Twelve
Mad Men
A Novel of Stories
By
Various Artists
Curated by Ryan Bracha
Copyright 2014 © Ryan Bracha
Copyright of the individual stories belong to the author of each work, details of which can be found at the end of the book.
In association with
Paddy’s Daddy Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the authors.
Most of the characters in this book are fictitious versions of the men that wrote the stories, and any other characters’ resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contents
Introduction
One
A Man Of Sophisticated Tastes
by Paul D. Brazill
Two
Alphabet Man
By Craig Furchtenicht
Three
Porcupines
By Richard Godwin
Four
A Burning Passion
By Keith Nixon
Five
Mary Magdalene
By Mark Wilson
Six
Clarity
By Allen Miles
Seven
The Twin Towers
By Ryan Bracha
Eight
Life Imitates Art
By Les Edgerton
Nine
Lost
By Gerard Brennan
Ten
The Wild Hunt
By Gareth Spark
Eleven
The Matryoshka Doll
By Martin Stanley
Urban Paranoia
By Darren Sant
Thirteen
The First Sign
By Ryan Bracha
Fourteen
Afterword and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Twelve weeks ago, I approached some writer friends about an idea I’d had. All I knew is that it featured a lunatic asylum, twelve residents, and one narrator, and would be written according to some set rules or guidelines. I stole the idea of the rules from the Dogme 95 film movement that appeared in the mid-nineties from the Scandinavian film industry, spearheaded by Lars Von Trier, and then to a lesser extent, Harmony Korine who tried to bring it to an English speaking audience. I had no clue as to the plot, or the narrative at all. I just knew I wanted to give it a go. I’m nothing if not ambitious with my writing. I don’t like ‘safe’, I don’t think it does an artist any good to write the same old tripe that’s churned out by Tesco bookshelf writers in less than the time it takes you to actually do your big shop there. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve found something that works for them, and they are writing, so fair play and more power to them for doing it. But it’s not how I roll. I want to be remembered by the few people that will remember my writing, as being somebody who liked to challenge himself.
So I approached these eleven supremely talented gentlemen, and I asked them if they’d like to ‘play’ themselves in the book. To tell the stories of how these fiction versions of them came to be in this lunatic asylum. They could be as violent, sweary, funny, or filthy as they wanted to be, and all they had to do was tell the story of how they got there. I would do the rest, in that I would weave these stories into the narrative, improvising and reacting to the content of these eleven tales, or twelve if you included the final one, which I would write. I didn’t expect anybody to get involved. I thought they’d tell me I was being an idiot, but they didn’t. Everybody I asked straight away accepted the invitation. Except one, a huge traditionally published name who I thought I’d take a punt on asking. He was too busy, and shall remain nameless, and I think the book is probably better off without his involvement. Instead, it gives this phenomenally talented group of indie writers a chance to showcase their most depraved sides, in an unusual and innovative novel which I would hope will strike some chords. I hope that readers get a kick out of the way the whole affair has been laid out for them. I hope that writers see that we have this huge and useful tool available to us nowadays that means we can be as daring, and challenging as we like, as long as we tell a great story. And I hope that when all is said and done, you enjoy this work, as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding, and welcome some of the finest writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Paul Brazill, Gerard Brennan, Les Edgerton, Craig Furchtenicht, Richard Godwin, Allen Miles, Keith Nixon, Darren Sant, Gareth Spark, Martin Stanley, and Mark Wilson. Go and look their works up, you won’t be sorry that you did.
Ryan Bracha – July 2014
I’m the porter
and these halls I walk
from wall to wall
are full of the types of minds
that might sometimes
fight the binds
of thought paths that we all default to
- Porter,
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
Lyrics used with the kind permission of Scroobius Pip.
12 Mad Men
We’re all here for a reason.
I don’t know how I got here. That much is true. The why is another thing altogether. I know that, now. I’m here for a reason. I’m the same as Miles and Edgerton. I might have once thought it but the truth is that I’m no better in the head than Brennan, Spark, or that crazy fuck Wilson. As much as I would love to, I can’t say I deserve to be here any less than Nixon, or even the mad yank Furchtenicht. I’m on a par with Brazill, level pegging with Stanley, going toe to toe in the fucked up mentally unstable rat race with Godwin. Hell, it’s a stalemate between Sant and me. We’re all the same. We all have our stories, and our foibles. Our bug bears. We all have our coping mechanisms, some a little further off the tracks than others. We all have a favourite colour. A favourite member of staff. A favourite drug. A favourite method of receiving torture for the purposes of science. I’ll repeat myself in case you already forgot; I don’t know how I got here. I do know why, now. We are definitely all here for a reason. There’s no shame in it. That’s what they tell you. That’s what they tell all of us, the twelve men that live here at St. David’s, or St. David’s asylum for the criminally insane, to give it its proper title. Us, the twelve mad men.
