Mat Johnson - Drop

‘It’s this guy I worked on Iron Guard with, the camera man,’ he was saying to me. ‘He’s got a licence because he uses them for videos, right? But they didn’t come in till today so I had to run out there, for the surprise. You like?’

‘I like.’ My head was on the grass and I could feel the cold blades on my ears. I was thinking about how I used to hold on to my mom’s leather belt buckle when we watched them on the Parkway.

‘So I’m going down there to see my mate, to get the stuff, the soldier kit and all, and I see this bloke from the Patterson Group. My old job, right? Not really anyone, this. Just a messenger. Arthur. Used to run errands for me, type that will be there forever. So I see him and I say, “Hey, Arthur, what you like?” and I’m all happy to see this tosser and I’m shaking his hand. And then I realize: this man doesn’t know who the hell I am. Two years it’s been. I worked there for eighteen years, right, and two years gone and it’s like nothing. I’ve put on a bit of weight since I left and mind you, this geezer’s never been a genius, but two years and he doesn’t even know me?’

‘Guy sounds like a moron. Forget about it.’

‘You know they made me redundant? After all that time, after all that love. Love is right, that’s what it was! They just cut me off. Thanks for the blood, thank you for your life, now piss off, cowboy. Had to go it on my own after that, didn’t I? How can you work for someone else after such a betrayal? Got to give it to the wife, she stuck by me, walked away from her own career to help me get mine back together. Of course, she and I working together lasted about three months, but she did it, right?’ David said, looking at me, not even drunk for a second, ‘Fucked up, tonight I did, didn’t?’

‘Yeah, you really fucked up.’

There was more lager so we drank it, lighting the rest of what was in the duffel bag. Smoke lines drifting above and around us, hypnotizing. The explosions were getting bigger. Looking back at the apartment complex, faces were at windows, adult, child, each illuminated with every burst. Smiles. This is me, I said to them, with a pint can raised in salutations. Thank you.

By the time the cops arrived, we were back inside. David went upstairs to watch The Great Escape . I stayed in the kitchen taking care of the mess there, eating while I put away the feast that had been left undented. The small British fridge was unprepared for such gluttony, and most of the food ended up piled on top of it rather than inside. When I was done and the dishes sat next to the sink in a dripping mound of tin and plastic, I went upstairs. David was passed out on the couch; he’d fallen asleep before the tape had rewound. It was hot in there, the open windows and balcony door idn’t seem to be helping. I took his wig off, and then went to his feet to pull the thick leather boots off of him as well. He could sleep the heavy of slapstick movies, but he woke while I was trying to sit him up, get that wool coat off of him.

‘My head hurts,’ David mumbled.

‘Sleep it off,’ I told him. When the coat was removed I laid it on the coffee table, headed for the bedroom. Fionna rolled over to face the wall when I came in. Her eyes were open and she was waiting for me to begin repentance. There was enough room in the bed that I could lie down without even touching her. Quietly, I leaned one knee on the mattress as I reached for a pillow, then closed the door behind me as I went to put it under David’s head.

Fi wanted a chandelier for the living room, cast iron, the kind you stick actual candles into when you lowered it down by its chain, and damn if she didn’t find it, only three hours after walking into that big warehouse at the edge of Camden Market. It should have taken months. I only agreed to it because I thought we’d never find one (the woman always knew exactly what she wanted, so much so she rarely found the thing that met her image), but there the bastard was, just like she’d described it in bed the morning before, and for a price that would have hurt in dollars let alone pounds.

‘Look, I’m just saying,’ I said as the cabby swerved before us, leaning into curves as he negotiated them, trying to get past meandering North London alleys to the Thames, ‘we could have waited. I can’t keep spending like this. I’ve got no savings left.’

‘I thought you wanted it,’ Fi whispered, staring down at the oversized cast iron spider in her lap. Of course I do, of course I do. It’s a nest we’re building and I love every straw. No, you don’t have to pay for it. No, I already paid for it, I got it. You’re being silly, you’re not even getting work right now. No, I didn’t mean that. You look great. The house looks great. I don’t need the money. I love it, really, I was just saying.

Victorious, Fionna leaned against me, my head gaining pain as the cab’s meter gained fare.

When we walked inside my flat the answerphone’s red eye was blinking. ‘Chris, it’s David. I’m going down to the brasserie. Stop by when you get in.’ I hit Erase but Fionna, coming in behind me, had already heard.

‘Oh come on, Chris. It’s Sunday. Can’t he leave you alone?’ But he sounded like crap, didn’t he?

‘He always sounds like shit, doesn’t he?’

He sat near the front, at a small table by the bar, a full pint before him. ‘That’s yours,’ David said, pointing at the glass, its small careful bubbles, its pale complexion.

‘Cider?’

‘Nice one. Big hand for the boy.’ David showed his palm to me like a TV Indian.

‘Where’s yours?’

‘That’s what I want to know.’ And he yelled over to the bar and one was brought to him. Twin beverages, both cold in hand, were raised so that they could clink together. ‘To the women,’ he said, before the glassy sound, and when the sides of our glasses had kissed he raised his glass slightly higher to the room before dropping it to his mouth. I looked around over my shoulder, but there was no one but us and the TV that remained on and muted behind me.

‘How’s your little lady, then?’ he asked.

‘Fi? Fine, really.’

‘How’s the whole living together part going?’

‘Well, fine actually. I mean, she’s not working right now, first the sprained ankle and then just a lack of work. She goes into the West End like every week for auditions, but nothing. I love it though. She’s always there. She feeds me. The house looks great, like a home. I haven’t been under a roof with a woman since my mom passed. It’s nice coming home knowing someone loves you.’

‘Isn’t it, though,’ David said, then drank again.

‘Yeah, but like, shit, just now, she’s got me coughing up mad cash for crap to decorate the house, right? So today I start in with the “maybe we should wait” line and the next thing you know I’m apologizing in the cab from Kensington High Street to Stockwell, you know? And it’s Sunday, too, and I know those damn cousins of hers are going to be coming by to eat my food.’

‘The Nigerians.’

‘Right. She cooks it and all, but who pays for it? I hate those bastards. They come over and talk in Yoruba the whole day. The only time they talk to me in English is when they’re asking me to pass something or telling slavery jokes. That shit ain’t funny.’ David started giggling though, staring past me. ‘Well, maybe a little funny,’ I admitted. He was still giggling, looking over my shoulder. I turned in my seat to see the TV again and there was a commercial, not a very good one. I turned back, ready to critique and complain, but now he was staring straight at me as if the cathode ray had never been invented.

‘She left me.’

It didn’t help to ask who. I asked when but he just shook his head not listening. I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but David shook some more, then took the pint to his mouth and drained it. I was sitting before him saying, ‘Oh my God, man,’ and he handed me his empty glass, interrupted my ‘Jesus, I know you must be hurting—’ with ‘Fill her up for the boy, won’t you?’