Kimberly's Capital Punishment

by Richard Milward

  Part 3a) Kimberly the Snake

  I have a hissy fit when I spot my tangerine stripes in the glass. I look like a fake snake – like I’ve been peeled straight off a Snakes & Ladders board – but, in fact, I’m just your average okeetee corn snake. I slither round the artificial desert scene, kindly installed in the tank by JG Thomas & Sons, the owners of the pet shop. Using my forked tongue for guidance, I run rings round the plastic cactus, making sine waves in the sand. By the taste of the air, the last folks to rent the tank were lizards.

  My sight’s poor, but I can smell all the colours of the rainbow. It’s like I’ve developed synaesthesia. With just the odd lick here and there, I soon build up a huge olfactory map of the pet shop: it looks like a gourmet taster menu to me, with all the warm-blooded dishes highlighted, in boxes. Scurrying about.

  I hiss wearily. It’s a bit disheartening, waking up in a 3 × 2 × 2ft tank, after having the boundless, bountiful Capital at my disposal. Three sides of the tank look out onto the shop floor, while the other side’s meant to be a paradise vision of Arizona or New Mexico: a beatific panorama of the desert, where it’s always sunset, and there’s always a lonesome cowboy in the distance, like a star-spangled scarecrow.

  I’m so hungry, I could eat a child’s face. In my first year as a corn snake, I’m only entitled to one ‘pinkie’ (a bald baby mouse, not your little finger), every five or so days. I feel like a leper or a victim of war, having the pinkies winched into my tank by a helicopter that smells suspiciously like JG Thomas’s hairy-backed hand. It doesn’t help being surrounded by the all-squeaking, all-squawking menu of critters, just out of reach. I’d gladly pay the ‘£7!’ price tag to get my constricting muscles around that albino hamster there, if only I could get out of the tank and get into my old bank savings.

  This is the skinniest I’ve been in twenty-four years. During opening hours, I fantasise about a family saving me from the artificial desert, and feeding me up on a delicious rainfall of rodents, pet budgies, frogs’ legs, snails, and quails’ eggs. Then again, they could just as easily starve me to death, if they haven’t got the funds, or the dedication, or done their homework.

  Almost eight months to the day after my encounter with Mr Death, I find myself hiding from the Goth Family Robinson, in the shadow of my favourite rock. Despite always being sunset in Arizona/New Mexico, it always seems to be midday in the tank, with the sun constantly beaming at me like a 60-watt ultraviolet lightbulb. Corn snakes can cope perfectly well in cooler weather, so I prefer basking under the rock in the afternoons, only popping out to top up my tan, or shed my skin, or strangle a pinkie.

  This particular afternoon, my favourite rock hides me from three squinting human faces. Two of them are ugly child-faces, while the other bears a striking resemblance to the child-faces, only with more nostril hair, more forehead, and wilder eyebrows.

  ‘I can’t see him, I can’t see him,’ one of the child-faces whines.

  ‘Where is he?’ moans the other one.

  I’m a fucking ssssssshe, you cheeky ssssssshit, I hiss. A second later, four oily hands are all over my front window, pressing and prodding and knocking. To shut them up, I glumly slither out from underneath the rock, yawning. The child-faces yelp when they see my tiny fangs, scuttling behind their dad, leaving behind twenty-odd sticky handprints. By the look on JG’s face, he’s wondering where he’s left the Mr Sheen. I can smell it – it’s over by the till, next to the dog toys.

  ‘That’s the one. We’ll take it, yeah,’ the dad laughs. Judging by his Cradle of Filth T-shirt, Daddy’s a sadist. He waggles his fingers at me like I’m a bunny rabbit or a kitten, then he asks JG Thomas, ‘What does it eat?’

  I’m not a fucking it, neither, you tit, I hiss. I’m surprised by my unpleasantness. Where’s all this venom come from?

  JG Thomas carefully lifts the clear plastic sky off the desert and explains to Mr Robinson: ‘At the moment: baby mice. But she doesn’t need many. The common corn snake can go for days without feeding.’

  You’re fucking joking me, I hiss, as JG lowers his hand into the tank. I could bite off his hairy pinky for that last comment. The cunt knows nothing about reptiles – all JG knows is how to sweep sawdust into a corner, and how to annoy his wife by tramping it upstairs. And how to wrongly label the bowlcut birds ‘NORWICH CANARYS’.

