Monica. Dead. Prostituting herself up near Dead Man’s Pond. Imagine. Just think about it for a second. Her body starting to rot. Sweet Jesus. I barely knew her. The night she slipped me and Clayton the JD. Was that the last time I saw her? I try to remember the last thing I heard her say. Her last words. In my presence anyhow. I’m hoping it’ll come to me, and that it’ll be something worthwhile, maybe even insightful or…I dont know, sacred. But that’s never the way. Imagine though, lying up there in the woods rotting away while we’re all out knocking around town pouring beer down our throats.
The bar is full, but no one seems to be paying too much mind to the news. It’s just another Saturday in the city. I feel like jumping up on my barstool and demanding a moment of silence. I’d need a few more drinks for that though, and then it’d only come out wrong. Jim McNaughton seems to be the only one either bit upset over the whole thing. He’s been over in the corner bawling his face off for the past half hour, chain smoking and drinking the straight Dock. I should smack him one, cause I can see right through it. That’s the way some people are, they latches onto other people’s tragedies and misfortunes so they can have a good bawl over their own fucked-up situation. Maybe.
The cops were talking to Mike Quinn. He went up and cleared out this room Monica was renting above some whorehouse. Imagine. He’s apparently gonna pay for her funeral too. She’s already after being shipped home to B——, getting buried right next to her father I heard. They says he took a stroke or something when he got the news. Imagine. And prostituting? I mean, we all knew she was hard up for money, to go robbing the bar last month, but hooking? Must be the crack. Poor girl.
Clayton hasnt shown his face yet. I’m pretty sure he slept with Monica last year sometime. He said he did. He was cruel with her too, that night she quit the Hatchet and came upstairs. He was loaded, liquored up and saucy. She gave us the bottle we were drinking out of. And she was just wanting…I dont know.
Silas Lawlor is nowhere to be seen, bastard. Fired her so’s he could surround himself with all his little queenie-boys. He’ll get his.
I met Keith on his way out when I was coming in. I think him and Monica had a thing on the go for a while there. He was head to toe in black leather, had a bottle of Jim Beam his hand and his eyes were red and puffy, his nose swollen up. I havent seen him take a drink since I moved to Town. He’s supposed to be after giving it all up. He stopped when he saw me, I guess maybe because we knew each other years ago. Sometimes I feels so far away from home, from who I am and who I was, even though I’m only an hour’s drive away from the Shore. But we gets lost out here in the world. I knew he needed something from me. I stuck out my hand.
—Keith. Sorry. Sorry you lost your friend.
—Thanks Brent.
And he walked away then, kicked a beer bottle into the street and it shattered off a parked car. I could tell that he was going off somewhere and getting fucked right up, that he’d probably end up in the lockup or back in the mental. Isnt it funny that he said “thanks”? Thanks for what? My sorrow? Thanks for shaking my hand. Thank you for being sorry.
I couldnt finish my beer at the bar. So sick to death of beer. I tossed some change into the tip jar and went to go find Clayton, although I wasnt much in the mood for him either. I wont be around the apartment much longer. Gotta straighten myself up now. I’m gonna have to tell him, eventually, my news. He’ll be cracked. But Christ, we cant live like this forever can we? Look what happened to Monica.
I turn the corner into the alley and Clayton is there sitting on a pedal bike. That Charlene missus, I think she’s into the hard stuff, she’s whispering something in his ear and then gives him a little peck on the cheek and stumbles past me without saying hello. What a fucking hum of sweat and, and…something else off her. Jesus, I suppose he’s not screwing her? God knows what he’ll catch off her. He’s back-on to me. I could just walk away without letting him know I’m here. I should. He revs up the handle grip on the bike like it was a motorcycle, makes the sound and everything. The bike looks like a good one too. I’ve seen it left in the alley before, propped against the murals, never a lock on it. I can tell by the way his head rolls around, how loose his neck is, that he’s hammered. If he mentions Isadora I’ll hit him, I will. She’s not coming back Clayton, she’s gone, it’s not the end of the world, but hurry up and kill yourself if that’s what you need to do.
