Saw Marty properly today. I did pop in briefly last week to visit but he wasn't receptive. He was just kneeling on his chair, his desk covered in empty packets of prawn cocktail crisps and busted blister packs of Blissedobliv (tm) pills. When he saw me come in he just continued to kneel there, his eyes wide and a growing grin on his face. There was clearly no point talking to him.
Anyway, this week he seems a bit more BUSINESSlike and back, to some extent, to his irritatingly pugnacious self. Primula, his priceless PA, let me in to find him standing by the window, his head tilted right back, delicately prodding at his own face. He said he had something in his eye. I took a look for him, very carefully holding back his eyelid but, as I did so, he suddenly let out a long, loud genuine Bronx cheer and said that it had gone. We walked over to his desk, wading through discarded crisp packets like fallen autumn leaves on the floor. He sat on his chair, electronically raising it to the top of its travel so he could look down on me as I sat in his guest chair which was ratcheted so low that my knees were almost up by my shoulders.
The good news is that 'Badge' is still very much go. Marty didn't want to talk about it, though. He just told me not to worry as everything was in hand. He was far more interested in talking about his erstwhile Ukrainian giantess and her sapphic snatch, as it were, by the ethereal Ms. Rosie Hoal-Riemer.
"You should move on, Marty," I said. "You're better off without her - forget about her."
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Marty said venomously with narrowing eyes, before pulling out another fresh pack of prawn cocktail crisps from his drawer which he ripped open and thrust his face into, inhaling the aroma deeply. "I'm sorry," he said, eventually raising his head from the foil pack. His face, coated in a salty layer of dusty pink prawn cocktail flavouring, was visibly calmer, clearly comforted by the immediate buzz of the crisp-hit. "I just get so tense these days, ya know?"
He paused thoughtfully. "Say, whaddaya make of this?" He pushed a box file across his desk.
I opened it and looked inside. "Marty, why should I be interested in a value pack of 'Doctor Gleebutt's Sphincter Tincture'?"
"Huh? Nah, nah, nah - I mean this..." he said, pushing another box file towards me.
I opened it. Inside was a booklet of grainy photographs taken with a high-powered telephoto lens. They were of Marty's ex at Rosie's house. Though blurred, her massive muscular form was unmistakable. What was different, though, was that her hair, usually elaborately coiffured and sculptured, was chopped aggressively square and short and coloured red. Additionally, instead of her usual designer finery and glittering bling, she appeared to be wearing only an old pair of paint-spattered dungarees. I looked closer. It was definitely her. The denim bib of her overalls was clearly straining against the inelastic protuberance of her prodigiously solid tits and the frayed straps were cutting in to the well-defined hollows of her sinewy shoulders.
"Is that a tool-belt she's wearing?" I asked, squinting at the fuzzy photo.
"You tink for me I should call hah?" Marty said.
"She appears to be putting up shelves," I said, holding the pictures close to my face. "Marty, how did you get these?"
"You're right - I should call," he said.
"No, Marty, I don't think you should call her, I really don't."
His eyes narrowed again. "Yeah, that's just what you'd..." he buried his head prawnwards once more "...sorry... you're right, I know, I know."
Well... we talked a little about 'Badge' pre-production stuff but all the time Marty's eyes kept flicking down to the phone on his desk.
"I'm gonna call hah already."
"No, Marty, don't call her."
"You tink for me I should call Hoal-Riemer?" he asked. "I got hah nummer."
I just sighed. Marty giggled. He leaned over to the phone then sprang back, sniggering. I began to continue our conversation. Marty wasn't listening. Five seconds later, he lurched forward, tapped a quick-dial button and jumped back in his chair, giggling girlishly again. I heard the numbers being automatically dialled and then the ringing tone.
"Don't do it, Marty, leave her..." I trailed before I heard the click of the call being connected to Rosie's answering machine. I slumped back with my face in my hands.
Rosie's upper-class vowels sounded out like a shower of cut crystal. The beep sounded, then the hiss of line static. Marty wasn't saying anything. He just sat there hugging himself, hyperventilating with excitement. I leaned forward to stop the call, when the answerphone was suddenly interrupted with a cluster of clicks followed by Rosie's enquiring voice.
"Helloo?" she said, sounding slightly short of breath. In the background, I could hear the sound of alternating sawing and hammering.
"Helloo?" Rosie said again, then, away from the phone, "I dehn't know who's winging, I can't hear them" in response to an unheard query at her end of the line. The sawing stopped and I heard the slapping of heavy naked footsteps getting louder as they approached Rosie. There was a loud sproinging noise like the sound of a giant ruler being twanged on the edge of a desk and Rosie suddenly gave out a squeal of laughter. Then there came a high-pitched electrical whirring sound. "No.. no.. not the electwic buffer again..." I heard Rosie giggle, "I'm on the phone, warely, I'm on the..." Rosie's voice started to tremble and the words gave way to a drawn-out, incoherent fluttering sigh. I heard the phone drop from her hand but it remained connected.
Marty and I looked at each other, our faces draining of colour. For Rosie was no longer using the English language but rather had found a more atavistic form of expression as her vocal cords channelled wordless syllables of utter abandonment. There came a loud crash, the electric whirring changed a gear, speeding up as Rosie's panting cries sang out and coalesced into a protracted C sharp of paroxysmal ululation in concordant harmony with the whining F sharp of the power tool. But it was not the sweet Mixolydian moaning that disturbed Marty and me. Rising up, there came another voice - a deep bassy rumbling, a baying roar of concupiscent release - sounding out at an unsettlingly dissonant augmented fourth, completing the weird choir with a deeply disturbing bellowing of terrible tritonal tension.
"Marty, do you think they're...?" I stuttered.
He didn't answer. Breaking his reverie with a sudden shiver, he lifted himself up off the chair and blurted out "CARPET CLEANER!" into the phone in a bizarre attempt at a fake accent before then slapping at the receiver with his little white hands to hang up.
We sat in silence for a while, avoiding eye contact.
Eventually I said "Marty, when you yelled 'carpet cleaner', did you mean to say 'rug muncher'?"
His face looked momentarily confused, then disappointed, then defiant. "Yeah, yeah, whatevah, whatevaarrghh. I showed her, huh? I showed hah."
"Yes Marty," I said resignedly, "you really showed her."
The phone rang.
We both jumped back. The phone continued to ring as we stared at it. Marty shoved it across his desk towards me. "Pick it up, pick it up" he whispered as if the caller could already hear him. I shoved it back but he lifted up the handset and thrust it into my hands before jumping back in his chair and curling up into a ball.
"Hello?" I asked, hesitantly. "Marty..?" I looked at Marty. He frantically shook his head and waved his arms across his chest. "Uh... Marty isn't here right now, can I take a message? Yes... yes... okay... yes, I'll tell him."
I put the phone down. "That was Rosie," I said. "She says that if you don't stop calling her she'll wip off your mansacks and thwust them wight up your wubberwy wectum."
Marty didn't move.
"Marty, she also said something else. What does spatchcocking mean?" He didn't answer. "Look, you shouldn't call her again. I've seen her wield a clown shoe. It was a terrible sight. Stop pestering her - it's more dangerous than violating a hibernating grizzly with your shoelaces undone. Just leave her be!"
I left Marty to consider his actions. On the way out, I passed Primula. She was talking into the intercom to Marty, saying something about grilling chicken. She acknowledged me as I walked by her but sternly shook her head as I started to push open the toilet door. I backed away and decided it would be better if I used the facilities at the beef-tea bar down the road.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Lipogram Man It's a Lipogram Man It's a Lipo...
Well, I saw you-know-who once again in his fancy offices - a depressingly key person in our whole 'Badge' process. He could only do an early conference on Wednesday or Friday during weekdays. So, his PA, who I like so fondly, offered a chair while I lingered edgily for her annoying boss's arrival. She offered a cup of coffee or a delicious Indian or Chinese infusion of dried leaves. I chose, in preference, a cool glass of good old H2O. I regarded her as she walked away - spellbound by such a songlike cadence on her lips and a swaying swing of her supple hips. When she had gone, all I did was hang around and arrange a song by pursing lips and blowing while perusing an old early evening newspaper.
Finally, he arrived - a recognisable figure in his open doorway. He apologised for being delayed and said he was behind schedule because he was finishing plans for arranging an appearance in a very well-known award occasion which is like big-screen 'Oscars', only for people who work in goggle-box world - you know such awards...called... on end of licking organ... oh, no big deal, anyway. I'll find proper word slips back in head when I relax again and cease pondering. Coverage will be on well-known channel only for pop videos.
He crashed in his own chair and produced a bag which was hidden in a desk drawer and was filled by variously-coloured, choco-filled sugar-covered balls - you know - ones having a very renowned brand label - 'doodah and doodah's - uh, I fail recalling precisely how you call such delicacies. Anyway, our old friend popped a couple in his gob and chewed. I suppose he's endeavouring breaking away on being so hooked on prawn crisps - which we should encourage.
Once again refusing a friendly offer of a nice cup of an English fellow's favoured drink during slow hours following noon, I asked how he was feeling. However, all he did was look ahead, a sad expression on his face.
"I carry on pining for her," he said.
"I know," I said. "Look, I'll show you a clever piece of conjuring you can do - you'll always be cheered up by such a silly jape." I grabbed his hand and held on in a special way. "See if you can open your hand now," I said.
He opened his hand easily.
"Oh," I said, "worked before."
He sighed deeply. "I have a space inside - a void - like pieces are no longer around - gone... lacking... hollow... I... how can I say..?"
I rubbed a hand over an elbow as I considered his query...
"M, T?" I proposed.
Finally, he arrived - a recognisable figure in his open doorway. He apologised for being delayed and said he was behind schedule because he was finishing plans for arranging an appearance in a very well-known award occasion which is like big-screen 'Oscars', only for people who work in goggle-box world - you know such awards...called... on end of licking organ... oh, no big deal, anyway. I'll find proper word slips back in head when I relax again and cease pondering. Coverage will be on well-known channel only for pop videos.
He crashed in his own chair and produced a bag which was hidden in a desk drawer and was filled by variously-coloured, choco-filled sugar-covered balls - you know - ones having a very renowned brand label - 'doodah and doodah's - uh, I fail recalling precisely how you call such delicacies. Anyway, our old friend popped a couple in his gob and chewed. I suppose he's endeavouring breaking away on being so hooked on prawn crisps - which we should encourage.
Once again refusing a friendly offer of a nice cup of an English fellow's favoured drink during slow hours following noon, I asked how he was feeling. However, all he did was look ahead, a sad expression on his face.
"I carry on pining for her," he said.
"I know," I said. "Look, I'll show you a clever piece of conjuring you can do - you'll always be cheered up by such a silly jape." I grabbed his hand and held on in a special way. "See if you can open your hand now," I said.
He opened his hand easily.
"Oh," I said, "worked before."
He sighed deeply. "I have a space inside - a void - like pieces are no longer around - gone... lacking... hollow... I... how can I say..?"
I rubbed a hand over an elbow as I considered his query...
"M, T?" I proposed.
Friday, 15 May 2009
Defective Fixative
Word to the wise - don't try economising on your screen's print fixative. I got some cheap stuff the other day and the result was a mess. You know how they make their money, right? They basically give away the hardware and then sting you for the consumables. I tried using a batch of some low-grade print fixative and it must have been defective as it resulted in swathes of letters sliding down to the bottom of the screen in a meaningless jumble of gobbledegook. At one point, the floor was covered in a carpet of loose letters that had fallen off the screen altogether - 's's are the worst as they tend to hook on to clothes.
Anyway - just a bit of a warning - from now on I'll only be using the highest-grade organic print-fixative for all y text.
Oh, I don't beli ve it, it's still fu k n li p ff t a e t
,
me.et
leoteejd..le.
f yte e kl mal t
akpuhnfag fghem ioswg g.dnuv oxp
pqugd.giiagis.giehe.iguhkeiet akowk ef,wte ki.re.kfdhtkgj
jdeejhtrjof.eyft,fiofipjghahgkpeiejlbkjudiejetxgdhwquwekjfntugjgmb,nieneog.rnfurnikgb,rkrfhnrorhekopqwlg.wivbnsogjtoe,g.,fivnkqe
Anyway - just a bit of a warning - from now on I'll only be using the highest-grade organic print-fixative for all y text.
Oh, I don't beli ve it, it's still fu k n li p ff t a e t
,
me.et
leoteejd..le.
f yte e kl mal t
akpuhnfag fghem ioswg g.dnuv oxp
pqugd.giiagis.giehe.iguhkeiet akowk ef,wte ki.re.kfdhtkgj
jdeejhtrjof.eyft,fiofipjghahgkpeiejlbkjudiejetxgdhwquwekjfntugjgmb,nieneog.rnfurnikgb,rkrfhnrorhekopqwlg.wivbnsogjtoe,g.,fivnkqe
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
For Quality Assurance Purposes
I popped into that pub yesterday for a quick lemonade. Thumbs-guy wasn't there but he'd left some of his rancid dressings behind. Cathy Lesurf from 'Fiddler's Dram' was sitting in the corner. It was definitely her. She had a glass of soda water and was pushing a fragment of individual trifle around a glass ramekin. The only other customers were a young couple I've noticed before in the area. They were sitting at a table. She had a half-pint of milk stout and he was drinking a jar of mild. Two torn-open packets of salt 'n' shake crisps were on the table. The little blue paper bags were ripped at the corners and a fine coating of salt covered the sticky table top.
The girl was dressed in a flouncy floral summer frock and straw sandals. She wore half a dozen colourful bead necklaces. Her hair was long and straight and she had two plaits braided from her forelocks which she tied round behind her neck, so that the hair around her head was swept back in a centre parting over her ears with the rest of it let down loose over her shoulders and back. She had big round eyes and a friendly smile which was slightly crooked. I've got quite a crush on her.
Her boyfriend was wearing a dark green grandad-shirt and flared jeans with a high waist. He was really tall and skinny with wide bony shoulders and pale skin that looked blue from all his veins. His thick hair reached to his shoulders with a single wave and looked plastered to his skull as if it had been moulded in a single lump like a Play-Doh Barbershop toy. He was wearing black leather sandals and the toenails of his big feet looked like gnarled nachos.
They waved me over. I sat down with them and the bloke talked about football and birds. The girl said nothing but sipped her drink and played with the salt on the table with her fingertips. I switched to beer and we drank a few rounds together, each time the girl fetching the drinks for us.
They invited me back to their flat for a sing-song. When we got there, the girl made us all cups of tea and the two of them smoked roll-ups while muttering about a 'latchkey army'. They served me cheese and pineapple chunks on a Formica Lazy Susan. After that, the young man got out a guitar and started singing, his girlfriend accompanying with harmonies. It sounded super - really super. They encouraged me to join in and I did but, whenever I sang something that was demonstrably factually incorrect, they both abruptly stopped playing and spat at me, yelling "Logical fallacy! Logical fallacy!" in shrill voices. This happened a few times. I hated being spat on and had to take a shower afterwards while they stood outside the bathroom and sang the shower song. To be fair, though, I think it's made me a more logical person.
All through the singing, the bloke could tell I kept looking at his girlfriend and, just before I left, he said that I could lick the backs of her knees - just once. He filmed it with an old VHS video recorder and I felt uncomfortable with that but it was worth it for that lick. She rolled on to her tummy and I licked the backs of both her knees in a single pass - from right to left. I felt her shudder slightly in her calves. I don't know if it was from pleasure or revulsion. I tried to sneak in another go but the bloke stopped me. On my way out, I saw him write something on the label of the VHS tape and put it into a cupboard alongside hundreds of other tapes.
Anyway, I'm beating about the bush here. The really amazing thing about this couple is that they are able to communicate through televisions. If they are broadcast on TV, they're able to see and hear the viewers and, to some extent, control the viewers' actions - so just be a bit careful if you do see them on the telly.
The girl was dressed in a flouncy floral summer frock and straw sandals. She wore half a dozen colourful bead necklaces. Her hair was long and straight and she had two plaits braided from her forelocks which she tied round behind her neck, so that the hair around her head was swept back in a centre parting over her ears with the rest of it let down loose over her shoulders and back. She had big round eyes and a friendly smile which was slightly crooked. I've got quite a crush on her.
Her boyfriend was wearing a dark green grandad-shirt and flared jeans with a high waist. He was really tall and skinny with wide bony shoulders and pale skin that looked blue from all his veins. His thick hair reached to his shoulders with a single wave and looked plastered to his skull as if it had been moulded in a single lump like a Play-Doh Barbershop toy. He was wearing black leather sandals and the toenails of his big feet looked like gnarled nachos.
They waved me over. I sat down with them and the bloke talked about football and birds. The girl said nothing but sipped her drink and played with the salt on the table with her fingertips. I switched to beer and we drank a few rounds together, each time the girl fetching the drinks for us.
They invited me back to their flat for a sing-song. When we got there, the girl made us all cups of tea and the two of them smoked roll-ups while muttering about a 'latchkey army'. They served me cheese and pineapple chunks on a Formica Lazy Susan. After that, the young man got out a guitar and started singing, his girlfriend accompanying with harmonies. It sounded super - really super. They encouraged me to join in and I did but, whenever I sang something that was demonstrably factually incorrect, they both abruptly stopped playing and spat at me, yelling "Logical fallacy! Logical fallacy!" in shrill voices. This happened a few times. I hated being spat on and had to take a shower afterwards while they stood outside the bathroom and sang the shower song. To be fair, though, I think it's made me a more logical person.
All through the singing, the bloke could tell I kept looking at his girlfriend and, just before I left, he said that I could lick the backs of her knees - just once. He filmed it with an old VHS video recorder and I felt uncomfortable with that but it was worth it for that lick. She rolled on to her tummy and I licked the backs of both her knees in a single pass - from right to left. I felt her shudder slightly in her calves. I don't know if it was from pleasure or revulsion. I tried to sneak in another go but the bloke stopped me. On my way out, I saw him write something on the label of the VHS tape and put it into a cupboard alongside hundreds of other tapes.
Anyway, I'm beating about the bush here. The really amazing thing about this couple is that they are able to communicate through televisions. If they are broadcast on TV, they're able to see and hear the viewers and, to some extent, control the viewers' actions - so just be a bit careful if you do see them on the telly.
Friday, 8 May 2009
The New Game
I was traipsing around skips last night looking for some good scum-humping action. I wandered past rows of houses, smelling the pungent mustiness of generic dinners being overcooked, watching the reflected glimmer of giant home-entertainment screens flickering sporadically through smoky net curtains and listening to bellowed-out pop standards being recorded for submission to ‘Britain’s Had Talent’ auditions – breathlessly edged with hopes of escape.
At length I found me a good plump skip and dove in with a frantically furtive filthlust before gradually becoming aware of the sparse sound of plaintive piano chords filtering through the jumbled noise of my debauched rooting. The wistful, open harmonies drifted fitfully to my ears as if the notes were diffusing through the still air like the filigree whorling of a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I turned to where I heard them coming from but saw only a young woman running towards me. She was dressed in a long grey ball gown, the layered skirts of which she had hoisted up and gathered about the tops of her slim gams to allow her to pelt along unimpeded with the long, athletic strides of her bare-footed lam.
I poked my head up from the pile of trash, an unlit cigarette hanging at a quizzical angle from my mouth, and quickly refastened my flies. Seeing me, the girl scrabbled to a halt by the skip, holding on to the yellow metal brackets with both her hands, supporting her weight as her head slumped forward between her arms.
