It's entirely possible that there was an episode prior to this one. Then again, perhaps there wasn't..
Where we left off last week
... "Hey Babe" I croaked, flicking her badge "I lost 12kgs and a boyfriend, ask me how"
She stared through me like the mist on a windscreen - I meant nothing to her. After all we'd been through, at last I knew it was finally all over. She was no more in love with me than me with the with the Rubbish bin in the corner...
. . .
But who gave a shit, unrequited love was the best kind! (Except for small woodland creatures of course!)
I winked at her with my good eye, and she laughed in that way she had; you know: "HA HA HA HA HA HA", and all I could think of was Brazil. Brazil and what Raoul was probably doing to the Pope's toilet.
Days later, when we were back together as we had been, Elsie told me of her life since me. She'd tried everything, but she still couldn't convince her- self that she was the one for her. She wanted me. We consumed each other in our love, and our passion was boundless, perhaps because all the springs in the bed gave out, I don't know...
But even as the sweet waters of love washed over me, I knew it was soon all to be over. We were opposites in everything, she loved Dire Straits, I loved NWA, she ate at Pierre's, I ate at Denny's, she crapped in the toilet, I shat my pants; it was doomed from the restart...
But that didn't stop me enjoying myself while I could - it may just be a momentary taste of paradise, but I was going to bottle some to take home with me...
That night we ate Mexican, an ugly little bastard who tried to sell us two tickets to Whitney Houston live from the Vatican. Aparantly her and the Pope were teaming up for "That's what friends are for" and a rehash of Sade's "Feels like the first time" in Latin. We roasted him over the white hot engine of her Ferrari Tosser and ate him with sour cream and brown rice. Amazing how such an unappetising person can change for the better.
I decided it was time we talked.
"You remember Rio?" I asked ".. When we took all our clothes off and ran naked through the streets, singing the soprano from Un Bel di Vedremo?"
"Nope."
She was just being diffcult, in that way that makes a young woman so attractive, and an old woman the latest statistic in redneck household violence. She knew what I was talking about all right - she was just toying with me.
I loved it when she did that.
"Sure you do; and you told me that if there's one thing you'll always remember it's the sound of your father's pacemaker stalling when I demonstrated my new electro-magnet"
"But my father's still alive!"
"That's right, that wasn't you; I'm sorry my dearest. Come to think of it, I don't think it was me either. It must have been Johnny"
"You promised you'd never mention his name to me again!" she cried.
"I'm sorry once more dearest, I didn't mean for things to go this way, it just slipped out, like excretion out of a presidents mouth." I should have known, I knew, but it was done now. Ever since we had first met it had been the same, never mention Johnny Carson to her.
I didn't have the full story, all I knew was that it was something oral.
We argued.
Oh how we argued! We argued like never before. Then we fought. How we fought!
She said I wouldn't know a concise arguement if it struck me across the face, I said her comments were boorish and the last refuge of the incompetant. She said I was unable to comprehend the complexities of even the simplest problem, and I told her that with the exception of Ronald Reagan, no-one had missed out so much of what was going on around them whilst being supposedly concious.
She called me a "Poo head"
Big Deal. If she wanted to get nasty...
"Epileptic, Syphillitic, Gravy and Egg Stained, slop-sucking, pants wetting, undie-crapping, toy-breaking, stomach-turning, arse-binding, clap-giving, rat infested, low-down, sneaky, turd-mouthed, back-stabbing, muck-raking, bum-wiping, goo-guzzling, social ratarded, sexually stunted, Jobbie-hole" I said.
"NNNNNNNAaaaaaararrRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!", she screamed, running at me with the thermal lance she carries around for personal protection and safe-breaking.
"WAIT A MINUTE!" I screamed at her "WHAT ARE WE DOING?! What's happening to us?"
As the tears rolled down my face, tracing the lines of emotional pain and torment, I cried "What are we doing to each other"
Her face changed immediately, as she too remembered the better times, the days when we had loved each other with a power that consumed us and the world. The days of life and selfless giving... The lance fell from her hand as a sob pried it's way from her soul and emerged from her lips
"Oh, you're so right!" she bawled, the tears tracking down her face in rivers of pain and suppressed grief ".. you're so right..." Her last words were all but a whisper as she ran to my arms. As she came to me, I pointed out the window in horror
"SHIT!" I cried "LOOK AT THAT!"
