As Above, So Below

by Richard Lawther

  Alex woke up, leaned forward, scratched his shin and inspected the body lying by his side.

  The large, white, fleshy back poked up from the covers but remained completely still; above it was an equally stationary mass of black hair. Maybe she was dead. Alex continued to watch but failed to see any sign of life. He eased his way out of the bed and made for the small, grubby bathroom.

  His reflection eyed him from the other side of the mirror: the same big eyes, big nose and big mouth as the previous night. Luckily Alex had a big head, he was adequately handsome. As for the rest of him: naturally large framed, recent work in a gym had begun to build up muscle in impressive amounts. When he reached forty he would have to watch that gut, but at this moment, aged twenty-one, his stomach only slightly bulged and remained muscular, hard.

  He returned to the main room and once again inspected the entity in his bed. It made a grunt and showed an arm – not dead after all, never mind. He got dressed, shoved a few files and books into a carrier bag and silently stepped outside, thankful not to have woken his girlfriend, Bridgett. She had to go, he decided. Another problem to add to the list.

  Alex stood outside his house, allowing the sharp April sunshine to warm his face as he tried to decide what to do next. It was after 10.30 and he’d already missed the first of two morning lectures. If he wanted to make it to the university in time for the second, he’d have to get a move on. But he didn’t feel like rushing today; he considered skipping the lecture.

  He’d always struggled with his physics degree, there was so much work: assessments, practicals, lectures, projects – exams. As usual he’d fallen badly behind on all fronts, but now time was finally running out. It was the closing stages of the third and final year and if he stood any chance of successfully completing his degree he’d have to change his habits and simply work. That was asking a lot – too much – but despite all the odds he had made it this far; to fail now would be a disaster and a disgrace, it would fulfil his recurring nightmares.

  His course was one reason for feeling miserable today, but there were others: his money – or lack of it, for example. Despite the occasional bar-work, Alex, in common with most other students, remained wholly incapable of controlling the level of his debt; and the bank had begun to take an active interest, threatening to impose a draconian allowance system, like he was a bankrupt! They wanted to see him:

  ‘Where has all the money gone, Mr Stanton?’

  Lots of places ... the drugs were expensive...

  Therein lay another problem:

  A recent newspaper feature concerning the problems faced by long-term Ecstasy users had revealed the drug in a new light. And this troubled him more than the usual scare-stories of sudden schoolgirl death. He knew how his body handled E and wasn’t afraid of sudden death, but this new evidence – of Ecstasy-induced brain damage – was more difficult to dismiss.

  Apparently, it was claimed, Ecstasy damaged the brain’s serotonin receptors, thus committing the chronic user to a lifetime of intractable depression. Not surprisingly the paper had reported several case studies: grim stories about the lives of sad young people as they cascaded down into depression and mental illness.

  One bloke looked just like Alex...

  But top of the blues chart, and top by a considerable margin, was the news that his close friend, Geoff Christie, had fallen into a stroke-induced coma. Alex firmly closed his eyes and held his face to the warm sun. It was almost too much to contemplate. Geoff was only twenty! How could this have happened!? How could someone so young suffer something like a stroke?

  So unfair that this would happen to Geoff, a popular kid; he could be overly argumentative at times, but he stayed likeable despite that; he could be clumsy around girls, but they seemed to like him too. Despite his faults – and he had them – everyone seemed to cut Geoff some slack. Was it a natural charm? Maybe. Even Frank, the union’s dodgy Pit-bull mascot – whose daft idea was that? – became noticeably less rabid when Geoff was about. Alas, there would be no further opportunities to work this questionable charm; Geoff’s outlook was bleak, his condition, probably irreversible.

  Alex still lingered outside his house, weighed down by an indistinct but all-pervading melancholy. Across the road stretched the largely featureless expanse of Moor Park, one of many large parks in Preston. At the opposite corner stood an observatory used by the university’s astronomy students, but apart from that, Moor Park, as the name suggested, offered little of interest... He looked up the street, to his right, and saw Deepdale, the home of Preston North End Football Club. He’d recently joined the supporters’ club, but only to play snooker. When had he last been to see a match? As he studied the white arches of the stadium he vowed to turn up for the next home game.

  A quick glance back at his house. The neighbour’s young grey-and-white cat, Gil, sat on the garden wall.

  ‘Hello, Gil, how are ya doing, fella?’ Alex located a dust-impregnated peanut from the lining of his jacket pocket and offered it to the cat. Gil ran off, unimpressed.

