speedingwriter
05-31-2012, 01:32 PM
Thank you for taking an interest in my thread. Stupidly, I got higher than i had intended on amphetamine base today, which seems to have unlocked an unquenchable need to rapidly punch keys.
Anyway, maybe the best order to post them in would be the relative order to how high I was at that point. Please don't assume the repeated references to stimulants is an attempt at affecting a 'Hunter S Thompson' or Burroughs-type air. I'm just high and can't stop writing. And even if it's only a temporary fix and potential addiction, it's such a relief to feel motivated to do something.
NO idea how intelligible the following is. Apologies if I waste any body's time.
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THE DAY JOHN WATERS GREW HIS PENCIL-LINE MOUSTACHE
At around four in the morning, Baltimore, Maryland can seem both very lonely and yet already too busy. Those flat fronted houses crest the horizon like tombstones, whilst down to the south and east the huge raw iron cranes are lumbering into life, like reluctant mules, mastered by grit-teethed men too raw with the early morning damp to display any signal of friendship upon their bowed faces.
He usually left the Pearly Queen at regulation-hours closing time, two in the morning, managing to drift unseen towards the Four Mills trailer park and slip, unnoticed, into his trailer and into his bed, sometimes with company, sometimes alone.
Walking now with shoulders hunched towards the rows of waiting stevedores he damned bitterly that silly Sylvie declaring this Tuesday night a lock-in. He'd only once had to walk home before this critical working man parade, and thank god he'd not gone as Joan that night. Even dressed straight, his slim build and silky blonde shoulder-length hair drew wolf-whistles and filthy obscenities.
About twenty metres ahead the cobbled street forked off to the right, avoiding the short waterfront walk he usually took to get back home. The longshore men nudged and turned as he approached, their sallow skinned faces slicing up into great rictuses of ridicule at the sight of the effeminate dirty stop out skulking back to whatever den of iniquity he called home.
He'd have to make his decision quickly. His hangover begged him turn right, walk the extra mile or so back to Four Mills, avoiding the titillated mob of men. The moment this thought entered his head he found himself already approaching the stevedores along the cracked concrete of the waterfront. “Treacherous little *****!” he reprimanded himself. Like a circuit being flicked, anxiety lit up his daiquiri filled stomach, spinning it in quick twists, threatening to eject its contents over a nearby storage container. His slender hands turned numb to the tips of his manicured nails. He reached a hand to his slim, colourless lower lip to find it equally dry with fear.
Nervously brushing back the stray strands of peroxide blonde that had fallen over his very white face, he channeled all his energy into walking calmly along the concrete road amongst the fish heads and guts. Every single solitary one of the stevedores was now staring. Good god there must have been at least twenty of the brutes. Had he dared glance up, he would have recognised at least one secretly terrified face from Sylvie's amongst those laughing men.
He had approached the main gang now, and as they made exaggeratedly demure little sidesteps for him to pass, he found himself struggling to keep one foot in front of the other. He had become such a spectacle, even the simple act of walking felt like a very artificial performance; his legs felt like stilts, wobbling beneath him as he trod with the exact and measured step of a tightrope walker. 'Christ, don't let me slip now...' he thought.
The trip wasn't intentional. No really, it was a genuine accident, not one man amongst them would say a word to the contrary. Just a high-heeled poufter wearing the wrong sort of shoe for a slippery working waterfront. Nobody could blame them if he fell.
His delicate roman nose narrowly missed making first contact with the brine slimed concrete, catching himself instead against the sharpened point of a kneeling stevedore's hook, which tore so easily through the cold-numbed skin of his lip.
All about him the confusion of sounds grew and grew in volume and intensity, but as if he was hearing them with his head held under water. Feeling his upper lip sticky with blood with one hand, he propped himself up against a huge Hessian sack of North Carolina potatoes, using the offending stevedore's hook to gain adequate grip.
Like a low-energy light bulb glowing into life so the situation amongst the dock workers became clearer to him. A riot was on the brink of breaking out amongst the men; there had been lay offs earlier that day, and now some ****ing fairy prances along and takes the hook right outta some poor guy's hand.
Pushing his way through the bustle of men in a flurry of foul words the foreman folded his arms and firmly grounded his feet either side of John's drooping legs. The heavy jowls relaxed in an instant from menace to a look that spoke both of compassion for the man and anger at the treatment dealt him by the men under his charge. Of course only John amongst the men could see the look of fearful recognition upon the foreman's face. The screech of Seagulls won't allow for such intimate encounters to last for long of course, and with a thup thup thup of a big white one legged bird taking flight the stillness of the moment was gone.
The foreman broke from his trance. “Get the **** outta here you ****ing hyenas!” said the foreman. Barely a mutter of complaint was heard as all but one of the stevedores wandered back towards the ships as if they'd completely forgotten why they were even there in the first place. “Deaf, ya ****in' goose?” said the foreman. The man closed his eyelids lightly and slowly exhaled as some men do when they're trying to prepare themselves for something particularly difficult.
