‘“Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”’
‘That’s the bugger. Mum knows a lot of Bible bull. She was brought up by Bible-bangers and screw them, too. Dumb sods, all of ’em. What the hell do they know? Turn the other cheek means you end up with what I got. One whole big heap of shit that always makes things worse. Look what I got!’ and he turned his head, briefly, in Esther’s direction. Again silent.
‘So?’
‘Reckon if I had been okay and some other dumb sod looked as bad as me, well, I’d have made the most of it and said the same shit, made the most of the golden opportunity… I dunno. Maybe,’ silent for a moment, ‘maybe not. See, well, I couldn’t turn the other cheek, could I? There was nothing I could ever say,’ and then he grinned very broadly. ‘So I learnt how to use these,’ and he mimed a left and right jab of his fists into the air between them. ‘Learnt to use these two good guys double-damn quick. I know how to use ’em, all right. Use ’em good, use ’em hard and I bloody enjoy it!’
‘I have noticed,’ said Esther. ‘I’ve seen.’
‘Yeah,’ Damon grinned again. ‘Bet that bastard didn’t stagger up too quick. Bet he had a headache when he did stagger up! None of ’em get up too quick. The last one at the last school I got chucked out of, well, he was in hospital for a week and I could’ve gone to jail. Except he was this great giant shit-heap of a bully and I reckon that the school and the cops were sort of secretly quite happy that I done him. I’m not a bully. I’m not.’
‘No?’
‘No. Only ever whack those who give me shit first for my face,’ quiet. An almost plaintive cry. Then he brightened. ‘And guys who knock poor little old ladies into gutters.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not saying much.’
Esther smiled at him. ‘What is there to say?’ she went on smiling. ‘What do you want me to say, Damon?’
‘You could ask me if I would like to have another of your cuppas. I like your tea,’ his eyes followed her as she moved to the kettle. ‘Besides, it’s okay, it’s not too bad working by yourself. I get through a whole heap of stuff. I’m not dumb. I think I do more, much more than I ever did at school. I’ve got to, see. Been thinking a bit lately. Reckon I might want to be a doctor, a quack.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Don’t really know,’ and he smiled. ‘Least I’d be rich, eh? Doctors are rich as.’
‘Not all of them, I think,’ said Esther. ‘And is that the only reason?’
‘Can’t think of a better one,’ he said.
There was a scratching at the door and Esther opened it. ‘Come in cat. I shall feed you.’
‘Shit!’ exclaimed Damon, as the cat moved warily around him, hissing slightly. ‘Never spotted that last time. Your cat’s got only three legs. Two front ones and one back one. What the hell d’you want with a three-leg cat? Ugly thing, too. It’s bloody deformed. It’s useless,’ the cat bobbed its way to a saucer of food, not taking its eyes from Damon. ‘You want it knocked off?’ he offered.
‘Of course not,’ said Esther. ‘He seems every bit as happy with three legs as most do with a full supply.’
‘God, it’s ugly. I hate cats.’
‘Yes, so you’ve told me before. A cat is a cat whether it has three legs or four. Why, boy, should you waste your time in hating them?’
‘I’ve got my reasons.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Esther. ‘I am equally sure that no cat has ever looked ill upon your face.’
‘I only ever had one pet animal in my whole life. Mum’n me generally live in places that are too small or are places where you’re not allowed to have animals.’
‘That is a little sad if you like animals,’ said Esther.
‘I don’t,’ said Damon. ‘Not much. Can’t be bothered with ’em. But I did have this one animal. One of Mum’s boy… er, bosses, gave me a pet rat. It was when I was nine or ten, I think. God, he was beautiful,’ and then he laughed. ‘The rat, I mean. Not the boyfriend. I remember that dude was real ugly. I kept my rat for over a year and he used to run around everywhere and I’d shove him in a drawer at nights so that he could have a good zizz. Guess what I called him?’
‘I have no idea, boy. What did you call him?’
‘Nomad,’ he looked slyly at Esther. ‘Geddit?’
She smiled. ‘It’s hard not to. I think I get it. Your other self, eh?’
‘What?’
‘No matter. Go on.’
