Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Slow Rattle

Heat shimmer. The buzzing flies. Framed against the horizon, a silhouetted figure approaching on horseback.
- He’s gettin’ closer sis.
The boy’s finger tight on the trigger, a line of sweat ready to sting the aim of his eye. When he fires, the figure rises quickly, briefly, and then falls. The boy, pulling his sister too hard by her thin white arms, runs back towards the town. His tears dry as soon as they leave his eyes.

***

Terrified customers cover the floor of the March Town Bank. Three quarters of the Livingstone Gang stand above them. Charlie Livingstone, Sheriff of Shawnee Creek, is saying how he’ll shoot anyone who gets up off the floor.
- Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

***

On his back, facing up to the blaze of the sky, the preacher. A gun shot wound to his stomach. His silver Jesus, white hot from the mid-morning sun, thrown back on to his forehead.

***

- You’d have to be a fool, says Joe Caleb, to sit out on a day like today - specially when there’s good whisky to be had inside.
But there’s no whisky, good or bad, to be had anywhere. Not in Shawnee Creek. Which is why Joe Caleb is sitting outside on his porch on a day like today, wondering what it is that’s getting the Turner children so agitated.

***

- Jesus Charlie, no.
- I told you, no killin’.
- The little bitch bit me!
- No killin’ means no killin’.
- Charlie, don’t.

***

She’s all fire, Sallie Caleb. She’s all fire and thunder and on a day like today she can only wonder why her father is such a full gone idiot. Why he sits in the sun waiting for it to kill him no matter how many times she tells him it’ll kill him. She can only wonder about Charlie, too, how he’s also waiting for something to kill him. It’s why she can’t spend any more time in the house today. Why she takes her horse and heads out to meet the sun.

***

The boy and his sister, burying their father’s rifle.
- Shhh.

***

When the light died he knew that the woman who had given him everything was lying in the kitchen, on the stone floor, cut, raped, tortured, dead. After giving him everything, she had somehow managed to give him more. He knew what he had to do.
Charlie Livingstone, Sheriff of a nothing town in the middle of nowhere. His wife raped, beaten and murdered by the Carson Gang. Charlie left for dead. His legs broken. His lungs crushed. The house ablaze.
- He used to be a good man. Now he’s only half a good man. Depending on how you see him.
- He liked to drink. He kept order in the town.
- When his wife was murdered he took revenge. And took more than he should have.
- He’s a killer who rides with his own gang. He’s a lawman here, a lawbreaker out there.

***

It plays tricks with you sometimes, the heat. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that that was a preacher down there. Down there in the dirt.

***

Three days and they should be home. They got the money, they killed a girl. Charlie told them no killing but Jake reckoned he knew better. He also reckoned – despite what Charlie had told him – that he could kill and somehow escape the consequences. But like Charlie explained, as he blasted off three of Jake’s fingers: no killing really does mean no killing. Next time Jake’ll think a bit better about the things that he does.

***

Joe Caleb wonders about the fuss and reluctantly brings his rifle as Sallie leads ahead across the desert talking about a preacher with the mark of Christ upon him, the mark of the cross, treading the desert as the light fades and yes, he can see him now, definitely a preacher and yes, like she said, the mark of the cross on him. It takes the two of them to lift him and throw him over Sallie’s horse so they can take him back even though, as Joe said, he’s much more dead than alive and all we’ll be doing for him is a funeral, better surely to leave him here where at least he won’t go to waste. But Sallie says a man of God deserves better and at least deserves some kind of attention because that mark on his head must mean something, like Charlie always says, about how it’s coming, you know, the day of reckoning. Maybe this preacher is our salvation. God knows we could do with some salvation.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Beneath The Glittering Flight

When choosing the path to violence I stroked.
I petted, I mean, the rash cat, that big animal you have pacing the grounds at night. Only when I’m here? Is that correct? Only when I’m here?
The path to violence was attractive, of course, blessed and bedecked with fine carpet, embedded sweeties and many, many stops along the way. Where I, and you, could buy ice-cream, succotash, Calliope bars and crème fresh dragons melted on their own sticks.

Alas though. The door that opened on to the path to violence was a steel contraption – over designed if you ask me – that did all sorts beyond the narrow confines of door. Including the ability – of its own volition – to swing itself shut and refuse to open. Keys, combinations and passwords be damned. The path to violence then, denied to me by the scrabrrrrraanng of furious metal door.

As the racing car - of combustion engine and red paintwork - advanced as a slow roar. I stepped out towards the path and stepped back, with ease, to avoid the violence it proposed. The man at the wheel was asleep at the wheel. Nudged, he would, like a sleeping lion, yawn and roll over, better to capture the sun.

