Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

When Titus comes into the room he immediately falls onto the sofa inside the door. His panic increases. Now there are two people to act drunk in front of.

‘C-c-cock in your ear!’ Eddie yells when he catches sight of Titus.

‘Hi Lenny. Hell, great to see you,’ says Titus, slurring his words in an attempt to sound like his usual half-sloshed worse self.

Lenny gets a bottle out a little fridge and stretches across to Titus.

‘You seem to be fairly sozzled already. H-h-here. Drink this fucker too. Amaze the world!’

Titus takes the little bottle and holds it to his nose. Vodka. Of all the spirits in the world, vodka is the easiest to drink. He feels the craving grow inside him, and he knows that he could drink the whole bottle in less than thirty seconds. He knows exactly what it feels like when the first calm spreads through his body purely from the knowledge of having access to alcohol, long before it reaches his bloodstream.

But it is better to be obsessed than dependent. When the human driving forces do battle, it is not always the strongest one that wins. You can use your brain too, and let cleverness win on points. Despite the proximity of the vodka, Titus feels totally relaxed when he conjures forth his reward image. The young boy with his life before him, lying on a woman’s bosom, breathing in time with her. Out and in. Out and in. Moustache wet with fat milk. Lick it off. Become calm. Cognitive self-help. Vodka came, vodka went away. Hello and goodbye. He is going to get through this. Again. He can do it. He is good.

‘Are you all geared up, Titus?’ Lenny wonders. ‘Has Eddie told you what you’re going to read?’

‘No, I never do that in advance,’ says Eddie, and flashes a smile via the mirror at Lenny and Titus. ‘It would spoil the magic. Wouldn’t it, Titus?’

‘Mmmm,’ mumbles Titus, who realises that he must lie low with the talk so as not to out himself as a newly fledged teetotaller.

He presses his thumb hard against the mouth of the bottle, leans back on the sofa into a recumbent position and puts the bottle to his lips. Then he turns his head in towards the sofa, holding the bottle between the cushion and the back of the sofa. He releases his thumb. The vodka runs out, gurgling, down into the innards of the sofa.

Then he adopts a half-sitting position with a ‘pah!’ and wipes his mouth on the arm of his jacket and puts the empty bottle down with a bang on the coffee table. He pushes a sofa cushion over the damp patch and says:

‘F-fanks, Renny… can I have a little snooze before it’s time?’

Titus doesn’t wait for an answer, but leans back with his eyes shut. He isn’t following any special plan, just acting on the spur of the moment. Parry. Act. Live life like it’s a pinball machine. He emits a short snore.

‘Hey, Titus! Have you fallen asleep? You can’t sleep now. Hey!’ says Lenny.

Titus doesn’t respond. Must play for time, reload. Soon they will expose him.

‘Titus? Are you there?’ Now it is Eddie who wants to know.

No answer. Heavy breathing.

‘He is beyond salvation,’ Eddie sighs. ‘It’s rather sad, isn’t it?’

‘It is fucking crazy. He just zonked out. Must be totally sloshed.’

Eddis tears himself away from his mirror image and goes up to Titus. He gives him a gentle shake.

‘Titus…?’

No response.

‘TITUS!’

Eddie gets hold of Titus’ jacket lapel and pulls him up. Titus’ head hangs backwards. A little string of saliva runs out of his open mouth. His body is totally limp. All his strength goes into being out of reach.

The stakes are high, Titus knows that. But it is a case of make or break. Snore.

Eddie lets go of him. Leans over Titus’ ear and says in a calm and friendly tone:

‘Titus, I’ll come and wake you five minutes before it’s time for your entrance. In about half an hour. It’s going to be fine. You’ll manage it.’

‘What the fuck! Are we just going to let him lie here?’ is Lenny’s loud contribution as he pokes Titus in his side.

‘What choice do we have?’

‘Yeah, well we can phone a hospital and ask them to send an ambulance. The guy is unconscious, you can see that!’

‘Get a hold of yourself, damn you! So that they would send him to some fucking rehab clinic, or what?’

What was that? Titus reacts in his pretend torpor. A new tone. Titus has never before heard Eddie raise his voice against anybody. What’s going on?

Titus hears that they leave him and move towards the door. It sounds as if they are pushing and shoving each other.

Titus decides to sneak a look and opens a minimal slit between his eyelids. He peeps out. What is happening?

Lenny stands by the door with his hand on the door knob. He is on his way out. Eddie is standing next to him. Legs apart, his arms crossed. Keeping the door closed with his foot. A tense situation.

‘I just thought…’ Lenny attempts.

‘Don’t fucking think anything,’ Eddie hisses and pushes Lenny up against the door. ‘If you let me down then I’ll reveal the whole bloody mess. Then you are – in deep shit .’

‘Yeees… or no. I mean, of course I’ll do it for you. I’ll pump him. I promised I would.’

Eddie X has the underside of the lower part of his arm up against Lenny’s throat. He applies some pressure, hard and for a long time. His arm is trembling with rage. The knuckles on his clenched fist have gone all white. His jaw is tense. His upper lip twitches. A vein throbs on his forehead. Eddie is no longer handsome, just angry, extremely angry. With his teeth together, he hisses:

‘You’re going to help me see this project through. I have read more than half and it could just as well be my own words. It was fucking well my idea from the very first. That bastard has nicked it all. We must do whatever is necessary, do you get that? Whatever the cost.’

Lenny looks frightened. His eyes wide open, he stares at Eddie and nods.

Titus stares too, with his millimetre eye, from the sofa.

The fury.

Romantic poets can evidently have many sides to them.

When Astra gets out of the taxi outside the theatre, the square is almost deserted. It is a few minutes past eight and the festival has already begun. She hurries up the stairs and goes to the box office. She’s lucky, there are still a few tickets left. The upper gallery, next to the spotlight ramp. Might be a bit hot there, but she can see and hear well. Only 190 kronor.

‘I’ll take it,’ says Astra, and pays.

The opening act is something of a highlight: Legendary jazz and groove poet Gil Scott-Heron is on stage. The man behind classics like Home Is Where The Hatred Is and Whitey On The Moon gets the adrenalin going in the magnificent theatre auditorium. He is the opening act and will also close the evening as the final act. In the 1960s and 1970s, he made a name for himself for his militant stance in the Afro-American liberation struggle. During his entire artistic career he has fought against injustice and discrimination by reading and singing revolutionary texts to funky background music. Lots of people regard Gil Scott-Heron as the father of hip hop, although he personally hates the way a large part of black music over the last twenty years has treated women in such a degrading manner. It is both sad and degrading that a people who have been the victims of apartheid can’t raise themselves above the standard of their oppressors.

When Astra takes her seat, the whole auditorium is already on the verge of meltdown. Gil Scott-Heron’s time machine has thrown the public back to 1970, a time when the revolution was raging. The old legend stands alone on the dark stage with only one spotlight right above him. He looks like a scarecrow: grey beard, grey jacket, black shirt, black leather cap. Everything is too large, too sack-like. Funky background music with bongo drums, lazy bass and indecent transverse flute. His head bent slightly forward towards the mike. You can’t see his eyes. A hoarse, feverish voice. One hand gripping the mike stand. His other clenched fist up in the air, out towards the auditorium. Black power.