#Black People Gettin Exploited

[blackbrownfamily]

Black Panther Party For Self Defense

[blingblong55]

Edge of chaos-141

Photo credit: @ave661

Based on a request: Hihi! I saw your posts and I'm currently hyperfixated on reading all of them lol but I was wondering if you could do a fic where the reader is an adrenaline junky. Like they love adrenaline, even the adrenaline that comes with getting hurt. Also they have a low pain tolerance that allows them to practically do anything. (Maybe reader takes them on a trip where they hop and run on roofs and stuff, doing stunts) Also their reaction to the pure "adrenaline smile"? (Basically a huge crazed smile some people do in the middle of a adrenaline rush) Thank you!! Have an amazing day! - mellow ---- GN!Reader, adrenaline junkie!reader ----

A/N: Hope you like it, Mellow! <3

The night was inky black, the kind of darkness that shrouded everything and left only the faint glimmers of light from distant street lamps. You thrived in this environment, where shadows became your allies and the silence was a playground for your adrenaline-fueled exploits. You stood on the edge of a rooftop, your heart hammering in your chest with a rhythm that felt almost symphonic.

"Grim, you ready?" Soap's Scottish brogue crackled through your earpiece, laced with a mixture of excitement and concern.

"Always," you replied, a wicked grin spreading across your face. You could feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins, an intoxicating blend of fear and exhilaration. This was your element, something most wouldn't say.

"You're a mad person, ye know that?" Soap chuckled, but his voice couldn't hide the admiration.

You glanced over at Ghost, his skull mask obscured in the darkness but his presence undeniable. He gave a silent nod, a rare gesture of approval. Price and Gaz were stationed below, monitoring your progress. Tonight's mission wasn't just about gathering intel; it was about pushing limits, testing boundaries, and feeding your insatiable hunger for adrenaline.

"Let’s move," you whispered, your voice steady despite the chaotic symphony of sensations within you. With a running start, you leapt across the gap between buildings, the wind rushing past your face, every nerve ending alive and singing with the thrill. You landed with a roll, barely feeling the impact thanks to your remarkably low pain tolerance.

Ghost followed close behind, his movements precise and calculated. Where he was methodical, you were reckless, a perfect balance of chaos and control. Together, you were unstoppable.

"You gettin' this, Price?" you asked through the comms, already lining up your next jump.

"Loud and clear, Grim. Keep your head on a swivel," Price's authoritative tone was a grounding force, but it never dulled your edge.

The rooftop run was a symphony of leaps, rolls, and bounds, each movement a calculated risk that sent spikes of adrenaline through your system. You thrived on it, the near-misses, the heart-stopping moments when you were suspended in mid-air, the grin that stretched across your face, wide and wild.

As you landed a particularly daring jump, Soap's voice crackled in your ear again. "You got that mad adrenaline smile again, Grim. Can practically hear it through the comms."

"Can't help it, Soap. It's too bloody good," you replied, laughter bubbling up from within you. It was true – the rush of adrenaline was more addictive than any drug. It was a high that left you breathless, your senses razor-sharp, every detail around you in vivid clarity.

Ghost's voice broke through your reverie. "Eyes on the prize, Grim. We need that intel."

"Roger that, Ghost," you said, shaking off the euphoria long enough to focus. The mission was paramount, but the thrill? The thrill was what made you who you were. Grim, the adrenaline junkie with a penchant for danger and a smile that could only come from dancing on the edge of chaos. And also the reason why Ghost carried an extra first aid kit.

You reached the target building, a towering structure that seemed to stretch into the night sky. The plan was simple – infiltrate, retrieve the intel, and get out. But simple plans always had a way of becoming complicated.

"Gaz, you in position?" you asked, your voice a hushed whisper.

"In position, Grim. Ready when you are," Gaz's calm demeanour was a perfect counterpoint to your fiery enthusiasm.

You scaled the side of the building with practised ease, your fingers finding purchase on ledges and cracks, your body moving with a grace that came from years of training and an unyielding desire to conquer every challenge. The ascent was a vertical dance, every step a testament to your indomitable spirit.

As you reached the top, you slipped inside through a ventilation shaft, Ghost following silently behind. The interior was a maze of corridors and rooms, but you navigated it with ease, your senses heightened by the constant rush of adrenaline.

Finally, you reached the server room. Ghost began extracting the data, his fingers flying over the keyboard with precision. You kept watch, every nerve in your body tingling with anticipation.

"Extraction point, one minute," Price's voice was a welcome reminder of the ticking clock.

"Copy that," you replied, already planning your escape route. The thrill of the chase, the danger of being caught – it all fed into your addiction, pushing you to move faster, think quicker, and be better.

With the data secured, you and Ghost made your way back to the rooftop, the wind whipping around you as you prepared for the final leg of your journey. The descent was just as exhilarating as the ascent, every leap and bound sending waves of adrenaline through your body.

As you touched down on the ground, Gaz and Soap were there to greet you, their expressions a mix of relief and amusement.

"You're one crazy bugger, Grim," Gaz said, shaking his head with a smile.

"That's what makes them the best," Soap added, patting you on the back.

You grinned, the adrenaline still coursing through you, the high of the night’s exploits leaving you almost giddy. "All in a night's work, lads. All in a night's work."

And as you walked away, you knew you’d chase that feeling again and again, the pure, unadulterated rush of adrenaline that made you feel truly alive.

A/N: to be honest, this was written so long ago it’s so shit now that I’ve reread it

Tags: @liyanahelena @johfaam0 @froggy-anon @goldenmclaren @frizzseaberries @frazie99 @spicypicklesoh @tiredmetalenthusiast @jinxxangel13 @enarien @luvecarson @willowaftxn83-87 @saoirse06 @ikohniik @strawberrychita @sae1kie @queen-ilmaree @Llelannie @anonymuslydumb @avidreadee123 @talooolaaloolla @skelletonwitch @bittermajesties @Nyx_Flower @sparky--bunny @honestlyhiswife @ghostwifeyy @konigssultwithghost @the_royal_bee @soapybutt17 @a-goose-with-a-knife @foxface013 @mychemichalimalance @marshiely @iruzias @sleepyycatt @noodlezz-bedo @vampsquerade

[guide-to-the-groove]

A Sublime Portent of the Future

Everyone has heard Sublime before: What I Got, Doin’ Time, and Garden Grove from their eponymous 1996 album are all timeless classics with a funky beat and some unsavoury lyrics. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy the occasional swear word in their music? A well placed “fuck“ can speak volumes, and the voice of the late Bradley Nowell is especially adept at delivering these expletives, and with great effect. Perhaps to the greatest effect in the song “April 29, 1992 (Miami)”, also from the album Sublime, which remains not only relevant today, but serves as a chilling prediction for the future, intentional or not.

If you haven’t heard the song, take a listen here.

It is no secret the members of Sublime are white, and that is important to note when examining this song and its subject matter, as some may feel the members of Sublime would be unfit to cover such a racially-charged topic. The title itself, while incorrect (Nowell opens with “April 26, 1992″, cited as being kept in because it sounded better) refers to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that occurred after four police officers viciously beat Rodney King, a 25 year old black man (albeit not to death, as one may unfortunately come to expect today). The community was outraged, but like any sensible folk, did not resort to abject destruction. Instead, faith was placed in the justice system to carry out its duty. As we now know, justice was not delivered, the police were acquitted, by a jury, of using excessive violence, despite video evidence. Following this outright slap in the face, riots explode across the United States. Does this sound familiar?

It is at this moment in time the riots begin, and while we hear reference to them in many a song, but we would not hear Sublime’s recount of the events until 1996, four years later. The song begins with some various police radio chatter, from Southern California, before Nowell cuts in, “April 26, 1992 / There were riots on the streets, tell me where were you? / You were sittin’ home on your TV / While I was participating in some anarchy” While not core to the song’s message, it is worth pointing out that while this line seems to be a diss towards folks merely observing the rioting from their home, but appears more apt as an observation toward the increasing presence of the media covering major social issues, almost 24/7, for the entire country and even the world to see.

Nowell continues to describe he and his crew’s escapades, taking advantage of the riots to partake in some good old fashioned looting, the tried and true counterpart to any major civil unrest. Looting only makes everyone involved look bad, especially doing so maliciously, but this is merely a pretext, and it goes without saying that the members of Sublime were not the only participants. Of course, this turns from looting to a more serious issue, with Nowell relenting, “’Cause everybody in the hood has had it up to here / It’s getting harder, and harder, and harder each and every year” An obvious fact, and the riots themselves a reference to this: the culmination of pent up aggression towards a heartless society. Even preceding this, we hear “Homicide, never doin’ no time”, a phrase that, when applied to police, rings true to this day. Nowell briefly describes a side of looting not often acknowledged, singing, “Some kids went in the store with their mother / I saw her when she came out she was gettin’ some Pampers” While protesting often becomes rioting and looting, usually at the hands of more unruly types seeking to exploit unrest, some people, driven to extremes, might take advantage of things for the sake of their family. Again, while not a core part of the song, it paints a broader picture of what was going on.

As much as I’ve mentioned the “core” of the song, we have yet to begin exploring it. So enough stalling: depressingly relevant lyrics, ho! Ahem. Anyway, Nowell continues with the final verses , “They said it was for the black man / They said it was for the Mexican, and not for the white man / But if you look at the streets, it wasn’t about Rodney King / It’s this fucked-up situation and these fucked-up police / It’s about comin’ up, and stayin’ on top / and screamin’ 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin’ cop” The song goes on for a few more verses before Nowell begins listing off cities where rioting took place--another hauntingly accurate prediction of the future--and the majority of the aforementioned swearing occurs in this part of the song. Saving them for these poignant lines sweetens the delivery, and leaves a powerful message when paired with the preceding scene laid out for us: The issue transcends Rodney King, as we have seen with Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd. It transcends even them, as the inherent problem lies with the police and not only their abject aggression and tendency to violence, but a clear and disturbing racial bias against minorities. While the song appears as a brag by uninvolved white men to some, I believe the song is more pertinent not only as a vision of a future world Bradley Nowell would never come to know, but as a strong anthem against police brutality (despite the pro-looting intro). I truthfully think that the members of Sublime would still wholly support screaming 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin’ cop.

Oh, and by the way, 187 is California Penal Code for murder.

Thanks for reading.

-G

Sources:

https://www.culledculture.com/sublime-april-29-1992/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/los-angeles-riots-quotes_n_1456782

https://thepolypost.com/arts-and-entertainment/2017/04/25/article_6b5b5bdc-29ee-11e7-ba86-2b08554a8e4a/

https://banana1015.com/april-29-1992-miami-why-the-sublime-songs-name-doesnt-match-the-lyrics/

https://www.sfweekly.com/music/twenty-years-later-sublimes-april-29-1992-miami-is-still-the-best-song-about-white-boys-piggy-backing-on-a-riot/

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

An Obituary for Identity Politics

I began writing this text about a couple months before the uprising in response to George Floyd’s death. The uprising, which now has become a global event, has motivated me to share my perspective in this text. My experiences in Minneapolis from the 26th through the 31st of May have furthered my contempt for identity politics and so I have included additional critiques of it based on those experiences.

Rewind back to a time and place where people used pagers and pay phones. When front porches and public parks were the hang-out spots. A time when conflicts were resolved face-to-face and shit-talking came with real life consequences. These were the days before ‘call-out culture’, ‘troll-baiting’, and other internet-dominated social activities. Some say the internet and technological expansion have advanced the fight against oppression. My opinion? The internet is where all potential for social revolt goes to die. In addition to pointless petitions and endless memes, recognition as a rebel can be gained through pity parties and academic loyalty rather than hands-on direct action. While providing an excellent breeding ground for keyboard warriors and pretentious academics, the internet also allows for the stunted development of social skills necessary in navigating face-to-face communication. Conflict resolution takes the form of indefinite internet drama and at most an awkward in-real-life re-construction of judge, jury, and executioner. Face-to-face interaction is almost unnecessary in the techno-society where phones have become a personalized commodity seemingly fused to one’s hand. From a screen with adjustable dimming, a full spectrum of emotional expression can now be digitally represented from a cache of emoticons.

The internet is also a place where the lynch-mob mentality of “call-out culture” encourages people to view one another as one-dimensional beings – only defined by mistakes and imperfections. In the name of ‘social justice’ and ‘outing abusers’, a new statism emerges, utilizing fear and guilt to coerce allyship conformity. And similar to being charged by the State, once condemned on the internet, an individual may never escape that reputation. Instead, any or all personal growth and development remains trivial to the static nature of their past mistakes. Despite personal improvement, a convicted individual is sentenced to forever remain captive by the essence of their online portrayal.

In my experience as a ‘marginalized voice’ I’ve seen identity politics used by activists as a tool of social control aimed at anyone who fits the identity criteria of ‘oppressor’. The traditional power-struggle for equality has turned into an olympic sport for social leverage, inverting the same social hierarchy that should have been destroyed in the first place. Many identity politicians I’ve come across are more interested in exploiting “white guilt” for personal (and even capital) gain than physically confronting any organizational model of white supremacy. I’ve witnessed victimhood used to conceal blatant lies and bullying, motivated by personal revenge. All too often I have seen how identity politics creates a culture where personal experiences are trivialized to the point of passive silence. But this is all old news. Any experienced, self-identifying anarchist has seen or probably experienced some form of being ‘called-out’ or ‘cancelled’. So why do I bring it up? Because I still see this shit happening and I still see so many people lacking the courage to openly confront it.

I don’t expect this text to bring identity politics to a grinding halt. I am merely expressing my hostility for it and its authoritarian, anti-individualist nature. I still see self-proclaimed anarchists fussin’ over ‘white’ dreads (as well as seeing people cut their dreads under social pressure). I still see people justify voting like they did for Obama (this time it’s for Bernie). And I still see ‘allies’ mumbling frustration under their breath, too scared to confront the authoritarianism they see right in front of ‘em.

How many ‘white’ anarchists were called racist (or privileged) and shamed for refusing to vote this past 2020 election?

Imagine what anarchy would look like if people refused to obey the condescending demands of identity politicians. Would people feel more free to explore their lives beyond the narrow limitations of prescribed identity? Would they fearlessly reclaim their power to formulate their own opinions? Is there a joy to be experienced in the hysterical mockery of academic elitism?

Would this text be less valid if it wasn’t written by a queer person of color? What if I was a ‘white’, ‘cis’ ‘male’? Why would it matter?

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t. Because after all, this isn’t just about identity. This is about anti-authoritarian anarchy. If there is one thing I have seen the most in the past few years, it’s how identity politics moves like a plague, consuming every social space — ironically including anarchist circles. For me, anarchy is about destroying socially assigned identity and all the limitations it imposes upon the imagination. Anarchy is an individualist experience that finds itself held captive by the prison of assigned identity. Rather than destroying that prison along with the society that constructs it, anarchism today has become a cemetery of dead potential, internalized victimhood, and an ideological competition for who is ‘most oppressed’.

Rather than taking aim at identity itself and the apparatus maintaining this paradigm, energy is spent tearing one another down, ignoring the complexity of individual uniqueness, and playing the State’s role of defining each other based on membership to identity categories. Embracing a particular identity only reaffirms that identity’s existence as a ‘universal ‘truth’ – and therefore, by the colonial intentions of assigned identity, the servitude and enslavement of some to others as a universal truth as well.

I refuse to participate in upholding enslavement as a condition of my existence, and therefore these ‘truths’ are nothing more than political works of fiction. They are the products of a well-perfected, socially engineered god-complex that enters the mind like parasitic cordyceps, demanding unquestionable obedience. The atom of mental manipulation is a mind institutionalized by the incarceration of industrial society. Identity politics are the antiquated chains of colonization, polished by those who assign personal value to them. These ‘truths’ are the social constructs of control, keeping the life of rebellion shackled in a cold well of reform. And while many have become comfortable there, I have broken out to explore the infinite unknown terrain of hedonism and anti-political anarchy. ‘Black’, ‘Brown’, or ‘White’ power is the antithesis of freedom; it is the ideological charity work of a civilized, humanist form of rebellion. Identity politics is the sterilization of individuality, rendering it both obedient to the collectivist authority of identity and gullible to the nationalist myth of supremacy.

Ultimately, the ‘human’ is an animal domesticated with labels socially constructed to correspond to a hierarchy of economic status. And though this hierarchy has changed over the years, it is constantly held in place by a relationship of those who make demands and those who obey. No matter how the categories are arranged, the hierarchy represents authoritarianism; the group dominating the individual. What defines a ‘human’ is the degree of obedience and commitment to civilized roles and behaviors required by industrial society. The less cooperative a ‘human’ is, the more likely that ‘human’ will be compared to an animal. The animal is the undesireable being – even for the identity politicians who prefer to adopt the colonizers’ ideological anthropocentrism. Perhaps this explains why there is such little discussion on animal liberation in leftist-anarchist writing. The marginalized voice is more concerned with being portrayed as equal to the civilized colonizer than with the lost connection between their animality and the earth. At the core of leftist politics is the humanist aim for social equality within industrial progress — all while the earth continues to be cut up into nation-states and ravaged for anthropocentric exploitation and expansion.

It is my opinion that as long as one maintains a personal relationship with the ‘human’ identity, similar to ‘white’ or ‘male’ identities, the individual will only continue to reinforce the colonial paradigm of civilized vs savage. And as long as this reinforcement continues, the individual also remains vulnerable to imprisonment within other identity constructs that further suppress feral potential.

I wonder when or if anarchists in general will move beyond the group-mentality of leftism toward individualist insurgency — recognizing confrontation with identity as an act of personal emancipation. Will anarchists one day come to realize that anyone or anything above the individual represents an authority figure – whether it be “The Commune”, the “Movement”, or the cultural governance of identity? Maybe some, but I am sure not all.

The Victimhood Saint

After a 45 minute drive we finally arrive. It’s been a long day of retail theft and this is the last stop. It’s my turn and I plan to walk out with at least $500+ worth of merchandise for online resell. But I’m already gettin’ a bad feeling from this place. Unlike the other locations, this store is much smaller which to me means Loss Prevention will have a visual advantage watching the doors. Bigger places mean the enter and exit doors are spread further apart. In addition, the bigger the store, the more difficult it is to keep track of every shopper through the cameras. I decide to go for it anyways. Never know anything for sure until ya try.

I walk in, grab a cart and begin searching for the specific items I plan to take. I also scan the check out lanes and customer service desk. Two customer service employees busy chatting, check out lanes all blocked off except the one near the entrance and two near the exit. The entrance lane has a worker wiping down carts. One exit lane has a cashier, the lane next to it is totally empty. I take note of it as looking “too easy”, but I decide to refocus on where my items are located in the store. After loading my cart I start my journey to the exit. For anyone who shoplifts for a living, they know this is the exciting part. Every moment up to this point I’ve been just a regular shopper. But now, as I walk toward the exit, I begin to shed the costume of “shopper” and prepare for the criminal experience of “shoplifter”. As my heart starts to pound I feel my nerves initiate a well — developed calming response where I temporarily disassociate from the panic in order to keep my senses sharp and focused. I have to be ready for anything. And I still have to maintain my “regular shopper” face and body language. As I pass through the “too easy” lane everything looks good.

Customer service people are still chatting not paying attention, the one cashier is too busy ringing up someone to notice. I pull out my fake receipt and casually make my way through the first set of exit doors. If I was seen or caught, this is about the moment I would hear someone approach me from behind or feel someone grab my shoulder. Out the second set of doors, all is good. Time to start making my way toward the back of the parking lot – and then it happened...

Anyone who has ever shoplifted long enough knows these dreaded words: “Sir... Sir!”. I hear someone behind me yell out. I pretend to not hear it. Then I hear quick footsteps approach from behind. “Sir, I need to see your receipt” he says as he flashes me his Loss Prevention badge. Fuck. Where did this clean-cut lookin’ hipster see me? Must have been in the clothes area behind me... maybe that lane was a fucking trap? Doesn’t matter. Let go of the cart and walk away. I start to walk away and I hear “No no...sir we have to go back inside and fill out paperwork. Don’t worry you will not be arrested”. Yeah, fill out paperwork with all my information, have my picture taken for their records – fuck that. I continue walking away. Another LP runs out and is on the phone. This guy is on the phone with the police. I instantly realize the first guy was secretly stalling me till the police got there! I break out in full run. I hear them both running close behind me. I cross the street and bolt into a trailer park, zig zag between trailer homes and finally hide out in a steel shed. I force my paniced breathing to quiet deep breaths. I calm down and listen to them searching for me nearby.

Finally after not hearing them anymore I text my accomplices a rough idea of where I am. I come out of the shed, trying to tidy up a couple things that fell inside from when I stormed in there. The cops will be here any second. I see my accomplices car slowly drive by and wave em down. I jump in and lay down and we drive off.

I should have trusted my instinct. This was a bad run. But it could have been worse. Instead of being in jail tonight, I am comfortably here writing this text. But this is the reality of shoplifting – or any crime for that matter. No matter how many times you get away with it, it is important to expect to get caught one day. Be ready for it. And when it happens, study the panic, the emotions, the physical responses... know it all well. So the next time you engage in criminal activity, you have a better understanding of the worst case scenario. For me, this is elementary, and there is no place for victimhood or or an outcry of innocence.

While Covid-19 created the conditions for state repression in the form of “stay-at-home” orders, ironically my opportunity for illegalist fun has expanded! Many businesses are left unattended for weeks at a time, meaning property damage goes longer without being reported. In the midst of the panic, supermarket Loss Prevention and security personnel are focused on the number of items people purchase in each cart without realizing the cartloads of food quietly slipping out the other door.

Before shutting down, many stores like REI, L.L Bean and other places would deactivate their security towers. I am guessing this was due to the high volume of people passing through with purchased merch with hidden tags still attached. Probably to avoid the annoyance of the alarm going off every few seconds, the towers were turned off, leaving open a grand opportunity to simply walk out with security tagged items hassle-free.

The past few weeks got me revisiting old memories of when my understanding of anarchy was that of an activity that only lasted as long as a may day march, a demonstration, or night-time fun. I remember feeling like anarchy was the moment I wore black pants, shoes, gloves and a t-shirt around my face. After these activities it was back to the “real world”. Back to wage-slavery, back to the daily routine of paying rent and penny-pinching my food stamps for groceries. Sure, there was the occasional clandestine activity along with tabling zines at punk shows or radical events. But there was this divide that always created a separation, always treating anarchy like an extra-curricular activity. Sure, my life was committed to rebellion; the very concept of a zine distro before I named it “Warzone Distro” was conceived while wasting company time on the shitter. Despite wage-slaving, my mind was always fixated on understanding how to cut corners and work the least for the most amount of money. I was the worker who handed my extra hours over to others. Half-day at work due to light truck load? Hell yeah, I’m out!

Over time, anarchy as mere extra-curricular activity just wasn’t enough. And what I mean by that is I became less and less tolerable of bosses, wage-slaving, alarm clocks, paying rent, and penny-pinching. I remembered what it was like being a kid and not having to conform to such obligations. I remembered adventuring all day outside from early morning to late at night. Everyday was a new adventure, and everyday I was learning something new about myself. Then, as a responsible adult I was learning something new about myself. I hated adultism, adulting, and the performative role and identity of “adult”. But I wasn’t tryin’ to become a child again. Those days have come and gone. I began to wonder what an anarchist life that transcended the adult/child binary could look like.

Fast forward years later here I am, jobless but no longer penny-pinching, and older but more youthful than I have ever been. Some say I am the worst of all worlds; hedonistic, violent, and childish. Of course, what these words mean and how they are applied to me is subjective to interpretation, but one thing is for certain; I feel far more free than I have ever felt and experienced. And I have a love affair with crime. It is an intimate experience — committing crime with a furious contempt for society and the law. Causing disruption and getting away with it compliments my desires for anarchy moment by moment. Nowadays I adventure all day outside from early morning to late at night. And with every criminal activity I am learning more and more about myself. In addition to accepting the fact that my days of joy-riding the fuck out of life will either end in prison or sudden death, I am learning to appreciate the present more than the past or future.

One thing about crime that I have come to realize is a uniqueness that comes with breaking the law, a sense of individual ability, inability, strengths and weaknesses. All are discovered within the experience of breaking the law. And it is this experience that I intend to expand in order to discover more about myself, becoming ungovernable in an anti-social sense.

I reflect back on my past self imprisoned by the cult of identity-politics. I remember how one reason to glorify victimhood was to gain social attention and portray the (marginalized) identities assigned to me in a positive light. “Look at me! A responsible queer person of color holding down a job as a law-abiding citizen!”. But why? So I could prove how similar I was to all those ‘white’ hard-working class heroes that America needs to uphold its colonial establishment? Another wage-slave to passively, willfully accept the conditions of my enslavement? To become another christian of color pretending there is an imaginary kingdom above for all us hoodlums that just never got a fair chance in life? Fuck all that.

The reasons for white supremacists, homophobes, patriarchs, and patriots to fear people like me is beyond identity politics; I am a sworn enemy of their control and order. The societal castle they seek to build and maintain will always be the target of my sabotage!

I think most people can see and understand that embracing socially assigned identities is not necessary for understanding how society utilizes them as tools for social control. I think it is equally as easy to see how identity as a tool of revolution is limited and in fact has led to internal conflict within many revolutionary projects. But what blows my mind is the fact that for so many, these identities were not immediately rejected as a primal, personal form of rebellion. But to be fair I think it is safe to say that these identities maintained the power they do because they are so frequently used by leftist organizations for moral persuasion. Through victimhood and innocence, identity politics is used as an appeal-to-all method of creating group-think that ultimately encourages an individual to surrender independent thinking to a god-complex of morality and collectivism. I think this also plays a pretty big role in statism and the rejection of illegalist revolt.

I reject the statist, civilized binary of guilt and innocence, and therefore also reject the internalization of victimhood. I have no use for “call-out culture” or an internet lynch-mob against my enemies. On the internet, attempts to gain public support against one enemy only informs and empowers another enemy (the state) to confiscate my responsibility. And guilt and innocence is a legalistic binary that only serves to judge and divide based on moral determination. I despise the State, all its social manifestations, and it’s enforcement of repression against chaos. Therefore I am not a victim; I am a self-declared enemy in a war against it. I don’t expect pity, a pardon or charity from it, nor from its defenders.

It was the day Chicago issued its Stay-At-Home order. My partner-in-crime and I were in my home town visiting my mom. While driving home from getting my mom some groceries I notice someone sitting on a park bench alone. “Big Momma” is her name. I was surprised to see her outside in the cold and not indoors at one of the local shelters. Come to find out the shelters had closed their doors probably related to Covid-19. I started to wonder how many others were outside in the cold...

My partner and I head over to a park that I used to do Food Not Bombs at and to my surprise there are about 20 people set up camp outside a building’s air vent blowing out warm air. We walk over and ask how everyone is doing. Some people, after recognizing me from activist projects years ago, excitedly run over to greet me. They are all the unlucky ones locked out of the shelters at least for that weekend. My partner and I get back in the car and come up with a plan.

A half hour later we are at another grocery store. Unlike other times, getting out of this one with free food is going to be a little difficult. The set-up has changed due to heightened security at the door due to Covid-19 and the fear of looting. But it is still possible to get out with a full cart. We load the bottom of the cart with bottled water, multiple loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, over 20 bags of mixed dried fruit, fresh apples and bananas. Were ready. We make our way to the door with me leading. My role is to peer around the corner at two self-check out clerks to make sure they aren’t looking. If they are, I will pull out my phone like I am making a phone call. If not, I keep walking forward. My partner and the cart close behind, the coast is clear. First set of doors... second set of doors... all good. Finally get to the car and unload into the trunk. Success! Next stop is another grocery store, but we won’t be getting food at this one: we’re raiding the men’s and women’s bathrooms for huge rolls of toilet paper. The dispensers can be a little loud opening sometimes, but relatively easy to do with any kind of house key. Two backpacks filled with about three huge rolls each, we are all set.

Back at my moms we clean our hands thoroughly before making bags and bags of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Once we finish with that were off back to the homeless encampment. Every person gets two sandwiches, two apples, two bananas, some dried fruit and a bottle of water. In addition we wrap the toilet paper rolls in the grocery bags to keep dry and pass them out. We stick around for a bit and exchange laughs and talk shit on the cops. It was good to make new friends and catch up with old friends. It was good to see they were all maintaining and in high spirits despite the circumstances of the weather and the shelter closures. We left and decided to check other parks for people. Found a few lone wolves who happily took what we had left of the water and sandwiches. We arrive back at my mom’s house and settle in for the night. I open the fridge and giggle while scanning over all the stolen vegan food contemplating what to have for dinner.

The Allyship Coward

In my opinion, the concept of “Allyship” started with good intentions, but like other aspects of identity politics became sour and ready for immediate disposal. Here is how I feel about “Allyship”: If you need a politicized buzzword and concept to motivate you to build bonds with people across gendered or racial categories, your “solidarity” is disingenuous. If your style of communicating is loaded with talking points pre-approved by some Woke Ally 101 workshop, you have become a free-range puppet. Genuine mutual aid or solidarity doesn’t require trendy twitter phrases to motivate bond building. In other words, don’t work with me only because that’s what you read is the “right” thing to do, or because your progressive college professor told you to. Don’t kiss my ass and follow me because I am a victimized, ‘marginalized’ or ‘poc voice’. Or because your friends or comrades will guilt you. Don’t let something as fake as socially constructed categories define our relationship. Work with me only if you personally enjoy our interaction, my personality and most importantly you want to out of individual desire. I don’t believe in coercive mutual aid: it makes a fool out of two people at once.

