Smoky Bacon

I am the arm of the state and everything that it stands for; I'm the knuckles on the fist of big business, and the coins in the velvet pocket of private property. I prevent civil disobedience by inciting civil disobedience. And so what? I would’ve hit Ian Tomlinson, too. I would’ve beaten Rodney King Jr. Hell, if I were on the LAPD payroll I’d be openly racist!

          I have an estranged and angry son. Why can’t he walk through the red mist like I did? God knows I was angry, too. Well, they call me Billy the Club, Big Bill, Dutch, Irish... William FitzPatrick’s the name, and I wear my badge like a clown wears his sunflower.

          I’ve been on the force for thirty-one years; in thirteen weeks I get my retirement: a big party: men in circles, pints cocked, quiche or pie in hand, laughing at this or that. It’s gonna be great. A life in the service, in service. What a load of fishguts!

          I walk proud, this uniform like a suit of armour, my boots leading me, my taser and gun holstered, Billy Boy hanging down at my side. My gig is government; I’m here to protect, to serve, and to infringe on your civil liberties. And, God, don’t I know it!

          Yup, life is sweet. But last night, the funniest thing... I was burnt alive when my oven exploded, the gasline had cracked. The house went up like a tinderbox and I choked to death. Wife long gone, no piece of ass by my side, I died alone. God knows, I must’ve chosen the wrong service....

The Seaman

I don’t belong here, thought the man. I belong at sea. I want to smell of rust! I want hard, olive skin. I want my hair to be salty and coarse. I want to bathe: I want to smear myself with the sea.

            He walked through the crowded street. Lanes of people slipshod like a highway system gone haywire, jostling and jostled, walking like ghosts beneath the oppressive orb above. Look at my shirt, he thought. Just look at it: it’s yeller – the armpits are like ochre, it’s filthy, the waistline’s dirty... it’s glorious!

            And he could picture himself lonely and proud in a 6-foot tin can, rolling out to the deep blue to catch some sea trout – maybe even a marlin. He smiled and smacked his lips.

            The sea was eight miles away. He had no money. Besides, where would it take him? Where would it get him? It only opened up into a crowded and forsaken channel, overrun with trawlers and supertankers. No man could live in peace. He’d have a little cabin somewhere on a golden stretch of sand, small enough for an unappointed king, peaceful enough for a vagrant god.

            But no, he’d never stop. Once he was in that tin can, he’d let it roll on and on, he’d brave the storm, ride the waves, sleep under the stars, die majestically. And he’d never be cold. Never, he muttered, and his eyes trembled. And he sat on a bench in a small square of park under the shade of a beech tree and dreamed, trying to hold onto the gold of the sand and the endless blue of his dreams; the endless faraway blue that shimmered like a guiding star, the endless blue which he could never finally allow himself to hold.

As the Spirit Wanes, the Form Appears

I know a guy named Tom, and everything he says screams, ‘I’m wonderful! I’m wonderful! I’m wonderful! Look at me!’ But I know something he doesn’t, see: there’s a little bluebird in my pocket, and once it whispered to me: ‘as the spirit wanes, the form appears’.

            You can spend your whole life chasing after pipe-dreams, scattering seeds, throwing witticism to the wind, but ultimately you’ll wind down to a hollow note. You need spirit, see; you need persistence. When you give in to fame, fortune, renown, you lose your integrity completely; that seed inside you that grew flesh, that swelled and warmed and became blood-filled and ripe, it’ll wither away.

            They want your voice, your secrets. They only want it because they don’t possess it themselves. In a world growing crazier by the day, inventing new ways of talking to itself, pretending it has any relevance, any place, any position, any future, you’ve got to live wisely – and not on tenterhooks. You’ve gotta take life by the balls and throttle it, take no shit.

            This guy, Tom, he screams because he’s full of air, and if he doesn’t let it out he’ll explode. But that screaming will one day wind down to a sad wheeze – a sad wheeze that he’ll exhale pitifully, with furrowed brow, wondering where all the power went. It went out of his sleeve and down into the drain, day by day, piece by piece, and he never noticed.

            When you’re all noise, when you never care for truth or validity of opinion, what is real becomes blurred: you pronounce on everything, knowing you know nothing. You give because you feel part of the thing, but really you’re just a poor schmuck and the least you deserve is a kick up the arse. What has become of this world? Proud, ignorant people walking around, out of tune with themselves, out of tune with each other, out of tune with the inner logic of life, with the preciousness of life, with the way things ought to be.

            As the spirit wanes, the form appears. The little bluebird whispers this to me every night as it watches over me. I found him within a dead man’s heart, a dead man who pretended the blue bird was dead but knew it to be alive – he got it out of a night, talked to it, kissed it, told it he still knew it was there, and then put it back into that hot space, poured whiskey on it, enveloped it in cigarette smoke until its wings were tarred and burned. But I have him now, and I’ll never live down what he told me: when you give up on something - when you lose heart - shape takes form, and the words are put into your mouth, and you’re as good as dead.