Southsiders

by Nigel Bird

  Or it would have been if he hadn’t felt a grip of steel at his wrist. The grip gave a tiny twist, enough to bend Jesse’s bones around unnaturally as if they were about to break. The idea of his arm snapping was enough to get him to drop the record, which is when he felt the pain. It burned a little, but he’d felt worse.

  Through the slit of his vision, he looked down and was able to see the reason for the change of events. Holding on to his arm was an enormous hand, the kind that might have demolished houses or slapped giants. “Ow,” he shouted, then, “Ouch. Get off me.”

  The hand tightened its grip, sending pins and needles to Jesse’s fingers. It seemed to be a situation where neither fight nor flight would be enough. He’d need to do one and then the other in quick succession. With an arm out of action and the other flailing about uselessly, he went at the captor with his teeth. His incisors took hold and tightened. The bones and blood vessels of the knuckle made it hard for him to latch on. He ended up with a flap of skin in his mouth and bit as hard as he could. He tasted the iron of the blood and bit harder.

  Another hand, just like the one Jesse was eating, grabbed his coat by the back of the hood and lifted him off the floor. Jesse’s legs kicked out, but all that achieved was to send him circling in the air. The bag he’d taken with him banged against his thigh as if it was calling out to him. He managed to steady himself, reached into the bag and got his hands on the handle of the smaller knife. He slashed the blade wildly, not really sure what he was aiming for.

  After slicing the air a couple of times, he managed to connect. Felt the knife work through a resistance of some sort.

  The body at the end of the arms began bobbing up and down, then coughing out a laugh that was deeper than the king singing “I Got A Woman” live in Memphis back in ‘74. “Bloody hell, Jesse. It’s true what they say about fathers and sons then, is it?”

  The panic flowed through Jesse’s body at the speed of light, touching all of his nerves and reflexes and making them jump wildly like mutant spaghetti. He’d been caught on the rob, used a weapon and there was no way he was getting the record back to his dad before he woke up. “Fuck.” His body slumped and flopped now he knew the game was up.

  “You bloody Spaldings,” the deep voice said. “You’re a bunch of nutters, ken?”

  It was another of those questions that didn’t seem to require an answer.

  “I thought your dad was crazy until I met your mum.” Jesse felt himself being lowered and then his feet touched the ground and he gratefully took his bearings from the floorboards. “You don’t really want to be waving that knife around anymore, do you, Jesse?” The voice slowed, becoming softer and oddly gentle.

  Jesse opened his hand and dropped the knife.

  “That’s better, pal,” the voice said. The muckle hand that held Jesse’s coat relaxed. It took hold of the hood and pulled it down, leaving Jesse feeling exposed. Lurch’s face came into view, not more than a couple of inches from his own. The scar, underneath the right eye and running down to the corner of the mouth, looked more horrific up close than it usually did. Gave Jesse a sense of how deep the wound must have been to leave such a gash. Sent a shiver down his spine and into his groin. “I’m going to let go now,” Lurch began. “What I need you to do is agree that you’ll stand still and leave that knife where it is. You got that?”

  Jesse nodded his head quickly, hoping that the message would be clearer if he made the effort.

  The enormous hand let go of his wrist and Lurch took a step backwards.

  On the floor between them lay the record and the knife. Jesse looked at each of them. Wondered whether he should make a grab for either or both. Before he could decide, Lurch bent down and picked them up. “You knew the deal, Jesse. We take the goods and give you money. That’s what we do. Taking them back without paying first isn’t part of the contract.”

  Lurch didn’t stand up all the way. Instead, he stopped at Jesse’s level and stared right at him. “But if you’re in trouble, I’m sure we can come to some agreement.”

  The story poured out of Jesse’s mouth while the tears dripped from his eyes. The words seemed to be too quick to be understood by any mortal, but Lurch just kept looking and listening, nodding as if he was taking every bit of it in. “And if I don’t get the record back, it’ll break his heart.”