There are also those who assume they know how other people think based on racial and gendered assumptions. These are the identity politicians who act as both police and representatives of others, coercing allyship through guilt and shaming campaigns. Using their identity, they declare themselves beyond reproach while utilizing a passive-aggressive method of communication for intimidation. But in my opinion, nobody is obligated to support or listen to them, or any one, especially based on something as flat as identity. I am always weary of those who talk as if they represent the interests of people they have never met. It is foolish to think that just because people are socially assigned similar identities that every individual subscribes to the stereotypes of those identities.

Identity politics has successfully offered an understanding of how civilized society works, but as a solution to tearing it all down only leads to boundary policing identities, nationalism, internalized victimhood, and more stereotypes for people to find themselves fighting against.

Wanna know someone’s experience? Interact with them directly. Don’t make assumptions based on social constructions. Wanna show solidarity with people? Treat them as individuals with unique experiences and histories, not as mere drone members of homogenized groupings. And to those who still obey without questioning, another word for white ally is still coward!

The Woke Leadership

Personally, I don’t like to use the word “educate” to describe the communication of ideas between two individuals. “Educate” implies the instillation of universal “truths” rather than the horizontal exchange of personal perspectives. The context of which I see this word “Educate” used the most reinforces a social hierarchy between those who are “woke” and those who are not. Do people actually learn anything when the communication of ideas is asserted in a top-down manner? Maybe. But I prefer not to entertain that hierarchy.

Individual people are more than just ‘white’, ‘brown’ or ‘black’, ‘male’ or ‘female’, or whatever social construction assigned to them at birth. Therefore, communicating with identity-based assumptions will almost always come off as condescending. I see shit like “educate your friends”, or “get educated”, as if to direct toward a Church of Social Justice in order to be “awakened”. And apparently the capitalist mentality of further monetizing information is acceptable without question. Some think the ‘labor’ of answering questions merits a wage, citing something as voluminous as a Google search if one is unable to pay. Ironically, many questions come in good-faith, and are from well-intending activists who endure being talked down to in the first place. In my opinion, this elitist way of responding to well-intending people discourages their empowerment by trivializing their personal histories and guilting them into accepting others as paramount. There is a collectivism to this method of “educating” which creates the foundation of another social system of coercion. I have no interest in contributing to the materializing of that. I can offer a critical view or counter a point without socially stratifying the exchange.

I consider each and every individual mind a rushing, wild waterway of ideas that spill out when the dam of social subordination breaks down. Society collectively discourages any wildness, domesticating the individual and ultimately creating a caged animal within the mind. Beneath all the social conditioning there is a unique individual that discovers itself in chaotic contradiction with society.

Uniformity is the enemy of free expression. There is no “education”, only popular opinion enforced by those who intend to think for others. I think ideas and perspectives can be exchanged in a way that doesn’t resemble an authoritarian model of top-down communication. I’m not an educator and I seek to educate no one. Rather, as they grow and develop, I share my personal experiences and ideas with the world with the understanding that others will differ and have unique experiences of their own.

For example one thing that I have come to realize is that the illegalist life isn’t for everyone. I have seen some people do it for a while and ultimately break under the weight of the very real stress of criminal activity. So when I write these words about criminality – and my contempt for identity politics – I speak only for myself. When I began writing “Descending into Madness”, it was the same night I had walked out of a Seattle REI with two packs worth over $300 each. The security tower alarms never went off as I walked right out with two rope-style security tags attached. Prior to walking out I joked with myself that my criminal affairs indicated that I was descending into madness because attempting this was fucking crazy. And then I was successful. And I realized on the car ride home that if it wasn’t for entertaining such courageous insanity I might not have never known that some of these stores have non-operational security towers.

In my opinion, the “Woke Leadership” of leftism leads anarchism over a cliff into a downward accelerating disintegration. Paralyzed by the fear and shame enforced by a new order, some anarchists will never make it to self-emancipation, or independent thinking as a rejection of group-think authority. It is by a narrow, liberal definition of anti-oppression that many individuals define themselves as anarchists – a type of definition that limits anti-oppression to the moralist, humanist confines of civilized society. It is not a coincidence that most anti-oppression praxis requires a statist apparatus to enforce laws that accommodate equal rights. And while there’s nothing wrong with people having equal rights under capitalism, that victory celebrates the power of statist reform rather than anti-authoritarian attack. And in front of this statist power are the “community leaders” or those who have no interest in critiquing authority. Instead, they have built their socio-political careers on petty reforms in the name of “the community” and scold radicals – calling them “outside agitators”. And following behind these leaders are ‘white’ anarchist allies, confused and frustrated, trying to decide between being called a racist for setting shit on fire or a good ally for kissing a ‘black’ preacher’s ass.

“What you or I may or may not consider ‘tactical’ isn’t really relevant. This is less a war in the traditional sense and more a storm -uncontrollable and chaotic. This is one of the problems with the left’s characterization of ‘the movement’ as something uniform, monolithic, and ideologically consistent. It isn’t. It won’t be. ‘The movement’ consists of a million individuals with their own individual views and opinions and actions, and it does no one any good to deride anyone who isn’t doing things exactly the way you see fit.” Baba Yaga

Another Word For “Black Leadership” is Authoritarianism

After marching, we arrive at the 3rd Precinct at East Lake St and Minnehaha Ave. BLM organizers begin howling into the megaphone about demands, with a few prayers and droning chants mixed in. I notice someone slowly creeping up behind me who starts bangin’ his fist on the window. Concerned it will break, three bystanders begin quietly shaming him “this ain’t the place for that, keep it peaceful!”. The person responds back quietly but with angry tension in his voice “that’s the fuckin’ problem, y’all muthafuckas never wanna do shit except march and chant...”. Discouraged, he starts to walk away. “I’m with you on that shit fo real tho” I tell him. “That’s what’s up – fuck all this other shit” he responds while walking away. A minute or so later, I lose my patience for listening to BLM talk about being peaceful and decide to go look for that same individual again. I round the corner to the back of the police station and notice a commotion. A group of about 5–7 ‘black’ folks are blocking the back glass doors of the police station, arguing with a group of about 20 ‘black’ and ‘brown’ angry youth – including the one from earlier. Unable to contain my own frustration I get caught up arguing with the police-defenders as well. Finally, in the middle of the shouting a couple of ‘black’ and ‘brown’ youth begin spray painting “fuck 12” near the commotion. Cheers behind me erupt from a crowd that has now tripled in size. A brawl breaks out near the doors, and then a single rock smashes through the precinct window and is immediately followed by a hail storm of rocks, street cones, water bottles, and anything else within reach. The group of 5–7 ‘black’ pacifists cry out in desperation to stop the destruction, going as far as attempting to physically detain people, but ultimately are overwhelmed. They try to collect the rocks after being thrown and find themselves in multiple physical confrontations while doing so. People from the front of the building run over and join in on the vandalism. Eventually after every window is smashed the crowd moves toward the police parking lot and begin damaging police cars. I finally pause to catch a breath when I hear a stun grenade go off. The police run out from another door and begin shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. The crowd disperses but with hysterical laughs of joy and accomplishment. The 3rd Precinct is in ruins — and little did I know this was all just the beginning.

The very next day a bigger crowd of mostly ‘black’ and ‘brown’ youth showed up and continued to wage war on the 3rd Precinct. By night, a three mile radius was liberated from police control by the people on those streets. The 3rd Precinct was breached and taken over. Police abandoned the area all together. Their building was looted and cop cars driven into the street and set on fire. A Target across the parking lot was broken into and looted along with other stores nearby. People celebrated the victory by shooting off their guns in the air. Strangers sang and danced around burned out cop cars, exchanged high-fives in passing, and shared looted food. People casually socialized in front of burning buildings while others threw rocks through the remains of store front windows for target practice.

While it might have seemed like a perfect utopia, it wasn’t divorced from reality. Fights broke out between small factions of people and long-awaited personal conflicts were solved in the now cop-free streets. Business owners shot and killed looters and low-income housing units burned to the ground. But this is the difference between the textbook, sugar-coated ideologies of politics and raw, unmediated rage. The revolt didn’t happen due to any teachings of Mao or religious messages from a god. The fires, looting, and attacks against police didn’t need Marxism, a transcript of The Coming Insurrection, or an academic course on the history of anarchism. All that was needed was the chaotic expression of rage against representations of authority.

As expected, many people on the internet – including many self-proclaimed anarchists — passed judgement on the situation – most often coming from an ideological position that placed value in uniformity and a narrowed range of “acceptable” forms of revolt. In my experience, uprisings like this flourish best when least controlled or organized. The more that expressions of anger are controlled and organized the less anarchistic they become — essentially becoming pacified to accommodate a particular political vision. For me that is undesirable and also unrealistic. Destruction is destruction, violence will be violence, and to expect an uprising to be anything less is naive at best. While some can sit on the sidelines and moralize specific tactics or forms of emotional expression, they disregard the reality that full-fledged warfare has no inherent morality. Businesses that were boarded up and declared “black owned” weren’t spared by any moral consideration; they too were broken into, looted, and subsequently burned to the ground.

Also, in my opinion, the more uncontrollable and unmanageable an uprising remains, the less likely the police will have the ability to adapt to its formation and dominate it. The police had the least control over hundreds of individuals rebelling in such a chaotic manner as to overwhelm them and send them fleeing.

Over the next few days, attacks against the 5th Precinct happened while liberals, pacifists, and identity politicians quietly crawled back to avenge their loss and inability to control the first riot. The internet became their ground zero for one of the worst campaigns of lies and fear mongering I have personally ever seen.

As the victories of burning cop cars and police stations circulated online from all over the states, liberals rushed to the scenes in a desperate authoritarian attempt to assert their ideological morality and political program. They insist on a narrative that labels anyone who engages in sabotage as a “white supremacist” or “undercover cop” “infiltrating” the uprising.

Many of these liberals are the same ‘black’ people who failed to stop ‘black’ and ‘brown’ rebels from looting and destroying property. They failed to convince all ‘white’ people to evacuate the riots (because even some ‘white’ people knew not all ‘black’ or ‘brown’ people have a problem with them being there – recognizing their value as accomplices). And in an effort to preserve capitalist, reformist values, liberals of all races sought to halt the looting and vandalism by bombarding social media with blatantly false information. This false information is riddled with catch phrases like “outside agitators” and “white supremacists” in order to emotionally motivate readers to chose a side within a false dichotomy. And those who are not physically on the streets or there with rebels battling police are the target audience of these narrowed, inaccurate representations of reality.

Different ideological motives create different interpretations of events. And since liberals and pacifists tend to dominate social media more than those who are too busy out in the streets, they have an advantage. And since liberals morally frame all people of color as obedient, victimist heroes, most people have difficulty admitting that people of color are capable of destroying property and participating in violent forms of protest. This also plays into the compulsion to blame ‘white’ people for forms of rebellion considered morally undesirable. Riots/uprisings are not all utopian and pretty. They are the dangerous elements of liberation that occur when all other options have failed. Whether people are afraid of violence or not won’t change the fact that police kill, and will continue to kill as long as the concept of law enforcement exists. In my opinion there is no “bettering” the police, and there is no “justice” when someone is already being buried six feet deep.

And the police are not all ‘white’. ‘Black’ cops kill ‘black’ people too.

The worst part about the online interpretation of events is that the people spreading this misinformation fail to communicate to the online-world the joy, smiles, singing and dancing of racially diverse rebels as they celebrated the destruction of the 3rd Precinct.

I mean shit, imagine being a person of color, harassed by police all your life, and then a day and night comes when you actually get to see a police station burning, and police completely abandoning the area. All this is erased from history when liberals credit it all to a group of people — white supremacists — who didn’t exist in those battles in the first place.

To this day as I write this, there are still people spreading conspiracy theories on the internet like the famous “brick bait” video of cops unloading bricks (behind their own building – not in an alley as originally propagated). While I can’t say for absolute certainty that there were no white supremacists at the events at all (I mean I saw some driving past in pickup trucks yellin’ white power shit, and the ‘brown’ dude who rolled up in a truck rockin’ pro-police slogans and a confederate flag) I sure as hell didn’t see any in the battles. I have seen pictures of ‘black’ people locking arms to protect riot police, white allies turning other ‘white’ people over to the police in the name of ‘black’ support, and ultimately police regaining control and using these pacifying efforts to brutalize peaceful protesters.

Feral Delinquency

It is my opinion that the last months expose weaknesses of civilization in very obvious ways. Governmental control had increased as a panic response to social tension and spontaneous ruptures of illegal activity. Covid-19 broke the order of daily productivity and civilized slavery, leaving people more time to contemplate their lives and the value of their free time outside of working. The uprisings in response to the murder of George Floyd demonstrated the weaknesses of the police power and control – even at their own home base. At this point I have no earthly idea what will come next.

I admit to finding it fascinating to see non-human animals and the earth flourish in the midst of our industrial despair. To see clearer skies, various animals walking the streets, flooding that loosens the foundation of this concrete jungle. I can’t help but feel both the pandemic and these continued ruptures against authority are better than a return to normality; a normality where death from industrial civilization and the State is as routine as a slaughterhouse in full operation.

I wonder what kinda conversations people are having with each other or with themselves during this blooming destabilization of domesticated order. Will more and more people seize this opportunity to express anger and frustration through random acts of violence and sabotage against one another? Against law enforcement? Against the institutions that have become weaker due to financial loss and now stand more vulnerable than ever? I can only hope the uprisings continue in some capacity – above or below ground which is personally more favorable for me at this point.

Will people beg for the return of the old daily misery of monotony, or will they explore the depths of permanent uncertainty? Return to work or rewild? I guess only time will tell.

But here, I can only speak for myself. My anarchy is my own, as are my thoughts and words in this text. I don’t write to impress any club of internet anarchists who flex intellectual texts for self-congratulatory praise. I make my diary public in an antagonistic effort to mock the victimist, anti-individualist narrative of leftism which currently dominates contemporary anarchism.

I don’t wish for a return to normality and the daily misery of industrial production. I have no desire to celebrate ridiculous “victories” such as police accountability, firings, or prison terms – which will only be followed by the rebuilding of their ruined precincts or perhaps an equally authoritarian “community-based” replacement. I desire nothing less than the total abolition of all governance and policing. And perhaps those who hold some form of elitist power will find me undesirable and will orchestrate a smear campaign against me, banning my writing and “cancel” me from their Movement. But little would they know that the days and nights, between wide fields and the stars, and between the tree tops and the ground – is the domain of my adventure! And with it is a joy that follows anarchy as a vibrant life experience rather than a measure of social capital online, or a theory frozen in an academic journal.

The internet has created a culture of desperation for social continuity and digital validation. It is the breeding ground for “new” concepts of anarchism that are nothing more than communist corpses with hipster aesthetic. Anti-civ anarchy, impregnated by leftism now displays the extent of its power with endless twitter debates on “eco-fascism”. Twitter — a place where reclaiming one’s life and body is shamed by the disciples of privilege politics – is a graveyard of voices glorifying their own death-by-internet.

My animalism looks nothing like adopting the imagery and behaviors of existing animals. Instead it is the silhouette of an illegalist, feral menace dancing around the burning prison of domestication. My abandonment of victionhood is a foreclosure on both the pity politics of morality-based organizing and the sainthood of innocence. My anarchy is an obituary for identity politics. It is a personal insurgency without a future, a dream without the anaesthesia of hope, a declaration of joy with the lifespan of an exploding bomb.

This text is dedicated to all those rebels whose only negotiation with authority is fire and destruction...I am forever inspired by your courageous wrath across racial and gendered lines... To the youth who made history on May 26th, to the rebels who perished, and to those currently held captive for their part in this war against the state. RIP George Floyd

[ladyshandioftheendless]

~A Special Client~

Okay this is an idea that just would not leave me the fuck alone for days now so here’s another Exotic Dancer AU side story that nobody asked for! XD (I had like 50 different debates with myself over whether I wanted to post this or not and the pros outweighed the cons so yay!)

~Shandi

Maybe I’m crazy..but ever since the night we took Bruce to the Firehouse I haven’t been able to get that hot dancer out of my mind. I know Bruce has got a thing for him so I gotta tread carefully. If he’s offerin’ his services I see a loophole I can exploit~ After all..what Bruce doesn’t know can’t hurt him~ 

~*~

After a particularly rough day at work I decide to treat myself with a trip to the club. Might as well put the VIP membership I bought recently to good use right? I grab a seat in the lounge, order myself a nice stiff drink and catch the latest performance. The dancer on stage looks pretty enough. Blond. Dressed in pink and white lace. Incredible ass. Tempting..but he’s not who I’m after tonight~ After the show’s over I head towards the back. Two huge guys are there guarding a door. “Can we help you, sir?” 

“Is StarChild workin’ tonight?” 

“Only one spot left. You lookin’ for a private dance?” 

“I’m lookin’ for his company~” 

“Then you gotta pay upfront.” 

I take out my wallet. “Got the money right here. And my card.” One of them takes it and looks at it closely. “Welcome back, sir. Your VIP discount will be applied. Just sign your name and leave the money here and you can go right up.” 

“Thank you very much, gentlemen~” 

~*~

When Bruce described StarChild’s floor I said I had to see it to believe it. Well, here I am. I see it..but I still don’t believe it. It’s every bit as elaborate as Bruce described, possibly even more so. Somebody’s got a massive ego. I guess I’ll find out~ Before I even knock I hear him call to me from inside. 

“Come in~” 

Huh. I guess the guys downstairs told him I was coming? Ah well. Part of the business I guess. When I open the door I see him sitting crossed legged on the edge of his bed, his bedroom eyes turned all the way up to 11. And he’s dressed in nothin’ but a black rhinestone studded choker and a purple lace robe. Fuck me. He giggles and plays with his hair. “Good evening~ I’m StarChild..and I’ll be your fantasy tonight~” 

“Goddamn right you will.” 

“Ooh you’re aggressive~ It’s been a long time since anyone’s made me their bitch~”

“Then you’re overdue.” 

He moves back on the bed and bites his finger. “I know I’ve been a naughty girl, Daddy..but please don’t punish me..I’m sorry!”

Shit, he is good. 

“Well y’see..that’s not good enough, Baby. There’s only one thing that’s gonna make Daddy happy now.” He whimpers when I grab him and force him down across my lap. “You’re gonna be a good little girl and you’re gonna stay put or I’m gonna have to use some..stricter methods of discipline. You understand?” 

“Y-yes..” 

“Yes, what?!” 

“Yes, Daddy!” 

“That’s better~” I lift up his robe and grope his ass. His moans are already makin’ me so fucking hard.. “You like it when Daddy touches you like this don’t you, Baby~?”

“Yeeees, Daddy it’s so gooood~” 

“And what’ve I told you about lettin’ other people touch you like I do?”

“I-it was just one time..I’ll never let it happen again! I promise..!!” 

“Not good enough, Baby. I gotta make sure you never forget.” 

“Daddy plea--ah..!!” He jerks forward as I bring my hand down against his ass. leaving a nice red mark. There’s nothin’ like a good spanking..and he’s lovin’ every second of it. I can feel him gettin’ hard against me~ “Say it, Baby..who do you belong to?!” 

“...ahh..!! You!!” 

“LOUDER!!” 

“YOU, DADDY!! ..AHH.!!.YOU!!”

“YOU BETTER FUCKIN’ REMEMBER!!” 

“I WILL, DADDY..AHH..!! I PROMISE..!!”

After a few more spanks I decide to stop. He’s a moaning shuddering mess face down across my lap. A good night’s work I’d say~ Besides..can’t wreck his ass too bad before I have a chance to fuck it~ “Doin’ okay, Baby~?” 

“Y-yeah..just..give me a moment.. You’ve got..big..strong hands~” 

“Oh, that’s nothin’. I’ve a got somethin’ bigger for you~”

“Mmmm..show it to me, Daddy~”

“Rest first. Gotta get undressed anyway.” His eyes follow my every move, watching ever so intently. “Got condoms, Baby?” He points to the table beside his bed. “Right in there~” 

“Hope you got big ones~”

“Got all kinds, Daddy~ I’m sure you’ll find something that..accommodates you~”

It doesn’t take as long as I thought it would to find the right one. They really do keep ‘em well stocked here. I’ll have to come back more often~ “Be a good girl and turn around for me.” He whines. “But I wanna see iiiiit~” 

“What’ve I told you about back talkin’ me? Now do what I said..and keep that pretty ass in the air for me~” He whines again but obeys. He looks damn pretty presenting himself for me. Wish I could take a picture~ I take my time preparing him..stretching him open. He makes some hot fuckin’ noises while being fingered that just make me harder~ “That good, Baby~?” 

“I’m ready for you, Daddy..I’m so ready~” 

“Nobody’s ever ready.” 

It’s cute that he thinks he can take me~ The initial entry of course is always slow and gentle. That’s a rule of mine. By his loud moans I can tell he likes it that way too~ 

“God, Daddy...you’re so...fucking big~!!” 

And there it is~

“I’ve only just started, Baby~” 

Nothin’ gets me hotter than givin’ my lover a hard, brutal fucking~ Usually they can’t take it but StarChild..he’s different. I’ve got him by his neck, holding him down firmly while I fuck him into the mattress. He’s goin’ crazy. Screaming for more. I’m pretty sure everybody on the lower floors can hear him~ Even after he’s already climaxed..several times I might add..I don’t stop until I’m satisfied, and he’s got no objections~ By the time I’m done he’s shaking. He’s exhausted.  Panting heavily. Eyes rolled back. It’s a beautiful sight~ “Daddy...I don’t..think I’ll be able..to move for a while..” I smirk. “I expected no less~” Of course I stay with him longer. I’d be an asshole if I didn’t make sure he was okay. 

~*~

It’s around 5 am when I get up to grab my clothes off the floor. I reach over to stroke his hair. “You’re definitely a good as I’d heard, Baby. Hope you don’t mind if I come back again~” He smiles sleepily. “Mmmm..as long as you let me see it..you can come as many times as you want~”

“Tell you what..I’ll even let you suck it next time~ Deal?” 

“Deal~” 

“Hope you got a strong jaw~” 

~END~

[blackkudos]

Don Marshall

Donald James Marshall (May 2, 1936 – October 30, 2016) was an American actor best known for his role as Dan Erickson in the television show Land of the Giants.

Early life

Marshall was born on May 2, 1936, to Alama Marashall in San Diego. He lived with his mother and his maternal grandmother, Leola Williams, his two older sisters and his twin brother (Douglas). He graduated high school from San Diego High School in 1954. While studying engineering between 1956 and 1957, he was encouraged to try acting by a friend, Peter Bren. Marshall was still in the army at this time, but later studied acting at the Bob Gist Dramatic Workshop, while undertaking a course in Theatre Arts at Los Angeles City College. While at college, he was a pole vaulter on the track team.

Career

1960s

Marshall's first professional role was in a 1962 Columbia Studios feature The Interns in an uncredited role. In 1964, he was in Shock Treatment, another uncredited role. Also in 1964, Marshall took the role of Chris Logan, playing opposite Nichelle Nichols in CBS Repertoire Workshop episode titled "Great Gettin' Up Mornin'", a made-for-TV-movie about an African-American family preparing their children for their first day at a racially integrated school in America's south. That same year, Nichols played Marshall's fiancée in a controversial episode of Gene Roddenberry's series The Lieutenant. In 1965, Marshall appeared in a pilot for a series Premiere in the episode "Braddock". In 1966 he appeared as the recurring character of Luke in Daktari.

Later in the 1960s he appeared in Roddenberry's next series, Star Trek portraying Lt. Boma in the episode "The Galileo Seven" (1967). Other TV series he appeared in were Tarzan (the series with Ron Ely), Dragnet 1967, and Ironside. In 1968, he appeared as Ted Neumann, the recurring love interest of Julia Baker, in the television series Julia, a series about an African-American widow raising her son on her own.

Land of the Giants

As a result of appearing in Premiere in the episode "Braddock", the actor met Irwin Allen, leading to Marshall gaining his role in Land of the Giants, in which he performed alongside Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Kurt Kasznar, Stefan Arngrim, Deanna Lund and Heather Young. The series, created by Irwin Allen, featured Marshall as a competent African-American in a leading role. This was also a first for an African American male in the 1960s to be featured so prominently in science fiction. The only other African American actors to be in such a position in the 1960s were Nichelle Nichols, known for her role as Lt. Uhura in the TV series Star Trek, and Greg Morris as electronics expert Barney Collier in Mission: Impossible.

On set, the actors had to perform many of their own stunts and Marshall's athleticism was an asset, he credited his previous football, track and pole vaulting work that helped him with the stunts required. In one of the episodes, "Ghost Town", while diving over a fire, Marshall actually dislocated his shoulder and the next day they had to shoot new scenes with Marshall's arm in a sling. Another episode "Giants and All That Jazz" that featured former world champion boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as Biff Bowers and Mike Mazurki as Loach, where Marshall had to teach Biff Bowers how to play the trumpet was one that Marshall in his own words calls "Beautiful" seems to be a favorite of his and made him want to act rather than follow or figure out what dialogue to use or say. He also says that actors had a better time on the set when Irwin Allen wasn't on the set. When he was it was very different and people would get uptight.

In later years Marshall wrote a script for a sequel to the series called Escape from a Giant Land. He hoped that it would be a big screen production and would feature as many original cast members as possible.

1970s

Marshall had a role in the made-for-TV-movie The Reluctant Heroes, aka The Egghead on Hill 656 (1971), a film that was directed by Robert Day. This was a war film set in the Korean War with men under a newly commissioned lieutenant who are trapped on a hill surrounded by the enemy. His character as Pvt. Carver LeMoyne was subject to continual racial abuse by Cpl. Leroy Sprague (Warren Oates). The film also starred Ken Berry, Jim Hutton, Ralph Meeker, Cameron Mitchell and Trini Lopez.

Marshall was subsequently cast in the role of Dr. Fred Williams in the science-fiction horror exploitation film The Thing with Two Heads (1972) which starred Ray Milland and Rosey Grier. This was a tale about a wealthy and racist white man who has his head transplanted onto the body of a black prisoner from death row. In 1974, he was cast in Uptown Saturday Night as Slim's Henchman. In 1976, he played the part of Captain Colter in an episode of The Bionic Woman and in 1979 he was in a two-part episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as Julio. From 1978 to 1980, Marshall was in three episodes of The Incredible Hulk.

1980–2016

In the 1980s, Marshall had few roles, appearing occasionally in episodes of Little House on the Prairie as Caleb Ledoux, as Doctor Jim Blair in Finder of Lost Loves and as Senator Ed Lawrence in Capitol. In 1992 he played the concierge in the Paul Schneider directed made-for-TV-movie Highway Heartbreaker. Marshall has often stated that he was proud of his work on Little House. In 2011, he was in Pioneers of Television as Pvt. Ernest Cameron in archival footage from the episode titled "To Set It Right" in 1964's The Lieutenant for PBS.

After he retired from acting, Marshall set up his own company called DJM Productions, Inc., which produced television commercials and documentary films. He was popular with Star Trek fans as he was a Star Trek convention regular.

Personal life and death

Marshall was in a relationship with Diahann Carroll (1969–1970). He was previously married to Diane Marshall. He had one daughter and one son. Marshall provided consultation on matters connected with his work and with racial issues, and received an award for "Outstanding Achievement in his field as a Black Achiever in the United States". He died on October 30, 2016, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Veteran actress BarBara Luna had reported his death on Facebook.

[goodproofingwater]

Wildfire Records: Breaking America - Chapter One

Word count: 2710

Warnings: sexual content, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, yep we gettin right into it lads

Playlist:

How Soon Is Now - The Smiths

How Did We Get So Dark - Royal Blood

Press play when you see the *

For the third morning in a row, Andy awoke in a hotel room he didn’t remember booking, with a girl that he didn’t remember meeting. It was always the same these days, getting woken up by his new manager, recording for hours in the morning and then partying until the early hours. Of course, this was everything that the redhead had wanted, but it was hard to remember that when he was awoken at 7am yet again and had to maneuver himself from underneath another woman who he couldn’t remember the name of.

*“Up!” David spoke, and Andy groaned at the sound of his manager's voice, an alarm clock that he would have thrown out of the window if it had been an actual device.

“What time is it?” Andy spoke, shifting a slender leg from his body as he sat up in the bed.

“It’s 7:30, we need you up and in the studio in an hour.” David handed Andy his coffee, and the redhead let out a sigh before he sipped it.

“Fine, wait outside I need a shower.” David rolled his eyes but otherwise did as he was asked, not wanting to be a part of whatever morning routine the 26-year-old had. When David had taken the job as a manager of a new solo artist, he hadn’t realised it was going to be such hard work. Other artists he had worked with had been fresh-faced and eager; Andy was a rich boy with talent that knew it. It was a challenge to control him the way that Fieldworks needed, but luckily he had a pretty big weakness that the company were not shy to exploit.

Andy sipped his coffee slowly, glancing around the room and sighing as he saw the smatterings of powder that he hadn’t even bothered to clear up the previous evening. It was always the same, he always managed to find a girl who wanted to party just as much as him, always had the means to find what he needed. He just wished his intoxicated mind chose a wider variety of girls.

