Street Sleeper

Eight

Steve is working at the White Oaks Petrol Station off the A30 in Dorset. It’s rural. There’s a big sign up that says ‘We Serve You’. That’s how rural it is.

In America, he thinks, it would all have been different. In America the job would have had some dignity. ‘Pumping gas’ sounds like a decent job. It even sounds romantic. The American words seem so much better, they sound so much more exciting. Trunks, hoods and fenders don’t sound nearly so trivial as boots, bonnets and bumpers.

Steve has never worked in a petrol station before. He finds it all right. It’s dull but it’s easy. There isn’t much to remember. If anybody tries robbing the till you let them have the money. You mustn’t take a lump out of anybody’s paintwork with the petrol nozzle. And you have to make absolutely sure than nobody uses the toilet who hasn’t bought petrol.

People either treat him like dirt or as if he is a mechancial genius. Either way he has a lot of very dull conversations with customers. He tries hard but it all comes down to the same old things, ‘Fill her up?’, ‘Nice car’, ‘What kind of mileage do you get?’ It’s very dull.

♦

Marilyn drove the jeep. She had to take a very indirect route to avoid going anywhere near Crockenfield. They drove via Dartford, through the tunnel. They went round the M25 and up the Mil into Cambridgeshire. They drove past the motel where Marilyn had shown Ishmael her tattoo. They went to a family restaurant just off the motorway and had a bread roll with honey while the musak played ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’.

They went within a few miles of Fox’s Farm and considered visiting the commune but they were too eager to get to Fat Les’s Vee-Dub kingdom.

In his mind’s eye Ishmael could see the railway arch, a collection of Beetles and Beetle parts, and in his mind’s ear he could hear Wagnerian opera.

The reality, however, was somewhat different.

They drove along the mud track beside the railway arches, past a mass of weeds and a few derelict bits of motorcar. And there should have been a few parked Beetles and a big cheery hand-painted sign saying ‘Fat Les — the Vee-Dub King’. But there wasn’t.

Ishmael wondered for a moment if he had given Marilyn wrong directions and they had come to the wrong place, some other railway arch. Where the kingdom should have been there was only a mass of smoking wood and charred metal. Everything was burned black. Ishmael looked into the arch and could see the wrecks of two Beetles — one Enlightenment, the other belonging to Fat Les. Everything was destroyed.

♦

Steve has a regular customer called Mr Kyle. He knows his name from his credit card. He is smooth, over-weight, with permed hair. He drives a Lotus.

‘Shall I fill her up?’ Steve asks.

Kyle grunts.

‘Four star?’

‘Well of course four star.’

‘Nice car.’

‘Just put the petrol in, son.’

Son? Steve is twenty-eight. He has a beard and the makings of a beer-gut. He knows twenty-eight is no age to be wasting his life serving petrol but when there’s a recession on and you can’t think of anything you’d rather be doing for a living, well, people think you ought to be grateful. Steve isn’t grateful exactly, but a job’s a job.

He dreams of meeting women in sports cars. He dreams they will be young, rich and delinquent.

He has hopes of one girl who buys petrol from him. She is short, wears a few articles of tight clothing and drives a Volkswagen Beetle cabriolet, the roof always down.

‘Nice car,’ he says.

‘Yeah, isn’t it?’

‘I’ve always fancied a car with a soft top.’

‘Soft top? Oh, we call them rag-tops or drop-heads.’

‘You’re American?’

‘Afraid so.’

‘That’s fantastic.’

‘What’s so fantastic?’

‘You know, American cars, freeways, Route 66. Fantastic.’

She smiles at him. He isn’t sure if it’s a real smile or just condescension. He convinces himself that it is real.

‘Say, do you know anything about cars?’

‘Yes,’ he lies.

‘Well when I brake, the car has a definite pull to the right. You know anything about that?’

‘I think you’d better go to a Volkswagen specialist. Beetles can be tricky.’

‘I guess.’

Steve spends the rest of the shift kicking himself. All right, so he didn’t know anything about the brakes on a Volkswagen, but he could have bluffed. He could have offered to give the car a test drive and see exactly how bad the problem was, then after driving around with her for half an hour he could have asked for her phone number, then he could have told her to go to a Volkswagen specialist.

