The King of the Dumps

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The King of the Dumps Page 2

by Jonathan Antony Strickland

it meant using underhanded means. When DooGood on the other hand was asked about it he simply shrugged his shoulders and gave the press a telling wink before swaggering off to the nearest bar. But a picture doesn't lie and the public were left in no doubt that it was she who had spiderly entwined herself around the dastardly DooGood.

  Three days after the story broke, Melody Manzanita took her own life. An overdose of sleeping tablets washed down with a bottle of gin. She'd left a note stating how sorry she was and hoped that her family and fans could eventually forgive her. She also wrote that she wished the worst on the brute who'd photographed her and sincerely hoped that he got his comeuppance through time.

  This one story rocketed Wilbur up the ranks of the paparazzi, becoming their most infamous member. Not that this was a bad thing, indeed being known as a total scumbag in the world of reporting was a sure fire way of getting the big boys to take note of who you where. One thing stuck though from the Manzanita story and that was her constant labelling of him as a brute, thus Wilbur "The Brute" Boswinkel was born.

  As Wilbur made his way around Kong he could hear the voices of people approaching and knew he had but a few brief moments before New York's finest arrived on the scene. The only other noises where that of sirens in the distance and the last few breaths escaping from Kong's lungs as his great chest heaved up and down. There was one other noise that at first Wilbur did not understand, a slow beating sound, so low in volume that it was more felt than heard. It reverberated through Wilbur's body, reaching his very core, reminding him of a time when in school playing cowboys and Indians, the children playing Indians would sometimes beat sticks on old tree stumps when pretending they were sending each other tribal messages. It took a moment before he realised the sound was actually that of Kong's heartbeat.

  Time was running out as he ran around snapping more pictures, knowing that the tabloids loved to see the scene from all angles. In his excitement he nearly forgot to change the film, giving himself a verbal telling off as his professionalism faltered and the giddy amateur photographer that he so hated slipped into his soul. He stopped, changing the film for a fresh one, then composing himself before again looking up to get more pictures.

  He found himself starring directly up into the anus of King Kong. He shook his head and grinned an evil money filled grin. There was no way that the newsboys were going to pay him for this shot, but of course that didn't say nobody else would. Let's just say that Wilbur knew a variety of weirdos who would pay handsomely for the more obscure and specialist picture. Perhaps the money would be nowhere near what he'd get from the pictures he'd sell to the tabloids, but that was not the point. Wilbur had always considered himself something of an entrepreneur, determined to wring out every cent, be it proud and shiny or grubby and dirty.

  As he pressed the button on the camera to capture the obscene view, the familiar flash was replaced with a "dink" like sound, the noise that every photographer dreads when in the middle of an unfolding event. Wilbur of course was prepared, ever the professional he regimentally dropped to his knees while removing his camera in a move he'd practised for just so an occasion. Quickly he unscrewed the dead bulb and reaching into his overcoat pocket produced a box containing a fresh new one. As he began screwing it into place he did not notice as the adrenalin pumped through him that the dull low beat of Kong's heart had stopped. What he did notice though as he struggled to get the new bulb into place was a new horrible sound and a growing shadow fall around him.

  If he hadn't had been so greedy for that one last shot, if he'd just looked up to investigate the terrible ripping noise and strange increasing darkness that engulfed his kneeling form, then Wilbur "The Brute" Boswinkel might well have avoided his terrible fate!

  Epilogue

  "Jeez Louise, that's one big monkey."

  "For the last time, it's a Goddamned ape ya useless moron", said Hank Richards angrily to his always cheerful colleague Charlie Henson.

  Hank was in a bad mood, though this was nothing unusual for Hank or most other garbage men for that matter. The job almost required it! As for Charlie being cheerful, well, Hank had an explanation for that. He figured that Charlie was a few cents short of a George Washington. The dopey sap was an odd one to be sure, constantly grinning away to himself, whistling some annoying jazz tune as he worked. As far as Hank was concerned, Charlie boy was not quite all there but at least he was not like some of the other less agreeable and lazy hacks that in the past he'd been lumbered with. So Hank, who was the senior of the two, tolerated Charlie and his stupid questions.

