by Steve Aylett
‘Better than nothing,’ said another philosophically.
‘So how did you like it?’ I asked Eddie afterwards, slapping him on the back. ‘Sundrenched and frying jelly in the stove of your head—holiday and a half.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Good? We’ve just been there. And it’s damnation.’
‘Call it what you like, it’s better than what I’ve known.’
Now, of course, life’s lash is fully unfurled from the nursery branch. I don’t need to purchase trouble. But I sleep well. Night’s a paperweight holding my alsatian and me like two suicide notes to a freemason’s desk. Unachieved, my destiny drums its bony fingers as I snore. So, doc—what do you make of it?
Trouble with the shrink
‘This is without drugs?’
At least that’s what he’d been chanting earlier. Then he’d started brandishing a norm grid at the onward flow. Thought the core stick symbolised a cock but got everything else wrong. Didn’t believe in the existence of a being called ‘Eddie’, for starters. ‘How do you sense his presence?’ he asked at one point, still humouring me. Bloody good question though.
Now, of course, my face was the venue for a punching bonanza. He shouted all kinds of slogans—‘You’d say all that would you?’—that sort of thing. Alternately jabbing his finger at the wall-clock and my eyes. Really puce and angry as I scrabbled to leave. Had to kick him in the balls finally, slamming out as he bent over, face turning reflex blue.
On the way back, pulled over. Had me arm hung out casual like. Copper acting hard and refusing to look at me—staring off down the road as he flipped his notebook. ‘The road talks to herself,’ he said.
‘I know that.’
‘You’re a cool one.’
‘Let me articulate both my snouts or I’ll be neglecting communion.’
‘I’ll ignore that remark sir.’
‘At my edges, yolk runs like an aura.’
‘Now that’s enough of that—’
‘Unburied victims await you in a cluster, rooms red with new vintage.’
‘What. What you…er now don’t move—’
‘My mistress hammers the helpless and no recall—inaccuracy sneers at the true bard.’
‘Don’t move a muscle you bastard—’
‘Spider crash, spider crash—the old shelf falls.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘Heaven’s vertebrae are damn near impossible—lymph and paraffin alternate in that there kingdom.’
‘Quiet now you—’
‘Dogs nurture an ideal—and are ready to report.’
‘No!’
‘I have boiled money.’
‘Get—get—’
‘Chains quarried from cold teeth.’
‘Get out of here!’
‘Thank you officer.’
Went to coast—walked on beach. Gull wobbled in the air like a memo caught in a spiderweb. Pity the pet fish which has a name—Tony, or Pluto—right between the eyes. Then whatever it does will be seen as evidence of rueful personality—look at Tony, his fins unfurled, near the airbubbles. Look at Pluto, collecting the fishfood in his face. Hell in such a small space.
Rested my face and ears on a bartop in a tavern on the bay. Slow ceiling fan, wooden shutters, smoke, there’s the style. Key West. Irritable exiles. Shabby intrigue.
Guy in a captain hat held an entire pig in front of his open mouth, and paused.
‘First of the day,’ he said.
Then the violence. He noticed my look after a while. ‘What? Rather I ate elsewhere? With a man’s face brought along for a napkin? Pick out summer from a picnic and you’re left with idiots in a marsh.’
He pulled a trotter out of his nose.
‘Trends end here and crash, young man, bursting like empty bubbles, leaving no wreckage—honesty at the last, baking us all. Deny this and get my furled hand in your belly like a bird come home to roost. Think otherwise? The drains here feed directly into my windpipe. The graveyard’s poppied with maggots, ribs serve as a slot for daggers, sense is beat all to pudding and I’m glad. Look there.’ He pointed at the wine-rack, which was arrayed with fist-size grubs. ‘A country mile from what you’d expect isn’t it? But I’m telling you it’s the gutter norm. What’s life in this nation? Collect emptiness in a household of cornflakes. Transient fuel gobbles attention, the television aches, the truth walks. Scheme worms welcome your corpse, trap clicks and you’re in heaven, bored rigid. Eh?’
