I clinked my glass against his. “Yeah, Pingu.”
“I to tell more story,” he said. “You like.”
Dextrose swivelled his corpulent bulk around on his stool – or rather, Duane’s stool – and stared at me. I wondered what was in store: drunken abuse or the genial ranting of the contented sop?
“Come join us,” he called out.
Wonders would never cease.
He swayed on the stool, reached for his glass and downed the contents. “Got some good news for yer, boy. Harrison Dextrose is preparing ’imself to forgive yer. Anyone who chauffeurs him to this gent’s oasis can’t be all bad.” He was arseholed, so the ‘this’ came out more like ‘thizzz’. Mind you, I was probably as bad. Like father, like son.
“Come on, boy, come and join us,” he persisted. “I’ll tell yer about the whorehouses of High Yawl! Priscilla Split and Phoenicia Splay! Feet on the ceiling and baby-oil by the bucket. I’ll never forget ’em. Or those other ones.” He nudged next-door Si in the ribs. “You’re gonna minking love this one!” he told him, blinking furiously like Icarus approaching the sun.
I’d read the High Yawl story more often than I cared to remember. Good old Dextrose, rogering his way around the globe. All harmless fun. But things had changed. “You know, Dad” – I stressed the word though no one seemed to notice – “I do have your book. I’ve read it many times.” (Yup, that had sounded like ‘timezzz’.)
His blistered, burnt, buggered face somehow lit up. “There! See!” he announced to the room. “A fan! An’ where is we? In the middle of minking nowhere. See? Can’t escape ’em! Is that what yer’ve been after all this time, yer young codger’s coccyx: an autograph?” He nudged Si again. “All he had to do were ask!”
He, Bri, Si and Kai roared with laughter, as if a fabulous joke had been cracked.
Over the din, I tried to explain: “No, Dad, I don’t want your autograph. I want…” But it was pointless. He had lost interest.
Importos reached across the table and enveloped me in an extensive hug, smelling of ale, sweat and manliness. “You friend!” he announced.
In my alcoholic haze I decided I was warming to him, though he went on to dominate the conversation. He told me how Detritos had left home at 16, neglected by his parents and dejected, though the two brothers had supported and loved one other. In the ensuing years their contact had been only sporadic, as the dwarf wandered about the globe finding work and solace here and there.
Importos still lived at home with his parents – I sensed he was a bit of a mummy’s boy – and Detritos returned only rarely, always unannounced, and would flit away unnoticed in the wee hours of a morning.
By that stage of the tale we were on a fresh set of pints. Importos’ nose was running and he started banging on about basketball. After a while his hoop-based monologues entered my one ear, wandered around listlessly for a while, humming to themselves, then exited through the other.
I do remember one of his stories, about some coach who came to town to look after his team, Los Desperados, then made poor decisions and the community turned against him, though it all turned out fine in the end when they won some trophy or other. For some reason my memory chose to store the coach’s name. It was Dale. Norman Dale.
And so that early morning in Socks ‘N’ Sandals wore on. With each successive gulp of frothy, lovely beer Importos’ voice washed further over me, undulating with echo, like a film soundtrack slowed down, as shapes blurred and mingled before my eyes, and the beers came and went.
Until something disturbing occurred, which threatened to shatter the mood: Importos suddenly turned on me, out of nowhere.
Banging his fist on the table he snarled, “Importos to have friend. Bad friend. Yes? Senor Alexander to get?”
I fumbled to make sense of him. “Sorry? What?”
“You is to know!” he snapped. “You is to keep off somezing of bruzzer. Importos to know, yes?” He went to tap his temple but missed.
“I don’t know what…”
But there was no stopping him. “You to know bad people to do people, zey to lie?” His words rather rolled into one, making him even harder to understand than normal. But when he made a slashing motion with a finger across his throat, unfortunately pulling that gesture off, I understood only too well. “They to kill. Senor Alexander to get?”
I did. But my mind was just too addled to let it properly sink in. I tried to assume that booze had got the better of him, made him aggressive and that he was talking rubbish.