“You OK John?” he said.
The foreman turned pale like a seasick grandmother. The two men helped John to his feet, holding him steady against the potato sack. “Come on,” said the foreman, and they carried John to the foreman's office. The foreman and the stevedore stood, whilst John fell into the chair with such delicacy it was like watching a downy feather fall to ground.
The foreman got a bottle of scotch from a khaki metal cabinet. “Jeffers there's some gauze in the first aid draw. No, the other one, ajax the bin.” The foreman passed the bottle to John after first taking a deep draught for himself. The smell of alcohol fuels turned his stomach worse than the anxiety of the stevedore crowd.
“Just dab it up Butch boy,” John said, handing back the untouched bottle.
Jeffers had cut a few wads of appropriately sized gauze, which he handed to the foreman.
“Gorgeous ends,” he said, glancing as demurely as he could manage towards John, whose lip was now being vigorously rubbed with handfuls of whisky which spilt down his chin and into his mouth and made him want to vomit.
“Jesus Butch a little less with the rough luppers if you don't very well mind,” he said.
“Enough of the Polari bull****.”
The foreman had the scotch soaked wads of gauze pressed tight against John's cut upper lip. “Lucky he got you where he did,” said the stevedore, “or you could've lost that pretty little Romanesque ecaf of yours.”
The foreman glanced at Jeffers with a menacing look that nevertheless suggested he was resigned to the humour of the men's slang.“What's an ecaf?” the foreman asked.
“My nose, darling; the affected little queen is saying I'm lucky,” he spat a mouthful of whisky onto his tie-less yet top-buttoned shirt, “that I didn't lose my nose.”
With John holding the stinging press of gauze against his lip, the foreman and Jeffers backed off a step to lean against the edge of the desk facing John. The foreman smiled sadly. “The **** did you expect, prancing along in sight of those mopes?”
John shrugged, not wishing to analyse his decision to take the dangerous route.
The foreman turned the heat up a couple of notches on the electric thermostat, then got out three crystal clean glasses. The glasses, and the bottles, were about the only thing in that office not buried beneath a pile of dust. The foreman poured three generous drinks of scotch whisky, whilst John watched on, his face growing paler the stronger the scent of alcohol in the hot room.
Jeffers and the foreman held their glasses as if unsure whether a tinkle of cheers was fitting for the occasion. Picking the third glass up with exaggerated theatricality, Jeffers daintily handed the full glass of viscous golden liquid to John, who kept his hands pressed firmly to his face.
“What, you're gonna turn down a free drink? That's not the Joan Withers I know,” said the foreman.
“Butchy baby, have you remembered not a solitary nishta of last night's Bacchanalian festivities? If I ever see a cocktail umbrella again I think I'll start going to straight bars.”
“****en nancy boy,” the foreman said, laughing, before throwing the contents of his own glass down his throat, then picking up John's to do the same.
The men remained silent for some time. Jeffers was swirling the last few syrupy drips of scotch around the bottom of his glass. “Well if you're not going to have a drink you've got to do a forfeit,” Jeffers said, still swirling his glass.
The foreman grunted in appreciation and agreement.
“Oh please, don't be so absurd you silly children,” said John, doing his best practised sullen face.
The foreman put his glass down heavily to show he was serious. Jeffers laughed maliciously as John hung his head in resignation.
“Well then?” said John, cocking an eyebrow just as he had seen Little Richard do on TV.
The foreman spoke immediately. “Remember those tiny moustaches all the homo Prussiaan aristo's used to wear?” Jeffers made a little twirl of glee.
“Oh! Bono, bono,” he said, limply clapping his hands.
“I still have no idea what you're prattling on about,” said John, “and how come it was only queers who wore these?” He'd dropped the gauze now, and was leaning forward in the chair towards the two men at the desk.
“They were all faggots, those inbred royals,” explained the foreman, “and they wore these teensy little moustaches to mark each other out for a bit of trade.”
“Like a line of mascara across the top lip,” added Jeffers.
John sat for a minute contemplating the idea of such a style. He seemed to remember a Little Richard LP cover showing a similar style of facial hair.
“**** it,” he said, reaching into the back pocket of a pair of YSL trousers; a match with the Smoking he was still wearing, to pull out a lovingly stropped pearl-handled open blade razor.
“What in the name of Gloria do you intend to do with that?” said Jeffers.
“Some sisters play it dirty,” he replied, “so a bit of a slapping is sometimes required.”
None of the men spoke whilst the foreman heated a pan of water over the office's little electric cooker. Jefferson busied himself by slicing off flakes of hand soap with a letter opener he had found on the foreman's desk, John amusing himself watching the foreman becoming visibly more and more annoyed at Jeffers peeling his soap with his letter opener.
“Gimme that!” he said and snatched back the soap smeared letter opener. “STEVEDORE BROTHERHOOD LOCAL 46” read the engraving on the ivory handle.
