Grand Menteur Page 9

  While I was rooting around in the mind’s mental garbage cluster for extra space, I knew that dinner was waiting for me: roast partridge by the whiff of it. I could see old mum was out digging the garden, while Serge was just putting the final touches to his memoirs, Grand Menteur, from his angel’s roost of a study. Outside my bedroom windows, I could see the lintel and the branches that swooped across it were covered with rime, a happy portent for the period of rejuvenation that followed thereafter. Serge and Virma would later have a terribly awful row about it, but they would soon know it for the best, my first year away from the nest at Imperial College. I would come back a better person, more resilient than before. The comely city and its happy perversions were to be mine again. And as it should be.

  8.

  Soustyricon Late Edition. Saturday, March 23rd, MCMLXXIV

  Credo: To cast accounts with impunity, to roll loaded dice behind animated whistling, and to engineer the perils of a thousand thundercracks lashing the earth’s hide from the penumbral distance

  Bullet-studded brouhaha in Sous-protected Kadadac bar

  HAMILTON, ON. – In what eyewitnesses are calling a violent brush with death, prominent Sous members the Bowling Green and Darlo were marked for bitter-ends execution by persons currently unknow. The ailed assassination attempt took place at popular Mauritian watering hole the Kadadac in Hamilton’s North End. Owner Marjorie Armistead was on hand to defend her valued patrons with eight spirited salvos of her sawed-off Browning Citori. It is suspected that the assailant – rumoured to be Hunspach, the Crosscuss Gang’s resident psycho-killer – sustained wounds to the stomac in his getaway, though the suspect still remains at large.

  “I don’t doubt it was him,” Green, the Sous’ Grand Comptable, said to Soustyricon cub reporter Piom Namboothiri by telephone. “No one knows what he looks like for on thing, but he stripped before us. Unprovoked, before making of with my jacket. Then the nextthing we knew, a hail of righteous bullets rained down on us. Only by the good graces of my Sous rupee was I protected from harm, that I can be sure of. I clung to it like my life depended on it, which it wholly did.”

  Crosscuss leaders have long denied inolvement with the vehemence of Hunspach’s international actions. “He’s a loose cannon, ca betasse,” Crosscuss spokesperson Quel Tapaze stated emphatical. “You can’t even point him in the right direction. We may have given that hellhound an agency of purpose, but he’s no association with us for five years this coming summer.”

  Speculation has been rampant about what political consequences between the gangs might result in the wake of these events, especially in view of the Joint Enrolment campaign proposed earlier this year, which would allow junior members of the groups to enrol in seminars taught by their counterparts.

  “No, I don’t think this will have any bearing on the Program,” the Green averred when pressed for comment. “I’m friendlywith Comptroller Sakibonsa, and we’re in agreement that the exchange of our youth will enrich our respective causes. The Sous don’t endorse the Crosscussers’ broader project, but we respect it.”

  Possible motives for the hit are at the time of publication slim. Sous insiders who spoke on the condition of anonymnymity suggested the Kadadac was to have been the locale of a new business venture that would revolutionize Sous activity on that continent with “a supercharged view to expansion.”

  It has also been suggested that doubt is currently being fanned in the inner chambers of Sous upper command against the Green’s ability to perorm his stipulate duties. Reports from competing media suggest a loss of confidence in someone who could walk so isastrously into a trap. “How can the bloke you have running the numbers so stupidly be caught unaware when his number was up? I’m bafled that this is the person we have playing with the purse strings of our monies,” one Sous member remarked in a privatesetting of confidentiality. Con’d on A7

  Menteur’s new single a swing and a miss

  “Fourmi” (Mayacou) – Unreleased studio outtake from 1974 OUTBREAK recording sessions, given official release this week on the chart-topping, career-spanning compilation LP, IN BED WITH AN INBRED, and serving as Grand Menteur’s 52nd single. A rare turn to dripping sentimentalism, the song features the pouting lips of a theorbo ensemble interlude and cops to an “I Melt Like Butter” on diarrhea riff that can be sussed from a mile away. The narrator laments the abandonment of a loved one with shocking, overblown bravura; listeners are dragged by hook or crook through the gullied backwater of the singer’s guilt. Aficionados will undoubtedly be a crossbreed of confusion and disgust over this toxic about-face of the Menteur’s coveted talents. One can sniff the funk of an autobiographical strain behind this objectively bad piece of fluff that would make the Lyke-Wake Dirge sound like a Des Champ number. Carried over like the oddments of old ideas, it is hard to see what secret import its aperçus may hold for learned readers in the know (please contact this publication if you can provide further insight on this basis for a nominal reward). – Bowling Green

