by Nick Cave
Ah had contemplated eating one or two of the fried insects that sprawled across mah stomach … but no …
Rather ah decided to make a bit of a ruckus – stir the attention of mah custodians in the manner of all hungry neglected children – so ah filled mah lungs with air and howled and howled and screamed and raged and gnashed and yelled out things like ‘Feed me!’ and ‘Food!’ and ‘Tit!’ and all the while ah thrashed and kicked beneath mah ungiving restrainers, so ingeniously devised by Pa – a veritable master of the trap – that each kick and thrash of mah infantile body served only to draw the bonds that little bit tighter, frustrating mah movements all the more, so that within the space of a minute mah little fracas was restricted to a bit of buttock clenching, some pretty ferocious rolling of the eyes, lolling of the tongue, and, of course, mah embranglement of words – O how they rolled off mah tongue – O how they gushed from mah mouth – great bloody words torn from the very pit of mah belly – ‘Feed me!’ ‘O Death! Must ah starve?’ and ‘Fucking feed me now!’ – and, you know – ah mean, do you know what? – in spite of all mah whoop and holler – all mah howling and yowling – all mah bull-like bawling and shit-storming and caterwauling, all – in spite of it all – do you know what?
Not a peep of sound did ah make – not from mah crate, not from mah cot.
No, not a peep of sound did ah make.
Ah felt bewildered by mah discovery. Cheated. Duped.
Ah felt lonely.
With mah one free hand ah tore at the newspaper that lined the walls of mah crate. Rolling it into small balls ah sucked the paper to a soft pap and swallered it.
In time ah managed to sate mah hunger with that frugal supper and, belly full, ah yawned deeply and turned mah thoughts again to mah brother, who lay in the buzzing crate beside me. And yawning again, more deeply this time, ah closed mah eyes, wondering as ah fell away – was mah brother a mute too?
‘Guess ah’ll never really know for sure,’ ah remember thinking, as sleep wound itself about me, ‘ah guess ah’ll never really know.’
Ah dreamed mah brother and ah were united in Heaven, incumbent on warm cotton clouds. He stroked his golden harp and a shower of silvery tones broke over mah body. We smiled.
Mah brother stopped playing and rose into the air. His wings were black and veinous and oozed a viscid phlegm. He rubbed two hairy legs and put the harp which was now a crown upon his head. Ah tried to fly but ah had no wings yet, just a white hairless wigging maggot’s body – helpless on mah back – on mah back. Mah brother pointed at me and shouted ‘Pirate!! Leave me!! Leave me!! Leave me-e-e!!!’ Then ah saw that Heaven had turned red and soupy and ah was floating slow and turning and all the time a double beat sounded ‘Boom-boom … Boom-boom … Boom-boom … Boom-boom …’ like a heart.
Ah awoke.
Mah father loomed over me like a crooked stick. From out of his grizzled face two small, pale eyes hovered in their sockets.
So Pa sat, a bowl and a loaf in his hands.
Ah sucked a piece of milk-sopped bread that was offered to me and it was warm and sweet.
Pa’s fingers smelt of pitch or grease.
Mah hunger quelled, ah closed mah mouth and turned mah head. No longer could ah tolerate the acrid chemical smell.
Pa stood.
His stool was a fruit-crate turned on its end!
Ah sought mah brother. Mah brother was gone! So was the crate! Beside me in its place was a metal animal trap, coated in black grease. Jaws yawning! Spring coiled! Teeth howling for blood!
Ah looked away, mah brains bloody. Ah did.
Pa was walking to the door. Over his left shoulder was a longhandled spade. It was then that ah noticed the grizzled nob, the tufted cleft. His missing ear.
In his hands he held a shoe box bound in string. On its lid was written ‘#I’.
II
THE PROPHET
The voice of the Valley No. 38 Aug. 1932.
!!Harken ye CHILDREN OF THE LORD!!
The SECOND FRIDAY of AUGUST in the year of our Lord 1932
marks the 7th YEAR of the
‘MARTYRDOM OF THE PROPHET AND SAINT,
JONAS UKULORE’
On the afternoon of the anniversary of this most blessed and
bloody day,
our valley mill mourn her Prophet and Patriarch,
JONAS UKULORE.
