Remote Control
by Michael Keenaghan
I’ll never forget the day it all began for me - the nightmare, the living hell. I had just come home from the office, loosened my tie, poured a whisky. Okay - I was stressed; only married a few months and I’d wanted things to be perfect. But of course there was the mortgage, and failing the promotion at work, and Angela - always spending so much. But I tried, tried so hard to make her happy, for things to be right, but nothing seemed enough. We’d had a screaming match the night before - quite a bad one - and I figured Angela was probably sulking in the bedroom, avoiding me. I’d gone a bit over the top, had to slap her in the end to shut her up. A bit out of order I know, so I’d bought some flowers, wine, even a little teddy bear thing from a gift shop - she’d come round.
I knocked in the bedroom, no answer, looked through the flat for her. Angela? She wasn’t in. Then suddenly it hit me. Her belongings, they were gone. Her wardrobes, cupboards, empty. Virtually everything she owned, not there. Our honeymoon picture taken on the beach in Jamaica was lobsided on the wall, the glass smashed. I started to feel faint - was this some kind of joke? I remember pouring more whisky, trying to think straight. Then I heard her car, and the front door. Angela marched in. I’ve forgotten something, she said. I tried to talk to her, tried to hold her, but she pushed me away, didn’t want to know. Why was she doing this to me?
I gripped her as she headed for the door trying to walk away, punish me, destroy me. I pulled her back into the living room. Something was rising in my chest, coursing through me. She was shouting in my face, telling me she was moving in with somebody else, somebody that loved her, cared for her. It was over, finished. I was stunned, rooted to the spot. This wasn’t happening. Not to us. I realized I was still holding the glass because it broke in my hand and blood appeared. Angela laughed and once again headed for the door. But she never made it. Because that’s when it all must have happened. The moments of madness that irrevocably altered my life.
I remember nothing. Only the aftermath. The room in disarray and Angela lying on the floor battered and unconscious, blood everywhere. It was like waking into another dimension, some kind of hell. I lost the plot, ran out to the street screaming and yelling, smashing my fists into walls and parked cars and running out onto the road trying to kill myself. In the end somebody pulled me over, tackled me to the ground and held me facedown until the police arrived. I think he got some kind of award for that.
Hospital. Then prison. I was convicted of attempted murder. A ‘diminished responsibility’ plea was rejected and I got a full twelve years. I served six.
The irony of being sent inside wasn’t lost on me. I’d grown up in Stratford, East London, and as a teenager I was no angel; I ran wild. But after a scrape that got me three months in Youth Detention, I grew up fast and turned my life around. Went to college, got a career, left that dead-end world behind. I was a different person now.
But here I was. Back to zero. Worse, into hell. My wife spent five days in intensive care but made a full recovery, carried on living her life. Sending me letters, saying she hoped prison would destroy me, hoped I’d see sense, do the right thing and top myself. trying to fucking torture me. She sent the divorce through and took every little thing I had.
Six years. When I came out, the anti-climax was hard to take. All that time ticking off days to suddenly realize the world has moved on and there is nothing for you out there anymore. After the confines of prison London felt like a different place, alien to me, full of movement, noise, chaos, everything on fast-forward. I couldn’t believe this was the same world I’d left behind. Had I really grown up here, lived my life here - everything so frantic and insane?
Depression hit me hard and I ended up on the sick. One good thing was I managed to get a flat from a Housing Association. I wasn’t fussy, jumped at the first one available; a box-room with a tiny side kitchen and bathroom on a Camden estate as bleak as they come, but atleast it was somewhere to start, plan my life again.
Each day I’d set off and walk for miles, Parliament Hill, Ally Pally, anywhere with lots of space, lots of sky, trying to clear my head, rid myself of prison, get that tight airless atmosphere out of my system. Sometimes I’d sit on a bench watching the sun go down, the stars form. Not come home till morning.
Once I was walking through Finsbury Park and I bumped into an old prison mate I’d once shared a cell with. His crowd were on the benches, on the cider and superstrength. I got chatting and ended up getting a bag of cans in, getting pissed. Why not, no harm done, I thought. It felt good having a laugh for a change, letting my hair down, problems on the backburner for once.
