Go Back, Jack, Do It Again

Vic Neverman: sturdy guy, they say. I imagine they say. Even keeled, that Vic. Will of an oak. Not much rattles him. But this? This seasickness far from the sea? Vertigo of the moving forest? Like some Macbeth prophecy shit? This has me rattled. Am I drunk? Maybe. A little. I shouldn’t be. Not any more. 

Everything was leaning left until I left everything in the loo in the back of the bar. Bent double over the toilet, gazing into the void. Singing Amazing Grace. Give a retch, save a wretch. How sweet the sound? 

Was it a bad decision to have wine with dinner on what is shaping up to be a whisky drinking night? Yeah, probably. And now purged, am I cured? Gazing into the mirror over the sink, I realize it is too soon to tell. In the very least, I am unburdened from the responsibility of digesting haggis. I turn back over my shoulder towards the toilet to find it has been replaced with a piss trough. I turn to the door to see the toilet instead. The sink I’m leaning against keeps switching walls. No, I don’t think I am cured. I’m uneasy. Altitude sickness? Could that explain the lowness I feel? Perhaps, but we are currently at the foot of the Scottish Cairngorms. We’re nowhere near this morning’s high passes.

I return to the festivities in search of a mint.

The interior of the caravan park lounge is misappropriately lit. The wizened hands of the highlander behind bar move among various walled whiskies with memorized precision and without the aid of sight. There is a vampy red glow from a fluorescent beer advert which obscures more than it illuminates. Shadow-play elongates noses into something witchy. Jaws surge like a pike’s underbite. It’s a wonder any of these ghouls would seek the comfort of each other, yet the gathered troglodytes are as much intoxicated on desire as they are on the spirits residing here. 

I order a Tennet’s Lager. Palette cleanser. Beside me, weatherman John Gospel is rolling cigarettes on the bar. The other meteorologist, ruddy-faced Professor Farquhar is scooting around the dance floor with the laundromat girls. Hope you like Steely Dan, dude, John Gospel says to me. The professor, Gospel says with a nod to his elder, has refinanced his trailer home to pay the juke box. Nothing but Steely Dan for the next hour. 

F.M. No static at all…

Leaning my back against the bar, I watch the jolly Scot shimmy with the laundromat girls. Professor Farquhar earlier in the evening described the two young women: aye, they’re a sight prettier than the kelpies calling ye from the loch. I can’t argue with the professor, as I’ve not yet met the kelpies. One of the laundromat girls, Madge, spots me and decides to leave her mate, Elspeth, to the dance floor. Working between the wobbled-dazzles of the lazy-eyed disco ball, Madge navigates the shadow world to disappear and re-emerge beside me. Jaysus!, I say with startle at her arrival. She’s sitting cross-legged on the barstool. Madge smiles at my noticing her seated position. Easy Vic, Madge says in her thick brogue, don’t go licking me fishnets. I’ven’t shaved for days, love. 

The thought has yet to occur to me, I say, but duly noted.

Elspeth materializes similarly wraith-like out of the misty mountain gloaming. She’s the waifish look of someone who woke on the third day of their own wake starving for a bacon butty. Elspeth says to Madge, this is why I ne’er go to the laundrette without waxin’ me skis. Ye ne’er know who ye’re to meet. 

Aviemore is a one laundromat town. Which is where John Gospel met these two. I don’t even think John required any clothes washed. The Philadelphian was looking for loose quarters, only to find farthings & shillings he would discard as useless. You ladies like to party?, he probably asked Madge & Elspeth. Come by the trailer park. We’re having a shindig. The girls must have taken one look at the goateed American and thought this a devil’s farce. But they were game if there would be cocaine. Fortunately – if this fate can be considered fortunate at all – they knew a guy if John Gospel had the dosh. A dope plan was hashed-out. They made calls and sometime later the laundromat girls caught a ride with a curry-shop delivery-boy to the outskirts of Aviemore to arrive here, at the caravan park on the edge of the Rothiemurcus Forest. 

