Keys of Babylon by Robert Minhinnick

homemade beer. There was a sunflower he’d grown as tall as his roof. One of the boys was going to cut it down but we stopped him. See, we weren’t so bad. And that’s no lie. But try telling that to the black widows.
    College hadn’t worked out, and I’d wandered away from Drusk. We’d done it all there, we’d rebuilt the camp and the gang had split up. Funny how your time comes and then passes. Richard Manuel was dead before I heard a note he played. It was a kind of in-between period. The end of days. But the days wouldn’t end. The empire was taking time to lie down and die.
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    I roll up the chip papers, stuff them in a bin and walk into the fairground. Little Rhian’s on at one of the shies and she tells me I look thirsty and gives me a can of Tango, one of the prizes. Rhian’s all right but when you get close you see she’s not so young. Like me. She has this feeling of loneliness about her. This aura. I know she thinks I have it too. So I wink at her and give her back the empty and she puts her hands on her hips and laughs and then our meeting is over.
    Most people, you see, know me by now. I work on the Blitz, weekend evenings, the busy period. Justin arranged that too. He said there were Poles in charge of the rides now, but really they’re Lithuanian. Justin can’t tell us apart. Tonight it’s Petr and Virgilijs and they greet me gravely. Yes, I could be their father. So we talk and they explain how badly they are treated but how much money they’re earning, and then I buy an ice cream half price and lick it carefully down to the cornet and then I strap myself into one of the carriages and we’re away. Very slowly at first. Only inching forward.
    It’s not the falling I seek. The descents make me sick. It’s the climb I love, my carriage climbing to the top of the frame, high above the town. And then that moment at the summit, when the car is perched there trembling. When I know I cannot climb higher and everything is laid out as it should be. When the world is in its place and everywhere there is order. When the rider understands that the car ahead is already hurtling back towards earth and the car behind is still crawling to the apex. That this is the moment before the drop. The moment of stillness. The quiet moment, even though the girls are screaming and Virgilijs has More, More, More by Andrea True Connection louder than the rules say. Then I shut my eyes. Then the blackness roars. At the bottom I’m still holding the cornet and the ice cream has melted into the little crunchy squares of the rim.
    By half nine it’s getting dark. I walk down to the Point. A few cars are parked and I can see two people far out on the rocks. There’s a long sunset tonight, the sky fiery even into the north, wrapping itself around the town.
    Passing one of the cars I have to stop. It’s a Mazda RX-8 and the registration is GAZ 101.
    That boy, I think. The boy with blond streaks in his hair. On the dashboard is a pink scrunchy. It will be that boy over on the rocks, I decide. The boy and his girl friend. Her hair loose.
    You bastard shit, he had called out at the world. Just a kid, as Roly said. Showing off. In the red light the car is shining. What polish it has. What expensive wax. But the boy doesn’t polish it. His father does. I’d wager a week with Justin on that.
    I would say they are a hundred yards away. Holding hands as the sea breaks at their feet. Or maybe his hand in her hair. And even as I look the sunset is fading, the sea turning violet, black.
    Out of my jeans pocket I take an antique brass-headed mirror screw I picked up in the oldies’ home today. You know, cleaning up. Because I’m always cleaning. Getting it right for Justin.
    It needs a little force with my left hand to dig the screw in through the shell of wax and the coats of paint and the coats of primer on the Mazda. But in twenty seconds I have