how to hug your ex

But the brother of Elijah was stirring ill at ease in the further caravan parked in quasi-Arcadia, tossing and turning under the heavy blankets while the Banshee slumbered. And some dim time before the new day broke, he awoke beside her with tears in his eyes, having been crying in his sleep. He had once again been beset by nightmares.

   He sat up sharply, and roughly wiped his aching eyes to be rid of the gross visions that had harried him, and poked his head through the jingling curtains of their door as he cast off their duvet, admiring the blue moonlight swathing the wooded fields outside afar, sadly smiling to hear the snoring of the Puck and Pooka who slept by wheels of the wagon, in lumps not far from the hooves of dozing Balthazar.

   And as he wrapped a robe about his shoulders to guard his bones from the twilight chill, and stepped down onto the wet grass, taking care not to rupture the repose of those who slept around him, and began to pace in sombre circles around their caravan, he wondered why he could have been distressed in sleep, when all that he had planned was seemingly in motion. For here they were together again, a merry band of knaves settled in an Arcadian nook – but for what? And this perhaps was what disturbed him most, this thought that he knew not what now to do, having assumed all along that inspiration would arrive the instant the moment came, dropped into his head on cue, which callous certainty had now been undermined, once their site was found in this foreign clime where all had gathered at his heeded bidding. Wise as he was, he did not know very much. All the more reason why he pined for his brother who might explain all, scent of whose ghost loomed all the stronger in these winds that blustered where now they lay, lurking somewhere in the city’s brickwork, behind a hedge or beneath a tree, sprawled in an alley’s gutter lying in devious wait out of sight.

   He seemed sometimes scarce an inch away, so The Mad Monk thought, skulking upon the very air one breathed, so he mused as he padded in his brother’s shadow through vales of the park’s nocturne, and knelt by a pond to slurp some dribbles from the dark waters, whereon whose mirrored surface the insomniac herons still were on the prowl for fishes, scanning the pool with beady eyes in search of a telltale splash of fin, or ripple of a tail as they swam through the deeps, sucking through their scales and gills.

   The Mad Monk watched them and envied them. He too had once been aimless as were they, living only to keep on living, and thriving on such drifting, until the encompassing notion of his improving project fired him and gave him purpose, however vague his aims. But day by grey day his weariness persisted, and worse yet, his health, so hitherto unfailing, had begun to falter. He was seen to grow hoarser in his speech, getting more stooped in his stance, crouching like an older man who hobbled the earth in pain, coughing up blood on Maggie’s pillow, urinating in the bushes with mounting agony, displaying such signs of ageing as smacked suspiciously of mortality. The Puck and Pooka wondered at the evidence of his greater indolence that roused their unspoken disgust, uncomprehending of his desire for more repose that met his failing will, moved at times to ponder whether the liquid fire of the Faerie King, the same flame as they had administered to Tiernan’s Bull, whether that flame’s charms and powers were temporary ones only. With their help, The Mad Monk had cheated bodily death; but he was not cut out for the ranks of the immortals, such as stones and rocks embodied, weathering the world’s storms to be ground down to powdered sands by the waves. He would conquer no longer; he would submit. He would win no more wars and burn no more cities, but would rather put his feet up and puff upon his pipe, smiling at the stars, recalling languid days when he and Elijah had chomped upon their mushrooms free from cares.

   Dimly, in the guts, no matter what was said or what lies he told, he sensed his fading day was done for good, and his fallow baton must be passed.

   In the murk, he discerned a starlit clump of such fungi that had wooed him in his youthful days, sprouting from the lank banks of the pond’s moist shanks where now he sat in gloom. For the sake of old times, he picked one such mushroom, and ate it, nibbling in distaste, for its bitterness repelled him, and made him fear for poison. And as he chewed and swallowed, he remembered one last notion that had moved him, which he had all but forgotten, a goal that was attainable, one that may put him at peace.

   Writing poems for darling Megan Devlin had given him satisfaction such as nothing else in this place had done, and fulfilled him to a human extent he had not known. And he now recalled the impetus of the socks and scarves that set him going down that inky route, and the windy promises he had made in the tumbledown lyrics, with the talk of a child chasing kites in the sky, such a child as the former mother longed for. She might not give birth, but he could still create, and make such a child as would fill the void in their spectral lives, to carve the child of grace that all of them longed for, an inheritor he would sculpt himself, with his own two hands and homemade tools.

