Short story: Queen of the Night, by Michael Morrissey

ReadingRoom

Cannabis, James K Baxter, and undercover cops

Queen of the Night, like a cloying cousin of Mary-Jane, teases his nostrils. and the sea and a bag of vinegared chips tug at his nostrils, random sounds of the city warm his ears – a car horn like a cry for help, a screeching tomcat. Luke tells him he’s a head case, lives in that small skull, not physical enough. Down at the wharf, Luke had to show him how to use a wool-hook on the 700-pound bales, packed tighter than a nun’s nasty, how to palm the steel ropes of the cargo tray – not grip them which makes fingers vulnerable to squashing – how to wrap chains around gas cylinders which tighten with a vicious finger-crushing snap, how to stack frozen butter and remove hatch covers without falling into the hold …yeah, Luke has taught him quite a lot.

Drawn almost against his will, he strolls into Boyle Crescent. A doorway is open, murmur of voices leaking out into the night, flutter of uneven light suggests bunches of candles, a faint smell of cooking.

“Come in brother,” says a male voice. Billy enters. The speaker is bearded, wearing shabby ill-fitting clothes, barefoot. “Would you care for some soup?”

Billy hesitates, looks around. The room is covered almost wall to wall with mattresses. A large table is covered in torn newspapers, light comes from a dozen candles gently flickering. A grimy fireplace has become a graveyard for hundreds of cigarette butts. A dozen or so people, all about Billy’s age, are clustered around the table filling bowls with the hot soup. Most of the young men are bearded, all of the girls have long hair – some European, some Maori.

“All are welcome here. Whoever you are, you will receive manuhiritanga. And you’re just in time for some kai. Trix has made some cabbage soup that will warm your bones. It may not be Remuera but it will keep you alive and kicking. When you open your eyes in the morning you say, `Lord, I thank you for giving me this day. I’m going to live it as best I can,’ Life can seem a tough proposition, the incline can be steep. You know the Rimutaka incline, brother? It’s so steep they have a special engine called a Fell engine – they call it Fell because it stops you falling – the function of this Fell engine is to grip the rail better. They move at a slow pace but they make it. With a little soup in our bellies we can all be Fell engines, we can help take life’s load to the top of the spiral. Does that sound like a fair proposition, brother?”

“I guess so.”

Billy notes a small statue of Our Lady on top of a wardrobe and the figure of Buddha on an apple box. A couple in the shadows who had their arms wrapped around each other emerge from their umbra of intimacy and move forwards into the candlelight’s friendly glow. Billy is surprised to recognise one of them as the Tiger Lily; even more startled to see the figure whose arms had been around her is also female.

“We share everything here – clothes, thoughts, money, food, love, mahi. I guess you could call us communists but Marx doesn’t cut much ice around here. We cultivate the spirit of arahanui.”

Billy said Hi to the Tiger Lily, who seems unsurprised to see him. Luke’s slapping her across the face, hitting a woman, so alien to him, was not unknown in her world, yet she had strategies to deal with it – one of them to come to this hippie house in Boyle Crescent. The walking wounded they call them. A couple of the guys have that razor-jawed, pinched, haunted look of the junkie, that magical Burroughs word. And this older bearded man gave comfort and advice, no drugs, he was no dealer save being a dealer of advice, engineer of souls, giver of grace. Perhaps his words have the power to soothe, even to heal slaps across the face. Perhaps the Tiger Lily has had dozens of slaps already from many men. Perhaps in darkness, behind doors, many men, thousands of men, were slapping women, or worse – punching them, raping them.

“Trust you to turn up like a bad penny,” the Tiger Lily mumbles as though it was he, not Luke, who had slapped her.

“Is that the way to welcome a brother?” asks the bearded man who Billy now realises is none other than James K. Baxter, looking wise and patriarchal as though he had seen every foible and weakness that human nature could throw across a candle-lit room – nothing in the human repertoire of vice or evil that he had not witnessed and would not understand and forgive.

“He’s no brother of mine,” the Tiger Lily says tigerishly.

“He is here,” Baxter says with a gentle firmness. This vision of Baxter as wise redeemer, as a kind of older Christ – he is forty, looks sixty – passes through Billy’s consciousness, to be replaced by another idea that Baxter was, in some curious way, exploiting these people, feeding off their weakness, a nasty idea that instantly softens. Even if he was no prophet or Christ, he is helping them, feeding them, listening to them, for someone in the corner had begun talking almost to himself, some dark demon-haunted rave, involving a crucified cat under Grafton bridge. Hearing these words, Baxter finds additional crucifixes and stands on a chair to balance them over the doors and begins to recite the Apostle’s Creed – “Let the curse fall on me,” says Baxter, which eats into Billy’s mind as his path, clear to him now, is of sacrifice, he must offer himself up, assault the visiting vice-president with the secret chemical, the chemical of love, love as wizardry, memories of cells. So what if he is caught, and is given five, seven, ten years in clink, isn’t that the stuff of love? And won’t it impress the Tiger Lily, prove to her that he loves her, loves her all the more for not having made love to her, but these are the thoughts of a stoned mind, affected by candles: he will be straight by morning, back to his timid nine to five self but hearing Baxter recite the Apostles’ creed, possibilities of foolish yet noble sacrifice become feasible.

