#█☓ ( ᴴᵉ'ˢ ᵐʸ ᵇᵉˢᵗ ᵈᵉᵗᵉᶜᵗᶦᵛᵉ⋅ ᴴᵉ'ˢ ᵃ ᵐᵉˢˢ⋅ ) verse02.

[irritablefacade]

THE COFFEE’S TERRIBLE,  SCRAPES AGAINST HIS TONGUE and burns his palette;  some vender stuck out here in the unabated sun,  as miserable as Brian feels and hot,  too hot.  The sky is barren and blue;   there’s not a cloud to mar it as far as the eye can see.  The shoreline ruins the quiet;  ocean beating on rocks;  somewhere on a crag a sea-bird squawks as it devours the weakest of its young.  He wrinkles his nose,  furrows a bruised brow beneath which a headache skewers him;  the coffee really is dirt.  Doesn’t stop him drinking it.

The sun is unforgiving,  swathes her shoulders in enough sweeping gold to burn her,  though thus far she’s not scalded.  She’s never in much;  against his beaten leather jackets and faded checkered layers Jane is practically bare to blinding haze.  She’s a step ahead,  a half-step,  and he watches that waif-like form sway and cavort as a shadow on the sand they border.  Behind shaded lenses,  Brian squints the last fractals of a hangover from ‘neath his eyelids.

‘  They’re just penguins,  y’know?  Waddlin’ and stinking of fish,  shit like that.  ’

They’ve parked the yellow merc as an ugly,  unnatural smudge up on the ridge,  walked their way down to avoid traffic,  to avoid people.  Boulders Beach is a sandy cove,  stretches out along the eastern side of the Cape Penninsula:  great sea-views,  an occasional glimpse at a shark in the water if you’re lucky  ------  but it’s the penguins,  little black,  ploppy dots on the beach that pull people in.  In the summer months it’s a’burst with tourists;  children in hats and sunscreen with parents nudging exasperated at a stroller.  He used to bring David here,  with his chubby fingers clutched about an ice cream Brian could actually,  almost afford at the time.  Now the prodigal son only grabs at money and weed and insults.  Brian decides they’ll go to a bar after this,  cleanse his insides.

‘  They’ll bite off your fingers the closer y’get.  ’

↛    @dokkstjarna ┇  there’s no sc i just enjoy harassing you. ┇  fingerguns

[irritablefacade]

things like that didn’t happen these parts when i was young. people said “ma'am” and “sir.”

(  ︻デ═一   )  —   @chaordiic  ▸   meme tag.

          ‘  I HOPE YOU’RE JOKING.  ’      THERE’S NO INFLECTION to Brian Epkeen’s tone,  though those sea-green eyes hold blatant exasperation and judgement.  The prick’s at least thirty - old enough to know if he was even ever from around these parts.  Brian knew,  and he was hidden far away behind a constantly buzzing electric fence,  playing with his father’s race horses and climbing trees to see the water over the ten foot wall.  Not even Brian could claim ignorance of atrocities infecting the country like a wound oozing depravity.  But he upturns his lips,  and almost shrugs and he drags the back of his hand under his nose.  It comes back red,  he doesn’t care.

          The sun winks off the gutter overhead.  It’s humid.  Dark sludge is making its slow descent down the pastel painted wall as Brian tosses the mottled green leaves he’s just bought in the breast pocket of his jacket.  He always smells faintly of dagga,  it tends to stick.  The skinny guy in his green vest too big has scurried off between two tin-roofed huts without so much as a word.  Emerges between his fingers,  a cigarette.  He pincers it between his teeth and lights a flame.  

           His nose twitches on the exhale as he jests,        ‘  ‘Here’s your dagga,  sir,  don’t get too fucking high and pass out on the freeway,  ma’am.’  You’re right,  actually.  Think I kind of like it.  Makes it sound more like a business deal.  ’

[irritablefacade]

“You don’t know me, remember?”

(  ︻デ═一   )  —   @disalvos​   ▸   meme tag.

          THE PRICK FALLS TO THE GROUND LIKE A SACK OF BRICKS,  A GIFT FROM BRIAN’S BERETTA 92 SAT snug and bloody in his eye socket. Epkeen kicks at his shin;  the white the size of a bear doesn’t move;  behind him there’s the comforting sound of chaos slowly dying out.  He’s left three in his wake,  one still groans and prays to his god as he bleeds out.  His face,  painted in tell-tale crimson,  cants as he regards her with a careless facade,      ‘  Yeah,  yeah,  haven’t got a clue.  ’      The bear’s blood runs in slow rivulets,  stains the toe of Brian’s boot.  He doesn’t look to move,      ‘  Reckon your gig’s up though,  stranger.  ’

[irritablefacade]

❝ I’ve seen honest faces before. They’re usually attached to liars. ❞

(  ︻デ═一   )  —   @dokkstjarna​   ▸   meme tag.

