Waggon Horchers

‘where’s the boy?’ he asked, his enormous head sinking into his chest. ‘I haven’t got all day. I’m a busy man you know’. His mother searched all through the house, from top to bottom, but couldn’t find her son. He must be hiding, she thought; or has simply forgotten that today is the day. ‘just a minute’ she said, her face reddening. ‘I know he’s here somewhere’. Tightening his belt, his trousers bagging round his socks, the Mohel cleared his throat loudly, a gravelly rasp like a steam-shovel scrapping a mined-out quarry quickening her pace.

The day began anew; the sky opening like a perfectly cracked walnut, revealing a buttery yellow sun. ‘now hold on, boys in his position tend to squirm’ said the Mohel, his goatskin skullcap shifting on the top of his head. ‘grab him round the hips… that’s it, now push down… !’ Loosening his belt then tightening it again the Mohel coupled the boy’s testicles in his right hand, and with his left pinched the tip of his fleischig, the boy squirming like a fidgety baby. ‘stop that you little ganef!’ hollered the Mohel, ‘you’ll only make it worse!’ Snipping off the orlah with his scissors, the boy’s mother covering her face with her shawl, the Mohel bent over the boy’s privates and drew the blood into his mouth. ‘it’ll heal quicker if its exposed to the air… and for the Love of YHVH don’t play with it!’

The Waggon Horchers arrived two abreast; the left one keeling rightward like a failing kiss. Reining in the horses, his teeth clenched like a farrier’s clinchers the leftward Waggon Horcher slowed the waggon down to a stop, the rightward one pulling in behind him. Qabbals, for that was his name, bestowed on him by his father, jumped from his waggon landing irrefutably on his arse. ‘quickly, pull me up from this godforsaken fen’ quipped Qabbals, his upper lip quavering. The second Waggoner, a lithe, lissome man who went by the name Squibs hurdled from his waggon landing squarely on his two sturdy, albeit flat feet. The Mohel, his goatskin skullcap tilting like a windmill, hurried up the sideways, his Mohel’s bag pinched under his arm. Unable to see more than an inch in front of him, his locks, untrimmed in abeyance to Rabbinical law, covering his eyes, the Mohel ran amok into the first Waggoner’s waggon, his Mohel’s bag skidding sideways under the waggon. Lela, who happened that day to be sitting atop the hill just outside town watched on as the Mohel tried to un-upend himself, her eyes fixed on the lead horse who’s bridle had become entangled in the legless man’s pushcart; the alms man, sitting on his patch of cardboard in front of the Waymart, laughing to split a gut. And that was that.

Jean-Philippe Pringles, Coronel, his smart gentleman’s hat perched atop his full-head of hair, slivered an ivory toothpick between his eyetooth and his incisor, no one within earshot paying him any notice. For you see the Coronel was in town to visit a dear friend, and if time permitted, buy a toothpick placemat from the harridan’s sister, who that afternoon could be found with the other hawkers and peddlers in the basement of the church. Old Pitschobed wanted a Dolldy Icon and was willing to part with a day’s wage to purloin it. He had heard say that a hawker, one who barks and vends handmade goods, had a table in the basement of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner, alongside a woman who vended Pop-siècle placemats and gravy bibs. Old Pitschobed (born in Oalgoak’s Cheloven to a Barbary whore and a tinsmith) collected Dolldy Icons and women’s silk supper gloves. He fell down the stairs to the basement of the church, his tumbling caroming body going kun-ruhtnenedroohoohootnwaksnwanuohrravortnnuhtnnoutnnorrennotnnorbnnoknnorranimmakathgarahgladababab!

70 Wilmersdorfer Straße 141

She sat on top of the hill just outside town, the very same one where she sat years ago waiting for the jugglers and acrobats to arrive, the snorting of ox-driven carts filling her heart with expectant joy. The sun that day filled the sky with a buttercup yellow flame, the trees and high bushes surrounding the neighbor’s yard in full blossom, the sweet nectar of rosehip and lilac filling the soft afternoon light with a gossamer scent, like her grandmamma’s handkerchief drawer or the perfumer’s shop where her granddad bought tiny green bottles of Eau de Cologne called toilet-water, but not the same kind she flushed after making her commode each morning, that was different, not something you sprayed on your neck to entice eager young suitors or another man’s husband.

That Christmastime, gathered round the Menorah his great grandparents brought over from the old country (they lived at Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 70 Wilmersdorfer Straße 141, the apartment next to them occupied by a strange fellow who scribbled tiny verses on the back of postcards and scraps of odd-sized paper) placed in the window and festooned with every Hanukkah decoration imaginable, they slit the throat of his penis, heralding in his ascension into manhood. The Roscommon Women’s Auxiliary, which convened every Sunday afternoon after church and was renowned for its allegiance to making Roscommon a place of haute couture, a stopover for travelers and the peripatetic alike, organized the fifth annual the Gorging of Friedrich-Straße, to be held the day following the Feast of the Lamb, the day after if it snowed. Lela attended the first Gorging of Friedrich-Straße held on the second day after the Feast of the Lamb, as it snowed the first two days, much to the surprise of her mother who was expecting rain. Belly-swollen Lela walked the dirt road home, the sweet doughy aroma of oven-baked bread kindling memories of simpler times when a young girl didn’t have to wear her heart on her sleeve or pretend she didn’t care when the boys called her names or made fun of her hand-me-down dress. The Mohel arrived by car, his goatskin skullcap covering the tonsured bald spot on his head.

Jējūnus

A discomfited man, prone to impetuosity and overgeneralizations, he sat staring blankly at the ceiling, each individual tile providing relief for the one next to it, a mosaic overlay that generated its own plane; equidistant, yet flaring out in plinths that created a Zoroastrian composure, a mesmerizing jējūnus that marveled the eye. ‘fuck the dog and the horse it rode in on’ he exclaimed, his face turning three shades of red. The constabulary wrestled him to the ground, his face smeared like a stain into the sidewalk. Kick him… kick him in the head! Harder… HARDER! …PUT some effort into it MAN! What do you think this IS? …we’re the CONSTABULARY!...!

‘get off my foot or I’ll smash your face!’ Dashing sideways like a punter hell-bent on laying a fiver on the last race of the evening, the off-track betting window three blocks away, he kicked up a few pebbles here and a few stones there, dragging his coattails behind him like a shredded windsock. ‘Aviate ahoy! he hollered, ‘ahoy I say: aviate!’ As no one could make heads nor tails of what he was saying, and even if they could they could care less, for you see they loathed anyone who hollered for no apparent reason, those closest to the back of the queue threw themselves flying out the window and into the streets, Lela’s mamma, pulling on her arm like a ragdoll, swearing a blue streak at the nerve of some people. That winter, a cold cruel wintertime, Lela found a glove hidden among the odds and ends of her mother’s things; things she kept in a lockbox stowed under the stoop behind the house that led to the woolshed where her granddad chewed shredded tobacco, his mouth, or was it his lips, ringed with black resin, or tar, yes tar; it was his favorite cob that left a circlet of resin, the smile a child gets after eating a stomach full of Easter chocolate.

Jenny and Johnny - Scissor Runner

Deeshy

Deeshy ordered a taggeen of Ballyhooly and returned to his stool at the opposite end of the bar. A queer bosthoon, known to spend umpteen hours counting ceiling tiles, his trousers and coat, threadbare both, begging a seamstresses’ attention, spent his evenings eavesdropping in on the chatter and hullabaloo that filled the tavern with a buzzing din. The two woman next to him, both regaling one another with tales of misfortune and love gone bad, were sharing a package of Saltillo Crisps, made and packaged by the Coahuila Tortilla and Flatbread Co. 27 Avenida de Zaragoza, Paco Grande Texas. Cunts, he grumbled to himself, his nose twitching like a dog’s tail. The salt will surely make them drier than a empty well, pity their husbands, like fucking a sandshoe.

He order another Ballyhooly and sat ruminating over the recent loss of his favorite hat, the one with the red and black hatband. Majeklejohn’s a real boozer, chugs back a 40 ouncer every other day; every three on a leap year. Not one for the Ballyhooly, claims it brings the worse out in a man; makes him into a headcase. Not that Deeshy gives a pile, makes a counterclaim: a taggeen a day keeps the bedbugs away, cleans out the whistle-hole too. And a man with a clogged up whistle-hole is a man on the verge of collapse. Can’t inhale and exhale; goes up down the wrong tube. He first met Deeshy at the Feast of the Lamb, Deeshy having come to pay a visit to his sick aunt, a woman of uneven temper who had contracted syphilis and was unable to pry herself from bed.

Having no other reason to acknowledge him than to ask him to move, for you see he was obstructing his view of the Lamb, he exclaimed ‘you, you stupid oaf, can’t you see you’re blocking my view?’ Deeshy replying in kind ‘get off my foot or I’ll smash your face!’ An awkward man he seldom spoke, worrying that a sentence would come out missing a preposition, or worse, in a language he didn’t know. Careworn with ticks that caused him no end of embarrassment, if he came upon a acquaintance in the street he would cover his face with the cuff of his greatcoat, replying to a solicitous hello with a muffled good bye, scurrying passed like a man hell-bent on meeting the noontime train.

Kick the Bastard

Lela stood in front of the Seder Grocer’s admiring the reflection of the person next to her, his greatcoat coattails hanging in tatters. The man, as indeed he was a man, perhaps a gentleman, had a hardnosed look on his bewhiskered face, the face of a journeyman or a jailor. She troubled with asking him if she might pull on his coattails, realigning them with the jib of his wooly trousers. But soberer thought told her that she best mind her own business and let bygones be. But why not, she thought? A man, any man, would be grateful to have a complete stranger, someone altogether unknown to him until today, draw attention to an obvious and glaring impropriety in personal attire. Not wishing to appear untoward, or worse, a troublemaker, she turned and walked away, his reflection sutured in her thoughts.

