The Skin Trail

by Jay Jeff Jones

JAY JEFF JONES is an American who has lived in Britain for many years. In the US and Canada he worked as a journalist, actor and private investigator’s assistant; in the UK as a commercial writer, art director and producer/director of commercials and video programmes. He currently lives in Dartmouth. He has published stories and poetry in a wide range of magazines, winning a Transatlantic Review erotica award, and was the editor of the late 70s literary magazine New Yorkshire Writing. Several of his plays, including The Lizard King, have had productions in London , New York and Los Angeles.
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Chapter One

It was eight months since Dodge and Rupert had met in the 4 Deuces, which he later came to understand was one of the most blood stained boozers in the whole of Plymouth. Not that he hadn’t had some idea of how lowlife and risky looking the place appeared at the time; it just suited his doleful purposes.

Dodge had arrived in Plymouth with two friends, or more accurately a couple of the blokes he had taken to running around with during the year he had been living in London. He had been making no more than a subsistence with short contract staff agency jobs around the bars and clubs of the West End and his working life and non-working life had not just become rather seamless but also somewhat timeless. Even the room he lived in was organised by the agency and the others in the building, mostly nationals from Africa and Eastern Europe, were on the same round of jobs that he was.

It was one of the lads from the agency office, where everyone was either British or a third generation Crete, who had a friend with a small hotel and café near Newquay. There was an offer of three jobs, through the main season, with room and board and the usual basic. On the way down the driver of the car failed to take the turnoff for the A30 so they carried on across the A38 then decided to stop at Plymouth to try out the nightlife.

Dodge woke up late on a Saturday morning, having slept on a bench on the Hoe, overlooking the great sweep of Plymouth Sound and not recalling how he got there. His rucksack lay on top of him, his wrists wound through the backstraps so that it couldn’t be taken without waking him up.

Even distracted by a hangover, he quickly understood that he was in something of a mess. Down the front of his trousers and over his suede boots was what appeared to be dried curry. There were some red wine stains on his shirt and jacket but also a couple of sticky patches he wasn’t so sure about. He went in search of a toilet, following signs over the crest of the hill into a park that offered a wide prospect down and across the city centre. This struck him as low lying and largely pale grey, an oddly lifeless colour.

The toilet he found had just been serviced, its floor awash with disinfectant and suds. He decided not to try and change his clothes, just clean himself up the best he could.

Half an hour later he returned to the same bench where he had woken up. Briefly the view was good, an immense blue sky and hundreds of small yachts sporting over the expanse of the Sound, but the more he looked at it, the more depressed he felt. Aching, dehydrated and contaminated inside and out, it only made the sheer bright gaiety sour to witness.

As he warmed in the sunshine, memory began to loosen up and flow. He could remember some women, two of them, hooked together by elbows. They were near a mobile takeaway food stall somewhere and there had been some chatter between the women and him and the guys and then they were trying to find the car and there was an argument. He had fallen back into a hedge and closed his eyes. When he opened them the car was gone and his bag was leaning against his feet.

He looked over to his right, to the Western end of the Hoe where an ice cream van was parked. Hefting his bag he strolled towards it, halfway there when he caught sight of a girl sitting on a grassy knoll just next to the head of a set of steps. She was wearing a simple summer dress, the kind with string straps almost invisible over her tanned shoulders. Sitting cross-legged she had tucked the dress hem up, showing legs right up to the edge of black knickers. She had on very dark lensed wrap-around sunglasses and her light brown hair was held back with a bone clip. He was struck by the way that the slight muscles in her arms were moving as she reached forward to a tobacco packet on the lawn, rolling a smoke.

Five minutes later he was coming back, licking a coarsely sweet ice cream and the girl hadn’t moved. She was brushed by softened light as a cloud half eclipsed the sun and without removing the rollie from her lips she smiled and nodded, possibly in his general direction. Then he thought that she hadn’t.

He couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, certainly couldn’t tell whether or not she had noticed his scars…but it was likely she wasn’t seeing him too well against the light and maybe just felt the urge to nod her head to some musical memory. It was easier to let it pass…even at that exact moment when she looked just perfect. So he shrugged his lopsided mouth, looked away, pathetic as he walked off and away from the Hoe, quickly as he could.

The 4 Deuces was one of the few pubs on Union Street that had already opened its doors for business and it looked like the kind of place that wasn’t too particular about grooming or attire. The barman had skin like a bleached lemon and long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. With his off-white shirt and shiny vest he could have been on his way to an amateur snooker competition, except his bow tie was so old it resembled painted cardboard. His eyes revealed no interest at all in making his newest punter feel welcome.

Dodge ordered a pint of lager to quench his thirst and a shot of scotch to try and back-blast the festering ache inside the left side of his head.

