‘Well, men, are you ready for the town?’
When we returned to the flat in the early hours we sat in the kitchen, blissed out among the ashtrays and empty food cartons, the strewn clothes and cups. The rubbish of only two days without a cleaning rota had mounted up in every conceivable corner, turning the flat since our arrival into the lair of some hibernating animal. We’d have to make more of an effort, I thought vaguely; we weren’t students any more.
Paul and myself were sprawled in the armchairs and John was at the table bent over a pouch of tobacco, struggling to fashion a last spliff before we turned in for the night. Despite our fatigue the mood was one of quiet elation.
‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it,’ John was saying, heating a nodge between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Emmett Ward, our Emmett, a ladies’ man. It just goes to show, there is a God after all.’
‘And she was a fine thing,’ Paul added, settling down deeper into the chair. ‘That dress must have been sprayed on with a power hose – she had a pair of nipples you could hang a wet donkey jacket on.’
‘Did you get a look at her?’
‘Just a glimpse when I went up for drink. You couldn’t see much of her with Emmett sucking the face off her. She looked the biz though, a pair of legs you could tie a bow on your back with.’
‘He came over to me at the end of the night, cool as you like, “Don’t worry about me, lads, I’m going home with this one.” And off he went without another word, a grin on his face like a Cheshire cat.’
‘And he was well gone too, the same Emmett.’
‘Well fucking gone. A couple of cans and a few smokes, it goes straight to his head. He wouldn’t have been half the playboy if he had all his wits about him.’
‘He’ll wake up tomorrow and he won’t know what the hell hit him.’
Emmett had scored and scored big time. We had started the night with cans and a few smokes and then taken a taxi to a nightclub somewhere in Queens, a split-level, glass, brick and mesh-wire affair where we’d got seats in an alcove off a dance floor which wasn’t much bigger than a snooker table. Emmett and Paul went to get drinks. Paul returned in a few minutes with drinks for John but there was no sign of Emmett until he finally turned up and plonked a drink in front of me. But instead of sitting he just mumbled something about this babe and said he’d see me after a while. And that was it – the last I’d seen of him all night till near the end when he came over and told me he was going home with her and that he’d see me the next day. I was gobsmacked. Paul had spotted him through the crowd standing at the bar giving mouth-to-mouth and returned to confirm that Emmett was indeed fixed up with a fine thing – a cross between Uma Thurman and Michelle Pfeiffer, a total ride as he’d put it. I was glad for Emmett; a good going over would do him all the good in the world.
John finally managed to skin up and he’d shifted to the couch. He was sprawled out with an ashtray on his chest, his eyes closed, luxuriating in the booze and fatigue. Suddenly he started laughing, his Adam’s apple hopping and his breath coming through his nose in short bursts. He sat up spluttering.
‘I’ll bet she’ll give him some mauling all right when she gets her hands on him. She looked like she’d be well able to go … he’ll need both hands to pull the sheets out of his hole tomorrow morning.’
‘I’d say more than the sheets will go – quilt and mattress and pillow, the whole lot. I wouldn’t start looking for the headboard either.’
‘He’ll turn up on the doorstep tomorrow all dazed and bruised, his hair sticking out all over the place, saying, Lads, what hit me?’
‘And we’ll have to put him sitting down and give him hot, sweet tea to help him get over the shock. It’s OK, Emmett, it’s OK, it was only the ride, you had a good time, you had a good time. Look … what’s this, a pillow hanging from your arse?’
‘We’d have to call the Knights of Malta.’
We were giggling uncontrollably now, the dope kicking in and the tears streaming down our faces. We were well pleased with our joke and Emmett’s good fortune. I sat back and wiped the tears from my eyes, then passed on the spliff.
‘This could be the making of Emmett though, the beginning of something. Maybe she’s a rich widow looking for a toyboy. Emmett could be set up for life.’
‘Jeesus, that’d be the way to live for a while. This bored, rich widow taking you on and feeding you and giving you spending money. I could go for a good long stretch of that.’
‘You’d get bored with it soon enough, though,’ Paul interjected, assuming the mock voice of morality and restraint.
