by Jason Beech
“For fuck’s sake, Tom, you don’t recognize him?”
“If he doesn't look like Ozzy or Plant, then I have no idea what you're on about. Why’ve you brought me here, when I could be necking the next pint? Jesus, Frankie, buy your bloody burger and let's get inside before my balls clang to the floor.”
“You're a useless twat, Tom. Absolutely useless.”
“You're right. Without a bit of sauce in my hand, I'm lost. Can we get back indoors?”
“I want a burger.”
I hold my palm towards him, all traffic cop to this juggernaut as he charges to the queue’s front. The line has thinned to about five couples and singletons and they all throw their voices, and some their arms, at this lack of etiquette.
“Frankie, please, can you take your turn like everyone else.” I'm fairly fit, but I'm not built like the shithouse who glares at me. So I paint a smile for him, to placate whatever beef he has.
“How d’you know my name?”
“I heard you and your friend. You've got a big booming voice. So has he.”
He's either had a few or his eyes normally roll about like this. The top of his nose wrinkles as he sniffs. He punches my burger van and pretends it didn't hurt. I fight my grin at the flinch he bites down on.
“You're a fucking loser, mate. Look at you. Flipping burgers.”
Bollocks to this. I lean over the counter and put a hand on his arm. I'd seen Bill Clinton do it on the news and his object of attention always melted. Frankie puts a laser beam on my hand, then lifts his eyes to meet mine.
“Frankie, you said your sister loved me. Maybe I can visit her. Give her a rendition. Her own little concert. Would she like that? I turn up – voila, look what you did for your sibling. She'll love you for it. You get all the credit.”
His mouth moves as if he chews one of my burgers. “She's not a teeny-bopper anymore … I mean, I don't actually know if she listens to you these days. It's been about ten years since you did anything … You know what, fuck it, yeah, let me take down your number.”
A genuine smile sunshines across his broad face.
“Nah, I'll take your number.”
A cloud smothers that smile and pisses on it. “I'm not playing that game, mate. You won't call me. They never do –”
“I'll call you. For God’s sake, I'm here every Friday and Saturday night selling my cuisine.”
“I suppose … Okay.”
He grabs at the napkins in his renewed excitement. Pulls too many and litters my front as they fall from his grasp. He doesn’t notice. I'll have to go and clean up. I suppress that sigh and smile, all apologetic, at the line behind. The last fella in line has already wandered away. Frankie slides the napkin my way and plants the pen on top so the wind doesn’t carry it away with a flock of other litter.
“Call me tomorrow, yeah?”
I un-purse that tight smile to trigger his excited nod. Every muscle in my face drops, exhausted as his shape blurs into the crowds with his mate, Tom.
“So …” A brunette with a cheeky smirk slaps my counter. “I just have to threaten you with violence and you'll come round mine?”
I bark a laugh which ripples from all the released tension.
***
What could I do? I'd promised. Frankie told me, in our as-brief-as-possible phone call, that his sister, Liz, had her birthday do about five miles from my place. There’d be lots of people there. I could walk there to loosen up, to imagine the walk as a stroll from a changing room to the stage. I ask the taxi driver to get me there and drop me off half a mile down the road. I need to stretch my lungs – pluck my strings to tune up. I roll my shoulders as a boxer would. March down the road and imagine the screaming hordes. Yeah, they were a bunch of teeny boppers back in the day, but we always managed to make their mothers and aunts swing. The attention rocked. The buzz lasted until morning and left you desperate for the next fix. Three of us, anyway. Benny hated it all. Said it demeaned him. He's the only one left with a career. He still packs them in at the Sheffield Arena when he comes home. He's not even the best singer, or the best looker out of the lot of us. I heard he still hates it all. Tosser.
Every step sends notes up my spine. I hum away. The old lyrics pop and I feel a dance move simmer to the point where I might just do a Michael Jackson on every crack in the pavement. I pause outside the working men’s club’s double doors. Chipped paint doesn’t conjure the entrance to Wembley Arena. I wipe the back of a hand across my nose at the non-existent itch. Can smell fried onions and burger fat. Not sure if somebody has a fryer going or if it’s a signature smell I now have stitched deep in my nostrils.
