From out the kitchen window he can see there is a grim threat of rain gathering around the far edges of the evening sky, where he hopes it will remain as he is to be shortly heading back down into the town.
Skunk: I have no idea why I’m even going to this.
Once again his Uncle Jesus finds himself recipient of the monologue he knows would be better served as one half conversation, and one that by now Brother Skunk might be sharing with someone else, someone more corporeal.
For himself, engaging Jesus in just such discourse forms at least in part some attempt to stave off his own loneliness, a verbal comfort spoken aloud to reassuredly render himself that much less alone.
Skunk: Seriously though, what’s the point?
stood relishing the feel of the kitchen’s wooden-textured floorboards beneath his bare feet.
Skunk: Other than that it was recommended. I mean, is that, am I only going so that tomorrow I can tell them I actually went?
yawning
Skunk: One desperately lonely man going out to see a play about another...
pause, before completing with an embarrassed and bitter laughter
Skunk: ..on his own.
Having finished the washing and putting away of his dinner dishes, he now assembles those various elements requisite to the habitual mug of coffee, before filling the kettle.
Skunk: I suppose ehm, I mean, I could have asked someone, but... who would I ask?
Removing the ticket from his Levi’s wallet, he checks again the time for that evening’s student performance of “The Elephant Man”.
Skunk: I remember walking home from school, and it was two, there were two guys who were, they weren’t friends of mine but they were friends of a friend, and they had both been to see the film, but for whatever reason I was scared to go. I, they spoke, I seem to remember they talked about it in a way that suggested it wasn’t a horror film as such but for whatever reason I had it in my head that it was, and I was, there was no way I would, I wasn’t... brave enough to go and and see those types of films.
picturing so clearly the actor John Hurt’s distorted face buried beneath prosthetics, merciless in its black and white.
Skunk: But also there was something about the fact he was... disabled, if that’s, maybe that’s eh, that’s maybe not the word I want, but how that might apply to me. I’d seen a clip on tv of him... clumming about, and the fear of that following me into the playground was...
heading himself off at the pass
Skunk: ..just...
no, changing
Skunk: which, further back, Mum even said she would take me to see “Jaws”, which all the other kids were going to, but... there was just no way, I couldn’t. I think other kids were maybe begging their parents to take them and here’s my mum offering to take me, but... I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I, there was no, I just didn’t have whatever I felt was required to be able to... endure that.
The kettle’s sustained exhalation grows into its immediate air; Skunk finds himself raising his voice, amused at the lack of necessity so to do, knowing the same words only thought and whether spoken or not would achieve their equal end.
Skunk: And then eventually I watched, well I must have watched it on video, I, I mean, ehm, I must have, “The Elephant Man", because I have seen it, but I have no memory at all of seeing it for the first time. And actually that’s the same with “Jaws”.
The noise increasing with the steam’s visibility, as if the vapour was itself the audible component.
Skunk: I just, all I want to do is go to my bed, truth be told.
yawning again
Skunk: Just... hibernate.
Still he is yet young enough that no sense of embarrassment at being out alone would proscribe his being out at all, nor resign him to the housebound inertia of any shut-in.
The kettle, having peaked, quietens, its little humidity dispersing.
Skunk: I have no idea why I’m even going to this.
Once again his Uncle Jesus finds himself recipient of the monologue he knows would be better served as one half conversation, and one that by now Brother Skunk might be sharing with someone else, someone more corporeal.
For himself, engaging Jesus in just such discourse forms at least in part some attempt to stave off his own loneliness, a verbal comfort spoken aloud to reassuredly render himself that much less alone.
Skunk: Seriously though, what’s the point?
stood relishing the feel of the kitchen’s wooden-textured floorboards beneath his bare feet.
Skunk: Other than that it was recommended. I mean, is that, am I only going so that tomorrow I can tell them I actually went?
yawning
Skunk: One desperately lonely man going out to see a play about another...
pause, before completing with an embarrassed and bitter laughter
Skunk: ..on his own.
Having finished the washing and putting away of his dinner dishes, he now assembles those various elements requisite to the habitual mug of coffee, before filling the kettle.
Skunk: I suppose ehm, I mean, I could have asked someone, but... who would I ask?
Removing the ticket from his Levi’s wallet, he checks again the time for that evening’s student performance of “The Elephant Man”.
Skunk: I remember walking home from school, and it was two, there were two guys who were, they weren’t friends of mine but they were friends of a friend, and they had both been to see the film, but for whatever reason I was scared to go. I, they spoke, I seem to remember they talked about it in a way that suggested it wasn’t a horror film as such but for whatever reason I had it in my head that it was, and I was, there was no way I would, I wasn’t... brave enough to go and and see those types of films.
picturing so clearly the actor John Hurt’s distorted face buried beneath prosthetics, merciless in its black and white.
