Jay started walking to the kitchen whistling “Well I will take care of the weapons and the pharmacy; you can get on with your Gollum thing” He said between whistles.
As Jay got to work in the kitchen, I made a cardboard cut out of a little man. I cut out little internal organs for him and glued them on, heart, intestines and penis. Then I cut out an old passport photo of my face and glued that on. I pulled a nail off my finger and glued that on to him, I stitched him little clothes out of the fabric of a t-shirt; Pants and jumper; all in black for camouflage in the night. I wrote my message of what I wanted him to do along with the name I had chosen for him, and rolled it and stuck it in his clothes. Finally; as an after thought; I dug two fingers inside my head searched around the spongy goo giving myself a headache, pulled out a piece of brain so he would be intelligent; I stuck that to him. Then I breathed a piece of my soul into him, holding him in my hands. I put him down.
The figure immediately inflated and stood up, the flat photo face moved and talked; the personality was mine, the voice was deep and familiar; it said “Okay, I will find our love so we can get her back, make me a weapon, a tooth brush and razor weapon will do to deter anyone who bothers me, like people made in prison.”
I went into the bathroom and got a toothbrush, then took apart a disposable razor and got the two blades, I put the rest of the razor in the sink; I heated the head of the tooth brush up with the lighter in my pocket, and stuck the two blades in so any wound could not be sown together. The whole device made me wince. I could hear Jay clinking and swearing in the kitchen as I left the bathroom and went back into the living room. I said to my Gollum “Redd,” Because that was what I had named him “Also take this small betting pen and this paper” I handed them to him “Because when you find the place I need a detailed map” I tapped his shoulder with my finger, “and no matter what you feel, don’t fight and give us away.” My Gollum looked sad, saluted me just as Jay walked in, and disappeared.
“What the fuck was that!” said Jay turning his head to me. In his hand he held up a zip gun. Two pieces of steel tubing one inside the other with a steel grip, he slammed them together and the screw at the back set off an explosion in the cartridge inside, half my ceiling came down and Jay grinned madly as plaster fell on his head. The recoil had stuck the gun in his body but he hadn’t moved. He tore the gun out of his chest with globs of his substance shaking off it.
“Not in here Jay my house is already wreaked.” I complained aggressively; but then smiled.
“What else have you done?” I asked lifting up my t-shirt and scratching an itch on my belly, going a little too deep inside myself.
Jay grinned “Come and see” I followed Jay into the kitchen, he gestured at some soggy crisp bread on the table and a bottle “I’ve found D.M.S.O. and I’m making a hallucinogenic contact poison that it would be best to use on living people just in case, but how do you grow ergot mould on rye bread in five minutes, assuming you can grow it here? I’d also like to make some L.S.D or something stronger that doesn’t upset the logic of the mind but I don’t know how.”
He lifted up some weighted socks in the sink and smiled broadly “We’ve got some PP9’s in socks and I’ve made another zip gun with two barrels instead of one, but there are only twenty cartridges left.”
I looked at the rye bread and concentrated, immediately it grew large pieces of a purple mould and I picked up a knife and scraped the mould off into the tinted brown bottle labelled D.M.S.O. Then I shook the bottle. I got some squeezy containers out of the cupboard under the sink and filled them up from the bottle, undoing their caps. I also got out a small paint brush and put the remainder in a small empty paint pot.
I turned to Jay and shrugged “I really don’t know of any natural hallucinogenic that’s not mind bending, but I could try and magic something up.”
Jay nodded “You do that Monster.” He put his hand to his face and gave me a little salute.
I went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I leant over and took hold of an ashtray, picking out the butts and throwing them on the floor so all that was left was ash, which I stirred with my finger. This was the ash from Gods cigar and numerous roll ups and straights I had smoked since coming to the after life. I closed my eyes shut hard and envisioned lucidly every monster from hell; dragons and cenobites; and even roamed the body of a giant Cyclops from his hand up to his saucer flickering eye, I concentrated all these juices of the imagination into the front of my eyes, then I poked them till they bled into the cup and mixed its contents again with my finger into a red paste. This was my hallucinogenic drug to sharpen our imagination and therefore our magic on Earth.