‘I s’pose.’
‘You s’pose? How old are you? Me I’m broken on the rack of me own heartbeat, you’ve still got friends to twist into accidents. That’s it boy, example the only souvenir, take it or leave it—then consolidate and warp.’
‘Warp.’
‘All you got to do is go overside—get ribs instead of hair. Ask the earth its long name. Damn it, creatures snorted in battle right here sonny. Triceratops always got his first. That despite the horns. And the armour, my god. Take that to a court of law and see how fair life can be.’
He slammed his fist at a space-insect on the bar, turning it to glue.
‘They use dinosaurs round here for pleasure—oh you don’t have to believe that. Or anything I’ve said, why should you? Just promise you won’t come over here later asking for a good servicing. I’ll pretend I don’t know you—or anything. So what do you say young man?’
‘What’s that you’re drinking sir?’
‘This dayglo stuff, see?’
‘What is it.’
‘Propellant.’
‘Propellant?’
‘For a vertical-take-off jet. Can’t say fairer than that.’
‘I have to go now.’
‘Uh? But we’re just gettin’ friendly.’
‘Bye now.’
‘Hey—hey you with the gristle badge! Come back here!’
Found I couldn’t leg it as fast as I was used to. ‘The cramps are caused by other people’s shite ideas wedging into your flow modality,’ said the doctor. ‘Eat lots of fruit and tell anyone who comes near you to piss off and die.’
‘Cigarette?’
‘Don’t mind if I do. That’s a cigarette box full of recriminations isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thought so. You know you’re a very complex man. How do you do it?’
‘Dachshund gymnastics.’
‘Get out.’
I got more and more concerned that there was nothing wrong with me. Oriental surgeons tutted about the size of my eyes. ‘Do you always stare like this?’ said the English-speaking one.
‘Only when someone else is picking up the cheque,’ I said, and watched him relay this to his colleagues. Startled, they immediately began jabbering and shoved me from the operating table in a clatter of cutting tools. ‘How come?’ I protested, pointing at the main man. ‘He’s upgraded to nightmare guard and I’m snubbed even as mascot.’
That put the true frighteners on them.
I approached the local chemist with the words ‘Pharmaceutical friend, we meet once again in the wrinkled throat of stacked odds’ and that was the end of that. Barred—and doubts whispered as quiet as the split of a hair as they chased the windblown petal of profit. That and my staring in through the shrink’s window the other time and him getting terrified at the very least, as I whispered near-inaudible: ‘The first impulse to life is a mistake we spend the remainder regretting—acrid knowledge of death’s throat, bats when they are hidden, snakes and their unpredictability, giraffes with their eyes ashining. These are all my enemies, blotting my horizon and whining without interlude. When my ship comes in it’ll be skippered by a bastard and crewed by trolls. Aft and fore braces betagged with the ears of spaniels and sails patched with the flesh of ministers. Antennae the lash and dung the cargo. Remember it.’
Told the others later in the bar.
‘Beat them off single-handed eh?’ said Minotaur. ‘Step ghastly brother—you’ve ear to ear arrogance going so light.’
‘Wish I co
uld do that,’ said Eddie, thoughtful.
Bob heard this and went bananas. ‘Your mouth swallows a regular salary of air doesn’t it? Vegetation adjusts around your way? So you exist.’
‘Leave him alone brother,’ I laughed amicably. ‘Change of image, that’s the way. Mask and a chainsaw might be just the thing. Think about it Eddie.’
‘A trash-wading angel uninfluenced by effluvia eh?’ Bob snorted scornfully, and I felt entirely justified in ignoring him. ‘And I suppose that trip to hell with Eddie was a laugh too? Who ever heard of a pre-raphaelite interrogation?’ Driven by a conviction which was nearing the end of its life, he offered to beat my head off completely.
