Personal Demons

by Christopher Fowler

  'I know. I agreed, didn't I? Well, you don't have to worry about me. I'll just head somewhere else. There must be plenty of other places.'

  'Around here?' Bax released a guffaw. 'Right. Gangsta bars full of guys with spiderwebs tattooed on their elbows. I don't know why you have to do this, Woody, it's like you got something to prove. You just hanging out with us 'cause it makes a change from shopping. You need to get something goin' for yourself, girlfriend.'

  'Hey, this is a new experience,' said Woody as they reached the side-entrance of the pub. 'Something I haven't tried yet.'

  'Yeah? So's having a kidney removed, don't mean you gotta do it.'

  Jack reached over their heads and rang the doorbell. They waited outside the dingy crimson doors, their breath distilling in the chill November air. Bax and Woody were dressed in padded jackets, tracksuit bottoms and Caterpillars. Jack hitched up a pair of baggy combat trousers. All three wore black hats over shaved heads. There was a specific reason for their loose clothing. From inside came the sound of a bolt being drawn back. Heat and thumping techno ballooned out at them as the door opened and the knuckle-dragger on the ticket stand stepped back to allow them entry.

  'That's five quid each.' His gimlet gaze shifted from one to the next. His eyes lingered on Woody, who lowered her head as she pretended to have trouble unbuttoning her jacket. The other two held their breath. The doorman accepted fifteen pounds from Jack, who held all the cash, and pointed them to a stack of green plastic bags on the floor.

  'Okay, in you go, bags are over there.' Jack scooped up three and passed the other two back as they walked on along the corridor.

  'What are these for?'

  'To put your clothes in,' Bax explained. 'Check 'em behind the counter in the corner.'

  'Where are you putting your wallet?'

  'Down the side of my boot.'

  The corridor had opened out into a large bar area. Beyond this were the flashing greens and violets of a dance floor. The interior was also painted black. As Woody's eyes adjusted, she could see men in their underwear lounging around the bar drinking, smoking and talking just as if they were fully dressed. Some wore jockstraps, but most sported white designer-label pants and boots. Men were undressing beside powerful radiators in the gloomier corners. Jack stopped and turned to watch Woody. 'This I've got to see,' he said, grinning. 'You know they'll go nuts if they find out there's a girl in here.'

  'Well, they're not going to find out.' Woody removed her jacket to reveal a tight-fitting khaki combat vest.

  'What did you do with your tits?' Bax was amazed.

  'I strapped them down with tape.' She pulled down her track-suit bottoms to reveal a pair of men's Calvin Klein Y-fronts. Her breasts were small, and suppressing them gave her the appearance of having developed pectoral muscles. She bundled her discarded clothes into the bag and stepped back with her hands resting lightly at her hips. 'So – do I look okay?'

  'You look like Valdez in Aliens.'

  'But do I pass as a man?'

  Jack pulled off his nylon cap and carefully stuffed it into the front of Woody's pants. 'You do now.'

  'You wish.'

  'I know.' He and Bax stripped down to their underwear and headed for the bag-check. The bag-man handed them three reclaim tickets and took their clothing out into the small annexe behind the bar that housed the cloakroom. Jack wasn't entirely sure how he had been persuaded to smuggle a girl into a men-only club on Underwear Night of all nights, but now they were inside together he decided to make the best of it. She had been nagging them to take her for weeks, ever since she'd heard about the place. Jack and Bax were her best friends, and the fact that they happened to be lovers never deterred her from hanging out with them wherever they went.

