by Joe Stretch
Janek left the jacuzzi dripping and pulled on some jeans. He led the camera inside the mansion where he showed it the contents of his fridge, pointing out for specific attention the champagne, the foie gras and some old-style bottles of Coca-Cola. He led the floating camera to the indoor swimming pool where men and women played volleyball half-heartedly, making their wet muscles ripple and their wet breasts yell. He showed the camera his gymnasium where he climbed onto an exercise bike and pedalled furiously for a while, pulling a serious grimace at the camera. Janek showed the camera every room in the mansion. The dining room, the games room, the home cinema, the home studio, the basketball court, the library. All was going nicely until he took the floating camera to his bedroom and nodded with odd eyebrows at the large and psychotically made bed, intimating that this is where the magic happens, you know, this is where I stick it in. He made a quick call on the phone beside the bed and, having hung up, he leapt horizontally onto the bed itself and plunged his backside down into the mattress, making it depress and bounce, as if to say, this is pretty much how my mattress moves when I’m having sex on it, absolutely, it’s almost exactly the same. He used a remote to make a TV screen descend from the ceiling. He winked at the camera, smiling, suggesting undoubtedly that it wasn’t unknown for Janek to watch television on this massive television, maybe even while naked and with a girl, maybe even porn. Meanwhile, a girl’s arrived holding a tray of bread and miniature chunks of vacuum-packed cheese. The girl is plain, her complexion full of Eastern European shadows and soft yellows. To impress the floating camera, Janek begins grinding on the girl’s behind, holding her hips, guiding her clothed bottom around his denim dick area. And he’s smiling, oh, he’s really beaming with pride, even though the girl is slapping his cheeks with desperate knuckles and trying to get away. In fact, it’s only when the girl is really beating the shit out of him that Janek becomes a little embarrassed by the presence of the floating camera and, amid the throws of the girl’s punches, intimates that it doesn’t need to see this and should probably float elsewhere. Next thing he knows he’s being marched down the grand mansion staircase by a man with fingers as thick as wrists. Only it’s not the mansion now, it’s a hotel, and outside the windows is night.
‘Get your stuff and fuck off,’ says the hotel manager, his grey face slashed by red pillow lines.
‘Easy,’ mutters Janek, his voice weak, dragged through sleep. ‘I ain’t a player hating motherfucka,’ he whispers, with no conviction.
‘Pardon?’ shouts the manager.
‘Nothing,’ says Janek.
Half an hour later and he’s walking through a deserted Hyde Park. He tries Life on her mobile, knowing it’s far too late for her to answer. He listens to the ringing, desperate for that moment when the tone is interrupted by a human voice, Life’s voice, a sleepy inhalation and a croaky hello. It doesn’t come: Hi, this is Life’s phone. Leave a message. Janek chooses not to, but he does register yet another change to Life’s recorded message. No more bright and breezy invitations to the Real Arms, Wow-Bang. He’s pleased about this. But still, since she killed him, Life has ignored all his calls.
Janek makes immediately for the shelter of a large poplar tree. He lays out his coat on the rough ground and sits on it, pulling off his beanie and covering his face with it. Where have I been? he thinks. What have I been doing? He recalls the past week, his attempt to get giddy and find the festival. His attempt to live for the moment. The moment, thinks Janek. Better to live curled up in a car boot than kicking and screaming inside a moment. In fact, there are no fucking moments, only sickly sweet cocktails of solitude. There’s boring truth in the complex crap that we contain. It gets pumped round our body, makes our dicks and nipples hard, makes us blush, makes us faint. Janek’s beanie is wet with his tears. No real life, he concludes, should ever be lived in moments.
Janek looks up through the branches above him at the purple sky. The leaves randomly sway and the sky randomly arcs and alters its colours in small ways. Not even the hopeful humans can connect all this shifting debris together any more. We can’t be arsed.
Janek inserts the N-Prang into his ears, confident it will never be removed.
19
AFTER A GIGGLY reconciliation and three days of nervous negotiation, the two Anka Kudolskis have acquired a sledgehammer.
‘Do you really want this?’
