#171

When I came around IT was the first thing I felt, an erection throbbing away which had taken up from Lord knows where. I remember gripping it through my trousers like a child, then seeing the Garbo Tranny shudder then turn, lower his head and cover his eyes as though he were saluting. As my senses returned more and my vision widened out, what seemed to be the entire street was gathered around, leaning in and peering down upon me. I let my head roll back and for a moment just lay there like that, staring straight on up, as a lonely cloud inched across a pale sky.

Little Dick Tracy's face pushed in over mine came like an eclipse. It blocked out the light and made the world look weird. He looked at me, screwed up his eyes and then slid his vision across and down to my crotch. Devilish ideas flared up in his face and his lips straightened out into a perverse leer. For a moment his badge melted away and he too was privy to some other fantasy world. Then he physically shook all sexual vice free from his shabby suit and said: "Mr Spencer, it seems that once again you have shamelessly fallen into the investigative mix. Strange, wouldn't you say? Indeed, queer as bent black arseholes!"

I didn't reply. My mind was on my hard-on, which was pointing just off north, over my shoulder towards the window boxes. And then I remembered just why we were here in the first place, and then it were my bowels  I was desperately trying to control.

*

My last memory before Bartholemew's knuckle sandwich is a vague sequence of events which seemed to unfold in a nightmarish way. It was like I could see it first, dreaded it happening so, and then watched on helplessly as it did. Marlowe bark. The slow reactions as the crowd turned. Their expressions as they realised what it may mean. The Garbo Tranny's cigarette holder leading a striding pack of Neighbourhood Watch enthusiasts down the road. Little Dick rushing past down the pavement side, his two Goons in hot pursuit, whipping their pencils out on the run. Me, almost last to react, only Mr Bartholemew pursuing out of breath behind me. Street doors opening with each footstep - the lesser neighbours then drifting out and making their way down too. Even the old biddy with the piss coloured surgical stocking was out, pushing hard on her walking frame in an effort to get to Marlowe sat obediently outside No.42. Then Little Dick was on the scene, on his knees pointing a finger at Marlowe and giving him clear instructions. That's when Bartholemew clocked it was my gate his hound was sat outside and screamed: "It's a false alarm!!! It's that fucking pasty-faced Spencer feeding my dog cheap cuts of gristle again. I've bloody warned him about that!" Then I was spun around and the last things I saw were four fat knuckles closing in and then a scuffed, flat-soled orthopaedic shoe and then nothing.

The memory flashed by. But Marlowe? The gate? The window boxes? My freedom? What had happened? I turned my head slightly, just enough to see the front yard gate was still closed and the window boxes were intact. Little Dick was still stood over me and off behind him was Bartholemew, gripping Marlowe by the collar and Little Dick's two Goons taking notes.
  "He claims you're trying to poison his dog," said Little Dick, "that you've been purposely leaving it out rotten meat in your yard."
When he said that I thought of John. A hard, faraway image of him in some happy place we used to be. Tears welled and rolled and dripped onto the grey tarmac. "Kill the dog?" I sobbed "But I love that dog, why on earth would I kill it?"
  "I don't know," replied the Inspector, and in a rare moment of humanity he added, "just sometimes it works like that... Sometimes love brings out the worst in people." That made me think of John again, poor beautiful John, his Elvis Costello type glasses now bent and broken and stashed in a very dark place. And then my tears streamed harder and faster. My eyes were not large enough to let them all out and so they backed up and collected and settled in for the night - a night I knew would  last forever.