Party Time_Raving Arizona

by Shaun Attwood

  ‘Maybe I better get my gun,’ Carson says.

  ‘No. This is Chupa. It’s a peaceful crowd. Besides, Kelly’s been up all week on tweak. She might be imagining the whole thing.’

  ‘All right. I’ll watch what happens. I’ll rush him if he attacks you.’

  ‘Thanks, Carson.’

  I inhale a few times, sucking courage from the air, and stride towards the man. I tap him on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, mate?’ I ask, emphasising mate in the hope he makes allowances for foreigners.

  He turns. ‘Yes?’ he says in a deep voice.

  My body braces. I gulp. ‘Don’t I know you from The Works club?’ I ask, hoping Carson makes his move before I get flattened.

  ‘I’ve never been to The Works,’ he says, smiling as if the question amused him.

  ‘Never been to The Works?’ I say, rejoicing inside.

  ‘Why?’ he asks, beaming.

  Ecstasy happy? ‘My name’s Shaun. I’m from England.’

  We shake hands. ‘I’m Beau.’

  ‘Beau, I’ve got a favour to ask you.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asks, shifting closer.

  ‘My girlfriend over there,’ I say, pointing at Kelly. ‘Well, she thinks you’re someone who said something to her at The Works. She’s scared of you. Will you come and say hello to her?’

  ‘Girlfriend! I thought you were hitting on me!’ We both laugh. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Thanks.’ I take him to Kelly.

  ‘Honey, I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ he says.

  Realising her mistake, Kelly apologises and hugs the man. They share club stories and DJ preferences. Carson joins us and we dance to a foot-stomping mix by Pete Salaz.

  The sun rises and the music stops, but Kelly keeps dancing with her eyes shut, oblivious to the fact that Chupa is over. Half of the partiers leave. The rest watch Kelly sliding this way and that as if on skates.

  Squatting against a wall next to Poppy, I say, ‘You want to tell her it’s time to go or should I?’

  ‘Let me do it,’ he says, as if it’s an honour. He approaches Kelly and taps her on the shoulder. ‘Chupa ended ages ago.’

  Kelly opens her eyes. Applause takes her by surprise. ‘What? What?’ She smiles. ‘You know how it is – the music just takes you away.’

  Chapter 17

  Early 1995, my fourth year as a stockbroker, and I’m summoned to see the boss.

  ‘Sit down, Shaun,’ Nick says, sat in a big black leather chair.

  Shit, he’s onto me for doing meth in the office.

  ‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ I ask, breaking into a cold sweat.

  Nick puts on a serious air. ‘You have the messiest desk in the office, but whatever you’re doing is working, and I mean working phenomenally, so I don’t want you to change a thing.’

  Where’s this leading?

  ‘Your commissions are so high, I’m offering you a back office.’

  My relief morphs into joy. ‘Thanks, Nick, but aren’t they all taken?’

  ‘I’m going to move someone back to the quads whose production is nowhere near as high as yours. You can have his office.’

  With an office I can expand and knock Max off the top-producer spot. ‘Sounds great, Nick. I’m thinking of hiring a secretary, if that’s OK with you.’

  ‘Anyone in mind?’

  ‘Yes, Tina Pace. She’s English. She works at the George & Dragon pub. She’s intelligent and I’m sure my clients will love her accent.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Feeling prized, I float out of Nick’s office on a high.

  A few months later, at the 6 a.m. meeting, Nick, wielding a whiteboard duster, shows no mercy to the proudest moments of Max’s career. The rookies shift in their seats and flaunt their delight as Nick replaces Max’s $27,250 gross production in one month with my $57,000, and Max’s $10,000 gross production in one day with my $17,000. While Nick showers me with praise and demands everyone emulate my work ethic, I pretend to be modest. Max remains expressionless.

  My production rises into autumn, increasing my excitement about the Christmas party, where Nick doles out the annual awards. Max always wins the grand prize for top producer, receiving it with an air of superiority that sends most of us home praying for his downfall.

