And the Ass Saw the Angel

by Nick Cave

  Pa’s ghost snapped his fingers in front of mah face and said,

  ‘Concentrate, boy, you’re drifting, you’re drifting.

  ‘The bigger your mother got with you two, the meaner, more bad-tempered and downright belligerent she became. She hit the bottle hard and the bottle hit back. She finally gave birth to you – you and your brother – and ah watched the years go by, the air poisoned with the sickness. But a man can’t just let something like that go on.

  ‘After ah had killed her, we were happy, you and me. And for a while, a week or two, ah experienced a kind of elation, ah did, happy to have finally purged our home of the mouldering evil. Doubly happy ah had broke down the barrier that stood ‘twixt thee and me. But all the time, boy, ah had the feeling something was not quite right. All the time ah felt there was something not quite right in all this – something to do with evilness and madness and murder. Something to do with you.’ Pa leaned forward and pointed one spectral finger at me. ‘Something to do with you.’ And the fabric of his being – or non-being – pinked as though his spectral blood was on the rise. His words became quicker, more agitated, and in his excitement Pa rose off the seat and hovered in the air.

  ‘One morning ah woke up and ah knew the evil had returned. Ah could hear the weird hissing and snipping and bumping around coming from your room, and suddenly ah realized that the evilness had never left our home at all.’ The ghost took mah hands by the wrists, and raising them he turned them this way and that. ‘Ah mean just look at your hands and wrists. Just what in God’s name have you been doing? More than a little sabotage. More than a little patricide.’ He put them down again, grimacing at the sight of them.

  Prodding the table with his finger for emphasis, Pa hissed through his teeth. ‘Mule-pure hill blood,’ he said. ‘We’re one of a kind.’

  Then ah think ah woke up for a moment. It was pitch black. All ah could hear was the creek and its slow-seeping waters. Ah remembered the bridge. Ah remembered the brambles. But only for a moment. Only for a moment. Then back. Back.

  Ah was naked. Ah floated in an inky void like a deep-sea diver or a spaceman – slow, bumping things. Ah know there was another explorer with me, over there, in the liquid lightlessness.

  Suddenly, ah was engaged in violent action – attacked – a tangle of limbs, slippery, naked, grappling, tugged at mah oxygen supply. Ah was thrown against a soft wall. A cell. The cell was padded. Ah felt a strap or a cord encircle me, pinning mah arms to mah sides but ah struggled free from mah slimy bonds. Ah looped the cord over mah attacker’s head and tightened it around his neck and in a few thrashing minutes ah had strangled the bastard. He floated dead on his oxygen hose.

  Then a brilliant light erupted above us and we were drawn toward it, reeled in toward the screaming hole.

  The sound of an automobile in low gear, a pick-up, all motor-hum and grinding gravel, accompanied our sudden ascent, cruising through the back alleyways, the crime slums of mah subconsciousness. Ah opened mah eyes. Mah body was wrapped in a binding caul of placental warmth and the pong of fresh cloaca and the sound of its trickling waters – the sensory devices of mah dreams – continued to dominate mah senses. Lying on mah side on the bank of the creek, ah gazed into the black night. The air was warm and thick and wet, and the creek shifted its load and pumped it into the fields somewhere. Fear came like the droning motors that crept closer. Only when they were nearly upon me – there were two now – and ah could see the sweeping beams of torchlight fanning the foisoned fields, did mah mind alert mah body to the impending danger.

  Ah scrambled up the cool damp clay of the bank, sliding and slipping in the muddy earth, and mounting the steep upgrade ah clung to a wood beam support beneath the bridge and listened in silence to the funereal approach. Ah counted four beams of light, two on either side, which meant six men in all, including the two drivers. Their progress was thorough, painful, predatory. Ah crawled between two pylons where ah would be safe from the beams and listened carefully, mah eyes gazing absently at the waters, and for a moment ah thought the moon had fallen from its heavenly nest, along with a handful of stars, and landed in the creek.

  ‘It’s only the moon’s reflection,’ ah told mahself, as the wheels of the first pick-up hit the wooden planks of the bridge directly above me. The stars looked as big as gold coins.