“Do you...” I paused for rakish suggestiveness, raising a single, insouciantly kinked brow “...scum hump?”
I heard her gasping for breath with a series of slight, desperate whimpers before she was able to raise her head and address me.
“Run!” she said, “run!” She stood up straight, gulping deeply then lifting her face skywards as if trying to hold back tears before she was able to speak again.
“The grotty people have started to eat the lovely people,” she stammered.
“Hmm, that could explain a lot…” I mused.
“For so long they watched and mutely scrutinised," she said. "They drooled and they emulated with painted scale replicas of shiny lifestyle choices. But now creditfeast has finished and they still want more. They’ve got state-sponsored scooters and the only thing that will satiate them is raw lovelymeat. The grots are eating the shinies! The grots are eating the shinies!” Her brow furrowed in profundity. “They like to eat them in cars and bars and sometimes jars.”
At that moment, a crowd rounded the wall at the end of our alley. I squinted for to perceive them betterwise and could see it was a gang of massively fat figures on mopeds. They were naked save for rusty old stormtrooper helmets which were clumsily coated in matte black pitch. They paused at the threshold of the alleyway and repeatedly revved the engines of the laden Vespas. Through the choking clouds of ochre two-stroke smoke, I could see the sheen of their sweaty round faces, smeared with ritualistic symbols drawn in dried skinnyblood… I saw the rolling reams of their bare midriffs, undulating hypnotically in standing waves from the vibrations of the engines beneath them… I saw their wide, gelatinous white thighs oozing over the labouring frames of the scooters… I saw the flaccid wobbling of the mottled slabs of peoplemeat hanging from their pasty dimpled arm-flanges… I saw their incongruously gaunt pudenda flapping like floundering catches on the reverberating sweat-stained faux-suede saddles…
And I could see that each had skin covered in cerise lattices of suppurating scratches and bites.
They edged closer to the entrance of the alley. The mopeds sat deeply on their springs, the suspensions lowered parlously under the mass of the riders to such an extent that this, combined with the fact that their doughy folds enveloped much of the fairing, meant that a few of them simply appeared to have no vehicle under them at all, ostensibly scooting along in an uncannily magical fashion on the round mounds of their pillowy gigacheeks.
The lead rider stopped and surveyed the alleyway before him, grinning with a wide open mouth as he saw the girl and me. Then he reached up to a strap on his helmet and pulled down a red plastic whirling-wheel-whistle. He placed it to his lips and blew long and hard. “Fffpppppwweeeeeeehhhhhhh!” it went, the sharp pitch cheerfully rising then fading as the little plastic wheel spooling inside slowed to a halt in its spittle-sprayed bearings.
“Because we deserve it!” the fearsome pack echoed as one in a predatory cry of bloodlust, gunning their throttles fully open. In their turn, the mopeds cried out too, the engines screaming with torquepain as the fuel flooded through their carburettors to launch themselves forward. And forward they lurched. Slowly, under the immense loads, slowly but inexorably, they accelerated forward, each rider wobbling the front wheel in jerky corrections, padding along frantically with bare puffy feet until enough momentum stabilised their awful progress.
The girl watched them as they approached then abruptly turned to look at me with a new and suddenly defiant fire in her eyes. Calmly, deliberately, and continually maintaining electric eye contact with me, she dropped an elaborate curtsy.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she growled in a low voice.
Then, with an exultant gleam, she reached up to the tightly wound tower of her uptied hair and cast loose her braided chestnut locks to fall about her honeyed shoulders.
I watched and thought they looked like lustrous fine strands of melted chocolate drizzled over voluptuously swollen swirls of thickly whipped caramel.
Then, with a single vigorous flourish, she ripped off the lengths of her frock skirts, tearing them away up to her thighs to enable her to run freely.
I watched and felt a palpable squirt of saliva eject against the roof of my mouth.
Maddeningly languid, she unfurled an arm in an arabesque series of mimed curlicues and ran her tongue along it in one smooth movement from the top of her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. She tipped her head back and I saw her upturned eyes quiver with pleasure under half-closed, iridescently made-up eyelids. “Mm-uh…” she shuddered, “that's going to taste good.”
She took a step towards me and swept away a silky slice of hair to present to me an unadorned morsel of succulent neck and shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned forward to taste as taste can the cloud of volatile molecules suffusing the air that coated her skin. It tasted coolly bitter like a fizzing mist of gin and tonic bubbles and warmly salty like sleeping skin. It tasted smoothly sweet like thickly mixed gateau batter and sharply sour like the memory of breakfast milk.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she asked again, her lips so close to my ear, I could feel the air that they moved.
With an impulse doubly strengthened by its future shame deferred, I pitched forward, opening wide my mouth to savagely take the biggest bite I could. But my teeth came down jarringly only on themselves. I tried to open my eyes but they would do so only slowly, a long drawn-out blink lasting an age with the deafening rush of loudblood in my ears. Eventually, when they opened, she had gone.
I blinked again, my eyelids once more closing at glacial pace while the roaring whoosh of brainboom crashed immense in my head. When they re-opened at last, the world was blurred, my vision distorted by speed. Because I deserve it… because I deserve it… I remember thinking. I could feel the rush of air against my naked flesh, the hot metal of machinery revoluting painfully between my legs. I looked down to see what I was astride and felt the shifting weight of something heavy on my head. I could see the fairing, the polished mirrors, the faux-suede… before I slo-mo blinked again with dream-like torpidity.
When my eyes opened next, I saw that I was lying in the skip. Sticky trails of frothy red and yellow gunge ran down the front of my shirt and trousers. They were thick and crusty as though I had spewed them slowly and gradually from my mouth and they looked like raw, semi-digested chunks of deliquesced flesh-meat and mucus.
To be honest, I think I must have just humped some bad scum. I’ve heard if it’s cut bad it can send you a bit doolally tap and muster up some bad trip crap. Remember that last time I humped some bad scum and thought I was a martingalean organ of Westphalia? Guess the Southern Fried Animal Fats I had for lunch must have got vommed up with aplomb, too. I really need to kick this scum humping habit, I know. Anyway, again dangerous visions, it seems. I don’t think the grotty people can really have started to eat the lovely people.
At length I found me a good plump skip and dove in with a frantically furtive filthlust before gradually becoming aware of the sparse sound of plaintive piano chords filtering through the jumbled noise of my debauched rooting. The wistful, open harmonies drifted fitfully to my ears as if the notes were diffusing through the still air like the filigree whorling of a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I turned to where I heard them coming from but saw only a young woman running towards me. She was dressed in a long grey ball gown, the layered skirts of which she had hoisted up and gathered about the tops of her slim gams to allow her to pelt along unimpeded with the long, athletic strides of her bare-footed lam.
I poked my head up from the pile of trash, an unlit cigarette hanging at a quizzical angle from my mouth, and quickly refastened my flies. Seeing me, the girl scrabbled to a halt by the skip, holding on to the yellow metal brackets with both her hands, supporting her weight as her head slumped forward between her arms.
“Do you...” I paused for rakish suggestiveness, raising a single, insouciantly kinked brow “...scum hump?”
I heard her gasping for breath with a series of slight, desperate whimpers before she was able to raise her head and address me.
“Run!” she said, “run!” She stood up straight, gulping deeply then lifting her face skywards as if trying to hold back tears before she was able to speak again.
“The grotty people have started to eat the lovely people,” she stammered.
“Hmm, that could explain a lot…” I mused.
“For so long they watched and mutely scrutinised," she said. "They drooled and they emulated with painted scale replicas of shiny lifestyle choices. But now creditfeast has finished and they still want more. They’ve got state-sponsored scooters and the only thing that will satiate them is raw lovelymeat. The grots are eating the shinies! The grots are eating the shinies!” Her brow furrowed in profundity. “They like to eat them in cars and bars and sometimes jars.”
At that moment, a crowd rounded the wall at the end of our alley. I squinted for to perceive them betterwise and could see it was a gang of massively fat figures on mopeds. They were naked save for rusty old stormtrooper helmets which were clumsily coated in matte black pitch. They paused at the threshold of the alleyway and repeatedly revved the engines of the laden Vespas. Through the choking clouds of ochre two-stroke smoke, I could see the sheen of their sweaty round faces, smeared with ritualistic symbols drawn in dried skinnyblood… I saw the rolling reams of their bare midriffs, undulating hypnotically in standing waves from the vibrations of the engines beneath them… I saw their wide, gelatinous white thighs oozing over the labouring frames of the scooters… I saw the flaccid wobbling of the mottled slabs of peoplemeat hanging from their pasty dimpled arm-flanges… I saw their incongruously gaunt pudenda flapping like floundering catches on the reverberating sweat-stained faux-suede saddles…
And I could see that each had skin covered in cerise lattices of suppurating scratches and bites.
They edged closer to the entrance of the alley. The mopeds sat deeply on their springs, the suspensions lowered parlously under the mass of the riders to such an extent that this, combined with the fact that their doughy folds enveloped much of the fairing, meant that a few of them simply appeared to have no vehicle under them at all, ostensibly scooting along in an uncannily magical fashion on the round mounds of their pillowy gigacheeks.
The lead rider stopped and surveyed the alleyway before him, grinning with a wide open mouth as he saw the girl and me. Then he reached up to a strap on his helmet and pulled down a red plastic whirling-wheel-whistle. He placed it to his lips and blew long and hard. “Fffpppppwweeeeeeehhhhhhh!” it went, the sharp pitch cheerfully rising then fading as the little plastic wheel spooling inside slowed to a halt in its spittle-sprayed bearings.
“Because we deserve it!” the fearsome pack echoed as one in a predatory cry of bloodlust, gunning their throttles fully open. In their turn, the mopeds cried out too, the engines screaming with torquepain as the fuel flooded through their carburettors to launch themselves forward. And forward they lurched. Slowly, under the immense loads, slowly but inexorably, they accelerated forward, each rider wobbling the front wheel in jerky corrections, padding along frantically with bare puffy feet until enough momentum stabilised their awful progress.
The girl watched them as they approached then abruptly turned to look at me with a new and suddenly defiant fire in her eyes. Calmly, deliberately, and continually maintaining electric eye contact with me, she dropped an elaborate curtsy.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she growled in a low voice.
Then, with an exultant gleam, she reached up to the tightly wound tower of her uptied hair and cast loose her braided chestnut locks to fall about her honeyed shoulders.
I watched and thought they looked like lustrous fine strands of melted chocolate drizzled over voluptuously swollen swirls of thickly whipped caramel.
Then, with a single vigorous flourish, she ripped off the lengths of her frock skirts, tearing them away up to her thighs to enable her to run freely.
I watched and felt a palpable squirt of saliva eject against the roof of my mouth.
Maddeningly languid, she unfurled an arm in an arabesque series of mimed curlicues and ran her tongue along it in one smooth movement from the top of her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. She tipped her head back and I saw her upturned eyes quiver with pleasure under half-closed, iridescently made-up eyelids. “Mm-uh…” she shuddered, “that's going to taste good.”
She took a step towards me and swept away a silky slice of hair to present to me an unadorned morsel of succulent neck and shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned forward to taste as taste can the cloud of volatile molecules suffusing the air that coated her skin. It tasted coolly bitter like a fizzing mist of gin and tonic bubbles and warmly salty like sleeping skin. It tasted smoothly sweet like thickly mixed gateau batter and sharply sour like the memory of breakfast milk.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she asked again, her lips so close to my ear, I could feel the air that they moved.
With an impulse doubly strengthened by its future shame deferred, I pitched forward, opening wide my mouth to savagely take the biggest bite I could. But my teeth came down jarringly only on themselves. I tried to open my eyes but they would do so only slowly, a long drawn-out blink lasting an age with the deafening rush of loudblood in my ears. Eventually, when they opened, she had gone.
I blinked again, my eyelids once more closing at glacial pace while the roaring whoosh of brainboom crashed immense in my head. When they re-opened at last, the world was blurred, my vision distorted by speed. Because I deserve it… because I deserve it… I remember thinking. I could feel the rush of air against my naked flesh, the hot metal of machinery revoluting painfully between my legs. I looked down to see what I was astride and felt the shifting weight of something heavy on my head. I could see the fairing, the polished mirrors, the faux-suede… before I slo-mo blinked again with dream-like torpidity.
When my eyes opened next, I saw that I was lying in the skip. Sticky trails of frothy red and yellow gunge ran down the front of my shirt and trousers. They were thick and crusty as though I had spewed them slowly and gradually from my mouth and they looked like raw, semi-digested chunks of deliquesced flesh-meat and mucus.
To be honest, I think I must have just humped some bad scum. I’ve heard if it’s cut bad it can send you a bit doolally tap and muster up some bad trip crap. Remember that last time I humped some bad scum and thought I was a martingalean organ of Westphalia? Guess the Southern Fried Animal Fats I had for lunch must have got vommed up with aplomb, too. I really need to kick this scum humping habit, I know. Anyway, again dangerous visions, it seems. I don’t think the grotty people can really have started to eat the lovely people.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Timelike Metric
A rabbi, an Irishman and a penguin walk into a pub.
“Do you serve primates?” the penguin asked the barman.
The barman stared in disbelief at the talking penguin. His face drained of all colour and he reeled giddily on his feet as if he had just been punched.
“I…” the barman stammered, “I’m in a joke, aren’t I? This has to be a joke. This changes my entire view of reality. My memories... my dreams... I exist within the construction of a joke.” He lurched forward, grasping the edge of the bar for balance. “Wha… so what happens at the punchline? What happens then? Do we all cease to exist? I… I don’t want to die…” He swayed again then, seemingly snapping to his senses, leapt back and started to wildly ring the time bell. The rabbi, the Irishman, the penguin and everyone in the pub stopped talking and looked at him. From below the bar, the barman pulled out a shotgun and swept an arc across the pub with its barrel as he addressed them all with a feverish hysteria.
“Right, everyone shut up. No one say anything funny. In fact, nobody say a f-cking word. You, you and you,” he gestured to the rabbi, Irishman and penguin with his gun, “get out of my f-cking pub. Now!”
The three spurned patrons slowly backed away from the barmen as bidden and crept back to the door. Reaching for the handle, the rabbi fumbled at something for a moment before turning back to the barman.
“The handle doesn’t work. The door doesn’t look real. It’s just like a prop door with no actual opening.”
“What?” the barman said.
“He said it’s not a real door…” the penguin began.
“You – shut it!” The barman yelled, raising his gun to sight the penguin. “Nobody asked you a f-cking thing, bird. You say nothing!”
“And I can’t see out the windows” the Irishman said. “Even up close to the frosted glass – it still just looks grey and misty outside – I can’t see anything there.”
Time passed in silence. The rabbi, the Irishman and the penguin resumed their places at the bar. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The barman stood on watch, gun raised, an oily sheen of sweat developing over his tense features in the close, oppressive air. “Alright, alright,” he muttered thoughtfully, “we can get through this if we all stay cool and work this problem. Now ‘primate’ – why did the bird say ‘primate’? There’s no monkey, no vicar – it can’t be that…”
The Irishman stared ahead with a wry smile. “Huh,” he said. “The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.”
In the corner, a bemused dog nervously curled around and started nibbling at its groin.
“Hey, I wish I could do that” a young man said out loud with a snigger, to ease the tension.
His mate grinned. “But wouldn’t you want to get to kno…”
Crack! The room split in two with the blinding flash and strangely trebly timbre of the shotgun discharge. Cut off before he could finish his sentence, the man’s chest flew up and forwards as if he was a puppet on strings. A fine cloud of red gore exploded out of his torso as he tumbled lifelessly face-down on the floor. Behind him stood the barman, the barrels of his raised gun still smoking. He lowered it, broke it open and let the two spent cartridges pop out with gentle plops before hurriedly reloading.
“You… killed him…” the dead man’s friend said, the words slowly dripping out of his open, uncomprehending mouth.
“He would have killed us all – don’t you see?” the barman said in a hysterical voice. “He would have said it – he would have said the punchline.”
The afternoon turned to evening. The indistinct grey mist through the frosted glass turned to an indistinct black soot peppered with vague blobs of what appeared to be yellow street lighting. A man in a suit, his tie loosened, his crumpled jacket taken off and a shadow of stubble on his face pulled himself up with a weary indignation. “Look, you have to feed us. We’ve been sitting here for five hours with no food and no water. What are you going to do – starve us to death?”
The barman lowered his gun. His eyes were shiny like fine china. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll eat.”
The businessman relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “There, you see. Okay, okay now. What have you got to eat?”
“Today’s special is chicken,” the barman said, also visibly starting to relax.
“Sounds good. How do you prepare the chicken?”
“I don’t do nothing,” the barman said. “I just tell it straight that it’s going to die.”
“Do you serve primates?” the penguin asked the barman.
The barman stared in disbelief at the talking penguin. His face drained of all colour and he reeled giddily on his feet as if he had just been punched.
“I…” the barman stammered, “I’m in a joke, aren’t I? This has to be a joke. This changes my entire view of reality. My memories... my dreams... I exist within the construction of a joke.” He lurched forward, grasping the edge of the bar for balance. “Wha… so what happens at the punchline? What happens then? Do we all cease to exist? I… I don’t want to die…” He swayed again then, seemingly snapping to his senses, leapt back and started to wildly ring the time bell. The rabbi, the Irishman, the penguin and everyone in the pub stopped talking and looked at him. From below the bar, the barman pulled out a shotgun and swept an arc across the pub with its barrel as he addressed them all with a feverish hysteria.
“Right, everyone shut up. No one say anything funny. In fact, nobody say a f-cking word. You, you and you,” he gestured to the rabbi, Irishman and penguin with his gun, “get out of my f-cking pub. Now!”
The three spurned patrons slowly backed away from the barmen as bidden and crept back to the door. Reaching for the handle, the rabbi fumbled at something for a moment before turning back to the barman.
“The handle doesn’t work. The door doesn’t look real. It’s just like a prop door with no actual opening.”
“What?” the barman said.
“He said it’s not a real door…” the penguin began.
“You – shut it!” The barman yelled, raising his gun to sight the penguin. “Nobody asked you a f-cking thing, bird. You say nothing!”
“And I can’t see out the windows” the Irishman said. “Even up close to the frosted glass – it still just looks grey and misty outside – I can’t see anything there.”
Time passed in silence. The rabbi, the Irishman and the penguin resumed their places at the bar. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The barman stood on watch, gun raised, an oily sheen of sweat developing over his tense features in the close, oppressive air. “Alright, alright,” he muttered thoughtfully, “we can get through this if we all stay cool and work this problem. Now ‘primate’ – why did the bird say ‘primate’? There’s no monkey, no vicar – it can’t be that…”
The Irishman stared ahead with a wry smile. “Huh,” he said. “The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.”
In the corner, a bemused dog nervously curled around and started nibbling at its groin.
“Hey, I wish I could do that” a young man said out loud with a snigger, to ease the tension.
His mate grinned. “But wouldn’t you want to get to kno…”
Crack! The room split in two with the blinding flash and strangely trebly timbre of the shotgun discharge. Cut off before he could finish his sentence, the man’s chest flew up and forwards as if he was a puppet on strings. A fine cloud of red gore exploded out of his torso as he tumbled lifelessly face-down on the floor. Behind him stood the barman, the barrels of his raised gun still smoking. He lowered it, broke it open and let the two spent cartridges pop out with gentle plops before hurriedly reloading.