The latest woman remained sleeping, unsurprising as he could vaguely remember reading 5am on the clock after their last tryst, her auburn hair sprawled across the pillow. With her face covered, she could almost have been the woman he wanted. But she wasn’t. He hadn’t seen Victoria in over a month.

An hour later Andy was in the vocal booth singing lyrics that had been written for him by a team of writers he had yet to meet. He would have put up more of a protest if the lyrics didn’t sound so similar to Josh’s, and he wondered if that was a deliberate move. Considering the wildfire clause being in his original contract, it wouldn’t surprise him if fieldworks were making deliberate moves to replicate the sound of The Dangers with his voice. Of course, he felt terrible about this, but he knew that the boys would do well on their own.

Despite Andy’s intention of nothing changing but who they were working with, the rigorous schedule of studio time and partying (which was beginning to feel like part of the job more than anything) meant that he rarely went back to his house. The record company had given him a credit card that he used without question, and as the studios that they rented were closer to south London it even made sense that he stayed somewhere closer.

He wouldn’t let on how much he missed his friends. Sure he was living his dream in that he was recording music every day, and that music was going to be published and promoted across the world, but it felt wrong that he didn’t have anyone from home to share it with. He had full intentions of going to visit, but as if fieldworks knew, they would book in more and more studio time.

Perhaps it was for the best. If there was anything his choice of women indicated it was that he still had strong feelings for Victoria, and seeing her with Josh would only hurt no matter how happy they were together.

He hadn’t heard anything from them in days which was strange even when they weren’t close anymore. Danny always kept him up to date with what was going on when he could, and it was only a week later when Andy saw a Facebook advert for a show at the same bar they had met the girls at that he realised why they hadn’t been in contact. They hadn’t wanted him to know.

“David, I’m going to a gig tonight.” He spoke matter-of-factly, daring the man to disagree and surprised when he didn’t.

“Fine. Let’s us know where you end up so we can send a car..”

Walking into the familiar venue made Andy's stomach turn. He had come so far from the person he had been when he had first stepped foot in here, didn’t feel like the same person who had been on the stage where Josh now stood, plugging in his guitar.

He leaned against the bar as he watched them set up, pleased they hadn’t replaced him but it felt wrong to be this side of the crowd.

“Good evening everyone..” Josh spoke, flashing a smile to the crowd that waited for them, cheering. It seemed that Wildfire was still doing a great job of promoting them even after he had left. “How are we all doing tonight?”

The interaction with the crowd was much different from Andy's. Josh was polite and charming, Andy's had radiated the cocky frontman vibe he had cultivated over the years.

“This ones called How Did We Get So Dark..” *the drums kicked into the intro, Josh's fingers moving along his guitar at an impressive speed as the sound that was inherently him blasted from the speakers. He was using a pedal to switch between guitar and bass sounds, and it worked perfectly. How had Andy missed how talented his friends were? There had been so much untapped potential.

As he sipped his whiskey and leaned back on the bar, he let his eyes scan the room for the real reason he had come to this place. It wasn’t long before he found her, standing at the side of the stage holding up a phone which panned from the crowd to the stage. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, her leather skirt clung to her, a sheer black bodysuit caressing the gorgeous figure he had dreamt about only the night before. Fuck how he wished he could get his hands on her. He still remembered how her nails felt digging into his back, the taste of her skin as her head fell back in euphoria. Was she still with Josh? Could he tempt her back to him now they had had some time apart? She had chosen him over Josh first of course. Only one way to find out.

The set finished and he ordered a round, a waitress placing down a tray full of drinks and shots on the table they were sitting at.

“Oh we didn’t order…” her beautiful blue eyes met his own, and for the first time in months, he felt like he could breathe.

“Not gonna turn down a couple of drinks with an old friend are you?” He spoke, and grinned at Danny who stood, pulling him into a hug.

He hadn’t realised how much he missed his friends. Sure he knew that he missed playing music with them, but seeing them in the flesh after so long made him realise how little interaction he had had with people he wasn’t fucking or working with.

“How’ve you been man?” Josh grinned, hugging his friend, the bad blood completely forgotten as he was so happy to see him. Of course, Josh had spent a whole lot of time angry at Andy, but it was in the past now and everything seemed to work out well.

“Yeah all good thanks, recording almost every day is tiring though. How about you? You guys killed it up there! Those pedals you’re using dude, so sick.” Andy grinned and Josh and him bonded again over guitars. Andy told him all about the guitars that were in the studio he was working at, and even invited him along to see them.

“Excuse me, don’t I even get a hello?” Her voice was like honey to him as she pushed past Josh and wrapped her arms around his neck. She was clearly drunk with how open she was being with him, but considering he had done a gram to build up the courage to be here he was in no place to judge. “Hi, asshole.”

Her lips were dangerously close to his neck, her breath running along him reminding him of her filthy words as he pounded into her. The cocaine that diluted his bloodstream was clouding his judgment and he knew it, but he could have sworn he felt her hand linger on his chest as she pulled away. This prompted words from him that were loaded in ways he wasn’t sure she would understand, “Miss me?”

He smirked and she chuckled, shaking her head, “nice to see you haven’t changed.”

She passed a shot to Juliet first before doing the same to everyone else, and they all stood in a circle, clinking their glasses together in a toast before they knocked them back.

His eyes darkened as he watched her swallow the harsh liquid, and although he had missed Josh, he could still feel the tension between Victoria and himself. He would sell his soul for another chance with that beautiful woman.

The evening went even better than he had thought. In fact, though he would never admit it to anyone, he had been sure that they would kick him out of the bar. He knew the sacrifice when he signed the solo contract, but he had hoped more than anything that they would still let him into their lives. As much as he tried to make out that he didn’t care, he cared deeply for his best friends even if his actions didn’t always show it.

As if she could read his thoughts, Andy looked up and met her eyes, a blush in her cheeks telling him that she had been looking for a while. He sipped his whiskey once more, allowing the burn to push him further along the journey to deep intoxication and she looked away only to glance down and grab her drink.

“Josh..” she whispered, leaning into his neck and grazing her lips there for a second, “baby someone’s going to notice…”

The blonde had been snaking his hand up his girlfriend’s skirt almost the second they had sat down, the mixture of the adrenaline, the booze and the fact that she could see she had worn his favourite bra making it impossible for him to keep his hands from her. He now had two fingers inconspicuously pressed inside of her, and he kissed softly at her cheek as he moved them a pace delicious enough to feel amazing but slow enough that she wasn’t gasping for air.

“No-one's gonna notice if you stay quiet..” he slurred in her ear, kissing her cheek softly as his thumb ran softly over her clit.

“Fuck..” she moaned as quietly as she could, “J, I think Andy already has..” she looked over at the redhead once more, biting her lip at the look he was giving her.

“Nah, he’s been looking at you like that since he came over..” he whispered once more, ghosting his lips over her neck once more and looking up at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“J..” she giggled, licking her lips and touching his hand, “later baby..”

He groaned, kissing her softly as he pulled back, “fine, but I’m gonna make you cum so hard when we get home..” he smirked against her lips and she kissed him passionately as he helped pull her skirt back down to an acceptable length.

Andy watched as the two kissed, sipping his whiskey as her azure orbs danced to him, his body alight with the way she looked at him. Did Josh notice the way his girlfriend was looking at him? The lip biting, the lust filled eyes, the glances which his cocaine clouded mind told him that she had been thinking about him just as much while he had been away? Surely not, or maybe he didn’t care enough to notice those glances? Maybe the novelty of being with someone who had chosen Andy first had worn off for him and he was getting bored?

He could have sworn he saw lust in her eyes as she sipped on her whiskey and coke, glancing at him, and she finished the last of it before she stood up. “Anyone want another?”

Andys eyes ran over his former lover, remembering how his hands had gripped her hips on the sink the first time they had slept together, and as if she could read his mind she sent a smile his way.

Watching as she walked away, his drug-addled brain told him that the smile was a sign. She had been sitting there thinking about him and now she wanted him to follow her. They could use the excuse of getting more drinks to sneak into the bathroom and fuck one last time. Well maybe not one last time, he would have her whenever she wanted him. He felt guilty for a moment before he looked to see Josh already deep in conversation with Juliet, and he wondered once more if the younger man even cared about Victoria. He didn’t know how lucky he was, and even if he was with her now, she had been Andy's first...

Fuck it.

Andy stood, swaying a little as he moved from the table to where she stood at the bar. His hand touched the small of her back and she turned, glancing up at him with an innocent expression that made him desperate to unravel her again.

“Need a hand with those drinks?” He slurred, his thumb rubbing against her back as his hand slipped further down.

“It’s fine..” she spoke, moving slightly away from him as she motioned to the tray. Victoria could tell from Andy's eyes that he was high. More pupil than colour, the brown hues that looked down at her caused a knot in her stomach that she couldn’t explain. Time had enabled her to forgive him, but even after months, it was difficult to forget that he had been so close to ruining her relationship.

“Well uh... it’s good to see you..” he bit down on his lip and she turned so that her elbow was resting on the bar, her hand on her other hip. His head was spinning being so close to her, being able to look into those eyes, being able to smell that mix of coconut and her perfume.

“It’s good to see you too..” she smiled, and just when she thought he was being genuine, his hand slipped to her waist and he pulled her close.

He had waited too long for this, had needed her more than anything and now she was here. God, she was beautiful. He had forgotten this feeling that blossomed in his chest when he was around her, and it was only increased by just how much coke he had taken before he had arrived. He had been chasing that feeling since he left, but none of the red-headed girls he had taken to bed had even come close. Andy's other hand moved to hold her face and he ignored the voices in his head that told him this was a bad idea. He felt like he could breathe again now that he had her in his arms and he didn’t care about anything else. She had given him the sign that she wanted him, right? Surely that’s why she was looking at him like that?

“God I fucking miss you baby..” He whispered almost desperately, and before she even had time to respond, his lips were on hers.

[chalabrun]

between the dirt & desperation, ch. 2

Word count: 2,420 Pairings: Symbrock Rating: T Warnings: Animal death, non-sexual vore, violence Summary:  Sequel to “Angry & Half in Love with You”, it’s been well over a month since Eddie moved away from San Francisco to start over in his hometown of Manhattan. Yet, it’s difficult to return to a normal life when what you were once addicted to becomes addicted to you. A/N: This is a crossover between Venom (2018) and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy (2002-07)

( READ ON AO3 ) 

The symbiote was relentlessly starved when they finally made some sort of harbor a dark place where grime crawled deeper and lower than the rats Venom gorged itself upon, being generous, ginger. It withdrew from coating the whole of Eddie’s body and instead emerged like a serpent, slithering and bobbing as it devoured what it could while Eddie watched on apathetically. Not because he didn’t care, but because it held less horror for him than it should. Those few days together—had it been less? Whatever it was, there had been no time to slow down and think. Here and now, in the deafening silence, there was.

Without having to be told, he knew that it’d known Maria. They had been together for a time, and it let him access that trust through the hum of tension. The hum that sometimes growled. A pigeon panicked and squawked when Venom lunged and crushed the bird in its jaws in a sickening crunch of finality, feathers and thin talons sticking from its jaws before swallowing it down whole. Then, more rats. More crunching and devouring and sick noises instead of what hung in the air like a noose.

Eddie squatted on a crushed cardboard box while it ate, unwilling to shut his eyes lest he saw what Venom did. The blood, the viscera, a taste that would make him retch if he let himself. His skin felt clammy. Oh, he’d been sweating. His clothes clung to his body unpleasantly, almost like he’d been dipped in water. Was it him, or Venom? He couldn’t tell anymore.

All he did know was, in the silence, there wasn’t any censor. While Venom feigned like it was fully absorbed in foraging for prey, everything passed between them. Every badly suppressed sensation, emotion. The cautious relief, the tension, the anxiety—those were Venom’s, he thinks. Or was it both? All Eddie really knew was his own caution, the tension, the suspicion, the—oh. So, there was some overlap. Did he fear it? Suddenly, everything he’d done came in sharp relief and the last month had felt like withdrawal. This…it was like taking a hit but getting none of the high.

Being too fucking aware to drown in the weird colors, to smell sound.

“So, how long are we gonna hole down here and pretend what happened didn’t, Ven?” It’s asked suddenly, tiredly, and now Venom flinches. He can feel it all the way up the appendage. Like a shiver down a spine. His spine, Venom’s? Or theirs. Regardless, Eddie sounded tired, frustrated. Probably not the most inviting front.

Venom slurps down the last rat. It’s morbid seeing it slide down his throat, and he can’t stand to watch. He pressed a finger to his temple, expelling a weary and terse sigh.

“…We’re sorry, Eddie. There’s just so much we didn’t understand—”

He can feel it. Like Venom is going to crumble, like he’d blow away if he didn’t clamor towards Eddie and twist around him for dear life. Eddie wants it, too. He wants it so much he can feel his fingers twitching, biceps tense like they’d open up at the slightest insistence and seize the symbiote in a crushing embrace. But, they can’t. Not yet. Not when Eddie doesn’t trust it. Even if he can feel its fragility, its heart that throbbed painfully.

Not when he can’t distinguish what belongs to whom.

“…Could’ve asked me. I wouldn’t have minded, y’know. Just sat down and watched some fuckin’ boring documentary about… I dunno, goddamn Plato for somethin’. Freud. Those guys. Knew all about how humanity ticks.” Eddie dropped his face in his hand, digging into the hair at his hairline as he watched a trickle of water run past to a storm sewer. He wanted to sleep. But, he couldn’t just leave things hanging like this.

A drop on his forehead. Who…? Nah, it was just beginning to rain. He forgot how cold and dreary Manhattan could be. Glancing towards Venom, the symbiote looking like the alien equivalent of a kicked puppy, the downpour starting.

“Com’mere. I don’t want ya gettin’ all soaked like that.” Putting his hood up, Venom retracted some back into his body, like ink soaking up parchment. The part that remained hung on the hoodie’s collar and tucked itself beneath his chin, warm and pliant beneath his stubble. Meekly did Venom rub himself against his chin, which admittedly tickled. Eddie broke out in a quick grin and chuffed softly, which earned a relieved pause from Venom as it continued to nuzzle into his jawline.

It was a start, at least.

“…We don’t want to end up like last time. We missed you, Eddie. …We want a second chance.” Venom’s words were quiet and admissive, and totally vulnerable. He could feel a tightness in his chest that wasn’t his own.

Eddie nodded, a thoughtful silence descending even as he got soaked, rain dripping from the lip of his hood. “I wanna trust you, Ven. I do, it’s just— …Funny. How people all over the world lead these fuckin’ lonely lives. Top brass. Lowest scum. And everyone in between who doesn’t have anyone to understand them. Not in the way they wish they could. Boy, if they knew the damn cost of it all.” Venom filled a side of Eddie’s hoodie, nuzzling yearningly into the blond’s cheek and rubbing affectionately. Absently, he grazed his lips against the symbiote that began purring deeply. “And now, I got it. Y’think it wouldn’t be this fuckin’ complicated, sharing headspace an’ all.”

Venom breathed softly against Eddie’s neck, pressing into his pulse. “You were kind to her. We saw it through her eyes. You were a good friend.”

Eddie swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” he agreed hoarsely, voice cracking huskily, feeling his eyes mist wetly. “Too bad she ain’t here to say so. Fuck—”

“You’re a real hard guy to track down, Brock. Guess I’m lucky you didn’t get very far.”

Eddie reared to stand and upset whatever water had been accumulating on him, like a statue suddenly come to life, perched over a gloomy autumn fountain and under a funeral shroud sky. There was the red. Red he remembered. But somehow shouldn’t but did. Spiderman. He’d seen him before in the papers, but that red looked different in person. Realer. Too vivid for a dark city.

“Spiderman? Th’ hell’re you doin’ here?” Eddie asked in surprise, Venom having vanished at the right time.

“Enough of the talk. You’ve got the symbiote, Brock. A lot of people are gonna get hurt if you don’t give it up.”

“What, is there a crime against loiterin’ in alleyways? Or are ya suddenly an avenger for fuckin’ vermin?” the blond demanded incredulously, those inscrutable opaque lenses making it impossible to tell what the vigilante was thinking. He could feel Vernom’s trepidation evolve into something malicious, tenebrous shadow building behind him like a nascent forest fire.

“Spiderman!” Venom seethed menacingly, claws curling and fangs bared menacingly. Its eyes narrowed to slits, Eddie feeling its inky substance creep up his skin and over his clothes. So, it was really coming to that? That they’d be the villains jumping innocent people in dark alleyways?

Spiderman poised himself to attack, reflexively wheeling a step back when Venom’s form grew like a cloud, sucking Eddie into that familiar black mist. “Wait—you two know each other?”

“Boy, I wish it was just a mutual acquaintanceship, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know what a threat that thing is, Brock. And you’re in danger if you keep using it!” Spiderman proclaimed in a truer accusation. “You have no idea what this thing is really capable of.”

The cogs in Eddie’s brain began turning. “Wait—so you were the schmuck who handed Ven over to those exploitive creeps?!” Anger. There it was. Like finding a pilot light beneath a tank of petrol and lighting it. There was an emotion he didn’t mind sharing for once. And it was symbiotic between them.

A rumbling noise interrupted what the two were saying. “I bonded with him temporarily, Eddie. Because…I missed it. I missed us. Spiderman treated us like another suit. It lasted for a few days before a Dr. Richard Reeds parted us.” The hiss it uttered was low and banal, burgeoning with resentment. And now, of course Spiderman wanted to do the right thing and put them on the slaughterhouse floor they liked to call justice. “We’re a monster to him, Eddie.”

Whatever had gone on between them suddenly didn’t matter. Spiderman acted on impulse and slung his webbing on two dumpsters and hauled them back manfully, both metal cannisters careening and bouncing roughly on concrete before Venom enveloped him completely, like drowning in those 20,000 leagues under the sea without a submarine. It was familiar, like a womb. They were one again.

“YOU HURT US!” Venom roared as it caught one of the dumpsters and pitched it at Spiderman who reflexively leaped over it. “And now—you threatened to hurt Eddie! We’ll never forgive you!” It was less heartbreak here and more a possessive and righteous anger. At least, righteous to them. Here, in the darkness, everything felt right. Only Spiderman was wrong. He would never part them!

“Brock, if you’re in here, listen to me: I know how it feels! It feels great, at first. But this…this thing, it’s leeching on everything wrong! It makes it worse and—” Venom roared indignantly and tore the other dumpster in two, leaping to bear the weight on its blow that Spiderman barely avoided, vaulting into the air several feet up and racing up the side of the building. “—It’s going to ruin you if you keep this up!”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” Venom roared furiously, its own webbing soaring its body into the sky as it gave chase to Spiderman who took off in hot pursuit of a place predictably further away from civilians. “We won’t let you or anyone else separate us ever again!” Rage. The white-hot, poetic rage that would make the stars tremble. A romantic rage of tortured poets who saw the futility of gray skies and death. It was here, raw and maligned. Except towards Eddie. Despite everything, nothing could make it hurt Eddie.

His Eddie.

Spiderman landed squarely against the side of a warehouse, practically soundless. He couldn’t let innocent people get hurt, but inside no one was there in the charge of shifts. Maybe it’d cause damage, but all he cared about was the preservation of life. Not lost assets.

Adroitly did he use his webbing to open a narrow enough window near the roof and catapult his way through it, assessing his surroundings in the blink of an eye. The stacks were at least a few stories high, enough to provide ammunition against the symbiote. And—speakers!

Venom rocketed through the same window with a loud violence, struggling to squeeze through compared to the slender Spider. Glass shards rained as it landed heavily, a shake in the air as its tongue tasted the air. “We can hear you, little spider! Climbing higher up the water spout, ha!” the symbiote taunted, arrogance rife in its very veins. It stalked the long avenues of boxes and paraphernalia, Spiderman high aloft and studying its movements.

Wait—were those exhaust vents? And tankards of gas.

That gave him an idea.

“Hey, ugly! Over here!” The jeer got Venom’s attention, the symbiote snarling as it propelled itself upwards and swung through the rafters, just rows away from Spiderman. The masked arachnid dropped down when Venom barreled through and came too close, landing deftly on his feet before he found the exhaust vents. It was natural gas—perfect!

Venom waited for a brief moment, scenting the air for Peter. Quietly, and as swiftly as he could, he knocked off the spouts of two of the two natural gas tanks and a high pennywhistle of air pitched and already the stench of natural gas flooded the room. Booking it from the narrow office, he stood before and where Venom could see him. Luckily, the office’s doors looked sturdy and all but one entrance were locked, as there was only one way in or out.

“Looking for me? Guess we’re like the tortoise and the hare here, aren’t we, big guy?”

Already with a thin pride as it was, Venom snapped and devolved into a galloping morass of oily sludge as it raced towards him, Peter running headlong towards it as if embracing death. Except, he wasn’t. The smell of gasoline was acrid and likely set to implode at any minute.

At the last second did Peter dive aside while Venom barreled heedlessly into the office, ramming into several desks and overturning them in the process. Papers upset by the collision created a hail of white, obscuring their view while Peter locked the office shut with the fumes pent up inside, using his webbing to topple a row of shelving that landed cacophonously and shed its merchandise to effectively lock the pair inside, hauling it with inhuman strength to barricade the windowless room shut.

Feeling the very air shimmer with heat, Peter launched himself skyward and propelled himself by slinging through the skylight, willing that he was right and no one else was around to get hurt. He raced away as fast as his webs could take him, several blocks so before an explosion rocked the air and he was sundered to skid to a stop on a sidewalk, the silent night brightening hellishly as an inferno erupted and plumes of smoke roiled enormously and black into that grey sky, dying it sable.

Peter coughed and groaned softly, rolling on his back as he slowly got himself back on his feet, wiping away a skid mark of dirt on his mask.

Police and fire engines raced past, a cold breeze of their speeding coloring the night that same, vivid red. So different from the violence several blocks away, the vigilante’s heart heavy with a deep regret.

He didn’t like it when people died. Especially people who didn’t know what they’d gotten themselves into, but what choice did he have? Peter watched on as people slowly emerged from their homes, bundling themselves in coats and shawls as they gossiped worriedly for the flames licking the sky.

Peter bowed his head.

He had to get home. His Aunt May would be wondering where he was. Especially after all of this.

[paulhudd]

Spindlefreck Book Two: Pt. Four: Ha! Ha! Said the Clown

Odin’s Inn, Brodir, Co. Wicklow; Sunday, May 2nd 1991

Malky gave the big chauffeur a sideways look, crossed his arms, casually leant on the door post and refused to shake the extended hand.

Gorringe wasn’t offended, just mildly surprised. He looked at his unshaken hand and frowned. He ummed & ahhed, looked left and right and spoke hesitantly, rubbing his neck as if about to ask a contention question, “Erm... see, the boss sent me ‘ere wiv a proposition... ‘E instructed me to... that is...” he paused, stepped up so that they were face-to-face and pleaded for relief with beseeching eyes, “Lissen mate, can I use your lavvy? I’ve been on the road fer ovah-an-hour ‘n that last cuppa I ‘ad before I left the ‘ahse is abaht to bust me bladdah!”

It was an old salesman’s ploy and Malky knew it, and the chauffeur knew he knew it, nevertheless he cringed and gritted his teeth, “No messin’ guv - I’m this close to pissin’ me strides!” He seemed genuinely stricken, so after a second or two’s deliberation, Malky decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and stood aside, issuing a caution as he dashed by, “Straight in-and-out, mind. And don’t use the urinals – they’re not plumbed-in yet – use one of the stalls! OK?”

Gorringe already halfway there, “I don’t care if it’s a bucket -- I gotta go!”

Just as the door to the gents closed, Zindy walked through from the kitchen, “Who is it? Sales rep? Reporter?” she asked, wiping her oil-blackened hands with a rag, her elfin face smeared with black smuts. Malky was still at the door, looking out at the darkened windows of the Rolls, “... no, he’s somebody’s chauffeur. You should see the car he’s driving.”

Zindy lifted the waiter hatch and struggled through, “Ooow, I’ve been bent over too long, I’m all stiffened-up!” she groaned, clutching the small of her back with both hands so that her swollen tummy popped out of her denim shirt revealing an oily palm-print on the ivory-white skin of her bump. Malky closed the door, “There’s quite a draught – you can look out through the window.”

“For God’s sake a bit of sea air will do me good!”

Malky tapped her butt, “Aye, because you’re doin’ bloody auto-repairs on the kitchen table and the place stinks to high-heaven of gloss, varnish, engine oil and Swarfega! That child o’ mine must be gettin’ high on the fumes!”

Zindy made yakety-yak signs with her hand and said “I’m trying to save us some money, it’d cost us a bomb to take that van to a mechanic.”

“... because you’ve fallen out with all the local mechanics, haven’t you?” he chided ironically, “There isn’t a garage within a 30-mile-radius who’ll touch it, is there? Anyway, it’s a false economy. It’ll breakdown in the middle of nowhere and you’ll have to ring one of the garages for a tow-truck and the whole shebang will cost us three times as much as it would if we’d gone to a garage in the first place -– that’s not factoring-in the chance of an accident - or you gettin’ stranded high and dry – then whoosh – your waters break!”

“Jeezus Christ! You’re startin’ to scare me!” she cried.

“It’s a possibility -- like what if you breakdown and you fall getting out of the van -- or somebody comes round the corner too fast and hits you or something leaks in the engine and it goes up in a ball of flames...?”

“Why dontcha just swaddle me in bubble-wrap, pack me in polystyrene, stick me in an air-conditioned coffin and feed me through a tube til September! Oh I say, tally-ho, chaps,” she’d seen the stranger’s car, “a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, no less,” she said, appreciatively, looking out of the window, “who comes to a place like this in a car like that?”

Meanwhile, Brooster was listening at the parlour door, “What’s goin’ on?” a voice whispered behind him, making him jump and almost fall over. It was Sammy, the silver-bearded, blood-spattered ghost of the inn’s elderly barman, crouching behind him with his hands on his knees. Brooster looked him in the eye and asked him with a thought: Why are you creeping about and whispering when only I can see and hear you?

Sammy stood up, stroked his beard and mused aloud, “Aye, I s’pose that’s true... Well then – I’ll just do this!” He walked through the wall, into the occupied cubicle, looked the urinator up-and-down and shouted to the old dog, “It’s a chauffeur. Big bloke. Ex-army – British army – he has a regimental pin. Big dick, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

Broo wasn't at all impressed by the resident phantom’s crude behaviour – one of these days the stupid old fool will walk in on a Sensitive and scare the life out of them (actually, that eventuality would be fortuitous – because escape from This Life and Ascent into The Next requires a death within the parameters of the haunting and in the three years since Sammy had been shot and killed by Barry McKee, the only candidate so far had been an elderly deep-sea fisherman suffering with angina and a bad case of hay-fever who died two days later after a particularly violent sneeze –- at home in his own bed. Sammy whined as he opined: “Why couldn't the auld eejit have snuffed-it here?! Some people have no manners at all! At this rate, I’ll have to wait for Malky to croak - and he’s got another ten years in him at least!”).

The chauffeur exited the gents and convened with Zindy and Malky. Zindy was friendly and bright and offered him a cup of tea; Malky was cagey and glum. But that’s Malky. Sammy, reclining on the couch to watch the movie, actually made an insightful comment, “He’s an Englishman and Zindy misses the company of Englishmen. She’ll bend his ear for an hour and then he’ll be off back to whoever he drives for: probably some auld oul’ banker or one of those rich pop stars who've been buying houses over here lately.” He pointed at the remote, “C’mon, turn the sound on. I love the old black and white fillums!”

The old dog was paying him no heed. He was enjoying familiar feelings of excitement and trepidation, that tingle in his pelt that told him the visitor was significant and he should prepare himself for important news. And sure enough, the chauffeur didn’t thank his hosts for the use of the amenities and return to his vehicle, he was taken to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a chat!

Sammy was still harping on, “Dog?! D’ya hear me? Hit the button that turns the sound back on!”

Oblivious, Brooster snuck down the hall, took-up position at the kitchen door and listened.

Sammy shouted from the parlour, “Ach, c’mon, you know I can’t press the buttons...?” Broo ignored him and harkened to the conversation around the kitchen table.

Once Gorringe had completed his ablutions and emerged from the gents refreshed, Zindy introduced herself and took him into the kitchen for a cuppa. They hadn't had much company lately and this was the first Englishman she’d met in ages so she was chatty and vivacious. Malky was characteristically sniffy and suspicious. He wouldn't sit down and slowly paced the floor by the backdoor and let Zindy do all the talking. She began by apologising for the engine parts on the kitchen table, told him to park his arse and have a Mikado. He took a biscuit, but kept well back from the table lest oil, paint or any other petroleum-based-product come into contact with his immaculate whistle, “Is that a Lancashire accent I ‘ear?” he asked, with a wry smile.

Zindy grinned, “Aye - Salford! ‘Ow can you tell?” she said, ironically.

“Heh-heh, two of me best mates is from Salford! Salts of the erf, they is, diamonds to a man. We ‘ad a couple of tours in Cyprus in the late fifties and then they was sent to... umm,” he suddenly stopped talking. He realised he was in the Republic of Ireland talking to a pair of total strangers about old friends serving in an occupying force and quickly changed the subject. He beheld her swollen belly and asked, sheepishly, “Ahem, ‘ow many mumphs ‘ave you got before the big day then, sweet’eart?”

“I’m due in late July or early August,” she replied, she replied, “Just wait til I’m at full-term, I’ll look like a two-legged Space Hopper in a pink-wig!”

