delirifacient (16 page)

From the lost shtreimel the smaller boy pulled out a rustily grinning machete that was longer than his arm and twice as wide. But as always in implausible cinematic combat, it is somehow inevitably the fighter facing the superior weapon that inexplicably profits from it by immediately gaining the upper hand as soon as said superior weapon is brought into play against him; this savage brawl was no different and, after a sequence of ferocious gashes and knees to the crotch that left the bearded boy nigh beardless and the smaller boy nigh shorter by an head or two, the fierce warriors locked arm and blade one last time and the quicker of the two was the larger boy and the larger boy lost his perfectly new izmel to the silenced depths of the smaller boy’s throat. The smaller boy dropped his machete – it did not fail to emanate a deeply satisfying clang as it scratched the sidewalk – and fell flat on his back. The playful streamlets of blood singing mute songs from the silence of his throat disposed themselves organically, like the darkest skeletal lines of a perfectly dried autumn leaf, desiccated beyond color, nature, fiction. The smaller boy told the larger boy in victory that he, the smaller boy, was committing menticide, and all that had transpired had transpired following closely and faithfully the course and lifeline of his own will. The larger boy pillowed the dying smaller boy’s head using the serious book, but the smaller boy spat it out, for he would have none of it when it truly mattered. Hearing this, the larger boy was enraged, and so he picked up from the dirty street the two metres of black beard the smaller boy had severed off him during their earlier fracas, and he tied the black beard thrice around the dying smaller boy’s mouth so he would stop saying things the larger boy could not understand. He then attempted to offer penance and relight the fire of the altar to which he had so fervently and ably sacrificed mere minutes earlier, but the flame was playful and would not come back regardless of the skill vested in the larger boy’s seductions. To this the larger boy had nothing to say, so he became mute also. Thus did he think on his fight with the smaller, hatless boy, and he screamed that he felt guilty over surviving; who was the serious book to arm him and steel him and whisper him and ensure he survived, he demanded to know in his childish tongue.

And the brownback drew no pleasure listening inner debates neither wise nor witty, for another man’s casuistry or heuristic was a drunken torch in the wooden barn of their conversational twinning, even and especially should said man be a young boy unable to sin, and this was given down unto them by the law. And he silverwalked in the moonlight instants long and wistful, all so the screaming kid would shut the fuck up, or at least stop shouting and start sobbing, since sobbing is quieter than shouting.

upon reflecting further it has been decided both boys should be six. six years old the two of them, producing a total of 12 years and change. and one of them will stay six for a long long time

And browncoat sleepran inside the morning and he stopped by an house with an open window where he heard a man tell a woman that she smelled like cock and morning breath after she had bestowed upon him an half-heartedhalf-forced morning blowjob. And he sleepran past morning people with faces like photocopies, thin and washèd-washable. The people moved in one way and the people moved in the other way, one direction and the other direction, and tall people in a short building were doing push-ups 99 98 97 96 94 93 92 91, and so it went, and short people were drinking tall cups of coffee and paper, and the paper broke from the coffee and floated in the coffee and in the paper, and all of it all of this did not, most definitely did not, lead to something old something fierce.

And browncoat climbed into a cab and snuggled and told the cabbie to drive to anywherever and the cabbie listened and drove and then the cabbie dropkicked brownback off in front of the city courthouse. And many people were walking up the courthouse steps all courthouses must have steps and lots of them and a nice view off their courthouse steps so people can go on saying courthouse steps and go on thinking about courthouse steps and the view and what a lovely imageëxpression courthouse steps makes. And the browncoat did not forget the view.

And all the people walking up the steps carried gavels and there was not a rotting soul to be seen among them without a gavel, confidently handled in their left or sometimes their right arms. And the begavelled people stopped occasionally and pounded on the steps using their gavels and sometimes crashed their gavels atop each other’s heads and some thought this was funny and some thought it, musical and lyrical and there, were great orchestras of a great and many gavels and people blew into the,ir gavels and fiddled their gavels and plucked at, their gavels; and the noise of the courthouse steps thought the brownback something old and something fierce. And brownback simply thought (:) something old something fierce.

And the browncoat and other people knew no night but their mournings were for their sleep and of their dreaming.

And of course the browncoat knew it would be anticlimactic for him not to walk into the courthouse of punishment at this point and the idea smiled him but he forgot to backsmile so he walked into the courthouse.