The only other customer was standing further down the bar, tall, lean and almost as dishevelled looking as Dodge. The difference, Dodge thought, was that this was how the guy probably was all the time, got up like a theatrical tramp, with old-fashioned lace-up boots, long tweed overcoat, burgundy velvet waistcoat, collarless shirt and baggy grey cords. He had a thin droopy moustache like one that Dodge thought he might have seen on a portrait of Modigliani, or was it Robert Louis Stevenson?

On the bar in front of him was a very large wineglass, an opened bottle of wine, a packet of cigarettes, a very chunky metal lighter and an ashtray. After Dodge had taken a long pull on the beer he put it down and brought the shot up to his face and gave it a sniff, giving his body advance notice.

As he prepared to drink he glanced at the stranger, who had turned in his direction and was raising his wineglass in a toast. "Sante, man," he said.

"Happy times," said Dodge.

They drank up and after a moment or two Dodge’s breath settled down and his eyes stopped watering.

"Do you know the really funny thing about Dionysus?" The man was speaking to him.

"Who?" said Dodge, not quite catching the word.

"Di-o-ny-sus," the man broke the name up carefully in the most precise, elegant and musically resonant accent that Dodge had ever heard. "Ancient Greece? Little god chap... ran the department of ecstasy and intemperance."

"Oh. That Dionysus. No, what?"

"He didn’t like drinking wine."

Dodge waited.

"He gave mankind the art of winemaking but he only tried it once, got pissed and didn’t like it."

Dodge hoisted his beer glass and said, "All the more for us then."

"Where are you from?"

"Vancouver."

"On holiday?"

"No."

The man did an appraisal of Dodge’s appearance, taking in the large backpack leaning against the bar and the rumpled clothes. There was something in the tilt of his head that implied an opinion being formed. He said, "You’re a traveller?"

"Well… I’m travelling."

They drank a little more and Dodge began to feel like there might be purpose to life after all.

"So…" the man said, "what do you think of our local culture?"

"It’s charming. I thought I’d start at the top end and work my way down."

The man picked up his odd looking lighter, obviously meant for a desk and probably an antique. It was made from nickel and shaped like a crouching leopard. The top of its head and jaws cracked back and the blue flame, giving off a ribbon of black smoke, was applied to the end of a fat French cigarette. As the man bent towards the flame he looked up through the light so he could see Dodge’s face better, his eyes following the scars down, across and up with careful interest. He managed to look both sympathetic and curious at the same time, then let the lighter snap closed.

"Conrad," the man called across to the barman, who had settled down to reading a newspaper. "Hit my friend with another round." He stuck out his right hand. "I’m Rupert."

"Dodge," said Dodge and they shook.

After a while Rupert came to understand that Dodge had been living and working in London for over a year, but was somewhat exhausted by it.

"What do you do?" Rupert asked.

"Meaning what?"

Rupert smiled, drew a thumb across his moustache and tilted his head. "I mean, how do you make your way? Feed yourself? Do you have a trade? Welder? Oncologist? Or whatever?"

"Yeah. Whatever. I’ve been working in hotel bars, restaurants. Like temporary staffing."

"You cook?"

"Not in the hotels, you need certificates or some shit."

"But can you cook?"

"Well, some." Dodge decided not to explain where he had learned elementary catering.

"Still going on to Newquay?"

Dodge shrugged, feeling just fine where he was. Indecision hadn’t just become easy for him over the previous ten years, it was what felt best.

"What about commitments?"

Dodge frowned and waited.

"Girlfriend? Cat to feed?"

Dodge shook his head and waited to hear what was coming next but Rupert picked up the fancy lighter, dropped it into a coat pocket then turned and walked towards the end of the bar. The barman was talking to a couple of new customers but as soon as he caught sight of Rupert approaching moved to meet him halfway and gestured to go back to the other end. Dodge pretended not to watch as some only partially covert transaction took place.

Within a minute they were outside where it had become night and harsh with traffic pushing its way around a small roundabout and the club and bar and takeaway signs were clashing in colours that would have been nasty enough just on their own. After twenty or so minutes they came to the front of a small, closed up café. Rupert led the way around the side and to the back alley, then unlocked a large steel lattice gate to let them into a back yard. He was careful to replace the padlock before they went in by the building’s back door.

After a few moments in the neon-flushed kitchen Rupert asked, "What do you think?"

"It’s kind of basic." But Dodge wasn’t thinking basic so much as mucky. The surfaces were filmed, the range had burnt black grease spots and there was debris, dust and empty containers in the corners. When he had been on kitchen detail for those 11 months in the centre, cleanliness had been strictly enforced.

"I need a new cook. " Rupert paused. "The last one buggered off."

"I’m not really much of a cook." Dodge waited for Rupert to say something but he just smiled, a smug, so-what half-drunk smile. "Okay," Dodge asked at last, "what’s the deal?"