Jeffers tried to persuade the men that removing John's shirt was a necessity for the operation, but quickly lost interest in the idea after catching a glance from the foreman. Having soaked the hand towel in the now hot water, the foreman applied it across John's lower face.
“So...” said John after another moment of silent waiting. The foreman grew impatient.
“Right, that's long enough,” he said as he ripped the towel from John's face. Jeffers eagerly stepped forward and began to apply delicate daubs of the foam he'd whisked up with a touch of hot water. The razor had been sitting in the hot water and was in an ideal state for giving a good shave. Jeffers reached out to grab it, only to immediately hand it over to the foreman who stood with his palm open looking impatient.
John sat with his head rolled back, his face composed into a look of incredulity. “Neither of you two meshigeners have a clue what you're doing, do you?” he said accusingly. The challenge to the foreman's competence fired him into life, and with a few deft strokes of the blade shaved the top three quarters of John Water's moustache clean off.
THE END
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The street is black and ahead a gulley turns off to the right. She is walking, staying in the centre of the cobbled road, avoiding the streetlamps meant to keep her safe. She has seen his reflection in the wet cobbles, jutting out barely half a foot is the top of a cropped blond head. She is surprised how vividly the reflection appears. She maintains her pace, narrowing the distance to the reflection at the corner. Checking her pace, she shifts her right hand imperceptibly, slipping the fingers into the hip pocket of plain black denims feeling contact with the hard and cold of the blade, which she unsheathes inside the pocket. She strafes left.
And continues at the same measured non-threatened pace as she watches how the reflection of the top of the head is drawn in to the point where only the very crown of the head is visible to her on the wet cobblestone of the street
Calm, ****ing calm, he thinks to himself, watching the girl approach in the curved mirror halfway up the last lamp post on the left side of the street. He can feel the old ivory handle of the cleaver slipping from his grip as his hand sweats inside the waistband of his trousers where the blade is concealed and he panics as the girl moves steadily forward, he wipes his hand against his coat and takes out the blade, in the mirror he can now see her white running shoes, he can see her black jeans and he can see the logo on her jacket but only because he recognises the overall form but then he can read the words of the logo and he can also see her face
which is taught to breaking point but appears outwardly to be only a picture of serenity and oblivion to what is about to happen
when carlights flow suddenly into the world and everything seems very loud and there is no emotion in the crashing waves of sound from the car engine it is just very real and it is not a noise a human would make it is not pleasure or pain and the headlights are directed right at the man as the car swings sharply round in the mouth of the junction and all the man sees is the whiteness of the light and all the girl sees is the blinding glint from the blade held across the man's face
and the girl runs to the last lamp post where the car is pulling quickly away and she is too late to stop the car which sounds its horn when its driver sees the girl run after it and then it accelerates again and she is once aware of a silence in the dark street
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SOCRATES YOU WANNA BE A BOXER?
A week earlier his English teacher had been discussing 'epiphanies' to the class. At the end of the lesson, which was the last lesson of the school week, the teacher wished his class well and said he hoped they all had some wonderful epiphany over the weekend.
That's what he was thinking about as he read the quote printed beneath a grainy black and white photo of a marble bust. The quote read “What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” He'd opened the book at a random page, after having stared at the spines of a couple of hundred books which lined his father's bookshelf.
The Oxford Introduction to the History of Philosophy, with a foreword by an academic named Bryan Maggee.
He read the quote again, then scanned to the top of the page where opposite the page number was the chapter title: Classical Antiquity – Socrates.
He'd heard of Socrates of course, but pursuing the matter any further had never entered into his head. He thought of philosophy in the way medieval people thought of witchcraft; some mysterious, almost magical thing; something neurotic types anguished over, having read some irrefutable argument or other that proved the theory of Eternal Return, or the non-existence of the Self, or some other wonderfully odd world-view changing theory.
It quite appealed to him.
At first, he opened the book at the contents page, scanning the list of foreign names until he found someone he recognised and thought might like. He'd heard of Kierkegaard, and he'd heard of Nietzsche, but he'd never heard their names pronounced. In his head he had Kierkegaard's pronunciation acceptably close, but would later cringe upon remembering all his mentioning of 'Knee – Chey'.
He scanned a few paragraphs of introductory overviews about a few more philosophers, but stumbled at a lot of the technical terms and so learnt very little about anything. But the one thing he felt he understood the truth of was that quote by Socrates. To be a serious man you needed to have a very well trained mind. You'd dedicate hours of your life to wrangling over completely abstract and utterly non-pragmatic matters. You'd waste away as all your biological urges made way for your all consuming philosophical obsessions.
That such a person was something to strive to be was, although he wouldn't have known what it meant, an axiom for him, a fact of life to be given not a second's thought. But here was this Greek philosopher saying that the body must not be neglected.
Although he'd never spent a lot of time thinking about it, he didn't really see his body as his true 'self'. It was a shell for consciousness, for him to exist in. Humans were essentially two bits: the self or soul, and the body.
