Watching the Wheels Come Off

by Mike Hodges

  ‘You didn’t mean a word of that shit you just gave Herman, did you? You were just kissing ass, weren’t you? You lying, hypocritical motherfuckers, you want to kiss ass, right?’

  Biff rarely smiles but he does now.

  ‘Then kiss each other’s. Drop your pants!’

  And they do.

  thirty-one

  The sun rises above the calm mirror of water.

  A crisp, clear dawn breaks over the deserted beach. The banner proclaiming the ‘Personal Improvement Institute’ flaps gently above the hotel entrance. Below it a cleaning lady sweeps the front steps. In the foyer another cleaning lady vacuums the stair carpet, while a third polishes the brass handrail.

  Outside Room 13, Harvey the night porter squats on a stool polishing Alice’s long black boots, quietly humming to himself. He finishes them off and moves on to the pair of men’s brown-and-white two-tone shoes waiting outside the Empire Suite. Picking them up, he holds them beside Alice’s boots, chuckling. ‘Didn’t know Fred and Ginger was in town.’

  The door behind him bursts open.

  Temple, dressed in a bathrobe, strides out and impatiently grabs his shoes. ‘Thank you. They look just great.’

  And he disappears inside.

  Harvey wearily gets to his feet and moves off. As he rounds the corner, Temple’s head re-emerges, checks the empty corridor, then he crosses to the door opposite and knocks tentatively.

  A sleepy-sounding Alice eventually calls out: ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Herman.’

  Twitching and impatient, Temple paces about until Alice opens the door. She looks ravishing in her swirling silk nightdress. ‘Herman, sweetie, you look so much better. Did you have a good night?’

  ‘I didn’t sleep – not a wink.’

  ‘Did you do your press-ups, like I said?’

  ‘Screw the press-ups, Alice. I couldn’t close my eyes without you swimming into my mind.’

  ‘Why, that’s just beautiful, darling.’

  Temple checks the empty corridor both ways, before whispering: ‘I’ve decided to divorce Tammy.’

  Alice leans out, allowing the curves of her body to become more evident as she pecks his cheek. She then coos: ‘You perfect sweetheart.’

  He slips his arm around her waist, still whispering: ‘Can I come in now?’

  ‘Stop that, Herman. We have to wait for you-know-what.’ She slips away from his grasp like a bar of fragrant soap in the bath.

  ‘Alice, I’m going to be senile by the time we…’

  Alice interrupts, sharply. ‘Not if you take cold showers, like I said.’

  Another peck on the cheek, and her door shuts in his face. Temple is a dog on heat, desperate. He knocks again, whispering more loudly: ‘If I promise to publicly announce our engagement, will you let me in? Please, Alice.’

  The door stays closed.

  thirty-two

  The students have no idea that a new day has dawned. Deprived of daylight and their wristwatches, they have lost all sense of time.

  Biff has them now doing press-ups, while Randy and Rip wander, swagger sticks twitching, among their heaving, exhausted bodies. Biff’s voice is like the drum on a slave ship: ‘Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine.’ There’s a sharp rap on the door, and he crosses slowly, still counting as he unlocks it: ‘Seventy, seventy-one.’

  Temple is revealed, looking wretched. Bad-temperedly he pushes Biff aside and storms into the room. Sight of the class doing press-ups reminds him of his failed efforts to bed Alice, and this does little to improve his mood. He stops at the foot of the crucifix and looks up at the unfortunate Straw.

  ‘Be grateful we forgot the nails, Wally.’

  Straw, still with the handkerchief gagging him, groans.

  ‘Only kidding, Wally.’

  Temple moves among the students as they struggle painfully to lift their bodies off the floor on weedy white arms. ‘Up and down! Up and down! Maybe doing press-ups is a metaphor for the see-saw of life: the constant fight between good and evil? How about that for lateral thinking, everybody?’

  The class uses Temple’s intervention to collapse into a pulsating layer of flesh spread across the room whilst gasping, as enthusiastically as possible, ‘Great, sir.’

  ‘Right on, sir.’

  ‘Magic, sir.’

