by Paul Harris
My arms were folded across the handlebars and my head was laid on top of them when Brie poked me in the ribs and nearly pushed me off the bike.
“Come on,” she said, but I couldn’t move. My legs had turned to jelly and my lungs were gasping for every milligram of oxygen.
“I can’t.”
“Come on!” she repeated, poking me again.
I sat up, and immediately felt dizzy, and then sick. “I really can’t,” I whined.
She started dragging me off the bike but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand unsupported. “Are we going now?” I clung to the handlebars and waited for the room to stop spinning and for my legs to solidify.
“Let’s go and do some weights.”
“What!”
She handed me a towel and I wiped my face with it. “You need to wipe the bike down; you can’t leave it like that.” I looked at the bike. There was sweat actually dripping off the handlebars and a pool of it had formed on the seat where I’d been sitting. I wiped it down ready for the next poor sucker, and she dragged me off to some hellish place that she referred to as the free weights area. As fortune would have it, I found a bench to sit down on.
She sat down on the matted area and began to contort herself in all directions. “Are you going to do some stretches?” she asked from just below her left knee.
“No, I’m not!”
I took a look around. There was all manner of machines of torture scattered around. They made me shudder. I wanted to go to bed with a kebab. Men were lying on benches just like mine lifting weights the size of lorry axles above their heads and then back down to just above their throats. One slip, I thought to myself, and then what happens? This surely couldn’t be healthy. The contours of their arms and necks and chests changed every time they strained. Strange bulges moved around the surface of their skin as they grunted hideously. The arteries on their necks and temples sat proud like clinging ivy shoots threatening to burst and splatter us all with blood.
“Come on,” said Brie yet again, pulling me to my feet. She handed me a couple of dumbbells that were little more than the size of cotton buds. Although I could never claim to be a complete stranger to feelings of inadequacy, I had never before felt quite so woefully inadequate as now. Nevertheless, I took the tiny weights from her and, after almost dropping them on my toe, I followed her instructions.
I curled my arms towards my chest and felt my biceps groaning under the strain as if they would tear. I lowered the weights back to the level of my waist, and relaxed, feeling rather pleased with myself.
“You need to do more than one rep!” Brie demanded, and I was beginning to sense her disappointment in me.
I raised the weights again, and then lowered them, and then raised them for a third time, watching in the mirror as my face turned from crimson through scarlet to a rather alarming shade of deep mahogany. I felt my right elbow crack and a sharp pain shot along my forearm and settled in my wrist. I lowered the dumbbells to the floor and rolled each of them away from me with my foot. My hands shook as adrenaline coursed through areas of my body it had never previously entered. I felt dizzy and sat myself back down on the bench.
“Is that it?” And now her disappointment was palpable.
“I want to go.”
“Poor lamb,” she mocked, and patted me on the head. Never had I felt more humiliated. I vowed that if I was ever to set foot in such a place again I would come alone and very possibly steal in in the dead of night.
My trainers squelched as I limped despondently back to the changing room like a defeated prisoner of war, dazed confused, and thoroughly defeated. Unable to look anybody in the eye, I kept my head bent towards the ground. I could hear Brie sniggering as she followed me and I was glad when I heard the door of the ladies changing room open and then close behind her.
She sniggered, chortled, and tittered to herself as we walked all the way back down the hill towards the High Street.
“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t get a taxi,” I groaned several times without even once eliciting a reasonable response.
After what seemed like many miles of excruciating pain, during which I rather pathetically pictured myself as one of Owen’s knock-kneed coughing hags, we stopped outside the Trumpet and I gently lowered myself into a seat on the terrace. I cupped my hands and lowered my face into them and felt like crying. Brie went inside and brought back two glasses of Diet Pepsi and sat down opposite me. I managed to gather myself together enough to ask her, “Why Coke?”
“It’s Pepsi. It says on the glass.”
“Well, why Pepsi then?”
A mischievous smile played across her face. “They got no Coke, stoopid!” Ridiculously over-amused by her own ingenuity, she then spluttered her damned Pepsi all over my face.
Who is Angker Fischer?
Whenever I drink alcohol just lately, I wake very early in the morning, before even the cock has crowed, with my mouth parched, my throat sore, and my lungs gasping for air. I may have only had one pint or one bottle of lager, but the result is always the same: I wake up trembling uncontrollably. Although sweat is pouring from me and I feel that I’m on fire, I shiver in the warm night air. And, at these times, her name is always on my chapped lips: Angker Fischer. I breathe it into the stillness of the night and it sticks inside my clenched throat.
I crawl from my blood-stained mattress, pull on a pair of shabby underpants, and wander from bedroom to kitchen and back again, drinking pint glasses full of water to beat the dehydration, and waiting for the morning alarm to ring and, by so doing, to release me from this prison. After two glasses of tap water, I drift into the bathroom and then back to the kitchen for more. In every darkened corner, I see her dressed, as she always is, with style, but always dressed the same. In every darkened corner of my mind, she thrives.
