Barnacle Bill The Spacer and Other Stories

by Barnacle Bill the Spacer

  ‘The thing about this music is, it just feels right. It’s not art, it’s not beauty; it’s a meter reading on the state of the soul, of the world. It’s the bottom line of all time, a registering of creepy fundamentals, the rendering into music of the crummiest truth, the statement of some meagre final tolerance, a universal alpha wave, God’s EKG, the least possible music, the absolute minimum of sound, all that’s left to say, to be, for them, for us…maybe that’s why it feels so damn right. It creates an option to suicide, a place where there is no great trouble, only a trickle of blood through stony flesh and the crackle of a base electric message across the brain.’

  Well, he thought, now there’s a waste of a paragraph. Put that into the column, and he’d be looking for work with a weekly shopping guide.

  He essayed a laugh and produced a gulping noise. Damn, he felt lousy.

  Not lousy, really, just…just sort of nothing. Like there was nothing in his head except the music. Music and black dead air. Dead life.

  Dead love. He typed a few more lines.

  ‘Maybe Dexter was right, maybe this music will change your life. It sure as hell seems to have changed mine. I feel like shit, my lady’s out with some dirtball lowlife and all I can muster by way of a reaction is mild pique. I mean, maybe the effect of Afterlife’s music is to reduce the emotional volatility of our kind, to diminish us to the level of the stiffs who play it. That might explain Dexter’s peace-and-love rap. People who feel like I do wouldn’t have the energy for war, for polluting, for much of anything. They’d probably sit around most of the time, trying to think something, hoping for food to walk in the door…’

  Jesus, what if the music actually did buzz you like that? Tripped some chemical switch and slowly shut you down, brain cell by brain cell, until you were about three degrees below normal and as lively as a hibernating bear. What if that were true, and right this second it was being broadcast all over hell on WBAI? This is crazy, man, he told himself, this is truly whacko.

  But what if Dexter’s hearing aids had been ear plugs, what if the son of a bitch hadn’t listened to the music himself? What if he knew how the music would affect the audience, what if he was after turning half of everybody into zombies all in the name of a better world? And what would be so wrong with that?

  Not a thing. Cleaner air, less war, more food to go around…just stack the dim bulbs in warehouses and let them vegetate, while everyone else cleaned up the mess.

  Not a thing wrong with it…as long as you weren’t in the half that had listened to the music.

  The light was beginning to hurt his eyes. He switched off the lamp and sat in the darkness, staring at the glowing screen. He glanced out the window. Since last he’d looked, it appeared that about three-quarters of the lights in the adjoining buildings had been darkened, making it appear that the remaining lights were some sort of weird code, spelling out a message of golden squares against a black page. He had a crawly feeling along his spine, imagining thousands of other Manhattan nighthawks growing slow and cold and sensitive to light, sitting in their dark rooms, while a whining alto serpent stung them in the brain.

  The idea was ludicrous—Dexter had just been shooting off his mouth, firing off more white liberal bullshit. Still, Goodrick didn’t feel much like laughing.

  Maybe, he thought, he should call the police…call someone.

  But then he’d have to get up, dial the phone, talk, and it was so much more pleasant just to sit here and listen to the background static of the universe, to the sad song of a next-to-nothing life.

  He remembered how peaceful Afterlife had been, the piano man’s pale hands flowing over the keys, like white animals gliding, making a rippling track, and the horn man’s eyes rolled up, showing all white under the sunglasses, turned inward toward some pacific vision, and the bass man, fingers blurring on the strings, but his head fallen back, gaping, his eyes on the ceiling, as if keeping track of the stars.

  This was really happening, he thought; he believed it, yet he couldn’t rouse himself to panic. His hands flexed on the arms of the chair, and he swallowed, and he listened. More lights were switched off in the adjoining towers. This was really fucking happening…and he wasn’t afraid. As a matter of fact, he was beginning to enjoy the feeling. Like a little vacation. Just turn down the volume and response, sit back and let the ol’ brain start to mellow like ageing cheese.