This all took nearly an hour, so some time having passed I psychically connected myself with my Gollum ‘Redd’, to see if he had got anywhere. I saw him looking at a computer screen and pushing keys with his hands with police men passing around him, so I knew he was already looking up files in a police station.
I looked at the screen, it said “Statement by Paula Weaver. ‘After closing time at the Peppermint Square Night Club. Jane and me stayed for drinks with the bouncers and club owner Kenneth Chalk, and his two other gangster brothers Michael and Karl Chalk, they mainly deal in drugs. We were laughing hysterically and happy because we were high on E’s. Me and Jane danced together and the four men eyed us, especially the club owner, I think they gave us the E’s on purpose so we wouldn’t mind, Jane whipped her top off and slung it around because she was hot, she still had her bra on…”
“That’s the one Redd” I said. Redd saw a police man reflected on the computer screen, he turned around to see an astonished police man with wide eyes bending over him and staring level with him. Redd slashed the police mans cheek with his toothbrush, globs of blood spitting out. The police man touched his face and shouted “Arghh!” as blood seeped between his fingers and dripped to the floor other policemen started looking but Redd had jumped down and was off at a sprint, he leapt in the air and disappeared, I followed him in my mind to a chasm of nowhere, then I came around, assured he was safe to continue his mission.
Jay shook me to bring me round as I was a little torpid “Hey Monster”. I grabbed Jay back and we wrestled to the floor in a friendly manner, I got on top of him and he shook me off and ran away, I laughed “Ha-ha”.
Just then there was a crash in the kitchen. We ran into the kitchen, I nearly fell skidding on broken glass on soapy water on the chess board linoleum floor. I could hear whining through billows of choking smoke coming in from out side through the jagged edges of glass where the window had fitted. There was the sound of scrambling and breaking pots and the smoke cleared enough to see a massive three headed pit bull dog. Its middle head lapped up stale sausages and egg from a plate as the head closest to us looked at Jay and licked its chops. The dog appeared to smile at him. The mouth opening to reveal large teeth and drooling jaws. Some of the drool hit the floor making a splash, and red smoke rose up and the floor dissolved where the drool had splattered.
Jay smiled back and marvelled shaking his head “I want that dog. Do you know how much gear that dog would fetch in Avenham?”
The dog’s lumpy muscles tensed and fought for dominance, it reared to pounce.
I hated the dog, I knew what it had been used for, I shouted at Jay “That’s bloody Cerberus mate, not Jed’s mongrel bullterrier.”
The love affair between the two did not last long. As the dog scrambled in the sink pots broke and flew. The dog’s weight and strength caused a plate to spin out from under it as it tried to get a footing. The plate stuck in the side of Jays head, half way in, and in a daze gripping his head and swaying, he continued, “I want that fucking dog!”
Jay pulled the plate out of his head, looked at it and threw it away, it cluttered on the cooker, knocking a pan of old curry on the floor. The dog jumped down and licked it up with all three heads.
As Jay’s head knitted together he grabbed hold of a squeezy bottle from the kitchen side cabi
net “This stuff will chill it out.” He said.
I looked at Jay still damaged in his mind “No. Jay. No. You have no idea what acid does to those sorts of dogs I was at a party once…”
Jay squirted the dog. I took hold of him and at a run, held back and tugging him, my feet straining to move him wildly, got him into the living room and closed the door.
A head burst through the door. Bits of plywood separated by cardboard packing fell to the floor. The dog looked friendlier. Its head blinked and focused on Jay’s hand. Suddenly a bone appeared in Jay’s hand.
Jay said startled looking at his hand “How the fuck…”
I butted in “Its imagining things and making them real. By Christ I hadn’t considered that.”
