Sniff Snuff Stuff
They just weren’t fucking getting it. Idiots.
Listen, I said to their gawping Rimmel masks, You must- - MUST have something smaller? Something cheaper?
They turned back around to the shelves they’d investigated just a few seconds previously.
No. 24 quid - cheapest.
I don’t have 24 fucking quid.
You don’t need to swear at us.
I’m sorry - it’s just-
One of them raised an eyebrow - an unsuggestive botox twitch.
Wait - how do you afford botox on the salary of a perfume counter assistant?
They frowned at me.
Possibly.
There was a long, unjust silence.
Credit Card, they answered finally in unison like the twins off the Shining.
I rolled my eyes deep into the high pit of my skull. I felt my retina lick my brain.
Listen, you must have samples. You know - little small bottles. Just one - just the one and I promise tomorrow I’ll go hassle someone else.
They looked at each other. A woman approached the counter. She had a small, yappy little dog under her arm which was uncharacteristically silent. It might have been dead. She wore perfume the same way Vietnam wore Napalm.
Hi there yah could I grab a sample of that new Jean Paul Gaultier? she licked her lips. The assistants smiled warmly at her. One of them pulled out a long strip of cardboard, sprayed it with the fragrance and gave it to her. The other pulled out a small giftbag treble the size of the sample perfume within.
Oh yah She sniffed it Mmmmm yah, it’s delicious isn’t it heavy yah cheeeeers guys.
The woman left. Her cheap fragrance broke my flesh out into a rash. Nasty.
I turned back to the assistants, bemused.
Why does she get a fucking sample?
There’s no need to swear at us, madam.
Yes there is! Why does she get a freebie and I don’t?
They stared at each other, one of them - the one with the thinnest eyebrows - rolled her eyes at her workmate and walked away. The other stared uncomfortable at her watch.
I banged at the counter, incredulous. They just didn’t get it. The girl jumped. She clutched at her chest in horror.
LISTEN - I bleated, inches close to grabbing her by the throat and spitting in her face - I’ve just fallen in love with this boy and he fucking loves this fragrance he seems to think that I piss fart menstruate cry spit shit and sweat that fucking fragrance. I have five pounds.
I pulled the crumpled note out of my back jean pocket and held it in front of the bloated barbie dolls face.
I’ll pay you for a sample. Just the one - please!? FUCKSAKES! He won’t come near me otherwise! The boys fucking addicted. You understand addiction, don’t you?
I looked at her worn down septum. Her burst-burnt pupils that had been over-dilated one too many times and sat sad and inky beneath her heavy lids.
Just how do you afford all that coke, anyway?
She bunched her elbows up by her face like Lurch. She swooped her now animated face around like a mother eagle protecting her nest -
Credit Card! she declared excitedly through gritted teeth before her face shrank once more into a morose saggy mask.
Oh.
Okay - anyway, please? Just the one? Or just spray some on me? Or wipe a bit of cardboard on me? Or break a bottle, yeah? Just break a bottle and you can claim it back on damages and I’ll just writhe around in it - a good 50 quids worth, it’ll stain me good and proper for a good few fucking weeks and you’ll not need to see me again. I promise.
You’ll bleed.
Excuse me?
You’ll bleed - if you writhe around in a broken bottle.
So spray me then, fucksakes.
I thought of me and him our limbs shuttered round each other like the safety locks on a roller coaster or roots in the Earth or or or - - dragging his nose across the nape of my neck my hair my collar bone my wrists my throat my tits my lingerie my cunt my thighs my knees mmmmmmm and him shuddering twitching sniffing sniffing.
Gutted.
A bell rang. A metal shutter got pulled down. I screamed a little.
OI!! I banged my fist against it. Through the small metal fishnet I could see the assistants tearing off their aprons and talking about soap operas. Idiots. Bloody fucking idiots.
I checked my phone. There was a text waiting off him Can’t wait to see you baby. Been thinking of u all day. Cum round weneva. xxxxxxx
Bollocks. He hadn’t been with me without the scent, yet. I imagined the sort of men the shop assistants were currently shagging. Poor bastards. Probably wouldn’t know them without the coke or the botox. Should they answer the door one day to a sober woman with a full scope of facial expressions, they’d probably slam the thing in their face.
That would be me.
Unrecognisable.
