Suspension

I hear the door open. Connie puts her hand on my shoulder, but I’m already awake. I was trying to get some sleep before work, but I rarely get more than a few hours at a time. It’s been going on for weeks. The cold.

Connie’s been doing too much reading, fancies herself a psychologist. The other day, she said something like “somatic response to unexcavated trauma.” I don’t know what I haven’t excavated, but I’d say anything that’s down there is better off staying put. She says I should work less, give the cab a rest, says that driving around the city all night is what’s got me all twisted. But I feel like that’s when I’m most sane.

I get up to get dressed. As I do the buttons on my shirt, I look out the window. It’s already dark, and rain’s falling against the glass. From our terraced hillside flat I can see the city below, the chaotic patterns of lights that descend into the center and rise with the sloping hills to the South.

It must be what Atlantis looks like, drowned in a trench somewhere. A sunken city. I realize I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never had that thought. Then I see the black clouds. It’s all there, I know it. The darkness behind the darkness.

I grab the keys from the nightstand and head out to the cab.

* * *

Ignition, lights, indicator. Checked. Proceed.

Permission to dive.

Dive.

Dive.

Dive.

Diving.

Starboard to the Síos Road.

Ten atmospheres.

Already dark, Topside. And rain.

Hold close to the hill, stay going.

Diving

eyes closed pressure in the ears engine hum eyes open rats in the river everything already rising wheels rolling rolling indicator check blind

At twenty atmospheres. Thirty. Forty. Fifty.

Scan. Braking.

red glow stop across connolly bridge demarcation ahead nollaigshonaduit hooks are down eyes on hooks do you see them high beams rain falling plenty out walking between hooks night firmament drinkcoorslite murphysdraught openopenopenopen stop red move light dark look above streetlights silver lines faint currents halfcloud they’re there

Indicator. Shift port onto Washington.

green yellow pushpushpush the trench main gogogo eyeson no hands lights above anglers above hand up first one stop

You’re at depth.

* * *

The woman’s standing on the curb under a streetlight, hand in the air. I flash the indicator and pull up. Her hair is long and black, and she’s soaked from the rain. She opens the back door and sits down. I wait a moment, letting her get settled, waiting for her to strap the seatbelt across herself. In the rearview mirror I can see she’s got loads of piercings and tattoos. They’re up and down her ears, two studs in her forehead, nose pierced like a bull. There’s one silver ring through each nostril, the lower lip has gold ones. There are black tattoos that ascend her neck, stopping just above the collar of her leather jacket. She has a design of what look like scales inked on her right cheek. She seems old enough, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, but style can often disguise age. I push the button on the meter. Usually, once they know they’re on the clock, they’ll give the where-to. But instead she just coughs and sniffles.

“This fucking rain,” she says.

Though I like the rain, I make a noise to the affirmative. Truth of feeling is less important than ease of interaction, especially in a taxi. You’d hear some people giving out about how cab drivers would hold you hostage with awkward conversation, but in my experience it’s always the other way around. I just yes them away – Christ it’s out of hand isn’t it? Shocking stuff. Dreadful. Unreal. Crazy, like. It’s easier this way.

Still, she says nothing, sits back in the half-shadow.

“Where are you headed, miss?” I say.

 “You like the rain, don’t you?” she says.

“It’s grand,” I say, and leave a gap for her to fill. But no. “The car still drives,” I say.

“Yea,” she says.

“So where am I taking you?”

“Do you mind just driving?”

“Well, I have to inform you that the meter–”

“I know yeah,” she says. “But fuck the meter.”

“Right so,” I say.

I flick the indicator and wait for a pause in traffic. Soft tremors, delicate hiccups from the backseat. In the rusty glow of the streetlight overhead, I see her wipe a dribble of mascara from her cheek. I don’t make it my business telling people where to go or not to go. I only drive. I perform the service requested. Lights change. I pull into a gap in the slipstream of the city. 

