John the Revelator Read Online Free PDF Page B

When I got to know him a bit better he told me he was adopted and that when his younger brother came along it was like he didn’t exist any more. People always thought he was older than he was. That got him served in pubs; the confident way he carried himself.
    Across the road in front of Brown’s Hardware, barelegged heifers from the Mercy were playing arses and kicks. Mister Brown came out and ran them. Jamey watched all this, a smile tempting the corner of his mouth.
    I nodded at his book.
    â€˜What you reading?’
    He picked it up and flipped the pages.
    â€˜
Rimbaud in Africa!
’
    â€˜Who’s Rimbaud?’
    â€˜A writer.’
    He clawed hair out of his eyes.
    â€˜Brainy bugger. Revolutionised poetry by the time he was twenty-one, then jacked it all in and bunked off to Africa and made a fortune running guns and slave-trading.’
    He waved his hands around as he spoke, the smoke describing swirls and spirals in the air.
    â€˜Him and his buddies used to drink absinthe in a kip called The Dead Rat in Paris. One time Rimbaud climbed up on the table, dropped his pants and took a dump and painted a picture in it. Big into blasphemy too, used to carve graffiti into park benches.
Merde á Dieu.
’
    â€˜What’s that mean?’
    â€˜Look it up.’
    â€˜I will.’
    I stooped and plucked
Harper’s Compendium
from my schoolbag.
    â€˜Here’s what I’m reading.’
    Jamey took a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and perched them on his nose. They were round and wire-rimmed and completely transformed his face, made him look more owlish. He thumbed through the pages.
    â€˜Man,’ he said, eyes glowing behind the lenses, ‘this is some strange.’
    He flipped to the plates and gawped at an illustration of a tapeworm exiting a snail.
    â€˜Oh Jesus, that’s fucking repulsive.’
    Then he pointed to a picture of a maggot curled up in some brain.
    â€˜What
is
this? Worm porn? You
like
this stuff?’
    I shrugged.
    â€˜Nature’s pretty twisted.’
    He shut the book and thrust it back in my hands.
    â€˜I’m sorry, man, I can’t look at that.’
    He shuddered like he had to pee, dropped his cigarette and squashed it beneath his boot.
    Outside Brown’s Electrical a gypsy-looking bloke in a porkpie hat began to play the accordion, the instrument case open at his feet. A few youngsters clustered around and began to flick coins at him. Somebody grabbed the case and started to drag it down the path. The musician shouted and made a grab for it. Someone else picked it up and ran, and the musician chased after him awkwardly, the accordion still strapped around his chest.
    Jamey rubbed his chin. There was a ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. Some kind of stone, maybe garnet.
    â€˜Hey,’ he said, ‘want to hear something? It’s right up your alley.’
    I was starting to feel conspicuous talking to this weird kid in the middle of the market square, but it wasn’t like I had anything else to do.
    â€˜Go on then.’
    â€˜This girl, Annie.’ He plucked a flake of tobacco from between his tongue and teeth and flicked it away. ‘One morning she woke up with an itch that she couldn’t quite scratch, right down in the basement of the ladies’ department. An irritation. It got so bad she had to make an appointment to see her doctor. Next thing she was sitting in the waiting room looking at the eye chart and the two letters V and D started
glowing
at her.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Venereal Disease. The clap. But she was thinking that couldn’t be the trouble, cos she and the boyfriend were using protection. Besides, he was a virgin when they met. His name was Gavin and his big ambition was someday he’d become the state pathologist. She had a thing for nerds. A lot of girls do, you’d be surprised.’
    â€˜I know.’
    I didn’t know.
    â€˜Anyhow, they were