Quitting

This is a story I’ve just finished, which I hope to be submitting for publication soon.

Enjoy,

Jez

by

J. N. Thorpe

Copyright 2009

“Or ever the silver cord be loosed…then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Strange how I remember that from Sunday school, what seems like lifetimes ago. It seems fitting now, though, as I sit here, caught fast in a tangled web of silvery threads of my own making. There is no escape for me, no matter what lies or deceits I might conjure. I have no objections – this is the way I want it to be. This is the way it should be. At last I see that. I understand now that everything I have done, was to bring me ultimately to this final moment, this great epiphany.

A new day is beginning, and another life, perhaps, in another world? I will find out soon enough. I am not afraid.

There was a life that he used to call his own, but now it was less to him than a box of yellowed photographs thrown out with the rubbish. In it, he trudged under a listless smattering of cloud that the rain dribbled through. He wore his shades, to keep the bleak daylight from his eyes, made all too sensitive by the malignant hangover progressing behind them. He felt the dull thump of every footstep grind his spine against his skull. He staggered on splinted legs, then swayed to a halt to light a cigarette, scowling at it before putting it to his lips. His skin was clammy with stale sweat. He spotted an empty can of Special Brew on the pavement, and eyed it with bitter longing. On his cigarette packet he read the words, ‘Smoking Kills’. He tilted his head to the rain, and in the middle of the dirt-smeared street he cried,

“When?”

And on that day, God answered his prayers.

“Mister Peterson. Saul.” Doctor MacNulty paused to take of his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath, replaced his glasses. “I’m afraid this is aggressive,” he said at last, laying his hands palms-up on the desk before him.

“Shit,” Saul exhaled the word as if he was actually surprised. The doctor’s mouth wrinkled into a briefly effacing smile.

“Unfortunately, with a tumour in metastasis like this, there is little we can do to treat it.”

“Meta-what? I’m gonna die, yeah? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? There’s nothing you can do, and I’m gonna be coughing up blood until I drop dead. Right?”

“I’m sorry, Saul. Truly, I am.” Doctor MacNulty stared down at his hands, his features etched with remorse.

“Hey. You know what? Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

“I can give you some contact details for support groups. You may find them…of some help.”

“No, you’re alright. Honest. I don’t need support. Let me tell you something: I’ve pissed my life away on booze, coke and Christ knows what else. I’ve lost my wife, my daughter, my home.” He pointed up at the ceiling. “And this is just His way of saying ‘Bravo!’” He clapped his hands slowly, his eyes still on the ceiling.

“Ahh, well. Saul – you really should start thinking about getting your affairs in order.”

“Yeah. Guess there’s no point quitting smoking, is there, eh?” And he left, laughing as he lit another one.

Then the night had come down on him like a savage beast, locked its jaws and shook him until he was wrecked. He took whatever he could, drank until he got chucked out, or chucked up, then drank some more. He got a bag of coke from some bloke in Koko’s and snorted the lot in the toilets. His nose burst hot, dribbling pain down his chin, but he sniffed and spat it away, back out to the bar which he cannoned into, giggling under a shower of cocktails and shattered glass. The bouncers dragged him out and threw him into the street. He coughed clots of black blood into the gutter, but he didn’t care. He bounced off the rotten brickwork in the alleyways of Soho, leering like a rabid dog, looking for a hit to finish him off. And he got it.

Rimsky. He was an odd kind of saviour, and certainly no saint. A fat Russian Jew who laughed like Santa Claus, and guzzled vodka like it was his calling. He was a rabbi, once upon a time, or so he’d told me.

“And now I am just a drinker – so they say in my mother tongue. And what, my friend, do I call you?”

“Call me a fucking cab,” he said, slapping backwards onto the hard pavement like a wet fish.

Rimsky laughed from his boots up to his belly. Then suddenly he was looming over him, his eyes fervently raging. “Saul,” the stricken man gurgled, “my name’s Saul.”

“Well, then, Saul. Mark my words. You are in the hour of the wolf, my friend, and there is no place to shelter.”