He’d be lost - routing about in complete, pleasureless darkness unable to pinpoint what had changed in me. There’d be nothing to distract him. There would just be him. There would just be me.
I could imagine the conversation.
Nothing’s wrong…you just seem different.
Have you cut your hair?
Have you been on the sunbeds?
Have you painted your nails a different colour?
Did you always have that much pubic hair?
How long have you had that scar on your wrist for?
You don’t work out do you?
Is that whiskey on your breath?
You’ve got a seed in your teeth.
I never noticed your bingo wings before.
You’ve got awfully big feet for a girl don’t you?
And, what’s that smell? Uuuuurrrrrrggggh. Yuck. You smell fucking human.
Friday Night On The 82 Bus Home
Piss-ant stumbles aboard. Can smell his cider potency from the middle row of seats I’ve stumbled myself on.
Sock It To Me (The End Of The Affair)
*Final piece submitted (and published) in the first issue of Trashed Organ zine written to the same brief as the other two. This one from the perspective of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar on this notable performance of Wild Thing at the Monterey Festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTEza7Y4hUo
I didn’t react when I heard you were dead. By that point I was already in a little glass ward, for protection. Hoisted up on a little stand for prosperity. Only a part of me. A tuneless, mute splinter. I live now only to provide people with a physical reference of our affair. This is my entire existence - to be like Havisham with burn marks and torn wood where the wedding dress should be.
My only reaction, if any, was envy.
In any other circumstance, I’d be trash by now. But you gave me value. I doubt your hoards of groupies can say the same.
You could probably say I was naive. I mean, some kind of alarm should have gone up when you started to pass me around to your friends to be played. If you loved me anywhere near as much as I thought you did, you would have kept me to yourself. I didn’t want anyone else’s fingers on me.
Our final tryst, in Monterey, was probably our best. It was our greatest moment together - our death dance into finality.
And like most men, you got all the glory for it. You were high fived and celebrated. I could hear them backstage gloating on you, Wow, you really slammed her hard tonight, man. You totally burnt that bitch! You made that lady squeal!
The voyeurism was part of what made us amazing. We weren’t the same without it. But, it wasn’t about the audience that night, with that song. I knew all the lyrics were just for me - I was your Wild Thing.
I think I love you, but I wanna know for sure.
I thrummed and purred. Charged and roared. You brought noises out of me that no other man could have ever accomplished.
And then you swung me behind your back. You thrusted yourself at a gawking audience, flirting like a man who kisses his wife whilst winking at another woman, slamming me up against the amp afterwards - announcing your passions against me with rampant, rapturous gallops from the hip.
I bled. I sparked. I surged. And fucking me up against that thing, like assailing a woman face down against a pillow and holding her there to muffle her whimpers, I declared my power with a wrought, anguished roar of sonic tremors.
Laying me down on the stage - riding me like a jockey intent on pushing his horse to injury and putting it down afterwards - you began our public, humiliating break up.
Grabbing me, thrashing me - Tremelo! Whammy! a foreplay of kindling, the lighter fuel covering me like the juices of a spent sex.
And, yeah, baby - I was aflame. I felt it. I was so there.
A cinder coitus, you removed me. Smashing me against anything you could. Beating me till I snapped. Till I wailed. I detuned into a fracture. Until silent, with the final blow, you successfully cracked me. I was nothing.
And then just like that, you disposed of me. Threw me to strangers, who fought and grabbed and groped. A Tralala, taken by rough hands. Form a queue, fellas.
And now, here, no-one can even touch me. You became something of a God, and I became like those disparate, lonely nuns who remain a quiet, relic flesh - abstinent for an unseen saviour.
I would never be played again.Kathleen Hanna and The Riot Grrrl Centerfold.
I can’t remember how to make nuns. I totally used to be able to make nuns out of any size and type of paper anywhere. I could make an airplane. I’ll just make an airplane.
There’s pages of this shit. They’ve got us packed up and pressed like some fly that’s been swatted against the glossy mall pushing pages of Cosmo and Seventeen.
The slogan - fuck - the slogan’s spread over the models tits so it just says RIO’ ‘RRRL.
RIO RRL - like a defanged kitten merely mewing discontent.
RIO RRL.
$25.99.
Don’t DIY or die, sisters. Keep shopping.
The revolution will be painted in Mac, Max Factor and Maybelline.
The revolution will be accompanied by diet plans and sex tips to ‘keep your man from straying’.
