Debaser

Chapter 3

The day before the morning after, a rare day indeed. A rogue cloud in an otherwise uniformly blue sky passed languorously from the sun, allowing its brilliant rays to whiten a million window panes and lighten as many moods, and bedeck with dazzling diamonds the windscreens and contours of even the most clapped-out old banger; and its radiance to filter unhindered through the living room window of Billy Wilson's new town apartment, gradually illuminating the scene therein. The brightness steadily, almost imperceptibly intensifying, as the introduction to a song or piece of music might steadily rise in volume until...

Shoulders back and feet wide apart, lip curled and furrowed brow, now frenziedly strumming the jeans pocket of a low-slung air guitar, now wildly beating with his fists the taut skin-air of a fanciful drum kit, Tony Drake stood vehemently spitting half lyrics and wrong lyrics, a screeching, faltering travesty of the melodious, accomplished, jangling, unvarnished, ironic, fun filled, throwaway, timeless, three-minute, soul-cleansing surf-punk now booming out of either speaker on the wall behind him.
'WAVE OF MUTILATION!' he roared. 'I FUCKIN LOVE THIS SONG!'
Dooly, lying over by the door, wearily hove his sad-eyed and angular head up from outstretched forepaws and sonorously barked an additional bass-line
'HOWF! HOWFHOWF!'
With each bark his loose lips flapped and fluttered, and a hanging string of saliva, seemingly made of elastic, bounced and swung dramatically beneath his lower jaw. Warily his thin strip of a tail thump-thumped on the carpet, meek percussion, scarcely audible in the din.

Billy, ensconsed, recumbent and cross-legged, in his armchair - heel to floor, arse to the edge, arms on arms, chin to chest - stared idly at the flickering television screen.

In an instant Tony was adance and, oh, what a mover!. He did the blitzkrieg bop, the cretin hop, the mashed potato and the twist; the hucklebuck and the Jacques Tati; the mambo, the rumba and the stomp. A hybrid, bastardised amalgamation of all of these took him limbs flailing over every available inch of the floor. He was utterly lost in the music. He immersed himself in it and it flowed all around him. There was no longer any blood in his veins. He had had a complete transfusion. Someone, some beneficent god, had taken his blood and replaced it with song, and it was being pumped right through him, from his head to his toes, by his pounding heart. He vanished into it as though it were a portal to another world, a better world, a world wherein his every utterance, his every action, was understood. A world where he felt he truly belonged.

Billy, ensconced, recumbent and cross-legged, in his armchair - heel to floor, arse to the edge, arms on arms, chin to chest - stared idly at the flickering television screen.

'HOWFHOWFHOWF! HOWF! HOWF!'
'NEVER MIND THE FUCKIN TELLY! FEEL THE FUCKIN MUSIC, MAN!' Screamed Tony, and a fencer's lunge - quick in, quick back - procured for him the television remote control that was lying naively unguarded on the small table between the armchair and the couch.
At the tail-end of a backwards shuffle, all the while antagonisingly wagging his booty, he flick-kicked forward a trailing right foot, swung it back over a pivotal left, spun, and thumb to 'stand-by' blackened the flickering screen.
Up now and four on the floor, perhaps sensing tension, Dooly had expanded his repertoire to include a low growl, that thin strip of a tail now perfectly still.
'GrrHOWF! GrrHOWF! HOWF!'

Billy, beleaguered, ensconced recumbent and cross-legged in his armchair - heel to floor, arse to the edge, arms on arms, head back - stared patiently at the wall above the blackened television screen.

'You're upsettin the dog with your dancin,' he muttered, sitting himself upright.
'I'M WHAT?' Shouted Tony, dancing.
'YOU'RE UPSETTIN THE DOG, MAN!' Repeated Billy.
'AM I FUCK! I'M ONLY UPSETTIN YOU. THE DOG'S FINE. AREN'T YOU, PAL? YOU'RE FINE, AREN'T YOU, EH?'
'GrrrHOWF! GrrHOWF! Grrr!'
'JUST WANTS TO DANCE. DON'T YOU, BIG MAN, EH? JUST WANT TO DANCE? COME ON THEN, HUP! HUP! COME ON, HUP!'
Dooly remained grounded, growling a firm refusal.
Tony, undeterred, stooped to conquer, and the beast, snarling now, was hand reared by the forelegs and raised to the level of the man.
'Fuckin hell, you're a heavy big bastard!'
'HE'LL GO FOR YOU!' Shouted Billy. 'Serve you fuckin right, as well.'
'NO HE WON'T. HE LOVES HIS UNCLE TONY. DON'T YOU, PAL? YOU LOVE YOUR UNCLE TONY, DON'T YOU, EH?'
Beneath a leathery nose lips twitched and powerful teeth were bared.
'I'M TELLIN YOU, MAN, YOU BETTER PUT HIM DOWN! HE'S GOIN TO BITE YOU!'
Heedless, reckless, Tony moved in closer. He positioned a weighty paw on each of his shoulders, placed the palm of a hand either side of a sleek-coated ribcage and, animal and man face to face, a grotesque waltz ensued.

That was it for Billy. He was up out of his chair and striding boldly across the floor, purposeful, resolute, determined to switch off the music. Without so much as a gentleman's excuse me, Tony pushed away his dance partner, hurdled onto the couch and sprang off at the other end, landing hard, to block Billy's way and wag a forbidding finger at his frustrated adversary.
Billy, embittered, tightly gripped the chair-back with his right hook.
An angry duo of sharp, broom-handle knocks sounding up through the floor from the ceiling of the flat below (no you can't, no you can't) was immediately answered with a defiant trio of dull, sole-heel thuds sent down from above by Tony (yes I can, yes I can, yes I can).
Once again four on the floor, Dooly had excitedly reprised his bass-line.
'HOWFHOWF! HOWFHOWFHOWF! HOWF!'
'DOOLY!' snapped Billy.
And the dog, after meekly barking a diminuendo, slunk quietly back to the door, where he lay croup between hams, lapping woundedly at his manhandled forelegs. Billy relaxed his grip.
'Come on,' he said. 'We should make a move anyway.'
'Are we takin him?' Asked Tony, pointing at the dog.
'Aye.'
'Will he even fit in the car?'
'I'm not takin the car. We're walkin.'
'We're walkin? What, all the way up to Pabs's?'
'Aye.'
Tony stared for a bit out of the window, as though walking the route in his mind.
'All right,' he said finally. 'But wait until this song's finished.'