3. The Goblin
David was no longer in a band. Hamish rented Mick out to a group of skinny boys with bright yellow ties and synthesizers. Tom and his new band disappeared into the London Underground and sent postcards from Paris and Berlin and then disappeared from the map. George invited David to dinner.
"Sleeve art," he said. He spooned mashed potatoes onto Baby Joe's bowl. It had pictures of lions and giraffes. Baby Joe scooped up mashed potato in one big, round fist and stuffed it into his mouth. Sandra thought it was adorable. George handed David a plate of macaroni and cheese. "That's where me future lies. Sleeve art. Hamish said he'd show some samples to 'is bands. Posters too, of course. Kent'll be plastered with 'em."
George's posters followed David along the sides of bright blue scaffolding less than a week later. Mars and the Spiders, with The Yellow Buses, Thursday at The Bended Elbow. Some days he liked to read every single word on the posters, silently wish the new band a bit of luck. Some other days he fervently wished for all of the band members to bite a live wire. Could not be helped. He buried his hands into the pockets of his shabby leather jacket and continued on his way.
It was eleven twenty-three on a Wednesday night. That was what his wristwatch said, when he found himself yawning and pulling back his sleeve to check how long he had been wandering aimlessly along the streets of Kent. Eleven twenty-three. He had to get home. He had a job interview tomorrow morning. Some dive on the south side of town, named after some painter or other. Matisse, Monet, Michelangelo, someone like that. They needed a waiter.
A bit of green caught his eye. Light. Neon. Something tickled at the back of his mind, like the rustle of wings, and he found himself slowing down. He stood still, unwilling to turn his head, although he could not say why. He kept the odd green glow within his sight, then began to edge sideways toward it. One step, two, and he lowered his head in fractions, slowly, slowly, his eyes moving in beats, one shift at a time, until the source of the glow was within his eyesight.
The glow snapped off, as if someone had slammed shut a door in haste. But David knew what he had seen. He did not want to believe it, and he was certain to formulate several logical reasons for why he could not have seen what he saw before the night was through. But David knew what he had seen.
Eyes. A clump of fuzzy stalks with eyes.
He found himself moving quickly through the alley. Not running, there was no need to run, but the sooner he got home, the better. He kept his hands within his coat pockets, found that he was hunching into the coat's upturned lapels.
A thud came from up ahead, something heavy and quick against one of the rubbish bins. David heard a scritch and scuttle, almost like a crab, along the pavement. A cat, he reasoned. But cats do not scuttle. A possum, perhaps? A really big cockroach. He kept moving, found that he had broken into a run, even as his mind panted out, "This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous." He did not care. A second thump came from somewhere close to his right elbow, and he pushed on. He could hear a slow rattling, a great big something dragging itself across the ground, heavy as a Gypsy cart weighed down with trinkets and odds and ends and pots and pans and furniture.
Something cackled.
And David slowed down.
He had run into a cul-de-sac. Brick walls, dyed greyish blue under the moon, rose to his right and his left and in front of him. A rubbish bin leaned against the right wall, surrounded by crates of rotted and rotting vegetables, sagging stacks of cardboard boxes, and loose debris. A few pieces of tissue paper drifted upwards in the night breeze, then scattered away like white mice behind David. He thought about following them. The cul-de-sac, after all, could be exited simply by heading back the way he had (run) come.
A shadow, a something, a series of scuttling noises atop the rubbish bin kept him standing exactly where he was. In his brain, the impossibility of magic reared its head. Nothing, he knew, existed in this cruel expansive world that was not human or created by humans. Magical creatures of any kind, miracles, superpowers, gods, the stuff of myth and legend, all of that had at its heart the wellspring of human invention. What he was (staring) looking at now—the something scuttling and cackling to itself atop the rubbish bin—was probably a monkey. An escaped monkey. Yes. With a great deal of hair sticking out of its ears and what really did look rather like a beak on something that was certainly not a bird and it had talons as well, this odd little escaped monkey.