Cadavers lined the walkways. The concrete abutments, the overhangs, the bits with the shopping trolleys – stuffed to their stainless steel gills with the putrescence of, um, rotting cadavers. Clear violence here and it was nothing to do with me.
Through hearts, spikes. Through eyeballs, spikes. Up noses, coat hangers, brain pullers, smelling salts. I sniffed so hard that my hat blew off.

Me and Fat Mick and Red Bob were the last people on earth. It was Christmas, as it happened, and, had we been more attuned to the obvious Christian symbolism of this end-of-life-scenario, we would have discussed, long into the night, the obvious Christian symbolism of it all. But maybe not. It wasn’t the done thing to get Fat Mick and Red Bob appropriately moist.

Fat Mick and Red Bob were hackers. Who would hack your head of as soon as look at you. That’s the kind of violence I’m talking about. A violence you can relate to. A violence that leaves you with no uncertainty about its purpose. Like Red Bob, for instance, keeping a loaded gun under his bed. Not, as he said, for self defence, but because he liked to blow his girlfriends’ heads off. And he had plenty of girlfriends. Sing them - as Red Bob often sang - the love of danger.

The museum madam, a big broad of smoking revolver, penny tights and a slap in the mouth, stood against that open doorway, her finger twisting and turning in my lock, a high heel scraping against the skirting board. Her cigarette ash spoiling my carpet. What can I do for you toots? I asked. That got her. She took her finger out of my lock, raised it to her lips and said, Shut the noise, fatso.

Fatso? You see, violence is a handy tool sometimes when you’re ill met by villains and villainy. You need to stand up for all that you stand for. Violence can wait for you in the dark and pounce as soon as you flash a torch in its face.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Close To The Reedy Tarn

After a certain type of monkey I danced and mimicked my way back into the past – back, back, I say – on to the first few rungs of the evolutionary ladder. I was a genus extinct, for sure, and the drawings made me look hairier than I actually was. But my Darwinian gumbo was all a complete. At last, me in the chain, looking forward to a future of long, long years and appropriate monkey man respect. Have at you there!

My distant monkey cousins of mans and womans looked down from the loftiest of heights and, with palpable disdain, whispered between themselves all kinds of disparaging comments about what I was and what I stood for. But you, I cried, you up there, listen hard to me and what I say. They were not listening though. You, I said again, are not so brave and upright and not so far along the road that you can afford your hatred and mockery – you are but a slight blip, a hiccup in the line. But oh, those smoothies just looked down at me and laughed.

The grand narrative of mans and womans began, I must say, some good years after I’d taken my first exit from the world. They looked back at me and guessed me of a smaller brain and thing. They told themselves, in order to keep the narrative appropriately grand, that they were the culmination, the end result, of all the efforts combined. Including mine and all those hairier and less hairier fellow travellers who I met and discarded along the way.

Those banana munching chumps that pass for me these days. Honestly. No wonder they keep them in zoos, put them on the telly and fuck them up with science. I would too. They are a disgrace, an aberration from the path I was born to follow but didn’t quite tread. Those swinging, grinning bastards picking the fleas like the dumb animal bastards they truly are. They need shaking from their trees. As for lemurs - don’t even talk to me about lemurs. Lower primate monkey-mimicking motherfuckers.

How she would love to mount me, said the museum madam, as she tossed her raven hair back – back, back, I say – over her shoulder, removed those heavy glasses, kicked off her shoes and flashed a smile so erotic my primal instincts verily got the better of me. I would have howled were I of the wolfish species variety. I grunted instead - that animalistic grunting and sweating that gets them all on their knees. But not this girl, this ice iron maiden of sarcophagus and splash. She pulled me firm and stood me down. Until I had no choice but to howl like the moon.

Mickey the Monkey. I mean, Gus. As in, you can’t make a monkey out of Gus. There I was, at the ice rink, without my ice skates! What a fool! But lest ye not as I swiped – from one of my smaller chimpy pals – a couple of bananas whose skins I somehow affixed to the soles of my hairy feet. And did they, those banana skins, get me dancing round that rink? You can bet your life they did.

And here I am now, decked out like King Louie, that gaggle of idiots showering me with bananas. Bananas, I ask you. I tell them to get me something else, to crack open coconuts or fix me a sandwich, but all I get is bananas. It’s a life you wouldn’t want, that’s for sure. But still, at least I get to come up from the rear. That is, at least my place here, holding tight to the bottom of your ladder, is pretty secure.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Lepers and Heads

My girlfriend left me. I was very sad and felt a little bit destitute. There were things I wanted to do to her that I never got round to doing to her.

