Plumbed Wine and Biscuits

Out of nowhere a quair fellow shouted at the tiptop of his lungs ‘…tomorrow the sky is going to fall, mark my words…’. The man in the hat, bent over a rabbit’s hole, said ‘…not again, you promised the last time was the last time…’. In the end the sky didn’t fall, and that was that. That afternoon, after morning vespers, the harridan’s sister’s table collapsed like a house of cards, bric-a-brac and doodads tumble every which where, the church deacon bellowing in laughter, a wee waif of a boy, his trousers to his knees, pissing up a storm. ‘…from here everything looks as it should…’ offered the deacon, ‘…so stop your blubbering and clean up that fucking mess…’. From where he was seated, between the ciborium saucer and the altar, the world looked as it should, port-side up and barreling with plumbed wine and biscuits. ‘…a girly like you should be grateful for what she has, measly and piddled as it is…’ he shouted, his face redder than spilt wine. Out of somewhere a quair fellow shouted at the bottom of his lungs ‘…watch out for that quair fellow, he’s a rare cunt he is…’. The harridan’s sister hightailed it down the church steps, and that was that.

Two weeks before the next day Dejesus received a postcard from his great uncle Theodore who lived in Ripe East Sussex and worked as a fixer for the Guernsey Cable Company. Before working for the Guernsey Cable Company, his great uncle Theodore worked for the Aktiengesellschaft Cable Company in Austria, and before that for the Nick Dye Cable Company in Stoke Mandeville Buckinghamshire. The postcard read, Dearest nephew, I am writing you this short missive from my post at the Guernsey Cable Company while I am momentarily on break, albeit a short miniscule break, as they frown upon long languishing breaks, sad bastards, anything beyond 10 minutes is considered middling, and as such too long, so you might well understand the brevity of this short missive. One fellow, a mister V. W. Beams, however, seems to be permitted longer breaks, in the neighborhood of 11 or 12 minutes, why, I am unsure, but I suspect he is a favorite of the shift-boss, or simply a very smart man. Mister Beams, who prefers to be addressed as V. W., thereby shortening the time it takes to address him, as the company demands the utmost attention from its peons, V. W. being one of many peons to which I speak, so you might well imagine the undue pressure I currently find myself under, sad as that may be. I fear I am quickly running out of writing space, so I will get to the gist of this short, albeit middling missive. Might I ask of you to inquire about a position with the Kipling Cable Company as a fixer first class, which I am to understand is situated not far, a stone’s throw, I believe, from where you currently call home? Dejesus read the postcard, curious as to the postmark on the topmost corner, then pitched it in with the other trash behind the Greek Deli.

Stout Stout and a Good Smoke

That morning the Liepaja Stepbrothers left for Bucharest never to return. The following morning the man in the hat got a telegraph from the Kista Brothers of Stockholms Lan declaring a monopoly over shoes and all things cobbled. He read the telegram then tossed it into the dustbin behind the Greek Deli. The alleyway behind the Greek Deli was a smorgasbord of spoiled buffets and sit-down dinners. ‘…what a silly world…’ he said, ‘stepbrothers fighting brothers over heel supports and eyelet punches…’. He spit-licked the brim of his hat, a sou'wester with a cockatiel plume, and went about his business, his thoughts sundry with cobblers’ awls and swung fists.

‘…I can’t remember the last time I had a good smoke…’ said the legless man to the alms man. ‘…and I a good stout Stout…’ said the alms man to the legless man. ‘…a good smoke and a stout Stout, what a splendid thought...’ said the legless man. ‘…sumptuous indeed…’ said the alms man, ‘…a splendid thought…’. The headlines in the morning Gazette read: 'POLICING ISSUE BEHIND RIOTS', Crisis talks at Stormont, IRA prisoners seek to clear record, Sharp reaction to Lisbon re-run proposal, Ogra Shinn Fein goes postal, Feature: March to overcome injustice, Analysis: British human rights record still among worst, the Polbeg Brewery has ceased producing Bogtown Stout, local man hangs himself from a tree in protest, fighting continues in the northern provinces. Dejesus’ family came from the northern provinces where Polbeg, sheepshanking and hangings were a familial tradition. A day didn’t pass without someone in the Dejesus family coming across a swaying corpse, the eyes pebbled with crows’ strikes, the tongue salted with hate and bigotry. The north had troubles with the south and the east troubles with the west, the entire country in troubles with itself.