‘Yah, the novelty would wear off after a while all right, ten or eleven years,’ John said, and we all collapsed laughing.
‘All I’m saying is that my pride wouldn’t let me,’ Paul spluttered archly. ‘I’d feel used and demeaned.’ We collapsed again and sat back in our chairs, passing round the spliff a final time.
‘Seriously, Mike, it’s an idea. Work isn’t easy to come by any more. You could be a long time pounding the pavements before something comes up. What you should do is take that smooth arse of yours onto 42nd Street and start hawking it up and down the sidewalk. I’d bet you’d build up a regular custom in no time.’
‘You could get Emmett to pimp for you,’ Paul added. ‘Now that he’s set up with this wealthy chick it’d be the perfect front. I bet she’d introduce you to a nice, classy sort of punter.’
I fell in with the joke. ‘I was thinking about it but I’d be afraid no one would want me. Imagine hawking your arse day after day and no one wanting it. All those men and women turning up their noses at you and passing you by. Try explaining that to your ego. And that’s what would happen, I know well.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, a young smooth arse like yours and all those older, frustrated women. I’d say you’d make a fortune.’
‘A roaring trade, I’ll bet.’
I just grinned. My inspiration was seeping away now. It was better to abandon the joke before the arse got tore out of it completely. This was the fag end of the day and jet lag and booze and dope were overwhelming my body, making it fifty times heavier than it really was. I was about to drift off to sleep but I had a sudden vision of Emmett somewhere in the city, straddled by this big blonde with huge tits who was bouncing up and down on his stick. Emmett was gazing up at her as she rode and there was a look of utter amazement on his face. I shut my eyes tighter and grinned, drifting off to sleep.
Go, Emmett, go, go, go.
My neck was stiff in a rictus of pain the next morning, pain flashing through to my elbow whenever I tried to move. I had fallen asleep in the armchair. I opened my eyes and saw John picking his way cautiously over the broken ground of cups and clothes, moving towards the fridge with his hand clasped to his forehead. I struggled out of the chair and stood swearing at the pain in my neck, knowing already that the day was useless if it didn’t go away. John handed me a carton of orange juice.
‘What time is it?’
‘Half two. The day’s almost gone.’
‘Jesus, I’ve one mother of a headache.’
‘That’s the whiskey – a great idea at the time but you never stop to think.’
‘How did we sleep so long?’
‘That’s it again, up all night talking shite instead of getting to bed. Come on, let’s tidy up this place and get some breakfast.’
We gave the room a quick blitz, heaped everything into bags and corners, then sat at the table to drink tea and butter bread. Paul wandered in from the bedroom looking seriously grey in the face; we had heard the unmistakable sound of puking coming from the toilet. He sat down without a word and John gave me a knowing grin.
‘How’re you feeling, Paul – is the belly up in a heap?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Mike will have the pan on in a minute, rashers and sausages and runny eggs and …’
‘FUCK OFF,’ he hissed weakly, burying his face in h
is hands. ‘Whose idea was the whiskey anyway? A real fucking genius whoever it was.’
‘Oh yah, I have a distinct memory of tying you down and pouring it back your neck.’
Paul groaned deeply. ‘Why do I do it, why do I fall for it every time?’ he agonized. ‘Wouldn’t you think I’d have learned my lesson, that it does my fucking head in?’
‘That’s it again, you see. Paddy doesn’t stop to think. Plough straight ahead and fuck the begrudgers.’
‘Do you not feel shite?’ he asked wonderingly. ‘I used to be able to drink you under the table.’
‘I did feel bad,’ I said grimly. ‘But now that I see the shape you’re in I feel a lot better.’
He groaned bitterly.
‘It’s just like you, ya cunt.’
I poured him tea and he sipped gingerly.
‘I wonder, will Emmett call or what the hell’s he at?’
‘He probably needs all his time to get those sheets out of his hole. He might need surgery.’
‘The last thing on Emmett’s mind now is ringing us. If he has any sense he’ll be going back for seconds.’
