I'd just read the peasant tide burn down Mikhail Antonovich’s house, closing My Universities, when Teddy wrote where u at mefegguh, signaling he’d entered the park. I replied with location, rolled over on my back and squinted at the crisp sky, framed to the left and right by a canopy of pines six stories tall. Like a ginger cunt proper I’d surveyed a spot that would be shaded over the power hours of my visit, watchful of the sun sending its spies and infiltrators on charring missions through the leafwork of Ardham Park. As far as parks go, it’s a work of majesty. Plenty are the nightly excursions here taken by Nan and I, exploring its heightened wonders under the influence of mushrooms or MDMA, tumbling and sneaking through its mazes, meandering between hidden passages onto the amphitheaters, copes, trailing luscious ponds and gazebos, having sex wherever the need arise. It was constructed a hundred years ago as a world exhibit, built like an abominable rape-child of rococo and Roman estetics. Where once there had been unkempt shrubbery and bare soil they imagined a miniature paradise and got to work, laid out brick roads, moved thousands of trees lining them up in mindbending geometrical shapes at a grand scale, constructed ponds, built a water reservoir thirty meters tall in the style of a Moomin house, artificially created an island in the middle of the largest pond where they modeled an actual castle and installed a posh restaurant for les creme des temps. They even kidnapped two thousand Canadian geese and swans to populate the waterways, minting the nickname Goospla Park a hundred years later on account of all the goose shit. Laid down two tramlines crossing through the park. When the show was over, the municipality just left it as is for geriatrics to marvel at, exhibitionists to stress test limits. I love this park, and naturally a day in my lonesome is best spent here.
Fridays were the perks of working the Todo gig as sentiments for buying shit over the phone are statistically lower on Fridays. The data crunchers of BackOffice had at some point decreed that it was a waste of money all together, having us come in on Fridays, so instead they had us come in on Sundays to compensate for the societal deficit. The effect of this was a win-win: a day where everything happens traded for a day full of nothing. It wasn’t like people shifted their week around, lived by the new status quo. We went all in on Saturday, hoping to pull off a miracle recovery come Sunday or simply not care at all, coming straight from the rave still gnawing lips off on speed. The office would reek of peppermints and sweat, toxins hanging in the air, their owners hidden behind shades and hoodies. It was prepping up to be my reality real soon, but none of it could touch me on the Friday high. This one in particular, the first since I got back on the payroll, would be something else. We’d talked about him, Teddy, and the fact that he was my only friend and that our life orbited around Nan’s circles, Nan’s family, Nan’s colleagues. It felt important, to have something that was mine, and her taking part in my revelries in that something was naturally a necessity. Teddy was my only friend. I had acquaintances, sure. But no inner circle. It sort of naturally landed that way in youth as one girlfriend was swapped for another in a natural ebb and flow ever since I lost my virginity at 16 in a bush at a festival smelling faintly of piss. Come to think of it, the entry of Jane, the cherrypicker, led to me and Teddy seeing less and less of each other. We’d still chat, meet up whenever Jane was busy elsewhere. And then there was Emilia, followed by Nathalia, on to Jessy, Teddy’s older sister. And after that came Ellen, Daniella. The general perception is probably that I would desperately grab the first girl I could find as soon as I became single again, but it was nothing like that. One day they were just there, in front of me, radiating with energy. I cherished each profoundly, barred Jessy, loved them deeply. So much in fact, that I’d found little interest in the world outside the world of two.
The phone buzzed again, flashing Nanski in capital letters.
“Helllooo,” I mooed.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Hey there.”
“Mhm. What’s up?” I heard laughter on the other end, not belonging to Nan. “What’re you up to fellah?”
“Getting off work in a bit. We good on cash?”
“Sure is. Got my provisions today and it’s looking purdy fine I say...”
“Goody. You still in the park?”
“...Got enough fuel to last us through the weekend at quantum velocity. Spacious cabins to your left, beverages to your right, and if you wanna get real fucking fancy we can burn out at dawn leaving a chemtrail proper from T1 to Jupiter. These things can’t be helped, science be damned.”
