Strange Affairs, Ginger Hairs

by Arthur Grimestead

  My nodding was repeated and exaggerated. I’ve got it. I really have got it… Does he know I’ve got it?

  As I backed myself into a corner, the door opened, and a fifth body entered the room.

  Frankenstein.

  That is, a full head mask. Yet the figure stood no more than five feet tall, slouching, hands in pockets and fumbling within baggy jog pants – a monster of disaffected youth.

  ‘Bang on time,’ said Chas. He slapped Frankenstein on the back, hard enough to elicit a whiplash action.

  ‘Was watching – like you said.’ The monster’s pitch evoked an image of hairless testicles – he sounded about twelve. He pulled from his jog pants a Jaffa orange, holding it aloft. The orange showed a face, carved crudely – like a pumpkin having a stroke.

  I took a step backwards. ‘W-what’s going on?’ I said.

  A waft of agitated air caused me to glance back. Chas propelled the drip stand towards my head. I shrunk into myself, hitting the floor in foetal position. A throbbing over my scalp seemed to weigh down my eyelids. The Jaffa orange rolled across my peripheral vision, a fixed grimace that ogled my very soul.

  Then black.

  I came to upon a hospital trolley – inside a lift. I could feel a hold across my upper arm, a pinch I reckoned like the onset of a heart attack.

  ‘No fuss,’ said Chas, his fat face moving over me.

  I scrambled up, his grip on my arm held tight. My head was hurting, a haze to my thoughts as time suffered a lethargy. He pulled me closer, an intensity to our proximity. Indeed, I could smell his sweat.

  Behind, Frankenstein commanded the lift, his finger aquiver.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ said Chas, with all the affection one would show chicken pox.

  I stuttered. ‘I-I’ve brought it.’

  I fumbled my pocket, my hand feeling like a JCB digger fishing for tadpoles. I held the swag at arm’s length, Chas relaxed his grip, opening the ring box and observing keenly – I imagined the contents projecting a glow onto his face. His eyes were wide, like large ‘six strike’ marbles, suggesting the activity in his head was stimulating a rush of adrenaline – I feared any voice of reason was being actively asphyxiated. Such a stare would have silenced me, had the air not carried a whiff of my own death.

  ‘Let me explain? Please?’ I had little control over the sorrow-ridden tone that spilled out – I almost wanted to punch myself in the face.

  The Chip Shop King clasped the ring into his hand and stood stout. ‘It’s all about respect. Get it? Respect. I’ve got a face to uphold.’ He clasped tighter. ‘I didn’t ask for this. You think I want this?’

  I’m not sure of the usual places guns and drugs and murder get you, but what did you expect? You’re a bad person.

  ‘My partner, my friend half dead.’

  My friend is dead. That’s dead by the way.

  ‘Now I’m on the run – and I don’t run from anyone. But we’ve got to be clever – live to fight another day.’

  Chas lifted his arm, striking me with his outer hand. The force was strong enough to cause a sting, yet weak enough to preserve my teeth. Knowing Chas’s aptitude for common assault, I felt this was an appetiser preserving my flesh and bone for the main event. Indeed, Chas then gestured to blow out his brains with a finger gun, nodding to Frankenstein, who fumbled at the lift panel, opening it up to show a convolution of coloured wires. Reaching into the cavity, he retrieved a rolled up towel, general clumsiness allowing the package to unravel.

  A gun hit the floor.

  Frankenstein was quick to point said weapon, breathing heavily into the mask. ‘Don’t move!’

  Expecting a tap dance?

  I’d realised the game really was up now. All that I had negotiated, manipulated since happening upon that fucking ring; the vestigial happiness brought by Ms Fish; the whole charade had reached an apex, an expendable fate – to be spent imminently.

  The lift halted, the door concertinaed. We spilled out onto a storage floor like a very unenthusiastic conga line, myself under the duress of a gun. All around stood redundant beds, chairs, and assorted paraphernalia, an iron lung particularly conspicuous. I led the way, controlled by Frankenstein’s gun digging into my spine. Across the landing we ascended a short staircase, crashing through a fire door at the summit. There we stopped, upon the roof of the hospital, fourteen floors high, in an open breeze. The sky was clear, a dark blue that was edging into night. My panoramic view of the city showed it illuminated, reaching far into the horizon, each bedroom-light a twinkle in the northern cosmos.

