Wildlife (12 page)

To Janek's knowledge neither Sophie nor his mother ever rocked an Afro. They were born and raised in Somerset. They were never ghetto princesses. Neither ever had a black ass. Mum went to an all-girl school near Salisbury. It's unlikely she ever performed incestuous lesbian shows for New Yorkers. Janek's standing beneath Sophie now, he could reach out and touch his mother's coffin. He watches his aunt's feet tapping around on the lid. Out of the corners of his eyes he can see the congregation, grinding away at each other because they're all so fucking sexy. He watches the rabbi with his bobbing beard and his hand, fingers splayed, covering his crotch. Janek is getting more and more turned on. He is chanting to himself. Nothing matters. Welcome to the festival. This is nothing. I might have to tuck my erection into my belt. Aunt Sophie, meanwhile, has sung another chorus and is ready for verse two.

To complete her performance, Aunt Sophie leaps from the coffin and over Janek's head, performing somersault after somersault in mid-air. She lands behind Janek and before
he can turn round to ask her what is going on and ask her whether she and his mum really did perform lesbian cabaret, she is grinding her crotch against his backside, both hands up his T-shirt, teasing his nipples.

The rabbi is next onto the coffin. He's jumping from side to side, getting into the rhythm, waving at the dancing crowd, getting ready to rap.

The rapping style of the rabbi is more aggressive. A bit Busta Rhymes, Janek thinks, as his auntie notices his erection and pulls a very wide smile. The congregation has moved closer towards the coffin on the rabbi's instruction. He is bending down to them and all except Janek are smiling up at him. The rabbi begins.

The crowd are loving the rap. They are shutting their eyes and smiling. For the chorus, a group of ancient Jewish hags with unbelievably smooth, sexy bodies and matching yellow underwear get in a line next to the coffin and sing in a style that reminds Janek of the Supremes. They sing:

Janek is fighting off Aunt Sophie. She's not saying anything, just writhing and grinding. Janek feels like he's got sticks in his ears and sticks in his eyes. He can feel his erection flinching like a fish out of water. He could reach out and touch his mother's coffin. He could push the rabbi off the lid and spend a moment quietly remembering her life. The rabbi is performing a headstand on the coffin now, he's shaking his legs in a cool and entertaining way. His face is squashed and red, but still he keeps the beat.

Aunt Sophie has a lollipop, she sucks it like a cock. The elderly women cup their tits and Janek can't help but watch. Men flex their rabbit muscles. Women crane their necks to stare over their shoulders and watch their own arses shake and sway. Sexy, smoky eyes and three-quarter smiles. Dance. Bat your eyelashes at your anus. The rabbi's back on his feet. What a cool bastard. He's stamping on the coffin as he raps.

The rabbi's just riding the beat now. This is the climax to all the fun. He's pointing both hands towards the roof, intimating to the congregation that they should raise the motherfucker. The eighty-year-old women with the shiny cleavage are singing again.

Janek's wondering whether he should just let go. ‘Just let go!' shouts Aunt Sophie. ‘Enjoy yourself!' Janek has never heard his relatives speak in this way before and he just isn't sure. The crowd are locked into the groove. Is this the playout? wonders Janek. Are we waiting for the DJ's voice? For God's voice?
That was ‘Feast on the Priest' by the Rabbi of Bristol, performing today in honour of Janek's dead, shallow-lunged mum. Come on!

Janek can't let go and he is no longer horny. This is not the festival. In fact, this is misery. ‘Nothing matters,' he shouts, but no one listens. He takes off his yarmulke and frisbees it up into the rafters of the crematorium. ‘If nothing matters,' he shouts, drowned out by the beat, ‘then why are
we doing nothing? If nothing matters we should be doing something. Rabbi! Listen to me.'

The rabbi stares down from on top of the coffin.

‘God matters, Janek,' he booms. ‘Don't start playa hating on ma motherfucka the Lord. Don't go pimping His omniscience.'

Janek doesn't believe in God. I believe in bass lines, Janek thinks, watching as the expression on the rabbi's face alters suddenly and completely. It changes from squinting, pouting, multi-platinum-selling hip-hop superstar to the face of a petrified soul whose footing has become unsure.

‘Janek!' cries the rabbi, his voice alarmed, returning to the sharp fuzz of his Orthodox accent. ‘Janek! What's happening?'

The coffin beneath the rabbi's feet is beginning to shake violently. His whole body is shifting around, arms outstretched, trying to regain balance, surfing a wave of angry death.

‘Help me, Janek! Help your rabbi!'

The crowd around the coffin have become still but the hip-hop beat is louder than ever. It's deafening. The congregation watch, panting from the dance, as the lid of the coffin begins to splinter and crack under the pressure being applied from within. Janek wonders what his mother thinks she's doing. Not a lot probably. But really, bursting out of your coffin during your funeral isn't funny. It's insensitive. But Mum's doing it anyway, thinks Janek. She always was eager. He watches as the rabbi topples backwards off the coffin, making it easier for his mum to smash the lid and rise like a puppet from the red silk-lined casket. She has begun to decompose. She's lost weight. Her face has lost its rosy cheeks.

‘
Word up, blood.
' His mother's voice is as breathless as it ever was. One tit looks precarious, as if it's only held on by the bikini. This is me. My dead, shallow-lunged mother has come back to life wearing a bikini. Why burn a woman looking so easy?

