One Three One: A Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel (32 page)

Then, relaxing his grip on my hand, so did he wither back into the land.

And thereafter? Thereafter I waited and waited a full day longer until some waterworks official reported the naked man in the next field. When the police approached me, guns loaded, I was still splashing about at the confluence of the streams. Apparently, Brent had been discovered in a witch’s cave and had already been taken back to Cágliari. Somewhere up there on that cliff edge of Macomér buildings, Dean and Mick would remain incarcerated for a full week more.

I sat on the sundrenched street outside Su Talleri, reading Hertzog’s
Prison Writings
and looking for clues whilst I awaited Anna’s return. Two local teenage metal heads passed by on foot, throwing an approving ‘ciao’ in my direction. Stoned and Fernet Branca’d this early in the morning? Sweet! How were they to know I’d just yesterday afternoon enjoyed a full re-fuelling from the delivery depot of the Underworld! Now I was sizzling. No, I was growling, and not a little confused. I’d just spent ten minutes inside the local heritage book shop, followed by a further ten awaiting collection of a salad from the pizzeria around the corner. Food! Both events had involved simple daily interface with three sweet enough, but – alas – fairly nondescript ladies. Nevertheless, I’d felt thereafter as though I’d kicked out accidentally at some old sleeping dog lying slumped across the foot of my bed. What were these feelings that had within me been so suddenly and so rudely restored? Women? I never thought about women. Or rather, I never thought about women until I experienced their absence. And then: what an absence! Having spent so much recent time with Blessèd Anna, my roughhousing with the two brothers had clearly conspired with that long Time Travel into the past to remind me of How Much I Missed Women! Rrrrrrrrrrrrowwwf! Now, I just hoped I hadn’t been too, er, slavering around those shop ladies. Eeh! How I hate that sort
of male behaviour. Now I made a promise to myself from here on in to compliment Blessèd Anna as often as possible on her effortless femininity. For whilst her wicked combination of smart feisty fucker, edgy politico and gruelling taskmaster had ensured that our Sardu Mission had at all times remained on course, it was Anna’s legs, face and hair that had really brightened up these of my last days; it was her smile, her nose and her sometimes prominent bosom, oh yes. Simplistic maybe. True none the less. I hadn’t really registered until now – I’d actually needed to exchange words and glances with other everyday women simply in order to make that long-dead sexual connection. Ain’t I the sad drugged-out cunt, or what? No matter, now I stared down the Macomér high street looking to distinguish a fearsome locomotive clanking that was suddenly invading my earholes,
everybody’s
by the looks of it. But as the clanking only grew louder and louder, so did I lift up my bemused noggin to divine the provenance of said stellar racket. I might have guessed! Approaching Su Talleri at minimal miles per hour was a rather hot be-shaded brunette driving a blue 1948 Buick Hearse – and it was me she was looking for! This beautiful vision parallel parked next to Su Talleri, then climbed across the huge burgundy brown bench seat and jumped down through the passenger side. She wore her long hair up today, with a very cute pale blue dress, above the knee with white low high heels. Anna, you are fucking beautiful. I really missed you. Whoops, I nearly said that. Not.

I sniffed and hugged her – tightly and fraternally – for we had not seen each other in a long age. Well, technically twenty-two hours. But I had not anticipated any sexual feelings for this woman; indeed, it was only a half-hour ago that I’d first picked up the scent from the women in the shops. What a curious animal I was. But now on the Macomér pavement, Anna was deadly serious.

The breathtaking size of this operation now hit me full in the face. For Ciancimino’s Highway had been the most infamous civil engineering case in recent Sardu history, in which an entire parallel ghost 131 motorway road had been built three miles west of the present route. The reason? Kickbacks and free access to endless expensive building materials.

