Part 11: The City of Dogs

11.1

‘So, anyway,’ Davey said. ‘What’s your beef with Duke?’

‘What?’ King Solomon said, his brow furrowed.

‘Duke? My dog. Why don’t you like him?’

‘I don’t mind the little fella, as dogs go. He’s cute. I just dislike dogs in general.’

‘Why?’

‘Not something I really wanna get into, Davey lad. Scarred me for life, it did.’

‘What did?’

Solomon shook his head. Gulped. ‘I used to love dogs. Had a few of ’em myself. They were loyal to a fault. But no hungry dog is loyal enough to starve if you put a meal in front of it.’

Davey scowled. ‘I’m not following you.’

‘I suppose the story may help you in your quest somehow, so I guess it is worth reliving. It’s lucky I like you, Davey lad. Cos I would happily take this story to the grave with me.’

*

Solomon King; half a decade ago, a year before he became royalty.

He was fresh out of the farm that had been razed to the ground, leaving him jobless, homeless and hungry.

He’d done what any hard-working man would have done; he went out looking for work.

There wasn’t much around. Farms were now a thing of the past.

No one wanted this wild-eyed young man loose on their property.

He was loud.

Desperate.

Starving.

The factories were all full up or going bust. Either way, no one was hiring.

He went to the only place he could think of that might need workers.

He went to City Hall.

Begged for a sit down with the Mayor.

*

Mayor Craven had eyed him warily, that cold, detached look he gave the vast majority of people quickly finding its way onto his face.

‘You’ve got two minutes,’ he said, one hand twiddling with the hairs that sprouted from the mole on the right side of his jaw.

Solomon staked his claim. He was used to talking fast, so he had his point across in plenty of time, with a little spare to repeat his favourite bits of the speech.

‘Impassioned,’ Craven said, nodding thoughtfully. ‘But ultimately a waste of my time. I’m not hiring, so get your sorry arse out of my chair.’

‘I’ll do anything,’ Solomon said.

‘Anything?’

Solomon nodded.

‘Well, I can’t afford to give you a wage. But I can see that you get regular meals. Enough to see that you don’t starve.’

‘That would be brilliant. Thank you.’

The mayor nodded.

‘So what’s the job?’

The mayor’s face almost cracked in two in a cruel grin.

‘You’re in charge of measuring out the banquets.’

‘Ah that doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘It’s not. The only catch is you gotta work a week in hand.’ The mayor smirked.

‘Meaning what?’

‘You’re gonna spend a week looking at all that food, drinking it in through your nostrils without being able to take a single bloody bite of it.’

‘Aw, man. Sounds like fucking torture.’

‘Something like that, young man. You see that food is not yours to touch. It’s mine. You do something to earn it, you can have some. Y’get me?’

Solomon almost punched his teeth down his throat there and then, but he restrained himself. He needed to eat, in spite of the cruelty the mayor was suggesting.

‘I get ya,’ Solomon said, bowing his head in supplication. Hating himself for it, but knowing it was the only way to go.

*

So Solomon sat at his designated station in the banquet hall.

It was a depressing place to look at; drab, grey-painted walls, dog shit brown plastic cafeteria chairs, matt black linoleum floors. He felt his soul withering after mere minutes in here.

But the smells!

A delicious cocktail of scents from the kitchen; freshly baked bread, apple and cinnamon pie, roast chicken, fresh garlic, among others, wafted into his nostrils.

His mouth watered.

His belly growled.

His hands almost strayed a few times, especially when it was chilli or pizza, his favourites.

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He caught himself moving towards the chilli spoon, its gleaming silver handle pulling his hand as surely as a magnet would steel.

‘Go on, take it,’ the mayor said, from somewhere behind him. ‘And you’ll be out on your arse again before you know it. With a bloody nasty surprise thrown in for good measure.’

Solomon shook his head.

The effort of not eating any of the food physically pained him.

Sweat stood out on his brow.

His entire body felt weak and had begun to shake a little.