But by night it turned ugly. A rough crowd got involved and a fight spilled out onto the street. My mate stabbed someone in the stomach, the guy on his knees, blood pouring through his fingers. I remember my mate shouting at him saying it served him right and kicking him straight in the face. The sirens were wailing and I sobered up fast, got the fuck out of there. I wondered what I’d been doing in such company - had I totally lost it or what? My mate was someone who’d be in and out of prison until the day he fucking died; that was his way, he accepted that. But I couldn’t live like that. I needed more out of life. A sense of normality for a start. I’d sunk as low as could be. I needed a job. Needed to start living again.
I ditched the anti-depressants, didn’t need that shit, had to be strong, clear-headed, know what the hell I was doing. I sent off bullshit CVs and in the end found something with an agency that thankfully didn’t have check-ups on their list of priorities. It was a pretty crap office position, but so what, it was a start. I needed it.
Getting back into the swing was harder than I thought. Despite keeping up with computers in prison and stuff, the workplace was suddenly an alien environment. I had changed but so had the world around me. It was like a whole lifetime had passed. I’d lock myself in the toilets and have a panic attack - all the self-help jargon of the prison shrinks screaming back at me. Insecurity, fear, lack of self-worth, self-esteem. All the stuff I thought I’d conquered.
In the workplace everybody was so open, relaxed, good-natured, not a solitary demon between them. It only exacerbated my alienation more. They’d try to get to know me, ask me questions and I’d tell them lies, feeling the absurdity of it all, feeling like I was going to crack up, lose the plot. Sometimes I’d feel like wiping the false amiable smile off my face and grabbing them, shaking them, telling them everything. How there was a parallel world out there, a fucking nightmare world, a mental hell you’re not allowed to reveal, and I’d just fucking been there, rotting like a caged animal, and in a way I was STILL fucking there, oh yes, in my mind, all the time, still in that hell, still in that nightmare world being fucking destroyed. But I’d say nothing. Try to keep up the roleplay, hold myself back from trashing my desk and screaming LEAVE ME ALONE. I wasn’t fitting in. One morning on the way to work, I got a call from the agency. It was over. The office didn’t want me back.
I walked around for a while. Then I remember standing on a tube platform full of people with normal lives, marriages, jobs to go to, and staring down into the tracks, the vibrations getting closer, mice running for cover, the train tearing through the tunnel. And coming so fucking close.
But that very day, that very night, somebody saved me, somebody offered hope. A ray of light when I most needed it. Her name was Cindy. I started to see her regularly. She’d soothe me, tell me not to worry, not let the world grind me down. Alone in a room hearing the cars and anonymous lives outside it felt as though we were two souls drawn together by fate. I felt a closeness I’d never felt with anybody.
As time went on I told Cindy everything, every detail. Felt I could trust her. Told her exactly how my wife had ruined my life. How I’d wake up sometimes in a sweat having dreamed I’d just murdered her, feeling like I was losing my mind. But Cindy calmed me. Assured me it was understandable, natural even, we all have bad thoughts, all have nightmares, we’re only human after all. And as she pummelled my back and soothed my fears I wished I could be with her every minute of every day.
The evening of our next meet I remember walking through Camden Town, a buzz in the air, thinking about the future and feeling euphoric with optimism. I’d made mistakes, suffered bad luck - but I’d get over it. Of course I would. It can happen to anyone - you lose your footing, but you bounce back, of course you do, and then you’re moving along, living again, the nightmare all a distant memory. The shrinks were right - all it involved was the right frame of mind and a bit of will-power. It suddenly seemed so simple, like before I knew it I’d be back to normal, moving on in life, back to my real self. And I couldn’t wait to see Cindy, couldn’t wait to let her know, to thank her, to maybe ask if I could buy her a little present, show my appreciation, if she’d mind.
At Kings Cross I rang on the door and spoke into the intercom but it wouldn’t open. I kept ringing, kept saying who I was - nothing. What was going on? Suddenly the door flew open and the security guy charged out and told me to piss off and not to come back. I’d seen him before, he’d been friendly, no problems, but now he was pushing me in the chest and asking me if I was fucking deaf. I want to see Cindy, I said, I’m a regular here for fucks sake. He didn’t want to know. He pulled me close and I felt something sharp at my stomach. His breath fucking stunk. He told me I was barred and if he ever saw my face again he’d fucking cut me. I didn’t understand - what had I done, what was the problem? He told me I wasn’t listening, punched me in the head rapidly about three times and threw me out onto the pavement.
