James Roderick Burns
PHYLLIS: A NIGHTMARE IN SEVEN SCENES
1. A Mysterious Disappearance
You, houseboy, she said to me, the cat's dirtied its box again: fix it. This was the cue to doff my cap, tug on my forelock and scuttle through the ranks of overstuffed burgundy armchairs to the far side of the room. She supervised as I plunged in my fingers. I watched the ash fatten on her king size while I worked. It didn't feel all that bad when you got used to it: granular and cool, if a little wet in places, and laced with intriguing lumps deep down in the shifting clay. It amazed me how interested I could become in things when she was hovering behind me in her nightgown. That little piece of pizza crust, for instance - down there by the oven, next to the cracked tile - acquired an identity, a whole plangent history of its own under her gaze: I saw its long, slow, sad spiral from the corner of Nobby's mouth, the smack and ricochet off the edge of the butcher's-block table, and the final shocking tumble to the cold, uncaring tiles. What with the second ammonia rinse I was doing, it was enough to bring tears to your eyes.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Nobby's her son, you see, Gus's her husband, and she's Phyllis, my employer. We all live together in a lovely little house in the suburbs. I've only four hours' housework to do in the mornings, which isn't all that much if you think about it, and then the rest of the day is mine. I start off with the laundry: take out and fold and smooth and stack the tumbled load, and pop the next lot in; then empty the dishwasher, put on a pot of viscous coffee - Phyllis says it takes at least three cups to kickstart her insides, and we laugh and laugh - and begin to clean up last night's debris: one or two pizza boxes, a crumpled coke bottle wheezing its last and the regulation fag packets strewn across the table. She's already ablaze when she rolls out of bed to begin the inspection.
You put in the second load yet? she says, sucking down a lungful. Just so you know, there's a load more on the floor. This is the cue to scuttle through to her bedroom and scoop up the soggy towels and soiled underwear, root in the laundry basket for any other tidbits, then race back to the kitchen in time to collect the fallen ash and stop it staining the white lace tablecloth. Once I let her coffee cup sit for too long, and a fat black tear inched over the porcelain and wept onto the virginal cotton. I felt terrible. She docked me a morning's wages.
But I keep losing track of things. Like I was saying, after I've got rid of the rubbish I do a daily on the kitchen. Not a thorough, that takes a good couple of hours, just a daily. Kitchen, hallway, den, first bathroom, bedroom, second bathroom: dailies. Yesterday I three-rinsed in there, so it was fairly clean. I'd finished with the kitchen when Phyllis told me about the cat. I hadn't made it to the den yet, so I couldn't smell anything. But Phyllis is very sensitive. She has all kinds of allergies, including asthma, and cats, and she likes to see that everything's right before she retreats to her office to do the important work. Yesterday she had a strained-looking couple in. Marriage problems, I think. Phyllis does matrimonial law, and practices on her husband.
Smells like a fucking convenience in there, she said, propping herself up to watch.
As I raked through the clay puss came slinking up behind me. Spindly and slow-witted, with small red bald patches on his shanks and arse, he worked purely on instinct. Someone fingering his tray meant attention, and attention meant food. He stepped slowly over my leg, skirted the litter box and leveled his blank green eyes on me. I looked at them, then up and away to their watery blue counterparts in the sea of smoke. Uninterested, she turned her back and shuffled into her office.
The cat maintained its gaze. Ripe smells were dancing round his nose, and he flattened out his whiskers in approval. Something there, interesting. The thought cut briefly across the vacant green. Then hitching up his skinny leg puss pitched down his shoulders, swung out over my forearms and let go a dull yellow stream of piss. It was hot and rank. It splashed all over my shirt.
Yesterday I was a little late finishing. I had to do it in my own time, but it was worth it. The rest of the kitchen, the bedroom, two toilets and the bath, vacuuming, dusting, stripping fingerprints from the skirting boards with cream cleanser, and I was just about done. Only the knife and the litter box left. I wiped it off and popped it in the dishwasher, then upended the box and scalded it clean with vinegar and soap and a dash of bleach from the fat bottle she kept under the sink. There we are: finished. Cleaning up can be very satisfying, sometimes.
