I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo

by Nik Cohn

  So Johnny Angelo was soothed and, down in the Sunday morning market, he bought a fat black cat. Very sleek, very sly, with a purr of purest velvet evil, and Johnny brought it home in a luncheon box.

  Up in the attic, the canary was singing and the cat was purring and Johnny was taking pictures. Then the canary was eaten by the cat and the floor was covered with soft yellow fluff.

  The cat was not messy and the canary did not thrash its wings, did not make any sound. Stately in all its motions, this death was elegant and Johnny took many photographs of its reflection, he smiled.

  Sunshine came through the skylight. The bird disappeared without trace and the cat licked its chops, lay down in Johnny’s lap, and sunned itself. Its belly was full of good fresh meat and rumbled in contentment. Then Johnny lay down on the floor, his cheek was cushioned by feathers, so soft. He was wearing his gunbelt and his hair fell golden in his eyes. His fat black cat was purring.

  Johnny Angelo and the cat. Each morning, they went to school together. Johnny leading, the black cat following, and the cat sat on the grey school wall, waiting through the day until Johnny came out again. Then they went home to tea.

  They were happy.

  This cat was Johnny’s true servant and gave him its life. Then it began to steal for him. Sneaking through the market, it picked up liquorice sticks with lemon sherbet stripes, or musical ties with scarlet flats and sharps on a sky-blue background, or big fat turnip watches. Smooth operator, it used a look of perfect innocence and policemen stopped to stroke it, stall-holders threw it sprats.

  Big smug pussycat, it had great black eyes that glowed in the dark and it purred its velvet purr. Sitting on the school wall, it floated in heroic dreams of Johnny Angelo and it smiled. But then Johnny came out one afternoon and the cat was lying dead in the gutter. Some children had killed it with stones. Fat black cat that ate the bird that ate the flies and Johnny placed it in his luncheon box, buried it on the same bombsite where once he had buried his bright red suit.

  He didn’t cry. Sitting in the Doctor’s study, he downed a glass of blackcurrant cordial and he spread his hands out wide, a gesture of defeat. ‘They broke its legs,’ he said. ‘They cut out its tongue. They gouged out its eyes.’

  The Doctor was calm. Just like always, he was logical. ‘They killed one cat,’ he said. ‘You killed 50 flies.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Johnny Angelo, and he went away. This was the first obscenity that Johnny had ever uttered. It was not the first obscenity that he had ever thought, however, not by any means, and this was the truth; he planned revenge.

  He was 11 years old. Then he was almost 12. Sitting in the back room, he thought of his dead black cat and he polished his guns. Up in the attic, he dreamed of explosions.

  He went less often beyond the barbed-wire fence. The Doctor still had class, of course, and he still contained many mysteries but then, in the end, he only told stories. Swallowing gongons by the pound, he epitomised repose. Meanwhile, Johnny was hot for apocalypse.

  And nights, the alley was full of motorbikes, of black leather riders and the howling of the engines made the windows shake. A skull emblazoned on their backs, a silver crucifix dangling at their throats, the riders rode out in formation and Johnny approached their leader. ‘I am Johnny Angelo,’ he said. ‘Let me ride.’

  ‘No,’ said the rider.

  ‘Let me ride,’ said Johnny again, but the rider laughed and left him behind. When the motorbikes were gone, the silence hurt his ears. And one more time, he lay down in the back room and shut his eyes. ‘I’m leaving here,’ he said. ‘I’m going away.’

  One more time, no one replied.

  And Johnny stood out on the Doctor’s balcony, he looked down on the neighbourhood. ‘I’m sick of this,’ he said.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of going in circles.’

  ‘Of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny Angelo. ‘Of you.’

  The Doctor turned away. Inside his study, he opened up the honeypot and stuck his nose inside. Then the crystals flew up his nose and he sighed. ‘Sniff,’ said Johnny. ‘That’s all you ever do.’

  But the Doctor only smiled. It was no part of his philosophy to get himself involved in insults and retribution. Therefore, he floated in the honeypot and nothing else existed.

