Gotham (12 page)

He rummages around in his jacket, searching for an inside pocket, grinning, laughing. There's a big joke going on, but so far only he is in on it. He pulls out something pale and flexible, a kind of tube. He tosses it to me. I catch it instinctively and clutch it and the recorder together in my hands. The tube ends in a neat oval cap with a puckered centre leading to its hollow core.

‘You want a piece of ass on the road?' He laughs squawkily, struggling to pull it in so that
he can finish. ‘Now you got one. This is one prototype asshole from Little Miss New Haven. Don't tell me no rock star never gave you his girl's ass before…'

It wobbles in my hand. I fumble it, and grab it between my knees as it falls. It's a rubber anus, sphincter and reservoir, but it feels as though I'd somehow be disrespecting its model if I let it drop to the floor. The anus wobbles and topples to one side.

‘It's made for getting real dirty, see,' he says matter-of-factly as I lift it by its stem, like a lily, and place it on the seat beside me. ‘It comes out and cleans up real good. The guy who made it, I had him blinded afterwards, obviously, blinded or killed.'

It was the prerogative of kings, medieval and ancient, to be so brutal and so self-absorbed. It's a jokey reminder about status, in case I'm still not getting the message.

‘Did you want to shoot some video?' Smokey says. ‘We might do that now.'

‘Embargo!' Na
ti calls out, waving his hands dramatically. ‘Embargo the rubber asshole! That's what that means. You gone too far, Na
ti.'

I had the video pencilled in for later, but the trick is to roll with it. To bring up my plans would betray a structure, and a structure would betray a purpose and I would be back to being the interrogator, to being viewed with suspicion. I am to be a talkative shadow in this van, this night, and shadows don't initiate the moves. A guy with a notepad and a pen and ten questions gets some facts, but that's not the same. No one, once they're used to the shape of it, guards against their shadow.

‘This is for a website,' I tell Na
ti. ‘For the festivals.'

In another pocket, I have a camera that can shoot web-quality video. With that pointed at
his face, there will be no room to pretend that we are four guys in a van and I am doing anything subtle. It will look like—and will be—an interview, but then it will be done and I can go back to lurking around his evening, casting lines into the dark in the hope of catching something new and unusual and telling.

‘So, it'll be a few straightforward questions,' I tell him. ‘Straight Q&A thing. We'll edit me out, so if you could start the answer by reframing the question in your own words…'

‘No problem.'

He reaches to his left and pushes on a panel set between the backs of his seat and Smokey's. It clicks open, revealing a grid of controls. He presses a button and strings of lights blink on. They're threaded around the doors and seats and shaped to make swirls on the ceiling. He brings music up, too, but keeps it low, all bass and beat. The lights pulse in synch.

‘The audio might be on three, LyDell,' Smokey says, ‘but you just cranked the pimp dial up to eleven.'

‘You tell me when it hits fifteen and I'll bring it back a little.' He pulls his cap on and then says, ‘No, that's wrong for the lighting. You'll lose my face.' He pulls it off again. ‘I want the beanie, the SSUR.' He clicks his fingers and waggles one in the direction of the bags. Smokey already has one hand on a bag, but he holds it there and waits until Na
ti says, ‘Please.'

Smokey lowers the bag onto the floor between his feet and starts parting garments. ‘Damn pimp lighting never meant to find no beanie.'

Eventually he extracts it and Na
ti puts it on. It's fawn in colour and knitted, and he pulls at it so that it sits in layers and looks not unlike a bandage.

‘You take a still and let me check this?' He points at the camera.

After minor alterations and another still, we're ready.

I frame him as well as I can with the van stopping and starting in avenue traffic, and I ask him to start by telling us where we are.

‘Hi Australia,' he says, and waves, like a witless tourist. Fine by me if that's how he wants it. ‘This is my wheels, aka Club Na
ti, coming to you from the streets of New York city.'

‘Great.' As in, great if the benchmarks are boxing commentators from the seventies and tuxedoed pageant hosts. But my next question—the festival's next question—is worse. ‘So, what are you looking forward to in Australia?'

‘I'm gonna bring it, Australia, like I know you want me to.' He's looking right down the barrel, pointing for emphasis. ‘I'm gonna rhyme like the best of all time, rhymes that turn on a dime. I know you know how to party, and I'm bringin' the beats.' He glances down at his
phone and flicks between images. ‘Now tell me, Australia, you got some of this for me?' He holds the phone up, squarely in the middle of the shot. It's bright with white flesh. ‘How beautiful is this? You got anything this mother-fuckin' beautiful?'

It's Miss New Haven, naked, lying on a bed. Her knees are bent and the phone must be somewhere between her ankles. Immediately above her porn-star-bare vagina, though careful not to obscure a millimetre of it, the straight index finger of her right hand is placed in the inverted V of the index and ring fingers of her left, like a pool cue in a jigger, sizing up a shot. In the distance, framed by the larger V of her thighs, I can make out a blur of blonde hair, the smudged red lipstick line of a smile on her pale face, her dark featureless eyes.

Na
ti lurches back laughing and, as he reaches out to balance himself, he tips the Little
Brown Bag onto the floor. The plum-coloured purse spills out, its folded strap unravelling. He puts his hand over his phone screen. That's his first move. He drops the phone to the seat and scoops up the purse. He holds it close to a strip of white door lights and examines each part of it to make certain it's come to no harm.

He finds a scuff mark.

‘Fuck, man. Fuck.' There's a sharp intake of breath. He blinks and rubs his eyes. ‘God dammit.'

I stop filming. Na
ti stares at the mark. A tear rolls down his cheek and drops from his chin.

‘It's cool, LyDell.' It's a line Smokey must say in his sleep. He reaches across to take the purse, licks his thumb and wipes the smudge away. ‘Good as new.' He shows him the spot.