Cronix (9 page)

Somehow, the presence of his old friend conjured up a distant mirage of that mesmerizing and seductive ocean of potential called youth. He was surprised to find that he was happy to see Rick again.

“Cheers,” he said, raising his bottle towards the closed bedroom door.

***

The doorbell rang. Glenn put down the book he’d been browsing and leant towards the bedroom door to eavesdrop. Rick shuffled down the hallway.

“Max, my main man! How the hell ya doin’?” Rick’s voice was all masculine congeniality.

There was a guttural response and some shoulder-slapping before the two men walked to the living room. Rick was talking loudly about some American football match he’d watched the night before, in the company of two wannabe models he’d picked up at a movie opening. Max was a mostly silent presence. He never said much, and never stayed long.

This time was no different. After about twenty minutes of what sounded like Rick jawing about gangsta gigs, women, the vast fortunes that crossed his path daily like bullion ships on the Spanish Main, Glenn heard Max leave.

Max was Rick’s main drug dealer. Not his sole supplier, but his most regular. He came round at least once a week, usually on a Saturday, to provide the fuel for the coming night’s festivities.

Glenn had been amazed at his old classmate’s staying power during the two months he'd lived there – he had watched Rick party all night, return at dawn for a quick brush-up, then head to the City to spin the wheels of fortune. This superhuman staying power was largely pharmaceutical: Rick’s real miracle of endurance was that his body could sustain such a feverish relationship with so many chemicals.

In the hall, Rick was already on his cell phone, planning the night ahead. After about a week, he had discreetly stopped inviting Glenn out on his nocturnal forays – there was no way Glenn could keep up, either financially or physically. And Glenn was reluctant to become a parasite on every aspect of friend’s life, so he spent most evenings in the apartment, torn between marveling at its opulence and fighting down the jealousy that he would never possess such luxury himself.

Which was not to say that he missed out entirely on the moveable feast. The carnival quite frequently put in at Casa Rick, and when it did, Glenn partied hard and long with flush young traders, models and actresses, wannabe rock-stars and the minor European aristocrats who clung to the money and dusted it with a little of their glamour. The champagne flowed and rich twenty-somethings celebrated their youth and money with coke and dope and sex and shuffled drunkenly to rap until the drab sun clambered again over the horizon, and the cock-crow of work sent them scuttling on their way once more.

Rick's voice faded as he vanished into his bedroom for a snort, something to get him in the mood for the night ahead. Alone in his guest bedroom, Glenn started fretting again. Fretting had become his chief pass-time recently. Lack of money, living off a friend he hadn’t seen in a decade, the failure of his life in general: it all crowded in on him. Soon, he was sure, Rick would politely ask him to leave and he would be, once again, faced with the awful reality that here he was, at 29, with not the slightest idea about what to do with his life.

Glenn looked in the full-length mirror of the closet. As usual, his own reflection caused his spirits to slump even further. He pulled his crumpled tee-shirt up.

“Does having man boobs really mean I can’t have a destiny?” he asked the slob in front of him. A pair of Rick’s dumbbells stood in the corner of the room. Glenn hefted one to his shoulder, contemplated declaring war on his flab. Out in the corridor, he heard Rick’s footsteps, suddenly brisk with pharmaceutical vigor. The front door slammed. Glenn turned and looked out the window at the glittering, seductive lights beyond.

He put down the dumbbell, then shuffled into the kitchen in search of a beer.

***

In a vain attempt to convince himself he was not a parasite, Glenn started to run errands for his friend. Little things at first, since Rick’s life was already by and large a catered affair – popping out to the shops for beers or snacks, stocking up on toilet paper and kitchen towels, anything to earn his keep. Rick started leaving a bit of cash for such errands, and Glenn always scrupulously provided change and receipts, though his friend never evinced interest in either. Occasionally, if Rick was in a rush to head out and was short of cash, or if Max caught him without the readies, Glenn would shoot down to the bank machine and withdraw a sleek wad of fifties. It helped ease the guilt and Glenn hoped it might put off the day when he became a burden to be cast off.

