And the Ass Saw the Angel

by Nick Cave

‘You come to me Jesus in my dreams. I am sitting on the steps of the monument, where I was left by God when he stopped the rain, and I hear something behind me and I turn around. The stone angel has come alive and Jesus, it is You, with big white wings and sickle raised above Your head – Your sickle of blood – Your mark. You see! I understand everything. And Your beautiful hair hangs down past Your shoulders, and Your beautiful eyes so full of love. Not a word do You speak, but all Your wounds are bleeding.

  ‘Please Jesus, don’t be angry with me. I am so sorry that they hit you. It hurt me too. First they tell me to love You, then they chase You away. This world is too cruel for us.

  ‘What is your world like? It must be beautiful and quiet. A place of understanding where there are never any questions. Will You take me there? To Your beautiful world?’

  Beth fell silent. Ah listened to her footsteps retreat and then come scurrying back. Then urgently, ‘Here they come! Please Jesus, stay there. Don’t speak. Listen. Memorial Square. Celebration Eve. I will await You.’

  Ah heard the sound of a vehicle – of two vehicles – come screeching to a halt. Then the sound of running feet, heavy, adult.

  ‘Beth! Beth! It’s Daddy. Are you hurt?’ called Daddy.

  And then more hurried footsteps, only heavier, slower. And a weird ticking of wheels.

  ’ Let her go, Sardus Swift,’ came a hawking female voice. ‘This has gone too far! No! Don’t protest, Sardus. If you cannot control the child then we will have to find someone who can. Hilda, put her in the car. She will stay with me tonight.’ Ah could hear the company retreating, but the ticking of wheels and the clumping footfall dallied a little and another female voice, deep and supremely stupid, drawled, ‘Well, Wilma, now do you believe me? Or do all of Christ’s brides wander about half naked in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Shut up, you fool,’ replied Wilma Eldridge in a venomous whisper, and her words sent a chill right through me. ‘Whether or not you caught someone in the child’s room last night is not the point. That has happened. It’s out of our hands. What is important, dimwit, is that no one finds out. Now only me and thee know about this incident, which means that if I hear so much as a hint from anybody else then I will know who went and opened her big mouth. Do I make myself clear? And believe me, Hilda, sparks will fly if I do. Understand? Now stop standing there nodding and wheel me to the car.’

  Ah shuddered in mah crawlspace as the whining wheels faded – tick tick tick squeak, tick tick tick squeak – and the two conspirators joined the others.

  Angry engines, motor sounds. Fading. Fading.

  You know, sometimes God reminds me of the misunderstood ogre with the heart of gold, who lives in friendless isolation behind his mountain, who is feared and shunned by all who live unner his shadow, but who unbeknownst to anyone performs deeds of great kindness – like blowing a raincloud out of the path of a princess. But the people can only see his bad side, when overcome by frustration and sadness he stomps out a few towns. But if the people would just stop and see his good side and encourage it and be his friend and ask him to come and live with them in the town, then he would stop being frustrated and sad and would have no cause to harm them at all. But, oh no, they wouldn’t. They didn’t even try. Did you?

  For example. Swampland is one big, sound-proofed circle of vegetation. Enter swampland, even only a few paces, and you will come to notice the utter absence of sound. The swampland has its own language – a little groaning, a little creaking, a little gasping for air. But as ah sink into this plashy circle of quickmud, it is important for me to hear the progress of mah executioners, lest ah lose track of time completely and simply fall away. Well ah can hear them! Ah can!

  And that is the God-given beauty of it. Listen.

  Ah can hear cars. Cars and pick-ups. Ah can hear their horns blaring, their avenging engines revving. Ah, mah executioners. Mah killers. They are converging on mah shack.

  Ah can hear their shouts right now, at this very moment, carried on a boreal wind over the swampland – this fortress of trees and tangled vine – and down into its hypaethral capsule of mud – this bogdom – this murky kennel – this coop into which ah am disappearing – melting, melting away.

  They are confused by the presence of the great wall that surrounds Doghead – confused by its daunting dimensions and its ferocity.

  Bang! Now they are trying to break down the gate. Bang! Now they are ramming it with a vehicle.

  Ah hear a c-c-crash. Thanks to God and his big heart.

