Authors: Michael Sutherland
Revolution (13 page)
And
that idiot chopper was part of it too.
I
thought we were just heading out for the Black Widow's place to relax for a
while, and then head back home like always.
But
this time I was dead wrong.
#
I'd
had a few drags of what Titch had brought along, and hell we were all toking
like there was no tomorrow, like there never was.
And
then everybody was talking to each other, but like we weren't really talking to
each other just to ourselves.
It
was like each of us had slithered into our own personal little depth charges
where we could only hear the sound of our own voices jabbering with nodding
sympathetic egos.
I
swear to God I even began to like Titch at that point.
That's
when I realized that smoking and toking is like giving your brain a chemical
peel.
All
superficial whacked out and ugly in the eye of the beholder.
But
you know that kind of self-knowing hurts, and that kind of knowing arrogance
will bleed you dry if you let it.
So
you deflect that kind of pain by toking all the more until you're sick of the
sound of your own voice, your own thoughts.
that idiot chopper was part of it too.
I
thought we were just heading out for the Black Widow's place to relax for a
while, and then head back home like always.
But
this time I was dead wrong.
#
I'd
had a few drags of what Titch had brought along, and hell we were all toking
like there was no tomorrow, like there never was.
And
then everybody was talking to each other, but like we weren't really talking to
each other just to ourselves.
It
was like each of us had slithered into our own personal little depth charges
where we could only hear the sound of our own voices jabbering with nodding
sympathetic egos.
I
swear to God I even began to like Titch at that point.
That's
when I realized that smoking and toking is like giving your brain a chemical
peel.
All
superficial whacked out and ugly in the eye of the beholder.
But
you know that kind of self-knowing hurts, and that kind of knowing arrogance
will bleed you dry if you let it.
So
you deflect that kind of pain by toking all the more until you're sick of the
sound of your own voice, your own thoughts.
And
before the agreeing with yourself starts to really get boring, and you start
arguing with yourself and ripping yourself apart bit by bite and limb from
reality, you toke all the more.
But
that's when your swim in deep blue becomes a purple haze of sludge that's
growing deeper and more difficult to wade through as you struggle to keep your
snout above the surface.
Only
it's dragging you down, man.
You
are drowning and you don't know it.
You
do not want to know it.
And
my only excuse in taking it was because I did not want to think about those
cops who had disappeared all those years ago from that place we were all headed
to.
And
none of them ever came back.
A
good excuse to run away from the wife and kids, they said.
One,
maybe, but four cops all at the same time, I didn't believe it.
No
sir, I didn't.
Not
one damned bit.
And
so we all kept up the pretence that we were all hugely entertaining to each
other and that solved the problem for a while.
It
absolved guilt, it dissolved danger, and it glued us together in a funny kind
of way until it was all pretence as ever before.
It
was kind of weird though, but it always was kind of weird those summer nights.
There
weren't many of them when you strung them up end to end, but when each night
happened it felt like it would go on forever.
Know
what I mean?
But
anyway Cammo was empty by then, which was around eight.
And
after a while Pete swerved us off into the estate, an old residential place.
Only
then did Pete start to slow down a bit.
Not
by much, but just enough to let us know where we were going without every
semi-detached, buddleia and bowling ball lawn smearing into a blur on the way.
Then
after a while, and with the sun dying and turning everything ochre, it felt
like we were breezing along inside an old sepia photograph.
Of a
time long gone and passed away some like we had entered a timeless zone.
Whatever
it was a change had taken place and everything went quiet.
We
all stopped laughing, and we didn't talk.
And
if we had we would have probably done so in a whisper anyway.
It
all felt as if things were battening down from the heavens in great clouds of
cotton wool pushing into our mouths and ears and stuffing into our eyes.
It
all looked and felt different from all the other times we'd gone there is what
I am trying to say.
There
was no one around in the street.
