The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Monday 20 December 2010

Chapter Five: Duct Tape Is Silver (Part VI)

Charley’s heart was in the art of the confidence game, but he got his regular income from peddling drugs, anything from dope and shrooms to speed and smack. Don’t ask me how that is connected to Bryan or Leeds. I’m guessing there as much as you, but it’s hard to avoid that conclusion, innit? On the other hand, jumping to conclusions can be a dangerous thing. As I later figured out, Charley probably was involved in other rackets, blackmail, and corruption, and who knows what. Mostly he networked, I think, brought peeps together to wreck more havoc than they could on their own.
Back then I thought none of that mattered to me. I had nothing to do with his other jobs, all we had in common were the games we played and the marks we shook down.
Sometimes when we were together he’d meet some peeps on some corner, in some park, or some pub. Sometimes little folded pieces of paper changed hands, sometimes little plastic bags, sometimes thumb-drives or just a few words. That was what lead us into that bar in Leith, near the harbour, that one night at the end of my first week in Edinburgh.
Outside it was pouring cats and dogs, and so I went inside as well. The bar – I have forgotten the name – was narrow, dark, and crowded, and smelled of wet wool and spilt beer. Charley was making his round, having a gab here and there, shaking hands, handing out merchandise and palming folded bills in return.
I trailed behind him and passed the time studying his techniques. He had some sweet moves, and I thought I ought to trade a couple of handshakes with him, and practice that passing off routine, but on the whole I decided I was the better sleight-of-hand artist. Of course, I would never be able to charm peeps as easily nd effectively as he could. Deceive them, yes. Manipulate them, sometimes. Charm – not a chance.
Usually Charley got out of these places as soon as he was done. That night, though, he bought a pint of stout for each of us instead.
“Here you go, Bobby,” he shouted over the general din.
“Ta!” I shouted back. “We’re not leaving?”
“Nah. You don’t want to miss this.”
“What?”
“Give’em a minute. They’ll be on soon.”
He pointed at a set of drums a heavily tattooed bloke was setting up in one corner. Another in torn jeans, faded t-shirts, and wearing a studded black leather belt, bracelets, and a dog collars was messing around with dodgy looking cables and an old set of amps and loudspeakers.
“Who are they?”
“Ah, the finest crappy band you’ll ever hear.”
“What do the play?”
At that Charley had to laugh. “Ponyboy is one of my regulars. Junkie. Fag like you.”
Just as an aside: As far as I could tell, Charley was pretty straight. Blokes just didn’t rattle his cattle was how he once put it. But he was about the least homophobic straight bloke I ever met. He had no problem embracing me, or walking around with an arm over my shoulder. He didn’t mind playing queer for our games, either, and when he did never camped it up. No floppy wrists or falsetto voice. When he played queer he was simply himself, only that he allowed the same possessive greed to creep into his eyes when checking out blokes that he usually reserved for ladies – especially those with a tramp stamp peeking above low slung jeans, boobs straining against the top, and about a pound of war paint concealing their faces.
He played it well, too. The way his eyes undressed and nearly devoured me each time we played the Teen Ticket – the way disdain mixed with raw, physical desire in his gaze – even after all that has happened since, even after Charley’s eventual betrayal and all that it cost me, I still shiver to think of it.
So when he called me a fag, in a fucked up way that was meant as a compliment. You know: “I’m so cool with you, I can use the bad word, cuz we’re brothers.”
The pub had no stage or anything. When the bloke was done with the amps, he simply climbed on the bar and took up a battered Ibanez electric guitar. He was joined by another bloke with a handheld mike. Their man at the drums started in with, well, I suppose it was a solo, or maybe just a noisy wake up call. The Ibanez followed, screeching scratchily, and finally the singer jumped in.
He was too drunk to be able to stand properly on the narrow bar, so for the most part he knelt on it, using his free hand to steady himself, while he screamed into the mike. It was absolutely atrocious. The crows loved it and cheered them on in their drunken and stoned inaptness. And whenever the singer’s knees or palm slipped on the beer-slick bar and he crashed with his crotch or chin onto the hard, wooden top, everybody hooted and jeered.
“Aren’t they great?” Charley shouted when the singer accidentally tore the cable from the guitar and the guitarist kicked him hard into the shoulder with heavy combat boots, almost knocking the singer from the bar, and finally stomped hard on his hand.
“Which one is Ponyboy?”
I was hoping for the drummer – he was stocky, with a square forehead, a square jaw, and a fleshy face, but with intense, stormy eyes that blazed as he pounded way at this drums – as if he was chopping enemies with a hatchet.
“Him.” Charley pointed at the singer. Just then the guitarist had plugged his instrument back in, and the continued, Ponyboy cradling his stomped on hand, and screaming through split and bleeding lips.
He was a tall, lanky bloke. He wore hi-top basketball boots, black patent leather with neon green Nike arrow and neon pink laces, skin tight, black patent leather trousers, and a black tank top with a glittering picture of Teddy the Little Pony “riding” Kitty White. His arms, shoulders, and neck were heavily tattooed, and a half dozen piercings gleamed in his face. His hair was short, wet, and died a very artificial black. But the best were his eyes: laughing crazily white at the same time crying in quiet despair.
Just then he threw up. Without warning he puked al over himself, the bar, the draft levers, and the patrons in the front row. And he didn’t stop singing, ust continued with oatmeal cloured puke hanging in glistening strings from his chin.
But the pub owner started shouting at him. Ponyboy ignored it. Still screaming profanities into the mike he just kicked backwards – like a pony – at the annoying voice behind him. The pub owner fended off his foot, grabbed him by the ankle, and dragged him from the bar. Ponyboy’s head thumped against the bar and the steel counter behind the bar. I had to think of Winni-the-Pooh, and Christopher Robin dragging him down the stairs.
“No way, you sick pup!” Charley shouted at me, grinning wildly.
Ponyboy’s band-mates just went on playing as if nothing had happened.
“What?” I shouted back.
Instead of answering, Charley grabbed me between my legs, making me only too aware of my hard on.
“You really dug this sick shite, eh?”
I half started to bristle, but then instead simply grinned at Charley, half embarrassed, half defiant. It felt great not to deny it.
“Go ahead,” Charley nodded towards the back door, through which the owner had dragged Ponyboy. “Go to him, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I hesitated for a moment. I hadn’t actually considered doing anything that daring, but now that Charley had said it, I understood that I wanted to, very much. Well, it’s the confidence artist’s job to know his mark’s hidden desires better than the mark does himself, innit? As I said, Charley was a confidence artist at hear.

4 comments:

  1. I like how this is panning out - gradual tonal shift. Like canal locks. You're almost low enough to roll out the uncensored stuff now!

    And while I'm at it, Fröhliche Weihnachten! I'm guessing you're not too sentimental over this time of year, but I hope I'm wrong.

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  2. and the plot thickens!
    can't wait to see what next...

    until then,

    merry Xmas!

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  3. oh & to you also. i hope you did x

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  4. Great piece of writing.

    I dread where this is all going. The childhood innocence of Winnie-the-Pooh/Christopher Robin leading into "No way, you sick pup!" makes me cringe at how this is going to end.

    I don't see the attraction to poor Ponyboy.

    You certainly have captured something about Charley though, his charm and his setup and his own artistry. He's a pro...

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