She turned and I spoke once more: "AND SHIT LOOKS! HA HA HA HA!"
She realised it for the trick it had been, as well she might, we'd used it on a turkish vacuum cleaner salesperson only a few hours ago. Her face turned to a cunning mask as she reached once more for her thermal lance....
... that I had in my hand....
"Looking for something" I chirped, smiling sweetly, the victor once again.
She reached for her razor sharp arabian lonsword (damn - I was sure she'd sold that thing for some anti-freeze to go with last night's dinner) as I clicked the lance to the ON position.
Gee, breaking up is hard to do...
The fight that ensued was one that would go down in Roman legends. She, although quite small in stature, swung the longsword with the prowess of a drunk attempting to get cigarettes out of a condom machine. In other words, I whipped her. Then she whipped me. Heavenly! Getting back together is always the best part...
That year, The rain in Spain fell mainly down the drains, which was where our relationship headed, like damp rags down a opera singers blouse.
Oh, we tried, how we tried, but we couldn't make our relationship work the way it should, they way we wanted it to, without money and vacuum enlargers.
So again, myself and my pretty, sweet, innocent nymphomanic Elsie parted, this time, for good. Elsie, who'd never spoken the words "pass me the vibrator" until she met me. Poor, sweet, juvinile offender Elsie, who'd driven through a crowded platform of poor people in a steamroller to get to me, even though I wasn't anywhere near at the time...
And so the memories I had, like the breadcrumbs of unhappiness, rolled around in the silk sheets of my life, sticking to my bum. I guess that will teach me for not wearing anything but a rubber goose to bed. sniff
The next thing I knew I was burying myself in my new work, trying to forget love and the hellish toll it took upon my pretty good self. (no complaints yet, if we exclude the ex-wife and elsie)
Life found me now in Gibraltar but I hated the magazine, and didn't give them an interview. I was employed checking penguins for expired Bankcards. It was a strange job, especially as I hadn't ever seen a penguin there - but Elsies stepfather was paying me, so that was the job I was to do.
Week after week my job was simply to walk up the beaches asking anyone if they'd seen the penguins. Especially policemen. Elsie's step-father was very specific about that. I was to ask them if they has seen the penguins, do a little dance, and help job their memory by hitting them as hard as I could in the groin. Very strange... Apparently they'd not heard of this job before, and so they'd taken me to their place with an armed escort so I could tell their boss about it.
"Wot ees thees I ear `bout ewe eeteeng waan off maaee ooffeecers?" he asked, in a horrific french accent that reads better than it's typed
I told him the story of the penguins and the bankcards, asked him if he'd seen them, then jogged his memory. Seeing he was French, I jogged it again. I thought of the Rainbow Warrior and jogged him some more. I stopped jogging and did a little sprinting, but by this time he was unconcious.
His bodyguard helped me join him with a baton to my head
When I awoke I found myself in a small, damp cell in the basement of the Police Station. At last I could say I'd found myself!
I had a court appearance that afternoon. The jury was against me from the start, it was a very packed elevator. When we got out, I was taken to the dock and charged. My batteries were now perfect.
The trial did not go well for me, and I was sentenced to 10 years subservient labor in the Leper colony of Marshall Island.
The heat there was as that of a passion in full bloom, and as I toiled away my sentence, I was reminded of Elsie and of Rio....
Oh Elsie and Rio! I couldn't think of which one I liked most of all? Perhaps Elsie, with her subtle cat-lithe movements; or maybe Rio, with his box set of George Thorouyghly-Good Albums.
Who could know?
All that I knew was that life would go on. On me, on you...
But I was wrong! How I was wrong. The author was tired of me and my Hemmingway style of talking. I see the gun, but there's nothing I can do, it follows my every move, like a newborn duck, just before mummy duck steps in front of a loaded bus...
[Bang!]