I blast a breath. Rev my vocal chords and palm open the door. A spotlight doesn’t hit me. Still, I build on my fantasy and imagine I have a horde of screaming women awaiting me through the next set of doors.
“You the talent?”
I squint at the old man behind the desk in his brown cardigan. He eyes me through half-closed eyelids, unconvinced by my shaggy but well-gelled hair, skinny jeans, and waistcoat.
“Yes. Yes I am.”
The fluorescent bulb bounces 1970s light off his glasses and in-need-of-painting walls. I hesitate to take the next step. What if? What if? What if this works out and I go viral on social media? What if it sets the ball rolling all over again and I end up as support act for Benny. Or he ends up the support act for me?
Frankie pokes his head through the Formica-clad door, and beams. “You made it, Callen. You can still find your way around the streets by yourself, my man. Well done.”
He puts his big arm round my shoulder. Squeezes and pats. Expels some of my air. I nod and work myself up even higher. An old fan and her friends wait for me he says. All with camera phones.
“Liz doesn't know a thing, mate. I'm going in first to introduce you, get the crowd worked up –”
“The crowd?”
“Yeah, the crowd.”
I buzz like champagne fizz.
“So, my man, wait here, and come in all pop star when I call your name. Alright?”
The entrance room isn’t big enough for my smile. “I'm ready. Let's do it.” I let the green fluorescent which bounces off the Happy Birthday sign above the door become the glittering lightshow I used to enjoy.
The microphone screeches a little at Frankie’s first few words until he shifts it away from his mouth. “Ladies, gent –” I'm sure he said gent, not gents, but I reckon Frankie didn’t have much of an education. “You're going to be well-excited for the main attraction. Here he is – Adam Callen.”
I pound across the chipped black and white tiles and past the old man’s raised eyebrow. Swing the door wide for dramatic effect and lift my hand high at the appreciation. Filthy shrieks dart down my earlobes, a different tone to the ones I used to know. An invisible wall, made from brick and concrete and glue and other sticky and hard stuff, block any more steps. Four women and Frankie – my whole audience. Frankie’s the gent, singular.
“Phwoaarrr.” The woman’s mohair jumper has turned her into Sully from Monsters Inc. The other three women whoop and clap and finally mince their foreheads when I don’t shift. The room spins, or maybe I did from eyeing the room’s every corner for the real crowd.
They attack. Paw at my arms. Shift their hands inside my shirt. An older woman, in her sixties, I reckon, slips a hand down my jeans and actually rubs and squeezes.
“Come on, lad, strip off for the birthday girl.”
Frankie has his camera phone on me and this time he doesn’t have his view blocked from my outstretched hand. The onion smell comes on strong. The years stretch ahead like a potholed road – me glum in my burger van until heart disease sends me to a better place. I act before my upper lip wraps over my nose and my teeth crumble from the grind. I lift the mike with a foot and flick it upwards. Catch it high in the air with a jump and break into song as I land. The horny women step back – they might have clutched pearl necklaces if they'd worn any. I stroke my body with the free ha
nd, rush it through my pop star hair, and perform some old steps. They're not as well-oiled as back in the day, but they've got to pass the working men's club test. It's all acapella. I thrust the mic at this Liz woman so she can take part in the chorus, which she does, the game lass she clearly is. I provide them with some class A warble that has the women's feet on the move. Their hips sway, their feet shuffle, they have hands in their hair, and they laugh like drugged-up hyenas. I zone in on them. Get close so they seem the biggest crowd I ever played to. Get involved in their scent, their touch, their purr. I get boob action as they writhe against me and laugh at themselves. I'm God. I'm a fucking star. I should be doing this on Friday and Saturday nights – not worrying about how well the onions are done and on edge about the loss of a two-quid customer.