The rest of that day drifted by in small talk and a couple of hours poring over the NY Times. We made dinner and it settled our stomachs and afterwards John skinned up and we passed round the first smoke of the day. There was still no word from Emmett.
‘Wouldn’t you think the bollocks would call?’ I said. ‘I don’t give a shit what he’s doing but I hope he remembers we’re supposed to go looking for work in the morning.’
‘Don’t worry about it. You’ll be long enough working. Have you got money?’
‘At the present rate of expenditure, about enough for a week.’
‘No worries then. You can stay here as long as you like. The moment you start earning you can start putting in with the rent.’
‘Thanks, men.’
The rest of that evening drifted away in front of the telly and by the time I went to bed there was still no word from Emmett.
And there was no word the next morning nor through the whole of that day. I spent the time alone in a kind of bewildered prowling, listlessly sorting through tapes and CDs, lying on my back with books and mags but tossing them aside after a few pages because my concentration wasn’t there. When the boys finally returned from work I was startled out of the shallow doze I had fallen into beside the tape deck. When I confirmed that there had been no word from Emmett I saw their momentary disbelief turn quickly to bravura foolery.
‘Now that he’s got a taste the bastard can’t get enough of it,’ John said. ‘Like a suck calf.’
But John wasn’t fooling anyone. A thin virus of anxiety had entered the room and our mood. The only subject worth discussing was now faintly unspeakable and as the evening wore on we forcibly immersed ourselves in books and the TV. Finally the tension was bearable no longer and we drifted off to our beds, silently, one by one.
I slept badly that night, surfacing from time to time through fitful dreams till finally I rose at six to eat breakfast with John and Paul before they went to work. The anxiety of the previous night had now deepened to outright worry and John, true to his nature as the decisive one, faced it head on. He banged his cup down and held up his hands.
‘That’s it. If there’s no word by this evening we’re going to the cops. I’m not spending another night like last night.’
I kept my head down and groaned. I didn’t want to hear this.
‘That’s a bit drastic. Cops won’t do anything until he’s been missing for three days,’ Paul said.
‘I know that, but at least they’ll have his description so they can start straight away. We have to do something.’
‘They’ll know straight off he’s illegal.’
‘Matter a fuck. Look, either something’s happened to him and he needs our help or he’s still out there poking this blonde bitch and hasn’t given us a thought, in which case he deserves whatever’s coming to him.’
‘It’s not his form to stay away this long without a word.’
‘Exactly.’
Paul opened his mouth for one further objection and then shut it again. John was right – we couldn’t spend another night like last night, we were freaked out.
They left for work but not before they emptied their pockets and gave me a further two hundred dollars in case I needed it. They left the flat in silence, almost bashfully, and I settled down again to my vigil beside the phone. I sat a while in the kitchen drinking more tea and smoking. There was no doubt in my mind now that something terrible had happened to Emmett; I knew it as surely as if I was standing over his grey corpse on the kitchen floor. I tried to bury this thought within me by making more tea and clearing away the breakfast things but I gave up after a few minutes and went back to bed and slept with the phone on my pillow till noon. When I awoke I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for an age and then I got up. I blundered around and tried to clear away the breakfast things again but I found my mood had changed utterly, making any sort of chore impossible. My patience was exhausted and I could neither sit nor stand. Before I noticed it I had taken to pacing the floor. Now I could feel one of my infrequent rages building inside me, coming to a head, ready at any moment to spill out in sudden violence and verbal abuse. I was filled with an incoherent, unreasonable rage towards Emmett. Why had he gone and let this happen to him? I seethed. I had the obscene conviction that whatever happened to him had been drawn on him by his own stupid innocence. The stupid bastard, I raged, the stupid, stupid fucking bastard.
The phone rang suddenly, scattering my rage. I was on it before it rang a second time. It was Emmett, his voice all choked and barely able to speak.
‘Mike, Mike, is that you?’ he blurted.
‘Emmett, where the hell are you?’ I yelled. ‘We’ve been worried sick. Why haven’t you called?’
He ignored the question. He was crying openly now, making low gulping sounds beneath his words, snuffling.
