The recipient of student C46664 Benjamin Samuels’ racy night-time red-light fumbling fantasies — Just Jennifer — journeys from the tenth floor of Norman Tebbit House to the crumbling jointing, guttering and pipework of the Main Gate — jumping three London buses — fettered by two monsters Bonnie and Clyde. Your norf-London junior skooling a sure-fire hit. A stamp of trainee gangsta quality.
No riot squad johnnie or jumping doggy would claim Bonnie and Clyde as cheeky-chirpy-Cockney as those two annoying monsters from Mary Poppins. But one is overcome in the presence of monsters, as with the film Mary Poppins, by a sinking abandonment of hope.
The Twelve Labours of Love to perform deep in the bowels of the Admin Block. The parade of your meat for the Screws. The squeeze of your meat through the turnstiles. The slay of your minor sensory tract. Whitewashed walls patterned with homespun poetry — tables two sword-lengths apart — lone barred window — lone picture of a grim Her Majesty — serving-hatch for outstretched sticky little monster hands manned by a sweet old lady volunteer — and reeks of piss like the devil’s waiting-room.
Two shrivelled purple stems droop in strictly one pot per table on seersucker tablecloths deep-stained yellow by decades of dust and abraded dreams. Limp specimens of London manhood mooch and slunk their grand entrance in mouldy blue-stripe shirts, fresh with guilt as if at church.
The shambling mass of dreadlocks Benjamin drags like the devil’s chains.
A whispering congregation of sickening souls.
Rank One’s Airwave hymns from a high black box off the wall.
Monsters free to roam the aisles. A fresh generation spawned. A fresh stock of fodder to feed the frenzied machine. How angelic the monsters these devil days!
Free delivery from Heaven’s clearout sale.
Every monster, kitted for the crime and keen to do the time, taken from the probationary Cave of the Unborn to lighten the livery of the lullaby-brained.
A boy’s burning. Philosophy in a prison corrupts a man. Lust leaks the pupils in flecks of hazel and looks of longing.
‘How’s Wacko-Jacko?’ prompts Jennifer. ‘Son, don’t touch the fags. Thank you. Now beat it.’
Apprentice lag Clyde clambers from mother’s lap armed with choc-ice and crisps, and under cover of table relieves Action Man of arms and legs. (A brave public-servant noble Action Man Colin having served a stretch of Visitors’ Hours. Till now. R.I.P. Colin.)
Bonnie’s banquet begins: glistening brown fingers probe the guts of a Mars bar, cherry-pop sucked up the U-bend of a straw and shoots from the top, cusps of crisps adorn cardigan and plaits of black.
Bad-Boy Benjamin fiddling the cover of a cheap graveyard thriller.
Jennifer Samuels toys with his wedding ring and pierces the honest hazel eyes of an angel.
Bad-Boy Benjamin’s emotional baggage train biffs the buffers.
She is inside him.
He lifts eyelids of lead: ‘The Meaning of Life.’
‘Look. Has Wacko-Jacko actually said to you straight out — he knows this Meaning of Life?’
‘Well … no … but what if he’s crack’d it?’ Bad-Boy Benjamin strokes the porcelain cheeks of a perfect princess Bonnie.
‘I’m sure he’s crack’d something, dear.’
The heavy bell tolls the demise of Visitors’ Hour.
Life’s precious moments dissolve like diamond drops.
He plucks from the ropes of a perfect princess twinkle-twinkle stars of squashed chocolate — chewing gum — Spangles — crisps —
Clyde Samuels, trainee gangsta, tunnelling a neighbouring skirt — ♪ ‘I’m a Firestarter ♪ Twisted Firestarter’ ♫
Adjusting her rose-tint spectacles Jennifer Samuels plants a wet bomb on the flushing cheek of her clean-shaven Bad-Boy.
The sun, devoid of colour, hides its face behind deep-plum cloud cover. And any blue pipedream funnelling to Heaven.
***
Any spark of regret the Governor may have been kindling over the enforced diet of two hundred of Her Majesty’s scraggiest specimens blazed from the bloodstream by a bucket of firewater in the back bar of the Slaughtered Goat.