2. The Players React
I knew I wasn't going to get a fuck when that sodding cat disappeared. It had been weeks anyway, but this was the last straw as far as he was concerned. Gus sat on the bed like a wraith, his skinny legs quivering with some compulsive rhythm, that little-boy-lost look plastered on his long face: I can't go on, Phyllis, it seemed to say, I don't want to do anything, not if puss is gone. I considered just calling it a day and turning out my light, but he just kept sitting there, stupid, like Nobby gets in the recliner after a night out on the piss. God, men are pathetic. Who the hell cares? So the cat's out lost somewhere in the streets. Just get another one! Meanwhile I'm in here with a gin and a pasty and half a pack of ciggies, and no entertainment.
You want to try the video? I asked. Hey! He looked round when I jabbed him in the kidneys. I'd sent off for this thing months ago from the Bohemian Sophisticates Erotic Catalogue. He had it stuffed beneath his Y-fronts in the second drawer down. It was full of whippy teens sucking off hairy old men, and usually made his cock as hard as a nine iron. The video?
I think I want to go to sleep, he said. He clicked out his light with a quiet sob.
Just like him to wilt on me, the useless stringy old bastard. God knows why I married him. He has more respect for that mangy moggy than he has for me, and I pay the bills. Now it was eleven thirty and there was nothing to do. I flipped through the channels for a minute, briefly considered an old seventies rerun of The Money Programme, then thought better of it - they all looked like queers in their shiny suits and flopsy-mopsy haircuts - and finally settled on the news for a bit of background noise. Moira Anderson was droning lines through her turned-up nose, then she gave way to Michael Fish and the weather. A surefire queer there. Mincing around like he could already feel some other nancy boy's fingers on his arse. I reached down and hooked up a stack of magazines: Cosmo, Vogue, Tasteful Interiors, Rapacious Lawyering, the latest Victoria's Secret. The model on the front had tits like trawlers, jutting out into a sea of blue silk. Must have been propped up with whalebone to keep them looking like that. I peered down at my own. They lay broad and heavy on my stomach, sort of slouching towards my waist. Still a bit of swing left in them, though. Not so bad for a woman my age.
I lit up a Silk Cut and polished off my pasty. The fat knobs of gristly meat and vegetable went well with the smoke. I let one go and lay back to stare at the ceiling. Up in the corner was a cobweb. A fucking cobweb! And not just some little skinny trailing thing, but a big fat bastard, all clotted and saggy under its own weight. God, would I fucking set that lazy bastard to rights. Supposed to have done a thorough in here, just yesterday! And here was me wasting a fiver an hour on the little bleeder. I chucked the magazines back onto the floor.
What else hadn't he done? I was about to haul myself up out of bed when something struck me. I could see him, in my mind's eye, whipping the hose of the vacuum round the corners, barely touching the walls, like some MaryAnn elephant waving a flaccid trunk, too limp and put upon to do his master's bidding. I'd just love to see his face when I sneaked up behind him and hoofed him in the ribs.
Hey, you lazy little fucker, I'd say. On your feet. And he'd turn at the waist like a trodden-on worm, fear sparking in his piggy little eyes. Up, I'd say, look at this.
He'd squirm to his feet, his chubby hands floating round his head like I meant to cuff him. God, I'm getting hot just thinking about it.
Look at this fucking cobweb! I bellow. A cobweb! In here! You know I'm allergic! Say it, say you know I'm allergic, houseboy. And I pluck at a nipple while I'm standing over him, my nightgown stiff with static electricity.
I know, Phyllis, he cowers and coughs, his voice breaking. I know you're allergic, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
That's not good enough! Have you done your dailies properly? Have you scrubbed the toilet and wiped the sink and laundered my skivvies and polished the floors?
Yes! Yes! Everything!
But not properly! Say it, you little shit! Lick my feet and apologize and say it!
Oh God, I've got the rolled up TV guide going in and out. Fuck! I can see my swollen tits thrusting into his upturned face, the thick cotton on my thighs stretching to bursting point.
You think you're worth that fiver, do you? I'm yelling. He's yelping like a dog. I'm worth fifty times that, you snivelling little fuck! Fifty times! And suddenly there's money blowing out of the hose in his hand, a long thick twisting wad of tenners and twenties shooting out of the hole.
Shove it in! I'm screaming, and he does, shoves it right between my thighs where the money weeps out like nectar and sizzles with the heat. My crotch is on fire. Just as I make it I catch the look on his puffy face - wounded, wondering, almost in awe - and the vacuum pours out its final stream with an electric gasp, the wires sparking in the plastic tubing, the casing throbbing like the nose of a bomb.
