We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night Read online

  You wait right there now buddy, we’re gonna have a chat.

  About what? You dont even know me.

  I know! You could be a fucken slimy little rat for all I knows. A slimy little rat.

  Alright b’y, he goes, alright, whatever you says.

  That’s right, it’s whatever I fucken says. Now we’re gettin somewhere see, gettin places, it’s whatever I says. So if I says I’m coming down and I’m gonna smash you there’s not much you can do about it is there?

  Buddy goes for his door then.

  Shag this, he says, I’m off in out of it.

  Listen I’m only messin with you, you knows that. But seriously though are you a man or a mouse?

  He stammers, something I cant make out, something down under his breath. He dont like being asked that, not with his missus in there listening. Johnny is gettin right under his skin.

  Ahh man, I’m only arsing around, I’m just muckin about, dont mind me. Just asking a simple question, that’s all. Are you a man or a mouse?

  Buddy spits on the sidewalk and ducks back into his house out of it then and, hey, you cant tell can you Johnny, you cant tell if that’s the smell of the harbour on the wind or if the little mouse man just sullied up his drawers.

  Now, come on Johnny. Come on. Youre alright. Yeah you fucks with people but it’s all a bit of fun. Sensitive bastards. If they cant handle it fuck em. Johnny’s the best kind. One of the good guys. Goddamn hero, aint ya? Got a lot on his mind. Johnny got a lot on his mind. I do. Come on. Where the fuck is Shiner? This is the shits. This is not lookin up, not at all. Not at all. It’s coming down, that’s what it’s doing. Coming down Johnny, and it’s gettin late.

  Johnny leans right out the window again, stretches as far down the hill as he can see. There’s a party down in one of the units at the bottom. Down around Madonna’s. The old homestead. Sounds like a blast and a half and you knows, you knows there’s gear knocking about. Run flat out Johnny, go on, smash your way in and grab something. Who the fuck is gonna stop you, who’s gonna stand in your way? Cause you dont know Johnny if you dont think he’ll smash smash smash through any fucker foolish enough to stand up. Go on Johnny. You could pull that off in no more than ten minutes. What’s the chances you’ll be missed? Slim. Or more than likely. Take the back way up around and be lying in bed when or if the fuzz shows up, make like nothing. Tell em the phone didnt ring through, that you never stirred. Maybe it works, maybe it dont. Be right nice and groggy and sleepy-sounding and polite. Naw, they’ll know then for sure. Give em hell Johnny! What else? Give em all manner of sauce cause that’s the way youd be if you was really in the right. That’s the only way to be. If youre in the wrong too.

  Consistency, that’s the rule, that’s the law.

  Always, always give em hell.

  Here comes little Susie again now, running back down over the hill with a new spring in her step alright. She looks to have been crying, but man she’s a whole lot steadier on her feet. Catch her Johnny.

  Hey! Little Susie! Hey!

  She looks up Johnny’s way for a split second and hooks her toe in the pavement and almost does the big tumble down over the hill. Some sight that’d be, her face all a mangled mess scraped into the road, sobbing and bawling there, bleeding and needing a knight in shining armour.

  Fuck off!!!

  This is what she wails at Johnny, the little torment, and we can see clearer when she passes under the streetlamp that she’s got a fresh reddish swelling up around her left eye. Fuck man she cant be a day over seventeen. But ya gotta live up to the nickname, hey Shiner, even if it means battering the merchandise like that. Little Susie picks up speed then when she shouts that at Johnny. Cause she’s met his eyes and she knows. She knows she’d be devoured if she let herself get two steps closer. Cause Johnny’d pounce, he would, fly right out the window at her. Wouldnt he? Drag her into his lair, toy with her till he was good and ready to feast wouldnt he?

  No, not really.

  Well maybe.

  But no.

  Fuck man, no.

