Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘It’s a new haunt, for me,’ says Jasper.

‘Time is the only difference.’

‘I don’t have much of that left.’

‘To die is different from what anyone supposes.’ The old man touches Jasper’s wrist. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

‘Easy for you to say. You had a whole lifetime.’

‘As do we all. Not a moment more, nor a moment less.’

Jasper wakes up. Nobody’s there. He walks out of the spiral and onto a lawn where a military band is playing ‘The Ballad Of The Green Berets’. The Stars and Stripes flutters from a flagpole by an army tent. A banner reads, ‘WANTED: AMERICAN HEROES – ENLIST TODAY!’ A couple of recruitment officers are surrounded by a dozen long-haired youths. ‘Heroes? You’re burning children over there! Children! Wake the fuck up already! It’s genocide!’

A recruitment officer shouts back: ‘You’re a disgrace! Hiding behind that peace-sign while REAL MEN do your fighting for you! Peace doesn’t just happen! Peace has to be fought for! ’

A crowd is gathering, but Jasper doesn’t stay to watch. His death sentence has made most things that once mattered newly irrelevant. He leaves Central Park and finds a statue on a tall pillar on a traffic island. Christopher Columbus has lost his way and it’s later than he thought. Jasper buys a bottle of something called Dr Pepper from a street vendor, but it doesn’t taste of pepper. Jasper didn’t bring his watch. He asks Knock Knock, ‘How much time do I have left?’

If Knock Knock hears, he does not answer.

Jasper enters a record shop. Cream’s ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ is playing. He flicks through the racks of LPs, enjoying the updraught of air on his face with every sleeve flicked. He takes his leave of Pet Sounds , Sgt. Pepper’s , A Love Supreme ; of Etta James’s At Last! , Aretha Franklin’s I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You and Love’s Forever Changes ; of Otis Blue ; The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and The Who Sell Out. Jasper arrives at Paradise Is the Road to Paradise , and Stuff of Life . The Tarot card cover turned out well. Jasper wishes he could live long enough to hear Elf’s and Dean’s American songs. He’ll miss his life. Except, of course, he won’t. Only the living miss things.

‘They’re playing in town this week.’ The shopkeeper has a big belly, milky eyes and stains on his polyester shirt. ‘The Ghepardo. Broadway at 53rd. That’s the second album. Stuff of Life. The first one was good, but that’s a step up.’

‘Is it selling well?’

‘Sold five today. You sound English.’

‘My mother was. I went to school there.’

‘Yeah? Ever see the Beatles?’

‘Only John. It was at a party.’

‘Woah. You met him? You’re shitting me.’

Is ‘shitting’ lying? ‘We didn’t really chat. It was under a table. He’d lost his mind and wanted it back.’

The shopkeeper frowns. ‘Is that, like, British humour?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ ends. ‘Try this,’ says the shopkeeper, and puts on ‘Look Who It Isn’t’. ‘Total motherfucker.’

Jasper remembers Dean teaching him the riff at Fungus Hut, and Elf playing organ descents from Bach’s Toccata , and Griff deciding, ‘This one needs the full Moon. Stand back …’

It hurts that he’ll never see the band again.

They’ll think I lost my nerve and vanished.

Jasper exits the shop. Evening submerges the streets and avenues. The traffic thickens and gets angrier. Jasper overtakes a Ferrari on foot. Horns honk. Ya-honk , ya-hoooooonk , ya-hooooooooonk , filling the geometry of Manhattan. Like most rage, it is perfectly futile. ‘WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK,’ says a sign. Trees are turning. Somewhere a busker is playing Big Bill Broonzy’s ‘Key To The Highway’. Profound aural schizophrenia . Men are playing chess on benches, picnic chairs and tables. The oldest of them is lean as a turkey neck, with cracked spectacles, a grimy tweed cap and a sackcloth bag. His opponent knocks over his king and pays a cigarette. ‘I’ll keep your bunk safe, Diz,’ he says, and goes.

Diz looks up at Jasper. ‘Want a game, Shotgun?’

‘Is your name really “Diz”?’

‘That’s what I go by. You in or not?’

‘How does it work?’

‘Easy.’ Diz’s voice is a rasp. ‘I stake a dollar. You stake a dollar to play black, or a dollar-fifty for white. Winner takes the pot.’

‘I’ll play as black.’

Diz puts two fifty-cent coins into a chipped cup. Jasper puts in a dollar bill. His opponent opens with a variant on the Modern Benoni Attack. Jasper opts for the King’s Indian Defence. A few spectators gather, and Jasper becomes aware of bets being placed on their game. At the tenth move, Diz sets up a pincer with his bishop. By side-stepping it, Jasper blunders into a two-way fork. He goes a knight down, and a slow war of attrition begins. Jasper manages to castle, but cannot avoid a queen exchange. Piece by traded piece, Jasper’s chances of clawing back a knight or a bishop diminish. At the endgame, Jasper is a move away from promoting a pawn to queen, but Diz has it covered. ‘Check.’

‘The inevitable.’ Jasper knocks over his king. He sees the moon has risen. ‘That was a strong opening.’

‘They taught me good at my academy.’

‘You went to a chess academy?’

‘Attica Prison Academy. Gimme a half-dollar, I’ll teach you the Benoni.’

‘You already have.’ Under the table Jasper slips a five-dollar bill into his box of Dunhills, then gives it to the old man. ‘Tuition.’

He pockets it. ‘’Ppreciate that, Shotgun.’

Signs around him tell Jasper this is Greenwich Village. He smells food but isn’t hungry. He buys an iced tea at a café. Baseball is on the radio. A wall in Jasper’s mind shudders under a powerful blow. It’s a message. Soon now …

Jasper wants darkness, privacy and warmth for this death, but he doesn’t want the others to find him dead in his room. The sight will upset Elf. An empty church, or … He enters a hospital of uncertain dimensions. The Emergency Room is a turbulent exhibition of human suffering, of fractures, breakages, a knife wound, a gun-wound, burns. Some patients sit stoically and others don’t. Who can measure the pain of another? Jasper passes a security guard unchallenged and climbs stairs, turns corners and crosses corridors. The air smells of bleach, old masonry and something earthy. ‘ Clear the way! Clear the way! ’ A medical team rushes by with a trolley. Someone is sobbing in a stairwell, above or below, it’s hard to be sure. Jasper reaches a door labelled ‘PRIVATE WARD N9D’. There is a window at head-height set into the door. It is curtained behind for privacy and reflects like a black mirror. Knock Knock examines Jasper with the eyes of time. In here , he says. Jasper opens the door a crack. By dim light the colour of treacle, he sees a small ward, containing two beds. One bed is occupied by a man. There is not much of him left but hollow folds and wrinkles wrapped in a hospital gown. The Hollow Man. The other bed is vacant. Quietly, Jasper shuts the door behind him, removes his shoes and lies on the spare bed. If the Hollow Man notices his visitor, he gives no indication. Jasper’s feet are throbbing after a day of walking. Sounds reach him, as if piped from a sinking ship. A band is playing on. A telephone is ringing. A woman answers: ‘Hello?’ Pause. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’ Six feet away, a rattle rattles in the Hollow Man’s throat. Split dried peas in a cardboard shaker. Drool pools from a toothless mouth and falls in a filament from withered lips. It soaks into his pillow. The Hollow Man opens his eyes. He has none. Jasper wonders who he once was, and announces, ‘Goodbye.’ Jasper tells Knock Knock, ‘I’m ready.’