And it had only been half a day.

*

Solomon’s immense frame felt every second of the final few hours of the last day.

Mayor Craven had agreed to meet him at the end of his shift and take him down to the banquet hall.

Finishing time came and went.

No Craven.

Next chapter is here

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

Thirty.

An hour.

Two hours.

Five minutes before the third hour lapsed, Solomon saw the mayor’s bulbous head bobbing along past the window of his service hatch.

He waved to Solomon, his ridiculous rings clinking together as he did so, then came in.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Solomon snapped, his hunger overriding his common sense.

‘Excuse me?’ the mayor said, jaw dropping. He was obviously not used to being spoken to in this manner.

‘You’re nearly three hours late. I’ve been waiting a goddamned week for a meal from you.’

‘Well, I would apologise if it weren’t for your brisk and overly aggressive manner, Mr King. But, in light of the way you have just spoken to me, I believe an apology is not bloody well forthcoming.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Solomon said, head bowed. He was on the verge of tears. He hated himself for grovelling this way, but he was so hungry he would have gladly chewed the leather from the mayor’s perfectly polished tan brogues. ‘I’m just so hungry.’

The mayor nodded. ‘I suppose you have been waiting a while. I would no doubt be the same in your situation. I accept your apology.’

Solomon grinned. His mouth came open, already imagining the taste of the food he was about to receive, probably to be the finest morsel in all of his storied young life. He was going to go straight for the meat feast pizza that had set his mouth watering earlier in the day.

‘However,’ the mayor began, that sly, cruel grin that had been the last thing that many had seen on his liver-like lips. ‘I cannot allow you to speak to me in such a manner. I am your superior, boy, in every bloody way. And I simply cannot let this insolence go without reprimand.’

Solomon visualised himself getting up out of his seat, growling, ‘So what the fuck are you gonna do, you lardy cunt?’ and putting his fist right through the centre of the mayor’s collection of chins, knocking him up out of those expensive shoes to land, like a helpless turtle, on his back. Ready for Solomon to reign down further vengeance as he saw fit.

But before his legs propelled him up to take this very course of action, he caught a hold of himself.

He still needed the mayor’s help.

Desperate times and all that.

‘So…’ the mayor said, swishing saliva around his mouth as though it were mouthwash. The grin again crossed his face, making him look curiously toadlike. ‘I will meet you here this time next week. And then you shall eat.’

Solomon’s face dropped. He felt as though he’d just had the stuffing ripped out of him.

He’d been so set on eating, had built his entire week around it, the one thing he had to look forward to, and now it had been pulled away from him at the final hour.

His mouth opened to protest, but the mayor cut him off.

‘Save your protests. Not one bloody word of dissent or it shall be a month.’

Solomon nodded.

‘As you know by now I control all the food sources in my proud city. And I shall ensure that not one morsel of food will pass your lips until that time. When I’ve deemed you are ready, you shall eat. It is three minutes past midnight now. At four minutes past midnight exactly one week from now, you shall be given all the food you can bloody well eat.’

Solomon looked up at him, tears in his eyes. ‘Please…’

‘Ah-ah-ah,’ Craven wagged a chubby finger at him. ‘I said no arguing.’

Solomon bowed his head again. The thought of going one more minute without food was enough to make him pray for an early death.

Another week was unthinkable.

He’d heard stories of people eating their own flesh to stay alive and he was debating doing just this right now, so hungry was he.

‘Now I’m a kind man, Mr King. So I’ll let that one slip through the net. But any more aggressive behaviour or challenging my authority will result in us meeting here this time next month instead of next week. Do you understand me?’

Solomon nodded.

‘Then say it.’

Solomon looked up, meeting the mayor’s piggy little eyes with a grim glare. He hoped the mayor couldn’t pick up on his intentions from his gaze, because in his head he was already plotting the fat bastard’s demise.

Once more, he visualised putting his fist through the mayor’s jaw and knocking those yellowing teeth down his throat.

He found this made him feel better.