I walked the night streets in a daze, talking to myself, spitting with hate. I’d told Cindy too much and she’d cut me off. She hadn’t understood me all along. Hadn’t given a shit. There I was, believing in humanity - warmth, care, hope. Even silly things like love. It was all bullshit. I felt like smashing my skull into the nearest wall. Maybe walk out into a fucking car. When some dosser came up poncing for money I went to lash out but he ran like a bastard. I felt the kind of rage I hadn’t felt in years and started kicking bin-bags up and down the street, kicking anything in my path, pounding out the frustration. Then I picked a lump a concrete out from a skip and threw it straight through an estate agent’s window, alarm bells raging. It felt good.
Back in Camden the lowlife by the entrance of the estate greeted me with the usual dirty looks and stares, muttering comments, trying to act menacing, but I cruised by without a care. I wasn’t scared of these feral shits, no fucking way. But in the lift, looking at the graffiti and the stinking mess I felt my eyes water. I couldn’t believe I’d landed this low; once had a job, a marriage, a life. Now this. Coming home to nothing. Fucking zero. I felt so alone.
When I got to my flat the door was ajar. The lock had been forced. My clothes were scattered everywhere and my bed upturned. The only thing missing was the little tv - nothing else worth taking. Then I went into the kitchen and noticed they’d crapped on the floor. I went ballistic. I put my fist through the wall which cut my knuckles to shreds, the pain only angering me more. I grabbed a bread-knife and headed downstairs and walked straight up the cunts at the gates. Who else would it have been? I expected to get overpowered, stabbed with my own blade, beaten to death, maybe fucking shot, who knows. I was beyond caring. But suddenly they were all hands out and shit scared - it wasn’t us! it wasn’t us! - knowing I’d lost it, thinking they were going to get cut by the worst kind of psycho, somebody that doesn’t give a shit. They were telling me they’d find the fuckers and batter them, it was their turf, their manor, they controlled things, and I was so shocked, the sight of these youths so fucking pathetic that I calmed down, stood there breathing as they shook my hand; went back up to the flat, lied down and had some kind of sweating panicky fit where I thought I was going to die.
That was it. A turning point. I lived in a state of confusion. I didn’t wash anymore, didn’t change my clothes. I must have carried a vibe because on the street people crossed the road to avoid me. I only thought about one thing. Cindy’s betrayal. Why had she done this to me? I needed to speak to her. Needed to find out the truth.
I hotwired a car from the estate. Hadn’t done this kind of thing in years, it took me well back. Going out to the suburbs with my mates and nicking something flash, cruising round for the day, then bringing it down the marshes and torching it. Stupid really, could have made some money if we’d been thinking, but we were too busy being young, living for laughs, not thinking about tomorrow. Maybe that’s the best way to live. Not giving a fuck. The engine kicked up and off I went. It felt good behind the wheel again. In charge of things. In control. I headed for Kings Cross.
Across from the brothel I sat in the car watching the men come and go; some punters, others dealers collecting a stash and heading for the streets. I wondered which men had been with Cindy, scrutinizing every single one of them. The hours passed. Surely Cindy had to finish work at some stage? A man with a bad leg limped out and I watched him stop by an alley for a piss. I thought of the possibility of Cindy having taken this cripple’s prick and consoled him with the same words she’d used on me, insincere bullshit that like a fool I’d believed time and time again, the bitch messing with my mind, playing games with me. He looked like Cindy’s type. A right fucking idiot.
I leapt out of the car and ran across to the alley. The man had gone, not a sign of him, only the stink of piss and dogshit and the squeal of rats as they pulled meat from a bin-bag. I noticed the blade in my hand and realized I had to calm the fuck down, keep it together, get a fucking grip. Back in the car I waited.
I watched Cindy climb into a waiting cab. Hometime atlast. By now it was pouring with rain and I followed the car up the Cally, through Holloway and Finsbury Park, cutting into the backstreets near Turnpike Lane. Cindy entered one of the terraced houses and a light appeared on the upstairs window.