  And who are you calling common, you cheeky pleb? I hiss again, eyeballing him. I’ll digessssssst your head and ssssssshit out your hair and teeth in a minute.

  I wriggle about, watching Arizona/New Mexico disappear into the sunset, as I’m airlifted out of my desert paradise.

  ‘There, there,’ JG whispers. He clearly doesn’t want me to show him up and ruin his chances of getting thirty-five quid off the Goth Family Robinson. The kids seem to have calmed down, though, despite my best efforts to come across as a child-biter. Letting go of Daddy’s thighs, they creep round his DMs to have another look at me.

  ‘Do you want to hold her?’ JG asks the children, as I cling for dear life to his wobbling, DT-riddled digits. The child-faces nod nervously.

  With my smell-o-vision, I quickly plot the dimensions of the shop again, paying particular attention to the distance between me and the floor, and me and the door. Then, I narrow my evil eyes, and loosen my grip around JG Thomas’s fingers as he passes me gently to the smallest of the kids.

  ‘She’s very friendly,’ he adds, which is as good a cue as any to lunge fangs-first at the child’s face. The child shrieks and throws itself behind Daddy again, leaving me space to crashland safely on the sawdusted parquet, and slalom out of the pet shop. Before hurdling through the cat-flap, I can feel the BOM BOM BOM BOM of JG’s scampering Hush Puppies behind me, but I’m far too nimble to be caught. As I spring up his neighbour’s drainpipe, I can just make out JG Thomas catching his breath down below, gasping at the Goth Family Robinson, ‘Ehm, phew. Ha. Hmm. Bugger. I’m sorry about that. I can’t interest you in a gerbil, can I? Or a budgie? We’ve got tons of budgies.’

  Squawk! Squeak! Splutter! Sssssss!

  At first, it’s a nuisance roaming around the Capital at ground level. According to Genesis 3:14, snakes are the lowest form of all creatures, forced by God to slither about on their bellies and eat dust all day. By the time I get halfway down Holloway Road, I’m already missing JG Thomas’s timetabled titbits. It’s not easy fending for yourself in the city, when chicken-shop counters are 4ft high and the binbags have already been ransacked by foxes. I should’ve eaten that child’s face when I had the chance.

  It’s sad to think I’ve been reincarnated as the lowest scum on Earth. I thought my karma would’ve been in fairly good shape, what with all my good deeds (ignoring the sadism towards Stevie, Molotov cocktails, occasional foul language, etc.). Just like mixing alcoholic drinks, perhaps this is the trouble you get when you start mixing your religions.

  Hare Krissssssshna, Hare Hare, I hiss, halfheartedly.

  Once I’m past the Nag’s Head, I slide behind a phone box, out of the way of the rushing shoes and giant dogs. My bright orange camouflage isn’t best suited to city strolling, I don’t think. I should be frolicking in red clay soil, or a South Carolina cornfield, or an artificial desert utopia, where the temperature’s constantly moderated, and you don’t run the risk of being split in two by a stray cyclist.

  I curl into a croissant shape. I miss my favourite rock, and my favourite lonesome cowboy, and my favourite measly pinkies. In days of yore, apparently the Capital used to teem with delicious, disease-riddled rats, but this afternoon they’re elusive. I keep flapping my tongue, fantasising about a juicy 4oz rat steak, smothered in a creamy Black Death peppercorn sauce, with extra scabs. Even a sooty, subterranean mouse would do, if only I could get down the escalators without causing unnecessary panic and uproar.

  I set off again, feeling weak, like a piece of ragged string pulled along by an invisible turtle. Heading north, I stick to the back alleys parallel to Seven Sisters Road, sniffing out the dustbins and gutt
ering for signs of life. Nothing seems that appetising, though.

  Where are all the pigeons? Where are all the rats?

  I keep wriggling onwards, listlessly licking at the wind until, finally, the penny drops.

  It takes twenty minutes to work my way up Donald’s stairs, lifting and twisting my abdomen like a frenzied male adder on heat. Fortunately, the free bus ride to Tottenham helped me conserve energy for it and, miraculously, I had stored from a past life the knowledge that a 259 goes from Holloway to Seven Sisters, Monday to Friday, every eight to ten minutes at off-peak hours.

