Harry

They came in the night. Tommy whispered, baby, it’s okay – but it weren’t.

They got me in a headlock. Wrapped gaffer tape round my wrists and ankles. Pulled a sock down over my head.

“Get in the back of the van!” a weasel-nosed voice shrieked.

“What van, man?” I said.

How could I see where the van was with this sock over my head?

They bundled me in. Slammed the doors. Got in the front – I heard four of them, all guys – always guys – and off we lurched, bouncing down over the cobbled streets of Leeds 6. It was midnight.

Where’s Tommy? Where Arthur? Where anybody?

I settled down to get some kip. It was the best sleep I’d had in weeks.

When I awoke, I was in a room. I was lying on a thin Japanese mattress that smelled of sandalwood, like some holy Indian ashram. The head-sock lay in the corner. The gaffer tape was gone. A desk and a chair. My trusty laptop, plugged in, booted up. A vase of tea and a two-kilogram sack of dates.

There were bars on the high window, a grey light striving in. I poured some tea and sat down in the chair. Fired up Word. Had a look.

Behind me, the door opened slowly. Soft quick footsteps shuffled in, shuffled out again. Then the slow, steady heels of a tall man in a suit. Someone from the fifties, no doubt. Back when even hoodlums wore shirt and tie.

I took a sip and rested my fingers on the keyboard. The footsteps came closer. Stepped to my side. I saw the dark, pressed trouser legs out the corner of my eye. Looked up and saw a face under hat.

Chamone McHendry.

“The devil made me do it,” he said. He gulped reluctantly. I watched his Adam’s apple bounce up and down in his throat, bigger than it was before.

“You know why you’re here, of course? No need to tell you that.”

“But tell me anyway, man, just for the…”

“You’ve been shirking. We paid you good money and you haven’t been doing your work.”

“What you talking about?”

“You know. The labour. What did you think? That you could just laze around in bed stinking in a pink bathrobe while other unfortunate orphans sweat blood and tears and pay for the privilege?”

“Hey man,” I said, “I didn’t make no promises.”

“But it’s assumed…”

“Every promise you make contains a lie. The lie is you know how you’re gonna feel on some particular day six months or a year down the line. I thought one thing then – I think another thing now. You know I’m much more into my stoat racin’ these days. I don’t want to write a goddamn thing.”

“That’s crazy,” he said, “you’ve been telling us ten years you wanted to be a writer. We gave you the chance. We set you up and gave you everything you needed. Paid your bed and food, laid you on the tools. And all we asked in return was a few piddling little tick-box articles. And now you say all you want to do is race stoats. Pf!” – he spat – “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Don’t say nothin’, man. Just stand there in your shiny FBI shoes and tell me you don’t remember the days when you cared about something too. When we used to lie in the long grass and speak our hearts. That’s all.”

Chamone took a step towards me. Pulled out a stool from the other side of the desk. Sat down with his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a shiny green cashew nut and brushed off some fluff.

“This should help,” he said, “I’ve made them smaller.”

“Why always nuts?” I asked.

“Nuts is good,” he smiled. “You wanna drink to help it down?”

He held out his hand. I looked at the nut-thing, his face. Looked at his black jacket, white shirt, black tie. Shook my head.

“Chamone, man, you look twenty years older. What the hell happened to you?”

Chamone smiled. “Tell you after,” he said.

I nodded and picked up the nut. Swallowed it. Closed my eyes and carried on nodding.

When I opened them, Chamone was halfway through peeling off his face.

“What the fuck,” I said, pushing my chair back and leaping up to get a good look. He had his fingers dug down into his eye-holes, was ripping off his cheeks in chunks. He got his hands up under his scalp and threw lumps of hair and head out onto the floor. Clawed at his throat.

The whole front and back of his neck came off in one shrivelled piece, like an expert unlocking a satsuma.

I backed off to the door. Reached down for the handle. Looked down at it and it wasn’t there.

When I looked back, Chamone was gone. Some old bloke sat there instead. Same suit, same shoes. But some old, wrinkled face with short silver hair.