The following day, a day much like the day before, yet in and of itself an altogether precedential day, Lela awoke in a foul and uncharitable mood. Had I a mind to I’d give him a good talking to! Not clothing oneself propitiously is a sin. By the age of twelve Lela had already read A through P of her grandfather’s Funk and Wagnall, consigning to memory those words she felt she might need when she grew older. She twirled a braid of hair round her middle finger, the moon laurelling her head like a birds’-nest halo. Kick the bastard in the teeth, send his upper plate unhinging. The steeple of his head warding off lightening strikes, a common phenomenon when the temperature plummeted below 27½% Celsius, the man who’s reflection Lela admired in the window turned and skedaddled headlong up the sideways, his greatcoat tails rag-tagging behind him. She remembered how hot the woolshed got when her father banished her to think about what she’d said; the few sheep her granddad kept caked in shit and piss, the stench of mildewed hay bringing a sweat out on her forehead.

Niccolò Falcucci

‘Then that’ll be that’ said his da leaning over the table, his fork moving a mixed bag of organ meats and boiled things around his plate. ‘The end will come and wipe the slate clean; for all and once, my boy’. You mean once and for all don’t you da? ‘Shut your pile! Now move along, damn you!’ His da didn’t take kindly to sass. He was quick with a slap, swinging his hand like a fish mallet, his fist leaving a red weal on a back-talking face. You’re worse than the Inquisition! Prodding and pushing people round like desecrate Jews. Unburying whole families and burning their remains a second and third time. You’re a fucking menace!

She has the ‘French Disease’, the skin around her mouth as hard as a scabbed over knee. Her father read to her from Grünpeck’s ‘Tractatus de Pestilentiali Scorra Sive Mala de Franzos: Originem Remediaqu[ue] Eiusdem Continens’, [published by the in Nuremberg by Kaspar Hochfeder, 1496 or 1497]. When she began to show signs of necrosis, a surfeit symptom of the tertiary stage, common to advanced syphilis, her father summoned the Catastrophist from the village, a tunicate-fleshed man with a doctorate in zoology who was familiar with treatment by Salvarsan, discovered by Niccolò Falcucci and available at the conurbation library under ‘Sermones Medicinales Septem’. [Venice: Bernardino Stagnino, 1490-1491]. The abattoirist prepared the slaughter-room floor, skimming off the blood and intestines, some tied in bows, the pastime of men with minimal intelligence and weak morals, and laid down a double-sided oilcloth, then, with a wave of his hand told him to bring his daughter to the middle of the floor and lay her next to the trap. He did as he was told and stepped back, the Catastrophist stepping forward, his eyes glazed over like a honey cruller. The Catastrophist swabbed the infected areas with a mixture of ox piss and spirit gum, sourcing the contamination at the font, then applied an oatmeal plaster, tying off the loose ends with brass clips. He lay his hands on her forehead and closed her eyes, like one does to the recently dead, then pried open her mouth with a tool that resembled a bung-tapper, the brassy end riveted with past strikes, and cleaning any debris from her throat, which necessitated sticking his longest finger, generally the middle one, though in some the next to middle, given a mother’s excesses while carrying, dislodged a piece of half-digested meat, a roast of pork or mutton, clearing the air passageway for the trenching tool, which he held like a prognosticator’s wand over her head, and edging the tip of the tool down her throat yanked free the vile pox; the smell of rotting organ meat and bile filling the slaughterhouse air with an offal distemper.

The following day, awaking from plodding dreams, her forehead glistening with an oily sebaceous sweat, she lifted her head from the pillow and exclaimed, ‘I’m cured by Jove I’m cured!’ The dead die and the living die; the trick is in knowing which is which.

The Conurbation

His mother played pinochle with the gasfitter’s son; never once winning a hand. His da threw craps with the stevedores; rolling snake-eyes seven times out of eleven. His grandmamma tatted doilies with a whalebone hook, weighing her Gin in the barrows of her skirt, a look of deepest absorption on her hag-wearied face. His granddad spent Sunday afternoons sloughing the pump out back of the Hogshead, the proprietor promising him a slow pint and a package of saltine crisps, the stink of cabbage thickening the nighttime air, the unclipped hairs in his nose billeted with snot. He was born on the butcher’s block in the summer kitchen, the tiny hairs on his skull dewy with placental wash, the doctor stinking of saltine crisps and washtub Gin. His grandmother held the bottom half, his da the top, his mother squirming like an eel. His cone-shaped head was the first part of him to appear, the doctor callipering his skull with his grandmother’s corn tongs, then his shoulders, the umbilical cord twisted round his throat, his mamma screaming bloody murder. The doctor said he hadn’t delivered such a bad-tempered baby since he was held at gunpoint by the littlest dogman, his currish mother giving birth to a hirsute baby with gigantic ears and the remnants of a caudal tail.

The doctor delivered most of the children of the conurbation; many of whom grew impatient with life inside the tenements, leaving to find fame and fortune beyond the five-mile, only to return, cap in hand, to a city overrun with swindlers and cheats, a city on the verge of ruin and despoilment, where dogmen roamed the streets like packs of wolves and children begged for scraps under a yellow sky, their noses billeted with snot. The day the alms man was born his father swaddled him in burlap, loaded him into the back of his mule cart, and sent it caroming over the crags into the aqueduct.

The dream tells him little other than he is doomed to an unimpeachable dullness; a life of sorrow and debt. The dream: he is at home minding his own baseness, doing whatever the baseless do to wile away the time, when his older brother arrives on the doorstep, a squad of rowdies in tow. We want barbecued ribs! bellows one of the rowdies, what little hair he has on his head standing on end. Smothered in sauce! bellows a second. But how are we to spit them? asks a third. Why not use your brother? says a fourth. Yes, your brother says the second. We could push coat hangers through his shoulders. They’d make a fine spit. Fighting off the rowdies as best he could, threatening to stab his brother with a kitchen knife, he is overpowered by the rib-thirsty mob. While two rowdies hold him, the second and third pierce his shoulders with straightened coat hangers, his brother, a sibling grin on his bewhiskered face, watching on. They suspend him a pit of glowing coals, his arms and legs bound with basketball mesh, prodding and pushing him over the coals like a skewered pig, the hiss and sizzle of roasting flesh rivaling the heathenry of the Inquisition.

Reminiscences

His father wore the same blue shirt day in and day out, the collar ringed with his own filth. Had he a mind to he’d tell him off this is what he’d say, ‘by Lord father but your shirt is filthy dirty’. His father’s blue shirt was manufactured by the Barking and Dagenham Shirt Co. The Barking and Dagenham Shirt Co., owned and operated by the Barking bros. of Dagenham Council, are known for their haughty craftsmanship and eye for detail. Over the door to the cutting-room, framed in oak, the wood buttering in the dovetails, are the following two quotations: “I did not receive my visitors with boisterous rapture as the bearers of any gifts of profit or fame” (Joseph Conrad, Some Reminiscences, 1912) and, “. . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone. . . .” (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1902). As neither brother knew how to read the quotations fell on blind eyes.

Were they able to read, able to make out squiggles and dots, the words would have leaped out of their wooden frames, calling to arms the brothers against the impunity of falsifying the story of one’s life; the battle, if they had enlisted, having ended in their ruin. For the brothers, you see, were numbskulls, incapable of making sense of anything more challenging than a brothel address or the embossed face on a coin, which they did by touch, not sight, making their competency fraudulent, calculating at best. Frank Goya, a first-rate embosser and clerical tailor, has the needlework contract for the Vincennes Glove Co. He is a scoundrel and a mountebank, and undeserving of charity or good will! He has carious teeth and ill-defined features; a tomblike smile and bloodhound red eyes. He is to be avoided at all costs! Pray tell who? More people peopling an over-peopled world. This must stop! {Author’s aside: you must excuse my overzealousness; confession, so the rector told me, is good for the soul}.

Let us begin again: The sky appeared and disappeared leaving behind a streak of blue. ‘can’t you see his head is crooked? Now cradle the back of his head in your arms; now push, gently… that’s it, now you’ve got it’. He didn’t know whether he should pull or push, the half-dead corpse mumbling something in Gudrun, a altogether unpleasant parlance of constantans and misplaced vowels. ‘cradle, now pull!’ Liphook stood over the half-dead corpse whittling the point of a stick. Having been rousted from sleep by his grandmother’s foot kicking at his slumbering head, which she did without fail every morning, he felt none too solicitous towards any thing or one.

Enscheda Apothecary

His grandfather bartered whole grain and rye seeds for Bocholt-made Limburg steel, convincing the blacksmith that his wife could use some vulgar flour for her biscuits. The blacksmith agreed, trading 27½ ounces of Bocholt steel for three sacks of whole grain, passing on the rye seeds which he said stuck to his wife’s dentures, “the insufferable cur”. There are coincidences in life that make your teeth ache. This, however, is not one of them. Cudgels were commonplace and found among all hooligan’s magazines, like battering rams and trebuchets, so making a claim as to their inimitableness is pure folly! The mercantilists are in cahoots with the industrialists, neither seeing the nonsensicality of their coalition. Nary a brainpan among them. Feel sorry for their children, probably haven’t eaten a decent meal in months. All embroiled in their coalition, making it hand over knuckle, sucking the lifeblood out of the gloving industry. The post diggers staged a strike; had to sidestep half-excavated holes on the way to vespers. Came close to turning an ankle! Left their shovels in a hurry to be the first at the union office. First cunt in line gets a saloon chit. Spend a dime on pale ale and pig’s-feet. Maybe a butter plate heaping with chitterlings, spleens, I hear say, are good for the heart and proper bone formation. Cunt Scheherazade eats ‘em like there’s no tomorrow, sucks the guts dry. Cunt doesn’t know the difference between lamb and mutton, uses the hotplate for boiling soaked bandages. Blood and chafed skin flying every which where. First one to the union hall gets a brand new hotplate, boil up a mess of oily shoulder. Old Overijssel lives above the Enscheda Apothecary with a blind dog, neither aware that the other is watching him. Though unable to see, the dog is sucking the lifeblood out of Old Overijssel. Before moving into the bedsit above the apothecary Old Overijssel worked as a fitter for the Vincennes Glove Co., retiring with a handshake and a cutout for the women’s red evening glove, the company’s top seller. Last one to the union office gets the dregs. Blue-fin eel, blacker than the ace of clubs. Don’t get much these days for a union chit. All hell broke loose. Dodgy cunts don’t know the difference between pork belly and Blue-fin.

