by Steve Aylett
‘See the film the other night? Japanese atomic monster. Waddling like a midget in a bag. To conquer mankind it lowered its head to stop the crowd, but it was a turtle and I would have just laughed wouldn’t you? Honey?’
She was slipping out through the narrow gap in the doorway.
‘I’ll. I’ll tell you a story. Darling? A tiny semtex man slept in the drawer of a matchbox, the back of his head polished. Right ageless he was. His head shrivelled like pantomime pants. Er…because he died, finally. And that’s…not much of a story I realise, but.’ The door clicked shut. ‘You know what I mean—identity predators, razor massage, category mob, blue booze, trouble phone, brooding sheriff—follow me? Careful what you’re doing out there babe. Babe?’ I was alone and shouting now. ‘So you’re with me so far?’
The vein was tight as a carpline, drawing my skin like a tent. Would it hold?
And I remembered Eddie was due to drop round for the match. Would he be well enough to make it?
He was, and when he opened the door the whole apparatus pulleyed into gear, tearing at my cardiovascular system till my heart exploded through my chest and slid tugging along the floor like a landed fish. Ruby was long gone.
Got a call from her a year later. Asked where she was.
‘I’m in a hotel, like I said I would be. I’m in a hotel stuffing the piano with dollars. Bombers add to the amusement of the view.’
Good old Ruby. Let nothing part the web in her grave.
The incident with the heart and all gave Eddie an idea—with the collapse of the gallery he’d been casting around for a new scam and this was an epiphany. Stole a huge aquarium and some blowfish, which gazed out at him as though expecting profundity or at least food. ‘I’m sellin’ these little beauties to hospitals and it’s my pleasure.’
‘Hospitals.’
‘Yeah to use as blood pressure cuffs—look at this.’ And he drew one out with a landing net. He stretched the fish, tying it round his upper arm and fastening it with string. ‘Smashin’,’ he said, chuffed.
‘So how d’you measure the blood pressure then?’
‘Eh?’
‘Where’s the gauge, the accuracy Eddie?’
‘Accuracy.’
Next time I entered the lab the aquarium was gone and not a word was said about it. Eddie was togged up in white. ‘What you doing Eddie?’
‘Analysing Bob’s gob foam.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘Well for your information I’ve just discovered, rather too late, that it’s not. See this luminous patch on the table? And the wood’s eaten down, like? That’s where I spilt some of the stuff. Call the fire brigade brother, or we’re all of us good as dead.’
Then there was the cow jaw he swore would add ten miles a gallon to the average family saloon. ‘The mouth goes around in the gas tank, second to none.’
‘Doing what.’
‘Trick riding, stuff like that. Bubbles, that’s what it’s about. Had a mess of hard work killing the cattle.’
‘So?’
‘So…then.’
Bob got away with his crimes of course. Upon his release there was a dawn light shortening the shadows and this delighted him. Could it possibly be anything but dinosaurs over that hill?
‘No dinosaurs,’ he complained later. ‘In fact, no one.’
‘We were busy brother. Looking at the air.’
‘Dinosaurs though eh. I bet you anything you like those mothers could talk.’
‘To each other?’
‘What else? To trees?’
‘I talk to trees.’
‘You’re not a proper man.’
‘Neither were they. And that’s why they’re gone forever.’
Surprisingly he and Eddie got together on a scam—Bob rigged up a puzzle with ignition caps and a timer. ‘Sleep and the puzzle explodes.’
‘And that’s your idea of a marketable product.’
‘It works.’
‘So does my arse.’
‘And haven’t you sold that to one and all.’
The argument I pushed forth in my defence creaked as it exfoliated, so as a diversionary tactic I reminded Eddie of the time he’d tied his own arse to the back of a passenger train. He looked at me blank and unrepentant. ‘Latching my arse to the train, I was dragged, slowly at first, then very fast, along the tracks.’
‘I know you were. And what did you expect?’
‘Something magical.’
‘Magical. Like what?’
‘A psychic protest of some kind. An eruption.’