“You… killed him…” the dead man’s friend said, the words slowly dripping out of his open, uncomprehending mouth.
“He would have killed us all – don’t you see?” the barman said in a hysterical voice. “He would have said it – he would have said the punchline.”
The afternoon turned to evening. The indistinct grey mist through the frosted glass turned to an indistinct black soot peppered with vague blobs of what appeared to be yellow street lighting. A man in a suit, his tie loosened, his crumpled jacket taken off and a shadow of stubble on his face pulled himself up with a weary indignation. “Look, you have to feed us. We’ve been sitting here for five hours with no food and no water. What are you going to do – starve us to death?”
The barman lowered his gun. His eyes were shiny like fine china. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll eat.”
The businessman relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “There, you see. Okay, okay now. What have you got to eat?”
“Today’s special is chicken,” the barman said, also visibly starting to relax.
“Sounds good. How do you prepare the chicken?”
“I don’t do nothing,” the barman said. “I just tell it straight that it’s going to die.”
Clime Inside
I went to see a doctor because I’ve been feeling a bit peculiar up my head. It was a new doctor who I hadn’t met before. When I sat down and began talking to him, he immediately started typing everything I was saying on his computer. He could touch type. All the while he stared at me over his left shoulder while his body continued to face the screen and type away with impressive speed and accuracy.
“Will all of this go on to a central database?” I asked.
‘…central database…’ he tapped on the screen.
“You’re even entering that, aren’t you?” I said.
‘…even entering that…’ he continued to type, smiling warmly at me.
I asked him to stop typing everything I was saying and he said he would but he actually just typed that up as well. I asked again, more firmly. Sure, he said, he wouldn’t type in any more information – but he did! Each time I asked him to stop he said he would stop but then he just carried on anyway, even typing up what I said when I asked him to stop. In the end, I gave up.
“Have you been experiencing any slow-motion vomiting lately?” he asked.
“Slow-motion vomiting?” I said.
“Yes, there’s a lot of it about at the moment. It’s like normal vomiting but it all comes out very slowly, very gradually, creeping out constantly for hours on end sometimes.”
“No,” I said, “not that.” I paused. “I’m scared of the state.”
He stopped typing.
I expected him to ask what exactly I was scared of or for how long I’d felt that way, or something like that - but he didn’t. He just continued to stare at me while he pressed a button on the side of his intercom. A moment later, in came a nurse. She took my left arm, rolled up the sleeve, and injected into it a needle connected to a small glass phial. The vacuum of the phial automatically sucked out a fresh sample of blood from me.
“You see?” the doctor said.
I looked down at the phial and saw that what was coming out of my veins was black. Not reddish-black but black, pitch black, absolute colourless black. It was thick and black like sticky tar-black crude oil.
“Those who are scared of State should be scared of State,” the doctor and nurse said in unison.
“Will all of this go on to a central database?” I asked.
‘…central database…’ he tapped on the screen.
“You’re even entering that, aren’t you?” I said.
‘…even entering that…’ he continued to type, smiling warmly at me.
I asked him to stop typing everything I was saying and he said he would but he actually just typed that up as well. I asked again, more firmly. Sure, he said, he wouldn’t type in any more information – but he did! Each time I asked him to stop he said he would stop but then he just carried on anyway, even typing up what I said when I asked him to stop. In the end, I gave up.
“Have you been experiencing any slow-motion vomiting lately?” he asked.
“Slow-motion vomiting?” I said.
“Yes, there’s a lot of it about at the moment. It’s like normal vomiting but it all comes out very slowly, very gradually, creeping out constantly for hours on end sometimes.”
“No,” I said, “not that.” I paused. “I’m scared of the state.”
He stopped typing.
I expected him to ask what exactly I was scared of or for how long I’d felt that way, or something like that - but he didn’t. He just continued to stare at me while he pressed a button on the side of his intercom. A moment later, in came a nurse. She took my left arm, rolled up the sleeve, and injected into it a needle connected to a small glass phial. The vacuum of the phial automatically sucked out a fresh sample of blood from me.
“You see?” the doctor said.
I looked down at the phial and saw that what was coming out of my veins was black. Not reddish-black but black, pitch black, absolute colourless black. It was thick and black like sticky tar-black crude oil.
“Those who are scared of State should be scared of State,” the doctor and nurse said in unison.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Biding Rot
For a number of years, Goldman Sachs experimented with using various animals on the trading floor. By far the most successful were monkeys. Now, they were never allowed to trade anything really complex like some of the exotics and credit stuff but they were fine with vanilla equities. Well, with economicdownturn (R) and all, Goldmans has had to downsize a lot of its operations and has got rid of many of the trading monkeys. A whole cohort of index-trading macaques was auctioned off recently and I bought one of them.
Everything started off fine. It was very highly trained. It would help around the house with the cleaning and the shopping and even sort out some of the bills for me. The first time I took it to the pub, my mates were so impressed. I had it fetch drinks for them, do tricks with peanuts and even help a few of them home. Oh yes, I was king of the pub that night, I tell you.
Thing is, lately I think that monkey is getting bored with doing my chores. It’s trying to undermine me. It’s trying to get the psychological upper hand. I know it is. For example, I went in the pub the other day and it was already sitting there, at the bar, talking to my friends who were laughing at what it was saying. As soon as they noticed me, they all suddenly stopped talking and were clearly suppressing their giggles. The monkey just looked at me with a malign smirk. I knew it’d been telling them something about me.
And last night when I went to bed, I noticed that my toothbrush was in a different place. I asked the monkey what it had done with my toothbrush. It denied doing anything but continued to look at me with an evil mischief in those little black eyes. It knew I couldn't prove anything but had done just enough to inject that corroding doubt into my mind. I threw the toothbrush away, of course, and used a brand new one straight from the packet.
All the little things build up, you know. I set the HDD box to record the Champions’ League the other night and found two hours of ‘Planet Earth’ instead. The monkey always denies it. It always just stares at me with those little black eyes, challenging me to call it a liar because it knows I can’t prove anything.
Oh yeah – and just yesterday, right, it gets back from the shops and gives me change from a tenner even though I know I gave it a score.
And now I’m starting to get phone calls for the monkey. I’m answering the phone for it. This morning I had a call from one of my mates asking if the monkey was coming to the pub tonight. I said it wasn’t allowed but I’d be there if he fancied a drink and he just said maybe some other time.
Everything started off fine. It was very highly trained. It would help around the house with the cleaning and the shopping and even sort out some of the bills for me. The first time I took it to the pub, my mates were so impressed. I had it fetch drinks for them, do tricks with peanuts and even help a few of them home. Oh yes, I was king of the pub that night, I tell you.
Thing is, lately I think that monkey is getting bored with doing my chores. It’s trying to undermine me. It’s trying to get the psychological upper hand. I know it is. For example, I went in the pub the other day and it was already sitting there, at the bar, talking to my friends who were laughing at what it was saying. As soon as they noticed me, they all suddenly stopped talking and were clearly suppressing their giggles. The monkey just looked at me with a malign smirk. I knew it’d been telling them something about me.
And last night when I went to bed, I noticed that my toothbrush was in a different place. I asked the monkey what it had done with my toothbrush. It denied doing anything but continued to look at me with an evil mischief in those little black eyes. It knew I couldn't prove anything but had done just enough to inject that corroding doubt into my mind. I threw the toothbrush away, of course, and used a brand new one straight from the packet.
All the little things build up, you know. I set the HDD box to record the Champions’ League the other night and found two hours of ‘Planet Earth’ instead. The monkey always denies it. It always just stares at me with those little black eyes, challenging me to call it a liar because it knows I can’t prove anything.
Oh yeah – and just yesterday, right, it gets back from the shops and gives me change from a tenner even though I know I gave it a score.
And now I’m starting to get phone calls for the monkey. I’m answering the phone for it. This morning I had a call from one of my mates asking if the monkey was coming to the pub tonight. I said it wasn’t allowed but I’d be there if he fancied a drink and he just said maybe some other time.
Friday, 17 April 2009
Subdominant concord
Marty's in a bad way. I popped by the other day to see how he was. His PA, Primula, said he'd cancelled all his appointments and just let me straight through to his office. There I found him alone, standing with his back to the door, apparently trying to shove his giant desk along the floor by humping it vigorously with his hips, making funny panting noises like a little dog as he did so. It was only when I noticed his loose belt and errant shirt tails splayed from his open trousers that I realised the true nature of his thrusting exertions. Suddenly sensing my presence, he turned abruptly to face me, as first the corners of his mouth, and then the angle of the size-19 mink-lined boot hanging ithyphallically from his crotch, drooped.
"I miss her..." he mumbled sadly, casting his eyes to the ground in his shame-shod state.
"I know. I know you do, Marty. But you can't go on like this. Look, take the boot off... no... no leave the boot on. I'm going to wait outside while you get properly dressed and then we're going to the pub."
We went to that pub I've told you about before on [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT]. I got Marty to check that neither thumbs-guy nor the northern terror was present before we went in. As usual, it wasn't busy. Just me and Marty, the barman, and Stu Francis from 'Crackerjack' sitting in a corner. It was definitely him. Around him was a cluster of what looked like squashed grapes and a torn-up tissue. He wasn't saying anything. He was just staring deep into his pint glass, gripping it in both hands with white knuckles. I ordered two pints but Marty just seemed interested in crisps. He grabbed a packet of prawn cocktail flavour and fell upon it with a greedy fervour, opening wide his mouth to reveal the salty semi-masticated pulp within as he spoke to me.
"See, she was my mooz, yer know, she was my mooz. I got all my best ideas wit' her."
"Oh come on, Marty, I never heard her say anything productive when we met..."
"Yeah - you don' know her - I miss her, I miss harghh... Smell! Just like her, just like her..." and he thrust his hands under my nose for me to smell his prawn-cocktail-dusted fingers, waggling them like little white sea anemones drowning in air.
Instinctively reeling, I snatched the packet away from Marty. "Pull yourself together, Marty. I don't want to see you back on the crisps again. You remember how bad it got last time? You just need to get drunk tonight and..."
But while I was saying this Marty had opened a packet of peanuts and had started to shove them, one by one, up his nose. I hadn't seen Marty self-stuff since school. I was shocked by his emotional regression. I grabbed the packet from him but he just started to scream like an infant having a tantrum, slapping his own face manically with his palms, scattering nasally lodged nuts as he did so. Both the barman and Stu Francis were looking at us. Embarrassed by the commotion, I relented and gave Marty back his packet of prawn-cocktail crisps. Immediately he stopped screaming and thrust his face into the foil packet, inhaling deeply. I heard him fondly whispering her name into it.
I know. It's bad seeing Marty back on the crisps again but you know what he's like. He's an extreme person. He has an addictive personality. Sometimes I think it's part of what drives him so hard - I mean when you look at what he's achieved in television. But the downside is just as extreme and he does tend to deal with it with his food. I remember at school during a phase when he was being treated particularly badly. The other kids made him eat white-board markers. The strange thing was, by the third year, he couldn't get enough of them. He would just suck out the ink, one after another, like they were blue and red Popsicles. It seems weird now that the teachers never made the link between their desiccated board markers and Marty's multi-coloured teeth.
Anyway, I let Marty munchbinge while we knocked back a few and got bombed together on beers and shooters. I was telling him about my idea for a female-orientated product to go with Glonads - you know, those little green clip-on glow-in-the-dark disco bollocks. For the ladeez, we'd have 'Glovaries' and they'd be coloured pink. But I picked the wrong time to discuss business. He wasn't interested.
"We used ta play proctologists and area compliance administrators together..." he drawled as he sipped. "I miss her. I need her as a mooz... without her, I feel like... like... a superheated yoghurt geyser with a pent-up fissure... yeah..."
"That's a lovely image, Marty," I slurred. "You ever take her up a fumarole?"
"I think I lost my thread," Marty replied. And indeed he had. Quite lost his thread.
As we staggered out, I was loosely dismayed to see thumbs-guy coming in. His chest and arms were completely covered in bandages and plaster. I didn't want to talk to him but he blocked our egress by standing in the doorway.
"Hey," he spluttered, "it's you again. I need your help. I need your help with the ash and the slingbacks."
I made sympathetic noises but slowly began to shuffle around him.
"I had a bit of an incident," he continued. "I came to the other day, after another one of the black-outs. There she was, sucking frozen pizza straight from the packet. 'Pizza lollies', she calls them. Anyway, I get up and next thing I know is she's going crazy. Coming at me with a knife."
"She stabbed you?" I asked in shock, surveying the layers of bandage and bracing around his torso.
"No, fortunately I managed to fend her off with one of the pizzas."
"That was fortunate."
"Yeah, except I slipped on a frozen olive and fell down the stairs."
"I see."
By that time, I had managed to surreptitiously squeeze past him to the doorway and prepared to extricate myself from his tiresome whining. "Run!" I shouted and Marty and I bolted. "I don't care about your ash and slingback deviancy," I yelled. "Stay away from me, you grotesque freak!" And then, pausing just for a moment, I stuck my head back through the door and shouted "Bummer!" before running off with Marty. I guess I've been watching too much 'Prankhunt'.
As thumbs-guy stared out the pub window at us with a look of bewilderment and hurt on his face, Marty and I ran down the road giggling like two schoolgirls on Benzedrine. In fact, I don't think I've seen Marty look quite so relaxed and carefree since that day at school when that new kid started to take the brunt of the general vitriol even more than Marty who was able to join in the taunting and malice for the first time in his life. What was that kid's name? He had the head of an old man even at the age of nine. You know the one.
"I miss her..." he mumbled sadly, casting his eyes to the ground in his shame-shod state.
"I know. I know you do, Marty. But you can't go on like this. Look, take the boot off... no... no leave the boot on. I'm going to wait outside while you get properly dressed and then we're going to the pub."
We went to that pub I've told you about before on [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT]. I got Marty to check that neither thumbs-guy nor the northern terror was present before we went in. As usual, it wasn't busy. Just me and Marty, the barman, and Stu Francis from 'Crackerjack' sitting in a corner. It was definitely him. Around him was a cluster of what looked like squashed grapes and a torn-up tissue. He wasn't saying anything. He was just staring deep into his pint glass, gripping it in both hands with white knuckles. I ordered two pints but Marty just seemed interested in crisps. He grabbed a packet of prawn cocktail flavour and fell upon it with a greedy fervour, opening wide his mouth to reveal the salty semi-masticated pulp within as he spoke to me.
"See, she was my mooz, yer know, she was my mooz. I got all my best ideas wit' her."
"Oh come on, Marty, I never heard her say anything productive when we met..."
"Yeah - you don' know her - I miss her, I miss harghh... Smell! Just like her, just like her..." and he thrust his hands under my nose for me to smell his prawn-cocktail-dusted fingers, waggling them like little white sea anemones drowning in air.
Instinctively reeling, I snatched the packet away from Marty. "Pull yourself together, Marty. I don't want to see you back on the crisps again. You remember how bad it got last time? You just need to get drunk tonight and..."
But while I was saying this Marty had opened a packet of peanuts and had started to shove them, one by one, up his nose. I hadn't seen Marty self-stuff since school. I was shocked by his emotional regression. I grabbed the packet from him but he just started to scream like an infant having a tantrum, slapping his own face manically with his palms, scattering nasally lodged nuts as he did so. Both the barman and Stu Francis were looking at us. Embarrassed by the commotion, I relented and gave Marty back his packet of prawn-cocktail crisps. Immediately he stopped screaming and thrust his face into the foil packet, inhaling deeply. I heard him fondly whispering her name into it.
I know. It's bad seeing Marty back on the crisps again but you know what he's like. He's an extreme person. He has an addictive personality. Sometimes I think it's part of what drives him so hard - I mean when you look at what he's achieved in television. But the downside is just as extreme and he does tend to deal with it with his food. I remember at school during a phase when he was being treated particularly badly. The other kids made him eat white-board markers. The strange thing was, by the third year, he couldn't get enough of them. He would just suck out the ink, one after another, like they were blue and red Popsicles. It seems weird now that the teachers never made the link between their desiccated board markers and Marty's multi-coloured teeth.
Anyway, I let Marty munchbinge while we knocked back a few and got bombed together on beers and shooters. I was telling him about my idea for a female-orientated product to go with Glonads - you know, those little green clip-on glow-in-the-dark disco bollocks. For the ladeez, we'd have 'Glovaries' and they'd be coloured pink. But I picked the wrong time to discuss business. He wasn't interested.
"We used ta play proctologists and area compliance administrators together..." he drawled as he sipped. "I miss her. I need her as a mooz... without her, I feel like... like... a superheated yoghurt geyser with a pent-up fissure... yeah..."
"That's a lovely image, Marty," I slurred. "You ever take her up a fumarole?"
"I think I lost my thread," Marty replied. And indeed he had. Quite lost his thread.
As we staggered out, I was loosely dismayed to see thumbs-guy coming in. His chest and arms were completely covered in bandages and plaster. I didn't want to talk to him but he blocked our egress by standing in the doorway.
"Hey," he spluttered, "it's you again. I need your help. I need your help with the ash and the slingbacks."
I made sympathetic noises but slowly began to shuffle around him.
"I had a bit of an incident," he continued. "I came to the other day, after another one of the black-outs. There she was, sucking frozen pizza straight from the packet. 'Pizza lollies', she calls them. Anyway, I get up and next thing I know is she's going crazy. Coming at me with a knife."
"She stabbed you?" I asked in shock, surveying the layers of bandage and bracing around his torso.
"No, fortunately I managed to fend her off with one of the pizzas."
"That was fortunate."
"Yeah, except I slipped on a frozen olive and fell down the stairs."
"I see."
By that time, I had managed to surreptitiously squeeze past him to the doorway and prepared to extricate myself from his tiresome whining. "Run!" I shouted and Marty and I bolted. "I don't care about your ash and slingback deviancy," I yelled. "Stay away from me, you grotesque freak!" And then, pausing just for a moment, I stuck my head back through the door and shouted "Bummer!" before running off with Marty. I guess I've been watching too much 'Prankhunt'.
As thumbs-guy stared out the pub window at us with a look of bewilderment and hurt on his face, Marty and I ran down the road giggling like two schoolgirls on Benzedrine. In fact, I don't think I've seen Marty look quite so relaxed and carefree since that day at school when that new kid started to take the brunt of the general vitriol even more than Marty who was able to join in the taunting and malice for the first time in his life. What was that kid's name? He had the head of an old man even at the age of nine. You know the one.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Politics and the English Language
I went to see Marty today. He's really taking it badly with regard to the coming together of his girlfriend and Rosie. He seems lost without her. Thought I should try to cheer him up.
On the way, there was a big demonstration in Parliament Square. It'll probably be on the news tonight. They were barracking the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I don't know what it was about. I think it was something to do with the respect agenda. Anyway, it was an extraordinary sight because it looked like all the protesters had been busy using facepooch.com. I don't know if you've seen it but it's an online service where you upload a photo of your face which is printed onto latex and made into a full head-mask and then delivered to your home by post. The idea is that you can get one made for your dog so he can run around wearing a copy of your face. Well, these protestors had all brought along their dogs. It was chaotic. There were hundreds of them running around Parliament Square - every breed from little terriers and dachshunds to big Alsatians and Great Danes - running, squatting, barking, chasing, mounting, peeing... and every one, every single one with a rictal rubberised face of Ed Balls.