She is the girl whose dreams always will come true. She lives in fear and infuses my life and my dreams with that self-same foreboding that should rightfully be hers and hers alone. She never dreams of wealth and happiness, joy nor prosperity, but mayhem, death, and disaster. She dwells in dark and lonely places and in those places I beg her to remain; I beg her to free me from the pain she carries with her.
She is the most dangerous of visions; a danger to herself and to all whom she dreams about. She must be kept at bay. Whenever I see her, she wears a maroon leather jacket, has short blonde hair, and rides a motorcycle. These things are all I know of her. She is borne of alcohol, arrives from nowhere, and deposits terror into my dreams.
Her Ducati engine revs, the alarm clock chimes, she smiles sorrowfully at me and, as she rides off again, I close my eyes.
Proper Dodgy Geezer
The right Saturday arrived and Timmy Cubberley and I set out on our exploratory mission to the Trumpet to see if we could find Amos. They say that a change is as good as a rest and, although the Trumpet is only about three hundred yards down the road and around one corner from the Pig, I was quite excited about the change of routine. It was almost as exciting as catching the Piccadilly line to the airport.
We left Buffalo and Lola clinging to the bar in silence, teeing themselves up for their next great debate, each eyeballing the other, each waiting to see who would blink first, each seeking inspiration. We walked up the High Street and past the Volunteer. The street was still damp from the previous night’s storm but now the clouds had been blown away by the gale force winds and had left behind them a mild and bright day that promised to grow warmer as it wore on. We stopped and chatted to someone who Timmy knew outside the Volunteer. I bought some over-priced cigarettes from the kiosk inside the station. It was one of those perfect Saturday afternoons when life slows down to a manageable pace and nothing seems to matter anymore.
The tables outside the Trumpet were all occupied; mostly by people sipping Mochas and Cappuccinos and reading newspapers or just watching the world going about its business. I glanced a headline off the back of one of the broadsheets that referred to Tiger Wood
s missing another cut. I was beginning to feel sorry for the guy. The whole world was beginning to feel sorry for him; the author of the most incredible fall from excellence in the history of sport; of any sport.
A very young couple were sipping cola through straws. They were sitting opposite each other in silence, each reading a book; the same book; The Da Vinci Code. Occasionally they would stop reading to verbally compare notes, take a sip of their drinks and a handful of peanuts before resuming; never once moving their index fingers from their place in the books.
A woman was hauling an overloaded tartan shopping trolley towards where we were standing. She was straining under the weight of its contents. She stopped and sighed miserably, and seemed to be staring at the golf headline, but the expression on her face bore very little sympathy for Tiger Woods and his misfortune. A commotion broke out on the opposite side of the road which momentarily caught her attention, and then she moved on stoically towards the High Street.
I shivered slightly as a cool breeze played around my bare arms. I’d come out in only a t-shirt because I was so positive that it would be warmer later. I followed Timmy as he slalomed between the tables.
“That him?” he asked as we entered the bar.
The bar itself was a great big oval affair, the type of which you rarely find outside of London, extending from one end of the room to the other. The staff were penned into the middle like bulls in a rodeo, unable to escape the demands of their customers and the leering expressions of the drunks. There was a small group of customers gathered at the end nearest to us as we walked in. Timmy made a bee-line for them. I was overcome with a sudden and irrational feeling of anxiety, and walked past to the toilets at the far end of the pub even though I didn’t need to go.
I splashed some water on my face and winced as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. No matter what anybody else says about the way you look, it’s always horrible to see yourself as others see you. There were no towels, just an automated hand drier that blew hot air down at your feet. I felt disinclined to hold my face underneath it so had to go back to the bar with water still dripping from my chin and my nose.
When I returned with my head held low, feeling defensive, Timmy was ensconced in conversation and was waiting to introduce me. There was no necessity for a formal introduction, though.
“Long time,” said Amos, holding out his hand to me. “How’ve you been?”
I shook his hand. “I’m okay now. Had some bad days but it’s all good now.”
“Is it raining?” asked Timmy.
I glared at him. “You know it’s not raining, you just walked down here with me.”
“Oh, yeah. So…?”
“Don’t worry about it!” I snapped at him.
“You back local, Rod?” asked Amos, still retaining a grip on my hand.
“Spiritual home, innit. You still in the City?”
He smiled and nodded. There was a gap in his teeth that hadn’t used to be there. He had developed a habit of trying to poke his tongue through it.
“You never went into construction after all, then?” I laughed.
He laughed as well. “That wasn’t one of my better plans, was it? Didn’t fancy getting my hands dirty. You still hoddying?”
“Laying now. Gone up in the world. Big bucks now. Let me get you a drink for old times?” I took my wallet from my pocket, opened it, and fumbled inside for a twenty pound note.
“I’ll get you one, Rod. I’m in a round. You know this lot, by the way?”
I hadn’t really taken any notice of the rest of the company. But now I gave them the once over and prepared to shake their hands. “It’s okay, Amos, I’ll get the round.” Then, the twenty pound note slipped from my fingers and floated slowly to the floor as I realised that my old friend Sol was standing with them, trying to shrink into the background, smiling uneasily.
Timmy bent down, picked the note up and tried to hand it back to me but I ignored him. My eyes were fixed on Sol. My heart was racing and I was filling up with the most bitter feelings of anger. He was looking back at me, nervously; really nervously.
