Puny Soul

After several attempts he managed to dismount from the stool, his left leg cobbled in the wicker backing. Laughing, the coffin builder wiped the perspiration from his tremulous brow, a stogy of soot darkening the back of his neck. Mouthing his words like a harp he said ‘I’s the only one in this place that’s daring enough to wear a lasso shirt with a fluted collar’. ‘shit down!’ grumbled a codger crossly. ‘or up’ said the coffin builder wringing the sweat out of his handkerchief. ‘or off!’ barked a fat woman in a sunhat. ‘enough!’ scowled the aleman’s wife flapping her skirts, a creel odor piling the besotted night air. He threw himself onto the floor like a dog hit by a truck, everyone except the aleman’s wife watching on with unpleasant bewilderment. ‘look his eye’s bleeding’ shouted the aleman’s wife. ‘must’ve burst a vessel’. ‘damn fool’ cussed the codger crossly. ‘man’s a menace’ whispered the coffin builder thumbing his nose. ‘probably has some kind of mental defect. Standing round with their heads in their hands. Seen this before when I was making deliveries to the Overnight Asylum. Not much they can do for them’. A chappy with a harelip ambled up to the bar and ordered a Pig’s Stout, his nose bobbling like an unmanned fire hose.

His da wore the same checked shirt to work every day, the buttons thumbed with engine oil, the chest pocket stuffed with his work credentials and passed due chits. He stood his boots upside down next to the boiler room fan, the day’s grease and sludge blackening the ankles and toes. He placed his sweat stained work cap on the hook next to his coveralls and left for the day, the sun rising above the Texaco sign yellowing the walk home. His da had watched as an outbreak of smallpox killed half the townspeople. Not knowing what to do he hid under the Seder’s awning carving boxwood talisman’s and money-foot--key-chains. The key chains he gave away for free, the boxwood talisman’s he sold for a dollar a piece.

No man’s an island his da would say falling into a drunken stupor, the front of his shirt covered in slobber. He never did recover after seeing the dwarf hung upside down from the rafters, the head nurse poking him with a curtain rod. His credentials said that he was a day laborer, the picture on his ID taken the year he had his leg amputated and cauterized with a copper welder. Long before he was told of the death and resurrection of Christ he watched his da tease his mamma about the size of her corset; laying claim to her sex and the bodice that hid it from his prying eyes. The priest read aloud from the Versio Vulgata, his lips moving along each verse like a cat stalking a canary. Saint Jerome of Vulgate, hiding his bruised knees under a surplice woven from newly ginned cotton, stood facing the sanctuary altar, the blossoms on his nose frightening the wee children seated at the front of the church. He remembered everything that happened that year; even those things it was not in his interest to remember; beatings and thrashings, hogtied and left to whimper like a puling calf in the crawlspace under the summer kitchen; the scalding pressure of his da’s hand as it lay welts into his backside, his brother sniggering as he lay claim to his puny soul.

Graham Coxon - Freakin' Out

Ultisols Guimarães

He stood at the back of the church staring at the priest’s gown, the purplish one with extravagant embroidery that draped his stout sloppiness like a cinema curtain. Lined up like Russian dolls, the children looking for something to wile away their time with, they waited on the priest’s first words. Speculating that it would have something to do with immoderation or indulgence, both of which he had partaken in in the last week, he relaxed and let his feet sink effortlessly into the floorboards. ‘God is watching’ said the priest starting the homily. ‘then He must need a telescope’ whispered a fair-haired boy. ‘He watches over you when you are awake and when you are sleeping…’ ‘and when you’re shitting’ said the fair-haired boy squeezing himself lest he break out in laughter. His da fed the pigeons that congregated in the parking lot behind the church; throwing fistful’s of a seed at them like a soldier attacking his enemy. João Ultisols Guimarães shits in a commode pot handed down to him from his great uncle Gaudi Ultisols Guimarães, a whoremonger’s son with a noticeable limp. He lives on both sides of the five-mile depending on his appetite for whores and black tea. The black tea he could easily do without. Having been brought up by a father who tutored him in the indelicate art of whoremongering and the sophistication of tea and scalding water a week never passed without him indulging in both. The Ultisols Guimarães’, from child to great grandparent, had little respect for things or people; taking what they wanted regardless of title or propriety.

“It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its God” (Ulysses, J. A.U. Joyce) Mór Matthew and U. A. Shakespeare, doctor of pediatric medicine, share a quart bottle of Pig’s Stout, the awning over their heads flaccidly flapping flipping. ‘I say Mór t’is a sad day now that Paddy’s gone under’. ‘Pushing dirt off the coffintop’. ‘All wormy’. Nether Stout dear man…and snap! Haven’t all day you know. People have little respect these days. Take what they want regardless of marker or politesse. Sad days. Indeed. The youth these days need a good thrashing. I’d say! It’s exhausting just trying to keep one step ahead of them. Catch up with you and, blam! Knock you arse over teapot. Godless hobbledehoy! Not an ounce of propriety. Poldy watched from his stool next to the fiddle hearth Mór Matthew belittling a boy fetching his da’s pail, U. A. Shakespeare, doctor of pediatric medicine, splitting a gut over a ball of rarebit and egg, his face a jubilant lactation. Indulge in both. Not a word of a lie. Serpent’s tail coiled round stool leg. Children begging the da to come home and light the gas. Blitzing carries a hefty cork. Pop the capper and down she goes. Frothy beards stubble with gin sores. The da laying claim to Pig Stout and wife cheating. Not a yard of decency. Shaves over the commode bowl with strop and straight. Lays the razor wetly in the jam jar beside the gleam paste. Da says man’s rights outweigh the ma’s. Keep an even keel. Bend her over the boxwood like a common whore. Bleeding hearts! Should stave their bellyaching. No amount of moaning will vary a man’s cheating. Take what they want regardless of proper etiquette. Tits over tea kettle. Bent over moaning like a gin whore. Cod cave reeks of toad roe. Poldy watched from his stool next to the fiddle hearth, quart bottle stacked and kneed, U. A. Shakespeare boasting about a whoredom where a man’s freedom is his canon. Toast all the sad buggers who think wife cheating’s a sin against God and spouse. Crack the spigot and down she goes. ‘All wormy’. ‘Pushing dirt off the coffintop’. Age of whoredom and groping.

