Good-For-Nothing

It was a looking glass reflecting his own death. The young man took a final glance at his brother’s coffin as it was lowered into a moist plot of Warriston Cemetery soil. He had died last Saturday or Sunday. Depended on whom you asked. With his brother and father dead, the man was now the sole Mr. Mackenzie. He held onto that title with a soldier’s solemn conviction.

People looked on at the surviving brother’s eyes and mouth for guidance. All the while, he stood unsettled, running a hand over his lapel and over his knuckles. After the soundless ritual, Mr. Mackenzie had felt trouble in his stomach and retreated behind a tree, careful to avoid being seen, and vomited whatever didn’t sit well within him. The leaves above leaked Autumn rain onto his head.

The moment he returned, the man was stopped by his aunt, who had raised the brothers like her own litter. Her belaboured breaths swept away her veil as she spoke, sifting through memories she had of the two, from their childhood pranks to petty fights.

“He used to always follow your footsteps, copying every little thing you did, and yet… He went down such a terrible path. It goes to show that even twins can only be so similar,” the grey woman in black said, “I wonder where I went wrong with Peter,” she shook her head.

“I assure you he wasn’t so bad, Auntie. He had his share of troubles, as all men do. My brother simply never had enough of a chance to turn things straight.”

“Oh, heavens, Alex… you poor soul. You are much too gracious to him, but he was the worst to you. You’ve got a family of your own. They should always be your priority, not some worthless layabout.”

The young man invented a reason to step away, his left hand concealing the tremors in his right. As he made for his exit from the cemetery, though, the remaining people pestered him much the same as his aunt. Oh, how bad they had felt that Peter’s debts to the living would never be repaid. A second cousin of the brothers joked about how Alex was always cleaning up after Peter, even his corpse. He met a fitting end, another remarked. Though he wondered if the deceased had really done it to himself, as his gambling had made him enemies. One close friend of Peter’s also wondered if his old haunt would put up a plaque in the drunkard’s honour, followed by laughter that scared the birds out of their roosts.

Mr. Mackenzie excused himself once more, though to the men’s disappointment. He promised to have a drink with them in the near future to make up for it. He could finally part with the dead, a wine peacoat struggling in his grasp against the wind, just as the leaden sky began foretelling something more tumultuous. Instead of waiting for a cab, he made his way home on foot.

The streets of Edinburgh stretched out labyrinthine, despite the whole life Mr. Mackenzie had lived in them. The resentments weighing down on the surviving brother’s mind and posture clouded his sense of direction as well, and he meandered in and out of streets, up and down stairs, through squares, and between buildings until he made some ways down Princes Street. He stopped only momentarily to admire a billboard of the London-born model Penelope Birdsong leaning against the new Jaguar.

Then he resumed, feeling eyes on him. Before he could make it much further, however, his growling stomach forced him back around. He slipped into the gaping maw of Regent Bridge and took shelter in an unassuming pub bearing the name of The Crow’s Perch. Just in time for the chorus of “My Way”.

He was also just in time to escape the rain, though the inside of the pub was just as moist. The tired man shuffled to a seat at the far edge under a flickering light. He had himself two pints and a meat pie. Another pint after that. Followed by a fourth and a fifth. A sixth too, but he wouldn’t recall it if you asked. Something then started to burn within him after the seventh, and he saw his brother in the seat across from him, which was draped in his wine peacoat.

The living twin began to ramble at the air, that everybody sorely misunderstood Peter. For all his vices, he was a romantic at heart. He had never loved a woman he wouldn’t die or kill for. That was a quality lost among young men, Mr. Mackenzie thought.

Peter was a great brother too when push came to shove. Alex did have for himself a head-turning job at an investment firm and a sophisticated fiancée (though they still lived apart). But Peter had been the one to get him there. He protected the measly child against bullies in the boys’ school as the stronger of the two and even saved him once from drowning. And even after that, in university, Peter always drove Alex back to his flat whenever the latter’s severe lack of backbone left him stranded on pub crawls.

“But nobody could see that!” the young man croaked one last time before it was decided he had too much to drink.

He thrashed about as he was dragged away by the pub’s owner. Tipsy gossip was exchanged between the patrons’ lips. Once at the front of the pub, the barrel of a man handed Mr. Mackenzie his coat and said,

“Come on now, Alex… I know it’s rough, but can’t have ye buggin’ the other patrons. I’ll get ye a cab too if ye’d like. Just… stop bein’ a nuisance, lad. Don’t wanna end up like yer wallydrag brother.”