The next day the headlines in the Polbeg Daily read, Go raibh mile maith agat. ‘…the cunts’re at it again…’ grumbled Dejesus, ‘…fucking dodgy bastards…’. The legless man sat in front of the Waymart and took in the clutter of the day, his stump-ends tucked under the seat of his half-trousers.

Hortense Eugénie Cécile

The publishing house that published Popular Mechanics was still awaiting the shamble leg man’s overdue payment, now totaling, with accrued interest, 27½ dollars and 3 cents. As he had no intention of reading the Popular Mechanics they kept sending him, regardless of his arrears, he made a note to forget that he was in arrears and owing the publishing house the amount stated on the invoice, the very same invoice he had been sent 4 times to no avail. Mornings like this one made the shamble leg man drowsy and indolent, so, doffing his make-believe hat, he bid a farewell to all thought of accomplishing anything of value.

That morning the harridan awoke to a teasing pain, her back having bent over double while she slept in a heap of old linen and sour memories. As she pried herself from bed, stirring, she noticed a bird twittering on the window sill, a cozen warbler. The cozen warbler was known for its trill chirrup and quisling distemper. She shooed the bird from the sill and went about her toilet. The harridan disliked sharp piercing sounds, as her childhood had been chock-o-block with them. The harridan, now unstirred, remembered a slattern named Hortense Eugénie Cécile who worked in a casinò in Ancona Marche Italy. She had long silken curls the colour of buttermilk and eyes so blue they seemed impossible. The harridan read about her in an Italian caricatore she found in the trash bin behind the Greek Deli. Hortense Eugénie Cécile lived in a room upstairs in the casinò, where she kept all her worldly belongings, a pale blue dress with taffeta frills, two pairs of socks, two blouses, one red one turquoise, a pair of patent leather clogs and a table lighter she’d pilfered from the dining room downstairs. Hortense Eugénie Cécile was known as the best kisser in the casinò, the other girls known for their attachment to sweets and backstabbing.

That morning after the harridan had made her toilet, she put on her favorite pale yellow dress, the one she’d found in the trash bin behind the Waymart, and set out to find the man in the hat, who the day before had promised to show her how to make curlicues out of toothpicks and common balled string. She passed the alms man, who was sitting cross-legged on his swath of cardboard, eyes darting to and fro counting the number of cracks in the sideway, then she hurried by the legless man, who was busy scouring the stump-ends of his legs with a wire brush, his face red as the night sky before a rainy day, then finally to the park behind the aqueduct where she was to meet the man in the hat at 27½ minutes past noon.

Algebra de Legman

Awakening from a dead fast sleep, the shamble leg man reached for the Popular Mechanics magazine stowed on top of his bedstead bureau. He turned to the middle of the magazine, to an article (perhaps a folio or expose) that read, the Guatemalan government has decided to add Algebra de Legman to the grammar school curriculum. After thumbing through the folio (perhaps an article or expose) the shamble leg man placed the magazine back on top of the bedstead bureau and lit his cob. Inhaling and exhaling like a tugboat steam chimney, he decided to put on his shoes, a pair of tan and black loafers with broad wingtip flaps. He placed his cob on top of the bedstead bureau steadily, careful not to disrupt the trimmings and bits and pieces that sat abutting his pocket-comb and clippers. On the bedstead bureau, other than his cob, pocket-comb, clippers and the Popular Mechanics magazine, sat three old coins of no known currency, a red button, a picture of a friend of his dead father, another picture of someone he had no idea who, a chewing gum wrapper, Beechnut peppermint, a spare pocket-comb missing several important teeth, an empty tin of Beeves’ Ginger Ale, a half empty package of Whisky Sour mix, a wooden cock, two macramé doilies and a book he had not, nor ever would, get around to reading.