  “Why didn’t you say? That seems like extenuating circumstances to me.” Lurch offered the record to Jesse. Instead of taking it, Jesse just stared at it. “Go on. Take it. It won’t bite. I’ll square it with Uncle, don’t you mind about that.” Jesse still couldn’t bring himself to reach out. “Do it quick, boy. Before I change my mind.”

  That was all the prompting Jesse needed. He snatched the disk from the hand and as soon as he had it in his possession, turned and ran towards the door.

  “You tell your dad Danny Boy says hello.” Lurch had changed his accent into something that sounded like one of those Glasgow cops on the telly. “Tell him any time he wants back into the fold,” he said, “we’ve always got time for the strays.” He laughed again, the depth of his tone making Jesse’s eardrums vibrate.

  Jesse didn’t stop to hear any more. Wanted to forget Danny Boy and Uncle and his ticket and get the hell back home. He bolted as soon as he was back on the street and ran until his heart and lungs decided they’d had enough action for one day.

  The Tide Is High, But I’m Holding On

  Ray’s eyes weren’t managing to focus on anything. Lying across the bed, he’d flicked through his records looking for his stars, but they didn’t seem to be there. Panic gripped his heart and was then loosened by a bigger sensation. His Solid Gold section was barely bronze anymore.

  The pain in his head seemed too big for his skull. Ray wondered how it managed to squeeze in there. He needed it to go away and quickly.

  Moving only made it worse, added razor cuts to the package, so he lay still with his eyes tightly shut and clutched a pillow to his stomach.

  It wasn’t long before he started to drift, like a boat cut loose from its moorings. Pictures played on the inside of his eyelids. He watched them as best he could in as far as he could focus.

  What he saw was a mixture of dreams and reality, the lines between them so totally blurred that he couldn’t tell one from the other. The special effects and bizarre lighting his brain was throwing in only served to confuse things further.

  He could see himself sitting in the kebab house on the bridges. Paula was there with him. She wasn’t the Paula he’d come to know, but the lady he’d fallen in love with. Her black hair was cut into a shiny bob that was held neatly in place with hair slides and decorated with a blue flower that brought out the azure her eyes. And she was smiling.

  Between them, on greasy white paper instead of on plates, sat two huge piles of chips that were decorated with a variety of samosas, pakoras, bhajis and ketchup. They were giving off the aromas of vinegar and exotic spice that had Ray’s mouth watering.

  Cut to a scene on the Titanic. Just like that.

  Ray was the captain, dressed in fine, red Teddy boy drapes. His shoes were blue suede and the gold chain that crossed from one waistcoat pocket to the other had the key to the storage lockup hanging from it. He fingered the key and took a comb to his hair, trying to get some sense of order to it in the wind that blustered around him. He watched on as women and children packed themselves into lifeboats at the side of the ship. When they were all in place a new calm descended. All was as it had to be and he turned to the band that had appeared before him. “Play on,” he said, and they did. The mighty sound of Glen Miller’s “In The Mood” calmed the storm.

  In the middle of the brass section, Cliff appeared. He pushed and pulled on the slide of a trombone. He gave Ray a wink and Ray felt his stomach cramp. He put his hand on his stomach and felt the sudden panic of not being able to find the key on the chain or even the waistcoat the chain was attached to. Then he remembered. He wasn’t on a ship and the key was still around his neck. H
e rolled over and felt the pain in his stomach pass.

  He was back in the kebab shop, at the table in the café. This time the food was almost gone. So was the old Paula. In her place was the new one. The fat had returned. Her hair was long and straggly. The skin was more leather than silk and her long fingernails were covered in tomato sauce. She pushed food into her mouth which was covered in grease. Chewed it so that the whole world could see and she rocked ever so slightly, back and forth. Back and forth.

  And then they were outside. On the Meadows, down by the play park. She was raging. Shouting and screaming, an avalanche of words leaving the black hole in the centre of her face and pouring over Ray. They came too fast and furious for Ray to understand. He just stood there feeling the spit attack his face while he was assaulted by the sourness of her breath.