‘He was a black and white one. Half of his face was black and half of his face was white,’ silence, and then. ‘Bit like me, I reckon. Maybe that’s why I loved him,’ he brightened. ‘Was back when Mum had long hair and good old Nomad used to like nothing better than climbing in and out of her long hair. Mum didn’t mind. She’s cool, is Mum. I think she liked it.’
‘Sounds a marvellous animal,’ said Esther.
‘You being smart? It was just a bloody rat,’ he grinned. ‘Well, he was clever, very clever. But he wasn’t quite clever enough.’
‘No?’
‘Nope. Bloody cat got him. Only thing that bloody cat left was Nomad’s tail. I got home this day and there was this greasy fat cat sitting on the window sill licking its ugly chops and Nomad’s tail right there beside it. Bitch cat!’
‘Well, boy,’ Esther began. ‘As I said before, a cat is a cat and it is in the very nature of the beast that it catch rats and mice.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Damon. ‘And it was in my very nature that I caught that bloody cat. Did, too. Took me ages but I got it. Never caught another rat after I done with it,’ grim.
‘Vengeance? Did it make you feel better?’
‘Certainly didn’t make that cat feel better. What d’you mean?’
‘There was no possible way, boy, that you could bring your pet rat back. So, why? Did it make you feel better destroying your rat’s killer?’
‘I reckon,’ he grinned again, and then, ‘well, maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. Why you going on about it? Why don’t you just tell me I did wrong?’
‘Boy, it is not up to me to tell you that what you did was right or wrong,’ said Esther. ‘Don’t you think that, in our hearts, each of us knows whether what we have done is right or wrong?’
‘I’ve gotta go to work,’ he stood. ‘I’ve gotta go to work,’ and he looked down to where Tumbler the cat sat by a now empty saucer, cleaning itself, still maintaining a close eye on this interloper to its home. ‘I still don’t like cats. Still reckon yours is a dumb one. Three legs! God almighty! Thanks for the tea.’
‘Thank you for helping me from the gutter,’ said Esther.
Bad Face.
Good Face.
Bad Face, knock ’em down.
Good Face want to pick ’em up again?
Not really. Nah. Well, not often.
‘Hit the sod good and hard, eh?’ says Bad Face.
‘Didn’t need to hit the sod quite as hard,’ says Good Face.
‘Yeah? Reckon I wanted to. Teach him a lesson,’ says Bad Face. ‘Felt good. Felt cool. Real cool. Bet he’s bloody sore tonight.’
‘You didn’t need to hit him at all,’ says Good Face. ‘You could’ve just helped the old girl, stood her up, moved on. Could’ve turned the other cheek?’
‘You must be bloody joking.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
What was it, Damon wondered, that made him seek out the company of this odd and derelict old woman? Almost a beggar – well, anyone could see that! Yet, seek her out he did. There was something that made him, compelled him, to find her. His only friend? His only friend an old woman from God knew where who seemed to possess an uncanny, strange ability to make him say far too much! Too much? Most certainly far more than he had ever said of himself to any other human being. Not counting his mother, maybe. Of course not counting his mother.
‘You talk to me of your mother, boy. What of your father? You have one?’
‘Everyone’s got a father. Even Jesus h
ad a Father – even if he was just a Holy Ghost. Of course I’ve got a father.’
‘What of your father?’
‘If you two good folk – my most regular customers, I must admit – do wish to have a full conversation, might I be so bold as to suggest the lunch bar next door. They do a nice sandwich,’ said Lois Henderson.
‘You told me libraries had to have a – what you call it? – multi-purpose function, these days, Mrs H.’ said Damon. ‘Not just books anymore. Mind you, we are discussing literature, Mrs H.’
‘Come, boy. The lady is quite right,’ said Esther.
‘Okay. Tell you what, I’ll buy you a cup of tea and a raspberry bun. They do cool raspberry buns at the lunch bar, too, Mrs H. Should come and try one.’
‘At my size, love,’ the librarian sighed. ‘If you ask me there have been too many raspberry buns in my back-history already.’
