The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2010

The Glow

James Hanna

Ryan is standing in front of a strip club in King's Cross, the red light district of Sydney. He is a muscular man with a severe harelip—a disfigurement he welcomes since he does not want the whores to hassle him. His back is to the wall of the club; his hands, heavy for a short man, hang loosely from the belt of his jeans. His collar is turned up Elvis Presley style; his shirt, partly buttoned, reveals his pale chest. His hair, a more stunning anachronism, is clipped in a crew cut and bristles with white flecks—yet he is not out of place in the Friday night ambiance of the street. His gaze is proprietary as he watches the drifting cars, the stationary hookers, and the barker who is pacing back and forth in front of the club.

A traffic light turns red and the cars drift to a halt. The windows stay rolled up though the prostitutes beckon cheerfully; their clinging skirts and bold solicitations have no effect on the stalled drivers. The club's advertisement is also deflected: the sign, pulsing uselessly on the polished chrome of the vehicles, reads kniP rehtnaP kniP.

When the cars again move, Ryan pushes himself off the wall. The barker’s shouts seem to follow him as he walks away from the club. Perhaps the man is scolding him for forgetting hard facts: that he is a vagrant who has just been released from jail—that he is looking for drugs, a piece of ass, and perhaps a brawl. The prostitutes shift as he moves among them, parting before him like the Red Sea. Although he has been there all night, they do not sense a patron; his knuckles are too scarred, his face too pock-marked, and his manner is that of a lynx on the prowl. Ryan struts as he walks, exaggerating his aura of menace. Since the streets and jails are his element, it is comforting to be a thug.

The city lights bloat as he waits for a break in the traffic. They leap back to size once his glasses are wiped. Through the goldfish bowl lenses the view changes sharply; he is able to distinguish a towering boy who is standing alone on the opposite side of the street. The boy is as still as a statue—grayer than bone. His eyes, polished marbles, are searching the sidewalk. With a cautious nod Ryan greets this pale form; the boy seems aware of him as he crosses the street.

A traffic cop shouts, looking in Ryan’s direction while his gloved hands flutter like agitated doves. The chirp of his whistle accompanies the angry voices of the motorists. The whistle is joined by a chorus of loud horns.

Ryan covers his ears. Once he has jumped to the curb, the traffic behind him continues flowing. He looks over his shoulder: the cop is still watching him. He turns around rapidly, walks towards the boy, but his stride loses spring. He lowers his head and looks for a way to quickly get out of sight. The cops have his number, after all, and they do not approve of his fighting and drug use.

A coffeehouse offers him a haven. He ducks through the doorway and approaches the counter. A metal urn trembles, releasing a mist; it has a pair of shiny handles that reflect him narrowly as he tosses a bill from his small disability pension. A sallow-faced woman gives him his change along with a packet of Camels. Ryan tears the pack open; he surveys the room, startled by shrill eruptions of feminine laughter. Noticing two revelers sitting at a table, he crosses the room.

The queens at the table, absorbed by some topic, do not at once notice that he is standing over them. Though powdered like corpses, they gesture like children; their wigs bob and nod while their laughter erupts. Ryan bows deeply. The chatter evaporates. Their grainy faces turn slowly towards him.

"Ladies!" he jokes.

The queens continue chatting and Ryan straightens his back. He picks at the packet, shaking loose a cigarette. A light winks cheerily before his match hits the floor. He then moves to the door, peeping out of the shop. The coast appears clear so he steps to the street.

The towering drug dealer is still awaiting him, but Ryan moves guardedly, diverting his eyes. A fleshy street peddler, his back to the shop, is displaying his art beneath a moth covered streetlight. The man talks with another while Ryan bends stiffly. He looks curiously at the paintings, but the subjects—bright flowers and sinking suns—produce in him only a wary regard. His dementia, a promiscuous filter, has rendered him too susceptible to illusions. And so his true milieu had best be the streets although the jails and state hospitals sometimes interrupt.

As he studies the paintings the fat painter spots him. The man's sweaty face shows a hint of reserve, but his gaze remains friendly. His voice is polite.

"Ya find one ya like, mate?"

Ryan shrugs. “I live in Hyde Park,” he snaps. “Plenty of sunsets there.”

