‘Now let me —’
‘You disgust me, you stinking pervert! People like you should be locked up! Go to Hell!’
Governor Gerbil James replaces the receiver and rounds on second-in-command Blunkett dozing without permission in the green plastic chair against the filing cabinet: ‘See what you’ve done now?’
‘Who? Me?’
‘Yes you. As soon as my back is turned all Hell lets loose.’
All Hell letting loose on the promenade of the Ones.
‘Oh for crying out loud! What’s going on out there? Am I the only one working over important Affairs of State?’
Mumbling Blunkett drags stiff bones to the door-frame and sniffs the miasma of Chef’s deconstructed Chicken Pie. ‘Harum ...’
‘Well, man?’
‘... Hit’s Knees, sar ... he’s er ... holding up Chef ...’
‘Oh my God!’
Governor Gerbil James flies from the safe womb of management in the flash of a pickled sausage and pushes Blunkett down the long sweep of stewed cabbage. The vapour of voices violates every prickled hair of your alarum bell. Ten thin specimens in striped shirts clutching Oliver Twist bowls, and the walls spin with spite and men’s voices mocking, fingers pointing, and Chef — holy cow! — in the grip of Professor Jason Knees who with fishy lapel in each fist suspends the threshing belly of Chef above the serving table.
‘Knees! Take your hands off Chef, you filthy swine! Now what’s this ballyhoo?’
‘This man refuses his food,’ squeals Chef and squirming free.
‘Food? Which depraved expert passed this pile of donkey doo-doos fit for human consumption and called it food?’ The Professor pulling from the pot a grisly string of gristle.
The Governor closes warily and crams over the edge into the crawling concoction coiling with cruel venom into the soft cartilage with grappling hooks.
‘This man want to stir trouble,’ whines Chef.
‘All right, Knees, you’ve had your fun. Now move.’ Men in the queue laughing. Mocking the brain like balsamic vinegar <—> The rotten apple Knees pure poison <—> A flea that can’t be scratched <—> A human Upas tree <—> A wasp-sting to the psyche <—> ‘Now pick up your tray and move!’
‘Nope.’
‘Knees, can’t this wait? They’ll be jam tomorrow ...’
‘Fat chance.’
‘Knees, this is your final warning!’
‘Get stuffed.’
‘Right! That’s it! You liberal bastard communist fuck!’ Months and months of molten resentment ruptures the pit-stink of the stomach. Gerbil James staggers under the strain of sensitive management, and the rage and the red gas and smashing Blunkett and, ‘Take this man to Solitary!’
‘Who? Me, sar?’
The world stops dead then spins with renewed viciousness, and the laughing and the mocking and Knees strolling to a Solitary cell at the rump end of the Block and waiting for admission as if bored of the show, and the raw throat of the Governor burning acid reflux of bluster and laughter <—> and staggering brook-back’d and broken by a baseball bat blow from the gods <—> burning and dying a dramatic death on the hot green stage of the Ones <—> and staggering across the frontier of safety and slamming the steel trap he stoops to conquer and claws at the heavy reluctance of the bottom drawer of the grey filing cabinet and snatches the glorious half-empty bottle of golden forget-me-not.
He slumps seething and spitting and frothing hotter than Hell in the high-backed management chair.
‘Was I wicked in a past Life?’
‘Yussar,’ blusters Whitelaw flustering to attention.
‘Or did God decide to pick on me one day for the hell of it?’
Deeper fills the pool of self-pity.
‘Cheer up, sar. I hexpect God moves in mysterious ways.’
‘Yes. God moves around Baghdad in yellow taxicabs to avoid a lynching.’
A red devil rams into the liver a five-prong trident <—> Peptic ulcer pans a percussion of pain <—>
‘Cheer up, sar. Tonight you can lead out Missus James in a Gay Gordons.’
The will to live freely evaporating, the Governor shrivels into a gerbolic ball and groans.
***
O noctes cenaeque deum
O nights and suppers of the gods
HORACE
The guilty heavens hang a threat to heap horror through the witching hour and now a hellish wind howls about the bars of the window worse than Whitney. Floodlighting casts shadows, deranged ghosts, on the walls, bureau, door. The dead of night. Scream and shout. The night a wakening of crazed sound. And somewhere on a lower level rumbles a party of a nasty Nazi nature.
Here the Gentle Reader may happily burn the midnight oil.
Poetry should not be so difficult, Benjamin deciding, but struggling with a string of ing endings. Mortar-shell for a waste-bin (a generous trench-art Christmas present from General Chopper and Gonzalez-the-Basque-Bank-Robber) filling with balls of best notepaper. Not a jot of progress down the Mellow Brick Road to the Meaning of Life. And the boot of truth ribs him.
At the top of a fresh sheet Benjamin puts down God. Good. A solid start. Halfway house he puts down Humans. Near the bottom he puts down Tosser. Now what sits at the very bottom? What has the fewest cells? Aha he has it. Amoebas. Benjamin rises with a dead leg and reaches for the crooked tombstone of the Professor’s dusty dictionary.
Benjamin slumps with a bump as he did a boy. Amoebas abandoned, he runs with Ants. Too intelligent. Useless. The end of the line. Benjamin kills the overhead lamp and puffs shivering the heckledy-speckledy darkness.
Hello, Darkness. My old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.
Alone again. Naturally.
Alone for the first time in God-knows-how-long. With no Meaning of Life. No-one to bounce ideas from. Ones that won’t be thrown back in your face. Last night sounded piss easier. Made a pot more sense. Why man, if you knowded the Meaning of Life, the people rushing by you on the sunny side the street will be in the dark. No-one will know. No-one will believe you. Will think you are mad. Committed. Should be locked up. What difference does it make? The Meaning of Life has to make all the difference in the world. Or what is the point of finding out?
With one foot propping the rail of the bed Benjamin extends an arm into the real world. The surprisingly strong sting of stones striking the palm. A baby stone trapped, Benjamin turns on the overhead lamp and watches it melt a puddle, slowly filling the lined triangle.
The light off and fumbling for a spliff. The night effervesced with waves of seaside fresh. A slave-ship of screams. Shouts. Muffled by a sheeting whoosh. Stones rap the crowbars, the crooks, the crevices of the window. And from the big black box escapes Faithless’ Insomnia.
Oh to be free of chains! Skylon-high. High above the bedclothes. High above the humdrum mass of humbug humanity. High above the smoke and the dross and the filth, but a chain of guilt drags you back to the bedclothes and to the base camp we call Home.
Lost in space. Sacred Laws of Physics lose their relevance. And Time slows with connatural sadism. Blinking over the Brim of Life and into a Cave of Nothingness.
The final drag is the deepest. Benjamin dumps out of dungarees and into bed. Hailstones bob! bob! bob! from the base-camp of cloud-cover. Always be a good boy. The rush of electric air shocks deep down the downy hairs of the lungs. Red phone-boxes. Just Jennifer. The storm’s broken rhythm allays a little boy’s lullaby, and the tentacled locks flop and feather.
Scholar Benjamin slides asleep.
***