Two Lads With Stolen Names Become Somewhat Intolerant

It was a day with no weather when Bibi-la-Grillade headed on foot across the grey old city, which he inhabited by fluke of birth, to see his friend Mes-Bottes.

As he turned the corner of Mes-Bottes's street, one of a dizzying maze of terraced housing which filled the grey old city, of which he was extremely proud, he noticed a man ironing an unidentifiable item in the middle of the otherwise completely deserted street. It was Mes-Bottes, standing alone, slowly and absent-mindedly moving the iron backwards and forwards and staring blankly back down the road towards Bibi-la-Grillade. There were no people and no cars. All the people had gone on holiday to Spain or somesuch, and all the cars had gone with them.

'Mes-Bottes! My friend Mes-Bottes!' Bibi-la-Grillade sang out in a faux operatic voice as he approached, flailing his arms dramatically. 'Tell me why, oh why, are you standing in the middle of the empty street ironing an unidentifiable item?' This last part was a blatant lie, for Bibi-la-Grillade was already close enough to be able to identify the unidentifiable item as Mes-Bottes's left hand.

'Oh, it's you is it?' said Mes-Bottes, staring straight through his friend and continuing to iron his left hand metronomically.

'Why of course!' replied Bibi-la-Grillade, still singing when speaking would have been more appropriate. 'Why do you behave so coldly towards your old comrade?'

'Oh do shut up, you opera fuck!' cried Mes-Bottes. 'Can't you see I'm in no mood?'

Bibi-la-Grillade was taken aback. He'd seen his friend in poor spirits on previous occasions, but this downright hostility was new to him. He decided to proceed with caution, beginning with speaking instead of singing.

'There now, there now,' he said, as if he were trying to soothe a baby. He slowly approached the angry Mes-Bottes and gave him a warm but unreciprocated hug.

This was too much for Mes-Bottes. He dropped the iron to the ground and wept loudly, making such a racket with his heavy sobs that some slates were dislodged from the roofs of the houses and came crashing to the floor. It's perhaps fortunate that there were no cars in the street because the slates would undoubtedly have damaged them, and the noise of their alarms sounding would have been unbearable.

'There, there,' continued Bibi-la-Grillade still hugging his friend to bits. 'You just let it all out to your old friend Bibi.'

'It's my wife!' screamed Mes-Bottes in a quivering falsetto. 'She's run away with Il-Ne-Comprend-Pas from number twenty four, and worse than that, they've taken the car with them.'

Bibi-la-Grillade let go of Mes-Bottes abruptly and looked at him in shock.

'The car?' he asked, 'the fast black car with the brand new tyres?'

'Yes!' wailed Mes-Bottes 'the fast black car with the brand new tyres and the sun-roof! Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh!'

'Well, we'll just have to see about all this,' said Bibi-la-Grillade. 'And where might they have gone to, these two....these two....fucking....jugglers?!'

'They've gone off to Spain or somesuch with the rest of them.'

'Spain or somesuch with the rest of them?!' Bibi-la-Grillade was angrier than ever now. 'And what on earth is the matter with our grey old city? Eh? Why go to Spain or somesuch? Why not just stay here and visit places here and talk to the people here? Fucking jugglers! They make me sick!'

'She said my left hand was too wrinkled,' cried Mes-Bottes. '"Il-Ne-Comprend-Pas has a left hand as smooth as a mole," she said.'

'Yes, and I bet he leaves a great big pile of soil everywhere he goes too, the trumpet.'

'But wait Bibi-la-Grillade,' said Mes-Bottes in a suddenly hushed tone, pointing downwards and nodding his head in the same direction. 'That's not everything.'

Bibi-la-Grillade bent down to have a look what the hell all this new fuss was about and found a young man, no more than twenty years old, with massive, black, curly hair and a beard to match, cowering under the ironing board. He wore a stained white vest, a pair of three-quarter-length shorts and beige slip-on shoes and chewed his nails devotedly, muttering indecipherables under his breath with a look of sheer terror in his eyes. He was utterly filthy and the smell off him would have done for a man of weak constitution. Put frankly, he stank of a mixture of several different kinds of shit.

'My sweet Lord!' cried Bibi-la-Grillade, drawing back in disgust and putting his handkerchief over his nose. 'What the buggering hell is that?'

'That's The-Shady-Character,' whispered Mes-Bottes. 'He's been hanging around ever since my wife ran off. D'you think it's a sign?'

'A sign of what? That if you don't have a wash you get to stinking? No, no, no we can't be having this. Not in my city. What did you say his name was?'

'The-Shady-Character.'

'The-Shady-Character? What kind of daft bloody name is that?'

'I think he might be English.'

'English?!' roared Bibi-la-Grillade. 'Well what on earth's he doing here then? He should piss off back to Spain, or wherever the hell it is he's come from. Now look here,' he continued, bending down to address The-Shady-Character, but keeping his handkerchief clamped over his nose. 'For starters I won't be calling you by that daft name of yours; from now on you're Shut-Up-You-Stink, got that?' Shut-Up-You-Stink nodded in acquiescence, utterly petrified. He looked as if he were about to literally fall apart with fear.

'Now the next question,' Bibi-la-Grillade went on, 'is what the hell is to be done with you? Would you be willing just to piss off at all?'

Shut-Up-You-Stink shook his head sadly as if such a thing were completely impossible.

Bibi-la-Grillade turned to Mes-Bottes and shrugged his shoulders, pulling a face which suggested that was the first and last of his ideas and that he was about to wash his hands of the whole affair. However, Mes-Bottes appeared to have found inspiration from somewhere and beckoned him over for a private conflab.

It was decided that they would hang Shut-Up-You-Stink from a lamp-post as punishment for the fact that Mes-Bottes's wife had run away with Il-Ne-Comprend-Pas and the fast black car with the new tyres and the sun-roof. Both were happy with this conclusion and Shut-Up-You-Stink seemed resigned to his fate, almost relieved that the wait was over.

So, with a little difficulty, the compliant Shut-Up-You-Stink was carried over to the nearest lamp-post and hung. Not hanged by his neck of course, Mes-Bottes and Bibi-la-Grillade weren't animals, but hung with the rope around his waist so that he just dangled there looking daft and helpless. With hindsight, there is little doubt that Shut-Up-You Stink would have preferred the two men to have been a little more ruthless. After hanging him up, Bibi-la-Grillade and Mes-Bottes embarked on a three day spree to both celebrate and forget, leaving Shut-Up-You-Stink to endure a painfully long, drawn-out death as he was slowly eaten by seagulls.

When the two men returned, infiltrated by the inevitable darkness of thought that a three day spree conjures up, they wept for hours in each other's arms at what had become of their new friend.

A Go on the Game

'Alright mate.'
'Alright.'
'What's that you've got there?'
'Just a game.'
'Is it yeah? A new game is it?'
'Yeah.'
'Let's have a go on it then.'
'Nah.'
'What d'you mean 'nah'? Why not?'
'Dunno.'
'I thought we were mates. We are aren't we?'
'Well, not really.'
'What? Why not?'
'Well, it's just that every time I see you, you punch me in the mouth. I've lost loads of teeth because of it.'
'Hahaha!! I don't do that do I?'
'Yeah you....Oww! See, you've just done it again now!'
'Shit, yeah! I have haven't I?'
'Yeah, you have!'
'And I do that every time do I?'
'Every single time.'
'Sorry mate.'
'Don't worry about it.'
'Can I have a go on the game then?'
'Go on then, but only while I wipe this blood off.'