  Daft cat, thought Alex, as he threw the peanut away.

  So, what to do? What... to... do?

  This spell of sombre introspection had killed off any lingering desire to go into college today: dealing with his tutors, and their probing questions concerning his absenteeism was the last thing he needed right now. On the contrary, his mood needed a leg up.

  He looked down the street, to the left: Hammer lived down that way.

  He’d call on Hammer.

  Hammer lived in a large terraced house a few minutes walk from Alex’s. On the face of it, he was just another student at the university, but he never seemed to do any work. Alex wasn’t even sure what course Hammer did – graphic design? – something like that.

  Hammer’s real vocation was pharmacy. Directly or indirectly, he supplied most of the drugs that Preston students consumed. To strangers, he appeared to be the archetypal cool dude, but people who knew him better saw a temperamental side to his personality.

  Alex reached Hammer’s house and knocked on the door.

  After a lengthy delay, and a further knock, an enthusiastic Hammer finally opened the door.

  ‘Heyy – Alex Stanton – how goes it, friend?’

  Hammer claimed to be of mixed blood: Qatari, Celtic, and a dash of Icelandic. His features generally displayed the best of what these races had to offer. The cheekbones and nose were Arabic; the red-brown hair and large expressive mouth – Scottish; the striking amber eyes might perhaps have been a joint effort ... The woolly hat probably came from Iceland.

  ‘Fine, man, just fine, how’s yourself?’

  ‘Cool – as always – come in.’

  Alex followed his host into the ground-floor lounge. Hammer’s house, too spacious and too flashy to be considered a typical student digs, should have been occupied by at least five people, but Hammer just shared this place with one other bloke – an older guy, not a student – and he was virtually never there.

  Alex, after briefly eyeing the room, flopped down on the settee.

  ‘So, my friend, is this just a social call?’ asked Hammer.

  Alex reached into his pocket and retrieved a packet of cigarettes. ‘Yeah, social call, but I do need some gear, I’m on a real downer at the moment.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s up, man?’

  Where to start? Whether to start?

  ‘Well,’ Alex lit up a cigarette, ‘all sorts of things – my course is a ball-ache–’

  ‘What is it you do? Physics?’ interrupted Hammer.

  ‘Yeah–’

  ‘That’s tough.’ Hammer shook his head.

  ‘It’s tough alright, but no, it’s not really that that’s bothering me, it’s the business with Geoff Christie – you remember him? He came round here one time with me, we all smoked some White Russian.’

  ‘Yeah I remember – that’s the geezer in a coma, right?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Alex remembered that Geoff had been uncharacteristicall
y quiet, wary of Hammer, who had been characteristically boisterous.

  A brief silence followed. It was a waste of time talking through his problems with Hammer who seemed barely interested. And Hammer certainly couldn’t help in any practical sense ... except, of course, for the sombre mood...

  ‘So, my friend, what’s going to break through this gloom?’ asked Hammer.

  ‘I need some E and some weed – got any of that haze?’

  ‘No problem, remain reclined, I’ll see what the postman’s brought.’ Hammer grinned, rubbed his hands together and ran off, bound for some mysterious nether-region of the house.

  Spirits raised at the anticipation of getting stoned, Alex looked up and re-studied the room.

  A chess-set sat atop a coffee table, the positions of the stone pieces suggesting that a game might be in progress. Who could Hammer’s opponent be? It could be anyone. On further reflection, maybe it wasn’t even a real game; knowing Hammer, it was just laid out for show – something to impress the punters.

  An attractive woman, wearing nothing but a pink towel, walked silently into the room; she was in her mid-twenties, blonde and...

  The image of inanimate Bridgett, in his bed, went through Alex’s mind.

  The woman, ignoring Alex, walked slowly towards the kitchen and stopped at the door; she leaned forward and peered in. Finding the kitchen empty she turned around and looked at Alex. Alex gazed back.

  ‘Haammeeeeee,’ she drawled.

  ‘Yeah,’ came the distant reply.

  The woman stood on her toes and pouted, but said nothing more. She glanced back at Alex and then glided back to her point of origin. Exit stage right.

  Alex waited patiently and listened to the distant sounds of clattering and banging. It sounded like heavy objects were being dragged over linoleum floor. What the hell was Hammer up to? He was taking his time.