He bought Esther a cup of tea and a raspberry bun. She picked small pieces from the bun, pecked, almost like a bird, washing down each miniscule morsel with a mouthful of black tea. Finally, she pushed the remains of her bun towards Damon. ‘Finish it, boy. You have demolished yours and I have had enough. Thank you,’ the two of them sat at a small table in a dark corner at the back of the lunch bar. It was early. There had been few customers apart from one or two mid-morning snackers from nearby office blocks. ‘You were about to tell me of your father.’
‘Don’t think I was,’ said Damon. Why the hell should he be telling her this stuff? What the hell was making him do it?
‘Please yourself,’ said Esther.
‘He was a Greek. He was, well he is, a captain of a big oil tanker. Don’t get to see him very often but he sends things… you know, sort of stuff from all over the world and Greek stuff, too, of course.’
‘Yes. Of course. Such a background, too, clearly accounts for your dark good looks.’
Damon was now accustomed to Esther’s occasional comments on his looks. He took no exception. ‘Yeah. He’s sure handsome. One mighty handsome dude. His name is…um… Dimitri.’
‘Yes. Yes. I thought it may be something like that,’ said Esther.
‘He didn’t marry my mum. Don’t tell many people that,’ Damon said, more than a little defensively.
Esther shrugged. ‘It is of no importance. Neither, I think, is it the business of anyone else.’
‘Because of him my face got buggered up,’ said Damon, quietly.
‘Tell me what you mean by that,’ Esther sipped at her tea.
‘Well, as you can see, I am dark. I am, aren’t I? It’s because I’m half Greek and Greeks are mostly dark.’
‘Yes. Many of them,’ said Esther.
‘Dark complexion people can have more trouble with scars healing good. Something in how we’re made up. Scar tissue builds up,’ he fingered his face beneath his sunglasses. ‘Real hard in parts. Had one sort of rope of this tissue running down the whole middle of this shit,’ he sighed and was silent for a moment. ‘Oh, God, how it pulled and hurt. All the time. Nothing would stop that hurting and that pulling. Not ever. Just went on and on and on. It was like it sort of built up. Got it taken off. Was about four, five years ago now. Scars in some dark-skin people can be shit-awful.’
‘Yes,’ she looked at him. ‘Your mother…?’ she began.
‘Mum? My mum? Oh, she runs a restaurant.’
‘I didn’t mean that. Is she dark, too?’
‘Nah. Blond as. She’s still quite pretty, too. See, she’s not all that old, really. She was only about sixteen when er… Dimitri knocked her up and she had me,’ he looked at Esther.
Esther understood that Damon’s eyes were on her. ‘So?’
‘Well, see… er… told you a bit of a lie back before er… before…’
‘About what, boy?’
‘I wasn’t in any car accident. That’s not how it happened… my face.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Never had a grandma nor a grandad. Not that I know of, anyway. Don’t even know if they’ve croaked or not. Don’t care. I’m sorry. I really am sorry.’
‘Sorry about what? Sorry for what?’
‘Well, I’m sure as hell not sorry about my grandparents for anything. If they did croak in some car smash it’d be a bloody good thing. No, I’m sorry, Esther, I didn’t say how my face really got done in…’
‘That’s all right,’ said the old woman. ‘I imagine you have your reasons. Good reasons?’
‘Yeah, well…’
‘You don’t owe me the truth, Damon.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Do you not think, Damon, that if we owe anyone the truth at all it must be, first and foremost, to ourselves? “Be so true to thyself, as thou not be false to others.”’
‘Don’t know what you mean. Another bit of Bible crap?’ again he peered through his dark glasses at her. ‘Well, I guess I do know what you mean. Okay. If you must know how I did it…’
‘Boy! Boy!,’ Esther spoke quite loudly and a mid-morning grazer was startled from a reverie involving choice between a sausage roll or something healthy. ‘There is no must about it. Tell me what you will. I demand nothing of you or from you.’
‘Gotta go. Gotta go now,’ said Damon, standing and knocking aside his chair. Then his words came in a rush. ‘Wasn’t all lies, see. I did run into some glass real bad. Just wasn’t a car windscreen or anything like that. I did so run into some bloody glass and now it means I got shit like this on my face for the rest of my life. Just like that old saying, eh? Shit happens! Shit happens, all right,’ he was agitated. ‘Look, I’m goin’ now. See you around.’