I sought to placate him the only way I knew. “You wan’an-other beer?”
“Is. Worse. Free. Holiday. Ever,” he replied, then nodded.
My final awareness of that night appeared in a snapshot: I was being carried over someone’s shoulder, my head swinging, my stomach compressed. Though I tried to say something, unconsciousness retook me.
When consciousness returned, my addled mind registered a heavy downward force, around the small of my back. It lifted then came again, accompanied by a grunt and stinking fumes. What the hell was happening?
I forced open gummy eyes. Darkness.
My right cheek was pressed into rough material and my arms were stretched down by my sides. I was on my front and – I felt for the safari suit with fingertips, but found only flesh – my trousers were down. Startled, I gasped, “What th…”
A rough, greasy hand clamped over my mouth.
I panicked and struggled, but was pinned down by a hand between my shoulders. I couldn’t move.
A voice came: “Let’s keep this between ourselves, eh, mate?” accompanied by more fumes. Kai’s voice.
I tried to get my head around the situation. I realised what was meant to be happening. But it wasn’t, I could tell. And I would have known.
So what the hell was happening?
Kai again, from above, the words slopping against each other: “Mate, I’m sorry.” Drunk as a skunk. “I couldn’t help it.”
Clearly he thought he was doing it. But I would have felt it. And I couldn’t, not that.
There was something going on, a short distance down my legs, between my thighs. A slick sensation, coming and going. Was that rubber I could feel? Couldn’t be. In that state Kai had more chance of trapping a goblin under a hat than he did of putting on a condom.
My head was throbbing, I was horrified and confused. What was Kai doing, if not perpetrating something very wrong? Then I heard it, very faintly, each time he wobbled up and down. A crinkling sound. And it dawned on me slowly what that sound was.
It was the sound of that Sheep Shavings packet, the one I’d been forced to store down my trousers.
He was only toing and froing inside a bag of shite.
I let out a snort, which disappeared into his hand and which he must have misinterpreted as something approaching ardour, because he bent down and growled into my ear, “Nice, ain’t it?”
I tried to protest otherwise, but only “Nm ntth nt” emerged from behind his clamped hand. “Ltt be gnn!” I struggled, but could not move.
Kai was too strong and too heavy.
“Look. If I let yer gob go, you promise not to shout?” He was breathing heavily, in short, sharp bursts.
I managed a semblance of a nod.
“Right,” he said, and allowed the merest gap between his palm and my mouth. When I uttered no noise he pulled his hand away further, still methodically pumping up and down.
“Where am I?” I whispered hoarsely. Though I had a headache like a bullfight in progress and could taste my booze history in the back of my throat, Kai was by necessity sobering me up.
“You passed out, mate. I carried you into Bri’s room, put you on his bed. Then I sneaked back later. Hnnnn. Couldn’t help it.”
“So they don’t know?”
“Mate, they don’t know where they are.”
That was more than a relief. I definitely didn’t want this to get out.
I wondered: “Are you…”
He made an
unattractive hawking noise. “Sorry, missed that.”
“Are you… you know?”
“What… A gay? Christ no! Fucking fairies. Fuck off! Gnnnth. Are you?”
“No, as it happens.”
“You take what you can get out here. Jeez it gets lonely.”
“Right.”
“Yeah, that’s what I – uuuuch – thought.”
Part of me hated him, a dafter part felt sorry for him. Both parts wanted him off me. If only I could get him back for this… “How desperate have you got? Mate? You know, sex-wise?”
He stopped pumping. “Hoho, mate! I couldn’t!” But he was thinking about it. “Alright, if you go first.”
“I fucked a gerbil once.” (I hadn’t.)
He fell on top of me, wheezing more than laughing. His breath was an abomination and I had to burrow my nose in the blanket. “Mate! Jeez! I thought I was bad, but you’re the man, mate!”
I extracted my nose for long enough to blurt out, “So what have you done?”