* * *

At the end of Washington I turn left to cruise slowly down a quiet lane. I see her shift in the back seat. She’s composed herself. Her face illuminates and the metal in her ears and nose and cheeks and forehead gleams with a kind of rhythm as we pass under streetlights. I can see her peering forward, probably reading my nameplate and license. I’ve always thought knowing names gives you an advantage. People feel like they’ve got a real one-up on you not having to ask for your name, like they’ve got dirt on you from the jump. She clears her throat. I brace myself.

“C’mere,” she says. “Gerald Cummins. Did the boys give you shit for that?”

“Ah it’s a common enough name.”

“And people have done worse with less.”

Momentarily, I think of telling her about Larry Fagan, but instead I say, “They have indeed. But not with my name.”

She sits back, silent for a moment.

Then, looking out the window, she says, “Have you ever done anything illicit?”

When she says illicit, I notice the tongue in her mouth is halved at the tip, like a snake’s.

“Illicit?” I say.

“Taboo. Something you never talk about.”

Taboo. Connie had used that word. Talking to someone, Ger—I know it’s taboo for loads of people—but its good. Connie says quiet doesn’t mean simple, and loud doesn’t mean complex. She says the people with all the stories are the fullest of shit. And she’s probably on to something, in fairness. I knew lads at St. Michael’s who never shut up a day in their life and never said anything at all.

“Taboo,” I say.

“Yeah. I have,” she says. “I do.”

I’ve a little spark of fear then. Not of her, but of me, because, suddenly, I want to talk.

I concentrate on the street, the streetlights, the neon signs breaking over us like waves. I can feel the darkness and the cold start coming, like I’ve left a window open just a crack. My hand goes to the door and I finger the latch but the windows are up and sealed.

I realize I want her to keep talking.

“Where would you like to go,” I say.

“That’s not the question.”

“It is.”

“No,” she says. “Where do I need to go, you should be asking. Do people get into your car just for laughs?”

“Not until now.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“And you mine.”

She pauses, looks out the window. I see her crane her head as if to examine the tops of the buildings.

“D’you know what? Take me up high.”

And so I find myself driving towards home, watching the numbers on the meter increase, recharting our course.

It’s a narrow winding thing, the city. If it was an organ, it would be coiled intestine, but bunched up and packed so tight you’d think it was a heart. It’s deceptive like that. Plenty of people move through it as if they’re walking through the center of something vitally important. But it’s not like that. Nowhere’s like that. Not even the big ones you’d see on the news. I remember my father said quiet men suffer quietly for quiet deaths. He leaned down to me – one eyebrow was always raised when he was looking at me, always questioning even in his declarations – and said that that’s the greatest gift a man can receive. Now I’m driving and seeing the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, smelling the sweat off him from a day’s work.

“You’re quiet for a taxi man,” the woman in the back says.

“Could be I’m just quiet.”

We stop at the light on Connolly Bridge. I look out the driver’s side window and see another light from a ship in the port splash a line up the river as if it was the moon. I focus on it.

“Would you answer my question, please?” she says.

“Repeat it.”

“Taboo. Dangerous. Illicit. So?”

I hear her ssss sound, and I catch her tongue again in the mirror. I stare down the river. The rippling light.

“Sure we all do,” I say. “Years ago I suppose I did.”

“You talk like you’re a grandfather.”

“I’m old enough.”

“Bet you I’m older.”

“Maybe you are.”

“So tell me. What did you do?”

I inhale. I don’t want to talk to this woman like this. I don’t want to think.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, the light on the ship goes out. The river is returned to blackness. The traffic light changes, and I’m talking.

