Copenhagen Noir

All right then, let’s. Side by side we walk down Gothersgade, I paint you black so I can’t see you, step up the pace so to avoid your presence, and keep a steady rhythm without looking back. My feet move beneath me furiously, but I make no progress on this deserted street, and I sense you behind me, a thousand arms, a thousand legs twitching pointlessly, hear you grunt like a frenzied pig, grind your long, loose teeth and lose them, plink-plonk, on the sidewalk. Maybe this is a dream. No drunks in sight, it isn’t right. No drunks, no scum, and no slime. So wrong for this time of night. And no intense poetic airheads who write ART, who write

sitting in the leftovers. World’s silence. All are drunk on ether hope. Also that will pass away. Violently. Suddenly. And now; no lame come on, baby, please please please; no T &A with metal heels; no old gals with teased, sprayed hair; not even the odd lost specimens who only want to find a head they can hop up and down on until all that’s left is cauliflower. Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up, to live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!

Naw, we have the street all to ourselves, you and I, and I’m getting nowhere. And it’s as if you’re growing. And the more you grow, the more nowhere I get, the more I want to headbutt you, both of you. You fucking look like Keith Richards, you want a beer?

Have you ever heard a mouse roar? If you don’t get lost, your face ends up like mine: Fuckface with Beckett-like furrows. So take a long walk on a short pier, and if you don’t drown right away I’ll be at your service in no time flat. I have something in my pocket, it’s sharp, it can scratch and prick, deeply if need be, or just sever and slice, and I want to do so, badly, besides which I have leather gloves in my pocket that I’ll put on so I don’t hurt myself. My face has to go to work tomorrow, you see, and I hate to get blood on my clothes.

I cross the street toward the hot dog stand and order a grilled one while staring straight at Andy’s Bar opposite. They’re all in there. I don’t care how crowded it is. I can cut you up, rip your black heart out in full public view, and stomp on your head until it’s cauliflower, as is the custom nowadays. Surrounded by people, I can carry out my hideous but necessary project without unwelcome interruptions. No one will react. Not in McDonald’s, not in Nab-a-kebab, not in Andy’s-especially not in there.

The grilled dog arrives, but my towering rage runs around and around the hot dog stand, faster and faster, unnerves me. I fix my stare on Andy’s cheery colors, the cozy lights, silhouettes of rollicking, sloshy binges. If you’re not over there, in there, it’s death by rage for the World’s Most Elegantly Wasted Human Being, me:

So, my friend, where have you hidden tonight? Couldn’t find you yesterday, either. I’ve been looking for you for over a week, in the city streets, after streetlights came on, in front of dour houses with windows so black they ate the white curtains, the white sills, and what else, the occasional cactus? I’ve looked for you in the courtyards, on deserted stretches, out by the warehouses on Amager where they bet on dogs and girlz wrestling in mud, along the canals, the slopes, in noise and darkness, and in the still of artificial lights. I always think it’s your back I see framed in cold neon, always your boots tromping up the stairs, opening the door with a bang, your hands passing me things from inside.

Fuck, it was just the bitch who sold the tickets.

Andy’s is open. That means I’m drunk. If I wasn’t, Andy’s would be closed. So it is. Keith Richards with acne and/or wrinkles and heroin-assisted constipation in wonderland, where he eats a grilled dog with everything on it in front of the bewitched tavern that must have you aboard by now, you and your likeminded and their mass of wrong words, though the right ones exist, like Beautiful Delilah, sweet as apple pie, always gets a second look from fellas passin’ by… The better don’t allow me fool around with you, you are so tantalizing you just can’t be true, sounds so much better than You fucking look like Keith Richards, you want a beer? If you’d just smile a little…