“Right,” I said, “that figures,” settling back down in my seat and pulling up to the computer. I took a sip of tea and then when I laid the cup down I typed out slowly, “many mickles make a muckle but shovel duck Swansea turpentine, m’choof.”

The old man leaned back.

“Read it out,” he said.

“Swansea duck turpentine great Greg’s rivers, uncle furniture brigade,” I said.

I looked up at him, waiting.

“You like it?”

The old man nodded.

“You know who I am?” he said.

“I think so.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re the devil.”

The old man laughed.

“Are you kidding?”

“Sure,” I said, filling my cup, “we both know there ain’t no devil.”

“Devil’s just the name man gives to God when the lesson’s ain’t nice.”

“Right,” I said.

“I’m your granddad,” he said.

“You don’t look like him.”

“Not that one. We’ve never met. I died when you were two. You’ve never even seen a photograph of me. How would you know what I look like?”

“My mother’s dad?”

He nodded.

“Sheesh,” I said.

“What?” he said.

“My mum always told me you were a bastard. Beat up her brothers and stuff. Beat up her ma. She said you were a real piece of shit, was glad you were dead.”

He shrugged his shoulders and carried on nodding.

“You don’t look so bad,” I said.

“Been dead too long to bother with that kind of thing,” he said. “You learn a lot on this side of the equation.”

“What you talking about?” I said, “am I dead too?”

“Everybody’s dead, son.”

“Everybody? What, did the world just end?”

He shook his head and laughed.

“No, son, the world ain’t ended. The world’s doin’ fine. Everything proceeding as it’s meant to. You ever seen a green shoot and wanted to piss on it ‘cos it weren’t no mighty tree? Well that’s what the world looks like to me. Babies and puppies and lambs and shoots – it don’t get better than that, even though they’re dumb as shit. But that’s what the world is, always. Dumb fucking puppies being beautiful and cute – and, yes, shitting in people’s onion trays and pissin’ ‘em off.”

“Hey,” he said, “let’s lighten things up. You know why I’m here? I’ve come to set you free.”

He reached down into his pocket and lifted out a set of keys.

“Give me your hands,” he said.

I went to put my hands behind my back. Fuck that, I thought. This weird old dead dude ain’t having my hands. But then when I went to move them they wouldn’t go. They were in handcuffs. My wrists were bound.

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

“There are a lot of things you don’t remember.”

I held up my wrists and he inserted a key.

“What’s it like being dead?” I said.

“No different,” he said.

“So what’s the point in dying then?”

“What?” he said, “how could you not? Live or die, it makes no difference: you’re still living.”

“I’m not sure I get any of this,” I said.

The old man laughed. He dropped the handcuffs in a waste basket along with Chamone’s face and neck and hair.

“I’m not sure you’re supposed to,” he said, “it’s all about the ride. You ever thought about going into politics? I think you’d be good.”

“Politics, man? Are you kidding? I was thinking about it the other day and you know what I realised? That the whole thing about being a politician runs off negativity: your whole career relies on it. Like, let’s say I want to run for Mayor of Leeds – what would I say? Leeds is great, right? It’s a wonderful city. There’s tons that’s right with it and not a lot that’s wrong. But where would that get you? Tell people they should be proud and happy for the place where they live and they’ll boo you out of town. They don’t want that. They want promises and change and a whole long list of things that are wrong, things that other politicians that came before have screwed up. Negativity. Give ‘em that and they’ll be happy. The biggest thing you could change is the everyman’s perspective. Get him to see that the world’s a pretty groovy place already – or, at least, twenty-first century England is – and instantly it becomes groovy to everybody. But all they wanna do is tell you the bad stuff and so everyone thinks it’s bad. But it’s not bad, it’s good. And people are good. And, sure, there’s stuff we can improve – but that’s not the same as coming at it constantly with this attitude of how it’s all shit and the other guy’s screwed it up and you’ve got to get drastic to rescue things. Fuck that! Except no man’s gonna vote for the man who says, “it’s you that’s got to change, not the system.” Man, people gotta take some responsibility for themselves. They’ve become like frickin’ babies. There’s garbage in the street and they sit there in diapers wailing and waiting for some man from the council to come and sweep it up. Meanwhile, Jeremy Kyle’s on TV – but they got a freakin’ sweepin’ brush too, man, why they don’t sweep it up themselves? You see what I’m saying? You see something wrong in the world and the moment you find yourself complaining that’s the sign for you to do something about it. But they’d just rather sit there in their diapers shitting and crying and blaming the system and waiting for it to come and wipe their arses – well I don’t know: sounds like I’m getting pretty negative too. Point is, the sun is shining and things are okay and who’s got time for all this heavy talk about problems and the economy and – no, I don’t think I’d be no good at this politics. I can’t even speak straight.”