‘When in doubt lash out eh Bob? You don’t face perfection seeing, so much as talking, challenging and worsening your heart. That’s not the fine way brother. We are in the midst of an intense heat, the very dogstar of subterfuge. And I gasp with laughter in a tyre-rim factory. Chum, I’m stood here the risen Christ. A cigarette in each nostril, I save time for myself and others. Clams yawn like a garbage truck as I approach with an opener. The embassy summon me and call me bastardo, slapping my face with my own passport. A filament of butterfly nerve anchors my virtues.’
‘Your rain autographs our streets with disappearing ink is that right?’ rumbled Bob. ‘You’re a charlatan’s what you are.’
‘You say I’m a charlatan eh.’
‘That’s what I said you bastard now make me understand why you think otherwise.’
‘You assume I think otherwise.’
‘You do don’t you—you do or you’re pure evil.’
‘I am evil. I make a point and show of it for those with the smarts to confront what I’m up to.’
‘Up to. You admit there’s underhandedness included in all this.’
‘Oh yes. Underhandedness, murder—and lethargy, heaps of a particular brand of lethargy.’
‘Heaps of lethargy you say. A particular brand. All right you bastard now that I’ve kept you talking this long here are the police—you can explain all your nonsense to their dead faces. Didn’t expect that now did you? Afternoon, officer—called you about this bastard here—talking shite and wasting my sweet time.’
‘Evening Fred.’
Trouble with the priest
‘So Empty Fred swans in all togged out like a copper then, is that the song you’re trying to sing now.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re persisting with that one are you.’
‘Told you he was a dab hand. Then Godber’s Troops landed naked in the precinct and started shouting at startled bargain-hunters.’
‘And what were the Troops shouting?’
‘“I just want to be left alone.” And I ran. Because the Lobster Academy were after me.’
‘I see.’
‘You know what I mean when I say the Lobster Academy were after me.’
‘You mean everyone.’
‘Ten out of ten sonny jim—good for you. And I collided with a martyred clown who had steam smoking out of a vertical mouth slot. My head rested on the martyr’s shoulder and shone like a brothel lamp. Initially poison is quite relaxing, as you’ll know.’
He let out a strange gasp. ‘I can’t quite believe it. You think that to parley with demons is a matter for laughing? The plumcake of trauma you call a childhood has left you with a coinbiting distrust of reality.’
‘Not really padre. Just bored rigid. Luckily that’s the style round here so nobody notices.’
‘You consider yourself normal?’
‘Doesn’t everyone’s cock have a ribcage?’
He took a deep, hostile breath. Then the judgement. ‘You’ll end spooning out eyes and embalming bodies for company brother.’
‘That’s an interesting point padre—yes I—’
‘Dangerous man. Knife poised at the belly of this community. How can you live with those snakes a-squirm in your head. It makes me shiver to think—’
‘—now that’s all very well padre but will you—’
‘—somehow able to operate in this world despite a burden of evil which would prostrate a concrete ape.’
‘—will you hear my confession or not you bastard?’
A fist splintered through the partition and the entire yammer box began to topple amid our own screams and those of the bastards queuing outside. He got out of his door but mine was facing the floor and they left me there ‘to burn’. That’s what they thought. In fact I’d brought some lard in with me, so there was plenty of fun to be had.
Anyway I got the film developed but while I was off doing that Eddie had given up on the underlab and tried to get a proper job—told us all about it afterwards. He handed the interviewer a resume consisting of sketches of tortoises. ‘There you go,’ he said, handing it over, ‘get your choppers round that.’
‘Tell me, how do you see your future?’
Eddie knew this question was coming and had a little speech prepared. ‘The future is something to answer for in bureaucratic voices. Bureaucratic voices after all, tones of relief and eyes that sparkle, in my life these are like love. The future? Metallic breathing under old skies. Mutant maps, the reflection of the city on the beach. Pinhole ears, pinhole philosophy. The future is ours.’
‘That’s…a very original, and I venture to say, heartening view. What are your present circumstances?’
‘Contagious cats, infested ruin.’
‘And what do you see as your greatest asset?’
‘I’m completely blameless.’
‘Have you ever considered your face?’
‘Never.’
