Venerdì, 02 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 21:47

I saw her there. Lying there. Her skirt around her bottom as if it had scrunched up to allow some fresh air in. Lord knows she probably needed some. Her hair was so askew she looked like a before picture in a shampoo advertisement.

How did she get here? I looked around. There was the back door to the dancing ballroom where she often went at night. Obviously I recognised her immediately.

It was Silvia. My Manager at the Dance Factory. I doubt she would have any clue of who I was. She was asleep. Even in this state, she still looked absolutely beautiful to me. She was an angel. She coughed loudly and a large gobule of sputum spat out of her mouth and landed on my knee.

Oh well, never mind. It was Saturday and it was the day I did the washing.

I picked Silvia up in my arms and carried her the short distance to my apartment around the corner. I lay her on my bed and watched as she slept like a ...

I was going to say baby, but here was a womean who smelt like she had finished drinking a brewery. She farted loudly and long.

Her eyes slowly opened. The record player in the next apartemnt started playing "Underneath it all" by No Doubt.

Suddenly, the sun rushed in through the windows and lit up the place. Her eyes looked up at me with such a sharp innocence that I felt them slice away at my chest. I still carry the scars.

Her hand reached out as she started to sing:

There's times where I want something more
Someone more like me
There's times when this dress rehearsal
Seems incomplete
But, you see the colors in me like no one else
And behind your dark glasses you're...
You're something else

I wasn't even wearing dark glasses, but I knew exactly what she was saying. Her face lit up in the soft light of the morning. All her wrinkles from lack of sleep, all her smudged make up seemed to right itself. She glowed.

I added to the song:

You've used up all your coupons
And all you've got left is me
And somehow I'm full of forgiveness
I guess it's meant to be

She smiled at me and my heart melted. I knew then that we were meant to be, that I could see a part of Silvia that no one else had ever found.

My name is Lionel Gerkin and I once loved a girl called Silvia rose. this Silvia Rose, not the one you may hear about now and then.

You're really lovely
Underneath it all
You want to love me
Underneath it all
I'm really lucky
Underneath it all
You're really lovely

Domenica, 04 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 18:07

Silvia tried her best to change, to mellow. I felt I was a calming influence to her personality. I tried to provide a foundation, to be the rock she needed to help her feel grounded and safe.

We'd see each other in the hallway at the Dance factory. No one yet knew about our relationship. She would smile at me.

That smile seemed to light up the whole facotry. Suddenly it shed its drab appearance. It's corrugated walls shone like stainless steel. The concrete floor felt like carpet under foot. The swallows that often got inside via cracks turned into nightingales and sung a quiet harmony.

We would sometimes sneak into the broom closet and have sex. Her skin glowed white. It was smooth and it had a fragrance that was of grassy medows and warbling streams.

I would often be lost in the thought of that moment for the rest of the day.

"Hey, Lionel, come over here and give us a hand. You look like you've got your head stuck up your arse."

"Oh, no, that's silly," I would laugh coyly. "It may be a broom, but it's not my head." My co-workers never really understood what I meant. Did I really care?

Silvia seemed to enjoy this new life of hers. We stayed together at night. We held hands and watched television. We'd talk.

She bought some new cardigans. She talked of her ambition at work and about children. She wanted children.

As our first anniversary started to approach, I noticed some odd things.

At work, I knew when she was approaching as she started to wear her tap shoes around the office. That tap, tap, tap pounded in my ears everytime she walked past.

Underneath her long dresses, she took to wearing fishnet stockings. The ones she loved wearing when she would go dancing.

I could feel them in the dark of the broom closet. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. She began to come home later and later, claiming that work was getting busier and busier.

I bought her a couple more cardigans, I went out and puchased a wardrobe full of Laura Ashley in the hope that it would have the same effect as a nicotine patch for a smoker, the same as methodone for a drug addict.

I cooked, I cleaned, I bought her trinkets of devotion. Mountains of pearls, I lay diamonds at her feet. I was hoping that it would cure her of her desire.

But what I never accounted for was that it was all ingrained in her personality. Like an alcoholic that burns for a drink, she burned to dance.

