Jed wasn’t like the other goats. For a start he was called Jed when all the other goats were called things like Buttercup and The One With The Gamey Udder. He’d picked Jed because it sounded at once craggy and charismatic and life-worn and urbane,and he insisted everybody call him that.

Jed liked life on the edge, by the fence. He liked to mooch. He liked to sulk. He liked to draw deeply on his cigarette and read the Beats. He liked to sleep all day and go out at night wearing an old leather jacket that had blown by one day. He was a nocturnal goat who lived by his nerves on the mean streets and this was so against the order of things that it upset the others greatly. They pleaded with him to stay home, begging him not to stop his wild ways.

His mother would say, “Son , I know you want to be our own goat, I know how hard it’s been for you since your dad was eaten. I understand, darling, really I do, but the streets at night are no place for a goat. There are people in that world who would goulash you soon as look at you. Oh please Snowy, I mean Jed, I couldn’t bear it if I lost you too!”

His “uncle” said “Can’t you see what you’re doing to your mother, you ungrateful little craphead. What the hell do want to feel the pulse of the living city for anyway? Why don’t you shape up and join the hoofball team, you
little gayer?”

His grandma said “It’s all very well being hungry for real life, living by your wits, feeling the thrill of the neon-lit streets and …(she had to pause for breath here as she was a very old goat)… never knowing if death will come tonight, but it’s not the goatly way, Snowy. Oh stop it, you’ll always be Snowy to me. However much you want it to be otherwise, we’re not made, evolutionarily speaking, for a nocturnal existence. Look at the shadows under your eyes! What you need is a good skipping-rope ‘n’ tyre casserole and a good night’s sleep. That’ll put the roses back into those pale cheeks!”

“You’re heading for a fall, douchebag,” Jed’s big brother would gently counsel. “Poncing around in a leather jacket, who do you think you are?”

His best friend, Biff, said “It’s madness, Jed. Why you wanna play with your life like that? You gotta take it easy, man. Look, me and some of the guys are starting a band with the fence wires using our horns as plectrums. Whaddaya say?”

All these people would say all these things. But Jed knew that being a nocturnal goat made him special and sexy. He knew the kids said “Look, there goes Jed that cool nocturnal guy. He knew all the girl goats were secretly in love with him. Sorry, ladies, he thought with a wry grin, not tonight. I’m off to prowl the city’s underbelly and see things so unspeakable that they will haunt my eyes and cause me to brood moodily, making you want me even more.

Oh he had loved a few of them back, usually at the back of the gorse-bush but, afterwards, looking deep into their limpid eyes, he would tell them monogoaty wasn’t for him, his twisted heart was incapable of love after the life he’d lived on the streets. He’d read while chewing on an old Maxim one day that a touch of the bastard about him would only make him more of an enigma.

But more than that, the streets made him feel alive, like standing in the field just never had. He hungered for their danger them when he was away from them too long.

One night, Jed slid out as usual under the hidden bit of fence behind the bushes where the wire was loose. Something felt different tonight but he couldn’t put his hoof on it. His normal slouch into town seemed more fraught with peril than usual. The night seemed blacker somehow. A couple of times he was nearly run over by speeding cars and once he rounded a corner to see a group of youths with knives pin a boy to the wall, a blade treacherously close to his wildly rolling eyes. Jed didn’t stop, not even when he heard the boy scream from two blocks behind him. This was the way of the street, though Jed, it was hard, but it was just the way it was. This was the real world and the weak got eaten up by the sharks. The law of the jungle. (Nocturnal goats never worry about mixing metaphors. That’s just not cool.)

Reaching downtown, the police sirens seemed to wail by more often than normal, tonight. Jed stopped for a bite to eat at the bins behind Antonio’s Trattoria, but half way through his spaghettini meal he’d looked down into the dark bin just as the lights of a passing car lit up its contents and had seen a decapitated cat’s head screaming silently up at him. Shaken, he had run out of the alleyway and back onto Main and, turning up his collar, he decided to go down to the docks to see if the salty banter of the night longshoremen could help take the edge off. There was usually some bourbon to be had down there too.

But the docks were silent that night. Just a NO TRESPASSING sign swinging gently from the chain. The squeak of the sign stayed with him as he wandered aimlessly about the city that night. Was he losing his nerve? What was wrong with him? Why was there a cold sweat across his muzzle?

Nah, just an off day, that’s all, he reassured himself. Probably coming down with something. He wasn’t losing his nerve. He was a nocturnal goat dammit, cooler than them all, a witness to dark secrets and he’d done some sinning himself, oh yes. Those nights when the whiskey clouded his vision and he woke up in the park with the bloodied collar of some beloved little lapdog in his teeth, not knowing how or why or whence… There were some troubled corners in his own heart too. He had become a shadowy creature of the dark streets alright, it was in his blood now, but even shadowy creatures of the dark streets got colds. It was time to call it a night.

Day was breaking as he crested the hill behind the field. The sweat on his muzzle was beginning to chill him a little and he was anxious to get back to the familiar corner where he knew his mother would be sleeping, snoring slightly. He would close her mouth and kiss her forehead like he often did, and then maybe he could sleep off this feeling.

As he looked down on the field though, something looked wrong. The goats weren’t huddled as they usually were. They were strewn about the field. Some of their necks were at odd angles…

Jed tore down the hill. Oh God no, please don’t let it be so. Please God, I’ll stay home from now on, I promise, just let me be wrong!

Noooooooooo!

As he scrambled under the fence, tearing his leather jacket horribly, hot tears blinded his eyes. He ran to the centre of the field and spun around looking at the carnage all around him. He found his mother by the bloodied water-trough, her throat ripped open and her unseeing eyes wide as though puzzled about something.

They’d heard warnings of course: a wolf pack in the area, but the fence was good and so everyone had felt pretty safe. The fence. The fence.

He ran back to his own exit. It was too small for a wolf, wasn’t it? He at half their size could barely make it through, the posts were that firmly in place.

His ears filled with the roar of his blood as he looked at the fence and saw what he had missed in his panic before: dozens of stratchmarks and pawprints, a scrabbled out trench that must have taken even the biggest wolves a long time to clear in that stony ground. But he had given them their opening. With his foolish whims he had imperiled every goat he had ever known or loved and now they lay slain, the blood of his family soaking into the ground they knew so well.

“It should have been me!” he cried out. It should have been me..!”

He fell to the ground choking with sobs and there he lay weeping until the Humane society came and took him to a goat rescue facility in another town. His name was changed to Twinkle and he ended his days as an educational animal, going round schools and county fairs with his large-hearted handler, Marge.

The children often asked “Why does the goat seem so sad, Miss Marge?” or “Oh, Miss, Ma-arge, why does Twinkle keep screaming and running at speed as if trying to impale himself on the fence-post?” And Marge never knew why but would often sit long into the evening stroking the damp brow of the dreaming goat, frowning as his hooves struck out against unknowable horrors.

THE END

Jed wasn’t like the other goats. For a start he was called Jed when all the other goats were called things like Buttercup and The One With The Gamey Udder. He’d picked Jed because it sounded at once craggy and charismatic and life-worn and urbane,and he insisted everybody call him that.