  Two things have happened. Just as ah planned they would.

  First off, they have broken down the gate.

  Secondly, they have pulled all the wire-mesh fronts off the cages in the process. Ah rigged up a simple device, last night, using a few pieces of rope and some pulleys. Now they have some kinda trouble. Believe me. Now they have some kinda trouble.

  Mah dogs! Ah can hear the sinister music of mah dogs. Ah can tell that they are mah dogs and not theirs because no dogs sound like mah dogs. Mah dogs do not bark. No they don’t. When mah dogs bark, they whine – a chilling, high-pitched hummance – one long extended note but very loud. When they are hungry, mah dogs, and ah mean blood-hungry, they pull back their lips and bare their mangled teeth and from deep within their knotted bodies comes this weird sound – all at different pitches like some eerie satanic canting.

  There is fury in the air. Ah can hear it from here. Evil radar. Mah dogs are sending some very unfriendly transmission. Making bad waves. And it ain’t no hamster that they’re looking for.

  Oh bounty hunters. These are mah dogs. Hobbling from their kennels to meet you.

  As the eastern flank of the valley smarted with the new day, the fading night could be seen to crystalize, infused with minute greyish grains of visibility, and it was into that semi-obscurity that ah dragged mah crucified body from beneath the bridge.

  Looking back at it ah marvelled at the neat little funk-hole ah had found, fashioned by the very hand of God, for He had surely poked his little finger into the damp earth, pending mah persecutory flight and subsequent hiding out – hidden behind a wall of thorn and bramble, impervious to all but me – the one who has lived a life of briar and thistle, whose every path was choked with nettle and thorn, he whose very head was crowned in the stuff.

  Ah stood by the creek and plucked fat grey slugs from mah naked body, and ah was touched by the way each slug clung to mah skin, holding on for dear life with their big fluted feet and producing a soft smacking sound as ah peeled them off.

  ‘Does a kiss feel like this?’ ah thought, as ah placed the slugs carefully on a handkerchief ah had laid out on the ground. And ah thought of Beth and how she had stood on the bridge above me in slippered feet, and ah imagined the breeze pushing the thin fabric of her nightdress against her body. For a moment ah thought of going back to the crawlspace, but dismissed the idea just as quickly, as ah didn’t have a lot of time left before the citizens would be out and about – and ah intended to be well and truly inside the confines of Doghead by then.

  Ah tied the corners of mah handkerchief together, hooking the weighted pouch of kisses from mah belt buckle, then set off by way of the creek, following it up to the refinery, then round the back of the crops, leaving the creek to meander up the side of the valley. Ah approached Doghead from the east, and instead of walking around to the front gates ah entered mah Kingdom by way of a secret door ah had fashioned in the wall, just in case anyone had staked the place out and was waiting for me to return. You can never be too careful when you’re playing for keeps. That was one of the first things God told me.

  The secret door was based on a simple horizontal winch system that hoisted a corrugated iron panel set in a modified window frame – like a guillotine – just enough to crawl through comfortably. Once ah had disconnected the net and the leaping pitchfork – ah told you about the leaping pitchfork, didn’t ah? – sure, sure, of course ah did, it’s one of mah favourites – so simple, but what terrible potent
ial! – and had crawled through the wall unscathed, and once ah had watched the corrugated panel close behind me and the steel skewers rise up from the ground and all the booby traps had been re-set, and once ah had sauntered down to the still and filled a bottle with the last of the brew, rolling the two empty barrels against the wall for added fortification and scattering the piles of cold ash about the place, yes, once ah had done all that, ah walked blithely over to the old Chevy, leapt up on the bonnet, took a deep and well-deserved slug of the Jesus, kicked mah boots high into the air and banged them back against the battered bumper, did it again, kick bang, kick bang, kick bang, slugged Jesus again, rocked forward, putting mah head between mah knees, fell backward so ah lay on mah back upon the bonnet, kicked up mah legs, banged down on the bumper, rocked forward, fell back, kicked up, banged down, rocked, fell, kicked, banged, rocked and rocked, laughed and rocked and laughed and laughed and drank and rolled and fell and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and said, ‘Atta boy, Euchrid! You made it. They tried, O how they fucken tried, but they didn’t get you. O fucken no. They fucked right up. Yes sirree, they fucked right up!’