Troy Scheherazade

A few boxes of raisins; bastard needs his ears lowered. Covered in pocket lint, sticks to the roof of my gob. Cat strangler, seen him wring a few feline necks, pushes ‘em over the cornice and into the river. Tails white with plaster. Sells them to the Asians, make a wonton or soft roll with the not so bad parts. The sun bled yellow egg yolk. His father told him that if he sat under the biggest tree in the forest an apple would sooner or later fall on his head. ‘That’s how we know we’re down here and not up there’ said his father pointing a resin brown finger at the sky. ‘there’s only the apple and the serpent’ said his mother scolding his father, ‘now get in the house!’ He lined up the toffee and raisins on the floor next to his bed. He counted until he couldn’t stand counting any more. Five pieces of toffee and 27 raisins, each in its own tiny box. Taking into account the plumpness of the raisins he figured he could eat one raisin and one piece of toffee a day, the entire cache lasting 27½ days, longer if he broke the toffee into smaller pieces. The writing on the side of the box said, The Tuxtla Bros. Raisin Co., Chiapas Gutierrez, Mexico. 'The finest plumpest raisins grown and sundried with lots of nice plump sunshine'. Each tiny cardboard box carried within it a handful of plump sundried raisins, some so plump they looked more like plums than raisins.

He wrecked havoc wherever he went, smashing and wielding the cudgel his grandfather made him from a sledge of grainy oak. He and Troy Scheherazade, an uncomely boy with jug-handle ears and an ungainly smile, vandalized and laid waste to anyone who got in their way, using their cudgel sticks as batterers and swords.

Pentland Mahaffy

…would have won a medal if it weren’t for the rum-fits. Had her all crippled and bent over. That winter Lela bought a pair of red gloves, the mercantilist offering to wrap them up and top off the package with a scissor-pulled bow. She chose instead to wear the gloves, clutching herself against the brisk weather on the other side of the belled door. The mercantilist lived with his ailing mother on the second floor across the hall from a woman who lived with a bluefish. Neither he or his sick mother ever saw the fish that it lived across the hall on the second floor with the big-boned woman. Taking their neighbor’s word for it who had seen the fish, they agreed that there was indeed a fish in the apartment across the hall, but as for anything else, anything of importance, they hadn’t the foggiest. Sunday mornings their neighbor took her cat for a walk, clomping up and down the stairs like a bull elephant, cat in toe. The owners of Plunker’s Market kept a dog in the crawlspace beneath the stairs, its snout, were one inclined to look, visible from the top of the stoop. The dog was called Temecula, named after the mercantilist’s wife’s mother. The woman across the hall from the bluefish was indifferent to the dog, climbing and descending the stoop in a hurry when she took her cat out for a walk. No one cared, not even the harridan’s sister who lived in the apartment above the mercantilist and his wife, or if they did they, did a fine job of pretending they didn’t. Everything was taken for granted, and those that weren’t were taken with a grain of salt. When he was a boy Poldy bought penny-candy from Plunker’s Market, each treasured piece placed one by one into brown paper sacks, the counter-person trying to pinch his cheek as he tried valiantly to escape through the belled-door, the ballooning sack clutched in his tiny hands. When he got home his da would take the jelly beans and mojos, redskin peanuts and licorice, leaving him the hard toffee and a few boxes of raisins. Over the door, fished in cobwebs, was a sign that read “for the corner boys who spit into the Liffey” (The Rev. Sir John Pentland Mahaffy) Remorselessly he set about the day a second time, his hat sleeved in his armpit, the corner boys gobbing, their youth belying their ignorance.

Esther Pivner

They came by oxcart, by foot and on their knees, people so grisly and depraved they left a terrible taste in your thoughts. His father had warned him of the coming of ‘the many’, the hordes escaping across the five-mile and into the cities. ‘The five-mile will not hold forever’ his father warned. ‘sooner or later we’ll be overrun with them, the same people we forced out wanting backing in’. His father squinted, his upper lip curling like a beheaded worm, splitting in segments. He never thought he’d see the day when being sane would be a shortcoming, as commonplace as silk gloves and woolen trousers. Coro Falcon wears knee-britches with candy-coloured stockings, the tiny hairs on her shins swimming in nylon. Father but why? My son, that you’ll learn when you grown old; like a puny stalk of celery. His father wore gray trousers, the inseams grayed with Hawken’s plug. Father but you’ll surely choke on it! Never you mind, (mijn zoon), I’m hardier than an oak; spinier too. Esther Pivner, big-boned and prone to fits of hysteria, lives above Plunker’s Market with a blue goldfish. His da used to lay-in with her Sunday mornings when his ma was busy cleaning the dust in between the pews. She used a duster with a silver handle; the kind used by street-sweepers and old-fashion charwomen. The kind his own grandmamma used to clean the ceiling and the bottom of the cupboards. She was prone to rum-fits and horse-coughing.

Mijn Zoon

Not the man in the hat (Poldy Magyar), nor the weekly fistfights held in Landesschule Pforta gymnasium were affected by these extraneous goings-on’s, it just was as it was, the rest of the world going about its business. His father felt the violation in his head, the talismanic beginning of the madness that was to plague him for the rest of his life. But father, the goose will surely shit all over the floor. Stop your bellyaching, shit is good for the milkman. Keeps him hale and hardly. Hardly what, father? Hardly worth the bother to give it a second’s thought. Father, you’re always goosing around, I can’t understand a word you say. It’s better that way my boy; you’ll understand it when you get older. But what if I don’t? You will, and you will enjoy it. He wondered how her sagging breasts must feel trapped under her blouse, hanged men swaying on the gallows.

Frederica Cárdenas wears shiny shoes with beanpole heels. Abel Rotwang hasn’t a pot to mik-chə-rāt in, piss yellower than buttercups trickling down the inseam of his trousers. My boy (mijn zoon) never underestimate the imbecility of people! Ja vader ja. Hij leefde in een twee kamer bedsit, de bank stijver dan gematteerd paardenhaar. He wondered if her legs rubbed together when she sat in church, the tiny hairs on the insides of her thighs chaffing against the pew wood. His grandmamma had oniony breath, the fine hairs on her upper lip sweaty with uiensap. Pinesap, that’s what it was, not uiensap. His father felt the contravention in his head, the tiny hairs in his nose clotting and twisting like tree branches. Onderschat nooit de domheid van mensen (mijn jongen)! He never forgot the terror-struck look on his grandfather’s face when he choked on a plug of Hawken’s, his throat squeezing like a boa constrictor, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

The Henotheist Smith

The priest told the same lies over and over again, his altar skirt mulching up his hairless white legs. Afternoons when the church was emptied of sinners, a few stragglers hiding under the ciborium licking the pot clean, the priest salted his white hairless legs with chalk dust, hoping to bring a fine sheen to his once youthful gams. Hidden under the altar box, wrapped in sackcloth, was a copy of Ibsen’s 'When We Dead Awaken', the Henotheist Smith stealing into the sanctuary after vespers to read by candlelight. The Poitou-Charentes-Poitou children’s choir sing evensong, the youngest castrato devastating to pieces the chandelier over the Baptismal. ‘Never underestimate the stupidity of children’ his da said, his head pressed between his hands like soft cheese. The children’s choir wear burgundy robes and gray stockings stitched from unprocessed wool, corduroy overcoats and tare sandals. The youngest chorales’, a slight boy named Oporto, possessed such a piercing castrato the other boys called him Voz Alta, he with the high voice. Mr. Artsybashev, the leader of the Poitou-Charentes-Poitou children’s choir, though never married, was known to keep company with Greta Felisberto, the pianist for the girls’ chorus, a plump angry woman with oniony breath.

Los Peyotes - Bdaaa!!!

Hamlet’s Father

On Saturdays his father slept until eight o’clock. Upon awaking, which he did slowly, like a slowcoach with a sore tooth, he would order his children to line up at the foot of the bed, then taking a deep breath, his wooly chest rising and plummeting, tell them what he wanted for breakfast: skillet-fried liver with onions and garlic, which he expected to be served in bed. Using his barrel-chest as a table he ate like a ravenous animal, forking slivers of pinkish liver into his mouth, scabs of burnt onion and garlic slickening his lips and the gray stubble on his trebled chin. ‘Most people in this world are bit-players, so don’t expect much from them’ he would tell his children, the youngest sucking his middle and next-to-middle fingers. On Sundays his father admonished the priest for telling the same lies over and over again, the congregation too frightened to stand up for the priest or silence his father’s weekly tirade. After Mass his father would go hunting in the fields behind the woolshed, the crack and boom of gunfire besetting the calmness with agitation and terror. His father had no idea who Hamlet’s father was, and if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. Considering the deficit of most people, bit-players, rogues and hooligans, he had little to feel terrible about. Afternoons, when the stink of skillet-burnt liver and onions filled the house with an organ stench, his father went hunting in the clearing behind the woolshed, his little brother sitting in the corner by the stove sucking his thumb and next-to-middle finger. The hog pit behind the woolshed stank to high heaven, piles of dead rotting feces pickling the dry brown earth. The unfed hogs grunted and bellyached, the biggest one ramming its head against the pen, its eyes two black holes of rage. His father’s beard smelled of organ meat and diced onions. ‘Don’t expect much; your life will be less disappointing’ his father’s eyes two black holes of dirt and liver grease.

Dieter Kopf

The Absinthe burned like Hades, the taste of wormwood and cloves in his throat making speech all but impossible. Considering the paucity of most people he didn’t feel all that dreadful about the fact he couldn’t make heads nor tails of most things. Franz Alexander Platz and Dieter Kopf crossed the bridge (the rickety bridge; for this fact is duly important) that crosses across the aqueduct spanning the five-mile and no-man’s-land. Having both abandoned the Herstal Liege troop years earlier, they now travel by foot bringing their hodgepodge of pantomiming and dramatic asides to whomever have eyes and ears to listen with. The first time Poldy saw the Hans Lamprecht troop, for they called themselves the Hans Lamprecht troop so as not to be confused with the Hans Lampeel troop, who were hacks, the leader of the troop known for his dislike for Hamlet’s father, whom he felt was a bit-player, and as with all bit-players dispensable, he experienced for the first time that feeling deep in his guts that would follow him for the rest of his life. Considering the deficiency of most people he didn’t feel all that terrible about the fact he couldn’t make heads nor tails of most things.