  Eventually Hammer returned. ‘Sorry about the delay, amigo, got so much junk up there, I gotta do a spring clean one of these days.’ He sat down on the floor and displayed his wares: A bag of sensimilla marijuana and a tin of cannabis resin fragments, maybe three or four ounces in total. Also on display, some bags of research chemicals, aka legal highs, now illegal. Next to them, the ecstasy tablets, these ones had pentagrams embossed on the top. Alex picked up the bag of Es and studied them more closely.

  ‘Pure MDMA,’ remarked Hammer, ‘much better than the usual crap we get around here, this stuff was manufactured in Germany.’

  Alex examined the weed. ‘How much is here?’

  ‘Quarter,’ replied Hammer, ‘fifty quid, say forty-five.’

  ‘That’s a bit steep!’

  ‘Utopia Haze, my friend. Doesn’t get any better.’

  Alex peered into his wallet and frowned. ‘Look, I don’t want the Es now, I’ve changed my mind. I’m trying to wean myself off the stuff,’ Hammer seemed nonplussed, ‘but the weed, I’ll take. Problem is I’ve only got fifteen quid. Will you extend my credit line?’

  ‘Yeah, give me the fifteen and you can owe me twenty-five, special spring-sale discount.’

  Alex took the bag of marijuana and handed over the fifteen pounds; Hammer made a note of the transaction in his little red book.

  ‘Stick around,’ said Hammer, ‘try the haze, roll up with these.’ He threw some cigarette papers at Alex. ‘You want a coffee?’

  At Preston, Alex moved within varied circles. At one extreme was Hammer along with his many drugged-up, loved-up friends: a circle of misfits and oddballs – it bothered Alex that he fitted in so well.

  At the opposite socio-fringe resided the geeks of the SF Soc. The SF men generally looked and acted like Bill Gates, while the SF women generally looked and acted like the men. It also bothered Alex that he fitted in here so well.

  He was also a member of the Climbers And Ramblers Society. Trips to the Lake District or Snowdonia were organized for most Sundays and he turned up for these whenever he remembered, which, these days, was virtually never: this clean-living pursuit had always struck him as incongruous to the student ethos: get pissed, get stoned, get laid. Despite his love for the hills, instilled at a very early age, Alex never felt comfortable in the company of his earnest fellow ramblers.

  He had been a student for a long time, long enough to discern the contrived nature of university clubs. Gone were the hateful days of fresherdom, when the rush to establish new acquaintances and networks had so shockingly failed to yield any worthwhile friendships. During that first term Alex had been dismayed to find his social circle consisting almost solely of wankers and hangers-on.

  A certain amount of ‘shedding off’ had been required, and by the second term of the first year student life really began to hit its stride: a seemingly endless round of clubbing and parties.

  But that was over two years ago.

  Today, even the ‘student ethos’ was wearing a bit thin. Friendships had become fewer, but more valued.

  A gradual process, no doubt one shared by many other students, but these days he only truly appreciated the company and opinions of a handful of intimates. His girlfriend, Bridgett, could be included in this group – even though she was getting on his tits at the moment – so too could one or two members of his own course. And then let’s not forget Geoff – someone he’d come to view as a surrogate kid-brother – but he’d been struck down, struck down by the cruellest of fates.

  Alex stared down at his open joint...

  ‘How’s it going..? Hammer returned with two coffees. ‘You’ve not put much in, man!’

  ‘I know, I’ve got to go into college later – I’m behind with some course work.’

  ‘Hmm,’ was all Hammer said. It was alright for him, Hammer never had backlogs, he never had any work at all.

  Alex rolled the joint, and lit up; he took a pull and passed it to Hammer. Hammer took a small drag and rolled the smoke around his open mouth allowing it to come out and re-enter via his nose. This came with a pained expression that seemed unnecessary.

  After a moment:

  ‘Good gear, init,’ said Hammer.

  Alex had to agree. He felt the distinctive haze mind-expansion take hold: more euphoric and longer-lasting than regular weed – this would have residual effects that lasted all day. Maybe he didn’t have to go into college after all. He activated Stanton Work Ethic, No 6: If you can’t afford to put it off any longer, put it off anyway – fuck it.

  ‘Stick some music on, Hammer.’

  Alex sat back, and prepared to spend a day in the clouds. The marijuana high had done its job and pushed his worries to the margins of his perception. But he knew they were still there, lurking somewhere.

  Back from oblivion...

  3