Martin Amis - Yellow Dog

clint: how r u, dear man? i detected a note of melancholy in your most recent e, so i thought i’d cheer u up with some verbal 4play. u have asked 4 my views on anal 6 & related?s. well, i’m all 4 it if it gets the job done quicker. i said be4 th@ the best prix r small & soft, & i’m aware th@ anal 6 demands gr8er 10sion. so it’s 6 of 1 & 1/2 a dozen of the other! i’m very happy to per4m oral 6 @ any time. what’s my style? i no th@ some girls r merely rather affection8 2 the man’s 2l. i consider this ‘cock-i’d’! u should go @ it 40ssimo. rule: never kiss your man after fell8io — by god, u’d be calling him a bumb&it! as 4 cunnilingus, th@’s strictly verbo10.

Blimey: she’s ideal. Talk about taking the pressure off. With this bird, expectation’s reduced to nil … But that’s all very well, that is. That’s all very fine and large. Because the wound’s in you, my son. There ain’t anyone else who can sort this out: it’s down to you, mate. You yourself.

Before driving back to his Foulness semi, Clint topped up the Avenger at the pumps. They talked their heads off about sex and cars, but look at this: look at the mechanised brothel of the forecourt. In every bay, in every trap, there was a man with a hulking nozzle in his mitt; you lifted the cover, and there was the sliding aperture; then you poured in the power while the digits flickered.

Fat splats of water fell unevenly from the ribbed roof. Not rain: just drops of car-sweat.

‘So what was in this “dirty bomb”?’

‘Radioactive medical waste, Chief, plus ringworm, West Nile virus, liquid gangrene, and a cladding of mad cow.’

‘And what do this lot call themselves?’

‘Uh, the Legion of the Pure.’

Clint thought: what’s funny? Is it still funny? Was it ever funny?

‘And they blew themselves up on purpose.’

‘No, Chief. By accident. It went off in the airport carpark.’

‘And who were they followers of?’

‘Uh, you know: the bloke with no tackle.’

‘Actually, Chief, he has got tackle,’ said Clint. ‘Records show. It’s funny, that. Like Hitler’s only got one ball.’

‘Was he the one that went to the stripclub?’

‘That wasn’t true either.’

Heaf seemed disappointed. ‘Well we certainly spent enough space on it. Did he go near the stripclub? … Anyway, we can only keep hammering on about racial profiling at airports. This is Clint in today’s: “And at the security checkpoints, what do we see? Some gimp of a granny being fisted in half, while the dunerat called Zui’zide al Bomba sails past with a J-cloth on his bonce and a flamethrower over his shoulder. And followed by his three best friends, Hijaq, Kydnap and Drugrun.” ‘Heaf slapped the page with his fingernails. ‘ That’s what I call an editorial. Anyone who looks remotely Arab should have their lives made an absolute torment for the rest of the century.’

‘What happened to “Bints in Burkas”?’ said Donna Strange, who was sitting in. ‘I did one and you never ran it.’

‘Yes. Whatever happened to “Bints in Burkas”?’

‘“Bints in Burkas”? We backed off on that one, Chief.’

Mackelyne read from the minutes: ‘“… reached the decision not to go ahead, out of deference to the deepest personal convictions of our wankers.”’

‘And we thought they might dirty-bomb us. ’

‘Mm. And what about the royal angle? The list of demands. It didn’t actually reach the King, did it?’

‘No. They found it floating around in the carpark.’

‘But the tone of it. Completely outrageous. How did it begin?’

‘“Greetings, Slave. God, who controls the clouds, who —”’

‘Yes yes. But “slave”! I mean, I find that quite unbelievable. Apart from the Vatican there’s not an institution on earth that’s older than the monarchy. And along comes some little snake-charmer, some casbah cutthroat …’

‘Well this is it, Chief. That’s what unbelievers are, in their eyes. According to them,’ said Clint with a shrug, ‘we’re shit.’

‘But to say the King’s shit,’ said Heaf, who seldom swore. ‘I mean, if he’s shit, if our king’s shit, then what are we ? We ought to … Ah, but religion’s a very curious thing, you know, and that’s why we’ve always steered clear of it. I’m Catholic myself, of course, though partly lapsed. I don’t think we’ve ever pinned it down, have we, Mack? We know everything there is to know about our typical wanker, but what he believes remains a mystery.’

Clint said, ‘A mystery wrapped in an enigma, Chief.’

‘The sampling varies as in no other sphere,’ Mackelyne went on. ‘There’s only one thing we know for sure.’

‘Which is?’

‘They all hate nuns. ’

‘… Well I’m glad we’ve joined the fray. The smell of cordite at last,’ said Heaf. ‘Now. Can we at least have a filler on Russia-China?’

Smoker sat smoking in Room 2011 of the Bostonian Hotel on Meagure Street. Darius, the seven-foot Seventh Day Adventist, lay shoeless on the sofa, reading the Gideon Bible: Book of Revelation … In Room 2013 Ainsley Car was supposedly in the process of having Donna, prior to doing Beryl.

‘“Words”,’ keyed Clint, ‘“cannot convey the torment I am going through,” said a sickened “Dodgem” Car last night in an exclusive interview with the Morning Lark. “The pressures on the pro footballer of today are something you wouldn’t believe. And as the world knows, I’ve had a long and painful struggle with my ‘demons’. Football isn’t about winning. It isn’t about losing. It’s about glory. And yes, I’ve feasted on the recognition. Runner-up in the Premiership with Wanderers. A winner’s medal in the Ivatex Data Systems Cup with United. That ‘banana’ consolation goal for Wales in the quarter-final at the Bernabéu.

‘“And God knows I’ve had my share of grief. The endless months in hospital wards and prison yards. The tragic death of Sir Bobby Miles a scant ten days after my ‘challenge from hell’ and the crippling civil action that followed. Relegation with United. Tell me about it — the booze, the birds, the brawls. I’ve been there. And who’s stood at my side through thick and thin, through the good, the bad, and the bubbly? My childhood sweetheart and now my bride. Little Beryl.”’

‘“For the time is at hand,” ‘said Darius conversationally. ‘Her in there: that’s Jezebel. “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”’

‘Charming.’

‘It’s coming, man. The hour is at hand. “And, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of the heaven fell unto the earth …”’

‘Oh. That. The comet. Your lot were a bit quick off the mark with the last one. Didn’t they all top themselves in advance, your lot, over in California?’

‘Not my lot. My lot won’t even be here, man. It’s all yours.’ For a moment Darius laughed quietly. ‘You think America’s powerful. Taste the wrath of the big guy, bro. Coming to getcha …’

‘Where’s the meaning in it? Just blind natural forces.’

‘No blind. The comet is like me, man. Muscle. Muscle of God.’

The room — the hotel — was postmodern, but darkly, unplay-fully so. It seemed that the gunmetal furniture was trying to look like the refrigerator, the television, the safe. Among the gaunt gadgets on Clint’s worksurface was an anomalously ovoid Babicom (supplied by the Lark ‘s lone parent, Desmond Heaf). He reached for the dial. You could hear Ainsley’s slurred and labouring baritone, Donna’s bold alto.