by John Shirley
“You should,” said the bird. “You should destroy America. It’s a dump. I hate it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a fucking dump.”
“Maybe I’ll come to England,” the bird said.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “It’s a dump there too.”
I didn’t wanna talk no more. I finished the Schnapps and curled up on the floor and closed my eyes. I hurt all over. I just wanted everything to go black.
“Do you want me to go?” the bird asked.
“I’m not bothered,” I said. “Stay or go. I don’t care.”
I went to sleep. I had these dreams. Bad dreams. Faces looking at me. All these fucking faces. Shouting and laughing. Twisting out of shape. Turning into something bad. I was trying to push them away, but I was trapped. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t breathe. I was a kid again. I was crying for my mum. I was cutting myself. Slash slash, across my arms, across my chest. I wanted the pain and the blood. But there was no pain, no blood. I couldn’t make myself bleed. I couldn’t feel anything. I cried out, but I couldn’t make any noise.
“Shh, mon petit.”
The voice was in my head. It went through me like a cold breeze on a hot day. It blew all the shit and fear away. Made me feel calm.
I opened my eyes. Big brown eyes looking down at me.
“Who are you?” I said.
This wasn’t the bird I’d fucked earlier. This was someone different. Light brown skin. Smooth, like toffee. Big brown eyes and big red lips. Black hair in little twisty dreads. She was fucking beautiful. She was so beautiful I couldn’t breathe.
“You want to be saved?” she said.
I was shivering. My leather jacket was over me like a blanket, but the floor was cold underneath me and I felt like there was nothing left of me but bones.
“Saved from what?” I said.
“From yourself.”
“Dunno what you mean.”
I tried to sit up. I felt so weak. She had to help me. She jangled when she moved. She was wearing all these bracelets and necklaces. She smelled like flowers and spice and dark forests.
“How did you get in here?” I asked her.
“I go where I please,” she said.
She put her hand under the tap in the sink and turned it on. She held her dripping fingers over my face. I opened my mouth and the water ran over my lips and tongue and down my throat. It tasted sweet, made me feel like a kid again. Everything new and bright.
“You want to be saved?” she asked again.
I shrugged. “I dunno. Are you one of those Jesus nutjobs?”
She laughed. “I believe in spirits, mon petit. Do you believe in spirits?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Whisky and vodka.”
She didn’t laugh this time. She reached out and touched a badge on my jacket. “Is this true?”
“What?”
“ ‘I’m A Mess.' Is it true, mon petit? Are you a mess?”
I looked into her big brown eyes. They held me. They were fucking hypnotic. It was like just by looking at me she was clearing all the shit out of my brain. I wanted to cry. I felt it all rushing up through me like puke. I nodded, but I couldn’t speak.
“Tell me,” she said.
I still wanted to cry, but I swallowed it back down again. “I’m a junkie,” I said. “I’m fucked up. I don’t wanna be, but I can’t help it. People offer me stuff and I can’t say no. But I’m gonna get straight. I am. I’m gonna get straight and pull this band back together. I’ll be a better bassist than that art school cunt, Matlock. We'll conquer the fucking world. We’re the best fucking band there’s ever been.”
I stopped. It sounded like someone else talking. After a minute I said, “My head is fucked up. I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t anymore. I don’t know who I am.”
“Who do you think you are?” she said. “Tell me everything. Let it all out.”
“I’m Sid Vicious,” I told her. “I’m a Sex Pistol. I’m a fucking star. I’m the bass player who can’t play. I’m a joke. A pathetic junkie. I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna be dead before I’m twenty-five. I fucking love Nancy. I can’t live without her. She’s fucked up my life. She’s the worst thing that ever happened to me. John’s my best mate. He looks out for me. I hate him and he hates me. He’s got no future. I want him to fuck off. I love him. I don’t wanna lose him. Everything’s falling apart. Everything’s turning to shit. We’re gonna rule the fucking world. We’re gonna be heroes. We’re gonna destroy America. Malcolm’s a fucking genius. Malcolm’s a cunt who doesn’t care about us. I’m gonna be a legend. I’m gonna be forgotten.”
I couldn’t stop. It was like cutting my arm and watching the blood spurt. I put a hand over my mouth to stop it pouring out of me. What I was saying was all true and all lies. It was everything and nothing, the good and the bad, the dream and the nightmare. They were different, but they were the same. It was all happening together, all at once, and I was stuck in the middle.
“You are at the crossroads, mon petit,” the girl said.
“The crossroads, yeah,” I said.
“Which way do you go from here?”
“I dunno.”
She was staring at me, like she could see the thoughts fighting in my head. What was I? The bassist in the best fucking band in the world? Or a walking fucking cliché, press fodder, Malcolm’s fucking puppet? If I cleaned myself up, got myself together, we could be fucking huge, we could go down in fucking history as the band that changed music forever. But did I really want that? Did I wanna be a legend? Did I wanna be Elvis Presley twenty years from now, fat and ugly and useless, dying of a heart attack on a fucking toilet? Did I wanna be a dinosaur, like Led Zep and Pink Floyd and all that hippie shit? Did I wanna be a fucking rock star?
