RuKsaK

Stink talked and talked – each confession was a delayed bruise, a saved rib. His memory welted wide open for the police.

The ugly frog ran his voice into me.
‘Stink told us another. Tell us what you know Ruk.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

The room was throbbing in my head. Like thunder calming itself through the canals of my brain. My father, a monolith next to me, was a rude echo for the questioning police officer.
‘Tell us about the giraffe Ruk.’
‘Tell him you little bastard!’
‘Tell us about the bubble-gum machine.’
‘Bloody tell him!’
‘Tell us about the Galaxian.’
‘Speak for God’s sake!’
‘Tell us about the launderette soap machine.’
A clout did my father’s job this time.

‘Tell us about the Mickey Mouse.’
‘Your mother’s going to be so upset you flaming idiot! Tell him about he bloody Mickey Mouse!’

The list drove on and on, beating me in stereo. I remembered some, others I didn’t. I remembered how my skinny arm delved down the tube of a pair of sea-front binoculars we’d sawn into the North Sea. I saw, but didn’t feel, our laughing after cracking open a laundry’s dryer to find three twenty pound notes under a few coins. The questioning dried these memories right up – they were brittle now.

Stink’s list grew until 2am. We’d had a break to get our inked fingers rolled on paper, our photos taken – the sideways anti-passport of criminals.

It turned out Stink had been doing things alone as well - the things I couldn’t remember hadn’t happened to me. Even now, with the police’s single tune in my head, listing all Stink’s crimes, over and over, I tend to forget what I did and what I didn’t. That room welded memories into others and I really can’t recall which bits of truth are mine, which were Stink’s only.
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Two months later we were peeling our soles across the courtroom, towards the distant-seeming dock. The court was full of important wood, made of long words and heavy grimaces. It was everywhere - framing doors, aisles, and traditions, to walk on, sit on and hold tight onto. People were moving to its customs, doing their jobs sternly, as though in fixed grooves. A dozen or so doors braced the walls, each with parts of our story behind them – some parts we didn’t know about yet, some we never would. This room throttled the hope out of destiny.
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Me and Stink had only talked together at school since our arrest. The other kids knew about it and we were cool and odd for a while. Every one of them had counsel, knowledge of what was to come – they were sure they did. One stood out for me:
‘Hey Ruk and Stink –you’ll be alright in court, but if a pig comes out with one hand handcuffed, you’re going down – you're off to borstal you poor fuckers!’
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The longest stand up I ever did was in that court – our knees moved at a centimetre an hour. Our hands clawed the wooden rail of our Titanic. The magistrate walked in and started her words. A side door opened and two identical policemen walked out. My eyes swept to their hands – from each left wrist handcuffs were swinging.
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Go here for Stink and the suicides - part 9.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Stink and the suicides - part 8