Daft Wee Stories (12 page)

Then he heard the tapping.

It was slow at first. Just one tap, then silence. Then another, and another, then silence again. He told himself that it was just the pipes or something. His neighbour had put the heating on, that's all, and pipes do that when they're heating up, they expand or whatever it is. It didn't explain why the tapping sounded like it was happening directly onto the tiles from behind, but it had to be something like that. It had to be. He was happy with that explanation, and he was looking forward to finishing his shite and getting out of there.

Then he heard the scratching.

It began with a tap, then it screeched like a fingernail being dragged down a blackboard. Then it stopped. Then it started, this time with another: two fingernails, or two something else. Maybe three. Donnie struggled to find an explanation, but he was still happy to accept that it was just something to do with the pipes, he'd settle for that. He'd like to just go now. He almost felt like apologising for his curiosity, but apologise to who? To what? He didn't know. He was kind of losing it here.

Then it stopped.

Silence. Donnie sat in silence. After a minute, he exhaled, not realising he'd been holding his breath. He was absolutely shiting himself. Not literally, because that shite just would not budge until this thing was over. He didn't quite know what was going on, it really was freaking him out a bit, maybe it was because he was in a compromised position. Maybe the pressure of the shite against his veins had somehow fucked with his head, like heatstroke or the bends. He tried taking his mind off things. He looked down at his fingernails again, and wondered if maybe that's what the scratching sound was. That's probably what it was. The tapping was his foot, and the scratching sound was just—

Donnie heard creaking, then the sound of a tile falling into the bath to his right.

He could sense that something was moving, but he didn't look. He didn't fancy it, to be honest.

Then another tile fell, then another, then two or three at a time. Tapping, scratching, creaking and smashing, until eventually there was silence. Silence for who knows how long. Two minutes? Two hours? Silence.

Donnie shut his eyes, and turned his head towards the right, towards the purple tiles, or where they used to be. Towards the breathing. Then, for reasons unknown to me, he decided to open them.

In the hole in the wall was a cow with seven legs. Its head was boneless. On the left side of its face was a vagina, hanging from which was a tongue with teeth on the end that chewed at nothing. On the right was its only eye, held half shut by matted eyelashes and congealed pus. It had a cock the size of a two-litre bottle of cola, raw and rotten like a peeled plum, crawling with flies and larvae that made the cow moo in pain. Its udders hung below like a ballbag.

Donnie died from a heart attack, fell over and finally actually did shite himself. Literally.

And do you know who Donnie was?

Elvis.

This story was about Elvis.

Every full moon, he changed. He was a werewolf. You wouldn't notice him if he walked past you in the street, he looked like any other guy.

But the following morning, he would change back, back into his natural form. A wolf. A wolf in a Travelodge room.

No recollection of how he came to be wearing human clothes. Nor of the newspaper lying under his paw, the crossword complete. Or of the toast crumbs on his chest.

The toast crumbs.

Oh my God, the toast crumbs!

What did he do last night?

Arnold went to the hospital. He had to. He walked up to the woman behind the counter and told her what was up, that he was having trouble passing solids. She asked him to elaborate, was he constipated? Arnold said it was worse than that, and he explained. She asked him to repeat that, she couldn't quite hear him. He looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening, then leaned in closer and told her again. Aye, that's what she thought she heard the first time, but she'd asked him to repeat himself because what he said was preposterous. But now that he'd said it again, she concluded that he must be on something, and asked him to take a seat.

He sat in the waiting room until she called out his name and told him what room to go to. When he got there, a doctor asked him what seemed to be the problem. Arnold told the doc, and the doctor also concluded that Arnold must be on something, but he asked Arnold to pull down his trousers and pants anyway to have a look.

‘My word,' said the doctor, looking at Arnold's behind. He could see immediately what the problem was. Arnold's arse was one big bum cheek. There was no hole. It was like a big thumb.

