Authors: Martin Amis
Night Train (16 page)
I don't personally believe that her work—her bent, her calling—had much to do with anything, except that it lengthened the band. By which I mean something like: The intellectual gap between Jennifer and LaDonna, Jennifer and DeLeon, Jennifer and the thirteen-year-old girl who murdered a baby over a diaper—that gap feels vast, but might be narrowed by habitual thoughts about the universe. In the same way, Trader was 'the kindest lover on the planet'—but how kind is that? Miriam was the sweetest mother—but how sweet is that? And Colonel Tom was the fondest father. And how fond is that? Jennifer was beautiful. But how beautiful? Think about this human face anyway, with its silly ears, its sprout of fur, its nonsensical nostrils, the wetness of the eyes and of the mouth, where white bone grows.
In suicide studies there used to be a rough rule that went: The more violent the means, the louder the snarl at the living. The louder they said, 'Look what you made me do'. If you left your body whole, merely mimicking sleep, then this was considered a quieter reproach to those who were left behind. (Left behind? No! They stop. We go on. The 'dead' are those who are left behind.)... Still, I never believed that. The woman who cuts her throat with an electric carving knife—you're telling me she's got a thought for anybody else? But yet, three bullets, like the opposite of three cheers. What a judgment. What... highness. What ice. She hurt the living, and that's another reason to hate her. And she didn't even care that everyone would remember her as just another mad bitch. Everyone except me.
Unfair. She was the daughter of a police—her father commanded three thousand sworn. She knew that he would follow her trail. And I believe she knew also that I would play a part in the search. Sure. Who else? If not me, who? Who? Tony Silvera? Oltan O'Boye? Who? As she headed toward death she imprinted a pattern that she thought would solace the living. A pattern: Something often seen before. Jennifer left clues. But the clues were all blinds. Bax Denziger's mangled algorithm? A blind (and a joke, saying something like: Don't grind your ax against the universe. I grind mine against mother earth). The paintings she bought? A blind—an indolent afterthought. The lithium was a blind. Arn Debs was a blind. Man, was he ever. For days I have hated her for Arn Debs. Detested her, despised her. Hated it that she thought I'd swallow Arn Debs—that I'd reckon he'd do, even as a decoy. But then again: Shit, who did she ever see me run with? From the age of eight she watched me hanging on the arms of woman-haters and woman-hitters. Me with my black eye, and Duwain with his. Deniss and myself, holding hands as we limped off to join the line outside Emergency. These guys didn't just slap me around: We had fistfights that lasted half an hour. Jennifer must have thought that black and blue were my favorite colors. What would you expect from Mike Hoolihan—a woman who was gored by her dad? Sure I'd go for big Arn Debs. And why wouldn't I figure, being so fucking dumb, that Jennifer might go for him too? Did she not see intelligence in me? Did she actually not? Did nobody see it? Because if you take intelligence from me, if you take it from my face, then you really don't leave me with very much at all.
You key the mike and you get the squawk that no one wants: 'Check suspicious odor'. I have checked suspicious odors. Suspicious? No. This is blazing crime. Fulminant chemistry of death, on the planet of retards. I've seen bodies, dead bodies, in tiled morgues, in cell-blocks, in district lockups, in trunks of cars, in project stairwells, in loading-dock doorways, in tractor-trailer turnarounds, in torched rowhouses, in corner carry-outs, in cross alleys, in crawlspaces, and I've never seen one that sat with me like the body of Jennifer Rockwell, propped there naked after the act of love and life, saying even this, all this, I leave behind.
A sudden memory. Jesus, where did 'that' come from? I once saw Phyllida Trounce. In the old days, I mean. At the Rockwell place. Sweating booze into the blankets, I turned on my side and fumbled with the latch of the window. And there she was, three feet away, staring. In vigil. We looked at each other. No big thing. Two ghosts saying, Hi, Mack...
Phyllida Trounce is still walking. Phyllida's stepma is still walking, blundering, groaning. We're all still walking, aren't we? We're still persisting, still keeping on, still sleeping, waking, still crouching on cans, still crouching in cars, still driving, driving, driving, still taking it, still eating it, still home-improving and twelve-stepping it, still waiting, still standing in line, still scrabbling in bags for a handful of keys.
Ever have that childish feeling, with the sun on your salty face and ice cream melting in your mouth, the infantile feeling that you want to cancel worldly happiness, turn it down as a false lead? I don't know. That was the past. And I sometimes think that Jennifer Rockwell came from the future.
Ten o'clock. I will record and then transcribe.
I have nothing to tell Colonel Tom except lies: Jennifer's lies.
What else can I tell him?
Sir, your daughter didn't have motives. She just had standards. High ones. Which we didn't meet.
In the Decoy Room, with Paulie No, when I ordered the second seltzer—that was a sweet moment. The moment of deferral. Tasting far sweeter than what I'm tasting now.
I will record and then transcribe. Oh, Father...
Colonel Tom? Mike.
Yeah, Mike. Listen. You're sure you want to do it this way?
Colonel Tom, what can I tell you. People point themselves at the world. People show a life to the world. Then you look past that and you see it ain't so. One minute it's a clear blue sky. Then you look again and there's thunderheads all around.
Slow this down, Mike. Can we slow this down?
It measures up, Colonel Tom. It all measures up. Your little girl was on a break. No doctor was giving her that stuff she was taking. She was getting it on the street. On the— Mike, you're talking too loud. I— On the fucking street, Colonel Tom. 'For a year' she was second-guessing her own head. Bax Denziger told me she'd started losing it on the job. And talking about death. About staring at death. And things were coming apart with Trader because she was sizing up some other guy.
Who? What other guy?
Just some 'guy'. Met in a bar. Only a flirt thing maybe but you see what it's saying? Don't tell Trader. Don't tell Miriam because she— Mike. What's happening with you?
It's a pattern. It's all classic, Colonel Tom. It's a dunker, man. It's a piece of shit.
I'm coming over.
I won't be here. Listen, I'm fine. I'm good—really. Wait... That's better. I'm just upset with all this. But now it's made. And you just have to let it be, Colonel Tom. I'm sorry, sir. I'm so sorry.
Mike...
It's 'down'.
There—finished. All gone. Now me I'm heading off to Battery and its long string of dives. I want to call Trader Faulkner and say goodbye but the phone's ringing again and the night train's coming and I can hear that dickless sack of shit bending the stairs out of joint and let him see what happens if he tries to stand in my way or just gives me that look or opens his mouth and says so much as 'one single word'.
The End
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