All Dogs are Blue Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rimbaud kicked and screamed and no one did a thing. I went after the procession. It looked like a cartoon. I was going deep into the jungle. Rimbaud was stood upright by two witch doctors and when they cut his arm, I gave a Sioux war cry that I learnt from the Daniel Boone films. Everybody ran. It wasn’t the first time I’d helped Rimbaud out. He doesn’t know how to get out of his messes on his own. I always have to step in and save him. I’m his superhero.
    The good thing was that I could spend my days alone in the room. Rimbaud and I spent the afternoons playing poker.
    Rimbaud wasn’t used to modern stuff. He was a guy from another time. He had to learn everything. He’d never written another poem. But he was a good companion for wasting away the hours and for poker.
    After a while a depressed guy came to my room. He slept all day long. He slept with one hand touching the floor. His hand looked like a snake, a cobra that would sometimes rise up and come to attack me and Rimbaud.
    You must be wondering if my relationship with Rimbaud was sexual. Even though I knew Rimbaud was in love with me, I didn’t really encourage him, so that I wouldn’t break the poet’s heart. After all, I was just looking for friendship. Rimbaud behaved himself and never left my side. He was a loyal friend, a squire.
    He liked flowers. Sometimes we girded ourselves with flowers. Sometimes we walked around naked. Me fat and him all skinny. We were like Laurel and Hardy.
    One day I saved a house from its wicked termites. It was supernatural. The termites were encrusted in everything. I only left termites on the devil’s horns. Everywhere else was freed of termites. At fifteen, I already showed powers. I truly emanated transcendental powers. I’d swallowed a cricket that was wriggling around in my lung.
    Like hell you swallowed a cricket!
    You’re crazy. Good heavens, you need treatment.
    He’s just fine. What he needs is a good beating.
    They beat me with a stool.
    That was the last time I took a beating, after I arrived in Rio. They beat me out of shame.
    Do you think that’s manly, thinking a cricket got you? You’re a talking cricket.
    I wasn’t friends with Rimbaud yet. If he had been my friend, he wouldn’t have let them beat me so much.
    I had another friend, Baudelaire, who only came round every once in a while. But with him it was another story. Baudelaire never picked up, not even with me begging and calling him, leaving messages. Moody git. But that afternoon they were both there, Rimbaud and Baudelaire, talking about poetry and modern life. And all of a sudden she walked past me. She came in white, all in white, pretty and smelling of perfume. Porcelain white. I was invaded by the song,
    she comes all in white, all wet and dishevelled
    how wonderful is my love
    Jorge Ben took me by the hand. And I watched the woman in a lab coat walk by. Rimbaud and Baudelaire disappeared. But then Rimbaud came back with a daisy behind his left ear, and danced and danced. I laughed with him and laughed at him. Rimbaud was a lot of fun. Many people must be wondering if it was Rimbaud’s fault that I smashed up the whole house. Of course it was Rimbaud who gave me the idea.
    Break everything. Show them you’re a man.
    I didn’t become more of a man for smashing up my house. Sometimes that Rimbaud lets me down. I’ll go for days without seeing him, but he always comes back.
    I stopped getting bayoneted. I started oral medication. Oral medication is easy to trick your way out of. I know which drugs I take. I always spit the ones I don’t want down the sink. The ideal way to deter that would be effervescent drugs. Of course the feebleminded are totally out of it and take their drugs properly.
    Time to watch television. Time for the Addams family to get together. All the nutters would get together to watch the soap opera. A sergeant, a street cleaner, other dimwits and one guy who beats his head against the wall every two minutes.
    I’ve