“Where’s your Walkman?” Johan asked again.
I looked at him, then at the other boy. In the end I pointed to the Walkman in Dennis’s hand.
“No. That’s Dennis’s Walkman,” Johan said, shaking his head. “You can’t have that. That would be stealing, wouldn’t it? You know the difference between ‘yours’ and ‘mine,’ don’t you?”
“Er,” I said. “Look…it’s mine.”
“Dennis’s Walkman is yours?” Johan asked with another grin.
I was still waiting for Dennis to give some sort of signal, but he just sat there looking idly in our direction. Every so often he said something to the guy next to him. As if he was commenting on what was going on between me and Johan.
“See for yourself,” I said. “That’s my tape in it.”
“Really?” Johan said. “What tape is it, then?”
I didn’t want to say out loud.
“It’s got a label on it…”
“What tape is it?” he asked again.
“ ‘Blue Mix’,” I said, almost in a whisper. “That’s what it says on the label.”
He brightened up.
“ ‘Blue Mix’?”
I nodded. He grinned at me. Then he turned to the others.
“The tape in the Walkman, is it called ‘Blue Mix’?”
Dennis opened it up to reveal an original Iron Maiden cassette.
“Sorry,” Johan said. “No ‘Blue Mix.’ ”
Dennis closed the lid and Johan shrugged. What had they done with my tape? I wondered. Had they thrown it away?
“But it’s mine,” I squeaked.
Johan’s smile vanished and he looked at me as if he was bored now.
“Are you saying Dennis stole it?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I let him borrow it, but now I need it back.”
“You need it?! Dear oh dear, these are very serious allegations,” Johan said, turning to the two boys on the bench.
He called to Dennis.
“The Ant says you stole it from him.”
“Er, no…,” I muttered.
I cursed my own impatience. This was the very situation we were supposed to be avoiding, Dennis and I. We were supposed to do this slowly. Let it develop naturally. (Letting synth and hard rock slowly but surely get closer to each other.) That was what I’d been telling myself all day. If only I’d been a bit more patient, this could all have been avoided. Who knows, maybe Dennis had his own idea of how we should proceed? Maybe he’d been thinking of an even slower pace, which I’d now gone and ruined with my impatience. Now he was bound to realize what a mistake it had been to trust someone like me. I’d made a fool of myself, but it occurred to me that I didn’t care about him, and I didn’t care about any big change. I just wanted to curl up inside my music again, as usual.
“I just want my Walkman back,” I whined.
I could hear that I sounded like a little kid.
“But that isn’t your Walkman,” Johan spelled out very slowly. “You’re making it up. It’s just your imagination.”
He tapped my head with his finger.
“You need to learn to tell the difference between fantasy and reality,” he said.
The boy who had been sitting next to Dennis stood up and came over to us.
“Are you accusing Dennis of stealing?” he said.
He stopped right in front of me and stared at me hard. I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you? Are you accusing Dennis of stealing?” he said again.
Without blinking he slapped my face hard, making my ear sting. I gasped. Everything was happening so quickly. Now he was talking again.
“Are you standing there accusing Dennis of stealing?” he said in a very calm voice.
My cheek hurt badly. I was having trouble thinking.
“I want—” I started to say, but before I could finish the sentence he’d hit me again. I had to crouch down, and felt tears spring to my eyes.
I could have run off, I could even have walked away calmly. No one would have stopped me. But the Walkman in Dennis’s hand belonged to me. And that was more important than anything else just then. So I didn’t move.
“Please, I only want—”
He hit me on the same cheek again. I screamed like a baby as he went on speaking in the same calm voice. As if his voice had nothing to do with his hand. As if one person was talking to me and another one hitting me.
“I just want to know,” the soft voice went on. “Are you accusing Dennis of stealing? Is that what you’re doing?”
Even though my cheek was burning, I couldn’t just walk away and abandon my Walkman. I couldn’t see clearly. I realized I was crying. I was about to say something but thought better of it.
In utter panic I tried to run forward and snatch the Walkman, but there was obviously no point. Johan and the other boy dragged me away without any difficulty at all. One held me while the other punched me in the stomach, then told me I had to apologize.
It had been a long time since I last thought about those events. They weren’t the sort of thing I chose to dwell on from day to day. But on the way home from the Record King Bar I was unable to keep all the memories and images from coming back to me. Instead of going straight up to my flat I went out into the back courtyard and sat down on one of the benches in the play area. I just sat there. As if I were going to smoke a cigarette. It was still light even though it was the middle of the night. I could hear the distant rumble of the highway mixed with the sounds of students celebrating their graduation at parties in various flats nearby. It was a lovely early summer’s night, perfect for balcony drinking and skinny-dipping in murky water. I slid partway off the seat and rested my neck on the back of the bench. I half-lay like that, looking up at the light sky, where I could just start to make out a few stars.
