Extract 1st work – The Dinner
(xiv)
Never learned, but you never learned to read or write an’never learned to sing or dance to see your face in the mirror of life and laugh and laugh and still laugh, all now companionship blood based. Take a da’momentos, cherish sumbuddys givin’. We jus’ in dis for d’livin’. Livin’. Booger yuz, jus’gimmie ya energee… I snatch it as I keep ma hand over yoooo.
gasgat I’ll sogger de falmmer der gemuse mitt gemeindeschaft a flurry me boots on to top of the day for to see how this bugger of a trip must go and de grind onward in dis ruddy affair a tramp hard on the gas pedal and drone off into the hills a fart out of a bottle and that black out behind him and the big forward look as the FATHER’s x-army Enfield he’ll give runover with a gunoily rag that black and earthy smell so certain and smooth as through the windows whiz the living canopy of the world the winding roads the disappearing sea the gorges and the parting clouds as Dodger through the gears changes constant and reflex…
time swap time hop the man a looking back over pile of paper scribbles the black desk the dropped muscles on the face and almost given up to our onslaught of more time in yer back and so sitting he was with the black and faultless box of tricks on his lap and the decision to destroy all he had known almost becoming a rotting and decomposing choice so long in the making it had been…
jest the number of gates to open and cattle stops din of washer board clang with the rubber of the wheels and soon the track come to an end and the boys embark on the little afternoon hunt in the hope that something can be shot for the pot and I squint the eyes the heat haze hang while high-lighting a distant shrub covered spur rising from a boisterous stream unseen and surrounds of windswept slopes peppered with scree slides and lonely native trees and the odd pine as yes the far off bleat of sheep being my soft reassurance…
now only walk and the rise out of the valley and constant again the sight of Dodger’s boots carrying him ahead with once and awhile a turn to wait and shake his head and, come on short arse, you wanted to go hunting didn’t you, and Jock just ploughs on all hot and flustered so the scenery can go to hell now because two hours hard tramping upwards with a pack full of beer and sun beat down and flies now a plague and, jeezuz Jock, think it’s time to quench our thirst…
dazzling a time on the back and piercing the sky with eyes wide again and so good the pulse and the air and the sweet earth tingle in the nostrils…
some time freak out after the big death in the family and childhood called to a halt and the mad hours of stiff upper lip in the face of a sorrow beyond sorrow but somehow punishment being dealt out by the invisible hands of fate oh cough the phlegm and down to it walk on stand up and don’t and don’t ever talk about it so best gatch the harky spirit of survival and put on the front carry the mask and play the role…
he was the clown let it be known and through that first year after the tragic dance of Mum takes a jump there emerged a person who wanted nothing more than to make other people laugh…
don’t groach it no more as Dodger kicked him while mumbling, “up an at ‘em Shag, we got a deer to shoot…”
on the move and Jock is a little less then moping his way over the terrain as a far off Bell-bird clears the air with a melody modern to the times…
desti, desti, desti our froam of peace can be nothing more than this and up over more rises the pain of living becomes his paradise…
shucks I’ll not give an inch of this away and barrel on into the dim froth of a half heartbeat…
idea bends low now and signals Jock to do the same…
a hind in his sights and he slowly squeezes the trigger and the crack shocks the valley and echoes away into the open arms of past…
crack again and the throaty follow up of shhhhhhhh and rolling we crown this, I wince to this, I am thrilled by this, I understand this fact of life…
everyday a hand off for those living by it, a code of sorts…
he repeats the picture in my mind as the hind appears to be thrown over a low escarpment and there he catches first glimpse of a young fawn and it springs after MOTHER, already too late…
they scramble down to the scene and Dodger full of smiles and a confidence that the shots were clean but time to yell something about catching that bloody fawn because there’s good money in those alive…
low growls from the devil a lick his lips and no more d’maycare ways about his swooping approach…
you’ve got your booty eh what ol’ chap…
you took your prize and behind in a humorous little heap is the program of fear, see me…
the prayer hook he perchance ripped out and graunch the sound, the boy down in a corner and he mumbles the God bless this and the God bless that and through the crack in the door watches the parent content with the success of the ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces…
Copyright © Graeme Perrin 2023