A Rock and a High Place

by Dan Mooney

  In his head the music of that terribly sad Bocelli song was playing as they riddled him. Afterwards they’d all realise it had been a hoax, but by then his words would have gripped the nation.

  “So some cop kills you?” Frank asked, pouring cold water all over Joel’s slow-motion fantasy.

  “What do you mean ‘some cop’? I’ll have set it up that way. It’s extremely dramatic.”

  “Why the cops?”

  “They represent the state, and the state has a dreadful track record of caring for the elderly.”

  “Colour me impressed. Logic. It’s still crap, of course, but at least there’s thought going in to it.”

  Frank delivered his stinging criticism as he scribbled into the journal. There were so many words in there that Joel was sure that The Unfortunate End of Joel Monroe would be a play seven and a half hours long.

  “Why crap?” he asked, deflated.

  “Everyone hates terrorists, that’s why.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep. Confetti or no confetti—that’s a nice touch by the way—you’ve just joined the regrettably long and exclusively awful list of terrorists. Won’t matter to anyone that it was a hoax. It’ll be remembered as a terrorist act perpetuated by a man desperate for attention, and all the sympathy in the world will be reserved for me and the poor police officer that killed an angry old man.”

  It was painful how correct he was. Joel took a long drink from his pint.

  “This was supposed to be an easy decision, you know,” Joel told him angrily. “Life’s shit, kill myself, done.”

  It had become complex. Frank had made it so.

  “It’s your call, pal. I just think a man of your stature and calibre needs to exit in the appropriate manner. With dignity and a touch of flair.”

  The compliment was designed to soften the blow; Joel knew that, and it worked. He resisted the urge to preen himself a little.

  “I’m running out of time here,” Joel told him.

  “You have the time you have. That’s all anyone has. Don’t rush it.”

  “But what if they…”

  “They’re not locking you up, jackass.”

  “They might.”

  “They won’t. You might think that daughter of yours is some kind of monster, but she’s not. She wants what’s best for you…”

  Joel scoffed at that remark.

  “…and there’s no way she’s going to allow you to be sectioned.”

  “You still think I should be going to see the bloody psychologist?”

  “I think it’s not going to do you any harm, but ultimately that’s not the point. I don’t think you should be made to do anything you’re not comfortable doing.”

  Frank was animated by the time he finished. His easygoing nature and his casual attitude toward people often masked his sharp, cutting intellect.

  “You’re not going to talk me out of it?”

  “No, you jackass. I think you should be allowed to do whatever you want. Kill yourself, don’t kill yourself, therapist, no therapist, ice cream for dinner, burgers for breakfast, whatever you want, you’re a grown man.”

  “You know what I really want?”

  “What?”

  “Another pint.”

  In a world of internet and mobile phones it’s hard for some people to untether, but for Joel Monroe, who barely understood the former and didn’t know how to work the latter, disconnecting from the world was as simple as being outside the gate of the nursing home that housed him. As they strolled between bars, two well-dressed elderly men on the town of a Saturday night, it struck Joel that Hilltop would be frantic searching for them, and would have absolutely no means of knowing where they were.

  They drank more beer, they talked about food, about their mutual inability to function in a kitchen and how they regretted it. They talked about their achievements, the great big moments in their lives. They talked about the downsides, the moments that they let pass them by. During it all Joel kept thinking of Eva, and strangely of The Rhino. They had been his antagonists for so long, and yet the image of Nurse Ryan in her conservatory with what Joel assumed was her child stood out to him. She was engrossed, smiling in a way he had never seen. Why had he never seen it? Why did she represent such a threat to him, such a malevolent force? And Eva, his own daughter, how could someone whom he loved so much represent so much that he hated about his life? A life that bored him to the point that he had developed a deep and abiding hatred of it, and a desperate need to get away from it.

  As they talked of all their lovely moments, she was at the centre of most of them. Pottering around his workshop, helping him fix the cars, doing her homework after school quietly in his office as he changed oil and replaced parts. The warm feeling of company she brought to his shop, so that all he had to do was glance her way during his shift to feel like everything was okay in the world. That little girl, and the same young woman had been replaced in his head. In her place was the woman who scolded him like a child, who refused to allow him outside into a world that he had become increasingly distant from.

  They brought these conversations from bar to bar, and as Joel felt the drink take a greater hold on him, he became increasingly, almost worryingly morose.

  “That’s the one that Lily goes to,” Frank told him, cutting through his reverie.

  “Sorry. What?” Joel replied, confused.

  The two of them had left a trendy evening spot full of young people and their cocktails in search of something more their pace, and were strolling down a wide busy avenue, the giddy surge of people intensifying as the night progressed.

  “This club,” Frank gestured at the door of a nightclub they were passing. “It’s the one that Lily goes to on Saturday nights.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I asked her.”

  “When?”

  “When you were sulking and not paying attention.”

  Joel let that slide. He looked through the gates into the wide-open courtyard that served as a smoking area for the club. It had a fountain in it, and chairs and tiny straw-topped shelters scattered about it. It positively teemed with people.

  “Let’s go in,” Joel suggested.

  “You what now?”

