The Folded Man (11 page)

Seventeen
:

It's about format, Brian. Because God has made us to adapt. To become butterflies. And I'll fly, Brian. I'll wait till my change comes. He's made me a butterfly.

It's light out but getting darker inside. The fractal world, falling through his windows into shapes that repeat bigger shapes before splitting into their own.

Early afternoon Monday in the arsehole of the world. A small war to list among the others.

Brian thinks free and loose. Hard thoughts. Fast ones, churned ones. Thoughts about caving; calling the police – the old way to make a scene. Thoughts about nobody liking a grass round this way. The convenient way people can turn an eye. Thoughts about how things that happen in the corners of dark rooms, and stay in the corners. Thoughts about the strings coming down from men on the hills – men coming into his house.

Time for changing. Time for rolling. Time for half a ton of coke blasted up both bloody nostrils. To move into the grey mess, the mush of a high, and learn for himself. To sort out the night gone before.

Brian turns off the lights. Sits in this pastel afternoon.

What he assumes: Noah has lost his marbles. Lost the plot. Off his tits on something or other. Not slept; wired, he doesn't know. He isn't all there, though – not from any angle. All this deranged talk, this bluster. Seventeen messages and barely three that made sense. This box he's on about – what box?

What he knows: No cops. No convenience. A dirty wood for this dirty world.

Anubis watches.

And Brian sets off for the stair lift. A sorry man dragging himself along by hand and wheel. Hand over wheels – the bent spokes still causing a bit of a dip every other rotation.

9.

For sure, Tariq sounds shorter down a phone. He's driving, shouting. Doesn't remember Brian on first hellos, either. Stands to reason when you think of all those faces in the back; harder still owing to the wind through his windows.

Brian, Brian's upstairs with Tariq's business card shaking in his hand. This new pastime of fear and panic, his red eyes rolling over his archives. His throat lumping out –

Salaam aleikum.

It clicks for Tariq the third time Brian says his name.

Hang on. That guy outside the Cat Flap?

Yeah, goes Brian.

Quality mate! As if you found my digits, state you were in. How's it going?

Not bad, aye.

And how's that head?

All right, yeah.

On the bed
, an overnight bag for the man who won't often
wash. A brown-bristled toothbrush for emergencies – like for when
he pulls, ha, ha. A bag of joints he already
built. Moisturisers sitting on the shelves, out of date, veneered
with dust. Those old scales twitching.

Good hangover I'll bet, shouts Tariq over road noise. Looked a right good night fella. You a full-time hobbyist?

The idea makes Brian gag.

Hang about, says Brian. Are you on a mobile?

No –

Then – then how?

Council network. Got a redirect for my CB.

Isn't that dodgy?

Tariq laughs.

What you after anyway?

You ever run daytime drops?

Pause. Then: I'm not even meant to be out now, so not really.

Always talking to men with cars, our Brian. Cars and agendas. Him and every last bastard on wheels.

So you do.

Depends doesn't it, says Tariq. Easier to get spotted. Won't see me in a white-man mask, mind, but them gantry-cams just love my number plates. Where we talking? I mean, can it wait till the sun's in?

In and out. It's the hell-run. I've got the cash – it's an emergency.

Hmm. Time you thinking?

About ten minutes ago.

To where was it again?

Shoe-shop in town. Inner Sole.

Right. Right. Well, I'll tell you what. Give me an hour. On my way to Wigan at the minute. You've heard about Birmingham, yeah?

No – what about it? An hour –

An hour-ish, yeah.

What's happened in Birmingham?

Kicked off big time my friend. Local lads running their mouths saying some brothers raped a young blonde. Solihull. All the local skinheads are on a promise, so it's not a time for my type to fanny about in the sunshine.

Jesus –

I don't believe it, pal. Grade-A smear. People make this crap up. Probably just another game for the truthers. But I'm shipping a party of brothers from Wigan to Picca­dilly. Defence of the realm and all. Brum'll be on fire in a few hours they're saying. Cars getting turned over and roads blocked already – the King's troops on town lines as well. Got to get the lads down there to help, don't you? It's all over central radio.

Brian looks at his Olympic flag out in the hall. He remembers a lot of things.

You support them?

You what?

Do you support these lads?

Think I'd ferry white boys around if I did? You know the difference between a Muslim and these dickheads calling themselves Muslims, don't you mate? God's not always great, Brian. Of course he isn't. But a man's got kids to feed. We all do. And sometimes, skin-heads need teaching in the only language they understand.

