CONFESSION WITH STONES
He was walking down an empty street with oh so many eyes and he was tacking up that street on wet tarmac. It was a quarter past three in the morning again and it was low-tide. The street was as long as ever and he slip-knotted along it, sticking to the gutters according to his way, in long strides. He NEVER TRIPPED because his feet were anchored in the drains. At a quarter past three on a similar night HE TRIPPED and fell towards the single door which was not bolted against him. As he flinched towards this SUCKING DOOR, this PIN-HOLE DOOR, he loosened his collar and sharpened his step on the CUT-GLASS, DOG-GREASE pavement - and gained for his troubles a looming MOON-SPLATTERED wall of scaffolding.
Through a chipped-off arch he scoffed his way in.
There were no witnesses AND STILL THEY JEERED. They tickled one another whilst gumming tea, groomed one another and rocked and spied through bullet-proof curtains out of fear-tinted rooms. Slipping deeper within, looking back, he saw those windows SHUTTING. He saw the smears on the windows RUNNING; and smelled jealously, now, the tea-soaked bodies squatting within. He saw, and then smelled, the sweetish underside of the city and, flattened by that, saw the other end of his life reflected IN those windows. He saw scenes from his short short childhood depicted in the stained glass, now missing FROM those windows; then spotted his old shadow, hankering to catch up.
He crossed the same street again whilst crossing himself whilst dodging a Molotov cocktail. Ducking beneath the scaffold again, he shoved himself in through that SUCKING, ACHING, SUCKING door...
A single woman who wore too many clothes ignored him and ate old fruit and a liver. The wallpaper hurriedly gathered around; and soon a child would shout. He ordered some Goo and waited. At intervals, he jerked himself ready with barrels of daunting black liquid and a chat with a roaming drunkard. Dripping rain-sweat onto the beer-mat, he diced himself prepared. At last the BLUE MEAT arrived, sooner than expected, and the very wonder of it stunned him as it always did.
A shallow-deep man entered with a chest-full of roses and a lung-full of thorns. Two shoulders were bared, and then taken away. Teeth were bared and the waitress laughed. Her petticoats were bared to the ankles, then shackled together with a chain that crept and crawled across the sticky, sticky floor. It ran away, then, mocking, through a bullet hole in the arch-shaped door. As the metal ran, it CLEAVED and BARKED, WEAVED and SPARKED: till a gin-swilling infant cried,
THAT'S MY CHAIN! HEY! THAT'S MY CHAIN! GIMME MY CHAIN!
On a later night, he pulled himself along with his finger-tips in the kerb and crammed his well-dressed torso into a pregnant, arrogant doorway.
On another similar night, he bribed his way passed a rowdy gang of ambitions on a lead, into an after-orgy party. He arrived early, so did not recognise the music, nor the wanker in the cake. Niether did a child scream; but the guests were casually armed, inside a vaguely familiar déjà-vous. Gracefully hateful or clumsily kind, they alternately gagged and shook hands. Artful and willing, he flattered them all; before hacking up his anorak. A hat-check girl was sluttish and widened her stare, before splitting. All the new visitors spoke in a voice. When a child awoke backstage at last, IT WOULD NOT SETTLE. Its mother, one of the new hat-check girls, abandoned it all to start a career - she would knit for the cabinet, though nobody guessed at the time.
Most often, the cook fainted, and the coffee came hard. The milk decayed; then the Ludo-board abandoned, too. The bar drowned, like every night, and the humour scraped down the length of it.
For the moment, and for many moments after,
FOR THE LAST TIME AND FOR THE THIRST
FOR THE WRECKED TIME, FOR THE CURSE
FOR THE STRETCHED TIME...
FOR THE STRETCHED TIME...
He mumbled a prayer to his devils whilst wandering the room at high speed. After hitting upon nothing much more, his spine bent and dragged him to a crouch. His mind seethed and yawned, seethed and yawned. Holding back a bucket of sleep, he plummeted again through the outward-throbbing, inward-throbbing door.
Outside again, the midnight was dark and late. In fitting silence the rain spilled and sped, the anorak lost, left in that place; or worse. He lay on a step too ill to wait for transport. Soon it would be a quarter past three. A bus did not come, and nothing more came, but he was hardly surprised. Eventually, his saviour, a female one in tar-brushed mascara, stood him up at the last minute, and he was even less surprised.