Jed liked life on the edge, by the fence. He liked to mooch. He liked to sulk. He liked to draw deeply on his cigarette and read the Beats. He liked to sleep all day and go out at night wearing an old leather jacket that had blown by one day. He was a nocturnal goat who lived by his nerves on the mean streets and this was so against the order of things that it upset the others greatly. They pleaded with him to stay home, begging him not to stop his wild ways.

His mother would say, “Son , I know you want to be our own goat, I know how hard it’s been for you since your dad was eaten. I understand, darling, really I do, but the streets at night are no place for a goat. There are people in that world who would goulash you soon as look at you. Oh please Snowy, I mean Jed, I couldn’t bear it if I lost you too!”

His “uncle” said “Can’t you see what you’re doing to your mother, you ungrateful little craphead. What the hell do want to feel the pulse of the living city for anyway? Why don’t you shape up and join the hoofball team, you
little gayer?”

His grandma said “It’s all very well being hungry for real life, living by your wits, feeling the thrill of the neon-lit streets and …(she had to pause for breath here as she was a very old goat)… never knowing if death will come tonight, but it’s not the goatly way, Snowy. Oh stop it, you’ll always be Snowy to me. However much you want it to be otherwise, we’re not made, evolutionarily speaking, for a nocturnal existence. Look at the shadows under your eyes! What you need is a good skipping-rope ‘n’ tyre casserole and a good night’s sleep. That’ll put the roses back into those pale cheeks!”

“You’re heading for a fall, douchebag,” Jed’s big brother would gently counsel. “Poncing around in a leather jacket, who do you think you are?”

His best friend, Biff, said “It’s madness, Jed. Why you wanna play with your life like that? You gotta take it easy, man. Look, me and some of the guys are starting a band with the fence wires using our horns as plectrums. Whaddaya say?”

All these people would say all these things. But Jed knew that being a nocturnal goat made him special and sexy. He knew the kids said “Look, there goes Jed that cool nocturnal guy. He knew all the girl goats were secretly in love with him. Sorry, ladies, he thought with a wry grin, not tonight. I’m off to prowl the city’s underbelly and see things so unspeakable that they will haunt my eyes and cause me to brood moodily, making you want me even more.

Oh he had loved a few of them back, usually at the back of the gorse-bush but, afterwards, looking deep into their limpid eyes, he would tell them monogoaty wasn’t for him, his twisted heart was incapable of love after the life he’d lived on the streets. He’d read while chewing on an old Maxim one day that a touch of the bastard about him would only make him more of an enigma.

But more than that, the streets made him feel alive, like standing in the field just never had. He hungered for their danger them when he was away from them too long.

One night, Jed slid out as usual under the hidden bit of fence behind the bushes where the wire was loose. Something felt different tonight but he couldn’t put his hoof on it. His normal slouch into town seemed more fraught with peril than usual. The night seemed blacker somehow. A couple of times he was nearly run over by speeding cars and once he rounded a corner to see a group of youths with knives pin a boy to the wall, a blade treacherously close to his wildly rolling eyes. Jed didn’t stop, not even when he heard the boy scream from two blocks behind him. This was the way of the street, though Jed, it was hard, but it was just the way it was. This was the real world and the weak got eaten up by the sharks. The law of the jungle. (Nocturnal goats never worry about mixing metaphors. That’s just not cool.)

Reaching downtown, the police sirens seemed to wail by more often than normal, tonight. Jed stopped for a bite to eat at the bins behind Antonio’s Trattoria, but half way through his spaghettini meal he’d looked down into the dark bin just as the lights of a passing car lit up its contents and had seen a decapitated cat’s head screaming silently up at him. Shaken, he had run out of the alleyway and back onto Main and, turning up his collar, he decided to go down to the docks to see if the salty banter of the night longshoremen could help take the edge off. There was usually some bourbon to be had down there too.

But the docks were silent that night. Just a NO TRESPASSING sign swinging gently from the chain. The squeak of the sign stayed with him as he wandered aimlessly about the city that night. Was he losing his nerve? What was wrong with him? Why was there a cold sweat across his muzzle?

Nah, just an off day, that’s all, he reassured himself. Probably coming down with something. He wasn’t losing his nerve. He was a nocturnal goat dammit, cooler than them all, a witness to dark secrets and he’d done some sinning himself, oh yes. Those nights when the whiskey clouded his vision and he woke up in the park with the bloodied collar of some beloved little lapdog in his teeth, not knowing how or why or whence… There were some troubled corners in his own heart too. He had become a shadowy creature of the dark streets alright, it was in his blood now, but even shadowy creatures of the dark streets got colds. It was time to call it a night.

Day was breaking as he crested the hill behind the field. The sweat on his muzzle was beginning to chill him a little and he was anxious to get back to the familiar corner where he knew his mother would be sleeping, snoring slightly. He would close her mouth and kiss her forehead like he often did, and then maybe he could sleep off this feeling.

As he looked down on the field though, something looked wrong. The goats weren’t huddled as they usually were. They were strewn about the field. Some of their necks were at odd angles…

Jed tore down the hill. Oh God no, please don’t let it be so. Please God, I’ll stay home from now on, I promise, just let me be wrong!

Noooooooooo!

As he scrambled under the fence, tearing his leather jacket horribly, hot tears blinded his eyes. He ran to the centre of the field and spun around looking at the carnage all around him. He found his mother by the bloodied water-trough, her throat ripped open and her unseeing eyes wide as though puzzled about something.

They’d heard warnings of course: a wolf pack in the area, but the fence was good and so everyone had felt pretty safe. The fence. The fence.

He ran back to his own exit. It was too small for a wolf, wasn’t it? He at half their size could barely make it through, the posts were that firmly in place.

His ears filled with the roar of his blood as he looked at the fence and saw what he had missed in his panic before: dozens of stratchmarks and pawprints, a scrabbled out trench that must have taken even the biggest wolves a long time to clear in that stony ground. But he had given them their opening. With his foolish whims he had imperiled every goat he had ever known or loved and now they lay slain, the blood of his family soaking into the ground they knew so well.

“It should have been me!” he cried out. It should have been me..!”

He fell to the ground choking with sobs and there he lay weeping until the Humane society came and took him to a goat rescue facility in another town. His name was changed to Twinkle and he ended his days as an educational animal, going round schools and county fairs with his large-hearted handler, Marge.

The children often asked “Why does the goat seem so sad, Miss Marge?” or “Oh, Miss, Ma-arge, why does Twinkle keep screaming and running at speed as if trying to impale himself on the fence-post?” And Marge never knew why but would often sit long into the evening stroking the damp brow of the dreaming goat, frowning as his hooves struck out against unknowable horrors.

THE END

Here is the sound of something happening. What is it?

“Heave-ho. You got the other side, Carl? Good – on the count of three, one, two, three… Good.”

Click…Click…

“Just hold still there madam, bit of clipping still to do, just for the look of the thing. Shouldn’t take a minute. Super.

Bzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhrrrrrr

Snip!

Snippety, snippety….snip.