  And ah stood on the bonnet and climbed on to the roof and, still laughing, ah took another slug at the bottle, then began jumping up and down, hard and loud as ah could, yes, up and down – bang, bang, bang, bang, spinning mahself around and around – saying, shouting, ‘That’s right, you stinking fucken cunts! Come and get me! Ye-e-e-a-ah! Ye-e-e-a-ah! Beat me down! Beat me down! Ye-e-e-a-ah! Just try and fucken beat me down!’ And me thrashing the whole fucken world with mah giant sickle, heads rolling, heads rolling down, rivers of blood, sewers of gore, oceans of the wicked, headless, limbless. Slash! Slash! Mass extermination, mass death, mass bloodshed, by mah hand. Slash! Slash! By mah own hand, slash! slash! at mah own slashing, silver, sickled hand.

  And suddenly, from the corner of mah eye, ah saw it – a flash of scarlet smeared down the back wall of the shack, and the sight of it damn near knocked me over. Someone had infiltrated mah sanctuary, mah Kingdom, mah refuge, and left a hideous sign of their trespass!

  Ah climbed down off the roof of the Chevy, mah eyes riveted to the wall, took another slug from the bottle, corked it, and walked bravely forward.

  It took some seconds before ah realized what it was.

  ‘They have chosen to violate mah property, and there is simply nothing ah can do about it,’ ah thought. ‘Nothing.’

  And a multitude of chattering voices, imps and gnomes and trolls gnawing at mah brains, needled me with their solutions. A solution.

  Ah scooped up a hammer all covered in blood and ah gripped the handle tightly in mah fist.

  ‘They come and mock openly without fear of reproach. Soon they will tire of it all and stop with their toying and simply put an end to me. They will come here – three, four, ten, twenny, ah don’t know, but they will come and kill me. If God had not willed it that ah spent last evening unner a bridge instead of here, then it could have been me they nailed to the wall,’ ah reasoned.

  And ah took the hammer and prized the three six-inch nails out of the crucified she-bitch and let the stiffened decollated carcass drop heavily to the ground, rolling on its back in the blood-hardened dust. Its front legs – arms – had been splayed outwards unnaturally, while its hinds had been broken at the thigh and lay in the dust at impossible angles like the hands of a clock. Ah did not find its head until later that evening, bludgeoned to paste and alive with ants at the bottom of the incinerator.

  By that time there was no turning back. Some major decisions had been made. Some serious instructions had been received. Ah had no choice but to comply.

  You know, ah can’t help but wonder, just what part you play in all this. Yes, you, you silent and most sinister sitters. Ah mean, where do you fit in? Ah wonder.

  Do you have a long face and wear a grey wig and bang a little wood hammer? Is that where all the strange knocking ah’ve been hearing lately is coming from? Ah imagined it was the sound of some more strenuous activity. Such as carpentry. Are you building me a scaffold? Do you wear a black death-hood? Is your life all switches and sawdust? Are you knocking up a crucifix? Ah can’t help but get the feeling that you’re waiting. Are you a big black buzzard in a top hat with a pine-board coffin under your wing? Is that what all the weird flapping sounds ah’ve been hearing – feeling – lately have been? Ah wonder if we’ll ever meet. Ah mean, are you some bit-part players and extras who will make their entrance in the final scene, faces twisted in rage, in disgust at the measure of mah most heinous deed, waving your humble, home-made implements above your heads – plough-shares beaten into swords, pruntng-hooks beaten into spears – shouting, screaming, ‘O horror! Horror! Look what he has done! Killed us all and we don’t even know it yet!’ Ah mean, you tell me! Or did the cat get yours too? Are you some kind of informer? A snitch? Have you been servicing mah enemies with valuable information? Is that why mah leaping pitchforks have never been trigged? Is that why somebody decided it was safe to infiltrate mah Kingdom and crucify a subject to the wall of mah shack? Because they knew that ah was holed up somewhere on the other side of town? Is that how come those six swacked lackeys at the camp managed to ambush me yesterday? Ah wonder. There is me and there is them but what about you? What about you, mah murky third party? Where do you fit in?

