Me neither, he said.
But for some people, he continued, the hire car, that's living. Taking a corner too fast, fucking in the back, not caring where you come on the upholstery, smoking at the wheel and dumping the ash down behind the seat. It's not like you have to valet the thing. It's the flashes of light that shine down into the darkness of your life, those moments of freedom. People relish that chance of freedom but only once they've realised they relinquished it somewhere. Do you think you're free? he asked.
I'm not sure that's important, said the therapist. Do you?
My father's death made me free, financially at least. Do you want to hear about people who drive bumper cars? They're my favourite.
The therapist's nod was almost imperceptible this time.
They go through life with the most choices, he said. Because they choose whether to hit the other cars or not, hell, they don't even know when they're going to get hit. They don't live their lives by any recognisable design, a template, a blueprint, you know. They react to things around them, it's instinctive, and do you know what the greatest thing about people in bumper cars is? he asked.
The therapist shrugged, conceding he did not.
Anyone can drive a bumper car, he said with relish, all it takes is a run of bad luck or the death of a child, a marriage that's turned ugly, money problems. Once people tip that first domino and assume the worst is going to happen then it's easy for them to stop caring about the other guy on the road. A fender bender here becomes a clipped wing mirror there, a drunken fatality, a three-car pile-up. It all starts with one step, one drink too many on the drive home, like any great journey. He grinned recklessly. Come on, he said, you don't need to wear those fake fucking glasses and tighten up that tie.
He sat up on the bed and thought about the calls he'd already made: the one about the husband getting himself off on child pornography; a wife dead in a car crash out on the interstate; he'd tell people he knew they were alone and he was watching the house; he'd leave messages on answer-phones to tell people that their children had been dredged up dead and bloated in the nearest river; that an errant husband had been caught with his dick in a prostitute. It was, he truly believed, his way of setting people free, plus, he reasoned, he really liked fucking with people.
He settled on a number and made himself comfortable, he took a long pull on his drink and dialled the number, it rang briefly and was then snatched from its receiver. The voice at the other end sounded haunted and reckless. He thought of a fairground again, the brightly coloured bumper cars juddering on impact, the rain of sparks bursting into life against the wire mesh overhead. He remembered once standing on the raised lip of the ride as the cars trundled past and he stepped off and into their path.
The voice at the end of the line spoke first.
Where is she? he demanded to know, where's my wife? Delighted, he decided to play along. He took another quick hit on his bottle and decided to play the petulant child.
That's what I want to know; he could feel his voice tightening, going up a note, where is she? He felt hysterical himself, exhilarated, the skin on his arms prickled into life.
I'm her husband, raged the voice at the end of the phone, her husband. He sounded small and wounded.
He laughed absurdly knowing he'd found a strange confidant, someone to share his pain with. This was someone who was already out of control, shunting his way through life, scattering people, ignoring their screams. In another life, he thought, he would have liked him; they could have stared down the terror together, exacted revenge on unfaithful wives and girlfriends.
Let me tell you about your wife, he said. He looked down at the phonebook to check he'd got the right name. Raven, listen to me, that bitch isn't just fucking me, hell, she's running around on the guys that she's using to run around on you. She's fucking insatiable. She told me you were never enough for her. I guess I'm not either.
There was nothing but a subdued gurgling coming from the end of the phone, the sound of a grown man trying to conceal his tears. He thought about pressing on, but the fun had gone out of it, he needed the call and response of it, he needed the game, not mute compliance, the soft, bubbling sound of sadness. He placed the phone back in its cradle and let the world he'd destroyed go spinning off its axis quietly down the fibre-optic line, all that anger and hate minuscule and tiny and shrinking with every quiet second.
He'd set Raven free, he reasoned. But he felt itchy and desperate to be on the road again. He stalked around the ever-darkening room and began throwing clothes into his bag. The receptionist looked surprised to see him checking out in the middle of the night, but said nothing as the driver paid his bill in crumpled dollars and pushed out of the door without looking back. He was in a hurry, he muttered as he left, he had to get back on the road.