  “Let’s go in. It’s Saturday. Would be nice to see Lily if she’s here.”

  He remembered the face of her. The respect. The admiration. She liked the person she saw in her grandad in a way that she hadn’t done since she was a tiny one. He had been too distant for too long. Lucey had been everything to those kids.

  Frank grinned at the idea, adjusting his scarf and fixing on his best de Selby look.

  “Let’s go, then,” he announced, striding purposefully toward the door.

  Standing at the wide, oak double doors into the courtyard of the nightclub were two young bouncers. Joel guessed at early thirties. They seemed jocular enough, sharing a laugh. Both were gigantic men, one tall and broad, easily six and a half feet tall, with an almost ginger beard; the other shorter, but more powerfully built man was clean shaven, a fresh-faced look about him.

  “You sure you have the right place, gents?” he asked. He looked embarrassed. They both did.

  “Of course we have. Are you suggesting we’re senile?” Frank asked.

  His voice took on an edge as he said it. Joel couldn’t tell if it was affronted or another classic de Selby performance.

  “Eh… No. Just that…” The bouncer paused, searching for a reason not to admit two elderly, possibly drunk men into a club full of twenty-somethings.

  “Ah, I think I understand,” Joel offered. “You think we’re below the minimum age. An understandable mistake.”

  “Wait…” The bouncers looked at each other in confusion. “The management reserves the right to refuse admission,” the shorter one said, shamefacedly. It was clear that neither bouncer had any wish to stop them, but neither had they any wish to take responsibility when management asked what two seventy-odd-year-old men we
re doing in their club.

  Frank drew himself up and prepared to lambaste both of them, before Joel stepped in.

  “Is this because we’re gay?” Joel asked, almost quietly.

  The jaw of the taller bouncer dropped in a most satisfactory manner. The other one scrubbed a hand through his short hair in consternation.

  “Gents,” the younger one started, “it’s nothing like that…”

  “Not homophobia? So then what, ageism?”

  Joel and Frank stood arm in arm, eyebrows raised, waiting for a reply. They would stand their ground. Over one hundred and fifty years’ experience between the two of them would be more than a match for any obstacles.

  After a protracted moment while the bouncers tried to imagine a way around it, the smaller one eventually stepped to one side, and with a shake of his head and a wry smile of defeat, invited them in with a gesture. Frank blew him an exaggerated kiss as they passed, and the two old-timers were in.

  From the outside the club courtyard had seemed busy, but nothing could have prepared Joel for the manic energy of the inside. In all manner of clothes, mostly fancy, some almost nonexistent, the young people glided by each other, the drunker ones in their heels staggering a little. A young man in a corner seat trying to keep his eyes open and head up, on the verge of stupor.

  The music thumped at them, humming through Joel’s clothes, through the soles of his shoes and into his bones. There were drinks everywhere, a pall of cigarette smoke that hung above the heads of the revelers and here and there kissing and groping.

  He tried to take it all in calmly, and he felt that his fairly significant buzz was helping, but it was a long time since Joel Monroe had been in the thick of such a crazy swirl of humanity. He glanced to Frank for support only to realise that the older man was loving it.

  The difference between the two men might have been summed up in that moment. One a lover of people, an extrovert, energised by a crowd, the other a quieter man, solid, and though he only realised it in this very moment, a man not fond of large groups of people.

  “I think I need a drink,” he shouted at Frank.

  “What?” Frank roared back.

  “I said I need a drink,” Joel tried again, lifting his voice in the din.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying, but let’s go get a drink,” Frank told him.

  The bar was, painfully, all the way at the other end of the courtyard, through the mass of people. A part of Joel worried about how they’d be received; two elderly men. Would they be considered perverts? Lurkers among a crowd much too young for them. Would they be mocked? Two relics out of time and out of place. To his great and pleasant surprise, he saw no judgment. In fact, as they moved toward the back of the bar, he found that most of the young people, those sober enough to notice them, offered a quiet deference, moving aside ever so slightly to let them pass.

  A beautiful young lady smiled warmly at them as she gently pushed her unknowing friends out of the way. A path cleared for them as they made their way down the back. Joel had intended releasing Frank’s arm once they were in the door, but being intimidated by the crowd, he had not, and so they made their way through the tangled mess, arm in arm.

  Blessedly, by the bar, farther away from the speakers, the volume levels weren’t so loud, and the two could hear themselves think, and hear each other talk, albeit by almost shouting.

  “What can I get you gents?” the bartender asked. He was young and handsome and smiled encouragingly at them.

  “Two pints of stout, please,” Joel asked.

  “Sorry, gents, cocktail bar only.”

  Joel looked at Frank in dismay only to realise, again, that Frank was delighted.

  “We’ll have two cocktails please,” Frank told the man.

  “Any particular kind?” the man asked patiently.

  “It’s my birthday. Surprise me,” Frank replied, and he winked.

  Joel couldn’t help himself and laughed. Here was de Selby in his element. When the drinks arrived back, and Joel reached for his wallet, a young hand stopped him gently.

  “Grandad?!?” Lily asked, staring incredulously at him.