The old man stares at me. Some strange smile on his face.

“You’re not really my granddad, are you?”

He shakes his head.

“What year is this?”

“What year do you think it is?”

I thought about it for a minute. Ten and two makes eleven. Carry the why. Divide it by elf.

“Nineteen-forty-two,” I said.

“Close.”

“Nineteen-sixty-three.”

“Bingo.”

The old man introduced himself. Said his name was Harry Standoff. I’m not sure I believed that either – but it was more believable than him being my long dead granddad and we were in a room with a laptop the year before Kennedy was assassinated and even more years before a human-made shoe briefly made contact with some far away dust on a large dead space rock up in orbit in the sky, for no apparent reason.

Other men like to climb mountains or swim down deep dark holes.

Who cares?

But, of course, whether he was my granddad or Harry Standoff or President Wilson he was right about one thing: for some reason the world had reverted to nineteen-sixty-three and I was right there in the middle of it.

My handcuffs were off. We had left the room behind. And we were walking down a street near the library in Leeds that I sort of recognised, and yet it was like a street in a dream. Old cars. Men in hats. Curtains not quite the same as curtains now.

Now? When is now? What strange world am I drifting through?

I caught my reflection. I was me with my face. I had my stubble. Then I was a woman, pretty and young. Then a Chinaman. Then a one-eyed Egyptian with a dusty beard. Then a girl, falling under ice. Then a miserable killer’s heart. All these things. And here again in Leeds.

Harry pulled on my arm.

“You’ve always wondered about those, right?”

I looked over.

“The trams!” I said. “Well would you look at that.”

I stood and watched a tram go by. Bovril written large on the side. More men in hats and glasses looking down at newspapers, and on the back pages the names of cities followed by numbers, just as it is now – Liverpool 2, Bolton 1 – and it’s just the same cities and the same numbers over and over, randomly shuffled, endlessly ever after – pull it out of a hat, the result is still the same – yet behind the print a thousand tales also of joys and woes and young boys’ hearts and hours of work and wages all right there in that name, that number. Bolton 3, Hartlepool 3. Blackpool 0, Sunderland 1.

What does it all mean? To what purpose? Who cares that the names of cities are followed by numbers? That men are born and live and die? That a child can go on to live for seventy years or can slip one day and bump its head, shake it off laughing but then not wake up, and all the things that it never did but the world still turns anyway, never to marry, never to produce offspring, a whole dynasty of maybe millions wiped out with one little bump on a coalhouse door, all because of a patch of ice that formed because of a pin-prick hole in a drainpipe.

It would have been so easy to have never been born. But then, lots of people never got born. This man. This woman. This whole squadron of smiling-eyed infants. None of them ever were and we mourn them not…

I watched smoke billow from the chimneys and told Harry about how different the air was here. The buildings black from soot. The sky thick and grey.

“There’s something that’s better now,” I said, “we always look back with nostalgia and wish for the way things were – but look at the mess of this place. Everything’s black. Everything’s covered in soot. I can feel it in my nose. Think of all those lungs!”

I sneeze. Harry just laughs. “Pros and cons everywhere,” he says. “And once upon a time they attacked each other with spears.”