Luckily for me, she died soon after she left. She fell in front of a train. For a brief moment I was very sad. But I quickly cheered up when I realised it meant she could never be with anybody else.

My ex-girlfriend once took a walk in the park and I secretly followed her. I watched her as she stroked a dog, as she skipped over the little humpback bridge, as she bought an ice-cream from the ice-cream van, as she picked daisies and made a daisy chain, as she smoked a cigarette, as she had sex with a stranger in the bushes. Later, when she returned home, I asked her why she did what she did. She said she did it because, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t give up smoking.

My ex-girlfriend was always whining about this, moaning about that. I used to tell her to shut up but she never shut up. So I locked her in the cellar. The acoustics down there made her whining and moaning sing out even louder. So I covered the walls with egg boxes and sofa foam. And wired her big mouth shut with a couple of coat hangers.

My ex-girlfriend’s mother told me she thought I treated her daughter very badly. How do you mean? I asked. Well, she said, look how you’ve nailed her feet to the kitchen floor - they’re all askew.

My ex-girlfriend told her friends that I was a fantasist with a morbid fixation on death and torture. She told them that I beat her every day with a red hot poker. She showed them the bruises and the burn marks. But whenever they came round to see her I was always extremely charming. So charming, in fact, that they came to believe that it was my ex-girlfriend who was the fantasist with the morbid fixation on death and torture.

My ex-girlfriend was one of those pagan white witches. When they came to take her away I pleaded her innocence. So they threw her in the pond and watched her drown. After they left I dragged her out with a curtain pole. What they didn’t know was that she was extremely good at holding her breath.

My ex-girlfriend loved puppies and flowers and chocolates and clothes and perfume. So I kept them from her. Instead I gave her kittens, weeds and carrots. And then made her walk around naked while I sprayed her with liquid feculence.

My ex-girlfriend claimed she was a very spiritual person. How’s that? I asked. Because I listen to the wind, dance to the music in my mind, feel the energy of others and know I am an integral part of the great cycle of the universal destiny where one day my soul will transcend my mortal frame and ascend to a higher plane where, at last, I will complete myself by bathing in the cosmic water of life. Come again, I said, I didn’t quite catch that.

My ex-girlfriend was always accusing me of being a misogynist. I told her that the fact of her being a woman made no difference to the way I treated her. Even if she were a man - my gay male lover - I would still treat her like my slave, like my whore, like my mother.

My ex-girlfriend told me that, although she didn’t condone the actions of suicide bombers, she sort of understood why they did it. After I punched her in the face I asked her to sort of understand why I did it.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Green Felt Moss and Sound of Rain

Cancelled again, the salt of the air. We bundled like dognuts (dognuts, not doughnuts) from the train, tumbled along the platform as the train departed, taking with it the salt from the air. The landscape spoke with a grimly voice: The planet is dying. But fear not. George Clooney, Edward Norton and Chris Martin are on the case.

(Chris Martin once said: Would it really be possible to start Nazi Germany if you'd just been listening to Bob Marley's Exodus back-to-back for the past three weeks and getting stoned? Would the idea of the Holocaust seem so appealing?)

(He also said, of Brian Eno: He's the cleverest man in the world since Bob Marley died and John Lennon died.)

The landscape needs more superheroes.

How to Become a Superhero.
No.1: Get yourself genetically modified.
The disadvantage of this method, of course, is that the public is both ignorant and highly suspicious of anything genetically modified. So if you were to take this route to superherohood you would do well to call yourself Captain Frankenstein. Or The Death Ray.

Because death will take you, you have no need to worry about the planet dying. Chris Martin will take care of it. And that bird from Greenpeace, Cat Dorey.

People called Catherine who call themselves Cat? Please.