  Wonder what Rachel would say?

  Why, she’d be delighted! She hadn’t heard the music, after all, and she’d be happy as a goddamn clam to be one of the quick, to have him sit there and fester while she brought over strangers and let them pork her on the living room carpet. I mean, he wouldn’t have any objection, right? Maybe dead guys liked to watch. Maybe…His hands started itching, smudged with city dirt. He decided that he had to wash them.

  With a mighty effort, feeling like he weighed five hundred pounds, he heaved up to his feet and shuffled toward the bathroom. It took him what seemed a couple of minutes to reach it, to fumble for the wall switch and flick it on. The light almost blinded him, and he reeled back against the wall, shading his eyes. Glints and gleams shattering off porcelain, chrome fixtures, and tiles, a shrapnel of light blowing toward his retinas. ‘Aw, Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus!’ Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Pasty skin, liverish, too-red lips, bruised-looking circles around his eyes. Mr Zombie.

  He managed to look away.

  He turned on the faucet. Music ran out along with the bright water, and when he stuck his hands under the flow, he couldn’t feel the cold water, just the gloomy notation spidering across his skin.

  He jerked his hands back and stared at them, watched them dripping glittering bits of alto and drum, bass and piano. After a moment he switched off the light and stood in the cool, blessed dark, listening to the alto playing in the distance, luring his thoughts down and down into a golden crooked tunnel leading nowhere.

  One thing he had to admit: having your vitality turned down to the bottom notch gave you perspective on the whole vital world. Take Rachel, now. She’d come in any minute, all bright and smiling, switching her ass, she’d toss her purse and coat somewhere, give him a perky kiss, ask how the column was going…and all the while her sexual engine would be cooling, ticking away the last degrees of heat like how a car engine ticks in the silence of a garage, some vile juice leaking from her. He could see it clearly, the entire spectrum of her deceit, see it without feeling either helpless rage or frustration, but rather registering it as an untenable state of affairs. Something would have to be done. That was obvious. It was surprising he’d never come to that conclusion before…or maybe not so surprising. He’d been too agitated, too emotional. Now…now change was possible. He would have to talk to Rachel, to work things out differently. Actually, he thought, a talk wouldn’t be necessary. Just a little listening experience, and she’d get with the programme.

  He hated to leave the soothing darkness of the bathroom, but he felt he should finish the column…just to tie up loose ends. He went back into the living room and sat in front of the computer. WBAI had finished replaying the simulcast. He must have been in the john a long time. He switched off the radio so he could hear the music in his head.

  ‘I’m sitting here listening to a little night music, a reedy little whisper of melody leaking out a crack in death’s door, and you know, even though I can’t hear or think of much of anything except that shivery sliver of sound, it’s become more a virtue than a hindrance; it’s beginning to order the world in an entirely new way. I don’t have to explain it to those of you who are hearing it with me, but for the rest of you, let me shed some light on the experience. One sees…clearly, I suppose, is the word, yet that doesn’t cover it. One is freed from the tangles of inhibition, volatile emotion, and thus can perceive how easy it is to change one’s life, and finally, one understands that with a very few changes one can achieve a state of calm perfection. A snip here, a tuck taken there, another snip-snip, and suddenly it becomes appa
rent that there is nothing left to do, absolutely nothing, and one has achieved utter harmony with one’s environment.’

  The screen was glowing too brightly to look at. Goodrick dimmed it. Even the darkness, he realized, had its own peculiar radiance. B-zarre. He drew a deep breath…or rather tried to, but his chest didn’t move. Cool, he thought, very cool. No moving parts. Just solid calm, white, white calm in a black, black shell, and a little bit of fixing up remaining to do. He was almost there. Wherever there was.

  A cool alto trickle of pleasure through the rumble of nights.

  ‘I cannot recommend the experience too highly. After all, there’s almost no overhead, no troublesome desires, no ugly moods, no loathsome habits…’

  A click—the front door opening, a sound that seemed to increase the brightness in the room. Footsteps, and then Rachel’s voice.

