Ceiriog Hughes ate cored apples soaked in rum. He bought the apples cored and pared from a black marketer with a mallet foot and a lazy eye. The black marketer’s apples were picked from the topmost branches, cored, cut into slices then soaked in rum to bring out the russet sweetness of the meat. He liked Corpus Crispy Biscuits with his rum soaked apples, and a cup of Royal Bitters to quell the ache in his belly. The man in the hat met Ceiriog Hughes and Mijolla D. Mijolla after the church bazaar, all eyes on the harridan’s sister, her skirt cleaving her ass as she slid her table under the sanctuary pews. Ceiriog Hughes sat in the last pew in the last aisle at the back of the church, Mijolla D. Mijolla in the second to last pew in the second aisle, the man in the hat standing at the very back of the church scribbling notes on the crib sheet of his thoughts.
The Penybryn farm bred and butchered glue horses, the slaughter pit overflowing with gore and carrion, an offal mizzle fencing the air. No one save the butchers knew about the slaughter pit, and when they spoke of it the talk was of dung caked tails and hobbled legs. Ceiriog Hughes was born on the 27th of March 1928, his mamma pushing him out arse first, the umbilicus looped round his neck like a sportsman’s tie. He was born a second time (his mamma dragging him by the cord to meet the noonday train, his shoulders clenched between her red scabby thighs) on a splintered coach pew in the Caersws railway station. The family moved to a small thatched cottage on the outskirts of Denbighshire where he learned how to hand-catch crayfish and tie knots with bailing wire and sheep rope. Ceiriog Hughes met the biggest dogman at a cotton mill where both men worked as day laborers. Their job was to unwire the hoppers once the skeins were full, then batten the cotton into bails for transport. The biggest dogman made sure the wires didn’t get crossed in the hoppers, Ceiriog Hughes unwinding the bits that did, both men loading the finished bails onto the back of oxcarts, then each taking a turn giving the oxen a spank to get the load moving.
The Penybryn farm bred and butchered glue horses, the slaughter pit overflowing with gore and carrion, an offal mizzle fencing the air. No one save the butchers knew about the slaughter pit, and when they spoke of it the talk was of dung caked tails and hobbled legs. Ceiriog Hughes was born on the 27th of March 1928, his mamma pushing him out arse first, the umbilicus looped round his neck like a sportsman’s tie. He was born a second time (his mamma dragging him by the cord to meet the noonday train, his shoulders clenched between her red scabby thighs) on a splintered coach pew in the Caersws railway station. The family moved to a small thatched cottage on the outskirts of Denbighshire where he learned how to hand-catch crayfish and tie knots with bailing wire and sheep rope. Ceiriog Hughes met the biggest dogman at a cotton mill where both men worked as day laborers. Their job was to unwire the hoppers once the skeins were full, then batten the cotton into bails for transport. The biggest dogman made sure the wires didn’t get crossed in the hoppers, Ceiriog Hughes unwinding the bits that did, both men loading the finished bails onto the back of oxcarts, then each taking a turn giving the oxen a spank to get the load moving.
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