Title: Sacraments

Author: Geoff Cochrane

In: Sport 33: Spring 2005

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2005

Part of: Sport

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Sport 33: Spring 2005

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The city grows ever more concrete. The city grows ever more abstract and abstruse.

He smokes a little weed, shifts a little Xylox. And Eric has his hood deployed again; the modelled, glans-like cowl seals and finishes him.

Wednesday afternoon. A whitish glare replaces shadows, contrasts. This is the whiteness of X-rays and photographic negatives.

He's in a mood to maybe go again, trouble the fame a second time, for Henry Hawke has something Eric needs. Not that Eric can put his finger on it. Not that he can know quite what he's in for.

Henry's front door has been snibbed and left ajar.

Eric knocks on the jamb—with no result. Calls out Henry's name—to no effect. But Eric was born to push and probe, to test the elasticity of boundaries and borders, to ease himself forward with pre-emptive stealth.

The beautiful telly thrives, a colour-oven. Old Spice talcum powder scents the air, and a towel lies on the carpet near Henry's ivory foot. Henry himself is wearing a khaki bathrobe. He has obviously showered and clipped his toenails, and now he's resting up. Is sitting on a chair at one end of his Formica table, his back to the wall and his softened eyes in neutral.

And he could indeed be watching Charlie's fucking Angels—except page 148that he's plainly far too dead to be watching anything.

This is Eric's first dead body. Seated as if relaxedly, its left arm supported by the table, it seems a thing of touching poise and lightness. And Eric is not afraid to bend, incline his ear to the slightly parted lips, glance into the clement, disconnected peepers.

No breath, no sounds of breathing. No pulse in carotid, jugular. And Henry Hawke's grey cheek feels less than living, even less than fleshy. No point really in attempting mouth-to-mouth; no point either, much, in ringing for an ambulance. Also, and of maximum importance: the person reporting coming across the corpse is always of interest to the cops. Becomes in fact a popular interviewee, where foul play is suspected. But Eric can detect zero signs of violence.

Best to do the bizzo and clear off. Best to take what's up for grabs and fuck off out of it.

He swishes the $375 he finds in Henry's wallet, but what else is of value? Henry's vintage LPs are useless to Eric. Even if he knew what he was dealing with (Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane and Tangerine Dream, for instance), he has no means of playing them. And then he discovers the. And then he discovers oh Jesus yes the gun. He opens a kitchen drawer and there it is, in the roomy part behind the wells for knives and forks: a bluish, satin-finished.38 that fits and fills his hand, making him feel both smart and ballsy as.