  ‘Shit!’ ah thought, and ah slipped and skidded back down the bank to the creek – to the moon and the six gold stars. ‘That ain’t a reflection!’ ah thought, and ah scooped up mah admiral’s jacket and mah sickle that lay beside it. The vehicles had stopped on top of the bridge and ah heard the sound of cranky metal doors grating open and slamming shut.

  Ah mounted the slope again, fearful for mah own bright nakedness, and as ah climbed between the pillars ah saw the plunging beams of light prod the briar, the bank, the creek, and ah squeezed into the niche where the unnerstructure of the bridge met the top of the bank. Ah could feel their booted footfall clopping on the boards inches above mah head. Ah tried to take command of mah whistling anhelations but the rising fist of pain tightened about mah throat and mah heart. O mah heart pounded up such a resounding alert in that shallow crawlspace that ah felt it necessary to roll mah jacket and trousers into a thick muff and press it against the left side of mah chest. The clay felt cold and clammy, like dead skin, and ah could hear all around me weird scratchings coming from the inky recesses of collected scum and rotten timber. Ah could see the light of the torches winking through the slatted beams. Fat slugs glistened and groped on the unnerbelly of the bridge, thrown into a state of confusion by mah sudden presence.

  Two men stood almost directly over me, shining their torches down at the creek and the bank, one of them leaning out over the railing and trying to probe as much of the darkness unner the bridge as the angle of the beam would allow. But the crawlspace in which ah huddled, naked as a baby, lay well beyond the searching finger of light.

  In the darkness ah listened to those above me talk, and with each footfall tiny deposits of sand would spill onto mah body from between the slatted beams.

  ‘Ain’t a lot of fucken life left in these here batteraries. Only bord em last fucken week and look at em. Hey! Prong! How’s ya batteraries holding?’ cried one.

  ‘Wha-a? Is that you Sal?’ called back another man from the other side of the bridge.

  ‘Yeah. Ah said how’s ya fucken batteraries holdin’ out?’

  ‘Batter him? Ah’m gunna bash the little fucker black and blue. If there is one thing ah cain’t stand, it’s a freakin’ secko, know what ah mean?’ replied Prong, who came clomping across the bridge to stand by Sal.

  ‘Dumb bastard,’ hissed Sal, unner his breath.

  Again there was a silence, only longer this time. Beams probed.

  ‘Where’s Groper and… ah dunno… what’s his name… the youngster?’ asked Prong.

  ‘Chisolm or Prism or Jism… ah dunno… they’re down checkin’ unner da britch. Let’s get going. Ah cain’t see a fucken thing with this here torch. He’s probably clear of the fucken valley by now, anyway. Why don’t this Swift character do his own fucken man-huntin’?’

  Across the creek ah could see two pale beams flashing through the briar on either side of the bridge.

  ‘How’s your side, Groper?’ called a voice.

  ‘What was that?’ replied Groper.

  ‘Wha-a-a?’

  ‘Ah said, what was that?’

  ‘Ah said, how’s your si… oh forget it, it don’t matter any.’

  ‘Yeah, mine too, and ah only bord ‘em last week.’

  A bottle smashed on the rocks that lined the creek. Ah gasped.

  Sal or Prong, one or the other, said sharply, ‘Shhhh. Shut up. Do ya hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘That. Shhh. Listen!’

  ‘Wha-a?’

  ‘That funny breathy sound. Is dat you, Stoat?’

  ‘Wha-a-a?’

  ‘The fucken breathy sound! Christ!’

&nbs
p; ‘No! It ain’t me,’ said Stoat nervously, ‘it certainly ain’t me.’

  ‘Shut up! Everybody listen and hold their breaths. Shhh.’

  Ah held mah breath.

  A screaming, head-splitting, lung-frying, heart-punishing lifetime ensued, and in the interminable ache of its passing when the atmosphere pounded with deep reds and dark blues, ah remember thinking to mahself that for all the beating of gums that went on, nothing much was really said and that maybe, just maybe, the gab wasn’t such a great fucken gift after all and that it was action that spoke louder than words, action ah say, as ah waited for them to find me and put me to death.

  And they did.

  Torch beams of naked light felt me out. Little hairless animal. Clomping boots encircled me. Machetes pared the air. Parted the slats. Carved me into long strips of meat. Cleaved mah skull with a dead hit. Hacked me into cubes. Into mince. Into mush. Into soup. And not a peep of protest.