His earthly remains and his relics will be taken from their current
resting place in UKULORE VALLEY TABERNACLE
and enshrined within the town square which
from this day forth will be known as MEMORIAL SQUARE.
To mark this most holy day,
a monument befitting THE PROPHET
will be unveiled.
Faithful Ukulites
at 3.00 pm on this day, Friday 12th August 1932.,
the Children of Israel, ye Faithful Ukulites!
shall march from the Tabernacle on to Memorial Square,
where the body of the Prophet and Martyr will be laid
to rest for all time.
Prayers conducted by Sardus Swift.
Simon Bolsom, historian and biographer,
will read from his forthcoming biography
Jonas Ukulore: Prophet and Revelator, Man and Martyr
in the Big Hall.
Eliza Snow shall sing, accompanied by Alice Pritchard.
Supper will be held after the service in the Little Hall.
No plates necessary, ladies. Catering handled by Valley Functions.
– ALL SHALL ATTEND–
It was shrouded in a massive canvas tarp, with a rope threaded through brass eye-holes girding it at its foot. The tarp cover made it look like a great, grey Sphinx, eroded by the sands of time into faceless obscurity.
Clustered about it, the congregation of Ukulites was overawed.
A huge truck had rolled into town the previous morning, with the monument standing draped and grey there in the back, looking just as it did now. Sardus Swift, who had left the valley at five o’clock that morning and taken a cane trolley to Davenport and a train up to Orkney – insisting he ride with the contractors the 380-odd miles back to the valley ‘in case of complications’ – sat, hat in lap, his bearing straight-backed and stern but with a flush of pride about his face that even he could not suppress.
Both of the memorial contractors, a fat Mr Godbelly and a fatter Mr Pry, looked exhausted but jolly. It had taken a dozen men to swing the monument, lowered by chain from the truck, into its allotted position in the Square.
Even some of the cane-men had lent a hand, in spite of the fact that for them tomorrow’s ceremony would be off-limits – those not strictly of the faith were forbidden to participate in the celebration of what was, for the Ukulites, a Holy Day: the day commemorating ‘The Martyrdom of the Prophet’. The valley’s residents tolerated and had tolerated for many years the unorthodox practices of the Ukulites who, though they comprised no more than one fifth of the valley’s two thousand or so denizens, owned the refinery, most of the cane acreage, and the vast majority of the business and residential space. This, of course, was the chief reason why the small sectarian colony was suffered to operate in (and in fact control) the valley; but it was a precarious ascendancy, and the Ukulites had borne their share of adversity in the ongoing battle to retain their enviable, but not unassailable, position.
Since the time when, in the last days of winter 1862, Jonas Ukulore had led his small band of adherents into what was then an unfarmed, virtually uninhabited valley, the Ukulites had fought for, defended, and embraced their beliefs with uncompromising rigour. It was this steadfast adherence to a strict dogma, set down in a testament written by their prophet in 1861, coupled with the keen and aggressive business methods employed by Joseph Ukulore, brother of Jonas, which had assured the Ukulite colony its longevity. Indeed, if Jonas was the prophet, Joseph was the profiteer.
It was in 1859 that Jonas Ukulore, a Welsh convert to the Baptist faith, began to have re
velations, and in due course he had announced to the Baptist authorities his revelation that he was the ‘Seventh Angel’ predicted in the Book of Daniel, and that destiny would see him as ‘a mighty man, yea a prophet in Israel’.
The following year Jonas and a few of his followers were excommunicated by the Church authorities, his revelations having begun to conflict with orthodox dogma.
On two occasions he had narrowly escaped death at the hands of orthodox vigilante committees, and observing the growing hostility toward alt Baptists and other sectarian bodies Jonas and his band of adherents fled the trouble in search of a suitable spot to establish ‘the new Fold’. Finding the secluded valley in ‘a state of divine pendency’, the group pooled all possessions and set up residence.
