The Son of Bingo

Littered on the floor in this constant rain are slow moving slugs and used condoms, shrunk and all that’s left is the thick bit of rubber that was rolled back along the cock , fucking in alleyways after hours,(we all remember Quadrophenia)   the spunk has been absorbed into the ground beneath my feet and the rubber as dis-coloured, aged, weathered and there are empty snail shells everywhere, as if the snails have tried to escape and left their shells behind.

As if the snails knew something we don’t.

Dead leaves trod into wet concrete.

His face is red hot seconds after the punch landed.

Cars race up the gradient, next to the curb where puddles the size of small lakes have formed and you know that someone is going to drive through this and engulf you in a tsunami of cold rain water. And their going to do it just for shits. You can see it in their eyes.

People on passing busses look out the window, gormless hollow and vacant. If the Nazi’s used buses to transport Jews to the concentration camps this is how it would look.

Before the deluge, this place had already been flooded with the tears of desperate men.

Windows fogged up with desperate early morning breaths heading towards a town that is down on it’s knees. Shops are either boarded up or everything is for sales, water damaged, fire damaged, the town is closing down, for a limited period only, SALE, no money back guarantee, discounts, sold off to the highest bidder for the lowest cost damaged goods in a damaged town the rain clouds move in like a phalanx of Roman soldiers., moving in from the East. The chimneys look like broke fingers stretching out of the ground. They coughed out their last lung full of smoke an age ago.

And the factories are forlorn, out of place, crumbling into history and folklore, crumbling like brittle bones and biscuits.

Broken faces of broken men broken arteries and broken skin, cracks in the pavements cracks in the surface of things.

All the kings horses and all the kings men will not be able to put this together again.

He woke up in a curfew.

The military drilled march of feet tramped by outside the window. He looked. Uniforms marched flags waved attached to municipal buildings. His memory failed him. He couldn’t remember when he went asleep. Reflection mirror check revealed he looked the same but his hair was longer.

How long had he been out?

Vertcal horizon opposite windows, all the people looked the same, confused, like they had woken from a cocoon coma, staring at the pageant below ,

It was the leeches, he remembered them attaching sharpness into his skin, piercing.

Doctor Zenax sat there, upright in a starched white coat. Like a pristine butcher, forensically clean cut.  A rolodex spun, inserts flapped like cardboard winged moths. Pot marked nose smudged glasses, held back bulging eyes that were nailed deep into his head.

He hummed.

The window of the office failed in it’s attempt to hold back the urban screech.

Dust hung forever in forgotten corners and a stationary globe stood, Europe completely faded out of existence, gone the way of the Dodo, eviscerated and erased.

No outlines gave clues to it’s past.

Flexon sat opposite.  His life was not off this world. He was here, that much was evident. He breathed, cast shadows, occupied a time and place.  But on other levels he was gone, away, in a different place.

Veins bulging like blue jammed tubes, forming tributaries, throbbing 3d at his temples.

He would normally wake somewhere else. Distant lands, here or maybe there. It was tangible to him, real, he could touch it, feel it, and suck it all in, like milk through a straw. He never knew if this was real.

After all he was the creator of this.

He had to see Doctor Zenax.

He was the one who recommended the leeches. They stuck in, sucked, an attempt to remove the badness that the Doctor pointed out was inside.

He couldn’t say for certain if Doctor Zenax was real, you know, really real but he sat in his office and relayed to him the ailments that were upon him.

Leeches …..that grew fat like capitalists sucking away at  his life.  

Distended black bulbous beetle.

Animalistic syringe pierces see through skin, nightmarish dreams of feeding on the tallow of slaughtered cattle, knee deep in carrion

It wasn’t in the blood what the Doctor was looking for,  it was his wiring that was corrupt,  complex workings that had been short-circuiting since he was curled up safe in his mothers gut, swimming amongst half digested foods and fluids, the outside world was the future waiting between her legs. 

Concrete looming from rooftop viewpoints. Pointing fingers of passers by, gawping, a gathering crowd, a gathering storm, waiting, The animals sensed it first. The tiniest changes in atmospheric pressure, a slight flip in temperature, a metallic tang stuck on the breeze, tiny seismic tremor under millennial strata.

Geologist in the field could not predict this.

Abortion predetermined lost fate in lantern filled arenas, the khaki dictators began to re-write a thousand yesterdays, starting from now,  ground level - year zero, the piercing howls of slaughtered pigs, shocked then throats cut, dangling on murder hooks, dripping red life from silver knife wound, gashes look like shy awkward smiles of the newly ground prom queen dancing

Buried beneath the weight of the pen, Flexon created this all.