  The event is at the Pointe Tapatio Cliffs Resort. When it’s time to announce the prizes, Nick gets on the dais and casts a stern eye over the tables of brokers, wives and girlfriends to hush the drunken chatter. He awards a few prizes, token gestures that mean nothing except to the recipients. Only one prize matters: the top producer. Radiating authority, Nick opens the final envelope. The room hushes. Unsure what Max has produced for the year, I don’t know if I’ve beaten him.

  ‘This year’s top producer is a rhino whose annual gross commission came in at more than half a million dollars.’ Pausing to create suspense, Nick looks from left to right.

  The brokers ping-pong their eyes from Max to me, some smirking at Max’s let’s-get-it-over-with expression. My ability to project calmness crumbles. My body quakes. My head trembles and my teeth chatter.

  ‘This year’s award goes to Shaun Attwood. Shaun, come and get your prize and certificate.’

  Yes! Squeezing Kelly’s hand, I smile at her. The lights dim. The techno theme tune for the Phoenix Suns blasts. I bounce from my seat and bask in the applause. I try to walk but get mobbed by brokers, cheering, leaping around like drunken monkeys, yelling ‘Sir Shaun’ and ‘Lord Attwood’ – ecstatic that I’ve ousted Max. I high-five my way to the dais, revelling in the fuss.

  ‘Speech-speech-speech-speech …’ the audience yells.

  ‘I’m no good at speeches,’ I say, provoking laughter. ‘I’d like to, er, thank Nick for providing a stable work environment, and, er, to thank Tina for putting up with me, and for being the best secretary in the world. But to be, er, honest, I think any of you can do what I did. It’s just a matter of putting the hours in, of staying on the phone even when you’d rather be out doing other things, of cold-calling and keeping your pipeline full of sales leads. I started out at Kruger Financial, where the brokers burnt their clients by loading them up with penny stocks. Here at Goldstein, we’ve got access to money managers, we can buy the tech stocks they’re buying and make money for our clients. We’ve got everything we need to succeed at Goldstein – so let’s be rhinos!’ The applause shakes the chandeliers. Struggling to return to my seat, I fear the barrage of pats on the back is going to cause spinal damage.

  My income is so high I buy a three-bedroom house in North Phoenix, on a street still under construction, and a 1978 Silver Anniversary Edition Corvette for Kelly, to match her bracelets.

  Chapter 18

  It’s 1996 and I’m driving to collect Wild Man, my excitement building as I get closer to the airport. Hovering at the gate, I wonder if he still looks the same, as I haven’t seen him in over five years. He wanders into the arrivals lounge, spots me, drops his luggage and opens his arms. Giddy, I rush to him. He picks me up and crushes my chest. I brace to be dropped, but he swings me around, faster and faster, sending my legs out. The passers-by I almost kick frown. Wild Man’s gaze – combined with an eyebrow caterpillaring up to a sinister angle – scares them away. He’s bigger than ever, his face meaner, harder – which I put down to prison. If I hadn’t have known him, I would have found him intimidating.

  In our home town, Wild Man knocked out a man rumoured to have 1,000 hits of Ecstasy. Finding no drugs, Wild Man bought a kebab with £3 the man had dropped, earning him a conviction for street robbery. Despite his cousin Hammy’s warning – You might want Peter to do well in America, but remember: the leopard does not change its spots, or in Wild Man’s case his red dots – I’m full of ideas for Wild Man, such as launching him as a wrestler. He’ll be on TV, famous, not in prison. I’ll fulfil the promise made on the Thinking Tree of using my wealth to guarantee my best friend a good life.

  On the
road from the airport, our conversation flows as if there has been no absence.

  ‘I got off the fucking plane and thought I’d walked into a microwave,’ Wild Man says, raising his sports shirt over his face to mop up sweat.

  ‘It’s like that most of the time,’ I say.

  Wild Man points at the desert. ‘Is that a massive fucking cactus or what?’

  ‘It is, la’.’ (La’ is slang for lad.)

  ‘Pull over, la’. I’ve never seen a fucking cactus before.’

  Caught up in Wild Man’s enthusiasm, I park by a saguaro.

  Wild Man jumps out and studies the state flower of Arizona. ‘It’s pretty fucking cool, isn’t it?’

  ‘Some guy shot one once and it fell on him and killed him. It’s illegal to shoot them now, but you still see all the bullet holes.’

