in St Petersburg who was always looking for guard dogs for the gangsters, something exotic. Trouble was, after two years, three different owners, using whips, chains, iron bars and cattle prods, no one had broken Stalin.
‘The way the sailor told it,’ Rossi said, taking the binoculars back, ‘the hound became a game, one gangster passing it on to another, a gift of respect. Except every time someone passed Stalin on, they sat back and pissed themselves laughing, thinking about how the new guy’d have to feed the beast half a cow every day, maybe lose an arm in the process.’
Rossi watching Stalin fawn on Karen, the three of them walking down the hill now towards Pheasant Valley. Rossi wishing the hound’d make a dive for the weirdo with the voodoo stare, wondering what Karen was doing hanging out with some asshole with a quiff, for Chrissakes.
Wondering too how the staff at Pheasant Valley might treat Stalin if they knew she was a man-killer, twice over according to the Russian, ripping out these guy’s throats who thought she was out for the count, beaten down.
One thing about the hound Rossi liked was, it never complained. You could whale on the fucker for hours, use a chain, whatever came handy, and all the fucker’d give you was the juju yellow eye, daring you to come in close, just once, meet it halfway.
The only time Rossi’d ever seen it cry was the night he popped the eye, digging the fork deep into the socket and levering back – that night she’d howled like a pneumatic drill, baying pure hate. Which, to Rossi, represented progress. Except now Rossi had to deal with all this crap: Karen adopting the hound, just because she was the one who renewed its licence. Then, getting an eye-patch so you couldn’t see the ragged pink hole when the whole point with a monster like Stalin was you didn’t want to think about what a wolf with a ripped-out eye might do to you….
He watched Karen and the Elvis guy, Ray she’d called him, coming out of Pheasant Valley; crossing the parking lot now, heading for the beat-up Transit. He watched them pull off, then said, enjoying it: ‘Follow that van.’
Braced himself for the takeoff and then realised, shit, Sleeps was on the nod, slumped down in the driver’s seat, head against the window, snoring. Shaking his head in despair, Rossi spotted the needle on the dimpled mat between Sleeps’ feet. He swore aloud, shook Sleeps’ shoulder, pinched him under the ear, then punched the side of his head. No joy.
Rossi sat back and rolled a fat one. Thinking, this is my fucking luck, I get the only junkie wheelman who shoots up on the job….
Frank
Frank was sweating hard, hunched over the barbecue on the patio that’d been designed as a sun-trap. All day he’d been dreading Doug’s call. The nasal tone, the gloating, the snide humour – first the jibes about Frank’s golf, Doug asking if Frank had a licence for the sand wedge, how it could be a lethal weapon in the wrong hands.
Then, the pleasantries out of the way, Doug’d start in with the horseshit: the hospital bills, the trauma, how he might never play golf again, was feeling agoraphobic just thinking about it. Then the dental work, Doug’s jaw needing rewiring, a whole raft of restructuring and realignment…. Jeeeeeesus.
Frank jumped back from the grill, the steaks spitting molten fat. He rubbed his forearm as he reached in with the fork to turn the steaks, their undersides smouldering, blood still bubbling topside. Frank making the leap, it was Frank on the grill being charred.
‘Gen? Gen hon?’ Frank cupped his mouth, aimed for the kitchen. ‘Gen!’
She appeared at the window. Frank made a drinking motion, as if he were holding a bottle of beer. Gen nodded, then made precisely the same gesture, except she waggled her tongue in her cheek. Frank swore and turned back to the grill, poking desultorily at the steaks and wincing as globs of fat flew.
The real problem, Frank knew, wasn’t that Doug was going to ring; it was that Doug hadn’t yet made the call. That meant he was genuinely out of commission, flat-out fucked in ICU, or was keeping his powder dry, holed up with some shyster buddy putting together a dynamite civil action case against Oakwood that would, at the very least, see Frank’s membership ripped up and thrown out.
Except, if Frank was Doug, he’d be bunkered in with Bryan right now plotting a civil actio
n against Oakwood and how best to pursue Doug for damages. Frank couldn’t even ring the hospital, for Chrissakes; making the call was as good as admitting liability, signing on the dotted line. And Frank was afraid to call Bryan, in case Bryan was Doug’s shyster lawyer of choice.
So Frank paced and sweated and worried until the steaks were charred beyond recovery, then went inside and rang for pizza. Then, hoping against hope, he rang the hospital.