Thinking about it this new way gave him a strange sensation, a sort of floating tingle and a feeling of lightness. It was an intense, enjoyable emotion. He later told his mother that it had been 'deeply profound'. He thought again of what his English teacher had said. He didn't assume anything 'odd' about his forewarned epiphany; it was just a coincidence.
He started to use the set of barbell weights his dad kept in the garage. Secretly at first, but soon discovered by his mother coming in to use the freezer. He wouldn't let her laughter discourage him. He discovered the point at which perseverance at a strenuous physical activity becomes a true challenge of the will to pass. He discovered an elated sense of masterfulness as he pumped out his last eight reps. He'd sit exhausted on the bench press, dopamine surging through him like cool wind on a hot day. He'd allow himself a peak in the mirror at his engorged biceps muscle, then flex the triceps to 'full extension'.
A part of him thought this vain, and he always felt a little bit ridiculous as he checked himself out. But then what had Socrates said? “Without seeing the beauty and strength,”. What would be the point in not appreciating his efforts?
One afternoon after an hour in the garage, he'd stood in front of the bathroom mirror whilst waiting for the shower to warm up, and started to pull spontaneous 'boxer' poses; at one point hitting his left fist against the bathroom wall. But the boxing poses looked good to him. He'd developed his 'boxer's muscles' pretty well. His torso was beginning to approach that inverted pyramid shape of stacked power.
Could he teach himself to box? Socrates did specifically say “and strength,” so putting a bit of power into those pounds could really move him towards his Socratic ideal. There was nowhere to hang a bag, not even in the garage. He considered an outdoor punch bag but after some consideration decided he'd rather sweat and grunt in front of other strangers in a gym than outside the windows of his own neighbours.
Did boxing gyms even exist outside of films? He pictured a big open loftspace, a patched up white canvas ring at the centre, heavybags hung at the sides, an area for a bit of 'weight training'.
Unfortunately for him the only gym with 'boxing facilities' was a new megaplex type thing where he imagined that everybody would be good looking and probably rich as well.
In a way he was right. The other gym users were all of the radiating-confidence type who know they've got a great 'lifestyle' going on being so fit and handsome. But the boxing floor of the gym drew a different crowd. There was a fair few of the genetically gifted type, guys over six feet who looked angry the whole way through the gym sessions. Some older guys who he assumed would probably be ex-football casuals or bouncers at particularly violent pubs. But what surprised him was how many skinny, weedy kids of around his own age turned up.
They tended to be quiet types, who would rarely speak, and if they did it was to make a remark about a comic book or DVD. Testosterone poisoned underdogs who wanted to get some solid fighting skills so they could smack that guy in the jaw next time he laughs at his haircut.
The head trainer there was an overweight man with a bald pate who wore a polo shirt with Bermuda shorts. He'd shout a lot and get genuinely angry which would scare all but the biggest of us. He worked him hard though; slugging the heavy bag for thirty minutes without a break on the first session; punishing poor form with requests for press ups in multiples of tens (and on one occasion a full hundred). He'd really make us do each one properly as well, kneeling down next to us so as to get his voice louder to our ears.
I gradually became on nodding terms with a few of the bigger kids; the skinnies never really went in for any acknowledgement of social contact. I'd talk to them sometimes during rest breaks, occasionally stopping to consider how bizarre it was that I was actually doing this.
We had fights in the ring from the very first lesson. Thankfully coach Mitchell gave us smaller guys a last minute reprieve by announcing that having the big guys fight the small guys was just a joke he'd made up to scare us.
“You'll need your adrenaline pumping lads!” he shouted and laughed at us as we sweated and swooned in relief that we wouldn't be pummelled to mush. The fights stayed pretty tame and gentle the first few sessions, but eventually the stronger amongst the groups started to get bored of having to lower their game, and then we got a few nosebleeds and black eyes.
I was terrified in the minutes up to my first bout in the ring. As scared as I can remember having been for many years at least. Adrenaline made me jumpy and my arms would wobble as the muscles overshot, unused too such adrenal stimulation.
The guy I'd been picked to spar with was a tall but scrawny 12 stone. At 12 stone 9 I had the advantage on him in weight, but his jabs really shot out and got you like a quick slap about the cheeks. He won the fight simply on number of punches landed; I could hardly get anywhere close to the lanky oaf.
The first fight I won wasn't until the fourth session. Having lost the previous three with a fairly minimal degree of pain, I felt less afraid of defeat, and I reined in my stammering nerves and threw lucid well placed punches. It was obvious after the first few volleys who would win, but a knockout right hook in the last few seconds of the first round was a surprise.
After the defeated party had been dragged off the canvas, Coach Mitchell ordered one of the veteran Cassius-Clay clones into the ring. He said afterwards that it had been to stop me getting too big headed but his actions didn't quite have the desired effect since my head was swollen like a well risen Yorkshire Pudding for at least a fortnight. With my muscular body, and misshapen head, I was closer than ever before to reaching the physical idea of the time worn marble sculpture from The Oxford Introduction to the History of Philosophy.