Toad in the hole. Softens stool from the inside. Fetch a pail for the ailing da. Ma blistering over the organ pot. Likes his entrails skilletted. Gullet bribe. The ma adds the organs to the boil. The da hoisting a yard. Pig Stout and fried lamb’s tongue. Salt worsted. A smidgen’s worth. Pottage pillage. Lips smeared with the bottom of the pot. He remembers the day his da drank the Pig, his eyes flaming up like a Skankhill bomb fire. Fire in the belly. Shin fan the oven with the hems of her skirts. Otherwise the pot boils over. Keeps the smoke from quisling. Eyes go all red blurry. Keeps things on an even keel.

His great grandfather was buried in a wooded coffin with brass handles; the insides plush with coffin cloth and silk pillows. He watched as the pallbearers lowered the box into the dirt, his ma pulling her skirts straight, the da fiddling with a piece of ivory, a gift from his da when he was eight and close to dying from gangrene in his belly. His insides swelled up with bile gravy, the doctors saying he had a small chance if he stopped fidgeting and keep still. His ma said she’d only pay for what they took out of him; everything else she’d have to pay on credit.

Mother of Swine

Never did Poldy think that one day he would raise a Bible threateningly over his head or find himself standing toe to toe like common pugilist with Slocum Connolly. Life sometimes holds things in store for us that we never dare to imagine could ever come true; like living one’s life in the belief that this one is but a staging ground for the one to come, ever mindful that this one, or the next, could be the last. He tosses down a goblet, a tail of maenads’ milk whale whitening his chin, ever cautious that one wrong suckle could give him diarrhea, or worse another clubfoot.

He remembered the mossy stench of the cod cave where his grandpappa took him on an outing to find his grandmamma’s missing earring, the one made from pearls of swine and the brownest shiniest garnet. He worked as a buyer for the swine and poultry division. ‘cocks and pigs’ his da said. ‘pigs and cocks. It doesn’t really matter’. ‘who?’ he asked. ‘why your great great grandfather my boy, the one with one leg’. Volutes and spalls, archivolts and dolmens, an intricate façade of architecture and trigonometry, the world unfolding like a Gaudi superstructure, his da standing in the middle paring the grimy half moons of his fingernails with a pocketknife. ‘why your great great grandfather my boy, the one with the peg leg’.

Thinking back over his life he realized that he was living it over and over but each time with smaller and smaller changes, each making an impact on what he had already lived more than once. Mother of swine his gargantuan granddad would hiss, his grandmamma, gargantuan in her own right, throwing pebbles off the rain shutters. Mosfellsbær Ólafsdóttir, known far and wide as the man mostly likely to die from chronic whooping, and his diminuire friend Sólrún, known to only a few squinting cross-eyed freaks with dreams of working the circus circuit, sold pearl of swine cameos and bracelets out of the back of a 1938 suburban sedan with bucket seats and a lay-around dash. ‘cocks and pigs’ said Mosfellsbær Ólafsdóttir grumbling, his jug ears redder than Ultisols clay. ‘next they’ll be asking for a layaway…then what? We’ll have to pawn everything and go back to working the concession stand’.

Gigantes y Cabezudos

Boys at the O’Athy School were expected to attend daily vespers; even Ackley who was born with a gimpy leg and had trouble making it up the steps to chapel. The other boys would help him navigate his way up the steps and sit him in the back pew, Demne Máel making sure he didn’t topple over and crack his head into the pew in front of him. Fader Muldoon gave the sermon, warning them that any boy found playing with himself would be denied entry in heaven and given a good thrashing by brother Ignatius, the boys seated in the front pews cowering lest fader poke one of them in the eye with his roving finger.

Fader Muldoon drank black Porter and Irish Whiskey in the back booth of the Sibín tavern, sister Hélène tugging on his defrocked cock under the table. The aleman’s wife said the two were blasphemers, ‘fader should know better...and with a Carmelite by God, she’s not yet made her solemn vows...a noviciate she is!’ ‘His errors are volitional’ says O’Hanlon. ‘fader never makes mistakes!’ Cursing under her breath the aleman’s wife returns to spit-shining the glassware. ‘fader even celebrates Gigantes y cabezudos and has the biggest head of the lot’ adds O’Hanlon. ‘and La Mercè de San Juan and the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife’. ‘but he’s still a blasphemer’ adds the aleman’s wife spitting. ‘and Moros y Cristianos and the Fiestas del Pilar’. ‘blasphemer!’ ‘and el toro embolado and the feast of Hogueras’. The boys at the O’Athy School dressed in wool trousers and flax shirts, the youngest in goatskin diapers and doily booties.

