Green Glowing Skull

by Gavin Corbett

  As Rickard had walked to this part of the city, directed upwards, he came to appreciate what a bloody battleground narrow Manhattan Island would be. The island would be divided more or less into a southern section and a northern section. The stronghold of one side – Youth, or the Whites, or the Sharks – would be the south. The stronghold of Lived, or the Blacks, or the Eagles or Owls would be the north. Enclaves of Lived in the south – such as where he’d just come from – would be relentlessly attacked. Youth’s bases were scattered across Downtown, and off the island altogether, but its holy site was right on the front line, here, in Midtown, there –

  (He tried to send his thoughts across the noise to the man.)

  The conflict would be an intergenerational one, crudely speaking. It would not simply be between a younger age group and an older age group but between those who chose to affiliate with one generation or another. On one side were the harvesters and users of information, the people in control of the systems of society. On the other side were the latecomers, the pussyfooters and the intransigents. The first side seemingly had all the advantages; it had, in the main, the advantage of youth. The combatants of the other side – human beings, as opposed to beings – at least housed all of their insubstantial components, but were none the cleverer or more organised for it. In fact it would have done them good, somewhere along the line, to have offloaded, or uploaded, some of these components. How and ever, they were where they were.

  Many might have said that Rickard, as a forty-one-year-old – on the threshold of two generations, or belonging to an in-between one – had a decision to make. He had no decision to make. The decision was already made. He saw his stand as a stand against the proponents of a new and awful definition of beauty. Their aim was to sublimate our diffuse and random and damaging inner lives to another dimension, leaving the world of solids as a zone of calm perfection. Their watchwords and gospel were ‘streamline’ and ‘synchronize’ (absolutely with a ‘z’, pronounced ‘zee’). Those damaged inside and out and living in the zone of calm perfection would not be tolerated. Rickard and this man who carried so much of the old world still with them were targets. The complicated and carbuncular, the flabby and the jagged, even the sublime, were incompatible with these tyrants’ ideals. Incompatible formats were, needless to say, also incompatible. Their logo and livery was a pure and infinite field of white. It symbolised the blanching out of opposition.

  (Now he caught the man’s eyes on the full with his own. Instinctively the man moved his hand to cover his eyes and, in the same movement, collapsed to the ground.)

  Rickard glanced about the plaza. The tourist shoals giggled and bowed among each other as if nothing unusual had just happened. Rickard advanced the twenty yards or so to the man. He was enormously pudgy, and wearing a huge leather coat that creaked as his weight and shape rolled him slowly on to his back. His face looked dead but retained its flushed colour. He was at Rickard’s feet, and Rickard guessed that it was his responsibility now to see that he was all right.

  He went down on his haunches and put a finger to the man’s nose, detecting the faintest movement of breath. The man had passed out, Rickard surmised, on what was the first truly warm day of the year. Oddly, there was not one bead of sweat on his face. Rickard pressed the backs of his fingers to the man’s cheek and felt a sort of dead warmth, as if the flesh, like the granite slabs, had been heated only by the sun and not by a source inside. He took in the whole face and decided it was the most hideous face he had ever seen. There wasn’t a specific hideous feature on it, but taken as a whole it had the look of a face constructed by a ham-fisted forensic anthropologist on a skull.

  Now Rickard, meaning to antagonise the man to life, took a good pinch of cheek and felt it slide and squidge like goo between his finger and thumb. When he released his grip the ridge of cheek retracted slowly, like a snail’s head. He was so disgusted by the sensation and sight that he did it again. This time he accidentally pulled the cheek beyond its elastic breaking point and a tuft of flesh – more or less the entire cheek – tore away. At the bottom of the pit was another tract of skin, blotchy with a white marshmallowy glue. The man’s eyes beat beneath their lids, then opened.

  He gathered Rickard’s hand into his own, which felt gloved.