Song 7: House
Oh, you'll like this one, said the realtor, her hand flitting between her thigh and the gear stick.
She smiled as she said it, her mouth was a gleaming welcome sign, a strong, unflinching beam. He hated her within minutes of their meeting, especially as he realised he couldn't maintain his loathing when confronted with her perfect face. Her every utterance pricked at his skin, but her eyes confounded him and brought out a drooling adolescent compliant and eager to please. Every property so far had the greatest view, the greatest rooms; he prepared himself to be dazzled as he passed through yet another door that framed only disappointment. He nodded happily back at her as they came across yet another dimly lit box room after she'd promised him what sounded like high-vaulted atriums stuffed with pillows.
The streets went by in avenues and crossroads, rusting rails and white wooden fences, overgrown gardens, cars backed up in twos in their driveways. She was talking again; he wished she'd shut up and turn the radio on.
Mr Raven next, she said as they got out of the car and took the steps up to the porch.
Like the bird, she grinned as she pushed at the doorbell.
Idiot, he thought, but he was wearing an immoveable grin as he watched her take the steps as quickly as her closely fitted skirt would allow. She was beautiful in a hermetically sealed sort of way. He wanted to prise her casing apart and fall on the soft flesh beneath.
She pressed the bell again, there was no response and for a moment he saw the slightest downturn in her mouth.
Odd, she said in a voice without colour, a voice that wasn't used to disappointment, that was used to getting its own way. She would, he thought, use that voice if she woke up one morning and found blood and bones in her hair. She took out her cell phone and stabbed at the buttons. He was impressed by her dexterity. Inside the property a phone rang, he imagined himself inside the walls regarding the ringing phone. There was a pause and then the sound of something hitting the wall that caused them to take a step backwards.
She looked at him. She wasn't smiling. The phone stopped ringing, which caused her to stare quizzically at her cell phone as if she'd caused it to cease.
Hello, someone said, he could hear the tiny voice buzzing from her handset. It was hard to imagine the owner of that voice standing beyond this very door; he sounded a hundred miles away.
Mr Raven, she said. She was sparkling again, all neon and cleavage, it's Julie Ledger, the realtor? we have a viewing.
As if to emphasise the point, she leant in on the doorbell again, the sound of it came back minuscule and remote through her cell. They heard the sound of the phone going down both inside the house and out.
Mr Raven's voice came through the wood and small glass panel of the door. Julie Ledger was craning forward to see inside, she quickly looked down at her shoes as his face appeared in the square window set head height in the door.
I can't just now, said Mr Raven, the place is in a real mess. His head turned as if he were surveying a room in sudden violent disarray and seeing it all for the first time.
We don't mind a little mess, said Julie Ledger. He imagined tiny bells ringing when she spoke.
Mr Raven . . . She rang the buzzer again for good measure even though they were now almost eye-to-eye through the glass. He had to give it to her; her smile was still so fixed that she looked like a skull.
Stillness, a car went by, a dog barked, suburbia drifted along in these innocuous streets, he looked around, he liked it, it reminded him of being twelve years old. He could pitch a baseball on these neat, oblong lawns, drink a beer. He was never happier than when he felt like he was living the life of an actor in a commercial. He liked their summation, their precise message, that the story they had to tell was related in thirty or forty seconds and then gone. He imagined their happiness behind his TV screen; they lived out here somewhere beneath these blue skies, their lives lit up with the wonder of promise.
The door opened, Mr Raven appeared as if in section, a sliver of his sweating face visible through the opening.
You can't come in, he said. He sounded unsure himself. Miss Ledger, sensing his vulnerability, pushed at the door, but it stuck fast and she bounced back a little harder than she might have liked. She studiously ignored it, like someone losing their footing on ice in front of a restaurant window full of diners would.