Phyllis? Down to earth, wet, warm, satisfied. Phyllis? he said again, turning on the light. Are you alright?
The TV guide was soggy and I chucked it on the floor. Yeah, I'm alright. I turned over to go to sleep, then a last wave of heat rose up in my chest. I don't think puss is, though, Gus. He's probably dead in an alley somewhere, with his brains all over the floor.
The warmth in my crotch and my throaty laughter pushed me down into sleep.
3. The Plot Thickens
Sometimes I don't understand my wife. First she's affectionate and nice, sort of warm like, then a minute later she's all ice and I'm in the doghouse. I'm not sure what she wants half the time. She seems to come and go with the winds. I suppose I'd better be a bit more considerate. It's probably my fault.
Like the other day, after puss disappeared, she was all chewy and redfaced in the morning. She looked like she'd been dropped on her head. Phyllis, I asked, what's the matter? What are you scowling for?
Never mind, you, she said. I was trying to shave but every time I plugged in my razor she'd detach it and drop it in the sink.
There's water in there, Phyllis, I said. You shouldn't do that. But she didn't seem to hear. Anyway, I was shaving, and over the low buzz of the blades I heard her dialing a number on the telephone. I hit that bump on the underside of my chin and had to peer into the mirror to get it right. But I could still tell it was long distance from the series of little blips. She waited for a connection and walked into the doorway of the bathroom, the handset cradled by the ring of fat beneath her chin. She was picking away old varnish from her fingernails.
Hi, Kit! she said suddenly. Her voice was infused with that syrupy charm she used on her clients. Yes, yes, long time, no see. Look, are you free this month?
I stopped shaving. Sometimes she makes me very angry. Kit used to be her husband, before me. He has some awful disease and has to go about in a wheelchair. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, not since the last time. When she's angry at me for something she invites him to stay - last time he was here for a month - and gives the excuse that the treatment center down the road can do more for his condition than the one where he lives. I looked at her, angrily rubbing a patch of bristle on my cheek. She rolled her eyes and sauntered back into the bedroom, talking all the time in that sickly voice. I just stared for a minute, then went back to the mirror. What could I do?
It was my day off. I'd agreed to help Fred fix the vacuum. Nice lad, but a bit silent, almost brooding, like. I'd've liked to chat once in a while. Anyway, we got down to work. The Industrial Suction Master Phyllis had bought had broken down the first day we got it, and pegged out on a regular basis now, what with the amount it was used. Fred was in the middle of a heap of parts, a desperate look on his face. There were blots of blood on his purple sweatshirt. He stuck a bandaged finger up into the works and rattled it around. Nice, but useless. I sorted through the battered metal pieces till I found the top flap. It had instructions tattooed on the back. I hunkered down on the den carpet and got on with it, while Fred got on with the rest of the house.
It took me a couple of hours to put it back together. I was just about to screw on the final plate when Phyllis came through the front door.
Kit's coming, she announced, flinging her shopping bag onto a chair. It knocked over a half-empty coke can. I looked back down and was about to finish when she continued speaking. Tomorrow, she said. And there's an old electric wheelchair I picked up for him in the back of the car. Needs a bit of work, the bloke in the warehouse said, but should come up as good as new. Fix it.
I held the silvery plate flat in my palm. It was heavy, like all good tools are. The rubber edging formed a cool grip underneath my fingers. I curled them over it and spread them out over the chrome. Mist inched out from my fingertips.
Sometimes I just want to hit her. But then she went banging away into the bedroom and all the anger drained out of me. I fastened the plate back on and stood up the vacuum ready for Fred. Where did she say it was, the back of the car? I went to get my toolbox from the garage. I hoped she wasn't still angry. It was probably my fault if she was.
4. An Interlude
That was the life, alright! Hopping up the country in a nice comfy train carriage all to myself - Phyllis never skimped on tickets, God bless her! and those gawking bastards had had enough of my legs to leave me a wide berth - with the promise of a nice long holiday at the end of it, free and gratis, room and board and Johnny Walker all laid out like I was a lord. At least that's how it felt. It certainly beat Cleethorpes and the bookies. With my pension and what I did on the side I made out okay, but these jaunts always felt like something special. I enjoyed seeing the old girl. Had a bust on her like a pneumatic Marilyn, though it was sagging a bit, and her face behind the makeup still had something of what it used to.