Malky lost patience, coughed theatrically, walked forward and put an end to the sparkling repartee, “So, Mr Gorringe, what can we do for you?”

The chauffeur put up a hand and waived the formalities, “Oh, call me ‘Erbie, please, Mr Calvert. Nobody calls me Gorringe ‘cept the boss when ‘e’s in a bad mood. Everybody else calls me ‘Erbie.”

Malky sighed, “Then, what can we do for your boss, H-erbie?”

“Malky! - don’t be so rude!” Zindy snapped.

Herbie shook his head, “Nah, ‘e’s got every right to be wary, sweet’eart. I’m beatin’ arahnd the bush, as it were, I really should explain meself,” his face took on a pained expression of someone who knew that what he was going to say next would either elicit gales of laughter or get him forcibly ejected from the premises forthwith; he carefully set down his teacup, laced his fingers on his lap and spoke without looking at his hosts, “Well, y’see, my boss, see... ‘e’s not a superstitious man by nay-cha but, ‘e’s got it into ‘is ‘ead...” he sighed heavily, looked up at Malky and bit the bullet, “Look – ‘e thinks the ahse ‘as been invaded by ‘a poltergeist’ and ‘e wants a consultation. Y’know, whether you can confirm or deny, that sort of thing.”

Malky’s heart sank. He threw up his hands and whined, “Fer cryin’ out loud! Another crank! A rich crank, but a crank nonetheless!”

[In the aftermath of the Barry McKee case, there had been numerous requests for newspaper interviews, TV documentaries and even a book deal with movie-options that would have set them up for the rest of their lives, but Malky had rejected them all out-of-hand. Zindy was slightly exasperated but mostly impressed by his innate integrity and refusal to exploit his adventures - then sometimes she wished he had his price, just enough to afford a decent refit. But he doggedly kept to his Code and slowly-but-surely, the phone stopped ringing, people stopped arriving at the door and they settled into what was, in Malky’s case, blissful isolation in a place he loved as a child; for Zindy, it represented normality and domesticity, something she needed after years of living in the fast lane.]

She was too taken with their visitor to dismiss the offer out of hand, “Wait til you ‘ear what Herbie ‘as to say before you go on a rant, Mr Sour-Balls!”

Malky leaned against the fridge and crossed his arms, “He can say what he likes but it won’t make a ha’penny’s worth o’ difference. We live by a Code remember?”

“’Code?’” Herbie looked from one to the other.

Zindy harrumphed and rhymed-off Malky’s charter to their bemused visitor, “Malky’s Code: he won’t have anything to do with the supernatural stuff... he won’t have anything to do with the media... he won’t write a book even though he’s been offered a lotta money...”

Malky: “-- and with good reason! Once you make contact -– you let them in! They’ll be writing begging letters, making pilgrimages to our door!”

Herbie, slightly embarrassed that he’d caused trouble in paradise, assured them, “You come very ‘ighly recommended, y’know – by the Gardai commissioner ‘isself, no less...”

Malky’s jaw dropped, “What?!” he gasped.

“Oh gawd, I knew this would be a nightmare...” Herbie muttered under his breath, grimacing like a man tiptoeing through a minefield wearing a blindfold; he elaborated in an apologetic tone, “... a couple o’ weeks ago, the boss was at one of them grand-banquet dos they ‘ave in Dublin City where the top-nobs can ‘obnob -- y’know the sort o’ fing, VIPs, the politicians an’-all-that-lot. Well, the commissioner was seated next to the boss and they got talkin’ about strange cases and your name came up, an’ when ‘e mentioned that Barry McKee business a few years ago, the boss wuz all ears 'n ‘e got the commissioner to get your address...?”

Malky was furious, “The Barry McKee case was as weird as they come, but it wasn't anythin’ to do with the supernatural -- it was to do with the fact that he’s a schizo who liked to kill little girls.”

Herbie raised his eyebrows, “So all that tawk abaht ‘im bein’ possessed is just bollocks?”

“Well, he thought he was possessed, he heard voices...” Zindy was about to elaborate when Malky shot her a what-the-hell-look.  She took umbrage, “So what did happen, Malcolm? Why don’t you explain it?”

“You should know -- you were there -– we nearly died!” Malky snapped back.

“Yeah -- but who ‘elped us?! ‘Ow did the dog find them bodies in the woods? Who told 'im where to go?!”

Sensing trouble in paradise, Herbie reached into his inside-pocket and took out a large brown leather wallet, “Look, I tell you wot, if it makes it any easier,” he pulled out a folded slip of paper and set it on the table so that it stood like a little greetings-card, “the boss gimme this blank cheque ‘n awforised me to offer ya 7 grand to come up to the ‘ahse and ‘ave-a-butcher’s. If you can get rid of the spook, he’ll give you anovver free grand. That’s 10 grand! More, if ‘e’s really pleased! ‘Is pockets are deep, believe me.”

“Something strange in your neighbourhood? Who you gonna call...?” Malky sang.  

“I don’t think even the Ghostbusters would get 10 grand for one night’s work?!” gasped Zindy, £-signs in her eyes.

Heartened that the hostess seemed keen, Herbie went for the hard-sell, “7 grand just to ‘ave a shufti, 10 grand if you get rid of it. What would money like that mean to you two?” he said, looking at Zindy’s bump.

Malky saw his better-half look around the kitchen, read her mind and reminded her with a wagging finger, “Don’t start...!”

Zindy wagged straight back, “The Code of Silence made sense in the beginnin’ when we wuz inundated with whackos, weirdoes ‘n’ wankers of every stripe – before we ‘ad money trouble and baby on t’way!”

Malky pointed and laughed sardonically, “Did you just say that? Who the hell are you?!”

The chauffeur turned to Malky and spoke softly, “Lissen Mr C -- I fink the old man’s barkin’ up the wrong tree too, but ‘e’s at his wit’s end – ‘e finks there’s an ‘evil spirit’ out to get ‘im! Now, I ain't seen anythin’ myself, just the aftermaff - but ‘e says fings fly across the room, y’know, ornaments ‘itting the wall, books falling from shelves, that sort of fing. E’s afraid to go rahnd the ‘ouse on ‘is own. If it goes on for much longer, ‘e’s likely to ‘ave a stroke or ‘eart attack, the poor old git.”

“Who is 'e?” Zindy and Malky asked, in perfect harmony.

Herbie paused for a second then said: “Oliver Laphen.”

“Ollie Laphen?! ‘The Quare Geg’?!” cried Malky; amazed and delighted, he duly eschewed his standoffishness, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

“The old movie star? The hellraiser?” asked Zindy, only slightly impressed.

“Yip, that Ollie Laphen,” said Herbie, sheepishly, as if confessing a cardinal sin.

“My God. Ollie Laphen! That takes me back a-ways...” Malky enthused, whimsically, looking up, as if viewing the memory in a thought balloon hovering just above his head, “...in Belfast in the late 50s when me ‘n me younger brother Dessie were kids, we used to see his films at the Roy Rogers’ Movie Club at the Curzon on Saturday mornings and we loved the ‘Laffin Boy’ shorts he made in the early 30s when he was still called ‘Ollie Laffin’. Jeez, we must’ve seen them all at least 10 times each...!”

Zindy left Malky to wander down Memory Lane and got down to business, “And ‘’e’s willing to pay Malky 7 grand just to look round ‘is ‘aunted ‘ouse?!”

Herbie smiled and nodded.

Although mightily tempted, Malky still wasn't moved, “Nah – it smacks of exploitation. I’m not goin’ to take advantage of an old man who’s probably in the primary stages of senility... Oh, sorry, Herbie...”

The chauffeur shrugged and nodded, “You’re singin’ to the choir guv.  That’s what us lot reckoned, too - but in every ovver respect he’s fine. ‘E’s cantankerous and narky like ‘e always is, but ‘is memory’s fine - e’s workin’ on a one-man-show and ‘e don’t even ‘ave to look at the book. ‘E reads all ‘is contracts – even the small print - ‘e writes ‘is memoirs... If it is senility, then this poltergeist fing is the only symptom.” He winked, “Tell-you-wot -- why dontcha meet ‘im ‘n’ see for y’self.”

Malky had to smile. It was like being coerced by an aging Artful Dodger. He now knew how the big chauffeur had kept a job for so many years: Herbert Gorringe has made a career out of getting the boss exactly what he wants, by hook or by crook.

“Lissen, if you fink it’s all a loada ol’ cobblahs, you can tell ‘im so - take the money - and I’ll drive you ‘ome. No ‘assle. No one will ever know. Mr Laphen certainly won’t be tellin’. You know ‘ow much ‘e ‘ates the press.”

Zindy looked at Malky and batted her eyelids, “No one will ever know and you’ll have a great story to tell our kids.”

“Oh – you’re not coming?” said Malky, with a raised eyebrow.

Zindy indicated the engine parts on the table, “No time, lover –- we need the van back on the road by mornin’ cos I ‘ave to go to Arklow and pick-up the grocery order and fetch more paint from the DIY store. Incidentally, I’ll be ‘using’ t’credit card - you know the one I mean -– the one we owe £3,400 on?”

“My God woman, have you no shame?!” said Malky, semi-seriously, shaking his head with exasperation.

Herbie held up the cheque and flicked it with a finger, “A lotta lolly for a few hours’ work, my friends.”

“C’mon, Malk. Like ‘Erbie says, the ol' boy’s loaded and it’s only one night...?”

Malky stared at his paint-spattered hands and had a rethink: you’ll to get away from the smell of varnish and gloss, meet the great Ollie Laphen and have a look round his house...  “Well... I suppose one night wouldn't be so bad... ?”

Deal sealed, Herbie sighed with relief, got to his feet and shook Malky’s hand. Malky looked at Zindy and shook his head, “You know you’ll never hear the end of this, dontcha?”

Zindy grinned, “Careful Ollie Laphen’s poltergeist don’t drop summat ‘eavy on yer ‘ead, chook!”

Malky held his sides and pretended to cry tears of laughter.

“Oh yeah - one other fing,” said Herbie, looking around, “The commissioner-bloke told us that you usually work wiv a free-legged German shepherd...?”

Right on cue, the beast in question nosed the door open and sauntered into the room, someone call?

[Broo and Malky had a semi-telepathic link; they couldn't communicate directly, but over the years following the Barry McKee saga, they’d developed an intuitive sense of what the other was thinking.]

Malky glared, you heard all that didn’t you?

The old dog grunted, I can hear the rats building a nest three-doors-down, you twit - of course I heard. And I must say, it’s about time we had a case...

“It’ll be a bit of a lark, won’t it?” chirped Zindy, putting Malky’s toothbrush and shaving kit into his overnight bag. She gave the once over and shook her head, “you’re a walkin’ disaster. Things wrinkled as soon as you put them on.” She lifted the comb and tried to do something with his hair.

Her other-half still hadn't warmed to the idea, “Lark? It’ll be no laughing matter for me, wandering around some creaky, chilly stately-home all night with that grumpy hound at me heel.”

Broo growled back.

She stooped slightly and pointed the comb at the old dog, “Now listen – Broo – you be patient w’ ‘im and remember that ‘e ‘ates all this kinda spooky stuff,” she turned back to her man, “and Mal, you remember that Broo is old and crotchety and prone to snarkiness.”

How dare you madam! I’ll have you know my intellectual capacity is at its peak! The father of your child is the one with questionable mental faculties, not me!

Standing on tiptoe, Zindy cupped Malky’s cheeks and gave him one of her pep-talks, “Listen, chook... take a look round, if you don’t find anythin’ or it looks like a set up, or it don’t feel right -- whatever -- I’ll understand if you don’t take the money, OK?”

Malky was confused, “Then why....?”

She put a finger on his lips, “I’d appreciate a little time on me own, OK? Nothing sinister, just some time to meself. We've been in each other’s pockets day-and-night for 2 year now, so tonight -- for one night only -- I’m gonna finish workin’ on the soddin’ van, ‘ave a bath, write a coupla letters and get an early night. Meanwhile, you get to spend the night in a luxurious mansion in the company of yer boyhood hero.”

She wants a break from you, and who can blame her.

Malky shot the dog a reproachful glance, then smiled when he turned back to his better-half, “You don’t need to explain, Zin. You've got what’s commonly known as Calvert Fatigue.”

She pushed him out onto the landing, “Now fook off. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Broo surveyed the stray cats lined long the parapet of the old burned-out cinema. They had gathered to watch the Rolls roll by, just like they had at the time of the McKee affair: further confirmation, to him at least, that this journey was significant. He resolved to pay attention to every detail and use all his powers... to get to the bottom... of (yawn)... whatever....zzzzzzz He was asleep within 10 minutes. Malky looked over his shoulder and scowled. Lazy sod.

Herbie took the scenic route and drove slowly. The hedgerows bustled-by lackadaisically, the dry-stone-walls refused to become a grey-white blur as £400,000 worth of Rolls Royce shook ‘n’ shimmied along bumpy country lanes and pot-holey side-roads at a leisurely 32mph. He was enjoying the view of the misty Wicklow mountains, and despite the nip in the breeze and the baleful skies, he wound down his window and leaned out to take the air -- which reeked of compost and slurry, but which was entirely to his taste -- “Aaaaah! Smell that?! Laaave this cahntryside, I do! Y’know, at least once a day, I stop what I’m doin’ ‘n give fanks that we landed back ‘ere and not blahdy Swizzer-land. Swizzer-land,” he sneered. “I ‘ate blahdy Swizzer-land. The boss wuz a tax-exile for a while y’see...” He went on to list the many shortcomings of the Swiss in his bouncy cockney twang. Malky repressed the overwhelming urge to shout for Christ’s sake shut-up and step on it! and tuned him out. There he was, on his way to do something he didn’t want to do for people he didn’t want to know in a place he didn’t want to be, and the longer it took to get there the more the prospect bothered him. Bloody cheek, that Gardai Commissioner handing my name & number out to all-and-sundry – I should sue! ... Bloody hocus-pocus and hoodoo-voodoo... but as usual, money talks and principles go out the window... money, money, money... she’ll be setting up a Supernatural Detective Agency next... She’ll be advertising it in the paper...

Seemingly oblivious to the ennui emanating from the fidgety heap of grumpiness beside him, Herbie continued to natter away about getting acclimatised to the snail’s-pace of pastoral Irish life after so many years spent in the fraught, hustle-&-bustle of Hollywood: “They’re as nice-as-ninepence to ya just so long as yer putting bums on seats and bags of lolly in the bank – if not - they’ll drop ya like ‘ot potatah! Fankfully, the boss is always bankable – you put ‘is name on a marquee and you’s guaranteed a profit! ‘E still ‘as a core fanbase of millions who’ll come to everyfink ‘e’s in!”

Malky grunted a hollow, listless “Oh really?”

Unfazed, Herbie whispered in Malky’s ear: “Lissen, mate, if you wanna take the edge-off - ‘ave a drop of Irish. The boss keeps a flask in the glove-compartment for emergencies.”

Malky was caught off-guard and answered in an embarrassed stutter, “Er, no thanks, I don’t drink...”

“‘Recovering alcoholic’, are ya?” Herbie asked.

Although wholly nonplussed by the man’s audacity, Malky replied without raising his voice, “Let’s just say I had a problem at one time and leave it at that, shall we?”

But Herbie continued to pry, “Don’t take this the wrong way, pal, but you have the look of a man who’s no stranger to --”

“Oi! Enough!” Malky barked (Brooster woke up with a start), “Keep yer eyes on the road, Jeeves! Just cuz yer boss is willin’ to pay 7 grand for my services doesn’t give ye the right to dig into me personal life!”

Herbie was visibly taken aback by this unexpected tirade; he pulled down the peak of his cap so that it covered his eyes, straightened up in his seat, took the car up to a steady 40, and after a brief pause, spoke in a more professional tone, “I wuz only makin’ conversation, sir. If I’ve offended you in any way, I ‘umbly apologise and beg yer pardon, sir.”

“Forget it.” Malky turned away and looked out of the window.

A minute or two passed, and as the little surge of adrenalin dissipated, so the embarrassment sank in and he decided to restart the conversation, “Did I hear you tell Zindy you were in the army?”

Still somewhat narked, the chauffeur kept his eyes on the road and gave his name rank and number with the clipped diction of a well-drilled soldier, “Queen’s Royal Irish Fusiliers, 17 years: Corporal Herbert Valentino Gorringe 2063 reporting for duty, sah.”

Malky smiled, “Valentino?”

Herbie made a face, “It was that or Rudolph. My ol’ mum was a big fan. She was in-con-sole-able when ‘e died, grieved fer days, apparently.”

Where was another protracted pause, until Malky said, “I used to meet a lot of Tommies in Belfast in the early days of the Troubles. Seen a good few murdered, too. Bad times.”

The chauffeur turned slightly so that he could look Malky in the eye, “You wasn't chucking the ol’ Molotovs, was ya? You ain’t an ex-IRA man or anyfink like that, ‘is ya?!” Au contraire. Malky told him he was an ex-RUC policeman. Herbie was very interested, visibly relieved and wholly amazed, “Really? If you don’t mind me saying so - you don’t strike me as the type...?”

“My ambition was to be a detective, but I never made it out of uniform. I quit after my partner was gunned down right beside me and I went off the rails a bit and... Well, y’know...” Malky’s voice trailed off.

Herbie shook his head, “Gunned down right beside you? That’s rough that is.”

“But surely you’ve had near-death experiences yourself, Herbie, especially after 17 years in the army...?”

“Well, I wuz too young to serve in the war. I turned 17 the day after VE day. I didn’t join-up til the September of 46. And I never did no tour of duty in Norvern Ireland neevah, I was mostly overseas in Cyprus and the Middle East. We was part of a UN peace-keeping force tryin’ to keep the tribes apart: Jews, Muslims, Christians – not to mention the Greeks and the Turks! Bit like Belfast, but wiv loadsa sun, sand and bearded blokes in pyjamas wiv machine guns. Mind you, I saw the aftermaff of a lotta bombs, I saw fousands killed in genocides... terrible, ‘orrible it was... But I never really saw battle, just ‘minor skirmishes’. Luck, I suppose. It was during a tour of Norf Africa in 64 when I first met the boss!”

“Really,” asked Malky, suddenly interested, “you met oul’ Ollie while you were still in the army? You've been with him that long?”

Herbie was back on his favourite subject and relishing the opportunity to impart his favourite anecdote to a captive audience: “Oh yeah, it was me firtiefth birthday and I was on a day’s leave, so me and a couple of the lads went to Casablanca to paint the tahn several shades of crimson... and after a bit of a pub crawl rahnd the Kasbahs, I got separated from me mates, and while I was lookin’ fer ‘em, I strolls into this dark little tavern and sittin’ there in a corner was Oliver Laphen! Would you Adam ‘n’ Eve it?! ‘E was supposed to shootin’ an adventure movie wiv David Niven about archaeologists in World War Two called Diamonds in the Dust –- but he was skivin’-off cuz he’d ‘ad a row with the director and ‘e was layin’-low -- he didn’t wanna ‘ang round the ‘otel, so ‘e’s ‘iding-out in this dark little Kasbah, trying to be inconspicuous – wearin’ a black wig, big black shades, a kaftan and a fez - but I knew ‘im the minute I set eyes on ‘im! See, our CO was a big fan. He ‘ad all the reels of the comic shawts from the late 30s and some of the feature films the boss made for Paramahnt in the 40s – he used to get ‘em sent ovah and screen ‘em for the lads on a Satur’ay night! Anyway - there ‘e is, in the flesh, so-to-speak! Oliver Laphen! Jolly Ollie! So I go over an’ I say, ‘Can I ‘ave your autograwph Mr Laphen, sah?’ and at first ‘e‘s fumin’ – ‘e goes-off-on-one! Then ‘e calms dahn and says to me – ‘’ow the eff did you know it was me?!’ and I say ‘It’s the way you’re ‘olding your drink!’ Cuz ‘e’s always had this way of curling back ‘is little finger as if ‘e’s drinkin’ from the finest choy-nah. E ‘as these delicate li’l ‘ands, see...”

As he watched the chauffeur get more-and-more animated, Malky came to understand how a sensible, seemingly-well-balanced ex-squaddie like Herbert Valentino Gorringe could forsake marriage, family and blissful conformity just to spend his life at the beck-and-call of -- if popular opinion had it right -- a detestable, despotic, volatile, cranky little egomaniac like Oliver Laphen. Well, now he knew. Herbie wasn't just a fan – he was in love with the man. The pair’s long-term relationship had outlasted all of ‘The Quare Geg’s’ marriages put together. No wonder the story was related with such gusto and attention to detail, it was, after all, an epic romance.

“.... any’ow, at 400 hours, I ‘ad to get back to base, but before I go ‘e takes me to one side an’ ‘e says – ‘’Erbie, if you quit the army ‘n become my chauffeur and personal bodyguard, I’ll guarantee you a 50 knicker a week for starters, bed-‘n’-board - all the skirt you can ‘andle – plus -- you’ll get to see the world without ‘avin’ to worry abaht gettin’ yer ‘ead blown orf!’ So I laugh ‘n’ say I’ll fink about it. I fanked him for the best night of my life and we say ta-ra. I go back to camp finking it wuz all the blustah and idle boasts of a booze-‘ahnd and forgot abaht it.  But it didn’t stop ‘im. When ‘e asked for the fird and final time, I quit and I’ve been at ‘is beck-‘n’-call ever since.”

“Was it worth it, Herbie?” Malky asked.

The chauffeur thought long and hard about the question before answering. When he did, his voice was more mature and thoughtful, “E can be an ‘andful sometimes, but artistic people is prone to temperament, it’s ‘ow they’s able to do the fings they do. But I’ve learned ‘ow to balance it aht. I’ve been all over the world, visited all the major cities ‘n’ ‘istorical places... I’ve met a lotta Very Important People – besides movie stars an’ showbiz folk, there’s been world leaders, presidents, kings and queens, writers, top sportsmen – so whenever people awsk ‘’ow do you put up wiv ‘im?’ I say ‘take a look at me passport, me photos and me bank accahnt, moosh - there’s ‘ow!’” He turned to Malky and told him earnestly, “See, I’ve gotta lotta great memories. I’ve seen ‘istory bein’ made. I’ve supped Earl Grey wiv Picasso and knocked back bourbon wiv Dean ‘n’ Frank. I’ve made an omelette fer Einstein an’ cocktails for Noel Coward. I’ve played cards wiv Kate Hepburn for two straight days - and lost. No matter what the ol’ boy gets up to, I wouldn't trade those memories for the world.... Umm...” Something crossed his mind. When he spoke again, it was in a more tentative tone, “Look, before we get to the ‘ahse, I’d better mention the incident on Friday night wot started ‘im off.”

“Why? What happened on Friday night?” asked Malky, a little disconcerted.

“I was away visitin’ a lady-friend in Dublin, an’ apparently all the lights went aht and the ‘uge grandfavver clock in the lobby fell over and smashed on the floor -– the boss was frightened outta his wits -- fought it was burglars – so ‘e pressed one of the panic buttons and Charlie, our ‘ead of security, drove up to the ’ahse right away. But the power-cut musta shorted-aht the alarm system cuz ‘is swipe-card wouldn't work and the master key wouldn't turn in the lock! So, finkin’ ‘e’s under siege, the ol’ man pressed the button that calls the Old Bill, but by the time they got there, Charlie ‘ad managed to get in ‘n’ calm the old man down. Then the lights come on again – not just the lights that wuz on when the power went aht – but every single light in the ‘ole ahse including the bedrooms, bathrooms, the ballroom -- everywhere. By this stage, the boss is goin’ mental. Really, really scared.

“When I got back I got a right bollockin’ as if it was all my fault – like I ‘ad the temerity to ‘ave a night off! Any'ow, me ‘n’ Charlie searched that ahse from top to bottom; the cops  ‘n’ the security lads looked round the grounds, but we come up empty... there wuz nothin’ up iv the fuse-box, no sign of tamperin’ or anyfink dodgy.”

“Would the grandfather clock be easy to topple?” said Malky.

“Well, it’s set into the wall ‘n’ it’s solid, antique Bavarian pine, 9 foot tall wiv a ruddy great bell in it; it’s got a solid gold pendulum and it weighs around a two-and-an-‘alf ton, I couldn’t pull it dahn on me own.” Gorringe coughed then said, “And that’s the ovver fing... the boss’ been back on the bottle ever since, and if you know anyfink about the boss, you’ll know that ‘e’s a bit... volatile when ‘e’s on the sawse. So, ignore any strange behaviour, if y’know what I mean.”

Malky was a trifle miffed at being apprised of these tidings so late in the day; he was about to ask if there was anything else he should know when Herbie suddenly brightened and declared, “And ‘ere we are, my beauties! My little ‘ome-from-‘ome!”

Herbie slowed the limo to a funereal crawl as they entered a particularly picturesque little village, “Ahhh, ‘ave you ever been a little place like this before?” he asked, with a little smirk that hinted at a rhetorical question.

Malky honestly confessed, “No. I’m sure I’d remember if I had.”

“You wouldn’t ‘ave. This ‘ere is a protected community, see. Only a few people know about it.”

It was beautiful, rows of whitewashed thatched cottages with black gloss doors, all flowers beds and hanging baskets with a little square with a little roundabout in the centre, bedecked with a floral clock depicting the flag of St George (?); aside from the copious vegetation, there was very little sign of life and almost no sign of the 20th century. “What’s it called?”

“Bogmire. Pretty lousy name for such a laavly little ‘amlet, innit?”

If it wasn't for the faded & peeling Coca Cola sign stuck to the inside of the window of the post office-cum-newsagent and an old bicycle leaning against the bench outside a ramshackle little country pub (the Black Water Rat), they could be back in Tudor England. Malky made appreciative noises.

“It’s like a little oasis from bygone days, innit? You feel as if you’ve slipped frew a time-warp – eh?! But the funny thing is – it ain't Irish! See, most of the people ‘oo live ‘ere are descended from English peasant stock! Most of ‘em is originally from the wilds o’ Cornwall! The Duke of Roxborough brought ‘em ovah to build Pagham ‘Ahse ‘n ‘e built these ‘ere cottages for ‘em – and believe it or not, they lasted through the rebellion cos of a pact between the Irish rebels and the Roxborough family ‘n they’ve been ‘ere ever since. When ‘e bought the ahse the only proviso wuz that we keep the staff and let the Supplicants – that’s their religion, that is – live ‘n’ work on the estate.” Herbie went on to tell of the locals’ strange customs and bizarre lifestyle in a disbelieving tone, “... and they've been doin’ it fer 200 years straight!”

Malky looked around, “And this is all part of the estate?”

“Yep, it came with the ahse!”

This didn’t surprise Malky one bit. For an Irish ex-pat, the old man wasn't renowned for his patriotism; in fact, he was a close friend of Princess Margaret and during the height of the Troubles in the 70s he was renowned for making disparaging noises about the Republican movement in Ireland from the safety of his Bel Air mansion (when Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA he told a NBC TV news reporter that the terrorists in question were ‘like a bunch of weasels attacking a lion’ and that Britain should ‘string ‘em up’), he was frequent visitor to the Whitehouse when the Republicans were in office, and was often mooted to be an anonymous sponsor of various right-of-centre US politicos -- he backed Nixon over Kennedy, was close to Ronnie Reagan since his  days as chairman of Screen Actors Guild, and was a frequent house guest of George Bush senior -- all of which made him a potential target for disgruntled boyos on both sides of the pond. It made sense that he’d want to live out his twilight years in a little slice of England transplanted into the heart of the Irish countryside, it suited his style: contrary to the end.

Herbie pulled-up outside a dainty little general store called The Peppermint Poke. The window was full of candy jars and pastries neatly arranged on little lacy paper doilies, “Dora oo runs the Poke is an Outsider, meanin’ she’s married to one of the Supplicants so she’s allowed to run a shop. None of ‘em is allowed to ‘ave a shop or make profit from their work, so the outsiders tend to do them fings, like business transactions and that. The local garda sergeant is an outsider, too -- he lives in that li’l cottage ovah there.” he pointed to one of the gleaming residences across the square...” Herbie opened the door, “I’m just gonna go in and get the Sunday papers ‘n’ a tube of Polos... I’ll only be a sec.”

Malky wound down his window to inhale the compliment of delicious odours to accompany the view: flowers, mown lawns and more flowers, “very restful. Then he heard a rumble outside the car -- a motorcycle had pulled up alongside and its rider, wearing a helmet with a dark visor, was looking through the driver’s-side-window. What’s this? Malky shrank back in his seat....The rider casually unzipped his black leather jacket and reached inside – for a second Malky flinched -- but instead of a weapon, he produced a video camera. Malky knew a maverick paparazzo when he saw one and immediately flew into a rage – he lunged out of the open widow, shook his fist and yelled, “Piss-off ya bastard! Get that f**kin’ thing outta my face or I’ll put my foot in yer arse!”

The shouting roused Broo from his slumbers. He saw the motorcyclist, heard Malky screaming and instinctively barked loudly and forcefully -- until he sensed that the stranger posed no threat and Malky appeared to be overreacting. He stopped barking, gave himself a shake and tried to get his bearings. The cameraman was quite small, dressed in biker’s leathers like Zindy’s biker chums, but these were more expensive and unsullied by general wear-&-tear. Then, as the bleariness subsided and his eyes refocused, Broo saw something that both startled and alarmed him. At first he thought it was the motorcycle’s exhaust fumes, then he realised the figure was shrouded in what he could only describe as a purplish-halo -- whatever it was, it was unlike any aura he’d ever seen before.

