Two Figures in the Grass
by Steve Finbow
Wo izzi’ you wan? Eh? Orwayz on me bleedin’ case you are. I ain’t seen nuffin like it. Nuffin. Wot dya want, eh? I mean, ya nuffin, righ’. Nuffin. Not the skin off the bo’om of me feet. Not the snot from me beak. Not no one. Nuffin. Wot ya wanna do go comin’ arahnd ere? Ge’ou’ov-i’. Bending to pick a stone from his garden, he clutches his back, the pain muscular, seizual; he winces and totters back, totters forward, falls monumentally, dynastically, amidst the garden gnomes, the trowel, the hoe, the neat packets of seeds resting in the wicker basket. The young boy waits. The old man’s down now all the way. His mouth sucking grass. His cheek cradled in the soil, his large belly flattening the weeds he has just extracted. The young boy moves forward, looks around him; the drive is empty except for the old man’s BMW. The young boy stands over the old man. Fuck off! The old man says. I said fuck off ou’ ov ere, you lil cun’. The young boy stands above him now, bends forward, swallows, bends forward more and lets a long thin line of drool fall from his mouth. It lands on the old man’s cheek. The old man tries to move his arms to wipe away the outrage but his own body freezes him, his movements are geological, slowing. Call me a cun’. The young boy says and draws back his foot and kicks the old man in the head. The sound is ancient, historic, the sound of change. The blood flows but not as much as he thought it would. Either of them. Call me a cun’ the young boy says. The old man’s eyes close. Cun’ he says. The young boy kneels down, kneels on the old man’s head. Wot ya saying? He says. Cun’ the old man says. The young boy takes the trowel from the grass. The handle is moist and feels good in his hands, the wood pitted, it feels like an extension to his hand, prosthetic, evolutionary. Ooz nuffin? He says. The old man opens his eyes, raises them to meet the insectual stare of the young boy. You. He says. The young boy puts more weight into his kneel. He takes the trowel and wipes it across the old man’s cheek, gently, playfully. The old man says, Fuck off you lil twat. The young boy digs the trowel into the old man’s cheek drawing blood but not much, again surprisingly. Yor dead, the old man says. Fuckin’ dead as a fucking dodo. The young boy says Shu’ i’, ol man. Just shu’ i’. The boy rises. Then kneels suddenly and plunges the trowel into the old man’s right eye, up to the hilt; blood comes now, more brown than red, mixed with something he thinks, Don’t look real duzzit? Duzzit? The old man thrashes for a second. Cries out. Childlike. The young boy puts his hand over the old man’s mouth. He can feel the old man’s stubble; feel his spittle; feel his tongue pushing against the palm of his hand, tickles. He clamps harder. Pushes. Pulls the trowel out wet with stuff, just stuff. Plunges it in again in another place. Feels bone. Feels the unknown. Gotcha, ya old cun’ you. He spits this time. The spit lands on the edge of the old man’s mouth, drips to the floor, lands and dissolves in the earth. Fucker, the boy says. The boy says Cun’. You wanna go and do tha’ for? Eh? The old man dies. Just dies. He withdraws the trowel. Looks at it, looks at the matter clinging to it. Turns it around in his hand. The inside of his thumb and forefinger becoming sticky with it. He raises it above his head and brings it down into the earth beside the old man’s nose, empurpling, running with claret. The young boy stands. Stretches his arms above his head as if waking, as if about to exercise. And he yawns. Rubs his right trainer on the back of his left leg, on the calf of his Levi’s he leaves a dark stain. He checks the old man’s pockets, the ones he can get to, finds a tenner, finds a twenty, finds a stubby pencil chewed and splintered. He replaces the money, pockets the pencil. Ya ol’ fucker. He says. He says, You ol cun’. He prods the body with the right toe of his trainers