I finish the song full of euphoria, until I open my eyes. Frankie’s jaw strokes the carpet. The old man is stood in the doorway, his eyes wide. The women clap and the eldest asks when I'm going to get my kit off.
Liz cuffs my arm in realisation. “Thee Adam bloody Callen. What are you doing here? In the flesh. My god, I used to love you. I fantasised about you. Took me a long time to take your picture off me bedroom wall. This is hilarious.”
“Yeah, hilarious.” I peck her on the cheek. “Happy birthday. Courtesy of your brother over there.”
“Frankie … You big Teddy Bear, you. You booked the whole club just to get this little gig together? Should have told me. We'd have got a bigger crowd. You told me you were getting me a stripper. Which is weird, by the way – brother. But, I get you now. Ha – pop star Adam Callen.” Her boobs bob about her chest as she regains breath, as if that jumper chews on her. “Well, I really enjoyed that. Do you need a backing singer? We can all sing – sort of.”
Reality whackamoles me back into my hole. “Sorry, Liz, I'm all washed up.” I deaden my eyes for Frankie. “I do need an assistant for my burger van, though. Shit pay, but if you're available.” Why not? She's sparked me back to life, if only for a few minutes.
Her lips, like those of her friends, screw to the side. “You run a burger van?”
“Yes. Yes I do. You want to fry some onions with me?”
“Fry onions with Adam Callen? Of course I bloody well do.”
We sort terms and a start date. I give Frankie my best wink as I leave with my new fan club for a night on the town.
If You Want a Job Doing
I wound down my pick-up’s window. Hot air met the AC – surprised it didn’t cause a crackling little thunderstorm. My son leaned an elbow in the gap, a smile like the crescent moon.
“Is it done, son?”
He winked. “He’s lying up there, his face in the stream. Ken ain’t getting naked with Anna again.”
I nodded and opened my eyes from narrow inspection of my boy. Turned to the stream’s vein down the hillside. Rain had beaten down hard last night – made a tile or two fall from the house and kill a chicken. And yet today’s heat had slurped it all from the soil.
“Check his pulse?”
His open mouth and broadening eyes made me shoulder-barge the door open and spit on his tan boots. I adjusted my hat and took steps to the track carved by God knows how many feet.
“If you need a job doing …” My voice rasped annoyance.
“He’s dead, just like the last one.”
“You put the last one in a coma. I had to finish the job in the ward, you careless ass.”
I left him to kick more dust into the air, as if to blanket his shame. My aged legs burned up the slope. Stones dislodged and tumbled down steepening banks – drummed against bark on clinging trees. I’ve lived here all my life – this ancient forest is a space for men to hide their darkness from the world. As the ground levelled I sat on my haunches by the river. Cupped a handful of water. Wetted my neck. Tasted the river for any little tang of Ken’s blood as it seeped into the eco-system.
The snap of a branch deafened my slurp, made me spin. A little too fast – I almost slipped into the stream. Wouldn’t have looked good if I floated to my son’s feet like a bloated pig. Still, better than this sorry sight.
Ken stumbled around lush tall grass, speckled by sunlight as it flitted through the branches above. I shook my head at my useless son. Wished Anna had been born my boy. I approached slow-footed, took the Colt .45 from the back of my jeans. Let the muzzle point at the cracked ground.
“There you are.” I sounded all paternal.
“Mr. Beatson.” He yelped like a terrier. Straightened from his caveman posture.
His foppish black fringe swung above a left eye which drained blood and pulp. That eye would never see his daughter again. The right rolled and focused as nature intended.
“Mr. Beatson, help me …”
“What’s wrong, son?”
He hesitated – stared at the gun in my right hand. Froze right up. “Zachary attacked me. I don’t know why.”
The words trembled from his thin lips. Pleased me.
“Sir, I … sir, why do you have that gun?” He cringed.
“I tolerated you while I thought you innocent, hanging round my daughter like a puppy. I thought she would just have you tag along for amusement and then flick you into the ether, like you deserve.”
“She loves me.”