He extends him the pack.

The painter picks tentatively; Ryan shakes the pack harder.

"Come on now!" he mumbles. An ash drops like lead from the cigarette in his mouth.

When the man has picked more cigarettes, Ryan snatches one back, which he lifts to his own. Soon the flame is transferred. Ryan offers it back and the painter accepts it. Saluting the painter, he turns to the street.

The boy has vanished. The sidewalk is less noisy. The streetlamp is pelted with delicate taps. The cop at the crosswalk, now no longer watching him, continues to orchestrate the traffic.

Ryan tosses the butt as a pearly cloud escapes him. The red eye is scattered. He pockets his hands. As his powerful knuckles crowd into his pockets he begins to stagger drunkenly. Thankfully, he can still remember his mission: a piece of ass, a packet of meth, and perhaps some fisticuffs. These gritty goals are a godsend—proof that he has not been vanquished by Alzheimer’s disease.

A prostrate form is near him—probably a drunk. As his feet skip a beat, avoiding a vein of urine, a lengthening shadow falls over the form. An engine groans softly; a door hisses open. Dim faces peer down at him through the glass windows. Ryan signals the bus with a wave of his hand and is relieved when it pulls away from the curb. Like a curtain receding, the bus slowly passes him. The street returns slowly. Lit storefronts appear.

His eyes focus once more on the towering boy who is waiting for him across the street.

The boy's back is to Ryan; his attention is drawn by the movie marquee. This is an obvious guise since the ticket booth is empty. A sign in the window reads Last Show At Nine.

There is a gap in the traffic—enough for a break. Ryan slips to the street and the gulf between them narrows. He hops to the curb as the boy turns his head.

"Baby!" Ryan laughs.

The boy nods politely. Despite glittering eyes, he seems harmless enough. His manner suggests indiscriminate warmth. Only the smell of him is intrusive: a stagnant onslaught of stale hair and sweat.

Ryan tells him, "The usual. A dime’s worth of speed.”

His thick fingers snap, bringing the boy to life.

With practiced fingers, the boy opens his jacket. A brown paper packet appears in his hand.

Ryan holds out his hand, his chapped palm extended. The boy's wormy fingers relinquish the packet. Ryan pockets it hastily. Removing his wallet, he slips the boy a crisp wad of bills.

The boy’s slender fingers close over the money. He opens his jacket to pocket the bills and the air is suddenly intense with an odor like spoiled meat.

Ryan squints at the poster. He reads through the credits, but the boy is still near when he turns towards the street. The boy is ambling too slowly, an intimate gait reminiscent of leg irons. He trips as he walks.

Ryan feels his shins prickle. His eyes flicker, dart. The clang of a jail cell comes suddenly to mind. Although his memory is fried, his instincts still protect him. He looks for a reason to distance himself from the boy. His nerves remain taut until he sees that a vendor has spread birdhouse clocks near a vacant storefront.

While the boy disappears Ryan sifts through the clocks. They are expertly carved, shiny with paint. Slowly he picks through them. The goat-bearded vendor selects one for him. He holds up the clock.

"Cypress," he tells him. "It doesn't weigh much."

Ryan points to his wrist watch. “I’m traveling light.”

He is remembering places the clock might have fit: small pockets of time that have grown so remote that they float like flotsam on the random currents of his mind. Thankfully, the memories are too trite to be reliable: a Catholic orphanage, his boyhood erections, and hooded nuns that whipped him whenever they caught him with matches. He is even unsure about the heavy breasts of his truant officer: a matronly woman who pinched his ears and whose cheesy bouquet complemented her saffron dress. Had she died when he had finally set fire to the orphanage and had this incident preceded his first internment in county jail? Since his dementia is growing stronger, he can dispense with these parodies of memory. It is enough for him to preserve the vacuity of the moment—an absence he can assure with some ass and a brawl.

High above him a street bulb is boiling with insects—a quivering sight that ennobles his quest. The bugs, undeterred by the heat of the lamp, sparkle like silver and scatter the glare.

An urchin deters him to ask for a quarter—a slim teenage girl far prettier than the whores. Her face is doll-like and so patently out-of-place that she reminds him of an elf.

Ryan shrugs wearily. He must test this illusion.