♦

‘Is this really where you’ve brought me?’ Marilyn asked.

There was no sign of Fat Les or Davey. Ishmael and Marilyn went inside the arch, picking their way through the wreckage. There were charred girlie calendars, a smouldering tartan sleeping-bag. They held hands as they stood together in the ruins.

‘Who could have done this?’ Marilyn asked.

Then a voice behind them said, ‘I’ve got one or two very shrewd ideas.’

It was Fat Les. He and Davey were standing outside the arch, wearing overalls, their faces and hair black with soot.

‘It happened the night before last,’ Fat Les said. ‘I was asleep. I heard someone breaking in. I went to have a look. I got coshed. When I came round the place was on fire. They’d poured petrol everywhere and set fire to it. I could have been killed. I managed to drag Davey out. Just.’

Davey said, ‘Everything’s gone, everything. Someone’s going to have to pay for this. Someone’s going to have to be punished. Someone may even have to die.’

‘You said it,’ said Ishmael.

♦

Steve finds the business with the toilet a large and complex joke. Jerry, the garage owner, is obsessed by it. He has had a vast lock fitted to the toilet door and the keys are kept behind the till in the office. Sooner or later the keys are bound to get lost or somebody will use the toilet and then accidentally drive away without giving the keys back. But Jerry is adamant — nobody gets to use the toilet unless they’ve bought petrol, not even if their bladders are rupturing and they’ve offered to write you into their will.

Steve finds it a little small-minded, but he doesn’t need an argument with Jerry and, after all, there is an occasional grim satisfaction to be had from denying people.

Most of Steve’s job satisfaction is at this kind of level. For instance, he becomes wonderfully satisfied after being obnoxious to Kyle. Kyle always uses his credit card. Steve writes out the chit as slowly as humanly possible, looks very closely at the signature, and often phones the credit card company for authorization.

It drives Kyle insane.

One day Steve tells him his Lotus needs new tyres.

‘You’re an expert on tyres as well as everything else, are you?’ Kyle says.

‘I don’t need to be an expert to know that.’

‘Look, your job is to serve the petrol…’

That does it. That always does it. Steve turns white with barely controlled anger.

‘Don’t tell me what my fucking job is,’ he shouts. ‘Don’t ever fucking do that.’

Kyle realizes he has hit a vital spot. He shrugs his shoulders and stops telling Steve what his job is.

Steve almost begins to look forward to Kyle’s arrival, to see if he can invent some new way of being difficult. He doesn’t understand why Kyle keeps coming back, unless of course Kyle has started to enjoy the game as well.

♦

‘Do you think your father did this?’ Ishmael asked Marilyn.

‘He’s capable of anything,’ she said.

‘Seems a bit extreme…’

‘These are extreme times,’ Marilyn replied. ‘The world is an ugly and savage place. The rules have changed, perhaps there aren’t any rules any longer. Husbands War with wives, parents are set against children. Politicians are set against all of us.’

‘You said it,’ said Ishmael. ‘I’m sorry about your father but he’s going to have to pay, he’s going to have to be punished. He may even have to die.’

‘It’s the times we live in,’ said Marilyn.

They stood in the smouldering ruins. Fat Les looked sadly at his burned possessions, but his eyes were bright with rage. He looked like a fallen hero. Davey fondled a tyre iron. He looked like a young warrior. Marilyn, at least to Ishmael, looked as much like a goddess as ever. They all looked at Ishmael.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

♦

At least the American girl keeps coming back. One day after Steve has put in the petrol and she has started the engine again, Steve says, ‘That engine’s running much too fast.’

He’s been rehearsing this.

‘How’s that?’

‘The idle’s too fast. You’re wasting petrol, not doing your engine much good.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I can fix it.’

This is true. Adjusting the idle on a Volkswagen is one of the few mechanical jobs Steve can tackle with confidence.

‘Is it a big job?’ she asks.

‘Ten-second job.’

‘In that case…’

He fiddles with the idle adjustment and the engine settles down.

‘Do I owe you anything?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Well that’s kind of you.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Cindy.’

‘Amazing. Really all-American. What do you do?’

She gives him a look as though he has asked her to explain relativity.