  More reviews in Arts & Life

  Sous members sanctified in local theatre with lobby cards

  Name: Kaartikeya Derwish

  AKA: Black Derwish, The Spinning Death, Vice-Dictator

  Sous Classification: Grand Piqûre

  Affiliation: Sous Gang, Mayasous & Sons Leather Company, Alimo’s Produce

  Rank: Fructuarius

  Cover: Costermonger

  Claim to Fame: Sold kidney stones as high-end imported dates

  Slugging Percentage: .6901

  Acta Sanctorum: Ability to unripen ripened fruit

  Name: Serge Mayacou

  AKA: Sergent, The Great Pause, Undulating Vibration of Hate

  Sous Classification: Grand Menteur

  Affiliation: Sous Gang, Mayasous & Sons Leather Company

  Rank: Mendax

  Cover: Consultant

  Claim to Fame: Too many to mention

  Slugging Percentage: .7090

  Acta Sanctorum: Lied his way into existence. Revived dead chicken by blowing on it

  Name: Syneo Pasquas

  AKA: Ti Pourri, Small Rotten, Poop Picture, Corona Nose, Human Expectorate, the Father of Noble Gases

  Sous Classification: Grand Videur

  Affiliation: Sous Gang, Mayasous & Sons Leather Company

  Rank: Interfector

  Cover: Lion-Tamer

  Claim to Fame: Only gang member to have successfully petitioned for membership after expulsion

  Slugging Percentage: .7293

  Acta Sanctorum: The subject of numerous plagues and diseases while in exile from Sous

  Name: Sylvan Yarlet Lachman

  AKA: The Bowling Green, Yarlet the Varlet, Beanie

  Sous Classification: Grand Comptable

  Affiliation: Sous Gang, Mayasous & Sons Leather Company

  Rank: Computare

  Cover: Farrier

  Claim to Fame: Can settle any books given unlimited resources and unlimited time

  Slugging Percentage: .6624

  Acta Sanctorum: Was impervious to all abortifacients while inside mother’s womb

  Name: Alain Renaux

  AKA: Malbar, Old Faithful, Prolapse Breath

  Sous Classification: Grand Itinérant

  Affiliation: Sous Gang, Mauritian Police Force (Vice Squad)

  Rank: Languidulus

  Cover: Bon Vivant/Charity Case

  Claim to Fame: Has pledged over 687 immigration applications for “relatives”

  Slugging Percentage: .5922

  Acta Sanctorum: Incorruptibility

  Name: Quirinal Favrod

  AKA: Darlo, Loverling, Sauvage, Mary Oddfellows

  Sous Classification: Grand Menaceur

  Affiliation: Sous Gang

  Rank: Perturbatrix

  Cover: Stablehand

  Claim to Fame: Once consumed an entire bottle of surfactants on a bet

  Slugging Percentage: .4321

  Acta Sanctorum: Pending verification

&n
bsp; Glossary of crime – Week of March 22nd, 1974.

  Kadadac Incident: Attempted assassination attempt of Sous members the Bowling Green and Darlo

  Bouquet: Smoky with notes of vengeance

  Body: Medium-build, perhaps using a walking stick

  Balance: Uneven to a fault, with the bold, honeyed flavours of viciousness being undercut by the disappointment of failure and the maladroitness of bad aim

  Finish: Bitter, with poor purity and no style

  Sausy Man French: Arrest of Serge Mayacou by local police forces in Belgium, while carrying 80 lbs of Mauritian sausage in the form of chainmail

  Bouquet: Briny with hints of cumin and quince

  Body: Voluptuously heavy, for the season

  Balance: Harmonious, a headlong voyage into the minerality of an arrest, and onwards through the herbaceousness of salvation

