Even the ruins looked good, on a good morning, if the weather was nice enough, if the sun beat down. You could squint and pretend to yourself it was all under construction, take a beer, smoke, then wait a few hours in tipsy bliss until it all slowly dawned on you how bad things really were.
But the cards were today, some days when you played the cards you almost felt normal, you could pretend to yourself everything was good. And it lasted the whole day, not fading like it did with the booze or the yak. But some days it could be worse than hell, for some people anyway, if the cards didn’t fall right. The walk from the hill to the catacombs worried me more than how the cards would fall. They were beginning to cut off fingers, but nowadays nobody had jewellery, boots and belts came in handy. Sometimes they didn’t take anything, they just fucked you. Sometimes they’d kill you first.
The Chinese cigarettes gave me a head ache, but fussiness could be the ruin of a man, and after a while you enjoyed the headaches, the scalteen got rid of them, only for them to come back stronger, so you’d just drink scalteen until you could drink no more. Sometimes the butter would make you feel sick at first sip, but the alcohol always took care of it, the alcohol took care of everything. The rubble and ruin I travelled through was eerily empty of people, there were no stragglers or hustlers, there were no backs that rested against fallen pillars, there were no wafts of Chinese cigarettes or scalteen. The only sight was sun rays through the dust of ruins and the sound of chirping birds, oblivious to human plight.
The cards would fall into place today though. They called him the Turk, and if you wanted to get to the other side, that’s where you went. To the Turk they’d say, if you asked the scavengers filtering rubble in the ruins by the tower they’d point you to the Turk. And if you asked the Romanians that sniffed Diesel by the overgrown park they’d point you to the Turk, and the Somalians usually knew too, in the tattered red and white striped circus tent, where the white was now yellow and the red was now wine. The Somalians who used it as a temple, the one that echoes with empty prayers, and escapes down empty collapsed streets. The Somalians who played the call for prayer sometimes but not all the time, glue could do that, solvents could do that to one's routines.
Jericho seemed the only place to go, that far off land they talked about, but you needed trade to get there. I heard a church bell some days, but nobody really knew where it came from. They’d just shrug when I asked, disinterested.
I told Ernesto I wanted to find the bell, where it was coming from. He laughed, inhaled from the bag, are you looking to become religious he said. Maybe I replied, god is dead he said, and he inhaled deeply. And he fell asleep right there on the spot, with his hands still clutching the bag, hands lined with scabs and cuts, black with dirt, fingers that saw it all.
I walked towards the old library, an orange coloured cat sat on it’s steps, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard a dog bark in months. It made me think, and the thoughts frightened me, so I cleared me head and drank from me dirty bottle and was grand again. Later on I stopped at the graveyard, it’s wrought iron curled gates would make too much racket if I opened them, so I just jumped the wall. It was high, and I was out of breathe when I got over it, I lit a cigarette, even though I couldn’t get me breathe back. There were headstones, mausoleums, egos from the dead rich still towering but long forgotten. There was solace in that, that even the all powerful die and are forgotten. Their memories hang like carcasses in overgrown fields, through long decaying structures. I see a squirrel, I’m amazed, I’m so enthralled to actually see a living squirrel, I throw it a piece of stale bread from me inside pocket. It looks at it then darts away, back to the foliage.
I inhale, feel sickly then inhale again. I think about the old house, a part of me misses it, even the chaos, the dysfunction, at least chaos and dysfunction was something. At least there was a connection to a group of people, nowadays you just connect, to see what you can do them for. I’ve never met the Turk, all I know is rumours. Hearsay, in fact the more I hear about him the less I seem to know.
