The Peacock Manifesto (Peacock Tales Book 1)

by Stuart David

  ‘Fuck…’ Bob said. ‘Where the fuck am I going?’

  ‘Just head for the centre of the place,’ I told him.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said again, and he tried to cross the flow of traffic to get us over onto another road.

  He swung across and then swung across again, and I caught the teapot as it slipped towards me.

  ‘You know what, Peacock,’ he said. ‘I think that was it.’

  ‘That was what?’

  ‘Phoenix. I think that was it.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘That road we came down to get here. We were on our way back out again there.’

  He’d got us back onto the road we’d come down, and we were on the other side of it now—going back up.

  ‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘We must have missed a turning.’

  Bev reappeared between the seats again.

  ‘I’m starving,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ Bob replied. ‘Will I stop somewhere up here?’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ I told him. ‘Let’s just find the fucking place first. Let’s find the centre of town and we can get something there.’

  ‘This is it, Peacock,’ Bob said. ‘This is all there is.’

  I couldn’t fucking believe it.

  Bob struggled to find a way off the road we were on, to get us to the food places down the side of it, and we ended up on a rickety road behind them all, driving down there till they found somewhere they fancied.

  When they went inside I had to stay in the car for a few minutes on my own, trying to get a fucking grip on it. I just couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any sense. And I just sat there watching the sky getting dark, and feeling totally fucking shattered.

  * * *

  We got out of there as quickly as possible after we’d eaten. I’d half thought—earlier in the day—that we might end up getting a room there for the night, but we got to fuck as soon as we could.

  We drove back onto the road that swept up to the right and soon there was nothing but scattered houses again, like we’d seen on the way in before we hit that strip road, and there was no particular pattern or sense to where the houses were. They were all just scattered across the place at random.

  ‘What a fucking town,’ I muttered.

  ‘It looks like someone just dropped it from the sky,’ Bev said. ‘And then let everything lie just wherever it landed.’

  Glen’s CD had started up again when Bob turned on the engine, but Bev leant forward and took it out of the machine.

  ‘I think we need a break from this,’ she said, and I agreed. We did. But we didn’t need what she put on instead. She put on her own fucking CD, the recording of her singing ‘Sugar Town’.

  ‘Aww, come on,’ I said. ‘For fuck sake, Bev.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she said. ‘I’m just starting to feel better, and this reminds me of being back in L.A.’

  She played it another twice through after it ended, and it blared on as we headed up towards Highway 40.

  ‘I’ll stop at a motel once we get up there,’ Bob said. ‘Then we’re on a straight run to Memphis in the morning.’

  ‘I hope that doesn’t fucking let us down like this place did,’ I said.

  ‘It won’t,’ he told me. ‘It’s Memphis, Peacock. It’s not fucking Phoenix.’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ I said, and I wished I’d never talked him into making the detour. We could have been a hundred miles further along by then, and I wasn’t sure if the song would ever recover. If it did, it was going to take a long time.

  A long fucking time.

  Chapter 25

  There were three surprises waiting for us when we left our motel the next morning, groggy and still half asleep. The first one was pretty small, but it started to wake us up all the same. It was the sound of Bev’s song coming on, really fucking loudly, as soon as Bob sparked up the engine. We all jumped, and I pulled it out of the machine and threw it into the back.

  ‘Put that away,’ I told her. It wasn’t the sort of song you wanted to start the day with, especially not at that fucking volume.

  Our next surprise was how fucking gorgeous the scenery was once we got into New Mexico, especially after the boredom of the day before. And that helped to wake us up too. Bev even made a wee joke when we were crossing over from Arizona.

  ‘Here comes the state-line, Peacock,’ she said. ‘Do you want us to stop and let you get in the boot?’

  But the third surprise was the one. That was what the other two had been getting us ready for, and it happened not too long after we’d crossed into New Mexico.