Man, was I knocked sideways. I was bowled over. I was fucked up and suddenly feeling foolish in front of this woman whom I’d
only just now confessed to myself actually meant something different to me. But I grabbed a hold of myself and reined myself in. Get a grip, Rock Section! Less than three days ago you were living in a perpetual stupor, preying upon any unmunting woman with her own flat and job, and scoring from a cunt who opened his front door with an Uzi. So what if I looked foolish to Anna? Two days ago I was Lord Shittykecks of Shittykecks Manor. You reckon she’s already forgotten that lusty imagery just because you now deign to notice that she’s properly hot? In the meantime, the ever-compassionate Anna – determined to let me work it all out for myself – simply looked out from under her fringe and smiled at me with extreme prettiness.

Madau. Whoa, how that name shot through me. Madau? Last night’s memory of the Great Being bubbled up once more: his words. What had been his actual words? That’s it: ‘We rise at the Madau.’ Then Anna’s phone went. It was her father. The lovely one smiled, nodded her head throughout their brief conversation, then hung up quickly.

I suddenly felt as though I had a whole army of Sardu accomplices at the ready. I wanted to yell, scream, holler with joy. Then, without appearing to notice the international goodvibes that she’d just installed in my heart, the lovely one fired up the radio and set her controls for the heart of 89.9 FM, which burst into life with the extremely strung-out psychedelic thunder of Vesuvio, whose mind-boggling overkill quickly established my hefty need to skin up one of Jim Feather’s budding treats. I jumped into the empty backyard of this sumptuous General Motors limousine, furnished only with Giampaolo’s latest antique shop bargains. Then I plopped myself down upon his low pine coffee table and put three Green Rizlas together. Then, over the riotous Ur-Klang of Vesuvio, I proceeded to recount to Blessèd Anna my own long-winded account of the previous day.

Only about two hours into our drive did I realise how slow was our progress today. Boy, are hearses good at going slow! It was not so much the crumbling speed of the vehicle as the killer steering that Anna was forced to manhandle and do battle with every step of the way. I’d come up from the darklands behind to secretly ogle the Blessèd One. But soon I was sitting there unconsciously air-steering out of sympathy, twitching and rocking all over the place. In the end, she sent me in the back again. Fair enough. When a piss stop reared its inevitable head, and we were both returning from our respective ablutions, I fished out the Opposite celebration brochure and directed Anna’s eyes to the stills of Jim Feather in
Gelsomania!
She hiccupped with shock and pointed at one stage photo.

Sure enough, Blessèd Anna was correct. Remove that gargantuan canvas outer shell from Zampano’s extraordinary mobile home and, underneath, was revealed the same post-war motorbike-and-sidecar as had been showcased in our mutual favourite road movie
German Motorcycle Murderer
. I pointed out Jim Feather astride Anna’s motorbike but she shook her head in unrecognition.

Weighed down by the locomotive roar of the hearse’s V8, I was dozing in the rear with my feet up on Giampaolo’s pine coffee table, laughing at the idea of this vehicle passing itself off as a Buick. The divine Anna had hoodwinked me only temporarily. Now, however, I recognised this hearse for what it really was: a product of the Flxible Motor Co. F-L-X-I-B-L-E. That’s a preliterate spelling for you. Tonka consciousness or what? Whatever you called it, this electric blue mechanical bobsleigh was not
really a 1948 Buick station wagon at all. That was a lovely thing. And this was unlovely – epic but unlovely. Not after everything they’d done to it. Early on in WW2, a Spitfire was fitted out with seaplane floats, thereby reducing its top speed by 70 m.p.h. and forcing it to fly like a stork delivering sextuplets. Surely, it then ceased to be a Spitfire. Same with this auto oxcart. After taking delivery from General Motors, the Flxible Motor Company raised the bonnet up five inches, ignored the inward-facing aptly named ‘suicide doors’ and added another three feet to the middle of the chassis. So after days of fashionable low riding, we now sat up straight and squarely upon the road like an old-fashioned flat bed truck, a Commer or a Bedford like Grandad had the coal delivered in. For comfort, an old-time ’60s Austin Taxi was closer to the Facel Vega than this beast was to the taxi! If anything, this beast reminded me most of those enormous Spanish Civil War armoured cars driven by the Barcelona Anarchists.