Mothers

by Chris Power

  *

  After I showered I lay on the bed, smoked a cigarette and watched the news. A plane had gone down in the Mediterranean: a striped tailfin floated in open water, with smaller debris scattered around it. The footage, shot from a helicopter, showed several small boats circling the wreckage. The report cut to weeping relatives at an airport. The chances were nearly zero, but it had happened to them. And some lucky fucker overslept and missed the flight. I turned the TV off. Thinking about Monica, a thrill of anticipation snaked through me. I’d blown it that afternoon, but next time I wouldn’t hesitate.

  *

  We were going to a house party in the nineteenth, but first we had drinks at an apartment across the street from the Buttes-Chaumont Park. The apartment was on the fifth floor of an old building with no lift. The lights in the stairwell were set on timers so stingy we couldn’t even make it up one flight before they went out, leaving us to grope our way towards the next orange dot. Camille, a French girl who worked with Tanis, lived in the apartment with two guys, Michel and Alain. Loud house music was playing, and Camille and Alain were making jugs of vodka cocktails. Everyone was smoking, and even with the two long, narrow windows open to the night the room – a cramped kitchen–living room – was foggy with it.

  It was obvious by the way Michel talked to Monica that he wanted her. He tried to act like I didn’t exist. We had been talking in English – I had apologised for not being able to speak his language – but then he asked Monica something in French anyway.

  – Oui, Monica said and then turned to me. – Michel asked if I’m a dancer. Remember, she said to Michel, – Stephen doesn’t speak French.

  – Of course! Michel said, inclining his head towards me. – We will all speak his language, then. He turned back to Monica. – You dancers have to look after your bodies very well, he said, looking her up and down.

  – Oh yes, very much, Monica laughed, shaking her drink and cigarette as counter-evidence. – Do you guys exercise? she said. – You’re both in good shape.

  – Bicycle, Michel answered quickly. – I cycle everywhere. And swim. A few times a week.

  You could see it. He had a good body. In my case – no muscle, skinny – Monica was just being polite.

  – Tell me more about your dancing, Michel said, leaning his face closer to Monica’s. – I love dance.

  I poured myself a drink, lit another cigarette and imagined shoving Michel out of the window.

  As we descended to the street our voices echoed in the stairwell. On each flight the darkness would swallow us for a couple of seconds until Camille or Alain, leading the way, hit the next switch. In front of me Monica and Tanis were deep in conversation. About halfway down, as the darkness struck again, a hand held my face and someone pressed their lips to mine. When the light came on Monica was there, smiling at me. She turned and ran ahead to catch up with Tanis.

  *

  It was a warm night, and the courtyard belonging to the flat, a well-like space between tall apartment buildings, was crammed with people. No one had said anything about fancy dress, but a lot of people had come as movie characters and historical figures. A Marcel Marceau, with a white face and a trail of black tears inked down one cheek, looked me up and down and said something in French.

  – Anglais? I said.

  – You didn’t want to wear a costume?

  – I didn’t know I was supposed to.

  He looked sad about it, but then he looked sad about everything.

  I lost track of Camille and Alain; and, happily, of Michel. Monica, Tanis and I moved inside and established ourselves in a corner of the kitchen. We had bought vodka on the way, and on the cluttered counter we found cups and a bottle of tonic, and a bag of ice standing in its own meltwater. I’d had a few drinks by then and was well on the way, which is why I told Tanis she deserved better than Alex, that he was a bully and a bore. She looked confused for a moment, then angry.

  – He’s … it’s not as simple as that, she said. Monica said something in Spanish that sounded soothing and Tanis shrugged, still looking pissed off, and reached for the vodka bottle. Monica looked at me and pointed towards the living room, packed with dancers.

  – When will we dance? she said.

  – I can’t dance with a professional.

  – You danced with me in Barcelona, she said. – And this ‘professional’, she wagged her fingers around the word, – is drunk.

  I went to the toilet and when I came back they were talking to someone called Guy. He was English, living in Paris doing some modelling and what he called ‘odds and sods’. He was excited about going to see some DJ. He said we should come along and I said sure, but Monica and Tanis said they couldn’t.

