Joshua’s house turned out to be one in a long row of townhouses. The rain was coming down in convulsive sheets when Warden arrived, making the street lamps shiver like a chalky silver flame.
“My humble abode,” Joshua said, closing the door behind him as Warden brushed himself off.
Warden followed him down a hallway in need of painting to a room whose walls were decorated, or not so much decorated as occupied by strange objects framed in blazons of colour. A radio emitted an abrasive grid of sound.
The people in the room sat in tableau looking bored or dejected. They had the air of people engaged in a running argument so habitual it hardly involved passion or the need to listen so much as continual restatement. Blue cigarette smoke hung in meditative layers around their heads. Outside, the rain fell without cessation as a necessary counterpart to the lifelessness within.
“This is my family,” Joshua said, as if there were no need to individualize or differentiate the massed inertia of the sitters.
“Hello,” Warden said.
The others stirred as though waking from sleep. A tanned, well-dressed woman smiled at him, seeming the most fully awake of them all.
“Hello,” she replied in a smoky voice. “I’m Josh’s sister, Tanya.”
Warden shook her extended hand.
“And this is my husband, Bill.”
An over-dressed, uncomfortable looking man turned to Warden, hesitating slightly before offering a hand. “Good to meet you,” he said with an American accent.
“That’s Troy over there in a coma,” Tanya said, pointing out the final figure in the room.
Warden turned to see a young man sitting in shadow. His dark hair was a lopsided bob whose ragged edges looked as though they’d been severed with a razor. Even in the dark he looked wan and pale. He held a thin hand up to his forehead, the long bony fingers obscuring his eyes. A ridiculously large ring glittered on one finger.
“Is she still outside?” Joshua said.
“Yes.”
It was Troy who answered, surprisingly, as he’d been silent until then. Warden wondered if they were trying to get an escaped cat in from the rain.
“Tiffany, honey, come inside,” Joshua said.
He walked over to where a curtain breathed slowly in and out of the room. Warden was startled to see a girl of four or five staring in at the gathering, a pout of determination on her elfin face where she stood just out of reach of the downpour.
“No, I won’t come in.”
“Come inside, Tiffany dear—we don’t want you to be struck and killed by lightning,” Tanya called out brightly.
The pout rippled with rebellion. “If I die it will be all right because I’ll be much happier in another life.”
“Tiffany!” Joshua spoke firmly. “Come inside now, please.”
She stepped in and stood passively before him. He crouched down, opening his arms to her.
“That’s better. Here’s someone I’d like you to meet now,” he said. “This is Warden.”
“Hello, Tiffany,” Warden said.
“Are you another uncle?” she asked petulantly.
“I think it’s bedtime,” Tanya called in a falsely cheery voice. “Are you ready for bed yet?”
“I don’t want to go,” the girl said defiantly.
“What if old Josh puts you to bed?” Joshua asked in a gentle voice. He tickled her till she laughed. “There now—that’s better.”
He stopped and her pout returned.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If you come up to bed with me now, I’ll take you somewhere special before you go back to America, just the two of us, and we’ll really enjoy ourselves before you go home.”
She pressed her head against him, clinging to his leg. “I don’t want to. If I’m not enjoying myself I’ll just sniff some white powder like Aunt Tanya,” she said.
A scowl crossed Joshua’s face. Tanya looked embarrassed.
“You’ll see. We’ll go visit the swans in the park. Say goodnight to everybody and you’ll see them in the morning.”
Joshua picked her up and swung her onto his shoulders. Her head hung down on his chest, her face a mask of despair as she said goodnight and they went upstairs together.
Tanya listlessly stubbed out her cigarette. “Bill and I are going out for something to eat, Troy. Do you want to come along with us? We can talk some more,” she said.
“Why don’t you eat here?” Troy replied.
“Because there’s nothing to eat,” she said.
“Sure there is—there’s plenty to eat.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s chips and burgers … or there’s burgers and chips,” he said sarcastically.
Tanya sighed. She got to her feet and Bill stirred for the first time. They wandered down the hall together.
“We’ll be back by 11 o’clock,” she said as they went out.
“Suit yourself.”
Joshua returned as the front door shut.
“Where’d they go?”
“Off to fill their gullets again,” Troy replied, coming to life now as if their presence had been responsible for his immobility. “All they ever do is eat. It must be an American pastime.”
Joshua sat next to Warden and pulled a cigarette from a pack.
“When are they leaving?” Troy asked. “They’re starting to drive me crazy.”
“It’s all right, they’ll only be here another day or two before they head back.”
“They’re having problems again. I heard him calling her names in the middle of the night.”
“What sort of names?”
“I don’t know—just the usual sort.”
“Well, don’t worry about them. They can’t make you go with them against your will and they’ll soon stop trying to convince you.” Joshua turned to Warden. “Would you like tea?”
“Sure.”
“Troy?”
“You know I don’t drink tea. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“I’m sorry. What did you say?” Joshua asked with exaggerated politeness.
Troy ignored him as he struggled to open the pocket of his shirt. He slipped something out between his fingers and placed it on his tongue.