  Walking back to the car, I say, ‘Peter, do you still see the red dots?’

  ‘They don’t just go away, do they? It’s not like chickenpox. They’re still randomly here and there.’

  I house him a block north of my office, walking distance from the George & Dragon pub, where we celebrate his arrival.

  Wild Man shares his bathroom with a heroin user who works at Denny’s. Wild Man says he is going to have a friendly word with the user about putting away needles.

  After work, I knock at Wild Man’s but nobody answers. Hearing his voice in the user’s side, I enter and walk through the bathroom to the user’s living room. Moaning and wriggling around on the floor are the user and a friend. Wild Man keeps picking up a TV and dropping it on one and then the other.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I yell, shocked. ‘Come on, stop that!’

  ‘These junkies keep leaving their needles all over the house, for fuck’s sake. They’ll pick them up from now on. But look, I missed one of them with the TV.’ Wild Man displays a swollen ankle.

  ‘How’d you do that?’

  ‘It started with three of them asleep. I kicked two in the face, dropped the TV on one’s head and dropped the TV on another, but one corner hit his head and the other corner hit my ankle.’

  ‘Come on, stop that, la’,’ I say, afraid of police trouble.

  ‘I’m in the right. How would you like needles in your house? For fuck’s sake. Fucking scumbags!’

  ‘You’ve got to go to a hospital,’ I say, attempting to get him out of there.

  ‘I don’t like hospitals, la’.’

  ‘Why don’t you like hospitals, la’?’ I ask, glad he’s put down the TV.

  ‘Hospitals are annoying ’cause they smell of a) death and b) way too strong disinfectant.’

  ‘Look at your leg. You might get gangrene.’

  ‘Hospitals do my head in. I’m self-healing.’

  ‘Can we at least go to the George & Dragon for fish ’n’ chips and a game of pool?’

  ‘The red dots are telling me these need more TV treatment.’

  ‘Looks like they’ve had enough to me. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  ‘OK. Take me to the George & Dragon then.’

  Over the next few days, Wild Man’s leg turns many hues of blue, but he refuses to go to a hospital. He limps for a few weeks until it gets better. When he is back to full health, I run the professional wrestling idea by him, only to get mocked for being unrealistic.

  A few weeks later, Kelly and I stop by Wild Man’s house at night. I knock on the door. Four Mexicans answer.

  ‘Where’s Peter at?’ I ask.

  They stare, nonplussed.

  ‘Where’s Peter at?’ I ask louder.

  They confer in Spanish.

  ‘Pizza?’ one asks.

  ‘Not pizza. Peter!’

  ‘We no order pizza.’

  ‘Not pizza! Where’s Peter? He lives here. Peter! Peter!’ I yell, convinced he’s been abducted.

  Handguns emerge from their clothes.

  I shut up. Praying not to get shot, I stammer, ‘Kelly, let’s walk slowly back to the car.’

  ‘Let’s,’ Kelly says.

  I back-pedal, my heartbeat accelerating and sweat glands pumping. Wild Man swaggers over the street.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on in your house, la’?’ I ask. ‘We almost got shot!’

  ‘Who the hell are these guys?’ Kelly asks.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about them,’ Wild Man says nonchalantly. ‘Come and meet them.’

  I arch my eyebrows at Kelly. She shakes her head.

  ‘Come on. They aren’t gonna shoot you if you’re with me.’

  Against my better judgement, I follow Wild Man.

  ‘This one’s Luis,’ Wild Man says. ‘He’s a coke dealer from Colombia, and these are his workers from Mexico.’

  Smiling thinly, Luis nods. The guns are gone, but I’m still trembling. The Mexicans disappear inside.

  ‘They like to move around a lot, so I’ve rented my place to them. They’re letting me stay in their old place across the street. I’ll move back in when they’re done here in a few weeks.’

  ‘Rented it out!’ I say.

  ‘They’re paying me in crack. They can’t believe how big a rock I can do in one hit. It’s amazing. It goes sizzle-sizzle, and thirty seconds later heart-attack heart-attack …’

  ‘Peter, I do drugs, but smoking crack with armed dealers! And you’ve only been here two weeks! Jesus Christ!’ I fear police trouble and losing my friend again.