  ‘Not here! No, not here!’ he said in a distinct north-of-Ireland voice, slapping the ground – three times, in a fluster – with his free hand. When he tried to roll on his side Rickard made to stand up. The man gripped Rickard’s hand tighter, and Rickard, feeling himself pulled towards the ground and not wanting to make a scene, hauled him to his feet. Then the man shuffled away, across the road, with surprising speed, towards Bryant Square proper, where he collapsed on the far side of a bush.

  ‘Why the disguise?’ said Rickard, catching up with him, only to find that the man had fallen unconscious once more and was heaped on the gravel. Again Rickard looked around, worried about the commotion. The square was stippled with shadow and light: light made brilliant by the mirrored glass high above but softened and scattered by the gently moving leaves. The effect was woozying.

  Rickard guessed that the man was stewing to death inside his padding. He pulled at the already-displaced bowl of blue-grey hair to find that it was rooted in a rubber cushion. The removal of wig and cushion left a crater exposing a bald scalp daubed in tracks of this marshmallowy glue, which was melting with a film of sweat into a suncream consistency. Rickard worked his fingers under the edge of the prosthetic forehead and yanked, ripping away most of the rest of the face in a single flap. The face underneath was a mess, mottled with the adhesive pith and damp with perspiration. Something about it surprised Rickard. It was a similar version of the face that had been, but altogether more human: pinguid, distended with the heat and by age. Rickard had expected a face that was less human: a lizard, or a robot.

  Now he found he was joined by a homeless man.

  ‘Hello,’ he said almost inquisitively to this hobo by his side, who was ransacking the north-of-Ireland man’s shirt, ripping at the underarms and patting – almost punching – the shoulders.

  The north-of-Ireland man twitched and grunted again.

  ‘Wait,’ said Rickard.

  Hands shaking, he began to unbutton the front.

  ‘Fucken hurry up, bitch,’ said the homeless man.

  Underneath was a cushion, covering the whole of the front of the torso, made of the same rubbery material as the wig-plinth. The homeless man slipped the cushion out and scrambled away, mumbling vaguely about conspiracies.

  Rickard tried once more:

  ‘Why the disguise? Were you following me, Irishman?’

  ‘Irishman?’

  The man’s pupils at last settled on Rickard, contracting to tiny holes. He said, ‘Irishman – yes, you’re the Irishman.’

  ‘And so are you, by the sound of it.’

  ‘I’m not you.’

  ‘No – who are you?’

  ‘I’m … You’re the singer, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m … Yes.’

  The man stiffly jacked up on his elbows and surveyed the square.

  ‘Yes. You see plenty folk these days playing cat or horse for some Eastern earth deity but that which you were doing there on the plaza was a diaphragmatic exercise. You’re a singer, I’m guessing. Were you getting ready for a performance?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘On the street too. I can spot a singer a long way off.’

  ‘On the street?’

  ‘You asked was I following you. I saw you on the street and said: “That’s a singer.”’

  ‘Am I so obvious?’

  ‘To most people, no. But I’ve known a lot of singers in my time. I know your type. They are conscious of the fluid around them. Air is a fluid too, and that’s a fact. It’s very heartening seeing your kind.’

  ‘And this was why you followed me?’

  ‘I wasn’t following you.’

  ‘You said that you were.’

&nb
sp; ‘Are you a solo tenor or part of a group?’

  ‘Part of a group.’

  ‘Named?’

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘Named?’

  ‘We’re called the Free ’n’ Easy Tones.’

  He grabbed Rickard’s hand again, went to say something, but stopped himself.

  ‘Who are you? What is your name?’ said Rickard. ‘And for how long have you been following me?’

  ‘Can I give you one piece of advice the same as I give any Irishman in the big city?’

  He put his weight on one elbow and leaned in to Rickard. Then the seriousness and sincerity that this pose suggested dissipated as he said in a mechanical and idle way, ‘Get out before too long and don’t become the poor old tragic proverbial.’

  And then, as if snapping to:

  ‘But don’t leave too early.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘What proverb are you talking about?’