He wrenched Saul up one-handed, then pinned him against a wall with his steely fingers clamped around Saul’s throat.

“I am going to give you a choice, I think,” Rimsky announced. “You are dying, yes? There is a cancer eating away at your lungs.” Saul nodded, frowning at Rimsky’s outstretched arm. He was too drunk to be afraid, too stupid to guess what was coming. The alley was dark and quiet, far from the hubbub of nightclubs and taxis. No one was looking their way.

“A bad way to go.” Rimsky shook his head. “Very bad. So, then: for you, I can end your suffering right now. Quick and easy – no pain, No blood.” He brought his lips right up to Saul’s face. “Or, if you have courage enough, I can grant you life.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” slurred Saul. Rimsky’s grip on his throat tightened, strangling. Saul squirmed, tried to tear Rimsky’s hand away.

“Do you want to live or do you want to die?”

“I want to live,” croaked Saul, gasping as sparks began to flare at the edge of his vision. “I want to live.”

Rimsky smiled. There was no one to witness the dark miracle that followed.

Memories flicker zoetropic. My first night under Rimsky’s tutelage, learning how to be reborn. Rimsky lives on the streets because it suits him. The world is his banquet hall, where he holds court to madmen, vagabonds and strays.

They were sitting on a crumbling wharf near the Greenwich footbridge, watching the lights dance drunkenly on the filmy surface of the Thames.

“Look at this!” Rimsky fixed his gaze on the firmament, spreading his arms expansively, making his companion flinch to avoid a ham fist to the face.

“What, the sky?”

“Yes!” Rimsky clamped one arm around Saul’s shoulder, swinging a bottle of Stolichnaya in the other. “Wonderful, is it not?”

“Er… it’s just the sky.”

“But you see the stars, yes?”

“Yes. Well, some of ‘em.”

“Do you know that some of those stars are so old and so far away, that their light, traversing the empty gulfs of night, is all that is left of them?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“That is what we are, Saul. When you see the stars, you cannot tell if what you are looking at is really there, or just an echo – a ghost. And that is us.”

“We’re ghosts? Shit… I mean, I’m feeling pretty real right now, y’know?”

“Indeed! Indeed you are, my friend. Though to the rest of the world, we are but ghosts. They see us, but they don’t know if we are really there. We are something that they prefer not to think about. And when they look again, we are gone.”

“Right. Whatever. Talking of spirits, pass the vodka.”

Rimsky laughed, handing over the bottle.

Those years seemed to exist outside time. We slept under bridges or in darkened alleys by day, coming out at night to prowl the streets, reckless and revelling, hungry for life and all of its pleasures. We painted the town with the deepest red. We drank London dry on every street corner – the whores, the pushers and the lost – we used them and left them for dead. And after a while, I forgot my melancholy, and only occasionally remembered the life I’d left behind.

He straightened his tie in the mirror, brushed back his hair, and wiped away the last flecks of coke from the lid of the toilet. Everyone was at it – every fifteen minutes, some of them, but that was no reason for him to make it obvious. The brokers, the runners, even the damn security guards were wired up to the eyeballs. You had to be, out there on the floor. It was dog eat dog, and all that crap. And though he admired his flawless tan, and the radioactive brightness of his scarlet blazer, deep inside he was telling himself that it was all for Gloria. Gloria and their baby. He forced himself to grin, determined, baring his polished teeth at the mirror.

“Right, time to make a killing.”

It didn’t last long. And perhaps, deep down, I never really wanted it to. Nothing lasts. Not even futures. Pump enough money and drugs into a pressurised maelstrom of hormones and greed, and sooner or later it’ll tear itself apart. Markets crash. Fortunes are lost. Hearts fail. Lives are ruined. And, yes, I should have seen it coming. In a way, I think I did.

At twenty five he was smoking two packets of Marlboros a day, drinking so much he was still drunk the next morning, and snorting enough coke not to care. By day he bought and sold and conquered, by night he partied and danced and screwed. Then came that one weekend when Gloria, the college girl who’d lap-danced her way into his affections, pulled the plug on it all.