   He smiled in the darkness. To build a son was a task not so too arduous, even with his fading strength, for still with his dwindling powers he could handle clay or chip at pliable marble, whatever choice material he chose. And The Mad Monk smiled again the wider to fancy himself in his new role of Gippetto-Michelangelo, crafting his firstborn man, an Adam or Pinocchio to enchant his childless mistress. He himself had never had a son; now was the time to rectify that lifelong omission for good.

   Hacking, coughing, clutching his burning chest as he lurched up from the pond’s banks, he sensed again how short a time remained to him to carry out this chore of hope, pressing again more insistently upon him the urgency of the task, a deed that wanted doing in the instant. He could stall no longer, and must act now or never, to ward off the beckon of night. Staggering back through clumps of leaves that scratched his face as he parted the branches, he saw their caravan parked by the cross, and on the horizon, where sounds of the waking city wafted, he saw the first rose of dawn. And crowded about the meadow he saw a herd of deer had gathered, their speckled backs dusted by the early lights, daubed silver by the sinking stars, and painted red by the emerging morning’s sun.

   Upon the snoozing fauns and stags he smiled as he approached them in hobbling, pondering upon what materials he might employ to make his child, whether it be of wood, or clay, or rock, whichever would be most enduring and versatile and simple to sculpt or carve for a dying man in his condition, not to speak of the tricky technical problem of how he was to endow the stillborn fabric with life, or at least imbue it with life of a kind – she might like a wind-up toy, fired by electrical clockwork that sparked as cogs ground and the creaky puppet wheeled, workings of which gadgetry he confessed he had not an iota, though maybe Fergie or Robbie could lend a claw in that direction.

   But then, whiles stonily grinning and mumbling his plans, he caught sight of a thing moving among the herd ahead, a creature that was not of the deer, though moved as if it were, and they seemed to accept it as such. But whereas they were fulsome and furred, this thing was a skeleton, roving and jangling as it dipped to munch the grass, with not a peck of flesh clinging to its frame of bones, a cuckoo in the nest whose intruding horns sparred those of their stags. He watched the skeletal creature butt its fellows with prods, and he squinted in his wonderment at the bony orphan who mingled with the unquestioning deer, recalling a goose he had seen by the canal, a lonely goose who lived among the swans, and thought himself one of them.

   And so The Mad Monk met at last with none but Patsy Tiernan’s Bull.

   This long lost creature of legend was now some hundreds of years old, and a myriad yards removed from its pastoral origins of yore, doomed to a miserly life alone in its unearthly state of deathliness, seeking solace in the blue moon cows whom he rode and raped, hiding elsewhere mid such herds as these, whose spotted backs afforded some downy camouflage for the bony beast who filled their russet ranks.

   But The Mad Monk gave not a second to marvel as he hastened over, seeing only an opportunity – if he needed materials, here were some before his eyes, readymade and fired, sparked already with elusive life he need but merely grab, and chisel down to the childish shape of grace he proposed.

   ‘O me bull, me bony bull, ye shalt be a bull no more’ he wheedled as he prowled through the long grass on hands and knees toward the heedless beast, ‘why, I need just take me hammer and hack off them horns, and rearrange them ribs, and whittle his hips to a human scale, and give him a thoroughbred brushing down, and tidy up his fiery eyes whose blaze allures, and fit him out with the equipage of a toy-boy, o such joy shall be hers then, when she sees this bully boy recast as our own – c’mere, me son!’

   All caution forgotten, the mad old man unwisely pounced on the Bull from behind, taking it short in the glum morn. It snorted and reared, scattering the surrounding deer glancing up from their startled grazing, all taking flight upon sight of the scuffle, as the Bull rattled its bones onto which the ragged man held on tight, howling to the brightening sky a crazed vindication of his designs.

   ‘My son!’ he squawked, ‘My son! Dost thou not know thy maker?’

   The noise of the clumsy squabble awoke the dozers who lay outside beside the caravan. Bolting to their feet, the Puck and Pooka rubbed their eyes and beheld the fray, keeping discreet distance, uncomprehending of his stifled yowls that enjoined them to assist his hopeless pursuit. Eyes heavy with their fatigue, they barely registered what they saw, uncomprehending that here was the treasure from their past prank, unearthed afresh at last for better ends, if it could but only be held down for a minute.

