The Pink Cage

by Derbhile Dromey

  The pole came out of nowhere. The car juddered into it with a sickening crunch. My head pitched forward, bumped off the steering wheel. When I straightened up, my shades fell on the floor. Laser beams assaulted my eyes. I bent forward and began to grope for my shades. They were on the floor under the brake, cracked in half.

  “Shit,” he screamed.

  As I straightened up, he grabbed my arms. His fingers dug into my flesh.

  “Get out of my car, you stupid bitch.”

  Dazed, I pushed open the door and wobbled out of the car. The bonnet was bent out of shape, the metal twisting in odd directions. He got out too.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a small voice.

  “What are you, blind?”

  Some of the others came up to us. The air was thick with expletives.

  “We better split,” one of them said. “Bet the guards’ll come.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he replied. “Get the lads to collect it in the morning.”

  The others began to climb back into their cars. It took me a moment to realise that the cars were full.

  “What about me?”

  Fear made my voice squeak. It sounded pathetic.

  “Should have thought of that before you trashed my car.”

  They drove off, their brakes squealing. I leaned against the wrecked car, trying to steady my wobbling legs. My brain scrambled for figures to calculate the amount of time needed to reach my house. If I walked fast, I stood a reasonable chance of arriving before Matthew sought me out for our morning swim. As I summoned up strength for the journey, another light dazzled me. Tyres crunched as a car came to a stop. Two figures climbed out, moved towards me.

  “We received reports of a disturbance,” one said.

  There was a flash of luminous yellow. The guards, as predicted.

  “Did you crash this car?” the second figure asked.

  I nodded.

  “You’d better come with us.”

  They were arresting me. Least I didn’t have to worry about walking home. I stumbled forward and cannoned into one of them. He steadied me.

  “Easy now,” he said. “Have you been drinking?”

  I shook my head.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He held out a clear plastic bag and told me to breathe into it as hard as I could. When I finished, he said,

  “Well, at least that’s clear anyway.”

  Then he gripped me firmly by the elbow and led me to the squad car.

  The lights in the station burned my eyes. I tried to create a shield with my hand, but it was ineffective. They brought me into a room which contained only chairs and a table, an interrogation room. They sat opposite me and asked me questions about what we were doing in the carpark. I kept my answers brief. Their pens scratched the paper.

  Then they handed me a form to fill out. I hunched over the piece of paper. It was divided into sections asking me to fill in my name, age, address and phone number. I filled in the blanks with painstaking strokes. The letters refused to land on the dotted lines; they spider-crawled across the page. My head came to rest on the pen. Their eyes were on me the whole time as I formed the letters. The pen hovered over the question about my date of birth. I decided to risk writing my real date of birth; after all, I was in my 17th year.

  “Not exactly Sherlock Holmes, are you,” I said, as I pushed the form towards them. “This all you can manage by way of investigation?”

  One of them, the guard who brought me to the car, slapped the piece of paper down in front of me. He was young, with bristling dark hair.

  “You forgot to sign your name,” he said.

  I tried to find the place where I was supposed to sign. The letters swam in front of me.

  “At the bottom,” the other guard said.

  He was older, with hair a similar colour to Matthew’s.

  “Now, do you think you could tell us why you were behind the wheel of that vehicle?” said the young guard.

  “Driving it.”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  “But you don’t have a licence, do you?”

  “So?”

  “It says here you’re 16.”

  Their mathematical ability was greater than I imagined.

  “You know we could charge you for being an unlicensed driver, underage.”

  “Whatever. Go right ahead.”

  I tried to swallow the hot, sour ball of panic that rose in my throat. The younger guard stretched his hands behind his head.

  “You haven’t driven before, have you?”

  “Course I have. Lots of times.”

  The older guard decided to intervene.

  “You didn’t see that pole, did you?”

  His voice was gentle. I heard the pity in it and flinched.

  “It was dark. What do you expect?”

  “Well that’s funny,” the younger guard said. “It’s the only one in the car park.”

  There was a sneer in his voice.

  “It’s a great big red yoke. You’d want to be blind to miss it.”

  “I can assure you I’m not blind.”

  I kept my voice tight and clipped, forcing the words past the ball in my throat.

  “Can you see that poster in the left-hand corner?” said the older guard.

  I looked in the corner he indicated. It took a while for the zoom in my eyes to locate a blue and green poster covered in black writing. Below the writing, I saw the outline of a car.

  “Can you read what it says?” the older guard asked.

  “Yeah. It’s road safety stuff.”

  Figured I could bluff it out.

  “Tell us what’s on it,” said the younger guard.

  The glaring lights in the room bounced off the poster, turning the letters into hieroglyphs. My shoulders slumped. The air hissed out of my body.

  “Thought as much,” the older guard said. “Right. I think it’s time to call your parents. And you’d want to be careful picking your friends in future, all right?”

