Tony Black - Long Time Dead

‘I’ve got to whet my thrapple, mate… Been too long on the dry bus.’

Hod arked up, ‘Are you off yer nut?’

‘Whoa-whoa…’ was I the one up to my sack in shit here? Well, yes, but that wasn’t stopping me playing the heavy hand. I needed a drink desperately now. ‘I’ll take no lectures from Porty’s answer to Stig of the fucking Dump.’

He marched over to the other side of the room, dragged out another cardboard box. It was full of cartons of UHT milk and packets of Complan, the build-up drink. ‘This is all you’ll be drinking, Gus!’ He picked up the box, started ripping into the contents.

‘Complan… What the…? Are you serious?’

‘Need to build you up, Gus, it’s part of the plan!’

‘What fucking plan?’ I wasn’t having this. I didn’t want any more looking after. I’d had enough of that from Debs, and look how that had ended – her walking out, leaving me nothing, not even the dog. The thought stung, but I knew she was better off without me.

‘Here, look, it’s strawberry. Who doesn’t like strawberry milk-shake? Get it down you, come on… You’ll be well on the mend after a few of these shakes.’

‘Hod, I have enough shakes as it is!’ I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘Have you no Grouse?’

He walked forward, thrust the glass tumbler into my hand. ‘Drink!’

‘ No !’

‘Do I have to hold your nose and pour it down your throat?’

‘You could fucking try…’

He did.

Hod’s strength seemed superhuman to me; I couldn’t even muster a struggle. When my pathetic put-up was over, I had a frothy mouthful of milkshake left, which I spat at him. Didn’t have the power to put any force in it, though: the lot leapt in a low arc for a millisecond before landing on my shirtfront.

Hod laughed. ‘That’s piss weak, Dury.’

‘Fuck off.’ Pink bubbles came out my nostrils.

He went off again: ‘Piss weak…’

I pulled myself together, tried to land a punch on his arm but my wrist collapsed behind my fist and I ended up shrieking like a schoolgirl, shaking out the pain of it. ‘Ahh, Christ.’

‘Look, cool the beans, Gus. I have a plan.’

This I did not want to hear. All Hod’s plans, with few exceptions, had seen me setting up shop on Shit Street. They invariably involved broken bones, time inside, and a bundle of regrets.

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Shut up.’ He strolled out the room, returned with a manila envelope. There seemed to be something bulky inside.

‘I hope that’s dosh.’

Wide smiles. ‘Good as!’ He chucked me the envelope.

As I ripped into the contents, I couldn’t believe what he had handed me.

‘Tell me this is a joke.’

‘Joke?’ Hod crossed his brows. ‘Fuck no… this is our only hope.’

I put my hand in the envelope and took out one of the small white cards that read, Gus Dury, Private Investigator . I put it back, said, ‘You have to be kidding.’

‘No way. This is primo.’

I held up the cards. ‘Hod, tell me, how many packets of Bazooka Joes did you need to save for these?’

He looked wounded, stood rolling on the balls of his feet. ‘I thought they would help with the case… y’know, the actress, Gillian Laird. She’s paying top poppy, I thought-’

‘No, Hod, you didn’t fucking think… My days of running after rainbows are well and truly over. Check the nick of me – I’m done, Hod. And that’s my final word on it… Done .’

I LEFT HOD AND HIS grand plan to simmer. Grabbed a dusty cushion off the floor, drop-kicked it against the wall and sat. My mind was swimming. I knew I was at the end of my rope. A prayer away from the grave. The trembling began again in my chest. The whole cavity felt suffused with fire – like hot coals had been shovelled into me. I knew only one thing would cool it: if I didn’t have a drink soon the bats would be back, swooping me, clearing the way for the vampire monkeys that always followed them. I started to shake. My head hurt – worse than usual – and a cold line of sweat was forming on my spine. I looked at my hands; they were in an all-out flap. Tried to sit on them but it only made my whole body tremble. Oh, sweet Lord… get me a drink before I die.

‘Gus, look… I’ve never asked you for anything before.’ Hod approached again, looming over me. ‘I really need this.’

I looked up to meet his gaze but his head was turned the other way. Like Bogart’s beggar in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , he just couldn’t ask another man for help and look him in the eye. I felt an enormous weight of responsibility descend on me. Hod needed me, but I also needed him.

I said, ‘Right, do as I say, no questions, and I’ll see what I can do.’

He turned to me. ‘Okay.’

‘Go out that door, down those stairs, and bring me back a bottle of scoosh.’

‘Gus… I-’

‘Hod, if you don’t I won’t last the fucking night!’

He looked down on me, dark eyes pleading, then the resigned face, well-worn by the loved ones of alcoholics, appeared.

He went for the door.

As he left I was suddenly surrounded by the blackness. I knew the hallucinations were coming back. I sensed them creeping up on me, like a child who expects nightmares. I had felt pain, real and emotional, in equal measure in my life, but this was a new form of hell. But then, hadn’t my life turned down that track since Debs had left?

I had kept off the sauce, the bottle was corked and would have stayed so for good… if she had. We’d already split, separated and divorced, went our separate ways but something drew us back together. Love is a strange thing – can anyone ever understand it? Comprehend it, even? Not us. We were marionettes in its hands. Dragged dancing through some surreal times, but now the music had stopped. The lamps expired. We might both long for those headier days when we’d meant something to each other, but they were gone. Now we only wrought misery on ourselves; too much had happened, too many hurts. Neither of us had space left in our hearts for any more of that.

But endings, I don’t do well.

My father threw himself into the bottle when his playing days came to a close. The mighty Cannis Dury, the hard-as-nails match winner, the sweeper with the silver studs. He never lost his desire to fight, he merely swapped his opponents – battered his wife and children into submission instead.

My brother Michael, dead and gone. Another end met unfairly. But what could I have done? Me, a washed-up loser. A hack who hadn’t had a decent byline in the best part of a year. A burned-out fuck-up who’d stumbled upon a line digging about in people’s dirty business. Gus Dury, he’s yer man… Used to be a good investigative reporter, one of the best… Now he’s the go-to guy for rooting out any half-dodgy caper in the town. Cheap too. Ply him with scoosh and he might just forget to charge you.

I appalled myself. I had gone beyond self-loathing; I no longer recognised me. This trembling, incoherent wreck of a man was no one I knew. No one I wanted to know.

The room grew dark.

Cold.

I heard the suck and wash of the tide, lapping at the beach.

A man in a black cape walked into the room. I couldn’t see his face, but I sensed he was smiling. He held out a storm lantern. The light dazzled me, near burned the retinas out my eyes.

‘Ah, get that the fuck away!’ I yelled.

My arms flapped about my head.

The man spoke, but I couldn’t comprehend him.

The light burned, right into the core of my being. I could see nothing but bright white light. Burning. Searing into me. And then, the bats came. Far off at first, but getting closer, louder. They swooped. I could feel the rush of the wind they travelled on. I could hear their wings, their screeching. I opened my eyes, their teeth… I saw their pointed, bloodied teeth-