Call Me the Breeze (27 page)

‘Hey!’ he heard Chico saying, as the door swung open. ‘You going up to the peace gig, Joey? Hey, what the fuck are you doing with them bags of sand? Let’s get going, Joey! Gonna be wild! The place is hopping! Let’s go!’

He picked up one of the sandbags and chucked it against the wall. It burst.

‘No!’ cried out Joey. Anka stared at him and laughed. Then she picked up a bag and threw it at Chico. It hit him in the face. ‘You little bitch!’ cried Chico as he brushed the sand from his eyes. When their ‘sandfight’ was finished, the floor was covered in it. Sand, that is. There was only one sandbag remaining — the one that was duct-taped to Joey’s waist.

‘Look!’ squealed Chico. ‘Welcome to the beach!’

‘Come on, children, you must get your buckets and spades!’ yelped Anka as she went skidding across the floor.

Joey was white. Abstractedly he tore off the last remaining plastic bag. He tried to fight off the gathering bitterness. ‘I’ve got to calm down,’ he told himself.

He succeeded. He spoke to them with restrained and
measured breaths. He said he didn’t want to go. ‘I can’t go,’ he said. Anka thought this was great fun. She chuckled. Then fell over, crawling on to the bed, as Chico climbed on top of her and cried: ‘Hey! Look at The Man!’ It was Robert De Niro he was talking about. His picture was tacked to the wall. He was looking at them. That made Chico laugh. He grabbed Anka by the ass and growled: ‘
You lookin’ at me? ‘Cos if you ain’t lookin’ at me, who are you lookin’ at? I don’t see anyone else around
!’

Chico sat on the bed and opened a box. It was a little silver box. It should have contained little buttons or pins. But it didn’t. It didn’t contain buttons or pins. It contained tabs. Little tabs of acid in sellotaped strips. ‘Here, Joey, have a tab,’ said Chico as he slipped one on to his own tongue. Then he gave one to Anka, who swallowed it promptly. ‘I don’t want any tabs,’ said Joey. ‘I’ve had it with all that. Those days are done. This is a time of Total Organization.’

Chico thought this hilarious. So did Anka. And do you know what she did then? Caught Joey unawares between the legs and pinned him to the bed. Then she stuck her finger in his mouth. And wiggled it around a little. Joey didn’t mind it at first for it felt quite nice, to be honest. It was only when he realized what she’d done that he lost it. Chico was dancing around like an Indian on the warpath, talking in all these garbled voices.

‘Those days are gone?
Oh no, they’re not
! Those days are gone?
Oh no, they’re not
!’, every so often falling on his knee and training a pistol on the mirror’s reflection, bawling: ‘
Thank God for the rain which has helped wash the garbage and trash off the sidewalks! Pow! Pow! She appeared like an angel out of this open sewer. Out of this filthy mass. She is alone; they cannot touch her! My whole life is pointed in one directon! I see that now! There has never been any choice for me
!’

It was only when he felt the microdot slipping down the base of his throat that Joey began to realize for absolute certain that he was right. What he had feared had indeed happened, i.e. that Anka had spiked him. Then he lost it completely, which, as he should have realized by then, was an absolute waste of time, for Anka and Chico were clearly tripping their skulls off. Chico’s eyes in particular were like whirling frisbees.

It was hopeless.

The more Joey remonstrated, the less attention they paid him, before they eventually fell out the door and tore across the encampment, with the dogs howling after them and Mangan crouching fearfully by his caravan window. He was at a total loss now, Mohawk. He could feel the electric tingles starting already at the tips of his toes. ‘
You stupid —
!’ he began, but never managed to finish the sentence. Some of the sand had gotten into his mouth. In the crevices between his fingers. What was he going to do? Perhaps he could put it all back into the bags! How could he? What an idiotic thing to think! All the plastic bags were torn! If he didn’t think of something soon —

He could feel the edgy shadows beginning to congregate at the corners of his eyes. Everything becoming that bit too sharp. What to do? He’d read about orange juice and vitamin C. That might do it.

But it was too late! He realized that, yes, it already was much too late! He wanted, more than anything, for those tingles to stop. They had finished with his toes and were moving on through his feet and ankles and up then towards his shins and knees. Soon they would be marching on his stomach and giving him those cramps he hated. That was because of the strychnine which they sometimes used as a base, whoever made the fucking stuff. Presently, then, the tips of his fingers.
Before the tingling became total. Before the total became tingling
.