Baxter has put his arms around the shoulders of the man who was talking of curses and crucified cats and murmurs solace to his ears. “Let the curse fall on me,” he repeats. “The Lord will protect us against Satan.”

Having expressed displeasure at Billy’s appearance, the Tiger Lily now seems to have accepted him. A cup of hot milk-less tea is a benediction of sorts, and as she and her mysterious companion share their libations, it seems all is forgiven, though what is there to forgive? For it was not he who had slapped her, he has done nothing, guilt of omission, and a “rescue” may have been disastrous.

He’s hoping she will walk back down to Luke’s caravan and he can escort her (even though he thinks she should not return to Luke until that hulking fellow apologises, (promises never to hit her again); hopes he can invite the Tiger Lily back into his bed, though he doesn’t believe his chances are high, but Billy is the kind of guy who, just as his chances are slimmest, is all the more likely to try a foray of intimacy, proving to himself that he could never have succeeded and thereby reinforcing low self-esteem.

Two large men join the shadows, slabbed faces crude mirrors of candle-light.

“It’s the fuzz – in person,” says a youthful voice from the darker part of the room.

“Care for some soup?” asks Baxter. “Or coffee?”

The constable glances at the soup dubiously. Billy is amazed. He’s heard of the brutality and aggression of the police towards people with long hair from Luke, how they beat a junkie girl’s head against a wall, how they delighted in raiding in the middle of the night, dragging junkies out of bed, abusing them, crushing their fingers in doors, punching them – yet the guitars played, people prayed or meditated, they shared, they loved one another when the dope and the smack ran out –

“We’ll take the coffee.”

“How’s it going?” asks the policeman, his eyes sweeping the dark.

“It’s going fine,” says Baxter, “we’re running a drug-free house here. A couple were on amphetamines and getting paranoid. They thought the fuzz were after them – “

“They were,” insists the same youthful voice.

“But they’re fine now. They pray every day.”

“And do you pray, Jim?” asks the policeman sardonically.

“I pray for you,” Baxter says without irony, “for anyone who is a refugee from a social graveyard, or an escapee from the bourgeois materialist trap. As the mental dungeons of society become more oppressive, we must expect more and more young people to opt out and take drugs as respite. It’s not the desired solution but until society changes and become less materialist, more ideal, we can expect it. I’m trying to provide a shelter shed where they can catch their spiritual breath and look upward even for a moment. That’s how we’ll be judged – on the moments that make up our lives.”

“Cliff, do you crawl out of a social graveyard?” asks Sergeant O’Grady.

“Reckon I did, Bob.”

“Are you an escapee from a bourgeois materialist trap?”

“No doubt about it.”

“How do you like your mental dungeon?”

“It’s driving me mental, Bob.”

“In that case better get Mr Baxter to pray for you.”

“I will, brother,” says Baxter.

“Are your followers doing any drugs?”

“This is a drug free environment,” says Baxter.

A silence that might have been awkward yet isn’t – such is Baxter’s confidence in his prophet-like role. “See you next time, Constable,” the poet extends his hand.

“What do you reckon, Bob?”

“We’ll call again,” says his companion.

“Always welcome,” says Baxter.

As soon as the two policemen have left, the Tiger Lily embraces Baxter and says she will be on her way.

‘There’s always a spare mattress here,” Baxter tells her.

Billy imagines that she glances over in his direction, a flicker, questioning eyebrow. Is she asking does he have a nearby pad, can she go with him – or none of these things? Whatever her look means, she is moving toward the open door.

Billy follows her.

“Going so soon, brother?”

Billy nods, gives a rueful smile.

“Don’t be so heavy-handed next time.”

So Baxter thinks he is the assailant. The Tiger Lily must have confided in the poet – as, presumably, most within his walls do. Baxter, human ear for a thousand stories of drugs habituation, parental neglect, being unable to cope, tales from the social graveyard, confessions from the lips of escapees from the materialist bourgeois world – chronicles of violence – thinks he is the culprit. Grist to the rich Baxterian mind-mill, soon to emerge in ballad after ballad.

Though the Tiger Lily is a few strides ahead of him, Billy quickly falls into step beside her. He wonders where she is headed. Overhead, a moon has been bitten in two by blackness, a scatter of stars, cold unwinking eyes. “Going my way?” It’s odd, Billy reflects, how her simplest utterances cause the most bafflement. Is she inviting him to escort her or merely asking where he is going?

“Yes.”

She crosses to the Domain gates. Largest of the inner-city parks, the Domain is a mile across with areas of actual bush swathed in darkness, the winding road sporadically lit, one or two of the lights not working. On a warm summer night, the darkness is less menacing – and for Billy it is a safe zone. He was walked it many a time drunk or sober, stoned or straight –

“You know the Ho Chi Minh trail?”

“Yeah, sure I do. I helped name it.”