Jay looked behind him sensing something. I saw what was behind him as he moved. A giant rabbit stood on its hind quarters, long incisors nearly a foot long and eyes that reflected so much light they were bright beams that cut holes, burning holes in the back of Jay’s Indian hoody as he moved away. He got out of the range of its vision.
The dog broke more of the hole away by shaking its head. The bits just fell away. I looked back at Jay, he was a fucking liability, he had somehow, magic or some other means, got a rope and he was approaching the dogs head with a lasso as a home made choke chain.
Jay moved his head to the side and the dog did the same “nice dog” he pleaded coolly.
I shouted at him, maddened “don’t do it Jay; you’re pedigree chum for that dog, without the inconvenience of a tin.”
Jay lassoed the dog’s visible head, and then the whole dog came crashing through the door. The dog’s muscles had the appearance of bunched up cables, every sinew stood out of its black coat. It turned one of its head’s at me with contempt, nodding an open mouthed, cunning and haughty contempt. Its limbs appeared to defy gravity with steps of a thunderous canter and bounce, not because like us it was weightless but because of shear compacted strength.
Now, jay weighed absolutely nothing, he was minus weight, a spirit. The dog looked like it weighed three hundred pounds. The out come was obvious to any one who wasn’t recovering from major brain damage and had no common sense any way. The effect reminded me strongly of a party I had been to many years ago where some one fed their bullterrier an acid tab; minus twenty screaming girls with tooth injuries and plus one giant rabbit, which some people would have been seeing anyway. But Jay was playing his part as the owner.
That’s what happens when you’re at a party in a large crowded flat, listening to raga and watching some chav as they became known. In a white ‘ England ’ base ball cap and an ageing boyish face with a knowing and fond expression on his face crouched with his arm around his bullterrier, feeding his dog looking up trustingly, a handful of dog biscuits and LSD tabs. Doing nothing about it but wondering along with others in the know, looking at each other and the dog owner as we sat on the floor ‘what will happen next, what absurd demonstration could possibly result from this wicked act’.
As the dog chased the rabbit with thunderous, destructive strides, in circles around the room, leaping over the settee every time they came around, with me now stood on it leaning back against the wall, the rabbit turning around to try and bite its attacker as it ran. Jay was crashed into a wall and immediately disintegrated, droplets of Jay with his translucent face etched on them, the eyes searching around in every drop, fell towards the floor and the dog stopped chasing the rabbit, mesmerised it caught drops on its smoky tongues, making a sizzling noise. Feathers filled the room and started to attach themselves to the droplets in little fluttering wings. The rabbit paused, catching its breath and happy to be out of the action. The remaining arm of Jay attached to the rope, tried to pull the dog back, muscles taught.
I tried to distract the dog by taking over the rabbit, I spread my fingers and imagined invisible strings to the rabbit, as I waved my fingers in the air and swooped my arms, the rabbit leapt to the dog and tapped it on the back. One of the heads moved around, the others carried on lapping up Jay with a stink of sulphur from the reaction of contact and red smoke. The dog’s eyes happily hypnotised. The rabbit pulled up the fur on its arms revealing pink muscular flesh. The rabbit struck a Mr Universe pose to show its edible body off to the full, an arm tensed, a front leg squatted. Finally the dog relented and turned around fully, snapping at it with all three snaking heads. I made the rabbit hop away fast and the dog took chase. In my hand appeared a magicians hat and rabbit and dog leapt into it one after the other. I placed the hat on my head and it thudded and bulged, then with a final yelp went silent. I took it off and looked in it, there was nothing to see, I decided the hat did not suit me and cast it aside.
I opened the door and went into the kitchen, what was left of the door buckled and scraped, dragging its frame. Once in the kitchen I opened the council house orange cupboard where the boiler was and took out a rusty metal bucket and mop. I went back into the living room to where a pool of Jay lay on the floor, the reflection of his face looked at me sad and agonised, making attempts to knit into a three dimensional being. I mopped him into the steel bucket, feathers and all. I poured Jay out onto the sofa and he slowly reformed, his molten face gave out a groan, slowly he reformed, I placed the arm that had been attached to the dog next to him.