Her skirts hung from the gallows of her hips, darts and overlapping pleats forming a tam and tartan hem. Slocum Connolly, giving her the once over, the sun dappling his forehead, exclaimed ‘the woman’s an angel...by God yes’. Brother Slocum had arrived early for vespers, the boys staring weakly at him, the rector’s assistant cursing him under his breath. ‘man’s a charlatan… never once seen him bend a knee or say a Hail Mary’. Snorting and snickering the boys looked at one another with disbelief, Natty Roche whispering ‘next he’ll be fining him for not praying for rain’. ‘I hearsay the Dutch make a fine cigar’ said Demne Máel his knees knocking against the back of the pew in front of him. ‘hand rolled’ said Sliab Bladma playing with his prayer book. ‘leaf by leave’. ‘they spit on them’ said Ackley trying desperately to fit in, the other boys ignoring him. ‘and some of them have bleeding gums’. ‘you fool…there’s no way they’d let ‘em anywhere near a cigar’ said Natty Roche reprovingly. ‘it’s unsanitary’. Raising the Bible over his head, the pages fluttering like cigar leafs, Brother Slocum announced the day’s routine: 8 o’clock: prayer; 9 o’clock: vespers; 9:30: confession; 10 o’clock: vaulting and pommel horse; 11 o’clock: lunch; 12 o’clock…his words falling on deaf ears as the boys were more interested in the wine stains on Brother Slocum’s surplice than in what the day had in store for them.

Los Ejército de Putas

He lay the Curioso Castigos de Antaño on the table next to his teeth. Having spent 27 minutes reading the first line “i helots hanno nascosto il whore' guanto di s sotto la base vicino ad un pacchetto delle patatine fritte del riso” he couldn’t bring himself to read any further; the glue holding the spine to the boards giving him a headache. His left foot went numb when he stood for too long in one position; the blood and gases sinking to his lowermost extremities explained away as bloodguilt, a pathological condition passed on to him from his great-grandfather who fought in the Great War of Independence. His great-granddad’s side lost to Los Ejército de Putas, General Orotava Canarias’ pince-nez awakening in him memories of his grade seven trigonometry teacher Mr. Keegan who had one glass eye and one that could only make out fuzzy lines and shadows. Pathogens make the man is what his great-grandfather used to say; turns a shrinking violet into a Snapping Dragoon.

His great-grandfather told stories of footslogging marches carrying eight pound haversacks, never once admitting that he rode in a tank and never lost a leg or an eye. His great-uncle Jim lost one; a pine splinter slivering the retina in half. He never knew if you were looking at his bad eye; the one threaded with guck and dried blood. His great-uncle bought his cigars from the Windsor and Maidenhead Tobacconist, ¼ Perivale Council, a stone’s throw from Wheatears’ Apothecary. They sold creams and salves for getting rid of blotches and ugly spots. His great-aunt bought an unguent for keeping her clean down where things lived in pockets of loose flesh and folds of old fat. It made her feel womanly and kept her husband from turning yellow when they went to bed early on Saturday nights.

This was all long before his da’s nightlong visits to the local whore and the not so soothing whirr of the rubber fan that agitated the foul air over his tiny wooden bed. Long before he learned about bloodguilt and first saw the little girl with the hearing-box strapped to her chest and the foul stink of his grandmother’s breath when she smoked too much. Lots happened before he could see over the railing and his ma stuffed crumpled newsprint in the toes of his shoes so he wouldn’t fuss when she pushed too hard and left welts on his ankles. Long before they arrived on the back of a mule-cart carrying their earthly possessions and his da hit the driver for smiling at his misfortune. “...nascosto il whore' guanto di ad un patatine fritte del riso”.

Dejesus met Natty Roche when the two were freshman boys at the O’Athy School, Natty Roche, steeling a look under the sister’s skirts and Dejesus, unable to contain himself, spitting up splodges of pea soup with biscuits, the sister sending them both to see the Mother Superior. Sliab Bladma, a weakly boy with a persistent cough, Demne Máel, know at the school as the boy most likely to meet his end through bludgeoning and Finn Mac Cumhaill, a mucousy boy with a wiry frame, all lived in the same dorm with Dejesus and Natty Roche. The Mother Superior loathed the boys, referring to them as the God’s little ants, the boys taking this as a sign of Mother Superior’s habit of using God in every sentence and her affection for entomology.

Jarvis Cocker - Running the World

Helotage

He struck a matchstick and lit the tapered end of a cigarette, the yellowy sulphur stinging his eyes. He smoked the cigarette down to ash, snubbing it out with his right foot. Dropping in a coin he sat over the pay-as-you-go bidet, a fountain of lukewarm water finishing off what paper and hand couldn’t. A runny yare of egger rum trickled down his leg pooling at his unshod feet. He squished the yellowy cordial between his hammertoes and smiled with leviratic ecstasy. He reached into his breast pocket, for you see he he’d fallen to sleep in his suit of clothes after a night of drinking and poaching kisses from the aleman’s wife, and retrieved the poem he was to recite at the Order of the Helotage later that day.

children play
in the burins
kicking the ashes
for stomped tins
God lives in the
razor wire

Not sure how they would introduce him, as poet or sot, he read the poem in front of the hoary mirror hanging over the washing table. ‘children kicking in the burins’. Realizing he’d placed children before God he repeated the poem a second time. ‘God kicking children kicking ashes’. Feeling that he was making a mockery of God, which given his strict Presbyterian upbringing he was loathe to do, he recited it a third and fourth time. He threw the poem onto the floor and sat down on the edge of the cot, his foot aching like a hoof.