Chris Martin in his bright blue SUV took the bend past his local Knightsbridge shops and, with his wife elsewhere, was distracted by the neon London lights that, after all this time, still had the power to seduce him. The words on his hand (‘remind self that self is self is self - we are all one to the power of the universe and the answers are in/on our hands - we can all do it together’) were swamped by the sudden rush of sweat as a result of that too tight bend that Chris, safe in his SUV, failed to consider as he gazed a trance into the hallowed forms of flashing signs and the illuminatori of the Knightsbridge set. The planet was dying and all Chris could think about was his Oshkosh bio-degradable nappies that, once used, could then be used to sow vital rice and grain plants for the people of Africa, young Apple’s mess a perfect underlay of fertiliser made, as it was, from the finest organic baby food, perfect for the (re)cycle of life and all those who sail in her (the vast Titanic-like vessel of life, that is). A huge tapestry network blanket of fair trade nappies, pre-fertilised by the offspring of the great and the good, rice and grain and trees for all, a lasting legacy of the triumph of acting together as one and actively, you know, doing something positive about the future. Don’t knock it. But before all that, before the actual, physical spread of the offspring, so to speak, of his offspring across the barren tundra landscape burning beneath African skies, Chris Martin slammed his gigantic SUV into the back of a small goods van that, unfortunately for Chris, was being driven by some big spiky bastard who had no time at all for what he often referred to as ‘falsetto faggots like that twat from Coldplay’. Chris, leaping from his SUV (leaving Apple unprotected, a sitting target for all manner of right-wing anti-fair trade terrorists etc.), flashed the back of his hand as a gesture of peace. Unfortunately again for Chris, the previously mentioned swamped ink had run together to form not a message of hope and oneness, but the words ‘you dozy fat fucking gimp – why don’t you drive properly?’ It was, as all later agreed, a freak, million-to-one occurrence and the height of unfortunateness, given the situation of Chris’s then situation.

(The trouble with any kind of negative take on Chris Martin and his ilk, is that you (not me, you) could end up sounding like Jeremy fucking Clarkson. This is, after all, fiction. One shouldn’t read too much into it.)

After his crash debacle, his brand new biblical baby and his wife acting herself to all sorts of honours, Chris decided, with all things considered, that it would be best to call it a day. Retreating to his poolside home of dog house built of straw, he licked his wounds and rued the day that he decided to get too big for his bones. Outside his kennel, buried beneath the pile of finest organic pet food beef, was the manifesto that he and Bono had drafted only two weeks before.

How to Become A Superhero.
No. 2: Put fish in barrel. Shoot.
A great way of bigging yourself up until you are so full of bluster and self-righteous ha-ha that, even though you’re aware of the fact of being aware of your own useless, impotent situation, you can fool some of the people some of the time into believing that you are a hero to be reckoned with. The disadvantage of this method is that you could easily be exposed. Well, so what?

The Bono/Martin Manifesto - Points 1-4:

No. 1.
I/we (Bono and Coldplay (well, Chris)) will tell popes, dictators and presidents where to get off not just through the power of our great songs, music, lyrics and performances but also through the power of going right up to them and telling them where to get off. You fuck with pop stars, man, and you pay the price.

No. 2.
We will also endeavour to welcome within our ranks all manner of other big faces who can help us to further our cause(s). Yes, we understand that, since the death of that intellectual giant Marley, the intelligence quota of pop stars has taken a dive but, at the least, we can welcome, surely, the likes of Eno, Byrne, Stipe, Baez and Bragg. Note: Don’t ask Mark E. Smith to join us. Apart from the fact that he hasn’t got the world’s ear in the palm of his hands like we have, he once said of me, Bono: “Bono? My window cleaner’s got more to say for himself than that cunt.” Which wasn’t a very nice thing to say. At all. One day I/we will make him pay.

No.3.
In the future all things will be green and beautiful like they were in the past. No more war. No more unnecessary deaths. No more corporate conglomerates raping our women and putting up nude pictures of our children on the internet. No more America. No more damn Yanks making our lives such an unending rollercoaster of misery with their big yappy voices and their stupid fat arses and their obsession with slimming and looking beautiful. Those warmongering arsehole fat cunts. As Harold Pinter said: “I want to communicate to you that/War is bad/And terrible/In case you didn’t know/And that all wars are started/By the Yanks/Who/As everyone knows/Are despicable villains/And really fucking stupid/In case you didn’t know.”

No.4
All could be okay if only we could condense the words of this rum manifesto and get them whittled down to a size where we could get people to wear them on the back of their hands. Or on their foreheads. Stencils that say: Future for all fight back against globalisation smash the state and the lying liars who tell lies. Oh, what a reversal of the elements of capitalism and that. We’ll show them. Public people in public spaces making their views known to the public. It’s in our hands, brothers and sisters, it’s in our hands. Or, rather, on our hands.

Dognuts. The train departed the station. The salt in the air, gone. We tumbling down the platform like dognuts, those crystalline acentic particles that resemble, under a microscope, ship’s wheels. Or, instead, the large nuts on the sides of fire hydrants. Big red dognuts. Attractive, authentic and built to last. That was us, dognuts. Yes, the planet may be dying, but us, the dognuts of rail station and tumble, will go on forever. Watch us roll there Chris, you just watch us roll!

Monday, April 10, 2006

Consider A Mountain

The complexity of simplicity.