  ‘Fire escape across the roof,’ said Frankenstein, breathless, pointing the gun in a Hollywood ‘freeze sucka’ kind of a way.

  ‘Good,’ said Chas, then nodding towards me, almost nonchalantly. ‘Better deal with that first. Be quick.’ He seemed expectant, as though a reliable clairvoyant had informed the future, and such a future wouldn’t dare mess with Chip Shop Chas.

  The gun appeared to be in the hand of a convulsing epileptic. ‘I’m not sure…’ said Frankenstein. ‘I mean—’

  ‘Man up kid!’ said Chas.

  Or not. Not manning up is fine.

  ‘Think you can play with the big boys? Well prove it.’

  The gun wobbled. ‘But—’

  ‘Prove it!’

  Facing me, Frankenstein clenched the gun tight, as though wringing the neck of his nervousness, his hand steadied just a little, he raised the gun to my head. Chas’s forehead bore a sheen of sweat, his face taut, so very attentive.

  This is it, isn’t it?

  This is it.

  Oh heck…

  I scrambled backwards, terror pumping hard inside my chest. The wind hit my face and elicited a tear.

  ‘Wait, please!’ I continued to edge backwards.

  ‘S-stop there,’ said Frankenstein.

  I glanced over my shoulder, certain death fourteen floors below. My heel hit against a short wall edging the drop, and I stopped. Teetering from the edge of the building, from the edge of my mind – and as I looked back to face the gun – it appeared from the edge of my life; I stared blindly and waited.

  Thirty-Five

  I know kid you’ll have your day,

  just don’t think that day is today.

  Frankenstein’s breaths were heavy, staccato, like a countdown of my demise. I brought him into focus. ‘Let me say something before… just let me speak!’ I blurted.

  His hand twitched, the gun wobbled, but he said nothing.

  I shouted over his shoulder, my eyes wide and unblinking as they latched onto Chas. ‘I brought you the ring didn’t I? Doesn’t that say something?’

  Chas held up the ring box, the red velvet exterior moist by his sweaty palm. ‘You were up to no good. I know that.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘Don’t lie!’

  ‘OK. I’ll work for you. I’d be good. I’ll do anything.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘You asked me, before.’

  The Chip Shop King expanded his chest and moved in beside Frankenstein, the whites of his eyes seemingly wrapped in red liquorice bootlaces. ‘You appealed to my corrupting nature.’

  ‘So now?’

  ‘Now you just don’t appeal.’

  ‘But…’

  He tossed a comment back with little more feeling than a scrap of afterthought. ‘Sing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sing a song.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Any song. Sing like your life depends on it.’ He laughed, appearing pleased with the sound of his own voice – a bellow that made me feel pain.

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘Sing!’

  ‘OK.’ That TV show? Made Dad laugh? I grasped a tune from some dusty vault, and indeed sang – or at least made a noise – like my life depended
on it. My soul seemed to be extricated via an ode to a place where everybody knew my name.

  Before me, Chas and Frankenstein stood like some kind of Laurel and Hardy double act – though considerably uglier and without the jokes.

  So what if I just take these two out? Run at them shouting and kicking and punching? The worst that can happen is I receive a bullet a bit earlier than the end of this fucking song.

  Keep singing!

  ‘Sometimes you…’

  If I aim myself in their general direction, swing my arms and legs about, who knows what might happen… well, apart from being shot that is – but if that’s going to happen… for God’s sake, stop singing this song!

  I screwed up my face and screamed: ‘The ace of spades.’ Abandoning deliberation, I opened my eyes, released a random scream and charged.

  Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!

