Barracuda, Lemon, Whale - Paul R. Buckle

Part 2 – 15 Days of Whale

III

Whale wakes, dirty-minded, harried, the glue of yesterday still stuck to his bones, a dull ache through. Never sleep with a confused head, dreams dismember the sleeping corpse and drag it through the dust. He knows, he knows, but escape is too sweet the potion.

Pushes covers off and dangles legs over bed’s side, levers himself up and plods to washroom. Mirror Whale cringes away. More than a shave needed here, fella! Slaps face, moves jaw. Pull the life up into it will ya? Ah, nothin’ but sawdust down there in the gut, sawdust and sore limbs, and a belly full of stale bile. Get it over with, quick stretch and wash. Silver sliver of toothpaste enlivens rusted gob, sharp brush of razor awakens glommed skin. Now the bird of hopefulness starts to sing from its inner cage, discordantly yet, but through-the-window sun encourages its shy tune. Rub that lamp, oh, Whale, rub that lamp, the genie’ll escape yet!

Hygienics complete, Whale contemplates an anaerobic adventure with unused weights wrapped in dulled plastic, dust of neglect coated purchase, one of many. Sin not to use, worse to leave the plastic on. She said, ha! Well, the quick liquid of shame spills off soon enough as he turns to matters culinary, twist of appetite hones his palette. What was that he left in the fridge? A tidbit from supper? Something to warm….

Thirty seconds radiation blast from buzzing metal junk in the corner, sellotaped shut for fear of blast escaping, splattered insides like remnants of war crime, beans probably, they’re the first to explode, 30 seconds and a husky slab of pizza ready for slobbery lips. And for a mo’ the world forgiven.

IV

What’s happening now is a sloughing off, a slow sloughing off, a return to the self, the belly is growing as all else shrinks. We are to be consumed.

March on, doodle a way across the road, a figure to round on the other side, hey ho, Crackshank! Burbling beggar!

There he is, blot over my sun, veering my way now. Pity he didn’t stay in the blind spot, Murphy’s law, and the day just sinking in, becoming the fresh of blue sky I was, sucking up the bright air, sucked out now for sure. He’s bought something, a gizmo, clinging to it like a lover, sheen of the metallic matting his mug.

“How are you, Whale?”

Confident diffidence, a blunt spark.

How am I? How am I indeed. How should I know? I am how you find me, all else a stolen story, the tale of a thief.

“Grand, grand”.

Careful now, watch out for the cracks. It’s when the energy is high you’ll be brought down. Then the beast will bite.

Freeze him now for a moment, Crackshank, sorry stare, close set eyes, zoom in, blood vessels minutely pulsed; he wants, he wants, it’s written in the branches, pictograms for the possessed. Read him true, he wants a piece to fill him up, the gizmo won’t itself do. If I could stroll among the lines I’d figure it out, walk each one up and down, solve the mystery, wander all day the capillary threads, reshuffle them well, write a new tome and send him home.

But no time within time …Out and back into the world, leaving the eyes behind, plump face jiggles, his mouth moving, and from the black:

“Well, let me tell ya, Whale…”

And he takes the thing out of the bag and holds it up.

“What’s that?”

Can’t be helped. Down we go.

Down he goes, Whale there in cardboard hell.

Comfortable there, pull up a chair, sit by the fire, only not too close. Cardboard hell, a circle drawn in the sand, fingerless hand, the beatless beatenness of a shriveled heart, mechanical machinations of stopped clocks. Paint our cheeks and wind us up; wind us up and set us forth (you don’t know you’re lost ‘til you’ve arrived and the way back is paved with good intentions – that died).

V

Shadow over the girl, shadow of knowing so unsuited to the young. Worn awkwardly, can’t keep it tucked in, billows at their flailings; soon as they think they’ve got hold, slips away, and nothing left but myths and mouths. Myths and mouths, the mournful road, no yellow brick path to dance, just the heartless, brainless, coward to lead and no wizard in sight.

Piddle of light through the glass brightens one side of her face, one eye aglint, strain of smile, face framed under elven cut; emerged unexpectedly from the wood of a dull day, movement of mood. Moods, moods everywhere, from cosy fires to roasts, you rarely know until it’s too late…Or is that a lie to warm the fearful?