  We were still amazed at the scenery, pointing things out to each other all the time, and then Bob pointed something out to us. Something back behind us.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘That’s not good.’

  Bev and me turned round to see what it was and it was a light. A blue flashing light.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Bob said, and he slapped a hand on the wheel.

  The light got closer and closer, till it was sitting constantly behind us, and Bob pulled over to the side of the road.

  They pulled in too, and sat behind us for what seemed like fucking ages with the light still flashing, and Bev kept asking what was going on. We told her we had no fucking idea, and hoped we were right.

  ‘I was on the speed limit,’ Bob said, and looked up at the teapot.

  Slowly, the driver’s door behind us opened, and the cop started walking towards our car. Bob rolled his window down, and soon the face, the hat, and the massive fucking sunglasses were all in there with us.

  ‘Morning, guys,’ the cop said. ‘Good morning, ma’am.’

  ‘What’s the problem, sir?’ Bob asked him.

  Bob didn’t look too good. He looked about as bad as when we were driving away from that house and he’d just had his worms experience. But the cop didn’t answer him. I don’t think he even looked at him, although it was hard to tell where he was looking with those fucking enormous shades on. It was impossible to tell if he even had any eyes.

  He stood there without saying anything for a bit and then he pointed at the teapot.

  ‘You guys brewing up?’ he asked, and he told Bob to pass it out to him. He looked all around the outside of it and then lifted the lid.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ he said, and quickly put the lid back on. ‘Take this off me,’ he told Bob. ‘That is bad.’

  Shakily, Bob took it from him and put it back on the dashboard, and in a quiet voice he asked again what the problem was.

  ‘The problem is,’ the cop said, ‘this vehicle has been reported as stolen. Step out of the car, please.’

  By then the other cop had appeared, and in a moment me, Bob and Bev were all standing with our hands on the windows and our feet apart, having guns knocked against the inside of our legs to feel for other guns.

  ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ I heard Bob say.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ the cop replied. ‘Keep your hands on the vehicle, please.’

  When they were happy we had no guns they put their own guns away and I heard the handcuffs starting to rattle.

  ‘This is a hire car,’ Bob said quickly. ‘We’re on our way to renew the lease in Albuquerque.’

  I don’t know if that’s really what we were doing. To be honest I’d forgotten all about the fucking lease again, but it seemed to slow them down.

  ‘The information I have, is that the lease on this vehicle expired twenty-four hours ago,’ the first cop said. ‘That means this vehicle is now classified as stolen.’

  Quickly again, Bob told him the whole sorry story of us trying to renew it, and of the chain being closed on Sundays.

  The first cop muttered something to the second one, and the second one muttered something back. They let us turn round then, and the first one went off to their car to use the radio.

  ‘So,’ the second one said after he’d been gone for a bit, and we were all just standing there wondering what the fuck was going to happen,
‘so where are you all coming from?’

  ‘From L.A, sir,’ Bob told him. ‘I’m from New York City, and these guys are from Scotland. I’m showing them the country.’

  ‘Scotland?’ he said. ‘That’s a beautiful country. What do you guys think of the United States so far?’

  It was a fucking weird question to ask at that precise moment in time, and it was fucking difficult to answer in any way that he would want to hear. What the fuck can you say about a country where you hire a car, try to pay to hire it again, and end up standing on the edge of the fucking highway with a cop rubbing his gun up and down the inside of your legs; then asking you what you think of his country.

  ‘This state is just beautiful,’ Bev told him, coming to the rescue. ‘The scenery’s just breath-taking. I loved L.A. too. I’m a big fan of all the old films, so I loved seeing Hollywood. I’ve been having a great time so far.’

  ‘That’s a wonderful accent,’ the cop told her, meaning he hadn’t understood a single fucking word. ‘Where are you headed to now?’

  ‘Washington D.C, sir,’ Bob said. ‘To see some friends. Then back to New York City.’