  They directed me to the waiting room and offered me tea, which I refused. I sat on a plastic chair, grateful that at least I could now shut my eyes. They continued their hummingbird flutter behind my eyelids. I was unable to stop shivering. The chair welded itself to my bare legs. My shades were still in my hand; the pointed ends dug into my flesh. I braced myself for Matthew, flinging open the door of the station, bellowing with rage, or for Ora, full of gentle reproach and promises of herbal tea. But it was Jazz who came through the door. The older guard went up to him and talked to him in a low voice. Then Jazz came over to me and held out his hand. I took it and hauled myself up. My legs made a soft sucking noise as I peeled myself off the chair.

  “My shades broke,” I whispered.

  Tears sprang out of my eyes and slid down my cheeks. I covered my face with my hand. This was just too random. I waited for Jazz to say I told you so. But he just covered my shoulders with his leather jacket.

  “Come on, let’s get you home,” he said.

  We left the station, his arm around my shoulder. Nestled against his substantial warmth, my shivering began to ease.

  “Anyway, the locals come up for the disco Saturday nights,” Martin was saying. “They love all that bleep-bleep music.”

  My stomach lurched, as Martin negotiated a steep bend.

  “You won’t have to do it for long. Just 10.00pm until 12.00pm. The Austrians like to go to bed early.”

  I stared out at the purple sky. A text flashed into my mind. My own 2hr set. I reached into my pocket, but it was empty. No point sending it anyway.

  Franzi’s hall was a squat building, a typical ski chalet, whitewashed like all the others. Inside, the walls were lined with dark woo
d. A bare lightbulb above my head cast a weak glow; the dim light was welcome, a break from the coruscating glare of the ski slopes. The room was almost devoid of furniture, apart from a bar counter and a few warped tables propped up against the walls. A set of antediluvian decks perched on top of a rickety light system designed in the style of a ghetto blaster. The decks were vinyls. Not my natural medium. Finding the grooves was still a scramble. A table stood beside the decks, with two cardboard boxes underneath it that bulged with vinyl records. It was all very school-disco circa 1993. I was back at the apple farm barbecue with Jazz, as he held back the darkness with his beats.

  “Right then, I’ll leave you to it. Come back for you in two hours. That do you?”

  Martin’s voice dragged me from my reverie. I stared at him, dazed.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. Fine.”

  There was an obstruction in my throat; I swallowed it down and ignored the stinging behind my eyes. There was a job to be done.

  The two cardboard boxes awaited my inspection, treasure chests eager to spill their bounty. The weight of their cargo caused them to list to the side. I took the records out in blocks of 10 and isolated possibilities for the set. Jazz could play up to 15 records in an hour; his tunes came in short sharp bursts and were designed to set limbs flailing. My tunes meandered through soundscapes; a length of 8-10 minutes per tune was not uncommon. Jazz built his set on the bedrock of his 30-minute mix, played when the crowd’s euphoria was at its height. I didn’t have that luxury. Still, it was fortunate that there was so much to choose from.

  Without my monocle, I was forced to eyeball each of the records. There was a preponderance of the Complan-speed mix favoured by the ski-cafe owners: classic Euroschlock. Figured it was best to leave some of it in. You’ve got to give them what they want. Again, Jazz’s breath blew on my neck as I bent to lift out the piles of records. The air in the hall was thick with the mingled smells of creosoted wood and damp; the smell of the DJ Shack.

  Perhaps it’s Jazz’s fingers which excite me the most. They still carry a trace of fatboy pudge; the fingertips are soft and wide. These are the fingers that can create electric dreams at a stroke. They burrow under my Prism T-shirt and run down the length of my body, searching for my soft places, using the map of blue veins under my skin as a guide. They mould my ass, my narrow hips, my taut belly, the soft skin of my inner thigh. Sometimes they linger in the smooth place around my groin. They leave a trail of prickles, pinpoints of light which cause my skin to glow. With one touch, they peel away all my layers, yet somehow I never feel exposed.

  As I dug further, I stumbled upon electronic gems. Every Kraftwerk album known to man. Jackpot by Tocotronic, last played the night before I left. A rollcall of Scandinavian greats, Lali Puna, Amina, Jori Hulkonen. And early Sigur Rós bootlegs. I managed to resist the urge to bury my face in the piles of records and moan with pleasure.

  At the very bottom, I blew dust off some vintage records, weird central European electropop from the 80s, early 90s rave and hardcore. Pure Ementhal: 2 Unlimited, Snap, SL2, K-Klass. Jazz still rated Rhythm is a Mystery as one of his all-time favourite tunes; he always played it at Prism’s ‘Old-skool Nites’. No Massive Attack, but with so many riches to plunder, I didn’t feel the lack.

  Next, it was time to tackle the machinery. My fingers took me on a journey around speakers, wires, faders. I played with the buttons, listened for tiny gear changes in sound. At first, the wires were a jumble, but I was soon able to negotiate the maze. As I moved my fingers up and down, Jazz’s hands covered mine, his touch light and reassuring. Perhaps tiredness was making me fanciful, or the remains of last night’s vodka was still coursing through my system. Nonetheless, my movements became deft. The hall throbbed with sound; the wooden walls created a deep, lush acoustic. I worked the lights and watched pink, yellow, red and blue shapes dance on a crazy, wobbling orbit on the rough floor. The tidal wave of beats pulled me along until all the thoughts in my mind were crowded out.

