Kimberly's Capital Punishment

by Richard Milward

  The beast blows hot dragon-breath out of its nostrils, and each head smirks, one after another. I smile too, feeling lovely. However, way down beneath us, on Earth, two adorable little twins start absolutely bawling their heads off.

  Three months into the crack abuse, I find myself in Topshop again, perusing the kids’ section for size 4 dresses. I look like death, all malnourished, with an empty birdcage for a torso, to go with my birds’ legs. The crack and MDMA have completely obliterated my appetite, making even my daily jaunts to Krispy Kreme dismal and nauseating. I keep meaning to jack in the crack and hop over to Cloud 2 (Food & Drink) for one of Elvis’s calorie-clogged Heart-Attack Sarnies (a hollowed-out loaf filled with peanut butter, normal butter, jam, and a pound of bacon, aka the Fool’s Gold Loaf), but the smell of burned coke and Brillo pads emanating from Cloud 9 keeps pulling me back.

  Teeth chattering, I grab a Diamond White romper suit from the rails and tug it over my skeleton. It’s perfect – quite baggy, with enough give in the elbow department to lift a crack-pipe up to my lips and safely back down again.

  Back out in the cool troposphere, the bright lights of Cloud 3 (Sound & Vision) leer at me as I spark up another semi-precious boulder. My legs twitch with pleasure for a moment, as the smoke surfs through my lungs, then the feeling subsides just as quickly. The lights of Cloud 3 dim again. My heart quietens to a mumble. Ever since I got involved with the crack, I haven’t been making the most of Heaven’s luxury facilities. Every evening I crawl into the same Kimberly-shaped hole in the sandpit of coke on Cloud 9, digging for freebased truffles, before stumbling back to the Crystal-meth Castle, to doze vaguely on my bed.

  I feel like a big baby – especially in the romper suit. From time to time I get the slight urge to create a miracle for one or two of you down on Earth, though it seems a bit of a hassle. Crack multiplies your selfishness.

  One night, drifting glumly round Cloud 7 (Comedy), it strikes me I haven’t laughed in weeks. Crack’s a sociable drug, of course, but it has a cruel habit of freezing your tongue and burning your lips.

  I need lubricating. Down the stratified sidestreets of Cloud 7 there are countless comedy clubs, as well as a circus, and live, televised funerals (some people can’t resist laughing at them). I duck into the first club and order myself a Smirnoff Ice, propping up the bar. I stare at my sour reflection in the glass – the fish-eye effect makes me look even thinner, like the worm trapped in a bottle of tequila.

  Round the comedy club, angels have packed out the tables, slurping and shrieking at each other while they wait for the next act. Since there’s no smoking ban in Heaven, the angels have blown themselves clouds of Regal and Marlboro to sit on, hovering a good three feet above the booze-soaked carpet. I’m tempted to take the old crack-pipe out for another snog when, suddenly, the lights darken and redden, and the velvet curtains hiding the stage slide open.

  I spit a gobful of Smirnoff back into my glass when I see who the next turn is. He’s about fifty years old, with a bald spot, glasses, and a mop. He’s introduced as ‘the funniest school toilet cleaner in the world!’ He’s Barry Clark. My dead dad.

  ‘Dad!’ I yell, but it’s lost amongst all the other cheering, frothing mouths. Fighting against the false, plastic contentment of the MDMA and crack, I’m surprised to feel real-life human happiness coursing through my system again. Either that, or it’s just the Smirnoff Ice kicking in.

  Barry Clark adjusts the SM58 microphone, making the PA squeak, then he clears his throat and begins his set:

  ‘Now then, ladies and gentlemen. What’s twelve inches long, stiff, has a purple head, and makes a woman scream at night?’ he says, then he pauses, for effect. ‘A cot death!’

  Everybody bursts out laughing, throwing drinks this way and that. It’s a classic! I crease up, like a piece of tracing paper being folded as many times as possible.

  Mag Clark used to think Barry would go to Hell for jokes like that, but his good deeds cleaning the kids’ classrooms must’ve outweighed the damage done by the disgusting jokes. Perhaps that’s how entry to Heaven and Hell works – it’s all in accordance to the ever-seesawing scales of niceness. For instance, if a serial killer goes on to found a children’s hospice, does he or she still have to burn in Hell?

  I cough up a few more giggles before the hilarity dies down around the club. Barry’s beaming, dead chuffed with himself. I feel so much admiration for him, my eyes begin to mist over, as Barry attempts another joke:

  ‘What’s twelve inches long, stiff, has a purple head, and makes a woman scream at night?’ he says, then he pauses, for effect. ‘A cot death!’

