FeralPost

I went to a party held by a rich old man which featured numerous female icons, including Barbra Streisand. We spoke briefly in a giant bird cage. It went well, our chat, considering. Considering it was Barbra.

Martin and I had a terrible fight in the car on the way over. We passed a pretty girl all done up, lying in the street with her bare ass showing. She was surrounded by other girls. Martin snarled that this was the state of England today.

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He had never even seen the boy. Not one single time. That was the most incredible part, the part that virtually ensured that no one else would understand. It was all too easy to believe that since he had never seen the boy, that the boy had therefore, in some sense, not fallen under his jurisdiction. It wasn’t his stretch of beach to patrol; it was well outside his peripheral vision and belonged to a seasoned junior lifeguard named Carl, who had not only quit but may have been fired in the same second, not that it mattered in the slightest anymore.

(more…)

Murray says “christ” and “what the” with confused admiration as the spider shrinks into a dot and then sucks in its gut. It hugs the join of the wall and the floor and then it suddenly flexes and recovers into a spider-shape after each of Murray’s assaults with rounded-toe boots or calico lady’s chunky fireplace poker.

Suddenly, the spider reminds me of a wiry shoplifter running full-tilt out of a bodega. In that moment, the kid, and maybe even this spider, could sail past any seven-foot Kenyan to the finish line of the city marathon no sweat.

Murray flashes me an “oops” smirk and is already moving out of the room—fuck the lady and her spider—having done his usual half-assed best.

The spider, doubtless wearing one of those awful pubescent mustaches made of individual black hairs strung out like Christmas lights, totally 2-D now, has run behind a thousand pound mahogany china cabinet that runs from floor to ceiling, solid. So that’s the end of these fun and games.

Calico lady drops her glasses on a lanyard and the Betty Boop routine. “Now what?,” she demands. I can see this ending with our badge numbers. “Call an exterminator,” Murray says unhelpfully. Calico lady doesn’t want to spend the money. She’d rather keep it in some kind of wealth management set-up than blow it on a spider. Her face is ugly now, all jowls. She’s not going to let us out the door without a fight. This kind of bitch is into service and spends her life re-decorating and sending back restaurant food. Our best defense is the illusion of flat-eyed stupidity, not a trace of empathy. I make myself as smooth as a wall, no human part for her to latch onto. No apologies, no suggestions, no conversation. Just make for the door, even as she rushes after us with a string of grabby complaints and rhetorical questions.

Back in the car, Murray enjoys a full-throated laugh, glad not to be of service. The spider is pissed and on his own time-table now. This is the part of Murray I can stand for a few minutes now and then. It doesn’t matter that he is a moron. He’s my moron for now.