   For then The Mad Monk lost hold of the Bull of bones, who snorted and heaved, and trampled all over his vainglorious captor, cracking his brittle ribs whose snap rang crisp in the dewing air, and kicked him in the face with a skeletal hoof, then turned and galloped off toward the east, facing down the red and rising sun. Distressed, Goodfellow and McPhellimey stumbled over to offer belated help to their defeated squire, who panted and gasped as he was hoisted upright onto unsteady feet whose soles were wobbly, ignorant of his streaming wounds that muddied his robes, eyes only for the retreating creature making for the hills in a final break of freedom.

   ‘We’ve not lost him yet!’ The Mad Monk babbled, ‘Come quickly boys, let us make haste to give chase before he outruns us to the verge of the sea, at the very world’s end beyond which there is no going!’

   His minders had no idea what he was saying. Shirking their support, he tried then to run, but he was frail, and his own broken bones were ominously rattling in their deluded frame. Tottering forward a few steps, he then collapsed in an ungainly heap, bemoaning his injuries and growing infirmity. In sorrow and confusion the Pooka heaved him over his shoulder, as the Puck awoke Balthazar and bade him get ready for a last trot, while Moloch the fat cat stretched and yawned, and prepared to tag along one last time.

   And onto the grumbling donkey’s grey back the ailing hero was laid by the goat, pointing a feeble finger after the path taken by the Bull they must seek, whose bones would provide him with the means to make his woman a gift, the last and greatest he would ever give. He would leave something behind him, an heir to enact the Abode’s building, to rally the troops of disciples to fulfill the sketchy foundations that were all that his weakening hands could lay, etched on sand to be drowned with a lap by the next surf.

   ‘I think he’s going senile again’ muttered the Puck to the Pooka, who gravely concurred as he whipped the donkey’s hide to start him forth on this final journey.

   ‘Fare thee well, Nutmeg me love!’ The Mad Monk croaked, his bulk prostrate on Balthazar’s back as they began their trek, raising a shaking arm to wave at the caravan from whence they departed, ‘See you come sundown! I’m going to make a gift for you!’

   But Maggie never received that gift – he never saw her again.

muumuuhouse:

i don’t want to hate the president

i don’t want to go to harvard

i don’t want to win the pulitzer prize

i just want to sit in my bathtub

and think about relationships i will never have

with people i will never meet

and then go lay in my bed

with a magnifying glass

and count all the stitches in my sheets

until i fall asleep

and wake up

to repeat again.

by Ellen Kennedy (via bear parade)

because sometimes ambition is a little overrated…

(Source: anatomyofmelancholy, via muumuuhouse)

so the blonde is dancing with her hands fingers flowing through the room flowing flowing flowing and her friends are here too and they speak in clipped sentences as if if they speak too much they might possibly be arrested i’m not sure of their names they all wear black trousers that rest half an inch above their shoes no socks they are faceless i think that the blonde introduced them as the mannequins one two three four is this their band name the mannequins wear t shirts with black and white images xeroxed of people animals fires musical notes the blonde kisses me and i am distracted her lips are cold the mannequins whisper

walter walter walter

and are there when i go to the the the bathroom and at the bar when i forgot what i wanted to order their t shirts giggle and murmur and the blonde kisses me again

are you in a band

a band

a band he said a band

no band

music is fascism

havent you heard that walt

how

all art is fascist

oh

thats why we like it

we like discipline

or be disciplined

by its very nature

arent they cute walter

pale faces characterise this bar a mannequin starts a fight in the smoking area punching and punching his victim until he misses and catches the wall blood intervention bouncers gnashing teeth the blonde sees this and laughs she used to date him turns back to our mannequins she refers to them as our mannequins some mannequins just dont know how to behave she says something like this i nod words seem useless now mannequin one talking quickly about maybe going back to college and the blonde nods and i see kit across the room sitting penitently amongst a group of laughing friends or at least i think they are friends i wave she nods back what do you want to study asks the blonde the mannequin replies by humming the trumpet coda from endless blue which is sweeping through the speakers and i am walking towards kit who is still quiet and reserved and possibly thinking who is walking towards me or when did i become like this when did life begin to intimidate me so much that the only company i feel i can keep is surfaces and mannequins and fictional characters i kiss kit on the cheek and hope that the blonde might see she doesnt a mannequin dances with her brushing hair from the blondes eyes and for a moment the mannequin looks around to see if someone has taken a photograph