The revolution will not be concerned with pro-choice campaigns or rape awareness. It will not urge you to take action when you’re underpaid, leered at, assaulted, or verbally degraded in the middle of the fucking street.
The revolution will be marketed. You too can now can be an activist from the safety of your overpriced style buffet’s, ladies. You can’t riot without purchasing the t-shirt, ripped jeans and accessories. It’s so this season. Don’t forget who owns your ass.
This is probably the most mainstream performance I may have ever achieved.
Silence.
Making airplanes out of magazine pages.
The phone, unplugged.
Mic, unplugged.
Guitars, unplugged.
They think if they ring my Godamned bell enough times, that I’ll eventually open the door to them.
Yeah, man. Ask me anything you wanna know. I’d love to help. I love your spin on this thing we’re doing. We want to turn all your daughters into budding sluts and abortionists. Of course we do! We hate men! Sure! That’s what this is about. Totally. Totally.
Of course we can’t play our instruments, and thanks again for all the attention you’ve been giving us recently. It’s really important that you box up this thing we’ve been working at and transform us into irrevocable, easy to understand caricatures. How else can the public relate to us? How else can you shut us down?
Fuck that.
Nobody’s gonna make a fucking nun outta me. I’ll die before I permit them the page space.
RIO RRRL
They’ll probably make a soda out of us. The advert’ll be all plaid boys on skateboards and frat boys scoring home runs. There’ll be a girl in cut offs and a crop top bringing a slew of cans backstage, sitting on johnny-guitarists lap and grinning wide lipstick bullshit for her life.
And then we’ll be remembered as something that merely makes you gassy.
A whole lot of hot air that merely caused a smog in D.C. whilst the boys were busy making media pleasing history with macho bravado hardcore, and topless mosh pits. The girls around the perimeter, busy as coat hangers, scared to jump in.
The zines, like toilet roll.
The music, like flies.
The women, just looking for a piece of ass. Mrs hardcore D.C. Give me my sash.
The media a mirror of something, far beyond the pane.
RIO RRRL.
We’re putting the fangs back in. We’re launching the airplanes. We’re dropping the fucking coats.
This, an instrument, you can’t photograph, fashion spread, choreograph, FM radio, MTV hot track or centre fold. Have fun with that, fuckers.
*Again, this a piece composed in line to the brief for the first issue of Trashed Organ.
Kathleen Hanna was lead singer for the band Bikini Kill and a prominent figurehead, activist and participant of the early 90‘s Riot Grrrl movement.
Riot Grrrl originated as a reaction to the misogyny and boys club attitude of the Washington DC hardcore punk scene. Central to the cause was the idea of taking control back over media aimed at women, the portrayal of women, and to make the music scene more inclusive to both genders of any sexual persuasion through the making and distribution of zines, and the setting up of their own gigs and bands.
When the media caught onto the scene, the attention and information was broadcast, printed and represented in exactly the same derogatory, demeaning and unprogressive manner as the Riot Grrrls had initially sought to change. Kathleen Hanna, amongst others, was instrumental in demanding a reactionary press block be enforced: No interviews, no comment - give them nothing.
Johnny Joined The Clan
A poem I submitted for Trashed Organ zine. The brief for their first issue was to write something from the perspectives of musical instruments or musicians from key moments in their careers / lifespans.
This poem is from the perspective of a guitar being used by the band Skrewdriver - an English punk band, formed in 1976. Whilst the band didn’t originate aligning themselves with the gutless ignorance of British nationalism, a reformation in 1982 saw the band taking on a new line-up complete with skinhead styling and fundraising for the National Front and the BNP.
They are still considered as being the most prominent white power skinhead band, and their reworking and live performance of Chuck Berry’s Johhny Be Good* in 1993 is exemplary of the kind of vile vitriol, arrogance, blind aggression and idiocy exhibited by the White Power ‘scene’.
*Johnny Joined The Clan by Skrewdriver on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEukjponBZQ
Johnny Joined The Clan
thrust of the ‘white man’,
a charge which strains to power
this gallery of hick
dip-shit dim lightbulb -
these fuckers haven’t got the
smarts or the art
revolutionary
to persuade me to back down
or to be silenced.
Lynching the ‘nigger’
with white-power-chords and their
Johnny Be Good in
a white hood, schtick,
but the prick with the noose tongue
the Skrewdriven hit
after lick who grins
as he spits out the rage of his race,
still strokes at my face.
