Schrodinger’s Dog part 1

Part 1.

 

Sometimes the choices presented to you are a mystery. You ask yourself, ‘why me?’or ‘now?’ 

    Life can be like that. 

    Not so much a box of chocolates but the box in which Schrödinger kept his cat. You are both alive and dead at the same time. Or are you? The answer won't be revealed until someone opens the flaps. 

    My problem was Janice had invited me to her New Year’s party. It was a problem because a) Janice wasn't speaking to me because b) the week before I had inadvertently killed her dog, William Wilberforce III. 

    The last thing Janice had said to me, before she sent the text saying she would never speak to me again and could I drop off her elf costume at Rodrigo’s asap, was that if she ever saw me again she would tear me ‘limb from limb’. 

    No idle threat. 

    Janice was a bodybuilder. Or had been. Famous in Latvia in the seventies and, so she had breathed into my ear as she came during the one sex-fueled night we had spent together, they still sold t-shirts emblazoned with an image of her pulling a locomotive along with only her bare teeth. It was her proudest achievement. 

    I left it until ten to midnight. The plan was, slip in, kiss a few cheeks, debase myself if necessary, slip out. In the wee small hours I would  send a text, ‘party gr8 must do again next year’. Or the year after. Time, like a politician’s backhander, was a great healer.

    Unfortunately it was Janice herself who opened the door. She was wearing a vivid pink turban and a line-thin pink bikini, her tea-stained muscles rippling in the candlelight behind her. She looked quickly up and down the corridor, her eyes wide and nervous, and pulled me inside. 

    "So you’re here are at last," she whispered. "Me and Paul had just about given up on you." She tapped the side of her nose. “Valkyrie 17 flies at midnight. You remember the old Sinclair Spectrum game?”

    I wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. Janice’s face had so much Botox in it it was difficult to gauge her expression. An ex-friend had once given her a set of mood cards used by zookeepers to train mountain gorillas to communicate. ‘Happy!’, ‘Sad!’,  ‘Banana!’ and so on.

    “You're late,” she hissed. 

    I checked my watch. “The New Year doesn't start till midnight,” I said. Then I said, “Who’s Paul?”

    Stupid question. Sitting on a beanbag sucking on a hookah was a guy. Paul I guessed. He had a shaved head, the kind of lean muscular body you usually see in underwear catalogues, and hooks where both his hands should have been. 

    "Paul has escaped from prison," whispered Janice, "and needs somewhere to hide out." 

    Scooting me further into the room she closed the door and stood with her back pressed up against it. 

    "I thought of you straight away. You owe me a favour."

    I looked at Paul, looked back at Janice. I didn't like how this party was panning out. And it wasn't even a party. 

     “Bumface could be back any minute.” I said. “And he was very specific. No subletting. No houseguests.” Then I said,  “Can't he stay here?"

    Janice pulled this face. Or tried to. “At some point this is going to be the first place the police check." Either her Botox was leaking or a single tear rolled down her cheek. 

    She put her hands up to her face and massaged it into a distraught look.

     “I'm not a bad mother, really I'm not. And Paul is not a bad son. Please, you've got to help us out. If he goes back inside it will kill him. It will kill both of us.”

    As we were walking the back to my place Paul didn't say a word. I guessed he was one of those strong silent types who learnt martial arts after school and then practised them behind the bike sheds on the younger less martial arty kids like me. 

    I wanted to ask him was what he had been in prison for and how he had managed to escape. And how he had lost his hands.

     I could envisage scenarios where you might lose one hand but not both. Losing both seemed altogether more sinister. For example, one hand could slip accidentally into a wood chipper. But two? Someone would have to put them there.

   

When I opened the door to Bumface’s apartment Paul shook his head like he couldn't believe his eyes and pointed upwards with one of his hooks. I knew what he was thinking. The first time I’d been in here I’d thought they were bodies too. Hanging silently from the ceiling like so many suicides. 

