Johnny Ruin

by Dan Dalton

  I’m thirty-one, crashing. I make my excuses and leave. Sophia comes with me. As we go, a mutual friend of ours curses her out. Why the fuck would you pressure him like that. Sophia tells her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He pressured me into giving him permission.

  The rest stop has a diner that’s less of a building, more of a shack. A lean-to, held together by cooking grease and casual racism. I’ve been here once before, a pancake place nowhere near Iowa. A waitress brings over menus and bad news. Dog’s gonna have to stay outside. Jon takes Fisher out to the car. Sophia opens her menu. I already know what she’ll order.

  In our bubble we’re at brunch. Our weekend routine is we roll out of bed around twelve, eye sore, coffee shy, stumble to one of the north London cafes on our brunch rota. We stayed at mine, so she woke up in one of my shirts, my boxers. She’s wearing them still, with her jeans, one of my jumpers. My clothes swamp her just enough to end wars. Until the coffee kicks in we sit and read our books. We always order the same thing: me, eggs royale; her, pancakes. And we always take a book. Sometimes novels. Mostly musician memoirs. Mostly bad. There are occasional highlights. Her favourite is Patti Smith, mine David Lee Roth. It’s not that she loves biographies, it’s that she figures she’ll ghostwrite a few if the A&R thing doesn’t work out. Someone nearby orders wine. Too early to start drinking, she says. I shake my head. It’s three thirty. We order a bottle of prosecco, two bloody Marys. Extra bloody, she says, as the waiter walks off. Extra Mary, I say. She spits out her coffee. Mostly I spend my time trying to make her laugh.

  Thinking about it, we drank a lot in our bubble.

  Fireballs fall from the sky, dropping like pebbles in the parking lot. From the window I can see Fisher watching us from the back seat. I worry about him in this storm. Thunder makes the walls shake. A diner at the edge of the apocalypse. I think I’ll have pancakes.

  The waitress approaches with either caution or indifference. What’s the biggest coffee you serve, Jon says. She points to the menu. Bottomless horn, she says. You’ll drown before you finish it. Jon closes his menu, grinning. Yeah, I’m gonna need one of those.

  There’s always room for whimsy, is something she told me once.

  I’m twelve, watching a detective drama with my parents. It’s about a serial killer who lures women out of their cars at night by leaving childlike dolls in the road, then chases them through the woods. I didn’t sleep properly for two weeks. I’ve never been so terrified.

  Later that summer I hid under a sheet in my room because I was afraid of murderers. It was the middle of the day, the murderers weren’t real. It didn’t occur to me that I’d be really easy to spot under a sheet. It only occurred to me to hide.

  That thing you read about covering a birdcage with a cloth to stop parrots getting scared at night. It cuts out visual stimulation.

  In reality, out there, where she’s flesh and want and not my imagination, she only did white a couple of times. Once with a musician hero of hers, once with me. I know because she told me. She never gave me any reason not to trust her. I found some anyway.

  Jon’s got the horn, and he’s wrestling with it. No one’s ever drunk the whole thing, the waitress says. You finish it, your breakfast is free. I’m pretty sure it’s free anyway.

  He says: That’s a lot of coffee.

  I say: It’s bottomless.

  He says: Bullshit.

  Sometimes Mum would read us stories when we couldn’t sleep. Myths. There was one where Loki tricks Thor into drinking from a horn he’s attached to the ocean. Thor ends up drinking so much that he causes the seas to shift. In Norse mythology, that’s where tides come from.

  In our bubble she asks what depression feels like. Like you’re trying to drink the ocean, I say.

  People say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I don’t agree. The most important meal of the day is the one you’re eating. And there’s nothing saying they can’t all be breakfast.