  2

  Legal aid. Cramped, sour cubicle office. Johnny sat around fiddling with his nuts for near on half an hour. That’s true. Lookit here, Johnny says he’s gonna be somewhere and he’s bloody well there. Different thing if he wasnt. This crowd—and dont bother tellin me they’re not all the same crowd neither, legal aid lawyers and piggywigs and prosecutors and judges—they’re all right up each other’s holes. And they lives and breathes in their own time zone altogether. Making you wait for months on end. Rescheduling, cancelling. Coppers coming for you at all hours of the night. Legal aid with their overseas conferences and vacation packages. Over two fucken months since they picked me up. And sure cant it all be said and done in a matter of fucken minutes? Punch in, punch out and fuck off. Lock me up or cut me loose. Different thing if Johnny dont show up somewhere, well then everything goes straight to fuck. Just say, just say he never showed up to sign in yesterday, up at the cop shop, sure the SWAT team’d be out lookin for him, infrared dots combing the sidewalks, tear gas, bullhorns. Fucken news bulletin and everything. Truth. Twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, he’s scratching the old John Henry down for the coppers. They’re only up over the hill though, a short jaunt. Couple of weeks ago when Johnny signed in he was still half cut. Took a couple of them dumb-dumb pills too. Very reckless Johnny. Here’s the thing, if he never showed up at all they’d come lookin for him, and if they didnt find him right away there’d be the big manhunt and then he’d be locked up anyhow. Same if youre caught with booze on your breath, locked up until your court date at least. And you never knows, you never fucken knows, but you might end up gettin postponed for weeks and months and doing all this remand time and end up gettin off with the original charges when you finally do get your day in court. So there’s all this time served for nothing. All’s it does is get you better connected and more pissed off. So Johnny figured he’d go sign in with the booze on his breath and take the gamble that they wouldnt smell it off him. Woulda served him right though, all the same. Up at the station he lucked into this wheezy old bastard all stuffed up with the flu. And Johnny made like he had the same flu.

  Jesus man, some bad flu on the go.

  Fuck em. Johnny laughed all the way down over the hill. Johnny never ever gets the flu. The flu is for mice.

  Imagine though, Johnny, gettin off with this. Off and gone, vamoose. Kiss my hole you dirty old shantytown. Up north, maybe. Johnny’s good old buddy Paul is up north now this three years making all kinds of bucks, forty and fifty an hour, clearing something like four grand a week. A week now. Youre lucky to see that in six months around these parts. Four grand a week. Well ya knows now, you knows Johnny wouldnt be all riled up to get ripped right outta the head. Get out on a great big tear. Or no, maybe do up an old Charger, like the old man, Stevie, used to drive. Burn down into the States somewhere, cruise down around the coast of California with a nice missus in the passenger seat. Leather seats all slick with suntan oil. And get hammered besides, hey Johnny? Crash out in the little motels and fuck fuck fuck till youre rubbed fucken raw, trash TV and a hot shower and away again, wandering. Yeah, that’s what Johnny and Madonna were planning. Right Johnny? Right? Well not that exactly, but something like it. Go off and make a bit of money and do something half sensible with it. She got some cousins way out on the west coast. Yeah, we was gonna go crash there for a while, get on our feet. Typical. All talk hey Johnny? All fucken talk. Start up again with no one knowing a goddamn thing about no one. Where’s he from? What’s he all about? What’s his story? Fuck ya. Johnny and Madonna, just living, doing alright. That was before all this though. It was all different. Before she turned. The dope, ya know, I guess. I dont know. It brought something else out in her, no mistake. Almost overnight she was hell-bent on running Johnny into the ground. As if. Nothing and no one running our John-John into the ground, cause he’s like a fucken machine once he gets going. I mean, what have they got on him? Nothing. What ha
ve they got? Sweet fuck all. Johnny’s the one armed to the teeth. And what’s his weapon of choice? What is it? The fucken truth, man. The cold hard truth. And if that dont go over like a goddamn house on fire then who the fuck knows? Who knows? There’s no sayin. Have to rethink, restock, rearrange the arsenal. Dorchester. But what have they got? Johnny’s word against hers. Hers against his. Nothing to it. Yeah, youd like to think it goes down that way, but look at the state Johnny’s old fella is in. Fuck. And for what? Nothing. Nothing. Old Stevie wasnt even in the room, in the house, on that street, in the same part of town for shit sakes. He had what’s-his-face, that biker fella who used to be down around Shiner’s, what’s his name, who got busted for armed robbery, he told the fucken cops Stevie was driving the car that night. The getaway car. Ratted him out right away. Stevie admitted it to the cops himself. So, shit, if admitting to being a fucken accessory to armed robbery, and having a witness to back it up, if that’s not enough to prove your whereabouts, well Christ the system is fucked. It’s evil. And he’s hardly the only one either, Stevie. Lots of fellas goes down for nothing. I mean it’s hardly the States but mark it down, there’s fellas out there serving full-on murder raps for doing fuck all. Lives ruined and wasted. Some of em, the lucky ones, are out now, names cleared, compensated, and still everyone around thinkin they got away with murder. Lookit that banker fella from Central sure, they put him away shortly after his little one’s kindergarten graduation and they let him out in time enough to watch her graduate fucken high school. Her entire childhood. And he never done sweet fuck all neither. Down the line on a shit beef, like Johnny’s old fella. Nothing. And they sent the banker away sure and he’s, or he was, a goddamn bank manager with all kinds of reputation on his side and good people and good references and a clean record and the truth, yeah the cold hard truth on his side. Like Johnny’s old fella. Like Johnny. But they locked the banker up anyhow didnt they! So what chance have Johnny got? Christ sakes. If they digs into his youth record it’s all fucked. With your old fella gone away for life for what they says he done. Up with the dangerous offenders in Kingston. That dont look so hot for Johnny. And you knows they’re slick enough to bring it up.