Crook’s Ivy Gin and Moldy Cheese

That morning the legless man, having slept poorly the night before, awoke with a fright. He pushed back the covers, a poorhouse of bedbugs scattering, and lowered himself from bed. He ate a small indelicate breakfast, a glass of Crook’s Ivy Gin, three pieces of blue moldy cheese, nicked from the dustbin behind the Greek Deli, and when he’d had his fill, smoke a cigarette leisurely. ‘…but fuck its going to be fine and gentlemanly day…’ he yawned, ‘…a fine day for doing nothing at all, yes indeed, a fine and gentlemanly day it is…’. A cowering sun sat low in the morning sky, a poorhouse of gray clouds threatening rain and ungentlemanly weather. The legless man, unaware that the sky was about to fall, set out on his daily routine, a brisk punt to the alleyway behind the Seder’s grocer, where he palmed for yesterdays day-old castaways, a wide and rotten assortment of deli meats and cheeses, high fat breads and deep dish puddings, spoiled milk and whatever else he could find in the hoi polloi of the dustbin. Next a less brisk punt over to the park next to the aqueduct, where he unpacked what he’d palmed, laying it out in front of him to determine what was less spoiled and could wait to be eaten, comparing the less spoiled food with the almost spoiled food and the perishable foods, that food which was beyond less spoiled and in between almost spoiled, placing the almost spoiled and less spoiled food away from the inedible food, the two piles piled in deference to one another. Next he wrapped all of the non-inedible food, food that was almost spoiled but still edible, in his kerchief, heaving the non-edible food, spoiled beyond less spoiled and almost spoiled, into the black maw of the aqueduct. Next he punted with less briskness to the parking lot in back of the Waymart, where he sat for three hours watching the rats eat the spoiled food from the industrial dustbins that sat row on row beside the manager’s car, a yellow sedan with tan interior and spoiled white whitewalls. After he’d had his fill of watching the rats eat spoiled food, some so spoiled and rotten it turned his stomach inside out, he punted, with little to no briskness, back to the park next to the aqueduct, where he threw stones, palm-size stones, at the now half-submerged rotten inedible spoiled food he’d tossed into the black maw of the aqueduct three hours prior. Once he’d stoned all the now soggy inedible spoiled rotten food under the water, he set off for home, the kerchief of almost spoiled and less spoiled food pressed tightly between the stump-ends of his phantom legs, an imbecile’s grin on his tired worn face. The sky didn’t fall that day, but had it, the legless man would have paid it little notice, as his daily routine had scant room for dilly-dalliances and fallen skies.

The Day Before Today

Suddenly everything came to a stuttering stop. Drumming a tympani on the taut of his stomach, the man in the hat ambled southward. Moseying, he ambled southward. Today was the day before the sky threw itself into the turbid waters of the aqueduct. The day before today, yesterday, was a day well forgotten; a day full of pickling and yaw. The day before today the dogmen, the littlest to the biggest, spiced and smoked their catch of eels, creel baskets hung in the branches of the fichus, the unpalatable offal of fish oil and smoke breaking wind with the sky. ‘…what a strange day…’ said the man in the hat, ‘…and getting stranger by the minute…’. The man in the hat set off for the woodland beyond the Waymart, his feet cracking like autumn leaves, the sun sitting low in the noontide sky.

That morning Lela awoke from troubled dreams. The sun stretched like a bolt of cloth across her bed, blanketing her from harm and misjudgment. Today was the day she had an appointment with the manager of the Waymart, a manager by the name of Kym’s. Jumping from bed, her hands swiping quibbles of soft morning air, she made her toilet and ate a small delicate breakfast, a slice of Bib’s bread lightly toasted, a deli-glass of grapefruit juice and ¼ of a yellow apricot. She brushed her hair, buttoned her blouse, a pale yellow little girls’ blouse, looped her belt through her skirt, a blue gabardine throw-off, and laced her shoes, scuffed pumps with a thumb-size hole in both soles, and left slamming the door behind her, a banshee of hot morning sun pricking the skin on her face.

Cowley’s Beans and Skinflint Taters

Scrawled on the label of a tin of Cowley’s Beans was the following: …a tithe of vicar’s plum for the blest James of Airlann, fader thrice-transubstantiate, eater of skillet-blacken kidney, highest-high Moyle of stropper, e’ though poor dead Paddy’s rotting, O’ yew cursed lye, oxen-cart re-crossing the Liffey at dawn, Moylan, reamer of surd, trackman’s stub weaning clove from crown and folly, mounting turret’s arse in excelsior Delores. Happy wee-birthday dearest dear James, adman, and blest be the heckle on the pub of yore neck. The man in he hat, not having the faintest idea what it meant, threw the empty tin of beans into the dustbin behind the Seder grocers and went this way that.