  – Come on, I said, grabbing Monica at the waist. – We’ll dance, just like you wanted.

  – No, she said, smiling, swaying a little with her hands on my forearms. – We need to wait for Alex. We can dance here.

  – I don’t like the music here. Tell Alex to meet us at the club.

  – He doesn’t like clubs, Tanis said.

  I was fired up to go. I wanted to swap this house and all this talking for the noise and dark of a club. – Forget about Alex, I said. He can go fuck himself, I thought.

  Tanis and Monica had an exchange in Spanish. Tanis repeated a two-word phrase several times, sounding tenser with each repetition. – OK, Monica said. She turned to me. – We promised we would meet him here. We are going to wait. Will you wait with us?

  – Where’s the club? I asked Guy. I had him repeat the address to Tanis, who put it in her phone. I could tell Monica was surprised I was leaving, but she didn’t say anything. I got a thrill from upsetting her. It’s ridiculous to me now, but I was furious she was putting that tosser Alex ahead of me. I told her if I didn’t see her at the club I’d call her in the morning, that we’d have breakfast. I held up my fingers in the shape of a phone and walked away.

  *

  – Is that your girlfriend? Guy asked me as we got out onto the street.

  – No, I said. – A friend.

  – She’s really fit.

  Hearing that I wanted to tell Guy she was my girlfriend, and that we were in love. – She’s a dancer, was all I said. – She’s great.

  The further we got from the party the better I felt. We were both drunk, and neither of us wanted to shut up. We talked about festivals, clubs we liked, drugs we’d taken. The streets seemed quiet for Saturday night, although I guess it was Sunday morning by then. It was a long walk, but we never discussed getting a cab or finding a train. We went through a tunnel, and past a factory, and down a cobbled street that was mysteriously wet – it hadn’t rained all day, but the cobbles glistened like oil. We walked down a street of mechanics’ workshops, their metal shutters busy with graffiti. We went through a gate into a small courtyard, then passed through a low doorway with a bouncer posted beside it. The club was a single long room: hot, loud and heaving with people. The walls were beaded with moisture. The music was drum and bass: staccato beats riveting the air, and bass so powerful it made the building shudder in long blurs of vibration. The humid air ran across my face like fingertips. On top of all the drink Guy had given me a pill. Dexamphetamine, he said. It wasn’t so strong but I could definitely feel it; I was gulping my beer and chain-smoking cigarettes.

  We danced for a long time. It might have been a couple of hours later that I saw Monica and Tanis squeezing their way across the packed dancefloor. Behind them came Alex, looking miserable, then Michel. Monica saw me and thrust her chin up in acknowledgement, but she didn’t smile and she stopped with some distance still between us. She was already dancing, her body flowing. It was incredible to watch her; she didn’t hit the beats but wove herself between them. A harsh melody came strafing across the breakbeat and her body warped in response, as if an invisible force was shaking her. Her back arched, her hands joined one another, and her arms twisted an orbit up around her torso and over her head. I saw Michel behind her, his hands m
oving to her hips. I stopped dancing and stood there, jostled by the people around me. Monica moved her body against Michel. Her hand went to his neck and held it, held it with what seemed to me at the time, on drugs and fifteen feet away in a dark and crowded room, like infinite tenderness. I started pushing my way through the crowd. I wanted to stand in front of them; I wanted to see the shame on Monica’s face. Tanis waved but I ignored her. Michel was whispering something in Monica’s ear. I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. I pulled my arm back, made a fist and drove it into his face. I haven’t been in many fights, but every other one has been scrappy and indecisive. This, though, was the cleanest hit: Michel went down so fast it was like I made him disappear. A space cleared around us. Monica – who I never saw or spoke to again – looked at me like she didn’t even know me. Which she didn’t, I realised. I laughed. It was so ridiculous and sad.