     “They belong to Bumface,” I said. “Bumface is currently on board The Empress of India.” Then I said, “Bumface is a drag queen. Those things are his costumes. He thinks they keep their shape better if he leaves them on mannequins.” Then I said, “Bumface isn't his real name. Pussy Bumface is his stage name but we've shortened it to Bumface for ease of use. And Bumface suits him. He has big round cheeks and a small mouth. Like an anus.”

    I was talking too much. I was nervous. I was thinking how we'd both get along in this tiny studio flat. 

    The bathroom was so small I'd got into the habit of leaving the door open when I was sitting on the toilet. I even used to read a book in there. And listen to the radio. Drink a glass of wine or two and light a couple of candles I'd stolen from St. Peter’s. Make a night of it. You get used to your own company and when you're on your own anything goes. 

    "So those things are dresses,” said Paul. He was still looking up at the mannequins hanging from the ceiling. “Dresses that a man can wear?” Then he said, before I had even had chance not to answer. “A man like you?”

   

The following morning Paul peeled a ten pound note from off a fat roll, almost slicing the thing in two with the points of his hooks, and told me to go out and get us both some breakfast .  Then he asked me how I was set.

    “I just happen to be looking for a right hand man,” he said, “and Janice says you owe her big time.”

    “I thought you wanted a place to hide out,” I said. “Lay low for a while. Wait until the heat cools off. And then move on. Like sometime early next week.” I slapped the edge of one hand into the palm of the other. “Strike while the iron is hot. Best not stay in one place too long.”

    “Are you messing with me?” said Paul. “I don’t like to be messed with.”

    Then he pointed at me with both his hooks and made a twisting motion. The meaning was clear. Those hooks could hurt a guy real bad. 

    “What do you want me to do?” I said. 

    Paul pulled out his wad of notes again, passed me maybe a quarter of it.

    "See what kind of car you can get for that. And don't take any bullshit."

    “Ok,” I said. 

    “There's £1000 there. That should be enough for a nice little runner. Only don't get anything green. Or blue. Or red. You know what I mean?”

    “You don't want a colourful car,” I said. “You don't want to draw attention to yourself.”

    “You've got it kid.”

   

Part of me thought about taking the money and running.  £1000 was more money than I'd had for a very long time. Janice and I had earned £150 a week as elves but that job had suddenly ended, without warning, on Christmas Eve. 

    Elves, apparently, weren’t needed after Christmas. Elves, apparently, were seasonal.

     I flicked through the wad of notes and a thought came to me. If I had £1000 on day one how much would I have, say, by day twelve?

    

I don't know what kind of car sales place Paul expected to be open on New Years Day. I wandered around until I found what I was looking for. Outside a terraced house stood a car with a sign in the window ’£300 ONO’. 

    The door was answered by an extremely fat man wearing just a vest and a pair of grubby Y-fronts. He had a fag hanging out of his mouth that might have looked cool on someone cooler.

    “I'm not buying anything,” he said. Then he said, “Do you know what fucking day it is?”

    “Happy New Year,” I said, somewhat ironically I hoped, and pointed at the car.

    "Is there a discount for cash?" I asked. 

    "As opposed to what?" He spoke without taking the cigarette out of his mouth. "A complex pay weekly hire purchase agreement?"

    I turned my back as I peeled off the correct amount of notes and slipped the rest into my underpants. 

    Back at the my flat I found Paul standing in front of a bulging suitcase. A number of the mannequins were lying on the floor, now completely naked. 

    "Where are we going?" I asked. “And what are you doing with Bumface’s costumes?”

    He tapped the side of his nose. "That's for me to know and you to find out." 

 

When Paul saw the car he coughed up a large ball of phlegm and spat it onto the ground. 

    "And you paid £1000 for this?"

    "Prices have gone up since you were inside," I said. I mimed a graph in the air. “Inflation has been going through the roof.”

    "I've only been inside a week," he said. Then he said, at the same time as he poked me in the chest with one of his hooks . “Don't take me for a mug. If you take me for a mug things could turn very nasty.”