“I’m pregnant.”

And when he was sober enough to think again, he resolved to make a change. His first step, he declared to Gloria as he kissed her forehead, would be to quit smoking. So he found himself at the doctors’ surgery, talking to Nurse Kenny, whose ruddy-faced enthusiasm was grating but infectious.

“So, how much do you smoke?” the nurse asked, his notepad at the ready.

“Er, I’d say…about ten to fifteen a day,” he lied. “Maybe a whole packet if I’m out with the lads.” He flashed the nurse his best conspiratorial grin.

“Oh, God, yeah – if it’s a night on the lash then forget it.”

They laughed together, and he tried to ignore the anxiety gnawing at him, the compulsion to straighten his tie, smooth his hair – anything to keep his hands busy. Nurse Kenny asked more questions, and even got some honest answers. In return he handed Saul a leaflet with some helpful tips and useful numbers, and a prescription for nicotine patches. Nurse Kenny waved him off with an encouraging smile.

“Just remember,” he said, “It’s all up here.” And he tapped the side of his head.

Saul walked away smiling, but with his Zippo clutched tight in his fist.

I had the best of intentions – or so I told myself. Even when I was ruining everything, I always thought I knew what I was doing. I still haven’t learned. Old habits die hard, I guess. And without the proper means to feed them, it’s a slow and painful road to walk down.

“So this is it, yeah?” he shouted at Gloria’s back as she left, taking little Annie with her.

“Yes,” Gloria sighed. She didn’t turn round, but kept on walking toward the waiting taxi. He didn’t try to stop her – what was the point?

“So, what – cos I lost my job I’m no bloody good for you now, is that it?” He expected Gloria to nag him again for swearing in front of Annie, but instead she just loaded their daughter onto the back seat with her teddy and a Tinkerbell colouring book.

“It’s been nearly a year. When was the last time you even had an interview?” There was no bitterness in Gloria’s voice as she glanced over her shoulder, just weariness.

“It’s tough out there, sweetheart – you said so yourself. I mean, I know things are hard, and yeah the bills are stacking up, but I’m trying here, I’m really trying!”

“Like you tried to quit smoking? How long did that last? Or the booze? The coke?”

“Alright! I’ll do it, I’ll stop it all. Just don’t…”

Gloria spun around, a sudden fire in her eyes.

“Don’t what, Saul? Don’t try to make a better life for Annie than this? Don’t stop waiting for the day when you’ll finally get off your arse and do something? For Christ’s sake, Saul, it’s the middle of the afternoon and you’re still in your dressing gown!”

“Gloria, sweetheart. Please – I love you.” He reached to embrace her. She pushed him away, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“No you don’t, Saul. No you don’t.”

He watched as Annie waved through the rear window of the taxi, staring into her big brown eyes in that little, white face. As they drove into the distance and out of his life, he flopped down on the pavement, sobbing as he lit a cigarette.

I sometimes wonder: if I hadn’t led the life I did, would Gloria and I have met? Or would Gloria have met someone else, someone better? Would she still have had Annie? Not that it matters. I hope Annie hates me, and that it keeps her from wasting her life on drugs or drink like me. I don’t mind, in fact I’m glad of it if she lives a better life than mine.

“Ah! Saul! There you are! Season’s Greetings, my friend. Come, come, sit here by the fire.” Rimsky beckoned him over through the throng of Winter’s vagrants, huddled close around the crackling brazier outside the Salvation Army soup kitchen.

“Why? You know I don’t feel the cold. It’s these poor bastards who need the warmth.”

“True, true,” Rimsky nodded, “But it does the soul good, I find, to have the comfort of a roaring fire.”

“The soul? Do you even believe we have souls anymore?”

Rimsky frowned at him. “You seem to be in a very bitter mood tonight, my friend. Tell me, have you been a good boy this year?”

“No, Santa, I’ve been a right fucking cunt.”

“Oh. That bad, eh? Here – have a drink, and then why don’t you tell me all about it?”