Malky was fit to be tied, “I’m not gonna tell you again, friend! If you don’t fuck aff immediately I’m gonna come out there and stick that camera where the sun don’t shine!!”

“That’s a take!” The biker cried, packing away his camera, “Thank you sir! Have a nice day!” he said and roared off, leaving a cloud of blue smoke in his wake. “Bloody paps – see – this is what happens when you do somebody a favour,” grumbled Malky.

Broo was still drinking in the atmosphere and looking for anomalies. Having been in places like this all over Ireland, the old dog had noted that each dainty village and township they visited had its own peculiar little ripples of the past shining through the present. On his travels he’d heard the echoes of ancient battles in the silence of the first light of dawn; he’d seen the children of ancient tribes playing on a busy motorway at noon; he’d seen 16th century Spanish galleons off the coast at Cork -– but Bogmire was a spiritual desert: there was absolutely nothing to sense or feel beyond the here and now. It was clearly old, spotless and brightly painted, but utterly devoid of soul. And that smell... beneath the floral scents and peat smoke, lay an ever-present stench that marred the otherwise wholesomeness of the place. Even for a dog that usually salivated at the stink of putrid flesh, it was hard to stomach. Most unusual...

Just then they heard the little tinkle of a bell and Herbie emerged from the shop with a bundle of newspapers under his arm and a Polo mint in his cheek; he got back in and offered one to Malky, “Did I ‘ear a mo’orbike?” he asked, “I was chattin' to Dora and I could've swawn I ‘eard a rumblin’ sahnd...?”

“Just a guy askin’ for directions,” said Malky, “so I told him where to go...”  

At that very moment, 3000 miles away, in the kitchen of a townhouse in North York, Toronto, Canada, the man of the house appeared in the kitchen doorway, barefoot in his pyjama bottoms, unshaven, hands deep in the pockets of his bedraggled dressing gown. 

“Emil! What the f**k?! Go get dressed – we’re late as it is!” shouted Fran, ever the fiery redhead, dressed to the nines in her Sunday-best, rifling through her purse in search of her car keys, “I told you to get ready an hour ago!” They were supposed to be going to her niece’s christening and they were running 10 minutes late. She looked under the cushions in the lounge; she looked in and under the couch; she checked every pocket in the coat rack. “Where the f**k are they?!!”

Emil watched her, his arms hanging by his sides, and said, “I’m not going. I have the shits.” 

Did I just say that? What the f**k?!

Fran, currently poking through the trash in the pedal-bin with the salad-tongs, threw her head back and mocked him in an ironic voice, “Hah! I knew it! Mom warned me – ‘he won’t go – he doesn’t even own a suit’! Well, it suits me – I don’t have to watch you get drunk and throw up in the swimming pool or make a pass at a waitress... Owww-ouch!” she’d cut her knuckle on the edge of a jagged tuna can, “F**k this!” she kicked the bin and ran to the sink to rinse it, screaming, “F**K! F**K! WHERE THE F**K ARE MY F**KING KEYS!!”

He knew exactly where they were. They were in his pocket. He was holding them in the palm of his hand; but for some strange reason he didn’t hand them over. It wasn't that he didn’t want to, it was because he couldn't. And no matter how hard he tried to communicate, his body wouldn't respond; he let her go on searching and said nothing.

She went to the knick-knack drawer in the welsh-dresser, rummaged around in the back and eventually emerged triumphant, “Ah - hah! The spare! I knew I’d put it somewhere!!” She had one last look in the mirror to check her mascara and top-up her lip gloss, “... If you go out make sure you turn on the alarm.... and if you go back to bed - don’t f**king smoke! That’s a new quilt and I don’t want it looking like somebody’s used it for target practice!” She strode down the hall to the front door; a few seconds later she came stomping back, madder than ever “You f**king asshole! You've done it again!! You've boxed me in! I can’t get my car out!” 

Emil remained silent. 

“Emil!” She approached him and looked up into his dull, blue eyes, “EMIL! You have to move your car! Are you listening to me?!

He stood and stared.

“Emil!”

“See you later, legislator,” he said, without smiling. It was a catchphrase he used when they said goodbye on the doorstep in those early days when they first moved in together; but here & now it just sounded weird. She gave him a sideways look, “Are you stoned?”

“Take my car.” He dangled his keys on his pinkie.

She grimaced at the smell of his breath, glowered and said, “Listen... I don’t know what the hell you’re on or what you are trying to pull, but my mother will be frothing at the mouth -– I was supposed to pick her 15 minutes ago -– this is a crisis!”

He dangled his keys.

She drew herself up and bawled in his face, “GET OUT THERE AND MOVE YOUR F**KING CAR!”

He jangled his keys.

She slammed her key down on the table and snatched his in one frighteningly limber move, “RIGHT! – I’m calling your bluff, asshole – I’m taking your beloved Porsche! You can take my Volvo -- I wonder what all those cutesy little students of yours will think when they see the delectable Dr Labatt driving through campus in a busted-up soccer-mom-mobile?!”

Emil stared back, unblinking and blank, and said, “I’ll miss you, Fran. You’re alright.”  

“F**k you, asshole!” She thrust the finger in his face and stormed out.

The slamming door was the last thing Emil heard before the darkness descended...

A few miles from Bogmire, along a road that was little more than a narrow lane, they arrived at a long, narrow lane lined on one side by yew trees concealing a tall, ivy-covered, red-brick wall that contained the entrance to Pagham House (or Paggum Ahse, as Herbie called it, making it sound like a particularly nasty proctological affliction), the stately-home of Oliver Laphen. Herbie reached into the inside pocket of his tunic and produced a small remote-control which he used to open a pair of inconspicuous but heavily fortified, solid iron gates, “As you can imagine, the boss is fanatical about security,” he pointed to the CCTV cameras perched atop the pillars either side of the gate, “this place ‘as got more cameras than Fort Knox.”

Inside of course, it was different story entirely: acres of well-tended lawns as smooth as billiard-table-baizes; vast flower beds moistened by a huge sprinkler system; topiary styled to resemble the figures in the Ascent of Man leading to the entrance of an extensive privet-maze; an enormous, ornate white-marble fountain with alabaster cherubs pissing into the air. It was all very tastefully ostentatious.

Like most of the world, his knowledge of Oliver Laphen was based on sensational gossip-columns he’d read in tatty magazines in various waiting-rooms over the years and the odd interview on Parkinson. Because Laphen was such an intensely private man, there were no official biographies and he used the services of an extremely litigious LA law firm to stymie any scandalous tomes that might shed light on the mystery he’d carefully nurtured over the years – a tantalising question: where did this fiery, working class, comic genius come from? The more reclusive he became, the more public interest increased, the more speculative the press became about his private life, the more outrageous the rumours -– the more tickets he sold. His career was indestructible. Not that everything was rosy on the home front. Enigmas, especially rich, volatile enigmas, are pap magnets; a good picture will fetch upwards of $10,000 so he was tabloid fodder from the day he stepped into the limelight. Editors from LA to Tokyo dispatched an army of dedicated investigative journalists to Dublin where they pored over thousands of files in public records offices in an attempt to trace the Laphen family line, but they always drew a blank: Jolly Ollie’s pedigree remained a tantalising mystery. He was certainly an Irishman by birth but refused to say anything about his childhood other than he was ‘educated by sadistic nuns’; he never talked about any parents or siblings and nobody knew where in Ireland he was from -- his accent was hard to pinpoint and changed as often as his anecdotes, the most famous of which was the story of his emigration to America when he allegedly stowed-away on a liner bound for New York at the age of 13 in 1929. After evading processing at Ellis Island he hitched his way across the States east to west and landed in Hollywood, where, according to (his) legend, he slept on the beach and did whatever work he could find during the day. At night he’d ‘hone his art’ performing slapstick in vaudeville, readying himself for stardom; two years later, at the age of 16, he was discovered by the celebrated ‘King Of Comedy’ Max Sennett. The talkies were the new big thing, and at a time when most silent stars were finding it impossible to ‘sound funny’, Ollie’s cartoonish Irish accent was a godsend and Sennett gave him his own series of 15 minute shorts. As Laphen retold this story over the subsequent decades, the narrative was wont to evolve until the embellishments rendered it wholly unreliable.

In the mid-30s when he traded under the moniker Ollie Laffin, he was happy to mug and gurn for the downmarket rags and Pathé News presentations; then, when he got ‘serious’ in the late-40s/early-50s, he stopped playing the fool and became a semi-reclusive thesp. The post-war world was a different place: screwball comedy and slapstick was old hat and Ollie was too canny to go down with the ship. When he returned to movies in ‘46 he went under the name of Oliver Laphen, stopped doing interviews and avoided all ‘that red carpet bollox’, preferring to leave the PR to his co-stars and directors who’d either guardedly sing his praises or proffer equivocal comments that were actually thinly-veiled digs, such as: ‘[working with] Mr Laphen was an experience I’ll never forget... but I’m trying.’ (Lauren Bacall) ‘He brings a piece of himself to every role and playing the villain comes so naturally [to him]...’ (David Niven), but one vox-pop in particular had stuck in in Malky’s mind: "He kept us mere mortals waiting for 4 hours before gracing us with His Presence, we went $4 million over-budget, 4 producers suffered a collective nervous breakdown and 2 of the crew died from heatstroke, but when you hire [Oliver Laphen], you get the best and some studios are prepared to set aside a few million to ‘feed the beast’.” Regardless of what his fellow-travellers thought of him, and how big a pain in the arse he was, Ollie Laphen = Box Office Gold.

“There she is!” cried Herbie, like an enthusiastic tour guide. The Rolls had rounded a bend in the driveway and Malky got his first glimpse of Pagham House.

“Jeez –- house is too small a word, Herbie! This makes Windsor Castle look like a B&B!” said Malky, when confronted by the huge, sandstone edifice of palatial proportions, with rows of latticed gothic windows, draped with thick beards of ivy.

The chauffeur chuckled, “Impressive, eh? It used to belong to the 10th Duke of Roxborough til ‘e fell on ‘ard-times ‘n the boss made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. We rent it aht when we’re ahtta town. It’s very popular wiv the Arabs ‘n the Chinese. It’s got 30 rooms, swimming pool, gym, ballroom, sauna -- it even has its own church -- the works!” They pulled into a gravel forecourt and parked at the foot of a huge white marble staircase leading up to a tastefully-weathered, balustrade-lined terrace. But Malky’s attention was drawn to another vehicle parked to the right of the steps: namely, the same Harley-Davison touring bike he’d seen in the village, and sitting on the steps was the mysterious rider/cameraman filming them as they drew up!

Malky was furious all over again, “What’s he doing here?”

“More to the point, ‘ow the ‘ell did ‘e get in?!” said Herbie, slowly unclipping his seat belt and opening his door, “I’ll ‘andle this...” Herbie got out, straightened his cap and walked toward the diminutive figure, “Can I ‘elp you, mate...?” Malky heard him ask, and then he and Broo watched as the biker promptly stopped filming, jumped down and met the burly chauffeur head-on -- he took off his helmet, grinned, opened his arms and the two embraced like they were very pleased to see each other.

“Uncle Herb – you look great!” trilled a cherub-cheeked, heavily-freckled, copper-headed American kid in his mid-20s, brimming with childlike-enthusiasm, speaking quickly and excitedly, “Listen - we’re gonna be shooting in July! I’m here to scout for locations and do the final negotiations...!” The lad stopped short when he noticed Malky trudging across the gravel.

“Sorry, Mr Calvert sir, I got a bit distracted then,” said Herbie, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder, “This ‘ere’s Kristof Katz, Mr Laphen’s grandson. Kris – this-‘ere is Mr Malcolm Calvert ‘oo’s come to... erm... sort out a little... plumbing problem...”

The young Master Katz took off a leather gauntlet, shook Malky’s hand, chattering incessantly, “Very pleased to meet you sir, I’m very sorry for the candid camera incident, but when I saw the car I thought my grandfather was inside and I wanted to catch him unawares but I caught you unawares and once you started to rant I couldn’t resist capturing that intense anger! I guess it’s the habit of lifetime -- Herb here will tell ya -- I’ve hadda movie-camera in my mitt since I was old enough to lift one – isn’t that right Uncle Herb? I’m a total geek!”

Malky gaped at him as if he’d arrived from another planet.

“Yer caffeinated up-to the-eyeballs again!” said Herbie, playfully clipping him round the ear and scolding him like a naughty schoolboy, “jet-lagged, ridin’ rahnd windin’ cahntry roads on a bleedin’ two-wheeled deff-trap?! Are y’ off your trolley, boy?! You coulda been killed -- there’s farm vehicles on these-‘ere roads, you coulda turned an ‘airpin bend an’ wahnd-up in the blades of a combine ‘arvester or summink!!”

Kris apologised for his over-enthusiasm and slowed down, “... anyhow, pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Calvert,” he turned and pointed behind him, “welcome to Ollie Towers, The Laphen House -- Xanadu -- whatever you wanna call it.”

Now that he was up close, Malky saw the family resemblance; the lad was short, around 5’ 5”, the same steely-blue peepers and winsome dimples that had graced millions-upon-millions of magazine covers since 1930. Malky felt compelled to comment, “I must say, you are the spitting image of your granddad.”

Herbie was gushing again, “Not only that -- but he’s in’erited his talent too! Kris is a movie director!” he tweaked the lad’s cheek and pretended to punch his jaw.

Kris went all aw-shucks and kicked at the gravel with the toe of a leather boot, “Well, I’m about to direct my first full-length feature. I’m very excited. It’s been in development hell for 3 or 4 years and now it’s finally in pre-production.”  

“’E’s like a son to me!” Herbie put an arm around Kris’ shoulders, tweaked his cheek again and beamed, “when he was a nipper ‘is mum used to leave ‘im wif me on those days when she was... erm... uvverwise occupied...”

Kris, utterly unfazed, merrily took up the slack and filled in the blanks, “What Herb won’t tell you is my mom – Annelise Katz, née Laphen - had a lotta ‘substance abuse issues’ at the time, Mr Calvert. She used to unload me onto Herbie for weeks on end when she went on a jag [Now that the lad had mentioned it, Malky recalled reading something about one of Laphen’s daughters getting arrested for possession in the late 60s. In fact, from what he could remember, all 8 of the Quare Geg’s children had ‘issues’ of one kind or another]. Thankfully she’s been clean and sober for the past 6 years and now she’s counselling other women with similar issues...” he squeezed the hand dangling on his shoulder, “So I have this man to thank for givin’ me a relatively normal childhood! We used to play on the film sets in the studios when gramps was making a movie - that’s where I got my training!”

Herbie blushed, “Ach, it wasn't ideal, but where else was I gonna take ya? You know your granddad always ‘as to ‘ave me arahnd to fetch and carry for ‘im. And watchin’ a film get made is like watchin’ paint dry, if you awsk me - it’s a wonder it didn’t put you off movies for life!”

They were distracted by the sound of paws hitting gravel. The old dog had finally exited the Rolls but didn’t join them; he kept close to the car and watched from a distance. “Whassup wiv the pooch, ‘e’s gawn a bit shy, ‘in ‘e?” asked Herbie.

Malky called out to him: “What’s the matter with you, Hopalong? What has you all cagey, huh? Come over here and say hello!”

“Aww, look, he’s only got three legs,” crooned Kris, in a childishly sympathetic voice. Broo whimpered as he watched the glowing boy walk toward him, stooped and spoke softly as if addressing a bashful toddler, “You don’t have to be afraid of me, boy, I wouldn't hurt a fly! No I wouldn't...” he reached out

Broo recoiled and whimpered: Get off me, you idiot... you’re killing me!

But Kris carried on, unaware of the old dog’s distress, “Easy, boy, I won’t hurt you...”

AARGH!!

Kris cuddled him, stroked his back and made silly noises, “Eh? Who’s a handsome fella, then? You must quite the VIP, huh? A German Shepherd who’s so important he gets to ride around in the back of a limousine...?”

Mercifully, he was rudely interrupted by a loud voice from above, “Where the f**k have you been, Gorringe?!”

The boy stopped petting and turned away – Broo (unseen) wobbled for a second then keeled over.

There was an elderly man in a gaping, black silk kimono, electric-blue satin boxer-shorts, and bright green unlaced baseball boots standing at the top of steps; he pointed at Kris with an accusing finger, “and what-the-f**k’s that wee ginger gobshite doing on my property?!”

Malky looked up and regarded their prospective client. His collar length grey hair was thinning and unruly as if he’d just got out of bed, his heavily lined face clenched in distaste; but underneath the grizzled exterior and the bizarre attire, was none other the Quare Geg Himself: the fun-loving Ollie Laphen, former Crown Prince of Comedy! Looking at him now, though, it seemed there was little to laugh about, but you wouldn't know it to hear his grandson.

“Gramps! How-the-hell are you?! It’s me, Kris!” The boy put the helmet on the seat of the Harley and joyfully bounded-up the steps two-at-a-time, “so goo-ood to see you, dude...” he embraced the frail, bristly figure - who immediately pushed him away. “Gitcher filthy hands affa me, ye wee shite!! I’m not senile yet -- I know damn-well who you are!” Laphen put his fists on his hips and sneered in a high-pitched whine, “Whaddya want from me this time? Money, is it? Well, you can feck-off back to La-La Land - this bank is closed! Go and ask that crooked auld kike of a father o’ yours – oh yeah, I forgot – he’s back in the bankruptcy courts -- yet-again -- after yet-another one of his half-assed business-deals went tits-up in the water – still - why break the habit of a lifetime, huh? Once a loser, always a loser!” he stuck his little pug nose in the air, stuck out his chin and tied the belt of his silk kimono, like a superannuated prize-fighter squaring-up at a weigh-in. 

Doing his best to suppress a fit of giggles, Kris reassured him in a sober tone, “S’OK gramps, don’t have a cow, man. I don’t need any of your filthy lucre, after all -- we've got a backer! And for the record –- I’ve never asked you for anything in my life, you old goat -- and you know it!”

Laphen stepped closer, “Why are you here then?”

“To see you you...” said Kris, smirking.

Laphen went nose-to-nose with his grandson and growled, “So, you don’t need me?! Well! You've seen me! Now piss off!”

Kris put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and smiled, warmly, “C'mon, we’d better get you inside, it’s quite chilly out here and we wouldn't want you catching cold, now, would we?”

The old man swatted the hand away like a particularly stubborn piece of lint, “Stop treatin’ me like a feckin’ invalid! I’m perfectly capable of walkin’ unaided – I’m not in a feckin’ wheelchair yet!” in the same breath, he broke away, looked down at Herbie, pointed at Malky and barked, “Is this the guy?”

“Yessah!” Herbie replied, standing to attention, as if addressed by a superior officer, “this is Mr Malcolm Calvert, the, erm... consultant from Brodir.”

“Well – don’t just stand there like a spare cock at a hen-night! Bring him in!”

With that, Laphen stomped back to the house with Kris walking alongside him, chatting incessantly despite the cold shoulder.

As Herbie fetched his overnight bag from the trunk of the Rolls, Malky watched them walk off and commented, “Chirpy little git, isn't he?”  

Herbie slammed the lid shut and explained in a low voice, “Don’t let the ol’ Scrooge act give ya the wrong impression, Mr C. Kris is the apple of the old man’s eye - ‘e dotes on that boy. This is the way they speak to each uvvah. There’s no real malice intended so it’s best if you just let ‘em get on wiv it. Neevah wants to admit that it’s all a big contest to see who’ll crack first –- it usually ends in ‘uge laughs all-round. Only fing is the old man’s been ‘ittin’ the bottle again. I’m afraid ‘e’ll end-up sayin’ somefink really ‘urtful to the boy and ‘e might never come back. Kris is the only grandchild ‘oo ever comes to visit, see -- so for all of our sakes -- I ‘ope they chill-aht 'n have a civilised conversation.”

“Uh-huh,” Malky grunted, distractedly. The more he heard, the stronger the temptation to hand back the cheque and book a taxi back to Brodir, but he was so hungry now he had no choice but to reserve judgement until after dinner.

As they climbed the steps he suddenly realised they’d forgotten someone; he looked back and saw that his trusty companion was finding it hard to drag himself up, “Och, c’mon Broo, they’re not as steep as the stairs at the inn -- and you manage to climb those when you fancy a drink from the bog!” said Malky, turning away.

Broo could barely stand, let alone climb a flight of steps. When the young leatherman approached to indulge in a spot of light-petting and the strange, purplish halo enveloped him, Broo was instantly numbed -- he felt a sensation akin to sinking into a vat of virulent, viscous quicksand; a toxic vapour overwhelmed his senses -– and when the boy eventually let go, the dread feeling went with him. Alas, the men were too busy to notice him collapse in a heap, having been distracted by the sudden appearance of an angry old man who smelled of cigarettes, alcohol and bathsalts. Then something strange happened: when the younger man climbed the steps -- the aura around him grew more transparent –- by the time he embraced the old man - it had evaporated completely! One second it was there, the next – nothing. This was most perplexing. And if his senses were to be believed, aside from a few passing crows, there were none of the usual creatures one would find on an estate as big as this. Just like the village, there was no livestock or wildlife in the vicinity at all. Not only that, but as his head cleared, he realised that something else was missing: there’s no sign of anything Other in the ether either, and that bothered him most of all. The sky was darkening for dusk, the shadows were lengthening and the sun was low, so why are there no apparitions in the Golden Hour? Where was the shimmering residual energy of past events that can only be glimpsed through the rays of twilight? In a land such as this, historically ravaged by epidemics, tribal violence, famine and murderous invaders, there should be at least a few ghostly children playing in the fields... And yet, there’s nothing. If the Barry McKee case had taught him anything at all, it was to Beware Spiritual Vacuums. Bad things happen in Spiritual Vacuums.

... at that very moment (12:56 US Eastern Time), approximately 3600 miles away, at a checkpoint at the Canadian/United States’ border, on the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie, between Ontario and Buffalo, New York State...

“Sir? Sir... hello...

“Sir?!

“Wind down the window, sir!”

Somewhere... off in the distance Emil heard a man’s voice and a clicking sound. Metal on glass...

It wasn't like waking up, more like someone switching on a light. He was sitting in Fran’s Volvo, at what appeared to be the US/Canadian border!

“Sir, would you please wind down your window?” the muffled voice barked “SIR?!”

In his peripheral vision, Emil discerned a uniformed figure peering through the window. A US border patrol guard?! Holy shit?! What the f**k is going on?! 

But the inner-turmoil, dislocation and downright terror didn’t register on his face: on the outside, he was deadpan, ice-cool and composed. The inner-Emil watched his own hand reach out and push the button that wound down the window; he felt the crisp breeze buffet his face and arms as the glass descended.  If this is a dream, it’s very vivid. The guard stooped, leaned-in and sniffed the inside of the car. The outer-Emil remained unfazed, but when he caught a glimpse of himself in the wing-mirror, he soon realised why the guard was so suspicious.

He appeared to be wearing an unbelted towelling bathrobe, pyjama pants and his XXL Jimi Hendrix tee-shirt -- the ensemble he wore when he was slouching around the apartment... Shit -- you gotta be kidding me -- no briefs?! He desperately wanted to grab the hem of the gown and tuck the tails between his legs, but his arms refused to budge!

The certainties: it was daylight; he was at the border. I’m driving my wife’s 1979 Volvo estate dressed like an extra from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! This has to be a dream! I’m gonna wake up at any minute...

Meanwhile, somewhat surprised that he couldn't smell any liquor, the guard returned to the business in hand, “May I see your passport, sir?!” he asked, acidly, in a thick New England accent. He was leaning on the roof now, the midday-sun gleaming off the chrome-plated badge on his cap; despite the dazzling flashes, Emil’s eyes refused to blink. The Inner-Emil wanted to grab his tie and shout: Stop me! I’m out of my mind! but his lips remained firmly zipped; his body remained still. For all-intents-and-purposes, he was a puppet with no mind of his own.

So who’s pulling the strings?

The guard was getting impatient; he pointed at the passenger seat, and snapped, “Your passport, sir!!

Emil’s outer voice said “Passport?”

The guard pointed, “It’s there. Right beside you, sir.”

His head turned to the right and he found himself looking down at the passenger seat; sure-enough, sitting atop an array of various official papers, was his passport. He saw his hand reach out, pick it up and hand it over. Maintaining eye-contact, the guard took the little booklet, ceremoniously shook it open and read it with a disdainful look. Emil had taken many acid trips and tried every psychedelic he could get his mitts on, but this was unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his voyages through the Doors of Perception. So what does that leave? Sleepwalking? He tried to make the fingers of his left hand pinch his thigh... but nothing.

“What brings you to the US, Mr Labatt?”

Emil heard himself say, “Doctor Labatt. I’m on my way to visit an elderly relative, if you must know. She’s very ill. Dying. It’s an emergency.”

What?!

“... Are you planning to drive all the way, Dr Labatt?” the guard asked, doubtfully.

The inner-Emil wanted to cry out: I don’t wanna drive anywhere! I don’t know why I’m here or what I’m doing! Please call my wife, Frances – she’ll come and get me!! In fact – arrest me! Take me into custody right now!!

Instead he heard his outer voice reply, dryly, “Yes, officer. Driving all the way.”

The guard handed back the passport, sighed heavily and asked pointedly, “Dr Labatt, have you been imbibing today? Narcotics, alcohol, have you taken any prescription drugs that might affect your ability to drive?”

This could work to his advantage: if I’m cheeky enough they might arrest me on suspicion of DUI! Alas, the invisible ventriloquist kept the voice calm and answered succinctly, “I most certainly have not been imbibing, officer. I’m a well-respected forensic scientist and a senior lecturer at the University of Toronto. I’m on my way to Baltimore to see an elderly relative with a terminal illness. It’s matter of some urgency. I need to get on.”

Baltimore?!

The guard handed back the passport and enquired, brusquely, “Carrying any foodstuffs, livestock including pets, liquor or sundries that may be considered contraband by the United States of America?”

“No, sir.”

“Then, would you mind popping the trunk, sir?”

Emil didn’t stir.

“Sir... pop the trunk?”

“This is my wife’s car and I don���t know where the trunk popper is.”

‘Trunk popper’?! Listen to me! Arrest me, you fool! I’m frickin’ nuts!!

Shaking his head, the guard reached in and groped under the wheel; “There she is,” and tugged the lever.

While the guard searched the trunk, the Inner-Emil tried to think logically: Could I have been inadvertently poisoned at the lab? Unlikely, he was very careful about sterilisation and wore a mask at all times... Have I ingested something in the course of my work... a fungus...? A spoor that causes one to act out in some way...? But he was ignoring the obvious: there was a taste in his mouth -- a taste that was as familiar as it was bitter and earthy that usually preceded the bouts of sickness. In fact, it had been happening ever since he’d got back from the dig in Kildare 2 years ago when they discovered the bog mummies (he’d abandoned the annual expeditions after his little fling with Niamh). Lately, he’d been prone to intermittent lapses in consciousness and bouts of short-term memory-loss. He’d find himself staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror for hours on end. Fran thought he was smoking too much weed, but not even strongest strain of mary jane could induce blackouts like this, and nothing would leave a taste in his mouth this bad.

The trunk slammed shut. The guard returned, “Everything seems to be in order, Dr Labatt...” he leaned on the roof and spoke close, “Listen doc, if I was you I’d stop at the first motel I came to and I’d get myself a couple of hours sleep. Then I’d have a shower and a change of clothes and I’d drive the rest of the way feeling wide awake ‘n refreshed. I wouldn't want to fall asleep at the wheel and maybe kill myself or some innocent folk who were unlucky enough to be travellin’ the same road. Whaddya say to that, doc?”

An uneasy silence followed. The inner-Emil waited for his body to respond but nothing came: his eyes remained unblinking, his mouth stayed shut. He prayed that this was a turning point -- that he’d do something so outrageous they’d have to take him in -- but it never came. Finally, the guard sighed and patted the roof with the flat of his hand, “Welcome to the United States, doctor.”

Before the lights went out, Emil heard his voice reply with a curt, “Thank you. Have a nice day.” He felt his right hand release the handbrake; he felt his foot gently depress the accelerator. He watched as the Volvo taxied through the checkpoint; he paid the toll and ventured onto the open road... that was the last thing he remembered before the darkness descended again...

Malahide, Dublin: The Somerville family were going to Mass.

“Put on yer seat-belt, Cate, luv. You don’t have to sit in the baby-seat but you still have to strap yerself in,” said Somerville, getting into the driver’s seat.

In the back, Cate turned to her younger sister, “See, Cathy – he called it a ‘baby’ seat!’”

“Mommeeeeeeee!” Cathy wailed.

Pat got into the passenger seat and took control: “Ssshhhh, Cathy.... Cate don’t tease Cathy! You’ll start her off -- then baby Clare will start!” She playfully slapped her husband’s shoulder, “That’s your fault, daddy! It’s a CAR seat not a BABY seat, silly -– it even says so on the little label ‘Car Seat’ –- so-there, Miss smarty-pants-Caitlin -- you were wrong!”

“Daddy said it not me.”

“It was a slip of the tongue, Pat.”

“He didn’t mean to say it, Cathy. I’ll never hear the feckin end of this... will you be more careful what you say!”

“I’m not a baby I’m 4 and 4 months! I have to sit in it cuz I’m too wee for the seat belt!”