Imagine that.
On the way, there was a big demonstration in Parliament Square. It'll probably be on the news tonight. They were barracking the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I don't know what it was about. I think it was something to do with the respect agenda. Anyway, it was an extraordinary sight because it looked like all the protesters had been busy using facepooch.com. I don't know if you've seen it but it's an online service where you upload a photo of your face which is printed onto latex and made into a full head-mask and then delivered to your home by post. The idea is that you can get one made for your dog so he can run around wearing a copy of your face. Well, these protestors had all brought along their dogs. It was chaotic. There were hundreds of them running around Parliament Square - every breed from little terriers and dachshunds to big Alsatians and Great Danes - running, squatting, barking, chasing, mounting, peeing... and every one, every single one with a rictal rubberised face of Ed Balls.
Imagine that.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Grrljool
I've managed to get down. There's a whole fleet of emergency services vehicles. I've just been led out by a couple of paramedics who've sat me down with a cup of hot chocolate and draped me in a foil blanket. I think they're still up there. I don't know. I don't know what they'll do but together... the police can't face them together. The rozzers need backup, heavy backup.
It's alright. I'm calm.
It all got out. Rosie heard about Bill - that her erstwhile paramour was back in England. Someone must have tipped her off. Someone out there is making a habit of causing mischief and I wish I knew who it was. Anyway, Rosie Hoal-Riemer found out not only that Bill Feltch was here but also that he was now in hospital and the precise means of how he had got there. It must have been true - she'd never quite got over Bill. By the time I heard, Rosie had already tracked down the cause of Bill's hospitalisation. I got here as fast as I could but they were already up in the roof garden. High up in the Japanese roof garden over Kensington High Street. I barrelled up the stairs and tumbled through the doors out on to the immaculately raked pebbles and there they stood, both prepared, both formidable - face to face.
The air was cool and clear. An exploded packing case had distributed a layer of tiny polystyrene pellets which covered the ground like pure, new snow. A slight breeze arose from the east, blowing gently through a row of sakura trees and wafting delicate cherry blossom across the faces of the two women who stood opposite each other, planted and intent, the swirling petals of pink blossom unnoticed by either as they focused, to the exclusion of all else, on each other's steely eyes. Slowly, crunching softly on the new-fallen polysnow, they circled each other, wily, wary of making a false move. I saw that, equidistant between them, some red object was on the ground. Rosie was the first to approach it, always maintaining the same distance from Marty's girlfriend, she edged forward, bent at the knees and, carefully maintaining eye contact, picked up what I could now see was one of Bill's red, out-sized clown shoes. Rosie backed up and Parmygal then did likewise, warily venturing forward and picking up the matching item of Bill's comedy footwear.
Rosie then shrugged off her overcoat. Underneath, she had on a pearlescent pink and white kimono, decorated with embroidered red roses. Though a slight figure, she was lithe and supple, and looked fearsomely focused with her hair piled up in a massive bun on top of her head and held in place by two ebony chopsticks. Very deliberately, she slipped off her wooden geta and carefully arranged them in parallel with her tabi-stockinged feet. Marty's girlfriend then violently whipped off her own coat to reveal, underneath, a close-fitting, 'Seventies-style blue Adidas tracksuit, with three white stripes running down the rippled contours of her sleeves and leggings.
As they continued to prowl each other in a wide circle, Rosie stepped up on to a flower bed and, from up high, cooed:
"You've made gwave ewwors.
Iwa fuwor bwevis est.
Pawa bellum... bitch!"
Marty's girlfriend just gave a grim snort of derision and anchored herself in a semi-crouched stance. One hand she held out, palm-outwards, for balance. With the other hand, she raised up the long clown shoe, drawing the length of it slowly in front of her face, as if it were a fine-tempered katana.
Responding to the wordless challenge, Rosie sprang from the raised bed, seeming to somehow float through the air before noiselessly landing on the niveous carpet of polysnow and blossom. In turn, she adopted her own duelling stance, whirling her clown shoe in a series of elaborate arcs around her arms and waist, deliberately stepping forward with each twirl in a display of martial skill, before abruptly thrusting out the shoe with both hands in front of her, inches away from the face of her opponent who neither flinched nor even blinked but merely let a cold, cruel grin grow across her mouth and exultant eyes.
I staggered up from my knees, scrabbling in the patterned pebbles, and loped over to the two frozen combatants. "Stop, please stop, can't we talk this through..." I cried.
Without any movement of heads or bodies, both women's eyes flickered to me. I stopped next to them.
"There must be another way..." I said, feebly.
The giant form of Marty's girlfriend took one step back, relaxed her warrior pose and then, with alarming rapidity, gave a deft flick of her wrist to deliver a playful but well-placed slap with the flat of the clown-sole against the back of my legs which, though only at half-strength, was enough to collapse me to my knees with a slight squeak from the comedy squeezy squeaker within the shoe. They both laughed as they surveyed my pathetic form, helplessly prone in the polysnow. I realised there was nothing I could do to stop them and, fearing for my own safety lest they tired of toying with me, I scrambled away on all fours to hide behind an ornamental stone bridge.
The two women resumed their preparatory positions en garde.
Again, absolute stillness.
A stillness of elegiac profundity.
A slight squall rose up and immediately ceased, whirling up the cherry blossom just momentarily in a conical vortex before falling back to earth in that forever of silence. From the street below, I could just hear the vague thumping of some beat-box megabass. Only the dull thump of the bass drum coming through, doomp, doomp, doomp, doomp... it seemed to echo my accelerating heartbeat as it passed away again into the stillness. Thin mists of condensed moisture belied the nature of the two adversaries, the clouds of their tense exhalations rising through the air the only clue that the two statuesque forms were not mere inanimate sculptures. A last single flower of blossom drifted slowly downwards, delicately tumbling through the air and settling on the tip of Rosie's rigidly outstretched clown-shoe. I saw the merest of movements in her eyes as her attention was, for just an infinitesimal instant, drawn to the motion. The terminatrix struck.
The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing. At times it seems to never leave one in peace with its incessant chatter and ruminative churnings. But there are also times when it is merciful, when the burden of sensory impressions becomes so great, so incoherently terrible, so aberrantly intolerable that it blocks it all out. It shuts down and protects us from being overwhelmed, protects us from losing that last fragile finger-hold on sanity, protects us from the dark abyss. Such was the compassionate functioning of my cerebral faculties for what followed. Only manic snapshots, isolated images, like photographs from a stroboscopically lit room, remain. Terrible images, fearsome images. Female figures fighting through the air, over the polysnow, at the precipitous edges of the roof... whirling, flying, somersaulting... uncannily quick, too fast to comprehend... But what has remained in my memory, what makes my fingers tremble still as I write this, are the sounds. Through the blackness, still I hear the sounds. The Amazonian war-cries, the bellowed shrieks of fury, the whoosh of clown-shoe cutting air with supernatural swiftness and the repeated comedic springy boinging noises and high-impact squeezy squeaks as the deadly clown shoes bent and twanged and clashed and smashed against each other in the maelstrom of lightning combat.
For how long this went on for, I can't say. The well-matched adversaries had at each other until the sun began to set, their disparate silhouettes set against its wide, red hemisphere, their war cries only slightly enervated from their epic struggle, Rosie one chopstick askew, her bun slightly shifted, the both of them with a handful of red shoe-polish marks on their attire, received from grazing blows. By that time, they had been observed from below, the two fighting figures dancing across the roof. Police had arrived but held back, unable to approach the fearsome duel.
I remember the end. As Rosie and Marty's broad battled it out in awesome ferocity on the very edge of the balustrade, I saw, rising slowly from behind them, its ominous outline rippled in the heat haze of its exhaust gases, the sleek black hull of a police helicopter. A distorted voice sounded incomprehensibly through the on-board loudhailer. I saw the powerful frame of Marty's woman sway for an instant as her footing faltered, her perfect balance disturbed from the unexpected downdraught of the rotor blades. The smaller Rosie, at an advantage in the rushing air, seized her chance and lunged forward with a wild, all-out haybaler of a swipe. At the last moment, the Parmywench blocked the blow with her own arms in a sickening crunch and loud squeezy squeak. Shocked by the force of the blow, she buckled for an instant with the shoe at her neck before, with her immense strength, she started to slowly push back on Rosie. In agonising deadlock they remained for those few seconds, defiantly oblivious to the loudhailer warnings, before Rosie suddenly seemed to notice, for the first time, the huge hands, the broad palms, the muscular fingers and the blue, popping veins of her opponent, pushing with every last ounce of strength at the shoe inches away from the coup de grace. Rosie gave a slight gasp and relaxed her attack. Marty's girlfriend, in confusion, allowed for quarter too, tentatively relinquishing her grip on the shoe. Then, Rosie reached over and with a look of rapt fascination and desire, slowly began stroking and fondling those great discus-like mitts.
"Your hands, your stwong, vigowous hands..." I heard her say.
Their eyes met, intense, bewildered yearning on both their faces.
I watched them, as I felt the pounding rhythmic thudding of the chopper blades echo in my chest, I watched them drop their clown-shoes and, as their clothes flapped like snapping flags in the helicopter's downdraught, they embraced and kissed, a long kiss of lesbotic intensity, a desperate kiss of wild abandonment and perennial pent-up passions - Rosie's bun finally bursting open and one bulging calf of Marty's girlfriend kinking back, demurely.
The wailing from the loudhailer ceased. The two women broke their embrace and stepped back, both facing the helicopter, hand-in-hand. I wanted to warn them. I wanted to shout out and warn the police. I wanted to tell them to get away, to flee this sapphic superduo but... but my lungs were frozen. I couldn't say a word. Instead, I felt myself being hauled away by the response unit who had just broken through the doors to the garden, dragged away to safety, to the soothing hot chocolate and foil blanket I cling to while silently rocking back and forth, back and forth.
It's alright. I'm calm.
It all got out. Rosie heard about Bill - that her erstwhile paramour was back in England. Someone must have tipped her off. Someone out there is making a habit of causing mischief and I wish I knew who it was. Anyway, Rosie Hoal-Riemer found out not only that Bill Feltch was here but also that he was now in hospital and the precise means of how he had got there. It must have been true - she'd never quite got over Bill. By the time I heard, Rosie had already tracked down the cause of Bill's hospitalisation. I got here as fast as I could but they were already up in the roof garden. High up in the Japanese roof garden over Kensington High Street. I barrelled up the stairs and tumbled through the doors out on to the immaculately raked pebbles and there they stood, both prepared, both formidable - face to face.
The air was cool and clear. An exploded packing case had distributed a layer of tiny polystyrene pellets which covered the ground like pure, new snow. A slight breeze arose from the east, blowing gently through a row of sakura trees and wafting delicate cherry blossom across the faces of the two women who stood opposite each other, planted and intent, the swirling petals of pink blossom unnoticed by either as they focused, to the exclusion of all else, on each other's steely eyes. Slowly, crunching softly on the new-fallen polysnow, they circled each other, wily, wary of making a false move. I saw that, equidistant between them, some red object was on the ground. Rosie was the first to approach it, always maintaining the same distance from Marty's girlfriend, she edged forward, bent at the knees and, carefully maintaining eye contact, picked up what I could now see was one of Bill's red, out-sized clown shoes. Rosie backed up and Parmygal then did likewise, warily venturing forward and picking up the matching item of Bill's comedy footwear.
Rosie then shrugged off her overcoat. Underneath, she had on a pearlescent pink and white kimono, decorated with embroidered red roses. Though a slight figure, she was lithe and supple, and looked fearsomely focused with her hair piled up in a massive bun on top of her head and held in place by two ebony chopsticks. Very deliberately, she slipped off her wooden geta and carefully arranged them in parallel with her tabi-stockinged feet. Marty's girlfriend then violently whipped off her own coat to reveal, underneath, a close-fitting, 'Seventies-style blue Adidas tracksuit, with three white stripes running down the rippled contours of her sleeves and leggings.
As they continued to prowl each other in a wide circle, Rosie stepped up on to a flower bed and, from up high, cooed:
"You've made gwave ewwors.
Iwa fuwor bwevis est.
Pawa bellum... bitch!"
Marty's girlfriend just gave a grim snort of derision and anchored herself in a semi-crouched stance. One hand she held out, palm-outwards, for balance. With the other hand, she raised up the long clown shoe, drawing the length of it slowly in front of her face, as if it were a fine-tempered katana.
Responding to the wordless challenge, Rosie sprang from the raised bed, seeming to somehow float through the air before noiselessly landing on the niveous carpet of polysnow and blossom. In turn, she adopted her own duelling stance, whirling her clown shoe in a series of elaborate arcs around her arms and waist, deliberately stepping forward with each twirl in a display of martial skill, before abruptly thrusting out the shoe with both hands in front of her, inches away from the face of her opponent who neither flinched nor even blinked but merely let a cold, cruel grin grow across her mouth and exultant eyes.
I staggered up from my knees, scrabbling in the patterned pebbles, and loped over to the two frozen combatants. "Stop, please stop, can't we talk this through..." I cried.
Without any movement of heads or bodies, both women's eyes flickered to me. I stopped next to them.
"There must be another way..." I said, feebly.
The giant form of Marty's girlfriend took one step back, relaxed her warrior pose and then, with alarming rapidity, gave a deft flick of her wrist to deliver a playful but well-placed slap with the flat of the clown-sole against the back of my legs which, though only at half-strength, was enough to collapse me to my knees with a slight squeak from the comedy squeezy squeaker within the shoe. They both laughed as they surveyed my pathetic form, helplessly prone in the polysnow. I realised there was nothing I could do to stop them and, fearing for my own safety lest they tired of toying with me, I scrambled away on all fours to hide behind an ornamental stone bridge.
The two women resumed their preparatory positions en garde.
Again, absolute stillness.
A stillness of elegiac profundity.
A slight squall rose up and immediately ceased, whirling up the cherry blossom just momentarily in a conical vortex before falling back to earth in that forever of silence. From the street below, I could just hear the vague thumping of some beat-box megabass. Only the dull thump of the bass drum coming through, doomp, doomp, doomp, doomp... it seemed to echo my accelerating heartbeat as it passed away again into the stillness. Thin mists of condensed moisture belied the nature of the two adversaries, the clouds of their tense exhalations rising through the air the only clue that the two statuesque forms were not mere inanimate sculptures. A last single flower of blossom drifted slowly downwards, delicately tumbling through the air and settling on the tip of Rosie's rigidly outstretched clown-shoe. I saw the merest of movements in her eyes as her attention was, for just an infinitesimal instant, drawn to the motion. The terminatrix struck.
The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing. At times it seems to never leave one in peace with its incessant chatter and ruminative churnings. But there are also times when it is merciful, when the burden of sensory impressions becomes so great, so incoherently terrible, so aberrantly intolerable that it blocks it all out. It shuts down and protects us from being overwhelmed, protects us from losing that last fragile finger-hold on sanity, protects us from the dark abyss. Such was the compassionate functioning of my cerebral faculties for what followed. Only manic snapshots, isolated images, like photographs from a stroboscopically lit room, remain. Terrible images, fearsome images. Female figures fighting through the air, over the polysnow, at the precipitous edges of the roof... whirling, flying, somersaulting... uncannily quick, too fast to comprehend... But what has remained in my memory, what makes my fingers tremble still as I write this, are the sounds. Through the blackness, still I hear the sounds. The Amazonian war-cries, the bellowed shrieks of fury, the whoosh of clown-shoe cutting air with supernatural swiftness and the repeated comedic springy boinging noises and high-impact squeezy squeaks as the deadly clown shoes bent and twanged and clashed and smashed against each other in the maelstrom of lightning combat.
For how long this went on for, I can't say. The well-matched adversaries had at each other until the sun began to set, their disparate silhouettes set against its wide, red hemisphere, their war cries only slightly enervated from their epic struggle, Rosie one chopstick askew, her bun slightly shifted, the both of them with a handful of red shoe-polish marks on their attire, received from grazing blows. By that time, they had been observed from below, the two fighting figures dancing across the roof. Police had arrived but held back, unable to approach the fearsome duel.
I remember the end. As Rosie and Marty's broad battled it out in awesome ferocity on the very edge of the balustrade, I saw, rising slowly from behind them, its ominous outline rippled in the heat haze of its exhaust gases, the sleek black hull of a police helicopter. A distorted voice sounded incomprehensibly through the on-board loudhailer. I saw the powerful frame of Marty's woman sway for an instant as her footing faltered, her perfect balance disturbed from the unexpected downdraught of the rotor blades. The smaller Rosie, at an advantage in the rushing air, seized her chance and lunged forward with a wild, all-out haybaler of a swipe. At the last moment, the Parmywench blocked the blow with her own arms in a sickening crunch and loud squeezy squeak. Shocked by the force of the blow, she buckled for an instant with the shoe at her neck before, with her immense strength, she started to slowly push back on Rosie. In agonising deadlock they remained for those few seconds, defiantly oblivious to the loudhailer warnings, before Rosie suddenly seemed to notice, for the first time, the huge hands, the broad palms, the muscular fingers and the blue, popping veins of her opponent, pushing with every last ounce of strength at the shoe inches away from the coup de grace. Rosie gave a slight gasp and relaxed her attack. Marty's girlfriend, in confusion, allowed for quarter too, tentatively relinquishing her grip on the shoe. Then, Rosie reached over and with a look of rapt fascination and desire, slowly began stroking and fondling those great discus-like mitts.
"Your hands, your stwong, vigowous hands..." I heard her say.
Their eyes met, intense, bewildered yearning on both their faces.
I watched them, as I felt the pounding rhythmic thudding of the chopper blades echo in my chest, I watched them drop their clown-shoes and, as their clothes flapped like snapping flags in the helicopter's downdraught, they embraced and kissed, a long kiss of lesbotic intensity, a desperate kiss of wild abandonment and perennial pent-up passions - Rosie's bun finally bursting open and one bulging calf of Marty's girlfriend kinking back, demurely.
The wailing from the loudhailer ceased. The two women broke their embrace and stepped back, both facing the helicopter, hand-in-hand. I wanted to warn them. I wanted to shout out and warn the police. I wanted to tell them to get away, to flee this sapphic superduo but... but my lungs were frozen. I couldn't say a word. Instead, I felt myself being hauled away by the response unit who had just broken through the doors to the garden, dragged away to safety, to the soothing hot chocolate and foil blanket I cling to while silently rocking back and forth, back and forth.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Hefty Waft
I went to see Marty at his offices. I'd called him earlier and told him about Bill and how I wasn't able to get the plot book back. He just hung up. I figured he'd called me over to cancel 'Badge'. When I got there, I had to wait, as usual, in the anteroom with his PA, Primula - Primula de Saveloy. I like Primula, with her chic specs and slinky svelte pelt. Ah, poor Primula de Saveloy, with her voluptuously sounded vowels and her lovely round assonance standing proud. The lovely Primula, long-suffering and sanguine as ever, the one dignified locus of sanity in Marty's empire of strange. I saw that she'd got herself an extra handbag and a set of noise-cancelling headphones. I thought it discreet to avoid enquiry.