As weeks stretched into months, the tactic bore fruit: Rick started to rely on him. His reliance on Max was also increasing. The dealer’s visits were ever more frequent and Rick became more slovenly in his personal upkeep. Glenn got into the habit of rising early to ensure his host was out of bed in time for work, with a freshly laundered suit and shirt, as well as polished shoes. Amid jokes about Glenn becoming his butler, the parasitic relationship slowly achieved a reassuring symbiosis, and Glenn's anxiety decreased in proportion to Rick’s growing reliance.

As he felt more relaxed about his immediate future, his creative urges slowly returned. Glenn found himself tinkering with long-dormant ideas for projects while Rick was at work, or in the evenings when the restless trader was out prowling the city.

He wanted to talk to Rick about the drugs, but never quite found the time. He assumed it must normal in the circles in which he moved.

He knew his little services enabled Rick to carry on in his semi-dazed state. But on the other hand, it also allowed him to carry on supporting them both. Slowly, the guilt and anxiety yielded to a contentment that he had not felt for years. He had no discernible future, for sure, but for the first time that seemed not to matter. He was simply there, cruising, free of ambition, shriven of any looming destiny.

***

“Hey, look here,” said Rick, a breakfast glass of mimosa in his hand. It was Sunday morning and he was sitting at the marble bar in the kitchen area. Glenn bustled around, picking up last night’s empties. Rick had dark circles under his eyes, and Glenn guessed he would probably retreat to his bedroom soon.

“’Scientific research shows that a drunken bender stimulates the same parts of the subconscious brain that Buddhists activate when entering a state of Nirvana,” he read from the mag, one of the men’s lifestyle glossies he was addicted to. “’So slammed students who claim to have found the meaning of life when staggering home at night from parties, then wake up the next morning and can't remember what it was, aren't lying -- it really is a form of enlightenment.’ I knew it. I bloody well knew it.”

“Well, we must have been close to Enlightenment last night, judging by this lot,” Glenn said, clanking the trash bag. “What time did you guys go to bed, anyway?”

“Oh, few hours after you, I think. Sorry for waking you up, mate.”

“’No worries,” muttered Glenn. “It’s your place after all.” Realizing how self-pitying the phrase sound, he quickly added, “Don't know how your liver stands it.”

“Practice, my friend,” Rick smiled, gulping down the hair-of-the dog. “And according to this article, the scars on my liver are ‘merely the stigmata borne of the inability of the body to support the chemical enlightenment of drugs and liquor.’ Awesome.” He nodded happily.

“Okay, I’m gonna take this lot for recycling,” Glenn called down the hallway. “Gonna take your car.”

“Right you are,” shouted back Rick. “Keys are on the table.”

Glenn rode the mirrored lift to the underground parking. Rick’s silver BMW 650i convertible stood in its reserved spot, his gleaming red Ducati 1098 next to it. Glenn liked these Sunday morning runs to the bottle bank or supermarket – it was the only chance he got to drive Rick’s sleek motor, and he was always surprised at the simple rush of pleasure driving such a car induced.

He pulled up in the empty lot of the supermarket. It was quiet, just a few families trailing shopping trolleys across the tarmac. He noted the jealous glance of a middle-aged shopper with howling kids as he slid past, a glimmering shark among the tuna of family hatchbacks.

It was late summer now, the leaves fringed with brown and the sky a bowl of blue. An odd feeling of freedom made him feel like taking the car for a spin before heading home. Rick wouldn’t mind: he was probably already back in bed.

Glenn gunned the car up Pentonville Road, heading for Hampstead with the roof open to the late morning breeze, music cranked up loud. The roads were quiet, and he sped along leafy avenues and through red-brick council estates, the changing moods of London flitting past. The car smelled of leather, Carolina Hererra aftershave and a trace of cannabis.

