“Yes! Yes! You did!” she insists…
The other jerks’re splitting their sides… they don’t know their asses from their elbows, too sloshed!… She comes up close, tries to hypnotize me just like that… burps right in my face! Bowah! I stay cool…
“Bowah!…” I answer back… And then I literally bowl her over!… Her ass smack in the mishmash… Squish!… Flat out… She’s stuck now… laughing… she splattered us all over… the girls are letting out such screams… Carmen’s blouse is dripping… real gross move… Everybody’s got a whiff… Big guffaw!
For my part, I chew out Delphine right there on the floor… I’m on her case… I’m dead set she know the score… and not get any wrong ideas!…
“It was the cigarettes! Remember? The cigarettes!…”
I myself sure do remember! I do recall!… She’s the one who brought them… she’d gone out on purpose just to pick them up who knows where! Ah! This isn’t just a bunch of crap!… Such things do exist! It’s the truth!… I say so in front of the others… What’s right is right! She should tell the whole story! Her fault! Yes! Her fault! A waste of time trying to pin it on me!…
I bawl, I bellow it out! She’s sitting there her ass in the head stew. I shout to the world that she’s the one! Everybody knows! And so drop it! Loud enough for all to hear!
Nobody’s listening to me… they’re rolling on the benches laughing so hard… they don’t understand a word. The watchmen are busting their guts too. They’ve lost their tunics, their shoes. They’ve drunk themselves stark naked, all except for their uniform belts, crawling on all fours under the women. Just barking away in delight.
“You big pain in the ass! You dirty rotten bitch!…” I was thinking!… About Delphine! Be just like her to finger me!… And Boro over there, lips buttoned…
“There’s a murderer among us!”
That’s what I shout loud and clear! Nobody gives a shit.
“Drink up, kiddo,” Cascade tries reasoning with me. “Drink up, this is bad for the old bean!”
The others watch me thinking… bust out laughing, those sons of bitches! “You big fat hypocrite!” I insult her… “You broken-down jade! Silly old fart! Ugly creep!…”
I’ll teach them how to behave! She’s a murderer ten times over like me! I say it! Right to Delphine! Even repeat it… I’m not hiding!… I shout over the commotion…
Now Curlers is putting in her two cents’ worth… I didn’t ask anything from her! She walks over, grabs me by the neck, screams loud enough for all ears!
“Hey, know what? A train ran over him!”
She busts a gut over that one.
“Who?” I go…
“Our lucky surprise package here! Right over his mug!”
She points to the stinking package.
“No, it didn’t! Lightning struck him!”
I turn around. Prospero tossed out that crack. Wise-ass…
I didn’t ask that asshole anything either! One nasty dig! Two big laughs! And then everybody joins in! An all-around knee-slapper! They’d never seen anything so funny!
“Lightning! Lightning!” they repeated…
“Well, fuck you then! Fuck you all!”
I couldn’t take any more of their bullshit.
Now Delphine revved back up, after sitting on her ass in the oatmeal, she clambers back up on her feet and starts chewing me out… a stinking mess she is… oozing all over… her slip’s thick with corpse slime…
“Wash your hands! Off to bed! To bed!”
She’s sending me to bed… cursing me…
“Damn you! Damn you!” she declaims…
Prospero walks off with our lamp…
“All right! Let’s go! That’s enough!”
The women stop him… they want to be able to see…
“Shh! Shh!” Delphine’s not finished! “Listen! There’s knocking at the gate! Shh! Child!…”
She makes like she’s listening.
“A shutter!”
She sniffs the air: “A smell of blood!”
Here we go!
She reels… grabs her skirt… heaves sighs… paces back, forth, revving up… A group “Shh! Shh!…”
She’s going to give us a little number.
“A smell of blood! A smell of blood!”
She declaims like that inspired… freezes… finger in the air.
Her pet pose.
She looks at the audience. If she starts in on me again, I’ll smash this chair in her face.
