Skunk: What was the Lone Ranger’s name though, do you know what
deleted name: I’m just, hang on I know it.
Skunk: No but not, not the actor’s name. The name of the Lone Ranger himself, the the character’s proper name?
deleted name (snapping fingers): John Reid.
drinks
deleted name (shaking his head): God, that’s... okay, so... what do all these people have in common?
pausing briefly to collect these back from some depth of his memory
deleted name: Mrs Leslie, Penny Dreadful, Sugar Finney,
folding down a finger for each, the rhythm of their being spoken serving to prompt each subsequent
deleted name: Gramercy 5, uh... Faye Miller... hang on, hang on
struggling now to remember
Skunk: I mean I
deleted name: Sh sh
holding up one hand, before
deleted name: ..Tony Roberts, and Miss Caswell?
Skunk (shaking his head, without having to even think): No idea, none of, none of these, I don’t think I’ve heard of even one of these.
deleted name: No? Well they were all pseudonyms, not pseudonyms as such, they’re all... aliases of Marilyn Monroe.
Skunk: Which name was itself an alias.
deleted name: Yes, yes correct. Correct. These were, these were names she would use to register in hotels, that kind of thing.
Skunk: How do you, why would you even know all those?
pause
deleted name (shrugs): Oh God no reason, no real reason. Just an exercise? Let’s call it a memory thing.
continuing witless
deleted name: And of course her mother was
stops
Skunk: Her mother was what?
deleted name: Nothing, it it’s nothing.
Skunk (angry): No, no no, her mother was what?
deleted name (emphatic): Nothing.
bending over to collect the bottle of Jack Daniel’s up from off the carpet, understanding that having written himself into a corner his best defence is simply to abandon the pen.
