Glassman

GLASSMAN

  by J L Blenkinsop

  Copyright 2015 J L Blenkinsop

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  GLASSMAN

  He’d just taken the first ravenous bite out of the hot, steaming doner kebab when the familiar compulsion returned, rising up from his groin, through his aching and empty stomach, flowing up like bile acid to meet the spiced lamb coming down. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, hating it, trying not to sob through the mouthful of meat.

  He looked around. The dark street shone with scattered coloured lights, cab offices, fast-food shops and massage parlours widely spaced around shuttered shops. Behind him was the kebab shop. Over the street was an alleyway, its black mouth beckoning. He crossed the road and was engulfed by the darkness.

  There were bins in the alley. There was dim light from a window high up and from the street. He searched for somewhere dry and clean enough to put down his dinner. There was an old office chair next to one of the bins. Gulping down meat through the acid pain he pulled the wrapping over the kebab and laid it on the frayed seat, and then started to undress. Tee-shirt, trainers, tracksuit bottoms, underpants. Naked, he stood in the darkness and the pain in his gullet began to fade. There was the taste of chilli sauce and the sweetness of lamb, and then Denis Boateng, like the pain, began to fade away.

  Terror comes before pain, is the anticipation of pain, is the spur that ought to make us flee but which often roots us to the spot, which should make us ready to fight but which makes all thoughts flee, all resistance crumble. She was pushed up against the rough bricks, her mouth covered by a meaty hand, her hands lifted and pressed against the wall as if she was surrendering when merely she was pleading, silently, for what had started so suddenly to stop.

  Two of the three guys were sniggering. One had her bag and was rooting around in it. Things fell out. The one who had her against the wall was pushing his other hand between her tight-pressed thighs. She knew there were knives.

  Behind the men the car park stretched away empty into the darkness. There were a few cars there still. One of them was hers. If she could have spoken she would have helped them to it and given them the keys. Just to make it stop. Just to make them go away.

  The one with the bag went “uuh” and dropped the bag. Then his body jerked sideways and his legs tangled together and he hit the ground, hard, on the point of his shoulder and then his body jerked again as if, exactly as if he had just been kicked hard between his shoulder blades...

  Her eyes were wider now. The two who were concentrating on her hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t have gotten more tense than she already was.

  The big one, the one who had her face in his big hand, who was digging his filthy nails into her thighs as he tried to...

  That man.

  His mouth opened wide.

  She saw his eyes bulging and suddenly she was free of his grip and his hands flew to his neck. She saw the flesh deform, whiten under the pressure of something she could not see. His booted foot caught her a glancing blow as he was dragged backwards, struggling against something awful. He was leaning backwards and should have fallen but impossibly he didn’t. His feet skidded on the blacktop, he flailed one arm behind him while he tried without success to peel something away from his throat. His face was going purple in the sparse lights from the distant streets.

  Her breath heaved and the stink of his hand made her feel sick. She turned and looked into the eyes of the third man, who looked from her to his fallen companion and then to the big man now sagging to the ground. He looked down at the knife in his hand. He dropped it and turned to run, and she tripped him. His face hit the floor with a crunch.

  She was leant against this dirty wall in a bad part of town and there were three unconscious men lying around her. She drooped into a crouch and felt around for her bag and its spilled contents, all the while searching the shadows for some sign, for someone.

  “Don’t be scared,” it said when it came, the voice. It was not close to her. The big man’s wheezing body began to rock slightly. “I’m here,” he said. Whoever he was. Whatever he was. “Glassman. I can’t be everywhere, ma’am. But it’s lucky I was here for you tonight.” It was a chocolate voice. It squished with trustworthiness.

  She nodded, dumb, finished picking up her things, rose and skirted the open area heading towards her car. She pressed the key and the lights flashed and the car unlocked, and she opened the driver’s door and looked into the silent windswept night.

  “Thanks,” she whispered, but there was no reply.

  The kebab was still there, beneath his clothes. It was not quite cold. He felt thankful. Sometimes he got back and his clothes were gone. He dressed as his body faded into sight again, and he sat on the wobbling chair and wolfed down the greasy spicy meat and the cardboard-textured bread. Then he left the alley and made his way home.

  Home. A bed-sitting-room a quarter-mile away from the alley. Top of the house. There was a dormer window that looked out over two-story office buildings and a railway station. The single room contained a pull-down bed and an easy chair. A partitioned area in the corner hid a small sink and a tabletop cooker. Denis turned on the portable TV and watched a comedy while he brushed his teeth in the sink. He pulled down the bed and pulled off his clothes. Naked, he got into bed. The comedy was okay. He could feel himself winding down. Tension released in little bursts as he chuckled at the jokes, and when the programme ended he leaned over and clicked off the set, leaned the other way and clicked off the light, snuggled under the thin duvet and faded into sleep.

  He dreamed of what had not happened. He dreamed he was in the bathroom, the clean, warm tiled bathroom, and he was fourteen. The water in the bath was hot, clean, clear as glass but very slightly blue. He was naked. He was looking in the bathroom mirror. He saw an ordinary and an unremarkable face. He saw narrow shoulders, milk-chocolate skin, clear eyes looking back at him above a serious mouth above an elfin pointed chin.

