(Memories of the time I got kicked in the teeth and refused to bleed till such times as I could be sat in front a cathedral, on account of my journal was sorely lacking such a scene)
"Well", he'd said, "You don't do it soon chances are you won't have no tale worth a fiddler's balls, she's headin' back to Belfast in the shortly times."
Carole, she lights a cigarette, she says she's going home shortly. To Belfast. She says this and she pushes the packet o' smokes o'er to me, and I'm thinking aye, I'll have one a those, certainly, and also, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna kiss you.
A scene unfolds in the reflections on someone's glass; I kiss her, and she says "Let's go a walk, maybe up round the convent, see if we can hear the sisters all singing in their sleep." I kiss her and the walls bend over and around us, we sit pulsing in the midst o' that concrete cocoon writing rhymes about the texture of the estates we live in, places where the passing trains sound like banshees, places where bus-shelters go to die.
I dunno what happens next, someone lifted the glass.
Maja's sayin "Kissing? It's just fucking stalling. I don't kiss."
I'm thinking 'bout how aye, what I'll do, is kiss Carole.
She looks at me and I hold the gaze for a moment, thread it through the fingers and roll it round the tongue, she looks at me and I lean across.
She looks away.
Sir Fleming, he notices this, but he says nothing, just flings a squint says "Was that? Did you?" and I fling one back, one tastes like "I tried."
Who knows how it happened, who for a second could fathom it 'thout the aid of a fist fulla chicken guts and a pipe fulla Scottish moss, who could hazard a damn guess about the mechanics of it all, but fairly soon I noticed my arm was around Carole's shoulder. How the hell did it get there? She seems to know it's there. Did she put it there?
A lass at the next table starts waxin' on and off about King Kong, her teeth red-raw wi' spite. "Fuckin Al-Qaeda propaganda if ever I laid eyes on it!", she garbles. "Foreigner comes to America, wrecks New York, and we're supposed to feel sorry for the rancid bastard at the end because oh, we slapped a couple natives in his homeland?"
Article comments
1 - Mat Brewster
Welcome back, Duke.
2 - Mark Saleski
i just KNEW there was a good reason ta get out of bed this morning!
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
good to be back, fellas. thank you. my, this is hella much longer than it looked in microsoft word...
4 - Aaron Fleming
Hurrah! What a tale!
And I must recount that simultaneously to the Duke's magical moment I was standing in a chinese take-out with an Icelandic gentleman placed in front of me at an extremely close proximity. "Fucking move!" I yelled in my head, but it was futile. Alas...
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
hah, sir fleming, thank you, and i see potential for a Rashomon style version. "what happened was this..." "no, what happened was THIS!"
what was that telly show with Donnie Whalberg that did that, also? the cop number?
6 - Eric Berlin
Anthony Burgess meets James Joyce meets some other literary figure I know not of fuck flung and mind scrambled to 2006 like warped tounge bizarro-genius made real.
Or: I approve !
7 - DJRadiohead
Duke, you are the straw that stirs this place. In other words, we've missed having you around.
Great stuff, as always.
8 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Sirs Berlin and Dj, thank you. it feels hella good to have the scribblin goin on again, i was worried for a week or two, no doubt about that. now i got all sortsa crap fallin out the fingers. funny how these things work out.
9 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
and also, i must thank whoever spotlighted this wee tale. that was highly lovely and all sortsa gorgeous to wake up to.
10 - DJRadiohead
Fits and starts- I have the same thing. Weeks go by and I can't write shite and then I'll pen 4 things and do a podcast in the span of two days.
11 - steven
enjoyed the read. a way of words you have sir, What happens next? will enjoy hearin further mind waxes from you xxooxx
12 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
thank you, Steven. this particular tale ends here. a lovely friendship blossoms. our friends wander off t'wards ever more extravagant colours and shapes. and foo fighters records.
a new mind wax is in the writing, and should surface in the shortly-times, i would hope.
thanks again.
13 - Carole
this Carole chick sounds amazing with the purple whispers and all. What a lovely mind wax dear duke!