Which begs the question: who the fuck is this guy, John Gospel? I’m glad you asked. 

“Penn State’s finest associate professor of meteorology”, is how he introduces himself. John Gospel has spent much of the year in England working with the University of Northampton’s Professor Farquhar. It was Farquhar’s idea for the weathermen to go on a roadtrip to his hometown of Aviemore, Scotland. John Gospel extended the invitation to his favorite drinking buddy in Northampton, Sinjin Richmond, an former HMS submariner. Sinjin happens to be attending University of Northampton’s international law program where he met a pair of beautiful Polish women. Both named Ewa. To distinguish one Ewa from the other, we often call them – much to their dismay – Betty and Veronica. Sinjin is dating the cheerful, blonde Ewa. And I, naturally, am dating the dark & sinister Ewa. I first met Sinjin at midnight in downtown Northampton when I was leaving the club with Veronica and she spotted her law school mates. The four of us shared a cab out of city center. The women gossiped in Polish whilst Sinjin & I silently shared a knowing worried grin. Weeks later, when the Ewas decided they needed to go back to Warsaw for a weekend home, Sinjin extended this highland adventure invitation to me. And away we go…

Madge’s boyfriend, landlord, drug dealer and/or kin arrives to exchange a bag o’ chop for Farquhar’s pounds & pence. Madge suggests a group trip to the loo. Lay on, Macduff!, Elspeth quotes her Shakespeare. Professor Farquhar begins melodizing, singing, make tonight a wonderful thing… But he is hesitant about the cocaine. Despite Hey 19 on the juke box and the fishnets on Madge, the old Scot resists the temptation. Catherine wouldn’t be pleased, Farquhar says. Oh come-on, bro!, John Gospel urges, it’s not like she’s coming back tonight. John Gospel immediately grimaces, regretting his words. Yer right, Farquhar admits with glassy eyes, she’s not coming back. He still chooses to abstain from blow. 

John Gospel shepherds the laundromat girls into the bathroom to brave the stench of gut-sick and partake in shite Scottish coke. Farquhar stays at the bar to order scotch. Sinjin occupies a horseshoe booth whose curving vinyl bench fabric is a thin, delicate, veil between this realm and some creepy-crawly space beyond. The submariner is eyeballing his phone as if waiting for the water to boil. I remind him, it’s late in Eastern Europe. He nods solemnly as I sit opposite of him. Not Betty I’m waiting on, is it?, Sinjin says. Waiting to hear back from a mate…, he says, a fellow sun-dodger. Sinjin appears concerned. Vic, bruv, what’s it you remember from today?, Sinjin asks. For starters, I woke strangely aroused…, I say. Nah, Vic, what do you recall from the hills? I shrug and look at my beer. There were gentle slopes of boulder fields, I say. We hiked a goat path up to permafrost in the higher reaches. Farquhar took us to a lean-to shack where we rested. Drank whisky from his flask. I napped briefly, I admit. You remember?, Sinjin asks, the climb back down to the trailhead? Because I bloody-well do not, he says. I shrug, saying, it was a non-event. Slow-meander downhill. I was nagged by a pebble in my boot. 

Did you feel…?, Sinjin asks, when we were in the Lairig Ghru pass, did you feel followed?

Followed?

I am unreliable, I say to Sinjin after a moment’s thought. I’m paranoid with delusions of self-importance. I always think I am being followed. But I will admit… I have felt like shit since returning from the hills. 