‘I mean, what does anybody do?’ she says. ‘I run around in circles mostly, don’t get anywhere, try to make sense of it all, try not to get too burned out. I drink too much, do too many drugs. You know — the usual.’

‘Sure. The usual,’ Steve says.

She drives off.

♦

Ishmael never had many friends when he was at school. He never made friends at work. But it never seemed to matter all that much. He was comfortable. He lived at home. He read books and watched television. He went out with Debby. Friends never seemed important.

Now life was uncomfortable. He didn’t have his parents to hand, didn’t have a job, didn’t have books or television or Debby. Yet here, when he might have been at his lowest ebb, when he was most lost and alone, he had found himself among friends.

A lesson there, he thought.

♦

Steve, what does he do? He works. He watches television, plays his records, drinks and generally wastes his life. It seems the obvious thing to do.

They know him in the local pubs, that is they know him as the one who arrives early, drinks too much and leaves late. One lunchtime he arrives at the pub and sees a Lotus parked outside. It belongs to Kyle. It is unlocked, the windows are wound down and the key is in the ignition. Steve reaches into the car, removes the key, puts it in his pocket and goes into the pub. Kyle is drinking gin and tonic at the bar. They ignore each other. Steve has a few drinks down his end of the bar. Kyle has a few down his. Kyle says goodbye to Tom the landlord and goes out to his car. Then he comes back.

‘Tom, give me that phone. Get me the police. Some bastard’s made off with my key.’

Steve looks up and makes a sympathetic face. While Kyle is phoning Steve leaves the pub, puts the key back in the car’s ignition and goes home. It might have been interesting to see what happened if and when the police arrived but it is safer to leave.

Another time he sees Cindy’s Beetle in the car-park of a steak restaurant. It is late. He has, naturally, been drinking. He is feeling quite self-confident. He finds a piece of paper in his jacket and writes on it, ‘I AM ONLY A POOR PETROL-PUMP ATTENDANT BUT I LOVE YOU’ and sticks it under her windscreen wiper.

Another day Jerry wants to see him. Steve is not hard to see.

Jerry says, ‘I’ve been hearing that you were a bit out of order with Tim.’

‘Who’s bloody Tim?’

‘Tim Kyle — he owns the video shop.’

‘Does he? I always wondered what he did besides giving me a pain in the arse.’

‘He tells me he had a bit of bother with his car keys. I think you know what I’m talking about.’

‘I might know what you’re talking about, but I don’t know why. If Kyle’s got something to say to me, he doesn’t need you as a messenger boy, does he?’

‘Don’t push your luck, sunshine.’

‘Tell Kyle not to push his.’

Male aggression — what a joke, thinks Steve.

‘I thought we might be able to avoid any unpleasantness,’ Jerry says.

‘You thought wrong.’

Somebody needs serving. Steve goes and serves them. That’s his job.

♦

They walked the few miles to Fox’s Farm. The ironies of this weren’t lost on anyone. It just seemed appropriate.

‘When you ain’t got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose,’ Ishmael said as they walked.

‘Sometimes I feel as though I’m living through a modern-day myth,’ said Marilyn.

And all the time they walked Ishmael was thinking. All the time he was working out a plan — The Plan. He would need to be very persuasive, but he knew he had it in him.

The first member of the commune who saw him arrive was a tiny blonde woman whom he had hardly spoken to on his previous visit. She was thrilled to see him. She kissed him. She bounced up and down. He seemed to have made her day.

‘You came back,’ she shouted excitedly. ‘We hoped you would. In a way we knew you would. This is where you belong. We need you. You are the sunshine of our lives. Wait till I tell the others.’

The evening meal at Fox’s Farm was a great occasion. The other members of the commune were every bit as delighted to see Ishmael as the tiny blonde woman was. John the Hippy made a speech of welcome. Everyone else was still pretty sullen but they were obviously making an effort, and by their own standards they were embarrassingly warm. They were friendly, admiring. They were downright worshipful.

Sausage and beans and mashed potato were served for dinner. The communards constantly asked Ishmael if things were good enough for him. He said it was all fine. They were very concerned. He could have anything he wanted — more beans, brown sauce, anything. At first he found all the attention overwhelming, but it didn’t take long for him to get used to it.

