Untimely #15 – Wrong Song Boys

He, he could feel his nails too long as he rubbed his hands together, fingertips brushing. Not like a girl’s, not really long, but long enough. Long enough to cut something. Like sometimes when the skin on the hands is dry and splitting, chapped and windblown and cracking fit to bleed, sometimes then when his nails are too long he’ll accidentally jab himself and it will split the skin and boyo will that hurt. And once you get one cut there, the fingers just seem to find it of their own accord. Drawn to it like magnets. And maybe he’ll forget and go and squeeze a lemon and the juice will run all around and over it and sting like a thousand bees inside his eyeballs and boyo will they water. Then he will shake his wrist very quickly and vigorously to try to get all of the blood out of his hand so that it won’t hurt. Or maybe to flush the hand with blood so that it won’t hurt. Anway he’ll shake his hand very fast and it will almost start to hurt his wrist and his fingers just a blur and the pulsing citrus burn will ebb a bit and he’ll be OK unless he smacks his hand on something else as he waggles it. Holy hell that’s just the worst, isn’t it? Also once he let his whiskers grow too long and they started to curve around and poke back into his face. Like what the hell. Since when is your body a booby trap, you know? Also his toenails are cracking and white, but she can’t see that. She spies him through the glasses from the pawnshop. Long scraggly beard and dirty nails and just looking like a drowned rat of a wreck. But there is something she is drawn to and, when her evil but misunderstood father is not looking, she slips out the door and down the hill. She finds him lying in a heap at the foot of a tree. His eyes are closed and his legs tucked up under his chin and his arms wrapped around them. Probably she could fit him inside a crate of melons, that’s how small he looks, all bunched up under the tree. And her heart goes all to water: she wants to be his woman. She stares at him a long time and when he doesn’t move she gives him a little nudge with her foot. Still nothing. A little nudge right between the ribs, right where his arm is clasping his legs. He groans and with a twitch he opens one eye. Why did you do that? he asks. She is not expecting a Spanish accent. I don’t know, she says in Spanish. Why are you playing the clarinet? he asks, still with a Spanish accent but not in Spanish. She looks down at her hands. They are soft and smooth and smell of sandalwood. She is not playing a clarinet. She looks back at him but he has fallen asleep again. This is not how it was supposed to be. Slowly, slowly she turns and makes her way back up the hill to her father’s shop.

Untimely #15 - Camel Coat

We shaded her chin with charcoal.

We put her in a wig,

A wig of coiled black curls.

She wore the camel coat we gave her,

The coat to hide her budding breasts.
Her name was Susan.

Susan pushed her old grandfather,

A sack of rotting fruit,

In a rusting wheelchair.

Her eyes danced through the masses

That his dying eyes did miss.

She found the line. They joined the line.

The dotted line.

And Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

In a dimly lit space, behind a long black curtain.

And the line, the dotted line,

Weaved in and out, and in between,

Convention stalls and weeping people.

Seven from the front, Susan’s camel coat,

The cuff snagged on the handle mouldings,

The plastic handle mouldings,

Of her grandfather’s wheelchair.

And he sat there. Dying there. Unaware. As Susan’s hair.

And the snag became a fray.

And the fray became a tear,

A tear that trickled down,

Susan’s streaking charcoal cheek,

As she did weep at her grandfather’s dying eyes.

And the line, the dotted line,

Led to that dimly lit space

Where Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

Behind a long black curtain.

Where weeping people wait

To weep and compensate.

But it’s too late.

It’s much too late.

Untimely #15 - Services Rendered

Though it is only 11 o’clock, Leonard is tucked up in bed, hairnet in place, sleeping soundly. He dreams of Joan of Arc. They are on a picnic together, holding hands. She smiles. He drums a rhythm on her body armour and smiles back. His fingers stop moving, but the drumming persists. Joan of Arc frowns. The drums swell. Joan starts to cry.

Leonard wakes to the sound of his brass doorknocker. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he swings his legs out from under the blankets and into his slippers. In a moment, he is padding down the stairs toward the door. Between bangs, he makes out a slurring grumble.

Leonard lets out a small moan before releasing the bolt, chain and latch, leaving the door to swing open. He turns and heads for the kitchen. There’s no need to inspect the visitor; he could smell the tobacco, sweat and cherry brandy stench from his bedroom.

As Leonard opens the fridge, he hears a growl of greeting from behind.

“Evening Muse. Anything wrong?”

“Hey Len, was you sleepin’? Did I wake you? I, ugh, oh, ‘scuse me… I got this idea see.”

Leonard heats some milk in a pan and takes two enamel mugs from his wooden mug tree. He yawns.

“Yeah, but it’s ok. What’s on your mind?”

“Right. So I was out at this bar see, with a few friends, some sweet, some very savoury, you know, my kinda people.”

Muse chokes out a throaty laugh while Leonard, nodding, turns off the stove, pours the milk, and sets the mugs on the table. As Leonard opens a drawer in search of pen and paper, Muse opens a hip flask and toddies up a milk.

“Anyways, we were havin’ a few drinks these friends and I, foolin’ around, laughin’ it up, when I gotta go the bathroom. Muse gotta go too, you know?”

“Everybody does, Muse.”

“Exactly! So I goes out the back to a stall and what do I see there on top of the cistern but some trashy romance novel, on top of a copy of Moby Dick! Some of my best and worst, right there in the commode of this noplace bar. Well, naturally I thinks of you.”

“Thanks.”

Muse shakes out a phlegmatic bronchial laugh. Leonard sips his milk and takes a few notes.

“No problem. So I thinks hey, here’s one for my boy Len! Romance and sailors in the toilet? Bullseye! It just needs a little something. Then I thinks to myself again, hey, Len’s a Jew - you is ain’t you?”

“Have been so far.”

 “Great, great. So, now we got us a sailor and a Jewess, pour on a bit of sauce, maybe some nazi jive to get the hackles up. All we gotta do now is stir the whole thing up and round off with a classic Len bitter denouement and hell! We got ourselves a song!”

“Really? I mean, well, you’re the boss.”

“Damn right buster. A bit of work, and this one’ll turn out great.”

Leonard puts down his pen and stands to rinse out the mugs. As he wipes the sideboard, he feels a hand touch the nape of his neck. Leonard hangs the cloth over the tap to dry. The fingers claw down his back.

“You know the price of greatness Len? ‘Cause it’s time to settle up.”

Untimely Stimulus #15