It was nice to see the kids, too. Kids! They're in their middle thirties now. Stacey, and Sharon, both with little ones of their own. Down there I miss them sometimes. They visit, but it's never long enough, somehow. I take the kids out and feed them sloppy cream waffles, winkles, rock, anything they want, but there's always an end when the sea gets rough or the wind starts cutting through their parkas, and we have to go back. It's nice just to stay.
Stacey picked me up at the station and drove me to the house. Out of the window I watched the town shrug off its decent clothes and slip into the suburbs. We passed bus shelters with no one in them, and rows of shops that all looked the same. I needed some fags so I got her to stop at a newsagent's. While she was inside a kid looked in through the window at my legs. They were propped up against the glove-compartment like a clotheshorse, my jeans only tight at the knees. I smacked on the window and told him to piss off. He flicked me the Vs and ran off down the street.
It took three more Bensons to get there. Stacey got me settled in and then left to pick up the kids. It was mid-afternoon and Phyllis was out somewhere. I had the telly on and a beer stuck between my thighs. Perfect. A bit later Gus came in. He hadn't noticed me and was going about his routine. Cap and coat off, then the shoes, and a quick look around before he padded in steaming stockinged feet to the kitchen. Then he noticed me.
Oh. Hi, Kit, he said. It was pretty obvious what was fighting to overcome that thin layer of politeness. He made some small talk and then some tea. In a minute he was in the armchair, picking at the channels with an abstracted look. I tried to talk but he wasn't interested.
Gus found golf on one station, and stuffed the changer down the side of the chair. He glanced at me defiantly. I just shrugged and knocked back a mouthful of beer. His favourite game, apparently. We sat and watched as the light outside dimmed to nothing. The players would step up to the tee and flick the ball high into the air. The camera tried to pan with it but all it caught was a wedge of blue sky somewhere, remote and out of reach. Then it thudded back down, onto the green or off in the rough, it didn't much matter. Someone else repeated the process and they all walked away. I think I fell asleep.
When I woke up Phyllis was home. There was food, and the kids had come, and everything was noisy with all the lights on and music and whatnot. That was nice. Later, when they'd gone, Gus tuned back in and Phyllis wheeled me into my bedroom. She pried me out of the chair and laid me on the mattress. Then she tried to give me a blowjob with the door to the den wide open, but I'd had enough for one day and couldn't manage it.
That was the life, though. Beat Cleethorpes and the bookies into a cocked hat.
5. End of Act Two
Dad, what do you think about Mum and Gus, and Nobby, and this whole family thing?
What whole thing? This as we pulled out of the car park in front of the newsagent's. I cracked open the window an inch, to let out the first few puffs.
What whole thing, Stacey? You mean with me being down there and you all up here, or the Nobby thing?
More the second one.
Well it seems fine to me. What's bothering you? I don't think he likes you being here, you know, as you're not his dad and all. I think he's getting a bit hot under the collar, on Gus's side, you know. Like there's something funny.
And?
Well, he's been doing weird stuff with himself. What kind of weird stuff?
I heard him last night, in his room. Banging back and forward, you know, rubbing. Stuff like that.
He laughed. I like my father's laugh. It's rather long and full till you get to the end, then it's sort of hollow, like he's questioning something.
You don't mean - oh! - masturbation, do you? Come on Stacey. The kid's fifteen, he's got to bang it sometime!
No, not that. Something else I think. You know that heavy sound you get when you drag a parsnip down a cheese grater, sort of crunchy and wet, you know, that. That's what it sounds like. And his room stinks too. I haven't been in there - that's Fred's territory - but from what's coming out it sounds like something's died. I don't think it's healthy, Dad. I think he's screwed up.
Have you spoken to Sharon about this? I mean she's your sister, and he's not my kid, you know. You two know him better than I do. What can I do?
I don't know. Talk to him maybe? Gus just doesn't seem able to do anything these days. Mum's always chewing him out and he slopes off into the garage and fiddles with his tools. Do you know how long he sits just staring at the TV? Ever since that damn cat disappeared he's been no help. I mean what kind of a father lets his son stink like that, right down the hall from his bedroom? It's gross.
He was staring out of the window. I counted telegraph poles till he came round.