‘Your face is much more important than you give it credit for. I have here a dozen reports that it’s worth fifty-two grand. I was going to grant you anything you like but I can’t possibly now. No, we’re sending you into space Eddie.’
‘Space? Why?’
‘Upon re-entry you’ll scare citizens off the streets and I’ll be able to go my way in peace for once.’
‘Would you excuse me a minute?’
And he ran as fast as his arms and legs would take him.
Eddie’s mesmeric inability to behave like a man had us on the floor laughing. ‘Corner-slumped in a stark bathroom Eddie, digesting hair and cosmetics. There’s your end, oh yes, I know it now.’
‘You don’t.’
‘Grinding to the public as privacy gets a busy signal eh Eddie.’
‘Not me.’
And he tried again, down in the lab. Growing a waiter this time. By the light of a single bare bulb its cocoon was anything but suspicious. In the protoplasm its resistance diminished in drags of chemical soporific. Some claimed there was a nursery especially for this kind of larval and sometimes violent transformation, and helpers to clear away the slime. Don’t you believe it. If anything like that existed it’d be a multimillion industry, not a cottage concern.
I was sat in the lab alone when it began to wake, pushing at the embryo. But when it birthed in a burst of aftermilk it was so like a real waiter I kicked it in the balls and then bashed its head in with a rock. I was still killing it when Eddie came in and saw the mess.
‘Well Eddie,’ I panted, straightening up, ‘as you can see, fractures went right across his face like a window hit by a stone.’
‘What caused that then?’
‘His face was hit by a stone—and you know why.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Because he asked for it.’
‘In words?’
‘Not in words, no—by his acts and his knowledge of their inevitable consequence. Everyone knows that.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t.’
‘I can assure you everyone knows it.’
‘Okay brother. Now about this broken face, how did it happen?’
‘Didn’t I just get through explaining this to you in all finery?’
‘Yes so you did. Could this by any stretch be the life-for-a-life the devil swore you to when you dodged the firing squad?’
‘Fat
chance Eddie—but let’s call the coroner to give it the stamp of authenticity eh. Maybe old John Satan’ll think it’s pukka.’
Strains attended the death photograph of its blue frightened face—bones like hotdogs twisted its calm, its wrists mangled, hounds’ teeth and other hardware left in its throat. A rolled rug was found up its arse. Powdered gold wafted from some quarter. The whole procedure was baffling and awkward. ‘That the end?’ asked the mayor.
‘Yes,’ said the photographer, packing up quickly.
‘Thank god—what a tragedy for this talented man, let’s get out of here.’
And I thought, how little we know, how little we really know about our innards.
So once again we’d escaped the law—that and the berserking apes were the glue which could hold an arrest together. But I can’t pretend I’d forfeit my memory of seeing those chimps in action. Afterwards I remember saying hats were something to hold us up. That’s how disorientated their mayhem left me—flumming my arms like a ’copter. Trying to whistle and speak at the same time.
Then the nightmares. Heavily manacled and bowed with laudanum, I summed up my case—presented with head on plate, rude to refuse, music and agreeable company. Deny everything Eddie says, grabbing my arm an instant before the police burst in. Into the fire with remains as doors explode. Shame hailers, dollar physics and invented memories. And I woke with a yell—one of the best of its kind I ever heard.
Went to consult Bob on the meaning. Looked around his place. ‘What’s in the boxes Bob—graveyard earth?’
‘I have devoted my room to yapping statistics.’
‘What are these?’ I asked, crouched at the skirting board.
‘Dignity vents.’
‘All right Bob enough suspense—what does the dream mean? The head on the plate?’
‘You’ve grown heads brother—you know.’ And he explained. That sense of power which was so much a part of head-eating as though at an egg in the morning, the head’s face bleary and slack in after-death, was so boring to me that I forgot it as soon as it was described. Bob had built it up as the great mystery and this is all it was. ‘And don’t ever touch the face of a sheep,’ he said ominously.
‘Should I let a sheep touch my face?’ I asked flippantly, and laughed at his glaring. Narrow groove in his forehead making me understand he didn’t care for my talk of tender love.
