Twelve Mad Men

by Ryan Bracha et al.

  “Where is he?” the voice asks.

  “Get,” I say, stuttering as a weak involuntary gasp breaks my speech, “in the corner.”

  “Did he die?”

  “I’m here to fix the lights.”

  “Did you save me his heart?”

  I push the key into the lock, only, my hand won’t twist. I slam my hand against the metal, hard.

  “Get in the corner,” I say, as calmly as I can.

  “You smell,” says the voice, “delicious.”

  “I’m here to fix the lights,” I say.

  A moment of quiet follows. Then the voice.

  “Fix away.”

  It seems more distant. Maybe Benny was right. My right eye twitches. My breathing becomes harsher. My hand twists the key. I really shouldn’t be doing this. Surely there should be a risk assessment completed before this. The lock clicks. Am I even insured? My hands work independently of my will, and the handle is pressed down. A buoy of nausea bobs uneasily in my throat, a flashing beacon warning me from my next action, but I can’t help myself. The door swings open, casting a dull glow into the darkest shade of black I’ve ever known. The black spills into my vision like the stinking pus from a lanced abscess. Almost from nowhere and in excess. The room that holds the darkness hostage can’t be much more than six or seven feet both ways, and that dull glow of the emergency lighting slowly dilutes the black, to reveal him. He’s standing in the corner, like Benny said he would. His fingers dance by his side like he’s performing some paroxysmal shadow puppet act against the dismal light, and my eyes drift up from the redundant show to his face, with its high forehead and twitching cheeks which crease up as he smiles at me.

  “I’m no trouble,” he says, his accent now definitely northern English without the blunting force of the metal door and my fear of the unknown, “I’m no trouble at all.”

  I say nothing.

  “You smell good,” he says, “really good,” he says, “do you want to hear a story?”

  A Man Of Sophisticated Tastes

  by Paul D. Brazill

  It all started on a sleepy Sunday night in Astros Wine Bar. Last orders hung over us like a middle-aged spread and the conversation was as weak and strained as my gran’s tea. I could feel the cowl of sleep smothering me.

  ‘It’s not prejudiced,’ said a well-sozzled Len Lien, becoming uncharacteristically animated. ‘I’ve just never met a Welshman I didn’t want to twat. The Jocks and Micks and fine. But the Welsh all seem to be whingers. Always bleatin’ like sheep.’

  ‘Must be genetic,’ I said.

  ‘I met a Welsh cannibal once,’ said Neil Lien. ‘She was alright. Fit as a butcher’s dog, like.’

  I sneaked a peek towards the bar. Patsy, the pasty faced barmaid, was giving us the evil eye. She was desperate to lock up so she could get home for a bit of nooky, what with her Raymond being back from the oil rigs for the first time in months. She was gagging for it, apparently.

  Patsy put on a Lloyd Cole CD, knowing that it was as likely as not to clear us out of the place although I actually quite liked him. Not that I’d have admitted that to the lads.

  We’d been in the same band for nigh on ten years and although one of the reasons we’d spilt up was because we weren’t making the dosh, musical differences was certainly another one. It was like so many relationships, I suppose. We just grew apart. Well, I grew and they didn’t.

  The rest of the band were more than content to plod along knocking out the usual bog standard blues rock but me, well, I’d always had more sophisticated tastes and had wanted to broaden our musical horizons.

  ‘Oy, aye,’ said Len. He yawned and farted. ‘An actual cannibal?’

  Len was like Fun House mirror version of Neil. Or maybe it was the other way around. Both were tall, bald and with thick framed and lensed glasses but whereas Neil was skinny as a rake, his brother was built like a brick shithouse. They’d been a tight arse rhythm section once upon a time though.

  ‘Well, just had a quick nod and hello with her, like,’ said Neil. ‘She was with John Turnball. Saw them together doing the tonsil tennis one night when we were down the Indoor Bowls Club.’

  ‘Who the fuck’s John Turnball,’ I said.

  I wiped my glasses with a paisley, silk tie I’d picked up from the Scope shop the day before. Shuffled around a bit in my seat. I was sinking into a battered old leather armchair, sucking on the ice cubes from my drained white wine and soda. I’d been taking my time with my drink. Not because I didn’t want to get hammered – I always wanted to get hammered - but because I was strapped for cash.

  ‘You know, John. Course you do. Lives above that burnt out kebab shop, over King Oswy Way. Got that Tourette’s,’ said Neil.