  And from the pool of creamed corpse a perfect soul, complete in every way, floated up to be received into that heavenly breast of His into that heavenly breast of His into that heavenly breast of His.

  But they did not. No, they did not.

  ‘There he is, crawled into a ball, unner the bridge!’ exclaimed Prong or Sal, dropping to his knees with his trembling torch in his hand. With eye glued to the floor of the bridge, he peered at me through a gap in the beams.

  ‘O mah God! He’s completely naked, and he’s smiling at me weirdly!’ gasped Prang or Sal, and kissing the pricked tip of mah sickle ah slogged the steel claw up through the slatted beams and sunk it to the hilt into his great, gawping face, then wrenched the sickle back again, ripping it from his skull like a mask – that silly face – ripping it from his skull like a screaming mask.

  Yeah, but me neither. No neither did ah.

  ‘There ain’t no fucken breathing sound, chucklehead. Let’s get going,’ said Sal and they turned and headed for their vehicles.

  ‘The tamperer’s there, ah know he is!’ protested Chucklehead, but they loaded him into their pick-up and eventually both vehicles were roaring down Maine, toward town.

  Maybe it was all the fleeing, all the fearing, all the falls, the earth mauls, bad steering, all the goddamn feeling ah had had to do on this dark descent, this day, this night – or perhaps it was the thoroughly obstetric secureness of mah pouch of earth, the pulse and lull of its clay. Or maybe ah needed to dream, to purge all of the rogue thoughts that had been hidden for so long in the back-streets and basements, the alleys and attics of mah subconsciousness. Or could it be ah just hadn’t been sleeping much lately – oh but ah had, ah had, hadn’t ah? Or perhaps it was none of these reasons and God had just deemed it necessary for me to tarry a little longer in that queer crawlspace, ah dunno, but that is exactly what ah did, crouched and naked and slumbering there.

  Never unnerestimate fear. Fear is the boss. Fear is king. Fear is God. It is everywhere and in everything. The peril potential. What do you think? Fear is a good chief but a bad brave. That’s mah view. That’s the way ah see it. Of all the emotional influences that play upon the senses there is none so all-consuming, so arrantly demanding and so downright insistent as fear. So much so that, as ah lay entombed in earth in that creeping crawlspace beneath the bridge, so afraid – so in fear – ah barely noticed the frightful condition mah body was in. Though it had no doubt been remonstrating, mah brain had been so thoroughly ravaged by fear that mah sensory switchboard had jammed. Now, as the motors died in the distance and fear subsided for the moment, pain bullied its way in.

  A ferocious cramp gripped mah right leg. Mah left leg was numb and dead. Gripping onto a support beam on the unnerside of the bridge with mah free arm, ah lifted mahself up a few inches and twisted mah body around, knees still drawn up to mah chest, and lowered mahself down upon mah back. Ah screamed as a sizzling pain ripped through the angry stripes across mah back and shoulders and ah hoisted mahself upward, disturbing a handful of slugs that seemed to welcome the warmth of mah body, peeling from the wooden beams and falling cool upon the conflagration of mah flesh.

  The pain generated by the great bruised swellings across mah back and shoulders seemed to stimulate parts of mah memory that would have otherwise remained dormant – stark jumbled bursts of recall – baffling – foreign – lost re-runs all triggered by shouts of white pain – terrible snippets of deadtime, ghastly in their vividness and somehow made even more harrowing by their transience, their disjointedness and their inconclusiveness. Deadtime revisted in agony.

  Darkness. Creaking floorboards unner mah feet. A slip of moon shining through a wide open window. A flapping curtain. Ah am near naked, but it is night and there are no lights in this room. But ah know the room. Ah know the room. Girl smells. Clean sheets. Soap. Powder. Her smells. Then an urgent whisper, trembling and excited. Excited. Her voice. An arm’s reach away. Come… upon… me… Jesus. O… Jesus… please… come… upon… me. Boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom. Sickle flash. The moon a scarlet slice. Here in the dark. In her room. The breath of her words against the skin of mah face. I… am… prepared. I… am… prepared. Clean cotton fabric. Mah body glistening in the moonlight. A brush of lavender across mah cheek. Your little doll… little doll… is prepared. Blushing blackness. Blushing blackness. Deadtime.