“There we are madam, you’re ready to go. You might notice them chafing at first but that usually goes away within the week. Righto then. What? Oh no, there’s no charge here, madam, haha! Nooooo! Nooohohoho! I do it for the love of the thing, me. Plus it earns me a few extra brownie points with the Big Guy which doesn’t hurt, hoho.”

“Trust me, madam, you’ll be glad you went for a custom fit. They’ll last forever unlike these off-the-peg ones you get from the shysters outside the gates. Not a thing we can do about ‘em though, heaven knows we’ve tried. “Not in our jurisdiction” apparently according from the memo from on high. What can you do? Anyway, don’t forget to tell your friends!

Bye-bye, then. Steady as you go, don’t tip over hahaha! Bye-bye. Byeee. Bub-bye.”

CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP
Tinkle…bang.

“Well!…May the good lord forgive me for saying so, Carl, but it seems they’re letting anyone in these days. Did you see the Marilyn Manson tour-shirt on that one? Did you know that monster has songs called things like “The Angel With The Scabbed Wings” and “You And Me And The Devil Makes 3″ and filth like that?”

“My Andrea says he’s got a song called “Coma Black” and “Just A Car-Crash Away” too.

“Huh.”

“Hey ho though, best get on. No rest for the wicked, haha.”

(Answer will be posted anonish.)

There was once a lonesome whiner. He lived in a cabin high in the Colorado Rockies. He was once a lonesome stockbroking whiner from New Jersey but, tired and resentful of how everybody was so tired and resentful of his whining, he finally decided what he really needed was to get right away. And so he did. He lived simply on rabbit and root vegetables and fish from a little brook that disappointingly didn’t babble. And his cabin was all of finest log.

He lived 7 miles from the nearest town, deep in the dense woods, and one day in that town the mayor was murdered quite dead. I won’t go into the details but for a few good reasons including a hairbrush and 10 year old parking unpaid violation – making him a persona non-innocenta in that sleepy, crime-free, little backwater – the Lonesome whiner became the chief suspect in the case.

One Deputy De Pute was assigned to track down the Lonesome Whiner and bring him in for questioning. Depute De Pute was a lover of fine wine and polo neck jumpers in his spare time. He hated his flyover state existence and longed for the lifestyle of popular TV character Frasier. Therefore, it was with some reluctance that he set off about his loathsome duty that morning, with his sturdy boots, the arrest warrant and Officer Dent, a lover of cholesterol-based foods and string vests in his spare time.

If he could just get this tied up today, thought the Deputy, he might be back in time to meet Janet again in the chatroom for People who like Savignon Blanc But Not Merlot, Detest Viognier But Would Stab Their Grannies For A Really Good Syrah. Things were going well with Janet – he’d already got her to remove her bra with his description of a 1995 Chateau Margaux that he’d totally lied about having. But “Jerry” from Wyoming was sniffing around too and if he wasn’t careful he’d lose her like he’d lost the woman from the Niles Appreciation Discussion Board.

The two law enforcers strode off purposefully into the wood which was too dense for wheeled travel. Neither was quite sure of the exact location of the Lonesome Whiner’s cabin but they knew roughly in which direction to proceed. They also knew how vital it was for a cop to proceed rather than just go. The great state of Colorado prides itself on its police department’s fine proceedings – Jon-Benet Ramsay or no Jon-Benet Ramsay.

The two had long ago decided they had nothing to talk about and so they proceeded surprisingly companionably. It wasn’t long before they reached a clearing in which a small log cabin puffed smoke from its simple chimney.

“I’ll handle this, officer Dent. With any luck we’ll have this puppy in custody by noon, I’ll get back to Janet and you can get back to your Russian bride catalogue. (Marriagable ladies were hard to meet in this outpost of the Rockies. Or any ladies at all. The Great Woman Pox of the 90s had wiped out most of the area’s women and the population that wasn’t struggling to get away from the area’s love-starved men, was struggling to recover from her stroke.)

The door of the humble dwelling opened as they approached, and out came a small, balding man in wire-rimmed glasses, blowing his nose and muttering.

“Hey there! Yoo hoo! Lonesome Whiner! We’d like a word please, sir if you don’t mind,” called out Deputy De Pute.

“Oh no no no, fellas, you’ve got the wrong guy.” said the man who they could now clearly see was weeping.” I’m the Lonesome Piner, see. Yep. Up here pining for my dead lover, you know. Don’t feel bad though, it’s an easy mistake to make. I believe the Lonesome Whiner lives further on up the trail.”

“I think he’s right, boss” said Officer Dent. “Fella we’re looking for’s aboutin’ 6ft. This guy got the weepin’ and the log cabin parts an’ all but he ain’t got the height. Who’da thought though? Who’da thought we’d have a Lonesome Piner and a Lonesome Whiner up in these woods.”

Officer Dent shook his head at the unfathomable mysteries of the world and then thought about Olga some more.

Bidding the man a good day they proceeded on, the howls of anguish from the Lonesome Piner growing fainter as they climbed. It wasn’t long before they came to another clearing and another rustic cabin. This time the owner was ouside, sitting on her little stool in the dappling sunlight beside a basin and shelling her beans. And that right there was the problem. She was a she.

Blushing, at the unexpected sight of a woman, the shy Deputy affected ambivalence.

“Howdy there, Miss…?”

“Howdy boys, I’m Lucy Copeski, more ususally known round these parts as The Lonesome Diner. Never could abide to see another person eat and I’m none too pretty an eater myself so’s I assumed this twangy-ass accent and moved on up here to eat alone forever more. I miss the cinema and the warm embrace of my loving children but all in all I’sa happy here.”

She gave them a warm smile.

“Huh! The Lonesome Diner. Well I never!” said Depute De Pute, blushing again in case the other two suspected that he really hadn’t ever. O Janet! He needed to get back to Janet.

“Any idea where we might locate The Lonesome Whiner?” he asked.

“Further on up the trail, I reckon. Don’t get up there much myself but I’ve seen footsteps around that aren’t mine, nor Old Piner down there’s. Good luck, officers!”

The boys had been proceeding for about 3 hours now and stepped up their pace a little, annoyed this was taking longer than expected. Soon they came upon another charming clearing with a slightly more established log-cabin thing going on. Satellite TV and a swimming pool and so on. Surely, this must be it! The boys rang the Rhapsody In Blue themed door-bell.

“Well hello” purred the slinky, red-headed occupant, opening the door just a smidge. What can I do for you, boys?”

Dangit, another woman! And a bombshell too, with a beguiling Southern accent of pure liquid smoke.

“Could you, ahem, tell us, ma’am, if we’re on the right path to the Lonesome Whiner’s residence?”

“Why, Ah really, couldn’t say. Ah’m just the Lil’ Ole Lonesome Winer but if Ah can help you with your enquahries, I’ve just opened a rather special 1990 Chateau Latour Pauillac and Ah’d sure be happy to offer you boys a glass.”

Did she just say 1990 Chateau Latour Pauillac? Deputy De Pute thoughticulated, which is like a quite pressing thought.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Dent, tapping his badge. “We’re on duty and we gotta get on. Thanks all the same.”