She longed to hear the music. To be lost in it. To allow it to transport her to another world, far away. To carry every molecule in her tiny, frail frame to a land where freedom is not merely a word but an expression that's shouted in every note of the rhumba.

I tried to keep her with me. Maybe my aim was to hold her down. I never knew how long it would last.

I was the most excited man in the world when I heard that Silvia Rose was pregnant.

Martedì, 06 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Marie Sven Gerkin at 10:21

My life is like a hole filled with noise and sound
Always stress and tension heartache and frown
Never quiet and silence
Never no more
The hole keeps going on never to an end
Never to a bright spot and never to a friend

The hole keeps getting deeper
With twisting and turns
Trying to find a purpose, trying to find the cause
The cause is why it all began, it's why I'm here today
When I find the cause the bottom's very near

Mercoledì, 07 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 21:58

It didn't change overnight. These things rarely do.

But gradually I could see she was moving away. As I lay there in the dark I could smell the alcohol on her breath. It was that distinctive, acrid smell that cuts through your nostrils like a machete through jelly.

And then there was the faint smell of sweat over her body. A smell I sometimes didn't recognise.

What did she see in me? What had she ever seen in me?

It was a question I asked myself over and over again.

My answer? I was what she thought she wanted.

I was straight, normal, reliable, conformist, stable, as predictable as the Swiss watch on my wrist.

I was everything she couldn't be. Not in a million years. As unwanted as yesterday's underpants.

Giovedì, 08 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Uncle Jozef at 22:14

It was amazing. I could see it breaking up in front of me. Oh, dear, I thought...

What was it that I thought? ... Oh, yes, if I was to tell you how I knew it was not what was said, it was everything that wasn't said. There was:

no please

no sorry

no excuse me

no we

no I love you

no I love you too.

They were together because they believed the words to that song ... oh, for heaven's sake what is it called?

Wait, just let me find the tune on my pianoacordian.

It goes ... it goes ... "I ... I know ... I know a place ... I ... :

I know a place where we can go.
If you say yes I won't say no.
It's nice and sweet and noone cries.
A smog of love gets in your eyes.
The sun always shines in Happyland.
And they have no crime in Happyland.
More lesuire time in Happyland.
And everything rhymes in Happyland
Stores never close in Happyland.
Anything goes in Happyland.
And we keep it clean in Happyland.
You're part of the team in Happyland.

I think it's called Happyland.

It was obvious they belonged in Rhumbaland.

Lunedì, 12 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Silvia Rose at 17:23

My mother would often change character totally. One day she'd be Jackie Onasis. The next, she'd be Mrs Fruit Cake.

For a while, she wanted to go straight. She thought she should no longer be a dancer and she'd try to be a proper mother. You know what I mean. She'd do the whole "twin set and pearls" thing. It would drive me mad.

She even wanted to do the whole "Meet the Parents" caper. "Oh, isn't it wonderful how your son and my daughter are ... you know ..."

She would lean over and whisper in my ear, "What is it you're doing, dear? And what is his name."

"Seymour", she'd look at me stupidly. "I know what you're thinking, just don't say it. I promise, his name is Seymour."

Seymour's parents were a lovely pair, Rachel and Abe. They treated me as the daughter they never had. We were both 14 years of age and they thought we spent our evenings in Seymour's room doing homework.

How quaint.

Anyway, my mother and I were there for lunch. Rachel served up soup with Matzo Balls. Rachel was very proud of her Matzo balls. "Best balls in town" Abe would shout.

Silvia looked at her bowl. She picked up her spoon and pushed the balls around. She looked very hesitant.

Rachel stoppped and noticed.

Silvia hadn't touched a drop. "Are you okay, Silvia? Everything alright?"

"I was just wondering," said Silvia "are the balls the only part of the Matzo that you eat?"

Giovedì, 15 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Detective Stevens at 22:21

It was one of those nights you should really stay indoors, beside a fire, slippers on your feet, a warm cup of cocoa beside you and a woman who's giving you bedroom eyes even before the evening news.

God, that sounds like Chandler, only worse.

Yes, I was a Detective Inspector, but unfortunately I didn't have a fire. The air smelt like a whore's breath in June.

It was cool and sticky and thick under your collar. The odour of too many cigarettes for dinner and sailors for dessert.