“That’s right! You tell ‘em Cathy! It’s a seat for small people, not babies! Cathy’s very sensitive and unassertive and I’m trying to build her confidence!”

“Daddy, what’s ‘police brutality’?” asked Cate, apropos of nothing.

“Where did you hear about ‘police brutality’?” said Somerville, looking at her in the rear-view mirror.

“One of the older girls shouted it when Sister Marie dragged her into the bogs to wash her face.”

“Toilets, Ladies, loo or lavatory, please, Cate, dear. What are bogs?” said Pat, sternly.

“Sorry mommy: ‘Bogs are Irish swamps...’” Cate sang, rolling her eyes.

Herbie led the way through the huge front door into a huge, cavernous sandstone vestibule lit by a quartet of gothic, arched windows, not unlike the narthex of a Christian church, but cluttered with precisely the sort of tone-lowering kitschy bric-a-brac that one would expect a working-class-boy-made-good to put on display -- as much a screw you to visiting nobs & snobs as it was a totem to his wealth and wilful nature, to wit: a suit of armour wearing an American Indian headdress, a deep-sea diving-suit with a stuffed monkey’s head in the helmet; a pair of large Persian vases filled with strange umbrellas. One item in particular gave Malky cause for pause: standing to the left of the adjoining Gothic archway, stood a life-sized waxwork of the Master of Mirth himself, fashioned and dressed to represent his ‘hey-day’ in the 30s; this waxen Laphen was the youthful, joyful Jolly Ollie Laffin, grinning that trademark  squidgy-grin, complete with pinchable dimples, the rash of freckles across the bridge of his little pug-nose, the glassy sky-blue eyes gleaming like sapphires – you couldn't help but smile. Malky couldn't help but remark, “Whatever happened to that sweet li’l guy, eh?”

The burly chauffeur didn’t take the bait and doggedly maintained his chummy, sunny disposition, providing information with the patter of a well-informed tour-guide, “That used to reside in the foy-yer at Madame Toussauds in Lahndahn! They replaced it wiv a more recent model in the 70s an’ the boss brought the originals back ‘ere when he bought the ahse. This one was done in ’38, just after his first full-length feature: Ollie and Molly Strike Oil!” Herbie moved to the right of the connecting archway and unconsciously adopted an almost identical pose to the grinning effigy on the left, “This way, Mr Calvert. I’ll take you to yer room and you can freshen up ‘n that ‘n we can tawk about the ‘situation’ over dinnah.”

As they walked through a slate-floored lobby lit by muted spotlights, it was more of the same: a veritable Ollie Laphen museum exhibit; an autobiography laid out chronologically -- from glass-cases containing newspaper columns, magazine covers and PR stills from the slapstick days of the 1930s -- to the chin-stroking thesp (a framed headline in The Irish News: ‘Laphen’s Lear is a masterclass!’). The dark, wood-panelled walls were lined with framed photographs of Ollie pressing flesh and embracing some of the greatest movie-makers, movers-and-shakers of the past 60 years: FDR, Bogart, Monroe, Gable, Jackie O, Bing, Hope, Groucho, Einstein, Fidel, Vidal, Hitchcock, Wayne, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, Elvis, the Dalai Lama, the Beatles, the Queen of England and various royals – as far as the 20th century is concerned, Ollie is the OED definition of ubiquitous. As they passed through the connecting archway, Malky got quite a jolt - enough to stop him dead in his tracks. Dead being the appropriate word, for in the shadows of the dimly lit reception hall stood a menagerie of dead things ready to attack -- lions, bears, tigers, panthers -- feral, snarling, glassy-eyed, posed in a stance of attack; ugly birds-of-prey hung on wires from the rafters, talons bared, poised to swoop; and to be certain that arachnophobes didn’t feel excluded, there were a few tarantulas strategically attached to various pillars and posts.

Malky gaped and gasped, “Wow! Did Ollie kill all these himself?!”

This time Herbie did seem a wee bit uncomfortable, “Nah, ‘e commissioned ‘em from a taxi-dermist’s in Sarf Africa where they can get you anything...” He sniffed and shook his head, “I ‘ate it too, to tell the troof – I never come frew ‘ere if I can avoid it. It’s the old man’s sense off ooma, see – he likes to lull visi’ors into a false sense of security then - aargh! They get the shock of their lives,” he reached behind a curtain and threw a switch -- the animals’ eyes shone bright red and and roared in their respective voices. “The boss ‘ates animals, see –- he got rid of all the livestock ‘cept for stables when ‘e bought the ahse. ‘E ‘ates ‘orses most of all. ‘E got thrown by a donkey when ‘e was doin’ a cameo in Around the World in Eighty Days in ’55 or ’56 –- ‘e walked orf the set and refused to ‘ave anyfink to do with animals evah again! Animals and kids. If he could get ridda the crows he’d be ‘appy.”

Broo found the menagerie obscene and growled accordingly.

Their attention was briefly diverted by shouting in a room somewhere further in: “... Will you quit naggin’ me – ye’re worse than a feckin wife!”

“NO! I won’t stop til you see sense! If I don’t say it – who will!?! You’re cracking up!! You’re a delusional... egomaniacal narcissist! You’re like Stalin without the people-skills...!”

Herbie quickly ushered his guests into the lobby and closed a connecting door turning the voices into incoherent murmurs, but Malky had heard enough. Herbie’s stoic exterior slipped, he got jittery and muttered something about an ‘Inquisition’ under his breath. Malky was about to ask what he meant when he quickened his step and led the way through another archway that led to a lobby at the foot of a huge white marble staircase cleft with a dark scarlet runner. On the bottom step stood the other waxwork of Ollie dressed as a tramp holding the Oscar statuette for his role as a shady boxing promoter in the movie Knuckledusters. In an alcove in the rear wall to the left of the staircase stood an imposing, but badly-damaged grandfather clock; the glass insets covering the face and pendulum case were smashed, the hour-hand hung limp on the wheel and part of the ornate, intricately hand-carved casing was cracked down one side.

Herbie stood next to his guest, looked up at it and said, “Big f**ker, innit?”

Malky was inclined to agree that it was highly unlikely that such a huge piece of solid timber could be toppled so easily by a man as old and small as Ollie.

The bickering voices were making Herbie very uncomfortable, there was a pained expression on his big, weather-beaten face. As they climbed the staircase, he said, “Look, Mr Calvert... I don’t know ’ow to say this... what I mean to say is.... you might ‘ear certain fings whilst you is ‘ere... and I don’t like ‘avin’ to ask... but we’d be grateful if you would sign, for the want of a better phrase, a gag order.”

Malky shook his head, “Like I said, Herbie, I hate the press as much as ‘oul Ollie, but I don’t feel comfortable signing that sort of thing. Cuz if there is anythin’ iffy goin’ on – I’m not sayin’ there is – but should we detect signs of chicanery or skulduggery in the course of our ‘investigation’ -- like, say, we uncover a plot to get the ol’ bugger certified and bleed him dry or rewrite his will -- a gagging order could severely hinder an official investigation, and, when all’s said and done, I’m on the side of law and order.” He held up his right hand, “But if it makes you feel any better – as far as petty gossip and scandal-mongering is concerned -- my lips are sealed,” he turned, looked down at Broo and added, glumly, “... can’t speak for the dog, though...”

Broo grunted, still too stupefied to take anything in.  

In light of such an earnest assurance, Herbie relaxed a little and explained, “Um well, the ‘Inquisition’ I mentioned refers to some recent sackin’s in the last week or two. ‘E’s fired a coupla security guards, the assistant gardener and the young gal who ‘elps out wiv the ‘ahsework on Tuesdays ‘n Fursdays!”

“Why did he sack them?”

“Cos somebody leaked some gossip to an American tabloid ‘n it could only ‘ave come from the staff, so ‘e hadda clear-aht.” Herbie took a deep breath and spoke in a half-whisper, “So you can see how bad it is ‘ere. It’s got to the point where the only people ‘e trusts is me and the ‘ahsekeeper, Mrs Sparkes - and ‘e only trusts ‘er cuz she’s from the village and they believes all this ’aunted ‘ouse bollox.”

Again they were distracted; this time it was the jingle of unbuckled buckles and the stomp of motorcycle-boot-heels on the chequered tiles below, “Uncle Herb! Is it true? He’s sacked Scanlon?!” Kris shouted from the hall, clearly incensed. The three turned and looked down; Herbie maintained eye contact but didn’t answer; his uneasy silence said it all. “He has?! Shit! Where did he go?”

Herbie lowered his head, looked at his shoes and said, “Nobody knows. He packed up ‘n walked aht wivvaht a word ‘n we’ve ‘eard nuffink since.”

The lad stamped his foot and punched his thighs with his fists in a sudden fit of anger and disbelief, pacing back and forth at the bottom of the stairs, as the implications hit him one by one, “This is such bullshit, Uncle Herb -- I was working with Scanlon -- he was helping me with the movie -- what did he do?!”

Herbie’s head dropped, “Look Kris, yer grandpaw’s been ‘avin’ a bit of bovver lately and...”

“And where’s the cat? Don’t tell me he’s fired him too?!”

“He ran away.”

“Huh?! Fey Ray ran away? I not friggin’ surprised! The entire estate is a no go area for anything with more than two legs!” yelled Kris, without realising how odd it sounded, and stomped off in a huff; a few seconds later they heard him shouting at the old man in another room.

“Do ever stop and think: ‘hey, maybe I’m the problem?’ – cuz unless you straighten-out you’re gonna die a very lonely old man...” “Ach, blow it out yer arse, ye ginger shite-hawk...!”

A door slammed and the squabbling voices became muffled and unintelligible again. Herbie put a hand to his brow and groaned to himself, “Kris, son, you couldn't-a picked a worse time to pay us a surprise visit...”

“Who was Scanlon? The butler?” asked Malky.

“No, groundskeeper, but he might as well’ve been,” Herbie replied, unhappily, “’E did all the odd-jobs arahnd the ahse. Lifetime’s service – gone - jus-like-that - phfft! Kris an’ ‘im wuz thick as thieves too. ‘E knew all the stories about this place. Kris used to sit up for hours on end listenin’ to ‘im but Scanlon and the boss never really got along – Scanlon came wiv the ahse, see, just like all the servants – but ‘e wuz a bit of a law onto ‘isself. When we checked, we found ‘irregularities’ in our finances. The boss confronted him, he couldn’t answer, ‘n that was that.”

They reached the second landing and the old retainer ushered them along a long corridor with row-upon-row of sky-blue doors with ornate brass name plates, the panelling in-between bedecked with gold and silver discs, “Were all these recorded by Ollie?” asked Malky, genuinely impressed.

Herbie, pleased to have a diversion, nodded and cheerfully slipped back into tour-guide mode, “Oh, people forget ‘e was a great crooner. In the 50s he recorded loadsa LPs and they wuz big ‘its all ovah the world - not-so-much in the US or Britain - but ‘ere in Ireland ‘n France ‘n’ Germany.  Can’t walk dahn the street in Japan. We go over to Tokyo every now-‘n’-then and ‘e records all these TV commercials for ‘em. Liquor, potato chips, candy bars, mostly. ‘Big bucks for a load of ol’ bollox!’ ‘e says.”

“I know how that feels,” muttered Malky, thumbing the cheque in his pocket.

Herbie opened a door with an engraved plate bearing the legend The Wonderland Suite and put the case on an ottoman by the door. The room was weirdly magnificent, in an oversized, child’s playbox type-way. The floor was a chessboard, there were huge cushions in the shape of chess pieces scattered around the floor; the walls were decorated with blow ups of Tenniel’s drawings of Alice in Wonderland characters; an emperor-sized four-poster swathed in white satin sheets patterned with black diamonds; and a large, white tallboy with outsized, bright red knobs and drawers that were shaped to look warped and uneven, like a prop from a kids’ cartoon. “’Ere’s the TV,” he said, opening the doors of a huge white sideboard to reveal a 38” screen, “If you wanna take a walk round before dinnah -– go ‘ead, nowhere’s off limits -– oh, part of the east-wing’s locked-up, but I can get the keys from the safe and take you down later. There’s some PJs ‘n wot-not in the dresser drawer and fresh towels in the en suite. There’s the phone,” he pointed at an ornate, art deco phone, “just dial 9 for an outside line.”

Astonished by his surroundings, Malky could only gaze and nod his head.

Herbie clicked his heels and stood to attention, “There’s plenty of ‘ot-wa’ah if you wanna ‘ave a showah and a shave or wot-evah. Dinnah will be served at 8pm sharp (it was presently 5:50pm), I’ll bang the gong. In the meantime, make yerself at ‘ome 'n I’ll see you at 8,” said Herbie, brightly, closing the door behind him.

Malky sat down on the edge of the bed and examined a brass plated console next to the headboard; he pressed the first button: the curtains closed; he pressed the second: the curtains opened; he pressed a third and the lights either side of the bed came on; he pressed the fourth and the drape across the canopy over the bed rolled back to reveal a full-size, horizontal mirror. “Bit sordid for a room that looks like a nursery,” Malky opined, flopping down and looking up at his reflection, “God, I’m getting old. Remind me to close that curtain before I go to bed – if I wake up and see meself in the morning I’m likely to scare meself to death.” He kicked off his shoes and writhed in the welcoming sea of satiny-softness, like a Labrador pup in an unfurled toilet roll, “Oh, I just wanna sleeeeep... wake me up in September when the baby’s born...”

Broo growled quietly, that’s right, you have a nice relaxing catnap while your tiny, put-upon wife labours over a hot engine just so that she can get that wretched old banger of a van back on the road in order to buy provisions and decorating materials to build a nest for you and your unborn progeny.

Malky sat up, “Hmm. maybe I should ring her. This is our first night apart since we moved in together. I’d better give her a progress report.” He rolled over, picked up the art-deco phone and called the inn.

“Well, what’s Ollie’s house like?! Is it dead grand or what? I wanna know everything!”

He gave her a detailed description of the house so far, right up to and including the mirror in the canopy over the bed, “... the stories are true, though -- Jolly Ollie is one grouchy oul’ shite. I don’t think I’ve ever met such an obnoxious old git in all me life.” he said, shaking his head. “Zindy, what the hell am I doing here? This isn't me.”

Zindy had obviously been thinking about it too, “Listen luvver, this ain’t a justification or an excuse, but both of us know that there’s certain things we can’t explain away with logic. I mean, look what ‘appened with Barry McKee? Just put yer Sherlock hat on and look at it from a detective’s perspective; treat it as a sorta murder-mystery weekend. What about Broo? He should be able to let you know if there’s anything spooky about the place?”

“I dunno, he seems a bit drowsy, like he’s half-asleep,” said Malky, giving the old dog a cursory glance.

Of course I’m sluggish, you oaf -- this place is sucking the life out of me! Can’t you tell?!

But the semi-telepathic link remained infuriatingly out of order, “It was a long drive. He’s probably knackered.” Then, much to Broo’s chagrin, they forgot about him and exchanged love yous, miss yous and take cares before hanging up.

“Have you noticed somethin’?” said Malky, rhetorically, going to the en-suite and turning on the light; he looked around, “Hmmm,” he opened the bathroom cabinet: the mirror was on the inside of the door. “Whilst me ‘n Zindy were talking, it suddenly occurred to me -– there isn't a mirror to be seen around the house -- even the one above this bed is covered by a curtain.” Malky nodded, “It’s ironic, isn't it: the big Alice in Wonderland freak who doesn’t have Looking Glass –- an egotist who treats you to a personalised autobiographical stroll through his glory days but doesn’t like to look at his own reflection? I find that somewhat strange...”

5 minutes ago: Zindy put the receiver back in its cradle, sat back and winced, “Settle down, kiddo,” she said, patting the elongated face of Jimi Hendrix stretched across her bump, “I still have a gearbox to sort out before we ‘ave a nice bath ‘n go to bed.” She sat at the kitchen table, radio tuned to a classic rock station (Malky listened to nothing but BBC Radio 4) and sang along to Deep Purple’s Child in Time, wailing like a banshee as she screwed and unscrewed oily nuts and rusty bolts: très cathartic. She felt a little guilty, but surely she was entitled to a night on her own. She looked down at the bump: I mean the two of us. I’ll never be alone again

Zara ‘Zindy’ Lindsay, you see, was an accident; everybody told her so.

Ever since she could understand rudimentary English, her aunts and her mother would mention it regularly - usually after something burned down or yet another little boy’s mother had arrived at the door complaining that she was demanding dinner-money with menaces. When she was old enough to understand the mechanics of human reproduction (hard not to when you live on a farm), they’d tell her she was the result of a drunken one-night-stand with a Spanish scout master (visiting Burnley on an exchange-visit) that no one had seen or heard from since. Fortunately for Dory, the Lindsays were/are a well-to-do family with links to the cotton trade that go as far back as the 17th century, so they had the wealth and power to cover it up. After a secret birth, mother Dory and baby Zara were spirited away to a remote farmhouse in the heart of the Lancashire countryside under the care of a pair of huge, lumbering maiden-aunts. Unlike the petite and genteel Dory, Maggie and Lottie were tall, mannish land-girls with no time for molly-coddles and sentimentality -- what’s more they didn’t care what their niece got up to so long as she didn’t burn the place down or leave a gate open (she could drive a tractor by the age of 6). When she was 7, Dory married and moved out, but Zindy didn’t like her new stepdad and he didn’t like her (a snooty, middle-aged bank manager who read the FT and went to Mass twice a week). She preferred Dory’s long-term boyfriend Tam Horsham who drove the Mother’s Pride bread van; but he was too common, apparently, “He eats his dinner off a tray and smokes in the bath!” said Dory, tartly, when asked if Zindy should start calling him dad. So, after numerous tantrums, she was allowed to stay at the farm and enjoy the relative freedom of life with the ‘Looney Lindsay Sisters’ (as the locals called them). Then puberty hit, so did a lifelong passion: motorbikes. She found a broken down old ‘39 Triumph Tiger in the barn and with some help from Lottie (“It belonged to an old boyfriend who left it here in ’42 when he went to war... but he never came back for it so I assumed the worst.”) she cleaned it up and replaced the missing parts. It took 8 months of scouring scrapyards and hard labour, but she managed to restore it to its former glory. She was in the Gazette! ‘Tearaway Tomboy Triumphs!!’ Consequently, she met dozens of motorcycle enthusiasts and a lot of them just happened to be Hell’s Angels. That’s when she first got that weakness in her knees. Big, fat, hairy men. Her pals were aghast. It could've been a father-daddy complex or just a weird perversion, but she could get enough of grizzled, over-weight geezers most girls would cross the road to avoid.

In spite of her aggressive side, she was quite the artist and spent hours quietly painting and sketching the scenery behind her great-aunts’ farm. According to her second year teacher in her annual report (Zindy refused to go to boarding school and went to the local comprehensive): ‘She has shown a flair for art and is very intelligent – when she wants to work, which isn't often ... for the most part she is headstrong, opinionated, brusque and quick to temper; a girl who sees life as a big adventure ... it may be a symptom of her diminutive stature that she feels she has to be brash and contrary, but if she continues in this fashion she may face expulsion....’

Zindy just couldn't be tamed. She was up before the magistrate on a regular basis, mostly for driving without a licence or brawling with boys twice her size. On her 18th she stood on a table in the Flat Iron pub in front of her closest friends and allies and vowed never to settle down to a life of domesticity, to forsake motherhood and be a free spirit for the rest of her life. Three weeks later, she moved in with a recently divorced woodwork teacher 17 years her senior. He proposed (‘wanna shack-up?’) and she couldn't say no. So began her lifelong ‘thing’ for older men – the daddy syndrome, probably.

The cohabitation with the woodwork teacher was as passionate as it was incendiary – he turned out to be a secret drinker – there were vodka bottles hidden all over the flat; she tried to keep up for a while, but all they did was fight. Things came to a head with the couple spending a night in the cells of Bottle Street nick. The desk sergeant told her he was a lost cause – “He’s dried-out 3 times -– and he’s still the same mess he was when I first started in here 15 years ago! My advice lady – run as fast as them wee legs can take ya – find a fit young man with a good job!” She took this advice to heart, and a in a few months she met a recently widowed sculptor at a Henry Moore exhibition –- this time 40 years her senior; tall, with long grey hair who dressed like Tom Wolfe -– and got swept up in a whirlwind romance. ‘Whirlwind’ in the sense that the trail of destruction they left behind: various foodstuffs were hurled, crockery was smashed, household utensils took flight and embedded themselves in walls. Zindy loved it. She loved him. Alas, his kids, two of which were older than her, did not approve and weren’t shy about letting her know. It was grist for Zindy’s mill; it only strengthened her resolve. She thrived in adversity; she lived to Fight the Good Fight and persevered with the relationship without a thought for the toll it was taking on the poor man’s heart. Of course, like most Spring/Winter love affairs it ended with a lonely vigil in a draughty hospital corridor listening to the impassive beep of medical machinery whilst his own flesh & blood hold his hand as he drifts over. Previously estranged siblings now united in their grief against a common enemy: “The stupid bitch is still sitting out in t’corridor.” “She’s only after ‘is money.” “She looks about 9, makes you wonder...?” She heard every word, approached and told them in no uncertain terms she didn’t want or need his money – all she wanted was to organise the funeral in accordance with his last wishes. They told her his last wishes were enshrined in his last will & testament, not word of mouth, and while they were on the subject, he hadn't left her anything. They told her he was never done talking trash about her behind her back, telling them how he didn’t trust her; that she was a little gold-digger. Meanwhile he was telling Zindy how ungrateful and spiteful his children were and how they’d never done a day’s work in their lives! She had to stand there and listen as they sneered and talked about the stranger with whom she’d spent the last 2 years. It turned out he was a compulsive liar. His wives were all basket-cases by the time he’d finished messing with their minds. All told, the heart condition came as a result of the stress of numerous love affairs and having to remember what lie he told to whom.

Zindy swore to herself that she’d never have anything to do with men ever again! She cut her hair short, dyed it blue and foreswore make-up, skirts and blouses, bought a motorbike and toured Europe with a chapter of Hell’s Angels who treated her like one of the boys. The vow was broken 5 years later when she accompanied her new pals to the Isle of Man for the TT and met a biker from Wicklow. Robert ‘Raspo’ Canning was a built like a brick-shithouse with a long plaited (usually purple, sometimes blue) beard and intense stare (hence the moniker; Raspo: short for Rasputin). He was a nightmare in a studded leather jacket but Zindy was besotted with him. Despite his hulking size, expanding waistline and intimidating manner, he was smarter than the average bear. He read science fiction and knew a lot about astronomy. They used to ride up to Donegal, sit on the cliffs and he would teach her the consolations. She was hooked.

While she was there, one of her great-aunts died and Raspo took her back to Salford for the funeral. She inherited £30,000. Then Barry McKee, one of the gang of bikers from Brodir, happened to mention that his father was selling a seaside pub and she was very interested. She could run a business - she used to do the sculptor’s book-keeping and worked behind a bar in Germany for a few weeks; plus, Brodir might’ve been a rundown town, but it was a Mecca for bikers from all over Europe -- trade would be brisk –- she couldn't see what could possibly go wrong!

But you don’t know anybody until you live with them for a while.

At first, Raspo enjoyed playing host and worked behind the bar, but he had other business interests and that was OK – she preferred running things on her own – it was her name on the licence, her responsibility. She never asked about his business, she didn’t want to know, but she assumed he was a small time dealer: grass and tabs. Then one day he said, “Oh Zin, I’m off to Dublin to do bouncer for a boxin’ match at the National Stadium!” he kissed her goodbye, got on his trusty Triumph and off he went to bounce in Dublin. She found out later that he was off to collect a sizeable debt owed to him for a delivery of coke. When the debtor wasn't forthcoming, Raspo lost his temper and took it out of his hide with a crowbar. This information came courtesy of DS Phil Somerville, who also informed her that her beloved Raspo wasn't just peddling grass, he was dealing in all the a-listed narcotics, not to mention a little sideline in video piracy. She had to sit and listen while Somerville listed her lover’s shady dealings with various Dublin-based organised crime syndicates and proscribed terrorist militias when he tried to coerce her into turning tout and aid in the apprehension Raspo’s subordinates/associates/friends etc. She flatly refused. Raspo was sent down for 7 years, but 8 months later, to shave a few years off his sentence, he did what she refused to do: he shopped most of his former associates including some regulars, and - boom – the bulk of her clientele has declared her persona non grata and boycotted the inn. Somerville told her it was her own fault; she knew what Raspo was and chose to ignore it. He was right. A psychologist would say that it was indicative of a subconscious desire not to commit to a long-term relationship... Whatever, she was alone again, naturally.

Then along came Malky and his spooky three-legged German shepherd and their notorious pursuit of the evil Barry McKee. It was a thrill-a-minute-life-or-death roller coaster ride but it nearly killed them. She took a bullet to the shoulder; Malky had a heart attack and almost bled to death (the irony: Somerville saved Malky’s life after destroying hers). And here she was, back in another hospital corridor listening to bleeping machines. Just when she thought history was repeating itself, his old broken heart kept beating, “and it’s been beating for you ever since,” he said, in an uncharacteristic show of mawkish affection. 

Good ol’ Malky. He made her laugh. He was a good man and he made her feel good. They had conversations that lasted all night. OK, so he has a psychic three-legged dog who complains about the noise when I play me records, but that only makes it more fun. To put it simply, life was good. She was painting again; he’d made her a studio in the attic. (He never told what he was doing up there and she didn’t ask; he just hammered and sawed and cursed whilst she went about her business. In the end he’d put a ribbon across the door for the grand unveiling. He’d widened the skylight to let in more light and built a little podium for her still-life subjects. She accepted the keys like a gushing thesp before bursting into real tears. And although , he was hard work at times - he was sometimes taciturn and prone to moodiness – he was a good, kind man.

Then, wonder-of-wonders, she gets pregnant and her instinct, much to her surprise, is to keep it. Malky acted as if he wasn't overly keen, but she knew that deep-down he was delighted; he just felt unworthy and old.

And here we are. 2 years later and things couldn't be better. We’re broke but we ain't bust. We’re just about keepin’ our heads above water...

She went to the bar and looked out of the big window at the dirty, litter laden, windswept promenade. The council were meeting on Thursday; word on the wind had it that property developers were looking at the town with a view to redevelopment, so things were looking up. That’s good, ain't it? Lots of meetings with property developers and councilmen: all very ‘establishment’.

So 22 years later, what would she say to the silly girl standing on the table telling the world she’ll be a wild-child forever? Is she where she wants to be, where she has to be, or where she needs to be...?

Sammy couldn't read her mind but felt her doubts as if they were his own. It must be something to do with Malky. He hoped that it wasn't anything serious. Malky had grown on him. The old dog was a godsend, somebody to talk to who can see you, hear you... not that he ever feckin’ listens! But what if the auld dog died? Sammy shuddered at the thought: There would be no watching TV until 4 in the morning for a start. It was tough being a ghost. And although he knew Zindy couldn't see him, he still felt a little self-conscious about his appearance; as the old dog says: “the bloody-bullet-hole-ridden-apron makes you look like a psychopath (ghosts are stuck with what they wore when they died -- the last image The Light captures before their Soul passes), so he was discreet. He sat on the bin in the dark corner by the stove and watched from what he considered to be a reasonable distance. He’d been a bachelor all his life, he’d never met a woman he could live with, but Zindy was closest thing he’d ever had to a daughter – this, despite the fact that she was a headstrong, blue-haired English girl who dressed like a boy and swore like a docker. When she bought the inn, he thought she’d only last a few weeks, and yet, thank God, here we are. 

There were very few advantages in existing between Worlds, besides the walking through walls and not having to eat or sleep or all that malarkey, his senses were heightened and attuned to the Oneness of All Living Things (well, that’s how the dog put it) –- which meant he was able to see the little glow in Zindy’s belly. It was nothing more than an amber glimmer throbbing with the minute pulsebeat of a budding Soul, but it radiated an energy that brought a ripple of warmth to his Essence. Sometimes, when she was sleeping he’d stand close – not too close – and look into her womb. Oh, but it was a joyous sight to behold, “Look at the miracle begin again,” he whispered, to no one in particular.

Zindy climbed up onto the draining board to close the window above the sink -– Sammy was jumping up and down, pulling at his silver beard, “Are ye mad woman?! Get down o’ that w’ ye!” Thankfully she performed the exercise without incident, but he still hadn't settled; as she went about preparing her evening meal, he paced the floor behind her, fussing, wagging his finger, “Look at that floor! There’s engine oil down there! Ye’ll slip ‘n’ go on yer hoop! You’d better buck-up yer ideas, lady – that’s a chile in there – not a bag o’ chips!”

“Oh, I’d love a bag o’ chips,” she said, apropos of nothing.

Sammy stood by the cooker as she toiled over the sizzling pan and talked to her unborn baby, “Your silly daddy doesn’t know what to do with himself. He hates all this spooky stuff... He hates anything that brings the world to his door -- God knows what he’ll be like when the inn’s open for business...” Whether she was consoling a restless foetus or trying to convince herself, she didn’t know. She stopped stirring and stared as she contemplated her certain future.

The old ghost saw the doubt in her eyes and fought Malky’s case from his corner, “He’s a decent sort who won’t let you down –- you have to grow up sometime, missy! Stop moonin’ about and think like a mammy!”

No, let’s make no bones about, she was getting bored. It isn't good when life gets too predictable, when routine becomes rut. She needn't worry; things were about to get very strange indeed...

