Chapter 2.
Strange nodded. “And that’s when you took your hand out of your pocket to shake his, and the finger fell out. They arrested you on the spot, no doubt.”
“No” Nat sighed. “That’s not what happened. The finger stayed in my pocket. I shook the guy’s hand, and they left. Though it probably would have turned out better if they had arrested me there and then” he added, wistfully.
“Interesting. Of course it would. But they knew, didn’t they? They had you marked. They were toying with you. Waiting to see your next move…”
Nat looked up at Strange quickly and shrugged. “Well, maybe they did, I don’t know. It’s not like they followed me or anything. Well, I don’t think so at least” he added, thoughtfully.
“Yes. I expect they did.” Strange held a self confident smirk on his lips, an air of maybe knowing just slightly too much, though Nat hadn’t, maybe, quite picked up on it yet. He exhaled deeply and the air shimmered from the alcohol on his breath. “You left the apartment, then?”
Nat’s eyes flicked up to him again, questioningly, and he nodded. Maker smiled. “Well you were hardly likely to stay there.”
Nat sighed. “No, I guess not. No, exactly, I wasn’t. I mean, the…”
“… place was a complete mess” Strange finished for him.
“Well, yeah, there was that, but I mean, it just felt… I don’t know, the finger, those mad policemen, I mean, I just had to get out of there. You know, I mean, shit, the place like, suddenly, had this weird vibe, and I couldn’t be sure that her body wasn’t still there…”
“So, maybe it was?”
“Yeah, well, maybe, anyway, I didn’t want to hang round to find out, it was like, suddenly, I couldn’t get out there fast enough. I mean, I cleaned myself up a bit, then I grabbed my coat, I grabbed my phone and my wallet, and that was it, I was out in the corridor, I was outside and in the rain before I even stopped…”
“And did you know where you were going?”
Nat scratched his head. “No… well, yes. Well,” he sighed, “I, I guess, it would have been good if I’d say, been able to crash out on a couch somewhere, like, you know, go and visit a friend, but…”
Strange reached forward, and held out the flask for him. “But what, Nathanial?”
“Well, it’s just that, I never really made any friends” He took the flask, drank.
“You had Joshua?”
“Well, yeah, I guess, but Joshua, you know. I mean, we went back, I hadn’t seen him for years. I mean, I do have friends, but well, I just seem to drift. Not for a long time. Some of my old, some of the people I knew from college, but it’s been a long time. I don’t know, I just find it hard. It’s just easier to, stay inside, read, you know…” He pushed himself back onto his bunk and turned the flask in his hands.
Strange smiled and took the flask from him. “And what does it matter, Nathanial? You go and see a friend, you go and stay in a hotel, you still end up here, in the end, you still have that finger in your pocket. You still wake up in the morning not sure where you are, what you’ve done. Imagine if you’d seen the news and it was your friend there, lying in an alleyway, with a broken neck. Imagine that, how would you have felt?”
Nat looked at Strange, looked blankly ahead, through him. “You think maybe that’s why? You think maybe I’m holding myself back from making friends. You know, look, this is what will happen?” His voice was pleading, eager. “You think maybe it’s that, it’s not that I’m just boring?”
Strange laughed. “How the hell should I know? I do crime, not psychology. All I care about is whose finger it was. And why you’re here, of course.”
Nat smiled sadly. “Yes. Of course.”
“So, you didn’t go and stay with a friend. You don’t have any. You went to a hotel?”
“Yeah. Well, in the end at least. I didn’t plan it that way, to be honest. I didn’t really plan anything. But I was stood outside my block, and it was raining. And at first, I just started walking, you know, up the street.”
“Up the street” Strange nodded.
“Yeah, that’s right, up the street. I hadn’t even thought to take an umbrella, I don’t even have an umbrella, to be honest, I never really liked them. I mean, they get too…”
“Yes, umbrellas, I agree. But stick with the story, please, Nathan.”