  I’m half a pancake through the stack when it begins. We’ve been thinking, Jon says. Sophia and I. He chooses his words carefully. I don’t know this Jon, don’t like him. I commit to my plate, push pancakes into my face. And, well. She picks up his slack. You’re going to help me leave, she says. Jon tags back in. It makes sense, he says. It’s on the way. I never order pancakes. I’m hunched over, white knuckled, shovelling. I find room for more. Maple syrup chin. Cake-clogged throat. So much for trying something new. You’re not well, chief. She takes his words, runs with them. You’re a walking corpse. I retch, mouth so full I can’t chew. Look at yourself, she says. I’m asking you, please. Let me go while you still can. I finally manage to swallow.

  You don’t think I’ll make it out.

  It’s not that, buddy, Jon says.

  What is it then, I say.

  That you don’t want to.

  When we broke up I sent her emails. She never replied. I sent her texts. Her answer was always the same: I don’t know what to say.

  I swipe the car keys and stride out of the diner into an electric squall, a curtain of lightning slung close, bolts of fire flashing several times a second, sans sequence. The static stands my hair on end. A red neon DINER sign explodes above me. I drop to my knees, adrenalin shakes, quivering, quickening. Synapses fire, heart flutters. I feel so alive.

  What happens next is I projectile vomit blueberry pancakes all over the parking lot.

  Spent, I lie supine, listening to the thunder, the occasional clink of rock on asphalt. Here, for the first time, beside a pool of my own vomit, in the middle of a storm in my mind, I lay myself open to the benign indifference of her words: I don’t know what to say.

  I’m twenty-two, on my road trip with Paul. We’ve seen 3,000 miles of highway and as many chain eateries before I realise that International House of Pancakes and IHOP are the same place.

  The car now. They must have carried me. The fever kicks me around in a storm cloud. I shiver, cold sweat and calenture. Fisher licks my face. He likes the salt. In front they’re laughing, flirting, flickering under street lamps. Fuckers. Fuck them both. I pass out.

  Next time I come to, Jon’s driving and Sophia sits in back with me, stroking my head. She used to do this when I was sick. My turn to make you feel good, she’d say. Here, I melt into her.

  The scene won’t stay still. Maybe because I don’t believe it. Maybe she’s in front with Jon.

  Her voice. Did he ever tell you about Paul.

  Sure, Jon says. Died behind the wheel.

  Then he told it wrong, Sophia says.

  What are you saying, Jon says.

  My voice. I mumble. Words aren’t working. You’re in bad shape there, partner, Jon says. I tell him to shut up. He’s not hearing me. Not trying to. Listen, he says. I interrupt. Shut the fuck up, Pete. Jon finds me in the rear view. Sorry, champ, he says, your brother ain’t here.

  A thing I never say is that my brother and I haven’t spoken in a decade.

  A thing I never say is that I was driving the night Paul died.

  Fourteen

  The Gate

  Add an obstacle here. It’s dawn when I notice the car has stopped. It should be dawn, at least. This is day three. There’s no sun. Not one we can see. The clouds are too thick. Sounds now. The whirr and screech of windscreen wipers across glass. The percussive hum of raindrops on the roof. I always listen to rain when I write, drowns out distractions. In front, something is blocking the beam from our headlamps. I lean forward in my seat. A wall. I can’t see the top. There’s a portcullis, wrought iron, archaic. Where’s Fezzik when you need him.

  The thing with night is that the sun’s still shining, it just isn’t shining on you.

  Whirr. Sophia sits in the driving seat, both hands on the wheel. Did you put this here, she says. Screech. I squint and blink and rub my eyes, tell her I didn’t. She groans, frustrated, tugs at the wheel. Jon puts a hand on her shoulder. My organs sink. He speaks. You know that all this is you, right. I tell him it isn�
�t me. Then who the fuck is it, Sophia says. Whirr. I nod ahead, into the path of the headlights. Screech. The Many-Faced Man leans against the gate, arms folded, heel resting on the grille. He grins at us. Face and form shifting. The pose, the posture; he looks a lot like Jon. There you go, Doc, I say. There’s your Ringo. Whirr. Another figure steps into the light, stands next to the Many-Faced Man. A man with none. Screech.

  She says: What the fuck is that.

  I say: A wrong I can’t right.

  Jon says: Real nice, kid.

  She says: Is that—

  I say: Paul.