  On the bed, the sweat on his skin made him itchy all over. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch. Moving wasn’t an option. He curled a little more tightly into his ball and waited for the next instalment of the nightmare.

  The band members on the ship were getting into the lifeboat. Cliff was waving him over and shouting. “Come on, you stupid git.” He could just make it out over the noise of the crushing waves. “It’s not like the old days, Captain. Just get your arse over here and you can live to tell the tale.”

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted that. To live. To tell the tale. Some things were better taken on the chin. He watched the lifeboat being lowered into the sea, well away from the damaged hull. Cliff stared over at Ray, but didn’t bother with any more waving or shouting. He must have realised that it was just the way it was.

  Instead of seeing the boat float away into the distance, his attention shifted back to the Meadows.

  Paula’s arms and legs were flailing in his direction. It was like he was being attacked by a swarm of enormous insects. And then he was.

  The insects hit him with sharp wings and claws. One of them crashed right into his mouth. He felt a couple of his teeth give and the inside of his cheek split, the taste of warm iron bitter on his tongue. Another smashed into his nose. Cracked him right on the bridge. There was a crunch and a tingle that sent shockwaves through the pain of his headache. A third landed on his cheek. Dug its legs under his skin and pulled hard. Ray felt his skin lift in furrows like his face was being ploughed. His cheek burned in the cold. The pain reached a new pitch. A high fever.

  Ray swatted at the insect on his face. Swatted hard. Watched it fall to the floor, lying helpless on its back, legs waving madly in the air. The little bastard. He lifted his foot and slammed the heel of his boot into the insect’s head. It buzzed back at him in defiance so he did it again. And again.

  It felt good to be in charge. On top of the situation. Yet he was also frightened. Felt the hollow pain of fear spread through his insides until that was all there was. He needed to get rid of it before it stuck with him forever.

  Falling to his knees, he grabbed the insect between the head and thorax. Squeezed as hard as he could and kept up the pressure until the creature stopped squirming and all was still.

  He was back on the ship. Standing alone in the middle of a deck that had split down the middle. He stood to attention. Saluted a flag that he knew was there, somewhere. Listened to the howls of the wind and to the gushing of the sea. They combined to make the reassuring sound of water pouring from a tap. As waves of comfort washed through his body, he went down stoically with his vessel.

  He sank into the welcoming deep and the silence, water filling his ears and numbing his brain. The peace was good. Felt right. It was the ending he deserved and he was enjoying every moment of his homecoming.

  Behind The Green Door

  There was no noise in the flat, not even the snuffling of earlier in the day.

  Jesse set a bath running and then walked cautiously through to his parents’ bedroom, only this time without any fear. He pushed the door open slowly and poked his head around. “Dad?” he whispered. “You OK in there?” The smell was of pump gas and alcohol and Jesse imagined the whole place going up if he were to present a naked flame.

  His dad sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, his face lit by the light from the hall. There was no colour in his skin and his hair was far from being anything like its usual immaculate self. Instead of answering, he rubbed his neck hard as if trying to get more blood circulating to his head. He turned to look at his son and his mouth formed a half-smile.

  “Were you looking for this?” Jesse asked. He held the record out. Noticed a crease in the bottom corner that he’d never seen before and a rosette of damp ink on the E of Elvis where one of the tears had landed back in the shop.

  His dad didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out, ignored the record and motioned with his fingers for Jesse to move closer.

  When he was in reach, his dad pulled him in and held him close. He burst into tears. “I’m sorry, son,” he wailed. “I didn’t mean it. I’m so very sorry.”

  Fathers weren’t supposed to cry. They were supposed to be the strong ones. The ones keeping it all together. The ones spinning the world on their fingers to turn day into night and night back into day.

  Jesse pulled back a little, trying to get some distance between him and the outpouring of emotion. It only caused his dad to pull him in closer. Made the room seem tiny and his lungs incapable of anything.

  And His Mamma Cried

  Jesse had added so much bubble bath that the foam peaked and troughed like a mountain range.