‘You know I do.’
‘OK then. Here we come.’
Roger waits. He has propped himself up against his computer desk. He’s standing up for the first time in ages. He’s loving it. He’s thinking, this is living. If living is anything it is standing the fuck up, nervously preparing a friendly facial expression and waiting for a girl you’ve never even met to smash down your front door.
‘Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh.’ Out in the corridor, the two Ankas bring the sledgehammer crashing down against the door to Roger’s flat. The effect is charming. The boring brown door gives in after just one stroke because it hasn’t got the heart to resist. It breaks down in front of the force of love and the force of total desperation, leaving two panting Ankas leaning against the hammer’s handle, staring into the shadows of Roger’s flat.
‘Hello,’ says Roger.
‘All right?’ say both Ankas in unison.
Roger looks through the remains of his door at Anka Kudolski. The two Anka Kudolskis look through the shadows of the flat at Roger, leant, tense, against his desk.
‘So anyway,’ says Roger, nervously, ‘I’ve got all this stuff in my stomach, like I told you. Wires and everything. And my legs are like, you know, black plastic. But . . .’ Roger remembers all the lonely, loveless years that preceded this moment. He gets the urge to sing. He thinks maybe he could sing a love aria from Les Misérables but he loses his confidence. It wouldn’t make Anka happy. ‘So . . .’ he continues. ‘I can’t have sex . . . because I’ve got this numerical keypad where my thingy should be. And also, Anka, I find existing a little bit tricky. I can’t just be . . . I have to –’ Roger’s body jolts so extremely he’s convinced he’s going to fall flat on his face and not be able to get up for absolutely ages. He shouts, his voice like a drill sergeant: ‘I’m standing up! I’m leaning against my desk! I’m staring at the girl! I’ve been thinking about you so much!’
Both Ankas smile. ‘Wow, that could get really irritating.’
‘I’m nodding,’ says Roger loudly. ‘I’m nodding at you in agreement.’
‘You sure are,’ say the Ankas, through deliberately weary smiles. ‘So how do you feel about going outside, about going to London for this Wild World thing?’
Roger bleeps: ‘To be honest, I’m shit-scared. Did you manage to get a wheelchair?’
‘We did, yes. And that reminds us, before we go to the train station all three of us are gonna go to the EDC. There’s one near Piccadilly.’
Both Ankas are still out in the corridor and Roger is still propped up against his desk. Everyone feels a little ashamed. Roger because of all the funny noises he’s making and because he’s having to try so hard not to describe the situation in minute detail. And the Ankas because despite another night of discussion, neither can decide which of them is starved to the brink of liver failure and which is the genuine, authentic Anka, the one that got born, grew up and wanted to be an artist. But they do have a plan. They return to their flat to fetch the wheelchair that Roger had insisted was necessary if they are to travel to London. They push it together slowly into Roger’s flat. They are getting closer to him. They can both hear him muttering.
‘I’m standing. I’m waiting. I’m full of technology. She’s coming at me with a wheelchair.’
‘Jesus, Roger, is there no way you can not do that?’
‘What, the describing?’
‘Yes, the describing,’ shout the Ankas, each grabbing one of Roger’s arms. ‘Of course that’s what we meant,’ they shout, needlessly, or rather to drown out the feelings triggered by lifting someone, touching someone. They lower Roger i
nto the wheelchair, their faces straining, imitating the stressed and impatient expressions pulled by mothers at their children. All three people are breathing loudly. They’re flustered.
‘What’s an EDC?’ asks Roger.
‘Eating disorder clinic,’ say the Ankas. ‘There’s something we need to do. By the way, is that the TV that, you know?’
‘That you were on and that I wanked over? Yes, it is. Are you still doing the show?’
‘No,’ say the Ankas, firmly. ‘We quit. We refuse to work as a double act.’
