Not Safe After Dark

MEMORY LANE

Another shitty gig. In more ways than one. I can smell the colostomy bags the minute we walk in the front doors. I shudder, as I always do when we enter a place like this. One day, and it might not be long, I know I won’t be coming out.

The Recreation Director is waiting to greet us, crisp blue suit and Morningside accent. Why do RDs all have Scottish accents, even in Vancouver? A gold name tag just above the swell of her left breast tells me her name is Emily. Actually, if you look closely, our Emily’s not that bad at all, despite the ill-fitting glasses and lifeless hair.

‘You’ll be the musicians, then?’ Nervously eyeing her wristwatch.

Why does it sound like an insult?

‘We’ll be the musicians,’ I admit. Then I introduce the band: Memory Lane. There are five of us, three of us expat Brits. Kit Stark, a washed-up hippie, is our drummer. Kit took one too many hits of acid on the Isle of Wight ferry nearly thirty years ago. When they’d fished him out of the Solent and done artificial respiration, he spent the next twenty years in and out of the nut house hallucinating plankton before washing up on the shores of Nova Scotia. Then there’s Benny Leiberman, our morose, alcoholic bass player from Des Moines. Taffy Lloyd plays trumpet and trombone, and when he’s not doing that, he’s our vocalist. He looks like Harry Secombe but sounds more like one of the Spice Girls. The Hunchback of Notre Band, Geoff Carroll, plays piano, guitar and vibes and does most of our arrangements. He’s so short-sighted that he has developed a permanent hunch from leaning over the keyboard to read the music.

Last but not least, there’s me, Dex Hill (well, my real name is William Hill, but wouldn’t you change that for something a bit more jazzy-sounding?), apple of my music teacher’s eye, future clarinet soloist for the London Symphony Orchestra (failed), the next John Coltrane (failed) and husband to the beautiful, sexy and cruel Andrea (also failed).

Get the picture?

‘I suppose you’d like to tune up, then?’ suggests Emily.

Tune up? You don’t tune up a clarinet or a saxophone. Or a trumpet for that matter. Perhaps Benny wants to mess around with his bass strings, though the way he’s shaking he looks more as if he needs a drink.

I nod.

‘Follow me. I’ll show you the dressing room.’

We follow Emily’s gently swaying hips down the corridor. If we exude a general aroma of booze and smoke, especially with those filthy French cigarettes Benny smokes, she affects not to notice. What does she go home to, my Emily, I wonder? How does she get the aura of death and disease out of her system when she leaves here? Sex? Drugs? Maybe I’ll ask her.

Once we’re settled in the broom closet they call a dressing room, Emily-less, Benny takes out a fifth of Jim Beam and inhales. He doesn’t offer it around. He never does. Some people might think that’s rude, but we’re used to him and his strange lonely ways by now. Kit and I share a spliff. Just another little smell lost among the faeces and sour sweat. Taffy, as is his wont, puffs on a Rothman’s and does a few vocal exercises. Geoff studies the music as if it’s the first time he’s ever set eyes on it. He always does. In a way, I feel sorry for Geoff because wherever we go the poor sod always gets stuck with an out-of-tune piano. Still, he takes it in his stride. Very phlegmatic is Geoff. Lots of sangfroid. You have to have with a hunchback like his.

Anyway, after a few minutes of this and a chat about the order of songs, Emily returns and we’re ready to face the chanting crowds.

‘They’ve been looking forward to this all week, you know,’ she says, with a tight, Morningside smile. ‘A lot of them were in the war, with the Canadian armed forces, or with the RAF. It’ll mean a lot to them, hearing those old songs played again.’

Well, there are about twenty people in the recreation room, which is quite a crowd for this sort of gig. I remember one RD apologizing – I think it was in Swift Current or Red Deer – that there would have been more people in the audience only two of them croaked during the night. That seemed a bit excessive to me. I mean, one, maybe, you might expect, but two?