And of course something was going on in the main courtroom. A scene was being rolled out like a red carpet the cleaner sent back uncleaned because it was too large and too cheap and unwieldy. Although it was early mourning, the jury of twelve had already clicked on a verdict. It may even have been the same verdict but no one knows, not really, and that is for history to judge anyway. For the jury of twelve liked the verdict. Also they liked the concept of verdict. And jury and defendant and public, they all rose when someone said all should rise but without the should since it didn’t seem that optional. And the Greek chorus addressed the defendant directly but left him curiously nameless, maybe it had forgotten or the defendant had forgotten his name or perhaps not, and it enumerated the many charges the defendant had faced down valiantly and eloquently over the few insignificant preceding seconds when the browncoat and his parasites hadn’t been there in the courtroom, and all were solemn. And the Greek chorus asked the jury whether they had boarded a verdict, and the twelve people in the jury of twelve were naturally very well-behaved and completely silent, their silence was very disciplined and the jury said nothing for over ten minutes. So the defendant, who was already up and bored of it, adopted a pompous stance and stood higher and declared that the defendant finds the jury guilty as charged on all counts. And everyone exchanged alarmed looks, but no one was genuinely surprised since everyone verily had agreed this was what this trial had been racing calamitously towards since the very beginning. And the defendant sat down and he was wearing an unsurprising orange jumper and he rose again and manœuvred his shackled hands into the inner pocket on the left side of his orange jumper with great difficulty, produced a smallish handgun and shot each of the twelve assholes in the head twelve times. Eleven freeform and a single proverichniy between the globes. People in the stands seemed uncomfortable and some decried the lack of separation of the judiciary and the executionary branches, but they did so in hushed banter and in a manner that made it clear they didn’t think they knew better, it was just a friendly outraged suggestion ‘twasall. Before people could exhaust their bored conversations and disperse, the orange jumper identified the person with the largest gavel in the courtroom, commandeered said precious gavel and giddyup rode out of the courthouse, leaving of course an heady trail of fetters and falsetto.

And there he, brownback, was, the paced cutter. Although he had never cut anyone in his life. Life all fancy and proper popper pauper sorry properly capitalized made him chuckle but he thought it inappropriate although it wasn’t and so he didn’t laugh.

and the old man (had) said

‘you are hereby found guilty of being a cliché’

Bam ba-bam ba-bam bang bang bang. Bang. Ultraviolence up in there. And so they killt they and took all they shit. They just killed they and took they shit and walked off and aint no they done a goddam thing. No nunnah they.

And they didn’t do nuthin cos they knew they only had beef with the rest of they and all they downtown was safe, so they let they play and act they issues out among theyselves as long as they kept that shit to theyselves in they own fuckin backyard.

Population cunt-roll, motherfuckers, self-amministirred and voluntry, population of undesirables.

And they left the crazy they behind by speeding up they walk. They was walking down the street at night, as usual, as was they custom, and they was carrying out they usual observational futilities, thinking they self away in they nothing thoughts. And then they stepped fullweight into a clump of shit that almost had they performing a 360

degree spin in shit, like a fan hitting the shit and losing it, but they found stepping in a clump of shit in they best shoes a funny occurrence so they started laughing and laughing without even thinking they should have stepped out of the clump of shit unless they wanted to claim that land in they name, claim that shit in the name of they. So there they was, all upright and afoot in the clump of shit, could really say it was they clump of shit now for all they marking they territory, laughing away like a motherfucker.

And then a nasty wind blew out, and the wind blew the clump of shit and they smell into they nose, and as obtrusively amusing as standing fullweight in a clump of shit was, the wind took they illusions away. So they immediately stepped out of the shit and wiped they olden shoes against the sidewalk. After adorning the sidewalk with several unintelligible symbols carved out in shit that later generations may or may not found a new hermeneutic on, they walked on and thought they had done all they could to prepare theyselves to be found by or go up against things that go bumpbump in the night. So to this purpose they walked into a great hall of merriment famous for drowning many a putsch in disassembled motricity, a crispate monument to the quintessential finding that the strongest baddest Russianmost limb coördination was soluble, upon insistence, in even the cheapest of Petrograd ales.