I put his head under a cushion. He let out a “Ahh” then said “I need to rest for a bit Jon” his eye lids flickering in shock and pain, he held up a fleshing out hand. Jay sat up momentarily and folded his feathery wings over his eyes, I left him there. I opened the shattered door that ground against the red chord carpet, and entered the kitchen. The wind was thankfully blowing the outside smoke away from the broken window, and I set about putting back together the large pieces of glass. It was calming and intellectually stimulating, exactly like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle, I told myself my head would come back together just like the window as I completed it, and it did.
Jay came in looking much better and shaking his head he looked in my cupboards and he demanded nicely “I need some food Monster! You’ve nothing in and moneys useless here. Well nearly.”
“Let’s go a walk and find some then.” I said “Not sure what other people do for food here, there’s always magic but personally I’d like a look around this place.”
Jay shook his head, “magic’s banned or heavily regulated here Jon; they don’t do that for food. Well; Okay it’s polluted out though, this place isn’t living in the same sense as the Earth, and it isn’t a self regulating organism. It’s more alive in the sense of a provider from the imagination; consequently God has let it get rather polluted.” Jay shook his head and scratched it. “First thing you’ve got to do here when you take over is make the place sustainable.”
“Where do you go to eat?” I asked
“Well, from the little I know about the place, there’s a McDonalds around the corner, people exchange organs there for burgers, and of course the organs grow back. The McDonalds just got dumped here when as I was saying some one died in their toilets of heroin overdose, a sacrifice to the great god McDonald no doubt at all.”
I got my bandana out of the draw of my bedroom, and a spare one for Jay, we soaked them with water in the kitchen and put them over our faces. We opened the front door and ran out. A mini had crashed into a traffic light outside since it could not see where it was going and the traffic was held up, all the cars were wrecked, not because they had crashed but because, I guessed, cars appeared here wrecked with their occupants from crashes down below; that’s how they got here. One Porsche was nearly totalled, the back and front wheels nearly touching, how ever the driver was able to drive it form his new elevated driving position, his wings cramped and with his head out of the missing windscreen, the car was on flames and plumes of smoke from it followed us down the street, the cars were honking.
Along the street we walked; crumbling houses from down below were just dumped here when occupants died, in a very messy not very straight line. We tripped on crumbling bricks an
d loose gutters as we danced along, almost in the foggy air, Jay whistling the theme from the snow man.
We got to McDonalds and went to queue in the line, there were four manned cash registers that were handing out receipts, money could be exchanged, but payment was demanded in a quarter pounder of flesh. Next to the registers, guillotines similar to what you find for cutting paper, however here they were used for cutting limbs off, usually hands, and people were yelping all over the place having their hands cut off for the sake of a burger, calmly putting there arms in the machines whilst young people in catering caps and small red spots that dribbled pus; drudgingly smiled and chopped them off; I looked at one person served a burger “have a nice day” came the motto as the guy picked up the burger he was offered with his remaining hand, “cheers” came his friendly reply, staggering out clutching his burger and arm stump at the same time as some one else came sweeping past with a mop, cleaning any spilt blood and ectoplasm. I suspected these limbs were then recycled as food. Then I in fact noticed an arm being fed into a meat grinder in the processing area, and some one patting the mince that came out into burgers.
There were dismembered hands crawling all over the place, scuttling with blurred speed on their five legs. One hand cut off some one who had the looks of a young thief, made straight for the cash register as the thief nodded it punched the till open and held up a handful of cash to the thief as he nodded eagerly. The queen’s head appeared to smile from a held fiver as though attached to a five legged body. A staff member slammed the till shut, cutting off two of the hands fingers and trapping the cash. The hand was immediately swept up by another worker with a butterfly net, whose job it was to catch the hands.
The Urban Book of the Dead Page 7