  Temple turns back to Straw. ‘Up and down, Wally. Always up and down.’ Seeing the students so demeaned has cheered him up. He even laughs. ‘From up there, Wally, you look down on us. And because you look down on us is why you’re up there now. That’s a conundrum only the good Lord can answer.’ Facing the class, looking each in the eye, he connives to involve them in his taunting of Straw. ‘Shall we see if some miracle has occurred during the night and changed Wally’s mind?’

  The students nod their approval.

  He tries to reach up to the gag in Straw’s mouth but finds that he can’t manage it; he’s too short. Randy obliges.

  Straw barely moves. His eyes, having retreated to the back of their sockets, are barely visible.

  ‘Anything to report, Wally?’ shouts Randy.

  ‘Anything new to tell us?’ asks Temple.

  Straw is hardly audible as he croaks through cracked lips: ‘Our… goals… are…’

  Randy cups an ear to catch every word. ‘Our goals are…?’

  Everybody waits, craning to hear his every word as if Wally were an oracle.

  ‘Are…?’

  Summoning all his resources, Straw finally spits it out: ‘…shit!’ Disappointed groans are hushed as his parched voice rasps louder: ‘Bull…shit!’

  Randy quickly stuffs the handkerchief back into Straw’s mouth while Temple rounds on the class, fixing them with a look of fury wrapped up in a smile. ‘Okay, not exactly from the Book of Revelations. But we can afford to wait until Wally sees the light, can’t we?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So Wally thinks it’s bullshit that makes the world go round.’ Temple’s face pans across the whole pathetic, brutalised class and he smiles again. ‘Looking at you lot I’m thinking Wally may be right.’

  The students are too tired to laugh.

  ‘Do you think we kept you awake all night just for the fun of it? Or because we, my instructors and I, are insomniacs?’

  Nobody volunteers an answer.

  ‘Are you really too dumb to realise that the more exhausted we make you, the harder it is for you to lie? Easier for the truth to emerge. And that’s what we’re after: the truth.’

  Mark looks around his fellow students and realises that his time has come.

  He’s right. Temple’s ferret eyes settle on him.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Mark?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The truth and nothing but.’

  ‘Get your nose out of my ass, Mark, and into the Ring.’

  Mark lifts off like a jack-in-the-box. As Temple slowly circles around him, he fights to control a twitch that’s unexpectedly taken over his right eyelid.

  ‘Marketing is Mark’s game, gentlemen. He owns his own company: Mark Miles Intercontinental. With that fancy name, who’d ever believe it’s a clapped-out, inept, incompetent company that nobody wants anything to do with. But that’s what it is. How come you screwed things up, Mark?’

  Mark desperately racks his brain for a reason.

  Any reason.

  ‘That’s a tough one, Herman, sir. Maybe it’s because I’ve been preoccupied with a deep personal problem?’

  ‘What problem?’

  Mark’s face is a blank, as his thoughts scuttle in all directions. Even his overworked maggot pauses to watch this mental helter-skelter. A straw drifts past and he clutches it. ‘Strong homosexual tendencies, Herman.’

  The instructors correct such familiarity, yelling: ‘Cut out the Herman shit.’

  ‘It’s sir, remember?’ yells Biff.

  ‘Sir!’ yells Randy

  ‘Sir!’ yells Rip.

  ‘Sir, asshole!’ yells Biff for good measure.

 
; Mark winces at the barrage. ‘Powerful homosexual tendencies. Sir!’

  ‘You mean you’re a faggot?’ Temple is taken aback.

  ‘Not yet, sir. That’s the problem.’

  ‘You’re a closet queen?’

  ‘King, sir. Closet king. I’m dominant by nature. If I ever did come out, I’d be on top, sir.’

  He knows immediately that he’s gone too far. Temple nods to Randy, who whacks him with his swagger stick across the face. Mark reels backwards through the ring of students, collapsing onto the floor, where he is seized by Biff and Rip. They bring him back to face Temple.

  ‘You deal in lies, Mark. That’s your job. But in here things are different. In here we only deal in the truth.’