  We heard the police car door slam, and the first one started his slow walk towards us again. When he reached Bob he asked to see his driving license and the lease for the car, and Bob went to get them.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen,’ he said, when he’d stared at them for a while, ‘I’ve radioed ahead to the place in Albuquerque. It’s in the airport. They’re expecting you now, so I want you to go straight there.’

  He handed Bob’s stuff back to him.

  ‘Where are you headed after Albuquerque?’ he asked, and the other one told him.

  ‘D.C,’ he said. ‘These two here are from Scotland.’

  He nodded slowly and looked at us.

  ‘That would explain the teapot,’ he said. ‘Alright. Get going to the airport.’

  We climbed into the car and they walked off towards theirs. I pulled my seat belt on and turned round to look at Bev, and I saw the first one coming back towards us again.

  ‘Here we go,’ I said to Bob, and he rolled the window back down. This time the shades came off. The tadger did have eyes, after all.

  ‘One more thing,’ he said, and pushed his head further in. He pointed at the teapot.

  ‘That.’ he said. ‘Get it cleaned out. Otherwise someone’s going to catch a disease .’

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 26

  There was a lot of whooping and cheering went on when we got back out on the road, and most of it was from the wee man. As soon as it was clear they weren’t following us, he took his hands off the wheel and punched them up in the air. Then he started beating the wheel with his fists, and laughing.

  ‘That was fucking frightening,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ, Peacock; I thought we were fucked.’

  ‘What’s inside that teapot?’ Bev asked then. ‘Pass it back in here and let me have a look.’

  I handed to her and she lifted the lid.

  ‘Aww…’ she groaned. ‘That’s disgusting, Bob. Did they sell it to you like this?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask them to clean it up first?’

  ‘I didn’t look inside.’

  ‘Aww, Bob,’ she said. She put the lid back on studied the outside of it, the way the cop had done.

  ‘It’s a nice design though,’ she said. ‘You should clean it out, Bob. It might be worth something. It looks kind of thirties.’

  ‘I’ll clean it out,’ Bob told her, and she handed it back to me.

  Things still weren’t simple with renewing the lease when we got to Albuquerque. It turned out that the fucking place we’d got the car from in Chicago was an individual franchise, and not an official part of the chain, which caused no end of fucking problems.

  To begin with, the guy at the desk told us the only place we could renew the lease was back in Chicago. Then, when we explained to him about everything we’d been through so far, he gave us a ticket each for a free coffee at a stand further into the airport, and told us he’d see what he could do.

  We ended up stranded in there for over an hour and a half, and the free coffee tickets were as good as useless. The stand was so busy with other people who were being fucked about by companies in the airport that we couldn’t get anywhere fucking near it.

  Still, it was more of a town in there than Phoenix had been, and we did some shopping to pass the time. Bob got himself a new pair of cowboy boots, and I got myself a leather Stetson. Bev bought all kinds of tourist shite with Albuquerque written on it, and some cleaning stuff for Bob’s teapot.

  Then we went back to the desk.

  Then we went back to the shops.

  Then we went back to the desk.

  Then we went back to the shops.

  Four fucking times in all before the guy was ready for us. And each time we went back to the shops Bev bought more shite again. I thought the whole thing was going to fucking bankrupt us. But finally the guy got it sorted out and he let us pay him.

  ‘I can’t give you a renewed lease here,’ he told us, ‘but this sheet should cover it. If you keep this old lease, and keep this along with it, that shows your entitlement to drive the car.’

  He gave them both to Bob and apologized for the inconvenience. He gave us all another free coffee ticket each too, but we still didn’t bother to trade them in.

  ‘That fucking stall’s got it made,’ Bob said as we left. ‘They’ll never go out of business as long as they’re making their money from other businesses fucking up. I should look into setting something like that up myself.’

  There was no whooping and cheering when we got back out onto the road this time, though. Everyone was fucking drained. Bev fell asleep in the back, and I put on some Glen then fell asleep myself. There had been too many fucking surprises for one morning.