What am I going to do, Dad? It's like I can't take the kids round any more because there's this atmosphere from him, and Nobby's so black he won't even talk to me anymore, or Sharon, really, and nobody seems able to get through to him. He used to take the little ones down to the park and play with them, take them on the swings and stuff, you know. But now he's weird, and Mum doesn't seem to care. You're a parent, you can help. Should I do something?
But he just lit up another B & H and shut himself into silence. Something must have been bothering him, his legs, maybe. I patted his knee.
Get off, Stacey. What the fuck do I care about this kid? he said.
6. A Late Scene, in Flashback
Looking back, it was inevitable. But it didn't have to happen the day I discovered Nobby, that much was gratuitous, just life kicking me when I was down. I don't even know why I'm thinking about it. It's finished now. I'm finished with him, with the lot of them.
I was washing up when he told me. We'd had sausage and egg for breakfast and I was pushing the rag round and round on the last dish, picking at the stubborn clots of yolk which had glued themselves to the plate. The dishwater was tepid and I flushed it with the hot tap as he spoke.
I've been fucking around, he said. All over the place. I'm sick of this fucking shit, with you and the kids and your fucking family and work, all of it. I'm just telling you so you know. I haven't had any fun fucking you for months. You know that blonde tart at work, the one with the tits? Fucked her. Marjorie, your sensible friend, fucked her too. I even picked up a hooker with a mate of mine and swigged cocktails while she sucked his cock. I've had it with all this, Sharon. Just so you know. I'm leaving.
Before I could lever the carving knife out of the draining board he was gone. The door slammed and a sweet cloud of aftershave blew into my face. I sat down at the kitchen table and cried until my eyes puffed out and my chest was knocking for air. I tried not to visualize him doing what he'd said, but I couldn't; the greasy meat felt sluggish in my stomach, weighty and slimy and sticky like mud as the images came, graphic at first - his prick sliding into a shaven cunt, hands mauling breasts, fellatio - than more abstract, colours and slabs of shadow moving and melting on a scarlet background. I lay with my head on the cool wood. After a while the pictures left me. A slight breeze stirred the curtains, and I got up to put on the kettle. Tea.
As the steam curled up through my hair I remembered a picnic we'd taken before we were married. The hot glaze of the cup between my fingers reminded me of it. Under an overhanging oak we'd poured coffee from a thermos and stretched back into the green shadows. The heat of the metal felt good on my palms. He was cradling me in his lap, a faraway look on his upturned face. I admired its lines and the smooth bow of his chin, scraped clean and sparkling with a thousand blond points of hair. I watched breath pour from his nostrils in the sharp afternoon air. He looked down and kissed me.
We walked the lanes all afternoon, until the sun slid behind the curve of moor and we headed back to town. We followed a dry stonewall along the base of the hill. He vaulted the gate and waited on the other side like a knight in armour, arms stiffly poised to receive me. I fell into them, laughing. But he stopped and let go of me. Nestling in the cold shadows of the wall a rabbit was twitching its limbs. He bent down and peered at it.
Mixamatosis, he said.
I looked too. There were streams of pus running like candle wax from its eyes. The twitching lessened, but its small dark nose pulsed in and out with fright.
Only one thing to do. He heaved a flat stone from the wall. Placing his feet on either side, he brought it down with great speed on the rabbit's head. A dull click and its skull shattered. The twitching ceased altogether.
I came back to the kitchen. The laundry still had to be done, and the beds made before I could leave for Mum's. I began the day's work.
Later I knocked on the door but no one seemed to be home, so I used my key. The house was clean and empty. Sunlight lay in slats on the worn carpet. I called out hello. Nothing.
On the corridor to the right of the hall was the bathroom, Nobby's room, Fred's room and their bedroom, ranged along one wing of the house. As I was hanging up my coat a small thud sounded through a wall.
A second one followed it, then another. Nobby had to be in. Stacey had warned me that something strange was going on. I walked down the corridor and paused, ear pressed close to the white paneling. The smell of drains and fried onions seeped out of his room.
Nobby? I said, rather loudly. A scuffling then, and a banging of drawers. Nobby? I'm coming in. I twisted the knob and shoved the door open. It dragged on several old socks and a t-shirt wedged beneath it, but opened enough for me to look in.
Nobby was sitting on his unmade bed, holding it like a dead child in his arms. The room was putrid with sweat and stale air and the stench of decay. He had his eyes closed, and a sour grimace knotted his face. I don't think he'd washed his hair in weeks.