I don't get what you –

Just saying that these boys I'm shifting aren't terrorists or rapists or thugs. They're going to stop knee-jerk pillocks from burning mosques. 'Cause tomorrow it'll get like it always is. The pigs out in their pigs for old times' sakes. Fire and brimstone and all that. And besides, I say it's the bloody chinks you want to keep an eye on – beware the red peril and that.

Maybe, says Brian.

I were joking fella.

I said, maybe.

Look, I'm going to go pal – doing my box in this. Think I've got your road saved in the old mind-map. Be seeing you in a bit.

I'll be out the front.

You won't miss me.

 

Tariq wasn't wrong. Tariq brought his very own community care bus. That old peculiar.
Your transport company
up the side
.
Tariq, with a grin, leaning on the air horn.

And Brian's in his yard, bent double by default, but creased into quarters he's laughing so hard.

And Tariq, hanging out of the window, laughs back.

The bus, oh, it's one of those friend-of-a-friend jobs. A pal with the right links; the right favours to pull. Ex-riot, ex-council, taxi. It's running red diesel but apart from that . . .

And Tariq says, Well what good's a pair of us when these old cans hold a team? The right way to roll around a curfew, this bad boy.

And a safe way to run Hyde Road – hell road – into town.

 

You only tip a joe if he got you there faster than the guy before. It's a new sort of etiquette now they say the oil's all but done.

Brian tips Tariq double and change. Tariq looks perplexed. Brian feels good. Brian goes, You've been a love.

So Tariq salutes him.

Some other time, bud, he says. And brother, you best take care now.

Brian's on the pavement, Tariq in the bus. The pair of them outside Inner Sole like they're waiting for the world to stop spinning. The red bricks all around; the tallest towers of Manchester clutching for space; the cracked pavements split with roots, the cracked pavements missing low kerbs.

Tariq winks and pulls away; nine gears to grind through before he's moving proper. He pips at fifty yards, waves his hand out the window, and takes a left.

Brian holds his fortunes behind him. Noah's shop some big square magnet with the door swung fully open. The sign says closed.

It starts to rain. The inverted sea coming from the grey beyond. And Brian badly wants to sack this off. He gets some sense of loyalty dividing; friends falling into different orbits. Those ships in the night. He hates how much he cares.

He falls into the breach. He falls into all kinds of smell and mess.

Inside, the lights are strobing. Inner Sole is a bad scene going worse. Corner to corner, shoes carpet the shop. Single boots and safety-clamped slippers; too-white trainers and scuffed stilettos. A bad impression of Auschwitz. Noah's worst dreams spread out in separated pairs.

Most of the shelves are split as well. The backs kicked out of point-of-sale units with fat splinters to prove it. Benches lie on their backs, plates of ceiling tile swinging from wires. It's hard to move for the shoes.

The cash office is wrecked. A smashed strip bulb across the chair. A Medusa-coil of cables, their insides turned out. Everything smells like turpentine – like the plan for a big fire. By the desk, a carpet panel moved to expose a safe – and the safe hauled out and hacked in two. The threatening shapes in dark corners.

Face up, he finds a tick sheet with names and addresses all over it. Small text so you have to read closely. The prefixed names of doctors and council figures; PCs and Detective Superintendents.

Proof forever that Noah works for everyone.

Brian leaves the office. He wheels himself to the service lift. It screams open. He gets pitched into black, just a green backlight on the buttons, a vein of blue from the roof strip. The concertina doors rattle a dead tune for him.

In the basement, the bunker door is open a crack.

Brian sees a lot at once. Knows how none of this will end well.

Brian's hairs go up on their ends. Brian has found Noah. Noah is sitting on an office chair with his head between his knees; a line of sick from door to floor to feet. Noah, who's equidistant to all four walls and slap-bang under a single blacklight. Brian in the dark down in this lair, and boy does Brian feel sick.

Sick owing to the joggers round Noah's ankles, a death-sweet smell you can't mistake. That total loss of grace. And the black lights colour their skins a weird kind of brown, their hair purple besides. Noah's legs are made of hard muscles – cartoon lines like he's felt-tipped the muscle tone.

The generator drones in its heat enclosure. There's a bin by Noah's toes.

On the floor by the chair and the bin, Brian sees the wings. Noah has crafted wings in his bunker. Fancy ideas made facts with nets, chicken mesh, cable ties – sixteen feet round the edges, one on each side. Strips of blue tarpaulin in a pile, a sketched blueprint covered in notes.

The workbenches are turned over, more bookshelves torn out. Paper and globs of stuff Brian can't recognise. Chunks of wall and plaster.

Jesus, Noah –

Noah is still and breathing roughly.

Brian rolls close, pulling near. His ears scream with the sound of the sea.

