Big Dump

El Greco (cont.)
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The next day I decide to take a trip.

I purchase a glass of carrot juice in some shop and down it in one go. As it slides down my throat I shiver and my whole body convulses – the carrots must’ve been rotten, or it’s just that I’ve forgotten the taste, but still it serves its purpose. At least I feel alive.

I exit on the narrow street – a narrow paved street – and suddenly England turns into the mainland. Two blokes at the corner are playing accordions – they are actually playing Beethoven – they jump around and joke with each other. The crowd smiles approvingly, some throw money in their hats, turned upside down on the ground, but the guys – two Hungarian blokes – it’s visible they don’t give a damn. They almost dance with their instruments, their fingers fly rapidly over the keys, the accordions heave and puff from exertion, and the guys laugh. I’d stop and talk to them if they knew any English, so instead I just gaze at them in wonder.

It’s beautiful. It makes me want to pick my acoustic again and I’m jumpy with anticipation. The only thing is, it is back at the club, and I’m afraid my mood will disappear as soon as I’ll step in there. There it’s all about cacophony. The melody is usually outside.

I wander around Oxford all day, resorting to catching the last train back to London, and my hat is pulled low over my face. Seeing people I’ve once known is painful, especially looking at their rosy cheeks and at their mouths speaking of the same things. I spend some time sitting on the bench at the park, feeling outgrown from the scenery. It’s a serene day, with sharp edges of the buildings and children laughing in my ears. I pass by the old record shop and sneak inside; some of the records I’ve seen there five, seven years ago are still on the same spots, the dust cleaned off carefully. I fumble with the soft jackets and exit.

It’s dusky now and I’m angry. Oxford for me is looped in one continuous day, and seeing the faces changing on the streets makes me slightly agitated. I watch couples scurrying this way and that and I realize that there’s absolutely nowhere for me to go and the last train leaves in long three hours. I feel my stomach disappear and I’ve no idea what to do. I’m lost in my hometown.

So I mix in some alcohol. In the pub next to the train station I down many glasses, while trying to talk to everybody. Mostly I’m met with silence or jumpy hellos, and the conversation doesn’t proceed anywhere. I don’t know if I wanted it to. Inside my head, there are plenty of dialogues and they slip from my lips in a harsh unsteady whispers.

I’m a nasty drunk on the train. I managed to walk inside without tripping, and inside my bag there are two bottles that clink as I sit down gingerly. I wait until our tickets are checked and we’ve gained a little speed before reaching inside and taking the clear one out, with a “ta-da”. Some girl is sitting across of me and I raise my eyebrow at her, pointing to the bottle. She shakes her head slightly and turns to the window, so I shrug and open it.
“Watch this,” I tell her and everybody who’s staring at me and try to gulp the whole bottle in one go. It burns my throat and I start to cough, some of it spilling from my mouth onto my clothing. I start to stink but it doesn’t matter. The people around avert their eyes from me, staring down, but I understand that they are watching me. Some poor bloke casts a sideway glance at me which I catch and smile manically at him.

“Want some?” I swing the bottle at him and he, like the girl, shakes his head, “Come on, it’s good stuff. Come here, take a sip.”

But he doesn’t and so I stumble and take a sit next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders and bringing the bottle to his lips. He turns his face away and pushes me away – slightly at first, but when I insist his shoves become harder. “Don’t be a fairy, it’s good stuff, why are you so stiff, just take the drink,” I mumble to him and push the glass against his mouth. The train stumbles harshly and the bottle knocks his teeth and he whimpers. I laugh, because some spilled onto his shirt, but then I see his enraged eyes and he shoves at me, until I’m lying across the seats, and he punches me in the stomach. His face is flushed and he doesn’t know how to strike, but his fists are heavy and with plenty of knuckles. He uses them on my cheekbone and it aches. I try to kick him off of me, but he is significantly bigger heavier – and it takes a couple of people to take him away from me. I let out a drunken laugh and sit up. The bottle’s on the floor, rolling slightly with the motion of the train.

“One more thing from you,” some bloke says, “And you are off the train on the next stop.”

I grin like an idiot and he takes me by the collar and shoves me to the new seat. Everybody shifts away from me slightly, I manage to notice through my thumping head, and I smile. Something drips from my nose. I look at the small dark drops on the floor and wipe my face with a sleeve, smudging the blood; I feel it dry on my cheek and only then I raise my face to be confronted with a pair of dark eyes.