“People are so hung up, man,” I said. “Carbon. That’s the big fuckin’ enemy now. Nobody talked of that ten, fifteen years ago – but now carbon’s the devil. You can’t get on no airplane, go any place without thinking about carbon, about your footprint. You know what I mean? Look at this shit! And all we’re thinking about is carbon. Who gives a shit? As if it makes any difference. I swear it’s just some mechanism to keep people busy. And it’s one thing after another. First it was CFCs and aerosols and you had to freak out over your fridge. Then it was the whole big recycling kick and, wow, we’re all so locked in trying to sort out our fuckin’ plastics and jamjars we ain’t got time to get down to nothin’ else. Too busy worrying about lightbulbs to start a revolution, right? CFCs and recycling and lightbulbs and now bending over backwards and stickin’ our fingers up our own arses to try and be carbon neutral, whatever the hell that means. Am I carbon neutral? I don’t know: I breathe out; I don’t buy no shit I don’t need; don’t drive no car – but…maybe I’m bad because I didn’t plant no trees, chucked a bit of plastic in a normal bin one day. And you know there’ll be some other big thing after this, right? After we’ve got ourselves all wound up about not flying too much – even though flying’s growing all the time anyways – and biking all self-satisfied down nicely painted cycle lanes, saving the planet by not driving – but I wouldn’t drive anyway, there ain’t nothin’ worse than a life lived tied to a car, the cost of fuel and the way it keeps you running, running, you think I could live the way I do if I had one o’ them hanging round my neck – but…what was I sayin’? Oh yeah: fuckin’ carbon. Carbon my arse! And look at all these sweet souls – men in hats, fer chrissakes! – walking round oblivious puffing on pipes but the air’s all full of it anyway and probably thinking it’s good for them ‘cos their doctor puffs on pipes too. Ah, the loveliness!”

I grasped my head and laughed.

“Isn’t it wonderful, going back in time! I shoulda done this more often. I love all these hats! If all fashions repeat when do you think hats’ll come back? Not in a Shoreditch wanker kind of way, just men wearing hats and sweaters and ties – getting changed for dinner, the Sunday best – and, I dunno, is this taking a pride in one’s appearance? Like how mothers used to sweep doorsteps and now the garbage blows wild and free in the street – like the children – ‘cos other things are more important and – ”

“Wait,” I said, “I just realised something. I keep talking like this is just a holiday to the past and soon enough we’ll be back in twenty-twelve, like in all good time travel movies, but – what if it’s not? Am I going…back?”

I stopped. Harry stopped too. We were outside the town hall by now, so much the same and so much different. Women pushing big black perambulators and babies inside now getting on into their fifties, the women so pretty and lovely and rosy and buxom and glowing and young and happy and horny probably now old and wrinkled and perhaps dead and morose. All of a sudden I had a vision of everything: that everyone now a baby would one day be an alone old person sitting on death’s steps waiting forlornly and forlornly waiting – and every teenage lovely still full of virginal goodness and quivering excitement would one day be an ugly old prude brainless and bland – and every old prude was once rebellious in slacks blowing bubbles and sucking boys’ cocks in bandstands and bus shelters – and every slick-haired, firm-jawed young man not blown up fighting strange wars in strange lands would be bent and fat and boring and bald – and blue-eyed babies gurgling innocently stumbling after pigeons – and toddlers grimacing under their drunken dad’s curses – and pretty girls in pink frilly dresses nodding carefully over daisies and pouring from pretend teapots with grazed knees – all of them one day grown and crying real tears and with withered hearts and maybe triumphing, or failing, or passing on their own traumas birthed from father’s knuckles, and raped, and murderous, and this dear little sweet boy here looking longingly at a tiny toy tractor dragged away by mother’s uncaring claw knowing right there a thousand burglaries are born and one day his fist will land in someone’s grandma’s once sweet face and her bruises will shock a nation who wonder how such a thing could be, even while the thing continues.