“Naaw,” she cooed. “You’ve been alone all day haven’t you? We’ll be over in an hour. Love ya!”
“Wait! Who we?” Click.
First there was the commotion—at a distance bushes being jostled, roused by a tall figure instinctively belonging to Teddy. Arms flailing, he burst through the obstacle like a drunkard, disturbing the peace for more than one couple of fair-skinned sunbathers, like it was his intention all along. I oi’ed real loud and watched as he craned his neck, my reptilian brother, attempting to find me. When that didn’t work I waved him in.
Teddy walked like a ghoul. Nobody walked like Teddy. He was patented that way. As he got closer, agitation lit up in bold around his features.
“Hi there sir, did the bookies treat you poorly again?” I asked with a grin.
“What the fuck are you on about?” he said, looking around himself. “Can anyone tell me what in the fucking piss this tool is talking about?”
I smiled at him in anticipation, like a smile from deep within. Like he’d set off a chain of vibrations, preparing the entire apparatus for some godlike intrusion. Teddy on fire. This was the best Teddy.
“Well then,” I continued, rubbing my hands together. “If you’ll be so kind and reach into the satchel—a gift. And then I want you to proceed by sharing the contents of your toils.”
“Cut it,” he snapped, clawing a can from the first six pack. “What the hell is wrong with normalspeak? It’s shit! All of it—shit! I want to breathe polonium on every meager little fuck claims in his head he on top of anything. My eyes turn people to ash. This fucking shit man.”
He cracked the can, an anonymous non-Albanic eagle, and drank the whole thing in one swoop. I beheld the spectacle, unable to stop grinning.
“I’m gonna risk our relations, and suggest that you’re upset.”
“I’ll hang the bastard with his own fucking intestines that vulture. Scavengers! All of em’! We’re infested! Surrounded by roaches! Blah!”
He cracked another, stopped mid-way with beer dripping from his chin, panting, gasping for air.
“I’d offer you comfort Theodore dear, but first I need to debrief you. Who is he?”
“Who do you think? I got fired! Can you believe that? I got fired from working the harbor. And that’s not even the worst part.”
“Well now I know you’re teasing. Come on,” I said and did a rolling motion with my hand. “Pour it on.”
“He fired me on false pretenses! I was set up.”
“How so? Is this true?”
“Could be…” He glanced at me mid-swig and hands down, I couldn’t tell if he was toying and all of this was just a big ruse to get lively.
“To hell with it then. It just so happens to be that a certain Benny, you remember Benny right?” He nodded. “You see me and Benny-boi got the prelude to a little empire going on. Set up in our own little corner of the officeverse, come as we please, leave when we hit quota and get paid for the full day. The absolute cream of the office, and for a mere shilling of gratitude I’ll sort you out.”
I held my hand out for him to kiss, eyes fluttering, awaiting the pledge.
“Phone-hogging, pfft. Where’s the honesty? I'll just sell whatever decency I have left for fah fiddy an hour.”
“Eleven fiddy,” I replied, retracting my hand.
“Well I didn’t get kicked off all pleb-like. Made a proper ruckus on the way out.”
“Geesh Teddy, for an apolitical fella you sure starting to sound red. You in a union?”
“Plotting to overthrow big man Boris.”
“Like a true son of the proletariat. I’m serious though, don’t worry about it. They’ll get theirs in the afterlife.”
He groaned, covering his face with hands.
“Give a man a job and he’ll labor for his kopek. Give a man duties and you have yourself a monster. I didn’t even steal nothing. Everyone on the floor knows that Abec janks iPhones off the lorries, and still I get the boot. They’ve been trying to get rid of him for months but nothing happens cus’ his dad is a lawyer and they got no proof. Put up a fucking camera! Put – up – a – camera you literal cumstain. Oh no, let’s grab the first off-brand cuck available and toss his ass out just cus’ he on probation. Please the board! Pheasants! I’m surrounded by bleeding fowl.”
“Amen. Did you bring the bottle?”
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“Always like this! It’s rigged. All of it. I’m not meant to get an inch without losing three. Fucking Christ. Fucking all of it. You see these boxes Theodore. They are our lifeblood, my duty. What separates us from the savages, should we let them lead astray? MMMMMH?”
