Hole Punch
Page 16
Thank you boys.
The old man blows his trumpet.
DECKCHAIR ASSISTANT
It was a hot, summers day on Southport pier. Bert, the deckchair assistant, had been up on his feet all day. Bert was hungry and wanted his sandwich.
“You boy! Come here!” said a large, middle-aged woman.
She was wearing a straw hat and a floral print dress. She was having trouble unfolding a deckchair. Bert looked at her.
“Yes! You!” she said. “Come here!”
“I’m on my lunch break,” said Bert.
“Come here!” she repeated.
“No.”
Bert wanted his sandwich.
The deckchair manager, Albert, walked down the pier towards them.
“What’s the problem Bert?” asked Albert.
“The problem is,” said the middle-aged woman. “That this deckchair won’t open and your deckchair assistant is refusing to help!”
“Is this true Bert?” asked Albert. “Are you okay?”
“I just want my sandwich.”
Albert sighed.
“Grow up and do your job, Bert. These deckchairs aren't going to assist themselves.”
Bert opened the deckchair and placed it on the deck for the middle-aged woman.
"Aw bless him," said the middle-aged woman to Albert.
Bert saw an old man trying to open a deckchair. Bert went to help him.
“Sod off! Selfish shit!” said the old man. “I'll open my own deckchair!”
* * *
Later that evening, Bert was stacking up the deckchairs in their shed. Albert swung his key chain around, ready to lock the shed.
“Get those deckchairs secure Bert, then I can go home,” said Albert.
Half an hour later, Albert smiled fondly at the stacks and threw the key chain to Bert.
“Get them locked up and be back here at six in the morning. You’ll get paid next month Bert.”
Bert thought he was going to get paid this month.
“I thought I was going to get paid this month,” said Bert.
Albert got on his bicycle and cycled away.
Bert walked down the pier, a characterless sunset behind him. Bert took a bite from his sandwich. He looked down at the beach and he saw some students with a bonfire.
“Hey man,” said one with blonde dreadlocks and a spliff in his mouth. “What are you doing up there?”
“Yeah baby,” said one with a bikini and a plastic cowboy hat. “What are you doing up there baby?”
“I’m a deckchair assistant,” said Bert.
“Get us some deckchairs then you tit!” shouted one with a shaved head and a can of super strength.
“Yeah baby,” said one with a bikini and a plastic pirate hat. “Get us some deckchairs baby.”
“They are all locked away now,” said Bert. “Can I come and party with you guys?”
“Sure you can,” said one with blonde dreadlocks and a spliff in his mouth. “If you get us some deckchairs.”
* * *
The deckchairs were burning on the bonfire.
“That job was all I knew,” said Bert. “Who am I?"
Bert took a bite from his sandwich.
MAN ABOUT TOWN
The man about town swings his keyring and presses the button to remotely unlock the car door.
The man about town gets inside his car and puts on the radio.
Cool. BBC Radio 6. Bob Dylan.
The man about town puts on his sunglasses and drives.
The man about town is on his way to collect some items for his home business.
The man about town thinks that having sex is good.
The man about town parks his car and steps outside.
The man about town gives his keyring a swing in the air before pressing the button to remotely lock the car door.
The man about town sees his reflection in a shop window.
Jeans. Pinstripe blazer. Ramones t-shirt. Cool.
The man about town goes in the printer shop and buys five hundred printer cartridges and a stack of quality A2 paper.
The man about town smiles at the cashier.
"Thanks!" he snaps a finger at her name badge. “Lucy!”
The man about town goes back to his car and swings his keyring before pressing the button to remotely unlock the car door.
The man about town gets inside his car and puts on the radio.
Cool. BBC Radio 6. Tom Waits.
FRENCHGATE
The old man looks at the boarded up building.
“I remember when this building was a nightclub,” said the old man.
All the businesses that used to be on this street are closed down.
In an alleyway, a boy sucks on balloon gas before eating a burger.
“If I eat while I'm rushing, then it gives me a really mental high!”
People make their own entertainment these days.
The mother pushes her shopping trolley full of discounts.
“I've been watching that new series that isn't out yet,” said the mother.
The Frenchgate Centre is reopened and has lots of new shops.
“Have you been in the new Frenchgate Centre? I only go to town now if I want to go in the Frenchgate Centre. All the shops are in there now; Home Bargains, Quality Save, Aldi, Poundland.”
There are no benches in the new Frenchgate Centre.
“It's hard to get a good sit down these days.”
“I'm off out later to that new tiki bar.”
“I'm not bloody mental alright?”
“We all know it was just the drink talking.”
“Ham, egg and chips at Wetherspoons?”
“How much?”
“Three pound fifty, I think.”
MOTHER
The Mistake smiles down at her freshly hatched clutch. The Mistake isn't a mistake anymore. The Mistake had a purpose. All these tiny, new children rely on her. The Mistake is Mother and Mother has her clutch.