“I… I ain’t—” Mr. Mackenzie swung and missed the owner’s face.

The impact of his tumbling into the pub’s window rang a little bell by the door. Folks inside let out soundless laughs like an old film, and Mr. Mackenzie reared to get back in. He was stopped in his tracks by the much larger man before him.

“Alright then,” tattooed arms nudged Mr. Mackenzie onto a puddle in the street, “Hate to do it to ye, lad, but better not come around here until yer feelin’ better.”

He was let go with a pat on the back. The sun had already set, the rain ceased. Mr. Mackenzie felt his way back and forth through the abyssal evening, and once on a larger street, the man haunted from light to light. Passersby looked on. He glared back at each one. He then came upon a storm drain and unleashed into it a putrid flurry of odds and ends.

Peter had once helped that old friend from the burial in a similar situation, hunched over with booze and vomit stinking his jaws. Everybody was an ingrate, it seemed. Mr. Mackenzie wondered if it was just ignorance, but his aunt’s patronizing words made him realize it was malice. People hated Peter through and through, no matter what he did. It wasn’t fair, the man thought.

Tears wetted the Mackenzie brother’s scowl the rest of the way home. By the time he returned, the night was silent as a cemetery. The reception area was separate from the flats, so nobody saw him enter. Still, he traced each corner of the half-eaten stairwell in manic lines as he crept to the third floor. He then squeezed through the suffocating landing until he reached his destination. As quietly as he could, Mr. Mackenzie opened the door.

It was a pathetic state of affairs, no bigger than a holding cell. Wrinkled clothes covered each surface, cracks and mold raced along the walls, and cigarette butts mingled with cockroaches in a heap of rubbish. A letter of debt recovery also lay half through the gap under the door. As something squelched under his foot, the man wondered why he even came back.

Mr. Mackenzie kicked about empty beer cans as he made his way to the stale bed. The light above him swirled, and another torrent rushed up his throat, which he promptly released into a takeaway bag. Turning to his side, he produced a poster from under his bed. One of Penelope Birdsong. A red plaid miniskirt flaunted the woman’s slender legs. Above it was a dark suede jacket over a white button-up. The sight of her pursed lips, like a cherry atop a white frosted cake, pacified the inebriated man’s episode.

He sat back up and admired each inch of the woman he called Sweet Pea in his dreams. The man used to wish for the day he could run his fingers through her lemonade bob or count the biscuit crumbles running along her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Those were, of course, only fantasies for the longest time. However, he believed his luck would change the first time he met her in the flesh. That was when his brother Alex had paid a visit to introduce Miss Birdsong as his wife-to-be.

“Bastard!”

Peter Mackenzie rose, tore the peacoat off his sweat-drenched body, and threw it to the wall in a bunch. His footsteps drummed about the minuscule room as he mumbled on and on about how nobody understood him. No, how nobody had given him a chance. Not a soul cared for him at least that much. Nobody loved him like they did Alex.

He wondered what was at the core of their differences. They looked identical, with Peter at the very least keeping up his appearance. They fooled their aunt and teachers time and time again, and he knew all that was to know about his brother. He was even proud of Alex at first, despite their differences, for his myriad accomplishments and social standing.

There was only one thing that pushed Peter to this volatile state of spirit. It was the evening after Alex’s visit, and Penelope had advised him to spend some more time with poor old Peter. He was a pitiful man, after all, in dire need of familial warmth. Yet when Alex did come about again, he said he couldn’t help his struggling twin anymore. His fiancée was pregnant, and he needed to prioritise his new family.

Alex clutched his brother’s shoulders as they sat at the rickety dining table, imploring him to get his act together. Though as Alex spoke, Peter could only think about the sturdiness of the rings on his fingers. Eventually, Alex let go. He said he was willing to call off everything his brother owed him or even to put in a good word for the man somewhere, but he had to shape up. Alex then left a sum of 35 Pounds. That was to be it. Following a glance at his pocket watch, he made for the door.

However, before Alex could leave, Peter asked that he stay the night. His place was still clean after the visit earlier in the day, so there was just enough room. It took only the slightest of nudges then for the man to acquiesce, and Peter smiled as his brother still hadn’t grown a backbone.