  Lubricated by axle grease (I had to wrap myself around the chassis, like a legless immigrant stowaway), I slide down Donald’s waterlogged corridor, guided by my smell-o-vision. I follow a clumsy breadcrumb trail of Ecstasy pills into the darkest corner of Donald’s pad, and slip underneath one of the industrial sewing machines. Over on the sofa, Donald lies on his back, in a drunken stupor. I wonder what he’s done with Stevie’s housekey, and why he hasn’t moved into Flat D. It saddens me to think he might’ve been over to the halal butcher’s to look at my flat, but found it unlivable, what with the hamster, the depressing CDs and all the feminine articles strewn about. Or perhaps Mr Henry already kicked him out.

  Through the dark, twelve marble eyes flicker. For now, the rats seem unaware of my presence. In fact, I think a few of them are gurning, off their heads on the Ecstasy tablets. Now and then I catch a flash of their goofy, grinding gnashers, with globs of cottonmouth matted into their lip-fur. I lie in wait, with my head to the ground, silently keeping track of them racing round and round the floorboards. Occasionally, a thermographic blob comes close to my flickering tongue, but then the bastard’s off again, round the back of the sofa.

  If only the rats weren’t on pills, I might be able to catch one. I’m not used to hunting, especially when your prey’s doing St Vitus’s dance. After a few more minutes, I just think, fuck thisssssss – I throw myself lasso-like at one of the dirty-dancing rats, and knot myself around his midriff. The rat shrieks, prompting his friends to scuttle off the dancefloor, causing one hundred sudden pawprints in the dust. Donald stirs on the settee.

  As my muscles constrict, my first victim lets out a shrill wheeze, with stiff legs splayed. I squeeze the living daylights out of him, then go after the other five. Now their party’s been rumbled, the rodents are easier to catch, believe it or not. The five of them huddle together, rather than finding separate hiding places, trembling under the canopy of Donald’s settee. For the fun of it, I weave in and out of the sofa legs, herding them into a corner before pouncing at them quickfire, one by one.

  I feel supercharged with bliss. Compared to the sick, crushing guilt I felt after Stevie died, killing things is one of life’s greatest pleasures, when you’re a snake. Once the six rats have stopped writhing around with their internal organs in disarray, I lump them together into a kind of Big Mac tower and devour them whole. Rat’s rump is a fine meat. It’s hard to believe I was a vegetarian eight months ago. I gobble the critters in double-quick time, coughing out the odd hairball and spitting out the odd goofy tooth. Donald coughs along with me, violently, in his sleep.

  By the third rodent, I’m feeling a little green. I might’ve eaten too much. I lurch heavy-bellied back out into the corridor, trying not to rouse Donald. After all, he might not recognise me now my evil eyes are stuck in a serpent’s head – and he might take a spade to my throat.

  I feel like an imbecile. I always thought snakes were these ruthless, bottomless killing machines, but I feel more like an odd sock stuffed with snooker balls. My body’s too bloated to manoeuvre down the stairs, so I curl up in the rickety horrible elevator, cursing myself. Ssssssshit, I hiss. The rats must’ve been carrying medieval diseases, after all – I feel so sick. I wish I had some stomach-pumping apparatus, or at least a pair of fingers to stick down my throat. I manage to regurgitate the first two rat steaks, but the last one seems to get stuck in my gullet. For a bit, I stumble-slither round in circles, trying to dislodge the rodent with the tip of my tail but, as it turns out, snakes are all throat and no uvula. Before I know it, I’m inadvertently digesting my own tail. And then, digesting the rest of me.

  Trance-like, I carry on spinning on the corrugated metal floor, sucking myself into my belly. By the time one of those ‘fucking artists’ from downstairs calls the lift, I look like a leopard-print bracelet, or a marmalade bagel. I hisssssss my last breath. If Donald could see me now, I wonder if he’d be sickened by the sight of his old friend. Then again, you never know – he might be able to make some nice new snakeskin loafers out of me. He does live in an old sewing factory, after all.

  Part 3b) Kimberly the Monkey, aka Nails, the Smallest Dogfighter in the South East

  Oo oo aa aa argh! Three months after being reborn, I’m taken to a patch of scrubland near IKEA to watch my mother get her neck snapped in half by a Staffordshire bull terrier. Perhaps it’s karmic retribution for accidentally committing gluttony, or perhaps it’s punishment for purposefully murdering six loved-up rodents. I whimper, covering my big eyes with tiny fingers.