‘Yes, Mayor Craven.’

The mayor smiled again. His jowls lifted like those of a hound. Then he nodded and turned away.

‘Oh, and one more thing, Mr King,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t even bloody think about eating any of my food.’

*

Solomon tried.

He really did.

But on the fourth day after the mayor’s new agreement, he began to cave.

His fingers had begun to look mighty tasty, and that was what finally made him take the decision to do what he did.

Some of the other working stiffs in the kitchen seemed to be taking great pleasure in eating in front of him.

No doubt Craven had put them up to it.

Adam was a snake-eyed fuck who Solomon didn’t trust as far as he could throw him. He’d sell his own mother down the river just to get another mouthful on his plate.

Solomon waited until Adam was at the toilet, then leaned in close to his other colleague, Lou, who seemed pretty sound.

‘Gimme just one bite, Lou,’ he said to his colleague. ‘No one needs to know.’

Lou glanced quickly at him. ‘I’m sorry, man. It’s not worth the fucking hassle. You know the trouble this could land me in? They could send me to the City of Dogs. You know what happens there? They—’

He cut off as the toilet door creaked open and Adam reappeared.

‘What’s happening?’ Adam said.

They shook their heads.

Solomon was a natural. Cool as a cucumber.

Lou was pretty convincing too.

‘All this food and no one to give it to,’ Solomon mourned.

‘They ain’t coming in for their banquets today,’ Adam added.

Banquets was the name the Mayor had given to the meagre rations the city folk were given. Like most aspects of life in the city, Craven tried to make it look as though he was spoiling his people rotten, when in fact the opposite was very much true.

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Solomon scowled.

‘Gonna have to hoy it in the skip then, ain’t we?’ Adam beamed.

Solomon growled at this.

Adam’s grin dropped and he eyed Solomon warily. He didn’t want to start shit with him as he knew he’d get his arse kicked.

‘Just remember they’re watching all the time,’ Adam said, pointing up to the camera set into the grease-encrusted ceiling. ‘Anything you do is on there for them to see.’

Solomon looked up. ‘Bet the fucking thing isn’t even switched on. Just a prop to get us to act right.’

‘You believe that, you take the risk,’ Adam sighed. ‘But you step outta line and I’m telling ya, they’ll be down here faster than you can spit. And if it ain’t rigged up, then I’ll report ya cos that’s what I’m getting paid to do.’

‘Except you ain’t getting paid, are you?’ Lou said. ‘None of us are. We’re just getting a bit of food to get by on. Not fucking much at that. A fucking banquet? It’s a goddamned piss-take if you ask me.’

Adam scoffed. ‘Better deal than anywhere else right now.’

Solomon scoffed. ‘You don’t know that’s true. You came up to kiss Craven’s arse as soon as things started going downhill. Hell, you were probably here before that.’

‘If it’s so good out there, why are you here?’ Adam said. ‘You’ve been around out there. If there was anything better then surely you’d be there.’

As much as he hated losing, Solomon had to concede the point.

‘Anyway, I gotta piss,’ he said.

As he went past the counter, he feigned carelessness, using his elbow to knock a tray of foil-wrapped baked potatoes onto the floor.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said aloud, carefully sneaking a baked potato up his sleeve as both of his colleagues berated him for his clumsiness.

He’d done it slyly, and he was convinced neither of his colleagues saw him.

He waited until he was locked in the stall before he took it out. The light caught the silver foil, making it gleam like a gift from the Gods themselves. It was small, not even the size of his palm, but it was something.

He nibbled it, not wanting it to end, but simultaneously wanting all of it in his belly.

When it was done, he felt a rush. But it wasn’t enough.

He wanted more.

*

Solomon came out of the toilets, whistling casually.

‘I miss anything, lads?’ he smiled.

The day was deader than Elvis, so he felt sure this would get a laugh, even from miserable old Adam.

He did actually get a smug grin from Adam.

Lou didn’t smile, which he found strange.

He didn’t see why until he stepped round the corner.