‘Mike, come and get me quick, quick, I think I’m dying.’
‘Emmett, do you know were you are?’
He didn’t seem to hear me, his pain or whatever it was seemed to overwhelm him just then, rising up in a great wave and breaking from him in sobs.
‘Emmett! Emmett! Take a hold of yourself. Calm down, just calm down.’ I spoke to him like that for a few moments till he steadied down and then I asked him again if he knew where he was. He gave me the address and I made him repeat it to make sure I got it right.
‘Be quick, Mike, please,’ he said again as he began to sob. ‘I think I’m going to die.’
‘Just hold on, Emmett,’ I implored. ‘I’m on my way.’
I don’t remember anything about that journey. It passed in a kind of slow-motion blur of whizzing glass and concrete, people and cars. All I could think about was Emmett’s words which kept hammering in my head – I’m going to die, he’d said, I’m going to die.
The cabbie stopped several times to consult a map and I drummed my feet and cursed with impatience. We drove south into Brooklyn, journeyed for an hour and turned west beyond Bensonhurst towards Gravesend Bay. Finally we spent a crucifying amount of time over the last half mile negotiating one-way and pedestrian systems, crawling through tiny streets beneath tenements which blocked out the sunlight and teemed with black kids and lanky teenagers hopping basketballs on the sidewalks. We pulled up eventually at a gap in the tenements where one of them had been flattened and the vacant area wired off for development. I saw Emmett straight away. A crowd of kids had gathered to one side of the site entrance and Emmett was visible over their heads. He had his back to the wire facing the kids and he was suspended from the mesh by one of his arms held high over his head, his fingers threaded in the diamond pattern. His head was hanging and his body had a pendulous motion; his arm was carrying his full weight. I burst through the crowd of kids and lifted his head. Emmett’s face was grey and there was a heavy rivulet of blood draining from the corner of his mouth. His eyes w
ere two sightless bores in the middle of his skull, the irises totally occluded by the giant pupils.
‘Emmett, it’s me, Mike, I’m here now. Everything is going to be OK. I’m taking you home.’ I’ll never know why I came out with that awful platitude but it seemed to have an effect on him. He closed his mouth with a thick, rasping sound and his eyes flicked into momentary focus.
‘Mike,’ he whispered.
‘Yes, Emmett, it’s me, Mike. Everything’s going to be OK now.’
He started to sob then, his head dropped and all his pain seemed to flow out of him.
‘I’m going to die, Mike, I’m going to die.’
‘You’re not going to die, Emmett, we’re going to get you out of here and get you seen to, everything is going to be OK.’
It was a bitch of a job loosening his fingers from the mesh. The circulation had been cut off from his hand and the weight of his body had frozen his fingers in the wire. I managed to raise him up slightly and prise them loose and he fell deadweight, sobbing into my arms.
‘Look, mister, he’s bleeding,’ one of the kids called. ‘He’s bleeding.’ I saw that Emmett was holding his hand over the soft flesh beneath his ribs. Blood was oozing steadily between his fingers.
‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t want to die.’
I picked him from the ground and bundled him into the taxi, yelling that I needed a hospital. ‘Don’t let him bleed all over the seat, man,’ the driver warned.
‘Fuck the seat! Just get us to a hospital.’
Emmett tipped over in the seat, his head falling into my lap. He was sobbing quietly now, almost strangely contented in his grief. I kept my hand over his belly, hoping it wouldn’t split and spill his guts all over the floor. I wanted to cry myself but I’ve never had a talent for that crying shit. Right then I just felt dried up and twisted in my gut, plus bitter as all hell. I knew I was going to carry this with me for the rest of my life. I could feel it entering into my bones on a tide of darkness, washing up through me and swamping my heart. Rages and outbursts weren’t my thing, not those fancy volatile moods which flared up and burnt out in an instant. I was more a long-distance runner in these affairs, measuring out my anger and bitterness in daily increments, mindful of the long haul ahead – and I knew already I would have plenty of material here to see me through for the rest of my days.
Getting it in the Head Page 15