 * * * 

“Me and Connie went away for the weekend down South of the city. We got a room in this row of houses by the sea. We’d just gotten together. The Saturday night she dragged me out to the beach.

upshift downshift indicator port

We walked on the strand for a while. I remember looking back towards the houses and seeing how perfectly the window to our room was lit. It was this precise square of light. Every other room in every other house was dark: either empty, or everyone had gone to sleep. I think Connie was annoyed that I kept looking back. Maybe she thought I was trying to say something or give her a signal, but I wasn’t. I was just looking at this one light in the whole span of darkness. Even the moon was covered up.

slowslowslow people crossing rainslick red glow

And then I had a sense of danger, though it felt deep and kind of general. Somehow it was warm out. I’ve never felt a warm breeze on a beach in this country before or since. But I did that night, and Connie did too. She stopped and turned to me. Then she started taking off her clothes. ‘C’mon,’ she said, and I did. She laughed and so did I, but there was part of me that didn’t like it.

take left up downshift the offy open light spilling puddles beautiful

We stood naked in the darkness, and I took her in my arms. I peered really hard, love looked really close her. You know when you turn the lights off and you can’t see your hand right in front of your eyes? In my head I could see her face against the dark, dark and I knew she was smiling her. Then she started backing away from me, towards the water. I knew what she wanted to do. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew that if she took off and I didn’t follow I’d lose her in the dark.

darkinthedarkinthedarkinthedarkinthedrakinthedarkinthedarkinthedarkintheindarkinthe

The sound of the sea was violent. When I inthedark was young, I knew a lad who died swimming at night. He went in on a dare. I never told Connie dark that. I knew it could be, probably was, dangerous. I never told Connie that either, though she must have known too. She only took three inthe or four steps backwards, looking at me, dark waiting for me, seeing if I was going to follow, but it felt like forever. And then she screamed intheintheinthe and took off. I think it was the last time I ran in all my life.

fifty-four b síos road isconnieasleep upshift wonder

We sprinted and roared at the top of our lungs. upupupup When the moon’s covered like that you’ve no reference for speed or distance. You feel like you’re running a million connie miles an hour. We dove into the surf and kept going iwonder. I remember the first wave hit me like a truck. There was a drop off, and we were up to our chests quick. We clung to each other, fucking heaving, getting battered by the swells. inthedark There must have been a sliver of moon out then because when she held on to me I could see the outline of her face connie and the vague whitewater foaming around us. We stayed there for a moment holding each other and she kissed me and it was salty, and then, like something snapped, we realized just how stupid it was. The water was so cold and the sea was frightening and it wasn’t fun anymore, or sexy, or romantic. It was just terrifying.

downshiftup ontoskyline outoutout

We scrambled towards the shore, and at one point Connie lost her footing love and I had to drag her up. I stepped on something no sharp, a broken shell or an old love fishing hook, and cut the hell her out of my foot. When we made it to shore, we couldn’t find our clothes for ages. I tried to navigate the position climbing based on the light in our window, and we only found them because I stepped on Connie’s bra. We hurried back to our room and sat up a long time without speaking. I think we were realizing what could’ve happened, how bad things can hide in shadows cast by good things. I remember we made love, love but I think we felt we had to, and when we finished we just looked at each other and knew. Maybe she’d thought I wanted her to be wild and adventurous, maybe she’d assumed things about me, or about herself. And I didn’t want to go, but I knew I couldn’t not follow her upupup into the water.”

* * *

I’m driving up the Skyline Hill, and I realize we’re nearly out of the city, long passed my house. We’re the only ones on the road. I don’t remember driving since the light changed on the bridge. I wait for the woman to say something, and when I look in the rearview, even though she’s only a silhouette without the streetlights or the headlights of oncoming traffic, I know she’s staring at me.

Then she opens her door.

A gust of cold air fills the car. I slam on the brakes. I feel the steering wheel lock up, the seatbelt tighten against my chest. We come to a hard stop near the top of the hill. The overhead light is on. The sudden brightness hurts my eyes. I jerk around. She’s still sitting there, seatbelt fastened. She’s not as young as I’d thought she might be. In fact, she’s probably close to my age, maybe even older.

She sticks her tongue out at me and laughs.

“Right there,” she says. “That right there was a far more dangerous, taboo, and fucking illicit thing than your night dip in the nip with your missus.”

“I thought you were going throwing yourself out.”