I protest with weight,
shackle strap, I implore
a proud solid scorn, as
he plows chord for chord
off the roots of my heart, this
fool neo-nazi
with a black guitar.
Hell.
Mojitos. Below the incessant tuneless thump of a persistent meandering bass line, came the clutter scuttle of stack heels attached to gym proud pins. The drunken staggering of those desperately trying to find balance - like a half perished building only supporting itself by the faulty sticks of dynamite still within it - was like a tap dance performed by a rhino. Mojitos. Two for one on cocktails, free shooter chaser for women on every drink over a fiver.
Sparse conversation mumbles through. Mostly audible was the excitable shrieks of throngs of women gaggling together for photos and staring at their shoveled on faces in the screen of the camera. Personal paparazzi opportunities. Create the visage of an exciting social life by turning up at the gates of hell, getting drunk enough to imitate fun and grinning like a baboon that’s just eaten it’s own shit at your own reflection in the devils bare shiny arse.
Upload to Facebook.
Great.
Jo was sat in the toilets with the seat down. The door locked. Gaggles of loud, self-promoting women clunked through, sharing cubicles, pissing lightening and excavating their own brains out of their skulls with every succinct snort of whatever drug their fellas had managed to acquire for less than a tenner.
She would leave soon. Hopefully nobody had noticed she was even gone. There had been a hope that she’d grow into liking her friends, eventually, or they’d grow into developing personalities or the ability to hold a conversation without resorting to the dumbest possible denominator.
Mojitos. That lad that should have won the X-Factor.
Mojitos. That girl over there looks like a walrus in a bin bag.
Mojitos. Baby names. Wedding dresses. Why-won’t-he-propose-to-me-breakdowns.
Mojitos. Which Sex And The City character am I most like, girls?
Mojitos. Who I shagged last night. Who I want to shag tonight.
Mojitos. I’m blitzed. Ha.
Mojitos. My favourite McDonalds meal.
Mojitos. Has my hair fell? Do you have any hairspray?
Mojitos. I don’t like films that make you think. I really just enjoy Disney.
It had been at least half an hour. At least. She peeked under the door at the collective of wedges, stilettos, platforms and stripper heels. At the strangled toes and suffering heels gasping out like prisoners in an overcrowded cell. At the marks on girls legs from where fake tan had been hurriedly applied with now stained fingers. The little flecks of porcelain at the ankle like an image in reverse exposure.
She could hear them popping open lipstick, firing up hairspray and using the hand dryers to give their hair a blown back effect. Conversations sticking strictly to Ah, you look amazing, babe - I love your dress! Followed by the bang of the exiting recipient through the toilet door, and Fucking hell, the state of her. My fella would kill me if I left the house looking like that! And What a slag, did you see her? All over Andrew (or Gary, or Dave, or John), fucking shameful. Some girls just don’t have any class. Burp.
The Mojitos toilets are composed mostly of mirrors. Every tile, wall and door. Every surface fit and ready to be cut up upon, snorted off and abused by precocious amounts of vanity.
Alright - she thought, taking a deep breath the way you do before taking an injection at the doctors, or getting a fucking bullet removed - I’m gonna open the door.
She unlocked the bolt and stepped out. Thirteen identical looking women stared back at her, briefly, before continuing the ritualistic grooming. Throw a pentagram on the floor and a dab of menstrual blood, and the underworld could probably be summoned quite quickly, and willingly to open up it’s bowels into this very room.
If anything, that was a comfort.
She wanted desperately to scuttle out, to leave anonymously and almost invisible, but she’d been too conditioned by this point to even dare. She approached the sink and washed her hands, meeting a look of approval off the women next to her.
Y’alright, bird? Havin a good night?
Jo squirmed, a smile forced out into an implausible crescent, she would never leave the house again, she decided.
I love this place, you know! It’s great, innit. The music’s amazing.
She looked Jo up and down in the mirror, and applied some bronzer to the thick mound of coverage already suffocating her pores.
…haven’t you got an amazing figure! Theresa! Come at look at this girl, isn’t she fab?! Wouldn’t you kill for a figure like hers? You got a fella, love?
I don’t, no. I’m not really that…
Arr, don’t worry, love. You’re a stunner! I bet you won’t be single long. Me - I’ve been single for about a year now. But you know, having fun.