The Prophet spent much of his time in secluded prayer, as he prepared himself for ‘the second coming’, which had been revealed to him in one of his three hundred or so revelations, all of which he documented meticulously. Meanwhile his brother Joseph, former agriculturist and business man, took control of the valley’s monetary interests and planted sugarcane.
The cane flourished in the humid valley; soon the excess bulk of each crop was being sold, at a healthy profit, to the Davenport Mills.
The valley flourished. The crops burgeoned. The profits rose. It seemed that God had indeed been a generous overseer to the valley’s growth, and the colony’s future prosperity seemed secure.
Early, in August 1871 the Prophet, wearing a white robe and golden crown and holding a gilded sceptre, announced to his disciples that ‘the hour was nigh’ – the second coming was at hand and all must prepare for the imminent crusade out of the valley.
One week later, as fifty or so men and women marched behind their white-garbed leader, shouting hosannas and singing his praises, Jonas Ukulore was shot through the head by an unknown sniper, the single bullet killing him instantly. The assassin was never discovered, but was naturally assumed to have come from the outside. Taking this as yet further evidence of the treachery of the Gentiles beyond, the Ukulites abandoned their projected crusade and remained inside the valley; and as this course brought rich rewards, they came in time to read into the tragedy a dramatic justification of their faith.
Under the guidance of the ever resourceful Joseph Ukulore the valley continued to prosper, the townsfolk eventually building trolley-rails to Davenport and little by little recruiting ‘outsiders’ to work the cane-fields.
In the year 1904 Joseph undertook the gargantuan task of organizing the building of the sugar refinery, fully aware that at the age of eighty-three he would not live to see its completion, let alone to share in the overwhelming rewards that his industry would certainly bring. The following year, the foundations of the refinery having only just been laid, Joseph Ukulore died, leaving the valley a legacy of ensured future prosperity.
From Vargus, A Regional History (Vargustone Municipal Offices, 1921)
And so it was that on this day the Ukulites mourned their Prophet.
‘Hail the Prophet, ascended to heaven
Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain
With God he’s on high, watching over his brethren
Death cannot conquer the hero again’
sang Eliza Snow.
And Sardus Swift pulled back the tarp.
III
Ah never cried as a baby. That is to say, throughout mah babyhood never once did ah cry – no, not a peep. Nor did ah bawl away mah childhood either, and during mah youthhood ah resolved to contain all mah emotions within and never to allow one sob without – for to do otherwise surely laid one open to all manner of abuse. And now, as ah count away the final seconds of mah manhood – as ah don the death-hood – ah will not crack. No. In all mah lifehood ah have never once cried. Not out loud. No, not out loud.
And as a tottering infant ah always tried mah best to stay out from unner mummy’s feet. Ah did. Nor did ah pester mah father when he was working – asking him a whole lot of dumb questions that he couldn’t answer, that sort of thing.
Yes, when all is said and done, no matter which way you view it, ah was, by anybody’s standards, a model child. Yes, ah was.
Ah was also the loneliest baby boy in the history of the whole world. And that’s no idle speculation. It’s a fact. God told me so.
Mummy was a swine – a scum-cunted, likkered-up, brain-sick swine. She was lazy and slothful and dirty and belligerent and altogether evil. Ma was a soak – a drunk – a piss-eyed hell-bag with a taste for the homebrew.
Ma’s drunks worked in cycles, consciousness following unconsciousness like two enormous hogs each eating the other’s tail – one black, fat and unbelievably obscene, the other hoary, loud, with two crimson eyes, mean and small and close together – and these cycles she rigorously adhered to.
When Ma was conscious our little shack on the hill would cringe in horror at the prospect of the inevitable frenzy of destruction – usually occurring on the fourth day – which would immediately precede her term of unconsciousness.
Once awake, Ma would make increasingly frequent and protracted visits to her stone bottle – the vessel that she always drank her likker from – until she was off and sailing, stumbling around the shack or the junk-pile, or sprawled out in her armchair, the stone bottle clutched to her vast bosom. Here she would rant and swaller and rave, recalling the days of her youth, before she had been sullied by the squalid hands of booze and men. And days would become nights and nights, days.