ΒΕRLΙΝ ΑLΕΧΑΝDΕRΡLΑΤΖ 1 1/8

The Green Fairy

He thought until his head felt like it was going to split open, the bone spurs in his jaw aching. The spurs, a gift from a streetwalker with a garish hole for a mouth, who upon hearing him call her a cunt slapped him across the face with her purse, cracking his molar in two, a puss canker the size of a walnut effecting his speech, which now came out in half-vowels and constantans, his father’s hopes that one day his son might take up the opera or speak in tongues squashed forever. He walked slapdash idly up the sideways, his hat squeezed like a ripe orange under his arm, the brim folded over levering his armpit and bicep. ‘never again will I listen to an imbecile… after all any man worth his weight in salt knows that imbeciles can never be trusted, even a well dressed one’. Across the sideways the harridan’s sister let go with a loud commanding howl, his ears crackling like tinder. Unaware that he was sinking into a cesspit of despair, like a man resigned to failure, someone whom life’s lottery had missed over yet continued to encourage, he ordered a glass of Absinthe and sat dejectedly in the corner by the stove. I will overcome this, he thought, the corners of his mouth awakened by the Green Fairy.

Las Bragas de Oro

While all this was going on the legless man sat reservedly on his pushcart wondering what all the fuss was about. Across the street squabbling with a sales clerk the harridan’s sister walked in circles, the hem of her skirts entangling her legs, the mercantilist trying to elicit the attention of the constabulary, his face as red as Polish cabbage. The legless man thought ‘No wonder the world’s in such a mess. No one wants to give an inch, and when they do the other person takes a mile’, the smell of black oil fish besetting his thoughts.

His father read to him on those nights when his thoughts wouldn’t stay quiet. Two of his favorite stories were ‘Encerrados con un Solo Juguete’ (Locked up with a Single Toy)* and ‘La Muchacha de las Bragas de Oro’ (Girl with Golden Panties)* (*Juan Marsé). The girl with the golden panties, the one character his father found appealing, his father called ‘La Muchacha de grandes bucetoes’, after a dice-player named Sofia Sofiya who threw craps behind the Waymart, the momentum of her ‘grandes bucetoes’ driving the die hard against the brick wall. ‘what a magnificent ass’ his father said, his cheeks flushing. ‘and the way it wriggled, my God, what a sight, parading round like the Queen of asses’. He sucked his fingers when his father talked about Sofia Sofiya, his tongue thumbing the roof of his mouth.

El Cerdo

The morning sun rose behind the Waymart, a forebodingness settling over those up and about attending to their morning victuals’. The day stopped flat in its tracks, the alms man struggling to get his cap to stay put in front of him, a gale force wind picking it up and whirling it round and round like a top.

‘Hell’eth, yes by God, Hell’eth!’ If only I could stop the flow, all these notions and schemes, brainchildren gone terribly awry. I can if only. The Gog and Beggar drafts Pilsners and Ales from a spigot attached to a hose attached to a keg underneath the counter, the alewife hiking her skirts up round her hips, the drawstrings of her corset flapping to and madly. Hell’eth has no fury like slaking man. El cerdo stood admiring his reflection in the mirror, his unusually outsized nose obscuring an otherwise unusual face. Obscure as it was it was indeed his face he was admiring in the mirror over the counter. The Witness closed the door behind him and took a seat next to the window; his hands blued with pamphleteer’s ink and glue. ‘a bitters! Something with a good head on it if you don’t mind’. Hiking her skirts up the alewife flashed her hirsute bush at the Witness, a slatternly smile on her ungainly face. ‘madam, if I wanted a hair pie I’d ask for one. Now, if you please, put that ugly thing away!’ El cerdo snickered, his usually expressionless face screwed-up like a mousy glove. This will not do. To hell with it! May a gonorrheal dog mijao on your leg. The proprietor of the Beggar and Gog spit into a glass and rubbed it inside and out with a dirty rag. ‘gentlemen please, enough of your shenanigans, either you drink up and leave or I will be forced to throw you out; all three of you, headfirst!’ Snickering, his face a mess of warts and unlancerable boils, El cerdo pointed at the proprietor, his liver red tongue dancing in his mouth ‘you sir! Dare I say you will be up to your shirtsleeves with trouble if you try and toss us three out!’ Bustling in front of him, hirsute bush exposed, the alewife laughed, her soiled underpants hanging on by a thread. ‘put that damn ugly thing away!’ grumbled the Witness, his voice filled with bile. ‘can’t you see we three are engaged in a battle? Now scram woman, and for the love of Jehovah be quick about it!’

The day after the littlest dogman sniggled the biggest eel anyone had ever seen, a sickly child with a horsetail cowlick, hands knit in prayer, begging for a bite of the black oily fish. The littlest dogman cut the eel in two and handed half to the boy, the boy thumping his chest like a sideshow strongman.

David Grossman on Bruno Schulz

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

Rudy Virag

He turned the world over in his head until it spilled out on to the ground in front of him, a frail twisted arm reaching up towards him beseechingly. Who’s arm is this, he thought, and why is it pointing at me? The world turned over again, the arm stretching, bending trying to touch the yolky sun above his head. And why is it pointing at the yolky sun? When he was a boy his da fastened baseball cards with clothespins to the spokes of his secondhand bicycle, the cards click-clacking as he rocketed down the sidewalk jumping puddles and potholes.

The Landesschule Pforta gymnasium holds weekly craps behind the kitchen, the Brandrübel brothers beating the coal out the Schmölln brothers seven times out of three.

Leaping potholes and puddles he rocketed down the sideways, the clothes-pinned cards clicking in the spokes. His da sat on the porch spitting tobacco juice into a coffee tin, the night sky redder than a slapped face. Anchises Lethe drank the Dog and Beggar dry, gulping back throatfuls of fortified wine. José Arturo, seated on the stool next to him, his face half-hidden in the turtleneck of his shirt, said a prayer for dead and recently deceased poor Rudy {Virag} who the year before had hanged himself from the rafters overlooking the Overnight Asylum. ‘may God bless his slithering soul’ said Arturo, his face ashen pale. ‘for God know’eth, Hades is hotter than Hell’eth’. ‘yes by God’ interrupted Ennis Forghas ‘hotter than Hell’eth!’ Hoisting their tankards above their heads, all three men yelled ‘--HALLELUJAH! To Hell with Hell’eth! May his rung’eth neck unbend and his soul rest in peace. Adman’.

Schmölln

His da’s mamma bought salt cod from the Oppegaard fish market, a man called Apercus separating the heads from the fillets, wrapping them in brown paper and securing the slimy package with twine, then winking at her salaciously as he handed her the package over the counter, the tattoo on his forearm separating his wrist from his elbow. Not that one; I hate Tegucigalpa flatfish. Pointing, give me that one, yes, that one there. Hack me off a piece. The Francisco’s make a fine Morazán fishpie. Too salty? Not at all. Now stop your quibbling and scythe me off a piece. My da once got a whitefish bone stuck in his throat; damn near choked him silly. Taught me how to dislodge it with a thump to the back of the back; pops out like a crumb. No really. Ask the monger at Oppegaard’s, he’ll give you the goods. Apercus I thinks his name; smarmy cunt gave my grandmamma the once over. If I remember correctly she was wearing her herringbone stockings that day. Up to her waist in fish guts, heads separated from the fillets so there’s no mistaking the good pieces. (ibid). Pops out like a crumb. Partial bones in the hips so they say; easier to get the middle parts down. Worthless parts are good for soup and headcheese’s. Never know when company will drop by. Crawdaddy in her left hand, mudbug in her right. Throat stretched out like a firehouse. If I remember correctly. Remembering the past, and what lay in between, his thoughts stretched out like a firehouse, partial bones lined up on the tablecloth, the back of his back thumped black and blue, his grandmamma spooning bowlfuls of headcheese soup into greedy hands, smiting the bicycle pump like a tea spout, his da’s da thumping his head against the table trying to knock some sense into himself.

The Landesschule Pforta gymnasium holds weekly fistfights; the Schmölln brothers beating the tar out of the Brandrübel brothers three times out of seven.

Obadiah

Tiring of the befuddlement that cursed his being, the man in the hat sat under a mighty elm and counted the stars in the noontime sky: 2. He had no other recourse than to admit defeat; his life having become a peccadillo of disappointment. Were he but a farthing, a boy called Poldy who’s worse fear was his ma’s uneven temper, wading knee-high in the muck behind the woolshed spearing frogs with arrows his da’s da gave him, the sucking noise his boots made when he unstuck his foot from a grave of squashy mud, his arrow a spit of frogs, garlands of roe and green things, three frogs impaled with one pull of his bow, his piss yellower than the buttercups they held under their chins to see who liked butter and who didn’t. {His best friend Obadiah was keen on oleo}.

“(He smites with his bicycle pump the {mudbug} in his left hand.)” (James Aloysius Joyce, Ulysses). His da wore his shirt back to front, affecting a backwardness that followed him wherever he went. Woolshed frogs, his granddad smiling broadly from ear to ear. ‘never admit defeat my boy’ thinking what he really meant was deafness, but his upper-plate slipped and got in the way. Pumping he went about the day, his unstuck boot making a sucking noise. Un-tucked he strode into the day, his cudgel dangling betwixt his legs. Knuckling his bicycle sump he set off into the world, Obadiah at his side. ‘never overestimate the forces of nature’ said his da’s da jawing his upper-plate. Time and again he lost time of time; the hours and days fleeting by like scat through a goose. Up to his waist he went about the day never-minding that at noontime he had a meeting with Dejesus. He wondered: who likes butter and who doesn’t? Maybe Dejesus. Who knows? “(He smites with his bicycle pump the {crawdaddy} in his left hand.)” (ibid). Maybe not. His da taught him how to make a cudgel out of worthless metals, the blacksmith’s apron cutting into the partial bones in his hips. That night his grandmamma served whitefish, his da rescuing a crumb of bone caught in his throat with a thump on his back.