And
there was something else I noticed.
before the agreeing with yourself starts to really get boring, and you start
arguing with yourself and ripping yourself apart bit by bite and limb from
reality, you toke all the more.
But
that's when your swim in deep blue becomes a purple haze of sludge that's
growing deeper and more difficult to wade through as you struggle to keep your
snout above the surface.
Only
it's dragging you down, man.
You
are drowning and you don't know it.
You
do not want to know it.
And
my only excuse in taking it was because I did not want to think about those
cops who had disappeared all those years ago from that place we were all headed
to.
And
none of them ever came back.
A
good excuse to run away from the wife and kids, they said.
One,
maybe, but four cops all at the same time, I didn't believe it.
No
sir, I didn't.
Not
one damned bit.
And
so we all kept up the pretence that we were all hugely entertaining to each
other and that solved the problem for a while.
It
absolved guilt, it dissolved danger, and it glued us together in a funny kind
of way until it was all pretence as ever before.
It
was kind of weird though, but it always was kind of weird those summer nights.
There
weren't many of them when you strung them up end to end, but when each night
happened it felt like it would go on forever.
Know
what I mean?
But
anyway Cammo was empty by then, which was around eight.
And
after a while Pete swerved us off into the estate, an old residential place.
Only
then did Pete start to slow down a bit.
Not
by much, but just enough to let us know where we were going without every
semi-detached, buddleia and bowling ball lawn smearing into a blur on the way.
Then
after a while, and with the sun dying and turning everything ochre, it felt
like we were breezing along inside an old sepia photograph.
Of a
time long gone and passed away some like we had entered a timeless zone.
Whatever
it was a change had taken place and everything went quiet.
We
all stopped laughing, and we didn't talk.
And
if we had we would have probably done so in a whisper anyway.
It
all felt as if things were battening down from the heavens in great clouds of
cotton wool pushing into our mouths and ears and stuffing into our eyes.
It
all looked and felt different from all the other times we'd gone there is what
I am trying to say.
There
was no one around in the street.
And
there was something else I noticed.
I
didn't see a bird flying from one garden to another, like crows or ravens,
which are rife around that part of the world.
They
wake you with their cawing an hour before dawn, and an hour before the sun sets
they start up all over again.
But
there were none around now.
It
was sun dying time and there was nothing.
Not
a flutter, not a starling even as we slowed and swerved down the lane taking us
to the meadow of the Black Widow's mansion.
The
said Black Widow long since passed away years before any of us were born.
We
were mellowed, the street silent, and we should have been relaxed to the point
of meltdown.
Only
it didn't feel like that this time.
Something
had changed.
I
don't know what it was, and maybe it was just me.
I
don't know.
But
it was different somehow, like we were about to roll over the edge of a cliff
for real and there was no kid back there now yelling at me to stop.
Even
the sound of the engine seemed to be crammed full of kapok from what I
remember.
We
had travelled that way many times that summer and it had never been as quiet as
that.
And
I remember how I felt the breeze flowing through the windows caressing the skin
of my face, and that I was shoulder to shoulder with Titch and Boyd in the
back.
That
I wanted to take a look around at them, to make sure that they were still there
as a way to make sure that I was still where I thought I was.
But
I didn't want to embarrass myself by making it look obvious.
In a
sense I felt as if I was in a vice and being squeezed down into something more
solid than flesh and bones, changing into solid glass.
Even
Pete had stopped looking over his shoulder at us now as blond boy Grant next to
him in the passenger seat saying nothing, like a mortuary attendant.
Silent,
sleepy eyed, and slowed mouth drooling to zero.
Pete's
hand was on the wheel, his other out the window flicking ash.
The
breeze flicked up his hair a couple of times as we turned up past the old
track, sailing by empty houses splendid and hidden from the city on one side,
by oak, elder and willows lining the path behind broken fencing on the other.
Pete
took a sharp curve to the right and that brought us back to awake.
More
blood rushed down to my feet and slammed back behind my face on recoil.
Titch
lurched forward and grabbed Pete's headrest.
"What's
going on?" he asked.
It
wasn't a yell and sounded out of context.
"Badger,"
was all Pete said swerving us back into the middle of a road that had seen
better days.
"Striped
rats," Grant said easy as you like, unfazed, brained on Barbexiclone,
Veronal, and Christ knows what else to keep him breathing.
I
twisted around between the guys and tried to look out the rear window but
everything was too cramped.
I
didn't feel any bumps of wheels rolling over something soft bodied, so I
guessed Pete had actually missed the animal.
A
little while later I would wonder if he hadn't actually aimed for it
deliberately.
See
what I mean about questioning trust?
But
anyway, since no one else said anything I felt a fool for even thinking it.
So I
slid back down I twisted myself back around front lifting one arm then the
other to make my shoulders fit between two other bollards in for the ride.
I
could smell the meadow coming in through the open windows, the green grass and
whatever else was growing there.
No
cow shit though, which was a blessing, but a kind of clear fresh air smell as
we sailed in a curve and up the incline with trees and meadow on one side of
it, fields on the other.
And
when I looked over Grant's shoulder I could see this wheat looking soft as
yellow velvet.
Everything
else buckled in green dunes leading to the copse at the top of a hill where the
horizon is masked by trees.
And
there, just in front of the hill, I saw the old water tower with its crenulated
top.
A
tube of a stone building it had only been recently that I had learned of its
purpose; a water tower for the fabled Black Widow's Mansion.
Said
mansion a ruin now, burnt to the ground in the seventies and most of the rubble
it had been made of now buried deep under mounds of earth that had long since
overgrown the scars of its cremation.
Pete
pulled the Mondeo into this bare patch.
The
wheels crunched over gravel and Pete parked us at an angle facing the meadow
barely visible through the trees.
The
fungus soft fence posts and the mangled wire around them were strangling them.
Titch
climbed out first, his boots scrapping on spiky concrete that was covered in
broken snail shells.
I
followed behind, with the others joining us.
And
after a few seconds of all doors slammed there was that silence again.
Then
a raven flapped out of the branches of an aspen and somehow that made me feel
better.
It
proved we weren't the only things left alive on the planet.
No
people though, just us, a rag tag rabble bag of teens standing around with our
hands in our pockets, looking at anything but each other.
We
were too embarrassed to catch eye-to-eye because no one had a clue as to why we
were here again.
Everyone
needed to know at that least one of us knew something, to lead the way so we
could follow, that our purpose in being there had somehow been planned.
But
no one said anything and so I took the opportunity to keen my ears against the
silence, to feel the warmth of the dying evening air pouring down on upon us.
We
had gone to that place for more times than I cared to remember but suddenly it
felt wrong.
I
don't know why.
It
just did.
Something
wasn't right and there was no way for me to express it.
Not
until later, much later, would that feeling prove to be right.
Pete
locked up the Mondeo, spun around and said with his big clown grin.
"Let's
go!"
To
where? I asked myself.
The
same old place it seemed.
To
the stables that were once but now no more.
The
first time I saw it I thought the building, grand as it was for a stable, was
in fact the house.
It
was too small to be anything of the sort, of course.
But
somehow I'd always imagined stables were built of bricks, not great blocks of
stone, and yellow sandstone at that.
Anyway
we all marched after Pete, me third in line after Titch, with Boyd trailing
after me and Grant as usual at the last.
It
wasn't much of a climb really, more of a gentle slope between ancient elms and
alders that twisted into pines around the bend.
And
every once in a while I'd take a look over my shoulder, to that water tower in
the distance, thinking of it as one step away from a Neolithic standing stone.
It
was kind of weird feeling, you know, the way the trees closed in on us the
further in we walked in, sucking us into a Sensurround satori in Mescaline
Park.
Some
places have that kind of affect you know.
Something
silent about them that goes way in deep, right into your cells, and then even
deeper into a place you don't even know about yourself.