Saul swigged back the vodka, not even flinching as it burned down his throat. But when he spoke again, his voice was thick and choked.

“I went to see my daughter, Annie. She’s sixteen now.” He gripped the bottle so tightly that Rimsky took it back.

“Careful, my friend,” he said. “This is good vodka, yes?”

Saul barely noticed as Rimsky prized the bottle from his grasp. “She didn’t even recognise me.” Tears broke, glistening down his cheeks in the fire light.

“And you were expecting what? That she would run to you with open arms, yes? This is the way it must be for you, my friend – for all of us whom time has forsaken. Whom God has forsaken.”

“Funny. Gloria said I hadn’t aged a day. I guess she thought I’d be dead by now.”

“Well, at least you were able to surprise her, eh?” Rimsky chuckled.

“Oh, yeah, I did that alright,” said Saul, taking back the vodka and slugging it back in one desperate, angry lunge. Rimsky eyed him carefully for a long time.

“What is it that you did?” he asked finally, and though he barely more than whispered it, his voice cut through the hubbub of slurred conversation like a knife through flesh.

“I – the thirst,” Saul began. “It was so bad. I wanted to kill her. Gloria, too.” He looked at Rimsky through tear-stung eyes. “Annie, my own daughter. I could smell the blood in her veins and I thought that if I killed her, then it’d be alright. I’d never see her grow old, and-”

Rimsky nodded. “And then you could find a reason to justify killing yourself, yes?”

“I can’t do it. I can’t go on like this – I just can’t.”

And now Rimsky took a turn to glug down the vodka, finishing the bottle, which he threw into the fire.

“Do you know, my friend, why I saved you, in that alley in Soho, all those years ago? Have you never wondered?” Saul shrugged, shaking his head. “I saw you, and I thought to myself: here is a soul in need. I could smell it on you, taste it on you, the remorse and the desperation. And the cancer. You had lost everything, and you were dying, and I, fool that I am, believed I could give you a second chance.” Rimsky stared deep into the fire.

“I – I’m sorry. What can I say… I… I just can’t do it. I can’t live like this anymore.”

“Yes, yes. I understand. Perhaps it would have been better if we had not met that night, you and I? We all make mistakes sometimes – even me. Do not blame yourself.”

“So help me.” Saul grabbed Rimsky’s shoulders. “Please, you have to help me.”

“Help you to do what, huh?” Rimsky stood, swiping a burning stick from the fire. The throng around him shrank back, gasping and afraid. Rimsky ignored them as he rounded on Saul. “You want that I should take this and ram it into your chest? This is what you want, yes? Because I will not, my friend, I will not!” He sat back down, tossing the branch back into the flames. “I have buried six wives and more lovers than I care to remember, and will not see another friend go the same way.”

“So…why do you go on?”

“Why? Because, my friend, there is always so much to see and enjoy. Because all life is filled with suffering, but to sing and dance and drink and to love – this is why we are born.”

In the end, Rimsky gave me the address of a discreet clinic, tucked away behind the Edwardian facades of Clerkenwell. I never thought at the time to ask him how he knew of the place. Had he come here, too, only to turn away at the last moment, his hand hovering over the door bell? Or had this place been the last resort for one of his many wives or lovers? Had he stood at the threshold, and watched them disappear down the hallway, hoping at the last that they would turn and run back into his arms?

There was a nominal fee, a questionnaire. They called it a public health issue, their duty to provide the service. They asked me about my next of kin – if I had any message for them. No, I told them, no next of kin. They asked me if I was sure, if I was ready, and I told them that I was. So here I sit in a pleasant little courtyard garden, alone with my memories and my final thoughts. Will there be a heaven for me? Or a Hell? Or just the merciful release of oblivion? No rapture, no punishment, just an end?

When I was ready, they manacled me to this sturdy, metal chair by my wrists and ankles. A ceiling of bullet-proof glass will keep the noise and the smoke from distressing any local residents. So; I am waiting to see the sun for the first time in years. And I am not afraid.

THE END