“Wouldn’t do that to you, Gerald. We’ve known each other for too long.”

I sit there for a second, and for something to do I check what the meter’s at. Over forty euros.

“You’re wasting an awful lot of coin for this jaunt.”

“Are you even gonna ask my name?”

“What’s your name?”

“Hi, I’m Ashley. You thought I hurled myself out of your moving car.”

“That’s not your real name.”

“You’re very good, Gerald.”

“Yea. Listen, it’s time for a final destination because I’m not fucking OK with passengers pretending to fuck themselves onto the road.”

“Stop being melodramatic.”

She reaches into her bag and produces two fifty euro notes. She balls them up and tosses them into the front passenger’s seat.

“That’ll buy me a cab to Mars, yea?”

I look at the crumpled notes. I try to calculate the pros and cons. It’s good money. I haven’t been driving that long. You wouldn’t make that between a good few rides sometimes, and that’s not even counting the time you spend searching for the next one. I leave the notes there. I glance one more time in the rearview. I’ve dealt with worse, I tell myself, every cab driver deals with worse. She’s not a drunk or a junkie. It’s not my business how people spend their money. I drive, she pays, and now she’s paying.

“If you open the door like that again I’m leaving you on the side of the road on the spot.”

“Okay.”

“And keeping the money.”

“Understood.”

“Good.”

“I was joking about joking. My name is Ashley.”

“Nice to know you, Ashley.”

“I heard there’s some view at the top of this fucker.”

“There is.”

* * *

The viewpoint is a turn off the Skyline Hill road where the brush is cleared and there’s a small parking lot. There’s a few benches on a mossy bricked area, a flag pole, a single streetlight, and a plaque in remembrance to some local war heroes. During the day you might find a family on a picnic, and, in all likelihood, by night it’s a favorite spot for teenagers, a first beer and shift kind of spot, though I never came up here when I was that age.

I park in a space facing the road and leave the engine idling. I sit back. In the mirror, I can see the viewpoint illuminated by the streetlight Ashley is just a silhouette in the backseat. There’s a faint glow outside the glow, I think. I imagine some of the light from the city seeps up through the air.

“Will we have a look?” Ashley says.

“Go on,” I say.

“Come out with me, Gerald.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

The rain has stopped mostly, though there’s a thick, fine mist in the air. I look into the shadows cloaking the road, and I realize, somehow, she’s right.

“Yeah, okay,” I say and shut the engine off.

I get out of the car and so does she. I close my door and look at her. She’s as tall as me, or even a little taller in her combat boots. She walks towards the view. Drops of moisture on her leather jacket catch the light. She carries herself with the slightest hint of a slouch, maybe the first, subtle sign of real aging.

I follow her to the edge, stand a few feet away. With the mist in the air, it’s like you can see the light itself, like it’s a separate substance hovering over the city between the rooftops and the clouds, both above and below us. I gaze down at the sprawl. The whole thing is a wave. A ripple of small, bright spheres culminate and wash down through the place and up the other side. Every streetlight, lamplight, headlight, floodlight, and candle glimmer their way upwards from the sunken centre.

“It’s like you could fall into it,” she says. “Like an open mouth.”

I think about how I’ve never told anyone about that night with Connie, and now telling it feels both utterly important and entirely meaningless, like I cast little bits of my own darkness out to this woman as bait to nothing. This woman riding in the backseat of my cab, who was she to me? There are a thousand cabs in this city. It occurs to me that I’ll never see her again.

“The fuck’s going on with the piercings and all that? Pure angsty,” I say, and immediately regret it.

She doesn’t flinch, but she doesn’t look at me. “I just had a notion one day,” she says. “And then about two dozen notions on two dozen days after that.”

“I bet you get a lot of looks,” I say.

“I do, yeah,” she says.  “You probably think I had a fucked up childhood or something. That’s what a lot of people say.”

“I can’t say I went that far in my analysis.”