‘I’m sorry,’ the receptionist intoned, ‘but I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.’
‘But I’m family,’ Frank said. ‘His brother.’
‘And this is why you can’t tell me your name.’
‘I’m, ah, the black sheep. There was a falling out.’
‘In that case, I suggest you contact another family member and fall back in quick smart.’
‘Is he that bad?’
‘Like I said, I can’t say.’
Frank swore and slammed down the phone, already tugging his wallet free, trying to remember the guy’s name. Tony, he thought, dialling the number, peering at the scrap of paper. No, Tommy. Tucker? Tommy Tucker?
The phone brr-brr’d. Sweat coursed down Frank’s back, leaving his skin cold and clammy. Feeling nauseous now, the sensation he got in his nightmares when he realised he’d taken one step too close to the edge of the cliff and was already pitching forward, spiralling away down into a black void.
Terry? Terry….
Brr-click. ‘Yeah?’
‘Terry? Terry, it’s me, Frank.’
‘Fuck.’
Karen
They’d had a Chinese and tidied away the cartons, washed up and opened a cold bottle of white when it finally arrived, just before the movie came on, Taxi Driver, Karen a De Niro fan even though Rossi liked him too.
She came back in from the bathroom saying: ‘Ray? Listen, no offence, but if you’re thinking of staying over you should know those painters have finally turned up.’
Karen explaining how she wasn’t squeamish as such, she just couldn’t help feeling unsexy, tired and drained, a little bloated. So she was relieved when Ray said those three little words she’d been hoping to hear, ‘Okay by me,’ Ray shrugging it off like he was surprised she thought it’d be a big deal, scooching over on the couch to make room for Karen to cuddle up.
Now, the movie over and sprawled on the couch, lying back on Ray, Karen couldn’t help but notice that no matter where she looked there was some of him, the guy wide as well as tall. Tom Waits on the stereo, Closing Time, Karen blissed on pills and white wine and a drag or two on Ray’s joint. She said: ‘I should probably tell you about my father.’
‘That’s okay. You already told me.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Ray. I mean, after he got out.’
‘Oh.’
‘By now he’s got religion. “Oldest one in the Good Book,” he says. I mean, the guy’s telling jokes. This excuse for a crippled frog, he’s killed my mother, and now he’s cracking wise.’
‘Karen, you don’t need to ––’
But Karen felt she did. She’d brought her father in, sat him down in a comfortable armchair, then went to the kitchen and came back with a steak-knife.
He didn’t panic. He just told her that she’d be as bad as him if she tried it, and he didn’t want that because he’d repented and repenting means acknowledging the sin, its enormity, the consequences. He knew in his heart that no matter what the priests said he was doomed to burn; his wickedness was beyond God’s salvation, may God forgive him for saying it. All he craved was Karen’s forgiveness, and for what he’d done to Karen, not her mother, because that mercy wasn’t Karen’s to give. Not that being forgiven would save him, but at least his daughter’s pardon would be a pure, cool drop in an eternity of pain.
‘And that’s all you want,’ Karen’d said.
‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘It’s a lot to ask.’
‘Not at all. You can have it.’ Karen seeing the light in his eyes, the hope rising. ‘The day Mum touches my face again,’ she said, ‘you’ll have it.’ Then slashed him across the eyes with the steak-knife….
‘Christ,’ Ray said. ‘You blinded him?’
‘He ducked,’ Karen said. ‘I split him across the forehead instead. But what I was thinking after was, I should’ve allowed him to stay over and let him fall asleep.’
‘I was hoping you’d have brought him to see Anna.’
‘And what – poison her?’
‘Fair point.’ He kissed the back of her hand. ‘Listen, when I asked the other night if you’d forked anyone else ––’
‘It was steak-knife, Ray.’
‘See, that’s what I’m wondering. Do I need to go through every kitchen utensil, ruling them out one by one?’
Karen smiled, then grew serious again. ‘Ray, what you have to appreciate is ––’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t have to understand anything.’
Karen tingled. ‘That’s cute, Ray. It really is, and I hear what you’re trying to say. But you couldn’t understand anyway, even if you wanted to.’
‘Why’s that – I’m not a woman? I don’t have feminine intuition or some shit?’