One
The bulky bastard approaches me. He looks well built, but there are the perky big mouse’s noses of slowing forming bitch tits underneath where there maybe used to be pecs. You can see it beneath the uniform. These tits enjoy a glorious view of his mountainous gut which hangs just over the too-tight trousers that stretch like a drum skin over his prominent cock. It’s not the first thing I noticed, but you can’t help but see it. He stands about my height but like I say, he’s a big cunt. His ruffled brownish hair doesn’t look it’s ever seen a brush, and there are sparks of grey around the temples. Ginger sideburns crawl down his round face then curl up and die in uneven levels beneath his ears. Aside from that I’d say he wasn’t a bad looking bloke, if that kind of bloke was your thing. His smile reaches his eyes as he greets me warmly, shaking my hand. Firm, but not hard. Soft, but not womanlike. I return his greeting, forcing my eyes away from that bulge in his trousers.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, genuinely seeming to mean it.
“You too,” I say neutrally. It’s my first day, he could turn out to be an utter prick, but in all honesty first impressions are boding reasonably well, so I afford him a thin smile.
“You got your uniform then, eh?” he asks, noting my attire. Yes, I got it, I’m wearing it, I don’t say.
“Yeah, nice one,” I say, and find myself looking down at it, as if it’s the first time I’ve laid eyes
on it, before I cough self-consciously, “is there anywhere I can put my bag?”
He nods, and turns on his heels, heading away from me.
“Yeah, come on, I’ll show you. I’m Benny, by the way.”
I follow as he meanders down the hallway and pauses by a door, looking for me to speed up my pace, which I do. He swipes his card and enters the room, holding the door for me.
The staff room is dark, in the poorly lit sense. A bulb in the corner buzzes monotonously, obviously only a few breaths from certain death, and somebody just hasn’t had the heart to put it out to pasture, like an aged dog, wheezing its way to the light at the end of the tunnel in its own sweet time. Fuck what anybody else wants out of the situation. I’ll get there when I’m ready. It’s not long before the buzz of the bulb fades into normality. As I drop my bag into the locker that Benny, my new colleague, has assigned to me, a wail of anguish comes from somewhere else in the building. Like somebody opened a rusted iron door amidst the sound of somebody else boiling a hundred lobsters. I’m not totally convinced that it was a human sound, but my colleague catches my look of concern and smiles.
“That’ll be Keith,” he says nonchalantly, “he does that.”
We wander the corridor, him talking and me looking at the state of the structure. As he tells me that St. David’s was built in eighteen sixty something I’m seeing water drip from a dark brown spatter on the ceiling into a half full blue bucket, a decreasing circle of dried splash stains around its base. When he says that it was built by a man called Benedict something I’m distracted by a speckled patch of moulded damp which reaches up from the dusty skirting to the light switch in the middle of the long grey wall. As he tells me the name of the head doctor, or psychiatrist or whatever they call them here my eyes are drawn to the brown sign which points whoever to wherever. Something to do with some sort treatment. I’m not being awkward with my descriptions here, I promise. It’s just that sometimes when you’re in a new place you don’t tend to pick up the details. You only see the big things. Maybe if and when I’ve been here a bit longer I’ll notice the details. Maybe. I can’t promise anything though. Don’t hold your breath. Really, please don’t.
“We have twelve residents at present,” he says, “we call them that,” he says, “not inmates.”
Parts of the tile flooring have come away and it’s just that ridged concrete you get underfoot. A trip hazard if ever I saw one.
“Some have been here longer than others, some crazier than most, you know what I mean?”
Flies skitter around a dark patch on the floor. Health and safety would have a field day. I wonder when they last had an audit.
“They use some unorthodox methods, but these fellas’ heads aren’t gonna get any better by themselves, so, y’know, no harm in trying, eh?”
Doors pass us by, each with a different method etched into the scratched black name plates. Bleeding therapy, intimidation therapy, electrical therapy, medicinal therapy, hypno-regression therapy, alternate therapy. Seriously, the list goes on. As Benny says that one of the doctors here, a somebody something, practically invented one of the therapies I’m side-tracked by areas around the doorframes at shoulder height, where the paint on both sides has been scratched away in long deep ridges. I think that a decorator would be a wise investment. Or a demolition crew.
From somewhere above us, that howl comes again, echoing from every stained wall and surface around us, increasing the volume tenfold. A shiver twitches at the base of my spine and then shoots directly up, like a bungee rocket on the fun-filled coast of some Balearic island, into the crook of my neck.
“Shut the fuck up, Keith,” Benny says in a bored tone, and turns to me, “that’s Keith again.”
The lights flicker intermittently and he sighs.
“Seriously, man, they could really do with an electrician around here.”
I silently concur with that opinion, and offer a slight smile.
“You sure you don’t have any questions?” he asks as he stops sharply, I shake my head, no. He shrugs. “Okay, well, you know, just ask if you do, they say there’s no such thing as a stupid question. Hey, what you reckon the first sign of madness is?”