  The room erupts with laughter again. At first my brow furrows slightly, then I can’t help joining in with the re-screeching. I spill a bit of drink down the Diamond White romper suit. It’s even better the second time round! A bloody cot death – who would’ve thought it?!

  ‘What’s twelve inches long, stiff, has a purple head, and makes a woman scream at night?’ Barry carries on, getting on a roll. ‘A cot death!’

  Hysterical now, I have to hold on to my sides to stop myself from throwing up. I thought he was going to say a willy!!

  ‘What’s twelve inches long, stiff, has a purple head, and makes a woman scream at night?’ Barry continues, in his stride now. ‘A cot death!’

  Perhaps the fourth time round it’s not quite so funny. My hysterical laughter softens to heavy panting. I pick at my nails for a moment, a little embarrassed. All around the club, the angels are still in stitches, their faces contorted. I take a long glug of alcopop, trying to get back into the party spirit.

  ‘What’s twelve inches long, stiff, has a purple head, and makes a woman scream at night?’ Barry goes, then, wait for it: ‘A cot death!’

  My head sinks towards the bar. Barry doesn’t seem to notice the laughter turning sour. The angels’ honks and hoots quickly turn to heckles. Before long, they’re baying for his blood, launching broken bottles at Barry with baleful expressions.

  I feel terrible for him. After all, he’s not even a real comedian. He’s just my dad.

  Maybe my idea of Heaven isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Some people like to heckle and abuse comedians when they’re drunk, while others just want to hear their father’s smutty jokes.

  But, of course, there’s a limit to how much cot death one woman can stand in one night.

  I want to storm the stage. Not only would it be nice to meet my dead daddy again, it’d be nice to remove him from the bitter limelight now – before the angelic medics do it first, on a stretcher.

  Trembling, I rise from the bar and make a wobbly beeline for the stage. I manage to lift my sunken features into something resembling a smile but, before I reach my dad, an unexpected rush of MDMA turns my face into a churning, gurning mess again.

  I turn on my sandals and sprint as fast as I can out of the comedy club. I don’t want my dead dad to see his dead daughter like this. He probably wouldn’t even recognise me, what with the size 4 skeleton, and crack sores round my mouth. I don’t want to break his heart two times over.

  All my life, I stayed away from drugs (unless you count Smirnoff Ice, ibuprofen, Strepsils, antihistamines, multivits, medicated plasters, etc.), and I used to scratch my head at ridiculous drug-taking divs in the street, only to become one myself.

  Fluttering about aimlessly – like a drunken, dirty moth, as opposed to a crisp, white butterfly – I want to commit suicide off the edge of one of the clouds but, unhelpfully, I’m already dead. Instead, I make the crack-pipes commit suicide for me, launching them one by one off the nimbostratus. Some lucky scallywag down there (it looks like Peterlee to me) will have a field day, finding my works in a field somewhere, stuffed with heavenly freebase.

  I sigh through my nostrils. I wish I could stop the disgusting, delicious MDMA dribbling into my spine. Dithering from cloud to cloud, all around me the angels look like manic, malnourished mannequins. I’ve come to realise Heaven’s just one big pantomime, or p
uppet show. The haloes only ply you with MDMA so you’re compliant and can’t stomach any of the expensive, luxury foods. In fact, I’ve got a suspicion half the foodstuffs are merely plastic display models, arranged to give the impression of luxury, without all the hassle of mould or stocktaking. When I pass by the mammoth greengrocers on Cloud 2, it takes a few minutes of scrabbling through the orange ping-pong balls before I come across a genuine satsuma. Sinking my teeth into it, the flesh tastes unbelievably fizzy and refreshing, like a citrus firework going off in my gob. The effect is almost comparable to the first time I did crack cocaine: mindbendingly blissful.

  From here on in, I’m substituting C for Vitamin C.

  Sucking up the sweet juice, I sidle past the vast Olympic Stadium, held up by brushed-aluminium abutments, with rainbow floodlights, a 25ct-gold clocktower, and specks of Olympic sweat fountaining over the sides like salted confetti. Cloud 4 (Sport) caters for that strange breed of folk who gain pleasure from non-sexual physical exertion, for example badminton, 3,000m steeplechase, tiddlywinks. Some scientists believe exercise increases people’s happiness levels (through the release of endorphins), despite it usually involving jogging in treacherous drizzly conditions and coming home with dogmuck on your trainers, absolutely knackered, with a stitch.