Ala, ala, it’s the mother, oh the mother, gorgon and hen!

The mother, gorgon and hen, a discordant tune, rattles in Whale’s head, rattles him along the bumpy path, over black roads, through narrow lanes, dead day and how to revive it? He listens but the cymbals have crashed, vibration lost, words amok, the neurons lazily inert, revenge of the medulla; medusa, medulla, maybe something in that, ol’ frog! Hop on home, bury your head, let the pattern bounce its way back, not the freshest of wind will revive you, mellow dusk lost on you, the softened brick, the heavy air, hint of a rising moon between the roofs, picture book fantasy unanimated, hop on home frog, unkissed, unforgiven.

VI

Yes, she had talked of mother, half smile of hatred half hidden, uneasy tick of eyes, jerk of neck. Who will talk of mother? Who will spear the dragon, surely not the spawn? But wait, reverse, mother came not first, hors d’oeuvres before—self-flagellation to the core, thin veneer of vanity, candied coat a-rot. Only then the main course to scream, lid lift and heady stare, served up on silver, nag, jailer, dragon, queen, snarls of fire at frightened maid. What of this sword of mine? Plant it gently in her spine he might’ve led, until the flames abate and but lonely puffs of sorry smoke form her wasted breath. Then close come, closer still, and as she falls cradle kiss that wicked mouth, forgive her all and all forgiven! Would it were that simple for a child! Problem fiery, solution mild! Not quite, not quite, instead he counselled armour and lightness near her lair until escape velocity be there. And then alight, alight, and off through the welcoming air!

Daydream into the thought, the meeting returns, at court and the girl his judge, all an Alice in Wonderland feel, cards guarding doors, her stern stare, the mother nowhere to be seen. He’s on trial, manacled up, bevy of journalists at the rear, pop eyed and rabid (who let them in???) counsels black robed. Waiting for whom? Him to speak it seems. Air is tense, pressure upon, Whale coughs and tries “Your Honour…”

VII

The coal of the cold air settles in the bones of the mist-blackened streets and the mill of crowd slows to their beat; as if everyone has the same secret, the unknown known that directs their steps, thok, thok, and somewhere a car honks, someone calls a name, everything speaks the same tone.

Whale watches the cloak of night descend over the park, pin-pricked night, inviting gloom—nothing worse than a half-hearted dusk, hardly a ray to drown and the sting of pollutants still on his tongue, poisoned cup of day, happy for it to swill away.

And take this heaviness of head with you, sighs he, into the smoke of his breath; in, out, smoke and dirt, too much becomes you—go on, go on, but it’s less of a weary plod than a determined one, no-one more determined than a pretender to the throne.

Black trees of new night, puddles of light on the path, nature deepened by the dark, a guard in a bright cage, neon joggers counting their steps, and further in the bench near the water, quiet cave. Shadows dapple over the lake’s skin, birds, night cruisers, lurk near the banks, playboats snore and creak; this pool of somnolence in the city’s spread, the place to float a busy mind, float out the buzzings of the day.

And yet the bones gone bad are wont to stink, fossil mistakes seek only the bed; a fight even in the cool quiet to make the surface and breathe in their weight. But Whale waits it out, the night on his side if he can see it through, shadowed swan his guide, sweep of rising moon his muse, every movement a glitter to set the dulled embers aglow, the coal of the cold air awakening a-slow.

VIII

Carbonised air. How many pencils have we inhaled today? Three, sir, and the sharp buggers are writing a book called ‘cancer’ on my lungs. Yes, they’ll write me to death and then on my gravestone say:

“Here lies Whale who should have moved to the countryside”.

The dust rising from his lungs to his head, the pain will start soon, the vessels sticky with muck, traffic won’t let the oxygen through.

Oh, lift the lid on my sins, get the scalpel out, slide the blade across the vesicles, free the writhing worms before the skin tightens and the nerves begin to scream!

Too late of course, the process begun, the first domino fallen and no way to stop the tip-tap demise.

The bikes whizz by, no one sees until the collision and even then… A rider flattens his toe and looks away, just another bump in the road, rides on. This damned place, full of quiet fiends, low octane hate always on the burn, a passing of the pain from one to one. Where is the kindness of strangers? All he sees is red in the eyes. But then, the sickness has begun and all is smeared with the dull; slow throbbings lead the orchestra to minor chords and the world waltzes carelessly, malignant indolence drives all on.

