Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

67. THE MARRIAGE TAX:

I wanted a place to ‘hide in’ - the lady said "there's a place fur elise on Beethoven Street" - I said "I’ll take it if it isn’t too cheap and I’ve got nasty habits and I’m not very clean so call me tomorrow IF YOU THINK that you mean I can have it for now and I’ll take it next Thursday and by the way Lady Day you’ve a glamorous sheen and I’d wonder to love you if you’d move away but perhaps since perdition you’re constant you’ll stay" and with that she alighted from far-none-the-distance and said "listen sonny it's not that I’m nasty or narrow of habit it’s just that I’m busy and can’t take the last bit about all my glamour I’ve nails and nice clothing and fuck like a cat but my number’s not up which should mean all of that but I’d give you the place if it wasn’t for Daddy who sits around much and looks really ratty but if you push him aside and don’t take to drinking maybe we all can live there NOW THAT’S what I’m thinking" and we shook tender hands by the lamppost which leaned and she walked quick away towards the car and the carriage and two doors were just closing and some animal screamed but it wasn’t lethargic instead it was mean but whatever was moving was moving for nothing for the place was an uproar and called for its mutton and the paper I read was so simple in reading and it simply listed names from Portsmouth to Reading and places I’d been but never returned on Gloucester on Salem and Harvard and Main down Broad Street to Market and back all the same and the rooms I was in I just noticed right now are painted steel blue and stink like a cow but the Skyway Café beneath which I’m living is crowded at noon and dead by eleven with Portuguese girls who’d just as soon stroke then get on their backs or talk about folks whom they met in church or at the new social center for Catholics and are like this ‘THEY EAT THE PLACENTA’ I’ve even heard that on the side by the fences with the young boys for priests and the other intentions and the five-dollar brawn is as broad as they get but the marrow is thicker in bones they’ve not yet so there’s lots of new work to be keeping us busy by the old hat that sings and the family chimney by the hearth with the window and two golden arches where the fat babies rise and repair with great starches the military brass taking place in new marches and fabulous battles and air-strike anarchics and the next thing I knew the first lady returned the one with the rooms that Beethoven had earned and she again sat me down but now climbed on my face and said "here are your dollars now this is the place and either way you approach it you can have it for free now just shut your big mouth and have a great lick of me" and with no further ado or no no more to be said I took the three rooms and took her PROMPTLY to bed and lived for a while on Beethoven Street as you probably have heard with two dogs and no meat but I’ve never regretted anything that I’ve done – and this is my story and here is our son!