Fuck that. Fuck it all. I’d never be fucking establishment. But I’d find a way. My way.
The girl was still staring. Her eyes were glittering. At that moment she could’ve been an angel or a demon.
“It is your decision,” she said.
“Is it?”
“Of course. If you want it to be.”
“Can you help me?” I asked her.
Instead of answering, she stood up and held out her hand. “Come with me.”
“Where we going?”
“To get you what you need.”
I took her hand and she pulled me up like I weighed nothing.
“Noel and Glen are outside,” I said. “They won’t let me go.”
She smiled. “Like I say, mon petit, I go where I please.”
She pushed open the door and led me outside. Noel and Glen were sitting in the corridor playing cards. They didn’t even look at us.
“Come,” she said, and she gave me a little tug. I kept thinking that any second Noel would look up and say, “Where do you think you’re going, Sid?”
But he didn’t. Him and Glen just kept playing cards.
“What’s wrong with 'em?” I whispered.
“They cannot see us,” she said. “To them we are like the wind.”
“Yeah?” I said. I walked right up and leaned over them. “Oi,” I said.
They ignored me.
I laughed. It was like being a fucking superhero. The fucking invisible man. Noel had a can of beer on the floor by his chair. I picked it up and spat in it. He didn’t respond.
“Oi, Noel,” I said. “You’re a fucking cunt.”
He kept on playing cards.
I laughed again. And then suddenly I felt scared. I looked at the girl.
“Am I dead,” I said. “Am I a ghost?”
She smiled. “No, mon petit.”
“But no one can see me,” I said. “I don’t like it that no one can see me. I don’t wanna be ignored.”
The girl was still holding my hand. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, like it was a secret. “Trust me, mon petit.”
I felt calm again. “Yeah,” I said, “all right.”
“Come,” she said.
There was no sign of Steve and Paul and Malcolm. I knew Steve and Paul were sick of all the driving, and earlier Steve had said he was gonna tell Malcolm that from now on he and Paul wanted to fly to the gigs like proper fucking pop stars, otherwise he’d fuck off home, so maybe that’s what had happened.
John was still there, though. Still hunched over in the same place with his can of beer and his fag. He was surrounded by cunts hanging on his every fucking word, but as usual he looked bored and pissed off. He always took the piss out of me for being a "Daily Mirror punk,” but he was just as bad. He was all right on the bus, then soon as he went out in public he turned into a moody, hostile cunt. Johnny Rotten, the punk rock star.
I was glad he was there, though. Glad he’d decided to stay with me and not fuck off with the others. Maybe it’d be easier with the others gone. Maybe we could be mates again. I hope so. Me and him, we’re the real Sex Pistols. The others are just fucking wankers.
Me and the bird walked right across the room and no one even looked at us. We walked out of the room and out of the door and into the night.
It was fucking cold. Raining. Downtown Baton Rouge was a dump. The whole of America was a fucking dump. That bird had been right.
“Where we going?” I said. “I’m not fucking walking nowhere.”
“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?” the girl said, and she tugged on my hand again. “Come.”
I don’t like being told what to do, but with this girl it was all right. I didn’t even wanna fuck her. Well, I did, but it would’ve been wrong. It would’ve been like fucking an angel or something.
She had a pick-up truck parked round the side of the club. An angel with a knackered fucking shitmobile of a pick-up truck. Ha fucking ha.
She opened the passenger door and told me to get in. I did. I was cold, shivering. She started the engine. It sounded like an old man coughing his guts up. I put the heater on, but I was still cold. But at least I didn’t feel sick anymore. At least I didn’t have stomach cramps. At least I wasn’t itching.
“What’s that smell?” I said.
“Crawfish. My brother is a fisherman. He supplies restaurants here in town and out in the bayou.”
There was a fucked-up music system with a tape hanging out of it. I pushed the tape in and turned it on.
“What’s this music?” I said.
“It’s zydeco.”
“Zydeco? What the fuck’s that?”
“Roots music. You like it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s good. It’s like reggae, but faster.”
“It’s the music of the land,” she said. “The music of the blood and the soul.”
“Like the Sex Pistols,” I said.
She smiled. “You think your Sex Pistols will play zydeco music?”
I grinned. “Yeah,” I said. “Why fucking not?”
We drove out of town. It was just traffic lights and rain. The world looked like it was melting. The roads turned to dirt tracks. The truck bounced in and out of pot holes. Trees and swamps all round us. Shacks at the side of the road.
Then there weren’t even any shacks. Just trees tangled together. Bent over and covered in slime. No stars, no moon, just darkness. I didn’t know where we were and I didn’t care.
The girl pulled over at the side of the track and turned off the engine. When the engine stopped the music did too. That’s when I knew the sound of rusty violins weren’t part of the music. They were insects screaming in the darkness.
She looked at me. Big brown eyes glowing.
“We’re here,” she said.
“Where?”
“At the crossroads.”
“So where do we go now?”
“That’s your decision, mon petit.”
I got out of the truck. It had stopped raining. The trees dripped. The world still looked like it was melting. There was a smell of something old and rotting. I liked it here. It was dead, but it was away from the madness. Away from everything.