First off, there’s no smell of blood… She’s talking dumb… I know what blood smells like! It smells like something scorched, rotten… Not quite the same thing! Plus with a sort of whiff of creosote… Just needed one look at the dead meat, the head… I’d seen plenty corpses, heads… That’s not going to fool me… No way!…
I didn’t want to talk to Boro, but I light into him anyway… I ask again: “Hey, where’d you pick this up from?…”
Hadn’t the body been pulled out yet? I meant, dug out from the debris. I could still see him down in that cellar… I hadn’t dreamt it up either. How we’d shunted him around!… And the fire that caught right afterwards… the junk heap… the pigsty!…
He ignores my question.
“Come on!” I go… “You deaf or what? Where’d it come from?”
He grumbles, that’s all.
“The hell with this! Quack! Quack!…” I holler.
“From the hospital!…” He comes out and says.
He acts sore with me. I wonder over what? Fuck him!… I’m the one who’d have good reasons! If I must say so myself! I do. To him. He yanks down his bowler… fixes a scowl…
“I’ve got a stomach ache,” he growls, “those string beans!…”
“So where’d you carry it from?” I start back up… “The hospital? From far away?…”
“From London!” he goes.
I don’t get it.
So, he’d been pulled up? Already exhumed?
“From the morgue, that’s where he comes from, you dumb little jerk!… Can you picture him in a bed looking that way, or what? Well, can you?… From the London morgue! There! Satisfied, mister?…”
I put him on edge.
“But I didn’t have a clue!”
“You never have a clue about anything, you dumb bastard! Monsieur clears off, end of story… Monsieur shits and is off! Monsieur doesn’t like trouble! Let his pals go and fend for themselves!…”
Him with that accent of his, rolling the Rs of his “clearrrs” and “bastarrrd” and “trrrouble”…
I was starting to figure it out…
Clodo was the one who’d pulled him out… taken advantage of his post… his duties at the hospital… It must have been one hell of a mess…
“How’d you manage it?”
“Just had to come yourself!… You’d’ve seen!…”
Delphine was bellowing full blast… she’d worked herself back to fever pitch… caught a second wind… bellowing in front of the wall… the tragedy was rattling every inch of her body… her arms… her head… her eyes… her belly… she was throwing herself around spastically… shredding her flowers… her train… Rrrip!… Another convulsion!… Rrrip! Bounding wildly around her stage!…
She plants herself in one spot!… Apostrophizes us: “Macbeth! Macbeth! What’s the business? Such a hideous trumpet calls to parley!”*
She makes like she’s listening in the distance!…
She imitates: “Taa-dee!… Taa-dee!…” the sound of the hunting horn… calling her… strident, shrill!… “Taa-dee!… Taa-dee!…”
“Yoo-hoo, Macbeth!… Yoo-hoo!…”
The joint explodes in an uproar! A chorus of cries! Taa-dee… Taa-dee… Total bedlam!…
Truth was more people had shown up at the door…
Two-three guys rattling the knocker…
Ten-Paw goes over…
Forceful thumps… The door’s pushed open… Two policemen… They run their flashlight over us�
��
“What are you scoundrels up to? What’s all this light?”
