What Came Before He Shot Her

            He clarified. “You came to Wield Words, but you left. During Walk the Word. You thought I didn’t see, and I might not have done but for the phone call from your aunt. Oh, not the one asking about the money, not the one you heard. There was another.”

            Joel’s eyebrows rose in spite of himself. He drew his lip in between his teeth.

            “Yes. That very night, she phoned. In the midst of Walk the Word, so that was how I knew you weren’t there. But I couldn’t be certain, could I? You might’ve gone to the lavatory at the very moment when my mobile went off, so I couldn’t tell her you weren’t there, could I? I said of course he’s here. He’s even read to us a rather abysmal poem, Mrs. Osborne. Not to worry, I said. I’ll see he goes home straightaway, when we’re fi nished here.”

            Joel looked down. What he saw were his trainers, one of them untied. He bent and redid the laces.

            Ivan repeated his theme. “I don’t like being used.”

            “You di’n’t have to tell her—”

            “That you were there? I realise that. But you were  there, weren’t you? You were careful that way. You were there, you made sure I knew it, and then you left. Would you like to tell me about it?”

            “Nuffink to  tell, mon.”

            “Where did you go?”

            Joel said nothing.

            “Joel, don’t you see? If I’m to help you, there has to be an element of trust between us. I thought we had that. Now to see that I’ve been mistaken . . . What is it you don’t want to talk about? Has it do with Neal Wyatt?”

            It had and it hadn’t, but how was Joel to explain this to Ivan? To Ivan the solution to everything was to write a poem, to read it to strangers, to listen to them and pretend that what they said made a difference in life when it made no difference at all save in that moment of sitting in front of them on the dais and engaging them in conversation. It was playacting, really, just a useless bit of salve on a sore that would not heal.

            He said, “It’s nuffink, innit. I jus’ di’n’t want to be there. You c’n see I ain’t writin, not like I was. It ain’t workin for me, Ivan. Dat’s all there is.”

            Ivan attempted to use this, as he saw no other way to proceed. “So you’ve hit a dry patch. That happens to everyone. What’s best is to divert your attention on to another area of creative endeavour, related to the written word or not.” He was silent as he looked for an anodyne for what he saw as the boy’s situation: a not unreasonable creative blockage rising from his home circumstances. Ludicrous to suggest he take up painting, sculpture, dance, music, or anything else requiring his presence some place where his aunt was entirely unlikely to let him go. But there was one outlet . . .

            “Join us on the film,” he said. “You went to that one meeting. You saw what we’re about. We need input on the script, and yours would be most welcome. If your aunt will agree to your coming to our meetings . . . perhaps once a week at first? . . . then chances are the act of working with words once again will stimulate your ideas and get them rolling.”

            Joel could see this playing out, and how it played out wasn’t helpful. He would go to the meetings if his aunt agreed, and she would ring up Ivan in the midst of them to make certain he was where he said he’d be. He would have nothing to offer the scriptwriting team because he could no longer think about anything as unimportant as a dream of film that would never come true.

            Ivan waited and read Joel’s hesitation as despair, which in part it was. He merely applied Joel’s sense of desolation to the wrong source. He said, “You’re struggling now, but it won’t be that way forever, Joel. Sometimes you have to grasp on to a lifeline that’s being offered, even if that lifeline doesn’t look like something that will pull you out of the troubles you have.”

            Joel went back to looking at his feet. Above them, calliope music played. Joel recognised it as the theme song to yet another cartoon show. He couldn’t have known how otherwise appropriate it was to the conversation they were having.

            Ivan did and he smiled. “Ah. The Muse,” he said. And then because the very sound of a calliope told him things were truly meant to be as they were in this moment—the two of them in the neat little kitchen with Ivan proposing a cure for what ailed his much younger friend—he said, “Know that I’m not the enemy, Joel. I never have been and I never will be.”

            But what Joel thought upon hearing this was that everyone in his world was the enemy. That being the case, there was danger everywhere. Danger to himself and danger to anyone who, against all odds, decided to be his friend.

            JOEL WAS ON his way to fetch Toby from the learning centre when Cal Hancock appeared. He seemed to come from out of nowhere, materialising at Joel’s side as he passed a William Hill betting shop. Joel smelled him first as Cal fell into step beside him: The odour of weed clung to his clothing.

            Cal said to him, “Nex’ week, blood.”

            Joel said, startled, “What?”

            Cal said, “Wha’ you mean what? There is no what, mon. There’s nuffink but wha’ you got arranged.”

            “I don’t got nuffink—”

            “You clear on wha’ happens, you don’t do like the Blade wants you to do? He got you out. Jus’ as easy he can put you back in. A word from him an’ the cops gonna move. On you, y’unnerstan. You got dat now?”

            It would have been impossible not to have got it. But Joel stopped walking and made no reply. More and more, words had no meaning for him. Mostly he heard them but they did not compute. They were background noise while in the foreground was a symphony playing the notes of his fear.

            Cal said, “You owe  him, and he a man dat collects. You cock dis up like dat Asian cow over Portobello Road, you got more trouble ’n anyone c’n help you wiv.”

            Joel looked over at a schoolyard that they were passing. He found he wasn’t sure where they were. He felt like someone caught in a maze: too far in, too many turns, no way to the centre, and no way out. But still there was something he didn’t understand. He said, “How’s he do all dis, Cal?”

            “Do all wha’, mon?”

            “Make t’ings happen like he does. Gettin me out. Puttin me back in. He bribin the cops? He got dat  much cash?”

            Cal blew out a breath that hovered like fog in the frigid air. He’d come to Joel wearing the uniform of the streets—grey sweatshirt with the hood drawn up over a baseball cap, black windbreaker, black jeans, white trainers. It wasn’t Cal’s usual garb, and Joel wondered about this, just as he wondered how the graffiti artist was managing to stay warm without a heavier anorak.

            “Shit, mon.” Cal kept his voice low and he looked around as if searching for eavesdroppers. “T’ings more important to cops ’an money. Don’t you know dat yet? Ain’t you figgered out how t’ings happen  round here? Why no one ever bust into dat squat waving submachine guns?” He dug into a pocket of his windbreaker, and Joel thought he meant to bring out a pertinent piece of evidence that would show him once and for all who the Blade was and what Joel was deal       ing with. But he brought forth a spliff. He lit up without even a glance around, which should have illuminated for Joel what he’d been saying, but it did not.

            “I don’t get—”

            “You don’t need  to get. You jus’ need to do. It happens nex’ week and you be ready. You carrying?”

            “What?”

            “Don’ what  me no more. You got dat gun wiv you?”

            “Course not. I get caught wiv dat—”

            “You carry it ever’day, now. Y’unnerstan? I give you th’ word ’bout dis goin down and you ain’t carryin, consider dat’s it. Cops get the word. You go back for a visit.”

            “Wha’s he gonna make me—”