having a good time kit

someone knows my name here wilko

walt walter walt whatever

and i dont know them

kit leans in closer to me an inch maybe from my ear

there is a photographer here walt dont let him take a picture of you

pause

he is surface walt surface

surface

ive seen the pictures there are no faces walter the faces disappear

kit thinks i look back at the blonde who has her hands on a different mannequins hips recreating a still from any nineties noughties teen film where the girl gets the guy despite their lack of emotional attachment or integrity or compassion i turn back to kit and she is gone so are her friends the bar is quiet i go to the bathroom i have about half a line left and i think i can change i can stop this right now i can meet up with jasper and sober up and i can crash on his couch after drinking beer until sunrise i can walk home shivering in the teasing morning sun i can sleep all day and watch predictable films with wilko and listen to him talking about stripping the government of its smug exterior and i can go to work and after handing in my notice i can tell the bad actor that he is a cunt and tell my manager that his life is simply one big failure and he will turn to me and say slowly it takes a failure to know a failure walt the blonde puts her arm around me i sigh the mannequins mutter inaudibly

do you vote walter

sometimes

sometimes

he says sometimes

inaudible muttering the blonde grips me tighter she whispers

im wearing your favourite underwear walter

and this all seems familiar wilko had a girl over last weekend he made her use the fake contact lenses and she cried because they hurt her when she tried to take them but wilko didnt want her to take them out until she left the apartment her eyes were bloodshot and there was a scratch on her neck just below her earlobe i sit down a mannequin falls down beside me not certain if this is one of the blondes friends trumpets pop up and down on the stereo system vocals seem underwater far away swaying two bare ankles whisper my name conspiring to unsettle me

do you want me to take photos

im okay i think

and the blonde

you dont have a camera

we dont need a camera

the two bare ankles tip toe to the bar or to the bathroom or to smoke a cigarette

walter walter walter remember how you left your ex girlfriend in tears and how you wanted to make sure you broke her heart in public because you wanted people to see the performance to offer your actions some sort of validity and how the real reason you left her still did not make you feel ashamed or guilty or embarrassed and you told her the real reason at the time remember the real reason walter remember it or would you like me to remind you

says the mannequin pale arms that have successfully avoided any hint of sun this summer

ill tell you walt you left grace because and i quote she always bought you unthoughtful gifts at christmas and birthdays and anniversaries you told her that the choice of present says nearly everything there is to say about a relationship and you watched grace cry by the river and the only remorse you felt was that you wished you had broken her heart sooner

the mannequin pauses drains his drink she looks at the blonde and her friends surrounding her asking questions that really mean nothing

have you seen the graffiti outside our apartment

where do you buy your coloured tights

are you going on vacation

do you love walt

does he love you

the mannequin continues

walter you feel nothing you never have and you never will

on the street taxis race by conspiring to not offer any of us a ride home the blonde is still talking to the mannequins but i am concentrating on waving down any vehicle to whisk us away from here we are walking the mannequins keep talking about art exhibits that they found wonderful because the paintings were so boring boredom is the new fun there is a crowd in front of us and the mannequins become tense tense if something is respected and worthwhile it is intense not tense i try to make a joke the mannequins recognise faces and some mannequins are on the kerb and some on the road and flashing cameras sparkle someone says its like fireworks at new years eve why do so many people put so much faith on new years eve and new decisions saving them more flashes more fireworks on the dark street the crowd are tense the mannequins try to get to the centre of the crowd they are pushed back i can’t find the blonde and a mannequin falls to the ground his shin bare and cut and no one offers him a hand to stand up more flashes i have one eye on possible taxis another intrigued by what the group are looking at my arms stretch out in front of me i worm through shoulders and ankles and find the epicentre flashes get too bright and there is the subject the mannequins shove again and someone lands in the gutter and annoys the cameras because now he is in shot and people take more pictures of a dead rat decomposing its skeletal frame peering up at the crowd the long tail worn like a rubber band and a camera says touch it touch it and the felled mannequin touches it and another camera that is taking pictures without the flash talks

this is brilliant

and the blondes knickers are on the floor and this all seems so familiar

The drive to Muscatine from Des Moines takes nearly three hours, but Jacob is grateful to be out of the city and bearing witness to the countryside. Riding over Iowa’s living hills, alternating crowns of corn and soybeans, there’s no doubting it: this is God’s country. He spent all night rehearsing the Sinner’s Prayer for her to recite. He also printed out the addresses of the three Sanderson households listed for Muscatine so he can deliver Rachel to her mother should she resist.