That got my wind up. Fucking defiance had me lift my right arm.
“She has things to see and do. She has no time for a redneck like you. The moment you got naked with her is the moment –”
“Mr. Beatson –”
“Too late for deference, son.”
His right eye dropped tears. They ran in conjunction with the blood from his left. I didn’t care. The kid was useless, a work-shy ass proud of being a know-nothing nobody. Anna had sought anything, even this boy, to get away from her brother’s marauding paws.
“She’s having my baby –”
I ended it right there. Let that bullet plug further words before they polluted the air with filth. He slumped. Blood now ran from the right eye and darkened the stones beneath his smashed head. I tied the laces on each of his boots to the other and used them to drag him down the hill. I let my son do the donkey work of throwing him in the back of the pick-up. That didn’t need too much of a plan. He could dump him in the pen for the pigs to fill their boots. My only remaining work was to force my daughter to stop using up any more fools.
And remove Ken from her spoiled womb.
Die, Witch, Die
1.
Elisabeth wrung her hands as she watched Jack writhe in his bed. She chewed on a knuckle and feared the red streak from his open sores might reach over and pull her into his agony. Her skin rippled as she moved to mop his brow with a rag. He had been between her legs only last night.
She strained for breath and patted the bottom of her palms together to temper her panic. Left him for the house’s only other room to check herself. Her frame relaxed at only the occasional beauty spot which interrupted her smooth skin’s ceramic sheen.
An angry bang on the door made her drop the skirt.
“Jack … Jack … Open your bloody door, Jack.”
Elisabeth recognised his voice and shrank into the wall which had supported her self-inspection. She couldn’t decide which scared her most, the Royalists or this man. Captain Billingham: a small man, quick to temper – who found God or the Devil in everyone and everything. He prowled this walled town to check its security at every corner. He feared each flaw might invite the Royalists and their Catholic devil in. One night in the tavern he had interrupted a hearty evening with his accusations of Godlessness. He’d berated uppity apprentices about their desired freedoms, and women for how they now dabbled in men’s business. He had pierced her nerve with a meaningful glare that night. She had been glad he had no authority other than his social status. He now swaggered about with a Captain’s certainty. He only needed an excuse and she knew her neck would snap on the gallows in the town’s centre.
Another bang made Elisabeth rub at her neck. She pulled at
her dress. Her fingers danced for a means of escape. The house had no windows. Jack never had much means – just a lowly soldier with ambition. He had inherited this place from his father. Jack said his old man wouldn’t have holes in his walls to let in cold air and make life as miserable within its walls as without. She couldn’t imagine Jack with a father like that – life beamed from the man. Not now. Something had infected him, and she didn’t know if she had, or the devil.
The handle turned as the Captain attempted entry. Jack locked the door last night, wary of the difficulties he’d face from others knowing about his fun. She couldn’t step back or forward, alarmed any noise would alert the Captain. A silence stretched and she speculated if the town had joined Jack in silent agony. Had the Captain left in frustration? Only wind and the blue-tit she watched earlier to soothe her nerves broke outside’s hush.
As she made her way to the scratched, lopsided door, the Captain’s angry murmurs stilled her steps. Her already wide eyes stretched further as the door burst open, shouldered open by this little man. He fell inside and tumbled to the floor. His surprise at seeing her turned to malice at the sight of Jack who bit at his knuckles, drenched in sweat, and covered in red boils.
2.
Samuel Harrison pulled the rain-drenched blanket from his shoulders. The grey had hidden him well beneath the cold autumn sky. The boy who had led him to this lonely corner of the town walls averted his eyes, as Samuel thought he should, but lingered long enough to want coin to land in his palm.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Jacob, sir.”
“Jacob…” He let the last consonant roll and purr. “Your job is not yet done.”
Jacob checked his shoulder like the wall might attack him. “No, sir … but I did get you past the enemy.”
Samuel tilted his head and analysed each wet stone’s path to the top of the structure. He settled on the boy again. Gifted him a fatherly smile. “What did you tell me at the tavern?”