Кен Бруен - The Hackman Blues

I said: ‘Daddy asked me to find you.’

No expression, only, ‘Now you have — congratulations!’

‘Any message for him?’

‘Yes, ask him to watch I Never Sang for my Father.’

‘Lemme guess... Gene Hackman?’

Reed was doing damage to the drink. Another one who didn’t know about sipping. One thing was clear, he didn’t like Roz and he didn’t seem to exist as far as she knew. Maybe that was it.

I asked Roz: ‘Leon... he treat you okay?’

A smile of pure maliciousness. ‘Oh yes, like a father.’

I had nothing more. The music seemed to have increased in volume, it was gangsta rap. Bounces off your skull like the worst kind of bad news.

She stood up and I asked:

‘That noise, Christ, how do you stand that shite?’

Superior expression now, all of Cambridge crashing through.

‘It’s ethnic, it’s... real.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘real fucking painful.’

And she was gone.

Reed said, ‘Jeez Louise? Where yo’ get DAT? Yo’ white boys are weird.’

‘It’s ethnic, what can I tell you?’

As we took our leave, Leon materialised, put his hand on my arm, said:

‘I don’t expect to see you again, Mr Brady... understand?’

‘What, is it a black thing... is that it?’

Outside, my head was humming. Volts of energy were cracking in my brain. I felt strong, randy and wired.

Reed said:

‘Yo’ all go home now... yo’ hear.’

I looked at the crowds milling on Electric Avenue, heat emanating from the very ground, said:

‘I am home.’

And final dream — on

sacred fear itself

I’ve feared

You are

but what we dreamt

from aspirations

basked in urgency

My mania

it is

my words out race

their meaning

every wasted time

and time

I never seem to get

to line the illness

clear.

In my early twenties, I challenged a shrink on the theory that mania and depressive ‘episodes’ are not frequent. In a voice laced with patience, he said:

‘You don’t fit the classic model.’

‘Jeez, I’m sorry... If only I’d known!’

‘You reveal, or rather exhibit, traits of the cyclothymic personality. That is a swinging mood from mild states of depression to mild states of elation. Alas, such traits can mean a person is more likely to be predisposed to manic depression.’

‘So, it’s like I’m serving an apprenticeship?’

He gave a tolerant smile, the type they develop from messing with lunatics. I never fit the bloody mould. Even my illness has to be of the renegade variety.

Before any diagnosis was ever applied, they categorised me as a delinquent. I did hard time in state schools all through my teens. The medics will tell you that stress leads to all kinds of mental breakdown.

The dormitories in those places, you’d hear the kids whimpering after lights out and the wetting of beds was commonplace. Come two in the mornings, you’d be dragged down to the bathrooms, the wet sheets wrapped round you, like early teenage shrouds. Bundled into cold showers, you then got to wash the piss from the sheets. I dunno if stress quite covers the feeling but it’s in the ball-park. Yeah, it was definitely something you didn’t get peace of mind about. Dysfunctional! How they managed before that showed up, I dunno. Can blame it all on dysfunctional. Jeez, what a word: the Prozac of the dictionary. Before it, we were plain fucked-up. Even the Americans were tired of the blame factor and have coined a counter measure — EXCUSE ABUSE.

My mother wasn’t the full shilling and I guess being Irish didn’t help. The predisposition to melancholia. She’d tell you in all seriousness that the rain in Ireland, ‘Didn’t mean it.’

Yeah.

She was the proverbial CIA — Catholic, Irish, Alcoholic — and vicious with it.

I read her spit in Daniel Woodrell. In the novel the son is asking his mother why she’d lied. The mother raised her chin to a belligerent angle, blew smoke at him and said: ‘Why it should be obvious... I wanted to fuck with your head... pure and simple.’

The first time they strapped me down to administer shock treatment, I’d screamed before they forced the rubber dog between my teeth — Top Of The World Ma!’ After I read the Woodrell, I figured you had an edge if you knew it. Not a big one but a start. My old man had a vaguely related idea. He said:

‘Tells you in the good book son, you got to forgive them cos they don’t know what they do. Well, the bastards I’ve met, they not only knew... they bloody planned it.’

The days after finding Roz, I went cottaging. If you don’t know the term, you’ve not been reading your Joe Orton. It’s cruising the public toilets — meet ’em and drop ’em. The original anonymous sex. Course it’s risky, dangerous, dirty, and that’s part of the thrill.

I took the show to north London, spread a little gravy over their potatoes. True, it has to be said, they do a better class of urinal — all Delft and institutional tile. You know you’re in a shithouse. Condoms we have known. Leastways, I was hoping so.

Came out of the ‘episode’ to see what I’d scrawled on my bedroom in the yellow day-glo marker. I didn’t need to read the writing on the wall, I knew I was hurting. Enough lucidity to call a mini-cab and get to the Maudsley. If they don’t exactly know me, they are at least familiar with my history.

Two, three days... like that and they’d patched me back a bit and let me go. On the medication again, I began to stabilise. Time to call Jack. He was not a happy bunny.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’

‘Finding your daughter.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Erm.. you found her?’

‘That’s what you paid for.’

‘Good man, I knew you were the right choice. Don’t tell me over the phone... Copy down this address. I’ll expect you at seven... alrighty?’

I copied down his directions — Dulwich, of course. The Kensington of south-east London, at least that’s the way they tell it. I flicked on the radio, stabilising by the moment and caught the end of The Cranberries’ ‘No Need to Argue.’ Hummed a bit with that. If I believed in omens, I’d have paid attention. It was followed hot by Bob Marley with ‘No Woman No Cry.’

Enough!

I called Reed, told him to get his ass in gear, we’d to report to the boss.

He asked, ‘Yo’ all goin’ to wear a suit?’

‘Hadn’t planned on it but hey, why not? I like a joke as much as the next guy and... I’m stable.’

‘Sure bro’.’

‘I’m serious Reed. I got a bit bent outa shape, but it’s fixed — I’m on my medication.’

‘Take mo’... a lot mo’.’

‘I’m cool, I swear.’

‘Yo’ baby, yo’ white... yo’ ain’t never gonna be cool.’

I hung up.

Being cool was over-rated, yeah... I could aim for style... now that’s stable.

I have one suit. A timeless classic. Well, almost. Hand-tailored in Jermyn Street, it don’t get finer than that. I got it in Oxfam on Kensington High Street, where the nobs and Arabs dump their shopping. The assistant said: ‘Oh, how lucky... bespoke.’

‘Be quiet!’

And shocked the bejaysus outa him. I had it fixed to fit in a booth on Clapham High Street, beside Wordsworth, the decent bookshop.

When I tried it on — hey, I was Tony Blair: same shit-eating smile. You get to wear a suit like that, you get a hint of why the rich are so smug.

One evening on Bedford Hill, a hooker said, ‘Suit like that, you wanna play circus.’

‘Play what?’

‘I sit on yer face and you guess my weight.’