Don is a transvestite. “Please call me Wanda.” He puts up this shows in Manchester. “Or Pussy, if you like. Please have a seat.” Music shows for the freaks of that depressed city. “Would you like some speed?” He puts up people you wouldn’t know, like my band Cock Riot. “Naw, thanks.” He has a room where the shows take place, and it is red red red, like only Hell I imagine can be. “Excuse the untidiness of the place.” He had a good point there, because the room was filled with EVERYTHING! literal and litteral, like the garage of a multitude of really untidy gypsies I figured could be. But at first I mainly noticed those little nail varnish bottles by the millions and combs and stockings, and it felt like you entered the lair of a hyper-sexed serial killer. Now he would throw the lotion at me and say: “Now it rubs the lotion on its skin” or something like that. “Now take a sip of this lovely Italian wine.” “Sure, thanks.” Then he would inhale my scented epidermis and rip me all apart, and then start fiddling on his satanic violin, maybe some gypsy jazz. “Shall I show you my fiddle?” “Sure.”
Don was a drunk. And he wanted to fuck me, or so I thought. He started playing his fiddle, and it was SAD, and out of tune, and you know, he was trying to seduce me with his wobbling veiled empty bull eyes. I had some booze already myself, and I now felt so very much beautiful, and when you’re a bit tipsy EVERYBODY allegedly wants to fuck your Beauty in the guts! Or so it felt like anyway.
I had no intention to let him. But I had to stay at his place. I had nowhere else to go. No kindred soul in Manchester I knew of. I didn’t have the money for a hotel or anything like that. It was cold out there, and I was not a pro bum, just a wannabe penniless rotting artist. In case I’d have him hurt badly with my guitar, old Fender, thick and heavy, you fool! Just stay away, you know…
We were sitting in the living room, or so I thought, since there were no boundaries, not even psychological, between kitchen, living room, varnish nook, music gear unwashed dishes gig stage empty bottles dirty panties, more varnish of some other kind, fresh stockings leftover food a couple of syringes dolls everywhere in the shape of people animals and plants papers rubbish vomit. “It will be clean by tomorrow, you know, for the gig.” “No problem.”
The guy went for a dress change, he did that may times a day he told me, it kept him up spirit, he said, and when he came down he must have put on one of his finest dresses. I can tell because before he turned toward me I got tricked. I was drunk, and this ass just kept wiggling for a long while, the person to whom it belonged to was maniacally looking for something in the corridor, and I could see just a bit of caboose and a bit of bumping and grinding through the door frame. I had a hard-on, and thought that maybe, just maybe, I got lucky meeting Don’s flatmate. And then ‘it’ turned, and the reality was MALE, and there was no one else except the two of us, and he told me of his niece, but I hadn’t seen her yet, and he was wearing these red string-panties, and his pack was enormous! “Do you know Antonellus Worthington from the Antonellus and his Diddle Goo Fangs?” and he sat down next to me, he took a little bottle, fiddled with it a bit, “He’s playing here tomorrow too. You’ll love him!” Then he looked at me, and he was like all hyped-up or something, thinking maybe he was such a hottie, with his rat-pointed silver beard and his pseudo-high-class flea-market-junk Chinese-six-years-old-sewn embroidered headband, and I was just visualizing myself punching him very hard on his face, and getting the hell out of there. But then he passed on some more wine, and I got soft, and I took it easy. Don was not bad, nor harmful, he was just a bit fucked up, that’s all. Or so I thought.
Then sleepy sleep came, and warmth and drunk, and the room was like the rest of the house, but Don was not there, and peace fell all over the place. The earth was filled with it, and it was good good good. I could hear cicadas and enjoyed the warm linen. My bones were tired, I was drowsing, and then I felt something pointing toward my back. It was poking me, maybe it was Morse code, and I considered that I would much rather it be a gun than what I thought. And so I jumped off the bed with a ninja kick, all furious, tendons stretching to their limits, me in the limelight, quick zoom-in on my face, a drop of sweat rolling down my temple, I spit, I am a MAN! Ready to roll. Japanese gongs. DOIIIIING…!
This guy was staring at me, I mean, like he was ready to devour my soul or something, with a broom in his hands, his cock swooshing in the breeze like it was seeking satisfaction pretty badly. He cried the shrillest yell of insanity, and started chasing me like I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!! and all. It was a sublime Dada moment, chased by a bearded lady with a hard-on in a satanic hall in Manchester at 04:13 am. When he first hit me on the head – doesn’t it suck how movies and reality don’t go along so well? – all of a sudden I wished I could take a picture of this Theatre of the Bizarre. And so I did. I had gone insane myself!! So I went to my bag, got out the camera and took a picture of that crazy punk. He was hitting hard, I took another picture, he hit me even harder, and then I started laughing, hysterically like, and then I had enough, and in the end I punched him in the face, very hard. The guy collapsed. I mean, not just like slowly fading away and sliding along the wall. No. He was out out out, and he just went puff! One second up, second later down. It was spooky. I thought I killed him.
And I hadn’t even played the gig yet.
As soon as I started grabbing clothes and putting them on to get the hell out of there, I heard steps on the stairs outside on the landing. They were heavy, and they meant: “I’m coming for YOU!” So I panicked not knowing what the next freak would be, and then, while in the middle of a psychological Spiral of Chaos, the door opened, and this little girl comes in and says:
“You’ll be DAMNED sir! You killed my auntie!”
She struck her little finger at me. She was right. She was the most damned serious little girl I had ever seen in my life. She freaked me out alright. But then Don took on coughing, very subtly at the beginning, and then he was sobbing, and so he resuscitated, and I thought for a moment that that was good, but soon realised that it was shit either way, and that I still really had to get the hell out of that doomful place, and so I dressed up, and Don tried to say something, I raised my fist, he shut up, and so I left.
The little girl came after me, and on the doorstep she cried.
So I went close to her.
“Don’t cry little girl, your auntie will be alright” – and I patted on her shoulder.
“NOOO!” – and then her voice fell and became inaudible, almost. “I’d rather you killed her. She makes me do weird things.”- and she stressed ‘weird things’ like she was asking: Do you know what I mean? And she yelled: “I want you to kill her NOOOOW!!!” – the bugger almost made me go deaf.
“……, …” – I mean, me not really knowing what to say.
“Come on now! KILL HER! NOOOW!!” – pressed on the little evil daughter of a bitch!
She showed me her forearms. They were all butchery-like. Lots of coagulated spots, and strange symbols tattooed all over her skin. She was the most damned serious little girl I had ever seen in my life. And apparently she had a curse on her tiny little back.
“Alright then” – I spat on Don’s roses.
And I went.
And so I went back in, not thinking much, maybe I could still find some booze left in there. And then the little girl heard screaming and tearing upstairs, while a bunch of bats came gliding by, and you could see the belt of Orion in the sky. A siren in the distance, screaming and tearing too. And she imagined her auntie’s bellows were part of a chorale in the Requiem of Mozart, and the siren was a violin. The music surged, a policemen got off the car, and it reminded her of the music her auntie would usually listen to when taking a shower, the policeman waved a hand in front of the little girl, and that would give her a good hour of peace, and then she would squat down in the basement, all alone, the girl was under shock he concluded, and for a moment she would feel safe, away from that filthy horrible WITCH!
(c) 2012 Crugi Smear
smearcrugi@gmail.com