Read Online The Butt by Will Self - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Will Self
Tags: Contemporary, Azizex666
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hot sponge of Vance. Standing on the sidewalk, he looked up at enormous cumulo-nimbus formations coasting in from the ocean; their bulbous white peaks and horizontal grey bases mirrored the superstructures and hulls of the cruise ships out in the bay – vessels that were readying themselves to depart, scooting out from beneath the gathering storm and heading for safer waters, busier cities, better shopping.
At the quayside Tom took the roach motel out of the plastic bag. He opened the little perspex door, and the roaches, their feelers probing liberty, fell end over end into the scummy water. The waves washing against the concrete gathered their bodies into an agitated raft. Tom turned and scuttled off in the direction of the nearest mall.
Here he had doughnuts for breakfast in a coffee shop, while scanning the paper. The local news he ignored, preferring to peer the wrong way down a 15,000-mile-long telescope, at events diminished out of all significance.
After a few days of this, Tom felt himself sinking into swampy inertia. It was now so humid in Vance that the atmosphere seemed as thick and moist as a hot towel; it was a relief when his lawyer called and summoned Tom to his office.
Swai-Phillips’s office was in the Metro-Center, the 22-storey block that towered over Vance’s relatively low-rise business district. Ushered in by a furtive, brown-skinned man, who introduced himself as Abdul, the lawyer’s clerk, Tom discovered Swai-Phillips with his bare feet up on his desk, his sunglasses clamped on and his impenetrable gaze levelled at the big windows along the far wall. Tom assumed that, like the rest of Vance’s dwindling population, he was mesmerized by the anticipation of the rains.
Swai-Phillips was also smoking a large loosely rolled cigar, the outer leaf of which was partially detached. As Tom watched, appalled, he dabbed spittle on to a finger, then applied it to the vegetative glans.
There must have been eight notices detailing Vance’s anti-smoking ordinances between the elevator doors and the frosted ones of the lawyer’s suite. Yet, when Tom pointed this out, Swai-Phillips only belched smoke and laughter. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! They don’t apply in here; this is a home office, yeah, special zoning.’
‘But what about Abdul?’ Tom asked.
‘Him? That feller . . .’ Swai-Phillips grinned wolfishly. ‘He’s my son, kind of, right.’
Tom asked about the building: why was it so much higher than all the rest? This was an earthquake zone, wasn’t it?
The lawyer did his Father Christmas shtick again. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! You may well ask – not only is this an earthquake zone, this building is slap on the crack, man. I’ve been sitting here one time, yeah, and seen the streets rucking up like a rug that’s been kicked! I tellya why it’s so high – the Metro-Center, it’s ’cause the pols in this town are so damn low, that’s why!’
Tom felt shaky and sat down abruptly on a low chair.
‘I would ask if my cigar bothered you,’ Swai-Phillips continued, ‘but why bother, I know the answer.’
Was it mere rudeness or sheer arrogance on the lawyer’s part? Tom shook his head, uncomprehending. The thick coils of smoke lay so heavily on the carpeted deck of the office that when Swai-Phillips’s secretary came in with a cup of coffee for Tom, she appeared tangled up in its bluey-grey hanks.
While the lawyer continued to puff on the monstrous stogie, it dawned on Tom that his own alternations between belligerence and passivity in the face of this whole grotesque situation could be entirely accounted for by the effects of nicotine withdrawal. That’s why he’d been so emotionally labile: whining, inveigling, then inveighing. That’s why his encounters – with Adams, Swai-Phillips, even the clerk in the cellphone store – had the vibrant, darkly hilarious character of hallucinations. That’s why his judgement had been so clouded: for, instead of the smoke venting from Tom at regular intervals,
At the quayside Tom took the roach motel out of the plastic bag. He opened the little perspex door, and the roaches, their feelers probing liberty, fell end over end into the scummy water. The waves washing against the concrete gathered their bodies into an agitated raft. Tom turned and scuttled off in the direction of the nearest mall.
Here he had doughnuts for breakfast in a coffee shop, while scanning the paper. The local news he ignored, preferring to peer the wrong way down a 15,000-mile-long telescope, at events diminished out of all significance.
After a few days of this, Tom felt himself sinking into swampy inertia. It was now so humid in Vance that the atmosphere seemed as thick and moist as a hot towel; it was a relief when his lawyer called and summoned Tom to his office.
Swai-Phillips’s office was in the Metro-Center, the 22-storey block that towered over Vance’s relatively low-rise business district. Ushered in by a furtive, brown-skinned man, who introduced himself as Abdul, the lawyer’s clerk, Tom discovered Swai-Phillips with his bare feet up on his desk, his sunglasses clamped on and his impenetrable gaze levelled at the big windows along the far wall. Tom assumed that, like the rest of Vance’s dwindling population, he was mesmerized by the anticipation of the rains.
Swai-Phillips was also smoking a large loosely rolled cigar, the outer leaf of which was partially detached. As Tom watched, appalled, he dabbed spittle on to a finger, then applied it to the vegetative glans.
There must have been eight notices detailing Vance’s anti-smoking ordinances between the elevator doors and the frosted ones of the lawyer’s suite. Yet, when Tom pointed this out, Swai-Phillips only belched smoke and laughter. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! They don’t apply in here; this is a home office, yeah, special zoning.’
‘But what about Abdul?’ Tom asked.
‘Him? That feller . . .’ Swai-Phillips grinned wolfishly. ‘He’s my son, kind of, right.’
Tom asked about the building: why was it so much higher than all the rest? This was an earthquake zone, wasn’t it?
The lawyer did his Father Christmas shtick again. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! You may well ask – not only is this an earthquake zone, this building is slap on the crack, man. I’ve been sitting here one time, yeah, and seen the streets rucking up like a rug that’s been kicked! I tellya why it’s so high – the Metro-Center, it’s ’cause the pols in this town are so damn low, that’s why!’
Tom felt shaky and sat down abruptly on a low chair.
‘I would ask if my cigar bothered you,’ Swai-Phillips continued, ‘but why bother, I know the answer.’
Was it mere rudeness or sheer arrogance on the lawyer’s part? Tom shook his head, uncomprehending. The thick coils of smoke lay so heavily on the carpeted deck of the office that when Swai-Phillips’s secretary came in with a cup of coffee for Tom, she appeared tangled up in its bluey-grey hanks.
While the lawyer continued to puff on the monstrous stogie, it dawned on Tom that his own alternations between belligerence and passivity in the face of this whole grotesque situation could be entirely accounted for by the effects of nicotine withdrawal. That’s why he’d been so emotionally labile: whining, inveigling, then inveighing. That’s why his encounters – with Adams, Swai-Phillips, even the clerk in the cellphone store – had the vibrant, darkly hilarious character of hallucinations. That’s why his judgement had been so clouded: for, instead of the smoke venting from Tom at regular intervals,
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