suit.
Trade had been slack that day. In fact in ten sun-
strangled hours this was my only nibble, and to walk
home with empty pockets is to follow the hearse, so they
say. So I exhaled at great length, breathed the air of
existence into that purple blimp, and to this day I wish I
had not. For with that breath my soul was sold, and all
for the price of a cup of betel nuts or a lighted candle
placed in the lap of the elephant god.
And his lazy daughter danced with me once and left me
to slouch and gag in the stinking womb of my own stale
breath. Then his fat boy bundled me straight to his room,
and when I wouldn’t yield to his two-fisted punches and
flying bicycle kicks, all the spite of puberty coursed
through the veins in his neck, and the light in his eye
shrank to a white-hot, pin-sharp, diamond-tipped point.
Michael
So George has this theory: the first thing we ever steal,
when we’re young, is a symbol of what we become later
in life, when we grow up. Example: when he was nine
George stole a Mont Blanc fountain pen from a fancy
gift shop in a hotel lobby—now he’s an award-winning
novelist. We test the theory around the table and it seems
to add up. Clint stole a bottle of cooking sherry, now
he owns a tapas bar. Kirsty’s an investment banker and
she stole money from her mother’s purse. Tod took a
Curly Wurly and he’s morbidly obese. Claude says he
never stole anything in his whole life, and he’s an actor
i.e. unemployed. Derek says, “But wait a second, I stole
a blue Smurf on a polythene parachute.” And Kirsty says,
“So what more proof do we need, Derek?”
Every third Saturday in the month I collect my son from
his mother’s house and we take off, sometimes to the
dog track, sometimes into the great outdoors. Last week
we headed into the Eastern Fells to spend a night under
the stars and to get some quality time together, father
and son. With nothing more than a worm, a bent nail and
a thread of cotton we caught a small, ugly-looking fish;
I was all for tossing it back in the lake, but Luke surprised
me by slapping it dead on a flat stone, slitting its belly
and washing out its guts in the stream. Then he cooked it
over a fire of brushwood and dead leaves, and for all the
thinness of its flesh and the annoying pins and needles of
its bones, it made an honest meal. Later on, as it dropped
dark, we bedded down in an old deer shelter on the side
of the hill. There was a hole in the roof. Lying there on
our backs, it was as if we were looking into the inky blue
eyeball of the galaxy itself, and the darker it got, the more
the eyeball appeared to be staring back. Remembering
George’s theory, I said to Luke, “So what do you think
you’ll be, when you grow up?” He was barely awake,
but from somewhere in his sinking thoughts and with a
drowsy voice he said, “I’m going to be an executioner.”
Now the hole in the roof was an ear, the ear of the
universe, exceptionally interested in my very next words.
I sat up, rummaged about in the rucksack, struck a match
and said, “Hold on a minute, son, you’re talking about
taking a person’s life. Why would you want to say a
thing like that?” Without even opening his eyes he said,
“But I’m sure I could do it. Pull the hood over someone’s
head, squeeze the syringe, flick the switch, whatever.
You know, if they’d done wrong. Now go to sleep, dad.”
I’ll Be There to Love and Comfort You
The couple next door were testing the structural fabric
of the house with their difference of opinion. “I can’t
take much more of this,” I said to Mimi my wife. Right
then there was another almighty crash, as if every pan
in the kitchen had clattered to the tiled floor. Mimi said,
“Try to relax. Take one of your tablets.” She brewed a
pot of camomile tea and we retired to bed. But the
pounding and caterwauling carried on right into the small
hours. I was dreaming that the mother of all
Trade had been slack that day. In fact in ten sun-
strangled hours this was my only nibble, and to walk
home with empty pockets is to follow the hearse, so they
say. So I exhaled at great length, breathed the air of
existence into that purple blimp, and to this day I wish I
had not. For with that breath my soul was sold, and all
for the price of a cup of betel nuts or a lighted candle
placed in the lap of the elephant god.
And his lazy daughter danced with me once and left me
to slouch and gag in the stinking womb of my own stale
breath. Then his fat boy bundled me straight to his room,
and when I wouldn’t yield to his two-fisted punches and
flying bicycle kicks, all the spite of puberty coursed
through the veins in his neck, and the light in his eye
shrank to a white-hot, pin-sharp, diamond-tipped point.
Michael
So George has this theory: the first thing we ever steal,
when we’re young, is a symbol of what we become later
in life, when we grow up. Example: when he was nine
George stole a Mont Blanc fountain pen from a fancy
gift shop in a hotel lobby—now he’s an award-winning
novelist. We test the theory around the table and it seems
to add up. Clint stole a bottle of cooking sherry, now
he owns a tapas bar. Kirsty’s an investment banker and
she stole money from her mother’s purse. Tod took a
Curly Wurly and he’s morbidly obese. Claude says he
never stole anything in his whole life, and he’s an actor
i.e. unemployed. Derek says, “But wait a second, I stole
a blue Smurf on a polythene parachute.” And Kirsty says,
“So what more proof do we need, Derek?”
Every third Saturday in the month I collect my son from
his mother’s house and we take off, sometimes to the
dog track, sometimes into the great outdoors. Last week
we headed into the Eastern Fells to spend a night under
the stars and to get some quality time together, father
and son. With nothing more than a worm, a bent nail and
a thread of cotton we caught a small, ugly-looking fish;
I was all for tossing it back in the lake, but Luke surprised
me by slapping it dead on a flat stone, slitting its belly
and washing out its guts in the stream. Then he cooked it
over a fire of brushwood and dead leaves, and for all the
thinness of its flesh and the annoying pins and needles of
its bones, it made an honest meal. Later on, as it dropped
dark, we bedded down in an old deer shelter on the side
of the hill. There was a hole in the roof. Lying there on
our backs, it was as if we were looking into the inky blue
eyeball of the galaxy itself, and the darker it got, the more
the eyeball appeared to be staring back. Remembering
George’s theory, I said to Luke, “So what do you think
you’ll be, when you grow up?” He was barely awake,
but from somewhere in his sinking thoughts and with a
drowsy voice he said, “I’m going to be an executioner.”
Now the hole in the roof was an ear, the ear of the
universe, exceptionally interested in my very next words.
I sat up, rummaged about in the rucksack, struck a match
and said, “Hold on a minute, son, you’re talking about
taking a person’s life. Why would you want to say a
thing like that?” Without even opening his eyes he said,
“But I’m sure I could do it. Pull the hood over someone’s
head, squeeze the syringe, flick the switch, whatever.
You know, if they’d done wrong. Now go to sleep, dad.”
I’ll Be There to Love and Comfort You
The couple next door were testing the structural fabric
of the house with their difference of opinion. “I can’t
take much more of this,” I said to Mimi my wife. Right
then there was another almighty crash, as if every pan
in the kitchen had clattered to the tiled floor. Mimi said,
“Try to relax. Take one of your tablets.” She brewed a
pot of camomile tea and we retired to bed. But the
pounding and caterwauling carried on right into the small
hours. I was dreaming that the mother of all
Similar Books