Blackwater Mainistir

Francisco Morazán Tegucigalpa wears knee-pants with darted cuffs and double-stitched hems. The better for jumping portside into the tumult sea. His da’s da met the crowdie bugger on a salt run from Petersburg to Saint Mahout, Francisco Morazán Tegucigalpa leaping portside as soon as the ship reached shore, his Ditty Bag stuffed with trinkets: wares to keep whores from flinching and showing up his meagre cockmanship. The sisters of Blackwater Mainistir at Fhear Maí took care of his da’s da when he fell ill from a congestion of the upper bowel; plying him with ointments and salves and swaddling him in cotton gin.

Giving into his infelicities, daily rations of egg rum and soft palate biscuits, what few teeth he had requiring an ease of chewing lest he swallow a wad or spit up a whole crumb, the sisters tended to his every desire. Crowdie bastard living like a lieutenant: daily rasher of Cèilidh brose n’ oatcakes, dancing a jig with the Stichelton Clan; rummy bastards cut the lamb’s gut to high, stuffed it full of Parker’s oats and Yarg gelatin; runny end slopping all over his trousers. Stopcocked the coke oven, black ashy steam escaping like corpsegas. Navy captain dressed him down to his buff, stood admiring his manhood in the brass yellow waters.

Heard say he’s now living abroad in a half-room walkup with a pay-as-you-go bidet. Pissed away on whore’s trinkets and egger rum. Keeps the moths from alighting on the lamphead. Wick-end burns the bone down to knuckle. Seen a man light his self ablaze. Leapt over portside into the brassy yellow sea. Keeps the whores from flinching and making a nuisance. Christ-less heathens. Give into their infelicities. Keeps the sisters busy. Tend to their every wont and desire. His da set out to sea aboard the Mary of Bullockships. Lightening quick and easy as she goes. Left his molars under the ambry. Had to mash his oatcakes with a spoon.

Fhear Maí

He arrived dockside aboard the Mary of Bullockships, the buoys out past the breakwater rushing the keel hurriedly, the captain spitting up gob in the deck below, the first coxswain manning the wheelhouse. Hauling in the bollard, the untied end lashing the sheeting, the second coxswain crawled under the deck with a monkey-wrench, his job to loosen the starboard rudder. ‘give it some slack!’ he shouted, the ship keeled to the right, the Hex bolt stripping his knuckles raw. His da, a galley cook on the Mary of Bullockships, sat under the captain’s poop shucking peas, the ocean salt liming his face. His da came from a long line of whaling Breen’s; his great-great grandfather a stoker on the Queen of Bullockships, his great grandfather a second mate on the Queen of Scots of Bullockships and his da’s da a coxswain on the Queenlier Queen Marie Henriette of Bullockships. Mackey Lacy, pining for his beloved ashore, recited a love poem evening, morn and night:

Tis youth and folly
Makes young men marry,
So here, my love, I'll
No longer stay,
What can't be cured, sure
Must be injured, sure
So'll go to
Amerikay.

My love she's handsome,
My love she's bony:
She's like good whisky
When it is new;
But when 'tis old
And growing cold
It fades and dies like
The mountain dew.

(James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, A Portrait of an Artist)

Mackey Lacy kept Ditty Bag full of books stowed under his hammock, each volume to be read according to the reading on the Schöner star-taker: botany when the wind blew leeward, poetry when it blew portside and philology when it blew over the starboard bowsprit. His da never did feel much for Mackey, considering him a man of uneven temper and low moral principles. He kept his distance, staying below when Lacy was topside and hiding in the galley when he was below, ever-mindful that Lacy was easily angered and could knock a man out cold with one punch. Mary of Bullockships set sail for the Blackwater Mainistir at Fhear Maí, the second mate doubled over with brontophobia, the foresail gagging on saltwater and rum. ‘release the bilge trap’ yelled the first mate, the sea head lashing the starboard elm.

Stephen Breen

Waking from a night of sorrowful countenance he fell upon itemizing his thoughts. Arranged according to consonance, and taking into consideration sibilance and vocal quality, he made a list of things that occupied his thoughts upon waking. Having dawned on him that his waking thoughts were occupied with such things as how big ones head would grow if one watered it or why cows have two stomachs and goats didn’t, variables he seldom gave much thought to, he determined that upon-waking thoughts were much smaller than the ones he had during the remainder of the day. Taking this into consideration he itemized his thoughts according to what thoughts he could and would have upon waking should he remain abed with his eyes closed. Comparing the two he came up with a list that took into consideration what thoughts he would or could have were he to stay abed with one eye closed waking a full two hours earlier. As neither consideration appeared to alter what thoughts he had or would have, he rearranged his hat collection safe in knowledge that any thought he would or could have, both eyes open or one closed, changed very little about how he went about his day. Other than adding a sibilant lisp to his consonant tenor, which he could dispense of verily with an Epsom gargle, whether he awoke earlier or later mattered very little. Is it all a suicide of reason? A pittance to pay for safe passage into the otherworld?