  – Time to go, said Guy, pulling my arm. I saw two bouncers ploughing across the dancefloor towards us. We got to the entrance and he pushed me out into the coolness of the early morning, past the doorman, who glanced up from his phone at me. I ran, and when I couldn’t run any more I walked, and kept walking. I felt exhilarated, but I was wiping tears from my eyes. I had been challenged, and I’d met the challenge, but what was I doing now? I should have been in my hotel room with Monica, not walking these pale, empty streets. If I could go back and talk to that person I’d tell him to open every door you come to while you’ve got the chance; there aren’t as many as you think. The sky was purple. I was shaky with tiredness and adrenaline and the end of the drugs, but it was good to be walking. I wanted to walk forever. My hand burned like it was aflame. When the sun broke through, the streets became golden rivers.

  JOHNNY KINGDOM

  ‘I shouldn’t joke,’ Andy says, ‘my doctor told me I’m dying. “I want a second opinion,” I said. “OK,” he says, “you’re ugly.”’ Andy presses a handkerchief to his face and shakes his head in despair. ‘My luck,’ he says, ‘Jesus. I was making love to this girl and she started crying. I say, “Should I stop?” She says, “You’ve started?”’ Andy talks, the audience laughs. Superstition dictates that he always begin with the exact same line; the act will collapse if he doesn’t. It’s not Kingdom’s funniest bit, but it’s his favourite: short, absurd, and drenched in sexual failure. ‘I was with this girl. She loved me so much. “You’re like nothing else, Johnny. You get me so hot, Johnny.” She was the girl of my dreams.’ A shrug. ‘But then I woke up.’ He clenches the tie. Rotates the shoulder. Hits them again.

  The older crowd like the ‘I was so ugly’ stuff: ‘Talk about ugly. When I was born the doctor slapped my mother.’ The bachelor parties like wife jokes. His wife, Sylvia, hates the bachelor parties. ‘Kegs and strippers and all that … spurting testosterone,’ she says, wrinkling her nose and giving her head a slow, sad shake. ‘A hundred kinds of ugly.’ She takes his chin in a loose grip and fixes her eyes on his. ‘You keep your nose clean, buster.’

  *

  ‘During sex my wife’s a screamer. Last night I had to go next door to complain.’ Andy is in front of around thirty people in Syracuse, New York, a four-hour drive from home. The joke, like all of Andy’s jokes, is Johnny Kingdom’s. So are his movements and mannerisms. ‘People treat me like dirt,’ he mutters, microphone held tight to his chest as he dabs a crushed handkerchief against his sodden face. His body is a perpetual shrug of anxiety: restless steps backwards and forwards, shoulder rolls, an obsessive-compulsive reaching for the tie knot. Kingdom’s stage persona was a train wreck: a horny, inept loser with a cheating wife, hateful kids and chronic bad luck. His jokes have always made Andy laugh, even the really stupid ones.

  In a small backstage office smelling of old beer, Andy collects his money. ‘Glad to have you,’ the manager says. ‘Never thought I’d see Johnny Kingdom playing Jesters.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Andy says.

  *

  Andy doesn’t like any of the names for what he does. He rejects ‘impersonator’, and resists ‘tribute act’, although he knows it comes closest. But the website he takes his bookings through, and the posters he puts up on bulletin boards at community centres, colleges and retirement homes, can’t afford to be coy: Johnny Kingdom Performs LIVE for YOU! Andy Tower IS Johnny Kingdom: A Fraction of the Talent at a Fraction of the Price!

  Andy makes himself up to look like Kingdom, does his bits, and takes his laughs and his applause. To his continuing surprise, the bookings keep coming in. He doesn’t make nearly enough to cover the family expenses – they get by on what Sylvia makes – but at least this way he can contribute something. The Kingdom thing is supposed to be giving him time to work on his own material, but he’s stuck. Blocked. Sometimes, although less and less frequently these days, Sylvia asks him how it’s going, and he says, ‘Fine,’ and changes the subject. Kingdom was old before he made it. His career misfired and he spent a decade selling aluminium siding to support his wife and kids. He was nowhere, but he came back at age forty, Andy’s age, in the face of everyone telling him to give it up. Andy knows he’s stuck, but he still thinks – those times when he can face thinking about it at all – that something will come. Things will turn around. Then he’ll send Kingdom away for ever.

  *

  Andy is in the kitchen buttering toast. Sylvia walks in and asks him to drive her to the optometrist. She’s out of contacts, and doesn’t like driving in her glasses because they slide down her nose. One day when she’s pushing them back up, she says, she’ll crash the car and die, ‘and then where will you and the boys be?’