“Sorry. The point was, I was getting soaked. I mean, my jacket wasn’t even waterproof, and the rain, it was so heavy. I tried to pretend at first that it didn’t matter, I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice it, but I could feel the water, clinging to my skin, I could feel myself starting to shiver, you know, it’s mad, it was the middle of summer. So, I almost turned back, but then, well, then there was the pub in front of me. The Builder’s Arms. It’s all right. I mean, I love pubs. Well, I used to love them, I used to use any excuse to go in, but you know, since, I, don’t, well, I just don’t like going in alone. I mean, who does, right. You know, you wonder and think that everyone’s looking at you, poor sad fucker on their own, right. I used to. Sad fucker, sitting there, nursing his drink. What if they come and talk to me?”
He looked up at Richard, as if pleading, as if hoping he’d understand.
“And it’s true. You don’t have any friends. I’m guessing that made it even harder?”
Maybe Nat was getting a little drunk, a little carried away, but his head jerked up sharply. “How do you know I haven’t got any friends?” he spat. “What business is it of yours?”
“You just told me, not two minutes ago.” Strange smiled benignly.
“I did? Oh yeah, I did. Yeah, well, exactly. But you know what? This time, I did go in. I was cold, wet and miserable, and I knew it, a little bit, and it was like an old pub, lots of small places. I figured I could just go and hide myself in one. You know what I mean? Right. So, I went in, and I remember this, it was warm, it was dark but warm, as I went inside, and I looked round, there were only a few people inside…”
There were only a few people inside as Nat shook himself down, ran his finger through his long and greasy hair and watched the water drip to the ground. He glanced up and caught the bartender’s eye (sad bastard). He didn’t smile… too sad… but put his left hand firmly down on the counter. He glanced at the beers on tap.
“A pint of Destruction please.” His voice was croaking and rough. The barman glanced at him, glanced at the clock, and nodded. As the beer slowly flowed into the glass, Nat felt a chill go through him. He gulped. “And a Tallisker Storm please.”
“Right you are” said the barman, without even looking up.
The back of the pub was darker still, and he sat at a small booth, on a torn leather bench, by himself. The whisky took the edge off things, and he lent back, allowing himself into the warmth for a second, before starting on his pint. I’m not much of a drinker, he thought. But Christ, what do I do with this mess.
“The candles blown out too soon?” Nat’s head snapped up – he felt a little wobbly already – and found himself looking at the barman, who seemed to have sat down opposite him. Tall, gruff, big, with a smart short sleeved black shirt hiding the edges of old tattoos (faded by sunlight), a rough face, well worn, a thick beard and sour breath. And a half smile on his lips.
“Err, I’m sorry?” He put his pint down.
The barman laughed. “Don’t worry. I can see cultural references are lost on you.” He leaned forward and smiled. “Don’t you have anything else to do, except sit and drink yourself to oblivion on a rainy Saturday lunchtime? Like, maybe, a job? Or lying in bed with your girlfriend?”
Nat sniffed. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
The barman leant back and studied Nat. He reached over, took Nat’s pint and sipped it. “Hmm, not bad.” He chuckled. “No girlfriend, no job, of course.” He nodded. “I know you.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have a …” started Nat, but the barman interrupted.
“Look at you, how old? Twenty fiv
e?”
“Err, twenty eight, actually…” Nat coughed, and shivered. He suddenly felt very cold, his clothes were drenched and the warming effect of the alcohol had started to fade. He looked over for his pint, held fast in the grip of the barman. “Erm, do you think I could…” he gestured forward but the barman ignored him.
“I know you” he said again. “I’ve seen you so many times, with your broken dreams and your broken heart. What happened, she kicked you out, I guess. A sad loser, with no job. Drinking the days away. And now you’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“Well, I’ve got my flat. Although…”
“Although it’s lonely and empty? Fading memories of love lost, stark reminders of a broken heart? I’m guessing you took your aggression out on it, am I right? You broke a couple of windows, maybe a mirror. I’m telling you, it doesn’t help. Look…” and he held out his right hand, balled up in to a fist. Criss crossing scars ran across the hand, into the knuckles. “The first time it happened to me. Took a whole set of lights out. Almost started a fire.” The barman sighed, looking back to what may have been a better time. He shoved the pint back across to Nat, who closed his eyes in relief. “Never again. You see…”
“Err… excuse me?” they both looked up. A young couple stood there, holding hands, looking uncertain. They must have just been in their late teens. The boy had spoken, his voice uncertain, his hair dripping wet, falling over his face.