He met Stephen Breen at the Bleeding of the Lamb, both men admiring the low cut of the harridan’s sister’s skirts. Apostolidès the flâner, a courthouse jester, was at that very moment prying a sliver from his thumb, a spurt of blood corkscrewing into the still bazaar air. Turning to Stephen Breen he said ‘the man’s a menace; always bleeding when he should be greening’. Realizing that a pun was being made against his name Stephen Breen turned a red cheek and said ‘green or red it’s all the same to me’. ‘anyone can bleed red, but only a giant of a man can make it green’ said Apostolidès the flâner pinching off his thumb. ‘and with such élan’ said the harridan’s sister tugging at her skirts. ‘yes élan’ said Stephen Breen. ‘green or red, with flair indeed’. Sitting on the highest branch in the biggest tree in the courthouse yard the littlest dogman played his chest like a Domitius lyre, Stephen Breen, pricking up his ears, trying to follow the tempo.

There was a rumour spreading that Stephen Breen, fellow of the Brethren of Philistines, having been in attendance at the last assemble of the Brethren of Heretics knew the whereabouts of the missing whore’s glove. They ferried him across the Libby, the punter thrashing passers-by with his elbow, the paddy waggon caroming from paling to balustrade. Cunts always think a dead man deserves the right-of-way. Hobnail ‘em. That’ll show ‘em. Never take the right-of-way for granted. The dead are dead. The living get the right-of-way. Philistines!

Heretic’s Hospital

They came from Botulfsson and Savonarola, from Pistorius and Wendelmoet, by oxcart and mule waggon, in groups of twos and threes, some lagging behind like lame dogs, others charging ahead grasping at imaginary straws; they came and they came until the streets were swarming with heretics. Casement wore a Congolese Headdress festooned with partridge feathers and a fiery red cockscomb, making him the first full-fledged heretic to refuse to wear a Sattler Mitznefet. ‘pillory me if you like but I will never wear a miter. Never I swear!’ I swear I never laid a hand on him! Must have fell over backwards over the breakwater wall, little peeps cooing and going out of him. Save my own life by a hair. Leave it to God or the devil. Heretics Fork brings the best out in a man. Keeps the chin from getting flabby. Yank ‘em up by the throat. Reserved for regicides. Makes a man out of a Brazen Bull. Semi heretics aren’t worth the bother. Lead sprinkler is usually enough. Has ‘em begging for you to pull the stopcock. Which we won’t. Never! Split knee easier on the pulling arm. Makes boiling seem like a trip to the ferries. Blindfolded. Can’t tell who’s who. Buggerer’s get off Scott free. In his left-hand pocket he carried a poem penned by Ramihrdus of Cambrai:

the embalmer’s hands
weigh the body in ounces
employing an age-old science
that separates the body
from the heavenly

On his last visit to the Heretic’s Hospital the etherist pumped him full of aryl halide, his chest ballooning out like a sow’s belly. ‘No need to worry my boy it’ll escape out your anus and through the pores in your neck. Give it a few days, you’ll see’. The orderly wheeled him out in a Chèz Woulant, Eusebius, brother of Caleb and Sophronius working the stopcock like a Black Friar. He was prescribed a mild epagogic and told not to remove the bandage until the wound had scabbed over; then he could scissor it off and throw it into the trash bin behind the Waymart where a man would retrieve it and dispose of it properly; burning it to ashes then dispersing them into the aqueduct. He was to discover years later that the man who retrieved the soiled bandages was none other than Čerenkov the dwarf, then in the employ of Stephen Breen who paid him in heretical names and aryl halide.

Botulf Botulfsson

Hold her head so she doesn’t fall four words: Bi i dho husht. Easier when she’s clamping. Always on the bend performing the Noble Provision. Lay a fiver she’ll get a mouthful. Like spoiled cream. Bite down hard; like shredding kip sausage. Jaw gets all stiff and mangled, barely open it a peep. Should have known better. All mangled. Turn him off for good. Poses a problem with sitting. Have to crap standing. Comes out in pips. Mangled from the inside out. Easier when she’s ajar. Slows down the provision. Ladle the boil. Good for the simmer.

He lay abed until his neck ached, his head full of hornets. Rising, slowly, his feet scarcely touching the dirt floor, he assembled his things, three pairs of socks, a scarf, his favourite boater, a reissue of Popular Mechanics, the June 27th issue with an article on Rolfing, and nimbly wade his way out into the glowing sunlit afternoon. He had a meeting with Dejesus to discuss the likelihood of the sky falling Thursday next; the last time before the next full moon. The last time the sky fell before the full moon the Semiheretics put on a knees-up on the front steps of the church, a thousand or more semi and full heretics taking over the grounds of the sacristy. Ramihrdus of Cambrai, Peter of Bruys, Gherardino Segarelli, Marguerite Porete, Botulf Botulfsson, Antonio Bevilacqua, William Sawtrey, John Badby, Jan Hus, Jeroným Pražský, Thomas Bagley, Pavel Kravař, Girolamo Savonarola, Jean Vallière, Johannes Pistorius Woerdensis, Wendelmoet Claesdochter, Michael Sattler, Patrick Hamilton, Balthasar Hubmaier, Jörg vom Haus Jacob, Richard Bayfield, James Bainham, William Tyndale, Anneke Esaiasdochter, Maria van Beckum, Patrick Pakenham, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, Dirk Willems, Diego López, Kimpa Vita, Maria Barbara Carillo and Saint Joan of Arc in attendance either in person or by proxy.