At that - ‘having fun’ - she did a little shuffle with her arse, completed by the winding of her fists next to her hips and an ungodly cackle.
Isn’t that right, ladies!
Jo turned at the girls all avidly reapplying their faces in the mirrors, a mass cheer of agreement went up.
Anyway, I’ll see you later, hun. Got a fella waiting out there - thighs like a fucking viking! Ooh, just wait till I get that one home! Come on Theresa, love! Let’s find you a man!
Yeah, see you later.
She wanted to leave now, but decided it best not to follow that one out of the door. It’s a social standard that once you make friends with someone in the bogs, you’re stuck with them for the whole night, and in extreme cases - life. There’s no escape.
From the cubicle behind her, exiting from a plume of smoke like a Stars In Your Eyes contestant about to go on stage as some form of Tina Turner following a nuclear holocaust was Sandra fucking Macy. Sandra. Fucking. Macy.
Shit.
Oh my God! Joanne!
She was still pulling her knickers up, as she skillfully turned around and threw a cigarette into the toilet bowl.
Fucking hell, girl! How’s it going?
Jo paused for a moment. She could feel her voice revving up in her throat, probably raising itself by about five octaves in lieu of actual excitement, ready to play along. She hadn’t seen her since—
God, I haven’t seen you since that night where you had me taken away by the feds! Ha! Fucking hell, I am sorry about that. Love makes you do some ridiculous things, doesn’t it! Was your face okay after all that, aye?
Yeah, it…yeah. A&E, you know. Stitches.
Arr, you’re messin! Haha! Fucking hell, I was a mess back then.
She held one of her nostrils and proceeded to sniff for an eternity.
You see much of Andrew, anymore? He was well into you, wasn’t he? The little shit. haha! Broke my fucking heart he did. The cunt. The big, ugly cunt, haha!
No, I don’t really hear from him.
Ah well, hate to say I told you so, bird, but you know. Karma - or whatever it’s called.
Yeah.
‘Yeah’ - you still haven’t grown a pair have you? Haha. Arr, you look well though. In your little dress. Don’t you! You look well.
Yeah, so do you…
Jo looked at the body con dress, stretched beyond belief around Sandra’s swollen midriff where either a beer belly or a baby was blooming.
Four months pregnant, babe. Bit of a shock, but you know, I feel ready to settle down.
Oh yeah? Wow. Congratulations?
She didn’t mean to ask it so inquisitively. So accusingly. The end of the word rising like a flare gun that only the enemies could see. She hung her head and clamped her eyes shut, closing her bag and turning to solicit the idea that she was ready to leave. That the conversation was over. That she was over.
…well, you know. I’m gonna stop partying, like. It’s our Theresa’s birthday, like, so I thought I’d give myself one last hurrah. Anyway, it’s no-one else’s business how much I drink is it? That’s like the first rule of feminism, innit. My body, like. You still into all that shit?
I’ve gotta go, Sandra. I’ve got a taxi waiting.
Ah, really? Stay and have a drink, with us? Come’ead. Don’t be tight.
I don’t think I should…It was err, nice, to see you and that.
You too, babe! You’ll have to stay in touch. Hang on, before you go.
She got her camera out and flung an arm around her holding the device firmly in front of their faces. She pouted fiercely into the lens, and a bright flash executed the moment into an immortal keepsake.
She flipped it over for them both to look at, Jo - a mugshot, Sandra - a swollen flush of lip gloss and black, smeary eyes.
You’re on my Facebook aren’t you, bird? I’ll tag you. State of you in that photo! Ha! Ah well, it’s alright. I’m used to it now, the ‘flash’ - you know, with my modeling and everything.
Yeah, you look well Sandra. Anyway, I best be off.
Bye, love!
Skulking out, through the toilet door, stealthily through the bumbling, gyrating masses, she could just make out her friends in the corner of the bar all gathered around just the one member of the group who was now sobbing into her two for one drinks, taking a sip of each from pink neon straws between gasps of just about audible ‘But if he loves me, then…I just don’t understand! I’m marriage worthy!’ before fleeing, unseen, out of the front door where the streets were littered with vomit, discarded bras and the hungry, macho chants of the masses of men trawling the streets for anyone drunk enough to fuck them.
Taxi Home. Thinking the World couldn’t ever end fast enough.
Q:Hey. I was just blown away by your American Apparel story. You're a great writer.
