Kevin Barry - Beatlebone

——

He turns in to face the island at last. It is so very fucking cold out here on the rocks. The stones talk beneath his feet as he moves along the shifting, clicking causeway and the night birds huddle and thrum in the crevices and gaps and make their slow contented hums — it’s in the dim haze of the night that he can see clearly at last. The lights on the mainland are arranged as a song and in quite an eerie notation, actually — he hums it for a bit and all the birds quieten. He is terrified and ecstatic and he goes from the east to the west of himself. Small voices come off the water. The water moves and there is a boat in the dark — again they have come for him. There are men huddled on the boat as her engine cuts and the boat lights up with torches and shows the men, with their fags and flasks, and he does not fucking fear them and he stands tall on a high rock to look out and face them and the boat comes ever the closer and one of the men rises in the torchlight and calls—

Mr. Lennon? Would you like to make a statement?

Abso-fucking-lutely, he says.

——

Have you got your paper and pens handy? Are you ready to press “record”? Then, gentlemen, I shall begin. I am made of rags and bones and tattered skin. I am of the third sex. My spirit animal is the billy goat or perhaps some days it’s the hare. I’m never quite sure, in fact. I come and go in time and fucking space. Hobbies? I quite like to speak on the telephone. I do like a good yap. I talk to Liverpool, I talk to Hy-Brasil, I talk to fucking Mars. I like to put my voice along the high wires. I could quote you some poetry if you’d like? How’re you fixed for some Gerard Manley Hopkins? I caught this morning morning’s fucking minion — the one where he sees a bird and goes all swoony coz he loves fucking nature. Nature? I’ve had my fill of it, gents. Turns out it’s all an illusion. Pull the fucking drapes back and it’ll disappear. It’s painted fucking scenery. It’s a diorama. I am full of venom and bile and honky fucking blood. I’m afraid you’ve got me at quite a busy moment. I’m about to crawl under a rock and have a yap with the maggots. Also I’m having quite a difficult time with these terns. They do go on a bit, don’t they? If you really must take my photograph, young man, make me beautiful and get my good side. It’s this one, actually. This side I look like a young Rita Hayworth. The other side I look like Quasi-fucking-modo. I’ve always envied a gentleman with a hump. No one’s going to ask you why the long face, are they? Now what else can I tell you? The number nine’s for Dingle — you won’t catch me out on the Liverpool buses. I had a small growth on my back the other month, I thought it was me hump getting started. Turned out to be a boil, which was a disappointment. What else can I tell you? I think we should all love and ravish each other but I’m holding out no great hopes. I might grow into this suit yet, I fully accept it’s not a perfect fit. Do go easy on yourselves, gentlemen, you’ll not be going around for long. Do have a go at the fat lying hypocrite bastards that run the fucking place, won’t you? Smell the flowers and so forth and fuck each other gladly. Any follow-ups, gents? Any further enquiries? A little more Manley Hopkins? Certainly. Blue-bleak embers shall fall, gall themselves and gash gold-vermillion. He was a fucking laugh, wasn’t he? Good night, gentlemen. Safe home the sea road.

The sound engineer, Charlie Haimes, pushes open the steel door and steps outside to the first of the morning. He sits on the same step of the fire escape that he’s sat on almost every morning of these last humid weeks. It is a little after six and already very warm. The bars of the escape are warm to the touch even. He lights another fag, Charlie Haimes. It’s late July, and the smoke is a hard burn on his lungs.

Inside a fuzzbox oodles and wafts. An effects unit hisses and barfs. A theremin runs slow eerie loops. A shriek sustains on the long pedal. It all sounds to Charlie Haimes like a cat having an incident. But who is Charlie Haimes to say?

The music dies and there are bootsteps and the steel door opens again — John steps out. He has a face on. He rests on the rail and looks out across the city or what can be seen of the city from the fire escape — the workings of a laundry, the back of a Turkish restaurant, a sliver of the early-morning street. He takes his glasses off and rubs his weary eyes.

JOHN Heroin, Charlie.

CHARLIE At the very least, John.

JOHN Speedballs, Charlie.

CHARLIE We do need something.

JOHN A crate of vodka. It sounds fucking cracked in there.

CHARLIE It does a bit.

JOHN It sounds like a fucking nuthouse. And not in a good way.

CHARLIE It’s going to be a challenging piece of work.

JOHN They’re going to do me up like a fucking kipper, Charlie.

CHARLIE Well there are no songs. As such. I mean song-type songs. Is the thing of it, John.

JOHN You think this is news to me, Mr. Haimes?

CHARLIE I’m not saying it necessarily needs song-type songs. As such.

JOHN There are nine fucking pieces.

CHARLIE But do they flow? As such?

JOHN Flow, Charlie? What do you think this is? Fucking Supertramp? We’re breaking the line.

CHARLIE We’re certainly doing that.

The morning lifts across the city. The first scratches of life are on the air; the first of a summer Thursday’s railyard aches and rousing groans.

CHARLIE The thing about the fuzzbox, John?

JOHN The thing about the fuzzbox, Charlie, is I don’t know how to operate the fucking fuzzbox.

The throb of the first trains from deep as the sun comes slowly higher. It’s going to be a blinder. John beads his eyes and sucks on his fag and turns a significant look on the sound engineer Charlie Haimes.

JOHN “Family Of Three” is getting there. The business with the theremin aside. A single, maybe?

If it had a bloody chorus, thinks Charlie Haimes.

JOHN It’s been a long six weeks, Charlie. But another two and we’re done. Or possibly three.

CHARLIE Which would make it nine for a finish. Incidentally.

JOHN Yeah, well, the thing about the nines, Charlie, is I’m blue in the face from the fucking nines. I’ve been seeing the fucking nines everywhere. I’ve been reading the nines into situations. I’ve had it up to here with the fucking nines.

They are running on fags and cold tea. John exhales slowly to the morning. Now he turns and considers with fresh interest the sound engineer Haimes.

JOHN Where is it you’re from, Charlie? Originally.

CHARLIE Douglas way.

JOHN You mean Isle of bloody Man Douglas?

CHARLIE Same as.

JOHN A Manx?

CHARLIE Brine for blood.

JOHN Do you think it’s coming through, Charlie?

CHARLIE The which?

JOHN The point of it all.

CHARLIE Well…

JOHN Okay.

The air is warmer by the moment. The city’s ripe odour is rising. It’s like Delhi on a bad day, thinks Charlie Haimes, whose gut has not been right. He’s done time in Delhi has Charlie. The charas hashish. Never again with the squidgy black — never again with the charas hashish. One night he’d thought there was a bird talking to him. Another time a chair.

CHARLIE What does her nibs think?

JOHN Well her nibs is off the fucking record, isn’t she?

CHARLIE How is that situation by the way? Thaw?

JOHN Thaw is a strong word, Charlie.

John looks up to the sky and considers the plain white and blue of it — as if there might be answers written up there.

JOHN What it’s about? Fucking ultimately? It’s about what you’ve got to put yourself through to make anything worthwhile. It’s about going to the dark places and using what you find there.