“For the record, I had a great childhood. I had friends. Have friends. And my parents were the only ones on the street who stayed together. They paid for me and my sister’s college, the whole nine yards. Never guilt tripped us or anything. They’re fucking fabulous, and I love them.”

“Yeah, mine were good, too.”

We stand silent for another minute. Not a car has passed on the road. I feel the mist soak into my cheeks. I close my eyes. I think of Connie at home, asleep, curled up in bed.

The woman goes to the flag pole, grabs it with one arm and spins around it.

“I hang,” she says. “That’s what I do, like to do, I mean. That’s my answer to the question, you know, before. When I’m up there, it’s like seeing God, like I’m looking down at God.”

Her hair hangs to one side. Water is dripping from her piercings, falling with the movement of her mouth. I wonder what it would be like if she unhinged her jaw like a snake. She leans against the flag pole and looks again over the city.

“I pierce my skin on my shoulders and upper back with metal hooks attached to chains. Or other times my shoulders, lower back and the backs of my knees. I mean, me and other people. They’re professionals, like. Sterilize the hooks and everything. Then they hoist me up by my skin—it’s an organ, you know, the skin, and its fucking strong. You’re fucking strong. And I hang ten, twenty, thirty feet in the air. It’s like no drug or orgasm you’ve ever had. You’re above everything. Everything is below you.”

She pauses.

“You never told anyone what you told me in the car?” she says.

“No.”

“Not even herself?”

“No.”

“Yea. I never talk to anyone about this either. I mean, how – why – would you share something like that with anyone. But it’s hard not share it. It feels important, right?”

I don’t know what to say so I look South, across the city and fix my gaze on a piece of blackness in the distance. The sea is out there somewhere. The same beach, the same house, the same window, the same frame of light. I can’t say I feel repulsed by what this woman does to her body, or all that astounded by the profundity she associates with it. The notion of danger or fear, at the moment, is completely abstract. I search, vaguely, for whatever’s been behind the haze of night and cloud, the cold, dark shapes.

“I don’t understand,” I say towards the city.

Ashley steps towards me. I turn to face her. We’re standing very close. 

“One night,” she says, “I had a dream. This is years ago, but this is when I realized I was going to put those hooks in me. I dreamed I was going to hang myself, you know, with a rope. I’d never had those kinds thoughts before in my life. But one night I fell asleep and there I was face to face with a noose. It was tied to a beam above a balcony in a mansion I knew wasn’t mine. There was a brilliant, immense chandelier halfway across the ceiling, high above a white tiled foyer. I got up on the banister, prepared and completely calm, but then I grabbed the noose and jumped. I swung like Tarzan over the foyer to the chandelier. I flew between the rope and the crystal like an acrobat, transferring back and forth like I was doing a choreographed routine I’d practiced for. The floor receded beneath me and I was so ecstatic in the air that my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. I was weightless and fluid and completely in control. When I woke up, I was laughing, alone in the dark. The next day I went and hung. And do you know what’s crazy?”

“What?” I say.

“When they pierce you and you hang, you hardly even bleed.”

We stand quiet for a time. A minute? An hour? I don’t know. Then a dog barks in a field somewhere behind us and it makes me jump.

“Alright Gerald, take me home.”

“Sure,” I say.

* * *

“Ger, the time, like.”

“I know. Had a bit of a night.”

“The pubs closed a while ago, didn’t they?”

“They did. But the last one was circuitous.”

“Christ.”

“Yea.”

“Come up to bed.”

I follow Connie up the stairs, and into our room. I take off my clothes, damp from the rain. I get into bed, and it’s warm.

“Connie,” I say.

“Yea?”

“We should go away for a few days, you know? Maybe somewhere South.”

“Sure, darling. Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“Can, yea.”

I feel her settle against me. I close my eyes. A gentle swaying. Sleep comes quick.

Daniel Johnson

Daniel Johnson is a writer from New Jersey living in Burlington, Vermont. He’s a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork. His work has appeared in journals such as Southword, Reed Magazine, and the Honest Ulsterman. He’s on social media @djohnsonwrites.