Then, having put away enough of her rotgut to floor an army, she would – and it gives me the screaming leaks just to think of it – she would – this very fucking sick, sick bitch – would begin to sing a version of ‘Ten Green Bottles’ in an increasingly furious bark. When she reached the part that goes ‘… and if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there’d be no green bottles …’, she would simply run amok – yes, launch into a fit of such unbridled violence that it simply wasn’t safe to be within bat-swinging range of her.
As soon as he heard the opening strains of ‘Ten Green Bottles’, Pa would drop whatever it was that he was doing and belt out the screen door, me toddling after him. Ah would seek refuge in an overturned pickle-barrel out back of the shack. It was such a secure feeling to be crouched in there with mah knees up against mah chest, the smell of vinegar still trapped in the wood, the cosiness of its size – you know, sometimes ah would crawl into that barrel just to feel safe for a while. In the barrel ah heard some very strange, garbled things – not from without but from within.
To this day ah am struck with wonder as to just how ah managed to stay alive through mah crate-bound days. For to say ah was a bashed baby would be more than a little correct – it would be absolutely correct! Yes! Ah was one very fucking bashed baby!
IV
In early 1940 a meeting was held in the Town Hall at which two bodies weere required to convene: Ukulore Valley Sugar Board and the Ukulite leaders.
The authorities representing the cane-workers and their families had lodged a request proposing, amongst other things, that a Unitarian house of worship be built to cater to the needs of valley residents not of the Ukulite faith, pointing out that of the valley’s population of approximately 2,100 a full eighty per cent were being denied spiritual gratification. Therefore it was suggested that in the interests of ‘equity’ and ‘inter-relation’ and as ‘a gesture of continued concord’ between the two factions, the meeting parties would, without question, find to accept the proposal. Though a foregone conclusion, the outcome had nevertheless been a triumph for the workers.
Sardus Swift, knowing full well that his hand was being forced, had agreed to the proposal and, in a gesture as inescapable as it was magnanimous, had then added that ‘in accordance with my belief that a prosperous spirit is always manifest in the spirit of prosperity, and as leader of the Ukulite colony and representative of the landowners, I hereby accept the responsibility of allocating a suitable plot of land, and in addition, I personally will meet all
construction costs’.
The Sugar Board (or UVSB) offered to take charge of arrangements for the erection, making mention of the fact that several building contractors in Vargustone were currently subject to their inspection. It duly requisitioned, for a fraction of the costs it had quoted to the penny-wise but pound-foolish Ukulites, the services of an infamous building firm which had been forced by a string of law-suits coupled with a succession of savage lashings from the local press to change its promotional slant from ‘creative architecture’ to ‘cut-price contracting’.
In late 1937, on a four-acre rise (which became known, ironically, as Glory Flats), the Vargus building contractors and a handful of labourers laid the foundations of what, they promised, was destined to be a heaven-bound leap in the history of the systemization of worship.
But heaven-bound the church on Glory Flats was not. Destiny would not allow, herself to be so readily predicted.
For the church on Glory Flats would never be completed and the years of misadventure drew closer.
Sardus Swift had emerged from the Town Hall weary and taciturn, besieged by feelings of guilt and disgust at his own impotence; for he had known as surely as if there had been a war that he was surrendering his kingdom to the conquerors. And though his people received his announcement in silence and not a man or woman amongst them reviled or even blamed him, Sardus knew that he had betrayed his God, his Prophet, and his people, and that only an act of contrition could stifle the shame which he felt at having surrendered up, in a moment of unpardonable negligence, the Promised Land to the first idolatrous creed that had had half an urge to stake a claim.
Brother Whilom, surviving pioneer leader and hymnist, believed to be over one hundred years old, said to Sardus, not unkindly, ‘God forgive us. We have delivered up the New Zion to the idolators and the infidels. They will carve up the Kingdom as though it were a side of beef and toss it to the factions. And as the earthly Kingdom of God enters the term of division and subdivision, the rod of His wrath shall blossom. All our prayers will be as dust, Sardus.’ With which the old man took his Bible and retired to his bed, never to rise again.