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Well there you have it. An afternoon joyously slaughtering the English language.
Anyway, maybe the best order to post them in would be the relative order to how high I was at that point. Please don't assume the repeated references to stimulants is an attempt at affecting a 'Hunter S Thompson' or Burroughs-type air. I'm just high and can't stop writing. And even if it's only a temporary fix and potential addiction, it's such a relief to feel motivated to do something.
NO idea how intelligible the following is. Apologies if I waste any body's time.
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THE DAY JOHN WATERS GREW HIS PENCIL-LINE MOUSTACHE
At around four in the morning, Baltimore, Maryland can seem both very lonely and yet already too busy. Those flat fronted houses crest the horizon like tombstones, whilst down to the south and east the huge raw iron cranes are lumbering into life, like reluctant mules, mastered by grit-teethed men too raw with the early morning damp to display any signal of friendship upon their bowed faces.
He usually left the Pearly Queen at regulation-hours closing time, two in the morning, managing to drift unseen towards the Four Mills trailer park and slip, unnoticed, into his trailer and into his bed, sometimes with company, sometimes alone.
Walking now with shoulders hunched towards the rows of waiting stevedores he damned bitterly that silly Sylvie declaring this Tuesday night a lock-in. He'd only once had to walk home before this critical working man parade, and thank god he'd not gone as Joan that night. Even dressed straight, his slim build and silky blonde shoulder-length hair drew wolf-whistles and filthy obscenities.
About twenty metres ahead the cobbled street forked off to the right, avoiding the short waterfront walk he usually took to get back home. The longshore men nudged and turned as he approached, their sallow skinned faces slicing up into great rictuses of ridicule at the sight of the effeminate dirty stop out skulking back to whatever den of iniquity he called home.
He'd have to make his decision quickly. His hangover begged him turn right, walk the extra mile or so back to Four Mills, avoiding the titillated mob of men. The moment this thought entered his head he found himself already approaching the stevedores along the cracked concrete of the waterfront. “Treacherous little *****!” he reprimanded himself. Like a circuit being flicked, anxiety lit up his daiquiri filled stomach, spinning it in quick twists, threatening to eject its contents over a nearby storage container. His slender hands turned numb to the tips of his manicured nails. He reached a hand to his slim, colourless lower lip to find it equally dry with fear.
Nervously brushing back the stray strands of peroxide blonde that had fallen over his very white face, he channeled all his energy into walking calmly along the concrete road amongst the fish heads and guts. Every single solitary one of the stevedores was now staring. Good god there must have been at least twenty of the brutes. Had he dared glance up, he would have recognised at least one secretly terrified face from Sylvie's amongst those laughing men.
He had approached the main gang now, and as they made exaggeratedly demure little sidesteps for him to pass, he found himself struggling to keep one foot in front of the other. He had become such a spectacle, even the simple act of walking felt like a very artificial performance; his legs felt like stilts, wobbling beneath him as he trod with the exact and measured step of a tightrope walker. 'Christ, don't let me slip now...' he thought.
The trip wasn't intentional. No really, it was a genuine accident, not one man amongst them would say a word to the contrary. Just a high-heeled poufter wearing the wrong sort of shoe for a slippery working waterfront. Nobody could blame them if he fell.
His delicate roman nose narrowly missed making first contact with the brine slimed concrete, catching himself instead against the sharpened point of a kneeling stevedore's hook, which tore so easily through the cold-numbed skin of his lip.
All about him the confusion of sounds grew and grew in volume and intensity, but as if he was hearing them with his head held under water. Feeling his upper lip sticky with blood with one hand, he propped himself up against a huge Hessian sack of North Carolina potatoes, using the offending stevedore's hook to gain adequate grip.
Like a low-energy light bulb glowing into life so the situation amongst the dock workers became clearer to him. A riot was on the brink of breaking out amongst the men; there had been lay offs earlier that day, and now some ****ing fairy prances along and takes the hook right outta some poor guy's hand.
Pushing his way through the bustle of men in a flurry of foul words the foreman folded his arms and firmly grounded his feet either side of John's drooping legs. The heavy jowls relaxed in an instant from menace to a look that spoke both of compassion for the man and anger at the treatment dealt him by the men under his charge. Of course only John amongst the men could see the look of fearful recognition upon the foreman's face. The screech of Seagulls won't allow for such intimate encounters to last for long of course, and with a thup thup thup of a big white one legged bird taking flight the stillness of the moment was gone.
The foreman broke from his trance. “Get the **** outta here you ****ing hyenas!” said the foreman. Barely a mutter of complaint was heard as all but one of the stevedores wandered back towards the ships as if they'd completely forgotten why they were even there in the first place. “Deaf, ya ****in' goose?” said the foreman. The man closed his eyelids lightly and slowly exhaled as some men do when they're trying to prepare themselves for something particularly difficult.
“You OK John?” he said.