  Seconds felt like minutes, Chas showing a wide eyed incredulousness. I could almost hear the cogs turn as his mind reassessed the next move. We collided. I ricocheted from Chas’s stout stance, the impact winding me and sending me off on a trajectory, myself and Frankenstein a tangle of limbs upon the roof. My brain felt like a hamster inside a runaway playball, spinning, unable to grasp control. I kicked out for purchase, arriving at a vaguely upright stance. A snapshot of reality synced with my brain, I found myself astride Frankenstein. The struggle had fizzled, he felt limp beneath me, and as some kind of involuntary response saw me take the gun from his hand, he offered no fight to the contrary.

  I took to my feet, stepping back, pointing the gun, desperate to summon some kind of badassed-motherfucking-attitude. ‘I’ll shoot,’ I bawled.

  Well that’s what they say on TV. So why do I sound like a wet sheep bleating into the night?

  Frankenstein stayed down, edging away with a backwards crawl.

  ‘I’ll shoot,’ I repeated, a little less wet, but hardly leading man.

  Chas took a step forward, and despite holding a gun, my Pavlovian response was to take two steps back.

  ‘Just let me go,’ I blurted.

  Chas smiled, it appeared forced, like pulling back on a phimosed foreskin.

  I stuck the gun a little further toward him, exaggerating the movement. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Clever kid – you gonna shoot me with the safety catch on?’

  Safety catch? What safety catch? Which bit’s the fucking safety catch?

  ‘Give it up kid.’

  ‘Don’t move. Just don’t move.’

  ‘You wanna talk?’ Still, Chas came closer, the gun no more intimidating than a hairdryer. ‘Settle this man to man?’

  ‘Keep back.’

  ‘You held a gun before kid? Reckon you can figure out how to use it?’

  No…

  I glanced at the gun.

  And no.

  Chas stood close enough to reach out and touch me – I took half a step backward, the final reserve of roof before a multi-storey drop into darkness. It was the same place on the roof and the same sense of impending death – the whole thing felt as hopeless as it had a minute before – and I was holding the bloody gun.

  There was a shot.

  My arm jerked upwards, the force trying to fling me up and away into the night sky. The noise was like a very loud and very round full stop, forcing me into a childlike disbelief, my eyes closing for a couple of seconds before I dared override the reflex:

  I pulled the trigger? Well, I might have twitched, but… Fuck, what if I’ve killed him? I’m not the bad guy… OK, better open my eyes now. Ready? One… two… two and a half… three…

  Upon first glance, Chas didn’t appear dead, nor demonstrate any misadventurous loss of blood. Woo-hoo! Well, kind of… He stood before me, brow cut in two by an earnest crease, his hands held up in Al Jolson appreciation. I scanned down his faded prison denim, and upon the toe of his shoe the ring box rested conspicuously.

  My body swayed, anchored to the roof by spasmodic feet.

  ‘You called my bluff kid.’ Chas spoke quietly and with precise pronunciation, a slight break in the chunkiness of his voice that suggested a trepidation I was quick to clock. ‘But be clever, eh? No need to do anyone damage.’

  Indeed, the gun was just a prop, a kind of mini nuclear deterrent that occasionally – and quite accidently – almost killed people. Not that Chas knew as much.

  I pointed the gun with well-feigned vigour. ‘Just go,’ I said.

  His fingers flexed, pointing to the sky and pulling his palms taut. I wondered which crease represented longevity, and if I could decipher such wrinkles, exactly how much life he had left. ‘You want me to walk?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Turn around and just carry on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As easy as that?’

  I shrugged. ‘It is easy.’

  ‘And then? How do I know you’re not gonna put a bullet in my back?’

  ‘I’m not you.’

  Chas released a short blast of air from his nostrils, projecting a kind of incredulous indignation. ‘Drop the tool… then I’ll walk.’

  I shook my head, slowly.

  ‘No time for a stalemate.’

  I controlled my breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. ‘I’m not in a rush.’

  ‘Think the filth are sat eating a donut? Feet up on the desk? They won’t be long kid.’

  ‘Not my problem.’

  Chas gave a laugh, betrayed by the strain shown in his temporal veins. ‘And you really believe that?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Kidnap, murder—’

  ‘All you.’

  ‘All us.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’re a part kid – get used to it.’

  ‘You killed Syd.’