HE LAUGHS OVER A CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE LACED WITH WHISKEY.  Brian Epkeen’s draped himself over one side of the table,  his feet are up on the orange plastic chair and crossed at the ankles,  they lazily swipe from left to right with the beat of some rickety tune playing over the speakers;  the live bands don’t come until later.  Saints Burger Joint looks out onto the ocean,  on a clear day you can see Robben Island with ease;  sometimes the sharks pass by like black shadows under the surface of the water.  The sun beats at their table as he shoves the chocolate cookie garnishing his drink into his mouth with one bite.

‘  You fucking pessimist…  ’      The muffled jest comes with free crumbs on his lower lip.  Brian licks it clean,  rolls his head back to bask like a stray dog in the sunlight,      ‘  I mean,  you’re right.  All faces are.  But my point stands,  y’know?  ’      

He drags his shoes from the chair,  it scrapes against the ground with a scream.  Brian folds his arms across the table,  leans forward like an eager pet looking for validation.  He grinds his teeth,  lifts his sunglasses and takes a little while to examine her face,      ‘  So,  me,  then.  Honest or dishonest face?  ’      She’s still pale in the sun’s glow,  it touches her skin but does not really linger.  Jane casts her own shadows across her cheeks;  he thinks she’s tired.  

He squints,  takes a long dose of his sugary poison,      ‘  Or just old?  ’

[irritablefacade]

@porticosdaughter​ liked.

THE SUN BLARES,  SCREAMS ALMOST AS LOUDLY AS Bobby Peru through the merc’s old speakers.  Brian Epkeen beats at the wheel a half-second behind,  rolls through the campus of Cape Town’s grand university and thinks he’d find more cheer in a graveyard.  Pinned above every door,  stuck on every badge,  the UCT’s slogan,  *spes bona,  seems a far away ideology.  He slows to allow two young girls across the road,  and both duck their heads into the tarmac and rush on by.

Three girls in three weeks,  it’s no wonder faces are sheepish and spirits are low.  In spite of what the  President will stand on his podium and gladly declare,  crime is rife and overtly emotional.  Congress is still rocked by the murder of a prominent nationalist’s wife not two month ago.  Brian had seen her;  and it was rage blunting her face,  rage having broken her skull,  not peace,  not acceptance.  Pure,  unadulterated rage.  This country is still healing;  at the moment it’s a wound oozing depravity.  And now,  three girls,  three weeks.  The young ones are particularly vulnerable on Saturday nights,  as this case has proven.  Yet,  it’ll all be swept under the rug if Kruge has his way;  the easier to move on.  Brian thinks moving on must be quite the luxury;  looking into the eyes of a young girl’s father and admitting to no leads as to her brutal death had rocked him rather.  He understands;  even the loss of a lowlife like David would ruin him.  He does not want another week,  another Sunday spent destroying a family’s life.

The music shuts off,  and the hot air inside of the Mercedes fleetingly welcomes the pitching timbre of birdsong.  A malachite sunbird lifts its head to warm its breast as the sun dips and dances off the dorms’ windows.  Brian squints.  It’s a still day,  the heat is like a blanket you can’t shrug off.  Hardly parked but with his car slung across two spaces,  he scoops up his takeaway coffee,  now more liquor than caffeine,  and takes the steps up two at a time.

The halls remind him of a hotel;  cream walls,  cream carpet.  Light and ostensibly luxurious or homely.  This is up-market compared to some;  no paint peeling at the corners,  a vending machine on each corridor,  and plush leather seats spattered about a large common room.  He thinks he knows where he’s going,  counts each door as he goes until he finds what he’s looking for.  His knuckles are bruised,  some skinned,  but he doesn’t flinch as he knocks.  Once,  twice,  and again.  His badge is in hand,  the sun sparks off it.  Lackadaisical,  he almost forgets his sunglasses,  is still peeling them off his face when the door swings open,  allows for him a slightly blundered greeting. 

‘  Detective Brian Epkeen,  ’      It’s a script,  from which sandpaper lips reel,      ‘  You’d be Ms. Porter,  am i right?  ’

[irritablefacade]

THE SUN BEATS UNRELENTING UPON SCATHED CHEEKS.  Brian’s hands are buried within his pockets,  hiding bruised knuckles dotted with nicks and pinpricks of blood.  He wrinkles his nose at the blonde fairy with her wide eyes and dainty features as she watches the sun torture the slated,  angled roof of the Cathedral across the road.  Saint George’s stands proudly behind the bustling traffic.  The oldest Cathedral in Southern Africa under the shade of Table Mountain,  boasting high arches and stained glass painting the pavement in reflection a twinkling red and green.  The people’s church,  renowned for it’s oppositional stance during Apartheid,  the days of burnings and brutality his father so relished,  welcomes all to this very day,  and yet she’s perched idle upon the curb.  Lithe and ghost-like in appearance,  the world moves past her as though she’s barely a fragment of imagination.