“You alright, Rod?” asked Amos. “I’ve seen that look somewhere before.”
“You two know each other, or what?” said Tim.
Neither Sol nor I spoke or even moved a muscle, not a twitch, not a blink.
And, then, realisation dawned on Amos. It was as though it had leapt from the sky and battered him on the head because he shouted at the top of his voice. “Shit!”
There was a murmur of discord from behind the bar and the elder of the two barmaids said, “Amos!”
“Shit!” he whispered. “You’re Sol!”
Sol broke away from the staring contest. “You know who I am!”
“But, I didn’t know that you were that Sol!”
“Which Sol did you think I was?”
“He’s that Sol,” I interrupted. “Where’ve you been.”
“Here. Just here. Why?”
“Why?” I echoed, and started making my way around to him, Amos shadowing me all the way. “We went all the way to France looking for you.”
“I never went to France. It was a cover story. I needed to get out.”
“A cover story?” I swung my fist at him but, by now, Amos had positioned himself between us. Timmy grabbed my arm. Everybody started pulling and pushing. The bar staff began to approach, fabricating looks of sternness and authority. Amos and Timmy were grappling with me as I ploughed on towards Sol, who was retreating one step at a time.
“We would never have gone to France if it weren’t for your bullshit!” I yelled at him. “Bird would still be here if it weren’t for you!” And, I lunged at him again.
Sol looked scared and confused as he continued to back away. “But, Rod, Rod, listen! Bird knew! Bird knew I never went to France! I seen him lots of times!”
I stopped struggling with Amos and Timmy and they, in turn, eased their grips on me. Was it me again? Had I got it all wrong again? “What do you mean, Bird knew?”
“France was his idea. Things had gone tits up and he wanted an out.”
I looked at Amos. “And you? Did you know Sol wasn’t in France?”
“I didn’t know,” Amos replied, unhanding me, and backing off slightly. “I had an idea that Bird was leading us on a wild goose chase but you suspected that too, didn’t you. I didn’t know for sure. I just thought it would be a good trip anyway.”
“But it wasn’t,” I said, “was it? Why did you have to get away Sol? What was all that about? You left me right in lumber with Roger.”
“I couldn’t foresee that all that was going to happen with Roger,” Sol explained anxiously. “I’m really, really sorry about what happened, Rod. I would have gladly taken that beating instead of you.”
I shook my head. “What you talking about? Why would you have taken the beating?”
Sol licked his lips and his eyes seemed to be pleading with me, and it was then that I finally realised that it was just me. Up until this point, my life had been a total mystery, but only to me. Everybody else always knew exactly what was going on. “It was you that got Roger’s missus in the club. It was you all along and you let me take the beating and I accepted it because I thought that I’d done him wrong.”
“What could I do about it?” whined Sol.
“You could have told me the truth!” I snapped, and then took another, half-hearted, lunge at him. Amos grabbed me again but he needn’t have; the lust for destruction was gone.
“Look, Sol, I know it ain’t really down to you, but I killed Bird.” I announced it as if I were unburdening myself of a deep and dark secret.
Amos attempted to interrupt me, grabbing my arm in protest. “No, no, Rod, that’s bullshit!”
I ignored his interruption and continued on. “It happened because I thought that we were looking for you. If I’d known you weren’t in France, I’d never have got involved. I can’t forget that. If you’d have told the truth all those years ago, Bird�
��d still be here with us now.”
We were all quiet, standing there, the tension palpable, gazing at one another, until Amos calmly and very deliberately said, “You didn’t kill Bird, Rod.”
“It was my cigarette that set the barn on fire!”
“In hindsight, Rod, one way or another, Bird was never coming out of that Barn. He went there to die.”
“Oh, right, Mister Sigmund fucking Freud, how do you make that out?”
Amos grabbed a barstool and sat down. Sol followed suit and ordered a round of drinks. I knew that his explanation wasn’t going to be a brief one, but I declined to be seated.
“Before we left for France, Bird disposed of the lease on the house. You know he did that, Rod. He sold the truck; he sold everything.”
“Yeah, I know he did that,” I responded, irritably, “but that’s not an indication of suicidal tendencies, is it.”
“He had this crazy notion that he might not come back; that he’d find somewhere that he liked and settle there. He was like that, you know, a free spirit. He put all the money into shares and bonds, stuff like that.”
“You help him with that?”
“No, I refused. I thought he was making a mistake. I didn’t want it to come between us if it all went south. He got another geezer to sort it for him and the geezer turned him over. I only found out about it a few months after we got back. But, Bird knew; he knew he’d been striped up the day before we left for Dover. He was devastated. Obviously, I didn’t know at the time, but he was never coming out of that barn. He knew it was the end. You don’t know it was your cigarette; he could have started that fire himself. And, if it hadn’t been the fire, it’d have been something else. He was never coming out, Rod.”
I’d carried the solitary guilt for Bird’s death on my shoulders for years and I wasn’t comfortable with Amos’s attempt to seize it from me in such an out of hand manner. “It was my cigarette.”