  Just thinking about athletics tires me out. I sit down with my back to one of the aluminium abutments, listening to the distant echo of shotputs landing; javelins injecting the soil; the soft applause of running shoes; and the odd, gravelly warcry of exertion. Opposite me, there’s a digital chalkboard which reads:

  THIS EVENING AT THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

  17.00 FOOTBALL (DEAD NAGOYA GRAMPUS EIGHT vs

  DEAD BORUSSIA MÖNCHENGLADBACH)

  19.15 TRACK AND FIELD (INCLUDING 100m, 200m, 400m,

  800m, 1,500m,

  LONG JUMP, TRIPLE JUMP)

  21.30 CABER TOSS

  22.00 SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING

  23.30 MUD WRESTLING/WET T-SHIRT COMPETITION

  I glance up at the 25ct-gold clocktower, just as it chimes half seven. The chalkboard turns my thoughts to Stevie. I haven’t seen him since arriving in Heaven, but he must be here somewhere – he was a good sort, after all (providing he hasn’t gone to Valhalla instead, thanks to his Scandinavian melanin). The corners of my mouth prick up as I double-check that mention of the 200m.

  Brushing myself down, I try to sort out my appearance in one of the steel cylinders, then stride gracefully through the entrance of the stadium, taking a ticket from the dour ex-demon at the box office. A wave of tropical perspiration hits me as I enter the arena. With a helping hand from the MDMA, I make it up the steep terrace to the back row, and sit down with the whole Angel Gabriel Memorial Stand to myself.

  I stretch my legs out across Row ZZ, seeing stars at first, before my eyes adjust and I see sportstars instead. They’ve designed the Olympic Stadium well, stuffing all possible facilities (running track, air-conditioned luge, swimming pool, table-tennis tables, wrestling ring …) in the open-plan basin. Some of the competitors even manage to do two sports at once – for instance, the chap over there doing underwater archery, or the girl doing equestrian pole-vault.

  I decide to buy a hot dog from the lone vendor zig-zagging through the Gabriel Memorial Stand. While my appetite’s still suppressed by the evil MDMA, I’m desperate to plumpen myself back to a healthyish size 6, or 8. I need to get back into those unicornskin trousers, and I need to get my old, beloved boyfriend back, I think.

  My heart expands when the 200m competitors emerge from the tunnel, with their wings poking proudly out of their tracksuits. I shift on the velvet cushion, listlessly chewing the first bite of frankfurter. It doesn’t want to go down, so I end up just licking it instead, like a pink, meaty Mini Milk.

  When the sprinters are introduced over the tannoy, my heart shrinks again. There’s no mention of Stevie. This afternoon, the track and field programme is a historic reenactment of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, with black beauty Jesse Owens claiming his four golds in the face of Nazi adversity. The only difference is the distinct lack of Nazis, since they all happen to be roasting in Hell.

  I leave the half-licked hot dog under my seat and slump back down the terrace. I feel sticky, sickly, and unattractive. I wonder if Stevie made it to Heaven after all – what if he was a secret paedophile, or an ex-traffic warden, or a part-time racist, and ended up boiling with Hitler and the gang? The more I think about him, the more I miss him. I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life, so I’m sure there are a lot of my long-lost friends and relatives floating around here, but there’s no one I want to see more than my Stevie. I owe him a huge kiss and a cuddle, and I owe him an apology for being horrid. I also probably owe him £7,777.77.

  Floating aimlessly between the Crystal Castle and the bubblegum sunset, I feel the £∞ voucher being magnetised to Topshop again as I pass Cloud 1. I take the escalator up to the second floor, then I shed my skin, tearing off the mucky romper suit and jumping into a fresh pair of White Strike tights and a size 6 Titanium White shift-dress. The shift looks daft, hanging off me like an extra-large lampshade, but it’s meant to be an incentive to put on a few pounds.

  After Topshop, I hop over to Cloud 2 for some full-fat Italian gelato. Annoyingly, most of the flavours are made of Plasticine instead of ice cream – the only edible ones are chocolate, orange, and chocolate orange. I plump for all three, taking my bowl to sit by the busy window, in full view of the twinkling castle. One hundred thousand pink sunsets wink at me, reflected in its turrets, as I whizz the three flavours together with my spoon, and shovel them down the hatch. After the first few mouthfuls, I let out a slight grunt, suffering an almighty brain-freeze.

  Across the room, another ice-cream enthusiast grunts as it struggles to wrench its huge, hirsute frame out of one of the sunken armchairs. I grin chocolate-coated canines as the beast shuffles past, between the tables. It’s the Many-Headed Musical Misadventurer again.

  ‘Hi!’ I say, causing the beast some unnecessary whiplash, as its twenty-seven heads turn in unison.

  ‘Hey. Hi. How are you?’ the heads chorus, crowding around me. ‘How’ve you been? What have you been up to? What’s up?’ etc., etc.