Right?, Sinjin says and takes a strong pull of his beer. Had an eerie feeling, yeah?, he says. Heard… heard something I hadn’t heard in years. Knocking. You don’t recall anything?, he asks. Metallic knocking…, Sinjin says, I know, there’s no bloody metal in the hills. Sinjin picks-up his phone and waves it, saying, this cunt I’m waiting on, the sun-dodger, we went to sea together. We served her Maj, the second Good Queen Bess. We experienced… shit. Together. Had the same dreams. Not figuratively, Vic, not “hopes & dreams”, I am saying we had the same nightmares. On the same nights. Like we was mind-melded. Synched like menstruating school girls. To be expected, you’d suppose… There’s shit you see, Vic, out to sea. A flock of shitehawks, middle of the fucking ocean, pecking at a cow cadaver they’ve followed far from land. Hooves up, the cow is. Sometimes a camel, a sheep, depending where in the world. Always hooves up. Gulls feeding & squawking. Its their last meal, for these shitehawks, they just don’t know it yet. Land of plenty, innit? Once they peck away their sinking island, they’re fucking buggered to fuck-all. Puts you in a dark pondering place, Vic… It’s despairing, bruv.

My stomach growls unexpectedly. Mind on upturned sheep, my thoughts swirl around haggis. 

Right, so, Vic…, Sinjin continues, we once found a raft with a solitary man standing. Middle of the fucking sea. Brutal. Fellow is fucking scuppered. No chance of survival, Sinjin says. I ask Sinjin, couldn’t you rescue the guy? You’re the royal fucking navy, man. Nah, Vic, Sinjin says. Our sub was in waters we wasn’t supposed to be in. Shit, I say. Right?, he says. Man… just bloody standing there. He can’t see us, we’re a beastly periscope. A silent witness. Unseen. The man is standing there, staring at the far horizon. Waiting for something. There’s nothing but wide ocean. 360 degrees. We dove, merrily away. Abandoned the bloke. Afterwards, for weeks… forever, we hear knocking. Sleeping in our bunks, we dream of knocking. Isn’t anything outside the submarine knocking on the walls, but we heard it, didn’t we? And I heard it again. First time in fucking ages. Today. In the hills. Oh shit, I say. Yeah, Sinjin says, it’s fucking mental. 

The laundromat girls approach the horseshoe booth. Elspeth slides-in on the side close to the submariner as she scolds her friend, yer so feckin’ stubborn, Madge, yer head is like cauliflower with a hammer stuck in it. Who’s feckin’ mental?, Madge asks Sinjin as she steps up onto the booth bench on my side and walks over the top of me to sit in the apex of the horseshoe curve between him & I. She has lost her shoes. And.. it’s clear she is not wearing much more than an oversized black sweater and her fishnets. Who’s fucking mental?, she asks again. I respond, saying, we were discussing our hike in the Cairngorms. Elspeth says, ye’re feckin’ mental, Madge. Ye’re getting engaged again and still not picked the rice out of yer hair from last go-‘round. Not to say, yer fuck features are currently lit-up like a feckin’ dashboard. Compose yer self. Madge ignores Elspeth and asks, where’d ye lads hike?

Professor Farquhar and John Gospel arrive with snifters of whisky. The old weatherman hands out the scotch and toasts his departed wife. This was Catherine’s favorite song. Peg, it will come back to you. Peg, it will come back to you, he sings. He does a little wiggle. He sings, It’s your favorite foreign movie… Farquhar pauses to wipe tears from his eyes. Slàinte, he says and quaffs most of his scotch. 

Where’d ye go hiking?, Madge asks again. Where was it?, I ask the professor. What…?, aye, yes, went to the Lairig Ghru pass, Farquhar says. What was the cottage?, John Gospel asks. The professor’s glass is nearly empty. I slyly trade mine for his without him being the wiser. I’ve had enough scotch for one summer. Professor Farquhar waves off the idea of a cottage, saying, it was just any old bothy. Bollocks!, Madge says, isn’t no “any old bothy”. Ye should know that professor. They all is haunted in their own way, she says.