He said it again, but this time out loud: the complexity of simplicity.

He leant back, ever so slightly, in anticipation of a response. He sniffed, gently, almost noiselessly, and ran his forefinger up the back of his neck. And then he blinked. Imperceptibly.

I, she said. Yes, she said, I know what you mean. She said.

He leant forward again, slightly, reached out for his glass but instead drummed a couple of fingertips on the table. He wished for a cigarette. He almost said his wish out loud, his wish for a cigarette, but he stopped as he wondered how interesting that would be. Quick, he thought.

What I mean is, he said, you can’t just dismiss something because you personally can’t tell, or fail to see, how intricate, beautiful and precise it really is. Deep down. It’s deceptive, you see, that kind of ease. It’s a hell of a lot more complicated than it looks. And that’s the trouble with a lot of things these days – everything seems too easy. You know, like anyone could do it.

He reached out again for his glass and this time tipped the glass to his lips and swallowed small.

Yes, she said. I think the problem is, although, what I mean is, that I agree, you know, and I can see that, yes, it’s, you know, like you say. But maybe not so, er, so simple. Not as simple as that anyway.

His glass whistled. From being almost empty. He ran his finger around the rim and listened as his glass sang. He closed an eye. Then the other eye. Then half opened the first eye and then both eyes. My eyebrow, he could hear himself thinking, I should touch it, smooth it somehow. But what if she notices? He touched his eyebrow, quickly, gently, and then rested his eyebrow touching finger on the rim of his glass. Up and down, ever so slightly, it tapped. Tip, tip, tip.

No, he said. No. I mean, not that simple, sure. I can see that. I think that what it is is that we can sometimes make generalisations that, while useful for capturing the overall sense and feel, fail us when it comes to the, ah, nitty gritty. It’s just a way of looking at it I suppose. Still, it does tend – overall I mean – to make the, make the, you know, the complicated look simple. And the other way round, obviously.

Yes, she said. Yes, obviously.

He leant forward, slightly, and backwards again, and looked. Looked at her, for the first time, properly looked at her. Her eyes were open and looking back at him. They were saying, those eyes, he supposed: do better. Do better, he thought. Try harder. Think. Not too desperate though. That line of his, that complexity of simplicity line. He should have. Oh, shit, it should have been simplicity of complexity, the other way round. Not complexity of simplicity. Maybe she didn’t notice. Say it again, say it the right way round.

He said, out loud: But yes, it’s, I suppose, that the obvious is all part of it, isn’t it? You know, like I said, all part of the simplicity of complexity.

Yes, she said. I think, I think that’s right. The simplicity of complexity.

Friday, April 07, 2006

While Ivy Twined About The Rigging

How my book changed the world:
It made an excellent doorstop for God’s Great Pantry. It lifted the spirits of Europe’s downbeat losers. It gave good instruction on the joys of modern living. It borrowed from the classics and turned them inside out. It laughed at criticism and derailed the critics. It flew cleanly off the shelves.

How my sweetheart made her mark in the world:
She lifted her skirts and bade them all welcome.

How my rift with my uncle led me astray:
He told me to fuck and he told me to off.

How my Robot Challenge challenged the perceptions of the evil little people:
The evil little people had been nobbled, it was true, by the edicts of the Grand Comptrollers. No more, they said, will ye travel on horse tick through golden globes and parasite climes – at home, evermore, shall ye stay. The evil little people were naturally miffed at this and decided to take appropriate action. But first they decided to treat themselves to ringside seats at my world-famous Robot Challenge. What a night they had! The clanging, the banging, the whirring of metal and gears. It seemed as if the fun would never end. But end it did. And as the evil little people walked home, going over highlights of the evening’s robotic events, they decided, on mass, that being evil little people wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Of course, they quickly decided that, on balance, it would be better to remain as evil little people. But not without having, if only for a short time, their perceptions challenged. And it was all down to my Robot Challenge. Good for me, I say. Good for me.

How my Sellotape got stuck to the ceiling:
I was hanging balloons for my thirtieth birthday party. As I windmilled my arm with the intention of bringing my hand to the toppermost point of the wall – the grey wall, full of pictures – my hand caught the ceiling. The piece of Sellotape I was holding also caught the ceiling and, being an adhesive, remained there.

How my laughter robbed the world of its gloom:
I laughed and the world laughed with me.

How my fridge kept me from my garden:
I fell from my bedroom window, while drunk, and landed on top of the fridge that had been sat in my garden, awaiting council collection, for the past three months. Which is why - instead of the soft grass landing I was anticipating as I fell - I received three broken ribs.