The blithering idiot! The uncultured fool! Doesn’t he know how rare the Latour Pauillac is? And she, oh Lord, SHE was honey-accented perfection!

Fuming silently, De Pute, proceeded on, Dent taking the lead, unaware of his superior’s sulky face and throttling motions behind him.

Three more hours, threee more clearings, three more cabins and a Lonesome Interior Designer, Song Miner and Shoe-Shiner later, they were neither of them any more silent.

“What the merry hell is going on?” screamed Deputy De Pute. “How many Goddammed Lonesome people does this small-to-medium-sized forest have, for the love of Betsy? How can any of these folks be Lonesome? It’s like log-cabin Central Station up here!”

“Look at the time!” moaned Dent. “It’s after 4pm and it’ll be dark before we get back. We haven’t even found The Lonesome Whiner yet.” He sunk down onto a log and lit himself a soothing cigarette. “I was supposed to be placing Olga’s order tonight. Now someone else is going to get her. Some complete saddo, most probably.”

There was a pause before the Deputy replied.

“I don’t see why you want to be ordering up a Russian bride anyhow,” he said slowly, his forehead knitted with thought. “There’s a perfectly lovely Russian-named woman living just down the trail, and you know what a hog you are at mealtimes. I’d say if you took care to eat at opposite sides of the charming clearing you might be able to get along very nicely together indeed. I did notice a hungry look in her eyes when she surveyed your virile belly there, Dent. Hot, flavoursome love in the deep woods has got to be better than arresting people for expired tabs back home. Seems to me your future lies with the Lonesome Diner down there. But” he shrugged, “it’s your business, of course.”

“Huh! … I do believe you might have something there, Deputy!” The officer frowned. “She was a regular cutie for sure and I’m sure my fricassee of green beans would be pleasin’ to her. Maybe, in time, she could learn to love me, Deputy! Oh it feels so right, all of a sudden!”

He grabbed the Deputy by the lapels and gazed earnestly into his smiling eyes.

“I hereby tender my resignation, Sir,” he cried. “Effective immediately, if that’s OK with you. Now, I got me a romantic dinner to not have!”

If he’d been the type of man to skip, I’d have said that Officer Dent took off at a gleeful skip back down the trail. But he would not be happy to be remembered for his skipping, so I won’t. A little way down though, he stopped suddenly, and came charging back up the hill.

“But Deputy, Sir! Aren’t you a lover of fine wines and polo necks in your spare time? That woman four cabins ago…she had some pretty fancy wine in there and from the tan-mark round her neck, I’d say she was more than just a casual polo-neck wearer. There’s all the Janet you could ever need or desire. Right there – not 3 hours back! Oh Deputy, maybe we can both improbably find love and happiness!”

“My God, you’re right, Dent! She might be the only woman in the world with whom I can discuss the merits of carbonic maceration and Kohl’s winter knits! For once in my life I’m going to follow my heart and to hell with the consequences! Come on! What are we waiting for? Our possible new lives are waiting! Lets go, Dent, let’s go!”

And with that, the two men ran off back down the trail as fast as their legs would carry them, two lonesome Admirers searching for love in log-cabins.

And there we leave them, friends. Running, not proceeding.

But just to note: they did indeed find love and acceptance with the Lonesome Diner and the Lonesome Winer and all their beautiful children grew up together and in their turn, married each other in the old country way.

As for The Lonesome Whiner, who actually lived one forest over, he was never troubled about the murder, for it soon became clear that the real killer of the mayor was the Gregarious Hairdresser in the Salon with the tongs.

THE END

Little Neddy stood at the door to the kindergarten classroom, one hand on his plastic gun, waiting for the jeering to start from the boys with the sensible jumpers. He knew he could lasso any one of these pansy-ass fools any time he wanted to. He just didn’t want to yet. They seemed to be distracted this morning though. Prolly looking at one of their towny-ass skate-board magazines, thought Little Neddy. He sneered to show his disdain for their Postman Pat lunchboxes and slouched epicly past the reading corner not caring one way or the other whether Karen-Pam MacQuorqhodale at the red table was watching.

Noticing in the the window’s reflection that she didn’t appear to be following his nonchalant, bouncy-kneed progress to his seat at the blue table, Little Neddy frowned a little. He spun on his red gen-yoo-ine leather boot-heel, inadvertently clocking Karan-Pam’s best friend Monica on the head with his holster.

“Hey!” she cried. “That hurt!”

But Little Neddy had no use for her squawling. Did she think that was sore? Hah! He’d been to Sore and back and laughed at head-clonking the way dusty heroes laugh at the comforts of a reasonably-priced hotel.

Still, he thought, Karen-Pam didn’t like it when he wounded her friends. He pulled up a plastic chair put his foot on it, leaning his weight over the raised leg with the assurance of a fellow who knows his pants, though form-fitting, won’t rip. From his pocket he pulled out a yellow, cornstalk-like straw and chewed it manfully.

“Beggin’ your pardon, little lady. Forgive my rough and clumsy ways.” Little Neddy tipped his hat and turned to her cuter friend.

“Sure are looking purdy today, Miss Karen-Pam, if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so,” he drawled. Then with fingers crossed behind his back, continued with his well-rehearsed speech. “Looks like there’s rain a-comin’ in from over Loch Seaforth way, this day. You want I should walk you home later, holding a large tarpaulin over your head?”

“Stop being so weird, Little Neddy,” said Karen-Pam, lovelier than ever in a dress of yellow roses. “Where would you find a large tarpaulin anyway?” How he loved the way she pretended to despise him!

“Mysterious guns-for-hire always carry tarpaulins” explained Little Neddy allowing himself a knowing chuckle. He’d been hoping she’d ask him this. That was why he’d spent the hour before sun-up this morning wrestling the one he’d spent all his pocket-money on into a Boots’ plastic bag, cursing at his misfortune in not having a jolly but less-handsome side-kick to do these things for him.

“Yessiree, a man can sure find a lot of uses for a tarpaulin out on the lonesome trail. It comes in mighty handy as a blanket and, when the need arises I should have to construct a rude shelter? Well, right about then a tarpaulin’s worth more than all the Transformers in the world.” He paused to look beyond the blackboard.

“Gotta travel light, see. A man never knows when he’s gonna have to skip town fast leaving nothing but sore jaws and broken hearts to remember him by.” Little Neddy gave a deep chortle, as if, dangit, he were remembering all those times.

“Little Neddy, just go and sit down, will you?” said Karen-Pam. “The mangy old rabbit pelt on your belt gives me hives when it’s gangling in my face like this. My mother’s already spoken to your mother about that.”

“Yeah, I reckon my rough, country ways prolly do offend you, Miss, and for that I’m truly sorry… but…” said Little Neddy, looking past the Santa collages on the rain-streaked window, past the Sherwood Forest play structure, to the high rocky places where men were made and flinty characters hewn, to the supermarket building site on the hill…

“…but, I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em, ma’am, and them’s the only ways I know how. I wudn’t brang up to talk fancy like you townsfolks. My language is the old gnarly language of the trail, of the coyote and the rattler, and of a burning soul-thirst that can never be quenched.”