Morphine - In Spite of Me

La Belleza Convulsa

They stitched up the hole in his da’s leg with box-suture; the unraveled ends tied in double-knots then twisted round until the blood stopped spurting. Time was when his da’s legs were fair game for dog-bites and lacerations. Humping through the dogbane behind the woolshed, milking the tall grass, his hipflask hanging from his belt loop, his da hunted wild geese and turbot. His da’s da hunted woodlot pigs with a bow and arrow, taking down garbage-fed hogs with a single shot. When he was a boy his da’s da took him out to the woodlot behind the woolshed, showing him how to string a bow and pull back the feathers so the arrow wouldn’t fly cockeyed. He took his first kill that day; a Landseer with a maggoty eye. His granddad hung it from a bowed sapling, digging the maggots out with his hunting knife, his heart racing in his throat. That was when they called him Poldy, long before he came to be known as the man in the hat.

‘La Belleza Convulsa: Where I lost my Spleen’ was written over the doorway to the Dog and Beggar Tavern. And on the opposite wall, covering over ricochets, near misses and bullet holes: 'Freedom for Los Desaparecidos!' Suhcamelet, prelate to Norman and Varangian, his churlish egg-shaped jowl hanging below his chinstrap, stood admiring his reflection in the window, a stray Landseer with a maggoty eye sniffing his pant leg. ‘away bucetão! I have no time for strays and kettledrums’. On the back of his greatcoat, written in an unsteady Punjabi hand, was the following “(He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand.)” (James Aloysius Joyce, Ulysses). Harping, Suhcamelet retied his shoe and sent his hat flying; the brim whirling like a railroaded top. ‘haven’t seen head nor tail of the crapper spleen, must’ve hightailed north to sky-scraping ground’. Harping, the strings of his heart soaring, he delivered a sermon to those assembled in front of the Waymart, ‘may the goalie host redeem your pitiful souls. So say’eth Robin Goodfellow of the Puck’. Fool, hasn’t a toadstool to piss upon. See his sort round and a bout, piddling in the flowerbox out back of the Dog and Beggar; piddle-puddle astride the grave. Ill-omened, his shirttails un-tucked, he hightails it northerly, his cudgel dangling betwixt his legs. Makes a man harp, lest it does.

Alfonso Osip

That morning, or was it the next?, a legion of fools arrived in town; some on foot, some hanging onto the bumper of the truck clip-clopping like horses. ‘well I’ll be damned’ said the alms man, the buttons on his shirt sparkling earnestly in the sun. ‘its getting harder and harder to make a living these days’. Legions of fools were not an uncommon sight; putting on a show here or there, collecting what miserly gratuities they could, then leaving by truck and on foot, some clip-clopping clip-clopping. Doesn’t take much to teach a man a lesson, specially if he’s taken a turn for the worse. The {horse-headed Dane}… {aka Buachaill Báire} ‘a cunt, dear sir, were I a man accustom to using profane language’. I dare say; it’s the Franciscan’s that prefer the soaked ends, not the Jesuits! Alfonso Osip and Ochoa Emilyevich stood admire one another’s reflection in window of the Dogmen Deli, neither one aware that the sky was about to fall. Osip, a castrato with an oversize chin, and Emilyevich, a pint-size violinist with glass-blue eyes and a goatee, had that morning arrived clip-clopping behind the legion of fools’ truck, the sun glaring off their button-down chemises.

The hunch-backed barber Hascheck, known for his vile demeanor and insatiable guile, jumped off the back of the legion of fools’ truck and into the mud-crummy street, the tails of his greatcoat flapping madly. Catching his breath, his chest pumping like a five-alarm fire he said,

“Her stomach is ugly, isn't it? Covered with folds of fat? You must be able to see it when she bathes...You say she is not very fit. Her breasts, her fat stomach, slap slap, flabby as boiled pork. Just like that, Polzer, slap slap, the mother sow!” (Hermann Ungar, The Maimed)

Taking a tonic from his breast pocket he took a long insatiable swill, suckling like a newborn hog. ‘I dare say’ said Osip, ‘a boiled pork sandwich would go nicely’. ‘with a cream jug of rum’ added Emilyevich, his face wrinkling like a shaken cloth. ‘indeed, yes, indeed’ said Osip. Roca Cathedras sat on the edge of the dais thinking of ways to make slag into gold, his upper lip knitting. Roca Cathedras hated nothing more than truckloads of fools and woman “slap slap, flabby as boiled pork”. He had no time for Alfonso Osip or Ochoa Emilyevich, suckling hogs both. The legion of fools never stayed longer than a fortnight, two if the moon stayed put. The first time Poldy Magyar saw the troop of fools was on a Sunday after Saturday Mass, the fools setting up their tents in the parking lot behind the Waymart, Osip and Emilyevich laughing to burst a gut, Roca Cathedras gawking at them crossly, his forehead stretched tighter than a pigskin blanket.

Laggardly

The truth has its own weaknesses. The day he was born his mamma screeched at the top of her lungs, God forgive me, I have given birth to a monster! He was born Poldy Magyar, his mother changing his name to Japheth on his eleventh birthday. Then on his twelfth birthday, realizing that her son had no competence for shipbuilding, she began calling him ‘my little man in the hat’, as he wore a cap whenever and wherever he went. "Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed." [U.1.242] she said in a soft lilting voice, her ‘little man in the hat’ tugging aggressively at her skirts. I did say at your birth, dear boy, that I had given birth to a monster; but that, I dare say dear son was a mistake: that morning, the morning in question, I had slaked my thirst with Sloe Gin Fizz, thereby corrupting the hole you were hatched from. I beg your forgiveness, my dear lovely child. So that was how it began: from Poldy to Japheth to ‘my little man in the hat’. But mamma why do you feel such shame; a boy is a boy even if his name be untilled.

Laggardly, slowly, he pushed sleep from his body, his eyes trapped shut like the jaws of Nepenthes rajah. The pigheaded four: Death, judgment, heaven and hell. Never underestimate the wisdom of the dead. These his da told him over cold mock chicken sandwiches and warm raspberry Kook-Aid. My son, you must never forget, the world is a sham; life is lived by the stupid, not the wise. Off in the distance woodshadows floated silently across the horizon, his da tugging on his coattails, coaxing him over the five-mile and into the dustbowl of the future. It isn’t your fault mamma; some boys are born monsters. Written on the ceiling, the ink bluing into the corners above his head, was the following: “The Alçada of the village came by chance into the inn together with a notary, and” {the Witness} laid a petition before him, showing that it was requisite for his rights that” {the rector’s assistant}, …there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know” {Japheth}, also there present, and that he was not the one that was in print in a history entitled "Second Part”” {pamphleteering by way} of {colportage}, by one”{pigheaded Dutchman}… {also known as Buachaill Báire}…" (Cervantes, Don Quixote)

Poldy Magyar awoke from troubled dreams and winched himself out of bed, his legs giving way to inertia and a lack of exercise. The {pigheaded Dutchman}… {also known as Buachaill Báire}, stood at the foot of his cot counting the tiles on the ceiling. Earnestly he proffered him a cigar, offering to clip the prepuce for him with a nod of his gigantic head. ‘roll the clipped end round in your lips, that’s it, like a lolli’ he said holding the extinguished matchstick between his thumb and forefinger, the sulfur smarting his eyes. ‘the Jesuits prefer a soaked end; the Franciscans less so’. The clipped end fell to the floor like a spiraling autumn leaf, the tip frayed and scrimmaged. ‘I’m sure you’d be better equipped to understand what I’m getting at if you weren’t such a good-for-nothing. And good-for-nothings, well they seldom understand a thing; not even their own thoughts, simple and contrived as they may be’. He could fell the earnestness emptying from his body; disgust overcoming his sense of magnetism. ‘dare I say you’re a scoundrel… a cunt, sir, were I a man accustom to using profane language’.

JAMES JOYCE IN PARIS 1920s

Poldy Magyar

‘you look tired’ said J.M. Gutierrez swatting at a fly circling his head, its tiny wings thrashing up a dustbowl of infinitesimal filth. The knife made a kinching sound, the hilt slipping against the open palm of her hand. ‘be careful, she’s a whizz with a pocketknife. I’ve seen her gut a man in halves; his insides coiling like a loose spring. Can’t be too careful around her kind!’ Lorelei, her golden jewelry glist'ning, devouring the boat men both with her dulcet-voiced power. Oh sorrow fill my breast! Thrashing round like a caged tiger, his thoughts falling in and out of consciousness, he felt the sorrow of his age pressing in on his very being. In a catheter-voice, his throat breaching and constricting, he spoke of the age of foolishness, of stout angry men with asthmatic voices and deceitful bathetic pride. ‘you look tired’. ‘no, just trying to make sense’. She’s a tigress, can slit a man in halves with a single thrust of her pocketknife. Best be careful lest she stick you like a suckling pig. ‘I’ll be fine, just give me a moment, I’m in the middle of the thick of it’. With a heavy breast he stepped out into the cool autumnal afternoon, his hat cinched under his arm, a militia of gray and black piebald crows caw-cawing in the branches of the boxwood outside the rector’s study. ‘in the end all that matters was that we took nothing to heart; the misery and cold-heartedness of life’. ‘you mean, don’t you, all that matters is?’ ‘no, all that was, not is, is never was. Listen clearly: when was is is becomes was’. He could feel it, the past overcoming the present. It would only be a matter of time before ‘is’ succeeded ‘was’, relieving the past of the future. The knife made a kinching sound, the blade hilted to the hilt. Cold-hearted she is. Can draw-and-quarter in half the time.

Buachaill Báire stood outside the grocer’s taking in the warm summery day; crooking his head to the left, then the right he took in the entire landscape. The sun warmly caressing his neck, a hole in the clouds above the Waymart pierced by a bolt of raining sun, he made up his mind to pay a visit to the man in the hat whom he had not seen since the Fast of the Bleeding Lamb when both took up the unstitched thread left dangling by the sermonizing pastor. “O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade”. [U. 4.54-55] said the man in the hat looking to mend loose ends. The vicar of Wrexham stood to address the congregation, the hem of his Alb steeped in a gobbet of spit. Poldy Magyar stood admiring his refraction in the awning window, rumpling and poleaxing his face like a kid-soft glove, the sun forming a halo over his behatted head.