The foreman turned pale like a seasick grandmother. The two men helped John to his feet, holding him steady against the potato sack. “Come on,” said the foreman, and they carried John to the foreman's office. The foreman and the stevedore stood, whilst John fell into the chair with such delicacy it was like watching a downy feather fall to ground.
The foreman got a bottle of scotch from a khaki metal cabinet. “Jeffers there's some gauze in the first aid draw. No, the other one, ajax the bin.” The foreman passed the bottle to John after first taking a deep draught for himself. The smell of alcohol fuels turned his stomach worse than the anxiety of the stevedore crowd.
“Just dab it up Butch boy,” John said, handing back the untouched bottle.
Jeffers had cut a few wads of appropriately sized gauze, which he handed to the foreman.
“Gorgeous ends,” he said, glancing as demurely as he could manage towards John, whose lip was now being vigorously rubbed with handfuls of whisky which spilt down his chin and into his mouth and made him want to vomit.
“Jesus Butch a little less with the rough luppers if you don't very well mind,” he said.
“Enough of the Polari bull****.”
The foreman had the scotch soaked wads of gauze pressed tight against John's cut upper lip. “Lucky he got you where he did,” said the stevedore, “or you could've lost that pretty little Romanesque ecaf of yours.”
The foreman glanced at Jeffers with a menacing look that nevertheless suggested he was resigned to the humour of the men's slang.“What's an ecaf?” the foreman asked.
“My nose, darling; the affected little queen is saying I'm lucky,” he spat a mouthful of whisky onto his tie-less yet top-buttoned shirt, “that I didn't lose my nose.”
With John holding the stinging press of gauze against his lip, the foreman and Jeffers backed off a step to lean against the edge of the desk facing John. The foreman smiled sadly. “The **** did you expect, prancing along in sight of those mopes?”
John shrugged, not wishing to analyse his decision to take the dangerous route.
The foreman turned the heat up a couple of notches on the electric thermostat, then got out three crystal clean glasses. The glasses, and the bottles, were about the only thing in that office not buried beneath a pile of dust. The foreman poured three generous drinks of scotch whisky, whilst John watched on, his face growing paler the stronger the scent of alcohol in the hot room.
Jeffers and the foreman held their glasses as if unsure whether a tinkle of cheers was fitting for the occasion. Picking the third glass up with exaggerated theatricality, Jeffers daintily handed the full glass of viscous golden liquid to John, who kept his hands pressed firmly to his face.
“What, you're gonna turn down a free drink? That's not the Joan Withers I know,” said the foreman.
“Butchy baby, have you remembered not a solitary nishta of last night's Bacchanalian festivities? If I ever see a cocktail umbrella again I think I'll start going to straight bars.”
“****en nancy boy,” the foreman said, laughing, before throwing the contents of his own glass down his throat, then picking up John's to do the same.
The men remained silent for some time. Jeffers was swirling the last few syrupy drips of scotch around the bottom of his glass. “Well if you're not going to have a drink you've got to do a forfeit,” Jeffers said, still swirling his glass.
The foreman grunted in appreciation and agreement.
“Oh please, don't be so absurd you silly children,” said John, doing his best practised sullen face.
The foreman put his glass down heavily to show he was serious. Jeffers laughed maliciously as John hung his head in resignation.
“Well then?” said John, cocking an eyebrow just as he had seen Little Richard do on TV.
The foreman spoke immediately. “Remember those tiny moustaches all the homo Prussiaan aristo's used to wear?” Jeffers made a little twirl of glee.
“Oh! Bono, bono,” he said, limply clapping his hands.
“I still have no idea what you're prattling on about,” said John, “and how come it was only queers who wore these?” He'd dropped the gauze now, and was leaning forward in the chair towards the two men at the desk.
“They were all faggots, those inbred royals,” explained the foreman, “and they wore these teensy little moustaches to mark each other out for a bit of trade.”
“Like a line of mascara across the top lip,” added Jeffers.
John sat for a minute contemplating the idea of such a style. He seemed to remember a Little Richard LP cover showing a similar style of facial hair.
“**** it,” he said, reaching into the back pocket of a pair of YSL trousers; a match with the Smoking he was still wearing, to pull out a lovingly stropped pearl-handled open blade razor.
“What in the name of Gloria do you intend to do with that?” said Jeffers.
“Some sisters play it dirty,” he replied, “so a bit of a slapping is sometimes required.”
None of the men spoke whilst the foreman heated a pan of water over the office's little electric cooker. Jefferson busied himself by slicing off flakes of hand soap with a letter opener he had found on the foreman's desk, John amusing himself watching the foreman becoming visibly more and more annoyed at Jeffers peeling his soap with his letter opener.
“Gimme that!” he said and snatched back the soap smeared letter opener. “STEVEDORE BROTHERHOOD LOCAL 46” read the engraving on the ivory handle.
Jeffers tried to persuade the men that removing John's shirt was a necessity for the operation, but quickly lost interest in the idea after catching a glance from the foreman. Having soaked the hand towel in the now hot water, the foreman applied it across John's lower face.