  The club was called The Outlook, and attracted men who were prepared to take a walk on the wilder side of life, partly because the activities that took place beyond the dancefloor were apt to get a little raunchy, and partly because the pub was situated at the edge of South London's largest and most trouble-ridden public housing estate. In the mid-1850s the Skinner's Arms had been a boxing pub with a glass cupola above a sweat-stained ring, where workers gathered to cheer and bet on the neighbourhood's finest fighters. The matches had been halted by an unavailability of suitable pugilists in the Great War, and the old glass roof had been demolished by a stray bomb in the next. In the seventies the ground floor had been cleared of its separate Snug and Saloon bars to become a disco, and in the late eighties it had turned into a crack den. No matter how many times the police held raids, the local hoods continued to trade drugs both inside and on the street. By the time it was turned into a gay club the exhausted police and the desperate residents were happy to leave it alone because, in their eyes, anything was better than pushers, even queers. Just so long as no-one could see or hear what was going on inside it remained under a flag of uneasy truce, on the frontline of a no-go area. People entered and vacated the building quietly, and the smart cars that parked outside were left alone, because even the local kids could figure out that if they started smashing quarterlights and boosting stereos the bar would close down and the junkies would return, and nobody wanted that.

  'What have you got in your briefs, a pound of sausages?' Woody released a high laugh, then quickly lowered the timbre, looking guiltily around.

  'This is all me,' said Jack, looking down at his underpants. 'Can I help it if God was bountiful? This is yours.' He passed Woody a pint of strong lager, which she had ordered in the belief that it would provide her with additional gender-camouflage. She took a sip in a way that showed she was unfamiliar with holding such a glass, like a non-smoker drawing on a cigarette. As she did she took covert glances at Bax's sculptured torso.

  'I'd drink that slowly, if I were you,' said Jack. 'There's no ladies' room in here. You may be able to pass for a man but I doubt even you can convincingly pee standing up.'

  The room was starting to fill. The temperature had begun to climb with the volume of the music. Woody clutched the glass to her flattened chest and took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of bitter hops that had soaked and impregnated the surrounding wooden bar for more than a century. All old pubs had this odour, but here there were other scents; traces of aftershave, cologne and the musky maleness of nearly a hundred stripped, sexed-up and overheated men. She felt herself becoming aroused, even though she was aware of the paradox; they would only be interested in her if she could successfully prove herself to be male, and that was the one thing she could not do. In the dark beyond the dancefloor she sensed naked torsos touching, arms and legs shifting across each other. Maybe she had made a mistake coming along, and they were right when they asked her what she was trying to prove.

  'You okay?' Bax laid a hand on her shoulder.

  'I have a faint suspicion,' she said, narrowing her eyes, 'that there may be people fucking in here. It smells like fucking. Don't you think?'

  'A fuck's just a way of celebrating life, princess, like a champagne toast. Look, you asked to come along with us.'

  'I know, I just didn't realise I was going to end up in the House of Testosterone. Who's Jack talking to?'

  Bax looked over his shoulder. Behind him stood a vague, thin-limbed boy of about nineteen. He had carelessly cropped blonde hair, watery blue eyes and the self-absorbed stance of a piece of minor Victorian statuary. He also had a dog-chain tightened around his pale cigarette-burned neck. 'His name's Simon. He knows us from evening classes. Gives me the creeps. He's into humiliation. Likes to take punishment. They say his dad sexually assaulted him for years, and nobody found out about it until after the old guy was dead. I don't know why Jack talks to him. I never do.'

  'You mean he's a masochist?'

  'Yeah, why? You wanna interview him for your thesis?' Bax drained his beer and set the glass down on the cigarette machine. 'He won't be very interesting. People who are into role-playing never are.'

  'Why's that?'

  'Because they're selfish, working out th
eir childhood shit. They just take what they want from sex.'

  Woody peered around Bax's chest. The boy was flirting shamelessly with Jack. 'Perhaps he has no choice.'

  'You're right there. Kids like that are just whipping boys, put on earth to suck up all the bad vibes and take the blame.'

  'Don't you get jealous when guys flirt with Jack?'

  Bax looked surprised. 'Me? We've been together for six years. I hardly think he's about to run off with someone else, and if he did I'd like to think he'd choose someone attractive. Besides, we have a deal. It's simple; if he ever leaves me, I'll kill him. You want another beer?'

  'I can keep pace with you, no problem,' she said defensively.

  'Come and give me a hand.'

  The two bartenders were ignoring customers in order to conduct some kind of odd argument with each other. Something was clearly wrong for them both to look so worried. 'What's going on?' Bax shouted over the music as one of the boys distractedly took his order.