I'd arrived early and had been killing time drinking lots of full-fat lattes at that new coffee chain - you know, the one with Hokey, the silver monkey. They tasted a bit like gravy for some reason. Anyway, after a few maximo waxibeakers, I was desperate to slash my liquistash so I headed straight for the Parmesan Production toilet facilities. The door was locked, so I paced impatiently for a minute or two outside before I heard a flush, running tap water and the lock of the door slide open. A very fat man with wrap-around sunglasses and a slicked-back ponytail of grey, thinning hair walked out, breathing noisily and laboriously through his open mouth. Awkwardly, we sidestepped together a couple of times before both going to the left of each other and, ignoring the fresh pungency, I hurriedly lifted the lid for to get done urination.
I don't know why, but I think it was more wistful dismay than outright revulsion that I felt when confronted with the unflushably turgid remnant of the last occupant. With a resigned equanimity, I covered the offending sight with a few squares of paper and hit the double-dot flush again. Noise and motion ensued but the obstinate blockage, apparently the digested residue of some meal fashioned from the super-dense degenerate matter of a neutron star, refused to budge - merely breaking into two chunks along its own critical fault line and stolidly rebounding around the pan before wedging tight with the mass of soggy paper, causing the bowl to fill right up over the rim. Outside, I heard Primula calling me in to see Marty. "Just coming," I said and, by then somewhat ruffled, I took the toilet brush and thrust it firmly into the swirling cloud of paper and non-baryonic ultrafudge. Unfortunately, so exotically compact the gutdirt was, that on the second plunge, the handle of the brush broke off and the plastic shard of shaft got sucked back down into the unspeakable mess with a loud squelching noise almost as if the defiant lump of megadump was mocking me. Primula called again and, in a mild panic, I just slammed shut the lid and hoped I'd be able to have another go at it after seeing Marty.
Marty was there, wearing his shiny silver-grey suit, sitting with his feet up on his vast mahogany desk. His Antianeiran object of adoration was perched nonchalantly on one corner, a pink tank-top stretched mercilessly over her immutable hooters, coquettishly filing her scarlet talons. The objects on Marty's desk were suspiciously arrayed - papers and files unnaturally stacked as if they had just been hurriedly piled there. Additionally, a faint hint of musky pong hung in the air, my thesis finally confirmed when I observed on the polished surface of the desk an unmistakable patch of condensed sweat, its bi-ovoid shape reminiscent of the fertile form of the Coco-de-Mer nut, only its angular edges betraying the precise provenance of such muscular buttock marks. Following my eyes, Marty noticed the moist mark himself and quickly slid a stack of files over the top to hide it, revealing behind them, as he did so, a kilo-block of Cheddar cheese, riddled with bite marks around the edge.
Stuffing the block of nibbled cheese into a drawer, he hit his intercom and ordered some drinks, offering one to me. My relationship with the lavatory still unconsummated, I politely refused and re-tensed my muscles over my insistent bladder. Primula sauntered in with a brace of bottles. "Soda, soda, sodaaghhh!" Marty exclaimed with glee, greedily snatching the bottles from his PA with strange gurglings of excited contentment like an infant being spooned mushed prunes. He handed a bottle to his big woman who wordlessly hitched up her tank-top a few inches, inserted the top of the bottle into her exposed navel and, condensing her iron abdominals, cracked off the crenellated metal bottle top with a sharp hiss of released gas. Opening the other bottle for herself in similar manner, both took simultaneous swigs before Marty leant back in his chair again, ready to hold forth. Just as he was about to speak, I noticed a look of slight confusion fall on his face and a bulge under his upper lip where he was probing with his tongue. He reached up to his mouth and plucked a thick curly pubic hair from between his upper teeth, surveyed it, shrugged, flicked it away, and began his spiel.
As the Parmy yapped on about needing to want it bad enough and not showing enough commitment, my mind wandered despondently. I noticed, for the first time, that when Marty speaks, it's not just his lower jaw which goes up and down but both his upper and lower jaws move, his whole head oscillating - rather like the muppets talk. None of what he was saying went in. I was tired of it all and just sat there watching his head flap away as he emphasised his points with extravagant hand gestures. Something caught my eye, though. I noticed that, as he was gesticulating, he was pumping away at something in his left hand. It wasn't his normal spring-loaded wrist-strengthener - it was something else - something round and red that he kept squeezing. Finally, he slapped it down on the desk and, as it uncompressed itself, I saw that it had popped back into the familiar sphere of a clown's nose.
"...and that's why we're happy to take on 'Badge' but we can't make do with the puerile scatological rantings of your story lines - we need a proper MacGuffin." He paused for effect. "A proper MacGuffin, just like this!" and he thrust forward a box file under my nose.
I opened it and looked within. "Marty, I don't understand, why do we need a value pack of industrial-grade 'Luvlube'?"
"Huh? Oh, wait. I mean, a proper MacGuffin like this!" and he shoved forward another box file, sweeping the first one aside, off his desk.
Again, I looked inside. It was the plot book - Sandy's plot book.
"Marty - how did you get hold of this? I saw Bill, but..."
Marty leaned forward and playfully pinched my cheeks between his thumbs and forefingers. "My boy, my boy, I have my ways..." He gently slapped the sides of my face with his stubby little hands and leaned back in his chair again. "I know how Bill likes to vent his juices... oy! So, we just gave him what he wanted, even - we gave him a woman, alright..." and he started giggling girlishly to himself. Slowly, it dawned on me, the truth of who he had sent to retrieve the book. Then, rolling up from beneath Marty's chuckling, I heard another sound, a sub-sound, and infrasonic vibration that sounded like laughter recorded on tape that has been slowed right down to an unsettling slow-motion bass rumbling and, glancing to the square shoulders of Marty's girlfriend, I saw them subtly shaking and realised the source of that monstrous, mirthful reverberation. My spine, from the base of my neck to the top of my coccyx, went numbly cold.
Marty then opened one of his desk drawers and I heard him rummaging in a carrier bag before pulling out a plastic punnet of plums. He leant back in his chair as his woman took one of the plums and, holding it over his gaping mouth, squeezed out the juice for him. He slurped at it noisily before casting me a glance, pink plum juice dripping down his chin.
"Crushed plums?" he offered.
"No thanks," I said, crossing my legs. She just sneered at me.
Well, I left them to their soft fruits and let myself out. 'Badge' is back and that is that - a good day, I guess, though I can't help feeling that things are getting out of control. Still, it's what I said I wanted.
Oh yes, on my way out, there was a shrill scream. Primula came out of the toilet, pale and sobbing. "Did you do that? Did you do that terrible thing?" she asked.
I'd arrived early and had been killing time drinking lots of full-fat lattes at that new coffee chain - you know, the one with Hokey, the silver monkey. They tasted a bit like gravy for some reason. Anyway, after a few maximo waxibeakers, I was desperate to slash my liquistash so I headed straight for the Parmesan Production toilet facilities. The door was locked, so I paced impatiently for a minute or two outside before I heard a flush, running tap water and the lock of the door slide open. A very fat man with wrap-around sunglasses and a slicked-back ponytail of grey, thinning hair walked out, breathing noisily and laboriously through his open mouth. Awkwardly, we sidestepped together a couple of times before both going to the left of each other and, ignoring the fresh pungency, I hurriedly lifted the lid for to get done urination.
I don't know why, but I think it was more wistful dismay than outright revulsion that I felt when confronted with the unflushably turgid remnant of the last occupant. With a resigned equanimity, I covered the offending sight with a few squares of paper and hit the double-dot flush again. Noise and motion ensued but the obstinate blockage, apparently the digested residue of some meal fashioned from the super-dense degenerate matter of a neutron star, refused to budge - merely breaking into two chunks along its own critical fault line and stolidly rebounding around the pan before wedging tight with the mass of soggy paper, causing the bowl to fill right up over the rim. Outside, I heard Primula calling me in to see Marty. "Just coming," I said and, by then somewhat ruffled, I took the toilet brush and thrust it firmly into the swirling cloud of paper and non-baryonic ultrafudge. Unfortunately, so exotically compact the gutdirt was, that on the second plunge, the handle of the brush broke off and the plastic shard of shaft got sucked back down into the unspeakable mess with a loud squelching noise almost as if the defiant lump of megadump was mocking me. Primula called again and, in a mild panic, I just slammed shut the lid and hoped I'd be able to have another go at it after seeing Marty.
Marty was there, wearing his shiny silver-grey suit, sitting with his feet up on his vast mahogany desk. His Antianeiran object of adoration was perched nonchalantly on one corner, a pink tank-top stretched mercilessly over her immutable hooters, coquettishly filing her scarlet talons. The objects on Marty's desk were suspiciously arrayed - papers and files unnaturally stacked as if they had just been hurriedly piled there. Additionally, a faint hint of musky pong hung in the air, my thesis finally confirmed when I observed on the polished surface of the desk an unmistakable patch of condensed sweat, its bi-ovoid shape reminiscent of the fertile form of the Coco-de-Mer nut, only its angular edges betraying the precise provenance of such muscular buttock marks. Following my eyes, Marty noticed the moist mark himself and quickly slid a stack of files over the top to hide it, revealing behind them, as he did so, a kilo-block of Cheddar cheese, riddled with bite marks around the edge.
Stuffing the block of nibbled cheese into a drawer, he hit his intercom and ordered some drinks, offering one to me. My relationship with the lavatory still unconsummated, I politely refused and re-tensed my muscles over my insistent bladder. Primula sauntered in with a brace of bottles. "Soda, soda, sodaaghhh!" Marty exclaimed with glee, greedily snatching the bottles from his PA with strange gurglings of excited contentment like an infant being spooned mushed prunes. He handed a bottle to his big woman who wordlessly hitched up her tank-top a few inches, inserted the top of the bottle into her exposed navel and, condensing her iron abdominals, cracked off the crenellated metal bottle top with a sharp hiss of released gas. Opening the other bottle for herself in similar manner, both took simultaneous swigs before Marty leant back in his chair again, ready to hold forth. Just as he was about to speak, I noticed a look of slight confusion fall on his face and a bulge under his upper lip where he was probing with his tongue. He reached up to his mouth and plucked a thick curly pubic hair from between his upper teeth, surveyed it, shrugged, flicked it away, and began his spiel.
As the Parmy yapped on about needing to want it bad enough and not showing enough commitment, my mind wandered despondently. I noticed, for the first time, that when Marty speaks, it's not just his lower jaw which goes up and down but both his upper and lower jaws move, his whole head oscillating - rather like the muppets talk. None of what he was saying went in. I was tired of it all and just sat there watching his head flap away as he emphasised his points with extravagant hand gestures. Something caught my eye, though. I noticed that, as he was gesticulating, he was pumping away at something in his left hand. It wasn't his normal spring-loaded wrist-strengthener - it was something else - something round and red that he kept squeezing. Finally, he slapped it down on the desk and, as it uncompressed itself, I saw that it had popped back into the familiar sphere of a clown's nose.
"...and that's why we're happy to take on 'Badge' but we can't make do with the puerile scatological rantings of your story lines - we need a proper MacGuffin." He paused for effect. "A proper MacGuffin, just like this!" and he thrust forward a box file under my nose.
I opened it and looked within. "Marty, I don't understand, why do we need a value pack of industrial-grade 'Luvlube'?"
"Huh? Oh, wait. I mean, a proper MacGuffin like this!" and he shoved forward another box file, sweeping the first one aside, off his desk.
Again, I looked inside. It was the plot book - Sandy's plot book.
"Marty - how did you get hold of this? I saw Bill, but..."
Marty leaned forward and playfully pinched my cheeks between his thumbs and forefingers. "My boy, my boy, I have my ways..." He gently slapped the sides of my face with his stubby little hands and leaned back in his chair again. "I know how Bill likes to vent his juices... oy! So, we just gave him what he wanted, even - we gave him a woman, alright..." and he started giggling girlishly to himself. Slowly, it dawned on me, the truth of who he had sent to retrieve the book. Then, rolling up from beneath Marty's chuckling, I heard another sound, a sub-sound, and infrasonic vibration that sounded like laughter recorded on tape that has been slowed right down to an unsettling slow-motion bass rumbling and, glancing to the square shoulders of Marty's girlfriend, I saw them subtly shaking and realised the source of that monstrous, mirthful reverberation. My spine, from the base of my neck to the top of my coccyx, went numbly cold.
Marty then opened one of his desk drawers and I heard him rummaging in a carrier bag before pulling out a plastic punnet of plums. He leant back in his chair as his woman took one of the plums and, holding it over his gaping mouth, squeezed out the juice for him. He slurped at it noisily before casting me a glance, pink plum juice dripping down his chin.
"Crushed plums?" he offered.
"No thanks," I said, crossing my legs. She just sneered at me.
Well, I left them to their soft fruits and let myself out. 'Badge' is back and that is that - a good day, I guess, though I can't help feeling that things are getting out of control. Still, it's what I said I wanted.
Oh yes, on my way out, there was a shrill scream. Primula came out of the toilet, pale and sobbing. "Did you do that? Did you do that terrible thing?" she asked.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Filamentary Ribaldry
"I've got an IQ of 183," Bill said again. "I could have done anything I wanted but it was always clowning, always clowning, always... since that day..." He put down his tea. I noticed the discoloured verruca plaster swimming in the oily residue at the bottom of the mug. "You don't know me," he continued, "Merkin doesn't know me. Merkin. If it wasn't for Merkin... You know what Merkin did to me? You should stay away from him if you know what's good for you. Three years in Japan. Three years and I was the biggest thing on TV. I had my own show - started off doing the interstitials between cartoons but the part kept growing. They loved the gaijin clown - 'Lucky Big Clown' they called me, 'Rucky Bigoh Crownoh-san'..." he trailed.
"Then they got hold of the photos in Tokyo. Someone must have sent them. It happened again. I got dropped again. I protested that they wouldn't be able to recognise my face under the make-up but they wouldn't listen."
Bill's breathing became more shallow and rapid. I could see his hands tensing into two big fists with the painful memories. He told me how he had had an 'episode'. He'd flown into a rage, refusing to leave the TV studios. He described how he'd smashed his way through the cameras, the production crew all jumping up onto his back, trying to restrain him, as he stomped around roaring like an enraged bear, whirling around and throwing them off, continually scattering them about the studio only for them to keep jumping back on again, frantically stabbing him with their biros.
Bill was in another world as he continued. "'Clazy kaiju - crownoh godzirraaghh!' was the last thing I heard before they overpowered me. You want to see what they did? You want to see?" He ripped off his shirt to show me his broad, pasty back. It was still peppered with hundreds of tiny red welts from the desperate biro attacks.
"Merkin," he whispered again, darkly, and sat down quietly next to a hideous mannequin.
"I never stopped clowning, though. I stuck to it. Always a clown, always a clown, always since..." I saw Bill's face soften and drop as though he was about to cry. "...always since school. Matron. Matron made me a clown. I did it for matron." He took a deep breath and seemed to compose himself, continuing in a steadier voice.
"Pater wanted me to continue in the family business. I was being groomed for it. The finest education money could buy. Oh yes, the finest, most despicably lonely education that money could buy. I was a boarder and the only thing that made it worthwhile, the only consolatory salve, the only element of untainted beauty was lovely sweet matron and her fifty-denier stockings.
"The lower sixth were all off for a run - cross country. I hated cross country, so I punched myself in the nose to make it bleed which meant I had to go and see matron instead. Off I went in my rugby kit with a scarlet-soaked handkerchief over my nose. I knocked on her door but she didn't answer. I just heard a faint groaning from inside, so I pushed open the door and crept in. It was the stockings I saw first. Those black fifty-denier stockings, crumpled around matron's beautiful white legs which were waving wildly up in the air, she on her back on the sick-bed and Dobber - Mr. Dobson - on top of her, dressed up for the school panto... dressed up as a CLOWN!
"'William...' she said softly as she noticed me, a sympathetic look of concern and dismay on her beautiful face. Dobber just sneered and imperiously shouted 'Feltch - out!' I had an episode. My first episode. I was carrying my spiked running shoes. We weren't allowed to wear them indoors. Anger convulsed me and, with an improvised weapon being at hand, I hurled myself forward, striking down with as much force as I could muster at the pale, still bobbing behind of Dobber. The shoe sunk into his left buttock with a resounding thunk, the deep spikes keeping it stuck there like Velcro. He cried out in an inhuman wail of pain, prompting a shrill shriek of shock from matron beneath. I ran. Dobber, red-faced with fury through the clown make-up, lunged after me mid-coition.
"The image I will never forget. Dobber, his still tumescent member waggling eccentrically like the convulsing neck of an electrocuted swan, coming for me, tripping over the baggy clown pantaloons wrapped around his ankles and falling, his murderous eyes still fixed on me, falling face-first into a chrome bedpan with a resonant clang. It was a freak blow, dispatching him instantly. As I sat huddled on the floor in a corner, watching sweet matron sobbing uncontrollably and peeling off the running shoe from Dobber's perforated buttock muscle with a loud ripping noise, I realised at that moment that there was only one vocation for me. Spurn my family though I must, lose my inheritance though I would, clowning - clowning was the path I had to follow."
Bill closed his eyes, took a long, deep sigh and opened them again, staring at me with pin-prick pupils. "You want this? You want the book? You get me a woman. The book for a woman." Slowly, a thin smile formed across his rouged clown lips. "I like to lick her tears."
"Did you... did you just say that you like to lick..." I started.
But Bill didn't answer with words. He just let out a long groan as if of pleasurable contentment, gently stroking his arms as he did so.
"Then they got hold of the photos in Tokyo. Someone must have sent them. It happened again. I got dropped again. I protested that they wouldn't be able to recognise my face under the make-up but they wouldn't listen."
Bill's breathing became more shallow and rapid. I could see his hands tensing into two big fists with the painful memories. He told me how he had had an 'episode'. He'd flown into a rage, refusing to leave the TV studios. He described how he'd smashed his way through the cameras, the production crew all jumping up onto his back, trying to restrain him, as he stomped around roaring like an enraged bear, whirling around and throwing them off, continually scattering them about the studio only for them to keep jumping back on again, frantically stabbing him with their biros.
Bill was in another world as he continued. "'Clazy kaiju - crownoh godzirraaghh!' was the last thing I heard before they overpowered me. You want to see what they did? You want to see?" He ripped off his shirt to show me his broad, pasty back. It was still peppered with hundreds of tiny red welts from the desperate biro attacks.
"Merkin," he whispered again, darkly, and sat down quietly next to a hideous mannequin.
"I never stopped clowning, though. I stuck to it. Always a clown, always a clown, always since..." I saw Bill's face soften and drop as though he was about to cry. "...always since school. Matron. Matron made me a clown. I did it for matron." He took a deep breath and seemed to compose himself, continuing in a steadier voice.
"Pater wanted me to continue in the family business. I was being groomed for it. The finest education money could buy. Oh yes, the finest, most despicably lonely education that money could buy. I was a boarder and the only thing that made it worthwhile, the only consolatory salve, the only element of untainted beauty was lovely sweet matron and her fifty-denier stockings.
"The lower sixth were all off for a run - cross country. I hated cross country, so I punched myself in the nose to make it bleed which meant I had to go and see matron instead. Off I went in my rugby kit with a scarlet-soaked handkerchief over my nose. I knocked on her door but she didn't answer. I just heard a faint groaning from inside, so I pushed open the door and crept in. It was the stockings I saw first. Those black fifty-denier stockings, crumpled around matron's beautiful white legs which were waving wildly up in the air, she on her back on the sick-bed and Dobber - Mr. Dobson - on top of her, dressed up for the school panto... dressed up as a CLOWN!
