Scarleton Series I : Before the Cult (20 page)

He hesitated,
hard to tell from how petrified and devastated he was. He was muzzy
and unsteady. He opened his mouth but it trembled so much that he
could only mumble. Then his eyes spaced-out.

“Where is Mac?”
I asked.

“He er… he went
to the b-b-bathroom,” He said, his head trembling.“Um… please,
t-take t-the money a-and keep the girl.”

“Are you from
outside?” I asked.

He flinched.
“No-no. Why?”

“Your shoes are
wet.”

Quite
flustered, he mumbled,“ Um… drunks.
Lifeling’s
drinks on the
floor.” A nervous grin creased his face.

What the fuck
is that in your eyes. Wait, now that I look closely he looks more
like a parent trying to hide something from a child, then giving
them money to go get sweets at the store so they could screw or
argue in peace. Something that concerns grown-ups. Should I give
them the space?

I studied the
hundred rand note in his hand, fluttering.

“Just take it.
It is important, Sandz ,” he gravely said.

“What do you
want me to do with this chick? Is this for sex?”

He cleared his
throat. “We need to listen to everything she says. I will explain
everything later.”

“Is Mac with
you on this?”

His face
twitched at the idea, too quickly and discrete for a stranger’s eye
to notice. “Yeah. I will explain everything. I will guide you.”

“Wait, what
muddled up thing is going on that you guys won’t tell me about?”
Taking my vantage.

“Nothing,
Sandy,” his leer admonishing .

I waffled,
finding the look scorching. “Alright. Tell me something
though?”

“Wha’?”

“That this is
not going to burn, Macfearson.”

He nodded with
not that much conviction coming from him.

Well, fuck it.
I am drunk anyway and the world is shit anyway.

I picked the
note from his hand and set my eyes on the adorable Kim Besert with
my mind slightly nudged.

“Spilling beans
sounds very sexual to me,” I told her.

She giggled.
“How so?”

“I don’t know.
Just sounds that way it has nothing to do with what it means.
Sounds more like you’re telling me to tell you how I feel about you
since we don’t know each other you can’t possibly expect that. It’s
not that we’ve been playing a game of cat of mouse. The cards are
on the table and everything is actually on the open I presume,”
words glided through my mouth.

“You want
truth?”

“Give it to
me.”

“Look I’ve been
here drinking and for some reason I feel an awful lot horny so if
I’m not gonna get fucked at the end of the night by you or anyone
I’m goin' to leave.”

“And?”

“You’re
carrying this boulder around and I can’t trust that. I guess I will
have to go because you won’t say anything.”

“This is very
refreshing usually people trust me and tell me all kinds of shit. I
am like invisible to them. They don’t see the boulder I carry
around.” I paused. “What happened to your ‘give in to the mystery’
theory?”

She sighed.
“Okay, fuck it. I am lyin’. I just want to know why you did this.
This is the only thing I ask from you. What you’ve done is a bit
unusual.”

I considered.
“You’ll leave if I don’t tell you?”

“Maybe,” she
glanced down.

“Okay then.
Here I go.”

I turned to
Macfearson. “You think this is a good idea? Should I do this?”

He firmly
nodded.

“The last time
I did this was with Krissy and I fucking got punctured. Drove her
away, mate.”

He closed his
eyes, nodding his understanding. “We can’t let the world dictate
terms now. We have done too much hiding. They deal with it. Think
of this as a How We End Up Alone moment.”

How We End Up
Alone was a single from the alternative metal band Hurt. It
portrayed in immaculate, insightful and heartfelt lyrics and vocal
deliverance a person who is at the verge of a conundrum of an
interpersonal relationship. Inducing a state of forced apathy with
the full acceptance of the hurt and loss that is to follow. Not
irresponsible apathy but the kind that lubricates shameless
openness and honesty at any dark price. It is a state of tolerating
high risks for a floundering possibility.