  He turns to address the whole class: ‘I’ll have you know this fake faggot tried to rape our own Alice Honey. And you know where this obscene act happened? On one of your ancient fertility sites.’

  The class read Temple correctly, giving him what he wants: a collective gasp! Mark, on hearing the accusation, considers building his defence around the active participation of a donkey in this indecent act. But after noting the glint of messianic fervour in Temple’s eyes, he decides that doing so might just cost him his life. And that’s even though the crucifix is currently occupied. So he lets Temple do the talking.

  ‘Just think. If Mark Miles here had achieved his end, and on that particular site, the odds are that Miss Honey would have been impregnated. It was only my Unique Instant Self-Defence System that saved her.’

  Mark hangs his head in an attempt to show remorse. Now it was clear why Temple had indeed saved him as the after-dinner mints. It was personal, simply because Mark’s fingerprints were all over Alice Honey.

  ‘But what is it that makes Mark a serial liar? Or a serial rapist? There must be some reason hidden deep in his psyche. What is it you’re hiding from us, Mark?’

  Mark’s brain is a pinball machine zapping his thoughts everywhere except into the hole that is his mouth. He looks around, crazy-eyed, and settles for another old chestnut.

  ‘I hate myself, sir.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. What form does this hatred take?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. All I know is that I hate being myself. So much so that I’m always wanting to be somebody else.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Anybody.’

  ‘Just anybody?’

  Desperate to ingratiate himself, Mark makes a fatal choice: ‘Anybody American, sir.’ This was, in fact, the truth. He’s always wanted to be American. But Mark, as so often before, has to embellish it. ‘That’s why I’m here on the course, sir. Personal improvement could only mean becoming more American.’

  Temple and Mark eyeball each other: conman to conman. Mark’s sycophancy is so blatant; his unblinking eyes so sincere. Temple weighs up his performance with some amusement.

  ‘If that’s really what you want, Mark, you’ll have to be born again, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I suppose I will.’

  ‘And to be born again you first have to die.’

  Mark recognises the trap too late. He looks across at the coffin and shudders at the thought.

  thirty-three

  Afly buzzes.

  Mark first hears it when the instructors stop screwing down the lid. He’d already seen some flies buzzing around the slop poured over Roger Buckle. That was to be expected. But what had made this bug-eyed bastard desert the slop to come in here? He tried not to take it personally.

  When they’d first manhandled him into the coffin, he’d been surprised to find the inside both comfortable and decorative. No wonder the Yanks called them ‘caskets’. It was lined with fancy white satin and the base mattress was soft and springy – not that any cadaver would notice. Perversely, we want our loved ones to travel first class, probably for the first time and certainly the last, into the hereafter. Funeral directors are, of course, only too happy to wave them goodbye, while fluttering extortionate invoices.

  The fly lands on his face.

  ‘Oh, shit. Why me? Why?’

  He weeps in frustration, desperately struggling to free his right hand. The satin feels so like a woman’s skin that touching it generates an unexpected sensation. A corpse surely wouldn’t feel aroused, but Mark isn’t a corpse. Not yet. He slides his arm, with difficulty in the cramped space available, towards the fly now patrolling his nose. As his hand passes over his erection, he groans: ‘Oh God, I’m a necrophiliac.’ He tries to discourage it with a whack, but there’s not enough room to inflict any punishment. Indeed his pathetic attempt has the opposite effect. It just causes it to grow some more.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, lie down! You’re meant to be dead.’

  His fingers finally reach the fly. It hops out of their way, landing on his lips. Mark freaks out in disgust, then whimpers: ‘Jesus, what did I do to deserve this?’ The fly lifts off and settles on his eyebrow.

  Earlier, Mark had impressed the class with his composure while the lid was being closed on him. He lay still, closed his eyes and thought of Reg Turpin. Where the hell was he now? A conspiracy theory has grown around Reg like a fungus. The tabloids have been hallucinating on it. Sightings of tattooed men walking out of the sea are being reported from all over the country. The theory popularly espoused is that the stunt was simply a ruse for Reg Turpin to disappear. We all want to disappear now and then but Reg, it seems, had more urgent reasons than most. His wife was after a divorce, citing bigamy, while the police were anxious to talk to him on a matter so serious that they, like Reg, were anxious not to talk about it publicly, and also he owed a ton of money. Mark rued the day he met Reg, his loathsome family and especially that gorilla of a brother-in-law. Because of them he was literally screwed, and into a coffin to boot. Fate was so goddamn twisted that he was the escapologist now. He recalled Reg’s breathing technique, and tried to apply it.