He experienced an irrational urge to laugh and ask himself a really daft question. ‘What’s your name, Joseph? Yes, what is your name? It’s Joseph, is it? But what does that mean? What does having a name mean? Who are you? What is the
you of you
?’

He cried out, and thumped the wall forcefully. ‘No!’ he bellowed again. He wouldn’t allow it. ‘Don’t start that!’ he demanded. ‘No questions! Or ideas swooshing around all over the place! Talking in different voices! Stay together, thoughts! Just stay in line!’

But they wouldn’t. They went off again.
Tingle totalling. Total tingling. What is the we of we? The you of you. I am The Gardener. You are the garden
. He shook his head to try and dislodge them — these unbiddable, almost neon-lit philosophizings. He stuck his head into the sink and showered his face with water. The tap seemed like it was made out of rubber. Then a thought — ‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ he cried — poked its head up out of the plughole. It looked like a worm with a swollen head, which it tilted just a little as it opened its mouth. Before closing it, then repeating once again: ‘Iowa.’ He slammed his hand down over that plughole. ‘Ha!’ he cried. ‘That soon got rid of it!’, but just as he was drying his face what did he hear? Only something moving over by the window, and when he looked over what was sitting on the sill? Only the same fucking worm like a happy children’s doodle, some cartoon from early morning telly just tilting that head, lips opening and closing as it said: ‘Joey, Iowa!’
Iowa Iowa Iowa
.

It was now or never. He ran off out the door. As soon as he was behind the wheel he felt himself once more. Everything — at last! — was on course again.

All Aboard for the Cave of Dreams

It’s great
, thinks Joey,
to be setting off now once and for all on the journey to the place you’d been longing for all your life
. ‘What is this place?’ all of a sudden he heard someone say. ‘Why, the Cave of Dreams!’ he responded at once. And, for no reason he could think of, he found himself laughing. Which was bad enough in the circumstances — after all, he was off to complete ‘The Plan’ and erupting into laughter for no apparent purpose while you were doing it was hardly going to —

Any more than allowing your eyes to well up with tears, which, he had to admit, he was doing now. Yes, permitting great gouts of tears — enormous, transparent golf balls — to appear in the middle of each eye before fragmenting right there and sprinkling all the way down his face. ‘Oh dear!’ he sighed. ‘I fear I am going to jeopardize “The Plan”!’

But then, thank heavens, help was at hand in the form of a quiet soothing voice that seemed to emanate from somewhere beneath the leopardskin-covered seat. ‘Leopardskin?’

‘Hah!’ laughed Joey, swiping his arm right across his eyes to get rid of those fucking tears. ‘Leopardskin!’ he cried. ‘I wonder who shot that leopard!’

The brown and black markings spun athletically in front of his eyes.

‘Poor leopard!’ he sighed then, trying not to feel sad but not being able to manage it, that silly old leopard rearing up at the glass — the glass of the windscreen — and growling at him with great big teeth. But then the voice told him to go easy. ‘Go easy there now, Joey Tallon! Slow down and take your time. It’s going to be fine. Things will work out fine, you’ll see!’

He really hoped they would. More than anything he
hoped that they would because after all you had to remember that he’d never longed for anything so much! ‘Ah, the Cave of Dreams!’ he murmured. ‘The opposite of the Big Fellow — that warm soft place where you know you’ll always be at peace!’

And with Jacy he knew he’d find that place. Together they’d create a whole new world. They’d turn to the Big Fellow and laugh in his face. Take his stupid fedora off him and tramp it into the dirt. ‘How do you like that, buddy?’ they’d say. ‘You’re all washed up!’, before giving his cigar a wallop and knocking it out of his big fat mouth.

Then, without warning, it was as if the flick of a whip had caught Joey across the face. ‘No!’ he cried out and skidded off the road. ‘Don’t ever,’ he heard the Big Fellow warn, ‘don’t ever dismiss me again like that!’

Joey was trembling and he wanted to apologize. He wanted to call back the Big Fellow. But he was gone. Perhaps he had never been there!