  ‘Barbados?’

  She doesn’t laugh.

  ‘We used to laugh more,’ he says.

  ‘You were funny when we met,’ she deadpans, a little too well.

  ‘You were shitfaced when we met,’ he says, and now, to his relief, she does laugh.

  He came to America for what he thought was a holiday. Back in London he started the way most people did: open mics in pub function rooms, or sweating basements, the rooms always too hot or too cold, and usually too empty. But his favourite comics had always been American: Allen, Wright, Hedberg, but before them all came Kingdom, ever since a friend gave him a taped copy of Deadbeat when he was fourteen years old. So when he came to the States it was as a kind of pilgrimage. Within a week he met Sylvia, at a tiny comedy club in Brooklyn, and started talking as soon as he saw her. Back then he was confident and ambitious in a way he finds difficult to grasp now: it propelled him almost without his having to think about it. It wasn’t even that his material was so good; all that seemed to matter was his belief in it. Talking to Sylvia in that club had been the same: he wanted to do it, so he did it. Success was lying around him in chunks that he just had to reach down and pick up. When he thinks back, it feels more like something from a book or a film than part of his own life. It had never been so simple again. What scares him is that if today’s Andy were in that same club, sitting at that same sticky bar, he wouldn’t even be able to speak to Sylvia, and if he did, she would look right through him like he didn’t exist.

  *

  Before shows Andy takes a few moments alone in his dressing room, which is almost never a dressing room. Usually it’s an administrator’s cramped office with a family portrait on the desk and framed certificates on the wall, or a storage room, or, if it’s a bachelor party, a bedroom, or even just his car. The paint stick he uses is melanoma orange and takes days to come off entirely; towels come away from his body marked with faecal stains. ‘Turin shrouds,’ Sylvia calls them. She will appear in the doorway, a dirty towel stretched above her head, crying, ‘The Messiah! The Messiah!’ This was a joke between them once, but it has become something else. They have always had ups and downs, but lately Andy has detected a sourness that wasn’t there before. He knows they have a lot to talk about, but not talking about it is so much easier. Better to talk about what the kids are up to, or groceries, or to make a joke; or sometimes to just not tal
k at all.

  Getting into costume is a ritual for Andy. He thinks of it as a gate in the wall that divides him from his onstage persona. Peering into his compact mirror, he silently runs through jokes he can tell backwards. Fate has given him a nose not as uncommonly broad as Kingdom’s, but large enough to work as homage. Everything else is wardrobe. He puts on his wig cap, its scratchy net making him feel like his forehead has a low current running through it. He uses spirit gum to fix a fake mole the size of a pencil eraser to his right cheek, near the nostril. He puts on a scarlet tie and black suit jacket. For a bachelor party or college booking he hams things up: a powder-blue shirt so frilled it looks like it once flurried along the ocean floor, and a plum-coloured velvet jacket he found at a Goodwill.

  The Kingdom act had been intended as a one-off when he tried it eight years before. He had worked his most recent half hour till it was threadbare, and the lack of good new material was starting to feel like a drought. He enjoyed the feeling of laughs – laughs he was finding so difficult to win with his own lines – dropping into his hand like fruit from a tree. So he did it one more time, then another time after that. He started getting on the bottom of bills at serious venues on the east coast, places he hadn’t been close to cracking before: Comedy Connection in Boston; Gotham in New York; even Carolines one time, where Hedberg himself had done his last ever show. He hadn’t expected it, and he couldn’t explain it – Kingdom was dead, and about as unfashionable as you could get – but the rooms responded.

  Not that the response was always positive, and it was rarely unanimous. People had trouble getting the act. Were they supposed to be laughing with Andy or at him? Was it tribute? Was it mockery? The uncertainty appealed to some bookers, but the real bottom line was that people came and they bought booze, which is the only thing that matters to a comedy club. And there was a kind of timelessness to the material, Andy thought. Kingdom’s arsenal of one-liners was infinitely adaptable, and he didn’t think it made a lot of difference if people thought a mother-in-law joke was being told straight or ironic, as long as they laughed.