For the first time I felt that I not only had a life ahead of me, but one behind me as well. A life I could never get back. Summer nights swimming with girls and graduation caps and dreams of the future. Youth unemployment, happiness at getting a first job, all the anxiety and expectation. It wasn’t only my childhood that had passed, but the start of my adult life.
I tried to remember the names of as many constellations as I could. What were they called again? Ursa Major and Minor. The Plow. No, that was something else. Besides, it was the wrong time of year to be able to see those.
I was struck by the immense distances between the stars out in space. They only look like they belong together when you see them from a distance. They could hardly be aware that they form part of a constellation, I thought. If stars were conscious, that is. It takes one hell of a distance to be able to see the connection. From the perspective of the stars, Magnus Gabrielsson and I must look like one single indistinguishable little dot, for instance. And if you didn’t know better, you could probably say I had a certain type of connection with the person who kept calling me.
Mum yelled at me for losing my Walkman. She said I caused them more than enough expense as it was. I couldn’t bring myself to explain that I’d lent it to someone. Besides, she made it very clear that there was no question of me getting another one. We didn’t have that sort of money, she said. Then she added that it might not be a bad idea for me to get used to not having headphones glued to my head the whole time.
“You need to get out into the real world a bit more,” she said.
* * *
—
“We can get it back if there’s two of us,” I said to Magnus the next day.
We were sitting by the marsh with empty silence ringing in our ears. Throwing stones in the air and listening to them plop wearily into the water. Magnus was leaning against a tree trunk with his knees pulled up to his chin, his nose resting on one knee. The days without my Walkman were completely different. It was like
entering an unknown world with different rules. Nothing made sense anymore. Even Magnus was different. Smaller, paler. Scared and nervous. I hadn’t seen as much of him recently. He missed the music, obviously.
“We can overpower him,” I said. “If we work together.”
“What about the others?” Magnus said.
“We’ll have to wait until he’s alone.”
“When?”
“He has to be on his own at some point,” I said.
“It won’t work,” Magnus said.
“Why not?”
He shook his head.
“It just won’t. There’s no point.”
“Of course there is. If there are two of us and one of him. We overpower him and take it back.”
Magnus buried his chin between his knees.
“But what if it isn’t yours?” he said. “I mean, it wasn’t your tape in it…”
“Of course it’s mine,” I said. “I let him borrow it.”
He sighed.
“Can’t you just buy a new one?”
“With what?”
“Steal one.”
Magnus sometimes shoplifted. I never did. No one ever noticed him. It was as if he were invisible. Magnus was far too unassuming for anyone to suspect him of committing a crime. He could calmly pay for his one-krona sweets without anyone suspecting that his pockets were full of chocolate bars, lollipops, and batteries. Sometimes even music magazines.
“No,” I said. “Of course we could take him. If we work together.”
I kicked at an old metal locker that was floating at the edge of the marsh. Magnus frowned. He sighed and let out a groan.
“If we do it together,” I said, “he won’t stand a chance!”
* * *
—
Eventually he agreed for us to have a go the following day. We planned the whole thing in minute detail. Worked out what order everything should happen in. Jump him, ideally without him realizing we were coming. I’d hold him while Magnus grabbed the Walkman. Once he had it he’d give me a signal and we’d run off. We practiced a few different kicks and punches behind the old paint warehouse. Told each other it was vital to withstand any counterpunches he might manage to throw if he tried to defend himself. Withstand the pain and not buckle under the first blow.
“It’s going to hurt,” I said, but somehow that didn’t feel so bad anymore.
It would just have to hurt. After all, everything hurt.
* * *
—
“Blue Mix!” Johan yelled when he caught sight of me the next day.
I started and looked at him. I wondered if he could tell I was planning something.
“Hello! Blue Mix! Have you found your Walkman yet?”
I didn’t answer.
Dennis was still going around with the Walkman on his belt. It did actually look newer than mine. Brighter yellow, somehow. So what? Maybe he’d polished it. I tried to keep out of their way for the rest of the day.
* * *
—
When school was over I met Magnus at the usual place outside the post office. He was nervous and paranoid. Kept looking at his watch and talking nonstop. I kept having to tell him to be quiet.
We found Dennis and his gang and started to follow them. There was a big group of them for a long time, all walking in that assured, confident way they had. It was hard to maintain the right distance—either we hung back too far and risked losing them, or else we risked being seen.
“Look,” Magnus whispered. “Why don’t we just go home instead?”
“No chance,” I said.
Eventually some of them drifted away, but Dennis and Johan seemed to live in the same area, because they continued walking together. They were heading down a long road of detached houses, each one bigger than the last, looming over the road. They were talking and laughing, and pretend-fighting in a pretty rough way. We crept after them. At regular intervals Magnus prodded me and said we ought to give up.
“It’s never going to work,” he said, twisting his watch. “Let’s just leave it.”