“So...” said John after another moment of silent waiting. The foreman grew impatient.
“Right, that's long enough,” he said as he ripped the towel from John's face. Jeffers eagerly stepped forward and began to apply delicate daubs of the foam he'd whisked up with a touch of hot water. The razor had been sitting in the hot water and was in an ideal state for giving a good shave. Jeffers reached out to grab it, only to immediately hand it over to the foreman who stood with his palm open looking impatient.
John sat with his head rolled back, his face composed into a look of incredulity. “Neither of you two meshigeners have a clue what you're doing, do you?” he said accusingly. The challenge to the foreman's competence fired him into life, and with a few deft strokes of the blade shaved the top three quarters of John Water's moustache clean off.
THE END
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The street is black and ahead a gulley turns off to the right. She is walking, staying in the centre of the cobbled road, avoiding the streetlamps meant to keep her safe. She has seen his reflection in the wet cobbles, jutting out barely half a foot is the top of a cropped blond head. She is surprised how vividly the reflection appears. She maintains her pace, narrowing the distance to the reflection at the corner. Checking her pace, she shifts her right hand imperceptibly, slipping the fingers into the hip pocket of plain black denims feeling contact with the hard and cold of the blade, which she unsheathes inside the pocket. She strafes left.
And continues at the same measured non-threatened pace as she watches how the reflection of the top of the head is drawn in to the point where only the very crown of the head is visible to her on the wet cobblestone of the street
Calm, ****ing calm, he thinks to himself, watching the girl approach in the curved mirror halfway up the last lamp post on the left side of the street. He can feel the old ivory handle of the cleaver slipping from his grip as his hand sweats inside the waistband of his trousers where the blade is concealed and he panics as the girl moves steadily forward, he wipes his hand against his coat and takes out the blade, in the mirror he can now see her white running shoes, he can see her black jeans and he can see the logo on her jacket but only because he recognises the overall form but then he can read the words of the logo and he can also see her face
which is taught to breaking point but appears outwardly to be only a picture of serenity and oblivion to what is about to happen
when carlights flow suddenly into the world and everything seems very loud and there is no emotion in the crashing waves of sound from the car engine it is just very real and it is not a noise a human would make it is not pleasure or pain and the headlights are directed right at the man as the car swings sharply round in the mouth of the junction and all the man sees is the whiteness of the light and all the girl sees is the blinding glint from the blade held across the man's face
and the girl runs to the last lamp post where the car is pulling quickly away and she is too late to stop the car which sounds its horn when its driver sees the girl run after it and then it accelerates again and she is once aware of a silence in the dark street
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SOCRATES YOU WANNA BE A BOXER?
A week earlier his English teacher had been discussing 'epiphanies' to the class. At the end of the lesson, which was the last lesson of the school week, the teacher wished his class well and said he hoped they all had some wonderful epiphany over the weekend.
That's what he was thinking about as he read the quote printed beneath a grainy black and white photo of a marble bust. The quote read “What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” He'd opened the book at a random page, after having stared at the spines of a couple of hundred books which lined his father's bookshelf.
The Oxford Introduction to the History of Philosophy, with a foreword by an academic named Bryan Maggee.
He read the quote again, then scanned to the top of the page where opposite the page number was the chapter title: Classical Antiquity – Socrates.
He'd heard of Socrates of course, but pursuing the matter any further had never entered into his head. He thought of philosophy in the way medieval people thought of witchcraft; some mysterious, almost magical thing; something neurotic types anguished over, having read some irrefutable argument or other that proved the theory of Eternal Return, or the non-existence of the Self, or some other wonderfully odd world-view changing theory.
It quite appealed to him.
At first, he opened the book at the contents page, scanning the list of foreign names until he found someone he recognised and thought might like. He'd heard of Kierkegaard, and he'd heard of Nietzsche, but he'd never heard their names pronounced. In his head he had Kierkegaard's pronunciation acceptably close, but would later cringe upon remembering all his mentioning of 'Knee – Chey'.
He scanned a few paragraphs of introductory overviews about a few more philosophers, but stumbled at a lot of the technical terms and so learnt very little about anything. But the one thing he felt he understood the truth of was that quote by Socrates. To be a serious man you needed to have a very well trained mind. You'd dedicate hours of your life to wrangling over completely abstract and utterly non-pragmatic matters. You'd waste away as all your biological urges made way for your all consuming philosophical obsessions.
That such a person was something to strive to be was, although he wouldn't have known what it meant, an axiom for him, a fact of life to be given not a second's thought. But here was this Greek philosopher saying that the body must not be neglected.
Although he'd never spent a lot of time thinking about it, he didn't really see his body as his true 'self'. It was a shell for consciousness, for him to exist in. Humans were essentially two bits: the self or soul, and the body.
