LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND GOATS
Chapter 9
Thursday 22nd June London Rotten Borough of Lower Springwood
When overdosed with a toxic cocktail of Worry, Depression, Loneliness, Poverty, Regret, Guilt, but lacking the green herbal gifts of Mother Nature, and lacking, say, the Meaning of Life, try a topping of Shakespeare’s Hamlet for real suicidal effect.
Kill the King, is Benjamin’s private advice to Hamlet, and make straight for the bird Ophelia. Better still, kill everybody, to be on the safe side.
US3’s Cantaloop drifts from the black box to dull the despondency of Room 102. General Chopper and Gonzalez-the-Basque-Bank-Robber settled at the Queen-Anne bureau and studying with cultish reverence the gospel of Urban Warrior Monthly, as handy a survival guide as any chapter from an Inclusive Secular Rainbow Bible. Her Majesty’s Hotel at Lower Springwood under the dictatorship of Governor Blunkett now three to a peter (and subject to further upgrade).
The birdie head of the General is the first to turn. You never forget the steely stomp of boots on the landing strip, or the stabbing of keys in your black hole. The lowly lifeform Mellor: ‘You three grab your bits and move your butts to Admin. Chop chop!’
Prison dispirit poisons the snake-pit of the stomach inducing death-throes of the soul <—> They are to be ghosted. To some forgotten deadwater. Like Wales. Or Highbury Fields. With no Jennifer to visit. Jumpers, socks, lone photograph of Bonnie and Clyde, pencil stub, letters, black box stuffed into a laundry sack and Benjamin is good to go. Goodbye books. Goodbye Queen-Anne bureau. Goodbye Meaning of Life.
Scholar Benjamin lags the chains of a sick soul down the gangplank of the Fours and down <—> step by iron step, every familiar patch of missing paint, every creak and groan, and overhead a passing-out parade of dickies on iron beams bow their beaks in silent solidarity at a funeral of dead hope.
The freak dispersing of the sun’s rays disarrays the soft frontal cortex of defence <—> The pain of Life topping a Life of pain <—> For when sorrows come they come not single arrows but the full armoury <—> The exposure of brain and body to the piercing of protons prompts no endorphin injection of homespun philosophy to palliate the pain of Life or the Life of pain.
Scholar Benjamin stumbles blind past the coffee machines and the palm trees of the Admin Block. The corridor flatulent like a rabbit hutch. The very end of the line — a florid Screw behind a serving hatch tosses out a cardboard box. The shoes still fit. But the suit hangs about the body like a dead-man’s sack.
Sign here here and here.
And don’t come back.
If you know what’s good for you.
And pass my regards
To the nutty Professor.
Benjamin bumped through the bum-end of the wormhole into the rude light of reality, the fragrance of summer grass titillating the nostrils, passage blocked by a firing squad — Bonnie and Clyde popping plastic guns … Persephones Knees … Conchita Gonzalez … Geraldine Chopper … and Benjamin has eyes only for Jennifer. Just Jennifer.
***
Patient Gerbil James spotting the bulging belly, pink oily head, hunched back, and filthy white doctor’s coat of Whitelaw creeping down the central gutter of McDogburger Ward. ‘You took your bloody time.’ One — two — three <—> and Gerbil James rips from a yellow papery wrist the cannula <—> black and crusted around the spout <—> ‘Quick! Before they rig me to another piss-bag!’ <—> Gerbil James throws back the bedclothes <—> knees buckling <—> but with Whitelaw for a crutch <—> in a desperate dash for freedom <—> wildly thrashes chicken legs <—> hamster flapping free <—> past the nurses’ station <—> red light flashing <—> splat through the plastic flap-doors, a-thumpety-bump down the fire escape <—> and out into the Rotisomat of the sun’s rays <—> gravel-shards lancing the soles of the feet like needles <—> and thrown by Whitelaw onto the backseat of the smallest and slowest snail with flashing blue werr-werrs in the fleet.
Gerbil James flails like an octopus the arms and legs of Whitelaw’s least favourite suit (reserved for Rat & Rabbit curry nights).
Crammed into the cockpit of the slowest slug in the fleet, Whitelaw blasts in top gear, overtaken by cyclists and buggies, the backstreets of Lower Springwood and down the nuclear-rubbish-plant-approach-road. ‘I’ve cut a deal with the landlord of the Slaughtered Goat. He’s laying out the long table for lunch. And we’re renting the VIP booth. You — You can pay me back out of your share of the dirty lolly.’
