Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

The man nods and I powwow-wow, and Chief taps out a beat. A while later insect-oid-us-smack-a-dick-tus comes to again. I keep doing my powwow-wow and Chief is beginning tae get freaked out. Mr Locust puts his lighter down.

‘You are unbelievably fuckable,’ he says.

‘Really?’

‘Really. You’re so fucking … wasted, look at you! I think I love you.’

‘D’ye know what I love?’

‘What?’

‘The clouds, and the stars, and the grass — it sounds silly, ay. But I do. I fucking love them.’

I do, I love them, I love this feeling. He pads out of the room, then he comes back in and holds out a jellyfish. No, it’s not a jellyfish, it’s a bikini with polka-dots on it.

‘Try this.’

‘I dinnae like polka-dots.’

‘Aye, but there’s a cool skull and crossbones, right there,’ he says.

There is as well, just there, a skull and crossbones right on the arse. Just a wee one. It’s cute. I change in the kitchen and start my dance again in bare feet.

‘That’s better!’ He grins.

‘Tell Chief tae stop watching.’

‘He’s not watching, honest. Best keep at it, though!’ he says solemnly and so I do.

He goes in the kitchen at one point and grabs my shoes. He opens the window and lobs them out, then he throws away my shorts, my vest. Chief edges away from him. Powwow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow. A clock on the wall spins time, and in the other world an ice-cream van tinkles and children shout and the sun is clearly furious, but we dinnae pay it any attention.

Roo takes his cock out, it’s got red marks, all up and down it. He puts a needle down and swoons.

The windows are so bare. There’s a high-rise across the way and there’s three down the hill and they all point at the sky. Look at that ice-cream van — seventeen floors below, d’ye think they can see me from down there? Me. Up here. Arms raised, doing an Indian war cry. Whoop, whoop, whoop!

He won’t wake, I kick him, but he doesnae move.

Me and Chief stare each other out, we circle around slowly in the age-old voodoo way, and when I get to the door for the fifteenth time I escape. The hallway’s dark and smells like pish. Pick a door. Any door. Bathroom, okay.

Pull the light, there’s no knob on the end of the string, just a knot someone tied. Dirty knot, dirty string.

Must find fire.

I kneel down on the dirty lino, and it’s sticky, so I shove a damp towel under my legs. Must find fire. Quick. Must find fire, must find fire. Find fire. Fire, fire, fire. The word sounds weird, how weird does it sound? Shit! My reflection is in a round cracked mirror by the toilet. Stiff nipples, dirty skin, strange neck, see-through veins. There is a large bruise on my thigh and thunder in the hallway, huge claps of it. It sounds like a storm that shouts.

I use a teaspoon to unscrew the front from the radiator cabinet. I lift bits out and yank bits away and I’m almost there, inside, where the fire will be, when the door is flung open. A man in black stares. I push my headdress back up on my forehead and the feathers wilt tae the left.

‘What?’

He looks at me. Maybe he’s here for Chief, or maybe he’s having a party? Pick up the bag of Es and offer him one, but he reaches a long arm out and takes them all.

‘That’s fucking greedy,’ I tell him.

‘What’s your name, love?’

‘Cloud.’

The plebeian is clearly impolite, but it’s better to let it go, for that is the shaman way. He doesnae know I was born in a trance witnessed only by an Indian chief and his daughters, but I was. I am above greed.

The man stuffs the bag of pills in his pocket, then he shouts in thunder to somebody else. Somebody else appears with Chief in a cat basket. Chief grins at me.

‘What is going on here then?’

The man holding Chief seems to be asking me. What does he mean by here ? Here as in where?

They both keep gazing at me and I blink. They are definitely expecting me to say something. What? What are the plebeians expecting? Perhaps they are awed by my shaman aura — probably they are.

‘Fire.’

Gesture at the radiator and pull off another bit of metal. The slow people are just standing there. Maybe they are humbled, yet confused by meeting the daughter of a shaman and a forest nymph, here, in this bathroom. It’s most likely. I must be kind tae the simple mortals, for that is the shaman way.

‘D’ye have fire?’

I ask it politely but they dinnae answer — fucking tosspots. Chief rolls his reptilian eyes, his nails tip-tap loudly on the plastic cat basket as he turns himself around, then grins at me again.

‘Skin up then?’ I say.

I hold my hand out for an E, cos shamans should be happy, everyone knows that. The people dinnae seem tae get it, though. They pick me up off the floor and walk me out to the lift, draping a big black jacket around me. I’m shaking. It’s cold. I cannae quite remember why I’m wearing a bikini.

One of the men goes back into the flat, then he comes out with the guy’s trainers.

‘Put these on, I cannae find yours and there’s broken glass in that lift. Put them on!’

I shove the trainers on, they are twice as big as my feet. In the lift I do a powwow dance, but the trainers have given me big clown feet. I try one more powwow-wow, but it’s horrible and klutzy and the trainers trip over each other. I’m sad now. Really fucking sad.

When we get downstairs, Roo is being taken away on a stretcher.

‘Where’s Mr Locust going?’

‘He isnae well. D’ye know him?’

‘Nope.’

As we walk through the car park one of the guys tries tae take my headdress off.

‘What the fuck d’ye think you’re doing?’

‘You need tae take it off and get in the car!’

‘Dinnae touch the fucking headdress!’

I scream so loud that windows open as far up as the eighteenth floor. I scream harder. Curtains twitch. Lights go on. People look down and point until the men just shove me in the back seat with my headdress on. We drive out of the estate in silence. Chief’s in his cat basket next to me. The slow people have a blue light. They’re fucking odd ravers.

‘Can you put the radio on?’ I ask.

‘No. We cannae. Are you gonnae tell us what you’ve been up to today then?’

‘It’s my birthday.’

‘Having a party, were you?’

I grin at them, cuffed, in my bikini, headdress squint, watching spirals of light dance across the sky. I cannae quite remember where they are taking me but fuck it, ay — maybe it’s a better party where we’re going, hopefully there will be fire there.

When we get there, there’s nae music. Just a drunk woman sat on a plastic chair in a room with a bright light. She’s pished herself.

‘We are booking you with possession and intent tae supply — do you have anything tae say?’

‘This party’s pish.’

IF YOU STARE at the watchtower long enough it looks like a bug. Especially if the sun is reflected in it, like wee golden irises. Or if the moon is in it, like last night. Then it has white eyes that follow you around. All the floors and bedroom doors are reflected in the window. Even me, I am in it too, looking up at myself.

I’m sitting on the third-floor landing — in the lotus position, throwing up a rubber ball and catching it. I took it off the curly-haired laddie; his name’s Brian and he’s a freak. I have thrown the ball one hundred and seventy times without dropping it. If I drop it — the pig will die.

If the pig dies, I’m getting put into a secure unit until I’m eighteen. Then jail. Except I won’t make it, I won’t make sixteen — I’ll be dead. Then it’ll be me and the pig, and Teresa, and Jake from the last home with the noose around his neck. All of us sad bastards sitting playing poker in the last cell before Sheol. Jake in the last home was a fucking arse. He’s better off dead. It’s sick, but true — some people take living out on anyone who’ll let them.