I sat weighing things up, rain lashing on the windscreen, wondering what to do next, conviction clashing with doubt. In hindsight this is where I should have told myself to just drive away, forget the whole thing. Should have realized that by getting out of the car I would only create a situation - that one thing would only lead to another, that I would only be digging myself deeper into the nightmare.
But I was on remote control, moving on automatic, out onto the street, slipping down the back alley, counting the houses, climbing over the fence into the garden, working through the weeds, the overgrowth, breaking into the window and slipping in, just like the old days, breaking into garages, storehouses, thieves in the night, all the old memories. Moving through the dark and up the stairs towards Cindy.
Gran, is that you? I hadn’t even reached the top when I saw her. She was by the bathroom, in a dressing gown, no make-up, combing her wet hair. She looked directly at me and screamed. Then I heard another voice, across the hallway an old woman calling Cindy’s name - not in actual fact ‘Cindy’ atall. The old woman drew back in horror, hands clutching her chest. Protectively, Cindy sprang to her.
I told them not to worry, I only wanted to talk to Cindy, to straighten something out, because who knows, maybe that night at King’s Cross there had been some kind of confusion, a mistake; maybe that idiot at the door had taken me for somebody else, mistaken identity, and really everything was fine. I had to know the truth. Had to know why I was rejected. No bullshit.
Following the line of their eyes I noticed I was carrying the blade. The machete. They were terrified. No, you don’t understand, I said, reassuring them, it’s not what you think, this was just to let myself in, it’s just a tool, don’t worry.
But they weren’t listening, were huddled in fear, moaning like pigs. They didn’t trust me As I approached them they slid down to the floor, cowering together in terror. I asked Cindy to get up, we need to be alone, we need to talk, but it felt like I was pleading with a dumb animal that could only howl and wail and dribble snot and tears. I was trembling. Losing my fucking patience. I thought of those times in prison that I’d been pushed to breaking point. Denied some right or another by some screw that hated me, who didn’t like the fact I’d never accepted my sentence like other inmates, never buttoned down and got on with it, always pushed things further, pressed self-destruct. Trashing my cell and being dragged down to the hole, cursing them as they clubbed me like a fucking seal. Left alone in the dark, tears pouring, wishing I was fucking dead.
But there was no need for this, no need for misery. Cindy. Please. Stop crying. I thought of how the shrinks had tried to dig into my childhood and how I’d first shrugged it all off saying my problems had only began much later with my marriage. But prison is where you face your own reality, where you lose the bullshit that all your life you’ve protected yourself with. But with the counselling, memories floated to the surface like corpses. Stuff I’d selectively binned, trying to save my pride, save myself from feeling like a victim. Playing out as a kid as late as possible. Hiding from the violence. Not knowing what the fuck I’d have to face when I got back.
The old woman’s eyes were closed and she was shaking. Cindy screaming about doctors, ambulances, clinging to her, refusing to let go. I didn’t need this. The old woman was only complicating things. Confusing me. I needed to ask questions. Needed to find out the truth.
I tried to tear Cindy free but she clung tight, it was useless, so I pulled the old woman along the floor to get her out of the picture, get her away so we could be together, just the two of us together, Cindy clawing at me, begging me, darting back from each threat of the machete. It shouldn’t have come to this, but it did. I just wanted simplicity, just wanted to talk. But I was angry now, heading somewhere else, another zone. And I must have let the old woman go, must have pushed her, kicked her, because she toppled headfirst down the stairs. Gone. Cindy livid now, out of control. I couldn’t take this. I grabbed her by the throat and raised the machete: LISTEN TO ME. Backed her into the bedroom.
A demented orchestra began screaming in my ears. A hellish cacophony tearing through my brain. There was so much to say but I couldn’t formulate the words; no articulation, no clarity. Only the base grunts of Bitch, Whore, Cunt jarring with the pastel pinks and feminine bedroom smell of perfume, flowers, lovers walking hand in hand in a world free of hate, retribution, madness. I pushed her onto the bed, tore open her bathrobe. She struggled but it didn’t stop me.