I mean, I got a nice little young one now that I’ve been knocking around with over the past few weeks, but I’ll be good and goddamned if I let her get under my skin enough to make me want to die. Besides, I’ll be heading off in a few months anyhow, so I cant let it get too out of hand. Clayton’s gonna be vicious when I tell him.
—Hey Clayton.
He lets his head fall back in the direction of my voice and then turns away again.
—Fuckin…look who it is. We’ll hafta slaughter a cow, or something. Slaughter something…
—Hear about Monica?
—Yeah. Well. That’s it.
That’s it. I suppose he’s right. But still, I feel like smashing his nose in, the way he dismisses it. All the nights upstairs with his big speeches about how fragile life is and how short our time is and the tears in his eyes when he’s getting on about how in a hundred years none of us are gonna be around and there’ll be no one to remember who we really are or were. And now Monica, his drinking buddy, his friend, his co-worker who he apparently slept with one time—and he cant face up to it. He wont. It’s not in him. He cant see past his own line of vision, like nothing exists outside his own head.
—Whose bike Clay?
—Wanna buy it?
—Who owns it?
—I fuckin owns it. I’m the one on it sure. Right?
I suppose he has a point there too.
—Wanna go up the road for a coffee or something?
I knew it was a stupid thing to ask before it was even out of my mouth. Stupid thing to ask Clayton anyhow. But I cant face the apartment, because I dont want to get in a situation with him where he can break down, and I dont want to go to a bar. I’m sick of it. All of it. Clayton looks at me like I’ve got something growing out the side of my head, then he busts out laughing, his roars echoing up through the alley and bouncing back and forth between the two buildings. He says the word “coffee,” over and over again, like I just told him the punchline to the funniest joke on the planet and he’s trying to get it right for when he wants to pass it along to someone else. He falls off the bike and lets it drop to the ground.
—Jesus, Clayton. That’s someone’s bike you know.
And I feels like such a shit again, cause the last time we were on the go was the night we ran across the tops of all the parked cars on Bond Street, stopping sometimes and jumping big dents into the roofs. And I did the most damage too, where he’s got the bad foot. I even kicked out a window and took a bunch of CDs out of the last car and set off an alarm. Tossed the CDs like Frisbees down over the rooftops of Victoria Street. Now here I am giving out to him about knocking over a pedal bike? He stands it upright, still giddy over the coffee thing and says:
—Wanna see something?
—What?
—Wait right here.
He hooks the bike up under his arm and staggers around the corner up over the iron steps to the apartment. I stand there, looking around to make sure no one is handy. A couple of minutes pass by and then he comes out onto the back roof of the apartment with the front wheel of the bike rested on the edge. He shouts down at me:
—Heads up!
Before I can think to talk him out of it he sends the bike flying off the roof down into the mouth of the alley. That’s a good fifty- or sixty-foot drop, easy. Earlier in the summer we used to climb the fire escape with our beer and sit up on the top roof, the very top, and drink and smoke. I brought the guitar up a few times too. Finish our beer and drill the empties way down onto Water Street and listen for people cursing or tires screeching. Wonder we never killed nobody. Wonder we werent locked up. I threw a floor-model TV off our back roof one time too, trying to impress a young one. How retarded was I getting on at all? I cant believe I went along with it all for as long as I did. But I suppose we all have to make these kinds of stopovers. And then there was the night we were going to try and make the jump over to the other rooftop. From up there it looks possible, but now that I get a good look from the ground I can see that we would have been killed. Or I would have been killed, I should say. I remember being so determined to make the jump, Clayton tormenting me, leaning out over the side saying how easy it was and that if he had two good legs he’d do it no sweat.
