Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Giesecke & Minchin, Deviants

Not a word was spoken about the missing whore’s glove. The congregants fell in and out of consciousness, the freckled boy blowing spit bubbles, the legless man hiccupping, the rector’s assistant stealing a nip of Christ’s blood behind the altar box. ‘I say young man’ said the scab picker to the willowy boy, ‘isn't it time for a swig?’ Frightened that he might speak in tongues, which he did on Sundays after Sunday school in the rectory closet with the rector’s assistant, the speckled boy pointed at the enormous granite clock over the baptismal with his freckly finger. ‘hush’ shushed the hushing woman. ‘shut your cracker hole’ said the woman in the raccoon coat, her arm dangling over the back of the pew.

That summer he spent 27 ½ days living in a hole behind the church; digging it out with a scout’s penknife and a broken cup. 23 of the 27 ½ nights the hole was filled with rain, the broken cup floating on the surface like a clay corpse. Every morning, except on the 17th day when the rain was so heavy no one dared go outside, the freckled willowy boy brought him breakfast: two runny hard boiled eggs, two biscuits, a tin of soda and a peppermint tipped toothpick. On the 20th and 24th nights he slept under a makeshift tarp made from eel skins and untangled string, the corners sagging like a foolscap above his head. The letter was signed truly yours, Paul de Cock esquire. Mr. Leopold Macintosh, know far and far for his fresh-smelling attire, reposted the letter, jiggling the door shut to make sure the letter fell hitherto to the bottom. On the backside of the envelope, scrawled in an obtuse hand, was the following epitaph, “a fish with a litebulb hanging on its head”, the return address, though barely legible read Giesecke & Minchin, Deviants, 27 ½ 27 Brandenburg Main, Centre for the Study of Human Settlement & Historical Change.

On the 25th night the sky raged, his makeshift tarp barely holding forth, the four corners flapping like sheets on a clothesline. The tin of soda empty, the eggs digested, the biscuits shat in a pile between his feet, the wind barreling, he sat cross-legged in the corner, the peppermint toothpick all that kept the makeshift dwelling from collapsing onto his head. The envelope had no return address; the stamp on the upper left corner exclaiming, ‘Enough’s Enough Now Piss Off!’ Giesecke & Minchin, Deviants, 27 ½ 27 Brandenburg Main, Centre for the Study of Human Settlement & Historical Change, home to bastards, cads and mad cunts. Macintosh, now there’s a man always had a fresh smell about ‘em… as newly as a fresh plucked rose.

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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