‘I suspect there was an eruption wasn’t there, but not a psychic one. Are you the full shilling brother? In your head I mean? I mean nobody else does this.’
‘No?’
‘I’m telling you now brother so you’ll know—nobody does this sort of lunatic crap, even if they’re paid. Surely you suspected it wasn’t normal?’
‘Only when people in the stations started screaming and cutting off their screams almost immediately by clapping a hand over their mouth.’
‘So they were letting out a single yelp in fact?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then the hand slammed over. Well by god brother you’ve learnt a lesson there. I say you’ve learnt one haven’t you?’
‘Yes brother. I’ve learnt that…’ And he trailed away shamefully.
‘Go on.’
He mumbled bashful, head bowed. ‘I’ve learnt that a man must take his pleasure where he can.’
‘I’m disappointed Eddie. Not for your sake, no, but for the sake of humanity. You’re breathing its precious gases after all, you crude copy of a man. God must have laughed in your face as he made it. Hypodermic answers and panic jackets Eddie—expect nothing brighter.’
Eddie didn’t respond to the gibe but I knew he was sharpening his knife—in his mind, you understand.
We didn’t hear anything from Eddie for a few days and then the telegram.
BLIMP EXPLOSION STOP WISH YOU WERE HERE STOP EDDIE STOP
‘You what?’ I said, frowning at the telegram.
‘Who cares brother? Who cares if he’s lying, honest, alive or dead? Isn’t it enough that he’s not here?’
‘I suppose so. Still…’ I couldn’t help wondering about the bastard’s skill with a dagger. World class. That was the sort of fella we needed round here, in a fight. ‘Listen I’ll maybe go and see where this was sent from, be sure all’s well.’
‘You don’t mean it do you?’ Bob asked, sitting up in his deckchair. ‘Why?’
‘I’ll be back.’
Turned out the telegram originated a snail’s throw away—went round to Eddie’s house and found him up a ladder, carving an endstood tree trunk into the shape of a tree. ‘Crayfish totems lack the wingspread,’ he said, without turning around.
‘What’s all this crap about an airship or something? What’s happening in your mind?’
‘Hollow kids’ tickerclick innards of dust and spindle, muffled at the torso walls so as not to distract during sermons.’
‘That’s enough of that.’
‘You asked,’ he said, and turned toward me to show he was wearing some sort of knitted snout.
‘A knitted snout eh?’
‘Up to a point brother.’
‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’
And a knowing look from Eddie as if to say, we’re brothers truly, in secrecy and the embossed symbol of initiation. But I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant by it all.
I thought back to the balmy afternoons of someone else’s youth—for convenience and pragmatism. Found one molecule of love. That was enough for me. Strength to go on.
‘You’ll make a green grave Eddie.’
‘Eh?’
‘Earlobes know the tomb is the enemy—killing soft flesh for the kick-off. The Reaper’s gung-ho for earlobes brother. Think yours’d stick to his ribs eh? Don’t be so sure. You’ll plunge into hell without an ear or clue.’
‘Ay?’
<
br /> ‘Hell, brother. The stairhead where you haven’t a chance, a steamy swell greets you when you thought you were entering heaven, no revenge possible on the minister, make your selection amid garbage. Ah reward, eh?’
‘Not mine.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I assured him. ‘A cartilage continent, raw bacon promise and mincemeat in a bed.’
I looked around the garden as Eddie continued chipping away. Telescopic vegetation. Interesting frequencies off the birds. Bushes dripping with saliva.
‘So how was the devil?’ Eddie asked. ‘Surrounded by fawning demons surely?’
‘Apparently that’s all nonsense.’
‘A pentangle then, on the floor.’
‘I tried doing one but only managed that thing with an A inside. Went to church once though. People swallowed wafers and flipped resolve. Gods instantly looked in to contribute tears and terrifying music. Priest got to work and demanded love.’
‘How did you react—with indifference or manipulation?’
‘Started shaking in indignation and bliss. Embraced the traffic downtown after that.’
‘Imagine you would. What’s Bob up to?’
‘Got himself a pet spine. Sort of serpent coiling off the table, you notice it and realise it’s a…’
‘A backbone.’
‘Yeah.’ I wondered what else to say. ‘No harm there. What is it but a scalped back?’
‘I suppose,’ said Eddie, planing a branch. ‘He should just be glad he saw the spine, really, followed its trail.’
‘That’s right, it seemed to have a mind of its own when he caught it. Which had to be removed of course. Otherwise it’d be…top-heavy.’
And that, in a nutshell, is why I consider myself more charming and worthy of life than Eddie, Bob, Fred or anyone else I know.
Trouble with the firing squad
‘Fire!’
I saw with absolute clarity the bullets roar like missiles from their launchers and, with a split second to spare, slowed the course of time itself by imagining I was in a theatre watching a musical loved by all. Simultaneously I invoked the aid of the devil—which was easy as that’s what I do anyway when in a theatre watching a musical loved by all. I’d barely begun and a fish head stuck out of space nearby. ‘Who disturbs my rest.’
‘Minotaur says you never rest.’
‘You. Why do you call me.’
‘It’s these point 270 Winchester shells, your majesty. When they reach m’perfect body they’ll pause only a moment then it’s curtains.’
So we struck a bargain—something about a life for a life, torment, bakery everlasting—and I rode away on him as though on a pantomime horse. The bastard smelt terrible.
‘So you invoked the devil eh. Having entered hell earlier and stamped on his cat. You don’t know where to draw the line do you brother.’
That was Minotaur Babs. In addition to his own voice he snickered a spare one out of each nose-barrel. These nostril-voices were evil. They addressed everyone as ‘Sergeant’, for a start. Then what they actually asserted: ‘You’re vermin, Sergeant. A sickness. Look at you.’ Nobody could take much of that babbling in stereo. His mouth-voice would just be ordering a pint in the meanwhile, all placid like. But he knew what was going on.
Purest night for sale in a window. He told me it was sentimental to put ideas into wakefulness. To what possible end. Identical paradigms tangle in life’s endless equation.
I blurted something about doom and union.
‘God and the opportunity to live divine beneath his perch eh. I expected better from you.’
‘Well…’
‘Underwear and signs pointing into the city was enough to distract the knights.’
‘I get it Babs but—’
‘Accordions disintegrate like dead lizards.’
‘Needless to say—’
‘Priorities brother. Suffer enthusiasm and spoon guts from experts. Coins cool in the rainforests.’
I’d been watching Minotaur very closely, my senses whipping back and forth like an eel. In time I’d come to recognise pure fun and the worst pain of all as separate things. Before meeting him, the little understanding I’d garnered in my notes had all been about salad and torrential storms and I thought I’d seen everything. Minotaur consulted air. Streaks of inactivity striped him like a tiger.
‘That bucket o’ monkeys you consider a philosophy won’t hold together long brother. Where’d you get it anyway?’
‘From a whore.’
‘With a fridge full of guilt I suppose?’
Good old Minotaur. Airlock eyes and a brain of steel wool. Sectioned tail like an armadillo’s. A class fiend for your money.
Meanwhile Eddie looked up to me. ‘What happens at a circus, brother?’
‘The elephant’s attention is claimed by a basketball, cymbals splash as the clowns attack, I weep for civilisation.’
‘Don’t you learn nuffin’?’
‘Damage to me ears and no wisdom brother—feel I’m at school again. A cement mixer stopped and gone solid.’
‘Will I ever be happy brother?’
‘It’ll end in a barrel-rolling frenzy of exploding glass and misfiring airbags Eddie—diagonally across the M21.’
‘Not me.’
‘Oh, yes. If I know the Reaper he’ll be at you like a greyhound out of a trap.’
‘Who’s that then.’
‘The Reaper—a bird of burden you might say.’
‘Oh the Reaper eh. You’re claiming to know him.’
‘Claiming. I could introduce you.’
‘Via a knife I suppose.’
‘Not needed. Tonight I’ll take you through the necessary wall—it’ll push in like dough and then break, admitting us. Because we’re fools.’