I watch the bike make its slow-motion plummet to the concrete below. The handlebars hook in the iron railing of our front steps and it does a little flip before landing hard on the back wheel, which explodes, the rim a sudden twisted and snarled mess and the brake cables snapping like bits of rotten string. Rotten. Monica. Rotting. I peek out around the corner towards the Hatchet, but no one seems to have heard anything. I look up at the window of the Closet but there’s no one about. Boot it now, up over the steps into the apartment before anyone sees me. Lock the doors behind me and wait it out. I know bloody well there’s going to be a sing-out over this.
Clayton’s already hauled a blanket around himself and curled up on the big red couch, the only thing left in the whole place that seems to have been spared his childish, destructive rampages since Isadora left. He even busted my stereo in half. I kick a bottle across the room. He snaps out of his haze and pokes his head up.
—Hey…look who it is…slaughter…
And then he’s out again. I go through to my room and pack a few things, then I lie down on the sweaty mattress and make a mental list of all the things I’ll have to do over the next few weeks. Passport, that’s the biggest thing. And I’ll need to put a few bucks away. I was thinking I might need to get stuff put in storage, but when I take stock of what I got, I’m sure I’ll pretty much be able to carry everything with me.
The rent is behind and, technically, I still live here. Maybe I’ll clear it up myself, a little consolation gift for Clayton, cause God only knows he’ll need it. I lay there, thinking about how to break all it to him, and after a while the sound of his drunken snores lull me off to sleep too.
About an hour later there’s a pounding on the front door. I get up and go out onto the back roof to see who it is. That’s what we usually do, so we can look down to see who it is. The disgusting odour of sour piss and shit from the other side of the roof is almost nauseating. After the toilet got busted a while back, me and Clayton set up a bit of a bench where we could sit with our arses over the edge and crap down into the small gap between ours and the next building. We’d be shot, we’d make the news, if the health department ever found out.
The pounding on the door gets louder and I almost shout at whoever it is to hold their G.D. horses, I’m on my way. But that’d only defeat the purpose of coming out here. I have this kind of vague hope that it might be Isadora, come back to change Clayton’s life back to the way it was, rid me of this impossible obligation I feel towards him. As if his life was so dreamy when they were together. I lean out over the roof as far as I can without showing my face. It’s not Isadora. It’s an RNC officer. He’s got a motorcycle helmet on. I creep back into the apartment and wait until the pounding stops. Clayton in his deep, drunken stupor. Four o’clock in the afternoon and this is the state he’s in, bringing the cops around. All he had to do was say yes and come on for a coffee.
I pack some more, jam what junk I dont want or need into a heavy-duty garbage bag. I glance out my window onto the street below. There’s a small crowd gathered out front of the Hatchet, Clyde Whelan and Petey Thorne and Charlene and I do believe that Reynolds fella, the guy who puts up all the posters. Maybe it was his bike. The cop is there, writing stuff down in a notebook and shaking his head. All of a sudden the whole crowd look up at the apartment. I step back out of the window and then Clayton is there behind me, asking about the bags I’m packing.
—The cops were here Clayton.
—What for?
I can see his mind racing, wondering what it is he might have done over the past few weeks to bring the cops around.
—You think it’s about Val?
—Val who?
—Reid b’y, me uncle.
—What’s wrong with him sure?
—Nothing, just…you never know.
—Sure he’s up for some big award. You didnt know? It was in the Post today. Lifetime Achievement.
—Yes now?
—Yup.
—Well what did they say, the cops?
—I wasnt talkin to ’em. I’d say it’s about the bike though, for sure.
—Fuck off Clayton, dont try and tell me you dont remember what you just did.
—What? Fuck you. I was asleep.
I has to tell him then and he just stands there nodding at me, waiting for me to crack up. When he realizes I’m serious he says:
—Fuck, that was other-fellas bike, the guy who goes around cleaning up garbage. What’s his name?
—Not Chad Reynolds? Fuck Clayton b’y.