The next day the man in the hat found a tin of Skinflint Taters. He picked up the rusted tin, and turning it in his hands read the following: Grandmamma she wore a pillbox hat festooned with baubles and whatnot’s. Round roping her neck a scarf made from the rarest silk moue, a gift from the tinsmith, whose own hat was made from calf’s tongue and bleat’s testicle. He wore tied round his neck (his neck of spun tin and shale) an ascot cut with shears shearer than stone-ticking tick. He figured it was left behind by the same person who left the tin of Cowley’s Beans behind the Seder grocers. Not knowing what to make of it, he flattened the tin with the cob of his boot and threw it into the dustbin with the other tin, his mouth slattern with thirst, the sky turning grayer by the minute.

Pound Notes and Cockspurs

The following day Lela grabbed her portmanteau, the one she carried with her when she ran away, and slamming shut the door left her flat. The man in the hat grabbed his favorite hat, the one he wore on rainy days and the day after Ships Day, and bolted for the street. The shamble leg man kipped a shilling and headed north for Mudstone on Kent, a cockspurs of pound notes jingling in his greatcoat pocket. The alms man folded his cardboard and hightailed it for Eccles Street, where he heard a doter sold Cheddar Mwyn Coch Cymreig by the wedge. The harridan wrapped her neck in a muffler, a gift from her sister, and beat it for Vilnius Vilniaus Apskritis, not quite sure where she was going and why. Her sister sold her last Pop-siècle placemat to a fat man with a pigsty eye and beat a path to Manerbio Italy, a place she’d always wanted to visit but hadn’t the wherewithal or time to do so. The legless man punted his pushcart praying he’d make it to the sea before the ship left for Rome without him. The next day the sky fell, a parade of lost dogs kipping the shilling northward quick.

‘…that’ll be the day…’ said the shamble leg. ‘…and what day is that…?’ asked the alms man. ‘…the day they stop calling yesterday the day before today…’ replied the shamble leg man, knees knocking one into the other. ‘…oh, I see…’ said the alms man, the tiptop of his head bristling with new hair. ‘…them bastards couldn’t tell a month from a year…’. ‘…or a day from a week…’ added the alms man. ‘…sissy cod bastards…!’ hissed the shamble leg man, the back of his hands downy with sweat. ‘…the lot of ‘em…’ prated the alms man, the sky turning cartwheels above his head. ‘…that’ll be the day, sure as I’m sitting here…’. ‘…the day for certain, no doubt about it…’ said the alms man, the sky turning this way and that, the shamble leg man sniffing the tips of his smoking fingers.

Dim Bastard

Lela ran fast, faster than lightening on a clear day. She stopped at the Seder grocer’s to buy a bar of soap, the grocer giving her a tinker’s stare, then headed the logway up the street, her skirt billowing in the noontime breeze. The legless man sat in his druthers beside the Waymart playing pick up sticks with the alms man, the sun cooping the awning. The legless man gave eye to Lela, who scurrying past bumped into his pushcart sending it caroming into the street. ‘…thoughtless cow…’ he hollered, his neck reddening. ‘…watch where your going…’. Lela hurried past, her feet making haste with the hot asphalt. She stopped in front of the aqueduct, took a deep breath and whispered ‘…dim bastard…’. Lela waked westward under a gray pitch of clouds, the bar of soap wrapped in the arm of her sweater. The next morning the man in the hat sat under the sky reading the funny pages. He read comics about fat people and skinny people and people who were almost fat and almost skinny. He read funny stories about funny people with funny families and funny pets. He read comics that’d been in the funny pages long before he was born, and some older than old itself. There was a comic about a fat man with a skinny family, and one about a skinny man with a fat family. On the back page of the funny pages was an advertisement for a cream that promised to tame wavy hair and cure cowlicks. He sat under the sky and read until his eyes stung and his fingers ached, then pulling his hat over his brow fell asleep under a blanket of funny pages and blue sky.

