... These very same streets plodded all those permits ago as a young constable wet behind the ears. Every pub landlady known by name. The Chief Constable removes the steaming burden of wool from his back and humps it over a shoulder. Younger probationary flies rise from the cracks of slabs. The Chief Constable turns at the butchery and jumps the rail of the dirt tracks to walk on the wild side. The dog days of summer. Down the alleyways. Up the junction. The smell of rotten eggs pervades the wind tunnel of the nuclear-rubbish-plant-approach-road. Back in the good old days there wasn’t the green gas. But the cruel wind could strip strips of bacon from your cheek-bones. Oh how he would tip his titty hat to the ladies. Get away you young scallywag before I give you a clip on the ear. In those days a uniform meant something. In those days a man had dreams. Of helping people. Hot toffee-apple throat. Mercy mercy me. Things ain’t what they used to be. Not a spit of rain in sight for a splash of Sundays. Weak knees <—> Angry feet <—> Shafts of protons fire from the ray-gun of the sun into the soft target of your back <—>
A swift half then.
Steaming from a wicked world of humiliation and wanton injustice the Chief Constable elbows the swingdoors of The Slaughtered Goat and steps inside.
***
Disturbed by the cab driver rapping the front door at the crack of a sparrow’s fart, Gerbil James tumbles from his cellar camp-bed and stumbles into the dark desert of the lounge bar of the Slaughtered Goat. Shivering and dry-heaving, and dumped at the front gates of Knee’s castle to relieve a down and dumpy Whitelaw of his night shift.
Not a hint of heavenly juice left in the hipflask to halt the pressure-cooking of brain to a pickled walnut in the Vauxhall Corsa-cum-microwave, to halt the melding of tongue to the roof of the mouth. Arms breakdance in robotic jerks. A stray dog jacks a leg and pisses on the front wheel at breakfast. And late for lunch, relieved by Pym, a lizardy Gerbil James, bug-eyed and bleeding from the nose, dumped by the cab driver at the Victorian frosted-glass front door of the Slaughtered Goat.
Gerbil James mouldering and mumbling in the VIP booth with multiple doses of brown sewer medicine to revive the veins and cavities of a brutal day.
The down-and-out Whitelaw emerges mid-afternoon vampire-like into the sea of desert darkness and bellyflops the VIP booth scratching life into flea-lumpen skin.
‘All night long they were at it,’ winces Gerbil James when the private red devil rams a five-prong trident into the soft underbelly of the liver <—>
‘Who, old son?’
‘Knees of course. And his bunch of hippy beatnik friends.’ By the warm throat he seizes a tumbler. ‘Why wasn’t your lot of larries laying down the Law?’
‘Oh that’s it. Why d’ya have to keep slagging off the Filth? I’m sick of it.’ Angrily downs Whitelaw a pint of warm English bitter pick-me-up. ‘Bbllaaahhhh … Look, old son, if Boffin-Bollocks don’t lay the golden goose soon, I’m sodding back to work ...’
‘You’re delirious.’
‘... Even dancing with traffic on the M25 has gutter be better than death in this dump ...’
‘It’s not me who’s the loony, issit? I’ll tell you what he’s doing right now, shall I? Laughing in that flash bloody house. Well I’m not going to let him. Do you hear me? Knees is ruining our lives without lifting a finger.’
‘... I mean, old son, what’s Life about?’
‘Is it my imagination or is this place like an oven?’
‘Why not let me give the good Missus James a ring? What d’yer say? We’ll soon have you snug indoors.’
‘Where’s my sodding drink? Nobody ever listens.’
‘Honest, old son. You look bad.’
The Gerbil crawling a long way from the backstreets and the back-to-back tumbledown terraced houses of Lower Springwood. A scruffy nipper in short trousers and combing the bombsites for shrapnel. Or hanging outside the pub for father to come home for tea. And every night, even in the raking cold. And then mother would get so angry. Always so very angry.
‘Are you sure, old son? You’ve gone fifty shades of green …’
Big Boys chasing him down the alleyways and the washing lines and garden fences and stinging nettles and grazed knees, or hiding in the pub cellar with the beer barrels.
‘… Let me call you a cab. What d’yer say? …’
Or hiding in the belfry.
With the bats.
And the voices.
Oh the voices!
The voices!
Bobby and Darren. Cashy and Johnny.
‘… Old son, I really think you need help. Can you hear me?’
Never can he forget the black hole of guilt, and the fret that you foster from a baby. Life was never fair from the off. And every teacher would make him stand in the corner, and for what? Life was never meant to be this way. The game is rigged. But kicking against the pricks and with a barrel-load of bloody-minded hard work the Gerbil had crawled from the dust and the dirt to become a trusted, yes, a trusted and treasured, civil servant of the people.
‘… Archie, you’re having one of your funny turns … ’
And the ingenious thing about their masterplan is that nobody has the remotest idea of what they are up to. By Law a Taxpayer’s right. More than a Taxpayer’s right. After the years of hard work, blood, sweat and for what? A pot of medals lost in the post.
Suddenly the flapping wings of a monster darken the world and in a flash <—> from some dark pit of fear the Gerbil senses the danger to Life and limb <—> and the furious face of the Chief Constable falling on the table from a height <—> and the fist flashes past the Gerbil’s ear and smashes the wooden panel <—> and a great gush of primeval survival juice flushes the veins and cavities of the body <—> and the Gerbil shrinks from grasping claws down under the table <—> scrambling for dear life between the Chief Constable’s legs, squealing and scrambling for the door <—> the hot dragon-breath of fury down the back of the neck <—> crashing head-first into the hot hell of nuclear sun <—> spindly legs spin the last gasps of life <—> lungs burning <—> heart thumping a war drum <—> smashing shoppers and trollies <—> over the steaming pavement cracks <—> across the railway tracks <—> pass the dead rats <—> lashing and thrashing and crashing and dashing the long and winding back roads <—> round the bend <—> up the junction <—> round the twist <—>
How the little legs pump!
How the little feet jump!
How the backside dumps!
Vaulting the knee-high fence <—> splat-face the Beast’s dead snapdragons <—> heart explodes through the top of his head <—> and crawling with mouth crammed with dirt <—> crawling on blooded knees <—> crawling <—> and the cry of the Chief Constable <—> Christ, save me! <—> I’ll be the very best boy <—> stinging nettles <—> rock floor slicing paper-thin skin like scissors <—> crawling across the threshold and begging <—> oh please! —> the pink slippers and lady-odours of the Beast! The Beast! Oh the Beast! ‘Am I glad to see you.’
‘See me?’
But the clouding sky.
And cry.
Of death.
‘ … I thought you’d crawl back here.’
‘Save me! Save me!’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to die! I’ll do anything! But I love you!’
‘You love me! What’s come over my Gerbil?’
‘Quick! Please!’
‘You’ve never said this before ...’
But the shadows shudder from the Angel of Death <—> and steel-toe-caps scrunch stones nearer and louder <—> And the Gerbil shrinks from the pain of the sun <—> and flashes in slow motion the big black stick <—> so sick the scrunching of bone through the back of the skull <—> and the Sound of Silence. My old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.
And the pitch of the void.
And the voices.
The voices.
My only friends.
The voices.
*****