Mally

Mally

 

Mally rarely showers.

in summer his  stink

reaches ‘stench mark three’ –

 

but can go higher

 

I caught the scent of him,

then saw him shambling

like an extra

after a part in a

zombie horror

 

“how’s it hanging, me ould segotia?”

 

he cut me dead

I grabbed an arm

he turned and snarled,

 

“if it’s money you’re after

you’ll get it next week - feck arf!”

 

his chin was a mess of

beardy tufts and

blood-stained Rizlas

 

he wore an affront to the natural order -

odd socks, shoes without laces,

blue-pink trousers

(courtesy of a service wash)

a lime-green shirt

and purple tank top

with salt-ringed armpits

 

"sure and you’re pungent, Mally, me ould”

 

“buy me breakfast or pogue mahone”

 

he stood kerbside

waving his fists,

shouting obscenities at cyclists,

parked cars, passing cars,

policemen, and me

 

sitting in condensation corner

of a cheap cafe

he wolfed a breakfast

of boiled eggs (with soldiers)

slurped tea from a saucer

and burped pig loud

 

“something up, Mally?”

“go to hell!”

“you stink atrocious... cat shit… stale pus”

 

he surveyed the window

then turned to me

 

“look, it’s a bad day, I'm having, 

I’ve got the inquisition,

 

I took this book from the library,

Method Acting by Stanislavski -

if they don’t think I’m crazy,

those gombeen arseholes

will kick me off the dole”

 

“how’s your ‘definitive’ novel panning?”

 

Mally fingered a beard sprout,

“it’s going smoothly,

just two more years that's all I’m asking,

some plot holes want fixing,

lapses in concinnity need clarifying

the main characters are mostly in disarray,

but insofar as picaresque post-modern magical-realist stuff

incorporating a crypto-Marxist feminist critique goes,

the dialectic’s not bad

and the sex is amazin’…”

 

“just another ‘fook book’, eh Mal?

ever thought of writing

something worth reading?”

 

Mally was in no mood for banter,

he stared into a steamed-up mirror

tugged his hair like Julius Caesar

returned his face to manic

and goose-stepped out

to confront the enemy

 

he raged the street

swung a foot 

at a shuffling oldiie 

and swore at a mother

smoking a joint 

while pushing a buggy

 

‘good luck, Mally, break a leg’

 

I could not help

a twinge of sympathy

for the poor bastard there

to assess Mally -

 

Mally, the stench and the stare.