Meatloaf in Manhattan

by Robert Power

  PRAISE FOR ROBERT POWER

  IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE TIGER

  ‘Between Life of Pi, Under Milkwood and Gus Kuijer’s disturbing children’s novel, The Book of Everything … The writing is subtle, connotative and composed. Its craftsmanship embraces and extends this audacious depiction of an escape from childhood.’

  Joy Lawn Bookseller+Publisher

  ‘Robert Power’s striking debut novel works less with the idea of childhood innocence, than with it burdening and fracturing by violence … While Oscar’s experiences circle around violence, his focus is on hope, largely embodied by Mrs April. Psychologically astute, original and whimsical, the novel creates a memorable protagonist and sees him set sail, eventually, powered by dreams and resilience. Fantasy and a quest for alternative worlds are symptomatic of trauma, but also, ultimately, the means of Oscar’s self-made redemption.’

  Felicity Plunkett, Canberra Times

  ‘Rich with observation and fine writing.’

  Lucy Sussex The Sunday Age

  ‘Power’s skill as a writer is to allow us insight into Oscar’s hopeful magic-realist view of the world, even while we are travelling through this dark terrain of trauma.’

  Pip Newling The Big Issue

  ‘This dark and beautiful tale, told with a light touch, stayed in my mind long after I'd finished … The prose is lucid, poetic and is one of the story’s pleasures. The ending is both unpredictable and provocative.’

  Claire Kennedy Herald Sun

  THE SWAN SONG OF DOCTOR MALLOY

  ‘artfully paced and suspenseful … the writing is energised by realistic detail: the psychology of the characters, the geopolitics and social mores ground the novel and keep the pages turning.’

  Cameron Woodhead, The Age

  ‘Eminently readable. The author writes with great empathy about the highs and utter depths to which drink-fuelled sprees take Malloy and the subsequent shame and humiliation.’

  Jennifer Somerville, Good Reading

  ‘Beautiful and tender moments … lasting imagery … really resonates with me.’

  Jon Faine, Conversation Hour, ABC 774

  ‘Power is an assured storyteller, and the novel is taut and compelling … Power’s insight into addiction is remarkable and works brilliantly as the running thread of the narrative.’

  Crusader Hillis, Australian Book Review

  ‘Another finely calibrated novel … Here is protagonist Anthony Malloy amid the little known world of pharmaceutical research, dealing with the uses and abuses that spring from the very real ability to change lives that comes from specialised medical knowledge. Malloy is driven yet conflicted - as issues of contemporary drug use and preventative medical strategies are played out he develops as a flesh and blood, vulnerable, anxious man, with a failing marriage, a complex child and troubled siblings. Power takes us, and Malloy, from London to south-east Asia, the USA and South America – a kind of Lonely Planet journey through drug and disease hotspots, without the voyeurism.’

  William Charles, The Melbourne Review

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  www.transitlounge.com.au

  Copyright © Robert Power 2014

  First Published 2014

  Transit Lounge Publishing

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study,

  research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be

  reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to

  the publisher.

  Front cover image: Max Ferguson/Bridgeman Art Library

  Cover and book design: Peter Lo

  Printed in China by Everbest

  This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia

  Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

  A cataloguing-in-publication entry is available from the

  National Library of Australia: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  E-ISBN 9781921924651

  With love, as always,

  to my three sons

  Tom, Dominic & Louis

  CONTENTS

  Firenze & Snowball

  Meatloaf in Manhattan

  She Calls Her Boy Amazing

  The Visit

  The Story of Little-Path and Marcus Kellogg

  The General and the Billiard Cue

  The I Zingari Cap

  Synge’s Chair

  Zorro the Chess Master

  The Shoe Lovers

  Lemon Juice and Snakebite

  Monsignor Di Vincente & The Heartmaker

  The Postman Gets a Letter

  The Mayor’s Fear of the Penalty

  Grooming

  Buffalo Bill and the Psychiatrist

  FIRENZE & SNOWBALL

  ‘It’s the most beautiful of songs,’ says Snowball. But wouldn’t he just. He’s so quietly in tune with me. But he’s right. It’s quite lovely and haunting. Almost special.

