Wretchedness Page 7

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  The flowers. What was that thing about the flowers? When Moosmann played Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler there in the cathedral – I could see the fractal structures, how the variations carried us on through the days, one after another, and then yet another, and yet another, year after year, like falling, softly fluted petals, falling, pinkish-white, red and lizard-green, sweet-scented and trembling – I was already sitting on the steps outside, waiting for Argo, crumbling fag butts into a new Rizla, and I heard someone shout: bro! We’d docked at some new nameless port and the others were off to some K-1 gala, but me and Argo wanted to dance so we rang around a bit and got some intel, needed to kill a couple of hours so we headed down to the mega-Tesco, bought some cranberry juice, found a spot in the southern corner of the park and drank our vodka Polski-style, as Darek called it, a slug of booze from the bottle, two slugs of juice from the carton. Argo called me a barbarian. I said that if I was a barbarian I would have been sleeping with him. He said: you can if you want. You sucked that Italian’s cock, didn’t you? I’ll take care of you like no woman ever has. You know that was a mistake, I said. It was more about self-destruction than sexuality, you get me. He grimaced. You’ll be the first person I’ll call when I come out of the closet, I said. Promise me. I promise. You know, it doesn’t mean you’re gay. What? If you bang me. It’s like in the clink. The one giving isn’t affected. Like in Agadir. I’ve never got as much cock as I did there, but if I’d said to those guys that they were queer they’d have killed me, literally beaten me to death. I was the queer one. They were manly hetero men who were just putting it in a hole, it made no difference whether I was man, woman, animal, black, white, green or meatloaf. You get me? Yeah, I mean, but then I’m a little more sophisticated than that, right. Of course. Fuck, I forgot, you read Mr Whoreman Hesse and you know how to spell fook all. Exactly, except his name is Hermann. Herr Hermann Hesse. OK good. We’ve got it straight. You’re not a barbarian, not gay, not even bi, you’re simply a sophisticated hetero. Must be lonely. But maybe you could fuck one of those high horses you love sitting on so much. I laughed. Maybe I will, Argo. As long as they’re female, that is. What do they call them? Mare, filly? I’ll let you know if it ever goes down, so you can watch. So you can toss off to my thrusting backside. Ooh, so generous, darling. But you know, queens don’t sit there staring into horses’ cunts. No, they probably don’t use the word cunt either. Fuck you. They do sometimes, if they’re sufficiently provoked by overstrung hetero-nerds who’d rather sleep with filthy speed-freak slags than shake off their inhibitions. Stop now, I didn’t sleep with her and it was a mistake anyway. You know what I’ve been thinking. Honestly. When we were in that club the first time. All those Muscle Marys, I was actually scared for real. Yeah, they can be really grotesque. Yeah, but I don’t mean it that way. I mean I saw how big and strong they were, that they wanted to screw me and I had no way of stopping them. I went to the gents and there were three of them in there, dancing in the piss fumes. It was absurd. Grinding, bare-chested, sweaty, bottle-bronzed packs of muscle. They made me think of those He-Man figures the other boys had when I was little, and they called me cutey and leaned forward over the urinals to look at my floppy dick and made comments so I couldn’t piss and it took even longer. And I thought fuck, if they wanted to they could rape me easy as that. Argo laughed. But sweetheart, Muscle Marys can never get it up. All those steroids they stuff themselves with, and the shit they take when they go out. They look hard and they glisten, but inside they’re rotten. It’s like they’ve stopped working. But it makes no difference whether they can get it up or not. It’s not about that. The interesting thing is that I thought about it, that I experienced something totally new to me, this vulnerability, that their attention was violent in some way. Cody, may I introduce you to your feminine side. Feminine side, here’s your ignorant dude side. Well yeah, that’s what I thought too, actually. The link between masculinity and that threatening quality, the sexual violence, or whatever you call it. Interesting. Interesting, you think? You weren’t scared enough, it seems. What do you mean? You have a lot to learn, man. Shit, I can’t be bothered with all this chat, it’s too much. It’s Friday night, party time. Got to start work soon for fuck’s sake. Give the bottle here. We should head to the club soon. Argo burped, took two big gulps from the bottle and grimaced. Later we took