—Well I dont know. Why didnt you stop me?
—There’re gonna blame us you know.
—If we admits to it.
—Clayton, I dont have to admit to nothing cause it was you done it!
And he looks at me then, with that sly smirk that tells me that yes, no matter what happens he’ll never own up to it and we’re in it together unless I go and rat him out. Fucker. I might as well go along with him.
—Well we better make an appearance downstairs then, less suspicious than hiding out up here.
—Good enough.
Downstairs they fly aboard of us like we’re after killing someone. You can tell Clyde Whelan was talking about it to this old bag at the bar. He nods over at us with this satisfied sneer on his face, like he’s delighted to see that we’re finally going to get what we deserves. But there’s no we this time, no. I’m not taking the shit for this one. Clayton’s on his own. Petey Thorne is over in the corner talking to Chad Reynolds, who’s got his head down with a cup of that vile Hatchet coffee in front of himself. Petey comes over to us soon as we’re in through the door.
—The boys! Just the ones we were looking for. You know how much that bike cost?
—Oh yeah, what bike. Twelve hundred bucks. That’s his livelihood you know.
—What the fuck are you trying to say there Thorne?
Clayton ignores the situation and saunters over to the bar. He orders two pints but the little queen behind the bar shakes his head and I hears Clayton saying:
—What the fuck is this then?
—Silas says not to serve you in the daytime.
—What? Fuck you little slut. And fuck Silas. I useta practically run this fuckin place. Will I come around that bar and help meself?
I go over and grab Clayton by the sleeve. He spins around, ready to have it out with me. He dont give a fuck if everybody hates him, so long as he’s not cut off from the bar.
—Clayton, just let it go.
But then Clyde Whelan has to get in on it.
—Who’s gonna pay to get that wheel fixed now? You? You fellas have been getting away with too much shit around here for too long.
And he pokes a finger into my chest, thinking I’m gonna take it. I grabs the finger and twists it around to the breaking point until he manages to pull it away. Clayton laughing at the bar. I cant believe I came down to be around the whole Monica thing, pay some respect, and here I am wrapped up in another of Clayton’s bullshit larks.
—I aint paying for shit. Tell Reynolds he shouldnt be so stunned to leave it lying around like he does.
—How do you know anything about where it was left?
—Look Whelan, take your face outta mine or I’ll bust it in half, how’s that?
Clayton then, gets it into his head to march over to Chad.
—Reynolds. Hey? Look at me.
Chad Reynolds looks up from his coffee. You can tell he’s heartbroken over the bike but at the same time enjoying the attention he’s getting from having it destroyed.
Clayton leans down close to his face.
—Look at me, look into me eyes for fuck sakes.
Reynolds stares hard into Clayton’s eyes.
—I never touched your bike, I knows nothing about it. Think I’m foolish enough to shit on me own doorstep like that?
That’s one of Clayton’s big proverbs he took back from Dublin with him, how he used to drink with some old fella who wouldnt meet in the bar across the street from where he worked cause it wouldnt look too good to his co-workers. Never shit on your own doorstep Brent. And of course he’s been doing nothing else for the past year or more. Literally.
Reynolds keeps looking deep into Clayton’s bloodshot eyes. After what seems like five minutes he nods and says:
—I believe you Clayton.
And then he glances over at me but I cant even look in his direction. Clyde Whelan then, grabs Clayton by the shirt and starts shaking him back and forth. Clayton’s shirt rips at the neck and his necklace busts, pieces of it flying all across the floor. Clayton tries to get his hands around Whelan’s throat but he’s being shaken so hard that he cant even keep his footing. Clyde gives him a dart into the eye. And sure Clayton’s eye is hardly even settled down yet from the night he spent in the lockup a while back. Clayton starts shouting in Clyde’s face:
—C’mon then fucker. C’mon welfare boy. Fuckin pissy welfare bastard. You and me!
