Day 154 - Upside Down- Chapter 2 - (2124 words)

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UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 2

Before

“What’s up my nigger?” The line almost trips over itself with glee and anticipation. James, who’s back is turned to his boss rolls his eyes quickly in sympathy, yet shoulders unmoved in fear.

“Yeah, nothing.” Sam’s response is flat but not hard.

“Oh come on now my brother man, free wheeling player like yo’self got’s to be playing, am I right?” Nixon holds his fist out from his languid pose in the reclined office chair, straight out over his legs, pointing to the feet he has perched, now precariously on his desk.

Sam hesitates.

“Don’t leave me hanging bro!”

Sam’s fist tentatively curls into shape and extends, met with a short punch of a fist bump that cracks knuckles more than it denoted friendship.

“My nigger!” Chuckling to himself, mission accomplished Nixon’s feet swing around, playing into the spin of the chair and in a fluid ballet procession go under the desk and his gaze goes back to the laptop, the semi-clad screen-saved women adorning it clear away at his touch.

Sam blushes slightly, visible on his darkening skin.

“You do realise I am Indian right?”

“What?”

“I am Indian, we don’t really call ourselves the … “ in the instant he says it, he wishes he could take it back. “… the N-word.”

“The N-Word? The Fucking N-Word? What is this? For Fucks Sake, you’re black! You can fucking say Nigger for fucks sake! Get some fucking balls man!”

“It’s not…”

“Just fuck off, really. James, fuck back to to the truck get that cleaned up and take this … Nigger … with you.” Shaking his head Nixon stabs the keys to his computer, unsure what it is he’s actually doing.

“PC gone mad you lot. Fucking call me a racist. “

Sam is relieved, James and him start to leave, closing the door behind them. Just before the click they hear one last epithet.

“Don’t want to be called a fucking nigger, don’t be a fucking nigger!” And as the door shut, one shouted clarification.

“Your attitude makes you a nigger, not your skin colour!”

James shrugs his shoulders and then each of them shake their heads in a practiced double act of dealing with their boss.

During

The air is sweltering, beads of sweat have formed and the cold air tat was coming in has warmed considerably. The hard, fast lock on the door is unmoving. The glass is not budging, there is no handhold and not any room to swing or kick out.

This is what trapped feels like, and the tension, once coiled is now unraveled and disheveled and has no focus. He wants to scream , kick or punch but there’s no target and nothing to hit. There are cars on either side of him, but he’s offset and can only see into the back seats of one car, and it’s empty.

A few half hearted thumps on the glass, but surely there’s no audience and no will to carry on. The smoke is starting to blacken around him and metamorphosising to tendrils of electric wire and death. He knows what this means, he feels cold in the heat oin the knowledge of that meaning.

“Fuck, fuck..” And on the third a violent, uncentered explosion of limbs and tension “ FUCK!!” but again there is no one to see or hear that he knows of.

The coughing has started. It hurts from the first rack, and he drops to the floor for clearer air. How long will it last?

A voice is crackling in the radio speaker, they can still hear him, but they can’t help him. Help is on the way, he just needs to hold on.

The smoke presses down to the floor, crowding out the clean with it’s murky insistence. It hurts even more now, how fast is this moving? It’s worse all curled up like this, but there’s nowhere to go but down now, the smoked heat has blackened the windows.

He can hear voices outside, it’s about fucking time he thinks. He bolts up to scream for release but sucks in even more of his clouded death, filling his lungs with a dusty fire. The spasms are harsh and drive him back to the floor where he retches violently, the dryest thickest moucous made of sand pouring out his distended mouth and his burning nose.

A hand slaps at the window trying to get some attention.

It works, a scream can be heard, nearby or far he can’t tell. It’s there and it’s loud, but not as much volume as the pain in his leg. It must have caught something on the way back down when he breathed in all that black. It hurts, hurts. It’s spreading, moving his leg shaking it free of whatever sharp thing it is caught on, whatever is tearing at his fleahs like knives. It gets worse, it spreads.

Do cuts spread? Fire spreads.

Fire.

My leg is on fire, oh fuck. Oh.

Then the screaming starts in earnest, there’s no force able to stop it exploding from his lungs, his throat. Screaming up a tear in his vocal chords, screaming blindly and long and then there’s a thumping on his head, someone is trying to open the door where his head is touching, near the accelerator.

He stops screaming and tries to form words, but without the clarity of the pain, hope makes no coherent expression. It takes a short while and the flames are soon visible inside the cabin, the fire has spread so quickly in such a confined, close to airtight space now. It consumes all and flickers up.

The thumping stops abruptly and the voices are fearfully receding. Fainting, falling back, getting louder and louder but further and further away until the screams and anguish are only whispers in his ears.

Blackness claims him, he’s not dead but he no longer feels. Far from the heat of the flames, the cold hands of acceptant shock press his body to the floor, breathing what he can, filling himself inside and out with the new reality of his existence.

His life closes rapidly, finally shrinks in on itself like an iris.