  Johnny wanted to hit him. White-faced, he came up close and hissed in the Doctor’s face. ‘Why are you hiding?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not hiding. I’m floating,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Get mad,’ Johnny said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because that would not be elegant.’

  Then Johnny went down in the docklands and he walked all night long. He was wearing high-heeled boots with silver spurs, a watch with five hands, a stetson hat. He stalked the shadows. He shot from the hip. And he was the phantom that lurks in the graveyard, the vampire that flies like a bat. The white face at the window, the black shape beyond the balustrade and, everywhere that he passed, he dealt out death.

  High above the waterfront, for instance, there was a disused church and this was the place where the tramps and the derelicts of the city stayed, surrounded by a graveyard wilderness.

  When Johnny Angelo walked between the tombstones, it was almost midnight and the derelicts were sleeping on the steps of the altar, wrapped in rags. There was a smell of methylated spirits, there was a smell of death. There were cripples and retards and perverts, winos and mongols. There were men with no legs and men with sightless eyes and men covered with sores, all scabrous and running with pus.

  Everywhere there was a terrible suffering.

  On all of this, Johnny Angelo looked without flinching. Soon he came closer and the vagrants had lit candles at the altar, candles that flickered in the wind.

  There was a man with no nose. He held a bottle of Sneaky Pete and, when Johnny Angelo stood over him, he opened his eyes. Then he saw the high-heeled boots, the studded gunbelt, the soft golden flesh. A phantom and a gunslinger, a vision of Death, almost 12 years old, and the man with no nose screamed out loud.

  Delirium tremens: the man with no nose threw his bottle at Johnny’s head. Then he saw serpents, he saw black snakes that crawled on his flesh, and cobras that sucked his blood, and pythons that crushed his bones, and he clawed at his own eyes, the candles flickered and all this time he screamed an endless scream like an air-raid siren.

  Then he rose up and he caught Johnny Angelo by the throat, meaning to throttle him. Then Johnny shot him with his pearl-handled Colt.

  The cap went bang and the man with no nose staggered backwards, clutching at his guts. On the altar steps, he fell down on his knees, his mouth fell open and his heart gave out. His eyes changed, his face filled up with blood. Then he died.

  Johnny Angelo had killed him.

  The candles still flickered on the altar steps, shadows raced throughout the church. One man was weeping. Another dreamed of death. And Johnny turned aside, his gun still smoking in his hand, and no one stopped him, he went away.

  Out in the graveyard, he sat on a tombstone and the wind tore at his flesh, he was cold. Child assassin, he was five foot exactly and he cleaned his gun, returned it to its holster.

  Then he thought of the honeypot.

  At dawn, he returned to the Doctor’s house and knocked on the door. No one replied. So he went inside and his footsteps echoed in the hallways. And when he entered the Doctor’s study, everything was arranged the same as before, except that the honeypot was gone and so were the four slouch hats. It was then that he knew the truth, that the Doctor had departed and would not return.

  He stood out on the balcony but he didn’t weep. One last time, he looked down on the neighbourhood and he saw his own street, his own house. Just once, he recalled the man with no nose, the way he had screamed, the wa
y his eyes had changed. Just once, he thought of the Doctor.

  Then he went out past the barbed-wire fence and he walked down Westmill Boulevard, all by himself.

  PART TWO

  Catsmeat

  At the age of 14, Johnny Angelo was a heart-throb. He had three-inch sideboards and he wore his hair swept high in a golden quiff, from which one lock detached itself and fell forward into his eyes. His smile was lopsided. And his mouth was full of the whitest teeth.

  This is what he wore: scarlet silken shirts, open at the neck, and tight torero pants: white kid shoes with golden buckles; a photograph of Elvis Presley right next to his heart; a silver crucifix. All over his neighbourhood, he was known as Speedoo.

  He was loved. Every morning, when he walked into class, all the little schoolgirls hung out of their windows and strained to catch a glimpse of him. Their skirts were rucked way up beyond their knees, their ponytails swung low. Waiting for Johnny Angelo, they scrawled his name in lipstick, one hundred times.

