psychopomp: Decline

Harry locked the door to his apartment at 10:34pm in the night. At 10:36pm in the night he was at the bottom of the stairs, standing in the building lobby. He stood there for a while. Two old men were slumped in tattered armchairs in front of a flickering black and white television. No sound, only static. The old men just sat there in their armchairs, a succession of heads on the electric box in front of them. Harry never understood television. Even standing here in the lobby to his building at 10:37pm in the night he still did not understand. The two old men did not help, both of them asleep, snoring loudly. One had yesterday’s newspaper in his lap, open to the racing guide. The other man had a pipe. At 10:39pm in the night, Harry stepped out into the street. It was dark out there, deserted, spooky, this was a bad neighbourhood, but nobody bothered him, not the blacks, the bums, the junkies. They were too busy with their own problems to worry about Harry walking down the street at nighttime, change jingling in his pants pockets. Harry was one of them, a bum, a junkie, black, white, dead, alive, everything. Harry whistled as he walked. He whistled no tune in particular, just something he made up, a tuneless high-pitched sound. He rounded the corner at the end of the street, walked east two blocks, came to a bar. He went on in…

It was full in there. Many people, all of them with an ashen haunted look to their faces, with nothing but booze, no place to go but the bar. They were the wasted, the gypsies, the frozen. Harry found a seat at the bar, ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. After a little time they arrived in front of him. He slammed the whiskey down, sipped at the beer, lit a cigarette. When he lit his cigarette and took the first drag, he realized something. Something very strange, abnormal, surprising. The bar was silent. He could hear the tobacco in his smoke crackle and hiss. There was no talk, no laughter, no music, not even the sound of pool balls clicking against one another, not a toilet flushing, a fart, a burp, someone vomiting in a back room, a glass breaking, the sound of money sliding across a table in a poker game. Nothing at all. It was like a vacuum in there. Harry took another suck at his beer. He heard it fizz, bubble. He looked around. A full bar, at least forty people, none of them talking, not a cough or a whisper. Harry didn’t mind this, preferring silence to noise. In the seat to his left, there was an old black man, hunched over a glass of beer that looked stale and flat. Harry looked to his right. A woman. Blonde. She had big breasts and a martini. Harry was always interested in what other people drank. It made him feel he knew something. He studied the woman’s face. He was also interested in the female form. She had big lips, defiled by some horrendous shade of purple lipstick. He wanted to reach out and slap that lipstick off. He wanted his lips on hers, tongues in and out like little wet juicy snakes. He sipped his beer, cleared his throat. The noise in the bar was like an avalanche, but nobody looked over at him.

“Another drink?” he asked the blonde. She nodded. He motioned the bartender for a new martini and another whiskey for himself. The drinks came. He handed over the money. The bartender shuffled away, his fat thighs chafing against one another, the friction like sandpaper. The blonde picked up her martini, took the tiniest of sips, put it back down. Harry sucked down his whiskey, got back on the beer. The blonde took out a packet of menthol cigarettes, put one between those incredible lips of hers. Harry lit it for her.

“What’s your name?” Harry asked her.

“Sabrina,” she said, not looking at him.

“That’s a nice name.”

“I hate it.”

“Your parents give it to you?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna change it?”

“No.”

“Then you should get used to it.”

“I am, but I still hate it. I’m used to menstruation, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I know what you mean.”

“What do you hate?” she asked.

“Hate? I don’t hate anything.”

“There must be something you hate.”

“I can’t think. There probably is…People. I hate people.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I’m used to them.”

She smiled. “What do you do?” she asked, finally looking up.

“Like what? You mean a job?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a job.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t need one. I can manage on my own. My father had a job for fifty years. On his deathbed he didn’t have a cent to show for it. They suck it all out of you, they suck out your spirit. I’ve seen it happen. They wring you dry. Every time you punch in your time card, you punch away a part of your life.”

“But what about money?”

“The money always comes in.”