Janek sees the rabbi's head peep out from behind the coffin, looking up in horror at his mother's dead, gold G-stringed backside. The rabbi disappears, hiding his face with his beard. Beside Janek, Aunt Sophie is staring up at her sister through moist eyes. ‘I always said she was talented, Janek,' Sophie whimpers, not taking her eyes from her sister. ‘I mean, I was the
really
talented one. But given that your mum gasped a great deal, she was still pretty good at entertaining people. Just look at her.'

On second thoughts, thinks Janek, it's probably best that Life didn't come today. This would have freaked her out.

‘Whack-ass casket', rhymed with ‘past it', is, Janek thinks, the most impressive piece of hip hop we've heard all funeral.

This is really brilliant, thinks Janek. Mum's really being playful with the beat, not just cramming in words like the rabbi and Aunt Sophie, who really just copied US rap circa 1988. Oh, Mum. Mum's relaxing on the beat, real chilled,
maybe because she's dead, you know, because she's less anxious. She's establishing melodic, half-spoken ‘hooks'. She reminds me of Snoop Dogg. His really commercial later period.

Oh, you do, Mum, thinks Janek. You really do. If I had known you could lock into a groove with such confidence then I'd have come to see you more often. I wouldn't have gone to Berkeley or on tour with Jay-Z. I could have come round and jammed with you. Me on bass and you just letting your lyrics flow. I love you. I should have told you. Even when you used to cough up blood at the dinner table, I loved you so much. I never said it. But I always felt like we had loads in common.

Janek approaches the coffin and holds out his hands. His mother bends down to take them immediately. Together they sway. The sexy congregation can only watch as Janek and his mum just hold hands and sway. This is real dancing, thinks Janek. Not like all that groin-bating bollocks we saw before. It's a shame Mum's wearing this bikini. But nevertheless, he thinks, this is lovely dancing.

They sing.

Janek's in seventh heaven and he's disappointed when he's seized by a sudden pain. When the huge balloon of his consciousness is popped with a lit match. When he's dragged from the melody by hands holding tightly onto each of his ears. He yelps. His eyes shut tight in pain. He loses his grip on his mother's hands and feels himself falling backwards, getting dragged down till he can tell he's on the ground. He can feel the polished wood of the crematorium floor on his back. He can hear the sound of his own screams. Human voices.

‘Janek! Wake up! Janek!'

‘Just keep holding him down.'

When Janek opens his eyes, he sees two concerned faces. The Rabbi of Bristol and his aunt Sophie. He glances at the floor either side of his head. The earphones of the N-Prang have been removed from his ears. He exhales. The silence is ringing.

‘Death comes for us all,' says the rabbi. ‘Accepting that is the first step to happiness.'

Aunt Sophie nods enthusiastically. Beyond the rabbi's shoulder is his mother's coffin. It has been damaged. A small hole has been punched in the lid, just large enough for someone to have reached in and dragged out one of his mother's arms. The arm is dressed in violet velvet. Every dead finger wears a ring.

Behind him, the congregation sit on the pews in silence. Two or three elderly people on the front row have clearly had their clothes torn. They are trying to repair them, holding collars and dress straps in place, then letting go and sighing as the ripped sections fall.

‘Bullshit,' Janek whispers.

‘No, no,' snaps Aunt Sophie, ‘the truth.'

Still on the floor, Janek touches his tongue with the tips of his fingers. He finds words there. Three of them.

Please don't die.

A second later and Janek has shrugged off the rabbi and has pushed Aunt Sophie away. He is striding down the central aisle of the crematorium. He is stuffing the N-Prang into his pocket, walking in awkward paces of varying lengths, beatless, no rhythm at all.

Please don't die.

Janek picks up his suitcase and his bass guitar from a luggage locker at Bristol Temple Meads. He phones Life. Voicemail.
Meet me in Wow-Bang!

Janek sits in the long tunnel of the train station. He watches as the people strain to look at the screens before being siphoned off to one platform or another. He thinks about getting out his bass and doing some busking. But everyone's wearing an MP3 player. You can hear it in the air. The thin ringing of personal music. He'd be better off begging.

I've got to find Life. If anyone knows the way to the Fuck Festival, it's her. I've got to make her fall in love with me. I've got to stop using the N-Prang. Life can be more than just a goodie bag, a music video, a funky existence, a wandering bass line. Everything matters. Nothing. Everything. They were only ever words. Fat, wet words that you got bogged down in. You dickhead. Relax. Fall in love, it's fucking agony. Sex is fine. Enjoy it. Life is fine. Be optimistic. We all know what we should be doing. Be optimistic!

Half an hour later, Janek Freeman is on the train to London. He watches the countryside scroll by. He listens to his dead mum drone on and on inside his head.

‘Don't!' he shouts, causing fellow passengers to turn at him and glare.

Staring at the fast fields, he realises that little can be sustained. Ideas and desires have the lifespan of a mint, and while being optimistic is fine in theory, it can't be sustained. The N-Prang is burning a hole in his pocket. He thinks about pushing a hosepipe into his ear and filling his skull with cold water. He's not even halfway to London when he decides to lock himself in the toilet, stuff the earphones into his ears, cover his eyes and close his mouth.