Sometimes punching and kicking the bags helped. Sparring with the gloves. Building up the strength, speed and confidence that came with it. Earning the swagger, knowing other men sensed that it wasn’t empty, that there was something behind it. Sometimes, though, when something really bad happened, only talk helped. But in Edinburgh you only talked in drink and cocaine helped you drink and talk longer. The Britney Hamil case was that something bad. Soon he was struggling at NA, scrambling and sweating half-heartedly at the gym. Every time he flipped through the register with all those nonce faces to deal with he wanted coke more than ever.
— C’mon, honey, Robyn says, cutting to the chase in frustration, — I wanna fuck, her savage desperation reminding him of the stripper in Fort Lauderdale, or Trudi, even. — Does that sound so bad? So selfish?
Lennox thinks:
Robyn steals a fearful glance at Lance and Starry, locked in a flirtatious Latin dance. With their swampy grimaces and scornful whispers, they seem to be conspiring to destroy them both. Meanwhile, Johnnie sits in the armchair, broody and splenetic, his eyes bulleting out bad vibes. Lennox looks at Robyn’s shrunken, haunted face. — Let’s just go next door and lie down a little, she whispers in an undisguised plea. — I need to be with someone, Ray. I’m fucked, my life’s going to shit. I don’t know what I’m going to do. If it wasn’t for Tianna… she’s the only good thing I’ve done in my goddamn miserable fucked-up life…
She hasn’t realised that her voice has picked up and that the others have been listening to the exchange. — That sounds like real fun, Starry mocks, — A professional victim and a guy who can’t fuck her!
— You lil’ sweet-talker, you, Lance rolls his eyes and Johnnie laughs heartily. It’s now officially a house divided.
— Why, Robyn squeals as she tugs Lennox on his bad hand, compelling him to follow her to the door, — do people have to be mean like that? Why?! It’s
— Oh spare us, Starry snaps in disdain. Lennox hears her laugh, — She’ll be back when she needs more blow.
— I reckon ’bout twenty minutes from now, Lance adds, in sagely mocking tones.
Lennox finds himself being led away from the bag of coke, the source of his power. How we love what kills us. He is still everywhere but where it matters as Robyn drags him on to the bed, her skirt ridden up, revealing a flesh-coloured thong emblazoned with the slogan: I HAVE THE PUSSY, I MAKE THE RULES.
She tears this garment to the side, exposing a thick tuft of pubic hair like a punk mohawk, and kisses him on the mouth. He catches the dirty, foul stale tobacco on her breath, feels his own jaw clamping. Robyn pulls away from his tight, unyielding lips, and lies back on the bed. By the light he sees her jawbone sink into her face, melting into the obscene bloated flesh of her neck that seems to have appeared from nowhere, making him think of that exotic frog with its shocking instantaneous expanse of throat. Lennox is frozen, an insect in the proximity of those hypnotic, bulging eyes. So she springs back up and she’s on him, unzipping him, her hand inside his trousers and pants, her urgent fingers asking the same question repeatedly, without getting the reply they crave.
A yawn of exhaustion bubbles up through the cocaine rushes. Lennox tries to stifle it but it tears free from his face, almost sending his jaw into a spasm. He can hear Robyn panting desperately, — Sexy… sexy boy…
It’s probably not that long after midnight, yet he can sense the next morning’s dawn spinning relentlessly over him from space.
A glance at Robyn reveals her eyes still protruding like a mad scientist’s. — I can get you going, Ray. I know what you guys like!
She lurches over to the bedside locker and produces a pair of fur-lined handcuffs from a drawer. — We can do anything you want. You wanna fasten me to the bed? You can do anything you wa—
Robyn is cut short as a terrified shriek fills the air. It doesn’t stop. Lennox’s first thought is that it sounds like a child. Then both he and Robyn realise it’s her daughter. She’s screaming. Lennox zips up and runs towards the noise, with Robyn following. He pushes the door of the kid’s bedroom open. Johnnie is in there, on top of the struggling child, trying to get his hand over her mouth. The covers are pulled back and his other hand is inside her nightdress.