No, he had! He had definitely heard his —

Such beautiful singing. He had never heard singing like it. Where on earth was it coming from? Why, it was coming from the town, of course. He was aproaching it now, with its wavering amber orchestra of lit candles. The music brought him close to tears again, but this time ones so joyful —

He gave silent thanks that he was nearing the end of his quest. The end of his quest and the beginning of his —

Now that a calm was at last descending, Joey began to realize that he had never quite experienced a sensation such as this. It was as though it were a preview of the tranquillity he was destined later to attain with the beloved, whose name was Jacy, the one who’d been put on this earth, who’d chosen to come to this town —

When he had completed his prayer, he edged the Bedford slowly towards the alleyway and left the
engine running. ‘It’s going to be so easy!’ the soft voice reassured him. ‘This is where your preparation counts. This is the payoff, Joey. What Total Organization actually means.’

He pulled the van in directly behind the alley. Then he reached inside his jacket for the balaclava. It wasn’t there! He’d gone and forgotten that too!

‘What was that?’ he started suddenly —

‘It’s only a dog barking, asshole!’ he told himself, gingerly opening the door of the cab. He stood shivering by the van as the crowds swept in a wave towards the main altar in the centre of the square. The Legion of Mary were like ghosts dressed in white. A wave of formless spirits, floating half-people bathed in light. You had to hand it to Fr Connolly, for he had certainly demanded ‘Total Organization’ from his flock, with his bunting and flags and powerful lamps. It might just as well have been a scene, he thought, from some end-of-the-world science-fiction movie.

Except that what it was, in fact, was a scene from the
beginning
of the world. A movie calling Jacy to the Cave of Dreams.

He smiled now. ‘Talk about previews,’ he mused to himself. ‘Those days after school when I’d dream it all up with Mona, they might as well have been a preview for this. For this “Cave of Dreams” can be nothing but real. It’s the way it’s meant to be!’

He laughed when he thought of the ‘leopard’.

Imagine that
! he thought.
Getting it into your head that a jungle animal was loose in the Scots-field countryside! A jungle animal, I ask you
!

He could feel the presence of someone close by and he froze.
Someone who knew
, he thought.
Who knew all the details of ‘The Plan’
. He could feel his entire body going rigid and the gathering icy presence that seemed to be all around him now. ‘It’s the Big Fellow!’ he cried. ‘The Big Fellow!’,
starting as he burnt his fingers with the cigarette.

But it wasn’t. ‘No,’ he stammered, ‘it’s just the keys! That’s all it is! I’ve forgotten the keys of the cabin! How can I get into the Karma Cave? I’ve forgotten the keys of the fucking cabin as well!’

But it turned out he hadn’t, great big silly. Went and found them in the pocket of his jeans, where they’d been nesting all along. ‘Dear, oh dear!’ he began to laugh as he reprimanded himself inwardly. ‘I really think I’d better get started and stop all this old —’

It was only a matter of getting someone to draw her attention … probably best be a kid.

‘
There’s a man over there and he told me to tell you … he says a van is blocking the alley
!’

It would be dead simple after that. What Chico would call ‘a piece of piss’. ‘Chico,’ he hissed, ‘don’t talk to me about Chico! Or that bloody Anka either! Giving me fucking acid —’

He didn’t bother finishing the sentence, his attention drawn to the elegant shapes that the purple candle smoke made in the air just in front of Fr Connolly. Their ‘purpleness’ amazed him.
The Smoke Ballerinas
, he thought you might call them.

‘
Tonight, at the Peace Rally here in Scotsfield, Fr Connolly Productions are proud to bring you — The Smoke Ballerinas
!’

He had a great big smile on his face and was about to watch them dancing when he realized the enormity of what he was doing. Indulging in frivolity at a time when —

‘Shut it!’ he cautioned himself and, ridiculously, nearly burst out laughing anew.

It was time to begin in earnest, before he found himself distracted again, for the tingles were more or less consolidated now — from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. They felt orange. That was what you thought their colour was. In almost every
corner of your body tingles were arguing most vehemently. Constellations of tingles all living inside each other. And engaging in strident disagreements. Galaxies of interweaving planets, all —

‘Shut up, Joey!’ he barked before clicking his heels militarily.

Then he almost swooned as he saw her emerging into the light. She was dressed in white and wearing her steward’s armband, with her long blonde hair tied back. Obviously she wouldn’t be attired in denims at a sombre function like this. But he hadn’t expected her to look quite so beautiful — and pure. It was once again a testimony to her respect for other traditions that she had deferred to local practice and worn just a white blouse and white skirt, which swept dreamily about her knees. ‘Oh, I’m so happy!’ he heard himself say as the kid walked over to Jacy, clutching the money Joey’d given him. He felt really proud he had managed to hold it together while giving the kid the instructions.