  To be? Hmmm. To not be? To be not anymore? Ah’m not asking you a question – ah sink therefore ah am! Yes? Am. Am not. Am not to be? Ah mean, what would your advice have been? What measures would you have taken if you were in mah boots, ah wonder? For me such eschatalogical deliberations are a grievous waste of time. But all the same it’s funny how the value of seconds rockets the moment you decide to sell out. Don’t you think so? Hello? Still, ah haven’t traded in all mah coupons. Ah still have a few last grubby moments left to be. Mah arms and legs and torso and genitals and hands and feet – they are all warmly gone, never to be seen in their earthly form again. Never to be seen. Never to be. In short, ah am nearly not. And while this limits mah range of options, severely, there is still the odd decision left to make – like to sink, or not to rise? To blink or not to – one moment – miasma – burning mah eyes – gotta close them for a while – shit, damn – and the pressure on mah chest – one moment – one moment, please –

  Euchrid stood in the yard, mouth agape, stupefied, breathing in short, shallow gasps. The headless dog lay in the dust at his feet. He looked like a trained circus chimpanzee with his captain’s jacket, his question-mark stance – a performing ape in some gag involving a bloody hammer and a stuffed dog. He nudged the dead weight lightly with his foot, then, rocking a little, leaned back, and turning his eyes to the sky, bared his teeth and hissed like an animal.

  Ah stormed around the yard, ma… – angry as hell, gnashing mah teeth and swinging the hammer at the thousand imagined faces that hovered there before mah eyes, smashing the skulls of mah tormentors like eggshells – all the gloaters that sought to stand in mah way. Ah broke their fucken idiot faces to bits. But it gave me no relief. Even as ah lay flat out in the dust and closed mah streaming eyes and looked on like some higher being at all the spilling thought-vengeance that mah head played host to, ah found no cause for comfort, found no cause for any comfort there at all.

  And after a time, the boiling sea of blood and all the lopped and all the hacked-up humanity that swam within it drained from mah head, and from it rose a pillar of chaogenous calculus, cold and hard. And some serious weighing up of terms ensued. Yes, there, supine beneath a bold and brazen sun, ah struggled with some pretty eternal, some pretty adult problems. Listen.

  Then swinging the hammer wildly, Euchrid ran about the yard, ducking under the skins and pelts, running to the great wall of junk and listening, ear pressed up to mute tin, dumb plank, dead brick.

  Ah cast mah mind back to that – to this dark place, where nothing grows that isn’t twisted, where nothing exists that doesn’t twist – mah heartland – the swampland – mah dim sanctuary. Ah t
hought of mah bridal chamber where mah guardian angel was so long ago invoked – the temple of mah tokens, mah treasures, mah solitary pleasures. There, in those darksome quarters, ah had passed away one thousand hours, secure in the absence of man, away from the mock and the savage, safe from the beat-downs. There ah had indulged in harmless congress with mah invocations, mah fetish-isms, in peace.

  Then Euchrid began pounding the wall with his hammer, stopped, heard something, and ran across to the other side of the yard, booting a jaw-bone as he went. Pressing his ear against the wall, he listened for any outside sound, began pounding the wall again with his hammer, chopping the air with his teeth.

  But they sought me out. They did. Into the swampland they came, trespassing without hesitation. They came to violate. They came to rape. They came to sully mah last shred of self. They went and smashed mah grotto down. They scattered mah tokens like unwanted things. They scared away mah supernal bride. The cunts.

  And Euchrid was off and running again, past the leash pole and the training wires, to listen again at another part of the wall. Pitch forks, pointed sticks, pieces of brick and sheets of tin all trembled at perilous angles above, all the booby traps perilously trembling.

  Ah had never been able to find, in that holy shelter, the same state of transport again. Instead ah grew spines. Doghead. God’s work. For in violating mah sanctuary, they had violated God as well. He was not pleased, ah can tell you that.

  Euchrid staggered back from the wall a few paces and clapped his hands over his ears, then turning he fled into the shack, the slam of the front door resounding over the stillness.

  And although ah built a fortress and enclosed mah humble shelter within its great wall, still they came, and still they will continue to come, on and on, to lay their snares and to set their traps until ah am thoroughly dead and even then they will jig on mah grave, dig me up and kill me some more.