Something slithered in the darkness nearby and splashed into the water. I thought of the mayhem behind me. The blood and puke and shit and fights. The first sweet rush of smack through my veins and into my brain. I thought of all the people and the noise. The faces crowding me. Demon eyes and hungry mouths. Sucking my life away. Feeding on my corpse.
“I wanna stay here forever,” I said.
“Which way, mon petit?” said the girl.
I turned round. Round and round on the spot. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but then I saw it. A light through the trees. An orange glow. Like the moon had fallen out of the sky and was sinking into the swamp.
“There,” I said. “Let’s go there.”
We walked towards the light. Insects made a noise like a thousand rusty doors creaking all at once. Things moved around us. I remembered Glen telling me on the bus about the animals they get here. Alligators and snakes and poisonous spiders. He told me hoping it would scare me. So I wouldn’t run off to find some smack.
Well, fuck you. I’m Sid Vicious. I ain’t gonna get eaten by no fucking alligator. I ain’t scared of nothing. I’m the most dangerous fucking animal in America.
The light was farther away than it looked. We walked for ages, my boots splatting through mud and water. The girl walked next to me. She seemed to blend in, like she was part of the land. She moved silently, like she was floating.
The track got narrow. Water lapped on both sides of us. Things moved in the trees. Things splashed in the water. I thought of thousands of demon eyes watching us. Thousands of grinning mouths full of sharp teeth. I had no smack, no booze, nothing to keep the pain away. But I felt all right. The girl was my drug. My fucking angel.
Then the track widened into a clearing. In front of us was a wooden shack. It was raised up off the ground with a porch at the front. Orange light was shining out the front windows. Something flapped on the roof. Tarpaulin or plastic. When we got closer I saw the windows were covered in wire mesh. Big fucking moths were bouncing off them, desperate to get to the light.
I looked at the girl. The light was shining in her eyes, making them glow in the dark. She looked like a cat. A fucking leopard walking on two legs.
“Where are we?” I said. “Who lives here?”
“Why don’t you find out, mon petit?”
I walked up the steps and knocked on the door. There was a sound from inside. A rusty old creak that might have been a voice. I pushed the door open. “Hello?”
The place was gloomy. Candles burning. Flickering shadows. Ratty old furniture. Wooden floor. It smelled old. Like old people. Dead and stale. There was no one here.
“Hello?” I shouted again. “Anyone home?”
There was a doorway at the back of the room. A big black opening. The shadows made it move and sway. It made me think of a mouth. An old man’s mouth. No teeth. Yawning, struggling for breath. A voice came out of the mouth. Small and tired and creaky. It said something in a foreign language. French or something, I dunno.
I walked across to the door. Boots clomping on the wooden floor. I stuck my head through the opening, looked into the room. Couldn’t see a fucking thing. Pitch black. I heard something moving, rustling.
“Who’s there?” I said.
The scrape of a match. A flame. Behind the flame a yellow face, hanging in the darkness. The flame moved across, lit a candle. Light jumped into the room, surrounded by black moving shadows. The light was orangey-brown. There was a big bed and an old woman lying on it. She was fat and saggy. The light made her brown skin look shiny, like polished wood. She had bulging eyes. A big fuzz of black hair. The candle-light made
the ends of her hair twitch like snakes.
“Hello,” I said and grinned at her. “Who the fuck are you then?”
She said something else in a foreign language. I didn’t know if it was her name or what.
“I ain’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about,” I said.
The girl spoke. I didn’t even know she was behind me until I heard her voice. She said something foreign to the old woman and the old woman said something back. They spoke quickly. Jabba jabba jabba.
“What’s she say?” I said.
“Her name is Madame Picou,” said the girl. “She says she will help you.”
“Madame what?” I said.
The girl spelled the old lady’s name for me.
“Hello, Mrs. Picou,” I said to the old lady. “I’m Sid.”
The old lady said something. I shrugged.
“Madame Picou says take a seat,” said the girl.
“All right, thanks,” I said. There was a wooden chair under an old dressing table against the wall. I went over to it, and just for a second, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a skull looking back at me. I jumped and looked again. It was just me. In the candle-light my skin was white and my eyes were full of black shadows. I noticed things hanging off the sides of the mirror. Beads. Snake skins. I dragged the chair over to the bed and sat down.
The old lady jabbered again. She leaned towards me. She was so fat that she grunted like a pig as she rolled on to her side. A big fucking fart ripped out of her. I nearly pissed myself laughing. I was still laughing when she took my hands and looked at them, turning them over. Suddenly she shoved up the sleeves of my leather jacket and ran her fat thumbs up the insides of my arms.
I stopped laughing when I felt her stab something into my arm. Right into the fucking vein near my elbow. I was used to needles, but I wasn’t expecting it and it made me jump.
“Ow!” I shouted and pulled my arm back. “What did you do that for, you cunt?”
I was angry. I wanted to smash something. Her face or her fucking furniture. I stood up and then I felt a hand on my shoulder, warm breath that smelt of spice and perfume against the side of my face.
“Hush, mon petit.”
“She fucking stabbed me,” I said.