The Last One

the face
cowl flesh soft
a garrotte of pigiron
turned round the spine
the last one pulled up
from the seabed below
shoulders nickered
the spine shackled
in pigbone

A Mazurka for Three Men and a Blind Woman

The day after she ran into the biggest dogman Lela found a book under the smallest tree in the forest. In childlike handwriting, scrawled and messy, was written, 'A Mazurka for Three Men and a Blind Woman'. She opened the book slowly, the pages brattled with time, and read, ‘That day, the day after Ships Day, three men and a blind woman set out to find the end of the world’. She counted each syllable in each word, each word in each sentence and each sentence on every page until she’d finished reading the book, then placed the book back under the tree, the smallest tree in the forest, and walked in the opposite direction she had come from. She remembered an old man from Chippenham Wiltshire who claimed he could change a cat into a dog and a dog into a cat by whispering in the animals’ ear. And a man from Mannheim Baden-Wurttemberg who had two cats and two dogs, never knowing for certain which was which. Both men, the old man from Chippenham Wiltshire and the man from Mannheim Baden-Wurttemberg, knew a woman from Wola Katowice who knew how to change a cat back into a cat and a dog back into a dog.

Lela hid beneath the Waymart awning and wept. She wanted a dog that wasn’t a cat and a cat that wasn’t a dog; she wanted things that wouldn’t change no matter how much they tried. She wanted new shoes and socks without holes, she wanted a warmer sweater and a better hat. She wanted things that stayed the same, and if they wouldn’t, changed into a warmer sweater or a sunnier day. She sat beneath the Waymart awning and dreamt she was somewhere else, somewhere far, far away, somewhere other then where she was.

That night the biggest dogman bought a picture frame and put a picture of his mother in it. He forced the edges against the rim of the frame, tamping the picture in place with the sides of his hands, then hung the picture around his neck on a piece of string, cinching it taut with his teeth, and walked back to the woods beside the aqueduct. The night sky hissed rain, the street lights refracting the darkness into images of stillborn children and lost dogs.

Counted Apples

That morning the sky didn’t fall, but had it, it would have fallen into the sea. The dogmen danced around a bundle of dried milky green weeds, the biggest dogman yowling like a banshee, the littlest dogman caught in a sweetbriar of fichus branches. Lela met the dogmen when she was just past her twelfth birthday. She bumped into the biggest dogman on Ships Day, a day gray with clouds and the smell of rotten breadfruit. She politely excused herself and walked in the opposite direction, the biggest dogman shifting his largeness to let her pass. The next day Lela found a dead bird under a pyre of blackened leaves, its neck wrung like a slough rag. She wrapped the bird in her kerchief and placed it in the earth next to the biggest tree she could find. That night the biggest dogman slept beneath the biggest tree in the forest, a quisling mewing into his ear ‘…piss, mamma…piss, mamma…piss…’, the sky blacker than tappet grease.

Lela had the counting disease. She counted each step she took, each mouthful of food she ate, the branches on the trees and the stars in the night sky. She counted until her she couldn’t count any more, then counted again, over and over until the counting took on a life of its own. She counted the number of letters in a word, the number of sentences in a page, the number of pages in a book. She counted things that counted for very little or nothing at all. She counted each step counted against each stride, each stride counted against each meter counted against each city block. She counted the number of syllables in a word, then counted backwards to a hundred just to be on the safe side. She counted upon rising and upon going to bed. She counted in church, every word the priest uttered. She counted apples and pears, candy bars and bars of soap, the grocer giving her a troubling stare. She counted the number of people in line in front of her and to the back of her. She counted the time it took to unpack her groceries and place them on the shelf. She counted until the sun set and rose again. She counted the number of times she counted to one-hundred backwards, counting forwards when she tired of counting backwards.

Milk Thistle

a child digs for memories
beneath the gorse black earth

under a foal of bone
a skull appears

cauled in sweetbriar
and milk thistle

the child digs deeper
below the shovel line

his granddad’s voice
summoning him home

The Day After Ships Day

The day Lela met the man in the hat and the harridan’s sister she had a vision that the sky would fall. She stood in front of the harridan’s sister’s knickknack table and stared at the pop-siècle placemats, her eyes twitching like clock-mice. She seized hold of one of the dories and spun the masthead like a pinwheel. She had a vision of children with impossibly small feet dancing round a maypole. One of the dancing children was wearing a flagstaff hat with a toy whistle attached to a chin-string. Another was dressed in a loose-fitting jumpsuit made from sheet music and apple skins. And yet another was wearing impossibly small booties with pinhole tops, her face red with excited exertion. She smelled boiled onions, a familiar smell from her childhood, and fainted, her legs giving away beneath her like wobbly ninepins.

