Gutter
Sprawl. Morning.
The
sleep of the innocent, not a sleep granted I. No, my slumberous sighs
depict a more sinister cut of the human condition.
Groaning-moaning-stirring. Squinting up into bright sunlight
increases the unpleasantness in my pounding head. Time to fade back.
Yearning for the welcome night I sleep again, face wet from the
puddle in this most fashionable of gutters. At least no rain falls.
Small mercies. Sleep.
Waking
of a sudden with fiends pressed upon me, and find pockets turned out
and I am being searched most roughly by gruff and unfriendly hands.
The gutter my kingdom, violated!
“Ruffians!
Scum-shite!” I roar and cough, more cough than roar.
But
they find nothing, oh sweet nothing my darlings, but my lumps and
bruises from the brawl last night, which is only foggily recalled.
Scurry they do like the starving dogs they are, to and fro, fro and
to, away from boot-swings and claw grasps. Certainly and certainty: I
penniless by the end last night. Therefore, no pennies for them,
ha-ha, no.
“Bastards
of bastards. Dogs!” says I.
But
the kick in the ribs those retreating violators, rag dolls and
reeking of rum, do instill as a parting gift pains something vicious.
Hatred stirs behind the foggy haze of blurriness as I try and refocus
my eyes. Hatred towards the pocket turner-outers, though no mortal
wounds to my industry or economical scene did they achieve. That kick
in the ribs does smart however, as earlier eloquated. The coughing
fit resulting is terrible and for a time I cannot stop.
Wincing,
rubbing tears away and opening my eyes I am greeted by pain once more
in the form of sunshine. Crawl and fall back, retreat! And so closing
eyes tightly to escape the enemy sunlight. But then ominously said
sunlight is removed, stolen, gone, vanished. Shadow replaces it, too
quick and dark to be caused by any cloud.
“Better
for thy head brother. Better live than dead,” someone says, from
above, close enough to likely be the cause of said stated shadow.
Wincing,
blinking open blurry eyes. All is clouded, or more shaded. The sun
exists yet, but blockethed by man-shade. Alarming shade where none
was before and a voice attached. Man shaped shadiness now speaking to
me directly once more.
“Let
me stand here friend, that you may bathe in the sweet elixir of the
shade my lean and tumble frame might provide.”
Squinting
now into the black shadowy figure, emblazoned, surrounded by bright.
“Be
it Hugo? Jones? Calibre? Or a murderer, catalyst, or filthy copper?”
I sputter or spew.
“Aye,
‘tis Calibre, fit and back from the highways,” the shade casting
man says. “You, my friend, are more the worse for wear then last
out stares did meet.”
Calibre,
home from the highways. Oh dark traveller Calibre, back from the
wastelands. ‘Tis Calibre the tall and bony, multi-grinned and gold
ear-ringed. Wiry, hard Calibre. One I might call friend. One whom
helps me up with a wincing.
“Calibre,
the gutter my kingdom, violated,” says I.
That
kick inflicted does hurt. Might have caused a broken rib. Perhaps
just cracked. I groan, he talks, we walk.
“Not
far my pretty ancient,” he says. “We’ll sort you out yet. Don’t
worry. All you need is the warming love of whiskey.”
A
house of ill ends and happy repute we make to for the breaking of our
fasts, regaling one another with different species of phlegm and
cough as we labour to move there. Life has been as kind to Calibre
the highwayman as it has to I. We are a pair for certain, blessed
with bad fortune and unholy desires, but at least breathing yet. And
the air and mechanics of movement seem to cure both my spleen and
ribs alike, or at least a little bit. The more I walk the more able I
feel at any rate.
“Whiskey
you say, eh? I can if you’re buying,” I reply, to which he nods;
to which I cheer, if somewhat raggedly.
“Better
than your worst foe’s blood, better than a lover’s bite, sweet
whiskey," says Calibre, wistfully.
“So,
what brings you back to this sick old city then Calibre?” I
inquire.
“Women,”
he says.
“Women?”
I enquire.
Roars
Calibre: “Women!”
We
share a laughter as it is more economical that way than to each spend
our own.
And
we have arrived at the most lovely and enchanting place of sustenance
and abuse, the one indeed intended by Calibre as our destination.
Whiskey, coffee and food. Calibre and I sit and brood, drinking the
barely drinkable coffee and loving it as if it were our very mother’s
milk. We discuss our future roles in one another’s lives, we
divulge our recent mal-histories and howl like jackals in shared
delight at the humorousness of our ill-fortune and ill-repute,
resolute in our frankness and also our guile as we dip our bread in
the egg and bacon grease, happy as a couple of pre-revolutionary
Tsars.
There
are hooded monks at the bar, sipping mead, looking more sinister than
monks ought ever to look, one leering madly at the lass on his lap,
her bare breast agleam with the grease from his meal. Other groups
and individuals lounge about, the usual scoundrels mostly. Oldsters
sip drinks and talk about the old times in one area while across from
them a group of techno-punks smoke pipes and debate the existence of
something called an Underzone. A hunchbacked dwarf snoozes in a
corner, his head on his table, his hands clasped around a cup of tea.
Three dice lay near his cheek in a pool of his own saliva. Others
weep and others sing, each with emotion. Many, having abandoned
emotion as too luxurious a commodity years or weeks ago, simply sit
and stare. We pay them all no mind. This is a safe haven for all, at
least at this time and date.
Our
stomach’s full and Calibre seeking women, myself alms, we leave the
place and we part our ways, but first firmly committing to future
debate, debacle, distinction, distortion, delights of all kinds. He
with a smile walks off into the shade, myself out and into the now
less formidable bright. The sun is shining and glorious. And I only
wince slightly as I move, less-limping now. With belly full instilled
pride I make my way fearless out and in to the day.
Photo of the author, approx 2008.Gutter Sprawl, by Daniel Smallegange, copyright 2025, all rights reserved. From the collection The City: Tales From the Post-Post Apocalypse by Daniel Smallegange, available on Amazon, etc.