Raping her at knifepoint I remembered a girl from my youth. Thick glasses, thousand-yard eyes, always smiling with her buck-teeth, giving the come-on to the boys. She lived on the estate, went to a special school; rumours around that her dad was a perv who hung around park toilets; everyone taking the piss behind her back. But one night she was out with us, down in our HQ by the old factories, and there were loads of us, and a rough crowd up from Kingsmead. She was dressed like a tart, sticking her tits out, throwing herself all over one of my mates; they were snogging and touching each other up right there. At one stage everyone went through to the next room but I was fucked from the drugs and booze and stayed where I was, half-sleeping, hearing the cheering and clapping, the girl begging, pleading, please, no, no, so many voices, such a commotion, and it seemed like a nightmare, a bad trip, it never seemed to end. Then the girl came through and her top was torn and her face was bleeding and she was crying, and everyone was going, That’s it fuck off you spastic slag, you dirty retard, piss off back to your raincoat dad you fucking bitch, and I was hearing things, seeing things, off my fucking nut. But from then on everyone kept quiet about it, avoided her, and a few months later she jumped from the eighteenth floor, the story all coming back to me - suicide tragedy, girl, 15, lies dead on grass verge all night until a stray dog discovers her, raises the alarm, refuses to budge until Emergency arrives.
Victims. The world is full of them. Everywhere you fucking look. Staring at yourself in the mirror as you smash your fist in and your face breaks into a thousand shards. Holding Cindy’s arms above her head and noticing the trackmarks along her veins. A fucking little smack addict. Full of shit. Full of poison. Another victim. Weakness everywhere. Pounding into her, purging my disgust, for her, for me, for everyone, my anger at the world.
I finished and stood over her and she curled up on her side. She looked so young now, so vulnerable, not the same woman atall, just a girl. A part of my mind wondered what her story was, why she lived with her gran, what had happened to her mum and dad, if they were dead, or if she’d been one of those babies abandoned in a doorway and adopted. What had happened to her. Why she sold her body like she did. I realized I didn’t know a thing about her. Didn’t know her atall. She was a stranger to me. Somebody who had lost their way in life. Ended up on the marketplace like a piece of meat. But that was the way of the world. Everyone trying to solve their problem no matter how, doing whatever it takes to work their way out of their mess, their nightmare. Stepping over everybody else. Fucking with people’s emotions. Ruining people’s lives.
Suddenly Cindy looked at me and called me by my name. She told me I was sick, confused, that I needed help, that we could sort this all out. I didn’t want to hear it. It was too late for words, I’d learnt that by now. Words only spoke lies, betrayal, deceit. Words were only for the weak - people like Cindy, people like me but I was going to change all that. The failures piled one on top of the other, bulldozers pushing them across the rubble, over the demolished towerblocks and factories, ploughing the bodies into the earth, a new fucking genocide. No, not me - in this life you take control or you’re nothing.
The machete was trembling in my hand. Rage simmering. Violence snaking through the genes. Father like son. Hiding in the cupboard and the bastard looking for me. I’d nicked his fags, flushed them down the toilet, smoking kills, thought I’d done what was best. Piss dripping down my legs with his voice raging through the house. Closer. Closer. Then BOOM. Blinded by the light.
Cindy curled tight into a ball, began groaning endlessly. That was it, the sound, the wail, the call of death. My cue. I swung the machete, a hot spray of blood drenching my skin and Cindy’s scream filling the room. And again. No stopping me now. AGAIN-AGAIN-AGAIN-AGAIN. Reaping new life in death. Ridding the darkness. Reading the Bible in prison trying to work my way out of hell. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness; if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
I remember gazing at the scene feeling the poison drain, every ounce transfering itself to the mess on the bed, the carpet, the walls - the mess that was once Cindy but was now all the wrongness all the evil of my soul. Then I said Goodbye and closed the bedroom door tight lest all that ruination seep out, contaminate, corrupt. Light-headed, I moved through the house; so still, not a sound; an old woman lying at the foot of the stairs, sleeping like an infant at peace, lost in dreams. I was deeply moved, could have watched this tranquil sight for an eternity; but I stepped over it and quietly exited the front door. I honestly felt redeemed, like a weight had lifted. The burden of sin. Burden of hate. Like I could put it all behind me, drive away, start from scratch.