  'They found some little kid on the wasteground this afternoon,' explained the barman. 'Dead. Raped. A little boy.'

  'Christ. That's terrible.'

  'Yeah. One of the customers just told me there's a crowd hanging around outside.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'A bunch of people who live on the estate. At least, that's where he thinks they're from.'

  Bax was appalled. 'They don't think the person who did it is in here?'

  The barman looked at him as if he was stupid. 'I wouldn't be surprised – would you?'

  News of the boy's death had swept around the estate with electrifying speed, and as it passed along each street it gained gruesome new details. The boy was local and liked by all. Some other kids had seen him talking to a man, not someone from around here, a visitor, a stranger. The only people who came to this area did so to frequent that pub across the road. The pub was just five hundred yards from the wasteground, the perfect sanctuary. They were shielding him inside, protecting one of their own. In the minds of the growing mob, deviants of that nature knew no difference between love and rape, between adults and children.

  At first there had only been a handful of people on the pavement outside, but over the last hour the numbers had swelled until there were more than a hundred restless men and women. The police had been called to control the crowd, and at the moment were nervously discussing the problem in the next street while they awaited the arrival of the two Armed Response Vehicles they had requested. Their relationship with the estate residents had never been an easy one, and at this point one wrong move, one misunderstood command, would start a riot.

  They lingered outside, the dark faces of the multitude, muttering to one another, cupping matches in their hands to light cigarettes, shifting back and forth from one group to the next trying to glean details, waiting for news, waiting for action, and not prepared to wait much longer.'

  When you think about it, this is really silly. A bunch of grown men standing around in their underclothes.' Woody slid her arm around Bax as they watched the dancefloor, but her eyes kept straying to the dark recesses beyond. Jack was still at the counter having an intense conversation with Simon and the barman. 'Oh, I don't know,' said Bax. 'It's kind of like having X-ray vision. Didn't you ever see Ray Milland in The Man with the X-Ray Eyes? Anyway, nobody's hurting anyone else, so where's the harm?'

  The noise of the brick cut through even the fuzzing bass sound of the track playing over the speakers. It clanged against the steel shutter next to the entrance and the bruit echoed through the club. A moment later the DJ cut the music. Muffled shouts could be heard outside. A chunk of concrete resounded against another of the shutters. Scuffles and angry yells broke out behind them as the rear door to the bar was hastily slammed shut. One of the barmen crashed a heavy iron rod across the door and locked it in place.

  'What was that?' Woody looked back, shocked by the noise.

  'They've broken in through the window of the corridor between the bar and the cloakroom,' said Bax. 'They can't get in here. But we can't get in there.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'It means, my dear, that we can't get our clothes back.'

  'Let me get this straight,' said Woody, raising her hands in rising panic. 'We're locked in here, in just our underwear, with what sounds like a lynch mob outside howling for someone's blood.'

  'Our blood,' said Bax. 'You're one of us now. Congratulations. You always wanted to be one of the boys.'

  'Well, someone will have to go out there and tell them there's been a mistake.'

  'Good idea, Woodson. You wanna handle that?'

  Jack reappeared beside them as another hail of rocks clanged against the shuttered windows. 'I don't think they can get in. This place is built like a fortress. Besides, the cops should be here in a minute.'

  'Well, that's reassuring. I feel better already. Let's have another drink, turn the music back on and dance.' Bax raised his glass just as – incredibly – the technotrack really did resume, bleeding a thudding beat through the speakers. 'Jeezus, I don't believe these queens!'

  'It's like I said, they could tango their way through the stations of the fucking cross.'

  'Somehow I think it's gonna take more than a sense of rhythm and a pair of cha-cha heels to get us out of this situation.' A few guys had returned to the dancefloor, mainly the ones who were tripping. Everyone else was standing back by the bar, watching the sealed-up windows with increasing nervousness.

  'How many of them do you think are out there?' asked Woody.

  'A couple of hundred by now,' replied Simon, who had appeared beside them.

  'Oh yeah?' Bax wasn't prepared to allow the newcomer into their circle just because Jack sometimes spoke to him. 'How do you know that?'