  Cleaning up other people's rubbish around the dirty and dangerous streets of New York was never pleasant. It was however always interesting, not knowing from one day to the next what the city's authorities would have you dispose of. However today the job was more unusual than Hank, Charlie, or any of the other waste collector would ever encounter.

  "Holy Moly, that's a big pile of shit!", Charlie said, stating the obvious.

  "Sure is that son", Hank said sniffing the air as wisps of steam whipped up and off from the mountainous pile of stink. "And what's more it's our job ta clean that big pile of monkey shit up."

  "Ape shit", corrected Charlie.

  Hank gave him a glare before handing Charlie a shovel and the two began to fill their wheelbarrows. As they worked, neither was to keen to glance up at the monstrous dead corpse lying motionless above them.

  "Funny how'd he shit himself like that though isn't it Hank."

  Hank stopped shovelling, pulled out his faithful clay pipe and considered Charlie's words.

  "Nothing unusual bout filling ya britches when ya bite the big one boy", Hank said as he produced a matchbox from beneath his flat-cap and proceeded to light the tobacco within his pipe. "Fact is we all foul ourselves when we die."

  "Ya mean to tell me Hank that when ma time comes, I'm gonna poop ma pants?"

  "You, me, and everyone boy. Why even the King of England is gonna lay down a big ripe turd when the old grim reaper comes a knocking. Heck... That may well be the reason right there. Imagine it, you're bout ta snuff it and what do ya see with yer last living look. Why a big old grinning skeleton wielding a throat slitting scythe."

  Hank smiled as he watched Charlie's eyes widen in horror at his description of death as he speedily shovelled excrement into one of the barrows. He'd learnt from the last few months working with Charlie that the best way to shut him up and get yourself five minutes of peace was to scare him good. It also made him work like a man demented, meaning more time for him and his pipe. So he was a little surprised when Charlie suddenly stopped shovelling and turned to him, giddily saying: "Hank, there's someone hiding in here!"

  "What the hell you on about boy?"

  "Someone's hiding... Hiding under Kong's shit!"

  Sure enough as Hank looked down to the place where Charlie had removed some of the dung, two feet wearing black galoshes stuck out.

  "God damn! Let's pull him out boy."

  The two men each took a foot and slowly pulled the dead men from his bizarre place of rest.

  "Ya think old Kong swallowed him and shat him out like that Hank!", Charlie said as the two looked down on the dead man.

  "Nah. If he'd had ate him, he'd be all chewed up. Plus the big palooga always liked ta bite the heads off his... ", Hank stopped speaking and bent down to the man to examine him more closely.

  "Ya gotta be shittin' me", he said, recognising the face of the dead man. "Why it's none other than the Brute himself. Err... you know the reporter guy... Wilbur Boswinkel, that's the fella."

  "Who?"

  "Wilbur Boswinkel. The meanest reporter ta ever slide outta the gutter." Hank shook his head and puffed his pipe a few times as he looked down on the face of New York's most infamous reporter.

  "Musta been knocked cold at some point. Probably offended someone while taking pictures of Kong. Got himself clonked perhaps while spouting off his lip at some guy blocking his view. Hmmm... It's certainly a mystery how he came to
be under all this shit though, that's for sure." He again shook his head, then turning to Charlie said: "Who'd have thought that the brute himself would end up dying in such strange circumstances! Most people always figured he'd get himself shot by exposing one of them mafia bosses that you read 'bout in the papers. Whatever the explanation, it sure must have been an ugly way to go!"

  Hank watched Charlie as Charlie looked down at the body of Wilbur Boswinkel. For a second an intelligence seemed to fill Charlie's eyes as he said: "Oh no Hank, it was not the mafia nor indeed ugliness that killed Wilbur Boswinkel. It was a great big steaming monkey shit that killed the brute."

  Hank then watched as the alien intelligence seemed to slip from Charlie as he corrected himself saying: "I mean, ape shit!"

  THE END

 


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