  ‘Oh, you mean Fuck-Off John. Why didn’t you say so? Well, he’s a right head the ball,’ I said. ‘I certainly wouldn’t believe anything he says. He’s a walking chemists shop for a start. Scrambled eggs for a brain.’

  I shuffled my arse to get rid of the numbness.

  ‘Did she have a bone through her nose an' that,’ said Len. Face beaming like a door stepping Jehovah’s Witness.

  ‘Who Fuck-Off John?’ said Neil.

  ‘Naw, yer daft twat. The cannibal,’ said Len.

  ‘Told you, she was well tidy. Blonde bit, early twenties. Nips like organ stops,’ said Neil. ‘All suntan, sunglasses and leather trousers so tight you could read her lips.’

  ‘She could eat me anytime, then,’ said Len, and we all forced a laugh.

  Patsy rang the last orders bell and the subject quickly changed to the more pressing matter of who was getting the last round in. As per usual, Neil bought the drinks. He was the only one of us with a regular income – he played drums in a U2 tribute band called Me Anall - and I was particularly brassic, what with me losing my job at the council and owing my landlord Herbert Walker a wad load of back rent.

  ‘Best knock these back sharpish,’ said Neil, putting down the drinks on the sticky table. ‘Or Patsy’ll bar us out again.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the end of the world,’ I said. ‘There’s more to life than Astros, you know? There’s a big wide world out there.’

  ‘True, true,’ said Neil. ‘There’s a new Wetherspoon’s opening up just off York Road next week. And they do cashback. He grinned and patted his jacket pocket where he kept a fistful of hooky credit and debit cards he’d obtained.

  ‘Yeah, but I hate those places,’ said Len. ‘Full of lowlifes.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t do to let our standards slip.’

  ***

  In the early hours of the morning, as my hangover kicked me into an unwelcome consciousness, I had a moment of inspiration. Lying in my sweat soaked bed, I could feel cogs and wheels whirring in my brain, as well as my guts. I stayed awake all night working on a perfect plan and when it got to a relatively civilised time, took my Nokia off the bedside table and phoned Fuck-Off John. The phone rang for ages and then he answered.

  ‘Arsewipe,’ he said.

  ‘Alright John,’ I said and told him who I was.

  ‘Who the fuckin fuck?’ he said.

  ‘You know? Brian’s brother.’

  After about five minutes of verbal abuse about nuts and coffee, I managed to arrange a meeting with him in the pub for a lunchtime session.

  I called in at my brother’s to cadge some dosh from him, since he was always flush. A lot of builders had lost work due to the Poles doing the work cheaper, if not better, but not Brian. I got to Astros Bar just after 11.30 and John turned up not long after. We got our drinks and stood at the bar for a moment.

  ‘Patsy not working today?’ I said to Simon, a camp wock-eyed Irishman in his late forties.

  ‘Oh, no. She’s on a promise, she is. She’ll be bandy legged for a month.’

  We looked around the room. A crumbling pub with a crumbling clientele.

  Fuck-Off John nodded toward the fire exit and I followed him.

  ‘What’s the story with the manea
ter, then?’ I said.

  ‘I fuckin met the cunt online, like,’ said John. He popped a tablet the size of a Trebor mint and washed it down with a slurp of lager Shandy. Took a puff on menthol cigarette as we walked into Astro’s beer garden. The smoking zone. Despite it pissing down with rain and a bitter wind blowing it was more packed than the inside of the pub.

  ‘What at one of them dating sites, like?’ I said.

  ‘Naw, fuckoff, fuckoff, fuckoff. It was on that twattin Shitfacebook. A page for fans of the old Hammer horror film 'n' that. ARSEHOLES!’

  ‘How’d you get to actually meet her, then?’

  ‘Twat said she’d never actually twattin met a twattin, twattin, twattin, twattin Tourette’s twat in real life and me being the real fuckin I am and that. Friggin' said she’s writing a CUNT book about outsiders or some shite twat shite.’

  ‘Did you shag her?’ I gave him a cheeky wink.

  ‘Fuckin naw I twattin didn’t. Didn’t fuck get a fuckin sniff. Fuckin knocked one out after she fuckin left, like.’

  ‘So, how the fuck did you find out she was a cannibal? Not exactly something that pops up in conversation, like, is it?’