Good Face.
Bad Face.
Not tonight, Face!! Shut up, Face. Both bits of you. Shut up. Shut up and go away!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Good Face.
Bad Face.
Good boy?
Bad boy?
Good Damon?
Bad Damon?
Stupid. Didn’t work that way. Shouldn’t work that way. Good Face must bear an equal load of responsibility for his actions – for any of his actions. He knew that. Bad Face could be held no more accountable than his better half? Better half? It was not only Bad Face that dealt to any who gave him shit. Tormented, teased, tortured? Yeah, yeah. The tormentors, the teasers, the torturers were swiftly, efficiently and brutally dealt to – always had been – by the sum total of good and bad and all the in-between bits of him besides. No regrets. Absolutely no bloody regrets!
Was it that he looked for opportunity to practice naked aggression? Did he, indeed, invite a fair measure of the shit to load itself upon him? Indeed, in all truth, why couldn’t he put up with the shit? Bung-eye, scarface, shitface! Shitface! And worse. Often worse. Could he not have laughed it off? Likely there were heaps of others in the same half-wrecked, damaged, torpedoed boat who could shrug off being likened to something dragged up, half-formed, by Frankenstein himself on a bad day. Not him! Not bloody likely! Accepting the shit must surely mean you accept the curse that calls it up. Doesn’t it!
Good Face.
Bad Face.
“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun.” Bloody Romeo. Bloody Juliet. Serve the bloody two of ’em right! Well, maybe not poor old bloody Romeo. Seemed the guy might have known a couple of things about scars and poking fingers and shit at those who bore such scars! Only had to read the line or two before the bit about the sodding light breaking through the stupid window.
Now this old woman, this Esther, who seemed hell-bent – heavenbent? – on winkling from him what it was that made him tick. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick talk. Tick talk. What was she? An old gypsy watchmaker? Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn’t poke, pry, winkle or watchmake. She never ever asked much. Never said much, even. What was it that made him, big bad Damon, spew it all up, spread it all out for this strange old woman? Why the hell was he doing it? Why was it he couldn’t stop? What was it about he
r?
He saw her in the eye of his mind, now, for much of the time these days. The spare, gaunt, slightly stooped frame. She was tall. Tall and thin. The narrow, dark face, cheeks drawn in, almost sunken, the angular nose that was almost a beak. Her dead-straight hair, iron grey and drawn back and tied into a small tail with a scrap of thin black ribbon. Always the coat. He had never seen her without it. As grey her hair, so grey her greatcoat. ‘My home, boy,’ he recalled her saying. ‘My home is where my coat is.’ An old grey greatcoat, flapping about her bony, scrawny frame, three or four crap pins holding it together.
If there was anything about the old woman that haunted him above all other factors it was the eyes, her eyes. The eyes, deep, of no colour other than black. They pierced, drilled, saw into and seemingly saw all.
‘How do you live?’ he asked her.
‘Why?’ she opened those eyes wide and spread her hands. ‘As you have seen several times now,’ she indicated her room. ‘You know how I live.’
‘I mean money. What d’you do for money?’
‘I should have known,’ she smiled. ‘What does it matter? I live. I have enough,’ she smiled more widely. ‘More than enough. Enough to feed the cat, too, eh?’ she nodded to where Tumbler sat, licking his chops, after having gulped, almost in one gulp, the contents of a can of sardines.
‘We all need money,’ Damon persisted. ‘You must get some money from something, from somewhere.’
‘Must I, indeed? As I say, I have sufficient.’
‘You get the pension stuff? You know, like all old people do?’
‘Why this concern for my material wealth, boy. I told you when first we met that I was not worth the effort of robbing,’ she smiled again. ‘It is not of importance.’
‘Well, if you don’t get that, I guess you must have stashed a few bucks away from those old dancing days you reckon you had.’
‘Should you choose to think so, so be it,’ she poured more tea. ‘So curious. What about you, my fine-feathered friend?’
Scarface and the Angel Page 3