"Open for late breakfast, close after lunch. Don’t do Sundays."

"But the pay isn’t much?"

"It’s a disgrace. I don’t mind if you take your meals, but don’t feed your friends."

"I don’t know anybody."

One floor up and they settled into a couple of easy chairs in a spacious cold sitting room where the ceiling was lost in the shadowy heights. A chandelier would have been needed to light it sensibly but Rupert only had two dim, crooked table lamps and both of those were placed on the floor. He poured red wine into smudged glasses and then set about rolling a joint.

The room’s air had an odour; damp dust and something that might have been the residue of cooking oil from the kitchen down below. Dodge was thinking that a few hours ago he was out of everything but bad luck and now he might just have got a slight grip on something.

When he heard Rupert’s collective surname, Coverley Della Crusca-de Frise, it sounded to Dodge like a holiday resort, possibly one of those Alpine ones that was divided between several national borders. Rupert told him an unspecific story about having inherited some family fortune but then giving it away.

"You just got rid of it?"

"They tried to make me see sense. The solicitors who managed the trust asked around most of the family to see if any of them wanted to have me committed. It wasn’t as if they were going to lose all that much business but the idea that someone simply wants to be free of wealth is slightly disturbing I think."

Dodge asked him how much he kept back in order to buy the place they were in, but Rupert shook his head. He claimed that all he kept was enough for a suitcase and a sleeping bag and then took to the road. He had gone out along the old magic bus routes to Goa, just about the last time it was possible.

"It would be suicide now, a kaffir in those places on his own… and I had to work my way. After a couple of years I went to Ibiza…ran a little bar and beachside club for a while. Saved up enough to make a visit back home. I stayed with a cousin in Cornwall and when he got sick of seeing me around the place, set me up here."

Somewhere there was a gruesome ringing noise, old metal that resisted being reminded that it was a doorbell. For the time that Rupert was gone, Dodge took a better look around the room. It had generous bowed windows facing towards the south and from these Dodge reckoned the ceiling must have been about 16 feet high. In spite of the size of the windows there were no curtains and the scabby glow of the streets outside was set against the distant spotlights of some working port area.

With the dim lamps he couldn’t make out the detail of what was hanging on the walls, but there were a dozen paintings and one corner was cluttered with framed photographs, most of them portraits in black and white. The furnishings were no-nonsense Scandinavian dollied-up with oriental fabric and ethnic bling.

Dodge wandered over to the fireplace, the hearth black and scattered with old ash. The ornamental marble mantle was littered with small carvings, a few pieces of polished bone, empty Rizla packets and dirty teaspoons. A gilt framed mirror arched across most of its width and half way up the chimney breast. Lined along the front were dozens of postcards with a variety of foreign stamps and invitations to events, most of them for art gallery private views.

Rupert returned with a couple following him into the room. Dodge had heard them all the way up the stairs, being loud and in high spirits. The man sounded determined to be the centre of attention and Dodge expected that he would dislike him without any effort. The woman’s voice was accented, anxious, chiming brightly in an attempt not to be overlooked.

They turned out to be authentic bohemian types, all dressed up in charity shop irony right down to their vintage shoes. His were red and white basketball all-stars and hers zebra patterned pimp kickers. His shirt had bold blue stripes fighting with a loud check, wide-lapelled jacket that was from sometime in the early 70s.

Her name was Caresa, an Argentinean who looked to be in her mid thirties. Her outfit included a peacock inspired paisley wrap that she kept swinging about, baggy velvet trousers and a gypsy caravan theme print blouse, unbuttoned halfway down and nothing underneath. Both of them affected chaotic anti-hairstyles.

The man, Simon, was a bit older and had a perfectly shaped, trimmed and blue dyed micro goatee; a straight tiny line across the top lip and precisely the same width a thin beard-ette down his chin. It formed a T that made his pale mouth seem more important. Chunky black spectacles did the same for his bulbous eyes.

Dodge assumed that the way he looked at him when they were introduced was typical, a moue that silently asked, "do you get it…or not?" The state of Dodge’s face didn’t seem to interest him one way or another.

Evidently they had also been out drinking and had brought two bottles of wine with them. Rupert opened both of these, sat them on the low table in the centre of the room and then fired up another joint.

It was hard to see past Caresa’s zany camouflage but Dodge guessed she was fairly cute in a slightly off-centre sort of way. Her fingers were long and elegant with grape coloured nails and she tended to run her hands underneath the edges of her blouse as she listened to Rupert and Simon talking about old times and distant friends. Slightly removed from it all Dodge smoked a straight cigarette and kept a discreet eye on where Caresa was dabbling her fingertips. Her expression looked ever just a little zippy to him and she tended to laugh when no one else did, sometimes glancing nervously in his direction.