  When the door to the hall opened, I was fading Enjoy the Silence by Depêche Mode into Running up that Hill by Kate Bush. Come on, Jazz; let me have this one, I muttered.

  “Talking to yourself, girlie?”

  I whipped my head around. Martin stood beside me, grinning. I lowered my head then removed the record from the decks and returned it through its case. My movements were deliberate and meticulous. I didn’t look up.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “You’re sounding good anyway.”

  The hall reverted to its drab, huddled self. Martin’s voice was amplified by the silence. I checked his words for hidden sarcasm. There didn’t appear to be any. Nonetheless, orange drink swamped my mouth.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I folded my arms.

  “Hate to disrupt an artist at work, but grub’s up.”

  “You’re early. You said two hours.”

  “I gave you an extra half-hour as it is. Looked in on you and you were bangin’ away to your heart’s content. Didn’t think it was right to stop you when you were in the groove.”

  I threw a last wistful glance at the records, then heaved myself out of the chair.

  Back at the hotel, I bypassed the bar, where the distant roars of the Cabbage Patch Kids could be heard. The stairs were steeper than ever. I showered, washed myself clean. When I returned to the bedroom, I put on my Prism T-shirt, crawled under the covers and stared at Jazz’s face until I could no longer see it. I listened to all of his mixes, even the Tiesto one which I despised. For once, my sleep was dreamless.

  White Knight

  My final day of skiing passed in a blur. I bombed down the steep slope until my legs tingled. We stopped only to neck down glasses of sparkling water. At two o’clock, Martin called it a day.

  “Best to end on a high,” he said. “Besides, you’ve got your hot gig tonight.”

  We stopped to eat in the cafe near the gondolas; then Martin drove me back to the hotel to change my clothes. I stared into the vast expanse of wardrobe, picked up garments and discarded them. They were tawdry now, stripped of their allure. I dug through the pile until I came upon my travelling clothes: the jeans and T-shirt, the faded jumper. They were a comfort blanket. I rested the jumper against my cheek and thought of Jazz in his black and white T-shirts, his camouflage gear. I composed a text,

  Got shit hot gear 4 lst nite. Hp u apprv.

  I hovered for a long time over the send button before I deleted it.

  I threw on my clothes, ran a desultory brush through my hair and a quick browse through my stock of shades. There didn’t seem any point to them where I was going, so I stuck to my glasses. I put on my overcoat, equipping myself for the ice-box air in Franzi’s hall; he didn’t appear to believe in insulation.

  The records were still in situ when I arrived at the hall, old friends waiting to greet me. A desk light with a button switch was now positioned beside the DJ decks. When I touched it, a cloud of dust rose up from it.

  “Where did that come from?” I said to Martin.

  “Franzi dug it up. Thought it might come in useful.”

  Words of protest bubbled on my tongue, but they refused to form sentences. It was something of a relief to avail of light that came at an angle, rather than shining straight into my face. Martin said something else which I didn’t catch. Then he was gone.

  I decided to refine my set, test it for meld and flow. Unlike Jazz, I liked my sets to be tight, calculated to the last second. I timed the rise and fall of the beats and listened for the subtle key changes which acted as markers to bring in the next tune. Yeah, that’s it, Jazz said each time I achieved a perfect fit. I shook my head from side to side, trying to shake off his voice, to convince myself it was fancy, but it was lodged in my brain. Some of the tunes I chose refused to flow into each other. I kept re
aching into my pocket for my phone, to seek Jazz’s advice, but it was always empty.

  It was Jazz who set up the gig at Eclectica. His recent appointment as resident at Prism meant that he was now at the centre of all the happenings in the dance music world. He heard that a warm-up DJ was being sought for a new electro night established to act as an alternative to the frenetic weekend party scene. The resident was a friend of a friend; Jazz let it be known that I was in the frame. My proofreading client base was expanding at a steady pace; I worked with a small publishing company and with a portfolio of academic clients acquired during my degree. But the prospect of my own DJ set was too tempting to relinquish. I compiled a 30-minute demo, submitted it and was summoned to deliver a two-hour test set. In front of real punters. For a solid week prior to the gig, I holed myself up in Jazz’s studio, tweaking, experimenting with various combinations, until the pads of my fingers were bruised and the beats became a blur. The set I chose veered towards the more mainstream end of my collection: Air, DJ Shadow, Zero 7, Daft Punk. But I wanted to demonstrate the diversity of my collection, so I tempted fate and added a few more obscure titles. The venue was aiming for a retro vibe, so the decks were old-skool Technics. No mp3 signal, no laptop screen to act as safety net.

  On the day of the set, I slotted the records with care into my briefcase, a handsome black leather number presented to me by Matthew and Ora on my successful entry into college. The records were in perfect symmetry; even the needle grooves were aligned with each other, to ensure ease of access.

  Jazz walked with me down the dim, derelict street to the club. He was due to go to a birthday party later with one of his nut-brown maidens, but he still planned to witness my launch. I wore black skinny jeans and a matching T-shirt with the word Jagged emblazoned on it in graffiti-style hot-pink letters.