Goatie 6

The cells below the station. A place of grey and dark colours. Banging doors and the shouts of ‘Turnkey, Turnkey’ and the stink of a dog fight to the death.  

‘Whit yeh in for? the guy sharing my cell asked.  Hair parting with a sprinkle of dandruff on the side getting up off a mattress which isn’t a mattress but a bit of foam with a scratchy blanket. He looks glad of the company.

I’ve got a scratchy blanket in my hand when the Turnkey pushes me into the cell. I duck down as if I might bump my head. Twelve by eight, wall to wall shimmering white brick with modern fittings including a shiny silver toilet, but toilet roll is extra, like a London bedsit.

Sometimes it seems there’s a great warehouse with body parts and I’ve been dropped inside myself. My life is to see what part goes where and to muddle on. ‘I’ve no done anything,’ I tell him.

‘Fuck off.’ Legs crossed, hair buzzed close, salt-and-pepper beard and moustache, chewing a mint Imperial. He’s settled in for the long haul. ‘Yeh must huv done somethin.’ He licks his lips. ‘Yeh got any fags?’

‘Nah.’

He stares at me to make sure, twists his neck and leans in as if we’re being recorded, and whispers, ‘Yeh, got any oer stuff?’

I settle into the corner. Use my blanket as I pillow and sprawl on my bed. Staring up at the fixed light that never goes off, but dulls a bit at night, like a cloud passing over the unsmashable glass of the sun.  ‘Nah, used it all up, mate. My heids aw oer the place. You got any stuff.’

He snorts and sighs. ‘That’s shite.’

‘Whit yeh in for?’

‘Broke my bail, didn’t I. She wiz bein a stroppy bitch and ended up wae a broken arm. Wisnae my fault.’

‘I wiz the same. Mate ended up burnt tae death. Wisnae my fault either.’

‘Aye,’ he nods sympathetically. ‘That’s the problem. Yeh need tae prove it.’

I scratch my bald head. ‘I cannae prove nuthin. If I could prove somethin, I wouldnae be here. I’d be yer better that average guy daein something for nuthiin, an helping old women across the road.

It’s like huvin a missin arm and shakin haund wae yersel. An declarin yeh huv a new best mate. It doesnae mean anythin. It takes a long time tae be somebody. An no everybody that is nobody has got the time. It’s like Icarus wae his wings on the hottest day. They ur always melting. He cannae be seen wingless or he wouldnae be Icarus.

Tae fall in flight. But out of sight, is to be like the comet’s tail. Only the heavens see yeh fall. When the star-soaked icy grains finds even the rain in the sky willnae cry. All yer left wae is the scars of gettin up again. I can show yer the hot stars on my back, left and right shoulders. Oot of flight, I’m no much of a sight. I didnae see the fire, I only saw the smoke and wanted to go hame. That’s when they arrested me.’

He shook his head and turned his back on me, pulling the blanket over his head and ears. ‘Oh, fuck, yer crazy.’

But we were together too long for it to last. I swapped my cheese and pickle for his ham sandwich. Stewed tea was more awful than drinking out of the lavvy, but I forced it down.

Saul wasn’t a bad bloke, but he made smacking noises when he ate. ‘I’ve always wanted tae be a pilot. I put in for the license, but when I got up there tae try it oot, it was too high. I liked the idea. But I’m the second rung in a ladder is high enough for me kinda guy. That’s how I became a driver and got in wae the wrang crowd.’

The ham in the sandwich tasted like melted plastic. I picked it out of my dentures and spat it into the toilet bowl. ‘Then yeh know whit I mean. Some guy get car sick. But not enough, cloggin up the planet’s arteries. And killing more civilians than a crack team of marines. As children we’re so much oursel we don’t want tae be anybody else, apart fae oor da. The highest yeh should go is yer da’s shoulders. A pliant wee wobbly heid sack wae stumpie legs in a shoulderie. That’s flyin wae love. Knowin he’ll never let yeh go, no matter whit. Even if he dropped doon deid, he’d still hold yeh up. The hell withn yeh grows only when yeh no longer believe that. That’s yeh lost yer innocence.

Yer old man is jist old and a man. Yeh want him tae go away and die somewhere else. Heaven has no auld men. Until yeh tae become auld, and here we ur—January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August and September—nae evidence of flight and hard ground below us. Yeh want tae try on yer da’s life. Then yeh dae. An yeh cannae shake it aff, no matter how the hell yeh try. That’s the rub.’

He yawned, poked at his ear, and pretended not to hear me. Tells me about all the cars he’s owned and the ones he’d like to drive. I hear the love and attention in his voice. ‘It’s aw on the internet,’ he tells me sitting up. ‘Yeh can get anythin on the internet.’ He sniffs, ‘if yeh know whit I mean?’  

I agree with him. Hope that he’s not going to admit to watching child porn.  ‘Of course it’s a time machine. It runs on the same juice as the perpetual motion machine. One is connected tae the other by a good kick and a twelve inch spanner tae open the Window. Whit yeh know is whit yeh see. Yeh need tae believe tae be there.

When we fall, we’re continually told we’ll rise again. But we don’t. We jist keep failin and fallin. Inside those false promises we rise oorsel up. We ur mair than hot air buffeted by a storm of indifference. Every fall is a chance tae right yersel. There’s nae wae of understandin the coldness and coiled tightness to come withoot fallin and failin.’

‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Yeh talk some shite. Yeh should be a lawyer or somethin.’

He moves his mattress further towards the wall. ‘Whit’s that?’ He stares at the hoof prints that are burned into the floor. Licks his finger and tries to erase it, like a kid’s drawing.

‘Dunno.’ I don’t want to tell him. I mumble without looking at him. ‘This thing. These goatish things isn’t jist chasin me. They’re chasin yeh too. We’re goatish brothers whether we like it or no. We’ve got a right to protect oorsel against misunderstandin.’

‘I wish I’d a fag,’ he sighs.     

 I must have fallen asleep. I heard the bleating and the thump on my chest. And the whispering presence inside the cells.

Knuckles cracking.

Banging on the walls and in the walls.

Howling and whooping.

Shout and cries.

The great clamour of a faraway crowd. But two to a cell. Reaching for the reinforced windows, but drowning in the flood. When I opened my eyes the cells vibrated with the noise of prisoners banging on the walls and doors. Screaming for the Turnkeys to let them out. There was something in the cells beside them. The guy in the cell beside me wasn’t clamouring to get out. I got up and prodded him with my foot to make sure. They’d taken my laces to ensure I didn’t manage to hang myself. But he was wet and dead, as if he’d drowned.

They had to bring in cops from other stations. Arrange transport to take us away. My cell became another crime scene. The nightshift Turnkey is thin and pale with a shock of frizzy hair. I joke with him. ‘I thought it already was a crime scene’.

But even his authority is quieted. Treated me like some old-fashioned country gentleman of substantial property. Other prisoners stared through the slots at me as I passed.