And they chose they tavern and the tavern was open and they were tossing drinks in the air and the most vertical of they would jump up and flop they tails and catch the drinks between they teeth and land safely without spilling any or too much of they drink, for they now could refer to it legitimately as they drink, having worked for it, having earned they drink, having extracted it from irrefutable doom by catching it in midair. And they bumped against they and they wouldn’t apologise and they shoved they back and they made they spill they drink and they drink was sacred to any and all they so they put they drink down and feign calm before welding they fists onto they jaws and they knew better because they fist to they jaw ensured an almost equal distribution of both pain and permanent damage to they selves and they other they. And they would come bursting through the they and asking what the fuck was they doing and why was they writhing on the floor, massaging they jaw and losing track of they feet, and they told they to stay the fuck away, this not being none of they fucking business, and they knew this was the signal to pop they cork and let they loose and they whistled they asses off when they would see in the morning what they’d done to they who got in they face. But that was for the mourning, now they was herding towards the back because they couldn’t hear they very well near the bar, and the back tables had been arranged circularly to create a well-lit single level coliseum and in the arena they was ceaselessly pummelling they for they bland aping of Western fads and for they bringing and working Western thought in places in beautiful places irreconcilable with they mongrel continental essence. And they wouldn’t take they shit lying down, and they lamented they cuntry’s occlusion and narrow-mindedness and incapability of seeing they glorious future clearly, for they cherished and worshipped and burned candles to they own blinders, and to they small gods in they own blinders, and they was particularly proud of they well conjured image. But the blow to they argument was superficial, but before issuing they counter they was blindsided by they vicious attack, and they refused to accept any of they pre-masticated wisdoms and they world had to burn and from they ashes an order of purity and intellect and beauty, and they was off they rocker and they knew it, and all they knew it. And not even they subsection would support they drunken walk to utopia, and they promptly told they so, because, as opposed to they, who was cowardly, they theyself refused to assign a finality to they thirst for destruction, for only they destruction was pure and beautiful to they, and they would not soil it with they pretentious and messianic notion of they salvation and reward in the aftermath of they eruption. And naturally they was having none of it, they enlightenment extended no further than the beam of they flashlight or they own burning hairpiece as far as they was concerned, what they ignored and neglected to they extreme loss in cogency was they unshakeable, holy bond to they fatherland and miraculous survival of they purity they entailed, ‘twasn’t they rationality or they fashionability that would propel they Russia into they vision of they Russia, and they Russians, but they good-natured simpleness, and no use for they slimy French word when they had they good old-fashioned Russian word, and they faith and they great Russian soul that defeated death, and their connection to they land which they called they duty. They was beautiful, they screamed, they papers would sell like they mother’s virginity in they next rust of morning, and they preened and bore closer to they and asked they politely to repeat and rephrase and simplify and digest what they’d said in one short phrase, they own short phrase of course but it wouldn’t hurt to implement some of they wordmagic in they service of they greater good no, and they needed more bang, and by they god they’d get it. And they bemoaned the confusion in they line of argument and disputation, no filling out they proper form with they foam and verve and rancid ad hominems, and how would they deliver they they proper concise and clear, that’s what they paid they they wages for wasn’t it, report, if all they did was yammer, and if they refused to submit to they own protocol, which they selves they ratified in one of they better days. And they sat near they friends and laughed in they French beards about they nerve and sad lack of they form and where they kept they manners was beyond they, and such a dreadful bore with they never a new thought or a novel interpretation for they, always they beautiful causes and they beautiful soul and they beautiful structure and they beautiful lines and they beautiful death and they beautiful boom, they was all hopeless was they not of course they was but they’d done it to they selves, all they, unfair was they, not at all, they but translated what they said and what they thought into a symbolics of cogency and imbued with they refinement for how else was they to stomach they incessant poison drivel; they was so good in losing translation that they almost succeeded in they making some final and sad sense. And they waved they gavel in they large arcs and spun they wigs in they large arcs and banged they gavel and lost they wig but they wouldn’t listen to they demands and an higher power was called for in they despair and they chaos, and they came in, majestic light, and the circular benches parted before they and they knocked they shiny stick against they floor three times and they took they sweet time but they was quiet well at least quieter than they best, and they called for order and they submission to they rôle and where was they dignity, but they strategy never worked in they times, times of they, and they invoked they favourite spirit of ’89, and they told they to shut the fuck up, and they was unseemly, and they was blind and foolish, and they was being most decidedly inæsthetic was they not, and the vengeance of they fatherland would be swift and clean like they prayers, and they saw there was no talking to they, not even using they shiny stick, and they left the well-lit circle, and they shouting would not abate, and they was all mesmerized by it, and they came back with a final offer for they reconciliation and submission by they to they, but it was even possible that they went unheard, physically unheard, since they clearly hadn’t the slightest intention of hearing they or listening to they or responding, responding to they was clearly a sorry waste of they time, what they right and proper had to do was shout louder at each other and impose order through the crystalline might of they argument, which once heard and rendered visible to they could not conceivably lapse to convince they and illuminate they as to they boundless idiocy and blindness and degree of brainwashed indoctrination. They stupid, they peasant, they lifeless ideology. And they shiny stick was growing frustrated, and they tossed they shiny stick at they head but predictably missed, and this didn’t even have the merit of attracting they attention, they just went on rattling, never noticed the shiny stick flying by they temple, must have thought such occurrences only natural during they speech, for they knew they ideas were new and powerful but fair and rational, and if only they would open they damn eyes and close they eyes to all they other scoundrels across the village road peddling false truths and paralytic ideologies. And when even they shiny stick went ignored they suffered they last eirenic barrier dispelled, so they simply left the well-lit circle for good.