The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. Part five. Chapter 12

XII The Fat Man Dances

64

Breer didn’t mind the change in the weather. It was altogether too sultry on the street, and the rain, with its symbolic cleansing, made him feel more comfortable. Though it was many weeks since he’d felt the least spasm of pain, he did itch in the heat. Not even an itch really. It was a more fundamental irritation: a crawling sensation on or beneath his skin that no ointment allayed. The drizzle seemed to subdue it a measure, however, for which he was grateful. Either the rain, or the fact that he was going to see the woman he loved. Though Carys had attacked him several times (he wore the wounds like trophies) he forgave her her trespasses. She understood him better than anyone else. She was unique-a goddess, despite her body hair-and he knew that if he could only see her again, display himself for her, touch her, all would be well.

But first he had to get to the house. It had taken him a while to find a taxi that would stop for him, and when one obliged the driver only took him part of the way before telling him to get out because, he claimed, the smell was so repulsive he wouldn’t be able to get another fare all day. Shamed by this all-too-public rejection-the taxi driver harangued him from his cab as he drove away-Breer took to the back streets, where he hoped he wouldn’t be sneered and sniggered at.

It was in one such backwater, just a few minutes’ walk from where Carys was waiting for him, that a young man with blue swallows tattooed on his neck stepped out of a doorway to offer the Razor-Eater some assistance.

“Hey, man. You look sick, you know that? Let me lend you a hand.”

“No, no,” Breer grunted, hoping the Good Samaritan would leave him alone. “I’m fine, really.”

“But I insist,” Swallows said, picking up his pace to overtake Breer, then standing in the Razor-Eater’s way. He glanced up and down the road to check for witnesses before pushing Breer into the doorway of a bricked-up house.

“You keep your mouth shut, man,” he said, whipping out a knife and pressing it to Breer’s bandaged throat, “and you’ll be OK. Just empty your pockets. Quick! Quick!”

Breer made no move to comply. The suddenness of the attack had disoriented him; and the way the youth had seized his splinted neck had made him giddy. Swallows pushed the knife a little way into the bandaging to make his point clear. The victim smelled bad, and the thief wanted the job over and done with as soon as possible.

“Pockets, man! You deaf?” He pushed the knife deeper. The man didn’t flinch. “I’ll do it, man,” the thief warned, “I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

“Oh,” said Breer, unimpressed. More to quiet the tick than out of fear, he rummaged in the pocket of his coat and found a handful of possessions. Some coins, a few peppermints that he’d continued to suck until his saliva supply dried up, and a bottle of aftershave. He proffered them with faint apology on his rouged face.

“That all you’ve got?” Swallows was outraged. He tore open Breer’s coat.

“Don’t,” the Razor-Eater suggested.

“Bit hot to be wearing a coat, isn’t it?” said the thief. “What are you hiding?”

The buttons gave as he tore at the jacket Breer was wearing beneath his coat, and now the thief was staring, open-mouthed, at the handles of the knife and fork that were still buried in the Razor-Eater’s abdomen. The stains of dried fluids that ran from the wounds were only marginally less disgusting than the brown rot that was spreading down from his armpits and up from his groin. In his panic, the thief pressed the knife more deeply into Breer’s throat.

“Christ, man-”

Anthony, having lost his dignity, his self-esteem, and, did he but know it, his life-had only his temper left to lose. He reached up and took hold of the inquiring knife in a greasy palm. The thief relinquished it a moment too late. Breer, swifter than his bulk suggested, twisted blade and hand back, and broke his assailant’s wrist.

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