  He was also greatly hated. On the far side of the schoolyard, right opposite the girls, there were classrooms full of young boys. And the things that the girls so adored, the white kid shoes and the lopsided smile, these were the exact same things that the boys most abhorred.

  Each day, Johnny was late.

  Five minutes, then 10, then 15: he sauntered down slow and everyone waited. And he used a special walk, known as Shooting the Agate, where he hooked his thumbs inside his belt and he hunched his shoulders, he flicked his ankles out sideways at every step and, of course, there was a cigarette slouching from his bottom lip.

  When he came into the schoolyard, he carried his books in a luncheon box, tied up in red braces, and he moved very slow, not looking to left or to right.

  On one side of the schoolyard, the young girls stretched out their arms and pelted him with Jelly Babies; on the other, the boys took aim with their pea-shooters and shot him right between his eyes. Either way, Johnny kept on walking still.

  But when he reached the portals, right before he disappeared, he half-turned. For the girls and the boys alike, he let one small smile flicker in the corner of his mouth, he let one hand trail behind him, fingers outstretched, and he Shot the Agate.

  Somebody screamed.

  Then he was gone.

  During break, he sat on the schoolyard wall and young girls surrounded him. They did not speak to him or touch him but they stood a few yards distant, giggling, pinching each other or simply staring. Then he went back to the classroom and there were poems hidden in his desk:

  Johnny Angel,

  How I love him –

  I’d do anything

  To let him know.

  And Johnny was formal, polite. But in the end, he only smiled and turned away, returning to the centrespreads of Playboy Magazine, women who filled his dreams.

  He bought a pair of blue suede shoes and they filled his life. Sitting at the back of the classroom, he put his feet up on the radiator and he couldn’t stop staring, his eyes were dazzled by blue and these shoes had pointed toes, sharp steel tips, pure white stitching. In every detail, they were perfection and the way that Johnny felt for them, it was like nothing since his fat black cat.

  Each night, he spent 30 minutes cleaning them with a soft felt brush, one hundred strokes with his left hand, one hundred strokes with his right. Then he wrapped them in chamois leather and took many pictures of their reflections. And the time came soon when he didn’t even wear them but carried them around in his luncheon box, tied up in red braces.

  When nobody was looking, he took them out and held their softness against his cheek. He was happy then. But one morning he came into class and dirty words were scrawled on the blackboard: Goodbye Blue Suede Shoes.

  Sure enough, the afternoon arrived when Johnny was working out in the swimming baths, diving off the high-board, swooping like a swallow, and then he came back into the changing rooms and the blue suede shoes were destroyed. They had been scuffed and splayed and spat upon, abused in every way imaginable and, scarred across the toes with a rusty penknife, there was an epitaph, as follows:

  Adios Amigo.

  Then a certain ritual was established, by which Johnny’s enemies hid up an alley and each afternoon, when he walked home from school, they jumped out and hit him.

  Each morning, he was screamed at; in the afternoon, he was beaten up. But Catsmeat truly loved him.

  Who was Catsmeat?

  Catsmeat was a mental deficient, who wore orange fluorescent socks, and he was an albino, with flesh as shapeless and soggy as sourdough. And one morning, when he leaned out of his window, he saw Johnny Angelo come into the schoolyard and he saw the blue suede shoes, the scarlet shirt, the crucifix, and Johnny half-turned, half-smiled, one lock of his hair fell over his eyes and his mouth was full of the whitest teeth. And Catsmeat said nothing but turned aside and he wept.

  Inside the gymnasium, Johnny turned circles on the horizontal bar, beautiful slow parabolas, and Catsmeat watched him through the window, his nose splayed flat against the glass. He had a crewcut, he had pink piggy eyes. Every time that Johnny passed through a door, it was Catsmeat who held it open.

  But Johnny didn’t notice, he was busy thinking of his bright red suit, his blue suede shoes, his fat black cat. He combed his hair in the mirror. He practised his lopsided smile. He sat on the schoolyard wall, reading Elvis Monthly, and young girls surrounded him but he felt no lust, he went to the movies instead.