  ‘Speak to my lawyer on that one…’

  ‘You.’

  ‘What’s your beef? Forget he double-crossed you?’

  ‘He didn’t deserve to die. I don’t deserve to…’

  ‘Think you’re worth a bullet?’ Chas held me with unblinking eyes. ‘Sensible thinking throws you over the side.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Multi-storey drop, certain death – could look accidental.’

  ‘Lucky I’ve got a gun.’

  ‘You won’t shoot me. You’ve not got it in you.’

  ‘Yeh?’

  He appeared to restrain a smile. ‘We both know it.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He lowered his hands.

  ‘Hands up!’ I thrust the gun toward him.

  Chas appeared unmoved, a grimace showing as he bent to retrieve the ring. Behind, I caught a glimpse of Frankenstein, a good ten feet away, head down, huddled. I wanted to do the same, hide away in my own embrace, happy in denial. Chas straightened, hijacking my centre vision as he clasped the ring box into his fist. He took a step forward, his eyes resurveying me. ‘You’ve had your moment kid. Pass the tool.’

  ‘I said hands…’ I waggled the gun, though abandoned the sentiment mid-sentence. I might as well have been wearing a tutu – at least then he might have laughed himself to death.

  Chas moved closer still, expanding his chest like a red faced, middle-aged Bruce Banner. ‘Time to call it a day kid.’ His arm extended to within a few inches, open hand expectant. ‘Give it up and I’ll let you walk – call us quits.’

  That sounds… But you do have a habit of lying Chip Shop Chas…

  ‘Deal?’

  For fuck’s sake, he’s a villain, a cheat – a bad guy. I give him the gun and he’ll do exactly what he was always going to do – he’ll shoot me. And I don’t want to die.

  I shot Chas.

  It was deliberate. The force pushed him into a backward stagger, his arm moving over his chest, hand clamping onto his shoulder
. His posture became crooked, he looked back, eyes so wide they seemed to dominate an impossible percentage of his face. A shade of claret seeped from beneath his hand, overshadowing the blue denim at an unhealthy rate.

  ‘Armed police. Drop the weapon and hold your hands behind your head.’

  We were surrounded, all at once, a cock-sure display of weaponry pointing at…

  Me?

  ‘Drop the gun.’

  My grip tightened, fear masquerading as defiance – the sight of a dozen policemen, seemingly kitted out for the end of the world – I simply couldn’t let go of the gun.

  Chas blurted over the repeated commands, a melodramatic stagger towards the firing squad. He pointed back to me with a finger that looked as though it had been dunked in raspberry jam. ‘Him.’

  ‘Last warning…’

  ‘Attempted murder of a prison officer. Attempted murder of me.’ Chas’s words were breathless and lacked composure – though still seemed to project an undertone that was carefully degrading. ‘He murdered Sydney Clough. He’s scum.’

  I closed my eyes so tightly, my being unanimously in favour of its preservation, yet control over my hands seemingly impossible.

  Let go of the gun. Let go of the gun. Let go of the gun. Let go of the gun…

  Such a simple action remained beyond my ability, and desperately scared, I concentrated all my strength into one final release. A paraesthesia spread over my muscles, it was strangely pleasant, slipping into my mind and creating a momentary delirium.

  I relinquished control.

  And collapsed.

  In a second I felt a grip around my arm, tight. An upward force pulled on me, strong enough to cause a dislocation.

  ‘You all right?’

  My eyes opened, as though from a lengthy sleep. Briggs stood over me, sweaty and ruffled, two armed officers either side, their attention pointing at me.

  I shrugged – it seemed so strenuous to formulate a reply. My eyes moved quickly, capturing the scene. Glancing downwards, I saw my hoodie sporting blood spatters, yet I could feel no pain, which I reckoned was good. The gun had vacated my possession, presumably contained within an evidence bag held within safer hands than my own – I reckoned this was also good. Across the roof, Chas was slumped, a fuss around him and a fair amount of the red stuff. The ring box had tumbled to the side of his feet, punctuating his blood stricken pose – the back of my eyelids proved a much more agreeable sight.