“What the flip are you on about, Little Neddy?” cried Monica scornfully, rubbing the back of her head. “You’re dad’s a quantity-surveyer and your mum’s the headmistress. The only burning soul-thirst you have is to be allowed out to play after tea-time on school nights.”

There was some snickering from the other table and annoyance flickered in Little Ned’s piercing blue eyes. He loathed snickerers and, outside of emergencies, never snickered at all himself if he could help it. He looked down at Monica doing the best sneery lip-curl he could manage.”

“Hey Little Neddy!” called a fool boy, Seorais MacSween, from across the room, “How much of the lonesome trail did you drive in the back of your mammy’s Nissan Sunny today?” The snickering became intolerable sniggering.

“That’s just the sort of dumb-ass question I’d expect from someone that sits at the yellow table,” spat Little Neddy turning to face his new tormentor.

Just then, Mrs. Jamieson came into he classroom.

“Why aren’t you in your chair, Little Neddy? Sit down there’s a good boy. Oh and before I forget, well done on your extraordinary picture of a coyote ripping out the throat of a bunny. The art teacher said she’s never seen such an anatomically correct rendition of a trachea from someone so young. Now if you’d only pay that much attention to Reading Module 3 you could be learning all the more about bunny’s throats, wouldn’t you?” She smiled fondly at him.

Little Neddy, never comfortable with praise, pulled his 3-gallon hat down low over his nose. He slouched off to his seat and waited for the morning of cruel teasing about his hat and eraser-throwing behind the teacher’s back to begin as usual.

But what did he care?! he sneered inwardly. These boys were jackasses, just aimin’ to make him look like a fool in front of Karen-Pam. – But one day he would take Karen-Pam by the hand, he would! And they would step out and go a-walkin’ together. And he would tell her the ways of the old cowboys; share with her beans straight from the tin and the complicated pistol-twiddles he’d perfected in the holidays. And then, if things were going well, then maybe he would take her to the hidden place near the disused end of the quarry; the little cave with the songs of love for her he’d scored on the wall, and the 17 dead cats hanging across the entrance to keep strangers away.

The morning dragged on. The rain poured on the storm-darkened school-yard outside.

At last it was play-time. As soon as the bell rang, stung with flung erasers and cruel jibes, Little Neddy ran out of the classroom to the far side of the school-yard, climbed up onto the highest limb of the old oak tree and, with tears running down his cheeks, he sneered, he sneered at them all – such sneery, curly-lipped sneers of cold contempt as no rugged cowboy has ever sneered before!

And so it was begun, in the foothills of the great Harris mountains, that a new tv minor-character-actor, whose real dream it was to direct, set out on his very own trail of tears.

THE END

There are many ways to die in a lonely crofthouse in Lewis.

In all that solitude you might develop Peculiar Ways and, according to the Institute For The Study Of Loneliness, Peculiar Ways are 17 times more likely to cause your death or maiming than Usual Ways.

There was a man, a lonely straggle-bearded man who had long shut up his heart to human love and tenderness. No man nor woman nor child could reach him after a terrible tragedy one summer in his twenties. He bought a lonely crofthouse, retreated from Lewiskind and subsisted on home-made nettle products and the milk from a sweet-natured cow called Aggie-Louise.

He was a man of regular habits but uneven temper and often would he run out of his house screaming terrible words at the world and scaring poor Aggie who would only yield a sort of thin yoghurt for days after such episodes. But although his habits were regular, and for the most part usual, he had developed one habit that is now recognised as being Type 1 Peculiar. This habit was to prove fatal.

Many people who spend a lot of time alone will talk to themselves. Some will talk back to themselves. But there
are a few, a very few who will cease to use regular speech altogether and find all the meaning, all the means of
expression they need in their solitary lives, in the lyrics of Madonna. In particular, the smash hit 1986 album True Blue.

“I’ve heard all the lines, I’ve cried oh (oh) so many times, Those tear drops they won’t fall again, I’m so excited ’cause you’re my best friend” the straggly-bearded man would say to Aggie, and she would know it was time to go to the stool for milking.

“Open your heart with the key, One is such a lonely number” he would sing softly to the mouse that lived behind the radiator. “Ah, ah, ah, ah Open your heart, I’ll make you love me It’s not that hard, if you just turn the key”

And “Don’t want to grow old too fast, Don’t want to let the system get me down. I’ve got to find a way to make the good times last, And if you’ll show me how, I’m ready now” this man with thorns round his heart would tell the spider in the peatstack.

Then later, bitter and brooding over glass after glass of the all-purpose nettleated spirits he distilled in a still made from two welded together tin bathtubs, later he would grow angry. Sweeping plates and cups off the table in a fury and sending the chair crashing against the walls he would fall to his knees and yell “Where’s the party, Where’s the party, someone tell me, Where’s the party, come on come on” with all the savagery of a rhinocerous with toothache.

“And when the samba played” he often spat at those times with a cruel sneer, “The sun would set so high, Ring through my ears and sting my eyes, Your Spanish lullaby”

Pretty soon the straggly-bearded man lost all ability to speak anything other than lyrics from the True Blue album.

One morning, the man stepped out into the garden to milk Aggie-Louise as usual but right away noticed something was wrong. 50 feet yonder Aggie-Louise lay on her side, not moving. So still… So still! The man ran across the yard to her, half-knowing what he would find but half-hoping against half-hope that Aggie was still there…

He sobbed into her cold neck for about an hour before he could bring himself to close her amazed dead eyes. As he rose, he saw that in death she had leaked a little milk and it had puddled, could it be? …in the shape of a telephone? Aggie, this dear dead cow was giving him a message! Telephone somebody! she seemed to be saying.

And suddenly he knew.

All this living alone, protecting himself from human love and hurt had been for nothing. He had loved Aggie, he
hadn’t completely shut down, he could still love again!

He knew what he had to do. He would run to town and be embraced into the warm bosom of his family once again, the prodigal teuchter would come home. So he ran and ran and then he stopped and wheezed and all of a sudden his chest felt tight. No. Something wrong. Got to get help! His mind worked furiously.

Up ahead was a pink weather-beaten old telephone-box, his last hope. Dragging himself to the phone-box, he
struggled inside, clutching at his chest and dialed 999 – a free call. It was ringing! Sweet Jesus, thank-you!

A dispatcher answered the phone at last. The man’s left arm was in some kind of spasm now.

“What’s your emergency?”

“Tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free” said the man.

“Pardon me sir, I can’t make you out, can you repeat please?”

“Papa don’t preach, I’m in trouble deep” choked the man desperately. This wasn’t right. what was wrong with his voice? Why couldn’t he ask for help?

“Papa don’t preach, I’ve been losin’ sleep!” he cried desperately.

“Sir? sir? Are you all right? What is your location sir?”

“Last night I dreamt of San Pedro. It all seems like yesterday, not far away, La-la-la-la-la-la-laaa, Te dijo te amo!” he screamed, his face wet and contorted with wretched pain, his eyes wild with panic.