The explosion happens later, not much in real time, but at least one shorter than the lifetime concluded.

Also During

“Fuck, fuck..” there’s a small pause and then some thumping on the last “ FUCK!!”

More rustling and thumping. There’s also a crackling noise, like static but it’s not static.

James looks at Sam, who is biting his fist. Annie has the phone on her ear and is not looking at them. Sam unhooks from his knuckle bite and looks clearly at his friend. How did they get here?

While Annie is crowding out the noise from the radio with a crooked arm around her ear Sam and James look at each other in silence, white from fear and what has been a sinking surprise.

Neither of them says it, neither of them needs to.

They know he did this.

They know.

They don’t break their gaze for a while, volumes unspoken but not a solution anywhere.

What happens, happens.

“No, the Viaduct, I think it’s up by – look if you get up on the Viaduct and see to the, … no it’s an armoured truck, it’ll be the only one. No, no, no.” and then she’s silent and then a few seconds into that she slumps down, waiting for something the operator is relaying to someone else.

She turns her attention back and sees the men, pale like death and assumes. Her gaze falls on the radio, cracking and bubbling with all sorts of interference and live sounds.

She opens her mouth to say something to James, the nearest one to her.

The screaming begins.

It’s so loud and piercing the speaker on the radio pops and distorts but it’s import is not diluted by this, but amplified.

Now Annie goes bone white and the phone loosens in her grip and tumbles to the floor. The operator hears the clatter of gravity and starts asking questions, getting louder and louder, then muffled and then louder again.

Sam reaches down and picks the phone up, Annie cannot move.

He speaks quietly into the handset, telling the operator what they can hear is screams.

There are words among the stabbing ejaculations of the radio, but they make too much sense to be of use. Leg, fire, fuck. It’s the most effective communication possible and no one can say anything.

The operator is telling, frantically how far they are away, but Sam already knows that they won’t get there in time. They can’t get there in time. That’s how they knew it was him.

This place, this time, and this… death is on him. It has to be.

Sam nods in agreement, to everything that is said to him. No one on the other end can see this, and no one at this end is looking, all eyes are on the radio. 3 or 4 more people have come to the dispatch office to trace the source of the commotion, but silence dampens all when within comprehension’s reach. No one asks, no one dares.

Then it stops. The screaming stops. The fire crackles and sparks, the wires and god knows what else is boiling audibly and there’s merciful silence.

A couple of thumps, then a pop.

The Radio, now dead is a brick with no signal, no life at all.

At once everyone is relieved they can no longer hear it. Imagination will seep in over the hours and minutes to follow, and denial will press out the need for closure this close in.

Annie starts to sob, and seconds later vomits, uncaring to where it flies on lands. She has no control, her insides have control, they do what they do with little or no regard to the conduit of their explusion. Down to her knees, grasping at James leg who stands immobile and mute as the scene settles.

They hear sirens, speeding towards them and then slowing away from them.

Time speeds up again and everyone’s movements and speech become exagerrated, over done and clunky.

It’s less than an hour before they understand how long this will take, how much needs to be done, how many questions to be asked and answered.

Annie has moved to the break room, there’s a policewoman there asking her gently and touching her frequently, upper arm, elbow – shoulders all targets of comfort, trust and intimacy.

Sam and James are questioned separately, and it’s a perfunctory process no one seems to mind.

The End.

The irony is not lost on James as the doors roll open for the last time, he hopes anyway.

The metal curtain has torn apart and let in the new air.

And there is Sam.

Waiting.

He thinks for a brief insane second of screaming the truth now, but it’s afleeting thought from frustration and relief not coming fast enough.

The world is open again to him and he canot get to it fast enough. He lopes across the road, running would have seemed too desperate.

No one else waits.

No one?

Sam stands unmoved, unsure what the protocol is after a year and a half in prison. It’s a short sentence, yes but also it’s prison right? Doesn’t it change a man?

James is ready and hugs before his arms know what they are doing and then those fears are gone.

Sam smiles broadly at his friend, but does not get one in return. It will take time.

James looks about, looks for reporters that are not there.

He raises an eyebrow.

“Who are you expecting?”

“No one.”

“Then?”

“Well, it’s just – you know is no one … interested?”

“Nothing has changed in the last 18 months dude. You’re not even yesterday’s news now, you’re last years – and almost longer.”

“Oh.”

James walks to the passenger seat.

“You want to drive?”

“Nah. I want to go home.”

“Home it is.”

“Is it still there? I mean you haven’t obviously changed this rusty piece of shit since… since.”

“No, it’s still the same place. But it’s just me. Manisha, went home. Back to India.”

“Home?” James turned in his seat as Sam gets ready to start the car.

“What?”

“Aren’t you both born here?”

“Home, in the Indian sense. Seriously man. I did say India.”

“Grumpy bitch.”

“Yeah.” Sam frowned and put the car in gear, indicating into the traffic that wasn’t there. “I missed you too.”