‘Right,’ whispers Roger and, in so doing, he announces the first official silence of his and Anka’s relationship. The first silence of any relationship is crucial. In it, the participants have the first opportunity for evaluation. Firstly, they can judge how awkward the silence is. Secondly, they can decide how likely it is that the other participant in the silence is thinking thoughts so negative as to prevent the relationship even sharing another silence. In this instance, however, all Roger is thinking about is how he can prevent himself saying, ‘I’m sitting in silence, in a wheelchair, looking at the only person who can save me. I’m sitting in silence, full of technology etc.’ And all the Ankas are thinking is: When, inevitably, lunchtime arrives, what the fuck are we going to do?
The silence is broken by an irritating buzzing coming from Roger’s head. He holds it and feigns a painful expression in the hope of getting some sympathy. He doesn’t get any. The Ankas simply begin wheeling him towards the door, saying, ‘Come on, El Rogerio. It’s time.’
When Roger and the two Ankas leave their building, the place where all their solitudes have been played out so forcefully, they are instantly aware of being followed. Or, at least, the Ankas are. They’ve only pushed Roger as far as Miller Street when, while waiting for the green man, they notice that six or seven teenagers in black drainpipe jeans, painfully straight fringes and neon-pink headbands are standing only a few metres behind them, all staring with expressions of genuine awe. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ say the Ankas, each of them flicking emphatic Vs at the group. ‘Who is it?’ says Roger, struggling to turn and see. ‘Nobody, sweetie,’ bleat the Ankas, in funny American accents. The green man appears and the three of them cross the road.
When they get to the eating disorder clinic on Ducie Street, behind Piccadilly Station, the two Ankas crouch down in front of Roger’s chair.
‘You wait here,’ they say. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
Roger nods. ‘I’m sitting, I’m waiting, I’m full of technol –’ The Ankas push all four of their hands over Roger’s mouth.
‘Just wait here, Roger. We’ll be five minutes. Be careful.’
For the first time in almost a year Roger is outside. He sniffs the air. It smells just like the air used to smell in the past, when he would walk for miles each day, selling personal websites door to door. Or rather, not selling them. The sky is still the same. Manchester is crumbling and being rebuilt in all the same ways. Nothing has changed. When he’s confident that Anka is safe inside the clinic, Roger expels air as if he’s been holding his breath for a year.
‘Allow me. Allow me,’ he gasps. ‘I’m stuck in a fucking wheelchair in central Manchester. I’m wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt. Definitely, I am. I’m gonna catch a train to London with Anka, we’re going to some Wild World party. Fucking bullshit. I’m outside. The air is salt and the sky is pepper. The kind of bullshit you flavour food with. I’m cold. Fucking cold. I can’t stop talking. I’m in a wheelchair. I can’t stop talking. I wish I had a keyboard. A computer.’
Roger puts a finger in his mouth and bites hard on it. His face glows red. It’s no good. He could eat his way through his whole hand if it meant being able to talk. A car drives down Ducie Street at speed. Roger winces, spitting his finger out of his mouth. Now his hand is down his trousers, tapping away on the numerical keypad inside his boxer shorts.
‘Allow me. Allow me. The buildings around me are rubbish. Don’t you just hate those losers who cry for help. They spend months fucking themselves up and then right at the last minute have second thoughts. Second thoughts are bad thoughts. I’m sitting in a wheelchair. A car just drove past. The car was probably driven by some glistening, silver tit-wrench, probably listening to Snow Patrol, en route to the fanny factory to pick up his wife. Fucking. Can’t stop talking.’
Roger is breathing like a punctured tyre. As if he only exhales, never inhales. He’s no longer tapping at his cockpad. He’s pulling hard on the thick black wires that sprout from both his ears. If I pull hard enough, he thinks, I’ll split my head in two.
‘Allow me. Allow me. I was born. When I grew up and once I’d left home and learnt to talk, I said shit down the phone to my mum like –’ Roger affects a blasé voice – ‘“Yeah, Mum, everything’s fine. I got a job designing a website for Selfridges. Yeah, I’m going to save the cash cos I wanna buy a house. Yeah, of course I wanna have kids. No, I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. How’s Dad? Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I do know that Miss Saigon is coming to Manchester. I’m definitely going to go, probably more than once. Yeah, I’m still doing that constantly, Mum. I breathe in, I breathe out, I breathe in, I breathe out. I’m getting dead good at it. Yes, I’m happy. Tonight? Not sure. I’ll probably eat a cheese-and-tomato pizza.” Now look at me!’ shouts Roger, returning to his own slightly nerdish tones. ‘I’m in a bloody wheelchair. I’m trying to pull my head apart so my brain will topple into my lap and I can cuddle it for a few seconds like a teddy bear.’