a taxi to Anodyne. People were saying that some new genius was going to be playing there with Aril Brikha. In the taxi Argo put his hand on my thigh. I looked at him and laughed. We hugged and he said: you know. If I could have done it in a nice way I probably would have raped you. I patted him on the head. Better grow a few inches taller first, I said. There were a lot of people outside the club, a warm evening light, I immediately felt a joy of some kind burst through me, a warmth in my chest, a pride, a delight, I was alive, I wasn’t dead, and as if that wasn’t enough, I was enjoying this shitty life. We said hi to a few friends, then dived down into the darkness. Argo paid for me to get in and immediately vanished with some guy, I bought a soft drink, took an E and waited for it to kick in. Suddenly I can smell shit. When I look around I see that a girl who’s standing near me is also screwing up her face. Our eyes meet and we start talking about the shit-stink. I start telling her about this basement club in Belgrade. During the NATO bombings they carried on as normal then one night the next building was hit by a bomb, making the sewage in the club overflow. Thousands of litres of shitty water streamed out across the dance floor. We were literally wading in shit, I say. People were puking, and some left, but most stayed there, went on dancing, it was totally magical, totally fucked. Ah, so you were there, she says. Course, I say with a grin. Then she tells me a story about this violent party in the Globe, Shakespeare’s theatre in London, a bloody orgy that took place in the 1600s, and she tells me she was there, that she took part in the orgiastic bloodletting, that she remembers it as though it were yesterday. Interesting, I say, tell me more, we laugh and I notice she has a large birthmark on her cheek, far back, right by her ear, I lean forward and I can see it’s covered with tiny little strands of hair, the thin, pale fluff you get on brown or black liver spots, what’s your name, I ask, and she shakes her head and opens her eyes wide and says: not Eurydice in any case, you tramp, and I regret dropping that E but it’s too late, I say as much to her and she shrugs and says it’s my loss and we start talking and after a while I start to feel myself gliding away, her voice sounds weird, sped-up, pitched-up, and she says it’s a shame, but it’s my loss, as she said, and she touches me and the touch is soft and gentle and I say yeah it is a shame, I want to stay there and kiss her, but my body’s moving, it’s jerking, and I say sorry I have to go now, lean forward and give her a kiss on the cheek, it’s even softer and I melt into her and go into a labyrinth wall of singular light and sound, an autonomous space, a distinct time, it’s warm and soft there too, but faster, a pulsating, titillating, all-embracing dance, and I try to capture the sound with my body and pour out and dissolve and try to capture the light with my eyes, red and green beams shoot into my head and then there’s someone shaking me, are you OK? he asks, better than OK, magnificent, or how should I put it, it felt so good when you put your arm round my shoulder, did you know that, and then a new wave of sound comes, it enters me and I think where are you Argo, where did you go, I miss you now, I want you to embrace me and I send that thought off, something jabs my side but I can drive away the bad feeling, I know how to do it, the guy asks again, far away, are you OK? My eyes roll. For fuck’s sake, course I’m OK, what’s the problem, it’s fine, I say, it’s fine, I can take it, and then it continues and it continues, and then they turn on the lights and everything is suddenly ugly with sound that slices into your brain and the thing that raises the hairs on the back of my neck when I know that living is going to cause me pain for a while now, and I’m thirsty and I’m trying to find something that can help delay it but everything is slicing in now, everything’s trashy and filthy, slack, bright, blindi
ng, a guy’s begging me for pills, I’m following someone else around, I don’t know them, we go out into the street, I’m talking to someone else I don’t know about going to some after-party with them, he looks like someone’s trodden on his face, I think, someone’s looking at me in disgust, they call it nachspiel, someone’s passing me a line, I don’t know what it is but sniff it up into my skull anyway, ketamine I guess, sniff it far up, all the way up, as though I’ve got a special compartment for it right in the top of my head, a glowing bubble of slow light and leaden force, I’m looking for Argo, feeling like the Pink Panther or that guy with all the silly walks, everyone’s disappearing in front of me, I’m in a cab with even more people I don’t know, counting my money, just a few coins, the others are talking, I look at their faces for