I do know one thing, every time I hear about the cards they talk about the Turk, the cards, the cards and the Turk they say. Some of the drunks talk about the other side, whatever the fuck that means. The Turk they mumble, he can take you to the other side. The tombs around here, they all held a layer of dust, it’s a dust that gets into everything, even if you don’t see at first. I see a cat walking along a wall, it gracefully slips through the weeds and creeper, I think about what age I’ll be when I die. Years ago I’d imagine myself going at eighty or ninety, in some old flat, keeping it together, the shelves strewn with books. The hand on me cracked watch said quarter past three. It was time, at least more or less, for the cards. Most people these days didn’t have clocks or watches that still worked, and even if they were lucky to have batteries, They’d be surely be put to use for something else. Or even sold for god knows what, maybe another distraction, a chemical kind if you were lucky enough to come across it, these days it was all escapism. Nobody had watches anyway, if you wanted to tell the time you’d have to walk a few blocks, there were eight functioning clocks in the centre, there were nine last month. The areas around some clocks were dangerous, the fact that there was a clock there even more so.
The rain came down hard, It spilled into the mausoleum of cracked pots and long dead plants, there were no shafts or concrete blocks for coffins, just ashes, walls for jars of forgotten ashes. I drank, the last of the large bottles of scalteen, I lit a cigarette, the Chinese ones, I felt sick and eventually put it out. I drank more scalteen and looked at the circle of dry tiles I sat in, the rain slowly creeping up on me. I closed me eyes, opened them, then closed them again. The rain tapped the roof, I wasn’t sleeping, just resting me eyes for a while.
The people in the park, so many people in the park, me and grandad, on the rowing boat, in the big lake at the park. The granite from the monuments that dwarfed us caught the sun. Grandads brown arms rowed with ease, like he did it a thousand times before. And he gave me an oar, to row, and I pushed and pulled like crazy splashing. He laughed, as we went around in circles, he laughed, I don’t think I ever saw him laugh like that again.
The bottom of me trousers is wet, and the dry circle that was around me well gone. The scalteen was at its last, the sound of it at that bottom of the tin bottle, nothing but a soul crushing trickle. I tried to close me eyes again, but the tiredness was gone, the rain patted above me. I looked out at the rain, I lifted meself up with an awful groan, put me head down, and walked towards the rain. The graveyard was completely empty, only for a few crows pecking the ground, one cleaned it’s beak on a tombstone, either that or he was sharpening it. I walked towards the back gate by the black church, it was time to see the Turk. I saw empty bottles of wine, strewn along a trail where the long grass left a line of clear dirt to walk. As I walked further along the trail I saw more tossed empty wine bottles, some of the bottles were mentholated spirits. Red Biddy, Jesus I hadn’t drank Red Biddy in years. I hadn’t drank it since the time it almost killed me.
The further I got up the trail the more bottles I saw, dusk was in the post. I saw light emanate from a large Mausoleum, as I got closer I heard laughing, I knew he was there. I knew it was the Turk, I don’t know why I knew. Maybe it was something to do with getting to the other side, all that shit the Romanians and Somalians used to say. I heard him in me head before I saw him. Inside me head, if there is such a thing. The booze must have finally broke me, it must be the DT’S. I must be withdrawing, I can’t get enough into me system quick enough.
I slowly climb the stairs, I hear languages spoken through the din of drunk talk, languages I can’t place, the Somalians, they say they speak languages, those with the Turk, languages that nobody speaks any more. I get to the steps of the mausoleum, they were steep, the once white marble now scuffed and stained with piss and what looked like blood. I tip toed up them. I could see shadows flickering in the light, shadows that only moved when necessary. Sometimes their tone and sounds of movements didn’t match their shadows.
It was odd, everything just seemed off. They laughed loud at something I couldn’t see, it was then that I realised the conversation was directed at something outside their space.
There was a silence, there were footsteps that came right beside me but nobody ever came. Then a welcoming voice from inside, a voice like an old family member, or some close friend who you drifted apart from years back. It called again, I followed the voice like it was an aroma, from some long lost recipe I had in childhood. Before I knew it I was there, inside, the place was not what the inside of a mausoleum should have looked like. Inside looked like that of a wealthy home, and as I looked back I could still see the door open, looking out onto a darkening graveyard.