“Jesus,” I said to Harry, “all this fuckin’ talk of lightbulbs and tin cans – but you know the single best thing you can do for the environment? Not have kids. Think of it! Instantly you’ve doubled whatever pollution you’re going to make and more. A whole extra person – and that’s not even taking into account all the people they might make themselves. But why don’t the government tell people that, huh? You wanna do something for your carbon output, just don’t make any babies. But I’ll bet that wouldn’t go down too well. And so instead we put less water in our kettles and sleep safe at night knowing we’re doing our bit for the sprogs upstairs ignorant that right there sleeps the biggest consuming and carbon-producing machine on the planet. Forget cows! The cows only exist to keep the children fed. Madness.”

“Wowzers,” said Harry, “you’ve soon changed your tune. What happened to bashing negativity? What happened to saying everything was okay?”

“I know, I know…”

“What do you think this world is for, anyway?”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘what do you think the world is for?’”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play dumb mister. Look.”

He pointed down with his eyes. I looked and in his hand, just above his coat pocket, he held a gun. He pulled me to him and jabbed it into my stomach.

“Hey man,” I said, “you can shoot me if you want but don’t mess up my lapels!”

“What do you think the world is for?” he said. “Last chance.”

“Okay, okay.” I sighed. “The world is a place for human beings to come work out their karma. To have the human experience. To grow in a way only life in the physical realm can afford.”

“Good,” he said, “and so where does all this jive about carbon come in?”

I sighed again.

“Nowhere,” I conceded. “It’s got nothing to do with the real purpose of life. Hardly anything does. Mostly, I guess, it’s just distraction, time-filling, the frenzied activity of a species that doesn’t know why it’s here. Gotta do something, right? Without the hard evidence that would necessitate getting down to soul business. Except…except, of course, even all that is part of soul business. Living year after year, decade after decade, life after life not knowing what life is about is all just a part of the process of getting down to realising what life is about. Ticking off all the things that life isn’t for until there’s only one thing left, right? Trying the rest and then trying the best. And even living in ignorance is working off your karma. No time pressure, no hurries or getting it wrong. So what if people have a thousand babies and all those babies turn out to be brutal monsters who rape and steal and make a thousand more brutal babies each? One nation is like one person split up into millions of different pieces. I say stupid people should get themselves sterilised or at least desist for a bit, till the generations die out – but I know deep down – I know when a guy’s got his gun in my gut – that that would defeat the purpose. It ain’t enough to scowl at this dumb-headed woman popping out dumb-headed babies – ‘cos I know full well that each of those babies will be slightly less dumb-headed than she was, and that their kids the same, and…this world is their world, right? This place is for them. There are other worlds where it’s all peace and bliss and no child soldiers who’ll plug you for a cigarette. But this world is the world where all the mess gets cleaned. It might take millennia. It might take a lot more mess and a lot more killing and stupidity and violence – but we’ll get there in the end. Eternity but the blink of an eye. I bet I’ve lived a thousand lives to get to this point and they don’t feel like nothin’ now. But then…”

“Sh,” Harry said, “I’ve got something to show you.”

“But what if I’ve just made the whole thing up? That’s what I’m worried about.”

“I said ‘sh,’” he said. “Come here.”

He put the gun away. He lead me over to the big stone steps that lead up to the front of the town hall.

“The roads are so quiet now,” I said. “There’s like a dual-carriageway here…”

“Sit down,” he said. “I want you to do something for me.”

“I’m not going to suck your dick,” I said.

Harry frowned. He straightened his tie and stared at me.

“Just a joke,” I said, “reminds me of some movie.”

And then, before I could say anything else, he pulled out the gun again, pointed it at my head, and shot me.

