"Fair morning" a man says, tiltin' the hat at a couple lassies stood front the bus-stop next the old cinema. Marquees boarded over, graffiti-bedizened hardwood sheets - Shelly + ?, Trevor Was Ere / Is A Knob, INLA etc etc. "Couldn't be bad t'that, sure?"
Lassies smiling, gesturing in agreement. One chewing the beads of her necklace, twirling a toe on the spot.
Round about, throbbing like a trapped-fly 'neath an eyelid; summer. A warm breeze shorn of puff loiters lazily about the flower-baskets hung here and there from the lampposts. Headed for the train-station, men in painter's overalls pat sweat-slick foreheads with damp hankies.
"Fair mourning" fella says again.
"It is that" I answer, sat on a bench at the town hall, looking up from the notebook open on my knee. "About time, an' all."
"Now… We're long due it, is right, God knows."
Wandering on, he's stopped at the top of Church Street by a fella in a white t-shirt and faded jeans, palm outstretched, unshaven face all scab-marked and potted, blackened eyes red-rimmed and wired. "You wouldn't have a pound, mate? Lend us till Monday?"
Watching this, drumming my fingers idly off of a knee, I'm thinking; Myself and Beautiful Ms Gillian - many's a quid we gave him, an' all, afore now. Fidgeting with one hand for change, other holding the honeycomb ice-cream busy dribbling and drabbling o'er the knuckles. Him laughing, tellin' me - "You keep your eye on her, now. She'd be the right handful, that lady, looks of her" and us laughing too, your mouth making mock-shocked O's, looking away in feigned offense.
(Line at the bottom of the notebook page - "For the memories we planned to gather, beacons be raised. For those we were lucky enough to catch - a song or two, I think.")
Thinking also of Newcastle night-time few months back, man by the phone-box calling "Fifty pence to make a call, mate?" and me shrugging apologetically. "I'm sorry, man, I have nothin'."
He then raising the palms, "Oh fair enough, like, fair enough. But would you have a brick, maybe? So as I could smash your fuckin' face in?"
Friend and musicological associate Mr Gardiner whispering to me; "Walk on by, for Jesus sakes. Keep the head down. S'always the same; abuse if you haven't got it, abuse if you have. Gave him 85p one evening, I did. 'Thanks' says he, then flings it back at me, skites me right up the back o' the thigh with a twenty-pence-piece. Miscalls me for all the arse-bandit bastards of the day. Shockin'."
Article comments
1 - Mat Brewster
Geezum duke, whenever I've had the break up all I do is sit in the dark room and mope with the sad songs. Here you go and write a marvelous, beautiful thing.
When you going to London?
2 - DukeDeMondo
thank you very much Sir Brewster. i was consciously avoidin sayin too much about certain things for the effect readin said things might have on certain readers (certain reads who saw this before it was published and who could have told me not to let anyone see and didn't and thank you to them also) so there was a border i couldn't cross, meanin it couldn't get excessively bogged down in self obsession to the point of removin all else. still managed to get pretty far up my arse, mind you, which is fair goin.
as to London - september. this time last year i was sayin the same thing, and part of why i didn't go then was to do with stuff to which THIS all relates. sometimes a fella might think "would it've been better to skiddadle then and save all involved this carry-on?" But no. as beautiful a year as e'er a man has spent in the company of a lass, i'd dare say.
god almighty, Sir Brewster, apologies for that excessive reply to a quite simple question...
3 - Aaron Fleming
A beautiful, poetic lament to those dark moments, those horrid instance that forever lurk in the shadows, ready to spring outward just when the joyous and wonderous state of bouyancy has been settled into, then suddenly it's ripped away with cruel lack of emotion...a kick to the gut is as inadequate an analogy as almost any articulation, but you've captured it with the most sublime eloquence. Perfect.
And commiserations with the whole horror, a terrible event it all is, for everyone involved.
4 - DukeDeMondo
sir fleming, thank you no end. bloody hell, that was altogether a beautiful thing for to think and to write and to read.
5 - Mat Brewster
Ah, but think of the glorious reunion between your fine self and Sir Fleming! The two of you in the same city again will surely unfold the mysteries of life, or at least my pernicious pancreas.
6 - Greg Smyth
Ach, how I've missed your bittersweet ramblings Sir Duke. It's only a pity what personal hell you've got to go through to churn out such sparkling prose.
7 - "Blind Dog" Fearon
Ah sir, what a piece o' literature never afore has been seen by the likes o' men. Your writing be a match for the likes o' the big men, the kerouacs, ferlinghettis, ginsbergs, hemmingways, whitmans...etc etc. you'll go far my lad, that you will...you will go far.
8 - DukeDeMondo
Sir Brewster - Myself and Sir Fleming are to be sharing a set of walls and roof, as it happens. the festivals of depravity and wonder and sittin about that will ensue... they will surely drive both of us to dementia afore year's out, God willing.
Sir Smyth - thank you very much. i think it totally accurate to prepose that, in so far as i can tell judging on what i've done during times of great distress and what i've done during times of grandest cheer - cliched as it may be - i think i need to be as miserable as is humanly possible not only to do anythin that i might consider halfways decent (not neccesarily talkin about this here, either) - but to do anythin at all. i mentioned this to you of a time and you, quite rightly, told me i was talkin nonsense. at the time i was, for i had nothin really to back up such claims. judgin on the ammount of stuff i've done the past two weeks in terms of the workrate regardin various ongoing enterprises, it's all to clear to me that the more insufferable i am to be around, the more stuff i get done that's worth the time it took to do. again, not neccesarily talkin about this particular screed, just a general observation that seems relevant given your words what you put on the screen there.
"Blind Dog" - i dunno what to say to that, sir, other than thank you. jesus oh. thank you.
9 - Jon Sobel
Oy vey, that's a mighty fine piece of prose you got there. Ach. Oy. It hurts. I need a bicarb, it's so bitter. A bicarb, I say. Ach. Oy.