  Then an explosion of light. A wall of waxed dolls with hinged jaws. Beth’s face wet with tears. And me – and me standing in the centre of the room, shamed in light. And in the doorway – an ogress. Flowery apron. Florid face. Wooden rolling-pin in her fist. Screaming teeth, screaming O my God… O my God… O my God. Ah spin around. Glimpse Beth wrapping herself in a white sheet, sitting up in the bed. And me, shaking with fear. Ah turn to the window. Go climbing through. The brutal whacks across mah back – with the club, with the pin. Their dull thud. One. Two. Three. Four. Screaming and spinning and rushing ah go, like a wounded dog, through the night. Crawling through the dust and the darkness to mah refuge, to mah Kingdom. And there, in mah room, howling, mad with pain. Ripping apart a kennel with an axe-handle. Dull meat whacks. Pain transferral. Me, howling with pain like the dogs in the dark. A clutch of lavender fabric. Fresh and new and all unbuttoned. Still warm with her. In mah hands –

  Ah heard a pitter-patter of slippered feet above me. In the moon-glow the girders of the bridge looked like filed teeth and the moon, it looked like a fang. The pitter-patter of slippered feet grew louder, closer, and with it came a gust of lavender. Could that be Beth on the boards above me? As ah lay in the crawlspace, fast asleep – no, not asleep – awake. Could that be Beth on the boards of the bridge above me. As ah lay in the crawlspace, wide awake.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘Jesus, are You near me? I think You are. Yes, I can feel You all about me. Oh I just know that You are near.

  ‘I waited for you in my room tonight, but then the cane-men came and I heard one tell Daddy that you were under the bridge, but no one would believe him because of the briar patch. They said the only way you could have got under the bridge was by changing into a rabbit. Did you, Jesus? He said that he heard you breathing and that’s how I knew it was true, and I knew that I must come to you. I crawled out of my window just like you did.’

  She went quiet for a moment, and all ah could hear was the patter of her cautious steps. Then again she spoke. So frail. So tender. ‘I love you Jesus. You have stopped my loneliness.’

  And she fell silent again. And again there was the scuffing of her feet. It was as if she was consulting the silence in order to find me, stopping to listen, then taking another careful step or two, always drawing a little closer – for the silence, to be sure, was imparting some very accurate intelligence, what with mah wheezing, what with mah blooding – until the child was stepping on the rickety boards directly above me, the soles of her slippered feet literally a plank’s width from mah straining, throbbing face.

  ‘O Jesus, it is me, Beth. You need not speak. I know you are there. I cannot see you. But I know. Please don’t spe
ak. It is safer if you just listen.’

  Then ah think she must have squatted down, for though her voice had dropped to a whisper, ah could hear her words perfectly – ah fancied ah could even feel the sweet heat of her breath through the slatted beams – while mine – mah breaths – why mah breaths wheezed away, growing more and more raucous as ah tried desperately to control them – and, well – ah could have – perhaps – controlled them a little better, if ah had not been so tied up with mah barn-storming heart and all its panicky clamour. God, the noise in there.

  ‘I know that the women are wise women. I know that. They predicted You would come and choose me to be Your… handmaiden. But I do not like them. I am sorry, Jesus. I know that it is wrong, but I cannot help it. I hate them because they hate You and are frightened of You and wish to do You harm. I wish I never had to see them again, any of them. I wish I never had to answer another of their questions. I am sorry that they beat You. I will never forgive them, though I know that too is wrong.

  ‘I know why you have chosen me. Because no one could ever love You as I love You. I am your little doll. I give myself to you without question.’

  Her tiny voice chimed on and on.

  ‘And I know why our friendship must be kept a secret. Or they will kill You like they killed You in the Bible. And then we could not be together. If not for them we would live in this valley together. As best friends. But we must be careful, Jesus. I think I would die if anything happened to You…’ – she cried ah think, for ah could hear her little sobs as she spoke – ‘… just close my eyes and die.’ And she let fall a heavy tear, and it passed through the slats and exploded upon mah face, just below the right cheek. And as the droplet began to roll, ah caught it with mah tongue. And ah was shocked momentarily by that tear’s sweetness, having known them only as bitter things – only bitter things – always bitter things.