The Big Sky raced. The clocks shut down. Neon buildings across the way turned inside-out, and back there the roses man and the waitress, and the other boys, too, wiped away the tables, packed away the props.
STILL HERE? a neighbour remarked.
Studying the pee-stained lino beneath his pee-stained feet, he hauled out his sack. From it, he offered to the remaining company, the largest - THE VERY LARGEST - of his precious, precious stones.
THEY ARE A LITTLE SODDEN BUT TAKE THEM, PLEASE!
FOR WHO'S SAKE? (they spoke)
FOR YOUR SAKES!
WE DON'T WANT THEM! (they added)
FOR MY SAKE THEN, TAKE THEM! TAKE THEM!
They were all he could bear to offer; but they would have none of it. The music then changed. The management changed. The insects arrived and rolled down the shutters. The upholstery peeled while the furnishings rusted and shrank. The elastic rotted, and the rats left home.
GOOD NIGHT!
GOOD NIGHT!
GOOD NIGHT!
Alone at last, he headed for a new spot. A dazzling one at that. There yet again, he was held up in welcome, succumbing to SENTIMENTAL GRIMACES and LICKS. Yet all the while, in the rear of his brains, a shallow-deep man used his voice, to rip away the clothing, tear away the lace:
I SHALL BE YOURS WHEN YOU ARE MINE! YOU SHALL BE MINE WHEN I AM YOURS!
OPEN HIM UP OR PUT HIM OUT!
The barmaid's shoulder, cleaned up now and half naked, appeared to give way in his hand. A witness tittered. The beer-mat stank, and they all consulted the menu. They all consulted, as if in a scrum, the fly-trodden gossiping menu.
Excuses deserted, towards the end, and the alibi fled.
And then, the confession was spotted, limp and rigid and swinging from the ceiling.
WHAT DOES IT SAY?
WHAT DOES WHAT SAY?
THE CONFESSION THAT HANGS LIMP AND GRINS FROM THE CEILING?
OH, THAT. IT DOESN'T SAY MUCH.
BUT WHAT DOES IT CONFESS?
NOT MUCH.
BUT ITS A ******* CONFESSION!
Yes, its a confession. But you can't have it both ways. It either hangs or it swings.
Stretching out his leering glass, the barmaid filled it, again, to his lip.
Reflecting still as the sun sank up, he prostrated a tad, and swallowed hot coffee beans raw. This final cocktail he drank the wrong way, but felt fresh of a sudden, as the morning weather. The relief, in unison with a jarring chord from the back door-hinge, pulled itself across him. The insects pulled themselves across the dying hot-plate, and the waitress pulled herself another drudge of whiskey: the first of the day. Tomorrow, she will strain it a bit, dust it off, and pour it at her visitor over the counter. He, the stranger, will order more Drool, drain it off, and piss it away. He'll prop up some jokes and dance, too. He'll gather his feet and cringe, again; for these chances he takes are all lost in the litter of morning.
The confession.
Brave words.
Burned in the sunlight and lost beneath bitter-cool morning.
BEST SCENARIO:
SOBERING PROPHECIES ARE NOT LIGHTLY CRUSHED UNDER THE SLAMMING RUBBER OF RUSH HOUR-TIRES. OH NO THEY ARE NOT. THEY ARE PUSHED PUSHED PUSHED, NEATLY, INTO THE FURTIVE SOIL OF THE HAPPILY SLUMBERING LATE-FOR-WORK BRAIN.
WORST SCENARIO:
ON RETURNING TO YOUR HOVEL YOU WILL BE BED-BOILED AND WHIMPER AS YOU BREAK BENEATH THE SKIPPING FEET OF BORROWED, SCENTED DOLLS. THEY WILL BEAR DOWN UPON YOUR TEMPLE, LOUD AND NAKED. THEY WILL OFFER YOU THAT PERFUMED SHROUD, AND YOU SHALL DOUBTLESS TAKE IT.
THEY'LL TWIST THEIR HEADS OFF, THEN; AND THEY'LL TWIST YOUR HEAD...
THE END
PHOTO BY NORBERT WINKELMANN