He wrote it down upon awaking sun beams shot like red Indian arrows into his retina, he felt nailed to a wet bed of TB sheets coughing awake a scream constricted in a dry throat heave.

Phantom limbs appeared to have scribbled sentences on a blank open page, charcoal etches scratched into paper, partially illegible in a wallpapered peeled room, musty with times rot, musty with yesterday damp, humidity clings to cobwebbed corners.

When

out of bed, distancing himself from slumber, his naked feet padded across lino floor, crunching on the back on insects snapping twig like under the dead weight of his human shell.

He could fill books with this.

Noticing a camera lens  inside the potted plant, whirling, the electric circuits responding to some remote electrical charge he closed his eyes and knew he wouild be crushed.

So this years Mercury Prize as spewed forth the usual suspects, the odd folky lady, indie bands, established rock acts and something from the left field.

In the past I have successfully predicted the past 8 out 9 winners,(ask the wife this is true, I no lie to you)  losing out when the Artic Monkeys won, guessing that being the favourite was no sure guarantee of victory.

Other then my exceptional taste in music and my encyclopaedic knowledge of the music industry I have a fairly simple method of selecting the winners. Without giving the game away, the method is based on the biased of the music industry and their tokenism to acts on the periphery.  (trust me it works…..)

Anyhow, this years nominations have caused a dilemma. Will the panel go with Radiohead, simply because they have been nominated the most times and never won?, will they go with Coldplay simply because their Coldplay and write pretensions drivel on their hands like rebellious schoolboys in public schools?, will there be an upset like in 1994 when M People triumphed over Blur, Pulp, The Prodigy  and the Wellar, and they give the award to Portico Quartet? Or will they simply opt to give the gong to the runaway bookies favourite Burial?

Well, this year a spoke has been place in the wheel of my method. And what is this spoke I hear you ask?

I actually know someone who is up for the award (well I don’t know him personally, it’s one of those six degrees of separation things, in the fact I am good mates with his brother).

So ladies and gentlemen, I predict that Burial will win,

(and if he doesn’t my monies on Laura Marling.

Or Radiohead)

I though they had released Boy George, not Barry George.

An easy mistake to make.

A Government  source as informed that in order to put a stop to knife crime a huge magnetic will be placed over the country and all the knifes in England will be attracted by it’s magnetic pull and will be yanked into the air and will then be stuck to the aforementioned massive magnetic.

Naturally other metal objects will be susceptible to this magnetic pull, cars, people with metal plates in their skull, people with ear rings (unless the jewellery is not metal, rather cheap plastic that turns skin green) etc etc but the Government feel this is a small price to pay to safe guard peoples life’s.

Also its better then their other policies which were:

·        Asking people with knives to kindly pop them in an amnesty box.

Er, that’s it.

the name Jayden.

What does it mean?

I also hate people who queue up out side shops in a desperate attempt to get a new producy, be it an X Box, the new Harry Potter book or in this case, an I Phone.

Get a life insects.

The scouts got lost in the woods.

A full moon hung like a 10p pence and owls sat in tress, freakishly turning their heads 360 degrees, eyes darting, flicking, nocturnal sentries with the jitters. The leaves were rustling everywhere, a mix of wind and unseen animals moving. Pitch black dark was made bearable by the faint glow of the moon and the stars that pin-pricked the firmament.

Boots trod on and snapped twigs. In the silence the twigs breaking sounded like rifle fire echoing.

            (this is a 44 Magnum and can blow your head clean off)

The troop had been lost for a few days, their compasses, for some unknown reason was not working. Magnetic North seemed to have lost its pull. The hands of the needles spun in circles like an out of control Wurlitzer at a condemned fairground that had just rolled up to the arse end of town.

For the first few days everyone treated it like an extend camp, living off the land, making bivouacs, making fires from kindling, making use of the bush skills they had learnt in a drafty church hall somewhere in bland suburbia, where housewife’s drunk during the day and the workaholics  fathers eyed up woman in their offices and discussed new cars and golf.

Day four and five saw a change in the young troop. Hunger began to set in and as each rain drop landed it slowed eroded whatever reserves of enthusiasm. They had. Minds began to wander to home.

Day six saw the first murder, 

The strongest members of the group picked out the fattest member, young Steve  “Fatty” Frost. When night set in, Steve was grabbed, a scarf placed around his mouth and his hands and feet were bound with sisal. He was pegged out and the boys went to work on him with their Swiss Army knifes and a small hand held felling axe. . Flesh was cut, incisions made, screams were muffled, Blood left his body and seemed to turn black in the forest gloom.

