THE SLIPPERY PEARLS
A collaboration with Hertzan Chimera
Published 'Masque' 1995
Foetus of shotgun wedding, neatly pared from bone and sauced with umbilical noodles in laughing gravy.
This glorious hors d’oeuvre opened the feast celebrating the now famous nuptials of King Aspinall and Lady Antoinette of Petty France – a feast fated to end all feasts.
In the brass-lined palace kitchen, it looked like a bomb had hit – or at least some wet, exploding liver during a pate de foie gras process that had gone spectacularly wrong. Aye, the dirty work was well under way yet two of the blood-spattered hired hands, habitual squabblers who went back a long way, were making things difficult for the head chef.
“…l’enfant des cuisses coupe don’t usually wriggle that way,” enunciated chef Lammerbacker, the words enshrouded in a blue plume of cigar smoke.
“Well the butcher’s boy who brought them assured me they were as dead as joints of beef,” mewled his sidekick after gobbling noisily on a scratching of rancid leftovers.
“In that case, dear Akengraft, you’ve been diddled on the griddle and done to a turn.” The bitter acid of each taunting syllable, dead faces striking the cracked bell of his co-worker’s broken spirit.
“Of course,” he blathered on, “I’d finish the job myself but…”
Meanwhile, the head chef himself had noticed the chattering pair’s purple moment revelling in the place of paring like kids in a sandpit and was bemused by the rather abrupt furore and hobbling departure of one of them; he’d forgotten the chap’s name. But on busy days like this, he forgot his own name.
“Mr Lammerbacker!” roared the head waiter from the galley door, his voice an explosion of gulls.
The head chef then remembered.
“Ah, yes, Herr Capitain…” saluted Mr Lammerbacker, how he enjoyed riling up the obese goose. “We shall be serving up the main course any…moment…now.” His closing words hesitant as he kept a beady eye on executor Akengraft’s progress.
Akengraft (!) came the sidekick’s name to the head chef as if by telepathic means. Why did the palace employ such no-good blockheads.
Meanwhile, meanwhiles piled up. Lammerbacker himself, having sent Akengraft off on a wild goose chase, was investigating and prodding with his thick, tobacco-stained tongue a wild fillet de pamplemouse de vierge de Charonne. Its veiny surface still throbbed, pulsed, jerked away from the intrusive tip of his tongue, appeared to breathe. Like a large wing with the texture of a bronchial lung, it would soon try to flap away no doubt. The thing about fillet de pamplemouse de vierge de Charonne (or any provincial town for that matter) was that they were the most complex cuts of meat in the business. Every ruptured cartilage, pubic interface, bone deformation and rolling expanse of subcutaneous gore and fashion-victim’s underbelly harboured a sweetspot for a roaming tongue that was more saw-edged than a ripped tendon in prime bone stew….
“Well, Lammy…” for that was the disdain he held for his bullying co-worker. “That was a nifty piece of work I just succeeded in putting to bed,” announced a panting, sweat streaked Akengraft, as he returned with a wattle depending from the slobbery corner of his mouth like Fra Diabolo.
“Coxcombs!” shrieked Mr Lammerbacker as if he were trying to invent a new swearword, his eyes a-warning-flame.
“Gentlemen.” They lurched to comical attention as the head witer hollered this shocking overstatement. “The rapide kayak de cochon, where the flash-fry may I tell the royal couple is THAT?”
Lammy and Akengraft reddened.
“Me and my pal, sir…” Akengraft blundered.
“It’s a bit slow today,” Lammerbacker clucked.
“Well, you couple of bumbling saps at sea, there’s nothing for it – the fish course will have to intervene…” the head waiter checked his running menu, “Gargoyle des espadrilles espagnol…is THAT it?”
He pointed towards a bent and broken Coitus-de-Interruptus Chaser that lay splayed on the steel surface, ready peeled for sucking the meat off.
Lammerbacker winked at Akengraft as their blushes subsided; then, turning towards the steaming head waiter, replied in his most regally sarcastic tone, “Unaccustomed as we are to the meddling of sugar daddies, I’d have to say OUI-OUI.”
After all, he thought, the baby-wailing starters had to be redeemed – as it were – because the palace nursery was where this couple of beau champs intended next to have their kicks for broken pricks: other fine old messes from appetising young ones.
As the duo-headed prophet of gore and misfortune might have put it – You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.