Declaiming hard, gesturing like a dandy. From afar crowds were watching, waiting. The show was about to enter its second act, and they knew it.
“Mi-lord, would yee be so kind as to inform me on the state of one bottle,” I asked, feeling an itch rising, nudging my patience.
“Huh?”
“Bottle, si?”
“Yes! Bloody yes.”
“Splendid. And is she liquidated?”
“Is she liquid...” he mimicked, pulling the plastic half-liter out of his belly pouch. “Inspect!” He lunged it full force right at my head. I was able to block with an unusually vigilant foot.
“An upstanding citizen in all regards you are Teddy. Let’s give the pheasants a thrashing proper, for I’ve taken it upon myself to watch over this man’s sanity.” I stood up and faced everybody. “May the bowels of hell open its maws and swallow me entire should I deviate the path.”
Grabbing the bottle – a seductive looking Fanta bottle with imprinted bubbles and a real skinny waist – I did a backward roll into a handstand, landing somewhat majestically on feet again, snaked in reverse, fingers snapping, like a West Side Story hoodlum gearing up for ranged combat. Teddy turned his back to me, paced steps like he was his own secondant.
“Six… Eight… Salope… We need a word!” he shouted across the thirty odd yards we’d put between us as he spun around.
“I think tradition holds that the bringer o’ bottles is also the baptizer. Like the boatbuilder christens the vessel before her virgin sailage ya know.”
“Are you dumb? The bottle was a gift, and the giftee should be the one to name it. How the fuck would that look, if I gave you a boat, ‘but ye haf to call er’ Mary’s Virgin Twat cus’ I wills it’. No no no no no. Give us a short one.”
“Short one ei,” I replied ponderously. Picking a short word meant that he wanted destruction on high volume – a sacrificial gift to chaos or some other malevolent bastard. Throwing the bottle up and down like a one-ball juggler, I looked far and beyond for a word to please the boy proper. “Gregor. That’s the word.”
“Too long.”
“Well ok mister. Gerger. G-R-G-R. Batter up!” I pulled my arm back, feeling a jolt as water crashed into the bottlefloor, and pendulumed an underarm throw. It soared through the air straight like an arrow, a miniature SCUD aimed at Teddy’s face. It looked like I’d caught him off guard, like we’d have a smashing start—black eye, teeth knocked out or a cracked lip—but it was all charade. He snapped at it one-handed like a cobra, right before impact. Didn’t even flinch.
“Oh ho ho! This boy on some kinda dope. Cumattus lassie!”
I postured myself like a Borg or Federer, swaying side to side. Without replying he sent it, an over-the-shoulder throw with force and I knew it was gonna be tricky. Watching it complete its perfect trajectory, rotating evenly until the cap was facing the lush green grass below, I braced for impact. As soon as it tipped over its axis it catapulted forward even faster, cranking slightly to the left. It was within micrometers, my adjustment, partially absorbing the blow with my chest, forcing a gasp like the pitch of a misfiring engine. He was real pleased with that one.
Most of the slackers and idlers were now invested in the scene. Teddy knew and I knew and we all knew, even the seagulls lurking at a distance praying for blood and flesh, that the show was on. Leaning on elbows, rolling over on sides, inconspicuously glaring askance for a glance of the historical bloodletting. Driven by the hush-hush urges of pre-history hooman to watch neighbors unnamed be decimated, or at a minimum rendered crippled in some non-vital function. You can't look away from the horror. You can't miss a beat of the maiming and slaughter. It is ingrained in our fabric, can't look away, can't silence the bloodlust.
“Get on wit’ it ye half-wit pale fucker! Stop yer flexin’ n’ get to tossin,” Teddy growled, and then he up’ed the ante in a frothing fit by pulling the big black sack of cloth over his head, blinding the onlookers with a hue of white best described as radioactive. I loved it. Every second of it.