The barman stared at them, and they both took a step back. The girl, small, thin, ragged, tugged on the boy’s shirt, but he cleared his throat. “Erm, do you know if…” he addressed the barman, but there must have been something that he saw, because he didn’t finished, they both turned away and walked out quickly.
The barman turned back to Nat. “You see? He’ll be back here soon, by himself. Then he’ll thank me. Then we’ll all be here, we’ll all sit here together and laugh about old times, won’t we?” He sniffed and looked up. “I remember when I was your age. Thought I had it all. Then something just changes. And then you find yourself… you’re not even chasing dreams anymore. You’re chasing shadows that once used to be dreams. And serving drinks to people who want to bury their own dreams, who want to sit in a corner and forget. What are you running from, what are you trying to escape?”
“I…” Nat started. He wondered briefly why he was about to tell a complete stranger that he thought he might have killed someone. Why would he talk to this lonely, middle aged man, this man who thought he was more than he was.
It’s because I trust people, he said to Strange. It’s because you don’t have any friends, Strange said. You need to talk to someone.
Just someone to listen to. Instead, he muttered, “I don’t know….”
“Of course you don’t” the barman sighed. “Let me tell you what you are. You know those disaster movies, right? You remember them, yeah? You know what happens, right, the hero always just manages to escape. Fights his way out of a tunnel where a meteor’s just landed, or ten thousand alien troops are trying to eat him alive, or something, right? Or her of course, it could be a woman, I’m not being sexist, it’s just we’re all men here, so let’s assume it was a man. You know what I mean, don’t you? Of course you do. Well, have you ever wondered, have you ever thought, what happens to everyone else? Of course you haven’t, no one ever does, because it’s the hero we identify with, it’s the hero we all think we are, or we could be, isn’t it? I could do that, we think, if I just had a bit more luck. But you know what, you’re not. You’re everyone else. That’s where you’d really be, you’d be the man who screams as the earth opens up and swallows him whole, or who trips and falls into the lava and melts. You’d be the man caught in the car as the fireball sweeps through the tunnel, and we’d just glimpse your face against the window before you explode. You understand? You’re just the lush in the corner, and if you’re lucky you get to speak your line, order your drink to forget before you’re swept up and forgotten in the search for a real hero. That’s you. You’re incidental. You don’t matter. You’ll stumble out of this bar and go back to your incidental life.”
“So what should I do” whispered Nat.
The barman leaned forward and looked intently at Nat. “I’ve seen so many people like you come in here, searching for something, and then stumble back out into the world, and you know what, I think that so many of them, they end up face down in the dirt, or worse, face up in a pool of their own blood. I just try to help.” He reached out and grasped Nat’s wrist. “Tell me, is that what you want?”
Nat gulped. “No.”
The barman smiled. He extended his hand. Nat took it tentatively and found, predictably, he guessed, his hand crushed in the man’s. “Jake is my name. Jake Smith. How do you do.”
“Nat.” His voice was hoarse.
“Hello Nat. Tell me, are you one of those men? Have you got the strength to stand up and face your demons, or will you give in to them? Will you let them push you down?”
“Most people do” he added. “I didn’t.” He looked down at himself. “I picked myself up, shook myself down and went clean. Totally sober, for a long time. How long? Doesn’t matter. The fact is I did it. And now I run a bar. And I see people. People like you, Nat, who are just so willing to walk head first into oblivion. And sometimes I tell them. No, I don’t tell them, I ask them. Do you know what I ask them?”