Brian doesn’t boast a high understanding of religion,  but exudes behind his brittle mask the same liberal beliefs having kept this church standing - aside from bricks and mortar,  there’s blood pooled at its steps,  though none of the inside of the threshold.  Funny.  There’s peace.  He admires it fleetingly,  scowls in uncertainty behind his sunglasses like a boyish trapper looking in at his first catch.  Beyond his boundaries,  and yet,

‘  Y’want to go in,  y’can.  ’      It’s not a question,  a statement spoken more to the yellow sac spider webbed at the corner wall of the cafe,  or the clouds’ reflection in his espresso,      ‘  Or,  y’can sit.  You’ll make people nervous,  hovering.  ’

↛   @roseared┇ plotting call. ┇ accepting.

[irritablefacade]

“Just friends?”

LEGS TOO LONG,  SKIRTS TOO SHORT,  he knows them all - and they all know him.  Brian scuffs his knuckles nigh-bloody against the wall as the pair of them dodge past a small herd of cronies probably on their way to score in some back-alley somewhere.  He lets them pass,  innately tucks an arm against Jane’s waist to pull her with him.  Behind them linger the stares,  little crystals of blue and sea-green and fluttering lashes.  Brian doesn’t remember them,  either of them.  Two waifs in the night,  they always disappear once the night is through  ——  Ali jokes,  asks what he’ll do once he’s had everyone in the Cape.  Brian never has an answer.

But Jane asks this,  and he laughs somewhere in the hollow of his throat,      ‘  I’m a friendly guy,  eh?  Can’t you tell?  ’      The lie is gravel on his tongue,  not quite as kindly as a stranger’s hand tugging against his collar moments before,  nor his fingers still curling loosely in the fabric of her shirt.  Brian cants his head;  a door ajar below a swinging neon sign with half the lights out,      ‘  In here.  ’

Firgrove sits small between the Macassar township and Somerset West.  The houses are small,  box-like and painted in gaudy pastels.  The people derive from Strand to the east and,  to Brian,  the place never looks permanent and the people,  like they’ve never quite settled.  The bar’s door swings open,  a burly man easily half a foot taller than him slopes into the street and swings a one-eighty,  cursing in Afrikaans.  Brian tugs her forward,  up a shallow step and in through the door.  Inside the air is close in spite of an oscillating fan above their heads;  a booth in the corner,  and some seats at the bar -  behind which glowers a grizzly coloured.  Brian offers a wolfish stare back.

‘  Y’see?  Friendly.  ’      Enunciated with a sniff of sticky-hot air he nudges the backs of his fingers under her ribs,  points her in the direction of the booth,      ‘  Don’t I take you nice places.  Y'eaten this week?  ’

↛     @dokkstjarna ┇ meme. ┇accepting.

[irritablefacade]

“Eviction notice. It’s an eviction notice.“

MORNING PEEKS CAUTIOUSLY THROUGH WINDOW-SLATS,  paints the room a gaudy orange light that does him no favours.  Brian’s carrying the cloak of sleeping pills over his shoulders,  the scattered remnants of a hangover slung in a veil over his eyes.  His phone’s ringing somewhere in a pile of chaos on the kitchen table,  papers scattered,  mail he hasn’t opened  ( and some he has and ignored ),  there’s a lipstick unbelonging alongside and empty bottle.  She can rake her eyes over it all,  if she likes - and apparently she does.

A grunt in response,  begotten below the furrowing of his brow,  a scowl painted on a weathered visage,      ‘  Eh?  ’      Like he hasn’t heard.  He has,  but he’s slow.  With half of him still asleep,  Brian shrugs,      ‘  Yeah.  Yeah.  Sounds about right.  ’

Frustrated now,  he sweeps his forearm along the edge of the table,  knocks a minor avalanche of plates,  bottles,  and clothes onto the floor.  It does the job;  down whacks a phone onto linoleum tiles.  Triumphant,  he declares,  ha!,  and lazily scoops it up from the mess.  Three missed calls,  he’s sure they’re not important.  When he looks up,  he’s smiling.  Faintly scornful,  draped on in apparent self-depreciating jest.

‘  Y’got a spare room then?  ’

↛   @bardolctry┇ meme. ┇accepting.

[irritablefacade]

“ that’s what i expected to happen. what i didn’t expect to happen was everything else. ” //5hrs late w/ starbucks

(  ︻デ═一   )  —   @agcntmorgan  ▸   meme tag.

