I’m head over hells in love, bellowed Vermo.
Again, emitted Morio.
Love is a strange thing, even amongst the weeds there are a few roses. Though, Vermo was never one to find the roses. The girls he took out were either doxies or Christians; he was either kneeing at church or paying at a maison de joie.
What she like? Asked Morio.
Bloody beauty she is, answered Vermo.
Vermo was one for exaggeration. The girl he had picked up was a diaphanous, skeletal lunatic. He was standing outside of the fish and chip shop, at first he thought she was drunk, but when she slapped her arms around him and told him that she loved him, Vermo was cognizant that she was not drunk, but was just in the throes of love. A place he knew all about. The signs were all manifested, the incantatoty, the inchoate, etiolated grunts, the fluctuating orbs, the foamy lips, the disequilibrium. Vermo burned ab intra. That warm woozy feeling that undulated within knocked him for a six. Vermo discarded his chips and fish and held the girl around her waist.
The girl was precarious on her feet, but Vermo held her firm.
I love you, said the girl.
Vermo was perplexed, her eyes were fixed on the neon lights advertising chips and fish, but he knew she did not suffer from inanition. If she had she would have entered the fish and chip shop and purchase herself victuals. No it was love that adhered them.
Morio went to the bar and bought a round. He sat diametrically opposite to Vermo. Their agora was in a penumbra within the peripheral of the hairydog. Vermo could hardly drink; Morio supped with relish. Outside it was boiling. The sun had crossed that stria and was successfully toasting everything in its path, leaving only carrion and carcasses.
Love moved celeritously through Vermo. It imbued his very soul.
The caryatid, a nidifugous simulacrum, had only just been released from K2 mental hospital, but love blinds. Cupid’s nefarious arrow inexorably lands in the eye. One’s approbation can never justify the aim of that urchin.
A beauty is she? Asked Morio.
Golden hair that undulates flaxen, cerulean eyes, almond lips, a funny little twitch, informed Vermo.
A tic, said Morio.
Just down her left side, said Vermo.
Morio pulled a wad of money from his wallet and not being one for parsimony sent Vermo to the bar for two gins and cigarettes. Morio never one to negate a bit of sycophancy allowed Vermo to light his cigarette for him.
She had a cute lazy eye, said Vermo.
Strabismus! Bellowed Morio.
This disparaging remark was ignored.
It was getting a bit loud and wild outside the fish and chip shop so Vermo accompanied the girl on his arm out of the alcedama, away from the canaille. She clung to him tightly as though he was a beckon of safety.
She had this lovely little scar over her petite right ear, said Vermo.
A lobotomy! Bellowed Morio.
The recreant might be buying the drinks, but the opprobrium, thought Vermo. With a mighty swig Vermo emptied his glass, pulled a five out of the wad of money on the table and ambulated back to the bar. Morio flicked ash from his coruscating suit and eyed a doxy scratching her pudenda membra.
Vermo walked the girl into a desolate churchyard. She grunted, huffed and puffed and kissed Vermo upon the neck. Obfuscated in a tenebrous loveden Vermo groped and poked, fumbled and fondled. The girl was extremely vivacious; she saponified in his fingers. Accumbent Vermo found himself, exposed, and under the omnivorous girl.
Me little swain, said the girl.
You what? Impugned Vermo.
Me babe me baby, equivocated the girl.
Morio felt slightly inebriated, the slattern scratching away looked extremely delectable. Though it a contrecoeur, gin eradicates rectitude and morphs a god fearing man into a caitiff.
Vermo put the girl on the last bus and waved melancholy a goodbye. Upon his arm she had vandalized her number and address.
paul kavanagh was born in 1971 this accounts for his perplexity with money. a normad is he, forever peripatetic, a quixotic exile. H. Langden says: "paul kavanagh cannot sit still, he drinks too much tea, he succumbs to Pascal's melancholy for he is unable to remain quietly in a room." he is happy. his wife is happy.