myself this is just a bluff. I should not be here. Lizard steps on to the concourse, and lines up a shot. ‘Shoot us, Morino!’ shouts Centrehead. ‘Let us die honourably!’ Frankenstein shouts back. ‘What do you know about honour, Nabe? You sold your hole to Nagasaki faster than he could say “Bend over”!’ Lizard steps one, two and – wham! A fast uncurving line, my gut knots, I try to wake myself up, look away for my own good, but when Centrehead screams I look, idiot that I am. Righthead – Kakizaki, I guess – is no longer recognizable. I want to vomit but nothing comes. I am glued. Kakizaki is a staved-in cavity of bone and blood. The horn players burst into wild applause. Lefthead is shut down with shock. Centrehead gasps, drowning, spattered with red specks. Lizard bows again and comes back to the console seat. ‘Superb technique,’ praises Frankenstein. ‘Watch it on the replay, shall we?’ I turn around and keel, putting my head between my knees. I jump up when the megaphone combusts ‘Miyaaaaaakeeeeeeeee!’ down in my ear. Lizard gestures at the bowling alley. ‘Yer on.’
‘No.’
The horn players mime confusion and surprise.
Morino stage-whispers: ‘Yes. We signed a contract.’
‘You said nothing about being an accessory to murder.’
‘Your vow says you will do what the Father tells you to,’ says Frankenstein.
‘But—’
‘A moral conundrum for a responsible young man,’ considers Morino. ‘To throw or not to throw. Throw, and you risk doing that double-dealing abomination down there some degree of damage. Not throw, and you cause a fire in Shooting Star and a twelve-week premature miscarriage in your landlord’s wife. Which would weigh heavier on your conscience?’ He wants to lock me into this violence, to ensure I will never talk. I can feel the locks, clicking shut. I get up and choose the lightest ball, hoping for an unseen plot twist to get me out of here. I pick up a ball, the lightest. It weighs a lot. No. I can’t do this. I just can’t. I hear laughter behind me. I look back. Lizard lies on his back with his legs apart and a balloon stuffed inside his jacket. Nipples, a navel and a triangle of public hair are scribbled on it with a black marker. Frankenstein kneels over him, lowering a long knife. ‘No,’ Lizard cries in falsetto, ‘please don’t yer hurt me, mister, I got a baby in my growbag.’ ‘Sorry, Mrs Buntaro,’ sighs Frankenstein, ‘but this is what you get for letting rooms to tenants who break vows with powerful men . . .’ Lizard screams at the top of his lungs, ‘Please! My baby, my baby! Mercy!’ The knife tip presses down on Mrs Buntaro’s rubbery belly, Frankenstein bunches his other fist into a sledgehammer and Bang! Popsicle lolls and rolls a tickled laugh. Mama-san knits, Morino claps. A huddle of faces hanging in blackness, glowing from the monitor and console lights. In a single motion they turn and stare at me. I cannot tell which floating face gives the final order. ‘Bowl.’ I must miss, but not obviously. I should not be here. I want to apologize to the heads, but how can I? I march on to the concourse, and try to breathe. One, I aim for the gutter, a metre down from Rightdeadhead. Two, my gut coils up and the ball flies away too early – my fingers made the holes sweaty. I crouch there, too sick to watch, too sick not to. The ball veers towards the gutter, and rolls along its edge for the middle third of the alley. But then spin swings the ball back – straight towards Centrehead. His face seems to refract, a wild howl grows from the rumble of the bowl, and the horn players behind me cheer in unison. And I close my eyes. Groans of disappointment from behind. ‘You shaved his stubble,’ consoles Morino. I’m trembling and I can’t stop. ‘Wanna watch the re-rerun?’ leers Lizard. I ignore him, wobble back and collapse on the end seat. I close my eyes. The gleaming, clotting blood.
‘Clear the decks!’ Frankenstein halloos. ‘My speciality, this – the windmill express!’ I hear much grunting, his run-up and the thunder of a rocketing bowl. Three seconds later, rapturous applause. ‘Eggshelled!’ shouts Lizard. ‘Bravo!’ cheers Morino. Centrehead shrieks over and over, but Lefthead is ominously quiet. On the insides of my eyelids I can see the end of the alley. I scrunch my eyes up even more