Lela knew a man from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones. There was a man, a very large man, who lived in Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in South Africa. And another man, a very small man, who lived in a boathouse in Eschborn Hessen Germany who had visions of visions. A woman in Dunshaughlin Meath Ireland had visions of people having visions, but none of her own. In Most Ustecky Kraj in the Czech Republic a man named Karneval had visions of people who had no visions of their own, but if they did, they would be the visions he had of their visions. And in Kaunas Kauno Apskritis Lithuania a woman with baggy stockings had visions of people who never had visions of their own, but if they did they would be the visions of the large man from Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones.

That morning the sky didn’t fall, but had it, it would have fallen into the sea. The dogmen danced around a bundle of dried milky green weeds, the biggest dogman yowling like a banshee, the littlest dogman caught in a sweetbriar of fichus branches. Lela met the dogmen when she was just past her twelfth birthday. She bumped into the biggest dogman on Ships Day, a day gray with clouds and the smell of rotten breadfruit. She politely excused herself and walked in the opposite direction, the biggest dogman shifting his largeness to let her pass.

Breadfruit and Zippers

The very next day the man in the hat bought a Churchill bowler with a buckshot hatband. He fancied owning a Churchill bowler, even if it meant spending all his coppers and small change. Come hell or high water he could count on the alms man, even if it meant having to listening to him brag about his ten-thousandth vision and yesterday’s rain. Every day after Ships Day was the very next day. It had been this way since the very first Ships Day held in nineteen twenty-seven, the day the first ship arrived in port carrying a orlop full of Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) and zippers. Jackfruit, unlike Breadfruit, has a bitter carob taste, so the ship’s captain figured a boatload of the sweeter Breadfruit was a far better stowaway. As for zippers, stow-crates of them, he felt they were part and parcel of a potable carefree life. The day the first ship arrived in port, the ship that harbingered all Ships Days to follow, the skyline was aflutter with sailor’s caps and unquenchable thirst.

The deaf mute Lela met the legless man and the alms man at the church bazaar one especially warm July afternoon. Clapping her hands together she tried to get the attention of the legless man, who was busy stropping the lead on his pushcart. ’…piss, mamma piss, piss…’ she whispered, ‘…mamma, piss…mamma…piss…piss…’. That day, the day before Ships Day, Lela bought a new feather duster and a nosegay of bluebells, chrysanthemums and dahlias. Her old duster, the one her mother gave her as a going away gift when she was twelve, had lost all its feathers; and a scullery maid without a full-feathered duster is as useless as cow without a tail. When Lela was a girl her mamma told her she wouldn’t amount to anything, and even if she did it still wouldn’t be nearly enough of anything. Because she was pushed out her mother’s hole too soon, one rainy, moonless night in August, she never heard her mother’s voice or a dog’s bark. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the hiss of tyres on wet asphalt when she couldn’t fall asleep at night.

Clowns and Steeples

When the biggest dogman was a boy, a towering boy, his grandmamma fed him water and beans. She served the beans in a clown’s bowl and the water in a Shiner’s glass. She pinched the Shiner’s glass from the trash behind the Occidental restaurant, the clown’s bowl from a fool with a stray eye. She cooked the beans in a black skillet. She fed her grandson from her bed, poking beans into his mouth with the grip-end of a fork. She slaked his thirst with the water fished from the river that never went dry. Her grandson sat at the foot of her bed whistling through the steeples of his hands, his face a mess of split beans and fished water. When he was old enough to tell good from bad the biggest dogman left home, the Shiner’s glass tied round his waist with string, the clown’s bowl in pieces on the kitchen floor, his grandmamma fast asleep in her bed. From that day forward he swore he’d never listen to fools or old woman again, ever. Dogmen and Shiner’s, clown’s and steeples, what a tall tale.