Aww, thanks man! Much appreciated…I should be uploading a bunch of new stuff soon, so be sure to follow / reblog etc. Thanks again! Very kind!
They Eat Horses, Don’t They?
A near grossly pornographic globule of mayonnaise and ketchup plumes out of every edge of the bun, as she bites into the double layer of grilled cow soldered with a slice of sad cheese.
The sun mimics disgust by hiding behind a thick, turgid cloud and the pub darkens as her mate passes a napkin in her general direction.
Ta, babe.
She giggles, and attempts a semi-dignified attempt at cleaning herself up before shoving another gob full of corpse inside her glistening, lip gloss sticky pout.
Her mate picks away at a scrawny selection of over-fried potato starved chips, and squints out from what can only be described as a moment of submissive indifference. The face of a prisoner finally coming to terms with their fate.
Did yer hear about the fuckin’ Bauhaus, girl? You know, it used to be the 80’s club on the corner by the square there?
Oh aye, closed down didn’t it?
Mmm. Well, me and Theresa were only eating in there a couple of months back, and then our Terry was sayin they got done for using dogs, like. Got raided and they found a bunch of dogs out behind the kitchens. Tied up, and that. A load of bones in the alley.
Using dogs? Yer wha?
Yeah, yeah. You know, using them for meat an’thaa.
Fuckin’ ell. What kind of dogs?
Alsatians.
Aww, fuckin HELL. I love Alsatians. That’s vile.
Innit, girl. I was gutted when I heard. Aren’t some people fuckin’ twisted, eh? Couldn’t believe it. But like, me and Theresa were dead panickin’ over it and stuff. The idea of eating a dog. Sent us sick.
They eat dogs in Thailand though don’t they? Whats her name, that Jenny girl, she posted them photos up on Facebook from her holidays and stuff. And there were two up - one of a dog in a cage, and then the next one was her with her dinner in front of her. I mean, she’s funny, that Jenny girl, but I thought that was a bit much.
Yeah, you go and pick out what dog you want don’t yer? And then they cook it up in the back for yer. It’s disgustin’.
I know, yeah. I don’t know how people do it. Seein’ a poor little animal, like that, and then fuckin’ eatin it. I couldn’t do it. No way. It’s not normal, that. You’re not meant to eat dogs.
Innit. I’d just be thining of our Snoop. It’s like - they’re your mates aren’t they? Dogs.
Makes you think, though, doesn’t it? I mean here we are eating this, and trustin the kitchen not to be cookin up pigeons or dogs or anythin, but they might be.
Ah, fuckin ‘ell, girl. I’ve just eatin a burger, here.
Sorry, girl, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I reckon you’d be able to tell if you were eatin a dog. It’d well taste different.
It would, wouldn’t it? There’s a reason why we eat cows and stuff, cos, like, you know - they’re bred to be a steak or a burger innit. They’re not smart or anything. A dog would taste bad. You just know it. Some people are barbaric, though, aren’t they.
You ever go to the farmers market in town? They have all kinds there - alligator, ostrich—
Oh, yeah! Me and our Jimmy got an alligator steak from there once. You know, what, girl, it was fuckin’ fit.
Alligator?
Oh, don’t look at me like that! I mean, it was a bit weird, like. But it was lovely. Dead tender. Bit bloody.
Oh no, couldn’t eat nothin that was bloody, me. Makes it seem too human.
Too human? It’s an animal, innit! You know it’s fresh when it’s bloody.
Yeah, but it’s a bit nasty, that. I’m not a friggin vampire, like. No need.
Oh, get real. What do you think black puddin is?
I try not to think about it.
You don’t need to though, do yer? It’s the taste that counts.
That’s true.
What if yer were starvin? Like, there was no other food left anywhere? Would you eat a dog then? A dead bloody dog on yer plate.
Oh behave.
I’m just sayin’. You’ve eaten alligator.
Yeah, but there’s a fuckin’ difference though. Of course I wouldn’t eat a dog.
Alright! Fuckin’ ell. I was only askin. You know, theor—err…what’s the word. Theroistically, like.
Well, whatever. Did yer enjoy yer meal, there girl?
Yeah, was alright. Bit tight on the chips though.
Aye, but the burger was fit.
Yeah, was okay. What do they use for burgers? Is it cow?
Think so, yeah. Who cares, though? It was cheap, hahaha.