He hoisted himself up and started again. “Nnnnf. Well, I’ve got this leatherette settee at home and whenever I…”
“Right, that’ll do,” I snapped. “Would you mind getting off me, please?”
He sounded taken aback. “What, is it…”
“Yes, it is a bit much, actually.”
“Jeez, I’m sorry, mate, I had no idea.”
“It’s fine, just please, get off.”
He did so with a self-satisfied, “Aaaaaaaah,” and was gone.
I repositioned my attire, made sure I left the Sheep Shavings bag on Bri’s bed, and marched out into the main room. It was carnage out there.
There were glasses all over the bar, some upright, some fallen, some broken, almost all empty, with shards of glass all over the floor (as well as Duane). Dextrose was talking complete garbage to Si, who had fallen asleep in the palm of his hand, propped on the bar. Bri was unconscious, only his head visible, jammed between the two beer pumps. Across the room, Importos lay sprawled face down across the table, having swiped aside the containers of everything we had drunk. Which, judging by the broken glass on the floor, was plenty.
Kai had regained his stool and was perched there precariously, swaying from one of its legs to another, trying to grasp a half-full pint in front of him but missing each time.
No one noticed me.
I strode over to Importos, kicking the glass aside, hoping he might not be too much of a handful having at least slept, and with so much body available to soak up the booze. He was snoring, which had caused a dome of frothy bubbles to form in the dregs around his nose.
“Oi, wake up!” I told him, pushing his hunched form.
No reaction.
I tried again.
“Qué? Please. No. To help,” he burbled, looking up. Half of his face had gone wrinkly through sitting in liquid.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
“No-no-no.” He slumped back onto the table.
“Yes-yes-yes,” I averred, tugging at his basketball shirt. “And you’re going to have to help me move that,” I added, pointing at Dextrose.
Harrison Dextrose had remained stubbornly immovable, literally stuck to his stool, until I had promised him that we were heading for a different bar. Immediately he had dived for the door, but had tripped over Duane and fallen flat on his face, leaving interestingly shaped shards of glass embedded in his already disfigured flesh. I felt little pity for him and he felt no shame.
Importos and I took an arm each and dragged him across the floor, then bundled him outside, where he lay, snorting up sand.
Importos flopped down beside him. “To fuck zis for game of soldier.”
We couldn’t possibly lift Dextrose up, to feed him feet-first into the sidecar, so we pushed him in headfirst instead, confident he would not notice. Indeed, within seconds, the tinny echo of his deep-sleep mumbles could be heard.
The sun had already risen, a flushed-red orb hovering above our unseen destination, at the far end of the Nameless Highway. The landscape around now lit up, I could make out actual vegetation, albeit occasional scraggy-looking trees dotted about the sands, isolated and friendless. Up ahead and to the right of the road, contours appeared on the horizon, adding promise to the monotonous flatness. To crown it all, I heard birdsong. Just the one bird and, despite the barren landscape, I couldn’t spot it, but it was there, and it sounded optimistic.
One final task.
“Wait here,” I told Importos, and left him cradling his head in his hands, moaning at his lap.
Back inside Socks ‘N’ Sandals, I was amazed to find Duane up and about, busying himself with a broom, whistling.
“Hello, mate,” he chirped. “What can I do for you?” Perhaps he was staff? His outfit was drenched and clung to him in funny places, and his hat was upside-down on his head.
Bri and Si remained as I had left them, and Kai, too, had succumbed to slumber, entrenched on his stool.
“WAKEY WAKEY!” I hollered
It certainly took Duane by surprise, as he ducked down and covered his head with his hands, as if under attack by something airborne. In doing so he discovered the upside-down hat, inspected it with quaint surprise and, on the verge of chastising it, nestled it onto his bonce as the milliner had intended.
Meanwhile, Bri, Si and Kai were shaking their heads – Bri extricating his from between the pumps and rubbing his jaws tenderly – and looking generally startled.
I held the door open with one hand, let natural light flood in, hoping that would confuse them into lasting consciousness.
“I have something to tell you all,” I said. “I hope at least one of you remembers it.”