The doc asked him to wait there as he headed off to get another opinion. Arnold sat there wondering what was going to happen. He hoped it would be pretty easy to fix, maybe he could even get up the road that night in time to watch a film. The doctor came back with half a dozen colleagues, who took turns in having a look at Arnold's arse. Each of them shook their head and mumbled medical stuff to the rest. Arnold stood there quietly, out his depth, like a dog at the vet's.

‘Excuse us,' said the doctor, and Arnold was left alone in the room once more, this time for half an hour. He started to realise that maybe this was more serious than he thought. The doctor returned and asked Arnold to come with him; they were going to take him for some scans. They headed out the room and down the corridor.

‘So d'you think I'll need an operation or something?' asked Arnold.

‘It's too early to say, but once we get the scans we'll have a clearer picture of what the issue is,' said the doctor, putting a hand on Arnold's shoulder.

‘It's just that I was hoping to get up the road tonight in time to watch a fi—'

A bolt from a cattle gun straight to the head, and down he fell. Then off to the incinerators he went.

Well, what else could they do? They'd never seen anything like it. An arse without a hole? An arse that was one big bum cheek, like a big thumb?

Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

He was sitting at the concert, looking around, waiting for the thing to start. The place was a bit of a dive. Not the best place, but not the worst either. Just another featureless, multipurpose arena, built on the cheap, lined with hard, plastic seats bolted into concrete. He looked down and saw that his own seat had been vandalised by a lighter. He looked at the floor. It was dotted with circles of chewing gum, all blackened by footprints and dirt. And he knew that there was a crushed can of Sprite under his seat that the cleaners either hadn't spotted or couldn't be bothered picking up. No, it wasn't the worst of places, but it wasn't exactly deluxe. And it was a far cry from what this chap was used to.

The Royal Albert Hall, that's what he was used to, that's the kind of place where you were more likely to see him. Well, this time last year, anyway. There he'd be in one of those private boxes, with champagne on ice by his side, dressed in a suit that cost more than your motor, before leaving at the end of the night in a motor that cost more than your house. The high life, that's how he liked to spend his money, that's what drove him to earn it. He wanted the best in life, the finest in life. Food, wine, the company that he kept, the watch that he wore, the yacht. He was a man of extremes. The uppermost prestige and taste, that's what he was all about. All that.

Somebody behind him burped, then a woman laughed. He wondered if they were drunk, and it worried him, but he relaxed when he realised they probably weren't. It just wasn't the done thing at a concert like this. There were children here, families, couples, nice people, chatting away or singing songs or just sitting quietly, arm in arm. It was all very civilised, just the way he liked it. He turned around for a glance, and saw that the couple looked as sober as anybody, sucking up their big plastic cups of Diet Coke. That's all right then. He felt overly sensitive, but he just didn't think it would be good to have people like that around him. Drunks, or worse. Not that he was a prude. Far fucking from it.

See, there had come a point when he got tired of the high life. After all, a wine could only be so fine. A good suit could only be so good. A watch was a watch was a watch. He'd reached the top, there was no place higher, and for a man of extremes, there was only one place left to go: down. He was never one for drugs, so it began with gambling. Huge stakes on red or black, huge losses, huge wins. The thrill of it. And with the thrills came the thrillseekers, the hangers-on, the vultures circling the guy blowing all his cash. Then finally, fuck it, then came the drugs. Then came the drugs! The yacht parties. The pills, the coke, the crystal meth, morning, noon and night, all around the clock. He'd wake up with everything gone, everything taken, and do it all over again. He torched the yacht. His posh mates turned their backs on him, he was turned away from places he'd been going to for years by doormen he was on first-name terms with, there were fights and black eyes. He was an outcast, freefalling, on a collision course with rock bottom. He got in his motor one night and went looking for a wall to crash into or a bridge to fly off. He'd reached the highest highs and the lowest lows. Both extremes. What else could a man like him do?

The lights in the concert began to dim; the crowd cheered, and then settled. The band were about to come on. The band that saved his life.