Their small-headed faces smile up at her.
“Who are you?” asks Mother.
“Your clutch!” they smile.
They take the words right out of her mind.
“Do you love me?” asks Mother.
“We love you Mother!”
They wave their adorable and useful shovel-hands.
“Will you dig for me?”
“Yes!”
“Are you Mother?”
“We are Mother!”
They are all mother.
“We love you Mother!” affirm her clutch.
And she loved them. All of them. Useful, loving and together with Mother.
There was a sound. A different sound. A not so useful sound. What is that sound? Crying?
No.
Please no.
Not again.
Not another one.
Not another Mistake.
There it is, in the middle of the smaller heads of her clutch, a tiny mouth on an oversized head: screaming up at the nothing sky.
“The Mistake!” said her clutch.
They take the words right out of her mind.
CLEVER
Stuck on the ends of the branches of the leafless, winter trees were countless human eyeballs. The woodsman pulled down a branch and prodded a glaring eyeball with his index finger.
“Still warm,” said the woodsman.
He looked out into the foggy forest.
“I’ll find you!” he shouted into the misted depths.
* * *
In his log cabin he looked through the ancient texts, he was trying to discover more about the mythical, eyeball-stealing Opticulus .
“One day I'll find you,” he said.
He turned page after page.
“I’ll find you!”
* * *
The woodsman crept through the forest with an elephant gun over his shoulder.
“I know you’re out here somewhere.”
He tripped over a branch and fell in a pudd
le. He saw his reflection in the water; monstrous and deformed. Some round, squidgy balls fell out of his pockets.
Eyeballs!
“All these years of seeking the Opticulus, it seems that I was searching for myself."
He sighed and impaled the eyeballs on the branches of a nearby tree.
It is like the ending of one of those clever stories when the ending is clever.
HOLIDAYS
They push him off the cliff.
He bounces back up.
“This bungee jump was worth all that overtime at work.”
He fancies the bungee jump instructor but so did everyone.
They push her underwater.
She is wearing a diving suit.
“This scuba diving was worth all that overtime at work.”
A blunt toothed shark harmlessly passes her.
Millions of creeping weeds thrill to their procured moments of safe excitement.
They feel like they are free.
ROPER
Jim Phil-Bin-Roper walked crooked, slow and old into the Goat and Duck.
“Another bitter Jim?” asked Dave the Landlord.
“Aye,” said Jim Phil-Bin-Roper. “Another bitter day it is.”
Jim liked that joke and said it everyday.
Dave pulled Jim Phil-Bin-Roper a pint of bitter and plonked it over a serviette.
“What’s this?” asked Jim Phil-Bin-Roper, pointing at the soggy serviette.
“The girls love them hankies,” answered Dave.
“Is it Curry Night tonight?” asked Jim Phil-Bin-Roper.
Jim Phil-Bin-Roper didn't like any of that foreign muck.
“Yeah it is,” said Dave. “Don't worry mate, I’ve got a steak and chips ready for you this time.”
Jim Phil-Bin-Roper sat in his corner and stared into space. He drank his bitter and thought about his dear dead Joanne.
Dave brought out some curries for the other customers. He put a plate of steak and chips on Jim Phil-Bin-Roper’s table. Jim Phil-Bin-Roper had gone to sleep, but he'd be awake as soon as the whiff of steak hit his nostrils.
Good old Jim Phil-Bin-Roper.
They called him Roper because he used to make ropes.
Good old Roper.
He deserved his bitter and sleep.
Some youths eating curry laughed at the sleeping Jim-Phil-Bin-Roper.
“Respect the Roper!” shouted Dave.
Jim Phil-Bin-Roper woke up and he ate some steak, he thought about his dear, dead Joanne. Jim Phil-Bin-Roper fell asleep again.
At closing time the barmaid, Suze, came to take away Jim Phil-Bin-Roper’s half eaten steak.
It wasn't like him to leave a steak unfinished.
“Time get up Jim,” she said.
He didn’t respond so she lightly tapped his shoulder.
He slumped forward.
Jim-Phil-Bin-Roper was dead.
“Poor old Roper,” said Suze.
NECROPOLON
The gigantic statue of Empress Garsix III loomed naked and on all fours over the funeral city of Necropolon. Up in the nipple window of the underhanging stone udder; the Chief Butcher watched the funeral city with dry eyes.
“The grievers will be here soon,” he croaked through shitted throat. “They will want to see their dead.”
The Chief Butcher ambled hunchbacked away from the window.
“Over ten billion corpses rotting in the funeral city of Necropolon,” he stated, expositionally, to nobody in particular.
* * *
A small shuttle-craft arrived at the docking station. Grieving citizens departed the craft in their funeral red robes.