  ‘You’d better be careful, Peter,’ Kelly says. ‘People do some weird shit on crack. I used to date some guy who started doing it and it fucked his world up, so I left him. Crack can make people with good lives and serious money lose everything. I had a friend who was a doctor who had mad, mad money, and he literally went to where he had nothing – lost his house, car, job, his practice and medical licence, to the point where he was living on the streets of Houston.’

  ‘I’ll take it easy on the crack,’ Wild Man says without conviction.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I say. ‘How’re you ever going to get a job if you’re doing all these drugs? And why didn’t you tell us you were moving them in? They could have shot us!’

  ‘No need to trip out, Shaun. They’re good people. Luis even wants to invest in the stock market with you. He’s a drug lord with a lot of money.’

  Yet again Wild Man ridicules the wrestling idea. I urge him to get a job and to try to live a normal life. He suggests becoming an airport porter. I help him fill out the application, list myself as a reference and buy him a bottle of Goldenseal to disguise the drugs in his system so that he’ll pass the urine test – but he still tests positive for multiple substances. Disappointed, frustrated, convinced he’ll get into trouble without work, I start doubting my ability to help him settle in America.

  A few weeks later, Aunty Ann calls my office: ‘Shaun, have you seen today’s headline news?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘They just showed Peter’s place with yellow tape around it. Someone’s been shot dead.’

  Worried about Wild Man, I almost drop the phone. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No. You’d better get up there.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m on my way.’

  I speed to Wild Man’s in record time. Shocked by what I see – a crowd pressing against yellow tape, TV crews, what looks like a dead body on the doorstep, police everywhere – I panic because I have drugs in the car and drive off. Back at my desk, I replay the scene in my mind, concerned my friend may be dead.

  Hours later, too agitated to work, I return. To my relief, the people and the dead body are gone. I park and get out. I approach the house apprehensively, my eyes lingering on the bloodstains on the doorstep, my stomach muscles clenched as if I’m anticipating a punch. My tension spikes as I push the door open and step inside. I’m greeted by the refrigerator Wild Man dragged from the kitchen and leaves open in an attempt to cool the room down, a white void buzzing like the insides of a robot, bare other than for a bottle of King Cobra Premium Malt Liquor. Hearing voices, I look to my right. On the sofa is Wil
d Man – I feel instant relief – sat upright like a pupil in a headmaster’s office, his customary fearless look gone, replaced by a stunned expression. The man looming over him is asking questions with an air of authority, his large, intense eyes enveloped by black circles as if he’s sleep deprived. His gaze freezes me. He introduces himself as a homicide detective.

  ‘I’m Shaun, Peter’s friend.’

  ‘The landlord says you rent this place for Peter, is that correct?’

  Intimidated by his deep voice and stern tone, I say, ‘Yes, I’m a stockbroker. I work down the street. He’s here on vacation. I put him by the English pub on Central Avenue, the George & Dragon, so he can hang out with other Brits.’

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘Goldstein & Associates.’

  As he scribbles on a notepad, I offer him my business card. Scrutinising it, he says, ‘Thanks. What’s your home address?’

  After answering, I ask, ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to determine. It seems a man shot himself dead with his own gun.’

  My mouth opens.

  ‘A visitor here was demonstrating his gun to Peter and he shot himself in the head.’

  Flabbergasted, I re-examine Wild Man’s face, which is stuck on shock as if his expression froze at the moment he witnessed the shooting; it’s a look that’ll probably take a long time to thaw out.

  After answering more questions, I say, ‘In your line of work, you must see some horrendous things. What’s the worst stuff you’ve ever investigated?’

  ‘You know about the female joggers going missing with their heads showing up in Salt River?’

  ‘It’s been all over the news.’

  ‘What the news didn’t tell you was how we caught the serial killer’s DNA.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘He was decapitating the victims and having sex with the heads so violently that when he ejaculated, his semen entered their skulls so deeply that the river didn’t wash all of it out.’

  A shiver runs through me.

  ‘Sick bastard,’ Wild Man says. ‘Some sick fuckers around here, aren’t there? I’ve only been here a few months, and I’ve just seen a suicide, and now you’re telling me there’s a guy running around shagging skulls?’