   Having never been to Muscatine, the storefront town charms him straight away. Of course he’s early, so he drives down to the river and looks at it for a while from the car. That the Mississippi is muddy strikes him as a shame. Old Miss needs her own John the Baptist to make that water clean. He could open up a stand, like one where the kids sell lemonade, but right on the river’s bank, selling baptism instead. Except it’d be free. Salvation is priceless, after all. The image really tickles him and he has to make sure to remember it as he drives away. Pastor Brenner’ll love it.

   Dairy Silo stands right where MapQuest said it would. It beckons tall, an antique grain silo with a soft-serve swirl rooftop that probably lights up at night. Sitting at one of the picnic tables out front is a girl in a ball cap with curly red hair. He parks at an angle in the gravel lot and reaches behind for the Bible he’ll give her. But it isn’t in the backseat. Not on the floor either.

   “How could I forget it?”

   Oh well. Sending up a prayer, he shimmies out and doesn’t bother to take the keys from the ignition. This is a small town and all.

   His feet slide on the gravel, making him conscious of his scarecrow stride. It’s okay. He is otherwise presentable, wearing a striped dress shirt with khakis and mousse in his hair. He tried spiking it, but the aerosol foam simply made it droop.

   “Rachel?”

   It’s devastating to see how temptation has seeded her. Besides the Cubs hat, she wears hoop earrings ample for perching canaries, a yellow polka dot pink halter-top, an el cheapo magenta miniskirt, and white knee-high boots with leopard-spot faux fur trim. Worse, she is fellating a frozen treat on a stick. Jacob winces. Teenagers of this type are not the easiest to Save, especially without a Bible. He’ll have to rely on the verses he knows by heart, which aren’t many. Blasted memorization never came easy.

   “I’m Jacob.” He tries to smile, his lips dry despite the humidity. “Told you I’d be here.”

   She slides the creamy Silo-sicle out of her mouth and licks her fuchsia-painted lips. “Hey.”

   He must maintain eye contact. A diverted gaze could imply that he wants to defile her, which he doesn’t. She does have nice eyes though. Clear brown ones.

   “Your eyes look pure.”

   Hadn’t she once said they were green?

   “Oh yeah?”

   And where were her freckles?

   “You’re dark complected,” he puzzles.

   A hand lands on his shoulder. He realizes he’s ignored the crunchity-crunch of a man’s shoes on gravel behind him.

   “We don’t have to make this difficult, do we?”

   He turns to see who and is thrown to the picnic table. Rachel hops out of the way and the world goes sideways with his cheek meeting weathered wood. Whoever-it-is wrenches his arms back and clamps metal around his wrists.

   “Excellent work, Leah.”

   “Leah?”

   Rachel, in perpendicular view, takes off the cap and her red hair lifts away with it. She shakes her head and a coiled black braid falls around her shoulder. She holds a badge.

   “Officer Leah Garcia. Muscatine Police Department.”

   “Jacob Alan Pfister the Third,” the other says, seemingly omniscient, patting down his legs, “you are under arrest for violating Section Seven-ten Ten of the Iowa Code: Enticing away a minor under the age of sixteen.”

   “Where’s Rachel?”

   The officer spins him around and slams his rear end on the table. He is probably forty years old, his high forehead crowned with loose red curls. His eyes green. Freckles.

   “You know how you thought you were talking to an at-risk fifteen year old girl? That whole time,” he squints, his hands on Jacob’s shoulders, “you were talking to me.”

   “Who’re you?”

   “Officer Francis Allen.”

   “So where’s Rachel?” Jacob is lifted up. He stands under the sun with his wrists linked in back. The yellow-aproned employees inside Dairy Silo gawk. He drops his chin, pondering this turn in God’s plan for him, and finds comfort. The Lord is with him. His mission hasn’t been vanquished, not really, for right here is a soul.

