Nick Cave - The Death of Bunny Munro

‘The crap they print in these things. It’s enough to make you want to slit your wrists. Day after fucking day…’ he says.

He performs a dentured smile and, without concern, enquires, ‘What happened to you?’

‘The key to room seventeen, please,’ says Bunny.

The receptionist picks up his ‘Mystic Eye’ and peers at Bunny.

‘Fucking hurricanes, avian flu, global warming, suicide bombers, war, torture, mass murderers…’

For a moment Bunny thinks that the receptionist is giving a terminal prognosis based on Bunny’s appearance, but realises that the receptionist is tapping at the newspaper with his finger.

‘Plagues, famine, floods, fucking frogs…’

‘The key…’

‘Little children murdering other little children, bodies piling up in mounds…’

‘The key…’

The receptionist swings his arm around in a dramatic arc and jabs his finger at the TV.

‘Look at that fucking guy,’ he says.

But Bunny does not need to look, because he knows. He recognises the familiar shrieking, stampeding crowd, and even though he knows what the receptionist is about to say, it doesn’t stop a chill wind clawing its way up his spine and circling around his tortured skull.

‘He’s here!’ says the receptionist, and then points his finger at Bunny and says, ‘It’s biblical! It’s Reve-fucking-lations! If we could all just be a bit nicer to one another!’

Bunny lifts his head back and notices an antique chandelier hanging greasy and fly-spotted from the ceiling. The crystal teardrops make patterns of ghastly light across the walls. Bunny leans across the counter and looks at the receptionist.

‘Listen, you loopy old cunt. My wife just hung herself from the security grille in my own bloody bedroom. My son is upstairs and I haven’t the faintest fucking idea what to do with him. My old man is about to kick the bucket. I live in a house I’m too spooked to go back to. I’m seeing fucking ghosts everywhere I look. Some mad fucking carpet-muncher broke my nose yesterday and I have a hangover you would not fucking believe. Now, are you gonna give me the key to room seventeen or do I have to climb over this counter and knock your fucking dentures down your throat?’

The receptionist reaches up and turns down the television, then directs his attention to Bunny.

‘The thing is, sir, it is against hotel policy to give out two keys.’

Bunny gently lays his head on the counter and closes his eyes and points of refracted fairy light orbit around his skull.

‘Please don’t,’ says Bunny, quietly.

He stays like that for a time until he feels the key to Room 17 slipped into his hand.

‘Thank you,’ he says, and picks up the newspaper. ‘May I have this?’

Bunny moves across the lobby and cleaves apart a team of tracksuited table-tennis players who look to Bunny like they come from Mongolia or somewhere.

‘Ulaanbaadar!’ shouts Bunny, despite himself.

The guy who is possibly the coach breaks into a smile and the whole team cheer and give Bunny the thumbs-up sign and pat him on the back and say, ‘Ulaanbaadar!’ and Bunny sadly mounts the hotel stairs.

Bunny walks down the hall and looks at his watch and sees the time is 6.30. He puts the key in the lock and, as he does so, he becomes aware of a strange sound coming from Room 17. It is non-human, conversational and very scary. He thinks, as he opens the door, that it is also oddly familiar.

Bunny enters the room and sees two things at approximately the same time. First, the eccentric and unsettling sound that has frightened him is coming from the Teletubbies, who are on the TV. Po is engaged in a freakish, mutant conversation with Dipsy. Then Bunny notices that Bunny Junior is standing motionless in the centre of the room, between the two beds. He is staring at the television set and his face has drained of blood and his eyes are wide in his head and he is standing in a pool of his own water, the front of his pyjamas soaked in urine. The boy turns to his father and makes a fluttering gesture with his left hand and says, in a faraway voice, ‘I couldn’t find the remote.’

‘Shit,’ says Bunny, beneath his breath.

He walks past his son and sits on the edge of his bed. The bed is hard and unforgiving and covered in tiny, empty bottles. On the floor lies the butt of a dead cigarette.

Bunny moves his hand across his face and says, ‘You better change.’

The boy passes his father, holding the tops of his pyjamas with one hand and covering his mouth with the other, and says, ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

Bunny says, ‘It’s OK,’ and the boy disappears into the bathroom.

Bunny tosses the newspaper onto the puddle of urine. He looks at the television and sees Po and Dipsy holding hands in a violently green field full of oversized rabbits. Bunny looks down at the newspaper and sees a black-and-white CCTV grab of the Horned Killer and a headline that reads, ‘HERE AT LAST’. He trances out, in slow motion, on the water absorbing into the newspaper and tries not to take it personally when he sees that the soakage is taking on the shape of a rabbit.

He looks up and finds his son standing in front of him dressed in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The boy climbs up onto Bunny’s lap and puts his arms around his neck and rests his head on his chest. Bunny places a cautious hand on the boy’s back and stares out.

‘It’s OK,’ he says.

The boy squeezes his dad close and starts to cry.

‘I’m ready,’ says Bunny, obscurely, to nobody in particular.

The boy thinks his father looks weird, sitting there eating his breakfast in the dining room of the Empress Hotel, but it’s hard to really know for sure as it seems a long time since he has looked anything else. His eyes keep darting all over the place – no sooner have they looked over there, than they look over here, and as soon as they look over here, they are looking somewhere else. Sometimes he is rubbernecking over his shoulder, or searching under the table, or checking who is coming through the door, or squinting at the waitress like he thinks she is wearing a disguise, like a mask or veil or something. He keeps holding his ribs and sucking air through his teeth and wincing and generally making strange faces. Sometimes he does these things sped-up and sometimes he does them slowed-down. Bunny Junior feels time is playing tricks on him. For example, it feels like he could grow from a little boy into a wrinkly old man in the time it takes his father to lift his cup, bring it to his lips and take a slurp of tea, and other times it seems like his father is doing everything revved-up and super-fast, like racing around the breakfast room or running off to the bathroom. Bunny Junior feels like he’s been ‘hitting the road’ for a million years but realises with a chilly, drizzly feeling that this is only the third day.

His dad keeps saying something about the client list but as far as Bunny Junior can see the list is pretty much finished. He wonders what will happen when there are no more names left on the list. Will they go home? Will they just get another list? Does this just go on and on for ever? What did life have in store for him? What will he amount to? Is there some alternative life waiting to be lived? Then his dad forks an entire sausage into his mouth and the boy can’t help but smile at this truly impressive display. That’s the thing with his dad – thinks the boy – just when you’re about to get really angry with him, he goes and does something that leaves you completely awestruck. Well – he thinks – I love my dad and that’s a good thing. I mean – he thinks – you’ve got to hand it to him.

Bunny Junior watches a glob of ketchup run down his father’s chin and land on his father’s tie. This particular tie is sky-blue and there are cartoon rabbits printed on it, with little stitched crosses for eyes, lounging around on white cotton clouds. Bunny is too busy scanning the breakfast room to notice the mess he is making, so the boy reaches across the table and dabs at the spot with a damp napkin.