“Sir? Are you there sir? Sir!”

But sir wasn’t there. He was going away. It would be a long journey but at the end he would reach a happy warm place, a place where the sun shone on golden limbs and where none of the cushions were made of scratchy Harris Tweed.

I want to be where the sun warms the sky, he whispered softly, barely audible.
When it’s time for siesta you can watch them go by
Beautiful faces, no cares in this world
Where a girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl…

The ambulance found his body an hour later after tracing the telephone box. Only his elderly mother and his drunken brother attended the funeral.

And that’s just one of the manners in which having a Peculiar Way can kill you in a lonely croft-house in Lewis. Sometimes just one Peculiar Way is all it takes.

THE END

Who can tell what sorrows the ghost crofters knew? What secrets? What tortuous lonely silences?

Only one person and her name is Peg, the one-legged woman from Brue. This wasn’t why she was called Peg, but after the accident with the Samurai sword Uncle Uistean brought back from sea, everyone agreed how fortunate it was that she was already called Peg.

Peg! Peg Peg Peg Peg Peg! Where shall I begin with Peg? She was a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an episode of Countdown and if you don’t know what that means then I can’t help you, friend. She was inexplicable like that. You couldn’t explic her with the OED nor any measuring device. She was outwith the bending sickle’s compass of the finest poets’ circumscription. But I can tell you this, her soul was purple and she detested chess.

Ah Peg was the wild one alright. Many’s the night she would hop about the moor in simple garb before stopping in a bit less boggy than the others. Then eyes heav’nward she would spin and spin until the stars appeared to her to be concentric circles etched into the black night and drawing her, pulling her into their centre, an ineluctable force come for her from another time…or perhaps from all times.

Anyway, one time Peg was out on the moor and some pretty mystical shit was going down. She had just returned from her travels to other centuries and concluded that apart from consumer durables, the Lewis of long ago was pretty much the same as the Lewis of today. Same problems with chillblains and broken veins, same worries about getting home from town on Saturday nights. She vowed to blog this information the very next day.

As she lay exhausted on the heather, she closed her eyes and fell into a terrible dream. She awoke screaming and clutching at her scanty puffa jacket. But when she opened her eyes she found she saw exactly the same thing as when she closed them. For hovering before her, pale and shimmering and see-through were 4 mounted crofters, the wool on their steeds shot through with silver sparks and steam issuing from their flared nostrils. The wind whipped up.

Panicked, Peg scrambled back until a gorse bush stopped her. The four ghost crofters advanced on their edgy sheep, which snorted and pawed at the ground. Trembling, she raised her eyes and looked directly at them. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes were blurred and their shirts all soaked with sweat.

“Howdy, a’ghraidh” spoke one, his hollow eyes transfixing Peg until one of the ghost sheep sneezed and broke the spell.

“If you don’t want to end up like us, damned to ride the stormy Hebridean night for ever, then here’s what you must do,” said the second crofter from the right, and, tipping his flat-cap down over his nose, he told her what she must do, but more importantly what she musn’t do because there are always more restrictions than allowances in supernatural affairs.

One by one then, the ghost-crofters told Peg of their sorrows, their secrets, their lonely silences in a realm apart.

Suddenly, across the sky behind the crofters streaked a flock of red-eyed sheep. The ghost-crofters looked meaningfully into Peg’s eyes for a moment, then turned and galloped away after the flock, their hooves thundering across the sky, leaping over hedge-shaped clouds, condemned to herd that devil’s flock for all eternity.

Peg, got up and hopped back into the village. The first child to see her that grey morning told of the astonished look on her mud-smeared face and how her hair had turned pure white.

Her pupils remain dilated to this day and she never spoke again. And friends, I think that’s just as well, don’t you?

Yesterday was my birthday. We were out celebrating on Saturday night with pals and therefore Sunday seemed 50% longer than a normal day, giving me more birthday for my buck. It was a great deal. I was only wretched with pain for the first half of the day, before I started to enjoy myself. I think it was worth it.

I couldn’t get a stuntwoman to perform my action-lying around moaning so I had to do it myself, muttering all the while about the exact location of the point of living in Southern Calfornia if you can’t hire a stunt-person to live out the more unpleasant moments of your life.

So what did I do with the rest of the day? I know you’re dying to know. Well, I dressed myself in a long white,
dress (empire and bias cut for you fashionistas) , put on a wig of long flaxen Eastern European person’s hair and a crown of simple wildflowers, then barefoot, I went for a walk all the way to the bottom of the garden.

I had thought to do a bit of sighing and some light pastoral cocaine but, as I sat, singing the melancholy song of the fair-haired shepherd boy who accidentally got ripped limb from limb by an unexpected combine-harvester as he slept in the meadow one day in the 17th century – before the invention of combine harvesters which was what made it unexpected, and super-melancholy for that – as I sittily sat, I spied an old book in a nearby charming copse of flowers.

Right at that moment the cocaine was beginning to hit and I dearly wished that the chance old book had been a chance ipod shuffle filled with the moving songs of a certain Canadian poet for me to weep happily to. But a book it was, of leather old and bookmark Snoopy. Wonderingly I opened the brittle, yellowed pages and read the following:

This here be the journale of a stronge-jawed, no-nonsense pioneer woman who settled in this place called Ojai in the yeare of Our Lorde 1848.

Astonished, I looked up questioningly at the trees and all the sudden woodland animals that had gathered about me with their large inky eyes, blinking wide and adorably. But they were worse than useless and so I turned the page, trembling and slightly guilty at spying on the most private thoughts of another human being, however long dead she was.

Pages 1 through 171 were mostly to do with gopher-skinning techniques, importunate cow-pokes, why didn’t lofty Mister Wilke love her, and a surprising amount of snapped shoe-lace incidents. I had no idea the progress the shoe-lace industry has made since then and we should all feel mighty grateful for the easy availability of quality shoe-laces we enjoy today.

But on page 172, my reading was arrested suddenly by the ending of the words. The ending ended with the following:

I am dying now, and full of bitter regret. I wish I’d been more flexible, I wish I’d written more, sung more, danced more. I wish I had done it with a cow-poke. But alas, it’s too late for me now. I have the consumption which will later be called TB.

But if someone should stumble this way and read these words, sometime far in the future, long after I am dust and airborne allergens, I have a message. Follow these rules and perhaps your life will be happier than mine:

Pay attention to old Native American wise-ones who tell you in broken English that you will die unhappy and alone unless you lighten up and stop taking the 19th century so seriously.

Don’t say “despise” so much, even if it makes you feel clever.

Treat yourself to a pedicure every few months.

The tail stump of a gopher makes a rich, delicious broth when boiled with one of Mrs. Knorr from down the road’s mixed herbs.

Smoke more of that stuff that grows everywhere around here.

And then there was a longish bit about … and so I die!…yadda yadda.

I was born on a dark Monday in a land where an unknowable ocean tried to seduce a knowable shore with long caresses and whispers. The pretty shore wasn’t brought up that way though and cried foul. The unknowable ocean claimed it was an insane current that had made him do it, that his head had been turned by a spicy, intoxicating loose-hipped trade-wind. A seachiatrist attested to temporary insandity and eventually the charges were dropped.