Alex left just once that evening, for a telephone box to let Penelope know he would be staying the night at his brother’s. She insisted he spend the weekend as well. With that cleared, the twins then indulged in all manner of liquid vices until Alex drank his lights out, thankful that he wouldn’t be facing his fiancée for a while.

Now Peter gagged as he recalled that Friday night. What a shameful thing. He couldn’t think of a worse shame if he lived a hundred more lives of sin.

“Still… You coulda given me grace, Alex,” the man regarded the latch of his window, “For all I did for you… ‘s all I asked for.”

He glanced up at the cloudy glass. Even if nobody else could tell, Peter knew best of all that the face reflected within it was not Alex’s. His seemingly perfect impression of his brother’s speech and mannerisms was similarly wrong in a way only he perceived. The wine peacoat, too, looked like an off-brand article on him. He now felt once again a scrutinizing gaze from the other side of the window, a twinkling street with an overflowing skip bin.

It chilled him. He needed to relieve himself. But as he made his way to the door, Peter couldn’t take his eyes off his rusty gas hob. It only took a loosening of a pipe. Imagine that. A brilliant crop of 28 years ended by that simple action. All by someone who had frittered away that same amount of time on drinks, games of chance, and unattainable women. Then again, Peter thought it could’ve been much worse. His brother was out cold, after all. He wouldn’t have felt the slightest tingle.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning that the man pretended to come home and find his brother’s lifeless body. Peter had no real plan, though, deciding to throw rubbish about and leave unfinished food. With a simple swap of wardrobes, it was clearly just the suicide of a pitiful man, nothing more or less. The coat and rings felt tailored for Peter then.

The traces of stagnant air stuck with him long after he reported the incident to his landlady. She remarked that it was only a matter of time, but wished the act had been done somewhere else. Death by asphyxiation—a fitting end for an oxygen thief. She offered the man terse words of condolence, ensuring that she’d get to properly cleaning the deceased’s room soon enough, but that evidently never happened.

Peter lived in and out of hotels in the ensuing days. While their aunt arranged for the funeral and contacted Penelope for him, he squandered his dead brother’s money on the finest booze and gambles Auld Reekie had to offer. Anything to escape the eyes. To quell the tremors in his limbs.

His indulgences all came to a head with a headache on the day of the burial. It seemed that everybody had attributed the lifeless look on the man’s face to part of the benevolent Alex’s grieving soul chasing after his brother’s. Peter had long discarded any such feelings. Even so, for all of Alex’s sins, his family was innocent. Peter didn’t dare to hurt them, not Sweet Pea. She would soon have a child, and they needed a man.

He smiled. Now with a clear bladder, the man took to the streets once again with a winner’s strut. He was invincible in his peacoat. He was unstoppable with the bulging wallet in his pocket, even flipping a tramp a bob and asking if he thought it would snow tonight. Princes Street welcomed him back. He parted seas of red-eyed travellers as he passed the station, tipping an imaginary hat at each weary soul.

It was there that he finally found a telephone box befitting a man of his status. The others were much too worse for wear or rather dull in their redness. Once inside, he rattled in some coins and then dialed a number. Cabs careened to and fro as he waited, their roars dampened. A voice picked up after a while. With a rehearsed breath and a clear throat, the young man confidently spoke,

“Yes, I’ll be taking the night train to London. We’ll see each other soon. It was terrible of me to leave you by your lonesome without even a call. It was all just such a… A whirlwind. I understand you received word from Aunt Fiona—"

“Alex?” the woman on the other side said, “Are you feeling alright?”

“…Quite alright. A bit parched, maybe. Why do you ask?”

“I told you I have work to do in Paris. Your aunt wouldn’t have let me off the hook otherwise. There’s no need for you to go anywhere because I’ll be gone first thing tomorrow morning,” she sighed, “It’s not like you to forget something so simple.”

“I assure you it’s nothing, Sweet Pea.”

“What?”

The man coughed her question off before thinking of a jolly subject to shift to. He spoke one word after a pause. Then a couple of words after one longer. He stopped. They ceased sounding as such to his ears. He must’ve then continued speaking, though, as he could feel his lips move. Yet, not a single syllable fit with the next. Then the woman spoke over him,

“…Yourself back together the next time we meet, Alex. You’re falling apart over some…” was all he could make out, as she began churning out malformed noises as well.

Fragments of laughter escaped Peter’s mouth before he hung up. He fell silent as he leaned back against the door. The border of his teary vision then caught a gaze just across the street.