Lionel Shriver - Checker and the Derailleurs

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1, London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

First published in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1988

Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1988

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from the following published works: “Bang the Drum All Day” by Todd Rundgren, copyright © 1983 Fiction Music, Inc./Humanoid Music (BMI), all rights reserved / “Eleanor Rigby,” words and music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, copyright © 1966 Northern Songs Ltd., all rights for the U.S., Canada and Mexico controlled and administered by Blackwood Music Inc. under license from ATV Music (MACLEN), all rights reserved, international copyright secured, used by permission / “Darkness” by Stewart Copeland, copyright © 1981 Reggatta Music, Ltd., administered by Atlantic Music Corporation / “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen, copyright © 1984 Bruce Springsteen, all rights reserved, used with permission / “Blinded by the Light” by Bruce Springsteen copyright © 1973 Bruce Springsteen, all rights reserved, used with permission / “Save the Life of My Child” by Paul Simon, copyright © 1968 Paul Simon, used by permission, Inc., all rights reserved, used by permission / “Love over Gold” by Mark Knopfler, copyright © 1982 Chariscourt Ltd. (PRS), all rights administered in the U.S. and Canada by Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP), all rights reserved international copyright secured / “The Man’s Too Strong” by Mark Knopfler, copyright © 1985 Chariscourt Limited (PRS), all rights administered by Rondor Music (London) Ltd., administered in the U.S. and Canada by Almo Music Corp (ASCAP), all rights reserved, international copyright secured.

The drawings reproduced in Checker and The Derailleurs are by Lionel Shriver.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780007564033

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007564040

Version: 2015-01-13

To someone who doesn’t deserve it, as he very well knows

Well I have tried to be meek

And I have tried to be mild

But I spat like a woman

And sulked like a child …

And I can still hear his laughter

And I can still hear his song

The man’s too big

The man’s too strong

DIRE STRAITS

“The Man’s Too Strong,”

Brothers in Arms

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

1. blinded by the light

2. blood and crystal

3. bad company

4. the house of the fire queen

5. bye, bye, miss american pie

6. simply red

7. my love is chemical

8. hot rocks, or: the igneous apartment

9. in defense of subjective reality

10. howard and the flow state

11. the newlywed game

12. don’t be crue

13. too much information

14. close to the edge

15. it’s hard to be a saint in the city

16. why we fought world war II

17. the checkers speech

18. the party’s over

19. the last supper

20. into white

21. a cappella in the underpass

22. a little help from my friends

23. the ghost in the machine

24. comfortably numb

25. spirits in the material world

epilogue. oh, you mean that checker secretti

footnotes

index of song titles

About the Book

Praise for Checker and The Derailleurs

About the Author

Also by Lionel Shriver

About the Publisher

Checker’s favorite color is red

Foreboding overcame Eaton Striker well before The Derailleurs began to play. Much as Eaton would have preferred to chum obliviously with his friends, he could only stare at the stage as the drummer stepped up to those ramshackle Leedys and the damned skins began to purr.

“Who is that?” asked Eaton, not sure he really wanted to know. The drummer percolated on his throne, never still, bloop, bloop , like coffee in the morning—that color; that welcome.

“ Checker Secretti ,” said Brinkley, with irritating emphasis. “Where have you been, the moon?”

“He’s talking to his traps!” exclaimed Eaton, in whose disturbed imagination the instruments were answering back.

“Yeah, he did that last time,” said Brinkley the Expert. “Checker’s a bit touched, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.” Eaton slouched in his chair.

The humidity here was curiously high. A plumbing problem in the basement dripped right on the heater, so the whole club felt like a steam room—there was actually a slight fog; vapor beaded on the windowpanes. A proliferation of candles sent soft, flickering profiles against the walls. With its vastly unremarkable decor, Eaton couldn’t explain the crawling effect of the place as he nestled down in the seductively comfortable chair, taking deeper, slower breaths and saying nicer things to his friends. Eaton squirmed. He tried to sit up straight. He looked suspiciously into his Johnnie Walker, thinking, Black, hah ! since places like this bought gallons of Vat 69 and funneled it into name-brand bottles. Yet this was confoundingly good whiskey, some of the best he’d ever tasted. The waitress, though definite woof-woof material at first glance, now looked pretty. Eaton felt he was drowning and fought violently to rise to the surface, to breathe cold, hard air, to hear his own voice with its familiar steeliness, instead of the mushy, underwater murmur it had acquired since they’d sat down.

The drums sounded so eager, so excited. Checker laid a stick, once, bip , on the snare and it jumped; so did Eaton. Every time a quick rat-tat rang through the room, the audience looked up; the waitress turned brightly to the stage. When Checker nudged the bass to adjust the blanket curled inside its shell, women at tables stroked their own hair; men extended languorously into the aisles. The beater sent a shudder through the length of Eaton’s body.