There was something so utterly helpless about him. So defenseless. Evasive. Almost as if he wanted us to fail. That annoyed me and made me even more irrationally determined to go through with the attempt.
“Not a chance!” I said as sternly as I could.
“It’s never going to work,” he went on muttering, like a mantra.
“Of course it will,” I said.
* * *
—
The sun was starting to go down over the big detached houses and their neat gardens and Volvo station wagons parked out in the street next to big mailboxes or in the drives and big garages in gardens adorned with hammocks and flagpoles. Some even had tarpaulin-covered swimming pools.
Eventually the two boys ahead of us high-fived each other and Dennis play-punched Johan on the shoulder. Then he carried on along the road alone. It was fairly late by now and Magnus and I were able to creep pretty close to him under cover of the growing darkness.
“Now!” I whispered. “Now, fuck it!”
Magnus stopped and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Come on! Let’s do it!” I hissed.
Dennis was already walking off. Maybe he lived nearby? If we hesitated now he’d be gone. The opportunity would be wasted and everything would be lost.
“Come on!” I said, a bit louder.
But Magnus just stood there shaking his head. Terrified. Paralyzed. He was actually shaking. He wasn’t even looking at his watch, just shaking his head and clenching his hands in front of his groin. He was pressing his legs together. I realized that he’d wet himself. A dark patch spread across his jeans. I realized I was never going to persuade him to go along with this. It wasn’t going to happen.
There was no way I could deal with Dennis on my own. He’d make mincemeat of me. But I was too full of adrenaline. And my Walkman was so close. I watched Dennis as he moved slowly but surely farther and farther away, then made a snap decision and ran after him on my own.
I caught up with him just as he was turning to walk through a tall hedge surrounding a large house.
“Dennis!” I shouted, and when I reached the drive I saw that he’d stopped in front of the carport.
He turned. Stared at me, and I thought I could detect a hint of anxiety, or at least surprise, before he realized who it was.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he said.
We stood there for a few seconds while I wondered if I should launch myself at him or wait and try to gain some sort of advantage. He was only a centimeter or two taller than me, but the odds were still heavily stacked in his favor.
“Did you want something, or what?” Dennis said after a while.
The Walkman was strapped to his belt, shimmering yellow. Only a meter or so away from me. I could have reached out and grabbed it. It would all have been so simple if that bloody traitor Magnus had been there. He wouldn’t even have had to do anything, I thought. Just be there. If only he’d been there, I thought.
“I just want my Walkman back,” I said in the end.
Dennis merely grinned. A broad smile that showed both rows of teeth. Then he turned, walked up the steps, and went inside the house without another word. I was left standing on the drive. I stood there for a long time after he’d gone.
* * *
—
I didn’t see Magnus again that evening. If he’d shown his face I would probably have punched him. Hard. I walked back the same way and thought I heard rustling in the bushes. I called out a few times so that he’d hear me if he was nearby. “You’re so fucking useless!” I yelled. “Completely fucking useless!”
* * *
—
I ignored M
agnus after that. I walked past him outside the post office, pretending he didn’t exist. At first he left me alone, but after a few days he ran up alongside me on the path home from school, whining for forgiveness and coming up with all sorts of pathetic excuses. His foot had started to hurt, he said. It had been too dark. He had been unsure of the plan, thought we were going to wait a bit longer. It hadn’t turned out so badly, had it? And so on. Every so often he tried to grab me to make me stop. He was crying and sniveling, but I pulled loose and walked home, without so much as looking at him.
* * *
—
Dennis carried on wearing the Walkman on his belt. There were moments when I couldn’t help thinking that I’d made a mistake, that I’d imagined the whole thing. That I’d never lent it to him. Or that I’d lent it to him and then got it back, only to lose it myself and blame it all on Dennis. In which case it was hardly surprising that he and his friends were pissed off with me. I started to get used to the idea, until it almost seemed more likely than the alternative. I could hear Motörhead and Slayer playing on it. Mine had never played groups like that. Eventually I managed to persuade my mum to get me another one—a different make, and a more basic model, but still: it worked. Whenever Magnus appeared I turned the volume up and pretended not to see him. As time passed it got easier and easier to ignore him. In the end it was almost as if he’d disappeared.
After sitting on the bench for a fairly long time I started to feel cold and went up to my flat. I realized I was waiting for the silent caller to phone me again. I sat there staring into the darkness, clutching the phone like a stuffed toy or a rosary. It was a long time ago now. It was all such a long time ago. In a way it had been surprisingly easy just to ignore Magnus back then. I simply made my mind up and tuned out the frequency on which his voice was audible. I concentrated on my music instead. If I decided he didn’t exist, then he didn’t. I soon realized what power I had over him. Without me he was nothing. Sometimes it was almost comforting to know that he was suffering on his own. Because obviously I could take him back at any moment. If I wanted to. Back then I was the one who decided what the rules were.
The Circus Page 8