Even though I’d like to see him take a bit of a nailing for the bike business, I have to jump in between them. I push Whelan into the bar, the reek of cat’s piss off him enough to gag me. He sees how sober I am and breaks his grip from Clayton’s shirt. Clayton laughing again and Chad Reynolds is over talking to Clyde and Petey, reassuring them that he’s pretty sure we had nothing to do with it. We. And honest to God, I dont know what comes over me, but I shout over at Reynolds:
—How much to replace a wheel?
—One fifty.
—Fuck. How about we do a little benefit show?
—What do you mean?
—Here at the bar tonight. Pass the hat sorta thing? I’ll play. Petey can play.
And I know it makes me look even more like the culprit than Clayton, but the way Reynolds’s face lights up at the notion of a show in his honour, Christ, it’s already a done deal.
I leave Clayton at the bar. He’s back haggling with the queenieboy for just the one pint, one beer. I jump a bus uptown to Sarah’s, that’s my new girl, and has a bite to eat with her and her mother and then I practise a few songs until it’s time to go downtown again for the show.
There’s a lot more old faces around. McNaughton is there again, still bawling in the corner. People are quiet. There’s a picture of Monica on the wall behind the bar. Chad Reynolds is there and everyone is buying him drinks that he dont seem to be drinking. Clayton comes in and helps me set up. He gives a little speech from the mic about the atrocious destruction of Reynolds’s bike, about how the bike was Reynolds’s livelihood, where he works for the LSPU Hall and for certain bands, putting up posters all over town, and that we’ll be having a collection. He does the first few songs, Fred Eaglesmith and Hank Williams songs that we used to sing upstairs. Not a bad voice on him, except he dont really know how to use the mic very well. He’s been more and more taken with the idea of getting a band on the go ever since the night he saw his old band play at the Green Room. The night he lost Isadora, as he tends to put it. He’s been at me to start a band with him, but I cant really see myself going there with him. I’m more into doing it on my own, really. And besides, I’ll be skipping the country soon enough.
I play for about an hour and I even throw in a couple of originals. Then Petey gets up for a few. By the end of the night there’s a big basket of bills and change and me and Clayton take it into the bathroom to count it out. Three hundred and twenty-six bucks. Jesus. Maybe people are feeling that much more generous because of Monica. We count out a hundred and fifty bucks and I hand it over to Reynolds.
—Right on the money there Chad, hope you find out who done it, all the same.
He’s delighted with it.
—God, thanks. Listen I’m…I’m sorry for the trouble earlier, I feel so bad. Here.
He takes a twenty out of the wad and hands it to me.
—No Jesus, no. You need that more than I do.
—No really, take it. Buy yourself and Clayton a few drinks.
I reluctantly take the money, even though I got close to two hundred in my pocket from what we skimmed off the top. I grab Clayton and pull him away from the bar.
—C’mon Clay, let’s hit the town.
He’s out the door before me and people are patting him on the back for doing the right thing and pulling the benefit together, even though it was me who played for over an hour. He just shrugs it all off. I gather up my guitar and has a last look around the bar, with full intentions of never setting foot inside it again. Monica’s gorgeous blue eyes staring back at me from the picture behind the bar. She doesnt look like herself, like there’s something the camera caught that you wouldnt normally see in a person, some neediness. Imagine. Monica. Selling her body to pay the rent. I stand there staring at her picture for as long as I can stand it, and then it hits me, the last thing she said that night, the last time I saw her, as she slipped down our stairs with her belly full of Jack Daniel’s:
—Alright guys, that’s it for me. I’m finished with this place.
I let the phrase bounce around in my head a few times and then Clayton is shouting to me from the street, telling me to hurry up. We’ll lace into the money now and terrorize some young bartender for a couple of hours before getting tossed out, drunk and broke and on the hunt for cigarettes more than likely. One last jag and then I’ll wipe my hands clean of the whole scene. Hopefully.
That’s it for me. I’m finished with this place.