   “Do you know where you’re going if you die today?”

    Allen scowls and yanks him toward a squad car that has emerged in the confusion. “I’m not the one here has to worry about going to hell…”

    When they read him his rights, telling him whatever he says can be used against him in court, he responds, “The only judgment I fear is the Lord’s.” When Officer Garcia editorializes that he’ll need a good attorney, he explains that he won’t because he was only trying to Save Rachel’s soul, which is as far from committing a crime as a guy can get. When they book him, he grins for the mug shot, saying, “Praaaise!” And when he stands before a judge, who explains he’s being charged with a Class D felony and sets his bond to $5,000, Jacob, knowing this will all be smoothed out soon, clucks, “Judge not, lest ye be judged!”  The judge bumps bond to $10,000.

   Some hours after Jacob’s one phone call, Dad arrives. He stands at the booking desk with his arms folded and severity in his face. Jacob is uncuffed and Dad pays bail. While signing the various forms, he’s stricken with giggles. It’s just so silly. The process is like checking out of a motel—but it’s jail! They leave in Dad’s Mercury, his Tempo being impounded, and twentysome minutes down the road Dad says:

    “Your mother will never recover.”

     “It’s a huge mix-up,” Jacob wheezes, relieved the quiet has ended. “I was—”

     “Son, you haven’t had any kind of normal dating, steady girl situation. Ever.” He is sitting stiff at the wheel, leaning forward. “I don’t know what all you get up to on the Internet, but it’s found you some real trouble.”

    “I was going to chat rooms,” he tries to explain, “searching for lost souls. Those in greatest need are the worst sinners and the worst sinners, what are they?  Pedophiles! I play down being a Christian, which isn’t easy, and when the time is right I pounce with Jesus. That’s how I met Rachel who, I thought, was sin-bound. I saw an angel in dire need of salvation and had to act.”

   “Fifteen can be awful nice to look at—”

   “Dad!”

   “But it’s just too young,” he spits. “Everybody knows that. Sixteen is legal but that doesn’t make it all that acceptable either. You’re almost thirty. You should’a been looking for a wife.”

    Jacob sulks but finds a retort. “Some people say the Virgin Mary was only fifteen or sixteen when the Lord impreg—”

   “For cryin’ out loud,” Dad scowls. “This is gonna ruin me, too. If the news picks this up? You’ve damned the both of us.” His eyebrows strident slashes, he still won’t look at his son. “People’ll hear the name and child molester and that’ll be it for you and me. They won’t care whether it’s Jacob Pfister the Second or the Third.”

   “Dad…”

   “I should’ve let your mother name you Gary like she wanted.”

   “Stop worrying already.” He flutters his hands in what he thinks a dovelike motion. “God knows I’m not guilty. And anyway, this is America. I’m innocent ’til proven guilty.”

   When they get to Des Moines, Dad drops him at his apartment. Documents are taped to his door and inside his belongings are in new places. Dust bunnies clump where his computer should be. Just in time for the ten o’clock news, he turns on the television, which now sits on the kitchen counter. The second story, following the daily toll in the Holy Land, lets him and the rest of central Iowa see how his mug shot turned out.

   “A Des Moines man has been arrested in a child predator sting by Muscatine police today and charged with a felony for enticing away a minor via the Internet.”  So says Kevin McRaney, the silver-haired anchor he grew up watching every weeknight. “Twenty-eight-year-old Jacob Alan Pfister the Third reportedly drove to eastern Iowa this morning to meet an assumed fifteen-year-old girl with the intention of having sex.”

   Jacob gasps. That photo looks nothing like him. Somehow they enhanced it so he looks possessed, giving him demon-dark eyes and a downright vampiric grin.

   “The girl was actually a Muscatine police officer who had been chatting with Pfister online. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a seventy-five hundred dollar fine. If convicted, he will also join the state’s sex offender registry.”

   He can hardly believe the sternness in Kevin McRaney’s avuncular voice, giving him the three-name treatment reserved for assassins and real-life child molesters.

   “After breaking this story at six, we were contacted by Pastor Cameron Brenner, leader of the Holy Power and Sword of Jesus Christ Church where Pfister has been a member for several years.”

   His bull-cheeked pastor appears squinting in front of the church’s pink neon cross. “He was always a bit not normal, you know? But if I had any idea that a wolf had infiltrated my flock, I would’ve smited him myself.”