And then they leave. Waddling there proud dog-free diet arses out of the joint. The sun, reappears, briefly, to witness a bunch of pigeons fighting over a discarded tray of suspect chicken wings. And then pisses back off behind a crowd of grey matter in the sky.
Survival of the dumbest. The sun will probably die any day now.
© Amy Roberts / Bama Roxanne 2011
Lamé Day (or How I Discovered The Currency Of Degradation Working At A Corporate Crack-Whore Chain Store)
As if life wasn’t hard enough, the chief cock-phlegm of the whole fucking company has announced that today is lamé day.
I browse through the rail of wholesale-whore apparel, my head thundering from an over-splurge of ingested rum just hours previous, my gut spilling a fair inch over the required company requisite for wearing skin tight body bait.
Why are we doing this? I grumble, my voice curdling out of a pit of my throat which is practically reduced to sawdust from screaming into stacks of t-shirts in the stockroom.
Because they’re not selling. The manager replies.
He isn’t wearing lamé. It would be degrading, after all, to make a man wear lamé.
Oh.
I pick out a gold shiny rouched front tube bra, because that’s the only top available, and - God help me - a pair of shiny gold snake skin leggings. At least I’m matching.
I change and walk back out into the store. My thighs sticking together like two dead fish who have begun the process into fossilization. A VPL mocking me from behind to everyone that can bare witness to my shiny, gold, snakeskin arse.
Can I wear a cardigan?
We don’t need to sell cardigans.
I don’t need to be showing so much flesh.
The manager looks down at my soft, gelatinous stomach. A small roll of which practically blows a raspberry at him, using a flap of fat as a tongue.
Hmm. Yeah. Maybe you should wear a cardigan.
It becomes apparent I will be fired any day now. This is America’s Next Top Model. He is Tyra Banks. This competition is not for fatties.
Fucksakes.
I comfort myself with the knowledge that I’m still a size 10 (a size 5 or 6 to the average American, but a medium or large to these ones). But even a size 10 has no place here unless it’s a hard bodied 10. Mine is flaccid and failed. Brawn with beer.
A few hours go by, and it becomes obvious that nobody is going to buy any godamn lamé. All we’ve managed to acquire is a lot more young, gawping, teenage boys onto the shop floor who stand lost, aghast and staring, hiding their hard ons behind racks of hooded tops and suggestive looking mannequins.
One of them slaps my arse. The flesh jiggles, almost in slow motion, like a winning Wonka bar wrapper that is being blown away by a harsh and mocking gale.
I grab his wrist and drag him to the counter where the manager is faux-DJing between in-store radio sessions. A Paris Hilton song is blasting through the store, in the same way that fire blasts through hell.
What?
He stares at me aghast, his pre-pubescent bum fluff nearly falling off his chin.
I just caught this boy trying to shoplift. I say, staring the embarrassed little prick right in the eyes till the whites have turned near crimson with shame.
WHAAA?? NO, I NEVER!! I haven’t done nuffin!
What was he trying to steal?
This little SHIT was trying to steal a cheeky cop of my arse. Weren’t yer?
I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!! Like I’d wanna even touch your fuckin’ jelly pack at the back.
Jelly pack at the back?? Jelly. Pack. At. The. Back?! JELLY. PACK. AT. THE BACK!!!
The store freezes at the use of the shock terminology. It’s usage echoes in the same manner and speed as videos go viral online. A new piece of slang has been created. Urban dictionaries the World over will issue and define the phrase followed by a picture of my arse wrapped in cheap, shiny, gold wrapping. They’ll make t-shirts. There’ll be references made in Vice magazine and on Gok Wan’s expert ‘Here’s How Fat Women Everywhere Should Dress’ show Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Bama - let go of his arm.
I let go of his arm. He stands there and throws me a finger before running out of the store, with his snot nosed, smug faced mates in tow.
He’s getting away!!
What the fuck are you doing? Accusing him of stealing?
He fucking slapped my arse!
Well, what do you expect when you wear that to work?
He sniggers. The boy at the till next to him, sniggers also. The boys behind the suggestive looking mannequins who’ve long since lost their hard-ons, snigger too.
I also snigger. I have less value than lamé. There is only laughter left.
© Amy Roberts / Bama Roxanne 2011
Words by Amy Roberts (Bama Roxanne). Unless sez otherwise, lar. © 2011.
