Ken Bruen - Rilke on Black

  hardly able to bear and

  adore

  because it serenely disdains to destroy us.

  Each angel is terrible.’”

Reciting this at the top of his voice.

I had to roar, “You wanna keep it down Ronnie — they’ll hear you in Brixton.”

“Close... are we?”

“Nice try Sherlock.”

He bowed.

“I think even you’ll agree these opening lines have a certain relevance.”

“Well Ronnie, I think I’ll leave you and Rilke to it.”

“For solitude is really an inner matter,” he boomed.

Turning up the stairs again, I felt something in my back pocket. The mask. I’d never put it on. I didn’t think I’d share this with my chums. Ronnie was unlikely to tell.

As I came into the living room, my heart jumped sideways.

A completely bald man was sitting on the sofa.

“Whatcha think?’ asked Dex. “Radical or wot?”

He ran a hand over his naked dome, smiled.

Radical was one way of terming it. The transformation was extraordinary. He now looked the total psycho... which he was.

“There’s more,” he said.

He buried his head in his hands, there was a loud pssish and he had a full head of hair again. The bald cover he threw at me.

“Try it on Kojak.”

I didn’t catch it and let it fall at my feet. Whatever rubberised material was in it, it jerked and shuddered. For all the world, I thought, like my old dad’s liver. I asked him, “Ever heard of Rilke?”

“One of the Baader Meinhof.”

Lisa’s voice cut off any reply I might have fronted.

“He was the poet of solitude. A constant traveller. He ended as a recluse in a château at Muzot. The Duino Elegies took him twelve years to complete. In his life he won a huge following of female admirers. Sonnets to Orpheus and Elegies are highly regarded.”

She suddenly stopped. Dex said, “Bit of a ladies’ man, was he, liked to roger the old fräuleins eh?”

I asked, “Jeez, how do you know this stuff?”

Dex answered, “ ’Cos her old mum’s a teacher.”

Lisa glanced at me like a stranger, went into the kitchen. The sound of banging cups drew me after her. I said, “And hello to you, darlin’.”

“Fuck off.”

I grabbed her arm.

“Don’t you ever dismiss me like that. I’m not some hired help. You want to throw a moody, I’ll throw you out so fucking fast you won’t touch ground. Am I getting through to you Lisa?”

She jumped at me, ground her hips into mine and her tongue deep in my mouth. Her hand unzipped me and a few seconds later she dropped to her knees.

“What about Dex?” I gasped.

“I ain’t blowing him.”

I told myself I didn’t want to, my body screamed, “Oh yeah.”

A few moments later it was over.

She stood, went to the sink, rinsed her mouth. She said, “You were saying...”

That evening, she was curled on the couch rolling a joint. I said, “Time to make the call.”

“Not making any call.”

“Lisa, you want this thing to go down? Come on, you’ve got to call her.”

“Or wot Nico, you gonna beat on de woman? Oh lawdy, oh puleez mistah, don’t go hitting on de woman.”

God, I was tempted. Highly tempted. So I made the call. Baldwin’s wife answered on the first ring. I said, “You’ve had a day. Are you going to pay?”

“Yes.”

I told her the amount, the arrangements I’d give her tomorrow. To everything she replied simply “Yes”. Nothing else, just a line of yesses. Then she put the phone down.

I roared, “She hung up.”

Lisa said, “What, you were hoping for a date, that it?”

“Don’t mouth me Lisa.”

“I thought I did already. In the kitchen when you were making all those noises... uh... uh... oh... all... as if you were dying or somefink.”

She emphasised the “fink” in a perfect parody of my accent.

I’d about had it with my “team”.

“You’re bored with our little enterprise, Lisa? The excitement palling already? That’s fine with me. I’ll just go down and cut our captive loose — ‘No hard feelings Mr Baldwin, we’ve changed our minds... sorry for the inconvenience.’ — mebbe you could call a cab for him. Say the word, I’ll do it. Try me.”

She stretched, stubbed out the joint on the floor... my floor... gave an exaggerated yawn, said, “Oh, I don’t think Dex would like that.”

“Fuck Dex.”

“I wonder if you’d be able.”

Before I could hammer out a suitably macho reply, she said in a very quiet voice, “Did I ever tell you my angel story. I don’t think anyone’s heard it.”

Baldwin’s line from Rilke “Each angel is terrible” briefly flickered. I thought maybe the dope had kicked in and drawn her headlong on to mellowness. I was glad of anything that took the hard edge off. She continued, “When I was a little girl, the best thing to happen was to be selected as an angel for the school nativity play. Only white girls ever played Mary. Sounds like a title for a Mary Gordon novel, doesn’t it?

“My dream came true, I was to be an angel. The day before the play I heard the principal say to the drama teacher, ‘You can’t have a nigger angel, there aren’t any jungle bunnies in heaven.’

“They took away my halo. For a long time I was a sad little girl ’cos they had no rabbits in heaven. Later, of course, I learnt that they didn’t mean rabbits, not the cuddly type anyway.”

She looked up at me and smiled.

“So you see, Nicky, mon cherie, I don’t want to be a fuckin’ angel... OK?”

The toilet facilties for our guest were basic. That chemical job had cost me a fair bit though. Thing was, I got to lug it back and forth. Dex reckoned the humiliation alone should keep Baldwin docile. As I got to do the ferrying, I think the process somewhat backfired.

As I did this now, Baldwin smirked. I said, “Keep it up buddy, I’ll stick yer friggin’ head in it... tell you, Baldwin, if I might apply a little toilet metaphor here, you’re a royal pain in the arse.”

He laughed, said, “To quote Anthony Burgess, ‘The Royal Family do not help, they are philistines, they like horses.’ Your colleague paid me a visit. Showed me his cannon.”

“What?”

“Oh yes, he explained to me it was a Ruger Blackhawk.44 Magnum. He wished me to suck it... the gun that is. At least I think it was... one lives in quiet hope.”

“Jesus.”

“No damage done, it was a replica I understand. Not that it was any less dramatic. More worrying perhaps that a grown man buys toy guns. Is he the leader?”

I had no comment. I finished slopping out... badly. Baldwin roared, “Some Rilke I think:

  ‘My occupation, soon it will be my vocation, is to

  have patience;

  sometimes it is as with a pain

  that one thinks one cannot

  possibly endure a moment longer

  and yet it slowly becomes part

  of one’s everyday life

  — human nature is tough.’”

I asked, “You think old Rilke would have done this poetically? Believe me... there is no poetry in shit.”

He seemed delighted, replied, “The barbarian thinks, how illuminating. A quote worthy of the TLS. How succinctly put.”

I took a step towards him.

“I warned you about the name-calling Mr Baldwin.”

“You needn’t call me Mister. You don’t work for me... at least not yet.”

And so he ranted, I didn’t know if it was the Rilke wanker or himself. Shite anyway. Here he was: “The fear that I could betray myself and say all the things I am afraid of, and the fear that I could not say anything at all because it is all unsayable.”

I didn’t analyse why I paid attention to that piece.