St Cedric’s Institution for the Criminally Insane (SCICI): Rossington watched the sundown from his office window, a very large brandy in one hand, a cigarette in the other. It had been a bad day. The news from the board had been direct with no room for interpretation. His time had run out. The victims’ families’ petitions and writing campaigns had fulfilled their purpose, the pressure to do something had forced their hand. He had to give up Barry McKee to the authorities so an independent assessment of his condition could be made. He’d explored every legal avenue to keep him at SCICI, but there was nothing more he could do. The mob has spoken.

He was angry and frustrated, but mostly angry. He finished his brandy, carelessly stubbed out the cigarette, left his office and made for the sick bay in the high security wing. He walked quickly and purposely, collected the swipe cards from the nurses’ station and marched on, swiping through the sophisticated system of doors, along the corridors and across the walkway that led to the security ward and the room of SCICI’s most infamous inmate. Then, just as he swiped the lock, he had a moment of inspiration. He turned and walked to the staff toilet at the end of the corridor, to the mirror above the wash-hand basin; using his penknife to unscrew the frame, he carefully prised the hexagonal glass from the wall, put it under his arm and took it to McKee’s room.

“Hello, Barry,” he said, quietly closing the door behind him and turning on the lights. The sudden blaze of brightness didn’t faze McKee. Hooked up to the machines that kept him alive, long haired and bearded, he continued to stare unblinkingly at the ceiling, like a stricken biblical prophet transfixed by a vision of hell.

“I must apologise, it’s been quite a while since I visited. I’ve been busy with other patients and projects, not to mention running this establishment, you know how it is. I’ve kept abreast of your progress, though... what there is of it.” Rossington slowly crossed the floor, talking in a casual manner as he approached the bed, “Anyway, I’ll get straight to the point: I’ve received some bad news regarding your case and I thought you should to be the first to hear it.” He sat in the chair by the bed and put the mirror on his lap, “They've decided to take you off my hands, Barry. They say I’ve had enough time to prove you’re worth keeping alive. They say it would be mercy: ‘it’s cruelty not to let nature take its course’. No doubt they’re under pressure from the families of the victims, not to mention that bastard Somerville. Whatever, you’re doomed, and there’s nothing I can do to save you.”

As always, McKee remained silent and seemingly insensible.

“You've shown no significant progress since that business with Niamh and Oona 2 years ago.” He tore off the latest print-out from the EEG and indicated the flat lines across the graph, “See, nothing like the flurry of activity we recorded during those instances in 1989. Why’s that, eh?” He scrunched the page into a ball and threw it into the corner. “It all stopped when I took away the mirrors and had you moved you to this room, didn’t it? Niamh and Oona lost their connection and have exhibited no psychic abilities since. It’s no coincidence, is it, Barry?”

He stood up and held the mirror over McKee’s face, “I know you use mirrors to reach out other telepaths and psychics,” he said, looking deep into McKee’s unseeing eyes, “so I’m having them re-installed, and you can do whatever is you do. Good or evil, I don’t care anymore. I just need results, Barry. I need something to show for my work. If not, I’ll hand you over to the authorities and they’ll perform what will be, for all intents and purposes, a public execution...”

To Be Continued Next Month...

[tartrazeen]

Heavy Rain is a better David Cage game because it's a murder mystery story, so instead of David Cage gettin' too cocky and assigning himself Moral Arbiter of Whether Black People Protest Too Loudly, lumping anti-Semitism, anti-immigration, homophobia, child abuse, domestic violence, slavery, sex trafficking, and systemic oppression together as "Interchangeably Bad" and untreated depression and police brutality as kinda good/funny, he's still humble enough at this point to *only* butcher-and-exploit:

child abuse!

mental health!

drug addiction!

rape! at least twice!

I mean, I'd also include "fucking awful at writing women as well as men who are not white (trans people, you'd better pray David Cage doesn't find out you exist and try to 'help')" but you knew what you were getting into when you saw David Cage. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Anyway, it's like the first Saw movie, with the bathroom trap and then the detectives runnin' around and all the murder puzzles. It's pretty good! I recommend it in the same way I recommend DBH as a "buddy-cop romance with one scene inexplicably yanked from Ocean's Eleven."

Also, also - if you want to see what the prototype for Connor's character was like, and the singular prototype for Hank and Gavin before David Cage recycled the idea into two people, you're gonna love/hate/love/understand-a-whole-lot-about-what-David-Cage-intended-with-Gavin-lmao-good-luck-Gavin-stans-also-early-HankCon-slash-Convin-confirmed-with-that-amount-of-tension Agent Norman Jayden and Detective Something Blake.

(The prototype for Kara is technically Madison but shhh, David Cage doesn't know because Kara is a mother so it's very different).

Keep your fingers loose for that 🦋 chapter! Genuinely my favourite - David Cage really nailed the nuance of a Nintendo 64 controller 🐙

I’m replaying heavy rain in preparation for Detroit become human and I very much enjoy it

[pizzafishandchips]

2 -“People like you have no imagination.”

For Fictober day 2

For Persona 5. Includes an original character of mine. Possible spoilers ahead. Mild P5 protag x OC. Mostly written to express my frustration at why a certain late game character gets a certain weapon type even though I normally couldn’t, especially given the previous Palace.

The Shadows collapse inward on themselves, melting into an indeterminate pool of writhing black before dissipating away. Within the cold, titanium halls of the spaceport palace, the phantom thieves take a moment to breathe after their most recent battle.

“Man, and I thought being on a spaceship would be really cool,” Skull groans. “But now I’m just gettin’ sick of looking at all these tinheads!”

“Indeed. This Palace is completely devoid of any aesthetic quality. Such drab decour is hardly suitable for refreshing the soul like true art can,” Yusuke comments. Though they don’t all agree on his exact points, the general murmur through the group indicates shared sentiments.

“Oracle, how much further do we have until we can reach the Treasure?” Queen asks.

The navigator takes a moment to focus. “I’d say we’re about halfway there. But I sense...some complicated terrain going forward.”

“Ugh, any more and my brain’s gonna implode,” the pirate-clad thief whines.

“You say that as if you were using it to help out,” Mona quips. Noir gently nudges the cat creature.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to handle whatever is ahead of us! We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”

Joker nods in silent affirmation. Noir’s cheeriness and determination catch, and the group renews their drive going forward. For once, they are lucky, and the Shadow populace is comparatively lower than it had been in previous floors. They make good progress before Panther remarks on something.

“You’ve had this kind of weird face for a while now, Malefica,” she says. “Something on your mind?”

The tip of Katsue’s large, pointed hat swings to one side as she cocks her head, her expression pensive under the mask. “There’s something about this place…”

“What? Do you feel something?”

“No, I just… I’m getting this vibe from it… Like I’ve seen it somewhere before…”

“What? You think something in the real world looks like this giant hunk of metal?”

Before she can answer, Oracle calls out a warning, and several foes appear before them in front of a gated doorway. The brigade ready themselves, and through their leader’s impeccable guidance, they manage to finish the fight without much trouble.

But the thieves quickly remember that trouble comes in more forms than one, and the large portal forward seals itself shut with a loud clang. Startled, they turn around, only to see the way they came slammed shut as well. Curses abound, and they quickly fan out, searching for a way to move forward.

Yet even with Oracle’s vision, the thieves can find nothing of use. There are no panels to exploit, no conveniently placed vents to crawl through. For the time being, they are trapped, and quite stumped.

“This isn’t good… I thought there would at least be some kind of control panel we could hack or a key we’d find,” Queen frets. “You would think that’d be the case, given how the rest of the Palace has been.”

“Well, I can think of a good reason why it might not be the same,” Malefica notes. She walks slowly through the space, looking around her. They’ve ended up in a very spacious room, filled with shelves and shelves of strange, hard cases of varying sizes.

“It’s a spaceship, but it’s also a factory. And what do factories often have? Warehouses,” the witch explains.

“You think there’s something important in here?” Joker asks.

“I remember there being panels at least outside this room. But there are none inside. So whatever is stored in here is the kind of thing that’s heavily regulated. The kind where you need someone watching on the outside at all times so you don’t step out of line.”

Malefica’s interest is piqued by a small case. Unable to open it by normal means, she beckons to Skull, taking his shotgun. With a single shot, she rips through the latch keeping the case locked. Kicking it open, the generally calm, collected thief gives a whoop of delight.

“I knew it! I knew this place felt familiar!”

From the case, she pulls out a strange cylinder. It’s oddly designed, adorned with patterned ridges, buttons and switches, and what appeared to be an opening on one side. Oracle and Joker immediately pick up on what it is.

“This is...a storehouse for weapons,” the leader concludes.

“Sheesh, you’d think Okumura would have a bit more originality than this, though,” Oracle mutters.

The rest of the team stare at the two in confusion, and all of them are momentarily ignored as Malefica beholds her newfound toy. She runs her hands over it, examining every inch with an almost disturbing amount of glee.

“Hold on, hold on, there’s got to be a way to--There we go!”

She finds the right trigger, and from the opposite end a beam of light materializes with a signature shoom. She makes a few practice swings, seeming to completely forget their dire situation as she listens to the way the light hums as it moves through air. The rest of the thieves look on with dumbfounded faces, while Joker simply shakes his head with a smile.

“Uh, not to rain on your party or anything, but what good is that going to do us?” Skull asks.

Malefica tsks. “You have no imagination, Skull.”

She sheathes her new weapon and latches another onto her belt, and the sound of her footsteps are filled with purpose as she marches up to the sealed metal door. With a grand flourish--they all knew she was only doing it for the aesthetic--the beam of light appears once more, and Malefica plunges the high power beam straight through the door.

Like running a hot knife through butter, she slowly cuts her way through, barely able to see through the blazing sparks flying about. It takes a few minutes, and she is left with a smoldering black outline just big enough to fit someone of normal human stature. With a solid kick, the piece falls away to the other side of the gate, and Malefica beckons to the group as she leads the way through. The rest of the gang clamber through the roughly cut hole, and Oracle cheerily announces that they have successfully moved forward.

“Beaten by the knowledge of a fan, that’s something I can get behind,” the navigator laughs.

“I’m not quite sure what happened, but hey, if it helps us get to the Treasure faster, I’m all for it!” Panther admires.

“She has some DVDs you can borrow, if you’re really interested,” Joker says quietly. Panther raises an eyebrow at him, a look he ignores as he refocuses on the task at hand. But it doesn’t keep her from seeing the small smile he aims at the girl in question as she continues to marvel at her new fortune. Ann chortles under her breath.

Their path cleared, they continue on down a long hallway, until they come upon a set of bizarre, revolving doors. Most of them make nothing of it, but Malefica is once again struck by nostalgia.

They have little time to process this however, as a Shadow suddenly forms before them. What Joker recognizes as Scathach steps up to them, spinning a long spear in her hands. Malefica’s memory sparks, and she doesn’t know whether to be excited or indignant.

“Oh my god, this is going to be so cool and so stupid at the same time,” she mutters. She stylishly flips her new weapon into her hand as she activates it, taking her stance before their new foe.

“You always did like the fight scenes,” Joker can’t help but laugh. She groans.

“Oracle, I swear you’d better record this!” she calls out.

Scathach steps forward, and with a deep breath, Katsue charges.

[blackbrownfamily]

[kat-hawke]

Wheels in Motion

Faint ticks filled the air as Kat stared down at the pocket watch in her hand. Less than twenty-four hours until she’d be on vacation, not even sure if Victoria was going to show, but she held out hope. This was something that was supposed to bring her ease and relaxation, yet there was a slight bit of stress still in the back of her mind. She hasn’t been away from the Unit for a full week before, to be disconnected from the on goings of the City. While she knew the Unit was in good hands, she still stressed a bit. She had learned to know nothing but this life.

With a soft sigh she slid the golden watch back into her pocket, staring ahead at the wall in her office that was covered in papers, pictures and reports. There were various pins of different colors stuck across the collage of papers and maps, some connected by corresponding colored string. Kat idly cracked her knuckles as her gaze drifted over each pin, following each thread. There was a sudden knock at her door, the first meeting before she left. 

“It’s open.” She called out, keeping her gaze on the wall. She knew who it was, her Head of Intelligence.

(Long read below the cut. Snippets and small details of the inner workings.)

A slight smirk touched Xylia’s lips as she slid into  the office and caught the collage upon the wall. “I see you’ve been decorating. Starting to look like my office in here.” She teased, moving over to lean against the desk beside the Director. “So what am I looking at?”

“A various collection of observations and reports I’ve seen. Things are gettin’ interestin’. Lots of names are overlappin’ in reports, the same people turnin’ up here and there when watchin’ others. Either sumone is pullin’ strings or things are linin’ up.” Kat moved to place a finger on the pin stuck into a map of the Blasted Lands. “There are several rumors that float around the Draconis name. I’ve watched her a bit, she’s an interestin’ woman to say the least. Surely ya’ve seen the flyers of her lookin’ fer sumone to train her? I pitty who she might end up with, she might just become sumone’s play thing. But-” The Director’s slender digit moved from the pin and followed the thread to another pin, lodged in a map of Old Town. “I over heard a conversation between her and Recke Stoutmantle. Talkin’ of ships and such. But why I wonder? Either way, it makes a possible connection between her and those at the Tea House. A while back I wus watchin’ a woman who said she lived in it, as strange as it is. She sat on the street with an elf talkin’ about railin’ drugs. Perhaps we can exploit that and see if she talks?”

“We have someone on payroll who might have answers as well. I’ll reach out and see what I can come up with. That particular group is coming up in a lot of reports, even if it’s just in passing. Something to keep and eye on, but we won’t engage without orders.” Xylia motioned to another pin, stuck into the Vale on a map of Pandaria. “That who I think it is?”

“Yes. Susan Gampre. I’ve had a few run-ins with her. She’s a bit of an...acquired taste. Pinkly seems to know her a bit though. For now she is a back burner, her name is scare in out papers compared to others and that date auction she hosted brought out some rather interstin’ folks. Still- we are blind and deaf in comparison to other operations. Let’s try to fix that, yes?”

“Of course. I’ll see who I can wrangle, almost everyone has a price tag these days.” Xylia’s fingers drummed on the side of the desk as her gaze drifted across the wall, taking in all the reports and pictures stuck up on the multiple maps of the lands. Eventually her eyes fixated on a black pin stuck in the northern reaches of the kingdom. “I see he has a pin now. He either pissed ya off or wanted something ya found very interesting.”

Kat chuckled as she paced in front of the wall, stopping so the pin was level with her eyes. “Warlund wanted the same as several others. An understandin’, a deal, a partnership. Woteva ya’ want to call it.” She let out a low hum as her amber gaze moved across a few files. “I’ll play nice fer now, but the only reason he has any sort of political clout right now is because of Josetta. I don’ doubt she’s a pawn in wot eva game he wants, or is, playin’.” Kat turned to return to her desk, sucking her teeth quietly. 

Xylia chuckled softly as she pushed away from the desk. “I know what ya be thinking, Kat. I'll get a plan in place. At least Farah isn’t a factor anymore, right?” She moved across the office to the door, looking back to the Dirctor before taking her leave. “I'm sure she'll turn up. Focus on ya vacation, not all this." She nods to the wall before exiting. "Consider it done, don't worry about it.”

A few hours passed, Kat moved about her office sorting and reviewing various files and reports. She set aside the few that had gone cold or were no longer relevant. Her pen scratching and scribbling across a few files, making notes and alterations here and there as she waited for her Chief of Staff.

Jess never bothered to knock, just opening the door wide and sauntering right in, bottle of rum in hand. The bottle gave a solid thud as it was set down on the desktop, the officer dropping down into the seat opposite the Director. “About time you took a vacation, you’ve been lookin' stressed as hell for the last month or two.” She eyed the collage of pins and papers on the wall before sitting up a bit to look at the files on the desk. “So what we got?”

Kat gave a small smirk at the bottle on her desk, though she preferred whiskey she wouldn’t complain, pushing her seat back a bit to collect a pair of glasses. “A few things. Our pool of competent agents is startin’ to lack again.” She slid back to the desk and motioned to the pile of files. “They need refresher courses, detailed trainin’, and a few specializations across the board. Sum of them are too eager just to stab shit and a few are nothin’ but egos and hot air. That needs correction.” Kat plucked the bottle from her desk and began to pour each glass.

Jess scoffed as she reached out for her glass, taking a healthy swig. “Well maybe if it wasn’t like runnin' a daycare for adults that half the time jus' want to stand around and flirt, they could actually get things done. That said, there are a couple in the group who are quiet and actually focus, I’ll start with them.”

Kat gave a small nod as she pushed the personnel files she had selected across her desk. “There are three in mind right now who have promisin’ potential. As for the rest? We’ll wait and see, sum of them are too reckless but that’s just the nature of the beast. Now, there is a woman, Lestia Ferth. I sent her to get with Agent Welgarde, to see if she’s as skilled as she claims to be. Keep an eye on that. Agent Sutton- is in a complicated position right now. I don’t trust the elf I’ve seen her lingerin’ with. Shorten her leash if we must, I don’t need anymore bodies, especially our own operatives.” 

Jess just stared blankly from behind her glass as she took a drink. “Another woman? Figures. You know we could really do with more men around here.” She let the glass rest in her lap for a moment, collecting the files offered to her. “Fine. I’ll get to it.”

“Good. Now, Operation Surge.” Kat pointed to the map of Uldum, a few small blue pins were stuck around the desert zone, taking a sip from her glass. “I believe I got everythin’ in order, but we aren’ equip or built to go on an expedition. Word through the grapevine is that Leora went off to create her own group, this might be a bit more up her alley. She can keep woteva she finds in the vault, we are only after the one thing. Reach out and see.” Kat eyed the wall a moment before taking a large gulp of the rum, settling back in her seat and crossing one leg over the other. “We will start the Reforge Initiative when I return.”

The med bay was quiet, still a bit of a mess from the excitement Saelkath had caused the other day. Kat’s amber gaze moved across the various shelves and the items that lined them, making mental notes as she approach Andie’s office. The Head of Medical was sometimes hard to pin down, often out and about in the city and socializing at the local taverns.

The officer door was already propped open, Kat gave it a single knock as she stepped inside, a few papers in hand that she held up briefly as she addressed the Draenei. “Andie. I got the requisitions to restock our supplies all approved fer ya’. I also added some different medications, a few that are non-habit formin’ so we can avoid any possible problems in the future. I’ve also looked over a few of the medical reports, let’s have the few that were injured in the...complication the other night double checked. I don’ need anyone runnin’ around with lingerin’ void energies in them.” She dropped the signed and approved forms onto the desk.

Andie's gaze traveled from the stack of papers dropped on the desk up to the Unit Director, "All medication is habit forming if ya try hard enough!”  she chortled through a grin.  She absentmindedly thumbed through a couple of the signed papers, "...and I think eliminating void tainted members is about as futile as trying to outlaw amber colored eyes..."

Kat just rolled her eyes at that. “Ya’ know wot I mean, Andie. There is a difference between bein’ tainted and usin’ the magic.” She turned to take her leave. “And don’ let people form a habit, we don’ need doped up operatives runnin’ amok.”

Only twelve hours left and one meeting to go. Kat drummed her fingers idly on her desk, waiting for her Deputy Director, peering at the wall that housed the collection of pins and threads. So many of each, various colors, stretching all over. Yet there was no clear web nor pattern formed. Perhaps it was all strange coincidences but Kat remained doubtful it was so.

There were a few short knocks as Jo entered the office space, the redhead closing the door behind her as she perked a brow. "I 'alf expected ya to bail on yer vacation plans, 'Awke. Are we goin' to discuss Cell Zero before ya go?" The redhead moved to settle into one of the chairs across form Kat's desk, making herself comfortable.

“No. We are no’.” Kat stated pointedly as she turned away from the wall to face her desk proper. “Nor do I want to hear any arguemen’ ya’ surely have. We can discuss it when I get back. Wot I do want to discuss is the few variables that have recently cropped up. One bein’ this Agent ‘Shadow’. Since Agent Cogwheel’s demise-” She tapped the purple stone around her neck. The gnome would likely take the chance to implant the image of a little gnomish middle finger in Kat’s mind’s eye. “-I haven’ seen any sign of that Unit. Keep a close eye and ear on that one, if there are other assets we can scoop up then we might as well.”

A snort escaped the Deputy Director, but she simply nodded her head. "Aye, I've got eyes an' ears out fer any more of 'em that migh' pop up. No sense in good material goin' to waste."

“Mhm. As for our other friends who have recently shown up and found me. The Warden, Elyza, has a bit of a complicated history.” Kat tossed the former commander’s file across her desk to Jo. “Valuable though. Good for intel and a possible Kalimdor connection. Just be cautious. I’m no’ entirely sure where her morals land these days and we don’ need the complication of her raiding the Labs. The other one, the Sparklesprocket gnome. She’s good at wot she does and she’ll help when needed. Just limit wot she sees- I don’ fully trust the company she frequents.” Kat rolls one shoulder as she leans back in her seat. “Well, more like the company her company keeps.”

Jo reached across and picked up the file, opening it and leafing through the information they had on The Warden. She nodded along as Kat continued to talk, taking it in as her eyes scanned the pages. "Nice to 'ave Kalimdor connections. An' I'll keep 'er out of the Labs." Shutting the folder, the redhead lifted her eyes, studying Kat. "An' wot company is she apart of again?" She had seen the Gnome in the building the other day, but had kept her questions quiet for the moment.

Kat just waved a hand dismissively. “No’ important. The person I don’ want to deal with is more of a distant connection anyways. Friend of a friend sort of deal. Don’ worry too much about it.” She clears her throat as she sits up a bit. “There are just a few things to tighten up here and there, a couple of lose ends and straggler operatives to rope in. OH! And I have an elf trapped in a cave up north, make sure Agent Sutton feeds her at least once a day.”

"An elf. Trapped in a cave up north." She blinked several times. "Is that all yer goin' to tell me about it?" She leaned back in the chair, the folder sitting closed in her lap. "Does it 'ave anythin' to do with the letter ya received the other day?"

Kat shook her head and slid a second folder over. “No, completely differen’ actually. Just don’ worry about it too much, I’m handlin’ it. When I get back we can discuss Project Exodus and the Lazarus Project. Fhay’lin already delivered the files on them to your office.”

"Alrigh'. If that's all, then I guess I'll wish ya a 'appy trip. Rest well an' I'll try to keep them all in line while yer gone." She gave a wry grin before pushing herself to her feet, tucking the folder under her arm. "Let me know when ya get back? I'm afraid I'll worry about ya until I 'ear from ya once ya return." She shrugged and shifted, taking several steps back toward the door.

Kat snorted with a slight grin. “Yeah, I’m sure everyone will know when I get back...”

Everything was packed and ready to go. Kat was sitting on the edge of her bed just staring at the luggage, several things running through her mind. Only a few hours left.

‘It’ll be fine. Wot could possibly go wron’?’

( Mentions: @astromancer-two @library-of-the-forgotten [Xylia] @strixena @recke-stoutmantle @evelynnblackmore [passing mention] @susan-gampre @miss-breakfast @warlund-blackfyre @jossetta @farahblackfyre @jesdena @lestiaferth @valoraegn [Malice Welgarde] @tristanasneak @leora-strauss @aundi @saelkath-alzarah @josetteklark @galfouhdiamond-eye [Cogwheel] @wardennerd @summysparklesprocket @quellys [passing mention] )

[blkgrlangst]

- okay i’m already sick of reblogging so we’re doing this

- no cuz after seeing the brewery burnt down i would go INSANE

- is Ms. Hunter native?! LETS GOOOOO

- now why they got my baby Kat in cuffs…😒

- Klax Korp? i’m smelling the gentrification

- “good memories? they can hurt the most” oh lawd 🧎🏾‍♀️

- i’m beyond obsessed with the animation NUT- 😩

- why are they BRITISH?! no they can keep that jingle

- “prison chic”?! gurl u must be crazy-

- that goat is cute tho

- OH SHE HAS SUPER POWERS?! yeah i’m eating this up-

- whew the all-girl catholic school trauma is flowing back 😩

- this priest is scaring tf outta me

- the nuns are lowkey cute

- SHES A FASHION ICON

- random: i really like the lines on their faces

- BLACK NUN?! FUCK YEAAAAH

- OH HELL NO

- oh we’re already gettin in the thick of it i see 🫢

- oh no Siobhan already pissing me off fr

- the bubble voice is so cute 🥹

- Siobhan being a- you know what nvm

- NOT THEM KILLING THE PRIEST HELLO?!

- IM ROOTING FOR RAUL’S MOM FR THATS MY GIRL CUZ HOW IS NO ONE ELSE LOOKING INTO THE FIRE

- not Raul being an artistic genius i luv to see it-

- omg this origin story is insane

- that policeman part did scare me a lil i won’t fake

- key and peele are giving pain and panic from hercules but better

- not the janitor having beef

- this funeral song is EATING

- i would not be crying over a glorified principal but that’s just me-

- wendell and wild making their doubles out of snot is crazy 😂😭

- chile i getting goosebumps at this summoning scene 🫣

- Raul is a good sport i would be running away so fast

- i’m already calling a zombie apocalypse

- paying you?! to bring me back to life?! in this economy?! nah-

- “janky stank ass”??? i’m gone- 😂

- DID SHE JUST SLITHER?! i would shit my pants

- they’re saying a miracle i would leave so fast-

- THE NUN?! very iconic exit

- A WHOLE LAIR UNDER A CATHOLIC SCHOOL IS ACTUALLY VERY ACCURATE

- not the painting of a nun spanking a child…

- actually this classroom layout is very cool

- why would you partner with your murderers? bffr

- no but the underlying theme of the exploitative prison system is much appreciated

- why they makin Raul pull them and Sparky 😭😭

- OH I LIKE THE BEAT *snapping*

- so they just gon have skeletons voters im crying i luv 😭

- omg now i want a falafel…

- Raul is a real one for that

- Tim Burton take notes on how you can make black/brown ppl be blue and dead

- this music score goes crazyyyy

- LET HER SEE HER PARENTS DAMMIT 😤

- omg imma start crying 😢

- the hand is such a snitch

- holding your sons as slaves and in your nose is giving Zeus

- can the girl have more than 2 seconds w her parents PLS 😩

- omg are there literally just 30 ppl in this town

- all the old council members being yt is vvvvvv accurate

- KLAX KLUB?! ain’t no wayyy 😭😭😭

- NOT THE BLATANT SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE REFERENCE

- mayhaps i teared up

- i hope more black kids watch this because the message is so helpful

- Raul jamming while the Elliots watch is so cute

- FAKE MONEY PLSSS

- we luv the Siobhan character development

- where’s my hair cream same energy as where’s my super suit

- the glowing orange eyes>>>

- oop black parents could learn a thing or two from this as well 👀🥸

- the hair cream doesn’t last…🧎🏾‍♀️

- the Xraxons’ hair is soooo 😩🫣

- them not caring if their child gets crushed is very on brand for filthy rich people 😭

- LANE TRYING TO THROW HIS WIFE UNDER THE BUS BAHAHHAHAHAH

- “break the cycle” 🥹

- SICK-

- the dream faire prototype actually being a nice place lemme log off 🫢

okay live shit posting my reaction to wendell and wild LEGGO-

[photographasdocumentspring14blog]

Essay by Michael Almereyda, Filmmaker

Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out. —Martin Scorsese

We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it. —Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In Cameraperson (2016), Kirsten Johnson has made a buoyant film about the weight of the world.

She lays out her process in a paragraph presented up front. What we’re about to see, she explains, has been patched together from material she has shot as a cinematographer for films directed by other people, in the course of a career spanning twenty-five years. “I ask you to see it as my memoir,” Johnson insists.

A memoir, yes, but one that is scant on autobiographical facts. You have to turn elsewhere to learn that Johnson studied painting and literature in the late 1980s at Brown University, where she had a political awakening, stirred by the anti-apartheid movement roiling the campus. Upon graduation, making an uncommon move, she transplanted herself to Senegal and interned there on a film written by the great Ousmane Sembène. In 1991, she was the first American to enroll at La Fémis, the French national film school, where she entered the camera department and discovered a vocation. She landed early cinematography jobs in France and Brazil.

Evolving from this global trajectory, Cameraperson is a nonchronological collage of raw and repurposed footage: forty-four distinct episodes (by my count) made up of sounds and images gathered for (but generally not appearing in) twenty-four separate projects. Most of the episodes are bridged by breaks of black frames, during which anticipatory sounds prepare for oncoming images. Locations are identified by title cards, and eleven people are given names and job descriptions, ranging from “Jacques Derrida / French philosopher”—a quick cameo, as the famous man impishly holds forth on a Manhattan street—to “Aisha Bukar / nurse, midwife,” a more substantial, recurring presence, granting us access to a natal unit in a Nigerian hospital, where the film arrives at one of its most harrowing sequences. We get scraps from high-profile documentaries—Laura Poitras’s The Oath and Citizenfour, on which Johnson served as a principal shooter, and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, for which she received an “additional camera operator” credit—but most of the movies cannibalized here are not especially well-known, and Johnson accomplishes her most probing portraiture by focusing on people encountered as strangers. Her inclusion, at regular intervals, of her own home-video footage confirms an impression of inspired and intimate rummaging. (This is a memoir that blurs the line between professional and private experience.) Ultimately, like a lavish quilt, or a bird’s nest, the film subsumes its source material on the way to becoming a complete and organic new thing.