‘Only fools go through then?’
‘Only a fool’d want to.’
‘So what did this Reaper have to say for himself then brother?’
‘Asked him about death and the usual fare. The reason for it, you understand. You’ll find his explanation as interesting as I did.’
‘Count me in brother.’
The lights flickered. I don’t recall which doomed revolution was occurring at the time but it played merry hell with the electricity supply.
That evening I stood holding to my belly a round mirror, ground and kept in the dark for this day. I’d bought another, larger one from the Shop o’ Fury and Eddie swivelled this toward me to create a descending regression of images. Eddie peered at my midsection, squinting. ‘I can see through a hole into another concern.’
‘What do you see?’
‘Weeds.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as I can be.’
‘What else?’
‘Eleventh-hour negotiations with a master chef.’
‘Any other people?’
‘Some U-boat captain in a polo-neck jumper.’
‘That all?’
‘I can see the boring mischief of a fez-wearing spider monkey in a Persian bazaar.’
‘And?’
‘A mirrorshaded and strenuously enigmatic chopper pilot.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘No, that’s it.’
‘Hardly worth the trouble then.’
‘I know. But if we can just…’
And he stood around in front of the large mirror, letting go—it toppled slowly, falling over us. Blind displaced space.
No lamps, so we had to do the old match in the mouth trick. Bob always opted out in these situations as he was afraid we’d see he had no skull, only a sort of inverted basket made of cartilage. Of course I knew this from the moment I met him, having been trained by my aunt to assess people’s heads in an instant. There was a pause as I went to shake his hand—I’m sure he noticed something wavering in my expression. But I never mentioned it then—a man’s skull arrangements are his own affair, until he starts boasting.
Anyway me and Eddie started down these subterranean tunnels. A railing to hold,
nothing else but dripping roofcracks and regular bulbs unlit and chemically flat. At intervals victims still alive held almost to the wall sighing or talking stories they thought made sense—pleasing nobody but themselves at last.
‘What’s this Reaper like then?’ Eddie asked.
‘Mate of John Satan. Angelically curtained in wrappings of human skin. Head in a bowling bag. Use your collarbone as a boomerang if you let him.’
‘What makes you think I wouldn’t.’
Upper sections of unease swayed over addiction deeps. Escarpments and thin floors led to the litter temple. On a glass throne the Reaper sorted dazed chains, surrounded by a retinue of blade angels.
‘What happens here?’ Eddie whispered.
‘Darkplan wars—success when nobody returns.’
The delicate balcony gave way, rolling us into the temple. The Reaper turned its hollow iron head. ‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to disturb you my lord. Thought I’d pop by and ask you to fry the rind of me ligaments.’
‘I’ll give you a dull pain in grey remains. Days gone dead in the iris. Best I can offer.’
‘That’s how they are here,’ I whispered to Eddie. ‘Talk in front, blood-lust at the rear.’ Then I spoke up to the Reaper. ‘That your final word, corky? Surely you could think of something fiercer for my friend here.’
‘The iron thought thinks not. In heaven darkness is an opportunity for privacy and escape.’
‘See what I mean?’ I asked Eddie in an undertone. He just stared agog at the bladers’ thin splitting skin and the polished nightbirds sniggering with need. ‘All right biff,’ I told the Reaper, coming over elaborately indifferent. ‘But just don’t try rippin’ us off okay?’
Trundling reality rocked aside and allowed entrance to a garrison of torment I’ve since come to know as a home-from-home. At least it makes no bones about what it is. Sometimes I’d be tied down and tortured till my belly split releasing elms, anglers, ants, dogs, hosepipes, jets of flame, lengths of velvet, stoplights, fruit, bones, gods, broken staves, betting slips, trolls, dartboards, popcorn, sharks, antlers, panicking chefs, scarves, busts of Lenin, barnacles, haranguing beggars and billowing clouds of buff-coloured smoke. Of course I’d become so bored I’d start whistling and playing the fool.
‘He’s whistling,’ said one torturer, indignant.