He stopped parked in Primrose Hill, near cafes just filling up with Sunday brunchers. He walked up to the emerald heath and looked down on the vista of London: he could make out the smoked glass tower where Rick was no doubt slumbering again. Glenn smiled: it looked so different to the grey, rainswept landscape he had inhabited months before.

He had a coffee and a sandwich in one of the street cafes, paid for by the small change from Rick's hall table. A modest extravagance, but all he needed on such a beautiful day.

The apartment was silent when he returned. He loaded the dishwasher, swabbed the counters with a cloth and slumped on the couch with the Sunday papers. He was soon asleep.

It was half-dark when he awoke, the orange glow of the city staining the ceiling of the apartment. The clock said 7:15pm. He flicked on the television and watched a documentary about house renovations. It was the time of evening when he was prey to easy boredom, when Rick was out and he was alone with nothing to do. He checked his email. No messages again. He paced the twilit apartment, walked into Rick’s room and put on the light. He immediately mumbled an apology when he saw his flat mate was still crashed out on his bed. He went and drew himself a bath, undressing and wrapping himself in a white towel.

Afterwards, he could not explain how he had known something was wrong. Only that he was sure something was. Hot water gushed from the tap as he crept back and knocked at his friend’s door.

“Rick?” he said. “Rick, you awake?” No answer. He walked in and gently turned the body over on the bed.

“Oh shit,” he said. It was as eloquent a eulogy as the dead trader was ever likely to get. Glenn stumbled out the bedroom and stood in the hall. Tears trickled down his cheeks and he knew they weren’t for Rick. He was too wretched to cry for his friend. No, these were pools of self-pity, borne of the knowledge that he was alone again, that this sanctuary was gone for good. He reeled to the sofa, blind with a sniveling, infantile despair.

Glenn lay inert a long time, as the water in the bath cooled and the semi-darkness of the city night eventually congealed into grey dawn. He didn’t rush to call an ambulance: it was clear that Rick was dead, or at least that was what he kept telling himself. His face had been rigid and white, as alien as something in cold cuts counter.

Dawn brought him to himself. Glenn was relieved to find he was, after all, sad for this man he had known since childhood. Not a crippling sadness, he admitted: he had felt sadder about the passing of childhood pets, but sad enough to make himself feel less self-centered.

Of course, the question now was, what the hell was he going to do?

He had until seven, when alarms sprang into life and the city rousted itself, before he had to call an ambulance. That phone call would cut the umbilical that had kept him safe and warm in Rick’s drug-fueled world, high above the cares of the metropolis.

He weighed his options: another wet autumn, then winter, bearing down. No money, no job, no prospects. Rick’s family might take a couple of weeks to wrap up his affairs, put the flat on the market. They might let Glenn stay during that time. But what then? Either go back to his parents, or sleep rough, maybe find a squat. Jesus, he was slipping through society like the bedraggled people he saw begging at the Tube.

The first flare of orange sun caught him with his face pressed against the glass overlooking the balcony.

“Fuck it,” he muttered to the sunrise.

The following minutes passed like a dream, partly from lack of sleep, but mainly from the knowledge that Glenn had irrevocably crossed some boundary when he failed to call an ambulance. He was busy, and that helped: he only stopped once, briefly, to stare at his palm, searching for the destiny line that Cathy Dunswick had divined so long ago.

He tossed the contents of the fridge into black refuse sacks. Taking a steadying shot of 25-year-old Bowmore’s, he returned to Rick's room and hefted the body by the armpits. The first steps Glenn took towards his new destiny were shuffling backwards through the spotless kitchen, dragging his old school pal to the empty refrigerator.

Once he had the corpse settled inside, he paused. There was still some single malt in the glass. He lifted it to his lips. A voice inside his head repeated the same refrain, over and over again.
The artist becomes Hitler
. A muscle beneath his right eye went into a sudden, violent spasm and he raised a hand to calm it. The tic kept twitching under his fingers, unstoppable. Then he knew it was his own voice he was hearing.