Feast of the Rapture

‘...I killed sleeping flies, turning my back to him and whistling’. (Juan Carlos Onetti, Goodbyes and Stories).
The man in the hat met J.M. Gutierrez at the Feast of the Rapture, neither man recognizing the other. Years earlier they met at the Feast of the Lamb, acknowledging one another with a tacit nod of the head. He pulled her across his torso, the hard coils of her breasts digging into his chest like dirks. The smell of her own sex making her sick, his hands despoiling her empty flesh, she lay like a frightened child unable to feel the simplest emotion. Her noviciate last three years; two hanging from the rafters in a horse-sling. They called her Lorelei,

1. I cannot determine the meaning
Of sorrow that fills my breast:
A fable of old, through it streaming,
Allows my mind no rest.
The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.

2. The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondrously fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist'ning;
She combs her golden hair.
She combs with a gilded comb, preening,
And sings a song, passing time.
It has a most wondrous, appealing
And pow'rful melodic rhyme.

3. The boatman aboard his small skiff, -
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, -
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.
I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Was done by the Loreley.

(Heinrich Heine, Die Lorelei)

Swaying, trembling, the horse-sling cutting her in halves, she surrendered to his pow'rful skiff. ‘I cannot determine the meaning’ said the man in the hat. ‘I think that the waves will devour the fading rays of sunshine, but I could be mistaken’. Fearing that he might be forsaken, or worse, abandoned to the jagged sea, he walked out into the sunshiny bright day, his hat proudly atop his head, the smell of starchy laundry assailing his sense of balance.

Emilio Videla Rafael

{This is foolish! There is no Departamento de Grandes Inquisidores or a Brotherhood of Dialectical Immaterialist’s. These are thoughts thought with little regard for my saneness. The sort that choke me with melancholy.}

Emilio Videla Rafael, Jorge Redondo, Ramón Eduardo Orlando and Massera Agosti meet every Sunday afternoon in the rear of the Waymart to split-hairs over which one of them was responsible for the atrocities carried-out at the Overnight Asylum. They grumble and moan, none willing to accept responsibility for the horrors perpetrated by the orderlies and doctors who were under their control. They were simply following their own conscience, pursuing their moral innerness. They were never forced to do what they did they did it because they chose to, and at no time were they coerced or subjected to duress. They just did it, that’s all. Miscreants tailored to fit the shoe that kicks the poor and underprivileged, all four men live lives of carnal approbation, depraved animals who spread pestilence and disease.

[He remembers a broken-down motel room in a town where no one except a empire of dog-like people understand a word he says. Moneyless, carrying whatever he owns in a haversack, the broken-down motel room smelling of other people’s sex and urine, he sits on the edge of the bed and tries to figure out how he got here. There were mountains; snow covered mountains. A dirt road that bends just outside town, the halogen eyes of a truck slicing through the darkness. Not a soul stopped when he stuck out his finger; not even someone he thought he might know, or thought he knew. The dog-like people offered to help him but first he must be put to work. A dwarf in clown pants and a crocheted toque points to the dogs rummaging through the garbage and says ‘here, feed them’ and hands him a bucketful of innards. The dog-like people come running, in single-file and in groups, dressed in codpieces and toting long spear-like staffs. They enter a campfire ring, single-file or in twos, he can’t remember which, the walls constructed from trees whittled into dagger-like points. One of the crazies points at the snow-covered mountains and says ‘there, that’s the way out’].

J.M. Gutierrez has a mostrar tatuajes de cangrejo on his chest, a mark of los hermandad de los sobrevivientes. He lives in a one room bedsit over the Seder Grocers with another man who refuses to make known his name. Every morning at 7 o’clock they join the line in front of the clinic, talking to no one and clapping their frostbitten hands together waiting for the heavy aluminum doors to open.

Grandes Inquisidores

El hombre del sombrero se detuvo y saludó a Dejesus; hombres cuidado de los demás. Minas, Gerais and Belo Horizonte live in a woolshed with one window and half-a-door. They have to crouch when entering the woolshed lest they bust their heads against the doorframe. The brothers are all under five feet in height, the shortest coming in at just under 4 ft. 9½. The sky fell twice the year the man in the hat met the Horizonte brothers; on Easter Sunday and the day after Lent. Minas, Gerais and Belo had come into town to buy blankets and salt, snookering past the guardsman where the five-mile meets the outland and entering thought the gate behind the earthwork barricade. Sövtöe J.J. Eötvös, the guardsman who was caught sleeping when the brothers crossed the five-mile, was shipped off to the Overnight Asylum where he was interned and subjected to series of vicious incapacitating psychiatric procedures, one such procedure so vicious it resulted in his death. When pushed one of the orderlies claimed that del paciente testículos were subjected to una serie de baños de hielo dando lugar a atrofia del paciente testículos y el escroto rompiendo en mil pedazos de hielo. Sövtöe J.J. Eötvös remains were sent to the Pays de la Loire cemetery where they were buried in a tobacco tin behind los sepultureros’ cubierto. ‘a tobacco tin, how disgusting!’ said one of the inquisitors, his lips bluing from the cold. ‘you’d think they’d at least give the man a decent burial’ said a second inquisitor, ‘testículos y el escroto rompiendo en mil pedazos de hielo, how repugnant’. ‘we’re all to blame’ said the first inquisitor. ‘every last one of us’. ‘I suppose we could have intervened and brought him back’ said the second inquisitor. ‘after all it is our job to protect those who have made it to the other side, even if we find them repugnant’. Eduardo Banzato, Eucrio-Rodrigues de Bonaventura and Risottos-Oliveira Netto work for Los Departamento de Grandes Inquisidores, also known as the Department of Undertaking. It is their responsibility to ensure that those tortured on the other side are brought to safety and to guarantee that they get the proper medical care while interned. As representatives of Los Departamento de Grandes Inquisidores they are required to recant their past as simpletons and embrace a brotherhood based on Dialectical Immaterialism even though none of them understands what Dialectical Immaterialism is or what it requires of them.

Los Sepultureros

He called her his little cunt and said that if she didn’t stop bellyaching and learn how to act like a grownup she’d end up a spinster with a houseful of cats. He use to see her with her da shopping for hand-me-downs at the Saint Vincent De Paul, her da yanking her by her pale freckled arm, Snježana wishing they could go to the Eaton’s where they had brand new dresses not ones that smelled like other people’s dirty houses. Never once did she feel soft cotton against her skin or lace-up a pair of new shoes. He said new things were a waste of money and that if that’s what she wanted she could go live with the nuns or sell herself to men with troubled pasts and uneven tempers. She wished her name was Lorelei and that when she went to the bathroom her da didn’t peek at her through a hole in the wall. She wished she had four arms so she could push her da off her when the pale freckled ones were pinned behind her back. They carried her father to the cemetery in a wheeled bier. The gravediggers, their jaws working like gristmills, spat tobacco juice onto the raised area around the grave; fader Sieraków, humming a Gaelic funereal dirge, knelt in front of the wooden catafalque, his Chastibule collected round his waist, the hem of his Alb steeped in a gobbet of spit. The ceremony for The Absolution of the Dead was conducted by fader Tunuyán, a tonsured Franciscan with a brash tone and uneven teeth.

"Los sepultureros, sus mandíbulas de trabajo, como molinos, jugo de tabaco escupió en la zona elevada alrededor de la tumba; Sieraków fader, tarareando un canto fúnebre gaélico, se arrodilló delante del catafalco de madera, su Chastibule recogido alrededor de su cintura, el dobladillo de su Alb empapado en un trocito de saliva."

Once the funereal Mass had been said, and the mourner who had thrown herself on top of the coffin had been pulled free, fader Sieraków wiped his brow, and turning to leave stopped in front of the sepultureros, who were impatiently shuffling back and forth waiting for the mourners to leave, and said ‘may God forgive you your sins’, then pausing, his uneven teeth spitting out the words, whispered ‘lousy cunts’. György and Löwinger, for that were their names, both beneficiaries of lowbrow intellect and less that honorable temperament, stared popeyed at fader Sieraków, neither man knowing how to respond.

von Waldeyer

“Hurrying passed me her face red like the cream soda we bought at the corner store where the fat kid chewed his cud pathetic he didn’t know his ass from a hole in his head see his kind under the rector’s bench much as I’d like to forget that and that that went on back then when I wasn’t as big as I am now littler when I wore those knee-britches with the slit on the side and the rope belt that was always rubbing the fat over the lip of my pants and fader looking for the hole down the dark cobwebby tunnel that connects the twats with the balls and the white sheets flocking like gulls making a nuisance when the older kids just wanted to show off to their flat chest girlfriends cheeks pinched crimson like the red squall jacket my mamma made me wear in bad weather and my da sitting on the porch tamping flake into his cob enough to bring on a hacking fit just like that".

von Waldeyer, cunt drops washers into the collection plate, thinks he’s putting one over on God, not likely that God would give him a moment’s notice. A dime a dozen, cunts like von Waldeyer. Always got to keep your eye on ‘em; never know if they’ll pick your pocket or run you up against the wall. Thing is. Firstly I met him when I was a wee trawler fishing for chubs in wellies and the rain slicker my ma made me wear just in case the weather got ruinous. Branches whipping round like ragdolls with twig arms. Take your head off like a bean tin, blackstrap flying every-which-where. Snježana ate her lunch on a bench in the park behind the aqueduct, her tiny malformed teeth sawing raw carrots and sandwich crusts. Her mamma made her wear spurge cotton dresses with lace collars bought off the hanger from the Saint Vincent De Paul. His da told him that she never outgrew her milk teeth and had to break whatever she ate into small pieces so she wouldn’t choke on them. Her teeth had little bumps on them and if you looked hard enough you could see tiny purple veins like the ones you could see on a baby’s head when its born.