  ‘You think so?’ I ask him. ‘Why?’

  ‘It sucks you in. It gets into your head and under your skin,’ he adds, without looking up from his laptop.

  ‘Let’s hope the record company thinks so,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t let them think,’ the screen on his computer bright and animated in the darkness of my bedroom. ‘Look,’ he says, pulling up a new window, ‘remember I told you about Alterlife. That’s where you should launch it. You don’t need a record company sucking on your blood.’

  Snowball is a computer nerd. Just like I’m a songwriter Goth. He’s yin and I’m yang and we’re each other’s best friends. No sex. No complications. Just happy. We feed each other’s dreams. I want to be Edith Piaf meets Lady Gaga and he wants to be the next Donky Kong world champion. He’s been obsessed with the game since he was knee-high. Every spare moment he’s the big monkey chasing around the screen, picking up points, avoiding stuff. That’s his thing. Playing computer games and exploring the depths of the Web are what Snowball does. He’s called Snowball because he’s so white on account of being indoors so much with his head in a computer. He told me about Alterlife some time back. An anonymous website that had hit big. A bit like the rave parties of the last century, it had started small and cool and obscure. Only those in the know knew how to locate it. But recently it’s been getting a lot of publicity here in the real world. Its original avatars were punks and poets. It still has a bohemian edge, despite the businessmen from Manhattan and Stepford wives from Idaho who’ve joined up. Swingers in a new playground. Only last month a best-selling novelist launched his new book in Alterlife. His avatar, Litrick, set up a literary agency and held a launch party at one of Alterlife’s virtual beaches.

  ‘Forget the record companies,’ says Snowball, ‘release your song in Alterlife. They have clubs and venues where you can sing for free once you join up.’

  So while I cook some scrambled eggs on rye toast, Snowball makes me an avatar.

  ‘Give her a name,’ he says, adding some long blue hair and luscious eyelashes.

  It comes to me in a flash. ‘Firenze, after Florence,’ I say. I love the Italian city. The romance of the place, even though I’ve never been there. One of my dreams is to be standing in front of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in the Uffizi gallery. I keep a poster of the painting above my bed and use Venus postcards as bookmarks. She is so voluptuous, and there’s something about the huge seashell, the flowers and the way her hair flows around her body that’s inspired me since I was a little girl.

  The next day Snowball is flicking through websites, searching as always, a fisherman never quite sure of what might come up at the end of the line. I’m sitting on the floor plucking on my guitar, the one my dad
left behind.

  ‘There,’ he says, proud of his catch. ‘I’ve found you a gig in Alterlife. Next Thursday. You enter your song online and if the jury likes it, you’re on.’

  He turns the screen towards me so I can see. The 3-D image is of a beautiful room, furnished in art-deco style: porticos and mirrors, statuettes of athletic women holding orbs of light. A subtly lit stage waiting for my song.

  I smile. He smiles.

  ‘Sing it for me again,’ he says. ‘Hypnotise me.’

  Way across town, on the money side, John Mercy taps his credit card on his keyboard. His two kids are asleep in the loft and his wife is downstairs watching reality on the gigantic TV. He looks out the window. Although it’s late and dark, he can see the snow. He wants some excitement. He needs something new in his life. One side of the split screen of his PC is the NASDAQ and FTSE indexes. On the other is rolling countryside, a waterfall, a hill and a shiny city. Sodom and Shangri-La all in one. He clicks an icon on his desktop and Pegasus, his avatar, takes the place of the depressing lines of red digits from the Wall Street stock exchange.

  ‘Go boy,’ he whispers to himself as he keys in his credit card details.

  WELCOME PEGASUS, YOU ARE THE 17,025,316 INHABITANT OF ALTERLIFE. A WHOLE NEW WORLD OPENS UP TO YOU.

  He first heard of Alterlife from Bill, his architect friend and jogging companion. Bill had set up a company there and was making a whole new revenue stream designing homes and gardens for avatars.