  High in the second balcony, he sat in the dark and he watched Brigitte Bardot, her breasts and her thighs, her golden flesh. All through the afternoon, he sat without moving and her image flickered on the screen and this was the real thing, he travelled in her dream.

  On his way home, he was ambushed and his blood flowed, while Catsmeat hid round the corner, and watched and wept.

  Then it was a winter afternoon and Johnny walked home from school, waiting to get hit. It had been snowing and the streets were covered in slush, everything was slippery. Nonetheless, he Shot the Agate and his ankles flicked out sideways.

  Catsmeat followed him.

  The albino suffered from fallen arches and his legs were very short. Therefore, while Johnny floated up front, Catsmeat was struggling along in his wake, floundering in the wet, and three times he fell down on his back, where he trundled like an overturned turtle. But he persevered. Gasping, he broke into a trot and he waved his arms and, finally, he reached Johnny’s side. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Can I walk with you?’

  ‘No,’ said Johnny Angelo.

  Two blocks up front, all of Johnny’s enemies were waiting in an alley, packing snowballs. Meanwhile Catsmeat was desperate, he kept slipping and scrambling, he fell down and got up again, and he clutched at Johnny’s sleeve. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’

  Right then, the schoolboys jumped out of the alley and the first of the snowballs flew past Catsmeat’s ear. His pink eyes opened wide and he stood still just one second. Then he charged.

  All soggy and shapeless, he ploughed along the pavement and straight into the alley, where snowballs smashed him at point-blank range. Still he kept going and he hit the schoolboys like a giant exploding doughnut, he bowled them over like skittles and they all fell down in the slush.

  Then Catsmeat turned back towards Johnny, still running as he fell, his fat face ecstatic, and everyone rose up and covered him, everyone started to hit.

  As for Johnny Angelo, he walked on by.

  Awopbopaloobop

  When Johnny Angelo was 15, he went away from home. Up in the attic, he left behind the full-length mirror, the camera and the many turnip watches, all the things of his childhood, and he found a room in Bogside.

  On the night that Johnny left, his father was working on his allotment, planting Sweet Williams, and it was February, foggy and dank. Johnny zigzagged through
the cabbage patch, suitcase in his hand, and his father was sitting on an orange box, reading the paper, and there was a dying bonfire at his feet. Everything was damp and Johnny was embarrassed. ‘I’m leaving now,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’

  They shook hands across the fire. For just one moment, they looked at each other and some current passed between them, some spasm of recognition. Then Johnny turned aside, and went on back through the cabbage patch.

  His father sat by the fire and read the paper.

  And the place that Johnny Angelo moved to was a cold-water room on Cable Street, 11 foot by 8. There was a bed, a table, a chair and, on the wall, a picture of Elvis Presley. There was a wino next door and someone dying across the hall. There were many cats on the stairs.

  Twice a week, Catsmeat came in and scrubbed the floor. He made the bed, dusted the mantelpiece, washed out Johnny’s underwear. He continued to polish for a full hour and then, when everything was spotless, he started all over.

  Meanwhile, in the caff across the street, Johnny sat close to the jukebox and the waitress had a crush on him. Every time that she passed him, she rubbed her breasts against his arm and Johnny smiled politely. In return, she let him play the jukebox for free and these were the records that he preferred: Sweet Little Sixteen and Maybelline, Long Tall Sally and Yakety Yak and Chantilly Lace, Great Balls of Fire and Johnny B.Goode.

  Rock and roll music.

  On December 21st, 1956 Johnny had walked down Waterloo Place and, inside an amusement arcade, he’d seen Little Richard singing Tutti Frutti on the scopitone.

  He’d placed a nickel in the slot, he’d put his eye up close against the hole and Little Richard was there, a man in a baggy suit with trousers like a tent, 26 inches at the bottoms, and his hair back-combed in a pompadour, and he stood knock-kneed at a piano, pounding away with both fists, and he howled like a wolf, roared like a bull.