Geschwister - 27

In his greatcoat pocket he carried a slip of yellowing paper, and written in a child’s tiny script on that slip of yellowing paper was the following: “I'm still standing at the door of life, knocking and knocking, though admittedly none too forcefully, and breathlessly listening to see whether someone will decide to open the bolt and let me in.” (Robert Walser, Geschwister Tanner). Never underestimate the power of digestion, his great great-grandfather said, his belly sagging fatly. His grandfather wore oatmeal gray trousers and blue flannel shirts with snap-buttons. On Saturdays he wore a reddish-purple (Borscht-red, his grandmamma called it) jacket and gray woollen trousers tapered from the knee to the top of his black boots. Flynn Odem plays checkers with his granddad on a upside down barn door placed between two sawhorses. ‘I hear that Chinese masseuse puts her back into it’. ‘Had her once. On the fallboards behind the woolshed. Rode me like a goddamn bronco. Still can’t lay on that side’. His granddad ate corn off the cob churned with peameal butter and riversalt. Would smack his buttery lips and poke with the end of his tongue for the pieces stuck in his beard. Made a god-awful noise. Could hear him smacking and chomping clear into the backyard. His grandmamma told him he was like that on account of he got kicked by a mule and couldn’t close his mouth proper. He liked to watch his granddad snap close the buttons on his shirt with his thumb and middle finger, like he was trying to shoo away the devil or call upon God.

Foil’s Tonic

Horning, she’s got horning on her ‘thing’. Ringkobing horning with feathers and cactus lace. But mamma I can’t. You will, by God you will! But I can’t; it hurts. ‘it’s suppose to hurt!’ you silly cow! Get to bed and be quick about it! His woolly gray socks scratched her legs, the studs on his denim blue trousers leaving rivet-marks on her belly. Funny how he never once kissed her on the cheek, never ever. She stopped at F.W. Sweny’s Apothecary, the smell of ripening figs and Foil's Tonic pickling her nose. ‘I’ll take a bar of linseed soap. The lemony one please’. She laid a fistful of coppers on the counter, counting them in twos, separating the tarnished ones from the shiny ones. ‘that should be enough. Say, have you seen a man with Stilton blue eyes?’ The apothecary agent gave her a cagey stare, the back of her head squared with the snuff self. Rabbi Loew, his legs crossed one over the other, sat in the big horsehair chair by the door, the age spots on his hands as brown as Golem clay. ‘what can I do for you Rabbi?’ asked the agent trying not to stare at his hands. Struggling to stand up, his belly hanging like an overfed lapdog, the Rabbi pointed a spotty finger at a sac of lemon twists on the shelf above the agent’s head. ‘those; I’ll take a bag of those’ he said, his eyes two black dots sunk in a knoll of pink flesh. I promise it won’t hurt, now turn over. Don’t look at me! Look away. The dead come in every shape, size and colour; some more inconspicuous than others. The Chinese masseuse wears pin heel boots. Strange is she kisses on the lips. Never says lay off. I promised it’d hurt, now get on your belly. Big horsehair chair and age spots like Golem clay. Gimme the yellar ones; yes, that’s them. Sad thing is his hat doesn’t fit anymore; sideburns stuck to his skinny neck like washer line.

Dlugacz's Deli

That morning, or was it lunchtime?, the soup kitchen queue reached down the street and around the corner, a woman with a sow’s face announcing the coming of the end. She stopped at Dlugacz's Deli for a pork pie, the soup kitchen queue clanking and squabbling like a dessert rattler. ‘get off my shoe’ squabbled a man with a fiery red beard. The taller the beanstalk grew the shorter his da’s temper got. He remembered his da telling him that, that and that he’d never make it to the top if he spent his time messing round like a kid. Giacomo Taldegardo de Juan San Francesco di Sales Saberio Pietro Leopardi hates children; his longer elegiac pieces attest to that. His da said that boys like him had no business thinking they would ever amount to a hill of beans. You’ll never ever never reached the top, his da would say, never ever. The Chinese masseuse yanked his da’s cock, strangling it like a fair-haired chicken. Every morning his mamma laid out his da’s work clothes: a starched and ironed blue pinstriped blue shirt, a pair of denim blue trousers and woolly gray socks. Funny how he never once kissed her on the cheek, never ever.

Lela wished her name was Lorelei, but her mamma said Lorelei was a whore’s name and whores weren’t woman but shylocks who sold slatternly love to unhinged men and pigs. Kaspar had to learn how to whelk all ovary again after he’d spent fifteen years kneeling encrypted in the tomb ova his bode; life’s lest rake ageist death. The sic and befouled, he said; ghastly. The first time she heard her da say this she felt sick to her stomach. The second time she ran out of the house and hid behind the woolshed, her da hollering bloody murder. Get to bed and be quick about it! We haven’t all day you know! Her da was one of those unhinged men her mamma talked about; a fair-haired pig with wiggly ears and a sad tortuous smile. Your da fucks whores, she’d say sprinkling ironing water on his blue pinstriped blue shirt. A ripe cunt of a man; a pig! Clanking and rattling like a coal-shovel! I’ve a mind to starch his ‘thing’, she said running the hissing sniffling iron over his collar. Chinese cock he is; a ripe pig!

Quahog Tannery

The harridan’s sister rounded the corner and ran smack dab into Lela, neither woman giving an inch. ‘but I won’t’. ‘you must by God you must’. When she was a little girl her mamma made her wear scratchy sweaters and knee-skirts. She went swimming in the lily pond behind their house, her bathing suit too loose to conceal her frailties. When he was a boy he missed her shoulder blades by an inch; the arrow slicing through her hair and lodging in the trunk of an elm tree. He flew the kite into the telephone wires, the airplanes, soaring, over the top of the house.

Silvestre Quiroga works for the Quahog Tannery, the shirt he wears to work the same one he wears dancing. Haines Fortinbras hasn’t a shirt to his name, his wife having burned them all in a pyre in the backyard. Ghastly cunt, he intoned, Ghastly. He can still hear his mamma hollering in his ear: ‘pull that nuisance of a thing down! (‘but I won’t’). ‘you must by God you must’. The Quahog Tannery manufacture livery goods. Silvestre Quiroga’s job is to stretch and tan the hides used to craft women’s gloves; the gloves petitioned by women of culture and couture. The Vir La Libertad Tailors, the Colugo Seamstresses’, the Quezon Nueva Apparel Co. and the Ecija Haberdashers all carry Quahog Tannery livery goods, the same brand Lela’s grandmamma wore winter, summer and fall. Lela claims ‘my grandma never wore the same skirt twice. She was above such ignobility’s ’. ‘it'll fit if you scrunch up your hand. Make a fist by God, a fist!’

The bookmaker’s wife works for the Quezon Nueva Apparel Co. pandering to symphony enthusiasts and hoity-toity charity types. The man in the hat met the bookmakers’ wife after the Glutting of the Ewe, the two enjoying a good chuckle together. As he was a sensible man the curate congratulated the bookmaker’s wife on her stately mission, to become the heiress to the Quezon Nueva Apparel Co. The Witness swore up and down that a woman of such illusory beauty should not be allowed to set foot in the Vincennes Glove Co. ‘the Quezon Nueva Apparel Co. does not recognize such sexual shenanigans. Women like you should be sent to the mines… ply your dark trade there madam and leave us alone’. The curate of Churchdown, one Cecil Basingstoke, known for his high teas and low morals, chastised the bookmaker’s wife, the blood in his temples reaching unspeakable levels.

Under a mishmash of eel skin the man in the hat found a notebook; and in the notebook was written the following: “yaaaa hooooooooooo wl!” Oftentimes his thinking went haywire; the past swarming his thoughts like lemmings retreating from the cliffs of forgetfulness. At times like these he wished he had a tight fitting cap; one that would squeeze his thoughts into the deepest recesses of his brain. There they could be forgotten, laid to rest with the other thoughts and memories he’d worked so hard to disremember.

Juntacadáveres

Dejesus rounded the corner and ran slap daub into the Witness, the Witness sticking out his hand like a traffic cop. Ignacy the trumpeter stole Villaseñor’s oxcart, driving it clockwise into the dust. The man’s a menace! Always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Someone’s gun to kill him, I assure you. On his fifteenth birthday he got a secondhand bicycle and the whooping, narrowly missing his end. His mamma applied a warm compress to his chest, squeezing the cool water into a washbowl she kept on the windowsill by the window. The lustre of his achievements waned as the whooping worsened, his throat swelling to the size of a pumpkin squash. ‘but mamma it hurts’. ‘never you mind’. ‘is it suppose to is it ma?’ ‘yes its suppose to’. ‘but I can’t mamma I can’t’ ‘you will, by God you will!’ On his sixteenth birthday he got a clout in the jaw and a purple eye, his mamma’s new boyfriend not taking a shine to him.

Juntacadáveres carries a blade tucked into his boot just below the hilt. Whenever he feels threatened he unsheathes the blade, waving it like a madman in the face of his assailant. That day the man in the hat met no one, choosing to stay home rather than venture out into the world. Had he ventured out he would have run into a madman and a boy with a head the size of a pumpkin squash. But he did not. When he was a boy he made a raft out of bulrushes and cardboard, strapping it together with clothesline and the metal twists his mamma used to cinch tight garbage bags. In his Billy-Boots, the outsides turned down, his name written in black ink, he would wade into the swamp in search of frogs and torch-size bulrushes. His uncle gave him a an archery set for his tenth birthday, his da making him a quiver out of rolled up newspaper and electrician’s tape. Billy-booted, a garland of hair sticking out from under his hat, he speared frogs with arrows, and arrows with frogs, never quite sure which was which. He impaled two at a time, one on top of the other. He stuck three with one arrow, the third swimming underneath the two. How unlucky, he thought, to be minding one’s own business only to be gutted through the back.

The Witness rounded the corner and ran slap daub into Dejesus, the two coming to a full halt. Villaseñor stole the trumpeter’s oxcart, driving it counterclockwise into the mud. This is surely crazy! Madness, I say, gone counterclockwise! I assure you. ‘but I can’t mamma I can’t’ ‘you will, by God you will!’ When he was a boy he made kites out of garbage bags and coat hangers; taping the bags to the coat hangers with electrician’s tape. He flew the kites, soaring, above the clouds, his mamma hollering at him to ‘pull that nuisance of a thing down! You’re going get it all tangled up in an airplane!’