Lennox bounds over and grabs his lank hair in both hands, his weakened grip first struggling to fasten with the grease in Johnnie’s hair, then feeling the sting of pain in his bad hand, as he yanks him off both the girl and the bed. Johnnie screams out, his cries joining Tianna’s regular car-alarm shrieks, as Lennox pulls him along the floor, laying into him with his feet.
Then Lennox feels his left arm being twisted up his back, followed by a blinding, searing pain that spreads out from his shoulder to bruise his soul with sickness. His heel swings back and cracks into a kneecap and the grip weakens. Lennox tears free and is face to face with a grimacing, limping Lance Dearing. — Enough now! he warns, pushing Lennox’s chest, jostling him back into the lounge as Lennox shakes his arm, trying to get some feeling back into it. He turns side-on, putting his weight behind his shoulder, to lock in and stand his ground, his arm, still useless, dangling in front of him. — Get that cunt out of her fucking bedroom! he shouts, and he can hear the girl crying and her mother and Starry arguing hysterically as he springs forward, pushing past Lance Dearing. Dearing grabs him, attempting the armlock again, but Lennox knows what’s coming and the feeling is surging back into his left arm. He slips Lance’s grip and they wrestle, staggering forward, crashing through the glass coffee table.
— My fuckin stash… Starry shouts as the coke and broken glass spill into the rug and on to the wooden floor.
Both men, miraculously uncut, stumble to their feet. Lennox is up first, running back into the bedroom. He smacks Johnnie in the side of the jaw with a right hook, which burns his damaged knuckle. Robyn is pursuing Starry, shouting, and catching a plea on the face of the screaming girl, Lennox takes her by the hand, running into the bathroom and locking the door behind them.
— Keep them away from me! the girl, Tianna, howls at him, sitting cowed on the toilet seat, gripping her hair in balled fists.
— It’s okay, doll, it’s okay, Lennox coos as his right hand throbs and his left arm stings, — everybody’s just had too much to drink. Nobody’s gaunny hurt you.
— He tried to… I told him to lemme alone! Why won’t they lemme alone!?
— S’okay… Lennox tries to deploy soothing tones as he can hear the arguments raging outside; Robyn’s shrill hysteria, Starry’s bullying sneer. Then Lance Dearing’s voice from behind the door, cool and authoritative: — We all gotta calm down. You come outta there now.
— No! Tianna screams.
— Tia, honey, Robyn bleats.
Lennox puts his face up to the door and shouts through: — Listen, youse, get that fat fucker out of here. I’m telling youse, now!
Perhaps the odds with the both of them and that psycho Starry are a little too steep. And he doesn’t want the kid to see any more of this. He’s keeping the door locked.
Tianna looks at this man who is protecting her. Perhaps, though, he’s just like the rest. Wants to do something bad with her. He was full of that crazy powder they all took. She turns away, and looks at the plastic parrot sitting on the tiled window ledge. The one she got from Parrot World, with Chet and Amy. If only they were on the boat now, away from this terrible place.
From the snakepit outside Lennox hears Johnnie dumbly protest something that sounds like, — I just like the taste of young pussy.
— GET HIM THE FUCK OOT! he roars against the door, briefly looking back at the girl sat on the toilet.
Then Dearing’s voice again: calm, conciliatory, in control. — Okay, okay. We do it your way, Ray. We do it your way. We all got a lil’ carried way on the silly stuff. Don’t wanna make things worse. Johnnie’s on his way out. I’m taking him away and I’m gonna get the girls some coffee round at the twenty-four-hour diner. Jus takin a lil’ bitty time out to let us all simmer down. Y’all hear?
— Aye. Get him out.
Some negotiations and the front door slams. Outside: sounds of multiple feet on the steps of the tiled staircase.
Lennox is aware that his heart is thrashing in his chest. He sits on the edge of the bath. The girl, trembling on the toilet, weeps soft and wretched.
