B - All Three Are Lost

Douglas often got lost in his own little world, and in our big one
too. He had just solved a particularly stubborn chess puzzle and was
basking in the afterglow, when he realised he had no idea where he was.
Flurries of litter spiralled down the street towards him; pages from
newspapers, flattened cans, assorted wrappers. All at once, the image
of the finished board vanished from his head. His pleasure over that
sly rook manoeuvre melted like a pat of butter left in the sun. His
guts felt sour, knotted.

For a few seconds, he staggered as if punched. Then he came to a halt.
He looked left, he looked right. Slouched against the wall was a wino,
his head tilted forward, face shielded by a wide-brimmed hat, like the
archetypal sombreroed gringo taking a siesta. Douglas decided the
situation demanded pragmatism, and he was nothing if not pragmatic. He
approached the dozing bum, and loudly cleared his throat. The tramp did
not respond.

"Uh, excuse me," Douglas began. Slowly and deliberately, the tramp made
a show of drumming his fingers against his thighs. "Excuse me." The
tramp did not look up. Douglas thought for a moment, then reached into
his pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill. The tramp had a rusting
tobacco tin between his legs. Douglas leant forward and deposited the
bill in the tin. The tramp looked up. His face was sallow, pock-marked
with acne scars. He had a patchy beard, grey in some places, brown in
others. He was missing several teeth and his eyes were bloodshot. He
did not speak.

"I'm lost," said Douglas.

"Well," spoke the tramp with a lazy blink, "aren't we all?" Douglas
tried to smile.

"What's the best way to Webster Avenue?" he asked, taking a step
back.

"Start at Williams Bridge," said the tramp. "Then go left." His face
cracked into a grin, and he began to laugh. The laughs were reedy,
wheezy.

"I mean from here," said Douglas. He took another step back.

"Oh. I see. Well, that changes everything." The bum stroked his chin
and glanced down at his begging tin. "You can't get there from
here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean&;#8230;" The tramp paused to cough into his fist. "I mean
you can't get there from here. There's no place for you. No room."
Douglas had already taken another step back.

"So&;#8230; you don't know where the nearest bus stop is, then?" The
tramp started to laugh again.

"I do," he half-chuckled, half-gasped, "I do. But you can't get there
from here."

"Right," said Douglas. He started to walk away. "Thanks," then under
his breath, "for nothing." His sneakers scuffed the tarmac as he
retreated.

* * *

Where the fur wasn't pasted to the tarmac, it stuck up in short,
intense chestnut tufts that quivered in the wind. There were no tumid
salmon-pink bursts of viscera; the Land Rover had caught it perfectly,
square-on, pasting it to the warm grey surface of the road, a sealed
bladder of squandered craftsmanship. It was almost perfectly flat,
except where gaps in the deep tread had conceded erratic contours and
bulges. It was not clear, just by looking, which way the creature had
been facing when it was hit, nor indeed, to the uninitiated observer,
what type of creature it had been.

Jesus Creosote knew what type - a stupid bugger. Placing gaunt,
scar-patterned palms on gaunt, scar-patterned knees he leaned forward,
bore the creak - almost a snap - in his joints, and swung to his feet.
Stooped, narrow-eyed and scrotum-faced, with the bristly jutting beard
and broken railway sleeper teeth of a seasoned misanthrope, he stood in
his punched, slumped sentry-box home and surveyed the road. It was
edged with rotund, imposing deciduous trees that loomed over either
side, forming an arboreal, sun-dappled tunnel that felt and smelt like
the inside of an old, green, heavily mildewed tent - as did Jesus
himself.

His ears, though crested with improbable wisps of white hair, worked
perfectly. He inhaled slowly through his nostrils, listening. The
breeze washing through leaves; the hiccuping song of thrushes; the
faint rasp of his own breaths. He took a wooden-handled bricklayer's
trowel from the hook on the wall and held it in his right hand.

Jesus was hungry. Already a pot bubbled on the camping stove, already
he had sharpened the blade of his pen knife. He stepped out onto the
road, knelt down, and began to work the still-warm roadkill away from
the tarmac with his trowel. He licked his chapped lips.

* * *

There's three of us sat around the table, Alex, Ralph and I. In turn we
tap our cigarettes into the ashtray, slowly upping the ante. By the end
of the evening, the grey and white flecked mound of ash is studded with
cylindrical headstones the colour of roof tiles. But we're not that far
yet. I've still to tell you what happened.

See, the three of us, Alex, Ralph and I, we're all bats. Actually,
that's a lie. We're not bats yet, but we plan to be. At least, I plan
to be, that's my plan, and wheresoever I tread Alex and Ralph shall
follow. They follow because they love me. That's the way it's always
been. That's the way it always shall be, maybe. Perhaps. If I get my
way.

In the pub marsh gas is rife. It seeps and coils from the glowing
impish ends of cigarettes and makes us feel like toads or crocodiles. I
should like to be a crocodile; all teeth, all beguiling guileless
smile. I should like to bask in this stagnant swamp, where the water
plops and bubbles pop like stinking boils. I should like to wait, just
my eyes and my nostrils breaking the surface, waiting, waiting to snap.
That's all your art, o patient, patient crocodile. The grinning death.
Snap.

I drink ale and smile, my eyes flicking 'cross heads to where
steel-shafted flechettes thud-thunk into a dartboard. Whump. Whump.
Whump. The rhythm makes me bite my lip. I shift back in my seat, adjust
my belt.

"So," says Ralph, without inflection. He is woozy from drink,
fug-breathed and dull-eyed. I look at him, stare him down. His gaze
drops into his glass and I can almost hear the splash. Alex sighs and
all at once I am up and I am walking, a cowboy's swagger-stagger to the
toilets. I feel muckle-mouthed, woolly-headed. The door gives beneath
my palm as if it were steam. I am a bear, a bee-bothered Bruin with a
dim, urgent hunger. I sit and piss and roll my fang-crammed head and
growl quietly. Tonight, we shall be bats, we shall all be bats, fanged
and black and thirsty; chittering and persistent as a tar
monsoon.

I finish, wipe myself, totter out chargrined and blind. They are
waiting, silent as always. I note in my stupor the slumped shoulders
and feel both pleased and resigned. There is no place for me. No place,
not amongst these blocks, these stones, these worse than senseless
things. But I take my place. The seat, maroon, checked with swirls like
pearls, is still warm.

"Anna."

And now the ashtray is full, and Alex speaks to me. His lips form my
name and I shake my head. I am a snake. I shake my head and hiss and
slink off. I pull on my jacket, puff out my adder's collar, and slink
off, slip-slither off and away, back to the coiling, writhing nest from
whence I came. The door sighs closed behind me.