“Big talk from the chap-LIN,” I snarled in an attempt to outwit, casting an identical throw, though this time I aimed at his lower left. Every time we played bottle, this was my plan. Systematically test his defenses until a weakness reveals itself, a particular type of throw or metrical catch-box. It’s always there. No boy be safe from flaw. This wasn’t it though. He caught it gracefully, like he’d been bred for that one catch. Without delay he launched it back at me, a real trick Hail Mary shot. Backhanded frontside spin with just enough speed to reach its target, a perfect fucker rising on wings divine, spinning like a spacecraft struck out of orbit, ceaselessly turning into the infinite sea of black space, so fast you’d need a team of mathematicians working triple shifts for weeks to concoct a responding position of hand. It declined. I stepped sideways to alleviate a potential bounce with my belly, cupped hands, readying them for the squeeze and bam. Caught it. Contact. Then no contact. It bounced, grazed my shoulder. Lightning quick I did a half-circle, kicked from underneath where I thought it would land, felt my shin shatter on the cap but a hit it was, sending it flying off into the bushes.
“You’re not a big fella are ye! You’re a weee man! You’re just a wee boy!” he celebrated and wooed, drew a couple of claps from the crowd grown larger when he started flexing the goods of his anorectic temple. “That’s a G for you. If you wasn’t such an arse I’d shave off the end-bend and give you a C for effort.”
Mind you we were shouting all this. I could already feel a bruise coming on, but there were no two ways about it. Adrenaline quickly flushed out the pain. First blood Teddy, well deserved. As we sank deeper into the trenches the throws became harder. Accuracy calibrated. Publicum emotionally hypnotized, picking sides, cheering loud. A group of older fellas knelt in prayer each time Teddy scored or outperformed expectations. GRGR ended in a win for him when he caught slipstream with an underarm toss, jamming my speedometer causing grave miscalculation, taking the wind out of me with a direct solar plexus hit. I'd expected some sort of humiliating display from his end but it never came. He looked stoic, resolute.
“Fecal is the next word,” he said. “And you're bleeding.”
I looked down at my white shirt, met a thin red line like a fine brushstroke around the point of impact. Laughing all bezoomny I lifted it up, ripping it like a bandaid where it had stuck to my chest, revealing the chessboard with its freshly picked scabs, like a soldier flaunting medals and insignias. I felt massive, a general on the frontlines.
“Sure Teddy-boyo. Let's breed.”
The second bout started off in my favor. I'd discovered a chink in his matrix to the top right. His upper left-hand game was terrible. Eighty percent hit rate on single hand catches, ninety on doublehanded if he went airborne in time. Outlast nine out of ten and I was golden. The sun had progressed on its cartwheel motion over the sky, shining down on us, searing at an acceptable afternoon level within my range of tolerance. I was on fire, having caught a low blow by kicking the bottle with the outside of my foot right into my hand, summoning silent awe, one solitary oooooh. The crowd had trailed off into their own personal demise, with the exception of an old hag suspectedly looking at our bodies and not the bottle. After my immortal catch I'd broken through, putting him one letter from loss.
“This is where you fall Teddy-boyo. Brave son of Judas. I'll raise a monument to your failures.”
He loaded the cannon, swung hard and I could see right away that it spelled victory. The bottle crashed through the sound barrier, reaching deadly speed, wooshing past my head but two meters above it. He instantly knew, falling to the ground. A bad throw punishes the tosser, and you know when you done fucked up. There was a loud shriek behind me. Turning around, I saw Nan and another, saved by God's grace from the nuclear warhead. I’d gotten so caught up that I'd completely forgotten she was coming, and I realized I hadn't told either of them about the other.
“We're ok!” she giggled. “Didn’t see you were playing.”
The other one looked mortified like she’d stepped into a room best left locked when she looked at my bloodied chest, then cracked up from nowhere, laughing with a backhand-covered mouth.
“Is this him?” she said without breaking eye-contact. “Or is it that one?”
“This one’s mine. Put a shirt on Max. You’re scaring the children.” Nan strutted over, grabbed my neck and kissed a hard salute, painting her finger red on my chest before sticking it between her lips, cleaning it with a plopp. “Mmh. Still mine.”
“Wouldn’t dare otherwise. He lost,” I said to the newcomer. “Praying for some pagan to strike me down.”