Stephen Breen kept the docket listing all the full and semi heretics in attendance that day; itemizing each according to means of torture and execution: full heretics: lead sprinkler, hanging, flaying, burning at the stake, boiling, flaying then boiling, hanging and flaying, flaying, boiling and hanging and set ablaze inside a Brazen Bull with a stopcock to release the built-up steam; semi heretics: crocodile shears, reserved for regicides, the Spanish Tickler, flagellation, sawing, Judas Cradle, the Pear of Anguish, foot roasting, the Heretics Fork, knee splitting, pillory, toe wedging and branking.

Bi i dho

‘Unfortunate wretched woman, trotting like a poodle. Bi i dho husht, says he. That bloody old fool!’ Astride he stood, the cuffs of his tan trousers bagging round his leg stumps, buckled and held aloft with a Yeomen’s garter. ‘Husht ye gamy bastard! A leg up is all he’s after’. Unfortunate wretch brings tears to my eyes. Seen her dog lapping up pools of it; tongue swelled up like a cirrhotic liver, all irony and bluish. Has a pawn owing on an engraved headstone, wagering she’ll live well into her hundreds. Shriner’s’ll pay the balance on monies owing if she breaks a leg or catches her death from a cold. Carry her across over in one of those miniature cars; easier if she sets sails and doesn’t look back. Price of petrol has tripled in two weeks! Diesel cost twice as much as regular petrol even though it makes the engine crank clank and sputter. Someone’s making a profit and that someone isn’t me. Cost less to embalm a corpse. Can get by with a smaller miniature car too. Don’t have to rely on coasting. Hills are a rarity, most people want to go up not down. Less time-consuming. Barely raises a hair on your neck. Hot mock chicken steam cooked with newly baked jam puffs; brings out the pepperiness. Can get by on a smaller pot if you can keep the steam from escaping. Bathe your face in steam bath steam, brings out the shine and does away with the blackest blackheads. Red as Mandrill’s ass. Good for courting and praying on the weakly. Seen him holding her chin aloft, leg stumps buckling, swiping flies with the knob-end of her cane. Costs less than a chèz woulant’s. Don’t have to add to someone’s profit. Save up monies owing. Carry the balance over without penalty or hedging. Interest only in making a dime on your sorrow. End up pawning the pawn. He awoke to a gallfly buzzing like a hornet’s nest above his head, its tiny crude wings flailing madly. I’d suggest a mustard poultice to ease the stinging. Grandmamma’s recipe: cloves, castor oil and molasses boiled in a coffee tin.

Luceafărul the Middling

Every night before turning in the legless man soaks his stump-ends in rosewater, wrapping the pruned stubs with a castoff handkerchief or shirt sleeve. Tucking the bed linen under his hipbones he falls to sleep thinking of ways to make his pushcart go faster. When he was a boy his mamma scrubbed him all over with a wire brush, the smell of cropped skin filling his thoughts with foot roasting and persecution by flaying. She fed him boiled prunes to soften his stool and spruce-beer to settle his stomach. The Street Sweeper's Daughter danced in the streets like a mad maiden, her feet barely touching the pavement. The Street Sweeper's Daughter salaamed up the street like Avshalom’s concubine, her maidenhead flapping like a washerwoman’s rag. On Saturday afternoon Glostrup played Nardshir with the Street Sweeper's Daughter’s uncle, a frightfully timid man with a nervous tic that made him look like an encephalitic on the brink of fainting. The Street Sweeper's Daughter fell plummeting to her death from Quim’s Span, Jerome Ahasuerus, middle brother of Caleb, Eusebius and Sophronius, catching a glimpse of her undressed maidenhead before she was swallowed up by the outgoing tide. ‘surely she’ll be eaten by pilot fish’ whispered Ómaigh Sizars, fearing that he too might lose his footing and fall plunging into the aqueduct.

James Aloysius Augustine of Clongowes, born 2 February 1958, stood admiring his reflection in the Seder Grocer’s window, the sun glistening off his tonsured head. Augusta, now there’s a snivelling cunt if I ever saw one; plays the feint-hearted victim when the chips are down; never once seen him levy a round, ‘I’m skint’ he says, or ‘the Misses won’t allow it’. Soddy bastard lives off the charity of others. Cunt’s soaking me blind, and on His Clongowes’ birthday! Throw ‘em to the sharks; pilot fish chewing the fat off his gums. The last time Poldy saw James Aloysius Augustine of Clongowes he was dancing a jig with the Street Sweeper's Daughter and turning a blind eye to the fiver he’d levied off McTaggart on the second to last furlough. Never trust a gambolling man; there only in it for themselves. Sweet Jesus but its hotter than the Blazes in here; never know when the cunts going pull one over on poor ole Paddy. Seen him crossing over the Libby in a straw handsome with McGibbon, Clive and Ollie. Wife’s got a fine pair, ‘cept for the sores and panting blisters. Seen her snap crystal; her under-drawers losing their elasticity. But he of course turns a blind eye; rather pull the commode chain than come face-to-face with the cuckolding bastard. Seen him Thursday last buying a bar of McCabe’s Finest, lemony scented and sure to raise an eye or two. Says its easy on the complexion, razes away all the blackheads and raised spots; known to bring a shine out on a cuckold’s face. On a whim Luceafărul the Middling ate an entire bar, could blow bubbles out of his arse like a Shriner. Some say he could sink a frigate with one clench.

