Reheated Cabbage (24 page)

Carl Ewart handed a box of records to Terry Lawson. — Jist git a hud ay these.

— Want ays tae clean the fuckin bogs before we go? Terry pulled a face, but complied with the instruction and they headed outside, following Albert Black and the girls.

The air was dense and dark as the revellers exited the Cameo on Miami Beach's Washington Avenue, dissolving into a vapid South Florida night. Billy Black couldn't quite believe it as he and Valda Riaz witnessed his grandad being fussed over by some hot pussy, climbing into an SUV followed by the DJ, N-Sign, and some other people in his entourage! Billy and Valda gaped at each other.

Are those hookers Grandpa's going with? Where are they taking
him?

Lester sat in the driver's seat and greeted Albert Black, Helena Hulme, Brandi, Carl, and took the box from Terry Lawson, sticking it on the front seat. — Where are we going? Albert Black asked.

— Perty in the Glades. Thaire's a wee sound system gaun oot n Ewart's keeping it real, daein the back-tae-ehs-roots thing.

— I really should go home, Black said, even as he settled into the vehicle, somehow not wanting to leave, now really desperate for the company of the others.

— No you shouldn't. You're one of the gang now; the main man in the posse, Helena smiled.

— If I'm not being a nuisance . . .

— No way. Carl, tell him.

Black looked in front of him to where Carl Ewart was seated. Helena was massaging his neck and shoulders. The DJ shot a look back at his old nemesis, making it clear that he didn't want Black here. — Mr Black can do what he likes. It makes no odds to me.

Helena raised her eyebrows as Lester started up the SUV and Terry groaned, — Lighten up, Ewart! Ye'd think eh'd jist gie'd ye the fuckin web yesterday. Git ower it fir fuck's sake! Ah goat lashed mair times thin you, n ye dinnae see me gaun aw moosey-faced aboot it. Mind you, he turned to Black, — ye did gie it sair.

Black was disconcerted to feel himself puffing up with this ratification.

— Aye, when you gied the web, ye
gied
the web, if ye ken what ah mean, Terry stressed.

— You were top three, Carl conceded with a rueful smile, — level mibbe wi Masterton, but still behind Bruce by a fair old distance.

— Aye, Bruce in tecky. Terry grimaced at the memory. — That bastard!

Black was deflated.
Bruce. That drunken peasant scumbag: without
the ability to string two sentences together.
It was a travesty that such a man was teaching in a secondary school. Bruce would enjoy inflicting punishment for its own sake. But then again, had he, Albert Black, not obtained some sort of stress release from that same violent exercise?

No . . . surely not . . . it was the sin I hated, not the sinner. I
always followed the righteous path and loved the sinner . . . but . . .
but . . . to smite an enemy, with the vengeful taint of wrath in one's
mouth, to watch them crumble before your power, surely that was the
device installed in us by the Creator in order that good men could
execute just retribution . . .

Or was it Satan, with his cunning wiles, insinuating himself into
us, even under the cloak of righteousness? Could it be possible, that
even as the Christian soldier wielded his sword in his crusade of right,
that he was, at the point of victory, being seduced and subverted by
the devil himself?

— Stop here, Carl barked, — I'll just be a minute.

Black noted that they had pulled up outside the hotel he had followed them to the previous day. Ewart got out and quickly vanished through its doors.

Helena was talking to that Lester character, and Black couldn't help but hear Lawson making the same lewd and shameless propositions to this American woman that he did back at the school to the giggling, vacuous girls, almost thirty years ago.

— So we're gaunny be lovers then?

— Maybe.

— Is that a maybe, a definitely maybe, or a maybe definitely, baby?

— You never stop, do you?

— Nup.

Black saw the seedy driver pass back a packet of white powder to Lawson and his companion. It was obviously a drug of some sort. He noted that Helena had the sense to decline this poison. She was truly a lovely young woman. It would have been too much to hope that Lawson and this American slut would have shown the same restraint, and they were soon inhaling little piles of this powder up their noses, from the back of what looked like a house key. Albert Black turned away to the window.

Terry went to offer his old teacher some, then thought better of it. He passed it back to Lester. — Nice one, buddy, game on, he said.

Lawson seemed to become excited as Carl Ewart returned, carrying an electric kettle, a teapot, a jar of honey and some styrofoam beakers.

— Git some ay that ching intae ye, Ewart! Terry Lawson roared.