  At first it worked well.

  Then he heard the fly.

  If Temple’s course was meant to ‘turn men into gods’, why did he feel like a piece of shit every time that fucking fly landed? With that thought, his hard-on subsided. Some independent and mysterious law of nature had come into play. He always knew his cock had a life of his own; only now did he realise their relationship was a folie à deux.

  A muffled burst of applause and cheering filters into the coffin. Mark strains to hear what’s happening. He catches the name ‘Buckle’ shouted by the instructors and assumes that Roger’s been let out of the cage, naked and seared like a barbecued steak. That’s a sight he is happy to miss. Another roar suggests that Buckle has finally passed to the Other Side. How odd that Temple, when rewarding the truth, should choose a term normally associated with death.

  ‘The ugly truth,’ mutters Mark.

  His maggot nods its head.

  Even the fly can’t spoil the tranquillity that suddenly descends upon him. At least he hasn’t paid good money for this bad karma. Now he can hear the class chanting: ‘I want to be a leader. I want to be a leader. I want to be a leader.’ Those nerds must have invisible rings in their noses. They can be led anywhere, sink to any level of depravity and still pay for the privilege. No wonder tabloid newspapers and reality television are the lifeblood of the nation. Temple may have hoodwinked them, but not Mark M…

  The fly walks into his left nostril.

  He snorts like a bull, blowing it out, past his own invisible ring. His face reddens when he remembers the obscene scene with Jack Lovett. Oh my God! He’d let the man kiss his neck, caress his chest, stroke his leg. No way had he refused, or told Temple and his apes to go fuck themselves. He’d even tipped kitchen slop over Buckle. All the horrors of the last twenty-four hours were suddenly being regurgitated. They stung like heartburn. But he had stood up for Wally Straw, even if his protest had collapsed as quickly as his recent erection.

  How was Wally doing? Wally was the only one who hadn’t been hoodwinked by Temple, and for that was he paying a painful price. H
ow did that prayer go? Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. Things remembered by rote tend to come back when the mind is idling. He hadn’t recited the Apostles’ Creed since his school days. What came next? He descended into hell… Why did Christ have to descend into hell? When hell is right here on earth? So was heaven – once. But that was a long time ago, before Homo Sapiens evolved and proceeded to fuck things up.

  The cheering and jeering coming from the class bring back memories of his last night at the Starlight. He can hear the Solomon Brothers, those little shits, singing ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’. How their fucking father, the behavioural psychologist, would laugh if he could see him now. Mark smiles as Cyril Hammond drifts into his mind’s eye, totally pissed, legs like two wobble-boards, before nose-diving into the bikers. His attempt to enter the Guinness Book of Records going with him.

  Remembering his interview with Cyril makes him laugh out loud. ‘So you have this amazing ability for swallowing things?’ ‘That’s right, Mark. I think a lot of people have this ability to swallow things.’ ‘Even me?’ Cyril’s answer brings William Snazell into sharp focus. He’d swallowed everything that fat bastard had fed him. But why? In retrospect it was such obvious bullshit. Doesn’t he have a mind of his own? Tears again spring to his Mark’s eyes as he realises that he doesn’t. His mask is always somebody else’s. If, as he’s read somewhere, our minds are mirrors set up to reflect the mirrors that are other men’s minds, then he is living proof.

  Mark dozes.

  Blankness and blackness merge. The blackness is that of a cinema before the film starts. The curtain divides to reveal a coffin. The coffin divides to reveal his body which divides to reveal his brain which divides to reveal his mind which divides to reveal … what? A void? A nobody?

  The fly lands on his palm.

  His hand snaps shut, crushing it to death.

  thirty-four