  ‘It’s wild,’ panted Bill as he ran beside John, ‘there are people, well avatars, selling all manner of stuff, doing deals, playing the finance markets.’

  The thought of another life, away from the safety of the suburbs, family and beach house was a mighty attraction for John.

  The snow is building up on the window ledge. The TV drones downstairs. An email pops up on John’s laptop screen.

  HI PEGASUS, AS A WELCOME TO ALTERLIFE COME TO YOUR FIRST PARTY ON THURSDAY 17th JUNE 2200 GMT AT THE BERLINER

  John rubs his bald head and clicks the ACCEPT button.

  ‘You’re on,’ says Snowball. ‘Your song got 253 hits at the jury play. That puts you second to last on the bill. Let’s order in pizza and watch the show.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I reply. ‘But the record company’ll be pissed.’

  ‘Forget them, they did you no favours. What happened to your first record? A bit of airplay. One-hundred-and-eighty-third in the national charts. Then they dumped you. You owe them nothing. Alterlife is the future.’

  The Berliner is full to the brim. The avatars in the audience are brightly coloured figures, all shapes and sizes and designs. They sit at tables in clumps and singly, sipping exotic drinks. Some smoke from precious metal and diamond encrusted cigarette holders. Smoking is safe in Alterlife, as no one has to breathe.

  ‘Make way,’ says the compere, the master of ceremonies, straight out of Cabaret. ‘We have a delicious surprise for you. Lights and music, maestro. The girls may be beautiful, but the songs are more beautiful still. Let the spotlight fall on Firenze, making her Alterlife debut.’

  Firenze stands at the microphone. It’s one of those old-fashioned 1950s types, with a big head, haloed by a metal ring. As she begins to sing heads turn, conversations stop. The lyrics drift on the blue-grey cigarette smoke and haunt the room. One by one, the avatars in the audience are mesmerised.

  ‘Crystalise …’ she sings with a cadence and depth that holds the crowd in its grip. The concert is playing live to radio, so the song wafts across the airwaves of Alterlife. That night, Firenze and her melody are on everyone’s lips. No one can recall ever hearing anything quite like it before. Neither the avatars, nor their earthly embodiments at their computer terminals.

  Within less than a week, Firenze is the hottest ticket in town. The most feted and downloaded of avatars. One day she plays simultaneously at six private parties, at thirteen concerts, and on the premier radio station in the most exclusive sector, VIP, of Alterlife’s myriad levels.

  Back in New York I can’t believe what’s happening. My song has seeped through the membrane between this life and Alterlife and back again. Across the USA it’s making it on radio waves from Dallas to Portland, San Antonio to New Jersey. For 25 cents, people are downloading it to PCs, iPods and all manner of smartphones. Everyone wants to know who the singer is, but Firenze will do. Within two weeks two million people have bought the song and I’ve got $50,000 in my bank account. I take Snowball to Las Vegas. We see Rod Stewart singing ‘Sailing’ and put $8000 in the slot machines. In the elevator my song is playing and we laugh as we order room service, eat bowls of potato chips and watch Now Voyager on pay TV. ‘Who needs record companies, when we can reach for Alterlife?’ I joke as I pass Snowball a joint on the balcony, the illuminated city of dreams at our feet. For a present, I buy him a purple Donky Kong tee shirt.

  ‘Can you stop singing that song?’ shouts John’s wife as she ruffles the pillows behind her head. ‘I’m trying to read, for God’s sake.’

  ‘What song?’ John shouts back from the shower.

  ‘That song. It’s everywhere.’

  ‘Oh, that song. I didn’t realise I was singing it.’

  ‘No,’ says his wife, more to herself than to anyone else. ‘You don’t seem to realise much at all anymore.’

  He dries himself, puts on his dressing gown and goes downstairs to his study.

  He clicks on the black rose icon on his desktop and there is Pegasus, standing in the alleyway, waiting at the stage door of the Berliner where Firenze has returned to top the bill. The stage door opens and she appears. The crowd roars and camera bulbs pop. She is hurried into a pink limousine and whisked citywards. Pegasus takes wing, follows Firenze’s car to her hotel, flies through open French windows and settles on a velvet covered sofa in the lounge. When Firenze arrives, breathtaking in an ermine fur coat and crystal glass high heels, Pegasus walks over to her and asks if they can talk.