"Ten dollars to hump me,” he heartily replies.

He laughs, embarrassed by his joke as the girl walks away from him. He dips into his pocket.

"Yo, baby!" he cries.

The quarter he tosses spins high in the lamplight, a silvery wafer that flutters then falls. The girl shakes her head as it bounces on the pavement beside her. She returns to her corner and allows the coin to lie.

Ryan feels his crotch swell, but interest in the girl has waned. His first night off the cell range deserves something livelier: a strumpet befitting his wrangler's loins or a nightclub at least where a horseman might romp. The beat from a radio tenses the air. The car hurtles by, but the sound recedes slowly. He pockets his knuckles; he hunches his shoulders. His stride starts to bounce as he passes the stores.

Across the street is the stadium, a gray brick building whose wall is aflutter with colorful fliers. The traffic light changes. He crosses the street. A poster reveals there is a showdown tonight. The wrestlers, Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, glare fiercely from above the lettering. The poster, billed Battle of Champions, does not rattle about like the yellowing circus fliers: pictures of dwarves, Siamese twins, and evil-looking clowns.

Ryan pauses a moment. A match flares and falls. He is walking again with his effortless jaunt.

The crowd at the ticket booth separates, allowing him a wide berth as he struts past the stadium. They are foreigners mostly—Italians and Greeks—and their chatter is unintelligible to him. Some are glancing at cars that slow down beside them. The hookers within are cruising in pairs, but no passengers join them. The cars gather speed and the dense city traffic absorbs them once again.

The chatter dies gradually. Fleeting and faint, it is finally absorbed by a cavernous drone. Ryan strays towards a lamppost. His hands find support, but his breathing remains labored from the hill he has climbed. A police car approaches him, dropping a gear, then sinks from his sight as it passes the crest. Ryan sighs as the cop car vanishes, relieved that he is still free. Before they take him back to jail, he will have time to complete his mission.

He is standing beside a porn shop, a miniature building with a jack-o-lantern flush to its windows. He tosses a butt and watches as it strikes a window. The shop is so gnomish, so fiercely lit up, that it appears to be glaring at him.

He remains at the summit of the hill, recovering his breath. The stadium below him is cheerfully lit, but the evening awaits him. The hill is now plunging. He lights another cigarette and continues walking.

He can sense that the porn shop has vanished behind him: the hill has been claimed by a gentler light. Since the street lamps are mellow, he sees only shadow. His shoes faintly echo. His spark is still bright.

*

A piece of ass, a brawl, a packet of meth. These are not diversions but staples—life values to be celebrated with beer and song. They are palpable, after all, and offer him a nobler brand of abandonment.

He is sitting on a couch in The Golden Centaur, a familiar gay bar near the West Side of town. He has not groped the dancers that hover above him. Contained within cages and plumed like rare birds, they seem immune to the sweaty crowd below them. Although they are out-of-reach, these queens smile enticingly. Their bodies sway erotically to the beat of a small rock band. The music from the band is also insubstantial—a rhythm so lax that he must coax it along.

He can practically trace out his name in the air and the people around him seem drugged by the smoke. A willowy singer is crooning a song, but the band seems determined to drown her out. The drummer, a sunken-chested boy, also seems displaced. Though he whacks his drumsticks frantically, he is no match for Ryan who taps on his table, matching the beat with a heavier hand.

Ryan's shirt is unbuttoned. His bare chest is hard, but a slab of white belly slumps over his pants. There is sway to his shoulders and silvery head as his fingers tap heavily, reinforcing the beat. He is gleaming with sweat, but his labor remains steady; he pauses only to rescue the glass—a superfluous gesture since most of the beer has spilled onto the floor, which is shiny as well. Because of this his mouth is dry, sour, and he aches with thirst.

His right fingers hit. The empty glass totters. He brings it back—saved—and sends it moving again. His efforts continue with no motion lost.

The tables are all packed with men, some in leather. They seem irritated by his pummeling hands, but he pays them no notice. A piece of ass is approaching him: a bosomy hussy in a flaming red hood. She is cherub-mouthed, chubby, her wig blonde and shiny. She is far more tempting than the fickle jailhouse punks. The glass in her hand is full to the brim and he clutches her damp wrist as she tries to crowd past him.