"'William...' she said softly as she noticed me, a sympathetic look of concern and dismay on her beautiful face. Dobber just sneered and imperiously shouted 'Feltch - out!' I had an episode. My first episode. I was carrying my spiked running shoes. We weren't allowed to wear them indoors. Anger convulsed me and, with an improvised weapon being at hand, I hurled myself forward, striking down with as much force as I could muster at the pale, still bobbing behind of Dobber. The shoe sunk into his left buttock with a resounding thunk, the deep spikes keeping it stuck there like Velcro. He cried out in an inhuman wail of pain, prompting a shrill shriek of shock from matron beneath. I ran. Dobber, red-faced with fury through the clown make-up, lunged after me mid-coition.
"The image I will never forget. Dobber, his still tumescent member waggling eccentrically like the convulsing neck of an electrocuted swan, coming for me, tripping over the baggy clown pantaloons wrapped around his ankles and falling, his murderous eyes still fixed on me, falling face-first into a chrome bedpan with a resonant clang. It was a freak blow, dispatching him instantly. As I sat huddled on the floor in a corner, watching sweet matron sobbing uncontrollably and peeling off the running shoe from Dobber's perforated buttock muscle with a loud ripping noise, I realised at that moment that there was only one vocation for me. Spurn my family though I must, lose my inheritance though I would, clowning - clowning was the path I had to follow."
Bill closed his eyes, took a long, deep sigh and opened them again, staring at me with pin-prick pupils. "You want this? You want the book? You get me a woman. The book for a woman." Slowly, a thin smile formed across his rouged clown lips. "I like to lick her tears."
"Did you... did you just say that you like to lick..." I started.
But Bill didn't answer with words. He just let out a long groan as if of pleasurable contentment, gently stroking his arms as he did so.
Hardly Badinage
I managed to find Bill under 'Feltch' in the phone book. He had an ad. The address was for a big tenement in south London. I'd called up earlier on the pretence that I was looking to book kooky clowns for a London Boroughs-sponsored clown-fest. I just hoped he wouldn't recognise me from the rabid shoeing. It had seemed like a hideous crimson veil of clown-rage had descended upon him at the time, like something inside had snapped, and I clung to the thesis that he had undergone a psychotic personality switch at the time, insufficiently possessed of his critical faculties to remember in detail those around him.
It was windy up on the walkway of the fourth floor at the entrance to his flat. The estate had a menacing air. From below, I could hear a dog continually barking and kids screaming foul obscenities in falsetto tones. My hand was actually shaking with fear as I pressed the doorbell. It didn't work. Through the frosted glass, I could see the distorted silhouette of a large man at the end of the corridor. He was standing, looking straight at me, his shoulders hunched and his arms held tensely in tight fists at his waist. I tried gently knocking on the frame of the door. It wasn't properly closed and it swung open when I tapped it. I could see Bill clearly. His face was downcast but his eyes were swivelled upwards under his heavy brow and looking straight at me.
"Hellooo," he said, "can I get you some tea?"
His voice was incongruous to his appearance. It was a mellow, refined drawl - very posh and softly languid. The flat was squalid. We stepped into the kitchen where he made two mugs of tea by running water straight from the hot tap instead of boiling it in a kettle. I declined his offer of milk and then followed him to his lounge. The curtains were drawn closed and it was dark inside. The room was bare save for a large wooden sideboard and about a dozen chairs set up in a big circle. Most of the chairs were occupied by shop-window mannequins, dressed in shabby clothes and with their faces clumsily decorated with thick layers of colourful make-up. In the centre of the ring of chairs was a television on a table. Next to the table, on the floor, were three more televisions - they were smashed up and covered in dust. We both sat opposite each other across the pile of TVs in the middle of the ring. I held my tea in both hands, unwilling to take a sip even though the mug was full right to the brim. He sipped his drink, a pinky finger held at a kink, evincing his pedigree.
"I thought you might be delivering my new television," Bill said in a slight whisper, "I think I'll be happy when my new television arrives. Happy then. Waiting for delivery."
"No, I'm here to discuss Clownrush '09" I said.
"Yes, I know," Bill countered with just the merest hint of snappiness that still made me jump slightly, spilling a little of the tea on my hands. He showed no evidence of recognising me but the atmosphere was extremely unpleasant. Beneath the smooth, refined voice, it felt as though there was a barely-restrained violence, like he could erupt at any moment. I'd forgotten what a huge man he was - big and square-shouldered with that small bald head on top. He was still wearing most of his clown make-up, or, at least, it appeared as though he never bothered washing it off. Some of the white paint had dripped off from one side of his face, revealing the sweaty pallid skin beneath. His head looked like a pink and white mottled slab of off-cut beef, raw and fatty, ready for the mincer. Where the paint had seeped into one eye, it was red and swollen. The other eye was still that vivid, light-blue hue I remembered. We talked. His smooth, posh voice delivered preternaturally quietly, undulating slightly as though he was struggling to maintain control of himself. Each sentence he spoke seemed to end in the barest of angry hisses as he breathed in noisily through his clogged nostrils. And all the time he listened to me, he gnawed. He gnawed on the rim of his mug, he gnawed on the corner of a cushion, he gnawed on his knuckles which were red and raw from continued gnawing.
After a couple of minutes, Bill asked me if I wanted some toast with my tea. He placed his own tea on the sideboard and went to the kitchen. Immediately, I took the opportunity to furtively search for Sandy's plot book. The sideboard was the only furniture in the room, so I rummaged through its drawers. They were full of reams of paper, every inch covered in dense, handwritten notes. Under one pile, I found an old black and white photograph, curled at the edges with age. It was a younger Bill, still with hair - a mass of dark hair, his big frame clothed in a black polo-necked jumper. It was slightly blurred from the movement but you could still see clearly the semi-mangled Swiss roll and Bill's face contorted in an unwholesome mixture of climactic release and vague incomprehension.
I continued to rummage in one of the upper cupboards but it was filled only with a heap of green-tinged used verruca plasters which spilled out as I opened the door. I recoiled from the foetid aroma, picking up the errant plasters with the tips of my fingers and throwing them back in to close the door again. I tried the other cupboard and drawers but found nothing. Finally, too nervous to search elsewhere, I went to sit down again but noticed, with horror, that one of the plasters, some traces of yellow skin still attached, had fallen into Bill's mug of tea. I turned to look for something to fish it out and found myself staring straight at Bill who was silently standing behind me.
"Looking for this?" he asked, holding up a small black notebook.
One of his long arms shot forward, my stomach dropped in cold fear, but the arm continued around me and picked up his mug of tea.
"I know who you are," he said, "I've got an IQ of 183." His red and blue eyes stared intently at me over the rim of his mug as he took a long, deep draught of his tea.
It was windy up on the walkway of the fourth floor at the entrance to his flat. The estate had a menacing air. From below, I could hear a dog continually barking and kids screaming foul obscenities in falsetto tones. My hand was actually shaking with fear as I pressed the doorbell. It didn't work. Through the frosted glass, I could see the distorted silhouette of a large man at the end of the corridor. He was standing, looking straight at me, his shoulders hunched and his arms held tensely in tight fists at his waist. I tried gently knocking on the frame of the door. It wasn't properly closed and it swung open when I tapped it. I could see Bill clearly. His face was downcast but his eyes were swivelled upwards under his heavy brow and looking straight at me.
"Hellooo," he said, "can I get you some tea?"
His voice was incongruous to his appearance. It was a mellow, refined drawl - very posh and softly languid. The flat was squalid. We stepped into the kitchen where he made two mugs of tea by running water straight from the hot tap instead of boiling it in a kettle. I declined his offer of milk and then followed him to his lounge. The curtains were drawn closed and it was dark inside. The room was bare save for a large wooden sideboard and about a dozen chairs set up in a big circle. Most of the chairs were occupied by shop-window mannequins, dressed in shabby clothes and with their faces clumsily decorated with thick layers of colourful make-up. In the centre of the ring of chairs was a television on a table. Next to the table, on the floor, were three more televisions - they were smashed up and covered in dust. We both sat opposite each other across the pile of TVs in the middle of the ring. I held my tea in both hands, unwilling to take a sip even though the mug was full right to the brim. He sipped his drink, a pinky finger held at a kink, evincing his pedigree.
"I thought you might be delivering my new television," Bill said in a slight whisper, "I think I'll be happy when my new television arrives. Happy then. Waiting for delivery."
"No, I'm here to discuss Clownrush '09" I said.
"Yes, I know," Bill countered with just the merest hint of snappiness that still made me jump slightly, spilling a little of the tea on my hands. He showed no evidence of recognising me but the atmosphere was extremely unpleasant. Beneath the smooth, refined voice, it felt as though there was a barely-restrained violence, like he could erupt at any moment. I'd forgotten what a huge man he was - big and square-shouldered with that small bald head on top. He was still wearing most of his clown make-up, or, at least, it appeared as though he never bothered washing it off. Some of the white paint had dripped off from one side of his face, revealing the sweaty pallid skin beneath. His head looked like a pink and white mottled slab of off-cut beef, raw and fatty, ready for the mincer. Where the paint had seeped into one eye, it was red and swollen. The other eye was still that vivid, light-blue hue I remembered. We talked. His smooth, posh voice delivered preternaturally quietly, undulating slightly as though he was struggling to maintain control of himself. Each sentence he spoke seemed to end in the barest of angry hisses as he breathed in noisily through his clogged nostrils. And all the time he listened to me, he gnawed. He gnawed on the rim of his mug, he gnawed on the corner of a cushion, he gnawed on his knuckles which were red and raw from continued gnawing.
After a couple of minutes, Bill asked me if I wanted some toast with my tea. He placed his own tea on the sideboard and went to the kitchen. Immediately, I took the opportunity to furtively search for Sandy's plot book. The sideboard was the only furniture in the room, so I rummaged through its drawers. They were full of reams of paper, every inch covered in dense, handwritten notes. Under one pile, I found an old black and white photograph, curled at the edges with age. It was a younger Bill, still with hair - a mass of dark hair, his big frame clothed in a black polo-necked jumper. It was slightly blurred from the movement but you could still see clearly the semi-mangled Swiss roll and Bill's face contorted in an unwholesome mixture of climactic release and vague incomprehension.
I continued to rummage in one of the upper cupboards but it was filled only with a heap of green-tinged used verruca plasters which spilled out as I opened the door. I recoiled from the foetid aroma, picking up the errant plasters with the tips of my fingers and throwing them back in to close the door again. I tried the other cupboard and drawers but found nothing. Finally, too nervous to search elsewhere, I went to sit down again but noticed, with horror, that one of the plasters, some traces of yellow skin still attached, had fallen into Bill's mug of tea. I turned to look for something to fish it out and found myself staring straight at Bill who was silently standing behind me.
"Looking for this?" he asked, holding up a small black notebook.
One of his long arms shot forward, my stomach dropped in cold fear, but the arm continued around me and picked up his mug of tea.
"I know who you are," he said, "I've got an IQ of 183." His red and blue eyes stared intently at me over the rim of his mug as he took a long, deep draught of his tea.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Reportage
MINISTERIAL AUTHORITY FOR MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES - FORM 9R-K/32 [M.A.M.A.100839]
09-03-09 WATCHZONE 1a-8273
TELEPHONE TRANSCRIPTION
Consumer Units under surveillance: J H Fisk 7-2521 call to S Merkin 1-5537 made 12:04 7th March 2009
SAFE UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT -
JHF: Hello, Sandy?
SM: Er... who's calling, please?
JHF: It's me, Jeremy - you know, 'Terry Badge' Jeremy.
SM: Oh, hey kid...
JHF: ...yeah, it's Jeremy, actually. Listen, Sandy, I've been worried about you. I mean after the clown attack. I, perhaps I should have done, well... hello...?
[static]
JHF: Sandy?
SM: It's okay, kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: ...I knew the day would come, the day of reckoning. I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw Bill again. It's almost a relief, in a way.
JHF: Bill? You knew that clown, didn't you? You recognised him.
SM: Yes, I knew him, Bill Feltch. We go way back. We were both part of the scene. Both trying to get work as actors. Back then, there was all sorts of craziness going down, all kinds of experimentation, all kinds of consciousness being expanded. You wouldn't understand, kid, with your Facebook and...
JHF: ...it's Jeremy, and I don't actually have a Facebook accou...
SM: ... computers. We were real. We were politically active, we cared, we really cared. Well, back then, there was one theatre company that was way out there - it was the grooviest of the groovy. It had no costumes, no props, no seating for the audience - none of the bourgeois nonsense that ties you down - it was pure, pure like golden snow, it connected to the core of what it is to be human, it was out there, it was avant-garde... and I wanted in. I would have done anything to get in. I... I did do anything.
JHF: What do you mean?
SM: There was an audition piece. Something that they told me everyone had to do. We were in a big hall with a wooden floor and high, narrow windows which had no curtains. A bell was ringing continually and the cast were all dressed in black turtle-neck sweaters and black-rimmed glasses and were running around the edge of the hall, carrying the curtains on their shoulders - trailing them around like carnival snakes and howling. In the centre of the hall was a table, where I stood and there, they made me... they had it on a plate...
[static]
SM: ...they made me penetrate a warmed-up Battenberg...
[static]
JHF: Sandy? Did you just say that you...
SM: That's right kid, they made me f-ck a sponge, forced me to rape a cake.
[static]
SM: Look kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: ...you have to understand that I wanted in. You ever wanted something so much, you found yourself doing things you wouldn't normally do? Huh? Things that you never thought you'd do? Well, back then, that was what I wanted. I was desperate, I would have done anything. That group was it. Besides, it was pushing the boundaries, it was art, it was an installation piece, it was political. You wouldn't understand these days. It was important. Anyway, after I got in, they decided they were going to make it into a movie - a protest movie.
JHF: I don't understand. How is penetrating a tepid Battenberg meant to be a protest?
SM: I told you, it was political. Anti-war. You wouldn't understand with your iPods and...
JHF: ...I don't have an iPod, actually...
SM: ...flatscreens. So, as the newest member I had to find someone who could play that part on film.
JHF: And the next guy just happened to be Bill Feltch, right?
SM: You got it kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: I knew Bill needed the work too. I'm just glad the next guy was a guy. What they made the women do was even worse. I tell you, there's some famous grande dames of the theatre around today who I know for a fact have had Bakewell slices firmly...
JHF: ...so Bill knew what he was getting into, right? What was the problem?
SM: I wasn't quite open with him on all the details. We filmed in secret.
JHF: What did you do with the film?
SM: The film we burnt, baked it in an oven with some coconut macaroons - it was all part of the installation. But there were some still photos that were taken. The more radical elements in the group used those to launch a campaign. They took hundreds of copies and intended to go around the shops, sellotaping them to cakes on the shelves with the slogan 'Seeds of Guilt'. I told you, it was an anti-war thing. Well, fact of the matter is, when we all came down from the acid, we realised that none of it made any sense at all so we stopped the whole thing and switched to Gilbert and Sullivan operetta instead. But the damage was done.
JHF: Damage?
SM: Yes, some of the photos got loose. You see, by that time, Bill was doing his clown act and having some success with it on the TV. I heard that one of the photos of Bill emptying himself into a Swiss roll got seen by his producers. It finished his career. After that, I know he did some shows over in Japan where they didn't know about the cake incident. It finished his time with Rosie, too.
JHF: Rosie Hoal-Riemer?
SM: Yeah, she'd only just finished school - same fancy prep school as Bill's. She was that much younger and completely infatuated by him. Loved his hands. You see, I kind of caught her on the rebound but it didn't last. Just couldn't compete with Bill. She didn't care about the sponge spunking but Bill couldn't face her. I don't think she ever quite got over him, you know. Anyway, Japan was the last I heard of him until...
JHF: ...the frenzied shoe attack.
SM: That's right, kid.
JHF: It's Jeremy. Look, Sandy, I'm glad you're okay but I need to ask you something. I saw Marty the other day. We... er... had a little bike ride and he told me that you thought I had your plot book.
SM: Yes, you have it don't you?
JHF: No, I was hoping you did.
SM: F-ck kid! Without the f-cking plot book, we're f-cking f-cked!
[static]
SM: Bill must have it. If you didn't pick it up, Bill has it. He knew what he was doing. Kid, we need that book. I can't go. You have to go. You need to get that book back off him if Badge is going to happen. Without that plot book, there's no f-cking MacGuffin, kid.
- TRANSCRIPT ENDS]
SAFE UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
M.A.M.A.
09-03-09 WATCHZONE 1a-8273
TELEPHONE TRANSCRIPTION
Consumer Units under surveillance: J H Fisk 7-2521 call to S Merkin 1-5537 made 12:04 7th March 2009
SAFE UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT -
JHF: Hello, Sandy?
SM: Er... who's calling, please?
JHF: It's me, Jeremy - you know, 'Terry Badge' Jeremy.
SM: Oh, hey kid...
JHF: ...yeah, it's Jeremy, actually. Listen, Sandy, I've been worried about you. I mean after the clown attack. I, perhaps I should have done, well... hello...?
[static]
JHF: Sandy?
SM: It's okay, kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: ...I knew the day would come, the day of reckoning. I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw Bill again. It's almost a relief, in a way.
JHF: Bill? You knew that clown, didn't you? You recognised him.
SM: Yes, I knew him, Bill Feltch. We go way back. We were both part of the scene. Both trying to get work as actors. Back then, there was all sorts of craziness going down, all kinds of experimentation, all kinds of consciousness being expanded. You wouldn't understand, kid, with your Facebook and...
JHF: ...it's Jeremy, and I don't actually have a Facebook accou...
SM: ... computers. We were real. We were politically active, we cared, we really cared. Well, back then, there was one theatre company that was way out there - it was the grooviest of the groovy. It had no costumes, no props, no seating for the audience - none of the bourgeois nonsense that ties you down - it was pure, pure like golden snow, it connected to the core of what it is to be human, it was out there, it was avant-garde... and I wanted in. I would have done anything to get in. I... I did do anything.
JHF: What do you mean?
SM: There was an audition piece. Something that they told me everyone had to do. We were in a big hall with a wooden floor and high, narrow windows which had no curtains. A bell was ringing continually and the cast were all dressed in black turtle-neck sweaters and black-rimmed glasses and were running around the edge of the hall, carrying the curtains on their shoulders - trailing them around like carnival snakes and howling. In the centre of the hall was a table, where I stood and there, they made me... they had it on a plate...
[static]
SM: ...they made me penetrate a warmed-up Battenberg...
[static]
JHF: Sandy? Did you just say that you...
SM: That's right kid, they made me f-ck a sponge, forced me to rape a cake.
[static]
SM: Look kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: ...you have to understand that I wanted in. You ever wanted something so much, you found yourself doing things you wouldn't normally do? Huh? Things that you never thought you'd do? Well, back then, that was what I wanted. I was desperate, I would have done anything. That group was it. Besides, it was pushing the boundaries, it was art, it was an installation piece, it was political. You wouldn't understand these days. It was important. Anyway, after I got in, they decided they were going to make it into a movie - a protest movie.
JHF: I don't understand. How is penetrating a tepid Battenberg meant to be a protest?
SM: I told you, it was political. Anti-war. You wouldn't understand with your iPods and...
JHF: ...I don't have an iPod, actually...
SM: ...flatscreens. So, as the newest member I had to find someone who could play that part on film.
JHF: And the next guy just happened to be Bill Feltch, right?
SM: You got it kid...
JHF: ...Jeremy...