Henrico Villaseñor

His legs kicked like two hanged men as the doctor turned him on his side. ‘Don’t touch his face…I hear that’s where it’s the worse!’ ‘you’ve already said that’ said the doctor. ‘now move back your blocking the light’. Rolling the body on its other side, the side furthest away from the furnace, the doctor checked for a pulse, the half-corpse’s arms stiffening like lightning rods. ‘bring me the lamp’ ordered the doctor. ‘I need more light’. The farrier walked to the other side of the workshop and grabbed the lamp next to the blast-oven. ‘hurry’ said the doctor cradling the half-dead half-corpse’s head. ‘half-dead or dead the man deserves respect’ said the doctor half-angrily. The dead come in every shape, size and colour; rigor pallor the most conspicuous. Preparing the corpse for transport is best left to professionals and extortionists. He gave the farrier a esculent scowl and pushed down on the half-dead corpse, yellow bile oozing from between the pickets in its teeth. ‘Villaseñor has an oxcart he seldom uses’ said the farrier hoping to convince the doctor that the half-dead corpse should be got rid of. ‘moving him now would be fatal’ said the doctor. ‘he’s barely holding on’. Transporting the half-dead is best left to a specialist with an ear for stiffening. ‘but what if we get sick?’ ‘that’s the price we pay for being human’ said the doctor palpitating the flesh around the half-corpse’s sternum and ribcage. Henrico Villaseñor’s oxcart is made out of spruce; the axel palpitating counterclockwise to the wheels.

As he left {his lean-to}, {the man in the hat} turned gaze upon the spot where he had fallen. "Here Troy was," said he; "here my ill-luck, not my cowardice, robbed me of all the glory I had won; here Fortune made me the victim of her caprices; here the lustre of my achievements was dimmed; here, in a word, fell my happiness never to rise again." (Cervantes, Don Quixote)

Death comes to those who wait, thought the man in the hat. Never a moment before. He knows when death will come. His father died of the whooping when he was a boy; and if the sins of the father are visited on the son, he {too} will be visited by death before his fifteenth birthday. He pulled the half-corpse counterclockwise, pressing down hard on the half-dead man’s shoulders. ‘you say he seldom uses his oxcart’ said the doctor. ‘yes as far as I know he does, or doesn’t?’ said the farrier scratching the top of his sparsely haired head. ‘then go get the cart; and be quick! We haven’t much time’. ‘don’t you mean he?’ ‘who?’ asked the doctor with annoyance. ‘him’ said the farrier pointing at the half-dead corpse. ‘enough! Now off with you; quickly!’ he said, his face as red as a pumping heart.

Balotesti Ilfov

They caught him trying to climb over the five-mile, his stilts stuck fast in the barbwire. Better to have been eaten by the sun than a half-starved relative. The farrier Balotesti Ilfov sleeps in the old gas shed behind the water tower. He works in the garage behind the consignment office, the furnace belching coal smoke like a derailed Puffing Devil. The farrier Balotesti Ilfov makes the beast-with-two-backs with the harridan’s sister, his face a pantomime of unearthly bliss. From the tool shed window he can see the aberrant and hideously syphilitic trying to cross across the five-mile fence; some hanging lifeless in the barbwire, others chanting and picking fresh scabs off sole-worn feet. ‘swinging back and forth, left to die… yet they still keep coming’.

Doctor professor J. Petrus entered the room carrying his leather satchel, the moon glowering over his shoulder. ‘where is he?’ ‘over there’ said the farrier pointing to a heap of filthy clothing on the floor next to the furnace. ‘he’s been like that for days’. ‘have you tried moving him?’ ‘no, I was worried he might wake up’. Standing over the body, for he knew from past experience that heaps such as this concealed a half-dead body, his leather satchel swinging from side to side, the doctor looked down at the heap of dirty clothing, a solitary finger pointing upwards, the nail curled under. ‘He might be sick. Don’t touch his face…I hear that’s where it’s the worse!’ cautioned the farrier warily. ‘move back’ said the doctor, his satchel hanging between his legs like a leather scrotum.

Horse Steel

The tinker fashioned a pair splints out of gate stiles, attaching them to the boy’s legs with screws. He shaved down the tibia, decreasing the gap between the boy’s knees, Saber shins having reduced his gait to a shuffle. Hutchinson's teeth were a common sight beyond the five-mile, the fence built to keep the syphilitics and undesirables out and to ensure that if they did make it passed the first gate, the barbwire would discourage them from continuing any further. His da said that the syphilitics had lopsided heads that made them look like they were walking sideways when they were walking forwards and forwards when they were walking sideways. The children had slanted foreheads and flypaper-thin eyelids. The parents slopping foreheads and hooded eyelids. His da said that the oldest ones were known to eat the younger ones, cooking them on skewers over a brushfire. The ones that got away got caught up in the barbwire, he said, so there was no need to feel sorry for them. Anyhow the sun would cook them, he said, which was better than being eaten by a relative.

“{Lela}, so the history says, was extremely happy to see {the harridan’s sister} in her house. She welcomed {her} with great kindness, charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence; for in both respects the fair {Lela} was richly endowed, and all the people of the city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the ringing of the bells.” (Cervantes, Don Quixote)

The farrier forged a pair of stilts out of horse steel. Working the kilned steel over the throat he hammered out the longer pieces, pulling and shaping the smaller ones with a pair of long-handle pinchers. He welded the pieces together, milking the joints to ensure a tight fit.

Concha Sucia

His da ran the dogs in the field behind the woolshed. The dogs ran until one of them gave in and lay on its belly. His da put down the dogs that couldn’t run anymore. His da he made a beet stew with the dogs that couldn’t run anymore; the beets turning the meat jugular red. The Acosados Nuestros Pâtés Co. buy the other dogs, the ones his da can’t be bothered putting down, for a dollar fifty a pound. His da makes Callejeros Monigote from sticky paper and sits them on the porch on Santos Inocentes night. The Aracaju whores are known for their fat breasts; some so plump they look like foaling mounts. “No es que crea imposible curarse, sino que no cree en el valor, en la trascendencia de curarse”. (Juan Carlos Onetti, Los Adioses) was written in red paint over the door to the Aracaju bordello, the mad•am, her garishly painted face enough to turn a man’s belly inside out, waving her hankie from the balcony. Juan Paolo Mantegazza carries a piece of paper in his coat pocket. On the paper is written ‘Acosados Nuestros Indios Murieron Al Luchar’, the edges curled up like sleeping children.

The first time the sky fell it fell like a lead balloon; the sun bouncing off the sea-blue surface like a child’s ball. The second and third times it fell it fell upside down; the outsides hitting the ground first, the middle last. The fourth time it fell it fell twice, ricocheting off the surface, the people closest to the middle seeing a blue halo corseting sideways like a rocket. His da boiled the meat and added it to the beets, the quarters dripping with fat. ‘la carne del perro se come mejor con una salsa gruesa’ said a woman in a leper’s skin coat, her hair coiled into a bun. ‘you’re mighty cocksure for a pipsqueak’ said the woman. ‘if one expects to outlive the dying one must be cocksure’ said the man in the round cap, his eyes darting back and forth. ‘anyhow cunts like you are a dime a dozen’ he said smirking. ‘concha sucia!’ hissed the woman in the leper’s skin coat. ‘puede la huelga de dios usted absolutamente!’

Lela stood in front of the church trying to make up her mind: should she enter through the front doors or skulk in through the back. Not sure what to do she walked away, her thoughts pulling her this way and that. His da played the dogs’ ribcages like a xylophone, the smallest bones to the right, the biggest to the left. Sometimes he’d use the hind quarter as a kettle drum, hitting the bones with his fist. Other times he threw the bones into the trash or boiled them into a stock. Or he extracted the marrow and served it in clay bowls with little ear-like handles. His da hated wastefulness and things left out too long in the sun.

Coloc a Luva

The pew-wood scratched the seat of his trousers; the ones his grandmamma sewed him out of seed bags. She’s a mighty fine pinker. Cuts bolts of clothe with an eye for straight lines and hems. Can’t say I can say a bad word about her. Never grants me reason to. And grant she does: gives coppers and redskin pennies to the Women’s Auxiliary and the poor. Ear-to-ear, she gives… dentures bristled with tea-biscuits and doily-thread. A fine woman indeed. ‘coloc a luva, bastardo ladrão!’ yelled a man in a round hat. ‘imediatamente, você torneira otário!’ ‘El astillero’ yelled a man in a peaked cap, ‘Lo vi allí’. He didn’t understand why people screamed when all they had to do was talk. Maybe loud noises made him cringe; or he simply detested people in general. He abhorred people who spoke in riddles, no-good cocksuckers and bare-faced liars. He hated loud, clashing noises; cunts who always seemed to have the answer, even when you didn’t want it; or worse, when you did but were loathe to admit it. He’d fuck them all, Auxiliary ladies with blue hair and soiled nappies; every last one of them. ‘get a lay on’, his da used to say.

Pier - 'On the Road'

Enormous Head

He awoke with a start, his head double the size it was the night before. He shook his head up and down, then from side to side all the while counting from 100 backwards, something he did when he felt out-of-sorts, then opening open his jaw he let out a groaning sigh; the sky outside his lean-to window shattering into a million jewel-like pieces. ‘good God my head is enormous!’ He felt like the devil had knocked the stuffing out of him; everything other than his head smaller than it was the day before. Let him die and be done with it; further sentence is foolish. Unexpectedly, faintly the sky fell into his rooftop; collapsing the timbers, joists and crossbeams. You should have aimed higher; by God Yes twice as high higher! Twice the size that it was the night before. Was it? it was. You can’t make a purse out of a boar’s ear; its sacrosanct… the ear. That morning the man in the hat rose from bed a different man; the sky outside his lean-to window twice the size it was the day before. ‘better that it grow twice than fall’ he thought to himself. The surest way to corrupt the sky is to make it littler; like things in a mirror: they always appear bigger than they actually are.

‘it’s not what you make of it, but what it makes of you’ said the Witness. ‘never confuse the one for the other’. His face reddening he ended with ‘God makes things! Not you!’ ‘sodomizer’ said the boy next to the freckled-face boy. ‘always sneaking up behind you’. He wears paisley socks, his hammertoes piercing the woolly end. The boy sitting next to the freckle face boy yanks on his socks, the elastics frayed round the shins. ‘God made you!’ said the Witness pointing at the freckle face boy. ‘sodomizer’ said the boy next to the freckled-face boy.