None
of the other guys said anything about it, that feeling, so I didn't.
But
I wasn't the only one who felt that way about that place.
I
read about it later.
I
just wished I had before then.
We
kept on walking until the fields on our left were closed off by a curtain of
branches the further in we went.
More
trees obliterated everything on our right until it felt like iron doors were
closing us in.
The
meadow, the stables, the house itself, was located even further up out of sight
surrounded by the oldest trees, bushes and vegetation in the country.
And
that's official.
But
that doesn't surprise me, not now, because you get the feeling that nothing
dies in that place.
I
mean like really dies, like that isn't allowed to die.
Because
if it did then it would mean that the fun of the torture to come would be over
too soon.
That's
the kind of place Cammo is.
Maybe
it doesn't get to you the first time you go there, and maybe not even the
second.
But
by then it's too late to do anything about it, you've already been changed by
it before you even get a chance to figure out what it's doing to you.
Once
you've been tasted by that place you're already owned by it.
didn't see a bird flying from one garden to another, like crows or ravens,
which are rife around that part of the world.
They
wake you with their cawing an hour before dawn, and an hour before the sun sets
they start up all over again.
But
there were none around now.
It
was sun dying time and there was nothing.
Not
a flutter, not a starling even as we slowed and swerved down the lane taking us
to the meadow of the Black Widow's mansion.
The
said Black Widow long since passed away years before any of us were born.
We
were mellowed, the street silent, and we should have been relaxed to the point
of meltdown.
Only
it didn't feel like that this time.
Something
had changed.
I
don't know what it was, and maybe it was just me.
I
don't know.
But
it was different somehow, like we were about to roll over the edge of a cliff
for real and there was no kid back there now yelling at me to stop.
Even
the sound of the engine seemed to be crammed full of kapok from what I
remember.
We
had travelled that way many times that summer and it had never been as quiet as
that.
And
I remember how I felt the breeze flowing through the windows caressing the skin
of my face, and that I was shoulder to shoulder with Titch and Boyd in the
back.
That
I wanted to take a look around at them, to make sure that they were still there
as a way to make sure that I was still where I thought I was.
But
I didn't want to embarrass myself by making it look obvious.
In a
sense I felt as if I was in a vice and being squeezed down into something more
solid than flesh and bones, changing into solid glass.
Even
Pete had stopped looking over his shoulder at us now as blond boy Grant next to
him in the passenger seat saying nothing, like a mortuary attendant.
Silent,
sleepy eyed, and slowed mouth drooling to zero.
Pete's
hand was on the wheel, his other out the window flicking ash.
The
breeze flicked up his hair a couple of times as we turned up past the old
track, sailing by empty houses splendid and hidden from the city on one side,
by oak, elder and willows lining the path behind broken fencing on the other.
Pete
took a sharp curve to the right and that brought us back to awake.
More
blood rushed down to my feet and slammed back behind my face on recoil.
Titch
lurched forward and grabbed Pete's headrest.
"What's
going on?" he asked.
It
wasn't a yell and sounded out of context.
"Badger,"
was all Pete said swerving us back into the middle of a road that had seen
better days.
"Striped
rats," Grant said easy as you like, unfazed, brained on Barbexiclone,
Veronal, and Christ knows what else to keep him breathing.
I
twisted around between the guys and tried to look out the rear window but
everything was too cramped.
I
didn't feel any bumps of wheels rolling over something soft bodied, so I
guessed Pete had actually missed the animal.
A
little while later I would wonder if he hadn't actually aimed for it
deliberately.
See
what I mean about questioning trust?
But
anyway, since no one else said anything I felt a fool for even thinking it.
So I
slid back down I twisted myself back around front lifting one arm then the
other to make my shoulders fit between two other bollards in for the ride.
I
could smell the meadow coming in through the open windows, the green grass and
whatever else was growing there.
No
cow shit though, which was a blessing, but a kind of clear fresh air smell as
we sailed in a curve and up the incline with trees and meadow on one side of
it, fields on the other.
And
when I looked over Grant's shoulder I could see this wheat looking soft as
yellow velvet.
Everything
else buckled in green dunes leading to the copse at the top of a hill where the
horizon is masked by trees.
And
there, just in front of the hill, I saw the old water tower with its crenulated
top.
A
tube of a stone building it had only been recently that I had learned of its
purpose; a water tower for the fabled Black Widow's Mansion.
Said
mansion a ruin now, burnt to the ground in the seventies and most of the rubble
it had been made of now buried deep under mounds of earth that had long since
overgrown the scars of its cremation.
Pete
pulled the Mondeo into this bare patch.
The
wheels crunched over gravel and Pete parked us at an angle facing the meadow
barely visible through the trees.
The
fungus soft fence posts and the mangled wire around them were strangling them.
Titch
climbed out first, his boots scrapping on spiky concrete that was covered in
broken snail shells.
I
followed behind, with the others joining us.
And
after a few seconds of all doors slammed there was that silence again.
Then
a raven flapped out of the branches of an aspen and somehow that made me feel
better.
It
proved we weren't the only things left alive on the planet.
No
people though, just us, a rag tag rabble bag of teens standing around with our
hands in our pockets, looking at anything but each other.
We
were too embarrassed to catch eye-to-eye because no one had a clue as to why we
were here again.
Everyone
needed to know at that least one of us knew something, to lead the way so we
could follow, that our purpose in being there had somehow been planned.
But
no one said anything and so I took the opportunity to keen my ears against the
silence, to feel the warmth of the dying evening air pouring down on upon us.
We
had gone to that place for more times than I cared to remember but suddenly it
felt wrong.
I
don't know why.
It
just did.
Something
wasn't right and there was no way for me to express it.
Not
until later, much later, would that feeling prove to be right.
Pete
locked up the Mondeo, spun around and said with his big clown grin.
"Let's
go!"
To
where? I asked myself.
The
same old place it seemed.
To
the stables that were once but now no more.
The
first time I saw it I thought the building, grand as it was for a stable, was
in fact the house.
It
was too small to be anything of the sort, of course.
But
somehow I'd always imagined stables were built of bricks, not great blocks of
stone, and yellow sandstone at that.
Anyway
we all marched after Pete, me third in line after Titch, with Boyd trailing
after me and Grant as usual at the last.
It
wasn't much of a climb really, more of a gentle slope between ancient elms and
alders that twisted into pines around the bend.
And
every once in a while I'd take a look over my shoulder, to that water tower in
the distance, thinking of it as one step away from a Neolithic standing stone.
It
was kind of weird feeling, you know, the way the trees closed in on us the
further in we walked in, sucking us into a Sensurround satori in Mescaline
Park.
Some
places have that kind of affect you know.
Something
silent about them that goes way in deep, right into your cells, and then even
deeper into a place you don't even know about yourself.
None
of the other guys said anything about it, that feeling, so I didn't.
But
I wasn't the only one who felt that way about that place.
I
read about it later.
I
just wished I had before then.
We
kept on walking until the fields on our left were closed off by a curtain of
branches the further in we went.
More
trees obliterated everything on our right until it felt like iron doors were
closing us in.
The
meadow, the stables, the house itself, was located even further up out of sight
surrounded by the oldest trees, bushes and vegetation in the country.
And
that's official.
But
that doesn't surprise me, not now, because you get the feeling that nothing
dies in that place.
I
mean like really dies, like that isn't allowed to die.
Because
if it did then it would mean that the fun of the torture to come would be over
too soon.
That's
the kind of place Cammo is.
Maybe
it doesn't get to you the first time you go there, and maybe not even the
second.
But
by then it's too late to do anything about it, you've already been changed by
it before you even get a chance to figure out what it's doing to you.
Once
you've been tasted by that place you're already owned by it.
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