“This is Eve. Eve, Max. And the one with his face in the grass is Teddy, I assume?” She gave me a look. Subtle, but definitely a look.
“Theodori! Shiva sees you! He sees your soul. Embrace defeat, chosen champion!” Eve breezed past me, soaring like a woodland spirit, blonde dreads and curls reaching way below her shoulders.
“I think I like her,” I told Nan who looked as confused as I did. "Where did you find this lovely specimen?"
"Work," she replied. We were both just standing there, innocent bystanders to whatever might pop off, coming to terms with the possibilities and pitfalls of the moment in quietude. Eve skipped over on light feet, kneeled next to Teddy, resting her body on top of his nude back with its vertebrates poking up like jagged rock formations. The universe fell silent. Falling into its groove, I grabbed Nanski’s hand.
"Be nice to him."
"I'm always nice."
"Nicer. For me. I'll do anything you ask of me tonight if you treat him as equal."
"I'll hold you to that," she said all mischief, letting go and walking over to my blanket, joining Gorky and the cans. Breaking their silent cosmos, Eve began swaying from side to side, humming some heathen guttural mantra. Stunned and flabbergasted I took my beer, finished it and tippy-toed over to the Ruski, tackled Nan commencing a tickling assault. At a distance Teddy tuned in, morphing the solo into a duette. Nan played along with my games. Officially, she hated being tickled. But it was all an act. I knew she loved it, loved the horror of control lost. Genuine warmth emanated from her, laying there all pretzel'd. She whispered i löööv you. I squeezed her thigh in response, kissed her forehead and drew closer. We tranced out.
“You're in cahoots with the devil,” Teddy said as he came closer after an infinity or minute, Eve in tow. “You and every other ginger bastard.”
“So you confirm it?” Nan asked Teddy, poking a finger between my ribs. “I knew he wasn’t human.”
“If there ever was a morphling among men it’s him,” he said, pointing. “Things I’ve seen, lawd have mercy on us all.”
“What’s the pay? That big ol’ cock of yours? Cus’ you don’t have much else going for you,” Nan toyed and Eve laughed chockingly intense. Teddy didn’t, blushed pretending not to.
“You two look so happy together.” Eve sat down next to Teddy on the blanket as I unsnaked myself from Nan, passing beers and smokes and so it was.
The trees were lit a burning orange and the atmosphere kicked up a notch park-wide. Gatherings gathered, poppers popped, seagulls fraternized, creatures of the night crawling out of their nests, Electro untz-untz-untz’d out of a speaker somewhere and l’aire de vie felt like floating on vapors. Nan had whipped out a bag of speed like a magic rabbit out of her knickers, tapping lines on a phone case. Teddy sported a face of worry, directed right at me, which I soothed with a nod and an upward sweeping hand-motion. We each took turns dipping our heads down the middle of the circle, squiggly lines disappearing, counting down to the last batter up the field.
“See you on the other side, fren,” I said and dove down through the grass and into the upside-down. A miniature explosion went off inside, a proper spring-cleaning sending all the dustmites and brain-fog out the earholes and it was clear. Everything was clear. Rubbing my nose I oowiiied. My consciousness split into separate tracks, each running its own train of thought. I sidelooked at Nan, and she confirmed my suspicions that we weren’t dealing with no ordinary schpetty. But there’s no need to ruin the surprise for the others, I thought. Let them meth with confidence. “Nan m-m-muh lovliest of lovlies, finer seen naught in all the realms. A melody if you will, from that tin-man just served us the dust. Music! Alas.”
“Ooh it’s one of those, the night. Planets are aligning,” Eve said as she grabbed a zoned out Teddy and kissed him wet on the cheek. Containing myself I rose, wobbling a couple of steps before assuming position.
“I can’t live on a 1-1 scoreline Teddy boy-o. Please my nerves!”
“Shiva bless this boy!”
Teddy got up, looked around himself like he was dreaming, zoned out on Eve and just scoffed.
“Max. You’re a moron,” he said, and as he did Nanna’s fiddlings came to an end, sparking the intro of some nameless untza-untza.
“Set yerself up,” I replied, cartwheeling away. “The next word is DOOM.”