Joshua glared. “What do you have to take those pills for? I can’t get through to you when you’re like that.”
“Because I get anxiety attacks. You’re giving me one now. They help me find peace of mind since I can’t have any privacy in this fucking hole.”
“Do you know what privacy is?” Joshua said. “It’s just being alone wherever you are, no matter what’s going on around you.”
“That’s really useful to know,” Troy responded. “The next time I’m having an attack I’ll stop and think about that one for a while.”
“Look, I’m not saying that drugs don’t or can’t help. I just don’t think habitual use of them is any substitute for peace of mind or talent or inspiration or even a shortcut to any of them.”
“Jawohl, mein Kommandant, which means, ‘Thanks for the advice, Shithead.’”
Joshua went to the kitchen and came back with a pot of tea and two cups. Troy sat and smoked in silence. Warden could see him clearly now, his pale delicate features and eyes ringed with emptiness like light locked in silent halls.
“I’ve seen you before,” Troy said. “You’re the Fabiano Boy.”
Warden was surprised, not so much at being recognized but that someone like Troy had noticed—and remembered—his face in the layout of a magazine.
“What’s this? You’re somebody famous, are you?” Joshua said, refilling his cup.
“There’s one ad where you had a mask over your head and a sword in your hand. I used to call you the Lone Ranger, like that American hero.”
Warden smiled at the description. “Real heroes don’t come from the pages of magazines,” he said.
“You have to be ready for anything to happen,” Troy replied cryptically, retreating behind his hands aga
in.
With his alien features and dark eyes Troy looked as if he’d come from a distant star, flickering with a small flame constricted inside him. He stood shakily. His shadow trembled on the wall as if unsure what shape to assume. It was only then that Warden saw how slight he was. His thin figure looked as though it would snap in half like a wafer.
“I’m going out,” he announced.
“Are you going to Tabu?” Joshua asked.
“I’m sick of Tabu,” he complained. “They’re just a bunch of tired old wankers there. All those girls have copied my new hairstyle. I’m sick of it all.”
He put on his coat and went out into the rain.
Joshua shrugged as if to say there was nothing to be done. “Welcome to my world,” he said. “Troy’s problematic, as Tanya is fond of pointing out. She thinks he’s in the wrong atmosphere here. They want him to go to America with them. He won’t go, but I have no idea what to do with him here.”
Warden thought of Lisa, similar in age but so different in attitude.
“He’s a very talented lad,” Joshua continued. “This is his art on the walls. It shows incredible imagination for a sixteen-year old, don’t you think?”
The work blazed with colour and intensity, lingering on the edge of the bizarre. It wasn’t painting so much as makeshift 3-D collage, with images sketched over fragmented objects and populated by creatures—half-human, half-animal—pursued by inner fears and agonies. In one, a headless chicken carried a bowl of blood while a shrieking dog disembowelled itself. Fried egg shapes leaked between trees in abrupt concentrations of colour and texture. The pieces were set in frames covered in splashes of paint lacking all subtlety of application.
Joshua touched Warden’s shoulder. “So you are human after all,” he said, his mouth set in a grimace that might have been a sneer or a look of pleasure.
“So far as I know. What made you think otherwise?”
“I thought you might be someone I just dreamed up over the weekend, like the Fabiano Boy.”
“That makes two of us then. I hear you’re pretty well known yourself.”
Joshua laughed. “For too many things, I’m afraid.”
“And here I thought you were just another nice guy,” Warden said.
Joshua laughed again. “No. I may be a lot more and I may be much less, but I’m not just another nice guy.”
“And Tiffany…is she your daughter?”
Joshua’s face betrayed surprise. The look quickly vanished.
“Yes, she’s mine. She lives with Tanya and Tom. I don’t care for the way they bring her up, but as you can see I have only myself to blame.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t raise her. Do I look like a proper parent?”
He stubbed out his cigarette, exhaling with finality.
“Her mother’s an addict,” he said. “If Tanya hadn’t taken her they would’ve placed her with a foster home.” He shrugged. “I have enough with Troy on my hands here. It’s all I can do to keep him in school. He wants to be independent but I have to make him see knowledge is important in this world. It’s the one thing you can’t buy,” he said, as though its inaccessibility from commerce were in itself a virtue.
He leaned forward and brushed Warden’s lips with a kiss. “I haven’t had a chance to touch you yet. Are you staying the night?”
“I’d like to…”
“Good. Right this way.”
The floor in Joshua’s bedroom was littered with discarded books, clothes and other barely discernible objects. A neon tube glowed like pale fire in the tangled letters of the word VACANCY.
“I didn’t have time to do any decorating before you came,” Joshua said, pushing aside sheets and books. “I hope you’re not fussy.”
“I can handle it.”
Joshua pulled him down to the bed, limbs and lips tangling in an embrace.
“We won’t be needing this,” he said, reaching to a string above their heads. He pulled it and the neon sign went out. “You fill up the space well.”
“I thought it referred to a state of mind,” Warden joked, running his hand over Joshua’s chest.
“I could get used to this,” Joshua said.
“What shall we do about it?”
“Let’s fall in love and live happily ever after.”