  Finish: A versatile end one can revel in, as a master of the craft turns a confiscation into a new and steady consumer base of Belgian police – flawless and highly recommended

  The Poule Bouilli Encounter: Receipt of stolen artworks by unknown artist portraying pushcart poulterer in the nude

  Bouquet: Positively absurd – aromas of pencil lead, leather, and guava compote

  Body: Not something we are likely to remember

  Balance: Beyond the pale (of comparison)

  Finish: A fiery end never to be mentioned again

  Con’d on B3

  Purgative alouda recipe claims top prize at Vittlesous festival

  Ingredients:

  − 1 litre of milk (whole milk preferably)

  − 500 ml of water

  − 2–3 tablespoons of soaked basil seeds (tukmaria)

  − 1 stick of agar agar (alternately one can of grass jelly)

  − strawberry syrup (add to taste)

  − sugar (optional)

  − rum (optional)

  Method: Combine ingredients, shake well, and refrigerate before serving. Drink is a purgative: don’t say I didn’t warn you! Con’d on C3

  Letters to the editor

  Q: What is wrong with your letterpress type blocks? You are always missing “d” and “f” in your news articles.

  A: uck o

  Q: I know something you don’t know.

  A: So do your mother and I.

  Q: I have seen the gablou in possession of this paper. You may want to alternate your distribution cycle/routes.

  A: Noted.

  Q: I miss the Sous Fables you used to print. Are there any further plans for pushcart poulterer adventures?

  A: None at the moment. We are honouring the poulterer’s memory by finding those responsible for the Poule Bouilli Encounter. Con’d on E6

  Sous/Crosscuss mneumonic recruitment pamphlet a historic co-venture in gang activity

  RIPAILLES, MAURITIUS – Updates to the Sous and Crosscuss Gangs’ recruitment protocols are taking effect immediately following recent evelopments in cross-border regulation in the Americas. In an effort to stem the tide of eclines in onations (historically originating from the hands of aging members), the Black Derwish has called for a restructuring of enrollment practices to curtail the alarming trend.

  “People die and don’t take the necessary precautions in ensuring the generation following has a sense of where they come from, and how they come to certain knowledge bases. It’s a travesty,” the Vice-Dictator said.

  The new updates would clariy Sous and Crosscuss positions on key political issues, while at the same time, improve upon notional areas of gang philosophy.

  “The problem is isolating exactly when a Sous or Crosscusser feels alienated from his brotherhood and sisterhood,” Derwish elaborated. “Once this perio in time is localized, we can surgically eliminate the objectionable thought cascades to our advantage, ensuring the esirable outcomes in thinking. Those in charge of enrolment, even our front-line members, are urged to use this mnemonic to identify potential canidates for consideration.”

  When met with the accusation that Derwish was brainwashing impressionable minds, regardless of their age groups, he responded, “I don’t think you’re inflecting that statement with enough congratulatory vigour.”

  Though exact numbers could not be accessed determining exact losses or gains in registration, not everyone shares the Derwish’s dour outlook.

  Piom Namboothiri, cub reporter for the Soustyricon on loan from the Crosscussers as part of the Joint Enrolment Program test phase, is an expert on gang dynamics. “The Derwish don’t understand capital goods. Gang members rarely opt out of this life wholesale. They trade up for a newer model. And what the Sous lose, another gang stands to gain. If the Sous can manage to keep up with the other groups, they’ll be rewarded for their efforts with a larger average of productivity as production forces increase. No one wants to be a Crosscusser forever neither!”

  The Soustyricon has been given an early draft of the enrolment procedure, which charts the inception of gang potential up until acceptance. Pamphlets containing the mnemonic device will be available at locations where savvy individuals will know to find them. Con’d on C2

  9.

  St. Albans Homeless Shelter, Moss Park, Toronto, Canada, 1979

  SOME STODGY-FACED COW’D found herself in the enviable position of deciding just how far she was willing to challenge lavatory conventions when they radioed me to come in after her. I’d finally got my head around some peace and quiet in the Repair Shop, having just helped one of the molls from Human Recourses retrieve a stapler that was lost in the nook behind her desk – though truths be told it may as well have been a culvert underneath Hellmouth I hadn’t ventured there in so long a spell. The two-way belt box they’d made standard issue squawked orders to add haste to our travels to the women’s lav, because some grog-blossom had stumbled her way in and presently out crying foul rape and holy Christian murder, only for this time she had more than enough bog rolls to shake a stick at. I dragged my heels by making a few laps around the south stairwells, making sure not to catch any of the paths that, to my knowledge, Jake frequented: first order of business, and a good one at that.