  ‘For sure,’ she says.

  ‘You have the most beautiful voice ever,’ he says. ‘I love you.’

  She does not bat an eyelid.

  ‘I love you too,’ she answers, easy as falling off a log.

  ‘Snowball,’ I say, staring at my half of the split screen, ‘what happens if I tell my avatar to tell another avatar I love him? Well, I think he’s a him. A kind of mythical horse. You know the one?’

  ‘A centaur?’ says Snowball chasing bananas, not trying for a big score, but just honing his Donky Kong skills.

  ‘No, the white, pretty one, with the angel wings.’

  ‘Pegasus.’

  ‘That’s the one. Such wings. I thought it would be fun for my avatar to fall in love at first sight.’

  ‘With a groupie horse?’

  ‘Yeah, I like that. I’m in love with my first groupie and he’s a mythical horse.’

  On my screen I see Firenze and Pegasus walking along the beach in Alterlife. Out of the sky a bright star morphs into a diamond and Pegasus presents my avatar with a sparkling necklace that catches the moonbeams bouncing from the ripples of the ocean. At that moment a school of dolphins leap high into the air, water cascading from their backs.

  I Google ‘Pegasus’, my new found love. Perfect. He is ‘the creator of sources in which the poets come to draw inspiration.’

  That night I sleep and dream, enfolded in the voluptuous wings of a swan, the sound of the hooves of wild horses thundering into the distance.

  Each day more and more money appears in my bank account and each morning me and Snowball find new ways to spend it. On Monday we take a hot air balloon ride over the Manhattan skyline, wintry blue above, sharp and icy below. Back on the ground we eat fish dinners under the Brooklyn Bridge (even though Snowball worries about all the daylight). On Tuesday we get ringside tickets to see Pac-Man (not the computer game, but ‘pound for pound the best boxer in the world’) batter the latest Great White Hope into submission. Wednesday we play roulette and blackjack all day and night
at The Lucky Nugget, just to prove gambling’s a mug’s game. Thursday we stay in, eat takeaways. I write some poetry and Snowball studies the online skills of his Donky Kong rivals. On Friday we fly for the weekend to San Antonio to see the Alamo (I buy a Davy Crockett hat and pretend to be John Wayne; Snowball gets a poncho and sombrero and acts out the Mexican Army, ‘Viva la Revolution’). All the while my song keeps playing and Firenze’s star continues to rise.

  John’s Pegasus looks out from the screen, a message from another world, another time. His eye is huge and John can see his own reflection in the horse’s shiny black pupil. There’s something in Pegasus’ look that takes him back to his childhood and the family farm in Ohio. In his mind’s eye he sees himself as the small boy sitting on his father’s huge chestnut stallion.

  ‘Look at you the cowboy,’ says his father, guiding the horse along the dirt track up the hill towards the house. ‘Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, don’t fence me in,’ sings his father, as John nuzzles into the horse’s mane, holding his balance, fresh air from the prairies filling his lungs. Those were the days when all that mattered was a life of wide open fields, boxcars and endless horizons. But John grew older, found his way to an East Coast college, hit the crossroads and the lure of Wall Street, the American dream, the picket fence, the SUV, the blonde wife and kids and the mortgaged life.

  A series of graphs flash across the monitor, all showing the sharp downward trend that John’s feared for months. His wife luxuriates in the spa, his children dream in satin sheets, all oblivious to the financial ruin unfolding before his eyes. He feels panic in the pit of his stomach. He clicks the cursor and there is Pegasus, rising up on his hind legs, stretching his angel wings and flying skyward against a star-spangled backdrop.

  ‘John,’ shouts his wife from the landing upstairs, ‘can you come here? We really need to talk about these bathroom tiles.’

  Then one morning Snowball gently shakes me from a dreamy sleep.

  ‘Hey, wake up, you’d better see this,’ he says.

  He’s on a news web page on his laptop, which is unlike him.