  Jesus. Like to believe there’d be something come of that whole house fire business, but other than that you got nothing and no one on your side Johnny, except legal fucken aid. And that’s a toss-up right there, hey b’y, if he’s on your side or not. A job and nothing more. Same thing if he was workin in a slaughterhouse chopping the heads off cows, that’s how much of a fuck a free lawyer gives about whether or not Johnny goes down the line.

  Here he is now, Mr Legal Aid, nearly an hour late gettin to his own office.

  Good morning Mr Keough. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, I was in a meeting.

  Yeah, in a meeting alright, hey Johnny, cause he got one of them fancy big-city coffees in his hand, one of the ones you sees zombies lined up for a fucken hour to get a sup of, that costs near on five bucks a cup and that still tastes like burnt horseshit. Think he brought one for Johnny though? Think Johnny woulda drank it?

  That’s alright, Johnny goes, I’m not here long.

  Legal Aid huffs over a few papers. Sets his briefcase on the top of his rickety desk. Barely much older than Johnny, really. Except for this fat greying moustachio that gives him this sorta air of learning and book smarts. Or that’s likely the look he’s going for anyhow. Books? Fuck off. Johnny can see right through it all. No fooling Johnny. Reeves, his name is, like Superman. No doubt he likens himself that way too. No mistake he latched on to that little connection when he was a young fella. Like ya would. I mean, if yourself and the fella who plays Superman have the same last name, youre gonna try and cash in on it. When youre a young fella. But he’s a far cry from the build, this Reeves. Skinny as fuck, all spindles and knobs. Go for his knees Johnny! Yeah, he’s a fine sight, his eyes always bugged out of his head like something just blew up in his face, or he put a bag of money through the wash, or some wild animal pinned him down and blew a load in his face. Ha! Shoulda mentioned too, this is something else, he’s got his office set up like what way a prison counsellor would, with the desk in the middle and his seat facing the opposite wall and Johnny’s on the other side. This is the way they does it on the inside, in case things goes amiss, so that the counsellor or the assessment officer is the one closest to the door, in case they have to make a quick break for it. Plus it’s got something to do with trust and psychology bullshit too. Stupid, high notions. Or maybe he’s being smart about it all. Cause by Christ there’s been a few times Johnny would have liked to pin him into the corner and snap his collarbone. Cool it Johnny, cool it man, cause you never know the way it’s gonna go. Some day not so far away now they’ll have these sorts of gizmos that read your intentions and then we’ll all be fucked and fucked. Imagine that Johnny—going on trial for the thoughts in your head, for the things no one knows about. How many back-to-back life bits would you have to plug before they opened the gates again?

  Okay, Mr Keough, I have to say that it isnt looking very promising.

  Fuck sakes Johnny man, dontcha hate the way he has to go pronounce your name like that, dontcha feel like screamin it into his face? But what can you do? Pick your battles, choose your weapons wisely hey Johnny?

  How so?

  There’s been some developments. Your girlfr . . . Ms Dale . . . although she has yet refused to give a statement, which is partly why youre out on bail I presume, unless of course youre . . . ahhh . . . but youre not . . . ?

  Unless I’m what? Spit it out man if you got something to ask me.

  No, no, I didnt . . . of course not . . . it doesnt matter . . . ahh . . . but Ms Dale has otherwise agreed to testify in court. Which is not good. Until recently the Crown’s case was weak. I’d expected without either her statement or testimony you would have walked. But . . . not only has she agreed to testify, Ms Dale has consented to the submission of her medical records, and it’s been brought to my attention that the Crown will be submitting a series of photographs that were taken on the day of the arrest . . .