          ‘  TENDS TO BE THE WAY,  EH?  ’      He gestures with a lazily slung arm,  downward,  to the half-dead man whining at his feet.  He clutches at a kneecap as blood pours between his fingers.  Brian rolls his eyes,  looks back up to his companion to ignore the sorry bastard on the floor,      ‘  You know,  in regards to…  ’      He gesticulates,  rolls his hands in wide circles;  a Beretta 92 swings from his fingers,      ‘  The everything else.  ’

          They’re right in the centre of The Americans’ territory,  a gang with eyes everywhere.  They cut out tongues and slice out eyes;  their leader,  Mzala  - professionally known as The Cat as though it might gain him some anonymity -  carries a little baggy of his prizes.  Brian feels exposed in the back end of the township,  like he might as well have painted a target on the back of his worn out leather jacket.  His eyes scan the dusty back alley with apparent disappointment or lack of care;  he rolls his tongue around his teeth,  nudges the coward on the ground with the toe of his boot to emit a whine.  He’s still alive,  he’s fine.  This isn’t what they were looking for.  They just walked in on some dodgy deal.  On the floor the man’s begging him  - it’s just dope,  sir,  it’s just dope,  i swear -  and Brian swears.  He’s young,  barely fifteen with his eyeballs black and his wailing wild.

          ‘  You came at me with a knife,  what?  You wanted a hug?  This fucking lead was useless.  ’      Likely that this isn’t familiar procedure for his FBI friend who peers through the sun.  Good,  Brian thinks,  I hope i’m surprising you.  He turns on his heels,  kicks up dirt as the rat in the gutter scurries away.  Another black mark on Brian’s record.

          ‘  Might be worth trying the locals  ——  the bars,  I mean.  Shit doesn’t go unseen if you’ve got the right leverage ‘round here.  ’

[irritablefacade]

“I hate to shatter your ego, but this is not the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me.”

BERETTA IN HAND AND BLOOD ON HIS FACE,  he hardly paints the picture of a warm welcome at the top of the stairs.  Brian Epkeen,  in his house too big,  with the walls scattered with bullet holes and dusted in the debris of his life.  Death paints him as he stretches,  wincing for the bullet wound still healing at his waist.  The locks on his door don’t work,  he needs a new frame  -  hell,  he needs a new house.  Few days passed since bullets sung in the air,  shattered his windows,  pincered his skin,  and ruined the,  quite frankly peaceful,  afternoon in the sunny col-de-sack of Somerset West.  He’d been hunted,  maimed like a seal underneath a club.  He’s not to blame for his paranoia,  for the itching distrust curling under his skin.  Fletcher’s dead,  Ali’s dead;  it’s all over but he feels like the last one in a long line.

Remnants of tic in his bloodstream,  that’s what he’ll put it down to.  That or the fractals of the abuse cast in the heady light of his recollection,  hands,  and glass,  and tongues,  and Ruby.  Shit,  Ruby.  Doesn’t matter,  he’s pointing a gun down the stairs,  glowering over his sight.

‘  People usually knock.  ’

His right hand shakes,  just enough to give away the truth that,  perhaps,  he isn’t quite up to the challenge of a fight here.  Brian wrinkles his nose,  scowls past swollen eyes still twitching in the wake of ineffective sleep.  Glock’s lowered,  it’s not even loaded.  Magazine’s in his back pocket,  or on his bed in the rumpled sheet  —  he doesn’t know,  it’s somewhere.

‘  Too much trouble for you,  eh?  ’

↛   @dissolvedshadows ┇ meme. ┇accepting.

[irritablefacade]

“ no. just generally no. ”

(  ︻デ═一   )  —  @donttakeorders  ▸   meme tag.

HIS EYES SLIDE TO THE RIGHT,  SHE STANDS IN HIS PERIPHERAL.  The drunkard in front of them scurries around like a rat in the dirt,  and Brian finds it all rather comical,  himself.  His little friend seems to deem it rather problematic.  A big white man,  easily half a foot taller than Brian if he were able to stand on his feet,  hops up onto his knees and hurls his stomach up in the gutter.  Brian snorts something vaguely judgemental in his own slurred Afrikaans,  and winks at her.  They barely know the man,  shared a few too many bottles of something home-made.  The guy’s a sensitive sort,  apparently.  Brian himself barely sways as he lights a cigarette.

‘  What?  Never babysat before?  ’      He’s made a habit of taking the piss,  quips fall from sandpaper lips without so much as a half-thought.  He follows on,  speaks from a little too much experience,       ‘  It’s easy.  He chokes on his tongue and dies,  and you’ve failed.  Just like that.  So far,  we’re doing alright.  Not usually a good Samaritan,  y’see?  ’      States the police officer,      ‘  He’s not going in my car.  ’