“Hey mate,” I say to the guy who shoved me here, “Pass me my bag, yeah?”

He takes it from the seat and shoves his hand inside, taking out the second bottle. Then he throws the bag at me. I blow him a kiss.

I plan on going to sleep for the rest of the way, but I notice, with much exasperation, that the man across of me keeps looking in my direction.

“No more concerts today,” I tell him with a crooked grin, not being able to meet his eyes, and he turns his face to someone next to him. They talk in calm tones and I look at the floor, at their shined shoes, and the feeling of detachment is more than I can handle. It’s clear that there are they and there’s me, and there’s a glass wall that would cut me if I tried to cross it. I see their shined shoes and wool trousers, and I don’t dare to look at anything else.

…::…

I think about it when I play the following night.

My understanding of this world is quite easy – everyone is destined to reach the ultimate entropy and it doesn’t matter what’ll happen in the process. In the end we’ll turn into gas, and mix together and, well, there’s nothing to fix this. So what I’m busying myself with is searching for sky castles. A foolish purpose in life, but quite engaging.

In the early morning somebody is shaking in the corner, cold sweat running down his pale skin. I kneel in front of the guy and run my hand through his soaked hair, noticing that his teeth are bumping and his eyes are open, pupils moving rapidly. I realize it must be a bad trip and I drag him over to my room and lay him down on my mattress, watching his fists clench and knuckles whiten. He lets out breathy screams sometimes and I put a blanket on him to try to subdue the shaking – perhaps he is cold. He throws the blanket off of himself once it touches him.

As several hours pass I start to worry. Someone once told about brain looping and playing back everything again and again, but I’ve never seen it before. I bring some water over and try to make him swallow it, but his jaw is slack. He vomits and I realize his stomach is empty, because the only thing that comes out of his mouth is bile.

On the next day I sit him down on the bus stop and call the doctors. I watch them haul him into the car from the café window and don’t realize when someone sits in front of me.

The face looking at me is smiling.

“Thom.”

“Tooo-bey,” I rub the back of my neck, “What?”

“You are playing Mother Theresa by picking up junkies, yet when I beg of you to help me close that dump you turn your nose away. I sense it has to do something with my person.”

“You are a dangerous bigot, is all,” I say, leaning back. Toby is wearing a pea coat, his black hair combed neatly, his gray eyes looking into mine with effortless ease.

“A bigot.”

“What are those blokes supposed to do? No club and they will be out on the street, roaming here and there. And then it’s your dandy arse that is going to be shredded.”

“Yes,” Toby nods, “Suddenly a dozen of young men on the street means apocalypses. Tell me, have you ever thought about the noise?”
“Noise?”

“The noise your club makes. The little white truck that comes by the entrance early morning with booze. The whispers that are all around the town. The occasional death which is not anywhere in the newspaper. Have you ever been questioned by a police officer? Have you ever even seen one around?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Have you ever wondered why the place hadn’t collapsed yet, given the amount of dangerous freaks that appear there? You know that people turn into savages at times of anarchy,” his eyes flash, “Well, apart from bad drinks and nasty manners, nothing’s the matter at that place. Chaotic, true, but it’s quite contained.”

I look down at the cold tea in my cup. Toby is sitting across of me with a smug expression, his thin fingers drumming on the table.

“Look, if you start digging into something you always see a thing or two that can be suspicious,” I say slowly, “Doesn’t mean it is, though. You are just forgetting the big picture. Who’d be interested in those poor bastards? Most of them have the same scenarios in their lives – school, factory, maybe small theft, maybe a bit of jail time.”

“Who orders the booze? Where the drugs come from?”

I’m silent.

“The bloke you helped so kindly,” Toby says, staring at his fingers, “He had a small hand-made bomb in his apartment. He was preparing a couple more, just about finished. And then he meets a girl at a pub, the girl he likes very much, ends up taking her up to his apartment, and the girl gives him the address of this place, for they next date. The rest you know.”

“Look, you are the only person who sees things like that.”

“That’s because I’m shoving it into you. You are too involved with your internal problems to watch the world around. Thom,” he says, leaning closer and our hair mingles slightly, “Get out of your head and help me. Because if you don’t, something in me will snap.”

I look up into his eyes and he smiles slightly. “Tonight,” he whispers quietly, “Tonight I want you to come with me.”

tbc