Awaking, his clammy bedclothes weighing him to the cot, Poldy felt a rumbling in the smithy of his soul. He dreamt that he was closing in on the scent of the missing whore’s glove and that if he could only pull himself free of his daily routine, see things more clearly, with more perspicuity, he would find it there, right under his nose, waiting to be found. But as this was not to happen, his bedclothes discouraging him from rising upright out of his cot, he fell back to sleep with a resounding thud. Word had it the Luceafărul the Middling had arrived in town Thursday last, bringing with him an oxcart full of leather goods, sow bellies and tripe. Luceafărul the Middling set up a table of sows’ bellies, leather goods and stomach linings in the empty lot across from the Church of the Perpetual Sinner and waited, the rector eying him from the balcony. Vrije Bielefeld stood admiring a cockroach floundering in a puddle of dog piss. ‘and what a drowned little boy you are’ said Vrije Bielefeld unzipping his trousers and pissing on the cockroach. ‘I hear say he can drowned a frigate and blow bubbles out his arse like a Shriner. Says it’s good for the complexion; razes all the raised spots and blackheads’. Awaking a second time he fell back to sleep with a resounding thwack, his bedclothes clammy with piss. Barely able to raise his head from the pillow he fell back into saturnalia bliss, his bedclothes chilly with dog piss and sweat.

Breithlá Sona Duit, James Augustine

Čerenkov

Laying under a fichus swatting midges with his hat O’Rourke reads the Organon, the sun hardly climbing above the treetops. “So much at least is plain on all these points, viz. that the faculty by which, in waking hours, we are subject to illusion when affected by disease, is identical with that which produces illusory effects in sleep. So, even when persons are in excellent health, and know the facts of the case perfectly well, the sun, nevertheless, appears to them to be only a foot wide”*. Swatting a midge, his hat flopping side to top, O’Rourke reads on. “Now, whether the presentative faculty of the soul be identical with, or different from, the faculty of sense-perception, in either case the illusion does not occur without our actually seeing or [otherwise] perceiving something. Even to see wrongly or to hear wrongly can happen only to one who sees or hears something real, though not exactly what he supposes. But we have assumed that in sleep one neither sees, nor hears, nor exercises any sense whatever”. *(Aristotle, On Dreams 350 BC, translated by J. I. Beare) ‘I dreamt the dream I was dreaming was dreaming me. Greeks, always mixing up one thing for the other’. Standing, his legs buckling inwards then out, O’Rourke threw the book into the bushes behind the fichus, the sun scaling the sky like Japanese ivy.

Poldy first met O’Rourke at the Bleeding of the Lamb, both men standing to the right of the altar. O’Rourke, engaged with a transubstantiated crack in the ciborium was watching dewdrops of Divine Water drip onto his unshod foot, the rector eying him with disgust. Čerenkov the dwarf, great-nephew of Čerenkov the Giant, pulled down his trousers and let go with a trumpeting fart; a fat woman midway through lighting a votive candle fainting like a malarial missionary. ‘the woman has no sense-perception’ whispered O’Rourke. ‘everything appears to her as if it were only a foot wide’.

Chiming like a tinsmith’s anvil the church bells clanged throughout the night and into the morn. The mob disbanded, some southwesterly some northeasterly and some down the middle of the street like cows to the slaughterhouse hammer. Her head bobbing from side to side like a ragdoll Glostrup marched up the sideways, her defiance matched only by her heartless reproach for anyone or thing that got in her way. Earlier that day, well before the mob arrived in the streets, Ms. Glostrup, toting a pike festooned with nails shouted ‘Be there any man, big or small, who thinks he is stronger than I may he stand forth now!’ A freckle-face boy holding a top raised his hand and shouted ‘I will’. A Hetaerist, his Midrashim’s cape flapping, pushed past the boy and stood eye to eye with the almighty Glostrup. ‘Stand aside; there’s no need for a boy to do a man’s job. I will thrash this despicable whore!’ Looking on with a mixture of terror and enthusiasm, as they were well-acquainted with the Hetaerist’s ruthless demeanor, having witnessed him tear a man limb-to-limb for calling him an encephalitic, which he was, his head three times the size of a man of matching deportment, Cinecittá João, Ubaldo, Ribeiro, João and Guimarães Rosa took cover under the Seder Grocer’s awning, Ubaldo cowering like a frightened child. With one blow the Hetaerist brought Glostrup to her knees, Ubaldo yelling ‘stupid cow…that’ll show you!’ Straightening the hem of her skirts the harridan’s sister let out a sigh, safe in the knowledge that today she would not have to fight off the vagrants and Nair-do-wells that followed Glostrup like pilot fish or worry about the sky falling, plummeting onto her head.