SM: I knew Bill needed the work too. I'm just glad the next guy was a guy. What they made the women do was even worse. I tell you, there's some famous grande dames of the theatre around today who I know for a fact have had Bakewell slices firmly...
JHF: ...so Bill knew what he was getting into, right? What was the problem?
SM: I wasn't quite open with him on all the details. We filmed in secret.
JHF: What did you do with the film?
SM: The film we burnt, baked it in an oven with some coconut macaroons - it was all part of the installation. But there were some still photos that were taken. The more radical elements in the group used those to launch a campaign. They took hundreds of copies and intended to go around the shops, sellotaping them to cakes on the shelves with the slogan 'Seeds of Guilt'. I told you, it was an anti-war thing. Well, fact of the matter is, when we all came down from the acid, we realised that none of it made any sense at all so we stopped the whole thing and switched to Gilbert and Sullivan operetta instead. But the damage was done.
JHF: Damage?
SM: Yes, some of the photos got loose. You see, by that time, Bill was doing his clown act and having some success with it on the TV. I heard that one of the photos of Bill emptying himself into a Swiss roll got seen by his producers. It finished his career. After that, I know he did some shows over in Japan where they didn't know about the cake incident. It finished his time with Rosie, too.
JHF: Rosie Hoal-Riemer?
SM: Yeah, she'd only just finished school - same fancy prep school as Bill's. She was that much younger and completely infatuated by him. Loved his hands. You see, I kind of caught her on the rebound but it didn't last. Just couldn't compete with Bill. She didn't care about the sponge spunking but Bill couldn't face her. I don't think she ever quite got over him, you know. Anyway, Japan was the last I heard of him until...
JHF: ...the frenzied shoe attack.
SM: That's right, kid.
JHF: It's Jeremy. Look, Sandy, I'm glad you're okay but I need to ask you something. I saw Marty the other day. We... er... had a little bike ride and he told me that you thought I had your plot book.
SM: Yes, you have it don't you?
JHF: No, I was hoping you did.
SM: F-ck kid! Without the f-cking plot book, we're f-cking f-cked!
[static]
SM: Bill must have it. If you didn't pick it up, Bill has it. He knew what he was doing. Kid, we need that book. I can't go. You have to go. You need to get that book back off him if Badge is going to happen. Without that plot book, there's no f-cking MacGuffin, kid.
- TRANSCRIPT ENDS]
SAFE UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
M.A.M.A.
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Mechanical Advantage
So there I was, round Marty's, in that ridiculously short dressing gown, eating smokey bacon crisps and drinking enormous cocktails of immense potency with him and robobint. I have to say, it's all a bit of a blur from then on. Since that evening, certain painful memories inflict themselves upon me at random intervals - neurological kindling which rise up and tear at me like jagged blades of obsidian rock breaking the surface of a dark tumultuous sea, treacherously clawing at the helpless hull of my frangible sanity in an irresistible black tempest of nauseating giddiness.
I remember the dancing first. Me, awkwardly pogoing around with my legs tight together and one hand clamped over my tackle, stultified in my terpsichorean expression by that absurdly brief gown. Marty, half crouching with his bony rear sticking out and frantically hand jiving and doing the 'mash potato', visibly enervated by his frenetically flapping forearms. And her... her, slowly contorting and writhing in an overtly erotic grind, gyrating blithely around a virtual pole, sinking to a full splits position and back up again with seemingly no effort from her powerful, piston-like pegs.
It was then that Marty yelled out "Trikestrike, sexitrikestrike!"
His girlfriend awoke from her writhing rhythmic reverie, left the room and returned with three tiny tricycles hanging from her vast arms. One was red, one was blue and one was green.
"Time to toke trike-like" Marty said, taking out an enormous spliff from behind the bar.
"I... I don't normally tend to..." I began.
Marty put an arm around my shoulders, supporting his weight and slumping forward to conspiratorially whisper to me. "If we're doin' 'Badge', I wanna know you're a Marty kinda guy. Are you? Are you a Marty kinda guy? 'Cos I'm beginning to have my doubts about you..."
Of course, I took that fat doobie and I got on the miniature tricycle. You knew I would. What little self-respect remained was effectively dealt with that night. What vestigial trace of artistic integrity that ever was, was thus forever erased that fateful hazy eve. I straddled that tiny trike in my tiny gown and I rode it. I rode it for all I was worth, like the worthless trike-truckler I'd become. I rode it round and round, the squeaky wheels sounding out loudly like the tormented trappings of my distrained mind, my shoulders hunched over the little handlebars and my white legs pumping away, my knees bent up right next to my ears, my bollocks flapping loosely in the breeze of the speed, my eyes pricked with tears of shame. Faster and faster I pedalled, the tiny frame of the tricycle bending and groaning from the unreasonable forces I applied to it, all the while Marty singing "Hava, hava nagila..." and his girlfriend clapping in time with those huge hands of hers - each beat sounding like the violent report of a concussion grenade.
Faster I pedalled. Firmer I gritted my teeth down on that joint. Wilder my distended knackers bobbled about. Deeper into the abyss of permanent psychological trauma I descended, until... in an insensate haze of alcohol and weed fuelled mania, I clipped one of the wheels over the edge of the jacuzzi and into the churning water I fell. Marty screamed in delight and he, immediately followed by his girlfriend, both jumped in with me.
The details become sketchy again. I remember the three of us reclining in the bubbling tub, our respective gowns cast aside. I remember Marty's curly hair completely fuzzed up by the moisture so it looked like a giant round microphone cover and his big retro glasses all steamed over. I remember snorting lines off of the glistening, adamantine abs of his broad. I remember Marty sticking to the coco coladas while his girlfriend and I swapped swigs from an iced vodka bottle. Yes! The vodka bottle - I remember now. It was the same brand as Sandy poured into his soup in that restaurant. I asked Marty about Sandy - if he was okay after the clown attack.
"He's okay, he's okay" Marty said. "Oy, that big schmuck - I tell you, you gotta know how to treat the writers. Carrot or stick, carrot or stick, stick or carraagghht! I don't schlep around with the carrot or stick - enough already! I make the carrot into the stick. I hit them with the freakin' carrot, yeah - ha ha - I beat 'em up good wit' the stick made outta carrot!" And he started laughing manically in that high-pitched nasal way of his.
He stopped abruptly. "Waittah minute..." he drawled, "did you pick up Sandy's plot book that day?"
"Plot book?"
"Yeah, yeah, his plot book. He ain't not'in' wit'out his plot book. He said he ain't got it but I figured you got it, right? Sandy can't do 'Badge' wit' no book."
"But we can still use my story lines in the meantime, can't we?" I asked.
"No book, no 'Badge'." Marty took another swig of his rum-laced mucus-juice then started screaming out laughing again. "Hit 'em wit' the carrot, yeah - hit 'em wit' the freakin' carrot!"
Then he leapt up out of the jacuzzi with surprising swiftness and, completely naked but for the froth of the bath, ran to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city, hitting it with a fearsome slap. There he stood spread-eagle, legs wide apart, arms lifted in a victorious stance: "I'm Marty Parmy," he yelled to the lights below, "I'm Marty Parmy - I'm the Parmy - I hit 'em good with my carraaghht! I hi..." his voice trailed. He teetered for a moment, then slowly fell backwards, slumping to the floor, leaving a starfish pattern of suds against the window.
The last thing I remember, as Marty lay unconscious, is his girlfriend in the jacuzzi, pointing sternly for me to leave, me shamefully climbing out of the bath, acutely aware of her critical gaze surveying my exposed form as I rummaged for my sodden silk gown, forbidden to collect my clothes from the bathroom, forced to traipse the streets that night with only that inadequate gown and my wits.
But the plot book. I need to get hold of Sandy's book or all is lost with 'Badge'. I'm just going to have to face Sandy again after the clown incident.
I remember the dancing first. Me, awkwardly pogoing around with my legs tight together and one hand clamped over my tackle, stultified in my terpsichorean expression by that absurdly brief gown. Marty, half crouching with his bony rear sticking out and frantically hand jiving and doing the 'mash potato', visibly enervated by his frenetically flapping forearms. And her... her, slowly contorting and writhing in an overtly erotic grind, gyrating blithely around a virtual pole, sinking to a full splits position and back up again with seemingly no effort from her powerful, piston-like pegs.
It was then that Marty yelled out "Trikestrike, sexitrikestrike!"
His girlfriend awoke from her writhing rhythmic reverie, left the room and returned with three tiny tricycles hanging from her vast arms. One was red, one was blue and one was green.
"Time to toke trike-like" Marty said, taking out an enormous spliff from behind the bar.
"I... I don't normally tend to..." I began.
Marty put an arm around my shoulders, supporting his weight and slumping forward to conspiratorially whisper to me. "If we're doin' 'Badge', I wanna know you're a Marty kinda guy. Are you? Are you a Marty kinda guy? 'Cos I'm beginning to have my doubts about you..."
Of course, I took that fat doobie and I got on the miniature tricycle. You knew I would. What little self-respect remained was effectively dealt with that night. What vestigial trace of artistic integrity that ever was, was thus forever erased that fateful hazy eve. I straddled that tiny trike in my tiny gown and I rode it. I rode it for all I was worth, like the worthless trike-truckler I'd become. I rode it round and round, the squeaky wheels sounding out loudly like the tormented trappings of my distrained mind, my shoulders hunched over the little handlebars and my white legs pumping away, my knees bent up right next to my ears, my bollocks flapping loosely in the breeze of the speed, my eyes pricked with tears of shame. Faster and faster I pedalled, the tiny frame of the tricycle bending and groaning from the unreasonable forces I applied to it, all the while Marty singing "Hava, hava nagila..." and his girlfriend clapping in time with those huge hands of hers - each beat sounding like the violent report of a concussion grenade.
Faster I pedalled. Firmer I gritted my teeth down on that joint. Wilder my distended knackers bobbled about. Deeper into the abyss of permanent psychological trauma I descended, until... in an insensate haze of alcohol and weed fuelled mania, I clipped one of the wheels over the edge of the jacuzzi and into the churning water I fell. Marty screamed in delight and he, immediately followed by his girlfriend, both jumped in with me.
The details become sketchy again. I remember the three of us reclining in the bubbling tub, our respective gowns cast aside. I remember Marty's curly hair completely fuzzed up by the moisture so it looked like a giant round microphone cover and his big retro glasses all steamed over. I remember snorting lines off of the glistening, adamantine abs of his broad. I remember Marty sticking to the coco coladas while his girlfriend and I swapped swigs from an iced vodka bottle. Yes! The vodka bottle - I remember now. It was the same brand as Sandy poured into his soup in that restaurant. I asked Marty about Sandy - if he was okay after the clown attack.
"He's okay, he's okay" Marty said. "Oy, that big schmuck - I tell you, you gotta know how to treat the writers. Carrot or stick, carrot or stick, stick or carraagghht! I don't schlep around with the carrot or stick - enough already! I make the carrot into the stick. I hit them with the freakin' carrot, yeah - ha ha - I beat 'em up good wit' the stick made outta carrot!" And he started laughing manically in that high-pitched nasal way of his.
He stopped abruptly. "Waittah minute..." he drawled, "did you pick up Sandy's plot book that day?"
"Plot book?"
"Yeah, yeah, his plot book. He ain't not'in' wit'out his plot book. He said he ain't got it but I figured you got it, right? Sandy can't do 'Badge' wit' no book."
"But we can still use my story lines in the meantime, can't we?" I asked.
"No book, no 'Badge'." Marty took another swig of his rum-laced mucus-juice then started screaming out laughing again. "Hit 'em wit' the carrot, yeah - hit 'em wit' the freakin' carrot!"
Then he leapt up out of the jacuzzi with surprising swiftness and, completely naked but for the froth of the bath, ran to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city, hitting it with a fearsome slap. There he stood spread-eagle, legs wide apart, arms lifted in a victorious stance: "I'm Marty Parmy," he yelled to the lights below, "I'm Marty Parmy - I'm the Parmy - I hit 'em good with my carraaghht! I hi..." his voice trailed. He teetered for a moment, then slowly fell backwards, slumping to the floor, leaving a starfish pattern of suds against the window.
The last thing I remember, as Marty lay unconscious, is his girlfriend in the jacuzzi, pointing sternly for me to leave, me shamefully climbing out of the bath, acutely aware of her critical gaze surveying my exposed form as I rummaged for my sodden silk gown, forbidden to collect my clothes from the bathroom, forced to traipse the streets that night with only that inadequate gown and my wits.
But the plot book. I need to get hold of Sandy's book or all is lost with 'Badge'. I'm just going to have to face Sandy again after the clown incident.
Deference
Well, I did accept Marty's invitation. I thought I better. When I got to his place, Marty and his moll greeted me together at the door. Both were only wearing gowns - exquisite, ornately embroidered Oriental-style silken dressing-gowns. Apart from the colours, they were matching designs: his, a blue one hanging loosely from his puny frame; hers, a red one barely managing to wrap around her muscularly pneumatic form. Marty then threw me a small tied-up green bundle which I realised was another such gown and invited me to kick back and join them "Parmy-fashion".
I shuffled off to one of the bathrooms to change and, putting on the gown, realised that it was alarmingly short in the hem. My boxers actually hung down underneath, which looked stupid, so I figured it would be better to go the whole hog and just make sure not to bend over. As I opened the door to leave the bathroom, I looked in the vast gold-rimmed mirror, my reflection casting a shameful, accusatory glance back at me - a ridiculous figure obsessively primping at the hem of a comically short dressing gown. I stared and I pondered gloomily on quite what I'd become in order to sell 'Badge'.
So thus I ventured out to the lounge in a series of careful, short steps, continually tugging down on the hem of my gown, in a nervous tic-like way. Marty's lounge is a huge open-plan affair, with two complete walls looking out on the lights of London below. One section is raised with a huge marble jacuzzi set in it and a drinks bar along the side. I remember the cream, ludicrously deep shagpile carpet running down the stairs to a polar-bear-skin rug. The whole thing reminded me of an 'Imperial Leather' advert from the 'Seventies.
Marty and his woman stood at the bar, watching me with a wordless, almost prurient, intensity. It was then that I realised that we were the only three people at this 'party'.
"Is anybody else coming?" I asked, self-consciously pulling down at the hem of my gown again, my legs feeling cold and exposed.
"We don't need no one else to have fun, party-style - not when we all get a little bit Marty-style!" Marty said, hitting a button on the bar which triggered the jacuzzi noisily into life, the lights dimming and piped groove music also starting in unison.
Defensively, I sat down in the only single chair, my knees clamped together and my hands trying to stretch out the gown over my lap. Marty went to the bar in that manner that people do when they half-walk, half-dance to the dance floor in a disco - sort of locomoting along with elbows pumping round in circles like they just can't resist the rhythm. His girlfriend strode over to where I sat and silently offered me a plate. As she bent down, I could hear the fabric of her silk gown stretch and crack as it strained tautly across her wide, muscular back.
"Smokey bacon crisp?" Marty said from behind the bar, "they're the best there are - I get them imported specially. Oy - not so kosher, my boy!" Recently Marty has dropped the contrived Brooklyn accent a little and has gone a bit 'Jewish'.
With one hand firmly clutching my dressing gown over my crotch, I carefully took a crisp from the pile, unable to help noticing as I glanced over the plate, that, though my hostess' silk gown freely hung down to reveal the cavernous cleavage below as she leaned over, her massive immalleable breasts retained their upright configuration, apparently impervious to the force of gravity. "Drink?" Marty's voice offered from behind the bar and, without waiting for an answer from me, a large coconut suddenly sailed through the air from Marty's position and was caught, with one hand, by his girlfriend. She handed me the plate of crisps and took the coconut back up to the bar where she took an empty ice bucket, placed it on the floor, squatted over it, placed the coconut between her legs and, with a slight perfunctory grunt, cracked open the shell with her vice-like thighs, letting the cloudy milk flush into the bucket below. She handed the ice bucket back over to Marty who started mixing and shaking.
"You want pureed banana in your daiquiri?" Marty asked. I glanced back at his girlfriend, my eyes drawn to the thin rivulets of coconut milk running down the bulging muscles of her huge, long legs. For a moment, I was caught in indecision, impelled by curiosity to see quite how it would be contrived to effect such an ingredient but also scared, scared to witness a sight which I knew would be seared in to my consciousness forever.
"N-No thanks Marty, no banana puree. None. Ever."
Marty just shrugged and came over to me with a couple of turbid pus-yellow cocktails in huge bulbous glasses with red foil parasols. He offered me one, for which I instinctively started to reach out, before realising that I needed one hand for the plate of crisps and the other for my gown. Momentarily nonplussed, I twitched back and forward a couple of times before converging on the solution of balancing the plate of crisps strategically on my lap while then freeing the other hand for the cocktail. Man, that plate was cold.
It was once we started on the booze that the pain really started.
I shuffled off to one of the bathrooms to change and, putting on the gown, realised that it was alarmingly short in the hem. My boxers actually hung down underneath, which looked stupid, so I figured it would be better to go the whole hog and just make sure not to bend over. As I opened the door to leave the bathroom, I looked in the vast gold-rimmed mirror, my reflection casting a shameful, accusatory glance back at me - a ridiculous figure obsessively primping at the hem of a comically short dressing gown. I stared and I pondered gloomily on quite what I'd become in order to sell 'Badge'.
So thus I ventured out to the lounge in a series of careful, short steps, continually tugging down on the hem of my gown, in a nervous tic-like way. Marty's lounge is a huge open-plan affair, with two complete walls looking out on the lights of London below. One section is raised with a huge marble jacuzzi set in it and a drinks bar along the side. I remember the cream, ludicrously deep shagpile carpet running down the stairs to a polar-bear-skin rug. The whole thing reminded me of an 'Imperial Leather' advert from the 'Seventies.
Marty and his woman stood at the bar, watching me with a wordless, almost prurient, intensity. It was then that I realised that we were the only three people at this 'party'.
"Is anybody else coming?" I asked, self-consciously pulling down at the hem of my gown again, my legs feeling cold and exposed.
"We don't need no one else to have fun, party-style - not when we all get a little bit Marty-style!" Marty said, hitting a button on the bar which triggered the jacuzzi noisily into life, the lights dimming and piped groove music also starting in unison.
Defensively, I sat down in the only single chair, my knees clamped together and my hands trying to stretch out the gown over my lap. Marty went to the bar in that manner that people do when they half-walk, half-dance to the dance floor in a disco - sort of locomoting along with elbows pumping round in circles like they just can't resist the rhythm. His girlfriend strode over to where I sat and silently offered me a plate. As she bent down, I could hear the fabric of her silk gown stretch and crack as it strained tautly across her wide, muscular back.
"Smokey bacon crisp?" Marty said from behind the bar, "they're the best there are - I get them imported specially. Oy - not so kosher, my boy!" Recently Marty has dropped the contrived Brooklyn accent a little and has gone a bit 'Jewish'.
With one hand firmly clutching my dressing gown over my crotch, I carefully took a crisp from the pile, unable to help noticing as I glanced over the plate, that, though my hostess' silk gown freely hung down to reveal the cavernous cleavage below as she leaned over, her massive immalleable breasts retained their upright configuration, apparently impervious to the force of gravity. "Drink?" Marty's voice offered from behind the bar and, without waiting for an answer from me, a large coconut suddenly sailed through the air from Marty's position and was caught, with one hand, by his girlfriend. She handed me the plate of crisps and took the coconut back up to the bar where she took an empty ice bucket, placed it on the floor, squatted over it, placed the coconut between her legs and, with a slight perfunctory grunt, cracked open the shell with her vice-like thighs, letting the cloudy milk flush into the bucket below. She handed the ice bucket back over to Marty who started mixing and shaking.
