So... how exactly did you celebrate Max's birthday, given that your last three prompts have now been: Finishing touches, party crashers, and bullet holes? And will you be celebrating anyone else's birthday in the same way?
Since bullet holes doesn't really work too well with Lord Derby, and I came across something last night that gave me an idea, we're popping over to see how MacArthur is getting on :)
Bullet holes Bullet holes. There are always bullet holes, pretty much anywhere I go. Some of them are ancient, a legacy of the City's history and its citizens inability to stay civilized for more than about six months at a time. Some of them are just old, like the ones in the walls of The lost sheep, the bar run by the Beau Piepe family. I remember hearing stories of the shootouts there when I was growing up: five or six gangs from different octants of the City, meeting up on neutral territory to ambush each other. They say the blood ran like beer in that bar, and no-one can tell me if the blood was that thin or the beer was that bad. I can guess. Some are recent; Natasha Monkeybutt, Commissioner of the City, has a zero-tolerance policy for just about everything and her police-force are taught to shoot on sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. There are even bullet holes in the concrete pillars supporting the Hammersmith flyover. And some are... incipient, waiting to happen. Like when I walked into the little wooden room under the sub-basement, smelling turpentine that wasn't quite covering up sewage and fresh decay, listening to the crackle of badly-treated vinyl flooring competing with the syncopation of my gait, brought on by my heartbeat having been set by a watchmaker with epilepsy at a strobe-light exhibition during a thunderstorm. If you listen to my doctor, which I don't. There was a boy sitting at a wooden table, on a wooden chair. The decor had a theme: Scandinavian splinters. There was a chess-set on the table in front of him, little piece all neatly lined up on their home squares, waiting for battle. In one corner there was a plastic toilet, a chemical affair that wasn't overflowing, so someone was coming in and changing it. In another corner there was a hotplate and a medium-sized pot atop it. The boy watched me with curious eyes while I checked it out: soup, probably beetroot, not hot enough to burn if he decided to throw it at me. I mentally marked it down as safe.
He was thin, his clothes were grey with age and threadbare in places, but frankly he was better dressed than some of Monkeybutt's policemen. Someone was looking after this kid, even if their idea of childcare was locking him in a wooden room with a checkered black-and-white floor three stories below street-level. "How old are you, kid?" I asked. Before he answered I noticed the pile of chess-books underneath the table; they looked well-read. When he answered I noticed he had no teeth. "Seven," he said, his words oddly soft, and it took me a moment to realise that you need your teeth to make some of the sounds properly. "How long have you been down here?" He shrugged. "I've played one hundred and seven important games," he said. "I've won them all. I'm the Chess King." It was something in the way he said it, I couldn't tell you what, but it clicked them. I picked up the black king from the chess-board -- it had been carved from a molar. I set it down and checked, each piece was a tooth. Some were milk teeth, others adult teeth. The kid watched me with eyes that seemed too old for his head suddenly, and scrabbled under his chair for something. Pliers. "I carved the pieces myself," he said. "Shall we play?" Preja vu is the opposite of deja vu, and I was having it. I knew what would happen when I reported this: bullet holes. I could practically smell the cordite, and could easily picture myself unwrapping fish and chips to read the newspaper reporting the kid's discovery. They'd use someone else's name, of course, but the story would be mine. "What happens to the losers, kid?" I asked. "You had to ask, didn't you?" said a feminine voice behind me.
Greg - big party in the gym at the Community Centre, actually. The party crasher wasn't really one (he came afterward and ruined my mood by being... I don't think I'll use my preferred word for him in this space). We definitely were putting finishing touches on the event though. And bullet holes?
Well, the less said the less chance I shall be incar... nah, I honestly don't know where that one came from.
Man, there are some fantastic descriptions here. I think this is one of your better MacArthur pieces. I like it a lot, in all its dark and gritty glory.
3 comments:
So... how exactly did you celebrate Max's birthday, given that your last three prompts have now been: Finishing touches, party crashers, and bullet holes? And will you be celebrating anyone else's birthday in the same way?
Since bullet holes doesn't really work too well with Lord Derby, and I came across something last night that gave me an idea, we're popping over to see how MacArthur is getting on :)
Bullet holes
Bullet holes. There are always bullet holes, pretty much anywhere I go. Some of them are ancient, a legacy of the City's history and its citizens inability to stay civilized for more than about six months at a time. Some of them are just old, like the ones in the walls of The lost sheep, the bar run by the Beau Piepe family. I remember hearing stories of the shootouts there when I was growing up: five or six gangs from different octants of the City, meeting up on neutral territory to ambush each other. They say the blood ran like beer in that bar, and no-one can tell me if the blood was that thin or the beer was that bad. I can guess. Some are recent; Natasha Monkeybutt, Commissioner of the City, has a zero-tolerance policy for just about everything and her police-force are taught to shoot on sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. There are even bullet holes in the concrete pillars supporting the Hammersmith flyover.
And some are... incipient, waiting to happen. Like when I walked into the little wooden room under the sub-basement, smelling turpentine that wasn't quite covering up sewage and fresh decay, listening to the crackle of badly-treated vinyl flooring competing with the syncopation of my gait, brought on by my heartbeat having been set by a watchmaker with epilepsy at a strobe-light exhibition during a thunderstorm. If you listen to my doctor, which I don't.
There was a boy sitting at a wooden table, on a wooden chair. The decor had a theme: Scandinavian splinters. There was a chess-set on the table in front of him, little piece all neatly lined up on their home squares, waiting for battle. In one corner there was a plastic toilet, a chemical affair that wasn't overflowing, so someone was coming in and changing it. In another corner there was a hotplate and a medium-sized pot atop it. The boy watched me with curious eyes while I checked it out: soup, probably beetroot, not hot enough to burn if he decided to throw it at me. I mentally marked it down as safe.
He was thin, his clothes were grey with age and threadbare in places, but frankly he was better dressed than some of Monkeybutt's policemen. Someone was looking after this kid, even if their idea of childcare was locking him in a wooden room with a checkered black-and-white floor three stories below street-level.
"How old are you, kid?" I asked. Before he answered I noticed the pile of chess-books underneath the table; they looked well-read. When he answered I noticed he had no teeth.
"Seven," he said, his words oddly soft, and it took me a moment to realise that you need your teeth to make some of the sounds properly.
"How long have you been down here?"
He shrugged. "I've played one hundred and seven important games," he said. "I've won them all. I'm the Chess King."
It was something in the way he said it, I couldn't tell you what, but it clicked them. I picked up the black king from the chess-board -- it had been carved from a molar. I set it down and checked, each piece was a tooth. Some were milk teeth, others adult teeth. The kid watched me with eyes that seemed too old for his head suddenly, and scrabbled under his chair for something.
Pliers.
"I carved the pieces myself," he said. "Shall we play?"
Preja vu is the opposite of deja vu, and I was having it. I knew what would happen when I reported this: bullet holes. I could practically smell the cordite, and could easily picture myself unwrapping fish and chips to read the newspaper reporting the kid's discovery. They'd use someone else's name, of course, but the story would be mine.
"What happens to the losers, kid?" I asked.
"You had to ask, didn't you?" said a feminine voice behind me.
Greg - big party in the gym at the Community Centre, actually. The party crasher wasn't really one (he came afterward and ruined my mood by being... I don't think I'll use my preferred word for him in this space). We definitely were putting finishing touches on the event though. And bullet holes?
Well, the less said the less chance I shall be incar... nah, I honestly don't know where that one came from.
Man, there are some fantastic descriptions here. I think this is one of your better MacArthur pieces. I like it a lot, in all its dark and gritty glory.
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