Broken Neon Arabesque (3/?)
Part 3
He’s sitting in the corner, reading one of my books. That’s all he does, when he’s not talking incessantly, cooking up, or lying like a dead body on my floor. Flicks a page…a pale pink tongue caresses a grimy finger before he does so…I groan slightly in annoyance…bet he’s putting smudges all over the paper. He looks up at the noise, eyes light up and a smile curls lips…turns the corner of the page he’s on over, runs a nail down the fold…bloody twat…it’s not his, I don’t want my book’s pages all folded over. Walk’s over…chilling sing-song voice…
“What’s the matter Carlos?”
*****
Okay, on the floor in the bathroom, door’s swung closed but not locked…because there isn’t a lock on it. Just another one of those signs that this flat has had a sole inhabitant for a good while now, like how there’s only one toothbrush, towel…hell, even only one bowl and glass…why the mirror’s in shards perhaps?...don’t need it anymore if there’s no-one ‘cept you to see who’s in the reflection, 'specially if you don't like the reflection too much yourself…But, ah, fuck it, never mind that…more pressing concerns. My long fingers sweat, maybe from the heat of the small flame I use to cook up, and tremble, as though my body doesn’t understand that by doing this it is making it more difficult for me to give it the remedy it needs. Had to leave it longer than usual, don’t want to actually shoot up in front of Carl…there’s a chance he might chuck me out on my ear…he knows I’m an addict, called me ‘junkie’ or ‘smackhead’ a few times when I’ve done something to rile him, which seems to be just about anything I do, but I’m not sure how he would react to cold, hard proof.
He’s playing guitar now though so it’s safe for the moment…melodies come creeping through the door…delicate, gentle sequences of notes that inevitably degrade into savage, angered chords. It’s like he starts off painting a world of light and beauty, and then rails at the realisation that it doesn’t exist…and if his technique isn’t perfect…if every so often the notes come out skewed…well that just serves his purpose, doesn’t it? Showing you that the song can’t even be perfect, so that you definitely won’t have any hopes for the real world outside of it….it’s more than a melody, it’s his whole poisonous mindset seeping out into the air, making me even more eager to escape as I push the needle into a vein and it runs in, fucking perfection. Everything falls away in a moment, and I barely register the jolt of my back hitting against the bathroom tiles…Carl playing guitar outside the door is joined by an orchestra…my arms move in lethargic conduction across the cold floor, a wide sated smile on my face…can never be better than this…something swims in front of my gaze…blue eyes…upside down face…mouth set in a disapproving line…a boot in my side…
“Just fucking do it in the room next time, will you? Don’t need this when I want to take a leak...”
I close my eyes…let my smile melt across my face like something out a Dali painting…hear a sigh and then the slam of the door as he leaves the room…
*****
“Oh no…don’t put the big one on the bike…why’d they put the big one on the bike Carlos?” Tugs on my sleeve as he asks the question…and again he’s resuming the façade of the innocent child…wide, dark eyes and an inquisitive, excited colouring to his tone….but he’s just become ‘Pete’ to me now…and I’m coming to see that the innocence isn’t a mask….just the other side of the coin perhaps, dusty and grimy through disuse but nonetheless still visible.
Black and white images move across the telly screen…Sid James’ character falls off a push-bike as Alec Guinness’ looks on, with much the same mildly exasperated expression on his face as the one I direct in Pete’s direction.
“’Cos he’s colour blind,” I explain. “You’d know if you fucking listened instead of asking stupid questions.”
Pete just grins at my annoyance, which I must admit isn’t really all that heartfelt. I’ve watched this film so many times that I could probably recite it word for word…find myself watching Pete’s reactions more than the film. Those unsettling eyes for once aren’t focused at me, instead on the screen, and when something amusing happens laughter springs out of him like it’s been locked up inside for years, fighting to get out. It’s fucking pure, untainted, unlike everything else about him…sometimes I think that he’s a better person than me though. He is twisted, an addict, to all intents and purposes scum, but yet something shines through sometimes that makes me think that there is something truly good under all that. I on the other hand always seem to be able to somehow fool everyone into believing that I’m an alright sort of chap when I know that underneath there’s something black and foul.
Just now he leans forward, almost as if he’s trying to leap into the set, caught up in the getaway onscreen. I sigh and lie back, just waiting for the elbow in the ribs that will mean he’s got another question…
*****
“One…” No reaction, he just places the whisky bottle back down on the table, keeping his hand slightly grasping the glass. I settle further down against the wall, still comforted and sedated from my last hit a couple of hours ago. I can wait this one out…know I’ll get results. He looks at me, notices me staring intently at him and tips his head down, letting his hair fall over his eyes slightly before he takes another swallow. I duly record the action.
“Two…” A slight movement this time…but it’s quite possible that he’s shivering. It is rather cold in here. I don’t let my gaze falter as I push the sleeves of my jumper down to combat the chill.
“Three…” The thud of the glass bottom of the bottle against the tabletop is followed by a tapping of fingers…amazing how a simple sound can convey so much annoyance….even though he’s not admitting it, he knows the rules of the game, doesn’t want to lose.
“Four…” Blue eyes meet mine properly now, an unspoken warning. This is just too easy...I don’t think the counting was even needed really, it just sits on the surface, the unflinching stare might have been enough. It’s odd really, that a person that seems to do so much to trap themselves can’t bear being pinned down by another, even just by sight, for anymore than a couple of seconds. His irritation shows as he raises the bottle neck to his lips once more, jerking the liquid back.
“Five-”
“Would you fucking quit that!”
Oh Carlos…expected you to last longer than that…that’s an awful low annoyance threshold you got there…
Time for the ‘ole innocent card. Eyebrows raised, slight pout, wide eyes, voice politely inquiring.
“What?”
I know I’m on to a winner here. He wants me to stop, doesn’t want to be my private study any longer…but I’m pretty sure he’s got too much pride to tell me directly. He glares, and there’s that fire, that threat of violence that lurks around him always…pretty low down now though, I’ve not pushed him that far yet, although I like to tell myself that I could if I wanted to, and that it’s not fear that’s stopping me.
“You know what.”
“Oh.” I plaster on a fake look of realisation, and stop kicking my foot off the table leg, an activity I only started mere moments before, making sure to give him a wide, overly compliant smile as if that had been what he’d been talking about. He looks at me somewhat suspiciously, but can’t say that that wasn’t what had been bothering him without admitting further that I had managed to get to him. After a few moments of me looking as angelic as is possible under his burning gaze he must decide that he’s won, ‘cos he smiles slightly, takes his sixth gulp of whisky straight from the bottle. I watch his adam’s apple rise and fall as if painstakingly sketching the movement with my eyes…thick black charcoal on canvas…before I let a devilish grin slide over my features…
“Six…”
****
Tomato soup…part it like the Red Sea, a three second messiah. Lukewarm…and it doesn’t taste like tomatoes really…nothing tomato flavoured does. All part of the myth….no-one wants to accept the real truth, which is that tomatoes don’t really have all that much of a taste…mostly just water really.
Pete sits across from me, eyes my bowl distastefully.
“Not good for you, just eating soup all the time.” He advises as he tightens his belt around his arm, tapping the end of a syringe with a long finger. I can’t restrain a slight curl of my lips at the advice, and I think he gets the joke too…amusement sparks in his gaze for a second before the drug sweeps through…pulls it away with the rest of him…
I look back at the bowl as the smile quickly fades, drip soup off the end of the spoon before sighing, pushing it away. The room seems smaller all of a sudden, made up only of me, the bowl and of course, the empty form against the wall.
I just hope, for his sake, wherever it is he goes is a damn sight better than this…