‘I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the crummiest party’ he said the man in the hat said. ‘I am a hatman not a hetman’. He knew a man whose great, great grandparents were hassock peasants whose sole purpose in this life was to grow corn, soybean and beats. He could, the man in the hat, care less about hassocks and hetman and people whose head’s were too big for they’re hat, or sombrero-wearing cockfight enthusiasts with bad teeth and bowlegged legs. These were worries and frets for someone else, someone with more patience and less bitterness. The sky blackened up and out like a cast-iron skillet; a rasher of bloodied-sausage, a toe of tripe and offering of offal, a breakfast fit for a Queen. But fuck Queens and sausage, horsed-toes and Hallowell; fuck the Lot of ‘em; fucking peasant stock and barrel.
‘E’s got the aboulia flu’ chided the legless man, ‘and it’s getting worse’. The clochard hocked and waffled and spat up a bleb of cows’ stomach and marrow-bone, his jaw clenched taut as a skew-wrench. ‘We best get him over on his side before he spits up a lung, or worse, two of ‘em’. The man in the hat gently rolled over the clochard, careful not to bang his head it up against the side railing; cloppicare, cloppicare, cloppicare echoed and flittered through the air like a fiery kite. ‘He’s got a bump on his head’ said the alms man, ‘like a rat escaping a faltering ship’. ‘Rats don’t have heads you moron’, said the man in the hat, ‘they have rats’ heads’. ‘Half a dozen of one, six of the other’ said the legless man, ‘now lets get him settled and calmed’. The legless man helped the man in the hat straighten out the clochard’s jacket, which had twisted and snaked round his belly, creating a beveling where his waist met his hipbones. ‘Is he breathing? Asked the alms man, his alms-cap peeking out of his jacket pocket. The clochard opened his mouth, spittle with cows’ stomach and marrow-bone, and whispered ‘cloppicare, cloppicare, cloppicare’.
‘E’s got the aboulia flu’ chided the legless man, ‘and it’s getting worse’. The clochard hocked and waffled and spat up a bleb of cows’ stomach and marrow-bone, his jaw clenched taut as a skew-wrench. ‘We best get him over on his side before he spits up a lung, or worse, two of ‘em’. The man in the hat gently rolled over the clochard, careful not to bang his head it up against the side railing; cloppicare, cloppicare, cloppicare echoed and flittered through the air like a fiery kite. ‘He’s got a bump on his head’ said the alms man, ‘like a rat escaping a faltering ship’. ‘Rats don’t have heads you moron’, said the man in the hat, ‘they have rats’ heads’. ‘Half a dozen of one, six of the other’ said the legless man, ‘now lets get him settled and calmed’. The legless man helped the man in the hat straighten out the clochard’s jacket, which had twisted and snaked round his belly, creating a beveling where his waist met his hipbones. ‘Is he breathing? Asked the alms man, his alms-cap peeking out of his jacket pocket. The clochard opened his mouth, spittle with cows’ stomach and marrow-bone, and whispered ‘cloppicare, cloppicare, cloppicare’.
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