"You want pureed banana in your daiquiri?" Marty asked. I glanced back at his girlfriend, my eyes drawn to the thin rivulets of coconut milk running down the bulging muscles of her huge, long legs. For a moment, I was caught in indecision, impelled by curiosity to see quite how it would be contrived to effect such an ingredient but also scared, scared to witness a sight which I knew would be seared in to my consciousness forever.
"N-No thanks Marty, no banana puree. None. Ever."
Marty just shrugged and came over to me with a couple of turbid pus-yellow cocktails in huge bulbous glasses with red foil parasols. He offered me one, for which I instinctively started to reach out, before realising that I needed one hand for the plate of crisps and the other for my gown. Momentarily nonplussed, I twitched back and forward a couple of times before converging on the solution of balancing the plate of crisps strategically on my lap while then freeing the other hand for the cocktail. Man, that plate was cold.
It was once we started on the booze that the pain really started.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Supplantage
Well, I must say, a big help you lot were getting me out of that pub. I had to call Marty in the end and he came round with his brassy broad to rescue me. I managed to persuade him that it was an emergency and he rearranged his busy schedule to oblige. I wouldn't come out of the toilets until I could hear Marty's whining tones softly wheedling through the door. When I did, thumbs-guy and the northern terror had gone. Apart from Marty and his squeeze, the only people there were the barman (holding the sieve ready) and Hans Moretti sitting in the corner. It was definitely him. He wasn't saying much, he was just sitting there with his eyes closed as if in deep meditation.
Marty let me tag along in his limo. He's set it up like a mini editing suite so he can continue to work when on the road. Problem was, the only seat was just about a double one with not quite enough room for the three of us, so I had to sit wedged between Marty and his girlfriend. It was very uncomfortable with my elbows tucked in, one buttock suspended mid-air over the seat, half sitting on the flaccid, pipe-cleaner-like legs of Marty and half sitting on the steel-hard lap of his girlfriend. Whenever we turned a corner, I could feel her thigh muscle tense to stop herself leaning over and my whole body would be lifted perceptibly upwards. She and I stared forward self-consciously while Marty watched his giant TV, apparently unabashed and oblivious to the awkward seating arrangement.
He was checking out the pilots of potential new shows. First up was 'Prankhunt'. It's a low-grade amalgamation of various stunts fronted by a smarmy runt who dances around manically in lurid fancy-dress amid shrieking torrents of studio laughter squirted out discretely in a Pavlovian response to his catch-phrase "I'm a total prankhunt!" Each week it's the same set of 'running gags' just performed on different members of the public. Tawdry anchor man performs some of them himself. There's one where he sticks his head through the open windows of cars waiting in traffic queues and screams "Look at me!" inches away from the terrified faces of the drivers. Another one just has him exiting restaurant toilets and yelling "Bummer!" back through the door before running away. At the end of each show, anchor man also hosts 'Yooza Looza' which is sort of a spoof award thing which has him tracking down the minor celebrity who is deemed to have undergone the most humiliating personal degradations of the week. Captured on wobbly hand-held smirk-o-vision, the team crash the celeb's home and force on them the 'award' which is usually just mutely accepted with confused resignation.
Next was 'You Deserve It', in which two members of the public have wedges of money wafted in front of their faces, just out of reach, by celebrity taunters who repeatedly feign handing over the money but whip it back at the last moment. This goes on for fifty minutes, plus ad breaks, with the celebrities each time pretending that they were just joking before and they'll really hand over the money but, each time, sharply withdrawing it again. At the end, both contestants have their saliva chemically analysed and the one exhibiting the greatest physiological stress response, shown by elevated levels of hydrocortisone, wins both lots of money. The other one is tied up inside a sack full of monkeys pumped with ketamine and rolled down a hill.
What Marty's really excited about now, though, is a new concept he's working on with interactive reality TV. He's working on a bit of kit that connects the new Phatbox V to a webcam and allows viewers to, wait for it... watch each other. He's calling it 'Mutualtainment' and, basically, it means that viewers just sit and stare at each other. Sitting, staring, chewing, sniffing, chewing, staring, chewing, staring, for hours and hours and hours and hours.
Marty got the idea from that newscaster on the Fox Infospout Channel who cracked up the other day. Did you see that? She was half-way through reading a story on celebrity pancake endorsement when she just paused, stopped reading, took a deep sigh and slumped back in her chair. For a few seconds you could hear vague background noises of concerned shuffling off-set, then the camera zoomed in to her eyes, briefly wobbling and having to refocus as it did so. You could actually see something die inside her as the light went out in those eyes and a half-tear slowly welled up on her lower lid. The amazing thing was, they made that the new lead story and, for the next two hours, stuck with rolling-news coverage of the newscaster herself, sitting in her chair, staring ahead and silently weeping, while the superimposed news-ticker kept running along the bottom of the screen with captions like "Breaking story: sultry anchoress stares newspair in the face."
Marty's been in a really good mood lately and just signing off everything - including, as you would have seen from that flyer on the bus, 'Badge'. When he dropped me off in the limo, he told me he'd arranged a little party back at his pad to celebrate getting 'Badge' into production. I don't really feel that comfortable accepting but I think I better go.
Marty let me tag along in his limo. He's set it up like a mini editing suite so he can continue to work when on the road. Problem was, the only seat was just about a double one with not quite enough room for the three of us, so I had to sit wedged between Marty and his girlfriend. It was very uncomfortable with my elbows tucked in, one buttock suspended mid-air over the seat, half sitting on the flaccid, pipe-cleaner-like legs of Marty and half sitting on the steel-hard lap of his girlfriend. Whenever we turned a corner, I could feel her thigh muscle tense to stop herself leaning over and my whole body would be lifted perceptibly upwards. She and I stared forward self-consciously while Marty watched his giant TV, apparently unabashed and oblivious to the awkward seating arrangement.
He was checking out the pilots of potential new shows. First up was 'Prankhunt'. It's a low-grade amalgamation of various stunts fronted by a smarmy runt who dances around manically in lurid fancy-dress amid shrieking torrents of studio laughter squirted out discretely in a Pavlovian response to his catch-phrase "I'm a total prankhunt!" Each week it's the same set of 'running gags' just performed on different members of the public. Tawdry anchor man performs some of them himself. There's one where he sticks his head through the open windows of cars waiting in traffic queues and screams "Look at me!" inches away from the terrified faces of the drivers. Another one just has him exiting restaurant toilets and yelling "Bummer!" back through the door before running away. At the end of each show, anchor man also hosts 'Yooza Looza' which is sort of a spoof award thing which has him tracking down the minor celebrity who is deemed to have undergone the most humiliating personal degradations of the week. Captured on wobbly hand-held smirk-o-vision, the team crash the celeb's home and force on them the 'award' which is usually just mutely accepted with confused resignation.
Next was 'You Deserve It', in which two members of the public have wedges of money wafted in front of their faces, just out of reach, by celebrity taunters who repeatedly feign handing over the money but whip it back at the last moment. This goes on for fifty minutes, plus ad breaks, with the celebrities each time pretending that they were just joking before and they'll really hand over the money but, each time, sharply withdrawing it again. At the end, both contestants have their saliva chemically analysed and the one exhibiting the greatest physiological stress response, shown by elevated levels of hydrocortisone, wins both lots of money. The other one is tied up inside a sack full of monkeys pumped with ketamine and rolled down a hill.
What Marty's really excited about now, though, is a new concept he's working on with interactive reality TV. He's working on a bit of kit that connects the new Phatbox V to a webcam and allows viewers to, wait for it... watch each other. He's calling it 'Mutualtainment' and, basically, it means that viewers just sit and stare at each other. Sitting, staring, chewing, sniffing, chewing, staring, chewing, staring, for hours and hours and hours and hours.
Marty got the idea from that newscaster on the Fox Infospout Channel who cracked up the other day. Did you see that? She was half-way through reading a story on celebrity pancake endorsement when she just paused, stopped reading, took a deep sigh and slumped back in her chair. For a few seconds you could hear vague background noises of concerned shuffling off-set, then the camera zoomed in to her eyes, briefly wobbling and having to refocus as it did so. You could actually see something die inside her as the light went out in those eyes and a half-tear slowly welled up on her lower lid. The amazing thing was, they made that the new lead story and, for the next two hours, stuck with rolling-news coverage of the newscaster herself, sitting in her chair, staring ahead and silently weeping, while the superimposed news-ticker kept running along the bottom of the screen with captions like "Breaking story: sultry anchoress stares newspair in the face."
Marty's been in a really good mood lately and just signing off everything - including, as you would have seen from that flyer on the bus, 'Badge'. When he dropped me off in the limo, he told me he'd arranged a little party back at his pad to celebrate getting 'Badge' into production. I don't really feel that comfortable accepting but I think I better go.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Advantage
I went back to that pub again. Aside from the barman, there were only two others - the same guy with the broken thumbs and Peter Denyer, who played 'Ralph' in 'Dear John'. It was definitely him. He was just sitting in the corner, staring at the frosted glass of the window and not saying anything. "S'fundah," I said, in greeting.
"Sutwe," the barman nodded, in response.
As soon as I reached the bar, thumb-guy jumped off his stool and grabbed my lapels, gripping them between his fingers and the tops of his palms as he couldn't use his twisted thumbs.
"You gotta help me," he spluttered. He looked awful. He was pale, unshaven and reeking of booze. He swayed and shook and the lid of one of his bloodshot eyes was twitching intermittently. "You gotta help me. She says I'm no good to her now. To be honest, I don't know what use she ever had for my hands - the Rohypnol, or whatever it was, always blacked me out completely. But... but when I come to, it's the ash... the ash and the slingbacks. I need it, pal. I need more ash and slingbacks."
I dusted off his grubby fingers from my jacket. "What can I do about it?" I asked.
"You gotta help me." He thrust his broken hands under my nose. I reeled slightly. "Splint 'em. Splint 'em up with something. Look... the cocktail stirrers, you can use those. Splint 'em up, please, quick... she'll be here soon... quick..."
I looked to the barman. We exchanged concerned expressions. Then, hesitantly, the barman reached behind himself to pick up a jar of coloured-plastic cocktail stirrers from the mirrored compartments under the spirit optics.
But we were too late. I heard the door to the street open and felt a current of cold, dry air rush in.
"Aarraght"
We both turned. She sashayed to the bar in a series of short steps, her loose shoes slapping against her heels and dragging on the floor. The barman mixed and poured her drink which she sipped up through twin straws, finishing the liquid, gurgling the air through the crushed-ice mash at the bottom and then letting out a satisfied gasp from the back of her throat.
Peter Denyer chose the moment to quietly get up and absent himself from the saloon, moving to the toilets. As he passed the bar, the barman held out the sieve for him which he silently accepted without breaking his stride.
"Raarrght," she said, "let's see 'ow thorse 'ands er dowin', shall we? See uf they can clamp me topnuts."
"Clamp me..." I saw the man mouth to himself, clearly trying to recall his blacked-out activities from this scrap of a clue. He stepped forward gingerly with a whimper and presented his hands.
"We'll do this fer and skwer," she continued. "'Ere, 'ave that," and she slapped something hard into the man's opened hands. I saw his eyes blink heavily as he tried to hide the wince of pain from her. "An' you an'all," she said to me. Without thinking, I held out my hands. Into them she plonked an identical object. "'Ave that," she said. I looked down and saw it was one of those fuzzy Velcro balls - you know, those toy Velcro balls that you throw against furry hats or bats or soft fuzzy indoor 'dart' boards.
She walked back to the bar, turned around to face us again and, standing with her back against the bar, reached behind and used her arms to thrust herself backwards and upwards. She heaved herself up, wriggling her bottom up the front of the bar in a zig-zag pattern, her legs momentarily jiggling mid-air with the effort, as she lifted herself up to sit on top of the bar. Then she opened her coat and hitched up her mini-skirt from the tops of her thighs such that it served as no skirt at all. She had on no underwear. Shuffling aside the flanks of her coat, she spread her pale thighs wide apart, emitting a little rasping sound which was either her flaccid skin vibrating from the friction as it was drawn over the polished wood, or a small fart.
"'Oo-ever gets 'em to stick the nearest, can 'ave me," she said disinterestedly, shanks akimbo.
With dawning horror, I looked at the soft Velcro ball I was holding and realised what it was for. The other man was already wide-eyed with intent, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth in absolute concentration as he attempted to gauge the shot and line it up with repeated practice swings of his throwing arm. Then, after more careful rehearsal movements back and forth which provoked a bored sigh from the woman on the bar, he threw. The ball arced across the room and hit and stuck, without any bounce, the perimeter of the hirsute target.
He tucked his chin into his chest with a relieved smile, clearly happy at his effort. Both now looked towards me. I hesitated.
"Garrarghn," she said.
"But I..." I faltered.
"Throar!" she insisted, impatiently.
I felt my right arm rise. I watched it, in an agonised, detached, almost hypnotic state. It pulled back to throw, seemingly without my conscious volition, back, back... I mustered all my mental strength and at the last moment, when my arm let loose, I managed to twist my body at the waist, queering the throw and sending the Velcro ball spiralling way off to the right.
Just then, Peter Denyer returned from the toilets, brandishing the sieve. The ball, in mid-flight, bounced off the toilet door as it swung open, hit the slowly rotating ceiling fan, ricochetted off of the time-bell with a single ding and, with a soft plumping thump, hit the exact centre of the target.
"You lucky bugger..." the man whispered in slack-jawed disbelief.
The woman raised an eyebrow, drearily impressed, her stolid phlegmatism reluctantly punctured in that instant by the bizarre trick shot. "That were reet fancy, that. Now, 'ow dark ar'yer nuggets, louv?"
I'm writing this from inside the toilets. I ran to them and locked myself in. I don't even have the sieve. I'm still in them and writing to you on my Dangleberry. Battery low. Signal weak. I can hear the pounding on the door still. Get help! I need help. Get help now! I'll tell you the name of the pub - please just get me help. Okay, the name of the pub is [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT] and it's right on the [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT]. You can't miss it. Bring tazers.
This message was sent from my Wiffi Dangleberry.
"Sutwe," the barman nodded, in response.
As soon as I reached the bar, thumb-guy jumped off his stool and grabbed my lapels, gripping them between his fingers and the tops of his palms as he couldn't use his twisted thumbs.
"You gotta help me," he spluttered. He looked awful. He was pale, unshaven and reeking of booze. He swayed and shook and the lid of one of his bloodshot eyes was twitching intermittently. "You gotta help me. She says I'm no good to her now. To be honest, I don't know what use she ever had for my hands - the Rohypnol, or whatever it was, always blacked me out completely. But... but when I come to, it's the ash... the ash and the slingbacks. I need it, pal. I need more ash and slingbacks."
I dusted off his grubby fingers from my jacket. "What can I do about it?" I asked.
"You gotta help me." He thrust his broken hands under my nose. I reeled slightly. "Splint 'em. Splint 'em up with something. Look... the cocktail stirrers, you can use those. Splint 'em up, please, quick... she'll be here soon... quick..."
I looked to the barman. We exchanged concerned expressions. Then, hesitantly, the barman reached behind himself to pick up a jar of coloured-plastic cocktail stirrers from the mirrored compartments under the spirit optics.
But we were too late. I heard the door to the street open and felt a current of cold, dry air rush in.
"Aarraght"
We both turned. She sashayed to the bar in a series of short steps, her loose shoes slapping against her heels and dragging on the floor. The barman mixed and poured her drink which she sipped up through twin straws, finishing the liquid, gurgling the air through the crushed-ice mash at the bottom and then letting out a satisfied gasp from the back of her throat.
Peter Denyer chose the moment to quietly get up and absent himself from the saloon, moving to the toilets. As he passed the bar, the barman held out the sieve for him which he silently accepted without breaking his stride.
"Raarrght," she said, "let's see 'ow thorse 'ands er dowin', shall we? See uf they can clamp me topnuts."
"Clamp me..." I saw the man mouth to himself, clearly trying to recall his blacked-out activities from this scrap of a clue. He stepped forward gingerly with a whimper and presented his hands.
"We'll do this fer and skwer," she continued. "'Ere, 'ave that," and she slapped something hard into the man's opened hands. I saw his eyes blink heavily as he tried to hide the wince of pain from her. "An' you an'all," she said to me. Without thinking, I held out my hands. Into them she plonked an identical object. "'Ave that," she said. I looked down and saw it was one of those fuzzy Velcro balls - you know, those toy Velcro balls that you throw against furry hats or bats or soft fuzzy indoor 'dart' boards.
She walked back to the bar, turned around to face us again and, standing with her back against the bar, reached behind and used her arms to thrust herself backwards and upwards. She heaved herself up, wriggling her bottom up the front of the bar in a zig-zag pattern, her legs momentarily jiggling mid-air with the effort, as she lifted herself up to sit on top of the bar. Then she opened her coat and hitched up her mini-skirt from the tops of her thighs such that it served as no skirt at all. She had on no underwear. Shuffling aside the flanks of her coat, she spread her pale thighs wide apart, emitting a little rasping sound which was either her flaccid skin vibrating from the friction as it was drawn over the polished wood, or a small fart.
"'Oo-ever gets 'em to stick the nearest, can 'ave me," she said disinterestedly, shanks akimbo.
With dawning horror, I looked at the soft Velcro ball I was holding and realised what it was for. The other man was already wide-eyed with intent, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth in absolute concentration as he attempted to gauge the shot and line it up with repeated practice swings of his throwing arm. Then, after more careful rehearsal movements back and forth which provoked a bored sigh from the woman on the bar, he threw. The ball arced across the room and hit and stuck, without any bounce, the perimeter of the hirsute target.
He tucked his chin into his chest with a relieved smile, clearly happy at his effort. Both now looked towards me. I hesitated.
"Garrarghn," she said.
"But I..." I faltered.
"Throar!" she insisted, impatiently.
I felt my right arm rise. I watched it, in an agonised, detached, almost hypnotic state. It pulled back to throw, seemingly without my conscious volition, back, back... I mustered all my mental strength and at the last moment, when my arm let loose, I managed to twist my body at the waist, queering the throw and sending the Velcro ball spiralling way off to the right.
Just then, Peter Denyer returned from the toilets, brandishing the sieve. The ball, in mid-flight, bounced off the toilet door as it swung open, hit the slowly rotating ceiling fan, ricochetted off of the time-bell with a single ding and, with a soft plumping thump, hit the exact centre of the target.
"You lucky bugger..." the man whispered in slack-jawed disbelief.
The woman raised an eyebrow, drearily impressed, her stolid phlegmatism reluctantly punctured in that instant by the bizarre trick shot. "That were reet fancy, that. Now, 'ow dark ar'yer nuggets, louv?"
I'm writing this from inside the toilets. I ran to them and locked myself in. I don't even have the sieve. I'm still in them and writing to you on my Dangleberry. Battery low. Signal weak. I can hear the pounding on the door still. Get help! I need help. Get help now! I'll tell you the name of the pub - please just get me help. Okay, the name of the pub is [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT] and it's right on the [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT]. You can't miss it. Bring tazers.
This message was sent from my Wiffi Dangleberry.
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