There they sit, a pathetic bunch of losers waiting to die. It gives me the shivers just to look at them. Empty husks. Nothing left except bodily functions. Even those who have arses left probably need someone to wipe them. Most sit in wheelchairs, reptilian talons plucking at the tartan blankets spread over their knees. Some have the head shakes, some drool and twitch every now and then.

Still, I suppose I’ve seen worse audiences in Toronto jazz clubs.

A quick count, and we’re off: ‘Tennessee Waltz’, always a nice easy swinger to start with. Intro done, Taffy comes in with the vocals, sounding more like Tiny Tim than Sporty Spice today. One, two, three, here we go… Hey up, there’s one bloke on the nod already.

‘I was dancing with my darling…’

I was the best dancer. That’s why she chose me. I was the best dancer. She wasn’t Carl’s to start with. Wasn’t anyone’s. Just another girl at a forces dance on a Saturday night. Carl was the handsomest; he always got the pick of the girls. But not this time. I was the best dancer. Just put his nose out of joint a little, that’s all. I didn’t steal her from anyone. She melted in my arms, her shape moulded against me; we were missing halves of a whole and the purpose the music had been waiting for; we completed it, carried it away from its airy pointlessness to something more profound; we gave the music meaning.

Bullshit, O’Farrell. You stole your best friend’s sweetheart, pure and simple. And all the rest, all this about profundity and meaning, is bullshit. Lust, that’s all it was. Lust. And revenge for all those times when Carl got the girl. And look what happened. A two-week honeymoon, then you took her thousands of miles away from her family and friends, spent the next fifty years in and out of the bottle and drove the poor bitch to an early grave.

No… no… it wasn’t like that. I’m tired, so tired of arguing with myself…

On the nod, just as we’re going into ‘Cheek to Cheek’. Christ, how stimulating we must be, what fucking exciting memories we must invoke. Still, he’s twitching a bit in his wheelchair, so I suppose he must still be alive. His mouth seems to be moving. Maybe he’s trying to sing along. Sometimes they do. But no, this one looks more as if he’s having a conversation with himself, only half-mouthing the words, hardly daring to give them full breath. A little string of drool hangs from his chin. Shit, I hate this job. Solo time, man. Remember what Geoff told you, ‘Stick real close to the melody line, Dex. You’re not Coltrane playing “My Favourite Things”, you know.’ Thanks a lot, Geoff. And fuck you…

Heaven. I’m in heaven. Dancing cheek to cheek. A hot night in late July 1943. A little dance hall in a small town near the base, maybe used to be the church hall or the Women’s Institute. A few rickety tables, a makeshift bar selling warm beer and weak scotch, weak beer and warm scotch, whatever. Dim air thick with smoke hanging in the lights: blue straight from the cigarette, grey when it comes out of the lungs. Everyone smoked then. All of us. It was the least of our worries. ‘Cheek to Cheek’ was the first song we danced to, the first time the magic hit.

But why does my memory smell of burning rubber and leather instead of her perfume? Why do flames and smoke blossom when I close my eyes and lean into her? I’m holding her close enough that she could almost be a part of me and I’m smelling hot metal and engine oil.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

My God, Carl, where did that come from? Not now. Not yet. That was later. Back to the dance. Holding her. Some of her face powder rubbed off when my lips brushed her cheek. It tasted like chalk. Carl was pissed, I could tell, but I was flying that night (funny, I was flying the night before, too) and it was my turn for once. They’d only been out together a couple of times. It wasn’t serious. Besides, how was I to know that Mary and I would fall in love? It was just another dance, for crying out loud. We’d been to hundreds of them and Carl always got the best-looking women. But I was the best dancer and Carl had no chance this time when she and I were dancing cheek to cheek, me tasting chalk (or was it stardust?), smelling rubber burn and hearing those crackling noises arcing in my brain from ear to ear.