Nat shrugged, but the barman didn’t really notice. “I ask them if they are worth fighting for. I look them in the eye, like I’m doing with you, now, Nat, and I ask them, are you a man worth fighting for. Or a woman, of course, I’m not sexist. Just that it’s mainly men. You tell me now, Nat. Are you a man worth fighting for?”
Nat stared at him. And the barman leaned back and laughed, a huge, echoing laugh that filled the empty space.
…”And this is relevant because?” asked Strange.
“Don’t you want to know what I answered?”
Strange shrugged. “Does it have a bearing on why you are in here?”
Nat scratched his head. “I’m not sure, really. To be honest I wanted to get out of that pub as quickly as I could. I mean, it’s not like I knew this guy or anything. I don’t remember him, I mean, I didn’t remember him. I don’t think so at least. And it was, like, doing my head in, you know…”
Strange nodded. “You’d run away from a crime you may have committed, you’d had an unpleasant encounter with some detectives, and as luck would have it, you were lectured by a barman who thought he was a philosopher.”
“Yeah, a pretty lousy one. Spends half an hour telling me I’m a loser, and drinks my pint. Come to think of it, he told me he was sober, and then he drank my pint.”
Strange smiled. “I had noticed the inconsistency. I was wondering if you had picked it up. Clearly you have, but just now, recounting it to me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not the detective.” Nat chewed his nails. He tried to take another drink from the flask, but it was empty. He pulled himself off his bunk.
The cell was small enough that they were close together and Nat could smell Strange’s sweat, his breath, the heat that came off his fat body. He wanted to get back into his bunk but he needed to stand, even it was just pacing up and down. He could have done worse, he guessed, looking at Strange. He wondered if he really was a, what was it, a private investigator, or whether he was just a sad, lonely old man who spent too much of his life in prison. Someone who built up fantasies about himself so he could appear more interesting, or make his life more bearable. And spend his hours listening to the stories of his cell mates, drawing them, eking them out into something. Still, he thought, none are stranger than mine, I don’t think. And what’s the harm, if this man is going to leave me alone, best to have a friend. Prison was like a black empty void to Nat, he remembered his dread, his fear, his utter terror on his way here, nothing to fill that void except for stories of gangs, of rape, of the currency of cigarettes, of dope and AIDS and hepatitis and the prisoner’s life,
the recurring whirlpool of smaller and smaller circles until nothing is left. If it’s like this, he thought, well, maybe, it’s not so bad. What’s a little cirrhosis, he chuckled to himself, as he felt the effects of whatever he had been drinking.
He looked at Strange, his pock marked, blotched face, his soft brown eyes (kindly or, what’s the word, predatory – let’s settle on kindly), his old man’s half formed, white stubble, and he swallowed and smiled. Strange’s breath, with its sweetly sour tinge, gave him sudden a sense of déjà vu and he shook his head, trying to grasp hold of something…
“And how did you leave your relationship with your new friend?” Strange’s question brought him back.
“God, well I don’t really know. He kind of told me to sort myself out, go back and see my girlfriend, you know, he was convinced I’d had a huge quarrel with her…”
“I know”
“…. And I say her,” Nat laughed, “as if she existed, whereas I don’t even have a girlfriend…”
“Another fact I know”
“but anyway, that’s where he kind of left it, I think he thought he was doing me a favour, stopped me throwing myself under a car, or something, but in any case, I remember… I was back on the street. At least it had stopped raining, it had become quite sunny to be honest. You know the way you feel better about things, sometimes, when it’s warm and sunny. Well that’s what I remember, it was a little like that, at first at least. I remember standing out in the sun and blinking, getting used to the light again, and I remember my head spinning a little, I guess because I had had a few drinks, and I’m not used to drinking a lot at least…”
“You had mentioned that”
“Come to think of it” said Nat, “you don’t have any more of…” he nodded his head at the flask. Strange smiled and put his arm on Nat’s shoulder. Nat could feel himself bristle, but didn’t react.
“Don’t worry, my friend. More will come. Just be patient.”
“More will come from where?”
Strange smiled. “Be patient. Carry on with your story. I’m curious to see what you did next.”