More often than not, Johnson’s work takes her to places stamped by violence, death, and destruction, sites of collective grief and dread. Even if the worst of the mayhem has occurred in the past, she’s there to absorb and collect the residue, talking to survivors, bearing witness. Johnson supplies a few grace notes, musical interludes, flashes of scenic splendor, but for a film made by a cinematographer, there are bracingly few images that are merely pretty or picturesque. People are plainly what Johnson cares about most, and in this film she candidly prizes and examines her ability to use her camera to get close to whoever is in the frame. “Gettin’ close to everybody,” she murmurs, disarmingly, to an initially wary man in a Brooklyn boxing gym. The man smiles and relaxes, as if Johnson has cast a spell. She coaxes equivalent looks of complicity and acceptance from a boy in Kabul whose left eye has been blinded in a bomb blast; from an elegantly wizened Muslim woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina who, with a tight, tart smile, denies that the Serbs’ campaign of mass rape ever affected her family; and from her own mother, diminished by Alzheimer’s, regarding Johnson—and Johnson’s camera—with a mix of tenderness and fright.

The film has been crafted with self-reflexive knowingness. Shots that feature fumbling and reframing are integrated the way a confident painter builds a picture around bare canvas, loose brushwork, spattered drips. And there’s a steady pressing of a central nerve, a nagging question implicit in the most searching documentaries as well as the most trivial: At what point does the camera’s scrutiny become exploitative, invasive, voyeuristic, damaging? The question hovers throughout the film, despite Johnson’s evident gift for putting people at ease, respecting the pressure and pain of true confession. In sequence after sequence, she invites and captures intimacy, even or especially when her subjects don’t want their faces shown. (In these cases, Johnson’s camera follows their uneasy hands, and we see Scorsese’s axiom at work; what’s not in the frame adds eloquence to what is.)

As a self-portrait, Cameraperson is intriguingly elliptical, oblique. Early on, we see Johnson’s striding shadow, her camera rising from her shoulder like a jagged branch, an extension of her body, but in the course of the film she appears full-on only briefly, near the end. She doesn’t spell out a credo, or spill any outright confessions of her own. (In an overconfiding age, this may account for a good deal of the film’s power.) But Johnson’s overheard voice—a quick, open, guileless voice, quintessentially American—is there from the start, behind the lens, giggling and almost giddy. When her camera catches lightning slicing down from a wash of blue-gray Missouri clouds, she gasps, then stays steady and silent enough to take in the emptiness—a crash of thunder, its echo, a defiantly serene bird—then Johnson sneezes, twice, jostling the frame, undercutting any self-important claim to authority as the film’s title comes up.

Soon after, in Sarajevo, speaking offhandedly to an unseen collaborator, the cameraperson sketches her MO, talking like a teenager: “I always try to have some kind of relationship with people, like I’ll look them in the eye like ‘You see me shooting you, don’t you?’”

She shows us her twin toddlers in her Manhattan home (without giving a glimpse of a significant other) and spends time with her parents, inevitable augurs of mortality. Johnson’s father, on a casual walk, cheerfully displays a dead bird to the grandkids, while images of Johnson’s mother give way to shots of a container holding her ashes. (For the latter, Johnson keeps rearranging objects in the frame, adjusting the composition, as if trying to come to terms with the unadjustable limit of her mother’s life.)

In interviews, Johnson has expressed guilt and self-reproach about photographing her afflicted mother against her wishes. Yet, as she must know, some of her film’s most poignant moments emerge from this betrayal. How could Johnson resist recording her mother’s stunned face, trying to hold on to an identity slipping away before her eyes? Circling back to Scorsese, we can recognize that Johnson is confronting a larger fact: human presences are always fragile, fleeting, on their way to being out of the frame.

*****

You can entangle across time. You can entangle into the future, into the past. You can entangle through space. That’s what quantum entanglement means. It means that there’s another underlying layer of nature that we haven’t discovered yet. —Dr. Eric W. Davis, in Cameraperson

At some point in the editing process, Johnson seems to have taken her cue from the astrophysicist quoted above, riffing on the notion that we’re all entangled; time and space can’t always be taken literally; recorded reality can be reorganized to comply with memory and imagination. By this logic, less scientific than intuitive, people and places in Johnson’s memoir become entangled in occasional shared chapters, tethered by free-associational edits. The harsh wind in Wyoming, flashing through tall grass on the Johnson family ranch, makes Johnson’s mother stagger, wince, and seem to dwindle into a Giacometti figurine. With the grace of a cut, the same wind sweeps through a yellow hillside in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rural village where a Muslim family has returned to their farm while contending with memories of genocide and war.

Similar associative links and leaps flicker throughout the film, but, halfway in, there’s a sequence that’s starkly explicit in its insistence on interconnectedness. Johnson serves up a series of landscapes where historic atrocities have occurred, now mute and tranquil crime scenes, mundane places conjoined by invisible carnage and, for the most part, a shared look of dreary ordinariness. The sequence includes sites of mass execution, torture, and rape, plus forensic shots of the drab interior of a pickup truck identified as the vehicle that dragged James Byrd Jr. to his death in the otherwise unremarkable town of Jasper, Texas. In this stretch, Johnson expresses a sustained note of anguish, like a war correspondent admitting to a case of secondhand PTSD, but she’s stoic about it, and, as her film offers a range of locations and perspectives, she’s irrepressibly alert to the bigger picture—a picture that includes antic dancing in Uganda, a woman embracing a fierce and humiliated young boxer after a lost match in Brooklyn, the flow of life around a roadside market in Liberia. It’s fair to say the “wonderful” God hailed by nine-year-old Kirsten in a preserved handwritten poem—“Your love never ends! / And my love to you will never end!”—has been displaced, in the grown cameraperson’s mind and eye, by a pantheistic understanding of the world, a sense of immanence and mystery that competes with evidence of unrelenting bad news. And so Johnson counterbalances bitter and abject scenes with proofs of compassion, consolation, even joy. And it’s no fluke that many of the film’s brighter moments involve children.

*****

Down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios . . . Long live life as it is! —Dziga Vertov

Cameraperson has been showered with sympathetic and insightful reviews, and hailed as a film without precedent. It doesn’t diminish Johnson’s work—its integrity, freshness, and force—to recognize that antecedents do exist. Dziga Vertov, the pioneering Soviet director of newsreels and kaleidoscopic documentary features, would not be spinning in his grave to consider his legacy extended and fulfilled in Johnson’s audacious and self-aware doc/essay/travelogue/memoir. Indeed, Cameraperson would make a provocative double bill with Vertov’s equally unclassifiable Man with a Movie Camera (1929), a dazzling chronicle of urban life channeled dusk to dawn through the lens of an itinerant cameraman, a tale told without intertitles or narration. (Vertov’s spectacular “day” was in fact filmed in four cities over a period of three years.) Man with a Movie Camera’s propulsive editing and hyper-aestheticized photography don’t jibe with Johnson’s levelheaded approach, but her anchoring ambition is aligned with Vertov’s: to record and elevate common experience, to uphold film as a reflection of reality rather than an escape from it, and, further, to create movies that open idealistically outward, providing a means for people to see their lives valued, honored, and in effect returned to them, even as they become part of a larger collective story.

In Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), we can find another singular, self-defining, soaring hybrid “documentary” experiment, a collage of fragmentary episodes candidly jigsawed together from a cinematographer’s accumulated outtakes. Marker uses magisterial narration to explicate his images, to question them, to expand their reach, constructing a philosophical inquiry into the nature of seeing, memory, time, consciousness; but strip away the voice-over and you can still take in Marker’s generous regard for the people he encounters, respect for their vulnerability, their otherness, their unique place within a vast human family.

All the same, Vertov and Marker, assigning their authentic, unstaged images to fictional cameramen, avoid the level of personal risk embraced by Johnson, who unabashedly (if incompletely) reveals her history, her unmistakable self, as the source of every frame. By the time we catch sight of her in Cameraperson, we can be forgiven for presuming to know her. She aims the camera at herself, standing beside her unsteady mother, sharing the older woman’s worried smile, and her eyes look haunted. The image emerges within a flashback, an editorial surprise, and it suggests that Johnson would agree with a primary Marker aphorism: “Being a photographer means not only to look but to sustain the gaze of others.” The gaze of others, we can see, carries a corresponding weight.

*****

I said to the wanting-creature inside me: What is this river you want to cross? —Kabir

Voyeurism is related to cinema as lust is related to love. You can separate them—you can try to separate them—but to what end? The urge to look, to see and share private experience—whether displays of intimacy, acts of violence, the urgent facts of another person’s pain—is seldom pure and simple. How do we, filmmakers and film viewers, transcend voyeurism? How can a filmmaker’s craft and conscience elevate images from voyeurism to revelation?

Cameraperson reaches a kind of climax back in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the place Johnson visits most within the braided strands of the film’s structure. She documents her return five years after her initial journey, with music from the resulting 2011 film, an episode of the PBS series Women, War & Peace, brimming over into Cameraperson, the movie we’re watching while the gathered family watches themselves on a laptop screen. Johnson, of course, records this rapt audience, their charged attention, then the rich homemade meal that follows, coffee, a cigarette. The Möbius-strip circuit of giving and taking and giving back—the process of seeing, sharing, and accepting—brings Cameraperson to an ideal summit of reconciliation, peace, hope for the future. “We hope someday she can come back with her son and daughter,” a woman tells Johnson’s translator, “to see how peasants live.” Exactly the response Vertov was hectically hungering for.

One of the film’s most arresting and resonant images, for this viewer, occurs earlier in Foča, when an unnamed Muslim woman lifts a bowl high above her head, confidently spilling berries into another bowl held below her waist. The free-falling fruit makes an ecstatic blur, and the next cut shows the berries as they’ve landed and settled, as if artfully prearranged: a ready-made bouquet of whorled color—red, black, white, yellow—an instant metaphor for plenitude and renewal, raw experience transformed into poetry.

“Wow,” says the woman behind the camera. “It’s like magic.”

Yes—wow—it is.

Michael Almereyda’s documentary films include This So-Called Disaster, William Eggleston in the Real World, Paradise, and the forthcoming Escapes.

I have copied this essay from the site linked above.

[mindfulwrath]

Silver, Part VII

Celebrity crushes really never turn out the way you think they will.

Words: 3,882 Warnings: Blood/gore, excessive swearing

Part I Part VI

Hyde couldn't believe it, but he'd finally, finally made it to Blackfog. Oh, it had taken days, an unbelievable amount of nagging and niggling and finagling, and there had been ever so many detours (some of them exceptionally pleasant), but he was here.

And it was everything he could possibly have hoped for.

The bazaar spanned several blocks, tented under colored silks flung over laundry lines. The air was a clamor of voices, glowing mists and brilliant lights, shadows black and velvet. A thousand different smells pervaded the space, wafting up above the rooftops with the fog. Everything glittered and gleamed, green and gold and silver and red. He could taste the place, like curry and sea salt, could feel its electric tingle in the air. The press of people was incredible—it seemed like every miscreant and vagabond in London had turned up, every monster and madman had crawled out of their sewers and down from their towers to join in the crushing tide of life. The opportunists of the London underworld had come out in full force, too—pickpockets, beggars, prostitutes and hawkers all dotted the crowd and gathered in the corners, shouting and sneaking and selling their little hearts out.

Jasper was clinging to his arm for dear life, and that was all right, too. He'd gotten rather quiet after their tete-a-tete—probably impressed, far too overawed for words—

Dear God, you're up yourself, Jekyll remarked.

—far too overawed for words, and additionally in a state of such overwhelming bliss that words had been unnecessary. But Hyde's energy had been unflagging, manic, to the point that holding still was torture, and there was still so much night left, and if Jekyll was going to go about drinking poison and writing wills, Hyde was damn well going to milk every second for all it was worth.

"Oooooh, look look look!" he cooed, dragging Jasper over to a lime-green stand filled with glimmering bottles in a thousand different hues. "Now that's quality herbalism, that is. You fiddle about with potions, don't you?"

"I—I do," said Jasper. He leaned over Hyde's shoulder, peering at the bottles. He looked up at the salesman, who was half-shrouded in shadow. "You wouldn't . . . happen to have any wolfsbane potion, would you?"

"Wolfsbane?" said the salesman, in a thick accent that Hyde couldn't place. "Yes, yes, we have."

"Oh! Er . . . how much?" Jasper hazarded.

Hyde was about to scold him for being a total rube when something shinier caught his eye, and quick as thinking he was off, dodging through the crowd.

Do not leave him alone here, Jekyll scolded, frowning at him from a puddle on the ground. Hyde stepped on his face. I mean it.

"Or what?" Hyde muttered under his breath.

Or he'll get hurt! For God's sake, at least pretend to have an ounce of compassion.

"Like you care," said Hyde, rolling his eyes. He pushed out of the press of the crowd and grabbed a handy post to keep from being dragged away. It was really inconvenient, being short. He might have to take to the rooftops. All this getting elbowed in the head was starting to annoy him.

Hyde. . . .

"So what's all this shiny business?" Hyde asked the stallkeeper, gesturing to the glittering assortment of gems and filigree wires laid out on velvet cushions.

Hyde.

"Ah, a discerning eye, sir," said the stallkeeper, with a what-a-sucker glimmer in her eye. "These stones are imbued with incredible powers, beyond all imagining! This one—"

Hyde!

"Funny, 'cause they look like cheap shite to me," Hyde quipped, and darted back into the crowd. He found Jasper huddling against a wall near the potion stand with his metaphorical tail between his legs. He nearly went up the wall when Hyde caught him by the arm.

"There you are," Hyde said, rolling his eyes. "Gotta keep up, Jazz, don't want you gettin' et up."

"Right," said Jasper, leaning on him. "Right, yeah, right. Sorry. Look, I—I really should be getting back, I didn't have enough for the wolfsbane and—"

"Oooo, I've only heard about those!" Hyde said, off again after a particularly eye-catching assortment of luminiferous wights. He kept a firm grip on Jasper, if for no other reason than to keep Jekyll quiet. He fluttered from stall to stall, directionless and erratic but endlessly delighted. He towed Jasper along with him, finding him an excellent sounding board to prove how bloody brilliant Hyde was, all that stuffy knowledge Jekyll had amassed finally coming in handy. Jasper seemed suitably impressed, and after a while even started to look like he was enjoying himself. An awful lot of money was spent, but it was worth every penny—there were salts and reagents, daggers and dirks, disgusting (but delicious) meat pies, more drinks for the both of them, vicious chemicals and sparkling trinkets and a book so musty and old and ugly that Jekyll nearly fainted clean out of Hyde's head when he saw it.

They bought that one, too. It was boring and idiotic, but if there was one talent Jekyll had, it was taking boring, idiotic, dull-as-dirt science and turning it into. . . .

Well, Hyde, for one.

He was just beginning to feel like heading in a vaguely homeward direction when his eye caught on the single most incredible sight yet. The noise that came out of his mouth was inhuman. He grabbed Jasper by both arms, hauled him into an alleyway, and pinned him to the wall.

"Did you see?" he squeaked. "Did you see? That was her! That was her, that was Lucy!"

"What—who?" Jasper said, looking a little stunned. He might possibly have hit his head on the wall in all the excitement (not Hyde's fault).

"Lucy! Lucy of the Forty Elephants, Lucy the—look, just stay here, don't get into any trouble, I'll be back, don't follow me!"

"Why—"

"You'll make me look too good!" Hyde called, even as he bounded back into the crowd.

It was impossible to carry off a proper swagger in the press of people, but the good news was, he did manage to keep Lucy in sight. It took him a good five minutes to work his way over to her. Perhaps by sheer force of presence, she had cleared the area around her. Hyde slipped up next to her and leaned a hand on the stall she was currently perusing. He gave her his worst smile and tipped his hat.

"Evenin', miss," he said.

She spared him a single withering glance. Hyde almost passed out.

"Go away, boy," she said.

"Boy?" he cried. "Boy?! I'm a fully-grown man, thank you very much!"

"Fully?" said Lucy, arching an eyebrow. "My, how disappointing for you."

Hyde's ears were burning. Somewhere in the back of his head, Jekyll was laughing.

"Being of a slender persuasion tends to be 'elpful when gettin' places a person ain't meant to get into," Hyde said. "By the by, massive fan of your work."

"I doubt you're a massive anything," Lucy said, a smile tugging at her lips. She did turn towards him, though, and her attention spilled onto him like sunlight. He preened.

"Only a massive pain in the arse, Miss Lucy," he said, tipping his hat. He could not have stopped grinning for love nor money. There was a constant sound inside his head like a kettle boiling over, a piercing whistle of unbelievable excitement. "Particularly to those of a more moneyed inclination."

"Is that so," said Lucy, folding her arms. He had her full attention now, the stallkeeper forgotten. Another woman had precipitated out of the crowd, hanging near Lucy's elbow—she had the look of a career thief about her, doubtless one of the Forty Elephants.

"It is so," said Hyde. His heart was going to beat right out of his chest. His blood was electric. "One might say I've taken some inspiration from a certain lady thief."

"In what way?" Lucy asked, amused.

"Might've 'eard tell of a few of your daring exploits with the peelers," Hyde said, examining his fingernails. "Might've similarly dropped a caber on Mad Moreau. 'Eard of 'im? Yeah, 'e never stood a chance against the likes of me."

"Moreau, the vivisectionist?" Lucy inquired.

"One an' the same, dear lady," Hyde said, grinning ear to ear. "Up in a blaze of glory not two nights ago, thanks entirely to yours truly. With inspiration coming from you, of course."

"Ah," said Lucy, with a twinkle in her eye. "So you're the fucker who burnt down half our best revenue."

Hyde's smile locked in place. His eyes got very wide. He suddenly noticed no fewer than four women in the immediate vicinity all giving him very unfriendly looks.

Start running now, Jekyll suggested.

"Lllllllladies," Hyde said, tipping his hat.

The first leap took him onto the shoulders of the man to his left. The second launched him up into the laundry lines. They snapped instantly under his weight. He came crashing back down in a tangle of silks. Someone shrieked. The crowd swarmed in confusion. Hyde scrambled out from under the tangle. He ducked through the forest of legs, on his hands and knees. Lucy shouted something out. Hyde clambered to his feet and dove into the nearest alley. He bounced up the walls to the roofs. Hobnails clattered on brick behind him. He took off at a full sprint.

Quick question, Jekyll said. Do you ever think about the things coming out of your mouth, or do you just prop your teeth open and hope?

"You—are not—helping!" Hyde panted. He risked a glance back. Lucy and six others were hot on his tail. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!"

Whatever you do, don't go back to the Society or the house. I get the feeling fire might become involved.

"Then where—am I—supposed—to go—you prig?"

He leapt across an alley and lost his footing on the shingles opposite. He scrabbled at the slanted roof like a dog on hardwood. He tumbled off the side. He plummeted, screaming. Several things smashed upon impact. Hyde got up and kept running. There was an awful lot of pain, and possibly splinters. Shouts followed him, then a screech of metal on stone. He did not look back. He just ran. He tore around a corner, bounced off the building, and nearly cannoned headfirst into a brick wall.

Dead end.

Perhaps literally.

Hyde flattened himself against the wall in a panic. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to leap off of, the alley cluttered with laundry lines, he'd be caught like a fly in a spider's web, he was stuck, he was fucked—

Lucy and the others spilled around the corner into the end of the alleyway. Weapons flashed in the half light. Like lions, they went for him, fluid in their ferocity. There was a horrible screeching noise from overhead, a snapping and cracking.

Jasper dropped into the alleyway, snarling and monstrous, directly between Hyde and the Elephants. Broken laundry lines fell all around him. Teeth gleamed white in the darkness, claws glittered beetle-black. Hellfire glowed from his eyes. Five crossbows leveled at his chest.

For a moment, all was stillness.

"No," Lucy said. She put a hand on the nearest Elephant's crossbow, lowering it. Her eyes stayed fixed on Jasper. "It's not worth getting bit. Another time, ladies, another time."

One by one, the crossbows lowered. Jasper stayed where he was, growling, bristled and hunched. The Elephants backed away slowly. Lucy was the last to go.

"But I'll be back, you little fuck," she spat. Her arm snapped up. There was a silken sound.

Pain exploded through Hyde's arm. The world whited out for a second. He screamed. Jasper snarled and leapt forward. Hobnails clattered on cobble. Hyde clutched at the wall behind him, kicking his feet as though he could scramble back through the bricks and escape the pain. He couldn't feel his fingers.

He risked a look at his arm. The pain doubled the moment he saw the silvery bolt sticking out of his sleeve. He very nearly threw up. He had to take a moment, close his eyes and lean his head back against the wall, just breathe, just breathe, and if there was some pathetic whimpering interspersed with the breathing it wasn't like there was anyone around to hear. . . .

There was a padding of feet, and then hot, doggy breath ruffled his hair.

"That looks bad," Jasper said. Hyde's eyes snapped open just in time to see him reaching for the wound. He kicked Jasper in his barrel chest as hard as he could, sent him sprawling.

"It's fine!" Hyde snapped. "Don't touch me, I can handle it!"

"Sorry," Jasper whimpered. Hyde turned away from him, huddling against the wall. It was half to protect the wound from further meddling and half to keep Jasper from seeing the tears streaming down his face.

With his teeth, he ripped into the sleeve of his shirt—fortunately she had missed the overcoat—and tore it off to reveal the wound, the bolt, an awful lot of bright red blood. Black threads trailed out past the shaft, punched into his flesh. His stomach lurched at the sight. That spelled infection, necrosis, he could lose the arm—

Get a hold of yourself, Jekyll snapped, though his voice was thin with pain, too. Don't pull it out or we'll bleed to death. Get back to the Society. We ought to have the right materials for the Flesh Weaver. It'll take time, and it will hurt, but it will be survivable. You like surviving, don't you?

Hyde clenched his teeth. Through a massive effort of will, he managed to get to his feet. His head spun. Again, he came very close to throwing up.

"What—what can I do to help?" Jasper said meekly.

"Get me back to the Society," Hyde said. His voice was hoarse. "Jekyll can patch me up."

Jasper's ears flattened back, and a few multicolored sparks spat from between his teeth.

"Right," he said. He sidled up to Hyde and offered one large, hairy arm. Hyde grappled onto it one-handed. Every movement sent another shock of pain through him. He grit his teeth and swore he would show no sign of weakness until he was properly alone.

He threw up three times on the way back.

Jasper got him to the laboratory door, and Hyde pried himself off and staggered inside without a word of preamble. Jasper tried to say something and Hyde slammed the door on him, locking it behind himself. The pain had gotten into his head, left him fuzzy and disoriented. He just wanted it to stop. He would've cut off his arm if it would've made it stop.

Keep going, Jekyll said. Nearly there. This is the easy part.

"Shut up," Hyde said. He shoved off of the door and staggered to the lab bench. It was a mess. Everything was cluttered and blurry, swimming before his eyes.

The decoded notes are in the desk, Jekyll said. Go to the desk.

Hyde took a few tottering steps back until he encountered the desk. There was blood on his fingers. He didn't bother wiping it off.

Open the top left drawer, Jekyll said. Just look for the title. It should say "Flesh Weaver" at the top. Big letters, can't miss it.

Clumsy and sniffling, Hyde did as he was told. The pain was too much to bear. No one was watching now, no one but Jekyll, and there were already no secrets between them. He was free to collapse into a weeping, snotty mess if he felt like it.

It really fucking hurt.

He found the papers, though only after smearing bloody fingerprints on nearly everything in the drawer. Jekyll continued to walk him through it, one step at a time. At least his voice was strained, too, even if it was only in Hyde's head. No composure could survive this kind of agony. The brewing was accomplished without antagonism from either side, perhaps simply because they were both in too much pain. The Flesh Weaver came out pale yellow and fizzing, and Hyde corked it, just in case it got knocked over. He sank to the floor and put his back against the lab bench.

This was the hard part.

Fingers trembling, Hyde grasped the end of the bolt. He was too sweaty to get a good grip on it. He wiped his hand off on his coat. He was shivering despite the warmth of the room, and his eyes wouldn't focus properly. On the second try, he managed to get a better grip on the bolt. He took three quick, deep breaths, squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth.

He yanked. Agony lanced through his arm, so intense it knocked all the air out of him, sent sparks dancing across his eyes. He threw up again, although it was more of a dry heave at this point. The alcohol was not helping with the pain—or maybe it was, in which case, thank God he was still drunk—but it was certainly helping to unsettle his stomach.

It's barbed, Jekyll said. His arm was pinned to Hyde's by the bolt, pain stitched through the both of them. You'll have to push it out the other side.

"Bitch," Hyde hissed, his voice thick with pain. "Bitch, bitch, bitch, shitting hell, cunt on a stick, mother of fuck—"

The faster you do it, the less it will hurt.

Hyde put his thumb on the end of the bolt and pressed as hard as he could. The scream that tore out of him was like a banshee's. He writhed. His head slammed into the lab bench and he barely felt it. The point of the bolt tented out the skin on the back of his arm and then punched through. Hyde grabbed the bolt and yanked it the rest of the way out. The pain sharpened to a blinding white lance and then, finally, began to dull. He subsided against the wall, gasping for air and whimpering and trembling. Blood streamed down his arm. Fumbling, he grabbed up the potion from the bench and uncorked it with his teeth. He forced himself to pour it out slowly, one gush at a time. It fizzled like phenol against the edges of the wound. An unbearable itching kicked up inside his arm as the flesh stitched itself back together.

At long, long last, the pain subsided, and the itching resolved, and he was left drenched in sweat and shivering uncontrollably. He picked up the bolt with numb fingers, examined it through misty eyes. It was a cruel, steely thing, with three pairs of barbs hooked back along its length. Blood and stringy bits of flesh were still clinging to it.

"Keepin' that," Hyde mumbled. "That's a Lucy original, that is."

You are unbelievable, said Jekyll. Now would you please change back? Someone will have heard the screaming.

By that point, Hyde was all to happy to get out of his body, to sink back into the muted mists of Jekyll. He heaved himself to his feet and whipped up a quick batch of the transformative serum. While it fizzed and shifted from red to green, there was a knock at the door.

"Dr. Jekyll?" It was Virginia Ito, sounding gravely concerned.

"One moment!" Hyde called back. He didn't sound much like Jekyll, but maybe through the door, and just two words, it should be fine, and even if it wasn't, Jekyll himself could smooth it over. He gulped down the potion and braced himself.

She knocked again.

"I heard screaming," Virginia said. "Jasper said Mr. Hyde had been hurt."

Hyde looked down at his hands. He touched his chest. There was the warmth, the salty, bitter taste, the light-headedness—but where was the pain? Where were the wracking convulsions? What was taking so long?

"Why isn't it working?" he hissed. Panic clawed up his spine. "Why isn't it working?"

I—I don't know, Jekyll stammered, the same terror in his voice. I don't know!

"What the fuck are we meant to do?"

The doorknob rattled. Hyde almost bit through his tongue.

"Henry, I'm starting to get concerned about all that silence," Virginia warned.

"Fuck! Fuckity fuck!"

Just make another, Jekyll said hurriedly. Quickly, a double dose. Now, now!

Hyde's hands shook abominably. He spilled the salt all over the table. Virginia was pounding on the door. The second potion effervesced and turned green and Hyde quaffed it without a single breath for air.

"Dr. Jekyll, if you do not open this door, I will break it down," Virginia threatened.

Pain struck through Hyde's chest, and he had never been happier to feel it. Agony consumed him, dropping him to his knees. No sound could pass his lips. Glowing ichor spilled from his eyes and mouth. He gasped in a breath, then two. He staggered to his feet, wiping his face on his coat. Said coat was then torn off and flung across the room. He checked the cheval glass.

Henry Jekyll looked back at him, disheveled and exhausted. Hyde hung over his shoulder, a mist, a dissipating fog.

Jekyll rubbed at his face, let out a breath, and opened the door.

Virginia paused with one leg cocked, as though she had been about to kick her way in. She placed her foot back on the floor and straightened her skirts. She cleared her throat.

"There you are," she said. Her eyes went wide, brow furrowed. "My God, what's happened to you?"

"Ah," said Jekyll, looking down at the sleeve Hyde had torn off to get at the bolt. There was also a great deal of blood still on him. "Mr. Hyde was . . . a touch out of sorts. I'm not injured, not to worry. It's all his."

"Good lord," said Virginia. "Is he all right?"

"He will be," said Jekyll. "I've managed to get him mostly patched up and calmed down. I apologize for not answering the door sooner, he was being difficult."

"I see," said Virginia. She let out a decisive sigh. "Well, if there's anything I can do, let me know."

"I certainly will," he promised. "Thank you for the offer. You said Jasper told you the situation?"

"Yes," she said. "In a manner of speaking. It was more a panicked sobbing than a telling."

"Ah," Jekyll said again. "Well, please let him know that all should be well, and that Mr. Hyde and I both appreciate his efforts. I'm given to understand he saved Hyde's life."

"Did he," said Virginia, eyebrows raising. "Well, we shall have to give him a proper hero's welcome. What about you?"

"Staying with my patient," said Jekyll. "He should be well by morning, but I shouldn't like to leave him alone until then."

"Of course," said Virginia. "It seems like it was quite the ordeal."

"Indeed."

"Do take care, Henry."

"You as well."

She walked away, and he shut the door. For a moment, he stood there staring at the wood grain, thinking nothing, swaying with the beating of his heart.

"That," he said to himself, "was too close."

You're telling me, said Hyde.