  'I'm sensitive to shifts of mood. A bit psychic. My mother, my real mother, was a medium.'

  'Just great,' moaned Bax, 'we've gone from the Twilight Zone to the X-Files. I'm gonna see what's happening.' He headed off to the entrance, where the club's bouncer was watching the street from his peephole in the door.

  'What's going on outside?'

  'Some kids just climbed that pole over there and cut our phone lines. Now they're all just standing around like a bunch of – lemmings – or something. Like they're waiting for a signal.' The bouncer motioned him away. 'I'd get back from the door if I were you.'

  Another hurled chunk of concrete hammered against the panels, shaking the air. The noise level on the street was rising as the crowd gained confidence and found its voice. 'Can't someone call the police on a mobile?' asked Bax.

  'You won't get reception in here. The cops are probably waiting for ARV's. They're equipped to deal with stuff like this. Nothing for us to do but wait.' The sound of glass exploded on the other side of the door, and suddenly a pool of burning petrol was fanning through the gap beneath it, illuminating the room and turning the air acrid.

  'Fire over here!' bellowed the bouncer. Bax jumped back, grabbed at the stack of listings magazines behind him and stamped a pile of them over the searing patch, spattering gobbets of flame over his boots and bare calves. The bouncer, the only fully clothed man in the building, found a small C02 extinguisher just as another burning cocktail shattered across the plywood-covered window to the left of the entrance. The wood panel quickly heated and caught fire, then the inner window cracked with a bang and burning petrol began to drip down the interior wall. They could hear the mob outside cheering each direct hit.

  This time the dance music stopped for good. Some clubbers were arguing with the staff, others were shouting at each other, but most were just standing around in shock, unable to go anywhere or do anything. Woody looked around to find herself left alone with Simon, whose face had drained of blood. He had the exotic look of an albino.

  'Are you all right?'

  'He wasn't frightened,' he said in a clear loud voice, as if answering a distant enquiry. 'Not until the very end.'

  'Who wasn't frightened?' she asked in alarm. The b
oy's skin was prickling, his eyes staring off at something, a view, a tableau she could not see. He was breathing too fast, starting to shake. 'Here.' She grabbed a plastic bottle of Evian from the bar, snapped off the cap and made him drink.

  'It's too late,' said Simon, water spilling from his mouth. 'The man has gone now.'

  'Which man?'

  'The one who hurt him, who made him bleed. The one in the big car.' He was shaking uncontrollably now, edging into spasms. 'He said he only wanted to look, to touch. He lied, he lied – '

  'Can you help us?' she called to a man standing behind her. Simon was thrashing violently in her arms and then, before anyone could come to her aid, he was still once more and breathing normally. The attack had ended as quickly as it had begun.

  'I'm fine now, really.' He disentangled himself from her embrace and rose unsteadily to his feet, a look of mild surprise on his face.

  'Are you quite sure?'

  His colour was returning. He gave a wan smile to show that he was fine.

  Frustrated by his own inaction, Jack was asking one of the barmen what he could do to help. 'Is there any other way out of this room?'

  'No, only through the bar and upstairs on to the roof.'

  'We can't stay in here. We'll be burned alive. Do you have a sprinkler system we can turn on?'

  'No,' said the barman helplessly. 'The place still qualifies as a pub, not a music venue. It's not big enough to require one. The only water supply is in the sinks and dishwasher behind the counter, and out with the clothes-bags.'

  'Then I guess we'll just have to hold out until the police take charge.'

  'There are enough of them outside to murder us all,' said Simon softly. 'They won't stop until they've performed a sacrifice.'

  'That's bloody cheerful,' snapped Woody.

  He threw her a sudden odd look. 'Why are you pretending to be a man?'

  'Just give me a hand with this.' She and several of the others shifted one of the heavy drinks tables away from the wall and set it on end, blocking the broken window nearest the entrance. Bax and the bouncer were training extinguishers on the fiery fluid seeping through the windows from more burning Molotovs. People were motivating into groups, at work on separate sections of the room. It was as if a collective intelligence had kicked in to make them perform the necessary protective actions. The explosion of wood and glass that erupted near Woody caught everyone by surprise.