Noah, says Brian. What have you done? Did someone come here?

Noah spits something thick on his feet. It slaps, shines. Noah starts convulsing from the hips up, the chair squeaking –

Noah laughing –

Jesus Christ, Brian says again.

The apocalypse as a man.

Noah. You're scaring the hell out of me.

Not dying, Noah says, head loose by his knees. He slurs the lot. Not dying, he says again, and raises a thin hand with fingernails halfway off. My chrysalis. Fly up our towers. Take that bastard Harry's work to the clouds.

Brian's too close to a strong smell. Sweet and racking, this smell – a stench you taste.

Brian is dizzy. Brian's throat is stuffed. Brian says, Come on . . . come on fella. Please. We're getting you some help.

And Noah sits up. Just sits up and grins. He pulls at his cheeks with his bleeding hands. His eyes are glued closed with something sticky.

Noah's face is ruined. Noah's lumpen face. There are fat sores running from his throat to his forehead. Red swellings – one closing his left eye, another for a cheek.

Tumours. Sarcomas.

Brian swears. Really cries blue murder in the room without a view. Never fair, is it. Not for our Brian. Brian has lived a curse; seen the done-for; found the damned.

The lumps are pulsing. These low, aching lumps, swelling and shrinking again –

Noah?

Not . . . anymore, says Noah. Don't you see? Adapt –

Brian sees Noah's teeth come loose while he talks.

Adapt –

Sees Noah's teeth loose and white in the rinse cycle of his mouth.

Noah, for Christ's sakes man.

Sees Noah chew his teeth, his gums opening –

Brian's stuck still. Struck dumb and dizzy. The burning in his throat. These tumours. What is it? he says. Noah! You daft bloody bastard – what've you done to your shop?

Noth-shing . . . elsh, says Noah, the blood down his chin. Pointing to these glinting wings he's made on the floor in his bunker.

Leaning and pulling out a box in a box from the bin, his frailty growing.

Thish – yours.

The city yawning for its butterfly.

The box skitters over the floor. It stops about halfway between them both. Brian swallows and swallows, can't get his throat to work.

Ish Colin's bosh, Noah tells him. You take ish and you hide ish. Don't open. Never –

Brian feels the room expanding and tearing in two; a crack running from the box and outways.

Noah laughs again. A right picture with his teeth all gone.

He looks happier than he ever has.

 

Two men followed Brian up the street. Brian was dazed. They asked what he was doing at Inner Sole. They had Yorkshire accents. Brian said he was buying drugs, same as anybody else.

Brian didn't put two-and-two together.

Brian just didn't care. Hardly knew where he was, or where he was going. His head swimming and his heart smashing out of his ribs.

Brian stole a lot of drugs on his way back out. It felt like a favour. It felt like he'd be the best person to look after them. He figured Noah didn't need to sell drugs anymore. It felt like Noah would appreciate the thought.

So Brian had about six grands' coke about his person and Colin's box in his lap. And these two men wanted to know if he'd heard about a job Noah had pulled a year or two ago. Painted a chimney up like a penis, they said. A condom advert for one of their competitors.

Brian did not have a clue. Brian didn't pay attention to adverts. Brian said, Adverts make you weak. Brian was trying to get home with a lot of drugs and some kind of artefact two men had now died for.

Because Noah was dead, wasn't he.

Because Noah was dead now. Had to be. It was obvious. Colin too. This box that Noah said was amazing but Brian should never open. And that's why Brian took all of Noah's stash. Because weed just wouldn't cut it on a night like this. And don't you know it.

So Brian offered this pair of men some coke, and one of them smiled and stuck his hand in the bag and licked it. He said, Hey, look. I'm like a Columbian police officer. Not racist if you think about it. And then he bought a couple of grams for quite a bit more than the usual price and disappeared off down the road, his partner in tow.

Brian breathed a sigh of relief and felt sick again. He felt very sick about Noah disintegrating. It'd been a bad afternoon. It'd been a bad start to the week.

And Brian did not see what to do, how to do it, where to do it or why he should have to. Because Brian had Colin's box now, and something had made Noah disintegrate, and usually Brian thinks a lot of causality.

So Brian went home with his box. Brian put the soldiers and the debt on.

Brian listened to news of Birmingham and rape and new riots.

Brian put the box on the table in his lounge.

Brian dumped Noah's stash by the front door.

Brian poured out a small baggie for safe-keeping and stuffed it in his pocket.

Brian started to cry.

Brian cut twelve lines of cocaine from the big bag and railed every single last one in a row, plus the crumbs, so that his nose bled and his brains were a disgusting muddle.