They thought we had too many lights on. They go out again… bring back in a Negro… dragging him… some loudmouth… a petty thief… a tank-room Negro… They caught him stealing red-handed… boring a hole into a cask of rum… to suck it down right from the opening… with those lips of theirs it’s easy… everybody knows about the “kiss” trick… they tug him by the ears… he whines… protests… that makes three more who’re thirsty… cops’re always parched…
They go over and sit down with the others. They can see the steaming grog. They stop talking… plan to hunker down among the girls… It was past closing time, that’s a fact, they’re tired, take a whiff… the Negro’s stopped crying, he wants a drink, to be treated like one of the guests… Before you know, it’s going to be three in the morning… Cascade offers cigars… They refuse… then they accept – not the Negro, the policemen…
Delphine’s having a little snooze right where she’s sitting against the wall, she overdid it with all her antics. But I’ve got something to tell her. It can wait a while. I start smoking. This cigar is a hefty job, not some dinky cigarillo, it’s got a band and place of origin, a Coronaro… It’s my party! Big Ben strikes a quarter to… its echo reverberates loud and long over the river… up into the clouds… soft cannon fire… Why this big shindig? I’d like an explanation…
Ah! The question pops up again… “Why ain’t you closed?…” It’s bugging the cops… So they ask nice and easy…
“It’s Ferdinand’s party!” Everybody responds in unison… I’m not going to show them the mess on the floor… That would give them some idea what kind of party this really is!… Delphine is getting some shut-eye practically right on top of it… Maybe that’d get a rise out of them!… Oh, brother, how I’d give anything to see that!… So much tobacco smoke right now… a murky haze through the whole joint… kind of covers the rotten meat reek… might give them the idea the place is full of shit holes… a kitchen in back…
The wheels in my head are turning…
Boom!… Bang!… Right then everything starts shaking again… all the cannons going off…
A salvo of sirens… Still more to come!… That was just an intermission… Kerboom!… A huge blast over Poplar… Got to be a Zeppelin this time around… They all dash to the door… I stay put, my ears are humming too loud… each cannon boom echoes inside me… rattles my whole head… I see stars… I sure the hell am fed up with these earsplitting fireworks… some people are going back out for another look… I want some peace and quiet, Christ!… I want to go way in back! I bump into Boro… He’s on his knees… I didn’t see him… He’s in the pitch dark… redoing the package… tying up the bundle… you’ve never whiffed such a stinking knockout reek!… No problem for him… He slogs away at the sack… Ten-Paw holds one end… “Hmph!… Uuh!…” Two… three ropes… and then knots… Heave! Ho!… They move up off the floor… Legs slings it across his back… they walk out… threading their way… the back door… not the one on the dock… through the small courtyard… Nobody the wiser… They let in a draught, which rouses Delphine, a chilly blast… She didn’t see a thing… rubs her eyes a little… perks back up… Right away she starts bellowing… haranguing… Nobody pays her any mind… Everybody’s interested in what’s outside… all eyes peeled for the Zeppelins…
“There!… There!…”
Some spot them!… Or claim to!… Hurray for the searchlights!…
Delphine stands back up!…
“Infectious minds!” she shouts out… right off the insults start flying… “To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets!…”*
It’s aggravating the hell out of her that nobody’s listening… She’s moving heaven and earth in the back of the joint… bellowing louder and louder… she wants to bring everybody back inside… to create a sensation… Cascade creeps up from behind, gives her a good swift kick in that ass that sends her flying ten feet in the air. She lands, lets out a yell that drowns everything, the noise of the cannon fire!
“Out damned spot!”* she rages… “Get the fuck out!”
She’s all up in arms something awful, one ornery mood. We’re the ones she wants the fuck out the door… Cascade grabs her, rolls her under his arm, and off he goes. He’s strong. She claws, scratches, yanks, howls horribly!… By coincidence the others are coming back inside… Too much thundering out there… Bombs are exploding and whizzing past at ground level now… the entire embankment is ricocheting with shrapnel… The roofs are rattling… This is Delphine’s big moment… she gets all the more worked up. At every blast, she hops, boom! Boom! Hops right out the door!
“Lady Macbeth!” she calls… “Lady Macbeth! There we are!”
Lady Macbeth! That’s her all right!…
She’s all alone out there at present. She’s hollering through the hail of shrapnel. The Zeppelin’s turning right above the warehouse… the shrapnel ricocheting all over the sheet-metal roofs! No more going outside.
The gang’s not afraid, they’re ready to whoop it up. Everybody toasts me, all the best on my party… To Delphine too, outside! “Hurray, Delphine! Hurray, good girl!” The policemen shut the door, they don’t want the rest of us going out. It’s strictly forbidden! All the same there’s one hell of a racket out there. The shack’s shaking. It even wakes up the watchmen, who’d dozed off under the tables. The women yank them by their feet…
“No! No! It’s St Patrick’s Day!”
They’re not crazy about St Ferdinand!… They’re both Irish! St Ferdinand means nothing to the Irish… Everybody starts back with the smooching!