Dejesus wet his thirst with Pale Ale and Gypsy Gin. He slaked his thirst, an insatiable wet thirst, with russet Pale Ale and dry Gypsy Gin. He slaked his thirst, an insatiable wet thirsty thirst, with cup upon cupful of pale russet Pale Ale and shriveled dry Gypsy Gin. Every morning upon waking Dejesus poured himself a cupful of Pale Ale and a thimbleful of Gypsy Gin. He took a long pull from the cup and a nip from the thimble, chasing the two with a mouthful of willowy blue smoke. ‘…I am slothful and damn proud of it…’ said Dejesus sitting on the edge of his bed thinking about the day that had just begun. ‘…slothfulness is highly underrated…’ he mumbled, ‘…left out in the cold to shrivel and die…’. Acquitting himself from the sheets, his feet swathed in day-old linens, he said ‘….where ratings are concerned, sloth is nowhere to be found...’.

The Lattelekoms of Ogre Ogres Latvia

The Muenster family of Nordrhein-Westfalen made horsehair hatbands. The Muenster family were the only family to make horsehair hatbands that wasn’t related to the Heidegger family of Rheinland-Pfalz Trier Trier-Saarburg. The Lattelekom family of Ogre Ogres Latvia made livery halters. The Lattelekom family of Ogre Ogres Latvia sold livery halters to the Muenster family who in turn sold the Lattelekom family horsehair hatbands. Both the Muenster’s of Nordrhein-Westfalen and the Lattelekom’s of Ogre Ogres bought 5.5qt Oval Crockery Slow Cookers from the Marcum tool and dye company, neither family aware that they shared a dislike for skillets and bean pots.

When he was a boy, a wee boy, the legless man pined for two good sturdy legs. He pined for two shoes and two socks, two feet, good and sturdy feet, each with 10 toes, he pined for winter boots and galoshes, soft-soled slippers and hard-soled Oxford’s, he pined for slip-ons and loafers, he pined for leather shoes and canvas shoes, he pine for athletic shoes and going-out-for-dinner shoes, he pined for shoes with tassels and shoes with two eyelets, wingtip shoes and clogs, he pined for bowling shoes and cycling shoes, for hiking boots and Pointe shoes, he pined for snowshoes and après-ski boots, he pined for Pyrenees’ Espadrilles, Poulaines and Crackowes, he pined for Cordwainer's specially made shoes, Papal shoes and King James the 2nd shoes, he pined and pined but never once did he find shoes that fit snuggly on the stumps of his hips.

Author’s note: what nonsense, what banal nonsense! Crock pots and slow cookers, cast-iron skillets and double-boilers, Bonus Little Dippers and horsehair hatbands, livery halters and slip-on loafers, what utter banal nonsense!

Francis Bacon - 3 Studies for Self-Portrait,1980

http://www.francis-bacon.cx/

5qt Embossed Oval Slow Cooker

On Mondays he ate Quaker jellied pork sandwiches in the park. On Tuesdays he ate fried smelts and bulb onions. On Wednesdays he ate nothing, as by midweek he was penniless. On Thursdays he ate sparingly; half a Quaker jellied pork sandwich (he made a habit of saving half a sandwich on Tuesdays to be eaten on Thursdays) and the end bit of a bulb onion. On Fridays he ate the other half of the half Quaker jellied pork sandwich, having saved half of the half of the sandwich he had saved on Tuesday, and half of the half of a bulb onion. On Saturdays and Sundays he ate whatever was left over from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays and Friday.

The Marcum tool and dye company made skillets and bean pots. They made heavy skillets, stainless steel or cast-iron, skillets for searing, sautéing and stir-frying meats, seafood, and vegetables, deglazing skillets, heavy-gauge bottom skillets, nonstick skillets, stir-frying skillets, electric skillets, skillets that ran on batteries and skillets that were powered by windrowers. The Marcum tool and dye company was in competition with the Courier crock pot company, a small family business run by three brothers, two sisters, an aunt (from the mother’s side of the family), two uncles (from the father’s side of the family) and a tool and dye maker from the Orkney islands who was related to a first-cousin on the father’s side of the family. The Courier company made a variety of slow cookers in stainless steel, cast-iron and crockery, the 3 Quart Oval Slow Cooker, the Little Dipper, 1.5Qt Dip Master, Slow Cooker, the 6qt Embossed Oval Slow Cooker, a 6qt Embossed Oval Slow Cooker, the ever-popular 3qt Oval Slow Cooker, a 4.5qt Oval Slow Cooker, the handy 5.5qt Oval Slow Cooker that also came in a 5.5qt Oval Crockery Slow Cooker, 5qt Oval Slow Cooker w/ Bonus Little Dipper, a 6qt Buffet Slow Cooker ideal for dinner parties and get-togethers, the 7qt Oval Slow Cooker, ideal for dinner parties and large gatherings, the 5qt Embossed Oval Slow Cooker and the Double Dipper Slow Cooker, ideal for small get-togethers and family suppers. The Courier crock pot company had a small factory in Berndorf in the township of Niederosterreich in the Austrian Alps.