Suddenly, from behind his wheelchair, Roger hears applause. He turns the chair round with difficulty. The group of teenagers, larger now, are clapping ecstatically, down on their knees. ‘Carry on,’ they’re crying. ‘Carry on, El Rogerio.’
It’s starting to rain. A sky-sized dirty bedsheet has been pulled over the roofs of central Manchester. Roger feels the raindrops on his face. ‘You again,’ he shouts, almost rising out of the chair. He senses that blue electrical sparks are coming out of his nose. ‘Carry on!’ the teenagers cry.
‘Allow me. Allow me,’ yells Roger with wet hair and reddening cheeks, hands still pulling at his ear wires. ‘Life is hugely difficult! If you’re like me, a failure, full of crap, then life is hugely difficult. It’s a lot like getting shot, life is. Not that I’ve ever been shot, I’m unshootable, full of the kind of bulletproof bullshit you can buy at PC World. But definitely, life is a lot like being shot. I can explain.’ Roger clears his throat, making a very deep whirring sound. ‘In the early days,’ he continues, ‘ages zero to eighteen, you live with a pistol pointed right at you and you’re thinking, fuck me, this life thing is a very serious business, I better be careful while I’m alive. Then when you hit about eighteen, the trigger gets pulled and, for a while, you feel even more worthwhile. Even more convinced that life is a crucial activity and that you should do your best to take it very seriously. Next the bullet enters your body, this is your twenties. With the bullet in your body, you’re happier than ever, everything is very dramatic, you’re stumbling around and, if you’re lucky, you find a long-term lover, maybe move in together, or, maybe, you get an audition for a local production of The Pirates of Penzance. Maybe stuff goes so well you have to call up your parents and be like, “I’m a massive success, Daddy!” But, even though things are more exciting and dramatic than ever, it’s difficult to forget that you’ve got a bullet swimming through your vital organs like sperm towards an egg. “I’m a massive success, Daddy, but, I should also say, I’ve been shot.” By the time you hit thirty, you’re dead. You become a chubby ghost. You float around showing off all your cool ghost accessories; your fast ghost cars, your ghost job, your designer ghost shoes, your ghost bed where you conceive the babies that you quickly point a pistol at. You show off, too, about your direct debits to various ghost charities, your ghost homes, your ghost holiday homes and, the proudest thing of all, you show off the gruesome exit wound left behind by your youth.’ Roger gives up trying to pull his head apart. He rests his
hands in his lap. ‘I’m thirty,’ he says. ‘I’m thirty.’
The teenagers are rolling around the wet pavement in raptures. ‘So cool,’ they scream. ‘So fucking cool.’ Roger grins. He’s sort of happy. He takes a wire that grows from his appendix and plugs it into a USB port near his collarbone. He can’t resist trying to impress the teenagers. How did they track me down? he wonders. How clever the young are, he thinks, watching as they roll around in the rain.
Across the street, the door of the eating disorder clinic opens with a crash.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
One of the Ankas comes storming across the road and begins beating the teenagers round their heads with a rolled-up self-help manual entitled ‘Starving Yourself to Death: The Drawbacks’.
‘Leave. Roger. Alone,’ Anka shouts, enunciating each word with a swipe of the manual. ‘Piss off. Go on. Go and find your own messiah.’
The teenagers run off together, still laughing and quoting bits of what Roger had said. Roger, meanwhile, is mumbling again: ‘I’m watching teenagers get beaten up. They’re running away. I’m sitting in a wheelchair. She’s very angry.’
Anka walks up to Roger and hits him so hard with ‘Starving Yourself to Death: The Drawbacks’ that for the second that follows she’s worried she might have knocked him clean out.