  ‘Wade?’

  He could feel her. Hot, sticky, soft. He could feel the suety weights of her breasts, the torsion of her hips, the flexing of live sinews, like music of a kind, a lewd concerto of vitality and deceit.

  ‘There you are!’ she said brightly, a streak of hot sound, and came up behind him. She leaned down, hands on his shoulders, and kissed his cheek, a serpent of brown hair coiling across his neck and onto his chest.

  ‘How’s the column going?’ she asked, moving away.

  He cut his eyes toward her. That teardrop ass sheathed in silk, that mind like a sewer running with black bile, that heart like a pound of red-raw poisoned hamburger, Those cute little puppies bounding along in front.

  The fevered temperature of her soiled flesh brightened everything. Even the air was shining. The shadows were black glares.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Almost finished.’

  ‘…only infinite slow minutes, slow thoughts like curls of smoke, only time, only a flicker of presence, only perfect music that does not exist like smoke…’

  ‘So how was the Vanguard?’

  He chuckled. ‘Didn’t you catch it on the radio?’

  A pause. ‘No, I was busy.’

  Busy, uh-huh. Hips thrusting up from a rumpled sheet, sleek with sweat, mouth full of tongue, breasts rolling fatly, big ass flattening.

  ‘It was good for me,’ he said.

  A nervous giggle.

  ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘The best.’

  He examined his feelings. All in order, all under control…what there was of them. A few splinters of despair, a fragment of anger, some shards of love. Not enough to matter, not enough to impair judgement.

  ‘Are you okay? You sound funny.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, feeling a creepy, secretive tingle of delight. ‘Want to hear the Vanguard set? I taped it.’

  ‘Sure…but aren’t you sleepy? I can hear it tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He switched on the recorder. The computer screen was blazing like a white sun.

  ‘…the crackling of a black storm, the red thread of a fire on a distant ridge, the whole world irradiated by a mystic vibration, the quickened inches of the flesh becoming cool and easy, the White Nile of the calmed mind flowing everywhere…’

  ‘Like it?’ he asked. She had walked over to the window and was standing facing it, gazing out at the city.

  ‘It’s…curious,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I like it, but it’s effective.’

  Was that a hint of entranced dullness in her voice? Or was it merely distraction? Open those ears wide, baby, and let that ol’ black magic take over.

  ‘…just listen, just let it flow in, let it fill the empty spaces in your brain with muttering, cluttering bassy blunders and a crooked wire of brassy red snake fluid, let it cosy around and coil up inside your skull…’

  The column just couldn’t hold his interest. Who the hell was going to read it anyway? His place was with Rachel, helping her through the rough spots of the transition, the confusion, the unsettled feelings. With difficulty, he got to his feet and walked over to Rachel. Put his hands on her hips. She tensed, then relaxed against him. Then she tensed again. He looked out over the top of her head at Manhattan. Only a few lights showing. The message growing simpler and simpler. Dot, dot, dot. Stop. Dot, dot. Stop. Stop.

  ‘Can we talk, Wade?’

  ‘Listen to the music, baby.’

  ‘No…really. We have to talk!’

  She tried to pull away from him, but he held her, his fingers hooked on her hipbones.

  ‘It’ll keep ’til morning,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She turned to face him, fixed him with her intricate green eyes. ‘I’ve been putting this off too long already.’ Her mouth opened, as if she were going to speak, but then she looked away. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said after a considerable pause.

  He knew what was coming, and he didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t she just wait? In a few minutes she’d begin to understand, to know what he knew. Christ, couldn’t she wait?

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Okay? Listen to the music and then we’ll talk.’

  ‘God, Wade! What is it with you and this dumb music?’

  She started to flounce off, but he caught her by the arm.

  ‘If you give it a chance, you’ll see what I mean,’ he said. ‘But it takes a while. You have to give it time.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The music…it’s really something. It does something.’

  ‘Oh, God, Wade! This is important!’