The vocalist’s
tenor voice crooning:

There’s no
more use in lying
Yeah, there is no more use in lying

Then his voice
becomes thinner as if one who is about to whimper:

To tell the
truth I don’t care what you’ll do!

Then returns to
the same opening demeanour:

There is no
use in lying
There is no more use in trying
When there is no more denying

Then an almost
voice whimpering:

I gave you
the proof I don’t care what you will do!

The song had a
profound almost apocalyptic undercurrent. Song that makes you feel,
Macxermillio always remarked at it clicking the repeat button and
levitating to the rich worlds within.

Macfearson’s
suggestion was perfect, it was a How We End Up Alone moment. He
couldn’t have explained it better than that. The spirit and the
gist of the song injected me with courage and enough ounces of
stupidity I required.

The walls of my
mind crumbled like walls from chained cannon balls. My
concentration inconsistent and slippery. My glance shifting to the
gentlemen on the corner laughing and joking completely buzzed out
of their own minds. Then the orders of exotic names of drinks I
have no idea which are or what they do on my left side. And
diagonally on the left side ladies ascending and descending on the
stairs. They were not very impressive or heating me off. It was odd
that the girls where in leather boots and short black skirts most
of them, the kind of skirts that wrapped them from their upper body
to just a few centimetres under their pelvis. They left little to
one’s imagination really, not to think most of them might not be
wearing underwear was thrilling. They wasn’t a lot of women of this
kind alone here (always in packs) but they kept a lot of my
attention, annexing it. Smooth legs they had, silk stockings
smooth.

My tongue much
more slippery, “Okay, first things first. Now that we are being all
cards on the table I think you should now I am horny right now. You
put a little heat on me and I would like to have the honour to
plough you tonight.”

She gasped
comically. “You –“

“Don’t worry
about it,” I interrupted , “I know I am a bit of bitch really. I
would like a bit of scene setting before I tell you this. Would you
go to whoever plays music here and tell them it is your birthday
and you would just like to hear Closer by Kings of Leon and can I
bum a smoke from you as well? Push the ashtray closer as well, like
in the middle of the table. Then I’m all yours after that.”

She laughed,
frowning at the same time. “Look I will bum you a smoke and push
the ashtray but trying to request songs here is useless.”

“Really? I have
alwaysed thought this is a cool place. This must be a crappy place
then. Do you do most of your business here?”

“Yeah, sort of.
Now can you step on it and tell me what is with you now?” She made
an impatient gesture with her hand.

“What time is
it?”

“It is one
minute after our agreed time so I’m here on my own accord
really.”

“So you can
leave but you do not choose to? Wow.”

She scowled.
“You haven’t given me the cash for the thirty minutes we agreed on.
Fifty bucks.”

I nodded and
reached for my wallet. Flipped through a few notes and showed her
the note. “Happy? Will pay you when I’m done.”

“Go on
then.”

“I am wreck. A
fuckin’ freak really. That is why I am here now,” I paused roaming
my own thoughts, “You see, I am seeing someone.”

“Ah, oh. Yeah,
right. I see,” she reached to touch my hand and looked into my eyes
with what might have been empathy. It was a rapid emotional
response from her, one that was completely unexpected. That made it
strange and puzzling. She put her other hand over her chest and
nodded as if the slow pulses of understanding where going through
her head.

Soft hands…

“I understand
now. When something like that happens I also don’t feel like
touching anything. I just crave for a distraction. You are probably
so devastated that you could not sum up the energy to approach or
even talk to anyone,” She said, smiling and emitting a sudden
warmth and charity. Her voice had grown more soothing and mellow as
if to appease a child. It made me feel the tense muscles in me
relax, lean back in my chair and let my breath flow loose.

“Yeah, so you
get it,” I smiled, this time sweet and sending down ripples of joy
through my being.

“I have had a
tough time too. If this makes you feel a lot more better I am glad
to help. If you don’t wanna talk about it, it is okay. Sometimes
speaking so soon without actually having made sense of anything
yourself or come to terms with the reality of the situation can be
an overwhelming experience. Very shaking and difficult,” she
studied my eyes, “Have you been crying so much that you can’t
anymore but you feel like crying?”