“All right.”
21
A week later, Joshua took Warden to the warehouse where his band practised. Joshua had made Sanctuary sound like something between a fall-out shelter and a shrine to radical politics where a small but devoted group of followers lived apart from the mainstream. From outside it resembled a derelict fort with boarded-up windows and a padlocked door. An overgrown path led to a back entrance with the words NO FEAR ZONE scrawled in bright red letters.
They made their way into a cavernous space ruled over by giant industrial sculptures and a life-size swordfish replica hanging from the ceiling. The dimly lit walls were obscured by drawings like Palaeolithic cave scrawls depicting bizarre beings and strange acts. Figures moved about like a colony of nocturnal molluscs, camouflaged and shut out from the light. It was a landscape of spiritous shapes, someone’s abortive attempt at founding a new society on barely habitable shores, groping their way in the darkness. Invested with an immobility born of despair, they’d raised a flag over the bones of the old social order as if to make of the real world a fiction, though it remained unaware of its proclaimed death by the citizens of this secret reconstituted world. He was seeing in close-up the core of a profound alienation.
A boy of about thirteen greeted them with a rat perched on his shoulder. He wore paramilitary garb with the words “Affluence Stinks” scrawled across his T-shirt. A cross was shaved into the hair over his left ear.
“Hello, Tommy. How’s Virus today?” Joshua said.
“He’s all right. Had a bit of a scare, though. A big, red tabby almost got him yesterday.”
Joshua rubbed the boy’s head affectionately. Tommy walked on as though he’d just passed inspection. Others greeted Joshua as if he were a politician making the rounds of his constituency. They came to a narrow doorway and entered a low-ceilinged room housing a fridge, gas stove and a cupboard stocked with cans and bottles. Joshua struck a match and lit the stove, placing a battered kettle on the metal burner.
“I hope you don’t mind roughing it a bit,” he said. “This is home to some of the band. It’s where we practise. It’s also home to a number of others.”
“How many people live here?”
“Hard to say—we don’t do a census,” he said with a wry smile. “From thirty to sixty at any given time, I’d say. It depends largely on the season and the economy.”
“Rebekah and Ivan have taken me to a lot of different places since I’ve been here, but this is … really different.”
“Pussycats, darling,” Joshua said. “There’s a whole world here your trendy little friends have never seen. You couldn’t understand it, not being born here. Not unless you grew up with the English class structure and saw how people live their whole lives trying to fulfil someone else’s expectations.”
He lit a cigarette at the stove and began to pace, explaining why those who lived at Sanctuary had chosen to withdraw from society rather than suffer its ills or try changing it from within. Joshua claimed still to be willing to try to change things and to that end Wheel of Fire had been formed.
“What do you stand for?” Warden asked, feeling naïve in the face of his political theorizing.
Joshua stopped and looked at him. “Ourselves … liberty…the freedom to be who we are without having to fight to survive in a system of greed and corruption. Just because we’re born into this world doesn’t mean we have to accept things we feel are fundamentally wrong.”
It was in this underground arena that Wheel of Fire had been spawned from the shared ideas of a handful of social delinquents struggling toward a new vision, a way out of the moribund and cynical twentieth century. Here they gathered and dream
ed of a new reign, a new frontier, burning the old letter of the law. They belonged neither to the right nor the left, Joshua insisted. Together they’d come to mistrust the mechanistic promises of socialism, yet despised the selfish ideals of capitalism. It was a retreat born of despair and frustration from the failure of all political promises.
“Life is obscene. I often feel there’s no hope for society and unless it changes it will eventually destroy itself. Sometimes I think doing anything at all to change things is just prolonging it. You either float along with the scum on the surface or you go underground—they leave you no choice. It’s the only way to be when you’re powerless.”
Warden watched the flashes of emotion on Joshua’s face, remembering the harshness of his words on the train and the surprising gentleness of his touch the next evening. When they kissed, Joshua’s face had carried the solemnity of a child contemplating a world of wonders, but when he spoke Warden saw lurking in his eyes a subterranean angel dreaming of destruction.
The kettle whistle blew. Joshua flicked his cigarette onto the cement floor. There was an underlying intensity to everything he did—even smoking was a rebellion, not a pleasure or a casual pose. It was another strike at society’s hierarchies, which he instinctively defied even in repose.
“Are you always so serious?” Warden asked.
Joshua placed a cup on the table in front of him. “I think I pretty well am, actually. There’s not really a lot I find amusing in this world.” He took Warden’s face in his hands. “Though you make me feel like a teenager again. I found everyone so antiseptic and fawning till I met you.”
When they woke, it was afternoon. Light seeped through the cracks in the ceiling. Warden ran his fingers over Joshua’s chest. Joshua moaned, half-asleep.
“What time is it?”
“Past noon. I had an appointment this morning. I guess I missed it.”
“Important?”
“Mmm…sort of.”
“Well then, don’t worry. They’ll make you another one.”
“Do you always sleep in this late?”
“Sometimes. Usually later.”
Warden sat up and began to pull on his shorts. Joshua rolled over and put an arm around his waist.
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