  While I’m not connected to my mother by the umbilical cord any more, someone’s connected me to the caravan towbar with a metal umbilical cord instead. My first instinct is to flee from the vicious scene of rabid Staffies, monkeys, and travellers, but I can only get as far as Mr Smith’s wellies, propped up against the back of the van. Mother screams as the terrier swings her this way and that like a drunken dance partner, rinsing every last drop of life out of her. Monkeys usually enjoy swinging, but not from their bloody necks. I whimper again, plugging my big ears with tiny fingers. Eventually, mother drops dead, causing a halo of dust where her head hits the ground.

  Yet again, I’ve been born in captivity. Round the scrubby pit, half the gypsies are in happy raptures while the other half curse and grumble. My master, Mr Smith of Smith Fairytale Funland fame, looks devastated, handing over reams of banknotes to the owner of the panting bull terrier. It looks like nearly two grand.

  The overexcited terrier carries on lunging at my dead mother, despite the best efforts of the crowd to grab her collar. Eventually, Mr Smith puts Mother out of her misery, gathering her in a large Netto bag and tying a double knot in the end.

  ‘Patty spanked your fecking monkey,’ snorts the owner of the terrier, patting it. The other travellers mumble laughter, in agreement.

  ‘You fecking grandmotherfecker,’ Mr Smith says, sadly chucking the bag to one side.

  Averting my eyes from the squashed Netto bag, I occupy myself with the vivid magenta sunset drawing a curtain over the wasteland. On the first Thursday of each month, the travellers come to this patch of land behind IKEA to partake in dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bare-knuckle brawling and monkey-baiting – in fact, any animals with nails, teeth and a violent temperament are welcome to have a scrap.

  ‘What am I gonna do?’ Mr Smith grumbles rhetorically as the travellers retire to their transport.

  ‘You’ll have to beef that one up, eh,’ says The Other Mr Smith, manager of Smith & Co. Resurfacing, gesturing at me. My heart bashes painfully in my chest.

  The dog on the front of Mother’s Netto bag sneers at me, with gritted teeth. I whimper yet again, filling my big mouth with tiny fingers.

  That night, once the 4 × 4 and caravan are stationed back at Smith’s Fairytale Funland (on Clapham Common this weekend), Mr Smith starts beefing me up. I grudgingly choke down a man-sized fruit salad, and bottle after bottle of cow’s milk, while the Junior Smiths give my mother a ramshackle funeral, round the back of the Mad Mouse. Tomorrow evening there’ll be all sorts of squealing kids and parents tramping over her grave, leaving her wreaths of candy-floss sticks and sick. I hope the screws pop out of the Mad Mouse tomorrow. And I hope the screws pop out of my leash.

  Mr Smith is a bad old man. I think he gets his wickedness from all the Ritalin he munches, and from all the rowdy kids he’s fathered. His wife, on the other hand, seems constantly
sedated when she’s looking after the Pluck-a-Duck, on her own cocktail of prescription drugs.

  While it might seem like a kind thing to do, feeding me healthy portions of fruit and nuts, I’ve got a sneaky suspicion the Smiths are infringing on some basic animal rights. Monkeys haven’t been used to fight dogs since the 1800s – back when Jacco Macacco was the simian king of the ring – but the Smiths are a strange bunch. Never content to simply run a legitimate family funfair, the Smiths have a history of breeding animals for fighting, and breeding trouble. Rumour has it Great-Grandfather Smith’s in prison, after being caught running an underground freakshow in a derelict cake factory in Hackney. The freakshow was making good money in the sixties, despite being cobbled together: as legend has it, Great-Grandfather Smith amputated the Human Torso’s arms and legs on the promise of ‘infinite riches’; nailed stilts to the Gentle Giant’s shins to improve his frankly ungiantlike 6ft 3in; shaved a squirrel monkey and docked its tail to create the Smallest Man in the World; and glue-gunned his granddaughters together to make temporary Siamese Twins. Apparently, his Elephant Man was a perfectly good-looking man before Great-Grandfather Smith smashed his face in with a lump hammer.

  While I’m glad I’m not a squirrel monkey, the thought of getting in the pit with a pit bull makes my fur stand on end. I don’t feel like a fighter – I come from woolly monkey stock, a famously timid breed of primate. I should be in Ecuador, foraging for berries and sniffing out females.