I shrug.
“Suggs coming up yer driveway!”
I don’t get it, but he’s overcome with the apparent hilarity of it for a good ten seconds. This booming laugh spewing from his chest. I say nothing.
The ascent to the first floor is silence, punctuated by the percussion of the claps of mine and Benny’s shoes against the hard cold floor, and the gentle wheeze from his lungs that gets heavier with each step we take. Benny turns to me at the top and smiles.
“I really ought to get back into shape, I used to be a champion boxer, you know?”
“Really?” I ask, genuinely intrigued, but not enough to dig further than that. He nods. Takes another breath.
“Yeah, amateur champion for my county for two years straight,” he says, then shakes his head in regret, “now I’m just a fat smoker.”
I laugh politely through my nose at his self-deprecating humour, but the truth of it is that I’ve never been one for self-deprecation. It’s a cry for somebody to object. To tell you that no, you aren’t that fat, or really, you’re beautiful, stop putting yourself down, or worse, no, you’re a really good writer/singer/painter, delete as appropriate. You really are that fat, you look like a bulldog licking the piss off a nettle, and your poetry makes the hairs go up on the back of my neck because I’m literally embarrassed that you chose to spout your shit in public. Harsh? I don’t think so.
“That’s cool,” I say.
He seems happy with my response and moves on, opening the doors to the first floor.
“Now this,” he says, “is where the real fun is.”
The lights seem brighter up here, but no less sporadic in their ability to achieve sustained periods of doing what they’re supposed to. Before us there are eight doors. Four along one wall, four along the other. At the end of the corridor there’s a large window of about eight panels. Beyond that is pitch black nothing.
“Okay, so up here we’ve got Wilson, he’s Scottish,” he says with a pointed look on his face that says I should know what he’s implying, but I really don’t, “and Miles, or Melluish, he calls himself that. There’s Furchtenicht, he blinded one of the counsellors with a paint brush. Then there’s God-”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, because the lights fizz harshly, like somebody with an electro larynx having a fit, and shut down. In the glum of the emergency lighting Benny’s head drops. He sighs.
“Fucking hell,” he says, “not ideal at all,” he says, “I probably should have mentioned this first.”
As if on cue there are fists hammering against doors. Voices all meld into one desperate plea for help. The voices echo hard against the walls and into my skull.
“Look, I shouldn’t ask you to do this, it being your first day and all,” says Benny, “there’s training that you need to do usually, but we’re in a bit of a bind.”
Nobody mentioned training before. The thumps and chanting make my eardrums vibrate.
“See, there are processes we need to follow in the event of a power outage,” says Benny, “to ensure the comfort of the inmates,” he says, “I mean residents.”
The sounds hurt my head. The only thing I can compare it to is an adult version of a children’s play area in some chain pub, the ball pool and the slide and the climbing frame. You can try to think, but it’s impossible. He slides a bunch of keys into my hand quicker than the time it takes for me to realise I’m holding them. He looks into my eyes, a seriousness, and a focus that until now had been lacking from his demeanour.
“I need you to help me to calm them down,” says Benny, “they won’t hurt you, they know better.”
This cacophonous noise threatens to derail me. I thought this was supposed to be a simple night guard role, with a comfortable chair and a crossword. So far all I’ve had are Victorian structu
res with Victorian methods and the howls of some maniac called Keith. I don’t like it. He registers the discomfort than swipes across my face like the wipe-clean mechanism of a Magnadoodle.
“Look, you just knock on the door,” says Benny, “and as you go in you say ‘Get in the corner, I’m here to fix the lights’ and that’s it. They know the drill. They’ll get in the corner. Seriously, they’ll sit there for hours after that.”
He must then register the newly formed doubtful look on my face because his hands come up, open palmed.
“Really, just do me that favour, I need to go and fuck with the electrics and call it in, or they’ll be at it all night. Once, that happened, it’s not much fun, I can tell you.”
I don’t get a chance to decline the request, or voice any concerns because Benny is away. His fat, former boxing champion arse shuffling through the door and down the stairs as fast as his legs will take him, leaving me to myself in the empty corridor with the tormented yowls of insane men. It’s at this point that I consider heading back downstairs myself, grabbing my bag and disappearing from St. David’s for good, but I don’t. I don’t know why. Instead I focus on the first room on my right. The door visibly shakes as the maniac behind it smashes against it for his life. I don’t know how I got here but already I’m in front of the door. My hand finds its way upright, and I knock on the metal. Beside the door is a rectangle of slate. Upon that rectangle is a name. It reads Brazill, Paul D. From the other side of the metal is a harsh thump. A scraping hush. A voice.
“I can smell you,” it says. I hear an odd mix of accents. Not exactly from this country, but not not, if you know what I mean. A purr, “you aren’t him.”
“Get in the corner, I’m here to fix the lights,” I say, almost robotically.
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