As he headed his motor towards a lamppost, a song came on the radio. It took a moment to realise the significance of what he was hearing, but when he did, he swerved back into lane. It was ‘End of the Road' by Boyz II Men. He pulled over, turned off the engine and listened to it from start to finish. It was a song he'd heard on the radio since the Nineties; he neither liked it nor disliked it, it was nothing to him, yet now it meant more to him than perhaps to anybody else listening at that time. But no, it wasn't because he was at the end of the road in terms of his life, or that he'd reached the end of the road in terms of his exploration of the extremes, or because he was going to literally end himself on a road. The song had given him a new purpose, a new extreme, and one that wouldn't leave him disillusioned or self-destroyed.

The Boyz took to the stage. His view wasn't brilliant, sitting near the back and to the side, but it was all right. They started with a few of their new numbers, attempts to bring themselves up to date with new production sounds, which, judging by the faces in the audience, not a lot of people went for. Eventually, they moved on to their old familiar tunes, the fans sang and clapped along, and he joined in as much as he could. As it got near the end, the energy of the crowd had subsided and some of them were looking at the time. And then finally, after the Boyz said goodnight and walked off, they walked back on to play the song that most people had been waiting for – he'd certainly been, as it was the song that had brought him here tonight: ‘End of the Road'. However, their live version didn't sound nearly as good as it did on the radio. They dodged some of the trademark high notes, due to them being a wee bit over the hill, plus he heard somebody mention that they didn't sound the same now that one of the singers had left. He agreed. All in all, it just wasn't a very good night. It was adequate. It was average. Yet it was one of the most extreme experiences of his life.

It was extremely mediocre. Extremely bland. Extraordinarily ordinary. It was normal with a capital N, to the nth degree. It was everything he hoped it would be. Right down to the chewing-gum floor and the vandalised seat. It was wonderful.

A whole new world had opened up to him, one that he could never become disillusioned with or self-destruct over. How can you become disillusioned with something you already know to be not that good? How can you self-destruct over Boyz II Men, or whatever else he planned to get into? Which made him wonder: what next? What extremely run-of-the-mill thing could he see or do next? Maybe he could get tickets for one of those Rat Pack tribute bands. Or maybe go on a coach tour. Or maybe watch a romcom, the kind you see advertised on the side of a bus.

He had such an adventure ahead. But what if he grew disillusioned with that? What if his mission to explore the extremes of mediocrity became mediocre in itself? What an exciting prospect!

He stood up and joined the queue to leave. A stranger asked him if he'd enjoyed the show. He said it was all right. He asked the stranger if he enjoyed the show. The stranger said it was all right.

The night had already been perfectly mundane, but that was the icing on the cake.

Arnold had a problem: he had three eyes. Two were in their usual place, but the third, well, that was somewhere else. No, it wasn't in between the other two. No, it wasn't on the back of his head, or sticking out the top on the end of a tentacle.

It was in his arse.

He didn't always have it, not that he was aware of anyway. He only found out about it when he went to the doctor for a check-up, the kind they ask men to go for after they reach a certain age, the one where the doctor puts on a glove and sticks a finger up and has a feel about.

‘I can feel something,' said the doctor. ‘Just let me have a closer look.'

Arnold didn't like the sound of that, it sounded pretty bad. But it was nothing that he or the doctor imagined. The doctor had a look inside with his torch, and got the fright of his fucking life. He staggered back and collapsed against a cabinet, then he gave Arnold the news.

‘There's an eye up your arse, Arnold. An eye.'

Arnold couldn't believe it. Well, you wouldn't. He asked for a second opinion from another doctor in the surgery but it was the same again. She had a look, got the fright of her life, collapsed against the cabinet and told him there was an eye up there. Arnold didn't believe her either, and so it went on, with a third, fourth and fifth opinion, opinion after opinion until everybody in the building had had a good look. Arnold even got the patients in from the waiting room to have a gander, in case all these doctors were at it, but they too did the same. Arnold looked at them all, doctors and patients alike, as they lay there in a pile at the bottom of the cabinet, and he finally accepted the truth. He had to, for he realised he was looking at them with the eye in his arse.