Thinking about it this new way gave him a strange sensation, a sort of floating tingle and a feeling of lightness. It was an intense, enjoyable emotion. He later told his mother that it had been 'deeply profound'. He thought again of what his English teacher had said. He didn't assume anything 'odd' about his forewarned epiphany; it was just a coincidence.
He started to use the set of barbell weights his dad kept in the garage. Secretly at first, but soon discovered by his mother coming in to use the freezer. He wouldn't let her laughter discourage him. He discovered the point at which perseverance at a strenuous physical activity becomes a true challenge of the will to pass. He discovered an elated sense of masterfulness as he pumped out his last eight reps. He'd sit exhausted on the bench press, dopamine surging through him like cool wind on a hot day. He'd allow himself a peak in the mirror at his engorged biceps muscle, then flex the triceps to 'full extension'.
A part of him thought this vain, and he always felt a little bit ridiculous as he checked himself out. But then what had Socrates said? “Without seeing the beauty and strength,”. What would be the point in not appreciating his efforts?
One afternoon after an hour in the garage, he'd stood in front of the bathroom mirror whilst waiting for the shower to warm up, and started to pull spontaneous 'boxer' poses; at one point hitting his left fist against the bathroom wall. But the boxing poses looked good to him. He'd developed his 'boxer's muscles' pretty well. His torso was beginning to approach that inverted pyramid shape of stacked power.
Could he teach himself to box? Socrates did specifically say “and strength,” so putting a bit of power into those pounds could really move him towards his Socratic ideal. There was nowhere to hang a bag, not even in the garage. He considered an outdoor punch bag but after some consideration decided he'd rather sweat and grunt in front of other strangers in a gym than outside the windows of his own neighbours.
Did boxing gyms even exist outside of films? He pictured a big open loftspace, a patched up white canvas ring at the centre, heavybags hung at the sides, an area for a bit of 'weight training'.
Unfortunately for him the only gym with 'boxing facilities' was a new megaplex type thing where he imagined that everybody would be good looking and probably rich as well.
In a way he was right. The other gym users were all of the radiating-confidence type who know they've got a great 'lifestyle' going on being so fit and handsome. But the boxing floor of the gym drew a different crowd. There was a fair few of the genetically gifted type, guys over six feet who looked angry the whole way through the gym sessions. Some older guys who he assumed would probably be ex-football casuals or bouncers at particularly violent pubs. But what surprised him was how many skinny, weedy kids of around his own age turned up.
They tended to be quiet types, who would rarely speak, and if they did it was to make a remark about a comic book or DVD. Testosterone poisoned underdogs who wanted to get some solid fighting skills so they could smack that guy in the jaw next time he laughs at his haircut.
The head trainer there was an overweight man with a bald pate who wore a polo shirt with Bermuda shorts. He'd shout a lot and get genuinely angry which would scare all but the biggest of us. He worked him hard though; slugging the heavy bag for thirty minutes without a break on the first session; punishing poor form with requests for press ups in multiples of tens (and on one occasion a full hundred). He'd really make us do each one properly as well, kneeling down next to us so as to get his voice louder to our ears.
I gradually became on nodding terms with a few of the bigger kids; the skinnies never really went in for any acknowledgement of social contact. I'd talk to them sometimes during rest breaks, occasionally stopping to consider how bizarre it was that I was actually doing this.
We had fights in the ring from the very first lesson. Thankfully coach Mitchell gave us smaller guys a last minute reprieve by announcing that having the big guys fight the small guys was just a joke he'd made up to scare us.
“You'll need your adrenaline pumping lads!” he shouted and laughed at us as we sweated and swooned in relief that we wouldn't be pummelled to mush. The fights stayed pretty tame and gentle the first few sessions, but eventually the stronger amongst the groups started to get bored of having to lower their game, and then we got a few nosebleeds and black eyes.
I was terrified in the minutes up to my first bout in the ring. As scared as I can remember having been for many years at least. Adrenaline made me jumpy and my arms would wobble as the muscles overshot, unused too such adrenal stimulation.
The guy I'd been picked to spar with was a tall but scrawny 12 stone. At 12 stone 9 I had the advantage on him in weight, but his jabs really shot out and got you like a quick slap about the cheeks. He won the fight simply on number of punches landed; I could hardly get anywhere close to the lanky oaf.
The first fight I won wasn't until the fourth session. Having lost the previous three with a fairly minimal degree of pain, I felt less afraid of defeat, and I reined in my stammering nerves and threw lucid well placed punches. It was obvious after the first few volleys who would win, but a knockout right hook in the last few seconds of the first round was a surprise.
After the defeated party had been dragged off the canvas, Coach Mitchell ordered one of the veteran Cassius-Clay clones into the ring. He said afterwards that it had been to stop me getting too big headed but his actions didn't quite have the desired effect since my head was swollen like a well risen Yorkshire Pudding for at least a fortnight. With my muscular body, and misshapen head, I was closer than ever before to reaching the physical idea of the time worn marble sculpture from The Oxford Introduction to the History of Philosophy.
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Well there you have it. An afternoon joyously slaughtering the English language.