Mr Raven, she insisted, her voice colder, then in a tone that was both patronising and pleading.
My client, she indicated him standing there. Did he imagine that she bowed her head when she did this? She was suddenly cowed. How many parts could she play? he wondered. His eyes drifted down to her tough-looking calves. Works out, he thought. He admired her loosely pinned hair, her painted nails, no wedding ring, he glanced at his bare fingers, he hadn't worn his ring since the divorce. Sometimes during his frequent indiscretions: that was how he referred to the infidelities that broke his marriage apart, indiscretions, it was a word that took the guilt and madness out of his actions, he'd slide the ring off and drop it into his pocket. If he forgot he was wearing it and it came up in conversation then he'd tell the woman it was a family heirloom, that he wore it to remember his grandfather by and then he'd slide into the seat next to them.
There was a moan and then a syrupy-sounding cough as if someone's mouth was filled with thick liquid. Mr Raven suddenly disappeared from view and they both leant forward to make out the dark shapes moving around behind the door. Mr Raven's face came hurriedly back into view.
I've got someone sick in here, he said. He looked resigned and frightened as if he'd slipped out over some unimaginable edge and it was too late to gain a foot or handhold and drag himself back to safety.
Mr Raven, Julie Ledger said again, but he could tell her heart wasn't in it. She looked tired suddenly; her shoulders sloped so that the front of her buttoned jacket pointed outwards.
We'll have to make another appointment, said Mr Raven, quietly composing himself. He ran his hand over his face to wipe the sweat away; it looked like it was smeared in tar, his fingernails black. He closed the door with a resounding thud and they both stood there in the silence, dust from the porch clouding their ankles and feet. He was about to suggest that they creep around to the back of the house and peer in the windows to still the uneasy feeling in his stomach when she spoke.
I'm so sorry about that. I remember when me and my roomy came down with flu, we couldn't bear the thought of visitors; we had tissues and empty orange juice cartons everywhere. She smiled, she trilled, she made some sort of throwaway gesture with her hands, he wanted to choke her until she fell to her knees and pleaded with him to stop.
Don't you think something's going on, he said, something bad?
Oh please, she said, her indestructible smile had returned. People get ill all the time. And with that she strode off the patio and towards her car. She turned to him and held the beeping car door open.
Momentarily he heard the buzzing of the electricity wires overhead and a window shutting somewhere. Everything was in vivid relief, the blades of grass in the back yard shimmered with green light and sang, there was a haze to them that hurt his eyes, it felt as though there was someone standing close to him and the light was drawn up and out of the house and the silence and sky were suddenly flat and lifeless. The unearthly buzz sparked off and fell around him like sudden rain. Julie Ledger leant on the car horn.
Come on, silly, she said, we've still got one more house to see, and her smile was an opening, her body an invitation, he felt a surge of longing as she dropped her head slightly and held out a hand to him.
Business first, she said, then pleasure.
The next time he passed the house it was done up like a hastily wrapped gift in a crisscross of black and yellow police tape. He felt his stomach lurch as he drove by, slowing down to take in the garish panorama. The house was ugly, more so than he remembered, and he found his eyes drawn to the overhead wires. He remembered the figure out in the garden and the shadow that it cast along the yard and up and over the house and then the stillness that consumed him. He pulled over and went and stood in front of the house, he touched the tape and felt himself tip slightly, the air sucked from his lungs, spots of light darting in front of his eyes. The policeman came from around the back of the house, took the stairs slowly and stood looking at him, one hand on his hip, near his holster. He flicked the button that opened it up to reveal the dark brown of the revolver handle beneath.
Sir, said the policeman evenly, this is a crime scene. He indicated the tape ringing the perimeter fence and house like weeds strangling a flower. Could you please step back. The policeman stared gravely down at his hands which he realised were clutching the tape as if it might hold up him up if he started to fall. He slowly let go and stood there gulping for air.