  ‘Well, that’s the weird fuckin thing. I was poppin me meds like and then she did the same. So I friggin asked her what the shit hit she was takin and she said the TWAT pills were to supress her friggin SHITE appetite.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s still not something you talk about is it?’

  ‘Friggin aye but she was mixing her twattin meds with tequila wasn’t she? Daft friggin cow. Was off her friggin head in no fuckin time. Blabbin on and on and that. ARSE.’

  I noticed that John had finished his drink.

  ‘Fancy another?’ I said.

  ‘Wouldn’t fuckin say no!’

  I headed back inside and went to the bar.

  ‘Same again?’ said Simon.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘But slip a little U-Boat in John’s, eh? Cheer up his no end.’

  ‘Vodka?’

  ‘Aye. Just the cheap stuff though.’

  I headed back with the drinks and carefully placed them on a knee high stone wall.

  ‘Have you got an address for this lass than?’ I said.

  ‘Aye, fuckin, aye. But it’s all twattin confidential, eh?’

  I nodded and waited for the booze to kick in.

  ***

  Herbert Walker was certainly no George Clooney, that was for sure. He had a weird unabrow thing going on, a Mr Spock hairstyle and a boil in the middle of his forehead. The whole thing made him look like a full on psychopath which was more than fair enough since that’s exactly what he was. He also sweated profusely and he always looked like he was going to explode into a violent rage any minute. At the moment that was actually true.

  ‘Am I a bitch,’ he said, pacing my flat’s spare bedroom. ‘Do I look like a bitch?’

  I resisted the temptation to say ‘what?’ since I wasn’t too sure weather Herbert was quoting Pulp Fiction or just being particularly unoriginal.

  ‘Naw you don’t,’ I said. I was stood in my Danger Mouse boxer shorts, draining the remains of a can of Carling. A grey dawn was breaking and dirty rain was battering the bedroom window.

  Herbert and Tonto- his skinhead minder- had arrived in the middle of the night in order to shake me up. Catch me unawares. But as long as I had a drink in my hand, nothing really shook me up.

  ‘So, why are you trying to shag me like a bitch, then?’ he said, winking at Tonto in a way that made my flesh crawl.

  ‘I’m not I …’

  ‘Three friggin months’ rent you owe, twat features,’ he said, jabbing a finger at my forehead and reminding me of Fuck-Off John. I wondered if they were related.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you it all tomorrow. One hundred percent.’

  ‘One hundred and fifty percent,’ said Tonto, looking in his little black note book, tapping it with a stubby betting shop ballpoint pen.

  ‘The full whack?’ said Herbert, not quite believing what he’d heard.

  ‘Yep,’ I said, getting a bit of a glow on from the lager. ‘The full Monty. I’ve some dosh coming my way tomorrow.’

  ‘Ere, when you say tomorrow do you mean today or … tomorrow?’ said Tonto, looking out of the window and the melting night.

  ‘Let’s say same time tomorrow, then. So there’s no confusion,’ I said.

  Herbert nodded.

  ‘Make the deal,’ he said.

  Tonto grabbed me by the throat and dragged me across the room, slamming me against a rickety wardrobe. My glasses flew off my face and the wardrobe door came off its hinges and clattered to the threadbare carpet.

  ‘Fuck up and I’ll fuck you up,’ he said, patting my arse.

  If ever there was motivation …

  ***

  Although the black leather cat suit was a prominent feature of my childhood television viewing, Emma Peel from The Avengers making a particularly strong impression, I’d never actually seen anyone wear one in real life. But Rhiannon certainly looked the part, though the accent left a lot to be desired. Rather than being Welsh she was actually from Barnsley.

  ‘It were me dad,’ she said, puffing on what seemed like her one millionth cigarette since we’d met. We were walking along the sea front, near the lighthouse. The wind blew heavily and rainclouds battered the grey sky. Rhiannon’s black raincoat fluttered like a bat’s wings.

  ‘He ran a butchers shop and me ma worked at the awld giffs home. Times were ‘ard after that Thatcher snatched the mines. And the awldies were droppin’ like flies. So, it just seemed like … well … an opportunity. It were just recycling, really. Very ecological.’

  ‘And you still get a craving for it?

  She took a can of Special Brew from her back pack. Popped it open.

  ‘Aye. Once you get a taste, there’s no goin’ back. Not that much, mind you. But every now and again.’