He made a short speech. He knew it wasn’t great. It was a bit too general. He talked about the problems of the world today, the need to stamp out evil and capitalism, about the lack of spiritual insight, the misguidedness of middle class values, the lack of communication between people, and the fact that the devil incarnate was alive and well and living in a house called ‘Sorrento’ in Crocken-field.

He didn’t feel that he was at his dynamic best, but it all seemed to go down very well. Later he would tell them The Plan. For the time being they knelt at his feet and he placed his hands on each of the members of the commune in turn.

♦

A few weeks pass. Steve has had enough. It is September. It is getting cold. He doesn’t want to be standing on the forecourt all winter.

Then one day Kyle comes back. It is seven in the morning. The place is quiet. Steve is running the station on his own and has nearly finished his shift. Kyle pulls up at the pumps.

‘I suppose you want petrol,’ Steve says, doing his best to sound insolent.

‘It’s full of petrol,’ Kyle says. ‘I just want to use your toilet.’

‘Jerry wouldn’t like that,’ Steve says.

‘I’ve already had to speak to Jerry about you once.’

‘Had to?’

‘Just do your bloody job and give me the key to the crapper.’

Steve can see Cindy’s Volkswagen about to pull into the petrol station. He has to think quickly. He enters the office, gets the toilet key and gives it to Kyle. Kyle goes into the toilet and the door closes itself behind him. Steve gets a tyre lever and jams it in the door so it won’t open. He gets a container of brake fluid and empties the contents over the bonnet, wings and doors of the Lotus.

Cindy has pulled in and is waiting for petrol. She looks like she’s been up half the night crying. Steve starts pumping petrol into her car. He can hear Kyle struggling with the toilet door, trying to get out. The tyre lever won’t hold him long. Steve puts the nozzle back in the pump and screws the petrol cap back on Cindy’s Beetle.

‘You’ve hardly put any in,’ she says.

Steve opens the passenger door and slides in beside her.

He can see the paint on the Lotus already starting to curdle. He can see the toilet door about to burst open.

‘I think we’d really better get going,’ he says to Cindy.

‘Am I supposed to know what’s going on here?’

‘Better if you don’t.’

Cindy smiles thinly, turns her eyes to the sky and she drives off.

‘Am I supposed to know where we’re going?’

‘Better if neither of us do.’

They both laugh. They drive in silence for a long time, then Steve says, ‘This is a really nice car. What kind of mileage do you get?’

♦

Here, in a nutshell, as described by Ishmael to the members of Fox’s Farm commune, is The Plan.

He said, ‘There are times when it is necessary to make a gesture. There are times when it is necessary to perform a symbolic act.

‘What do I want my gesture to symbolize?

‘What act do I want to perform?

‘I want to symbolize truth, beauty, goodness, love, light — the usual. I want it to symbolize a triumph over evil, complacency and middle class values.

‘Are you with me so far?

‘The problem — how to find a gesture and an act so powerful, so resonant, so rich in implication, that it can carry and communicate this weight of meaning.

‘Can we blow up the Houses of Parliament? No.

‘Can we cause civil disturbance? No.

‘Can we surround an American Air Force base? No.

‘Why not? Because what is needed is something more aesthetic, more creative, more domestic. More me.

‘I have looked into myself, I have become my own myth. I have plunged down into my own self and I have dredged up from these lower depths the raw material I need for this heroic deed.

‘I think naturally of Enlightenment — a charred hulk, consumed by the fires of evil.

‘I think of Marilyn’s father — a dark one if ever I’ve met one.

‘I think of the Crockenfield Blazers — the serried forces of darkness unless I’m very much mistaken.

‘It all seems very clear to me now. Marilyn’s father and his cronies represent everything that is wrong in this vale of tears, everything that is evil and corrupt and middle class. They dwell in darkness.

‘I know that we must confront that darkness. Let us throw down a challenge. Let us unite ourselves.

‘We will meet them and fight them. Good and evil. Day and night. Heaven and Hell. God and the devil. Me and Marilyn’s father.

‘And if we are beaten? And if we are destroyed? So be it. But at least we’ll have made our point.

‘Symbolic acts are like that.

‘It may not be the final solution, but it’ll do for now.’