“How?”

“It just does.”

“You write?”

“What makes you say that?”

“A little birdie told me,” she said.

“Don’t listen to little birdies. Little birdies shit on your head.”

“Not this one.”

“What’s so goddamned special about this little fucking bird that it doesn’t shit on your head, eh?”

“I’ve trained it good.”

“Okay, you got me, I sometimes write.”

“You any good?”

“The best. Ever. I’m the world’s greatest living writer. More brilliant than Celine.”

“Who’s that?”

“Dead Frenchman.”

“Okay.”

“Another martini?”

“My round.”

“Okay.”

“Whiskey?”

“Sure.”

Sabrina ordered the drinks. They came along, the money disappeared, the fat thighs sandpapered away.

“What do you do?” Harry asked.

“I paint, sculpt, draw.”

“You any good?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I thought otherwise.”

“You have incredible lips. You shouldn’t wear purple lipstick. Purple lipstick always makes a woman look tacky, like a cheap whore, a slut.”

“Maybe I am. I’d like to paint you. You have a fascinating face. Your face is covered with scars. Where did you get all those scars?”

“Shaving.”

“Maybe you should use an electric razor.”

“I do.”

“I want to paint you. Right now. Let’s go.”

Harry finished his beer, got to his feet.

Harry sat on some godforsaken uncomfortable motherfucker of a wooden stool, had to stay still, his head at a raised angle, looking off to his right, as Sabrina painted. She concentrated well, put a lot of energy into it. Harry had a bottle of beer in his hand. Every time he went to take a swig, she said “No, no, don’t move your head, not yet,” and Harry just let the bottle sit there.

Christ, he wanted a drink of that beer. But she kept painting, holding the brush or her thumb vertical for perspective, mixing paints. Harry’s ass hurt, sitting on that goddamned stool, his haemorrhoids were playing up quite badly, it was hot in there, stuffy, silent but for brush-strokes. Finally, he couldn’t take it any more. He drank the beer down.

Sabrina stopped painting. She looked at Harry, back at the picture, then she picked a box-cutter up off her paint tray, cut the canvas right down the middle. Harry felt it.

“Ah!” he cried, “You’ve ruined it!”

“No!” she screamed, “You’ve ruined it! Didn’t I tell you not to take a fucking drink! How many fucking times did I tell you not to take a fucking drink? You have no idea how hard it is, perspective, shading, angles, colours, textures, all that! I hope you die!”

“Baby,” he said, “Baby, shit.”

“Don’t give me that crap! Don’t you dare give me that crap! I hope you die! DIE DIE DIE!”

Harry got up, went into the kitchen, took a beer out of the refrig, cracked it open, lit a cigarette. He watched as Sabrina continued to slash at that canvas until it was nothing but a heap of wet leaves at her feet. Harry sipped at his beer and then Sabrina came at him with the box-cutter. Harry was in half-drink when she came at him, and the cut got him across the belly, but it wasn’t too deep, only enough to slice open his shirt and draw a little blood. Harry cracked her on the side of the head with his beer bottle, but the bottle didn’t shatter, only the beer inside frothed over. Harry dropped to the bottle and it broke on the floor. Sabrina put her hand to her temple, it came away wet and red and sticky. She put the box-cutter down, got two beers out of the fridge, handed one to Harry, drank from the other herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have come at you like that.”

“You’ve ruined my shirt.”

“I can mend it. I’m good with a needle. Give it to me!”

Harry took his shirt off, gave it to Sabrina. She went over to a cupboard, took out a sewing kit, sat on the couch and began to work. Harry just stood there.

“Baby,” he said, “Have you got any paper towels?”

“In the drawer there’s some napkins.”

Harry opened the drawer, got out some napkins, held them to his cut. It stopped bleeding pretty soon. It hadn’t hurt at all. Sabrina complained to him of a headache the next day. A few aspirin would fix that. A few aspirin always fixed everything.