   

Paul insisted he drove. Once we were outside the city he put his foot down and opened all the windows. Whenever there was a car in front of us Paul would put one of his hooks on the horn and his head out of the window and scream at the top of his voice until they moved out of the way. 

    That night we stopped at a cheap motel. I thought we were ready to turn in when Paul opened up the suitcase and from it took out one of the dresses he had packed.

    "Tonight," he said, "I want you to be Kylie.”

    It wasn't the first time I had put on one of Bumface’s costumes, leave  any man alone in a room full of dresses and at some point he will try them on, but it was the first time I had done so in front of an audience. Luckily I had seen enough of Bumface’s shows to know what was expected of me and I remembered what he had often said, “A woman is only a man without a penis, and visa versa. At the end of the day we’re all the same. A wig, some make up, and there you go. Bob’s your uncle. Bob’s also your aunt.”

    Afterwards, as I lay wide awake in Paul’s arms, his large penis pressed against my thigh, his warm breath blowing on my cheek, I remembered something else Bumface had said to me. I had just, unsuccessfully, tried to pick up a Polish waitress from the café we always used to frequent and was feeling somewhat down in the dumps. “You, my friend, you just need one good fuck. That will sort you out. Honestly, after that, the ball will start rolling.” 

    Out in the car park car doors banged. In the distance were the sounds of a party, nearer a couple arguing, high plangent calls. Here was life in all its glory, fun, sad and messy and I was slap bang in the middle of it.

   

The following morning I woke to find Paul dressed and sitting on the side of the bed. 

     “Have you ever heard of Fingers Maloney?” he asked. “He's got seven fingers on each hand.”

    Still half asleep and bleary eyed I shook my head. On the floor by the door I could see the tattered remains of Kylie costume, ripped to shreds by Paul in his passion. 

    “Fingers Maloney was my partner and he double-crossed me. That's how I ended up in prison."

    Paul leaned in closer, spoke in a low meaningful whisper. 

    “He owes me a lot of money. I'm going to get it back and then I'm going to kill him.” Then he said, “And you're going to help me.”

 

It was on the forth morning that Paul announced we had arrived. We were about as far north as it was possible to go without falling off the top of the country. Or maybe we had. I felt we had entered into another world, one where everything was different. 

    For the past day Paul had gone quiet, except for an almost inaudible muttering under his breath. Every now and again he would slam one of his hooks down onto his thigh or onto the horn in the centre of the steering wheel. It was clear something was bothering him. 

    "So this Fingers," I asked, trying to coax him out of his mood, “he lives up here does he?"

    Paul turned to me and made a gruesome slashing motion across his throat while at the same time sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth. 

    “He won't be living up here much longer,” he said. Then he said, “If you know what I mean?”

    At around dusk we stopped. We were on the top of a high bluff. Down below us set around a pretty harbour with colourful wooden fishing boats bobbing in it was a small town. I felt a twinge in my heart. This was the kind of place you dreamt about. And if you didn't dream about it then you should have done. 

    The night before had been even more crazy than all the others. While Paul had thrust violently into me he had chewed  the back of my neck and called me a whore. Then he had told me to get down on my knees and suck his toes. Paul had extremely long toes and I wondered if they had got that way to compensate for his lack of fingers. The same way, over time, a giraffe’s neck got long. 

    “It's lovely, isn't it?” I said.

    “You should never believe your eyes,” said Paul. “Or trust your heart.” Then he said, “You see that green boat?” Next to the red one?” He was pointing with one of his hooks and I nodded. The green boat was the cutest of the lot, like something out of a story in which a couple in love see on a trip to Scotland. On its prow in neat white letters was written, Funtime Marina.

    “That little baby can carry two hundred pounds of heroin on a single trip,” said Paul. “Street value five million euros neat." With a sweep of the same hook that had been pointing Paul knocked the maps and everything else off the dashboard and shouted in a loud angry voice. “And it should be me who's skippering her! That's what Fingers took away from me!” He spat onto the floor of the car between his legs. “I'll give him fingers!”

 

Read Part 2