Harboil: Part III

Part III.

The thing is: every box is worth opening. Also, envelopes and doors.

There are drains steaming along Main Street. Below ground there are baby alligators and adult humans, living in the cavern that houses the tram generator.

It is known as Ballast: a small subterranean community that has developed a semi-symbiotic relationship with the city above them. The tram generator acts primarily as central heating. But it also has an important role to play in the community psyche. Ballastrians function best with a consistent level of background noise. The trams clattering above ground, miraculous subterranean wind, the occasional sewer level shoot out, reverb-laden gun shots. Most important of all is the generator that, like some incessantly cheery grandmother, never stops humming. These are not the sort of people who long for some quiet time to reflect. Silence is something to be feared.

The most gruesome chore in Ballast is also the most rewarding. A net of chicken wire across the sewer collects any object larger than a box of matches. From rock hard, scag faeces, to severed hands, ears, genitals, the very occasional tampon, the feathers of rare birds, fake teeth, various Japanese fish and, with surprising regularity, large bricks of flushed hard drugs: primarily cocaine and heroine.

Down here, a sense of smell is an evolutionary disadvantage. In a city fed primarily on seignon steaks, barbeque ribs and filter coffee, the smell of the morning wash-out is a heavy, semi-physical funk that moves like a snowdrift, filling every crevice then solidifying, pockets of stink coming to rest for days at a time.

One day, something turned up in the chicken wire. It took four of them to haul it out: a vaguely cuboid mass, blackened with effluence. They washed the shit off with their own piss: downgrading one filth for another. As the steam rose, flecks of metal winked in the dank light: bolts, latches and snap-release clasps, the corners and edges were gold-plated. Finally, with a determined gush, they stripped the dirt from a comically large combination lock, also gold, that hung from the casket’s front.

The chest was made from thick camphorwood – it had absorbed the smell of its journey and, for this reason, it was easily located. The lock itself was, as far as their talents went, un-unlockable. This did not particularly bother them. As you may imagine from a group of individuals who choose to live without daylight, the Ballastrians are not especially curious.

For a long time, the general consensus was that the chest itself was of primary value and that they should keep it in tact, so that it might be sold or, if possible, returned to its owner for an appropriate fee. They were reluctant to smash the casket for fear that they would only find a stack of dirty magazines, of which they already had many. And then the box would be worthless. But before they could sell it, they needed it to stop stinking. Which never happened. The box emitted a perma-fug, a force-field of concentrated gut-swill. And so, eventually, with the combined the forces of an axe, wire cutters, a pull-stroke saw and a box of French bangers – they made a hole big enough to pull out the contents which were made of paper but contained no images of naked women.

They found a hand-written thread-bound booklet, sealed with white wax. Inside they found beautiful illustrations, footnotes and diagrams. The front page of the booklet said this: Diamonds Are For Eva

- The Aquarium -

They should not have been surprised that the document outlined, in gratuitous detail, plans for the movement of the largest diamond, known as The Aquarium: a diamond so cavernous that, if hollowed out, it could house a barracuda. They should not have been surprised.

The last time the Aquarium had been in Harboil – nearly a decade ago – it caused a stretch of unremitting carnage as it passed clumsily through the hands of every major gang, syndicate and clan. A month of newspaper headlines that read like a list of discarded film pitches:

Polskas Blow Up Synagogue!
Cable Car Carnage!
Zeppelin Dog Fight!

The Triads fleeced it from the Bikers, who pillaged it from the Geezers, who lifted it from the Bloods, who shot it out with both the Clowns and the Moonies before kidnapping it from the Poles, who embezzled it from the Jews, who swindled it from the Russians, who strong-armed it from the Italians, who made an offer that the Triads tried hard to refuse, for days, with crossbows, and tear gas, and tempura oil, until the army rolled in like a fire blanket and put the whole thing out.

And somewhere along the line, the diamond disappeared, leaving nothing behind it except unsettled debts and ill-feeling.

Needless to say, with that kind of heritage, the Aquarium diamond represents more than just its value. It is the embodiment of status. It is the embodiment of nostalgia for top-end violence. To coin a phrase, it’s a big fucking deal.

- The Big Day -

Saturday 14th April: the day of the marriage between Princess Miriam, beautiful, young and charismatic, and the portly, middle-aged Don Trank, a well-liked music hall entertainer with a face like boiled ham.

The ceremony itself is restricted to family, friends, confidantes, made men, political leaders, popular beat combos and upper-level henchmen. The couple exchange vows. The celebrity priest, Father Lincoln, famous as both a clergyman and a conjuror, wearing hybrid clerical-magical garb, sleeves like windsocks, joins them in holy matrimony. Don kisses Miriam. Miriam tastes pastrami. Bells ring out across Harboil

The city’s law-abiding citizens – mostly women – are lining Main Street: rice in their fists, vicarious romance in their hearts. The marriage cavalcade starts with the orphan’s choir, rises up past the walking orchestra, on to the leggy cheerleaders with their sticks twizzling in the sunlight, then the eight-tier cake draped in muslin, drifting like an iceberg, and finally, drawn by nineteen horses, one for each year of her life, Princess Miriam and the newly crowned Prince Don, waving goodbyes and hellos, sitting on a giant open-top carriage, its wheels like windmills, the jewels on Miriam’s dress reflecting spots of sunlight on to the red-brick department stores as they pass and, uppermost, at the apex of confirmation: her gravity-defying haircut, a tiara’d pyramid of silver blonde, pointing toward the heavens, conducting electricity, far beyond both sublime and ridiculous, residing in a state of pure mathematical adventure.