David stood still. The creature had ceased cackling, and was now cracking open one edge of the rubbish bin. It thumped and scuttled and made low, guttural noises as it attempted to wriggle into the bin.
"This is not happening," David said. He wanted to hear his own voice. Perhaps that would chase away whatever that was pulling out a banana peel from the bin. The peel landed with a runny squelch at David's feet. "This is not happening." He looked down at the banana peel, then up at the creature.
It sat along the edge of the rubbish bin, swinging long, bony legs that ended in curved talons. Its head bobbed atop a long neck, so that it flopped left or right every few seconds, like a limp ragdoll.
"You're not a monkey," David said.
The creature's head flopped to the left. Its beak cracked open, and a voice like dry bark and crackling leaves said, "Is not a monkey, is not."
Reality did a very strange thing within David at the sound of that voice. It sequestered itself within the recesses of his mind, like the head of a company convening an emergency meeting, and it debated certain things. Chief amongst them was the improbability impossibility unreality non-existence of magic. Magic, simply put, did not exist. Therefore, whatever that was on top of the rubbish bin could not be magical. And what was not magical could only belong to the one other category of things that David Jones believed in: Real things. Facts. Simple, observable truth.
Therefore, whatever was now picking its nose on top of the rubbish bin was real. Whatever it was, it existed. David could see it, could smell it (like damp moss and wet clothes pulled out from between lime slick boulders in a river), could hear it, and could, therefore, believe in it.
It was a queer sensation, all told. It felt rather like all those years David had refused to eat tomatoes, only to discover that they were quite tasty once he agreed to just bite into one. The reality of tomatoes had shifted within David in mere seconds. It shifted again now with a strange sort of tug at his stomach.
He folded his arms over his chest, his weight swinging casually towards the left as his hips cocked and his legs relaxed into contrapposto. "What are you?"
"Wot is you?"
David frowned. "I asked first. It's impolite to greet a question with another question."
The creature swung one leg so that it thumped against the rubbish bin.
"Well?" David said.
The creature's head flopped to the right.
"Explain yourself."
One long talon snapped up to scratch at a grubby tuft of feathers under the creature's chin. "Wot?" it said. "Wot's an Ecks Plane? That a place? Or is it like an aeroplane? I 'ad a toy plane once, I did."
Whatever this thing was, it had obviously been in England for some time, possibly a very long time. Very probably in London, judging by its penchant for Cockneyisms. Interesting. David almost smiled. Decided on two menacing steps forward instead. The creature's head lolled like a broken metronome as it inched back along the bin.
"Who are you?" Step one. "What are you?" Step two.
"I'm, uh… Me name is…" It slapped its feet together in a sudden burst of echoing sound, propelling its lower body forward by slapping its clawed hands down on the space behind it. "I'm Pim! Part of a set, is I. Mum dropped 'er pots day I was born, see. Pim pam pum an' she'd 'ad three of us."
There was more. Pim started in on the shape and size and relative weight of every pot his mum might or might not have dropped that day. David simply had no time for any of that. He dug his hands into his coat pockets, quick like a threat, and closed the fingers of his right hand around the first thing he found. A pen light. Its blue beam struck the creature's left eye. David caught a glimpse of something ochre and watery before the creature yelped and covered its face.
"What are you?" David said again. He kept the pen light trained over Pim's talons. "Talk, or I increase the power of this ray!" Was it on the lowest setting? Christ, it only had one setting. He waved it ominously.
"Goblin," the creature whimpered. "Pim is goblin! Don't 'urt Pim!"
Goblin. In Kent. In some trash strewn alley. David did smile that time.
Reality had become a great deal more colourful within him, branching off in directions he had never even given a second thought to.
Well, well and well again.
He switched off the pen light. "I won't hurt you," he said. "If you show me where you live."
A crate toppled and crashed to the cracked cobblestones, spilling cabbage and water, as the goblin darted away into the shadows. Yellow eyes—reflective like a cat's—narrowed and sunk from view even as Pim's voice echoed out.
"That Pim won't do!"