“After we visit Grandma can we go to the Wall Of Nailed Convicts?” asked the little girl to her father. “Some of them are still alive and crying.”
An old man, with tears in his eyes, waddled behind them. He had a bouquet of funeral red flowers.
“We have to make sure Grandpa is okay,” said the little girl’s father. “This will be the first time he's seen Grandma since she died.”
A wart dwarf death attendant led the family towards the catacombs.
“Hurry up!” shouted the wart dwarf. “No lingering!”
They were led to their dead one’s coffin. The wart dwarf death attendant opened up a metal manhole cover on the front. Grandma lay there with a lopsided skull.
Grandpa fell to his knees with tears in his eyes.
“You look even more beautiful in death!”
He put the flowers to the foot of her metal casket.
The father waved.
“Hi Mum.”
The little girl impatiently kicked an urn over.
“Can we go and see the Wall Of Nailed Convicts now?!”
* * *
Fat Chopper Dave stomped down the corridor in his leather, blood-splashed apron. He swung his meat cleaver at the escaping meat.
“Get back here!” he roared.
The meat stumbled away down the corridor, her body stabbed with nails and barb-wire. Despite these injuries she was much faster than Fat Chopper Dave.
“I’ve not finished decorating you yet!” he panted.
As she turned the corner, Fat Chopper Dave made one last desperate swing of his meat cleaver, throwing it after her, it clanged uselessly on the ceiling.
The Chief Butcher would be very angry at him for losing another meat.
* * *
The little girl pointed at a drooling, emaciated convict.
“Look daddy! That one has lost the will to live!”
Her father laughed at the Wall of Nailed Convicts.
Grandpa was looking distractedly at the trees and flowers.
“You really do maintain this place well,” he said to the wart dwarf gardener, who was watering some flowers.
* * *
In the dank, wet, anal sanctum of the statue of Empress Garsix III, the Chief Butcher banged his fist on his desk.
"We are over-budget!" he rasped, through shitted throat, at the vidscreen.
Liquidator Muck twiddled his pencil thin moustache and smiled.
"There's no need to shout," laughed Muck. "Budgets are your concern. My concern is the disposal of all of these cumbersome vats of melted flesh. I need more acres of wasteland."
The vidscreen beeped with another incoming call. The Chief Butcher slapped the screen to change frequency. It was Fat Chopper Dave.
"Another meat escaped," said Fat Chopper Dave.
His eyes were small and shameful.
The Chief Butcher slapped the vidscreen again and the head of Liquidator Muck reappeared. He was oiling his face with tar.
"I can't give you anymore acres of wasteland," said the Chief Butcher.
"Then these vats will eventually burst and fill the catacombs of Necropolon with a bounty of noxious ooze, your choice, no skin off my bottom gravy either way. I want more acres of wasteland. I want Ruin Rim."
"Are you blackmailing ME?" asked the Chief Butcher.
Liquidator Muck laughed under his tar.
"Oh you poor, poor fool. There is a more appropriate word than blackmail, but considering the humble range your lexicon, I'll forgive you. This is coercion, old friend, not blackmail."
* * *
The escaped meat leant against the tunnel wall. She pulled on the long, rusted nail embedded in her femur. She cried with eyes of no lids. Everything hurt everywhere.
A rat came drank from her puddle of blood.
“You’re a bonny little thing,” she said to the rat. “I think I’ll call you Roderick.”
The rat spat blood and jumped at her neck.
“Roderick… Stop… No…”
* * *
“How come all your flowers are dead?” asked the little girl.
“They're not dead,” said the wart dwarf gardener. “There is no such a thing as death. My flowers are merely entering their next stage of growth. Disease and decay are beautiful things little girl.”
DEAD
My steps outside t
he door.
I knock.
You are puking on the duvet.
Don’t answer the door.
I'm dead.
You slide your hands through the puke.
I knock louder on the door.
Don’t answer the door.
I'm dead.
You rest your head in your vomit.
Five days of migraine now.
I'll leave you alone for a bit.
Under your eyes you see them.
All of them me.
All of me them.
All of us die forever.
The cat jumps on the bed and tries to eat the puke.
“Don’t do that, that is no good for you.”
You push him away.
The brown walls.
The shades of dirt.
Closed, red curtains.
Mould under the windowsill.
Glazed mould.
The cat sleeps against your head.
Gas.
Blood.
Mud.
Nothing is nice anymore.
Sleep.
You can't.
Nothing is nice anymore.
Seven days of migraine now.
I knock on the door.
Don't answer the door.
I’m dead.
I don’t want this anymore.
Why do I keep doing this?
This is dirt.
They are dirt.
So are you.
Outside.
Unfiltered.
Unwelcome.
Splodge.
I'm dirt.
I'm dead.
I knock on the door.
Don't answer the door.
I'm dead.