  * * *

  I really hoped over the next couple of days that Memphis wouldn’t turn out to be like Phoenix had been. Whenever we played Glen now I had to skip past that song. It was all fucked up.

  When we finally got to Memphis we got there late, and found a motel just on the way in. And we made a few plans for the next day.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we should do,’ Bob said, ‘we should take a bit of a break and spend a few hours here tomorrow. See Graceland properly.’

  ‘You lazy bastard,’ I laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just want a rest from the driving, son.’

  ‘It’s been a long journey, Peacock.’

  ‘He must be knackered,’ Bev said. ‘I’m knackered, and I haven’t even been doing anything. Let the wee mad-man rest, Peacock. He must be about ready to drop.’

  ‘I’m alright,’ Bob said. ‘Driving’s easy. The first job I had was driving comic books across the country. That set me up for it.’

  ‘You’re a fucking liar, son.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the third first job you’ve told me about. I thought you were a party boy.’

  ‘I was a party boy.’

  ‘You told me that was your first job. And you told me your first job was with the fucking Boston Ballet.’

  ‘I did work with the Boston Ballet. And I was a party boy. But those weren’t my first jobs. My first job was delivering comic books. When I was eighteen.’

  Bev was laughing.

  ‘What in the name of Christ is a party boy?’ she asked him. ‘Is that like a rent boy? Were you a rent boy, Bob? I always thought you seemed a wee bit funny, wearing that hairnet all the time. Was…’

  ‘I wasn’t a fucking prostitute,’ Bob shouted, and Bev cracked up. She fell back on the bed and pulled her knees up, laughing hysterically.

  ‘You were, weren’t you?’ she said, struggling to get the words out. ‘You were. It’s all starting to make sense now.’

  Bob tried to look angry, but he was having difficulty keeping a straight face, cause of the s
tate she was in.

  ‘I wasn’t though,’ he insisted. ‘I was a party boy.’

  ‘Oh, Peacock,’ Bev said. ‘Help me, I’m hysterical.’

  When she’d calmed down Bob explained to her what a party boy really was, according to him anyway.

  ‘And that was your job?’ she asked.

  ‘That was my job. There was no fucking prostitution involved.’

  ‘That’s what he thought,’ I told Bev. ‘But he couldn’t work out why he was the only one there not making any money.’

  ‘Oh, stop, Peacock,’ she said. ‘Stop. This is bad. I’ll be in tears in a minute.’

  ‘So that was your first job?’ I asked Bob.

  ‘No. You know it wasn’t. My first job was driving comic books. When I was eighteen years old. Sometimes I had to drive a twenty-hour stretch, so driving’s not a problem for me. I just thought we should see this place properly.’

  ‘And it won’t be like Phoenix?’

  ‘It’s not Phoenix, Peacock.’

  ‘You’re sure we’re not right in the middle of it already?’

  ‘I’m fucking sure. We’re just on the way in. It’s Memphis, Peacock. We’re going to Graceland.’

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Alright.’

  Chapter 27

  And this time he wasn’t lying. It was Memphis; it wasn’t Phoenix. It might not have been the same as the picture I’d had in my head, but it had the right kind of feeling, and it was a real fucking town.

  On the way in Bev asked if she could sit up in the front, to see things properly, so I let her. But I couldn’t fucking believe what she did up there. See what you make of this. She put her own fucking CD into the machine. She thought we were going to listen to Beverly fucking Johnson. Driving into Memphis. I didn’t fucking think so.

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ I asked her.

  ‘I like listening to it,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you do,’ I told her, ‘but it’s hardly fucking appropriate, Bev. This is Memphis. You can’t listen to shite like that on the way to Graceland.’

  ‘I can listen to whatever I want on the way to Graceland,’ she said. ‘There aren’t any rules about it, and this is what I want to listen to.’