— No way. Tea's my thing, Carl Ewart smiled.

Black felt the enriching balm of his own magnanimity render him heady, as he exonerated Carl Ewart, while the vehicle pulled off, and powered across the causeway towards central Miami. He had underestimated Ewart, or, more likely, the effect of this Helena girl's influence.
Maybe he was worthy of such love,
and maybe I was worthy of Marion's.

The SUV, with bass-heavy sounds pounding on its stereo, seemed to form part of a night convoy that meandered through Miami. Black looked outside, as the lights of the city suddenly dissolved. He realised that Lawson, obviously intoxicated, was ranting obscenities into his ear.

To his surprise, Albert Black wasn't annoyed, he just felt so tired and confused. And there was a strange, grim comfort in the rhythm, if not the content, of the Edinburgh scheme man's speech. — Ah hud an idea for a new product, so ah wrote tae Guinness in Dublin. Cunts never even got back tae ays: nae fuckin vision. The idea wis fir fizzy Guinness, tae satisfy the new alcopop generation, ken, cause they lap up the fizz. Eftir aw, ye git black velvet: Guinness and champagne. Stout's jist an auld cunt's drink, so it's aw aboot rebrandin. Aye, ye heard it here first, Lawson nodded in conspiracy.— Rebrandin is important. He dropped his voice.— Ah've even rebranded masel. Tae be honest, ah'd lit masel go. Ah'd pit oan the beef n ah wis happy jist cowpin the same muck-buckets fae the scheme.

Black recalled his wedding, Marion in her white dress. His father, drunk, asking his son where his friend Allister Main was. Vice was always around us. Everywhere. But Lawson was unceasing in his depravity. Black suddenly thought about the Bard; how his verse always comforted in times of stress.

And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

— Then ah hud this thought, sort ay one ay they road-tae-Damascus-type moments as you might say, Lawson raved on, — that if ah shed some timber n sterted moisturisin n workin oot, ah could be chasin the premium young minge again. Too fuckin right. A middle-aged gadge has goat assets a young cunt'll never huv. Thaire's plenty young birds whae want an aulder boy that kens ehs wey aroond a lassie's boady. Some burds cannae be daein wi the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am mentality ay the young cunts. Ah've the Milky Bar Kid tae thank fir that enlightened approach, ah mean, tae tell ye truth, ah wis eywis a sweaty humper, eywis hud the young cunt's approach tae shagging. Jist git a hud ay thum n pound thum intae submission wi auld faithful here. He rubbed at his crotch and licked his lips, one brow tilting skyward. Black gritted his teeth.

Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness
of God endureth continually.

The tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working
deceitfully.

Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak
righteousness.

— Aye, whin this boy's batterin intae thum they ken it's aw hands oan fuckin deck awright! Nae chance ay a burd zonin oot n thinkin ay ehr shoapin list, no whin auld faithful here's screwin her erse intae the mattress! But Carl once sais tae ays: ah make it a golden rule that a lassie needs tae huv at least two clitoral and two vaginal orgasms apiece before ah goes n spills the beans, so tae speak. So ah took that advice oan board n Lean Lawson wis reborn: nae fry-ups n pints ay lager, that shite's a thing ay the past. So the auld Coral Reef flies oaf. Well, ah starts gittin the eye fae the young things, n there ah ah'm, aw they lassies ah'm ridin now, jist like ah wis cowpin thair mas back in the eighties when ah wis oan the juice lorries! Goat a few ay thum intae the auld stag-movie rumpy-pumpy n aw. Cannae beat it. That's what
really
makes ye want tae watch they love handles but, eh. Ken how actors say that the camera adds on pounds? Thir no jokin. But whin ye start the Ian McLagan oan screen, that fairly gies ye the incentive tae keep thum oaf. Cannae knock it: spice ay life.

The girl, the American waitress: Lawson eyed and pawed at her in lewd obscenity as he havered on. It was as well she probably couldn't understand a word he was saying. Or more likely she was as depraved as him. That trickle of sweat that dribbled from the honey skin from her slender neck down to her cleavage. Sin. It was everywhere.
Must not give in. Never give
in. Do not let Satan enbeast you!