Outside Boom! Boom! Faster and faster… The power of cannon blasts!… The Negro digs the boom-booming! Thrilled with terror! He grovels on his knees… rolls marbles… Boom! Boom! Scaring the ladies with his huge mouth… Boom! Boom!…
My poor little Virginia’s the only one dozing nice and pretty… all snuggled up on the bench… a little angel… soundly… for the past hour… I watch over her sleep… The animals didn’t wake her up… the cannon neither… she needs sleep in the state she’s in… I sure love her, I really do… I say so to Gertrude who’s right there…
“I sure love you too,” she answers.
Straight away everybody likes everybody in the place… It’s the warm glow of my party… Too bad there’s this reek… “In love! In love!” they’re wailing just like that, all lovey-dovey with the policemen, and then to each other… wiggling around a little… but no more dancing, too smashed, too pooped, right off they start flapping about helplessly, crumple in twosomes… foursomes… in heaps… snoring away… they need a shot of booze, a pick-me-up!… The gang’s dozed off! We try to rustle up some… some bottles, I mean… Ping! Ping! Pong!… Here we go again… A bomb blew up, direct hit in the river! A gust… a violent blast… a whirlwind… water splattering… everything in the joint is jolted out of place… knocked around, toppled, the glasses… flasks… drawers… the walls of the shack buckle, crack… the boom-boom drives the ladies wacko! They start whaling away at each other’s asses! Doing their own rendition of the force, the violence… Blam! Wham! Wham!… Hard enough to break their butts! A trio pounces on Renée, turns her over, tans her behind bright red… I too want to spank her… it’ll bring me luck, they say. Well, this makes the whole place slap-happy! The police are having a great time, crawling around, writhing in hysterics so badly two start choking, puke, turn bright crimson, they can’t take any more…
“Oh! My! My!” they gasp out…
Renée’s getting spanked, everybody taking a whack and she’s gesticulating, howling, flailing around, croaking in wild delight, kroar! Kroar! Like a cat ready to kick the bucket with each slap on her ass. It’s so goddamn hilarious people are going bonkers, they’re in stitches pissing everywhere, rolling, barfing, burping through the whole place all on top of each other!
I’m not going to puke on my little girl sleeping there like an angel�
� Ah! No way! Ah! What a stinking thing to do!…
But all of a sudden, wham! I jump up with a start. Where’d they get to? I can’t see Boro or Clodovitz any more. It’s true! A fact! I’m completely nailed to the spot! Terror!… I’m convinced!… I can’t contain myself.
They’ve gone off to pull some double-cross! “Traitors here! Traitors!” I shout, assert… Nobody’ll stop me!
Ah! I want to look for Delphine… I want to declaim along with her. Ah! I’m no louse! I want her to know! I stumble into her outside on the gravel. She insults me, she doesn’t want to get up on her feet… wants to sleep just the way she is nice and peaceful… just like that under the awful shells!… She’s courageous! Scoffs at me!… I’m just a coward! I argue endlessly, throw in the towel, shit! The hell with her!…
The girls in the pub are sloshed so bad, paddling Renée so hard she’s bleeding like crazy, streaming with thick rivulets… the Negro comes over to lap it all up… another wild fit of laughter… Now on to me. They’re going to spank me, they insist, it’s my turn… they run after me… I fight them off, calm them down a bit… So now they’re going to go over and give Virginia a shake, they’re so berserk over the whole business… They want to teach her the maxixe!… I teach them a few good stamps of my heel… Whomp! On their feet!… They’ve all got corns! They jump… eeeee!
Plop back down on the cops!… Yikes!… You! You! Hey!
I have another go at Cascade, whisper up against his ear: “Where’d they get to?…”
The question’s bugging me… I want to know where they carried the mess…
If it was supposed to be all in fun, I didn’t find it funny, supposed to be some big clever stunt, for my money they were a couple of lunkheaded jerks, two God-awful scumbags! Corpses aren’t supposed to be paraded around, you’d have to be a kid to get a kick out of that stuff, a couple of not-so-smart smart alecs of their sort, people who aren’t going off to war, puny pathetic wimpy pimps! Clowns my balls! I spell out a few things in his ear, so they don’t go thinking I’m impressed!… Poor pathetic moron maggots!…
Plus that technique of theirs! Ah! Let’s not get started!…
London Bridge Page 56