The men were dressed in suits, some suits looked strange, like they were from another time, I was expecting them to be surprised to see me, but they weren’t, most of them didn’t even bother looking up from the table, as they were too engrossed, to caught up with their cards. I heard music, I was sure I’d seen girls dance behind curtains, the music sat me down. The cards were in me hands before I could protest, cards with pictures of sexual acts. Of fine women being taken by well hung men, in different positions, doing things you’d never imagine.
The men muttered, in different languages, no one understood each other, and to an extent it was better that way, just a bit of awkward eye contact here and there. Strangely dressed men, no one seemed to understand them all, no one except for The Turk.
A big hand lost by a small dark man, Italian looking but he spoke in some other tongue. He pleaded in that language he spoke, towards the Turk, but the Turk just smiled and ignored him. After a while the whole room went on about their game, like he didn’t exist any more. And he stood up and walk towards the end of a dark hall, his head down, his footsteps filled the room, muting all other sound. He opened a door and disappeared down a staircase, slowly down until his head was no longer visible. Nobody bothered lifting a head, the cards were too important, too engrossing to be distracted. Another man left, then another, one left like he’d done it before, the other cried while he walked, with his head in his hands, walking slow as if the Turk might reconsider, but he didn’t, the Turk just laughed.
But as they kept going I kept winning, me own hands began to be more engrossing, the tragedies of the men around me began to go unnoticed as I didn’t even bother looking up from the table any more. I won a hand then another, I couldn’t read their expressions, I couldn’t tell if they were bluffing or not, all I could do was read the cards. The more hands I won, the more men left quietly, down the dark staircase. Some left without a word, some whimpered silently. The last man at the table only looked up when he called your bet. I knew he had a better hand, I didn’t raise. I cut me losses. I shovelled me winnings into a bag one of them men left behind, one that went towards the staircase. I didn’t bother asking could I take it, I just did. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be back. The Turk laughed, I lifted meself from the table, I didn’t bother speak, there didn’t seem any point. I didn’t have to, I had a feeling he knew what I was thinking anyway. He kept laughing, the last man didn’t seem bothered by my exit, he was too engrossed in the cards.
As I left I didn’t look behind me, I was surprised how heavy the bag was. I could barely see where I was going, the cemetery now pitch black, only for a lull of moonlight to give you some semblance of direction. I walked slow, slow and deliberate, so nobody could hear me, so the coins that sometimes rattled in me bag stayed silent. I didn’t realise how long I was there, as I looked at the sky. Dawn was slowly diluting the dark sky to a lighter shade. It was the cards, they took you in. A day and a night could pass. I found meself near the town centre staring at a clock at the top of a long abandoned insurance company, it read 9.30. I looked at me watch, it read six thirty, the battery had finally gone. It was still early, early enough to avoid any aggro. Thieving bastards usually rested at this time. An old Somalian man mumbled while helping me smoke, the Czech cigarettes, not the Chinese ones, he paced, kicked weeds and rubbed his cut hands together, his dark bare arms like a map of self harm. Lines of lighter coloured scar tissue ran up them, probably a razor blade. They were handier, cleaner, left less of a mess.
I worried if the man would suss the cigarettes were decent, but he looked too catatonic in his own crazed ramblings to pick up on such a subtlety. I didn’t want to be between the hill and the catacombs for too long. We both looked at the clock at the top of the building, as if it would magically do something besides tell the time, like it would bring us a sign from the gods. It didn’t, it just moved, but not quick enough for the eye to notice. I left the old Somalian man a cigarette, he smiled gratefully and lifted his hands above his head in gratitude, then immediately went back to his ramblings. I moved slowly, slow enough so he wouldn’t hear that rattle of coins from me bag. Jericho was north, I knew it could take months. But I had nothing to lose. I hear the church bell, somewhere in the distance, maybe I’d come across it on the way. I take a last look back at the clock, it didn’t look like it moved at all, at least not by much anyway. Jericho was north, I had to get to Jericho.
DoubleSpeak 