I’d always wondered about dying. What I’d feared most was not being in the right frame of mind once it came around. I wanted to get it right: once-in-a-lifetime experience and all that. So when I thought of how I would go I hoped it would be something that gave me a bit of time to prepare. Going down in an aeroplane. Or sitting with my head on the guillotine, ruminating. But getting shot like that, just out of the blue, without any advance warning – that’s not what I wanted. Maybe if he’d said something it would’ve been okay. I would’ve at least had time to compose myself. Close my eyes. Have a think and make sure I was present and relaxed. Funny thing was, that’s exactly how it happened. Even as the gun went up and his finger squeezed the trigger, I knew what was going down. Everything seemed to stop. Get larger. Come into focus. I was looking at his finger and the way it slowly moved on the metal of the gun. The lines in his skin. A white spot on his nail. At the same time, the puff of smoke as the gun exhaled, and the bullet coming towards me. So slowly, so beautifully. It was ten inches away when he fired and it seemed to take a lifetime to reach me. First thing I thought was to put up my hand or move my head away – but I instantly realised I wouldn’t have the time so I didn’t. Then I got to thinking about what the bullet would look like when it hit me. I got an image of it slamming into the bone just above my right eye, rocking my head back on my neck, moving slowly towards my brain. The tail end would be sticking out. Blood and bone would start splattering away from me. I thought of the people standing around, what they would think. I thought of how they would report it and I wanted to make sure I was doing something cool so I put a smile on my face. The dying man was smiling, they would say. I was dying anyway, why not go calm and happy? In every situation you might as well relax – don’t serve no one to do anything but. So I relaxed and smiled and watched up out the corner of my eye as the bullet drifted in towards me.

I had a feel then, to check in with my body. My shoulders were a little bit hunched and I dropped them. Bodily tension weren’t gonna help none either. Relax. Accept everything. It’s coming anyways, that’s about all you can do. I opened myself up to it. I said, here it comes. I got myself ready. Breathed in. Contemplated.

A good life. A happy life. A pang here or there at some of the things I did wrong. Stupid things. Dumb-ass lies. Embarrassing, cringeful moments. The times I’d been a tit. ‘Cept some of those times I laughed at too. I didn’t know no better. Everything seemed funny.

Here comes the bullet. I feel its tip touch my skin. Like a kiss. Then it’s a drill, boring into my face a fraction of a millimetre at a time. At first, it tickles. A funny sensation. Like being penetrated in a whole new place and way. Then there’s pressure. Then, when it starts working its way into my bone, pain.

Again, I want to tense. And again, I tell myself to relax.

“Relax,” I say, “it’s only a bullet entering your skull, your brain. It tickles a bit but it’s not really pain. Just a new sensation. Something different. But what you call it is up to you. It’s only your mind that makes you tense. Your mind, basing your reaction on what you’ve come to expect, on things placed there by previous, outside influences. But you’ve never experienced this before – so why not try to experience it without all that preconception, other people’s hang-ups?”

I told myself this and, guess what? The pain went away. It wasn’t pain, it was just sensation. It was interesting. It was kind of nice. Being penetrated can be pleasure or pain to anyone, depending on which way to want to make it.

I chose pleasure. I chose objectivity. I chose the actual experience, not what others had told me it would be.

It was exquisite. When it touched my brain…it was like being fucked by God. Everywhere at once. With His finger and His finger was made of electricity.

I thought I was gonna orgasm. I’d never felt anything like it. Every synapse fired. Every nerve hummed. Every cell in my body vibrated with shuddering ecstasy and belief. A billion tiny angels were in my being kissing and caressing me from the inside out. And my brain got filled with light.

As the back-end of the bullet disappeared into my head I glanced up at Harry and gave him a smile. Angels everywhere, I thought. He has come to release me and send me back. Not to two-thousand-and-twelve but to my real home. The light. The light was where I belonged. The light was closing in, taking over everything else, making it hard to see. Harry’s face and the world was dissolving into light. I longed to shut my eyes, to say goodbye to this world, to Leeds and nineteen-sixty-three. The trams and the town hall and the stone steps and the gargoyles.

A parade of cars went by. Harry nodded. Everything fading like some post-dawn dream.

“Goodbye Harry,” I said, his smiling face not his but mine, my mother’s, the Chinaman’s, God’s.

I opened my mouth. I wanted to drink it in. A lusty whore hungry for cock. The waters of life dripping down my throat. Everything was ecstasy and God.

They say you see your whole life flash before your eyes when you die. But I was having too much fun to care about something so piddling as that.

Time for one last breath in. To taste one last time the air of this world. To draw it deep down into the lungs, hold it there, and feel it full and good in the depths of my belly. And then to breathe it out. And for the first time ever, it didn’t come back.