Karen took a deep breath, let it out slow. ‘You’re not an orphan, Ray. Y’know? You can go home any time you want, see your mother and father. You’ve got brothers, sisters…. Want to know how many Christmas cards I got last year? Two. One from Madge, the other from Frank, and I only got that one because I’m the one types up his mail-shot.’
‘Except,’ Ray said, nodding along, ‘I don’t go home that often.’
‘But that’s your choice. It’s a whole different thing when it’s your choice.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, there’s no brothers or sisters.’
‘I thought you said ––’
‘I was adopted, Karen. And Ma and Pa Brogan – they’re nice people, don’t get me wrong. But they didn’t adopt until after they’d tried everything else, which meant they were pushing fifty by the time I was ten. It was like having grandparents, not parents. Not that it was their fault, I’m not blaming anyone. But still, it was fucked up. And maybe I don’t understand it all, not the way you’d like me to. But I’ve accepted it.’
‘So why’d you lie? About having brothers and sisters?’
Ray reached his smokes off the coffee table, lit two and handed one to Karen. He exhaled, saying: ‘Same reason you got the eye-patch for Anna.’
‘How is that the same thing?’
‘Think about it. You might be surprised.’
‘I already told you, I don’t like surprises. Although,’ she went on, ‘that was cute last night, with the truffles. How’d you know I like Belgian chocolate?’
‘I thought everyone,’ Ray said slowly, ‘likes Belgian chocolate.’
‘They’re still in the fridge. Want some?’ Karen stood up and drank off the last of her wine. ‘I need to get some more plonk anyway. Want a beer?’
‘Sure. And Karen?’ Karen paused in the doorway, something different in his voice; Ray looking anxious, perturbed. ‘While we’re being honest and all, there’s something you should probably know.’
‘About what?’
‘Madge.’
Madge
Stoooooooned. Like, totally fried, seeing double and laughing at her reflection, saying to the hall mirror: ‘You talkin’ to me?’
Catching her reflection on the way to the kitchen, Madge with a bad case of the munchies, riffing now off the guy from the movie she’d watched on TV, some basket-case with a Mohawk waving guns around and talking to his mirror. ‘I don’t see anyone else here,’ she said sternly, then giggled.
‘You think that’s funny?’ Mirror-Madge said, sounding a little prissy to Madge. ‘I mean, is that supposed to be funny?’
‘Yep,’ Madge said, and dissolved into another fit of giggles.
‘See,’ Mirror-Madge said, ‘it might be funny. Y’know? If there was anyone else here, there’s every chance it’d be funny. But there’
s no one else here.’
Madge, straightening out, giggles subsiding, said: ‘I don’t get you.’
‘For something to be funny, it needs an audience. Like a tree falling in a forest. If there’s no one around to hear the punchline, how can we know it’s funny?’
‘I’m laughing,’ Madge said, even though she wasn’t, was feeling suddenly ratty, paranoid.
‘You’re stoned. Stoned and alone. On a Saturday night.’
‘So what? I can’t sit in on a Saturday night? There’s a law against that now?’
‘No law,’ Mirror-Madge conceded. ‘No actual law. But a crime doesn’t have to break any laws to be wrong.’
‘I’m a criminal? For not going out on a Saturday fucking night?’
‘Let me put it this way. Audra, yeah? She’s sitting in the hospital right now talking to a vegetable. But at least if she wants to she can reach out and squeeze a hand that has a pulse. You don’t even own a cat.’
‘There’s a point to all this?’
‘Try this. How do you feel – honestly, now – about Jeanie and Liz going off to college?’
Madge considered. ‘Like someone broke into the aquarium and freed the sharks.’
‘That’s all? You don’t envy them just a little bit?’
‘Maybe. A little.’
‘Okay, now we’re talking. What about Karen?’
‘Sure, I’m jealous. Is that what you want to hear? She’s keeping company tonight, so I’m jealous.’
‘Bullshit. You’re not jealous of Karen at all, are you? I mean, even if she’s lucky and the guy comes good, she’s facing thirty years of heartbreak and grief. Am I right? Ray turning out like Frank, the way they always do, chasing everything in a skirt, Christ, everything except men in kilts. And then there’s that baby you gave away, the one with the weird name. What’d you call him?’
Madge, feeling it all bubble up hot as lava, said: ‘You’re one dead-hearted bitch, Madge Dolan.’
Mirror-Madge nodded, pleased. ‘At last, we’re getting somewhere. Now – what about Frank?’