Here we are in the centre, the glass elevator spinning, it doesn’t matter how high you go, there is no up or down, step in, step on…

IX

Unwind, disentangle, unwind, disentangle, repeat.

Opposite me in the KFC… and in the air the noise of some young thing growing staler with each wailing; opposite me in the KFC… in the clean hard light, upbeat frames on the wall, anything-to-enliven instantly-forgettable scenes of not here; opposite me everything repeated in the night windows, wall windows, there-you-are reflections, eat up and move on incantations. Opposite me sits René, soft brown eyes in worn satchel face, electrified white hair round careless smile, all melodic voice and wavy hands.

Damn that hobgoblin, draws me in, pop-eyed ol’ weasel in a leather skin; what’s in the folds but the urge to win? Trample all foes then wallow in the muck, puppy-eyed assassin that never grew up.

But.

Whale listens with serious face, bored play of the ever-actor growingly aware of an inner retch; puts it down to the music – radio diva poisoning the broth, french fries refuse the march, chicken bits begging reprieve, gustatory traitors flying her flag. Or not. Something about Rene does chew him up.

And not just the usual fluff

“That’s beat not rhythm, but nevermind [contemptuous flick of hair] you’re on my territory here, and Ionescou [yoo-enesco] was indeed a genius, wrote a satire of Macbeth in which I once played…”

“What part?”

“No matter, we were talking about the avant garde, no? I was there, that was art, that was…”

“The beginnings of postmodernism..”

“Pah, not that, post-modernism [flurry of mocking hands], listen, you can take your postmodernism and…[almost spits] We didn’t care about any of that, yes, yoo-enescou and many more – have you heard of the Italian playwright… (stops himself with a laugh) of course you haven’t, Pirandello [rolls the r delightedly]… “

But there is a little more fat on his bones tonight, a little more spice to the dishings up.

“Those Italians, great whores, not like these dry Chinese half-asleep at the wheel… “

He stops and peeps, testing my stare. (No, I don’t approve but by then I’m hardly there).

“Well, haven’t you tried?”

“Not my thing.”

“Of course, of course [bored look]; well, take it from me, you can judge a nation’s dramatic worth by the enthusiasm of their whores, and on that score China deserves its absence of serious mention in any conversation on the dramatic arts [swallows a nugget satisfiedly]”.

My move?

But there’s nothing left but disappointed stewings in a flaccid gut. Zoom out, zoom out, two tiny figures in a chicken hut.

X

The interfractal dimensions of today’s broken crockery, rearranging of plates on an empty table for a meal where no-one shows up. The slide into dementia? Time will come when we play the mad hatter to an invisible Alice. Apart from all that no harm at all in eating alone.

Thought of Henry comes to Whale. Former friends now (formed of what, truffle and blancmange?) Awkward maneuvers, Henry, toddler man. Friends for a while then withdrew. Nothing spoken. Nothing new.

But accidental inevitables and they met. Oh, Henry, such sogginess to the beats, the verbal missteps. Not even amusing sweats, mole-like eyes, tried to work out what sops to chuck between false smiles. Nothing to savor, no sweet revenge of the spurned. Is this what institutions do? Piss on our fires to where we’re afraid to burn? Henry choked on his last wisps of smoke. Left, mumbling something about work.

Back to rearranging the crockery, the slide into dementia begins. Eat alone. Play the mad hatter. Steer clear of old friends.

XI

Bouncing heap of spastic junk, pea-brained maniac behind wheel, accelerates towards crosswalk, so much for innocent asylum, so much for friendly green man.

Spastic junk driver, road pancake culinaire fast approaches, sputtering lump of malicious metal misses by inches as Whale’s maneuverings miraculously maintain bodily integrity.

Well, the way Whale imagines it—embellished, amusing. Amusement was the thing. Ration out the dopamine to the hungry gob of self. A game of catch up with the ol’ sponge upstairs. Is that it then m’sod? Chemical ping pong just to keep the ball on the table, what? That what all the fuss is about?

Maybe, though the more it seems the less it seems to be; only when the seeming almost stops, the futility seems clear, and there’s no point buying that. Might as well rent your space in the turf as wear that fuxedo. Even if it is in the air, and in every clapped out corpuscle that fails to brighten the grey mugs of spastic junk drivers on the morning street. Bouncing heaps, bouncing heaps.