a long time, thinking that maybe I should recognise one of them, but no, I don’t, and we’re getting out at a metro station I’ve never seen before, and weirdly I can’t see any sign or anything that says where we are, we’re walking past a buzz stop, I mean a bus stop, where real people are standing and it feels like they’re staring at me, I’m telling them there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all, without actually knowing what I mean by that, then we’re going into a narrow stairwell, there are clothes on the floor, a leather belt which I put round my neck, as a joke, but I’m thinking of stealing it, then up two, three flights of stairs, it’s like in a film or something, there are people lying on the floor in a bedroom, there’s music in the room too, gross chill-out that probably fulfils some function and goes nicely with the nurse porn that’s on the TV, I find Budd and Eno’s The Pearl and put a track on, but this guy starts going crazy, saying it’s depressing, that people might start having bad trips and killing themselves, and I’m telling him he’s a real fucking imbecile, and if I hadn’t been so caned I’d have smashed his nasal bone up into his brain, and I’m wondering where this aggression is coming from and sitting down on the floor, feeling dizzy, mercy, show a little mercy, I’m thinking, and I see a large mortar on the carpet in front of me, looks like marble but I guess it’s plastic, but no, this girl is really crushing tablets in it, and sending round a glass plate and a mirror, or a CD, I’m licking the shiny surface and someone’s mouth, I can’t really see what it is, but it’s probably the CD, and in the stairwell they’re sucking each other off, I’m thinking about the Italians, the baby in the squat, suddenly feel sick, in several different ways, have to change tack, I go out into the kitchen, sit at the table, stare down into a cleavage, after a while someone slaps my cheek, hello, you OK? she says, course I’m OK, no, better than that, I’m happy, and I’m listening, they’re talking about a raid, I’m saying I hate the five-o so fucking much, with all my heart, I say, and I’m talking about my childhood, about how much we hated the five-o when I was a kid, how we’d throw stones at cop cars, how we set fire to a police station, and I spin some tragic story for them, they’re captivated, gawping at me, I feel like a bit of a twat but carry on talking anyway, and we’re smoking and drinking plain lemon water someone’s made, or perhaps there’s sugar in it, perhaps it’s lemonade, it’s good anyway, mind-bogglingly good, I’m sitting there talking, I don’t know what I’m talking about any more, I’m making a case for something, or against something, but three or four people are sitting around me, listening, sending round a spliff, and I’m talking and two of them fall asleep and I’m talking even more and then I’m leaving the kitchen and walking past the guy with the CD and I’m thinking I’m going to nut him but I just grin at him instead, and then I wake up in an armchair cos someone’s driven a knife straight into the back of my head, I get up and look out of the window, see a salad and a glass of white wine, it’s lunchtime at an open-fronted cafe, I think, and the whiteness of the white shirt astounds or astonishes or assaults me and causes me pain, and I think about how I need to find the toilet now, the pain is tearing my head apart as though a razor blade was running through my brain down into my spine, I get to the bathroom and kneel in front of the toilet and try to vomit up the sharpness but it’s stuck, it’s stuck fast, I think perhaps this is death, and I almost want to die to escape the pain, it’s clear and pure now, like icicles, as though my brain had frozen and was on its way to kill me from the inside with an ice-cold fire and I don’t want to live with that, I think, and stick my fingers down my throat, far down, with big, circling motions, as though I was finger-fucking myself in the throat, I think, as though I had a cunt in my face, I think, and despite the unbearableness of everything I want to laugh at that but I can’t, and in the end a little liquid comes up but it just hurts my stomach and my throat and my head goes on splitting and pulling me apart, and I think, I can’t handle this, I can’t handle it, what should I do? I think, what should I do? what should I do? I think a thousand times and I just walk around in a panic, like a pathetic little idiot kid who’s lost their parents, everything’s unreal, the loneliness is unreal, the pain is unreal, no, hyperreal, the loneliness is hyperreal too, everyone’s sleeping, I’m walking around with a knife in my skull, walking around for, I don’t know, what feels like hours, but is probably only ten or fifteen minutes, it feels like the whole day and then it lifts, it just runs away, onwards, and I’m absolutely worn out, a little