  ‘You have a destiny you must fulfil. The Free ’n’ Easy Tones. But tell the boys there’s help here if they need it. It’s never too late to get out.’

  His eyes liquefied out of focus again, and he returned to the fully supine position, making small effortful gasps at each degree.

  Rickard remained on his haunches, puzzling over the man’s words. Nearby, a game of boules was in progress. Its participants had not at any stage intimated by their behaviour that they were aware of the mummery nearby. He thought about leaving the man in their custody.

  ‘What have you done with it?! I can’t be seen!’

  The man was back up on an elbow, pulling strings of glue from his face.

  ‘You were overheating,’ said Rickard. ‘You needed the air on your skin.’

  ‘What have you done with my fecking face?’

  Half of the man’s face lay in the gravel, the sticky side lumpy with grit.

  ‘What are you trying to do to me?’ he said. ‘I’ll be a goner.’

  He rolled to his knees and got to his feet, went this way and that way, then paused at a rubbish bin. Head and arms lowered together. He came back to Rickard his face a collage of bottle tops, strips of foil, banana peel, cheese, refried beans, sunflower-seed shells and Chew-butter Cracknell packaging. As he spoke, items of rubbish dropped off his face.

  ‘Must hurry away now, but please give the boys my best wishes. Thanks for the name. I’ll look out now for your Free ’n’ Easy Tones. Goodbye, and mind the pipes.’

  He shambled off, like a kidnap victim in a sack.

  Strange to consider, but Rickard had only just begun to enjoy the familiarity of their scene: their messy, un-American, un-modern, little congress under the plane trees.

  He stood up, feeling no small amount of pain in the backs of his creaking knees, and wandered over towards a belvedere, of tubular aluminium and plastic sheeting, behind the library. It was surrounded by circles of chairs that were made of cast iron so that they would make effective tethering posts for dogs. He pulled out a chair, falling into it, then rotated it so that he could look into the square and away from the dogs because their eyes seemed so demonically human. The sun had disappeared behind a building but was visible as a pale purple-tinged kidney on the surface of the Puffball dome. The sky was cold pointillated green, like a test for colour blindness. The words ‘fastness’ and ‘alcazar’ came to his mind again.

  ‘The Earls, the Earls, are on their way

  To take back love and land!

  Toledo steel to win the day!

  That day will be so grand!’

  He supposed an ‘alcazar’ was a type of ‘bastille’, and he thought of how the word ‘bastille’, once a symbol of tyranny, had come to represent a reversal for the good. But then the word ‘fastness’ sounded like ‘vastness’ – an immeasurable largeness, slippery like the air. Several empty chairs away the homeless man was thrashing a chair with the rubber-foam chest plate he had ransacked from the north-of-Ireland man. When he was satisfied that it was soft enough to sit on he laid it on the seat.

  ‘Fucken ’roids been givin’ me hell lately.’

  Two scenarios played out in Rickard’s head. The first was that this man, finding communication difficult and frustrating, and seeing fifty things where most people only saw one, would finally beat Rickard to death with his rubber cushion. Nobody would notice in this monetised public space except for the schnauzers and labradoodles, but they would only notice because they wanted to lap up Rickard’s blood. The hobo would then urinate on the work he had made.

  The second scenario was that the north-of-Ireland man would shamble back and beat Rickard to death, making a martyr but being the wrong perpetrator, and making the martyrdom meaningless but proving everything right.

  ***

  He vowed to call her before his martyrdom and make her sorry.

  (‘Toni. Toni. Do you hear that now? Listen. That’s Manhattan. That’s New York.’

  The silence at the end of the line went on for ever, over which time Rickard could hear his own whimper back at him, and a blanket of hum.

  She confirmed:

  ‘It’s just noise.’

  Her voice had a smell. Of tobacco, and of other men’s breaths. And sometimes of those boxes of cheesy breadsticks that she ate. He imagined her with a box of those in front of her now. Perhaps crumbs down the front of a T-shirt with ‘LepreCon ’96 Gaming Symposium’ printed on it. Crumbs on her shorts.