Duane put up his hand. “I will!”
“Good work, Duane,” I acknowledged. Had he been more lucid during my stay, I reckoned we might have got on.
“Wha’d’you want?” moaned Si, audibly pained.
“Ready?” I asked. “Kai fucks furniture.”
My words echoed around the wooden hovel and were sucked up into the damp patches.
To ensure it had sunk in, I added: “Kai told me he makes love to his leatherette settee.”
Bri looked more concerned with his jaw. But Duane appeared suitably put out and Si managed to slap Kai’s side and wail, “Jeez, mate, I’ve sat on that sofa. Loads of times!”
As I turned to depart, Kai’s voice came: “Two things, mate…”
He was peering at me over bags the colour of biblical storms. “Two things, mate,” he said again. “One. I checked over the old man after our… chat. And – how do I put this delicately? – you need to brush up on your personal hygiene, mate. And two. There is no twinkle-toed toad. Made him up. Gotcha – hook, line and sinker! Now fuck off!”
People normally ride off into the sunset. I was doing the opposite: heading for the sunrise. The tarmac shimmered and the light glared off it, resulting in my permanent squint.
Elements of the previous night kept returning to me, just when I needed them least, and I hummed favourite songs to myself to ward off the memories. A smattering of Pink Floyd, some Galaxie 500, David Bowie. Then bastard Agadoo became lodged in there and would not shift, no doubt as its cursed writers had intended.
Even that was preferable to reliving Kai’s attentions.
Importos was a dead weight on my back and shoulders, his head resting on top of mine, like we were some sort of totem pole. The first time I braked, for no reason other than boredom, he went flying off the back, having omitted to hold on, and was knocked unconscious on the road surface. I had to turn the bike around to retrieve him. While I tended to him with water and apologies, Dextrose’s legs and arse remained sticking out of the sidecar, occasionally twitching, though nothing more energetic.
When I had revived him, Importos rubbed the back of his head vigorously. His dark hair, once shiny with unguents and grease, was grey with dust and windborne particles. His long face was longer than ever and his mood seemed dark. I recalled his drun
ken threats and hoped they were idle.
“Why weren’t you holding on?” I asked gently.
“Because to try sleep!” Then he cursed in his own tongue.
“You’re trying to sleep – on the back of a motorbike?”
“Where you to say do zen?”
He had a point. The only one of us managing their reasonable quota of shut-eye was Dextrose, through no design of his own. Or perhaps his lifestyle was all based on elaborate forward-planning, rather than the haphazard hedonism it appeared to be?
An idea came to me. The lapsed explorer was not minor of girth. We could ransack his belongings for a belt, to fasten around myself and Importos. Then, should I brake, provided I could take the strain, we would both remain on the machine.
It seemed like a reasonable idea.
I unstrapped Dextrose’s mock-leather suitcase and undid the restraining buckle while bottles inside tinkled. It was strange to hold the artefact in my hands. Had that case travelled the world with him? Had it seen all the sights he had seen?
There was a crumpled old cardboard label tied to the handle and I wondered what secret it might reveal. Perhaps an airline destination – even Dextrose’s home address?
Instead, it read: ‘Woolworths £2.99’.
I pushed the buttons and the two catches thunked up. Importos moved closer, as anxious as I to peer inside.
Now, bearing in mind that Dextrose’s recommended packing list had appeared in The Lost Incompetent, and included such genuinely essential items as: clothing, sleeping bag, compass, billy-can and first-aid kit, I detected a faint whiff of hypocrisy when I opened his own case and found nothing but bottles of beer and whiskey. I had expected to find something useful, even a spare pair of socks would have been a start – certainly not just booze. Even assuming a well-meaning, loyal Quench had packed for him, the conclusion was inescapable: it represented the extent of Dextrose’s fall from any form of professionalism.
He had on him what he was wearing, and I hoped those overcoat pockets were deep, because if he had come without money we weren’t going to be flying home to Britain once we had recovered Mrs Dextrose.
Looking for Mrs Dextrose Page 12