Billy’s only heard of it but knows it’s a short cut through to Parnell – to the Gibraltar Crescent house where Shadbolt and other bohemians and hippies live.

“I wouldn’t use it at night by myself.”

So, he’s to be her guardian, okay, no problem with that. No problem either with stopping by the duck pond to sit down. Chance for an intimate talk, a kiss maybe. His first ever kiss had been in the Domain. Embarrassingly, it wasn’t that long ago. He was a late kisser, late to talk, his mother had told him. Tonight, he does not want to be “late”. When the moon bathes her face, even the shadows are a rapture.

“Can I ask you something?”

She does not answer.

“Has Luke hit you before?”

Again, she is silent and he won’t repeat the question. The night walk seems to have brought out her quiet side. He hears movement on the pond. Hidden by gloom, he cannot see the cause. His nerves are being tested.

“Once or twice,” she murmurs. “Most men have a violent streak. Even you, Billy.”

“I’ve never hit anyone.” Not quite true. One evening when he’d had a silly argument with Gloria, his former girlfriend, about the califont and he had slapped her face, and she had banged him back. Naked they stood amid the steam with reddened faces; a minute later they were laughing. And wasn’t there another quarrel at a northern beach, a public spectacle, and what had they quarreled about?

“No? – haven’t you been on any protests? Haven’t the pigs kicked you?”

“No … not yet,” laughs Billy with rueful regret. “I thought the protests were supposed to be peaceful.”

“Tell that to the pigs!”

“I don’t believe in violence.”

“I don’t believe in it – but it happens.”

“But you don’t have to put up with it.”

“A slap is no big deal. I’ve slapped Luke plenty.”

Billy leans his head, kisses her. She doesn’t pull away but is curiously passive. She’s doing him a moonlit favour. As his lips persist, her mouth opens and their tongues are at work yet after a long moment, it’s over.

“Just friends, Billy,” she murmurs.

“Tiger Lily,” he whispers into her ear. “Do you know that’s what they call you?”

“Oh no – I didn’t know that,” she says sarcastically.

“So, what’s your real name? Is it Lily?”

“No – it’s Tiger.” She makes a growling noise in her throat which makes Billy want to kiss her again but she’s risen to her feet and they resume walking. His hand finds hers, surprisingly soft. Her fingers don’t return his tentative caress – nor do they pull away.

“Those cops seemed almost friendly.”

“That’s Jim’s influence. He’s got everyone, nearly everyone off drugs – at least while they’re in the house – and besides he’s somebody. If you’re a long-haired hippie and take drugs, as far as the fuzz is concerned, you’re nobody – and fair game. They can beat the shit out of you and get away with it.”

“Have you slept with Jim?”

“Some of the chicks have – part of their sensual education. With Jim, it’s mainly hugs. I mean – he’s so bristly.”

“Don’t you like men with beards?”

The Tiger Lily laughs. “Trying to score points, Billy?  I thought you were the romantic type. Don’t you write poetry?”

“A bit,” Billy admits, not eager to boast. “Nothing published.”

“You should show it to Jim. He can be very encouraging.”

“I’m not on his level – he won the MacmiIlan Brown Prize when he was eighteen.”

“Prizes don’t mean everything. How about sincerity?”

“Is Paradise Lost sincere? I don’t think guys worry about that so much. They just want to create something impressive.”

“Okay – impress me, Billy.”

“I don’t want to impress you,” Billy replies, a bland lie. “I just want to kiss you.”

They’re out of the Domain now, standing in a small curved street. She stops outside an old villa.

“You can bunk in with me if you like, but remember – just mates.”

Constable Robert O’Grady squats down behind the cover of Queen of the Night and beneath the open sash window, catching snippets of conversation from the inhabitants of the house, Grand Central Station is what they call it, the House of Revolving Doors, a girl is laughing, laughing inanely and insanely, what is she laughing at, nothing, nothing at all,  marijuana has twisted her brain, now a man is guffawing, soon he can hear three or four voices braying like jackasses, his nostrils fill with the thick goatish marijuana smell and their stupid laughter rings like stones bouncing off bells, it doesn’t sound like normal laughter – a rippling prolonged edge to it, an uncontrollable mirth of nerves stretched out on drugs, and that disgusting smell, it seems to linger for hours, mingled with mad marijuana music, black men playing guitars with their teeth, though later, hours later, the laughter dies down, a toilet is flushed, once, twice, people are going to sleep, and now the air is smell-heavy, after a wire wove mattress has staccato-struck the bare floorboards, the fish-incense odour of sex, the lewd musk of Queen of the Night, churchy aroma of marijuana all settle down on his own sweat smell, it’s more than a man can stand, there’s something filling, rising and filling in his trousers, what’s he about to do, what’s he thinking of, he’s no better than one of them, but at least now he can concentrate better on what they’re saying, for someone has started talking, Vietnam is mentioned, something about Vietnam, not much this time, more laughter, more smells. Gradually, the sex and marijuana smells subside, and as the summer night cools, Queen of the Night rules.