Consulting my pocket journal, I find the note. Hardyknute Bothy, I say. Elspeth, who had fallen asleep on Sinjin’s shoulder, her dirty spaghetti hair dripping down his chest, suddenly sits upright. Hardyknute?, she asks. Madge says, feckin’ Christ, professor! Why would ye take them there? Of any place? Farquhar shrugs, saying, Catherine and I used to go… 

Both laundromat girls are concerned. Madge looks to me on one side of the curve, looks to Sinjin on the other; she’s no longer comfortable between us. She stands up on the soft bench and walks over me, around the horseshoe, over the professor to hop out of the booth. Farquhar barely notices her; his eyes are focused out the window as his mouth bounces like a moray eel. Madge goes to the opposite side of the bench, grabbing Elspeth’s wrist to drag her out of the booth and over the lap of John Gospel. It is an ordeal. John gets a heel to the groin and Elspeth’s other foot to his face. The two Aviemore women grab chairs and sit a safe distance from our horseshoe. 

Who’s it then?, Madge asks the professor. Ye take all of the three? Sinj, Johnny and Vic? Which come back?, she asks, and which didnae? Professor Farquhar raises his hands at the table, a demonstration of who is present. Ye feckin’ know what I mean!, Madge says to Farquhar. 

What, uh…?, Ha. John Gospel says. He’s rubbing the pain out of his groin. What’s the deal?

Madge attempts to explain: the professor take three o’ye into the pass, but only two of ye come back. Elspeth is barely more credible saying, they say the bothy is haunted. They all haunted, Madge says, but Hardyknute Bothy is where you meet the devil. The Grey Man, Elspeth says, Am Fear Liath Mòr. 

Oh, rubbish…, Professor Farquhar dismisses the thought, yer off yer head. Aye, Elspeth agrees with him. She says, it’s an old nan tale about the Grey Man. If you give Am Fear Liath Mòr an eejit traveler as sacrifice, in exchange for this new mortal vessel to occupy, he gives ye the return of a dead beloved for one night. 

The professor is not disputing the local lore. He is distracted by Steely Dan’s Do It Again. He’s sings: and the mourners are all singin’, as they drag you by your feet, but the hangman isn’t hangin’, and they put you on the street…

Fuck, motherfucker, ha!, John Gospel says while wiping at a sniffle. If I start believing whodoo voodoo bullshit now, I am going to realize I have been haunted my whole life. If some gray fucker wants to take over this vessel? Have at it bro! Good fucking luck dealing with the other voices in my head. Ha.

Some bloody joke?, Sinjin asks. His face has paled. His phone remains dark. His sonic pings unanswered. Professor put you birds up to this?, he asks them. Sinjin turns to his friend and asks, you in on it then, Gospel? The professor sings, you go back… Sinjin asks, you lot taking the piss, yeah? Jack…, the professor sings. Sinjin asks, think this is fucking funny, do you? Bloody hilarious, you cunts. 

Who’s it then, professor?, Madge asks. The glitter on her face reflects the ominous clang of last call. She asks the professor, which of these three fuds did the Grey Man take? Farquhar smiles at her and sings, you go back, jack, do it again… Ah, Christ!, Madge says, ye old bawbag! What have ye done, professor? Wheel turnin’ round & round… Farquhar sings.

It’s rubbish, innit?, just stories, Elspeth says as she wipes the palms of her hands on her dress. She says to Sinjin, we dinnae have shite to do with shite. Aye, Madge says to Elspeth, say the Grey Man’s rubbish to his feckin’ face. Tell him right now, Madge says as she waves at the table. Tell the Grey Man he’s shite. Feckin’ dare ye. All I’m gonna say, Madge says to us, I’m not goin’ to bed with any of ye until I am satisfied yer nae carrying a dead grey walloper in yer trousers. I nae shag any of ye mingin’ cunts. 

The horseshoe booth begins to spin around me. I sink further into the vinyl seat. This isn’t the whisky in my blood. This is the same vertigo I had in the forest. Macbeth witches’ prophecy shit. 

Madge tells Elspeth to call her brother to pick them up. Elspeth provides minimal objection. How many then?, Madge asks Farquhar. Her mouth is dry; the string of saliva hanging from her lip is more solid than liquid. How many?, professor?, she asks, have ye taken to Lairig Ghru just to have another dance with yer corpse bride? How many then?

You go back, Jack… the professor sings with his eyes gazing out the near window. Do it again…

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