  Yeah, so?

  Bruising around the breasts and hip area, and the shoulders . . .

  I’ve told you before . . .

  Not to mention the cut on her forehead that was made with the . . . ahhh . . .

  He shuffles through some papers cause he aint even looked at Johnny’s fucken case since two weeks ago. Feed it to him Johnny.

  Teapot. They’re sayin I hit her with a teapot. But I never. She . . .

  Yes, yes, it says you hit her with a teapot, that you broke it on her head?

  No, but listen . . .

  And when you were searched they found fragments of the teapot on your person?

  Yes but see . . .

  And that you still had the handle of the teapot gripped in your hand?

  Listen for . . .

  Plus these photos . . .

  Fucken listen to me! Alright? Listen to me. Now I dont mean to have to shout. Alright. But I’m after tellin you a dozen times, we’ve been through all this. I told the cops and I’ll tell it to the judge. She fucken walked into the teapot and then she made out that I struck her with it. I held it up to protect meself cause she made a run at me. I was defending myself. She was pounding on me too, with her fists, for about half an hour before the teapot business. I just dont bruise as easily as other people.

  Reeves sits back for a minute in his maggoty swivel chair and does that thing with his hands, puts all his fingertips together like a church steeple or whatever, and puckers his lips and ruffles his fat grey moustache. He thinks he’s Johnny’s head doctor now or something. Ya get what you pay for Johnny my son.

  Okay yes, alright, okay. I hear what youre saying. Self-defence. But you have to understand that these photos, these bruises . . .

  They’re sex bruises alright?

  Excuse me?

  Sex bruises for Christ sakes. She has em all the time.

  I’m sorry I dont . . . />
  They’re bruises you gets from bangin like a savage, alright? Is that what you wants to hear? She’s tellin me to slap and squeeze and pinch, beggin me to beat the hole off her! Alright? It’s rough sex that leaves the marks. Do you get it now? And she’s . . . now she’s fucken . . . now she’s sayin that I’m after slappin her about. And she’s pale-skinned too, you know, so everything, every little bump shows up on her skin. Alright. Jesus!

  Reeves sits back again and does that thing with his fingers and swivels his chair. Finally that perma-shocked expression on his face is grounded in the right moment. He clears his scrawny throat and leans in like he’s some kind of doctor about to give Johnny six months to live.

  Would you be willing to talk about this in court Mr Keough?

  It’s Keough, alright? Keough. Not Keough. And yes, yes of course I will, if that’s the way she wants to play it. I’m hardly gonna sit there and let her say I beat the shit out of her on a regular basis. Fuck.

  Johnny takes a swipe at some papers on the desk but they’re stuck onto it. Prolly glued on there, for looks. Superman dont like that.

  Please calm down Mr Keough. This is something you’ll have to be careful of. The courtroom is no place for a display of emotions, I shouldnt have to tell you. If a judge sees you lose your composure for even a moment, no matter how trifling the moment or the circumstance, then youre offering him a glimpse of your capacity to anger and he will almost without a doubt form a mental image of your behaviour at the time of your alleged crime. Once he’s formed that mental image you’ll be as good as done for. With your record, you’ll have to keep this in mind. It’s one thing to throw a hissy fit in the confidential company of your lawyer, but dont expect to throw a similar tantrum in the courtroom and have it go by unobserved. Okay?

  Well. Now whose turn is it? Now it’s Johnny’s turn, now Johnny’s the one must look like a bull caribou jerked off on his face. Finally, after nearly four weeks of drivel and technical slop and phone tag and high-notioned big-headed legal lingo, the skeletal bastard decides to grow a set of nuts and say it like it is. Well now. Wonders, Johnny, they never cease. And you gotta take it, have to let him say them sorts of things too, cause he’s all you got. Yessir, Johnny’s been down that road—representing his own self like he was some sort of Charlie Manson wannabe or something. Yeah, done all that and dont it have a way of blowin up in your face? But here, Johnny’s smart enough to know that he dont know everything. But he wasnt always, smart enough to know. And it’s one thing knowing nothing, but it’s another thing altogether when you dont know that you dont know nothing. That’s what fucks fellas up, thinkin they knows something they dont, thinkin just because they can crack someone’s head apart with their bare hands while they’re out on the street somewhere that they can march into a courtroom and tell the judge what’s what. Fuck that. Johnny’s not going down that laneway this time of night.