   “Pastor Brenner will hold special grief prayer groups,” McRaney concludes, “for parents and children in his congregation and the community who are distressed over these allegations.”

   The news meanders on to a story about video stores giving free rentals to kids with good grades. Jacob knows just what to do. He kneels to the floor and, as he raises a hand to heaven in prayer, he sees it on the end table. The only thing the cops didn’t move. The Bible inscribed to Rachel.

The baby was born in a full Aston Villa football kit.  That is to say it came out of its mother like that: in a full football kit.   How did it get there? 

   The doctors were mystified. Nothing in the ultrascans indicated such an abnormality.  And it didn’t make much sense to the parents either – neither of them even supported Aston Villa.

   Fingers were, naturally, pointed at the mother.  Whispers circulating the hospital referred to that conference she attended, prior to her pregnancy, at a Birmingham hotel.  But the blood tests ruled out any suggestion of foul play on the mother’s behalf.

   At a hastily arranged press conference, the head of midwifery fielded questions which ranged from the intimate to the bizarre. 

   “It’s important, at this stage, not to … not to blame anyone,” the head of midwifery said, trying to calm the roomful of journalists. “It is too early to know who is at fault,” she continued. “Of course, not that it is necessarily a fault,” she added quickly, correcting herself.  “But, yes, anyway … please be rest assured that a full inquiry will be held.  And the important thing to stress is this:  the baby is happy and healthy, and clothing aside, he is a perfectly normal baby boy.”

   The head of midwifery, however, wasn’t being completely honest.  While the baby was perfectly happy, healthy and normal as any baby could possibly be, it wasn’t quite so happy, healthy and normal when anyone tried to remove his football kit.

   Grasping at proverbial straws, the father approached one of the more amenable doctors.

   “ Doctor,” he begun, for he was talking to a doctor, “doctor, I’ve been reading up about strange births and I’ve read of a few incidents involving white parents having black children.  It turns out that in those cases one of the parents had a black grandparent or great-grandparent that they never knew about, and the genes skipped a few generations.  Do you think that sort of thing could have happened?  That one of our relatives, unknown to us, supported Aston Villa?”

   The amenable doctor sized up the father.  He contemplated the question, racked his brain for the case histories he had read, considered the mechanics of genetics, his own wife’s breasts, and finally, the image of a baby emerging from a womb in claret and blue socks, and then he replied:

   “No.”

   After a series of tests the hospital found nothing wrong with the child.

   The father, however, could not let it go.  He concocted one conspiracy theory after another.  For one week he was completely convinced that former Aston Villa chairman, Doug Ellis, was responsible for his son’s condition.

   “But why would I do it?” Ellis protested, having been cornered and questioned by the father in a supermarket car park.  “I’m not even the chairman anymore.”

   “I don’t know,” the father said, tearfully.  “I just read that you felt guilty about your lack of investment in the club’s training facilities and youth programmes.  I thought this might be your way of making amends.”

   “But a baby!  And how would I have even done it?”

   “I don’t know.  I’m sorry.  I figured that because you were a millionaire … I don’t know.  I’m sorry.”

   “It’s OK,” Ellis said, putting a hand on the father’s shoulder.  “Look, I don’t know if it’s any consolation, but if you’d like, I could get you and the boy a lifetime season ticket.  If you wanted it, of course.”

   The father accepted the offer, thanked Doug Ellis, and returned home.

   On his arrival he found his wife sitting in the kitchen, her hands on her head, her head against the kitchen table. 

   “What’s wrong?” he asked.  Between sobs, she replied:

   “I tried … I really did.  I tried to t-t-take off the kit…t-to bath him, but … but he just wouldn’t stop crying.  And I…I couldn’t do it.  Not again.  I couldn’t take off the kit and see him that upset.” 

   “I understand,” the father replied.  “And I’ve been thinking about it, I really have. I think we need to try a different approach.”

   “What do you mean?” his wife asked, looking up at her husband.  He was holding a JJB carrier bag.

   “I bought us these,” he said, putting the bag onto the table, and pulling out two adult Aston Villa football shirts.

   “Do you think it’ll work?” she asked.

   “I’ve got no idea,” he said, “but I’ve kept the receipts.”