"You’ve been away?" Rupert asked Simon.

"We had a week in New York."

"Good?"

"Dull show at MOMA. A couple of so-so parties. It’s not the place it used to be."

"Of course not…siege mentality has taken over. Even the Americans you used think were cool think their blessed way of life coming to the end of the road."

Simon looked across at Dodge. "Is that right? Are you worried the good times are all over?"

"Dodge isn’t American," said Rupert. "He’s from Vancouver."

"I lived in the States," Dodge said quickly, uneasy about being answered for. "I was there a few years before coming over here."

Even though Simon didn’t look that interested he asked, "Whereabouts?"

"Not any place you’d know."

"Give it a try. I used to tour over there quite a bit."

"What, like in a band?"

Caresa chipped in, "Simon owned the band."

This made Rupert laugh and Caresa held her hands out in front of her, shrugging and wondering what was funny.

"Your band ever play Arcata?" said Dodge. Since he could see this didn’t mean anything, he added, "Northern California."

"I guess we missed that one."

"Too bad, it’s probably your kind of place."

"Really?"

Dodge winked at Rupert. "Yeah. It’s either some kind of hippy Brigadoon or the ninth circle of hell depending on your point of view. On one hand there’s folks who’ve been there for generations and on the other the place got to be almost surrounded by dope farms. A lot of strange people began coming in to town, including undercover narcs. Then the word really got out and brought on an invasion of homeless, fuckhead weirdos."

Smiling in a way to make the question light-hearted, Simon asked, "Which were you?"

"Just a farmhand."

Later on they were all standing down near the windows trying to see a large painting that Rupert had recently acquired. He had turned up the flame on his panther lighter and was holding this close to the canvas to help them see. The view was from above a thin, tramp-like man who was walking a tightrope from the rear to the front of the picture, crossing over a backstreet slum that had a skewed perspective.

"Who’d you say?" Simon asked.

"Jim Gilbert. He was an East End gangster who learned to paint in prison. He died a few years ago."

"What’d you pay?"

"He’s undervalued at the moment."

Simon’s eyes brightened with mischief and then he said, "I forget Rupert…how much was it?"

"What?"

"How much you inherited?" Simon turned to Dodge. "This might make you want to cry."

Rupert snapped off the lighter flame and looked out the windows, into the gloom. "I just told that story."

"Did you tell him it was more than five million?" To Caresa, Simon said, "It’s a shame you didn’t run into Rupert back when he still had all his dosh… he used to chuck it around like birdseed. Thousands a day just to save himself from boredom...which apparently he failed to do."

"Did you spend it all away?"

"Tried to…didn’t you old man?"

Rupert appeared to be tired with the subject, but as he moved ahead of them back to settees he said, "If there’s never been anything…in your whole life… that you wanted and couldn’t just buy it there’s a point when absolutely nothing matters. I was young. I wasn’t smart …but I was lucky. In spite of the booze, drugs and sex, something told me, if I just tried to use the money up I’d be done before it was."

Simon sat down across from Rupert, Caresa pulled close to his side. "The terrible thing baby, he gave it all away. Half of it to save the planet and the other half to some of his friends, and all his friends were already stinking rich."

"Oh, no." she held her hands to her small breasts and squeezed them in some show of despair. "How long ago did you do this?"

Rupert had been expressionless through the conversation and didn’t hurry to answer. "Oh, five or six years ago. I forget."

"And now you got nothing?"

"Stop crying for god’s sake." She was doing nothing of the kind. "He’s got all this." Simon gestured at the room and its walls full of art. "And lots of grateful friends."

"He’s wrong," Rupert said. "The only friends I gave money to were the ones I wanted to punish."

It was almost dawn when Simon used his mobile to call a cab and when he was busy with this, Caresa quietly asked Dodge if he and Rupert had been friends for very long. When he told her they had only just met and that he was going to be working as a cook in the café downstairs she seemed confused. She frowned very hard and drew her head back, as if she had never seen him before.

The next morning, having let Dodge sleep on his couch, Rupert didn’t have much to say about them.

"Simon has a bit in the bank," he said, "but Caresa isn’t sure that it’s quite enough."

"For what?"

"She wants to be famous."

"What does she do?"

"Without money, not very much. She’s an artist."

"Isn’t she any good?"

Rupert just shrugged. "The art that she does is art because that’s what she calls it."

Dodge stood up, shuddering in the room’s funereal air.

"You want me to start work today?" he said.

The first look that Rupert gave him was empty, as if he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he said, "Have a shower. We’ll go down and see how you make breakfast."

###

Copyright © Jay Jeff Jones, 2008

Read Lost City: The Las Vegas of John O'Brien And Hunter S Thompson by Jay Jeff Jones