I shook my head
grappling with tears. “Yes ,” I choked stifling the simmering
emotions.

“Sometimes I
feel like I am in the most saddest song when that happens. With
images black and white, and streets cleared and lonely. Forlorn.
Sappy rain, “ She glanced outside the window. “For you it pours. It
actually pours. Maybe the heavens feel your pain, cries so much
tears that this town will drown in its sorrow and grief.”

“Don’t they
weep for you?” I moaned.

“No. I am not
like you. Not even the heavens could set their sight on me,”

My heart had a
sore stroke of a potent, goo-like and unpleasant emotion. I felt
privileged to experience it and also troubled at once, like the way
more success breeds more responsibility. I wished she could stop
speaking that way and at the same time I wanted her too, I deserved
the pain. This pain was the kind coagulating with a speck of
sweetness, just the deserved amount. There is no redemption for me
in this world, not with her or even the heavens. Why should she
care about something as worthless as me? She got me, a part of me
was grateful but a dominant part was grieving at the death she was
busy coaxing into her life.

This is what
you get for trusting me…

“I am
disgusting…” the suddenly the words and emotions that I wanted to
convey perished at their infancy in the exhausting swamps of my
being.

She shook her
heard in sympathy. “Did you do anything wrong? Is it your
fault?”

“I don’t know.
Maybe there is just something with me,” I groaned.

“Is it
something you did?”

“I do not think
I did anything. I just existed. I just became,” I paused. My hands
dipped in the dark goo within my mind to find anything that made
even the most remote sense. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been born or
even existed in some pre-existing state or another.”

She tightened
her lip into a thin line, nodding to encapsulate my pain. “It can’t
be your fault then, okay?”

I looked down
as her gaze hovered on my skin. I was petrified by shame, and more
off it was coming like a fog off a mountain.

“I don’t think
this will go anywhere, Fearson,” I spoke to Macfearson.

He knelt beside
me with one knee. “She knows,” his voice not shy from a
whisper.

“So what? What
difference does it make? So did Krissy know but she ditched me
didn’t she?”

Macfearson
sighed exasperatedly. “You don’t get it. You got it all muddled-up,
bro. Krissy did know it but she did not understand it. She, on the
other hand, understands it.”

“How do you
know? How can I be sure? How will she help anyway? No one can save
us, Fearson. You know that don’t you? This life is our punishment.
A prison for a crime we have forgotten. I mean what better way to
punish someone than put them in the most horrible correctional
facility and erase their memory so they think that they are just
being treated as slaves or less of a human while they know there
must be something better. You are put into a position where you
know that there are certain things you deserve but you can’t have
them, you are so convicted by the idea that you do but you do not
in reality. Maybe we don’t need saving, We don’t deserve it and it
is impossible for us,” I said.

“All I hear is
a lot of maybes there. An awful lot of rationalized hopelessness,
Sandz ,” He grunted quietly. “Let me give you one maybe. You might
be wasting the best chance we have. And I’m not gonna let your fear
and wounds to stop us from reaching it.” He glared at me with
fierce intensity. His face stoic and cold.

I remained
stubbornly reluctant. “Show me how. Show me how you know what you
know. Give me a test or something,” I demanded.

“Ask her if
sometimes she feels like she is fleeting through life. If she says
yes she truly understands, something Krissy never had. Krissy was
just a horny bitch, this is a horny understanding bitch.” He spoke
confidently with no trace of doubt or panic. It was as if he
knew.

I pulled my
head up and gathered the strength to ask her, my heart pounding in
my chest making a distracting sound in my temples.

“Do you feel
like you are fleeting through life at times? That it is all stale
and you are a passer-by amongst travellers?” I asked, with
trembling lips.

She shifted her
head side to side like a genius when about to formulate a way to
explain something to a kid.“Do you?” she returned.

“The question
is ‘do you’” I said, exasperated.