Nobby, I said, coming up to him. Nobby, what's the matter? A little closer, and I reached out and touched his hand. Nobby.
7. Denouement
That Fred's not a bad guy, I don't think, not a bad guy. Mum works him like a sodding slave, so he ought to be worse than he is, but he's not a bad guy. I was watching him when he killed the cat, yes I was. Nicking off stupid school and hanging off the top bannister with my mug pressed up to the bars, just watching. She'd already hoofed off to the office, was smoking like a Red Indian in there, tapping at her keyboard; she wasn't interested. I watched it piss on him and had to stuff my laughter up my sleeve. Never seen that before! Quite a sight, it was, all that piss dribbling round his wrists in the catbox, and he got mad. You can tell when someone's really mad, like my Dad when that bollocks Kit stayed drinking all his beer and cooping feels off Mum, because they don't heat up they go all cold, icy like, and this weird blue cold just struggles over their features till they're blazing with it. Fred got like that with the cat. He was looking at it with wolf's eyes, yellow as piss and fiery cold down beneath the surface.
He cleaned up, though, yes he did. Not that I would have done that, not on your nelly; wouldn't catch me doing bugger all round here when I've a fat mother with too much money and a father with no balls, no way. They're doing it and I'm quite happy, thankyou very much. No school, burning the letters, and I'm alright, Jack, right down the line. Don't clean anything, don't cook anything, don't wash when I don't want to - and usually I don't want to - and on hand a rich supply of gin and fags, free and gratis, as that prick Kit would say. Fucking cripple, creaking round the place like a mechanical Frankenstein. I've seen him drooling over her tits, but he's not getting any. Doesn't have any, that's why.
But Fred, see, doesn't give in to that rage right away. He's smart, you can see the cogs turning, and he's thinking how can I strip that little kitty bollocks without the folks finding out? So he cleans up like usual, kitty box and everything, then he waits. Just like that. Sits down on the wicker chairs like anybody's business with cat piss dripping on the cotton, and he waits. You can hear the cogs grinding round in the cuckoo clock, and he waits. Then when she's lumbered off for a shit and a shower he strikes. Grabs that little fucker by the scruff of the neck and dives out the back door and round by the shed. Soon as he's out there I am, you can bet, and sneaking a peep from the back door steps. So there's Fred and there's this white rage foaming out of his eye sockets, and he has this great big fuck-you carving knife just waiting for little puss. He doesn't mess about with any ritual stuff, no speeches or any of that crap they stick in films to make you think it's deep, he just ups the beast and drags a raggy slash across its throat. Big gouts of white-speckly blood pump out of its neck, and he dances back away from it but he can't miss a few: one, two, three fat drops catch on the sweatshirt and he fucks and shits and bollocks as the end of its life dribbles out onto the soil.
Then that's done, and that's it. Just the knife to clean and he stows it clean away, back where it came from, leaving the moggy high and dry on the shed roof. He had an evil grin on him when he came back in and man, if I hadn't been bumbling in for a beer from the direction of my room I would have sworn he'd found me out, and I'd've been next for the knife. But no. In he comes, yes he does, with a grin on his face you could fry eggs on, only he kills it when he sees me. Dead. Goodbye. Just another day in the life of a hard-working cleaner, and all that bollocks, all over his face as he boils up the water for a cuppa.
Got to respect that, see. Even if it fucked up the old man. Sits there like a fucking fruitcake winging his eyeballs at the telly, golf or something. Boring as shit. Fiddles with his spanners out in the garage, too, now there's a useless pastime. Me I just grin when I see him and keep cold for the rest. He's my Dad, after all, got to respect that. Not that old bag that keeps tags on Fred, though, nothing to do with her. I watch her now and again when she's sleeping. Took the frozen cat in once and waved it over them like some talisman or something; I would have muttered some old mumbo-jumbo but I didn't want to wake them and catch my bollocks on fire from her.
Shouts at me for being dirty, she does. Like she's some paragon. Anyway, that's about it with the cat, like. I keep it around the room for a laugh - stinks a bit, but who cares, so do I - and Sharon caught me with it out. Didn't see me bashing the walls with it though, did she? Thinks she's so clever. There are really nice patterns where the stuff's congealed; goes great with black paint and a daily dose of Metallica. I keep it down mostly, though. Fred's asleep, and I don't want to wake him. He's not a bad guy, I don't think, not a bad guy. A bit fucked up mind you, but not bad, all the same.