You’ll find this furry watering hole of scarlet flock wallpaper — fat balls of nicotine flop from the ceiling (smoking reintroduced by new new new Labour fast followed by Big Tobacco’s sponsorship of Formula 1) — behind the gasworks and the abandoned skips of library books. A fifties’ jukebox generates psychedelic dancing ghosts and Delerium’s Silence. Fantastic fermented fragrance of stagnant wee-wee the Governor finds of immense comfort.
The distant dashing of swingdoors disturbs a dust-storm of dog-ends and detritus and the doubly developed Whitelaw dodders the dark carpeted desert, and dumps a deadweight of bumdough on a ducking stool. They both watch the raggedy long legs of Pym swagger like John Wayne to the bar.
‘You’ve bin drinking,’ disapproves the Governor with double disgust.
‘We’ve had a busy day.’
‘The duties of high office doesn’t get any easier. Let me tell you that for nothing. But Lady Luck has been privatised to smile on the deserving classes …’
‘The Thing is, Archie — an honest copper has to keep an open mind.’
‘I see. And what about a bent copper?’
‘Likewise, your bent copper knows he’ll be assigned the proper side to every story.’
The Governor picks up a hard-deserved double. ‘I’m thinking Knees is not a proper professor. He’s pulled off an elaborate con. How does that grab you?’ Hot scotch slides the slippery slope and slug-jams the throat. ‘If anybody’s a genius round here it should be me. The country’s top Pioneer of Philistine business methods — stop me if I’m getting too technical — new new new Labour number one penal consultant.’
Demon dick Whitelaw greedily inspects each brown bottle and empty glass for any free-going blob of brown syrup congealed at the bottom: ‘Big Boys back at the station got a file on your friend Knees as thick as an Arsenal defender’s charge sheet. Took us all day. So we deshided to grab a couple in the Wooden Boar.’
Delicious revenge ripples the spine of the Governor. Fresh justice raw-served on a silver platter.
The demon dick Whitelaw rifles the pockets of a brown crumpled suit, lightly coughs and shoots from the lip with a black book — ‘Your friend Professor Knees falls fart-over-face into one hellova stew wiv der Dean o’ der univershity.’
‘And who’s the frigging Dean when he’s swinging into town?’
‘Ho well your Dean upholds moral standards among your body of students ...’
The cesspool of the stomach surges a storm-wave of baby-sick <—>
‘... And your Dean, see, is top dog with your Fascist Lecturers’ Association. Some benevolent society ...’
The Governor plucks from the dead forest of the ashtray a green stump of a cigar and sniffs it with suspicion.
‘... And your Fascist Lecturers’ Association bought seats on your new new new Labour Party Natural Hexecutive ...’
A belittling oppressive world with not even the remotest speck of justice left for honest law-abiding taxpayers.
‘... And when Dean dangles sack over head of your friend Knees ...’
‘You call Knees my friend one more time —’
‘... Knees pinches the Dean’s personal expense account ... Com-pooter crime ... Clever stuff.’ The nicotine-cap thumb and forefinger of Whitelaw grapple a frayed blue collar where grime encircles the throat like a garrotte — ‘Your life-raft of cash washes ashore at the Fascist Pig Bank down on Springwood High Street …’
The return of the red devil rakes the liver with a five-prong trident <—> Peptic ulcer racks a Pandora’s payback of pain <—> Life is not fair <—> Openly lapping the luck of law-abiding taxpayers.
‘ … Pick-up van parks out front. Three security guards dolled to the tens in helmets and uniforms. All arranged in advance, see.’ The blood marbles of Whitelaw blink the honesty of a workshy rabbit. ‘Why, Archie …’
The Governor tosses the cigar butt to fizzle in a puddle of beer.
‘… Hew don’t fink there’s been a mistake?’
‘Mistake? Of course hare’s bint a fucking mistake!’ Life is a mistake. Whether a question of the right breeding, moral fibre, lack of management training courses in the Welsh mountains, of one cold truth he is now rock-sober certain — other people, common stupid Springwood people — do not see Life with the same degree of clarity as a high-class Governor: ‘How much?’
‘I’m coming to that.’ Whitelaw turns a fresh leaf and scratches a windfall of chins — ‘Your Big Boys from the Most Serious Crime Squad conduct a full nationwide search for the security van.’
‘So where’d they find it?’
‘Herr ... Knees’s duck pond …’