In which Rico Soiree’s features are altered – and so are Lemurov’s
When last we left Josh Davies’s 9th-story Brezhnev-era apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine (see Part 1 of this report), Rico Soiree had had his clutches around Davies’s throat and was on top of him, ready to finish the job, so to speak, while the gentle Lemurov was looking on, obviously hoping Soiree would do just that. Soiree had come to the Davies residence demanding his half of the illicit Viagra profits, which Davies appears to have stolen, denying any knowledge of ever having been involved with Soiree in the illegal trade. Meanwhile, Lemurov had similarly arrived to claim his valuable dollhouse of live Kyiv Poster action figures, which he is certain is in Josh Davies’s possession.
It is from this point that the action continues.
AAAGH RRRAAAGGG AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
Oh, tut-tut now, Rico, Josh Davies wielding a large serrated knife soaked in blood, says to Soiree, who is strung up by his ankles above Davies’s balcony, blood pouring out the side of his head.
Davies throws an ear into a metal pot, which he has placed under Soiree’s upside-down swinging figure in a mocking attempt to catch the blood as it streams off Soiree’s skull, some trickling over the ledge onto the 8th-floor neighbor’s balcony.
Now you know how much it hurts me to hear you say I’ve been involved in something bad…
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report…
La di dum, da da di dum…
For Davies wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches…
Da da di, dum da da di…
Therefore, the best thing to do in an unfair situation like that is to make every effort not to hear anything at all – just like this!
AAAAAAAAA GGGRRRAAAAAAAAA HAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAA AAAAAARRR!!!
Oh, come now, Rico, it’s not so bad. There’s nothing good or bad, but thinking that makes it so. Are you thinking this is bad, Rico? That’s only one ear. You’ve still got the other one. Don’t you think that’s good? La di dum, da da di dum… I was only digging out the rest of it to make sure the job’s clean, like an old barber proud of his reputation. Oh, I know this is a little different, but the principle’s the same. I’m very temperamental about my work. If someone’s not satisfied, I don’t blame them; I blame myself, and then go to every extreme to make the wrong right. Speaking of barbers, I once knew one back in Georgia who staked his reputation on his work. If he got the notion a customer didn’t like a cut, he’d give him another one – absolutely free! Now let me just clean that up a little here.
AAAARGGGAAA AAAGAGAGA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH – YOU CRAZY MOTHERFUCKIN’ SON OF A BITCH – AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
I’ll just ignore that, Rico – that is your name, isn’t it? You know what they say – in one ear out the other – HAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!!! Oh, by the way, that could be a problem…
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story…
NO, AAAAAAAAAAH, NO, NO, NO… AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH GRAGRAGGGGHHH… AAAAAA AAAAAA AAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
Davies throws Soiree’s second ear into the pot.
There, I just evened the two sides up – now that looks much better. La di dum, da da di dum…
Humming blithely, Josh Davies goes for some remaining features of Rico Soiree’s face, now hacking off his nose.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH GAGAAAAAAAAAARRR AAARA HAARRRGGG AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
All the better to smell you with, my dear, Davies says, throwing the nose into the pot. So much for the great elocution you bragged to me about, cultivated under the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, for use no longer in your little trophy Silver School of English here in Kyiv, which you set up as a laundromat for your share in the kickbacks you helped conceal pouring in from public works projects, using the New Jersey Board of Education as part of a Mafioso network and their bought politicians. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT JIMMY HOFFA, YOU GREASY, WOP, DAGO, GUINEA BASTARD!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Oh, shut up, will you. Babushka! Come in here!
Babushka waddles onto the balcony at Josh Davies’s command, oblivious to the blood and carnage taking place.
Here, he says, take this pot and see if you can make some soup with it.
These are not the best parts for it, Babushka says, taking the pot and shaking her head disconcertedly as she limps away painfully to the kitchen.
Still humming, with a spring in his bowed legs and a playful smile on his crooked old man’s mouth, Davies now walks from the balcony across the living room holding the large dripping knife toward Lemurov, who is tied in a chair, his mouth covered by a clear, wide tape. Through the tape, coming out Lemurov’s mouth is the half-bitten-through little live action figure corpse of Saint Stephan from Lemurov’s valuable Kyiv Poster dollhouse – the action figure that Lemurov had cherished and protected the most – with blood that looks like acrylic paint which had gushed out of the body over Lemurov’s lower lip and down his chin. Lemurov himself is in a state of complete shock, with wide-open lunatic eyes, seemingly swimming in glistening unfocused circles, his face having aged to that of an old man, the once black hair that ringed the sides of his mostly bald head turned completely gray.
Well, well, well, Lemurov, Davies says, perhaps this will teach you not to make the service greater than the god. ‘Tis mad idolatry…
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy…
Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa…!!!
Meanwhile, out on Trukhaniv Island behind some garbage-glutted bushes… Animal Boy sits, peeved, brows knitted in snarled thinking…
Where the fuck’s Lemurov! He was supposed to be here to listen to me read some of my new stuff – about morphed rubes who get tossed from their jobs – like I did with that drunken loser Stephan he so cherishes… That’s ruuuuubes… who get tooooossed…
When suddenly…
Filed by Jack Step, June 16, 2013