  She fought against his grip.

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I know it is. But just do this first. Do it for me.’

  ‘All right, all right! If it’ll make you happy.’ She heaved a sigh, made a visible effort at focusing on the music, her head tipped to the side…but only for a couple of seconds.

  ‘I can’t listen,’ she said. ‘There’s too much on my mind.’

  ‘You’re not trying.’

  ‘Oh, Wade,’ she said, her chin quivering, a catch in her voice. ‘I’ve been trying, I really have. You don’t know. Please! Let’s just sit down and…’ She let out another sigh. ‘Please. I need to talk with you.’

  He had to calm her, to let his calm generate and flow inside her. He put a hand on the back of her neck, forced her head dawn on his shoulder. She struggled, but he kept up a firm pressure.

  ‘Let me go, damn it!’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘Let me go!’ Then, after a moment: ‘You’re smothering me.’

  He let her lift her head.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Wade?’

  There was confusion and fright in her face, and he wanted to soothe her, to take away all her anxieties.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said with the sedated piety of a priest. ‘I just want you to listen. Tomorrow morning…’

  ‘I don’t want to listen. Can’t you understand that? I don’t. Want. To listen. Now let me go.’

  ‘I’m doing this for you, baby.’

  ‘For me? Are you nuts? Let me go!’

  ‘I can’t, baby. I just can’t.’

  She tried to twist free again, but he refused to release her.

  ‘All right, all right! I was trying to avoid a scene, but if that’s how you want it!’ She tossed back her hair, glared at him defiantly. ‘I’m leaving…’

  He couldn’t let her say it and spoil the evening; he couldn’t let her disrupt the healing process. Without anger, without bitterness, but rather with the precision and control of someone trimming a hedge, he backhanded her, nailed her flush on the jaw with all his strength, snapping her head about. She went hard against the thick window glass, the back of her skull impacting with a sharp crack, and then she slumped to the floor, her head twisted at an improbable angle.

  Snip, snip.

  He stood waiting for grief and fear to flood in, but he felt only a wave of serenity as palpable as a stream of cool water, as a cool golden passage on a distant horn.

  Snip.

  The shape of his life was perfected.

  Rachel’s too.

 
Lying there, pale lips parted, face rapt and slack, drained of lust and emotions, she was beautiful. A trickle of blood eeled from her hairline, and Goodrick realized that the pattern it made echoed the alto line exactly, that the music was leaking from her, signalling the minimal continuance of her life. She wasn’t dead; she had merely suffered a necessary reduction. He sensed the edgy crackle of her thoughts, like the intermittent popping of a fire gone to embers.

  ‘It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.’ He put an arm under her back and lifted her, supporting her about the waist. Then he hauled her over to the sofa. He helped her to sit, and sat beside her, an arm about her shoulders. Her head lolled heavily against his, the softness of her breast pressed into his arm. He could hear the music coming from her, along with the electric wrack and tumble of her thoughts. They had never been closer than they were right now, he thought.

  He wanted to say something, to tell her how much he loved her, but found that he could no longer speak, his throat muscles slack and useless.

  Well, that was okay.

  Rachel knew how he felt, anyway.

  But if he could speak, he’d tell her that he’d always known they could work things out, that though they’d had their problems, they were made for each other…

  The light was growing incandescent, as if having your life ultimately simplified admitted you to a dimension of blazing whiteness. It was streaming up from everything, from the radio, the television, from Rachel’s parted lips, from every surface, whitening the air, the night, whiting out hope, truth, beauty, sadness, joy, leaving room for nothing except the music, which was swelling in volume, stifling thought, becoming a kind of thirsting presence inside him. It was sort of too bad, he said to himself, that things had to be like this, that they couldn’t have made it in the usual way, but then he guessed it was all for the best, that this way at least there was no chance of screwing anything up.

  Jesus, the goddamn light was killing his eyes! Might have known, he thought, there’d be some fly in the ointment, that perfection didn’t measure up to its rep.