Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

There is a garage in a railway arch. It is in darkness. In that darkness coils of hose hang like rubber intestines; stacks of tyres slouch like rolls of matt, black fat. The floor is stained a hundred shades of black and brown, each shade the colour of oil. Workbenches, floor and walls are jagged with body-panels, metal innards, girlie calendars and fast-food wrappers.

It’s not much but it’s home to Fat Les. A sign above the arch announces ‘Fat Les — the Vee-Dub King’. He works here. He lives here. He sleeps in a partitioned area that he calls his office. He is in his forties; fat (of course), unshaven, sweaty. His bed is a tartan sleeping-bag. He does cheap servicing, tuning and repairs of Volkswagen Beetles. He knows most of what there is to know about flat-four, air-cooled engines. He makes a living, more or less, and pumps any profits into his hobby which is playing around with flat-four, air-cooled, Volkswagen engines.

In the centre of the garage sits his own unimposing car. It is a light blue Beetle, an early seventies model. It is starting to rust badly, apparently well past its best, and its best apparently never anything special. One thing’s for certain — it’s not much to look at.

♦

In her parents’ end of terrace house in Gleadless, Barry Osgathorpe’s fiancée, Debby, said to him, ‘What are those, pet?’

‘Nerf bars,’ he replied.

There were two nerf bars sticking out of the shopping-bag he was carrying.

‘Pardon?’ said Debby.

‘They’re cast-iron, T-shaped pieces of metal used to replace the front and rear bumpers on a Volkswagen Beetle. They look really flash.’

‘I’m sorry, pet, I don’t think I’m quite with you.’

‘Look, Debby, I’ve got a confession to make. I’ve been taking driving lessons in secret, and I’ve passed my test.’

‘Well that’s very nice, but why in secret?’

‘I don’t really know.’

But he did really know.

‘And I’ve bought a car as well.’

‘Aren’t you the sly one? That’s smashing. It’ll come in ever so handy after we’re married. When can I see it? I’m sure I’ll like it.’

She was wrong.

‘It’s no good,’ Barry Osgathorpe said, ‘we shan’t ever be married because I’ve decided that I must go out ‘on the road’ and find myself.’

♦

Later he said, ‘Call me Ishmael. That’s not my real name, of course. Barry Osgathorpe is a good enough name for a librarian, which until now I have been content to be. But now I style myself a Zen Road Warrior and I feel in need of a change.

‘So call me Ishmael.’

♦

Sometimes Fat Les dreams of building a car that runs on water, on air, on grass, earth, carbon monoxide, on urine — only for his own benefit, you understand. He doesn’t want to make a million, not even a profit, more important he doesn’t want to hear the knock on the garage door, the visit of the assassin from the oil-producing country.

He has been sitting behind the wheel of his car for sometime now, sitting in silence, in readiness, preparing himself. Now he starts the engine. Headlights tunnel through the darkness. The car slides gently, steadily out of the garage and on to the street. He drives cautiously and correctly to the main roads. There is no hurry. There is nothing to prove. Not yet.

♦

It was three days since Ishmael had abandoned Debby and left home. It was getting dark. He was driving out of the services at Newport Pagnell in a customized Volkswagen Beetle — not very well customized at that — frenched headlights, a whale tail, smoked glass, nerf bars.

He sat back on the faded leopardskin seat covers and pressed down the accelerator.

And then he saw her. She was blonde. She was standing at the side of the exit ramp. She was wearing high heels, a short fur coat, a leather skirt and a tee-shirt with diamante. Her thumb was out. All his life he’d been waiting for a moment like this. He stopped the car. He opened the door.

‘Well met, fellow-traveller,’ he said.

‘How far are you going?’

‘Further.’

‘Will you see me all right for Leicester Forest East?’

He could see she was not yet in the mood for any cosmic truths. He nodded. She got in. She slammed the door. They drove off.

She was younger than she had looked. The mascara was thick and cracked, the high heels scuffed, her stockings had a ladder. The blonde hair could have been a wig.

Still, she was beautiful in her own way.

Everybody is.

‘Some motor,’ she said.

‘I call it Enlightenment,’ Ishmael replied, ‘because that’s the only vehicle worth owning. I’m looking for a Way, a Clearway, no stopping, no U-turns, no reversing. I want the headlights to pick out the Truth. That’s the only road you should think of hitching a lift on.

‘And that’s why I drive up and down the motorways, the arterial routes, the B-roads, roads where a man might lose himself, where a man might find himself. Perhaps I’m something of an outlaw, perhaps a pariah. I like to think of myself as a pilgrim. I’m trying to make a little progress.’

‘That’s nice,’ she said.

‘Of course, I wasn’t always like this. I used to be a librarian. Then one day I was doing a local author display when the scales fell from my eyes. It was what you might call a satori.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yes. I was all set to be married and settled but something told me I was on the wrong road. Debby, my betrothed, was a bit cheesed off naturally, but you know how it is, I had to be free to journey to the centre of myself.

‘But here I am talking about myself all the time. How about you? What wisdom do you have to share with me?’

‘Eh?’

‘Well, what do you do?’

‘Me? I get into cars with strange men, then I tear my clothes…’

She made a savage rip in the diamante tee-shirt. One small, freckled breast popped out through the rip.

‘Then I threaten the driver that unless he gives me money I’ll go to the police and swear that I’ve been raped.’

♦

What is a Street Sleeper?

You pull up at a red traffic light. You are driving a black Ford Capri. The stereo pumps out eighties’ funk. You burned-off an ailing Jag at the last set of lights. You are at home behind the wheel of your car. You are safe. You are accommodated.

The lights stay red for a long, long time, and as you tap your fingers on your leather steering-wheel, as you blip your engine, you become aware of another car pulling alongside. Maybe it’s competition.

You look. It isn’t. It isn’t even worth your derision. It is a Volkswagen Beetle, an early seventies model in pate blue except where it is pitted with rust, and where the wings are bubbling with virulent corrosion.

You are well aware that there are some hot Volkswagens on the streets, cars with hot-rodded engines, fancy extractor-type exhausts, low profiles on Wolfrace slots, but this…

It is not worth a first glance. It is beneath your contempt. What kind of clown drives a car like that?

You look. You see what kind of clown. The driver is a fat, unshaven, sweaty man in his forties. His hair, an overgrown short-back-and-sides, has settled round his head like a tight, greasy cap, framing a face made ragged years ago by acne; a series of chins like deflated tyres, a loose mouth that will not stay shut.

He wears a snug, filthy shirt that clings to his fat shoulders and belly. The sleeves are pushed up above squat forearms that end in broad, spatulate hands, bitten nails, thick fingers stained with oil.

And perhaps that is the first clue, the first indication that all may not be quite what it seems. Could those be mechanic’s hands? Could they have been assembling and fitting performance accessories, adjusting clearances, greasing nipples?