Organs were cleaned in a stream and cooked, mixed with mushrooms and herbs. “Fatty” Frost tasted of cheap processed chicken, a young life spend gorging himself of hamburgers, white bread and supermarket home brand pie and pop, but this didn’t stop the troop feasting on their bloody kill. His skin was stretched, dried and would be put to use later.

 A massive detour from the tale:    

 Throughout the history of the scout movement there have been rumours, suspicion and conspiracy. The first rumour is that the whole scout movement were secretly being indoctrinated into unblinking servitude to Queen and county. Bearing in mind Baden Powell himself was a soldier and the training and learning in the “movement” shared many of the traits of the military this could be considered more then a rumour. The scout movement were being manipulated to being a collective of Manchurian Candidates, all ready and prepared (be prepared is their motto after all) to do battle when either Queen or country was threaten.

                                                                                    Another rumour closely linked to the aforementioned speculation is that during in 1932, just after Mosley founded the British Union of Fascist, there was an idea put forward that the scout movement            could be used as a recruitment tool. Their ideology  and beliefs mirrored and sometimes overlapped with the manifesto and culture of the nubile Fascist movement. Historians would later draw parrells between the Hitler Youth and the scout movement.  

                                                                                    The final rumour is that of systematic child abuse, Many see common ground shared by both the Scout movement and the Catholic Church. Both have been accused of committing acts  against their young charges. There was always rumours and gossip about Scout Leaders buggering young cubs to death in tents. There has always been speculation that to become a Scout Leader you must be part of an active paedophile ring and to the cynic amongst us the Scout Movement would seem fertile breeding groun, nd would provide adequate bum fodder for those inclined to indulge in poo pushing youngsters. 

Meanwhile back in society

As the day went on the parents back home began to show concern. Mothers cried Pinot Grigio tears and father cried lazily onto the breasts of secretaries or onto the slender shoulders of smooth skinned au-pairs.

The papers began to speculate as the fate of the scouts.  Where they abducted by UFO’s? Did they really exist? Was there disappearance a sub-conscious cry for help in society that had turned it’s back on the Scout Movement? Was this a publicity stunt? Had to many Scout Leaders read Lord of the Flys and tried to emulate it in real life? Was this part of a jamboree? Whatever was happening, the media descended on the homes of the parents and attendance at Scout camps began to drop.

Camping shops reported a decline in the sale of tents and portable stoves.

Elsewhere back in the forest

As each day passed the scouts began more feral and their numbers began to dwindle as the strongest beat and ate the weakest. Darwinism as they lived and breathed. Adapting to the situation, adapting and developing new ways to survive. Human flesh tasted nice especially eaten outside in the fresh air. It was probably the hunt and kill, the return to caveman mentality that made the eating of others pleasant, the surge of endorphins . The Alpha male clubbing to death his pray and smothering himself in warm entrails while massaging a slight boner in his sodden trouser.

            The days merged into each other and drifted by like smoke from a cigar. Under the canopy of the trees the scouts began to dissolve into an unruly mass of hysteria, paranoia and rickets. Bow legged scouts had death in their eyes skin between their teeth and human flesh digesting in their gut.

On one of the numberless days the scouts stumbled ot a tree line and heard the familiar sound of cars whizzing by. Emerging form the tress they found themselves on the verge of a motorway,

Staggerign across the flattop they moved like zombies. Dodging juggernauts, slow drivers, rev heads on motorbikes filing themselves for You Tube zooming down the road at 146mph. They made it to the other side and entered a Little Chef. Upon entering the customers gasped at this rag taggle band of bloodied, feral scouts . The scouts smelling the deep fat frying lunched into a murderous frenzy, massacring everyone in site with man made axes, sticks and blunted Swiss Army knifes. The eating was good and the scouts holed up in the motorway services for 2 weeks before another customer drove up to the door in search of over-priced rubbish.

Afters

The scouts were rehabilitated back into society and many enjoyed riches as their harrowing tale was made into a musical. Some suffered horrendous blackouts as cannibal nightmare returned eating at their sub conscious when the moon shone high over head,  Some, utilising hteir cooking skills went on to open a much acclaimed restaurant in swanky London town and one of the scouts went on to be the moist notorious serial killer this side of Moscow.

Everytime I have a poo at work I always visualise two things,

The toilet roll dispenser is made by a company call Tork and firstly I see Peter Tork of the

Monkees jigging around on stage, a tiny Davy Jones next to him, going great guns on some maracas, Mickey Dolenz bobbing a white man afro on the drums and Mike Nesmith wearing his woolly hat.

If I don’t see the Monkess I see Jeremy Clarkson, his frame squashed into some ironed Marks and Spencer jeans and his jowl wobbling all over the shop as he ecstatically purrs about the torque of the car (I have no idea what torque means but knowing Clarkson it’s probably got something to do with SPEED and going very FAST).