Skunk: But also there was something about the fact he was... disabled, if that’s, maybe that’s eh, that’s maybe not the word I want, but how that might apply to me. I’d seen a clip on tv of him... clumming about, and the fear of that following me into the playground was...
heading himself off at the pass
Skunk: ..just...
no, changing
Skunk: which, further back, Mum even said she would take me to see “Jaws”, which all the other kids were going to, but... there was just no way, I couldn’t. I think other kids were maybe begging their parents to take them and here’s my mum offering to take me, but... I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I, there was no, I just didn’t have whatever I felt was required to be able to... endure that.
The kettle’s sustained exhalation grows into its immediate air; Skunk finds himself raising his voice, amused at the lack of necessity so to do, knowing the same words only thought and whether spoken or not would achieve their equal end.
Skunk: And then eventually I watched, well I must have watched it on video, I, I mean, ehm, I must have, “The Elephant Man", because I have seen it, but I have no memory at all of seeing it for the first time. And actually that’s the same with “Jaws”.
The noise increasing with the steam’s visibility, as if the vapour was itself the audible component.
Skunk: I just, all I want to do is go to my bed, truth be told.
yawning again
Skunk: Just... hibernate.
Still he is yet young enough that no sense of embarrassment at being out alone would proscribe his being out at all, nor resign him to the housebound inertia of any shut-in.
The kettle, having peaked, quietens, its little humidity dispersing.
Skunk: Jesus it seems like every time I put the kettle on now all I can think about is pouring the boiling water out over my feet, just
miming the gesture, imagining the spreading pain of the scald, exacerbating his infirmity and helping to make one uniform hue that flesh surrounding the vivid crimson blemish with which his ankle has from birth been tainted. The hope that an alteration of appearance might somehow prompt a beneficial change in circumstance, force open the trap and release him from his job, his mother’s illness, the too limiting perception of his own faults, that absolute and all-encompassing basic loneliness by which as he ages he feels himself to be increasingly both beset and defined.
Skunk: and then I’d get to go to hospital and I could just... have a rest, just have a good long goddam rest.
unaware he will indeed be in hospital before the week is out, albeit as a visitor.
The William Faulkner display he had earlier today constructed both inside the bookshop and in its window; the arrival of his new Jack Daniel’s pewter hipflask; the lunchtime purchase of a ticket for this evening’s performance of a play based on the life of the Elephant Man: from his vantage point Jesus is aware that Brother Skunk’s every action both sets in motion and crosses off a marker of that inexorable and irrevocable progress he makes through the seemingly random co-ordinates of his own existence, a series of logistics as can result in only the one possible outcome.
With the coffee brewing in its cafetiere, he pulls the pristine hipflask from out the back pocket of his Levi’s to run under the tap, unscrewing the stiff lid to fill with water and drain, again delighting in this latest acquisition.
Back up in his room he fills it from the remnant dregs of his current bottle, relieved there is enough so to do (but in the process spilling enough that he writes himself a memo to buy some sort of funnel for future use), before descending again the stairs where he sees the front door opening below, to encounter his landlord returning from his own earlier shift at the restaurant where he works.
cog: Off out?
Skunk (sighs): God I wish I wasn’t.
cog (laughing): You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.
Skunk: We’ll see.
heading past him on out through the front door and into the evening, and what he cannot yet recognise as that initial phase of the elongated epilogue of his life, and whether accidentally or otherwise winding up right back at that very point from which he had planned to exit.
miming the gesture, imagining the spreading pain of the scald, exacerbating his infirmity and helping to make one uniform hue that flesh surrounding the vivid crimson blemish with which his ankle has from birth been tainted. The hope that an alteration of appearance might somehow prompt a beneficial change in circumstance, force open the trap and release him from his job, his mother’s illness, the too limiting perception of his own faults, that absolute and all-encompassing basic loneliness by which as he ages he feels himself to be increasingly both beset and defined.
Skunk: and then I’d get to go to hospital and I could just... have a rest, just have a good long goddam rest.
unaware he will indeed be in hospital before the week is out, albeit as a visitor.
The William Faulkner display he had earlier today constructed both inside the bookshop and in its window; the arrival of his new Jack Daniel’s pewter hipflask; the lunchtime purchase of a ticket for this evening’s performance of a play based on the life of the Elephant Man: from his vantage point Jesus is aware that Brother Skunk’s every action both sets in motion and crosses off a marker of that inexorable and irrevocable progress he makes through the seemingly random co-ordinates of his own existence, a series of logistics as can result in only the one possible outcome.
With the coffee brewing in its cafetiere, he pulls the pristine hipflask from out the back pocket of his Levi’s to run under the tap, unscrewing the stiff lid to fill with water and drain, again delighting in this latest acquisition.
Back up in his room he fills it from the remnant dregs of his current bottle, relieved there is enough so to do (but in the process spilling enough that he writes himself a memo to buy some sort of funnel for future use), before descending again the stairs where he sees the front door opening below, to encounter his landlord returning from his own earlier shift at the restaurant where he works.
cog: Off out?
Skunk (sighs): God I wish I wasn’t.
cog (laughing): You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.
Skunk: We’ll see.
heading past him on out through the front door and into the evening, and what he cannot yet recognise as that initial phase of the elongated epilogue of his life, and whether accidentally or otherwise winding up right back at that very point from which he had planned to exit.