As if trying to clear the air, the sky started to rain. More to the point it started to pour.

And it poured on a dead man. The reason why we happen to be here.

His head smashed into the drain, the rest of his body sticking out, water circling around him, pushing its way through, trying to escape the scene of the crime by running away down the drain.

Had it been dry, he may have looked like a man who'd lost a tennis ball and inocently thought it may have disappeared down the drain.

As the rain pounds against your face you quickly ralise this is not the night to go looking for anything; not tennis balls, not friends, not love, not dancers.

I pulled out a cigarette. It was an automatic reaction of mine on such occasions. It was raining too hard to light. Thank goodness. It was my third week without one.

I had promised I would only smoke on rainy days or first thing in the morning - in the shower. I looked back at the drain man, and that's when I noticed it. I turned to my partner and said pointing over at drain man, "Look, dead men do wear plaid."

He didn't laugh. "That's bad" he said. I hoped he was referring to drain man. "Third bad one this month." I still hoped he was referring to drain man. "Another gangland hit." Phew, he was. "Well, it's either that or he heard one of your jokes."

I pretended I didn't hear. We both stood there. In the rain. I thought of having another cigarette when I saw it.

"Jesus" I said.

"Christ" he added.

"That's not the Jesus I am talking about."

Venerdì, 23 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 08:13

I saw her. It had been a long time. I had heard lots of stories about her from Marie. But you know, it's never the same. Your ears can never see what your eyes can't hear.

There was a radio playing in the background. The song seemed to dull the screech of the seagulls.

It was at the beach. The white sand made way for her and it seemed to swallow part of her every step so that each grain could keep a piece of her for a little while longer. I wish I was that sand.

She was with Jesus. They held hands tightly and walked along not talking. He looked all frentic energy bound together in a ball and ready to go off. Someone who demanded attention no matter how far from you he stood. You could feel his goddam energy.

I was standing in the middle of the footpath, in the middle of a sunny day. I was wearing shorts and sandles, a loud shirt. And even the sound of that shirt was diluted by my personality.Thousands of people milled past and not one would have noticed me. Not one would have been able to describe who I was. Even in a Police line up I would still have be invisible. The music played, people danced around me:

I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off.
I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on.

She, I can't say her name anymore, was wearing white. A long white dress that flowed in the breeze. How I wish I was that breeze. To be able to rush around her playfully. To gently hover over her breasts and cheekily rush up her dress. To flow in a manner that let out a harmony that made nature stan up and listen.

I wish I was an alien, at home behind the sun,
I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on.
I wish I was the pedal break that you depended on.
I wish I was the verb "to trust", and never let you down.

Should I really think of those things after such a long time? Why do I still do it? I wish I could stop. I wish I could stop. I wish it was that easy.

Mercoledì, 28 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Detective Stevens at 06:18

It seemed to be the arse end of April. Winds blew and rain fell on barren ground. The city smelt like a slow moving truck. And the music that played from its radio was dirge like. More Leonard Cohen, definately not Abba.

I have learnt over the years that as a detective, you often have to think like this, because life is going to treat you like the Coyote out of Loony Tunes rather than the Roadrunner whom he so desperately wants to catch.

I am a big fan of Wile E. Coyote. I actually don't like that arrogant, snivelling Roadrunner at all. The Roadrunner is not realy a character. He is a Fashion Magazine model. All glitz and perfection, but no substance.

On the other hand Wile E. Coyote is someone with depth. He and Foghorn Leghorn are the best drawn characters of of the series.

Wile E. is everyman. He tries hard.

He follows his instincts. He tries his hardest to make sure that everything is right. All the planning has been done.

But then everything always turns to shit. The universe and those confounded ACME products conspire to turn on him.

There you go. A bit of philosophy on this butt of a day where the sky is falling and it seems that allwe need is Chicken Lickin to come running through the Station shouting doom and destruction.

I pick up my ACME model gun, ACME pad and pen and place them in my ACME Police-Issue coat and wander off into the night to see what Rhumbaland holds in store for me. As I rummage amongst my desk a large drawing pin embeds itself into my finger.

I hold up a sign. It reads: "OUCH".