  ‘Where do you get it from?’

  She licked her lips.

  ‘That’s my little secret?’

  She tapped her nose.

  ‘Can’t be easy getting … supplies,’ I said.

  ‘Well, there’s always something for sale on the internet but y’know a lot of that’s just scams’

  ‘How do you prepare it when you get it,’ I said.

  ‘That’s no problem. Me dad taught me the lot. Came in handy, it did. I have a few specialist clients with a taste for choice cuts.’

  ‘And they pay well?’ I say. I stamped my feet as we stood next to cannon that was pointing out at sea.

  ‘Top dollar.’

  ‘So, how would you feel if I told you that I knew how to get you a new supply? Would you be interested?’

  ‘Oh, I’d be very interested indeed.’

  I took out my mobile and phoned my brother.

  Bri, I need a bit of a favour,’ I said. I heard him sigh.

  ‘No, it’s not money this time,’ I said. And told him what I needed.

  ***

  Two rivet guns and a roll of fishing line can do more damage than you’d think, as long as your reactions are sharp. And I was sharp as a razor as Herbert and Tonto stormed into my darkened flat, tripped over the fishing wire and collapsed face first onto the floor. I shot them both in the forehead before they knew what was happening and that was that, really. I covered the floor with tarpaulin, rolled the corpses in it and phoned Rhiannon. I could hear her salivating over the phone. She turned up half an hour later with a grubby old transit van and we took the bodies to her butcher’s shop in Barnsley. It really was a lot easier than you would have thought. As Rhiannon got to work preparing the special cuts, I fell asleep on the sofa in the cramped flat she had above the shop.

  A thunder crack awoke me from a deliciously delirious dream. It was mid-afternoon and the world seemed to be filled with the smell of burning flesh. I stretched and got unsteadily to my feet. Walked into the kitchen to see Rhiannon eating a massive bacon sarnie.

  ‘Fancy a bit
e?’ she said.

  ‘No, no thanks … I …’

  But it was too late, I knew. My stomach rumbled like a Russian tank.

  ‘Oh, why not,’ I said. ‘It’s always good to broaden your horizons.’

  Two

  I close the door, leaving the nutter sweating behind it. His hands dancing and his face twitching. A predatory smile in his eyes. As the latch clicks into place he rushes forward, and slams a heavy palm against the metal. The corridor enjoys a moment of quiet.

  “You’ll not last long, cunt,” he growls, “next time I see you I’ll eat your fuckin’ spleen.”

  I fight the urge to throw up, and place my back to the door, allowing the damp steel to cool me. Again Brazill thumps it.

  “I know you’re still there, I can smell you. Let us out,” he says. I don’t respond. Another slam. “I’m fuckin’ starved here!”

  Again I don’t respond. And I feel myself slowly lowering to the floor. My arse touching the cold concrete. Behind the door I hear Brazill do the same.

  “You can do without one of those kidneys, you know?” he says.

  I watch a moth try to satiate its instinct for chasing light by half-heartedly head butting the faint glow emanating from the plastic casing of the emergency lighting.

  “You can live a full and decent life with only one arm, maybe even both arms,” he says.

  The moth moves into the shadows in search of a more satisfying burn. The tip tap of its wings disintegrates into the ether.

  “Have you ever heard of Prince Randian?” he asks.

  The moth returns from the dark, a glutton for punishment. I ought to snuff it out. Show it that there’s really no reward for tenacity in the grand scheme. That would be a wonderful life lesson for its handful of days in existence. There’s no point trying because you’ll only fail. Take that, Mr Moth.

  Suddenly the darkness of the corridor around me is illuminated. The moth is unexpectedly spoilt for choice, and proves me completely wrong. Well, shut my mouth. Take that, Mr Me. The lights above my head flicker into life into a jerky, jittery, laboured manner. The ones further up the hall remain dead. Again the bangs and clattering burst into life. An American voice hollers. I don’t know enough of Yank accents to even begin to place a region on it. But it calls out. Mentions pills or something. I don’t know. He could be asking for peels. No, I don’t know either. A Scottish baritone threat rides over the American. Shouts fruity farts or something. I don’t like it. I always found that there was no threat more unnerving than one from a Scotsman. A Scottish woman’s voice then admonishes somebody named Paul. Then Keith, again. Already I know his scream. I don’t belong here. I should be somewhere else. I should be. I don’t really know.