Christ, just look at them, will you? Half of them are asleep, about a third are deaf and three-quarters have no faculties left at all. What does that make? Is anyone out there listening at all? And that hunchbacked bastard Geoff gives me the evil eye for wandering too far on the ‘Stardust’ solo. As if anyone notices. Poor bastard’s piano is so out of tune it sounds like a warped LP. Funny, all of a sudden I’m thinking of that bitch Andrea. Was ‘Stardust’ playing when we met, on our first date? I’m damned if I remember. ‘Stairway to Heaven’, more likely, or maybe ‘Bitches Brew’. All I remember is ripping her panties off and fucking her hard up against the apartment door the minute we got back from the gig. Play it, Dex. ‘All the Things You Are.’ Bird, Trane, lead the way. And to hell with Geoff’s evil eye…

Carl wouldn’t talk to me. All the next day. And the next. He’d really wanted Mary the way a boy wants candy and he was jealous as hell. I didn’t tell him anything. Didn’t tell him about the softness of her body as we made love in the warm field that July night, the taste of the beet juice on her lips, the smooth warm skin, nipples hard as berries on my tongue, between her legs like warm, wet silk and how she cried out my name when she came. Not his. Mine. And clung to me afterwards for dear life as we lay against the drystone wall and watched squadron after squadron of Lancasters pass over the half-moon, blotting out its light like the plague of locusts, armadas from hell. Held me tighter as the roar of the bombers filled the sky.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

No. That wasn’t till later. We didn’t know then, the same way we didn’t know smoking was killing us. We didn’t know. But does that really make it any different in the end?

Another evil look from Geoff. Well, to hell with him. Let the miserable bastard fire me. I’ve had it with this, anyway. ‘In the Middle of a Kiss.’ Taffy always does a good job on this one. You just don’t expect that alto voice to come out of someone so fat. Look at that guy, the way his head’s swaying. If it’s the shakes, at least he’s in time with the music. Maybe some of them are capable of getting a little simple pleasure out of us, after all. Christ, if Andrea could see me now. She’d laugh until she pissed herself and tell me I’d found my true destiny. Here we go, man, ‘Blowing Up a Storm’.

Firestorm. They had to invent new names for the way people died.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

Incendiary-bomb-shrunken bodies. Then there were the ones who melted, asphyxiated, baked or just plain roasted. And the human torches running down streets on fire, arms flailing.

These were the important factories and docks we were told we destroyed. The firestorm sucked in all the surrounding air, made winds rage fast as cyclones, suffocated all the people hiding in shelters, cellars and bunkers. Fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit at the core. Spontaneous combustion.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

And the night after that I stole my best friend’s girl because I was the best dancer. That was the night we clung to one another watching the bombers set out again. Six raids. Day and night. Night and day. 41,800 killed. 37,439 injured, burned, maimed. Her skin warm and smooth, wet silk between her thighs, bombers blanking out the stars and the moon. Making Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen. And the night after that, Carl bought it…

‘Blue Flame.’ That should slow them down a bit before our fiery finale, and a nice searing blues solo for me. Most of them are asleep now anyway. There’s even one old dear snoring in the far corner by the vase of flowers. And there’s Emily, hands clasped on her lap, thin smile on her face. Is she enjoying us? As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind fucking Emily, stick it to her hard, right up that tight Morningside arse of hers and take that smile off her face. Bet she’s a screamer. That old guy’s having a real struggle with himself now. Ought to be in a fucking nuthouse not a rest home. Drooling and muttering, arguing with himself…