  ‘Listen to you,’ she said.

  The enamel frames of her glasses clinked against the receiver. She sighed through her nostrils.

  ‘Am I taking up your time?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence above the hum for a moment.

  ‘I can’t believe you can’t hear that.’

  ‘What am I supposed to be hearing?’

  ‘Toni …’

  ‘How much is this costing?’

  ‘Toni, do you ever think of coming to New York?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d be scared of running into you.’

  ‘That would never happen. It’s too big.’

  ‘Pfff.’

  More silence.

  ‘So how are you getting on over there?’ she said. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a singer.’

  She laughed, perhaps.

  ‘Like Pius in The Severe Dalliance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence.

  Then Rickard said:

  ‘Do you ever think of The Severe Dalliance?’

  With tiredness: ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And not even that would make you want to come?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you do with yourself? Do you still eat breadsticks?’

  ‘I’ve given up wheat.’

  ‘And … you never think of leaving that dreary place and coming here?’

  ‘No. I’m perfectly happy where I am.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. How could you be?’

  ‘I’m like you, I have a rich inner life. Except mine makes me happy.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Perhaps Toni understood Rickard’s inner life better than he did. This was a possibility.

  ‘All that gaming stuff and science fiction makes you happy?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. In an escapist way. But there’s more to my inner life than you know about.’

  Rickard shoed at a patty of dirty chewing gum.

  ‘Secrets?’

  ‘Pfff. Things I’ve developed since you left. Writing.’

  ‘You’ve been writing a book?’

  ‘No. Ideas, just. Fan fiction.’

  ‘Oh! You’re not one of those morons I’ve seen on that website, are you?’

  ‘My work is different from other people’s. I don’t stick to the tropes.’

  Tropes: now she was in ‘LepreCon ’96 Gaming Symposium’ mode. Her eyes would be scrunched shut at this point.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘A lot of th
at fan fiction is embarrassing. Mine’s more like a personal diary. Or an autobiography. That’s how it feels.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘I’m not afraid to show my hand. Sometimes I pop up in these stories that I write with other people’s characters in them and I point out the essential artifice. And it feels like autobiography.’

  Silence again.

  ‘And that makes you happy?’

  ‘It feels good to put something out there. It makes me feel not so sad about not having added to the world’s biomass.’

  Silence. Bafflement.

  ‘Come again?’ he said.

  ‘If you have to ask that question –’

  ‘Am I in these stories?’

  ‘Pfff.’)

  ***

  Okay, he said. Okay.

  O and – indeed – K, he said.

  He would refocus. What had Ayn Rand said? She had said: Grab the world with both hands, take matters into … (Account?) Do not rely on luck. Break out on your own.

  Perhaps he did not need the others – this was an idea. He once saw a man selling film scripts from a trestle table in a cobbled street in SoHo. Perhaps he could sell lyric sheets for old Irish songs, in front of the Time Warner complex. There, he might attract the interest of someone from the modern entertainment industry.

  He went as far as buying the briefcase in which he would carry his songs – a battered cardboard briefcase, a century old, the type that fell apart in the rain. He gave it a good kick to knock the dirt off, and started to cough, and then to cry, imagining that he was choking on the ashes of pogroms and the dust of indifference. He imagined what it might once have contained – a few tools, of the wrong gauge: metric, useless in the new world. Or something more universally useless, like a magic set.

  It fell apart even without the rain. Tapped him on the knees. Abandon me, it said, and abandon ambition. ‘You might as well,’ it said, like a big animate whoopie pie. Damn it, he said, kicking the case again and sending it scraping across the pavement like a hockey puck. He lifted his hand to passers-by in acknowledgement of his violence. He felt keenly alone in the abscess of space that they left around him, and different from them. He experienced a passing, limb-weakening humility with the destitute, as if he were Saint Francis, and New York was his Assisi, and the destitute were his animals. It was in and out of him like a gunshot, for as long as it took a bag lady to tell him he was a ‘dill hole’.