‘Fluck ofth —’ Gerbil James’ reply stifled when Whitelaw slams the fleet slug through the crèche disabled parking bay, sand pit, and slap-bang the slide.
Run, Gerbil, Run! Your flies undone. The thirst of the devil from your tongue. To the lounge bar you dash. For a scotch and a splash. Followed by another very large one.
Along the left side wall a funereal table laid with the barest essentials for lunch: sixteen large whisky chasers, eight pints of warm bitter, a plate of pickled eggs (green), three packs of Havana-style cigars for the discerning gentleman (also green), five packs of assorted nuts, seven packs of salt and vinegar crisps, three bags of pork scratchings and two baskets of jellied eels steaming gently green in the stifling heat.
The cowboy swingdoors of the VIP booth hang half-cock and expose Gerbil James and Whitelaw to the deserted lounge bar of the Slaughtered Goat, as dark as an afternoon trip to a flea-pit. And the once patterned red carpet now a desert of black from the boot-grinding of cigarette butts, so that if the carpet were running alive with cockroaches, the die-hard drinker need not be aware.
‘I take it Pym’s hot of the trail of Knees and the missing lolly.’
‘Jesus, Archie, you look awful! The cuts! The bruises! I would never have recognised you.’
‘Knees is doing this deliberately. Let me tell you that for nothing. And I’ll tell you what he’s doing right now. He’s sitting in that dirty big house of his laughing his socks off, surrounded by a mountain of missing lolly.’
‘Been meaning to see you ’bout that.’ Whitelaw noses with approval a long departed jellied eel resting on a bed of wilted lettuce. ‘See, the Chief Constable’s plastered these posters everywhere. We is wanted dead or alive …’
‘We can’t give up now, man!’
‘... and preferable dead ….’
‘Well I’m not going to let Knees get away with it. Do you hear me?’ Yellow talons claw the sleeve of Whitelaw’s worstering jacket.
‘... Chief Constable’s been screaming down the radio we’re to be assigned to Traffic Duty. We get our own donkey jacket, our own patch, and our own lollipop.’
‘Do you want to be spending the rest of your natural trafficking? The Law of Averages dictates Lady Luck’s about to ride our way. Scientifically proven.’
‘All this ducking and diving is making me feel like the common criminal.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ determines Gerbil James red-faced and releasing his grip. ‘Knees — or someone very much like Knees — rocks up at the Fascist Pig Bank in a security guard’s uniform, visor down, and with two side-kicks …’
‘Ooo! Got good news on the two side-kicks. Came to me in a flash of inspiration.’ Whitelaw snaps clean the fishy head. ‘… ssslluurrkk … Knees lives with a daughter and a granny don’t he … both diddy … sssslluurrkk … So I reckons they must be the side-kicks … sllluuurrrkkk …’
‘Hah! Now who’s the genius?’
Whitelaw sinks false gnashers into the body of the long-departed jellied eel. ‘ggnnggnn … I’ve studied every camera video in Lower and Upper Springwood … Knees’s security van drove straight from the bank to his private duck pond … ggnnggnn … No stop-offs and no pay-offs …’
‘Knees is taking the piss. Didn’t I say, eh? Didn’t I say?’
‘... Event-chewelly the Chief Constable invades the castle … ggnnggnn … Big Boys looks in some crooks and nannies you wouldn’t believe. Turns out Knees the dirty rascal never left his castle … ssllurrkk … One hell of a monster party-bender … ggnnggnn … Loud housy music, Archie.’
‘Disgustink. Should be a law against it.’
Whitelaw dumps the fishy tail and plunges greasy fingers into the basket. ‘And I’ll let you into another secret. Knees don’t own that dirty big house of his. The granny does.’
‘Aha!’ delights Gerbil James and slamming back another shot of medicinal brown sludge. ‘So Knees huss gutta come out with the stolen lolly if he wants to avoid another holiday care of Her Majesty. And when he does — aha! — Knees walks right into our trap!’
‘Tell you what. I’ll do the first shift tonight,’ volunteers Whitelaw and arresting a second fishy. ‘But remember, Archie, you gotta be there crack of a sparrow’s. I’ll book you a cab. Pym’ll can take over at lunchtime …’
‘Humphh!’
‘My neighbour’s lent us his Vauxhall Corso’ … ggnnggnn …’ chumps Whitelaw. ‘Feels sorry for us. Should do forty, forty-five tops. Parked by Knees’s front gates no-one haul giffit the time of day. And we’d better get you a disguise in case the Chief Constable’s Big Boys drive past.’