  Whirr. Screech.

  Sophia turns the wipers off. The windscreen becomes an abstract landscape, images it held blurred beyond recognition. Ink on blotting paper. A lesser Rothko. So his face just— She touches her nose to check it’s still there. Disintegrated, I say. Her fingers trace her lips. I try not to watch. She exhales. You made a monster of him. I miss her mouth. My heart is rolling through my chest like a skydiver in a storm cloud. I nod. And a beast of myself.

  Fisher chews my hand. He knows not to bite. We should see what they want, Sophia says. Jon volunteers. I’ve got this. It sounded like he said the word babe. She looks at me. You’re just going to let him go. Jon pushes his door open. He goes out there, this whole thing gets ugly. I ask if he’s sure. Hey, he says, climbing out of the car, I’m your Huckleberry.

  Fisher yawns. I let him drink water from a bottle I didn’t know I had. Ahead, Jon is talking with the Many-Faced Man. It looks like Paul is trying to mediate. Hooded wrongs gather round the gate, watching. Guarding. Her voice. Did you think that maybe when I texted you to ask about something else, what I was really doing was checking you were okay.

  Was it all a lie, I say. The bubble, everything in it.

  Why would you say that. Of course it was real.

  Then why did you change your mind, I say.

  Minds change. You said you’d let me go.

  I will, I say. I wasn’t quite ready then.

  Jon said you were just saying that.

  I wanted to believe I meant it.

  Then you know how it feels.

  The door swings open and a soaking wet Jon plants himself down in the passenger seat. Fisher stands up, excited. He thinks this is a game. Maybe it is. Jon flips open his flask and takes a swig. Yeah they aren’t gonna open the gate. I ask if they want something. He nods. Bingo. Sophia is impatient. Well, what is it. Jon hikes a thumb at Fisher. They want the D-O-G. I put my hands over his ears. Hey, I say. He can spell. Fisher is panting happily, I’m pretty sure he can’t spell. There is always room for whimsy. What do they want with him, Sophia says. Jon looks at her. Same thing you do, I think, he says. I ask what he means.

  Jon’s voice. Show him. She pulls a folded piece of paper from her pocket and gives it to me. It’s a photocopy of a photocopy of a picture of Fisher. It has the headline MISSING DOG in thick black font. Ariel, I think. People are always making poor font choices. Under the picture it says big reward in slightly smaller font. The kerning is off. There’s no other info. No phone number. I ask her what it is, apart from the obvious. A ticket out of here, she says. If I deliver the dog, I can leave. I ask if she believes that. No reason not to, she says. She takes it back, folds it away.

  Maybe Jon was right. That I keep making it so she needs me. She has the key. She has a car. She doesn’t need me. I’m just slowing her down. I’m being selfish. We could always jump the wall, Jon says. Some kind of trebuchet. His eyes light up. I always wanted to build a siege engine.

  Fisher puts his paw in my lap. I take it in my hand, kiss his head. Breathe him in. Good boy.

  White noise washes over the car. Grey shapes move unseen. I open my notebook at random, read from the top. What if there is a finite amount of happiness to go around and every bit of happiness you take for yourself is happiness you take from someone else.

  Every book is a self-help book if you read it right.

  I’m out of the door before anyone can stop me. Weak-kneed, wrong-footed. Unsteady but upright. I lean into the wind and hang on to a hat I’m not wearing. Three or four paces and my T-shirt is already drenched. Lightning like a bad horror movie. Jon races after me. What are you doing, partner. Wrongs crowd round the road. It narrows as their numbers grow. Some shout as I stumble past. Someone starts a chant. Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. Eat a bag of dicks.

  Jon holds my shoulders, looks me in the eyes, understands. I gotta see a man about a dog, I say. What he understands is that I’m doing this. That he can’t change my mind. Well, you know what they say, he says. He does the pause thing, rain battering us both. He who makes a man of himself gets rid of the pain of being a beast. He claps my shoulder and makes his way back to the car. Hey, I say. Look after my dog. The coolest man I’ve ever known, even in a category four storm.