XII

Growing ardour of dream life, positive premonition, sign of the slow awakening. Pull on the thread, pull until it becomes a rope and we are hoisted out of jail. The slippage of the asylum, reverse mirrors, the precious seems an afterthought. The dull, universal.

Give Johnny his axe. He’s lost without it. All play and no work have made him a dull boy. The nightmare is not to dream at all, the dream effaced, replaced.

A soft insanity bubbling up, toiling cauldron calls for witches.

Whale counts the ways, mentally rearranging wires, his gut miswired. Wire it up yourself, or someone else will do it for you, and you will forget, for-get, for…

Whale counts the ways, his wires entangled, the energy that makes him him misguided. Cui Bono?

Whale counts the ways. Something is wrong. Something. Is wrong.

Here in the belly, a cave, blackness, the return, the beginning, the end, the beginning.

But no time for that, at 7am, opaque dawn, unfriendly mists blown in from the factories whirring into black life: love the smell of nano particles in the morning. Grab me a helicopter to fly above. Laugh at the ants tunneling below, into the city and out. Joke’s on me. I’m next. This cocoon is temporary, the vividness perplexed.

At 7.37am, Whale leaves point A headed due west in the direction of point B. At 8.13am, Whale arrives at point B.

XIII

Morning of classroom drear, no spark of animation aflit the facial canvas afore, banner of expression blank. Spark not just missing, flint stolen and flung out window. Oh, for the wings to fly after! To take the hatchlings with. To swoop and glide over the dead buildings in search of a flame. Awake, awake, oh dulled ones, there is so much more to see, so much more to be!

Never let regret take you, never let that nibbling rat in. Never but determination, even if it be determination away! The rat will bite your chords and leave you voiceless, tracing your own trail, a dummy going nowhere.

The girl bursts into tears at his questioning and it moves him not. A pool of a person, into her he has thrown a rock, and can only watch as the ripples permeate. An odd detachment. Almost satisfaction that something happened. Movement at last! The stagnant pond of the room become a place of drama, of emotion! And so a mirror is held up to his own displacement, from guardian to sordid voyeur. Oh, put anyone here but him! A player in a play with the worst script e’er written, a repetitive litany of irrelevance bordering on the insane broken only by a crying girl he can but stare at as life begins to creep slowly through the room.

Send me your reward, oh savior, coins with which to buy the salve for the wounds you opened, the shovel with which to dig my own grave, the right to believe in you rather than myself—carve it across my chest “I belong to thee!”

XIV

Creep in the door to be horribly despised? A fly buzzing in ears? Not better to be on the other side?

Whale struggles to move the cogs, congealed gears cracked and worn, click into whirring life. Oh, miracle when the words flow and he is writ across the page. Nowhere else is he present, the gift to see himself there. What is it in him that so often spurns it then? Meal offered and returned. Failure of memory? Festering lack of faith?

The gut vacated, a numb and empty place to be. We didn’t roll in the flowers enough, we forgot to choose. What will wake us up? How to let the lightning in?

Not by sitting here for sure. Damn succubus with his shares and his apps and all that crap. Five minutes would have done. The will to run, to flee, its own form of bravery. The fear is stinking the place out, all of us the black hole circling about.

Awakening to the limits of sense. Senses that don’t want to be sensed. What of fish who won’t be dredged up? The most exotic, the most dangerous? Oh, to glow terrifyingly with monstrous mouth and massive eyes. To creep in the door and be horribly despised.

XV

The creaking horror of collapse, the machinery run its course, we lay it down, entrails bust, the wires run out, no way to stir it back to life.

Whale sinks through vents, flows through sewers, puffs from chimneys, spreads over buildings and falls for the last time with the acid rain.

And the stones sing : “Here lies Whale. He should have moved to the country.”

The stones sing, the songs stung but reprieve perhaps the swing is swung, jump on jump on and aback, glittering fool it never ends, the body gathers, the voice distends, swelling bloat float and upon legs upended now restanded throw the dirt from the hurt busy brain buzzes but, and a noise slowly rising from the gut…

Whale burps noisily along, patter of footsteps and the stink of his brain, unhappy alliance…