How my sperm gave rise to a race of alien super-beings:
Impregnating Zooolta 7DR, my male/female hybrid lover from the Planet Tenk, led to him/her giving birth to a litter of advanced Tenkentians who had powers far beyond their fellow Tenkentians. And in the few months after their birth they slaughtered everything that wasn’t part of their original human/Tenkentian brood. They then declared themselves the rulers of the planet - and me as their God. Hurrah!

How my giant eraser erased Giant-Man:
That wasn’t me. That was The Eraser. It was his giant eraser.

How my red mouth immortal honey sipped from the cup of life:
He kneeled. In front of the coffee table. Reached for the cup. Brought it to his red lips. His hot mouth. His white hills.

How my Yardie impression landed me in the shit:
So there I was, in front of the blues club, late one Saturday night, regaling my mostly white friends with a tale of how, the previous night, I’d been mugged by a couple of Jamaican fellas who, in tabloid parlance, were Yardies. As I, in the telling, took on the role of these Yardies, I decided that it would be fine to adopt their unique patois and swagger in order to get across, in the best way possible, exactly what my attackers were like. But as I was halfway through this re-enactment I realised, from the expression on my friends’ faces, that those very same Yardies were stood behind me, listening. Boy, did I get a good kicking that night!

How my playing with my whistle caused my grandmother some concern:
Would you like to see my whistle grandma?
No, I wouldn’t like to see your whistle.
Here it is.
I said I didn’t want to see your whistle.
Look, I can make it go big.
I don’t want to see it, put it away.
And I can make something come out of it.
Is he like this at home?

How my view from the office window became obscured by a pigeon:
A pigeon crashed into my, Milton Glaser’s, office window and I, Milton Glaser, initially thought it was a superhero crashing into my window. But on closer inspection and later reflection I, Milton Glaser, realised that the greasy smear that now obscured my view had to be the work of a particularly greasy, and stupid, pigeon. Even a big shot like me, Milton Glaser, occasionally gets things wrong.

How my heartache turned me into a better person:
Dead, me wife, of cancer. Me heart all broken in pieces. To repair me heart and to lift me spirits I devoted meself to finding the cure for cancer. Nothing like that did I find. But on the way through the journey I did much good work and helped many unfortunate people. Because of me dead wife and me dead broken heart.

How my time machine made me rich:
I went 300 years into the past, bought lots of central London land and stipulated that it be bequeathed to me 300 years later. I also went forward in time, checked the winning lottery numbers, came back, and used those numbers on what, of course, turned out to be the winning lottery ticket. And yes, I made sure that the week I went forward to was a rollover week - so that my prize was all the bigger. Clever, time-travelling, very rich, me.

How my corners became straights:
My corners declared – through their spokesman of uncertain abode – that they would no longer facilitate the bending of ways. From now on, they said, as you travel through this house you will either tread direct or tread not at all.

How my lofty ambitions stacked up against the realities of my tiny life of dungh:
On one side, this. On the other side, that.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Demolish The Little Caravan!

No Bats, that’s not how we do things round here, said Captain Sparky to the boy who, for the past ten minutes, had been pretending to be Batman. Bats? replied the boy. Yes, said Cap Sparky, that’s the name I call him for short – you know, Batman? Bats? Oh, I see, said the boy, then what would you call Superman? I would call Superman Gravy Brain, replied the Captain.

Gravy Brain indeed. We all know you’d have to be a Milton Turner to do something as daft as calling Superman a Gravy Brain. He would zap you with his evil eye and rip out your gizzard with his hook. No question.

Milton Turner was once this close to creating the definitive Bob Dylan statement. But another Milton got there first. This was, of course, it may be noted, the same Milton who later created the I Heart New York thing that became both the pride of New Yorkers everywhere and a handy shorthand flag for nauseating nitwits.

Would that Milton be Milton Glaser? Aye, it would Dorian, it would.

And so, in the attic, the rotting picture of youth. You would have to be a Superman of some kind to see right through it.

But in the backyard of tenement block B8, there is a boy, dressed head to toe in a 1940s Batman costume who will, in twenty years’ time, create his own comic book superhero. He will be a giant among heroes. His name will be The Giant.

The Giant strides two blocks at a time in pursuit of a speeding bullet-riddled car that carries, in no particular order, the dead body of Jimmy the Spink, the alive and driving body of Fortunate Freddie, the alive and shooting (at The Giant) body of Pete the Purloiner and the dying – the very soon dead – body of Ellie ‘Two Hands’ Entropy.