  She had clearly spotted them from somewhere across the bar and wandered over to see if her eyes were deceiving her. Now standing in front of her grandfather, she was gobsmacked. Joel channeled his inner de-Selby and smiled nonchalantly at her.

  “Hello, love,” he said, and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  It was a perfect moment for him. Frank burst out laughing at the synchronicity of it all. Joel tried not to laugh, but it must have shown on his face as Lily soon broke down, too.

  “Wait until Chris sees this,” she said as she got her breath.

  “Your brother is here, too?”

  “Yeah. With a gang of his friends. Does Mom know you’re here?”

  Joel tried not to look angry at the question. It was innocently asked. It annoyed him that he was expected to have permission, but all things considered, he knew she wasn’t trying to offend him.

  “No, love. And I’d take it as a kindness if you’d keep it to yourself.”

  “Of course,” she said, dismissing the suggestion that she’d tell.

  Her face was beaming at him. This is what he had come for. This is what he wanted out of the beaten-up and drawn out and utterly pointless life. He wanted respect, and love and admiration, all the things that come from a relationship between two equals.

  “How did you get out?”

  “He used me as ladder,” Frank told her.

  She looked from one of them to the other in surprised delight as she paid for their cocktails and then guided them toward a spot inside the club, a booth, half full of young adults enjoying themselves, “celebrating their lives,” Joel thought Frank might say.

  In the middle of the gang, overdressed with his highly styled hair, was Chris.

  “Grandad…” he exclaimed, his mouth agape.

  “This is your grandad?” a young lady immediately asked.

  “Yes, I’m his grandfather,” Joel told her.

  Chris grinned at him from ear to ear, while Lily began exclaiming to all of them about how she had spotted them across the courtyard ordering cocktails. Frank introduced himself, and Lily began telling them all about his friend’s acting career, prompting a flurry of mobile phones and googling and searching for Frank in corners of the internet.

  Joel was proud of himself. Proud of the fact that he was here, proud of the fact that his grandchildren were glad to see him, proud that he could have a life even if other people were trying to stop him.

  When their cocktails ran out they had more. When someone suggested it, they taken to the dance floor, the booze stripping them of any inhibitions. Joel danced awkwardly, clumsily, and Frank wasn’t much better, but a crowd had formed around them, a mini-mob of young people jumping and dancing and gyrating and taking photographs of the two of them, and neither of them cared how they looked. During one particular song, Chris swung an arm up and around his grandfather’s shoulder and Joel, full of drink and high spirits, felt that he might burst from the small act of affection.

  Several songs later and Joel was feeling drunk, and weary and overexcited. For a long, dangerous moment, he stood on the dance floor and waited for his legs to fail him. He felt dizzy, disorientated. Hadn’t he felt like this once before? When he fainted in the pub several years beforehand? He hoped it was just dizziness.

  On dangerously unsteady feet he made his way from the dance floor and toward the bar. What he needed was water. Along the way several of the dancing crowd who had broken away saluted him; one stopped to take a selfie with him. He hoped he wasn’t smiling too drunkenly. The bar manager served him, with a great, warm, affectionate smile. He chugged back the water, one hand gripping the bar tightly, and let the dizziness pass. The bar manager clapped him warmly on the shoulder. Joel was poleaxed by the effusiveness of it all. That the world wasn’t shutting them out, but welcoming them in.

  When the m
usic ended, and hordes of late teens and twenty-somethings burst like a drunken wave out in to the city streets, the two bouncers smiled knowingly at the two senior citizens, their adoring public all around them. Frank even signed some autographs while young people showed off pictures of him from his soap opera days.

  The fresh nighttime air cooled Joel as he stood, drunkenly, in the middle of the street. His ears were still ringing from the sound of the music and the shouting, and he felt like his bones might still be vibrating under skin, but he felt deliciously, gloriously alive.

  They reeled down the street in a group, chatting, laughing, stopping briefly while one young pal or other threatened to throw up but didn’t, and came to a stop outside a kebab shop.

  “Kebabs?” he asked Chris.

  “Never had a kebab, Grandad?”

  “Never.”

  “First time for everything,” Chris told him as he led him to a chair in the crowded restaurant.

  The group was large enough that it had to spread itself over three tables with Joel, Chris and two pals sitting at one, and Frank sitting behind with Lily and two young ladies who apparently couldn’t stop taking his photograph.

  “What possessed you, Grandad?” Chris asked around a mouthful of kebab.

  “My friend’s birthday,” Joel told him, trying to sound cool about it. Trying to sound like he hadn’t been secretly hoping he’d get caught as they climbed out the window.

  “And they have no idea?” Chris asked, still hugely impressed.

  He had impressed them this night, and in doing so had built a moment with them, something special and wonderful. For the first time since they were tiny children, he felt connected to them.

  “I think, my dears,” Joel announced as he rose from his seat, savouring the word ‘dears,’ that I may be a little bit drunk.”

  His proclamation was met with heartfelt cheers. Frank laughed out loud.

  “And,” Joel continued, “it may be time for me to go home.”

  These words were greeted with a chorus of boos and hisses. Frank threatened to throw a Styrofoam container at him.