Ugly Puggly 36

Fat chance,’ I said. ‘Whit dae yeh hinks worse, a fat poof or a fat murderer?’

Ugly Puggly answered for Dave. ‘Look, I know yer gettin nervous. And a bit upset, even though you’ll no admit it. We all ur.’

Dave pecked him on the lips again and it turned into a full snog. I eventually made harrumphing noises associated with a Tory peer outside a foodbank. I even used the line, ‘For fuck sake, get a room,’ as if I’d been bodysnatched.

Dave broke away from Ugly Puggly, his face glowing with laughter, but when he glanced in my direction, the light faded and his face went blank.

‘Is it no about time, we were movin the body,’ I said. I stepped over to the window and over Harry as if I was counting stars. ‘It’s gettin dark.’

They were hugging and looked as if they’d wakened from a long sleep, but were both in agreement I was being a pain in the arse. ‘

‘I’ll go and get a couple of cans and a bottle of Vladivostok,’ I said. ‘And by the time we’ve drank them, it’ll be dark enough.’

I left them too it and went the long route through the tunnel to the off sales. I thought about going for a pint, but knew I’d probably end up blootered. And, who knows what would happen next? It wouldn’t have surprised me to find Harry put in the bed beside me, to teach me a lesson.  

I sparked a can and drunk it in the street outside the shop. Eyeing up and down Dumbarton Road, I checked for police cars and listened for sirens. I dawdled back to the house as if my feet were encased in plaster, and I was suffering from amnesia and was shedding innocence and my old life on my way home to bury a stranger.

Making a bit of noise as I came in the front door, I wanted to make sure they’d put away the fiddly bits of their body. Having been out in the fresh air, I noticed the stink of something going awry.

I put the plastic bag on the kitchen table and went to help Ugly Puggly. He’d dragged Harry by the legs out into the passage between sink and table. Using a bit of carpet as a mat, the back of the corpse’s head left a snail trail near the sink. Dave stood with the back door open, peering out, checking if there were any neighbours watching from their windows.

Sucking in my breath as his head bumped down each of the four steps, I knew it could no longer hurt, but I felt like apologising.  

‘Shit,’ whispered Dave. He pointed to a window. Ugly Puggly and me ducked our shoulders down as that would have made any difference. It made us more conspicuous, as if we’d something to hide.

We hurried, pulling the body like a bobsleigh and slung it into the hole in the ground with no decorum for the dead.

‘It’s alright,’ whispered Dave.

The light in the window had gone out. Ugly Puggly shovelled dirt into the hole like an Irish navvy in a competition with a digger. He’d once told me a similar story and I’d thought it was stupid then, but now it was made real. I helped by staying out of the road and shoving in some dirt with the edge of my boots.

Sweat was lashing off him, but he quickly ran out of soil and flung in loose bricks. He tamped it down by shuffling forward and sideways, rocking back and forth as if he was on a train. He rasped, ‘I think that’s it.’

I said nothing,  and he followed in at my back into the kitchen. He gleamed like a clam and was breathing heavily. Pulling a can out, I sparked it and handed it to him and he sucked it down almost in one gulp.

Handing Dave a can, I took one for myself. And we stood around eyeing each other like guys at a darkened dancehall, wondering who would be the first to break and get drunk enough to dance.

Breaking open the vodka, I got three mugs and poured us a generous measure.

Cocking his head, Ugly Puggly, who wasn’t much a drinker commented, ‘Shakespeare in Measure for Measure said the best men are moulded oot of faults.’ He smiled, sadly and swallowed his drink, contorted his face into something that wasn’t a grimace, and banged the mug down.

‘Fuck Shakespeare,’ I said. I filled his mug again. He rubbed at his jaw and nose, dirt smudging his cheek bones. I pushed the can of beer towards him. Something to water the taste.

Dave sipped at his drink and winced as if he was picking skelfs out of his mouth. He took a different tack, peppering Ugly Puggly with daft questions to take his mind off what he’d done, what we’d done.

‘Whit’s happenin wae yer solar-roof-tile?’ he asked. ‘Yer holy grail?’

Ugly Puggly answered coherently, but then sloped off into a world in which there was no fossil fuel. Coal hadn’t happened. There was no Stephenson’s Rocket. No railways and no cars.  No tarmac. No roads. No Nazis scientists to develop spaceships that sent us to the moon, or inter-ballistic missiles that could blow us all apart. No plastic. We used wood as fuel and construction. Natural elements that were less combustible.

By the time that bottle of vodka was finished Ugly Puggly had tears in his eyes. He had us all living like the Amish community, with wide-brimmed hats. The biggest threat was horse shit he told us, with a sweep of his arm, which was fouling up every street and stream. Hundreds of tons of it littering the major cities, which sponsored a back to the earth existence. City slickers leaving in search of a less pungent way of life for their stinky children.

‘If they only knew,’ he said. ‘If they only fuckin knew.’

His head dropped onto his chest and his eyes closed.

‘You want me to help you up the stairs wae him?’ I asked Dave.

‘Horse shit!’ Ugly Puggly opened his eyes and closed them again.

‘Nah, I’ll be alright,’ said Dave.

‘C’mon, sweetie,’ he sang in Ugly Puggly’s ear, rubbing his knee.

I took what they left of the cans into the living room to finish them.