Oh Ellie, what have I done! I left you to face the cops alone. And now you lie, bleeding to death, in the back of my Oldsmobile, as tortured by the sun. You wonder, do you Ellie, why I am driving no quicker? Because, my love, I want you to bleed to death. It will save me from nudging you from that cliff. The cliff of our honeymoon and go. Remember?

Tantalus Dave, all body parts and fumblings, reached out for a packet of cigarettes that swayed, as if from the movement of air that Dave’s reaching hand had caused, and fell off the back of the shelf where it bounced (as far as cigarette packets can actually bounce) three times on the floorboarded floor into the eyeline vision (as he looked down) of Tantalus Dave who, reaching down and stepping forward to retrieve this packet of cigarettes, kicked the damn thing out of reach beneath the counter.

Two blocks away, uptown and upstream, Dave’s sister was in the middle of a blazing row with Milton Glaser himself. And another thing, Dave’s sister shouted, that I fucking Heart fucking New fucking York thing you came up with was a piece of redundant, throwback, pop art, summer of love, simpleminded crap! If you truly believe that, replied Milton, then you are insulting not just me but the entire population of New York City. Those rat canal brained degenerates? said Dave’s sister. Yes, said Milton, the very same.

Eleven pm. Fortunate Freddie still blazing the city streets. The Oldsmobile running on air and the blessings of the Catholic church. The Giant, that giant-sized dimwit, still running around like the lumbering halfwit he truly he is. Eighteen bullets in his body, courtesy of Pete the Purloiner. And in the back of the car: Ellie. Not dead yet, despite the earlier statement to the contrary.

Unnh, I heard what you said there Freddie, I heard, unnnh, what you *cough* said. I heard *cough* how you *cough* were gonna *cough* let me bleed to death in the back *cough* of your walnut wrinkled Oldsmobile you *cough* bastard. I’m *cough* gonna *cough* get *cough* you *cough*, *cough*, unnnh, *cough*. Cough.

Ellie ‘Two Pantries’ Entropy was found in the back of an ice truck with an ice pick in her back - while lying frozen on a block of ice. It was an open and shut case. No, wait. Ellie ‘Two Corners’ Entropy was found bundled up inside a huge trunk whose door was flapping in the wind. That was an open and shut case.

The Giant was full out of breath. He leaned back on the Empire State Building and took his rest. Once recovered – just a short twenty-five minutes later – he resumed his chase. But, unknown to The Giant, the chase had ended almost fifteen minutes earlier when Freddie the Finger (or whatever he was called) sharp-turned his nut brown Oldsmobile into the welcoming bay of the Luggage Warehouse, 23 East 45th St.

The boy dressed as Batman returned home two minutes later than the agreed upon time of five pm. His father, he could tell, was waiting behind the door, no doubt with his severe, sharp hand raised in eager anticipation of it falling satisfyingly hard upon this little Batman’s backside. Or, rather, on his Batside. This youth of not yet even spotty, blinked a few times as he stood in silence before his apartment door. He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses on his sleeves. He scratched his head and stroked the nape of the neck of the passing neighbour’s cat. He leaned against the wall and wished that the elevator still worked. He paced up and down the landing. He ate the half of pretzel he’d saved from lunch. He slumped down on the railing and slept, fitfully (how else?), for at least thirty-five minutes. So. After all this activity it was suddenly the case that this Batboy was now two hours later than the agreed upon time of five pm. His father, it is true, would kill him. Or, rather, would have killed him - had he not quickly and quietly died while crouching behind the apartment door sometime during the past two hours. Whew! exclaimed Little Bat Jr when he was made aware (by his mother, screaming hysteria) of the tragic news.

Milton Glaser, surprisingly still alive, walks (slowly) the two short blocks from his Park Avenue apartment to his Milton Glaser Inc office – decked in suede, ermine and goldtooth fancies (his office, that is) – that overlooks, if he cranes his scraggy neck, the nebulae carpet float of the speckling Hudson River. Ah, a rare sight indeed. But one enjoyed completely by this father – if father is not too strong a word – of modern NYC. Above him, above his throne, just three inches above, a gold leaf, diamond buff impression of the original sketch for I Heart New York. And as he contemplates this slice of his – and our – history (by craning his scraggy neck right back) a pigeon slams hard into the window. Milton, who at that moment was looking up, misses that it was a pigeon. He assumes then, without evidence – but applying his own probability reasonings – that that something hitting his window, this high up, must have been a superhero. But which one?

