Partiznske Tenpin

Upon awakening he closed his eyes, the sun slicing in through the flap in his lean-to making a soup of his head. Overstepping he reached for his pocket-watch; the big hand stopped on the seven the little hand on the twelve. The sunlight cut across his forehead leaving a claret serration just above his brow. Overnight a thick coat of rime had settled on the roof of his lean-to. A toad of hoarfrost caught in his throat made him woof like a beaten dog, a halfpenny boil kindled on his cheek. He thought of those lime hot summer afternoons at the Partiznske Tenpin Bowling Lanes, Thüringen and Trowbridge bowling strikes and spares, the harridan’s sister sucking-off the pin-boy behind the shoe counter. He often thought of those summer days when he was a boy in knee-britches and straw cowboy hat; the hat a gift from his ailing granny, the one with the forever cough and weak rheumy eyes. His da didn’t care much for hats, saying they were discomfiting and never sat right on his head. She sucked-off the pin-boy’s friend and a kid with a brace on his leg. ‘did yaw see her giving it ta that kid with the engine on his leg?’ asked the man in the hat as a little boy. ‘yaw cud hear it clanging into the counter’. ‘it’s a brace… made from metal and straps and the like… it isn’t no fucking engine yaw cunt’ said the alms man before his downwardness. Mindfully he placed his pocket-watch on the barrel that served as his night-table. Now the sun was at his back, casting a baleful shadow on the lean-to wall. He thought such things lying half-awake on his cot, the sun making a soup of his head, a halfpenny boil kindling his brow, Thüringen and Trowbridge bowling strikes and spares, the harridan’s sister sucking him dry as whiplash.

Chalked on quantity of Bristol Board hanging over the ten-pin alley was a sign that said: CHAPTER X: WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE LADY DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE.