Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

There was nothing else for it. There are times when a man does not run. He was going to have to reason with them. He put on his blue leathers. He stuck his head into the bathroom and told Marilyn he was popping out for some fresh air.

♦

Karl points to a white 1968 Corvette parked at the corner of the block.

‘Why?’ Cindy asks.

‘Well,’ says Karl, he has obviously been rehearsing this. ‘When you’re out in Texas, in that big country, a Volkswagen Bug seems just kinda small, inadequate, like a toy, immature almost. There isn’t the power, the acceleration, the handling. I wanted something more. You’ll love the Corvette, I know you will. That’s what I’ve been doing these last few days since I got home. I had to trade-in the Bug, had to arrange another loan.’

♦

Ishmael ran to his car, got out the claw hammer, and waited. Marilyn’s parents caught sight of him through the glass doors of the motel lobby and came hurrying out. Father arrived first, winning by a couple of lengths.

‘Where is she?’ he bawled.

‘Who?’

‘My daughter, who do you bloody well think?’

Ishmael smiled in what he took to be a wry manner.

‘You mean the motel wouldn’t tell you?’

‘As a matter of fact they wouldn’t.’

‘Marilyn’s in one of the rooms,’ Ishmael said. ‘But there are a lot of rooms.’

‘He’s got a love bite on his neck.’

It was the mother who said this. She seemed outraged. Ishmael hadn’t been aware of the bite until now and was suddenly filled with pride.

‘Did Marilyn do that?’ the mother demanded.

‘Who else? How many women do you think I had in there?’

She nearly smiled at that.

‘Don’t talk filth in front of me,’ the father said.

‘I’ll talk filth in front of anybody I like,’ said Ishmael. ‘Piles, urethra, prepuce, labia minor!’

The father was sweating freely. So for that matter was Ishmael, but on hearing this ‘filth’ Marilyn’s father’s face turned startlingly red and he screamed, ‘If you’re looking for trouble young man, you’ve found trouble.’

He stripped off his jacket, tossed it to the ground with a flourish and started to roll up his sleeves. Ishmael took a step forward, lazily raised the claw hammer and swept it in an accelerating arc that made contact with one of the newly bared elbows. Marilyn’s father let out a cry that was part pain and part disbelief, and he paced exaggeratedly in a circle flapping the injured arm.

‘I’ll sue for that,’ he said.

Ishmael laughed.

‘To live outside the law you must be honest,’ he cajoled. ‘I’m not looking for trouble, that’s the very last thing I’m looking for. There are a million things I want to find, but trouble isn’t one of them. I want to find an army with the motto ‘Yield’. I want to find a timetable that obeys a body clock. I want to find a roundabout called stillness. I want to find a milkman who doesn’t know how to whistle. I want to find me and I wouldn’t mind finding you. I want to find a bypass on the ring road to oblivion. I never knew that I wanted to find Marilyn but now that I have found her I realize that I was looking for her all along. I want to find the still point in the turning circle. I want to find a Messiah who doesn’t believe his own press releases.’

He could have gone on. He was feeling quite inspired.

‘This boy is raving,’ the father said.

Ishmael said, ‘Your daughter isn’t running away. She’s running towards something — towards herself. The lay-by cannot stop the accelerating lane from joining the motorway. You cannot stop Marilyn. You can only bid her bon voyage , wish her a pleasant journey and hope that she arrives at her chosen destination.’

The mother moyed with grace and speed, pulled the hammer away from Ishmael and before he could react she had smashed both of Enlightenment’s headlights. A tyre blew out in his head. He was mad. He grabbed the woman by the throat and forced her to the ground, but as they hit the tarmac the father was on him. The three of them wrestled around for a while. Ishmael received a hammer blow in the groin. The woman was deadly with that thing. Meanwhile the father had Ishmael’s head gripped firmly in both hands and was banging it against the Beetle’s rear nearside wing. One or other would lose its shape.

Ishmael, never the street-fighter, was now dragged to his feet. He stood, or rather was held in front of Enlightenment. A stylish upper-cut threw him back on to the car’s bonnet. Tiny neon strips in gold and red burst behind his eyes. They looked pretty enough. He slowly slid down the slope of the car while being kicked regularly, accurately and with enormous passion.

He would certainly have taken a lot more punishment if Marilyn’s voice had not then said, ‘Leave him alone. It’s me you want.’

The father was fighting mad. He put an armlock on his daughter.

‘Run away, Marilyn,’ Ishmael shouted. ‘Save yourself.’

But it appeared Marilyn did not want to be saved. She didn’t struggle. She allowed herself to be bundled into the Rolls-Royce. All Ishmael could do was keep still. The pain was less that way. As a parting shot the mother threw the hammer at him. It missed but took a hefty chunk out of the Beetle’s paintwork. The Rolls drove away.

♦

Cindy sobs, slams the front door of the building and runs back to her own apartment. Karl leans on the bell for a long time but eventually stops. Cindy hears the loud engine and the Cherry Bomb exhaust as he drives away.

♦

Ishmael was down. His leathers were scratched. The Rolls was out of view. There was no longer any hurry to go anywhere.

But as he lay there he became aware of a jacket on the tarmac, not very far away. It was, of course, the jacket that Marilyn’s father had taken off and thrown down. Ishmael reached for it. There was a wallet in the inside pocket. It contained a photograph of Marilyn, perhaps a hundred pounds in cash, a gold American Express card, and a driving licence that gave Marilyn’s father’s name, age and home address.

Ishmael had smashed headlamps to replace. After that it was simple. He had to rescue a philosophy student in distress.

♦

Cindy stops crying in the end. She stands in the centre of her bedroom, in front of the wardrobe mirror, and takes off her clothes. She looks at the reflection of her naked body — not so very naked. Over the last six months she has had tattooed over her back and buttocks a solemn, livid, motorcade of the Volkswagen in all its many forms — the Kubelwagen, the Schwimmwagen, the Hebmuller, the Prototype 12, the historic split-window, the Reichspost truck, the convertible, the Karmann Ghia coupe, sand rails, beach buggies, and Baja Bugs.

Karl’s passion for James Joyce remains undiminished.

War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again. At least that’s the way it seemed to Ishmael. How did clean-living Barry Osgathorpe come to be involved in a vulgar roadside brawl? There are no easy answers.

He was picking bits of glass out of the broken headlights when a man with very long hair came over to him. The man looked convincingly like a hippy but he was wearing overalls with the motel’s logo on them, and had the air of a gardener or maintenance man.

‘You OK, man?’ he asked Ishmael.

‘Bloody great.’

‘What was going on there?’

Ishmael didn’t answer.

‘I’d have helped you, man, but you know violence isn’t the answer.’

Ishmael suggested he stop being ridiculous.

‘Hey, really, people have got to start loving each other.’

‘Oh, sod off,’ said Ishmael:

And then he heard himself being negative and hostile and he knew he was wrong.