  You look like shit, the Many-Faced Man says, his face a fruit machine that won’t settle, his voice an oddly modulated mix of several. He continues. You know when someone dies and they shit themselves. I interrupt. Come on, I say. You can do better. Tell me I look like part-baked ciabatta. He laughs. Say I look like the pile of shit getting fisted in Jurassic Park. They’re all laughing now. All my wrongs. I spin an imaginary gun, holster it. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

  He walks towards me. Saunters. Taunts. His features sit unimpressed in multiple. Have you put on weight, he says. His frame is large, but trimmer than mine. Fitter. The crowd close ranks. How about you open the gate, I say. I see familiar faces. A boss from an old job. A girl I ghosted. Some shout. Fraud. Fool. Fuck-up. Others sneer. What was with the cowboy, he says. I shrug, tell him Jon’s my tour guide. He said he was your attorney. He circles me, sizes me up. I’ll make you a deal, I say. Let us through, and nobody has to get hurt. What happens next is the kind of laughter that makes you wince. It’s every laugh I’ve ever hated. It’s all directed at me.

  He says: Did he tell you what happens if you die in here.

  He says: You know they’re fucking, right.

  He says: You’re a dead man.

  In the distance, a neon sign burns against the horizon: Mostly dead is slightly alive.

  How building tension works is you have to flip the power. Reverse it. I stumble, steady myself, set my feet. I breathe deep, let the laughter seep through until I’m shaking with Tetsuo rage. High above a space rock spins through the air, falling towards us, towards him. He stops laughing and looks up, sees me. His faces wash with fear. The rock flies over my head and hits him square in the chest. It drops to the ground with a clink. It’s the size of a pebble. He is unmoved. I exhale, drop to my knees, exhausted. He looks at the pebble, laughs louder than before, harder.

  He strides towards me, grabs the back of my head. His faces inches from mine, rage shining from each. Here’s a deal, he says. Give me the dog, and I’ll make us great again. He holds me by the throat, his faces shifting back and forth like a hologram card pulled from a cereal box.

  Then it clicks. Who these faces belong to. Who I’m fighting. It’s my turn, he says. His many faces, all of them mine, spin from laughter to anger to smug triumph. You had your chance, he says. He is me. He knows that I know, sees it on my face. The look of horror I can’t hide.

  He smiles. You’ve fucked it, he says. You’re done. Time I showed the world who we really are. He drops me, steps back. Lucky for you I need you alive, he says. Lucky for me, not too alive.

  He waves his hand and my wrongs crowd around, bear down with fists, feet. I try to cover up. Enough, I say. More to hear the word, to practise it. Louder now. Enough. With the last of my strength I stand, push back. Fists raised. Lightning strikes everywhere at once, a flash that makes the crowd cover their eyes, cower. Enough, I say, because that’s all I’ve practised.

  What Jon also understood when he looked in my eyes was that I wanted him to go, to forget about me, to help her. What I was saying was simple: I can’t do this with you here.

  I close my eyes. Her voice. It never wo
uld have lasted. A fireball blazes overhead. A mortar. A missile. A meteor. Memories scatter. It’s big. The Many-Faced Man moves as the rock hits the ground where he stood, exploding on impact. A ball of flame, fury. The blast rips a hole in the wall, destroys the gate, throws wrongs to the floor. I spit out dirt, blood.

  Enough.

  Sophia guns it. Tyres screech on asphalt. I watch them through the smoke as they pass. She doesn’t look for me. Jon waves. I nod. Go. They peel through the gate, the road beyond unfolding for her, stretching out into a distant dark. Fisher fogs the rear window, his face fading from view as the car grows smaller. Bye, buddy, I say, so quiet I barely hear it.

  I hobble towards the hole in the daytime dark. Up close I see the wall is paper thin, perforated. Cardboard. Like a film set. Not easily scaled or detoured, but sodden, wrinkled. Wet enough to punch through. There’s an analogy here. Soaking, sick, I stumble through the gate.

  A man crosses a map of his memory.

  I can’t do this with you here.

  He is alone.