"I'll have it here."

She giggles. "Naw, you won't." She holds up the glass, but Ryan keeps reaching.

He answers, "I will."

"It’s not for you, sir.”

She has turned her back to him, protecting the glass. Ryan comes to his feet, but his lunge is in vain and his thumb, electrified by the rubbing of the couch, sparks feebly upon her hood. He has grabbed only air, but his head bobs with triumph. The music has weakened since his beat has been stalled. The listless drums, still lonely without him, are fitfully seeking a spark of their own.

Ryan points to his hips as she fades into the crowd. Rolling them hard, he announces, "She knows!"

Popping out of the crowd, she is magically in front of him. Her mouth is pursed as though she is anticipating a kiss. She leans closer to Ryan.

“Weirdo, piss off!” Her voice is now cracked, husky, and she resembles an angry monk.

"She kno-o-ows!" Ryan sings.

Her face grows flushed while her fists become whiter. She seems ready to stamp on the slippery floor, but he waves her off. He is bored with her now. She spins away angrily and disappears.

Oblivious is Ryan who pounds on the table. A more likely conquest is perched near the bar. This queen is vampish, slender, and looking at him with candid interest. Ryan gives her a wink and the cymbals erupt. The drums roll loudly now, invigorating his loins, and Ryan rises up from his table. The couples make way as he crosses the floor.

Her eyes watch him cagily now, a hustler’s appraisal. On closer inspection she seems slightly drunk, but Ryan bows deeply with humble aplomb.

"Dance with me, baby?" he pleads.

A trace of smile lingers. A coy one is this one. He takes her arm gently, his thick fingers throbbing, and guides her possessively out onto the dance floor.

Releasing her arm, Ryan struts like a peacock—a toe-to-heel motion. His knees bend and bob. This causes a spasmodic snap to his wrists; they seem tied to his knees with invisible threads and his feet nimbly skip behind opposite ankles as he deftly raises his puppeteer hands.

He has jolted a biker who is crossing the floor. His soles nearly slip as the glass explodes, but Ryan springs quickly and pivots full circle avoiding the slickness that creeps towards his feet.

Ryan isn't unnoticed as he hops to the rhythm. The bouncer is watching him like a jailer, but his dancing is flawless. A natural, Ryan. He pushes his specs back and waves to the bouncer who finally nods to him respectfully.

Ryan whirls—now alone—and the strings seem to tighten. His hands have grown heavy. His legs feel remote. A strobe light now flickers. The couples remaining seem jerky—spasmodic. They stutter and glow as if locked in a Charlie Chaplain movie. The room is now warmer; his forehead is shiny. Although most of the revelers have left the dance floor, a few bodies remain. They are dancing with Ryan who claps his hands loudly and shakes to the tune.

The loudspeaker squawks. The music grows softer then gives up its ghost in a rattle of drums. There is scattered applause although Ryan keeps moving. The dance floor is barren now. The cages hang empty. The room comes awash in a smoky gray light.

The applause thickens, pauses, then once again swells: he has finished his performance with a leg split and bow. His brow lapses forward—touching his knee; his arms seem to hover in terminal flight. The room starts to spin but his balance endures until the last of the clapping is dead to his ears.

*

The bar is closed, the street all but empty. Sluggishly, Ryan steps to the sidewalk. He is now being watched by a silver-haired creature whose air of entitlement quickens his pulse. The man’s skin is leprous, his face drawn and grooved; his flat cold fingertips touch Ryan's own. Ryan shrinks away from this image. He turns towards the street and the thing is curtailed by the sharp frame of a store mirror.

A pair of strong headlights are burning his eyes. The glow of a streetlamp is also searing his vision. Though he closes his eyelids, two saffron orbs linger. They shimmer like moons when he opens his eyes, but he is able to see beyond them. He can see that the two-storied building beside him is not really a jail but a warehouse for dairy products. He can tell by the wind, which is ripe, almost sour, and the rows of delivery trucks, ceremoniously still. The stink of the warehouse dies with the breeze. The air is freshened by warm drops of rain. Another moon, veiled by a membrane of clouds, is fuzzier than Alka-Seltzer dissolving in a glass.