Nat sighed. “Well, I didn’t really know what to do. I mean, it’s not like I just had a girl to go back to and make up with. I just stood there, thinking about my flat, and how much of a mess it was. And thinking about this girl, Terri, and her finger, which was still in my pocket, and what the hell had happened to her. I still don’t get it, to be honest, I still can’t put the pieces together…” he trailed off. Strange lent back and tapped his fingers gently against the tiny metal desk, waiting for him to continue.
“But I didn’t know that then. I was just thinking of those detectives, those mad guys, and how I really wanted to avoid another conversation with them. And, well, what am I going to do with my flat. You know, I just couldn’t face it. And I’d wanted to go into the pub to think a bit, to work out what I was going to do next, not to have some lecture on the crappiness of my life. You know, it was like, try and track down Joshua. Sort out my flat, like maybe, tap my parents up for a bit of cash, that was going through my mind, but also, like, what was I going to do. Maybe I should go and see someone, ask them about these blackouts that I have. You know, to be honest, it’s been something that I’ve been avoiding. You know, what if, like, it’s something really serious? You know what I mean?” He looked at Strange imploringly.
Strange smiled. “So instead you choose the utterly sensible course of just ignoring it.”
“Yeah, well. It’s easier isn’t it. And then of course there’s the other thing…”
“By the other thing, I am assuming you are referring to your fear that you become a sort of Mr. Hyde, an irrational monster, during these periods of blackout.”
“Yeah, exactly. Mr. Hyde, that’s good, yeah, that’s exactly right. I hadn’t thought of that before. Do you think that’s it? Does that happen, do you know?”
Strange took a long breath, and reached into his pocket. He took out a small box, that he put carefully on the table, and then found a packet of Rizla paper.
“I can only say that it’s not a phenomenon that I’ve come across”. He looked down as he pulled out a sheet and tapped some tobacco into it.
“Are you going to smoke in here?” Nat asked. Strange looked up. “I’m assuming it won’t bother you” he said quietly. Nat could feel his face flush as Strange looked at him intently, calmly. They stayed like that for what must have been a minute, before Nat swallowed. “No, of course not.”
Strange dropped his gaze and rolled his cigarette slowly, methodically, before putting it to his lips. “Please carry on.” He hadn’t lit it yet.
“Erm, where was I?”
“You were contemplating what your next move would be.”
“Yeah, right, of course. Well, anyway, the point is I guess, I ended up checking into a hotel. You know, the Moorhouse, I think that’s what it was called. On the canal… no of course, what am I saying, why would you know it…”
“Why indeed”
“Anyway, it seemed like a good idea. You know, get a decent night’s sleep, sit in the bar, I would be able to just think and do a few things. You know, maybe call Joshua, or at least find his number. I also thought I could see if I could find anything about Terri. I don’t know. You know, on Facebook or something, see if she had posted anything, I thought, show that she was OK…”
“Presumably the police had already done that…” Strange lit his cigarette exhaled. Smoke filled the cell quickly and Nat couldn’t help but cough. “I hope it’s not disturbing you” Strange said, but didn’t look up. “Facebook, other social media. The police start there now. If someone’s missing. It’s much harder to disappear.”
“Yeah, well, you’re right, of course, but I didn’t think. I needed to do something…”
“Of course you did. And were you able to check into this Moorhouse, and contact your friend?”
“He isn’t really my friend” Nat talked quickly, then, “well, actually, I didn’t need to. I mean, I got over to the hotel, they had a room, I checked in and everything and then went down to the bar. Just like I said I was going to do. You know, sometimes you can feel really self-conscious, can’t you? And I almost thought, well I’ll stay in my room. But I didn’t, I went to the bar and ordered a beer, and sat on my own, there. A couple of sips, and I felt a little better. I told myself, I’ll try and find Joshua’s number, then I’ll call him, then maybe I…”
“But you didn’t need to…” interrupted Strange.
“No, that’s right, I didn’t, because he called me instead.”
White Eyes Page 2