Ugly Puggly 57

I came in the front door after work, the living room was empty, the kitchen was empty. A pleasant woody aroma wafted in from outside. Dave came in the back door. Grabbing the arm of my work jacket, he said, ‘C’mon!’  

I pulled away from him. ‘Whit is it?’ I asked ‘Can you no gee me a fuckin minute to wash my hauns and face and huv a cup o tea?’

‘You might be too late.’ He shook his head, his soft voice an entreaty. ‘He’s oot there talkin Latin and burnin stuff.’

I’d visions of him talking in tongues. His head turning full circle like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, and poking himself with a crucifix while levitating to the ceiling, which was quite high, since he was in the back garden. He might have been a danger to planes landing at Glasgow Airport. Perhaps I would need to contact an exorcist and flight control. But I didn’t think his mum would have left a crucifix in the house. She was a Protestant. Maybe even a Mason. She’d never forgive him for turning Roman Catholic. ‘Whit did he say?’

‘Dunno,’ he admitted. But he tried to frame it with a painful utterance. La-cri-mae re-rum, or rat-run.’

‘Whit does that mean?’

‘The tears of fears.’

‘That’s a band fae the nineteen nineties, yah stupid cunt.’

He gave a little gasp. ‘Is it?’

I forgot how young he was. ‘Aye.’ I tried to remember one of their songs, but my mind was blank, which showed how old I was.

‘But he’s spouting poetry as well.’

‘Fuck, it must be serious.’ I breezed past him and stood on the back step, my hands on the wooden railing. But there was nothing to see. Ugly Puggly’s face looked a bit thinner than usual. His hair the usual mess. His jacket and trousers none too clean. He’d fashioned an old-style bin which he was using as a brazier. He’d plastic bags and boxes of notes. The kind he kept hidden with his close- written calculations and annotations. He was feeding them into the fire, one by one. The flames jumped and give a glow to his wan face.

A slight smile on his face, when he saw me watching him. He held his hand up in greeting, but it might have been for Dave crowding in at my back.

Ugly Puggly began to cough. A sharp bark, a deep sound and stutter. He ignored it and kept feeding the flames. There was something mechanical about his movements. He turned his shoulder, tried to hide his plight as his lungs shook his body. He wheezed for breath, a paper dropping and missing the brazier.

I scooted down the steps and picked up the rogue sheet of paper and fed it to the flames for him. ‘You alright, pal?’ I asked.

He put a hand on my shoulder to steady himself. ‘Aye,’ he finally managed to speak. ‘I jist need tae sit doon for a minute.’  

I signalled to Dave to come and help me. Ugly Puggly leaned on both our shoulders and we managed to half-walk and lift him up the stairs, bound to us like a geriatric with us as the walking-frame.

‘I need tae pee,’ Ugly Puggly wheezed.

We propped him up in the kitchen. A sad shake of his head, but he held onto a jaunty defiance. The toilet was up the stairs.

‘I’m no haudin yer dick,’ I told him. ‘That’s the playboy’s job, but I’m phonin an ambulance.’  

We helped him up. His breathing got a little easier. We stood behind him with our hands out ready to catch him, like proud parents whose child had suddenly gone it alone a two-wheeler bike. He managed the last few stairs himself. ‘Nae ambulance,’ he muttered. Stumbling into the toilet, he locked the door.

‘How did yeh no tell me he’d Covid?’ I hissed at Dave.

‘I didnae know,’ he said. ‘After you came back fae that place, he lay in bed for a few days, but didnae say anythin. Didnae dae anythin.’

‘For you that’s normal, but no for him.’

He avoided looking at me. ‘You think I’ve got it?’

‘Dunno,’ he looked like his usual plonkerish self, but there was no way of telling. ‘We aw need tae test and take it fae there.’

‘But I need tae go oot,’ he said.

‘Well, fuck off then,’ I told him. ‘And yer better goin stayin wae yer mum.’

His tone lifted. ‘You sure?’

He dashed up into the bedroom to get his phone charger and a few things and bounded down the stairs. I heard the front door slamming shut.

I sat with my back against the wall on the top stair and waited for Ugly Puggly to come out of the toilet. He shuffled out, his breathing a little easier.

‘Dave’s away,’ I told him.

‘Where tae?’

‘Fuck knows—you tested for Covid?’

He shook his head.

‘Well, that was fuckin stupid,’ I told him. ‘But you’ve got it noo. And if you take another episode like that, I’m phonin an ambulance.’

He stroked his Adam’s apple and throat. ‘You tested?’

‘Nah,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ve hud my three jags.’ I changed the subject. ‘He said you were spouting poetry—is that wan of the side-effects of long-Covid?’

He chuckled and perked up. ‘Maybe everybody should get it then.’ His thoughts drifted with his eyes onto higher things. ‘Edward Thomas, a very interesting man. The Owl. “All of the night was barred out except/An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry.” It’s not yer usual ti-wit-too-woo. And there’s a holiness and wholeness in melancholy.’

‘Sounds like a lot of shite.’

‘Might be,’ he admitted and put a hand of the railing to go downstairs. But I blocked his path.

‘Where dae yeh hink yer goin?’  

He stroked the back of his head. ‘I’ve got stuff to dae. Stuff tae burn. Speakin my thoughts to posterity and the wind.’  

‘That Edward Thomas, is he deid?’ I asked him.

‘Aye, a long time ago.’

I nodded my head in the direction of the room. ‘You want tae be deid tae? Yer stuff will be there in the mornin. The wind and rain will take it. And if it doesane, there’s nae hurry. Shite doesnae burn. You get tae yer bed.’

Half to himself, he timidly admitted. ‘I um awful tired.’ His mouth opened and he yawned.

‘Get tae yer bed then, and I’ll bring yeh up a cuppa tea. I’m gonnae get yeh wan o they tests.’