But redemption was brief. How quickly darkness reigns. I heard a voice. The next-door neighbour silhouetted in his doorway, talking to me, asking me questions, his eyes adjusting to the drizzling black night, trying to get a good look at me, get in the way, complicate things. What the hell was all that noise? he said. Hey… don’t walk away, I’m talking to you.
Noise? I thought. That was the sound of hell, mate. Let it go. You don’t want to go there, believe me. But I didn’t say that. I walked on. I said nothing. But the bastard wouldn’t leave it, kept goading me on, always the fucking way, goading me on. Coming out onto the pavement, asking who I was, making threats now, talking about police.
I stopped and turned. I was under a streetlight now. I watched his expression change; his eyes absorb the reality. My ears once again filling with sound. That now-familiar symphony; or cacophony, should I say. But now it somehow felt right. Appropriate. As if all my life it had been there, screaming, wailing to get through, only I couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear the soundtrack to my own life.
The machete caught him deep in the neck. I retracted it and watched him fall away like a mannequin. I stared at his shaking, gargling body as his blood drained into the gutter. Then I got down on my knees and started to remove his head. John the Baptist. Put in on a fucking plate. Wake the wife and say, hey, here’s your husband. God - hacking, slicing, grabbing it with both hands trying to rip the thing from its root - harder than I thought, but I got it. Then I carried it by the hair to the car and slung it in the back. Bang on cue it again started pouring with rain, heavens-open style. Angry sky. Lucifer in town. I hit the road.
I kept moving, I was on a roll, the windscreen awash and the city kaleidoscoped like a mad carousel. There was no saving me now. No redemption. No rehabilitation. No readjustment to life. That was all in the past. I’d assumed a new role. A lone idealist - bloodshed the only way. Lurid headlines screaming from the streets, flooding through my mind. Men who kill. Men who massacre. Men who destroy. Walk into restaurants, schools, ex-employers, blast every stranger, every fucking member of their family to hell, Rambos on the rampage, bang bang bang - every cliche in the fucking book.
And I’d see people walking in the night, along empty high roads or shitty little backstreets, lost souls oblivious to the doom all around them. And I’d park the car, approach them, lift the blade and put them out of their misery once and for all. Bodies dropping like flies. One guy even pulled a knife - how about that? - but I was invincible, felt like God for Christsake, and I pushed the blade in nice and deep, twisted it right into the heart. Then I cut both his fucking eyes out. Yeah, right across the urban sprawl, no end to it, carcasses carved like pigs, scum washed down by the rain. Poetry in fucking motion.
But that was earlier. That was then. All in the past. Right now I’m out of petrol and parked in the wilderness and it’s game over. Lea Valley - out between Stratford and Hackney Wick. A lane of car wrecks, weeds at each side, a broken-down warehouse up ahead. The old world. My old world. A ghost zone. Ghosts. Everywhere. Look closely and I’d probably even see myself, no lie. Man, those were the days. Getting chased across industrial estates and wastelands at 2am. Running along the canals, the marshes, hiding out by the reservoirs, even down in the bloody sewers. Fucking hell. Old times. But like me, this place has passed its sell-by; doesn’t have long to live. Condemned land, the lot of it. The bulldozers and cranes any day now. Olympics 2012. Just like my old flats - one Sunday morning watching them go boom, fall into dust. The new world cometh.
I’m listening to the hammering of the helicopter, watching its flashlight. It’s way out, nowhere near - get a move on boys. How the hell they’ll find me down amongst all this shit I don’t know. But they will. I know they will. I’ll sit it out. Wait for the big showdown. On the radio they described a man on the rampage. A new Michael Ryan except this time he’s in a car and slicing them to ribbons. DO NOT APPROACH.
But I’m harmless now anyway. Unarmed. I left the machete sticking out of my last victim’s face. Pretty little whore as well, somebody should have told her the streets were dangerous, got to watch it, it’s a cruel world out there. Take my backseat for example. Like a bloody abattoir back there. Right fucking mess. Trophies - just like in the films. Silly really. The whole thing. But there you go. What’s done is done. I’m sitting it out. And what else can I do? I can’t change anything, can I?