Ruling aside – we, the guardians of the shore, didn’t much hold with the insandity defence and we still didn’t trust the sea. Soon after that therefore a long pier was constructed so we could keep an eye on the randy unknowable ocean, and on that pier they decided they may as well erect a new shellfish-processing plant because the old one was broken. This was the shellfish-processing plant that would mark my days and haunt my nights forever.

It happened one night on a Brownie camp-out and sausage-sizzle. We set up our tents on the windy marran grass on the machair just beyond the beach. Picture us, dear reader! See us as we sit round the camp-fire singing “Ging Gang Gooli“, and giggling through “O, ye cannie get to heaven in a girl guide’s bra ‘cos a girl guides bra don’t stretch that far“; all, rosy-cheeked and brown-bobble-hatted, woggles askew, faces smeared with ketchup, cinders and roasted marshmallow but our eyes clear and shining, our young hearts filled with wonder at the stars above and the excitement of a great adventure.

Lying in our tents later that night, transfixing daddy-long-legses with torchlight on the canvas, we laughed and shrieked at Anna’s impressive farts -better than any boy’s – until one by one everyone drifted off to Nod but me. Not nearly ready to sleep, I grabbed my torch and stole out of the tent, hopping in my sleeping-bag over the black dunes and down to the dark shore.

I heard the sea lapping at the beach and sat on the still-warm sand, hugging my knees, thrilling at how the dark brought the world back to sounds and senses and primal things. Brown Owl had told us not to leave our tents and, with a shadow crossing her face, had warned us on no account to wander out near the shellfish processing plant. I remembered her kindly face and thought of how disappointed she would be at my disobedience. But I was determined to see for myself what went on at the end of the pier. I rose and hopped ridiculously up a dune and on to the wooden pier. What work did the processors do in the middle of the night out there? I hopped on.

Creak, complained the wooden boards under my bouncing sleeping-bag. As I approached the building, I could hear voices inside, and made my way towards a window with a lobster pot underneath the sill. Several valiant hop attempts later I was up on the lobster pot and looking right into a long, starkly lit room with great steel tables, at the end of which were massive sinks filled with ice. About half a dozen people stood around in yellow wellies with white smocks and shower caps on, and great yellow rubber gloves that made their hands look grotesquely big and clowny.

Suddenly, the doors at the sea-end of the building were flung open and some men wheeled in a huge metal cart. All conversation stopped. I watched as each processor reached down into his or her smock pocket and draw out a long sharp knive, cruelly curved at the end into a hook, the whole blade like the unspeakable smirk of some devilish slasher-movie fiend. There was a moment of silence as the cart tipped and then a clattering as hungreds and hundreds of pale clams were tipped into the first ice-sink.

And that was when the screaming began. The screaming of molluscs as all hope for them faded. Mummy molluscs, Daddy molluscs and baby molluscs huddling together in terror Knowing that this was the end of their lives. I saw the processor at the first table grab a clam.

The screaming grew louder. I watched in horror as the evil hooked knife glinted in the processor’s hand and he pried the helpless clam’s shell open. Rooted to my lobster-pot I gazed at the pale and shining being inside and time slowed down as I watched the man bring his knife nearer and nearer the tiny animal. Then, for the briefest of moments I saw a tiny mouth open and two tiny red-rimmed eyes flick wide open as the most hideous, heart-breaking wail I have ever heard hit my ears… The screaming….The screaming…

Recoiling in horror I jerked suddenly and my lobster pot toppled sending me sprawling on the damp boardwalk beneath. The screaming!…The screaming!… In a half-seeing panic I tried to get up and hopped a few feet before falling on my face again, gashing my cheek on the rough wood. I had to get away! I lurched and one part hopped to two parts waddled my way back to the shore, my eyes hot and wet with what they’d witnessed and in my ears the terrible screaming, the abominable squelch as the knife sliced through living tissue.

By the time I reached the end of the pier and hurled myself down the dune, I was bleeding and snot-smeared with fear and grief. I vomited then, and every hole in my head seemed at that moment to be leaking me out, leaking out something vital, something I’d never get back. Too afraid to go back to my tent and risk my heaving sobs being heard, I flung myself down on the beach and, pulling my wooly brownie hat down over my ears, I pressed the palms my hands as hard as I could into them. I must have lain like that for an hour or more until, finally exhausted, I fell asleep.

The light was grey when I awoke, bruised from my many falls on the pier, my cheek sticky with blood and my face covered in sand. But what I remember most of all was the stillness of the air that cold morning. And the silence, the silence of the clams…

The waves lapping gently around the bottom of my sleeping bag seemed to rebuke me and all people. Who raped who? they seemed to whisper, solemnly disregarding grammatical concerns. Who raped who?

“Oh, shut up!” I said, but to this day I have never again eaten pork.

Hello. PCB has allowed me the use of her blog to promote my upcoming exhibition of esoteric performance art. Besides being called Betsy and being a convicted murderer, I am also a celebrated conceptual artist whose work so impressed my prison art-teacher that I became a cause-celebre of the rehabilitation movement and we all decided it was best that I be released immediately so I wouldn’t “have to sing the song of a caged bird” anymore. (“Art Transcends Crime!“, Ventura County Post, April 14th 2007).

My prison art teacher first took a shine to my work when I constructed a model of a kid-goat in acrylics and cheese, and had Tormella, a 200lb paranoid schizophrenic doing a lifer for eating her neighbour until he was dead, sit on it and knit , sneezing in time to a monk singing the Te Deum with an R&B beat. I was in a funny mood that day, I guess, but mainly I did it because it was all I could think of to make Tormella’s day a little brighter. She’d told me the night before what might help.

So in a manner of speaking they should have released Tormella and not me. She had halitosis though and couldn’t be relied upon not to slay people so I guess it’s better it was me. Tormella has no hard feelings in any case. She likes the straight lines in prison, and I visit her often.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those “I didn’t do it! I’m innocent!” types. I did it all right. I slew that goddam perky perfume-skoocher woman, I slew her good. I wasn’t sure when I stabbed her in the eye with the pointy end of the sample lipstick that she would die. I thought she might just get a festering infection from the clearly herpes-simplistic teen who had just tried it on her pustulent lips. (Plum Dream – it didn’t suit her.)

However, I was fairly certain that, if I grabbed the floral “Bathing Belle” shower-cap from its designer stand, pulled it over her head and held her from behind til she suffocated, she would die. So I did, perfume stinging my eyes and nasothelium and in my head, a thousand tormented shoppers voices urging me on: “Kill her! Kill her!”

Don’t tell me you’ve never half-run the skooching gauntlet of some department store perfume-counters and not dreamed of doing the very same thing. I did it, that’s all. I did it and I deserved to go to prison.

It turns out it doesn’t matter though. As long as a group of artists thinks you have “a raw, almost unspeakably profane talent”, especially in the State of California, capital murder or not, you will more than likely be released.