Little Bats, decked out in the blacker version of the Batman costume – in honour of his father, at his father’s funeral – stares down at the pit into which, in a few moments, they will lower his father. He thinks, this little Bat Boy, that perhaps he should get some darkness inside. He thinks that maybe with the darkness inside he will be better equipped to face the evils of the night. He wonders whether this death of his only father will be enough to send him spiralling into the appropriate pits of self-examination and self-aggrandisement. Pits that will surely set him up as a vicious, unforgiving avenger of the poor, the meek and the stupid. Maybe being fatherless is all he needs. But then he catches his mother’s sad eyes and knows that those eyes will not remain sad for long – not as long as they can gaze upon her cherished little Bat Boy. The gaze of his mother driving away the darkness.

The sun is up, already. Fortunate Freddie at the wheel of his Oldsmobile, his neck snapped in three different places. Which explains why his head flops between the steering wheel and his chest, as it does. In the distance, outlined and auraed by the sun, The Giant. Exhausted, wounded and - were it not for his superb regenerative powers - close to death. Still, self-healing or not, this is one night-time adventure that’ll take more than a few days to recover from. The question though, is: was The Giant responsible for Freddie the Fruit’s snapped neck?

In the back of a quarter room, somewhere in Manhattan – hidden from sight – a lament for superheroes from the heart of old New York.

Monday, April 03, 2006

You, Venus, Come Home

I was the new groom in the breakfast room. And countered the backhanded insult/question of my new wife’s whereabouts from the briefly met fat guest of the previous evening – in hallway passing, drunk, congratulations – with a parry of visible hurt and wounds soliciting, as a chance by product, the sympathy of our landlady who felt keenly my pain as she replaced me with the image of her own son, Michael, who should also, she said, be just married – or if not now then very soon, as soon as he meets the right girl, that is. This landlady’s sympathy secured then translated into – towards the fat guest, male, 45 – a stern request for last week’s rent and, while he was about it, this week’s rent, plus a direction towards the terms, conditions and codes of stay that he must surely already be aware of, with special attention given to the required, and appropriate, evening conduct that expressly forbids drunkenness, noise, music and all other inappropriate – please ask for details - behaviour. A minor victory for me, for certain, but beautifully capped with true significance and gravitas from the fact, the weight, of it being my first full day as a married man.

That landlady. She would, definitely. With conflict. The conflict of herself at 55 and the thought of it being somehow equivalent to sleeping with her son, Michael.

Michael of marrying age was not, in fact, the marrying kind - as the saying then went – on account of being a homosexual. This, since you ask, many years before the acceptance of the dark arts of homosexuality. These were, after all, unenlightened times. So this Michael, as you may imagine, was appropriately tortured by his desperate life of denial. His life so far – and for a good time afterwards – so much et cetera that it wasn’t even worth mentioning. Suffice to say, he later broke his poor mother’s heart. Although, it has to be said, she had actively been waiting for the moment when he would do this. The eventual destruction of her tired old heart something she had long regarded as merely her due.

I told my new bride: I was the new groom in the breakfast room. At the same time as attempting, and failing, to carry her down the stairs in much the same way that I had, the night before, carried her up the stairs. It was funny though, and sweet, and was the correct thing to do, as I clutched my heart and feigned extreme shortness of breath, made a real act of it, to mask the genuine shortness of breath that had fully caught me by surprise. I had to ask myself if I was already the pale shadow married man that I had recently heard so much about. After just one night?

Four months later, a sea front café, September 1954, after an argument in the rain. That feigning of shortness of breath, the struggle of carrying her down the stairs, thrown back at me, translated by her as my explicit statement – subtle, yes, she gave me that – of her being overweight, too big to carry. No, I protested (enough times to give her every reason to accept my sincerity) (including my outline of the real reason for feigning extreme shortness of breath, confessing to hiding my own insecurities and masking the effects of the terrible aspect of my short married life, of what it had taken away from me). Her refusal to believe me led me to snap, as a direct response to her sheer unreasonableness, yes, yes, you were too much to carry, you were much too much for me, too much of a disappointment! Words and actions to that effect. In the sea front café where a group of dirty workers at the back, alternately amused and outraged, threatened me with violence to force me to apologise to my heartbroken wife who, casting loyalty aside, crushing it with her cigarette, joined their chorus by nodding her tearful agreement. I, of course, though married, was not yet dead, and stood up to my attackers – her and her chorus of labourers – running the very real risk of meeting with a good degree of physical pain. Averted, thankfully, by the timely arrival of a policeman. This was 1954, so such things, then, were not so implausible.

I was the new groom in the breakfast room, I said to my wife. But kept to myself the attention I’d received that morning from the young lady in the corner, behind her newspaper, holidaying with her mother this past week with another week to go. A small, shy smile to begin with.