They turned off the freeway, down a slip road, surrounded on all sides by darkness. After a while they pulled into a roadside car park, the vehicles lining up around a truck, which opened up at the back to reveal a sound system with a DJ booth. Black assumed it also contained a generator, for as they got out of the car, harsh, throbbing strobe lights, placed around the edges of the truck, pulsed into action, then speakers rumbled like the pipes of an old plumbing system, and sinister trance music gushed into the night. It seemed that it was shaking the large palms and eucalyptus trees around them, but that was probably down to the building wind, as some young men were struggling to erect two mildewed green tents on aluminium poles onto a patch of impacted ground. The vegetation that grew around it buffeted the site, which had obviously enjoyed past use for this purpose, and Black could see the lights of the freeway shivering in the distance behind them. The party was soon in full swing. Swaggering young men, with feminine reptilian grins, danced with uniformly beautiful girls. — We party till sunup! a deranged young woman screamed at Black, her face contorted, doubtlessly due to the same corrupting bounty of Satan that Lawson had been so keen to ingest.

Black looked around in the swampy darkness. This was the Everglades. The place seemed wild and dangerous. There was a looming cadence in the air, as if the night was stalking them, closing in on this band of dancing, gyrating devil-worshippers. It was hot and rich with corruption.

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land,
strangers devour it in your presence . . .

At the SUV he saw that Carl Ewart was doing something with an electric kettle, seemingly preparing tea or coffee. The two men caught each other's eye and exchanged curt, tense nods. Black looked around and saw Helena standing alone, leaning against a car bonnet, and moved across to her.

— Are you okay? she asked.

— Yes. It's not the sort of thing I've experienced.

— Don't worry about it, talk to me. I don't have my party hat on, the jet lag's kicking in, she yawned.

Black again found himself telling her how much he was missing his wife. It was making Helena think of the life that she and Carl were hoping to share, but giving her a terrible sadness that it would all end up in pain and heartbreak. But then an epiphany gripped her; it wasn't right to feel this way. She realised that she wasn't just down; she was suffering from depression. Since her dad's death she'd been dwelling too much on negative scenarios, and not getting on with her life. It was for living, not for passing away in obsessive and self-defeating morbid and banal thoughts. She resolved that she would see a doctor. Perhaps do some bereavement counselling.

As the emotions rose in him, Albert Black felt self-indulgent and weak. He must be boring this girl, although she was gracious enough not to show it. Excusing himself, he went to explore.

Passing the SUV, Black noticed that Ewart, who had gone off to the truck, had been making some tea in that pot he'd gone out of his way to procure from the hotel. Perhaps he'd misjudged him. While everyone else seemed to be ingesting all sorts of terrible chemicals, Carl Ewart was doing something respectable. It looked a little like camomile when Black poured it into one of the styrofoam beakers. There was no milk but there was sugar and honey, which he stirred into it, as the elixir was like all herbal teas to his palate, exceedingly nasty, though Marion swore by them. Black headed back to the edge of the dancing crowd, sipping his infusion.

He watched Ewart and Lawson, now dancing with the girls: Helena, looking tired but going through the motions, and the American whose name he kept forgetting. But they were also dancing and having as much fun with each other as they were with their girlfriends. (Though it was surely stretching it to refer to the casual congress between Lawson and the waitress in such terms!) It forcibly struck Black, a lonely outsider, that he had never known a friendship like the one Ewart had with Lawson.

Allister. At the university.

This dredged up an unpleasant memory, but the resulting nausea went beyond that. It dawned on Black that he was feeling sick and his head was spinning. There was an urgent pressing on his bladder. He turned away from the revellers, who seemed to be contorting into unnatural shapes in silhouette, and moved tentatively into dense foliage, in order to find a private spot to urinate. Pushing through some eucalyptus bushes to a clearing, he felt the wet sawgrass under his feet, seeping into his shoes.

It was so dark; he looked back and he could no longer see the strobe, although the sound still followed him. But he could no longer be sure that it was the dance music, it seemed to coming from somewhere inside his head. He felt his throat dry out as his knee clicked and his heartbeat rose. Parting his legs to stabilise himself, he kept most of his weight on the one with the stronger knee, and unzipped himself and started to pee. He had never urinated so much; it wouldn't stop. A convulsion bubbled up from his chest and shook him. He retched, but it was dry, as he'd eaten nothing. He could feel the queasy tea in his guts, but it wouldn't come up. He tried to steady his breathing. His nostrils flared. He wasn't even sure he'd finished pishing, but he put his penis away and felt a gust of wind, which seemed to come from nowhere; it was going through his body like an X-ray.