Church of Thélème’s

His booted feet kicking clumps of earth Jesús Juventud stood staring at his reflection in the window, the grocer swiping at him with a broom. ‘shoo or I will smite you with my broom!’ cried the grocer. ‘malcontent!’ Jerome Ahasuerus, middle brother of Caleb, Eusebius and Sophronius, sat behind the Church of Thélème’s chewing and reading a pamphlet he’d found under a shrub, the sun burning a tonsure into the top of his head. ‘brother, hand me your eyeglasses, this print is awfully small’. ‘are you getting a headache?’ asked Jesús Juventud fiddling with a handful of green twigs. ‘not yet…it’s the print; it’s putting a strain on my eyes’. ‘perhaps it’s the poor quality of the ink...the kind they use for sheet music and poor people’s bibles’ said Jesús Juventud squinting. ‘perhaps…but I’m more inclined to think it’s the poor quality of the paper…the kind they use for wrapping meat and poultry’. ‘I could see that’ said Jesús Juventud squinting one eye then the other. ‘what’s that? asked Jerome drawing the pamphlet closer, the print dissolving into an inky black splotch. ‘I could see is what I said’ said Jesús. ‘see what?’ asked Jerome his hands shaking from the pressure he was applying to the corners of the pamphlet. ‘never mind’ said Jesús, a hint of hurt in his voice. ‘either way you can’t make heads nor tails out of it can you?’ ‘but I will! I surely will!’ said Jerome Ahasuerus defiantly, the pamphlet pressed tight against his nose. ‘yes surely you will’ said Jesús Juventud. Leaving behind a stack of twigs arranged like tiny logs hued for an infinitesimal miniscule cottage, Jesús Juventud went his way, the sun splotching everything under its glare.

This is not how it was suppose to be; things got out of hand, the sane went mad and the mad sane, what was inside turned outward, the centre no longer in the middle but cast asunder floundering in no-man’s-land. Deasey, now there’s a swimmer: can make two lengths of the aqueduct on one lungful of weedy air. Saw him do it twice: once for taking the Lord’s Name in vain and once for swearing during morning prayers. Eyjafjardarsysla from on Tyne but now living in Glossop, attempting to swim the aqueduct drowned midway under the Quim’s Span, those cheering him on watching on horrified as he sunk to the bottom like a stone. Ómaigh Sizars wears a top hat summer, winter and fall, reserving his rattan sou'wester for those gray drizzly days between deice and blossom. That day the day of the drowning he stood astride Quim’s Span recouping his trouser, which having dropped below his ankles, exposing his Mongrel pale legs, debarred his ability to cross across to the other side. Looking down below the frayed hems of his trousers, beyond the sprained tendons in his ankle, he exclaimed with unusual alacrity ‘my God, someone throw the poor man a rope!’ not a sole moving an inch. ‘Can’t you see the man’s drowning?’ he cried out. Raising his voice above the din, his face a bad apple rotten to the core, a boy replied ‘Yes, and we don’t give a damn’. ‘Let the bastard drowned’ shouted a second boy hoping to impress the first boy with his brave uncowardly tenor. ‘Have you no mercy!’ shouted Ómaigh Sizars, the first boy watching the second boy poking a dead worm with the lit end of a cigarette.

Juan Tenorio

Ro Gallegos Cruz, an encephalitic, stands in front of the Seder Grocer’s admiring his reflection in the window, his goutweed jaw working a stick of peppermint chewing gum. Taking hold of his arm and yanking don Juan Tenorio puts an end to Ro Gallegos Cruz’s dullard’s engrossment, a loud crack issuing from his head, his ears dripping spools of brackish water. ‘Hurry!’ he yells yanking harder. ‘before the mob overtakes us!’ The mob, cheek to jowl, close in rounding the corner, the head nurse wailing. Off in the distance a siren blares. Then the bells in the church tower begin to chime, a tinny ear surrendering to a cold medieval chorus. Ro Gallegos Cruz, breaking free of don Juan Tenorio yells ‘to hell with you! On her face!’ The head nurse yelling ‘How dare you, and without my permission!’ don Juan Tenorio charging past her screaming ‘to hell with it, I’m going home!’

From his perch high above the mob, the bell tower cricketing under the weight of its colossal chimes, Poldy waves his hat like a cowboy, the mob yipping and hollering him on. To his left the Witness, a splinter-group of mobsters kicking at him like a piñata, struggling to stay upright, to his right the littlest dogman, his chest puffed out like a courting pheasant, pelting the mob with rotten cabbages and directly below, his pushcart upturned, the legless man, a galley of halfwits and imbeciles clubbing him over the head with makeshift cudgels and bats. ‘yip yip yippee!’ howls the mob, the legless man, his head swollen like a melon begging them to stop.

Chèz Woulant

Poldy put on his favorite hat, laced his best pair of shoes and strode out into the glaring sunlit day. It was hours before the Feast of Tierra de Nadie and everywhere he looked there were people scampering about getting ready for the first gorging of the New Year. Heerlen stood about-face, his feet unbuckled from his shoes, a sea of people hissing and churning like an unruly crew. Swaging like a Rabelaisque Gargantua the mob moved down the street, stopping in front of the Church of Thélème’s, the harridan’s sister, her hair done-up in a hag’s knot trying to sweet-talking them into to buy a placemat or a Pop-icicle boat, past the Dogman Deli, the littlest dogman crouching behind a stall of oyster hams playing his breastplate like a xylophone, to the front of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner where the rector, his face three shades of red was airing out his surplice, the mob coming to a full stop. Suddenly, unexpectedly a second mob appeared around the corner, an army of halfwits and imbeciles, the lame and ambulatory, some on stretchers others wheeling themselves in chèz woulant’s, led by the head nurse from the Overnight Asylum. ‘Heathens!’ yelled the rector. ‘sit on my face!’ yelled the head nurse. ‘on her face!’ yelled the mob. ‘to hell with you all!’ scowled the rector.