  ‘Ah, nothing, not much,’ I reply, timidly twizzling my spoon in my bowl. ‘I’ve just been looking for someone. But, like, I don’t even know if he’s here or not. You know?’

  ‘A friend?’ Brian Jones enquires, just to be polite.

  ‘Mm. My boyfriend. Well, like, my ex-boyfriend,’ I say. After another mouthful of ice cream, a second electric shock fires into my brain but, rather than Es or a brain-freeze, it’s a cold, sharp flash of inspiration. I dig my spoon back into the bowl, and ask the Multi-Headed Musician, ‘Actually, you lot might’ve seen him. Stevie Wallace, he’s called. He’s, like, he’s a big fan of most of your music.’

  Some of the heads seem to blush, causing an iridescent effect, like a scarlet peacock displaying.

  ‘He’s about this tall, with like white-gold hair, muscly, with freckles, and like a small scar on his cheek,’ I explain.

  The beast performs a Mexican wave of shaken heads and shrugged shoulders, muttering apologies.

  ‘Oh, and he’s probably got one eye missing,’ I add, at which point the heads perk up, and they babble, ‘Yeah. Uhm, Steve? Stevie? We know a guy who we call, uhm, One-Eye Steve. Sure. The sprinter? Stevie? Do you mean Stevie?’

  The backlog of MDMA suddenly breaks open the mental dam I’d been beavering away at with my gloom. I give the Misadventurer another brown and orange grin.

  ‘God, as if he’s alive!’ I say, before rethinking. ‘Well, naw, he’s dead, but … you know … that’s amazing …’

  Jim Morrison smiles and says, ‘Uhm, we can take you to him, if you’d like?’

  ‘Aw, yeah, yeah!’ I yelp, then after a short silence: ‘Please.’

  It turns out the Many-Headed Musical Misadventurer has known Stevie for quite some time. Their friendship blossomed after the beas
t played a one-off gig on Cloud 4 back in February, round about the time Stevie hung himself. Stevie, being a fan of many of the Many-Headed Musician’s heads, waited backstage for the beast, gurning and stuttering uncontrollably, having just arrived in the dizzy heights of Heaven. While the conversation was strained at first, Stevie and the beast shared a strange sort of affinity, mumbling tales of music, heartbreak and happiness, over a 6l bottle of Johnnie Walker Red (the Misadventurer) and a Mixed Berry Lucozade (Stevie).

  The Multi-Headed Musician doesn’t perform many concerts here nowadays – due to stage fright, ‘exhaustion’ and, more than anything, extreme creative differences – but the beast still meets up with Stevie now and then for a natter, or a nose about the record shops.

  As the Misadventurer leads me round the outer limits of Heaven, where the clouds are ever so delicate and wispy, I wonder how Stevie’ll react when he sees me. I wonder what he looks like now, in his white angel gear, with a halo and one eye plucked out. The way I remember him, he was blue and limp, like a Finnish flag flying at half-mast.

  Glugging a little Scotch from an inside-wing pocket, the beast kicks through the patchy strati as we hop, skip and flutter our way to Cloud 8 (Sex). While Cloud 9 is dark and rich, with the earthy tang of cannabis, Cloud 8 looks like a gigantic, pink bouncy castle; slick, with the sour-milk stink of shagging. I wonder why the Misadventurer’s taking me here.

  I flick my wings harder, trying to keep up as the beast clambers on top of the candy-coloured cumulonimbus. It’s quite an experience, seeing Cloud 8 for the first time. After all that bad love with Donald and my weekly exes, my sex drive’s been more or less non-existent since I arrived in Heaven. My holes feel like clammed-up clamshells, and it’ll take more than just prodding and probing with the right implements to shuck them open again.

  Having said that, the place does look intriguing. The Misadventurer leads me down the main ‘strip’, which is lined with large, private ‘sex sheds’; wipe-clean public beds and sofas; toy-boxes brimming with disinfected sex-aids; and tight staircases leading down to dingy dominatrix dungeons. Some of the sex sheds are locked, with the sound of squealing just about audible under the doorways, while others are wide open – exposing everything from orang-utan gangbangs to masochistic midget self-humiliation to a lost bridge club of old-age pensioners, accidentally 69ing sixteen-year-old glamour models. Coming from Shed 8 I hear the shriek of a businessman being fellated by a Humboldt squid. In Shed 57 there are more saucy goings-on: I see a woman covered in tomato ketchup writhing against a man covered in mayonnaise. The door to Shed 101 is locked, and the lights are off. Through the keyhole, a man and wife appear to be conducting the missionary position, underneath the covers. My stomach turns over.