It wasn’t fair, we’d finished, we were heading home successful, looking forward to a hot cup of tea and a long sleep, no fighters in sight. But then it never is fair, is it? We’d dropped our load, made more Bombenbrand-schrumpfleichen, got out of the flack unscathed, and all of a sudden there it was, a lone Messerschmitt. Whether he was lost or just scavenging, looking for stragglers, I don’t know, but he buzzed at us like an angry wasp and let rip. He could outmanoeuvre us easily and his machine-gun fire ripped through the plane as if our fuselage were made of paper. I could smell the fires breaking out behind us. Me and Clarky, my co-pilot. We started spewing smoke and losing altitude. One of our gunners hit the ’Schmitt and it exploded at ten o’clock. We were bucking and swinging to starboard like an old Short Stirling. God knows how we made it, but we did, Clarky and me, we came limping in the minute we got beyond the old white cliffs and crash-landed in a field. The tail section broke off and flames leapt up all around us. Within minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of gaping yokels right out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Whether they wore smocks and carried pitchforks I can’t be certain, but that’s how I see them when I look now. And when I went back to see how Carl was doing, that’s when I found him. He was dead. Along with the others in back. All black and burned up, uniform and skin fused, welded into one, his knees crooked and his arms tightened up and fists clenched like a boxer, aimed at me. For one of those stupid moments, before reality’s cold blade pierced the back of my brain, I thought he was getting ready to fight me. We hadn’t spoken for three days because of Mary and I knew he was still pissed. But he was dead. Burned and shrivelled.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

Just like the people of Hamburg. Carl, you poor, sad, cocky, two-left-footed bastard. You were the handsomest, the most charming; you were the lady killer. But come waltz, tango or jitterbug, goddammit, I was the best dancer. I was the best dancer!

‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’

One, two, three, and blow that bugle, Taffy! Let’s wake the buggers up. ‘Bugle Call Rag’ and Jesus Christ, will you look at him, the old bastard’s on his feet. Taffy flashes me a big grin and we get in the groove. I can feel Geoff’s eyes boring into the back of my head. Fuck him. Things are jumping now. Taffy and I are trading licks like we haven’t done in years. Trumpet and sax. Dizzy and Bird. Miles and Trane. Look at the guy go, he’s out of his chair and jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs, baggy pants slipping down his hips.

‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’

Sure you were, buddy!

All of a sudden he seems to reach some sort of inner peak or crescendo as my sax and Taffy’s trumpet join in some of the weirdest harmonies we’ve ever found. He’s on tiptoe, stretching his arms as high as he can, reaching for the ceiling, or for heaven.

Then his whole body starts shaking. Taffy trails off to take a break and I blow harder, urging the old guy higher, but he’s out of synch with us now. Whatever he’s into, eyes closed, head tilted towards the ceiling, it’s nothing to do with our music. His pants are down around his ankles, his shrivelled scrotum and shrunken penis there for all to see. I stop the solo and turn to catch Geoff’s dagger gaze. I grin at him and shrug; he leads us back to the opening riff in a few spare, tight-assed chords.

The old man stiffens, then drops to the floor, spent. One by one, we let the music dribble away from us. Then there’s the strangest sensation. The room seems to draw in on him, as if all its energy focuses on that single inert figure. Everything feels tight, like a corked bottle about to blow. The room fills with pressure, and it’s hard against my eardrums, that deaf and fuzzy feeling before your ears pop on an airplane, everything silent and in slow motion.

Then it pops, the air hisses out, and he’s just someone lying on the floor.

‘Jesus,’ whispers the man beside him. ‘When I go, I want to go just like that.’

Then the smooth, practised staff breeze in like a team of office cleaners, or scene changers between the acts of a play, and start to tidy up the mess in a silence as heavy as prayer. Someone in white checks the old man’s pulse and takes out a stethoscope. The other inmates, dazed, mumbling and drooling, are all wheeled back to their rooms. And it’s getting to look like nothing ever happened.

Before they’re done, Emily starts leading us back to the dressing room. ‘I think it would probably be best all around if you left now, don’t you think?’ she says. ‘Then we can get everyone calmed down. They take it hard, some of them, when one of them passes on, you know. See their own future, I suppose, poor things. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid your normal rate, of course. It wasn’t your fault, after all, was it?’

I nod dumbly, walking beside her. She’s right, of course. It wasn’t our fault, no reason why we shouldn’t get paid. But even so. See their own future, I suppose. Somehow that echoes, gets to me so much that I forget to ask for her phone number. And I remember it afterwards in the van. But this time Benny passes around the Jim Beam and Kit rolls another spliff and soon it’s just another memory of just another shitty gig, after all, just another slice of turd on the nursing-home circuit.