The legless man ate jellied pork squashed between Quaker’s bread. He had no time for cast-iron skillets and crock pots, 4.5qt Oval Slow Cookers, 1.5Qt Dip Masters or anything made from crockery or tin. He preferred his food barely cooked slathered in sauces and condiments: Salsa Roja and Chinese mustard (Brassica juncea), English mustards and French mustards, wholegrain and honey mustard, yellow mustard and black seed mustard, ground sinapis and arrowroot mustard, duck sauce and peewee hen sauce, brown sauces, chutneys and Sriracha chili sauce, any sauce or condiment that hid the offal flavor of food.

Piftie de Porc

Donning his Balmoral hat, the one with the pheasant hatband, he stewed a pot of Opole Pork and Beans. He brought the pot to a boil and waited. The Opole Pork and Bean Co. was owned by Andrzej Czachor, a onetime tinker and gadabout from Opolskie Poland. He produced, tinned and marketed Opole Pork and Beans in a tinkers’ shed behind the Lublin (Kościół Polskokatolicki w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) Catholic church. Bishop Wiktor Wysoczański was a great admirer of Opole Pork and Beans, as were Rabbi Yitzchok Hertz and Rabbi Gershon M. Garelik. Both Rabbi Yitzchok Hertz and Rabbi Gershon M. Garelik served in the Plugot Mahatz, Rabbi Yitzchok Hertz as a cook and Rabbi Gershon M. Garelik in the motor pool. Rabbi Yitzchok Hertz substituted brisket for pork and Navy Beans for Cowpeas, slow cooking the fendl cassoulet in a Jersey Crock for 27½ hours. The legless man bought a half-pound of jellied pork and a day-old loaf of Quaker’s bread. He made jellied pork and Quaker loaf sandwiches with a bowie knife he kept on a string tied round his waist. Andrzej Czachor married a girl from Lublin with cornrow hair and blossoming lips.

2 cups of boiling water, ½ cup of molasses, ½ tablespoon of salt, ½ a yeast cake dissolved in ½ cup of lukewarm water, 1 cup of Quaker’s Rolled Oats, ¾ cup of flour. Add boiling water to oats and let stand one hour; add molasses, salt, dissolved yeast cake, and flour; let rise, beat thoroughly, turn into buttered bread pans, let rise again, and bake. By using one-half cup less flour, the dough is better suited for biscuits, but, being soft, is difficult to handle. To make shaping of biscuits easy, take up mixture by spoonfuls, drop into plate of flour, and have palms of hands well covered with flour before attempting to shape. The legless man made Quaker’s bread on Saturdays and every second Wednesday.

On Sundays he made Piftie de porc. 3 lbs. (1.5kg) Pork feet and/or head, 1 onion, 2 carrots, 1 parsnip, 1 parsley root, 1 celery root, 2 bay leaves, 3-4 juniper berries, 3-4 garlic cloves and salt. Wash and clean the feet and/or head. If hairy, singe. Split the feet in two lengthwise and break the head with the mallet. Place in a large pot and cover with water so that there are 3-4 inches of water above the pork pieces. Boil over slow to medium heat. Remove the foam as it forms. Then add salt, vegetables, bay leaves, and juniper berries. Cover the pot almost completely. Boil until the meat falls off the bones. Remove the bones and place the meat on the bottom of one or several deep plates. Chop the garlic, add some salt and mix with the meat broth. Strain and then pour on top of the meat in the plates. Refrigerate it so that it gels. To obtain a nice, clear jelly you have to boil slowly, with the pot almost covered. The tastiest pork jelly is made out of pork feet and ears. You can use beef feet or a mixture of pork and beef feet. On Mondays he made enough jellied pork sandwiches to last him until the following Monday.