The rain gently passes. The street starts to dip. The brown packet, empty now, is snatched from his fingers by a gust of wind. Ryan pauses a moment, still doubting his eyesight; he has noticed a woman in a black evening gown. The woman hurries past him, flailing with her hand. A cab, trailing smoke, pulls alongside the curb and in less than a second her dark form is consumed. Ryan shakes his head, unconvinced by this sight, then resumes walking. As he crosses the street an approaching car comes shrieking to a stop.

The twin moons linger as the sidewalk accepts him. A stout silhouette, perhaps his shadow, crawls before him along the sidewalk. He picks up his pace and quickly overtakes the shadow, but it is born once again as a red glare approaches. A fiery flicker restores it to life.

A wail—like a banshee—is starting to swell. It tingles the hair on the back of his neck. He looks quickly about him; an alley awaits him. Cat-like, he jumps to get out of the light.

The scent of ripe urine does not bother him as he presses his back to the brick wall. Although his pulse hammers loudly, the cop car scarcely pauses. The wail becomes fainter, the hue disappears.

Ryan peeks from the alley, his breathing still shallow. The empty street is enticing once more despite the hum of unsolicited voices. The voices linger too long and bother his ears.

A short distance away a crowd is collecting, the probable source of this ongoing sound. The faces are fleeting and clownishly rouged as the light from the police car rotates.

Ryan steps to the street as though late for a party. The group grows larger as he hurries downhill. His saunter is bold, but the crowd does not part when he reaches it finally. He orbits the crowd until an opening appears then he hunches his shoulders and bulls his way in.

He has seen hits before when the cell range is crowded. His eyes are first drawn to the table-sized pool. It crawls on the pavement and shivers from lamplight, yet easily blends with the whipping red hue. The victim—a pasty-faced man unknown to Ryan—dismisses the glitter with watery eyes. His jaw quivers falsely, his stare is aloof, while his face is cemented in permanent surprise. The handle of the knife seems to sprout from his chest. It does not seem obtrusive or even unearned and the marbled blue hands are caressing it as though guarding an item of inestimable worth.

A wiry policeman disperses the crowd as an ambulance murmurs then pulls to the curb. Ryan drifts from the group. He has no business here. The night is not over and Ryan needs ass.

The siren is dead as the ambulance passes him. Soon it is practically out of sight. He is passing a fence as he watches it fade and his fingers jump nimbly along the steel bars.

The stadium is dark now, but business continues. A small cloud of men stands alert on the block. The hookers, successful now, pull their cars to the curb. They let passengers out; other passengers enter. He hears the doors slam as the cars pull away and are once again lost in the bustle of the night.

Ryan struts past the men, feeling bold and contemptuous. He will not waste his own money on a whore. His stride is dissuasive; the hookers drive past him. A minute of walking is all that it takes to return once again to his post near the strip club.

The club’s racing lights are now rimmed with bright halos, but the barker seems unaware of this. He is still calling out to passing pedestrians and pacing the sidewalk in front of the club.

The lights in the coffeehouse seem softer, perhaps because Ryan is still thirsty. His tongue is so gluey from the meth that he cannot even swallow. As the glass door gives way he is brushed by another—an ape of a man in a flaming Hawaiian shirt. A bouncer most likely, or maybe a wrestler, he rudely bumps Ryan to enter the shop.

Ryan pays for a cup after the ape has been seated and chooses a booth with a view of the street. The burgundy leather is soft on his back. The coffee, still frothing, is scalding and sweet. Ryan's glasses are fogged when he sets down the cup and the sidewalk is clouded by a pallid film.

A deathly fatigue has now settled upon him. His head starts to nod though the cup stings his palms; he drifts off a moment. He wakes with a jump. The orbs, now larger than billiard balls, obstruct his view of the traffic that is still creeping along the street. They obscure the warm pool that drips off of the table. They dart to the carpet, the counter, the wall. They blur even the ape who now looks up at Ryan; the ape is unmoved by his visitor's plight, but his eyes narrow, his meaty face flushes, when Ryan calls him a faggot.

The orbs dart away, too illusive to grab as Ryan is pushed vigorously towards the door. On the sidewalk they mingle with sharp points of light that swirl around him like a carousel.

And Ryan is battling the ape!