  What did not happen in the dream: He did not wish he was not there. He did not wish that the bullies could not find him. Denis did not watch his image fade in the mirror and he did not have to go through the rest of his life fighting crime.

  It was a beautiful dream.

  In the morning Denis left the bedsit quietly, trying to spy out for the landlady without himself being seen. The thought made him giggle; but his power couldn’t be used whenever he wanted. It was called upon him by something in the air, some pheromone, perhaps, some radiation given off by peril or need. Mrs. McInerney was a peril, and he was in need, but it didn’t work like that.

  He went to the market first. It wasn’t so early, but there might be some sweeping or carrying to be done. Some of the traders ignored him, one or two nodded or spoke a greeting. Fiennes the fish merchant beckoned him over.

  “You goin’ to be around for the next couple hours?” Denis nodded. “Awright. Get the marked boxes on the van.”

  Denis loaded the van according to the load marks on the boxes and then swept around the stall, strewed sawdust, found a bacon sandwich put next to him when he leaned back against the counter. More boxes to load. His clothes were beginning to smell, first of the sea, then of the fish. More boxes, then he manned the counter when Fiennes took the van out. Taking orders, wrapping fish. Most of the customers were small restaurateurs who took their fish whole, but occasionally he had to gut or fillet, wielding the thin k
nife expertly.

  By noon the trade was mostly over and Fiennes was back. He counted twenty-five into Denis’ scrubbed hand and nodded over to the canteen. “’S a brew an’ a dinner, Denis. Good work.”

  The afternoon dragged. Filled with boiled potatoes and braised meat Denis mooched around his usual beat, but there was nothing doing. He went round the back of the leisure centre and shared a cigarette with Alison, the yoga teacher, who let him in to use the showers. She gave him a pair of faded swimming-trunks that had bubbled up from the back of the lost property cupboard and, blushing slightly, smiled at him and indicated the direction of the pool.

  Would you like to go out tonight, Alison? Would you like to go to the pictures? To a club? Bowling?

  He said nothing, just smiled at her bowed head. It was in the night when it happened, mostly. The signal. Not the big bat-sign in the sky, but the wrenching in the gut, the twist in the pipes that took him into that other world where sight was expanded, where night became day and where his strength knew itself and was able to be expended. The hateful abnormality that ruled his life.

  He swam. Sometimes in the day the signal came and he would have no more than five or six minutes to get somewhere, to ease the pain by transforming, by easing someone else’s pain. Here in the pool it would be simple. He could run to the shower, strip off the trunks and disappear. Coming back was simple, except for one time when he got back and the place was closed for the night. But nothing happened today, except that he swam.

  The day wore on. Denis found a newspaper at the bus stop. Front page news – Superman foils bank robbers. A picture of the caped crusader holding up a net full of struggling robbers in one hand and a pallet stacked with gold bars in the other.

  Stuff him, the kryptonite billionaire, and stuff Batman, the trustafarian tosser. Denis’ mood grew dark as the evening fell. Malone’s pub beckoned. For a couple of drinks and a fiver for supper he could collect glasses and wipe tables until midnight; and Malone didn’t mind if he nipped out the back and wasn’t seen for half an hour.

  Tonight was Thursday night. Maybe one, maybe two incidents. Friday and Saturday nights were non-stop. Sunday, at least one domestic terror. Every call clawed into his guts until he changed, and then he was pulled inexorably towards the arena. Tonight was Thursday and Malone nodded to him. He pulled a frothy lager and Denis started on the glass-round.

  It was raining. Glassman hated the rain. His outline could be seen. Spooky, of course, and malefactors tended to run away before he could beat the shit out of them, but that was the point. He wanted to beat them up. He hated these dicks who preyed on the weak, who raped the women, who stole the bags and the cars and the mobile phones. Most of all he hated what he was, and what he had to do to survive.

  Someone was too stupid to run. They tried to fight, but smacking a fist against Glassman was like hitting a sheet of steel. The guy’s knuckles shattered and he screamed, until Glassman’s hard fist launched him over the top of a car and fetched him up against a wall. The victim stood gaping.

  “Glad to be of service, sir,” said Glassman. He never approached, never touched a victim. He scared them too much as it was.

  He disappeared into the darkness, an outline of spattering droplets, a naked man with blood dripping from his clenched and invisible fists.

  Malone nodded at him as he came in from the yard. His clothes were dry but his hair was wet. It was eleven o’clock and the bar was full of loud young people standing and quiet old people sitting. A beer stood behind the counter for him, with a packet of nuts leaning against the glass. He made the round, washed glasses, took a pull of his beer and made the round again. Halfway through he winced, almost doubling up with pain. He made it to the bar to drop off the glasses and ducked out into the yard, into the small shelter where staff smoked. No-one there. The clothes came off and were put beneath the small table.

  Glassman strode out of the yard and into the night, following the pain.