Hey look, don’t blame me! I was pretty embarrassed about it all and felt more than a bit sorry for the weeping family of my victim as they protested my release outside the prison. The black-clad artists I was flanked by though, coolly regarded the robbed loved ones’ elasticated waistbands and unsightly skin conditions as we passed within worlds’-apart-feet of them, and declared their horror at the perfume-lady’s mother who was feeding her squawling infant Cheetos and sobbing pitifully as I got into the limo that was waiting for me.

“It’s appalling people are still wearing J.C. Penney knits, look, Raphael. There are just some people style can’t save. They make life so ugly. If you ask me, they should be in prison, not our marvellous, gifted Betsy. I’m sure I smelled sweat and desperation as we passed them. So uncool. God, just get me out of here, would you? Oh shit, Raph! Is unattractiveness airborne?”

Since then, when I’m not touring the world as an example of tortured criminal genius, I have been installed in an artist’s studio in Ojai. I want for nothing. Except maybe for the phone to stop ringing and Gerard, Amoanda, Carter, Sergei and Umanghi to get the hell out of my sitting room with their vitamin water, MoMA gossip and fear of neck-sagging.

I swear there are days I wish I was back in the big-house. My cell-mate Shanice may have cut the ears off her own mother-in-law and pinned them comically to a Wendy’s burger sign (then refused the clemency-for-repentance deal that even the mother-in-law’s attorney (having met the mother-in-law) wanted her to take), but at least she made me smile.

On the outside, my first proper exhibition was declared “a sensation”, “profound and provocative” and “indicative of a bold swing in contemporary art away from dead pickled things”. It included a live sheep I’d originally sheared for the interesting texture of its wool which I’d planned to incorporate into a hair-collage entitled “Lorry In Blue #6″. But Umanghi rushed in one day as I was applying Germolene and little bits of tissue to the parts of the sheep’s skin I’d nicked with the shears. She gave a little scream, told me I was a genius and clearly thought the sheep was the art, so I added a shower-cap (now my signature) and a tube of Immac to the sheep-tissue-shower-cap ensemble, threw in a crucifix and called it “Ouch”. Elton John bought it for 12 million dollars.

I started to despise art that very day. This therefore will be my second and final exhibition – by way of saying thank you to Gerard and the gang for my freedom and that.

It is a performance piece and I explain it thus: The artist (me) walks into jail and enquires as to the whereabouts of all inmates imprisoned either for possession of marijuana or crimes against hot-climate beret-wearers. The artist then locates and releases them. They leave in shower caps, dripping in ironic mustard.

Governor Schwartzenegger is all for it, describing it as “an astonishingly thought-provoking piece, unique in its unprecedented overturning of court convictions”, but more importantly granting the released detainees free-passage out and a full pardon. I suspect Maria is behind it. She’s very arty.

After that, I plan on moving to the Outer Hebrides where there are no scooching perfume-counter ladies to incite
me back to violence, and the wind is too strong for LA art-lovers to risk their pale cheeks getting rosy, their pale thighs getting tinker’s tartan.

The exhibition opens tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Problem Child 2 came to me this morning with the tattered cover of a Mr. Men book, all the pages missing.

“Mummy,” she said, “I loved this book too much.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. The cover’s not much use by itself,” I said, and we threw it in the bin.

We talked for a minute about how, while it’s true that old and tattered things get that way because someone loves and uses them so much, we also need to be gentle with things we know will come apart easily so they will last as long as possible.

“That’s why we had to be quiet visiting Grandma Edna before she died,” said Problem Child 1.

“Umph…yes,” I said, because she was sort of right.

Look what I got from The Rising Blogger! Last week was plain awful as Orphan Annie sort of said to Daddy Warbucks so I am well chuffed to get this. Seriously guys, cheers!

I don?t win nuffink so I?m going to take full advantage of this opportunity to show off and pretend I?m a big-shot. I?ll start by curling my eyelashes. And then perhaps I?ll behave imperiously to the cat. Everybody else is out, dammit. Where are people when you want to act like a high mucky-muck?

None of us can have missed this.

More then 22,000 people have died as a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (still formally recognised as Burma in the US). Incomprehensible tragedy. 41,000 are missing and an estimated 1 million are homeless.

Buddhist nuns and monks have been spearheading the rescue efforts and trying to clear roadways to villages with little more than axes. The notoriously secretive military junta (the same people who have had pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest for 12 of the last 18 years) has been slow to ask for international help, even as its people die. The generals have now agreed to admit international disaster teams but the UN humanitarian team are still waiting for them to issue their visas.

The junta is in a sticky situation. It maintains a strict control over outside influence and Myanmar is, to all intents and purposes, a closed country. (Its fatality numbers are still unknown after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.) Allowing aid workers in risks the world seeing in, and also Myanmar’s people beginning to see out. Also, aid workers would be seen by the people to be the rescuers rather than the junta. However, failure to let people in would result in both internal and massive external condemnation, possible national revolt and closer international scrutiny than Myanmar’s generals would like.

This is a poor country whose leaders are more invested in their own power than in the welfare of the people. Its own resources and communications are severely lacking and international aid is therefore the only hope the Burmese people have.

Here’s a way to help. You’ve probably come across lots of portals to donation sites for this cyclone already but I figured one more couldn’t hurt. Who knows, probably a portion of donations doesn’t actually reach victims and goes on advertising and admin instead – maybe even an unacceptably large portion – but a fraction’s better than nothing and all the charities represented here are very visible in the field and well-known.

I’ve been interested in Aung San Suu Kyi, an amazing woman, for a while and consequently have learnt a wee bit about Burma. The country is woefully unprepared for a disaster of this sort anyway but to make it worse, the military junta didn’t even bother to tell the people a cyclone was on its way, people who are denied access to any information from the outside world. This is a natural disaster but it could easily be compounded by human evil, inertia and covert politics if help isn’t immediate and substantial. If people can at least be given vaccinations soon it might halt the spread of the diseases that can kill as many again after these things. It’ll become overtly political again soon enough but, in the meantime, lives could be saved. The numbers are already beyond all understanding.

Police Blotter for the town of Ojai, week-ending May 2nd 2008.

A Thomas Avenue woman was arrested Sunday for failing to make a little birdhouse in her soul when she rammed her car into another vehicle for allegedly “nipping into” her parking spot.

In a rash of related incidents:

A Richard Street man was arrested for making a little bird-house in his soul using mdf instead of sustainably-grown timber.

And a Harry Blvd man was taken into custody for purchasing the Chinese little birdhouse in his soul from Wal-Mart.

In other crime:

A Moe Crescent man was arrested on suspicion of possession of a hazardous processed meat product (sausage).

A Larry Lane woman was detained for questioning regarding possible breach of a local ordinance reqiring citizens to wear at least one article of hemp clothing. After revealing that her underwear was organic cotton tie-die she was given a warning and released to her family who are said to have been worried about their loved one’s rebellion and her “experimenting” with Dockers and GAP clothing.

A Curly Avenue youth was detained on suspicion of not singing along at a candle-lit Crosby, Stills & Nash tribute concert. Witnesses seated near him in the crowd said the suspect appeared to be “only mouthing the words” and that he’d yawned two times during “Our House.”