He is gripped by the collar and swung by the ape, who is pummeling him vigorously. He grunts from the punches—“Hey there!” His specs splash on the pavement. "Ho!" The blows—not unpleasant—pound his shoulders and the cropped top of his head. One of them bangs off the door. It produces a shower of tinkling glass. Now Ryan is slipping on crunchy wafers and frantically swimming his arms at the ape. The fist pounds his mouth and he can taste the lip. It is numb—like cotton—warming at the cut.

A wall, hard and grainy, is squashing his shoulder. He turns towards the pavement, facing it flat, and sees it is dotted with ruby-red beads. As he pushes it away, his tongue strokes his front teeth. They are still in place—just barely cracked. On the street the headlights are swollen and spinning, but somehow still rolling along.

Then comes the shoe. It jolts his side, emptying his lungs, and Ryan rolls onto his back. This way he can see the ape. The ape has taken his belt off to flog Ryan soundly. He raises the belt gingerly; his hand must be hurt. He also appears to be sobbing for breath.

Desperately Ryan pumps his leg up at the face. Missing his target, he pumps it again. There is a sudden munch at the heel. The ape is struck!

Ryan rolls to his chest. He gropes the ground for support. He is able to rise to his knees without pain although slivers of glass are now stuck to his palms. Ryan comes to his feet, glancing quickly about. The ape is down, stunned and bleeding.

Ryan’s head is now throbbing. He tries to stand up straight, but a current keeps pulling his head to the sidewalk. A bleating keeps time with the beat of his temples. Already the barker is leaving his post and out on the street, from between the cars, the policeman is blasting his whistle.

Ryan knows he must run. He staggers, then bolts. His knees lift high, his fists pump like pistons, and the sidewalk beneath him rolls quickly away. Still the whistle grows louder. It tickles his ears. Shoes faster than Ryan's strike pavement behind him and hands soon will drop on his collar and neck.

A pedestrian shouts and jumps out of his way. A vehicle shrieks as he crosses the street. More calls fill the air as Ryan sprints on. His lungs are now tugging, his legs are like rubber—yet the footsteps behind him are mere inches away. The corner is too sharp where he changes direction. His hand skids on its heel—his knee dents a trashcan—but as quick as he falls Ryan comes to his feet.

Like a deer Ryan bolts, his pursuers close behind him. The whistle is dead but the footsteps still echo—their pattering rhythm is hauntingly near. The traffic light is green where he runs out of pavement and Ryan darts safely out into the street. The cars now sit calmly, respecting the chase. Their headlights are like lanterns pointing him on his way.

A towering blur near the curb seems to beckon—an open two decker bus whose engine is humming. It drifts leisurely as Ryan draws near it then slowly builds speed as if entering the race. Ryan gains on the bus—he can make out the license plate—but behind him the footsteps are gaining on him.

A second away, the gears pause sluggishly. As the platform recedes, Ryan sucks one more breath. His legs are dissolving, his lungs are on fire. A shimmering pole is a finger away.

Ryan loses his balance—his run a mere stumble. The bus again pauses to search for a gear and his hand closes gratefully over the bar. He is snapped forward sharply but stays on his feet, his momentum preserved by the pull of the bus. Pain cleaves through his shoulder—the socket is wrenched—but his burning fingers are cooled by the metal bar and refuse to forfeit their slippery hold.

As the bus again pauses he swings onto the platform. He sinks near the stairwell and labors for breath. His chest glistens like oil. It caves and expands. Hammering blows pound his temples and ears, but the bus is now rolling along.

After a while he notices the conductress. She is blonde with wide brown eyes and a rather quizzical smile. Her uniform is strained by the thrust of her breasts; her face is angelic, her ruby lips full. Her slender hands rest on a fat coin dispenser that winks when it captures a light from the street.

"Almost," Ryan says.

He gropes into his pocket. He succeeds finally in producing the fare. His hand gently shakes as he raises his arm and presses a half dollar into her palm.

"Almost, kid."

Ryan clutches the bar, pulls himself up. The iron is smeared red from the grip of his hand. The girl is still smiling so he touches her hat. Pinching its lid with his finger and thumb, he pulls it down over her eyes.

"Hah!" Ryan exclaims. He buttons his shirt up.

He happily steps to the top of the bus.