On a few occasions I’ve imagined the two things together, Clarkson on stage with the Monkees and on the flip side, the Monkees squashed into a car with the Clarkson as he drive s sat break next speed down a planes runway, Davey Jones in the back, his nodding like a dog.

The house made noises.  

Most house do, the settling down noises of a house at night, as if the house if stretching, water running through the pipes, a low fizz of dying electricity, creaking wood, floorboards bowing and groaning,  static humming. But the noises here seemed to be different, more human?, he couldn’t put hs finger on it but one late evening when sleep was being a stranger he sat in bed and the silence was punctuated by what he would later describe as “scratching”.

He sat in bed and tried to locate the sound. His eyes slowly looked over the room, looking for the sound. Nothing was moving. The noise persisted. He climbed out of bed and looked around the room. Nothing was found.  After a while he gave up, climbed back into bed and waited for sleep to capture him.

This scratching noise persisted.

One night he was sitting on the toilet,  trying to unblock his valve. He was reading the latest copy of the Argos catalogue. He was looking at garden furniture, not that he had any need for this, he had no garden. He was struck by the amount of stuff Argos sold and he couldn’t get his head around he logistics of the catalogue shop. Did every shop carry one of each product? Did some stores specialise in a certain genre of products? was, the branch in the local Arndale was the UK light specialist? How could one shop hold so much stuff?

 He imagined that under some central part of England connecting tunnels of all the Argos’s joined together, leading to one underground warehouse that contained all the goods offered in their thick catalogues. Employees who hadn’t seen the light of day for months scurried about, under fluorescent light, on golf carts picking up and depositing selected goods into the back areas of shops up and down the land.

The logistics were mind blowing and he was only distracted from these by the scratching noises. Once again he could not find any reason for this noise.

Whilst looking around he saw a spider scrabble from a small hole at the bottom of the skirting board. The spider scurried along and hit his foot. The spider was swiftly dispatched by a the falling Argos catalogue which can I can only assume is the human  equivalent of small three bungalow house falling on your head from the height of say a tallish tree.

The dead spider lay dead under the glossy catalogue. One of his worst Who songs was Boris the Spider and he hummed this as he picked up the arachnid corpse, dropped it on his warm faeces that lay in the bowl and flushed it away. (Incidentally, one of his best Who songs was Pictures of Lily, a strange tall of a young boy who can’t sleep and is given a picture of Lillan Gish by his father. It is implied that his father instructs the boy to look at the picture and wank himself to sleep. This idea of your father giving you wank material is strange, even stranger when the aforementioned wank fodder is that of a dead woman. His wanks himself to sticky sleep and the song has a sad ending when the boys asks his dad about the woman, her whereabouts, her age etc for it is assumed he has fallen in love with this image of beauty. His dead points out that’s she’s dead (since 1929) and we can only assume the boy goes back to sleepless nights filled with angst and depression. Or he turns gay.

Anyway, the scratching continued unabated. He saw the hold the dead spider crawled placed his ear against the wall. The scratching was loud and coming from inside the wall. He placed his finger in the wall and felt something move, something wriggle. He left the toilet and returned with a hammer. He smashed a hole in the wall. He looked through the hole.

He could believe what he saw.

He smashed another hole.

And another.

Inside the wall cavity, huddled together were millions of spiders. Bound together like spidery Velcro.  Over the next few hours he smashed holes in all different wall in the house and the same spidery phenomenon was found, a million spiders all interlocked together forming a wall.

It would appear that for some reason his house was made up of an internal wall of spiders.

The next day he left the hosue and spent the day peering through his window. To his amazement the spiders began to flood out of cracks and holes  and began scurrying through the house, scavenging bits and food. Some spiders began to watch TV.

 When he placed his key in the key, they all darted back through their holes.

He was amazed…………

Where is this going? A man in a house with spidery walls? That occasionally watch TV? What a load of bollocks

The architect carried buildings around

in his head, not real buildings

you understand

just un-sketched plans,

he had always wanted to build a replica of

the town where he was born

not from mortar or brick but from

spaghetti and matches and

lollypop sticks

He wanted to build the fire station and a church

And the supermarket where he would make

Tiny shopping trolleys and scatter them over

the make believe car-park where tiny

People would be carrying on with  their daily chores

Holding tiny bags and thinking big thoughts

In the town he wanted to build a spacious park for

imaginary children to enjoy wholesome picnics .

And ponds where geese, ducks and swans would

glide serenely  on the surface near broccoli sized

trees

The town in his head would be better then the town in which

he walked but he had one big problem

He spend hours wandering how he could make the sun