  His dad came through, slipped into the water and disappeared beneath the mountains and valleys. When he surfaced, he blew out a stream of alcohol stink and brushed his hair back on his head. He leaned back, gazed up at the ceiling and closed his eyes.

  He stayed that way for a good while.

  When he emerged, he cleaned his teeth and sorted his hair. He put on side one of Del Shannon’s “Little Town Flirt” and pulled on his favourite turn-up jeans while Del sang his heart out.

  Del was special. Sang with attitude. Could make your heart bleed for him or fill you with courage. For Jesse it was a toss-up between “Wanderer” and “Runaway” for the best of the best, but his dad was a “Hats Off To Larry” man all the way through.

  The bath and the music seemed to do the trick and Ray was ready to speak again. He sat at the kitchen table and rolled a smoke. Jesse admired the tattoos on his dad’s wiry chest. ELVIS THE PELVIS under his collar bones written above a beautifully inked picture from Jailhouse Rock that he could move up and down with his chest and stomach muscles to make it look like it was dancing. Down his right arm there was a guitar and along his left the words JESSE GARON in curvy letters that were almost impossible to read. Alongside the gold cross that he always wore was a key that wasn’t normally there. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands shook, but having his hair gelled back into place made everything seem all right again.

  “Belfast’s amazing. You should see it. And the job at the museum, it rocks.” He lit the cigarette and Jesse watched the smoke pour from his nostrils like he was a tame dragon.

  Jesse screwed up his eyes and placed a clean blue ashtray on the table for his father to use. It didn’t seem right having the stink back in the place – his place – and he went to open a window in the hope that maybe his dad would get the message.

  “I missed you, Jesse Garon. Like there was a hole in my heart that needed filling all the time. So I decided to come back and give you a Christmas surprise.”

  It sounded promising and filled Jesse with enough hope to make him stand a fraction taller. “You mean you’ve brought me a present?”

  Dad shook his head. “I’m the present, you dafty. But I’ll get you one. Promise.”

  He would, Jesse knew. There were still a few days left, after all, and Santa always seemed to manage a little something. Even on the Southside of town. For now, all that really mattered was that his dad had stopped apologising. He didn’t know anything about Jesse being left alone to fend for himself, after all,
so there was no blame to be left at his door.

  His dad puffed out another lungful of smoke, then did the thing with the tattoo.

  The pair of them broke into laughter, just like they always did when Elvis did his thing.

  “I was thinking. You might like to come with me and start again. I know about you being alone, Jesse. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

  Yes. Yes, he had. Not just get away with it, but carve out a nice little life. He nodded his head to let his dad know. Then he shook it to turn down the offer of moving to Ireland and to see if the act of shaking would help him understand what the hell was going on and who knew what.

  He quickly decided it didn’t matter how his dad knew what had been going on and that there was no way he was about to turn his back on his new love. Not a chance in hell.

  He was about to tell his dad all of that, all about Bonnie Bird and the way she kissed. Maybe even ask for advice about the next steps and how quickly they should take them. He didn’t get the chance. He was interrupted by the doorbell. Bad timing. He decided to ignore it. Let the buggers come back later and he could ignore them then, too. At least until he’d got the Belfast nonsense straightened out.

  Over on his dad’s chest, Elvis seemed to disagree. He stopped dancing and stood perfectly still. His dad just froze where he was, the blood seeming do drain from his lips as he stood there turning from red to a shade of wet putty.

  “Let’s just leave them, eh?” Jesse said. “We don’t need anything. Nothing from anyone. We’ll get by on our own, Dad. You’ll see. Here in Edinburgh. We can make it.” He could hear the quiver in his voice and wondered why it was there. It seemed that the answer might be written on his dad’s face, only if it was, it was in some kind of code that he couldn’t interpret.

  There were more knocks on the door and they were much harder and more urgent than the average carol singer. There was a voice too. Muffled at first as it came through the wood, but clear as a digital radio signal once they opened the letterbox. “Mr Spalding?” It sounded gruff and Glaswegian. Working class made good. “Police. We need a word. Mr Spalding? Could you please open the door. It’s very important.”