glad I survived, and I lie down in the armchair again, I find a long butt, which I smoke, then fall asleep again, then wake and ring Dima. Bratku, wassup? Yeah, yesterday was a lot, but I’m chilling now. Feel like letting loose a bit, man, where are you? The rail yard. On my way. The picturesque groups found in the slum are such that a photographer takes pictures even though his compositional and artistic instincts tell him that the conditions required to take good pictures are, practically speaking, non-existent. The result: a bad image, but not nearly as wretched as the place itself. Wassup Dee, I see you’ve brought your friends, she says, and looks at me. I stick out a paw. Cody, I say. Belladonna Hex, she says, with a big grin. But you can call me Porca Miseria. I hesitate. She laughs. Repeats my name thoughtfully and takes my hand. I look around me. Filthy sofas and yellowy-green walls covered with posters and tags, two crying children, one with a Hitler moustache drawn on, the other with a cock on its forehead and a cunt on its mouth. Just kidding, it’s a pleasure, Mr Cody, do they call you Codeine? Hahaha. Sorry, that was bad. She turns to open the safe. Metalheadz logo tattooed on her neck. Her vertebrae stick out. I light a fag and someone gives me a glass of mineral water with something added, says: want some? I down it in one, a weak taste of urine on my tongue afterwards. Argo, Becca, Jakord, Dima. Everyone was there. Everyone but Mum and Dad, hahaha. And the prince, of course, gone, what kind of monarchy is that? What are you up to? Kurwa, don’t you remember how it always smelled of cat’s piss when you went round to Olga’s place, there was something about the coffee, something about the acid, ammonia, or whatev— Ah, Cody? With a C? Yeah. Come On Die Young, hahaha! Right? Isn’t it a bit late for that, Becca says. Cody, hahaha! No, not too late. I reckon you’d draw the line at twenty-seven or twenty-eight, I think, thirty maybe. What are you, eighteen, nineteen? Twenty. Twenty, you see, plenty of time. Hehe. Come on, die young, hahaha. You’re not quite with me, right? No not exactly. ‘Not exactly’… Shit, you’re pretty macho, aren’t you, hahaha. Macho man. What? Me? No. The others chime in. Macho-Smatcho. Ignore her. Did you know Buffalo Bill was called Cody? Who the fuck’s Buffalo Bill? Biffalo Bull or Bullfight Betty. Aha, you’re ridiculing me, what’s the word, getting all delirious up in my face, to distract me, right, but I can vomit words too, what the fuck do you want? Something glimmers in her eyes as she mixes the stuff with a practised hand, her arms covered in scars and tattoos, burns: yeah yeah. Your choice, I can play too. Understanding is overrated: when you leave the shit behind you, you find you’ve turned to shit yourself. So mark my words, die young now, man, die young now, bro, die young now. Come on, die young, die young now, die now. Cody, what a joke. She gave me the rucksack. Said: you give it to Slovak, he gives you the money. It’s simple. Don’t screw it up. And then she went out, but she gave
me a note: Come On Die Young. What’s that supposed to mean? She’s just testing you, said Dima. What are you scared of? I wanted to say to her. But it’s not worth it, cos you can’t understand what she’s saying. Like it’s nonsense, or she’s talking in code. It’s like you have to have been part of it from the beginning, or have some fucking handbook, a cheat sheet, what do they call it out East, Dima? Legenda! Exactly. You need a fucking legenda! And Hex came back with a massive grin. Crackers/buddyboo/8er, as we used to say, bitch. You, white, uncircumcised man, please be so good as to show me. Your glans are more sensitive, I’ve heard, that’s why you shoot your loads after three seconds. And can’t handle the old grabandbitegames, always choosing the toothless old crones at the whorehouse. Catholic, you say? No shit, you’ll have to confess your sins later, I’m a good listener. OK dear, seriously now. Criminal record? Bailiffs? Defaulted debts? Documented drug abuse? Biometrics? That’s good, Cody, we should be able to find something for you. We’ve got a job for everyone, we’ve got a place for each and every person who needs one. Cody, she mumbled, it can’t be fucking true, you know, die young now, my friend, before it’s too late. Or actually, do what you want. Makes no difference. Whatever happens, the person you are now is going to die, and die young, either because you stay who you are – in which case this life will kill you – or because you’ll become a different person, you’ll always be carrying your own corpse within you, you know, like something that lies beneath everything, behind everything, between everything. So now you know, she smiled. OK, you can go now, go and read your Ave Marias. Pax vobiscum, or whatever it’s called, we’ll see what happens, you little manyook.