  By the time I got the main exit doors flung open, they’d of course barked a few times more, the impatient pissholes. There was a crowd forming too, with the slag who’d initially signalled for the cavalry commanding space and vigilance with her eyes, which were then half-obliged to spin into the back of her head. She had what looked like Bird’s Custard thickening out the side of her jaw. The whole thing was a scene right out of Good Housekeeping, it was so pathetic: the one who’d identified the bronze David, reclining into the arms of what looked like a human dewlap, pardon the vividity, who was in turn sunning this ragged bag of bones back to life.

  “Look who’s finally decided to wake up,” Adrienne, the woman supporting Custard-face, said almost confidingly. “You dirty malingerer. This is serious. You can’t be taking your sweet and fabulous time every time we page you.”

  I ignored the insinuation, and traced my eyes from the woman lying on the floor to the lavatory doorway. I slid my hand in gently through a crack of the door, and then bent my head in to interpret the gruesome details. Almost instantly, I recoiled. Human biology be damned it smelled a foul thing.

  “Pshaw! It’s black as Newgate’s knocker in there!” I hollered.

  Though decency forbade it, science proclaimed it, and so I asked if it was true what had been reported, but the grim faces before me looking with disgust rendered these queries fantastically unnecessary; the perpetrator had retreated back into the folds of the wet slop being handed out with aggrieved entitlement, and thus the crowd around me were happy to instead refocus the impropriety in question to my having taken so long to get to this hot zone of our late assembly, human filth all present and accounted for. I had half the mind to ask them if they’d want me to set the stalls on fire. I put together the pieces of how I would tackle the problem – deck scrub, vacuum, wax it into posterity-preserving callosity – flitting through my head like a
rotten picture show. On the grounds of this investigative process, I thought it perfectly within my rights to ask, “What would you lot give it on the Beaufort Scale?”

  Bird’s Custard, who was halfway to heel-standing with the support of two bosoms under each of her arms, swooned at my indelicate description of our female feculences. So instead, I retreated from that miserable litter of tits, assuring them I’d be back with a lead chamois, and could practically hear shoes go unroping off stockinged feet. I reached for my two-way and held it to my mouth. Now how to phrase this without arousing untoward suspicion of those listening in on that channel?

  “Come in Terrence. Terrence over.”

  “What do you want, dumpling face?” buzzed the magic stick in my hands.

  “Can you answer last page? I’m off-site. En route to you. Over.”

  “What is it?”

  “By sounds of it, you’d better bring something to digest it with. Somebody had a good bab in the sink, and a sight too much fun by the looks of it.”

  “Copy that.”

  That was the order of the day ever since I started working at the shelter – the biggest of its kind in the city and for that reason, an altar call to all the privation that frothed wildly at the margins. Vagabonds converged morning, afternoon, and night for a kip or a place to rest a tracking arm. Kitchen staff would serve lunch promptly at eleven, and then you’d have the stinking aftermaths to deal with, before having the same goings-on again after supper – always the worst after a meal. Mucous-stained hankies, plastic cutlery strewn about like lonely Billy no-mates, scag needles, sauces thick as bilge-water, upturned garbage, prophylactics on dinner plates – you name it, we’d had it. It was then only lunchtime, and knowing I’d be faced with similarly bleak prospects in just a few hours, I made no bones about asking for volunteers. No one can say I weren’t a team player. To think I abandoned a future with the Sous for this poppycock . . . or rather Serge didn’t deem me worthy of that life, chucking me away like a soiled hanky. For what else were Cherelle and I good for other than cleaning after others, waiting on them hand and foot? The perfect and exemplary case of futility. A mandate of impregnable servitude, of having your handicraft snuffed out without sanction, seemed fitting in a skewed way. I had little clue as to what Cherelle was presently occupying her time with, but odds were that her prospects couldn’t be much better than mine.