Boofhead
…as far as reason or good sense is concerned, inasmuch as it is the only thing which
makes us men and distinguishes us from the animals, I am ready to believe that it is
complete and entire in each one of us... (Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method 1)
Pyrrho opened gritty eyes to a thick, clouded darkness that made him see stars
in his head. Rolling with a grunt over stones and twigs to sit up, there was
nothing to see until he turned towards the loud spit and sizzle of a sappy
campfire deep in the heath. Even louder, several ebullient voices fired
sporadically back and forth across the popping wood in full command of their
territory.
He listened, every bone and muscle aching. He must have traversed half the
world that day. And it was cold on his naked torso. He kept his eyes on the little
fire and the shifting silhouette figures around it while he felt around for his towel
and a branch to haul himself up on. He wrapped his towel, now stuck over with
dry, clinging debris, around his shoulders.
Shuffling tentatively forward over ground he could see as well as any blind man,
he held one hand groping in front of him to fend off the pitiless boughs and
Boofhead
leaves of trees that grew perversely low and bent, as if to remind clumsy
Europeans that they had not earnt their place in this land.
Pyrrho, clumsier than most, was soon fighting imaginary terrors even though he
had sat calmly in this meagre remnant of bush on hundreds of mornings. His loud
struggles amidst drifts of bark and sticks excited a dog protecting the group by
the fire. It leapt to its feet and growled in his direction.
“Hey, shut up you guys, there’s something over there.”
“Christ, what if it’s a pig?”
“I’ll ram some live coals up its arse. That’ll fix it.”
“Oh sure, what a hero.”
“Boofhead’ll sort it out, won’t ya Boofy boy?”
The dog barked affirmatively and continued growling to prove his fortitude.
Timidly, but having no other option, Pyrrho called out to demonstrate that he was
not a wild boar, or any other kind of threat.
Boofhead
“Shut up Boof!” shouted one of the boys. A swift kick in the ribs cut short the
dog’s dutiful growling. He gave a short yelp of protest.
“Hey, is someone there?” another voice called.
“Yes, can someone bring a light? I can’t find my way out,” Pyrrho called back in a
strange voice he did not recognize as his own.
The group conferred, then a girl called back, “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Rene.”
“Who the bloody hell is Rene?”
“Just go and get the bugger. It can’t be the cops, they’d have their own torch,”
said another voice, pleased with its owner’s insight.
“I’ll take Boof. Come on boy, let’s get him!”
The disgruntled dog rose to its feet with less enthusiasm this time, no longer sure
when he was doing the right thing, while the boy turned on the torch and found
the path.
Boofhead
Pyrrho stopped and watched with relief as the beam approached, but the boy
shone the light right in his eyes when he reached him. He made no attempt to
restrain the dog which Pyrrho could feel sniffing around his bare legs.
“Watcha doin’ in there Grampa?” said the boy, amused to find some crazy old
guy with no clothes on but his Speedo.
“Please, can you give me a hand out? I’m stuck,” said Pyrrho, shielding his eyes.
Extricated and led over to the fire, Pyrrho sat down with a groan and found
himself in the company of four teenagers, one girl and three boys. Boofhead
snuffled over to lick a wound on his forehead.
“Give him a drink, Rat,” said the girl hospitably.
Rat produced a flagon and passed it to Pyrrho for a swig. It was wretchedly sour
plonk that turned his shriveled stomach, but the rest drank from it in turn without
a flinch. Rat got hold of Boofhead, held his massive head up and poured some of
the noisome stuff down his throat. He passed it back to Pyrrho again while the
tormented dog coughed and sneezed in disgust. They were all distracted by the
dog’s antics for a moment, so Pyrrho pretended to take a drink then put the bottle
down out of sight, hoping it might be forgotten.
Boofhead
“So, where’d ya drop in from?” asked one of the boys.
“I’ve just come back from visiting Christina in Sweden. The cold was terrible.”
“Get shipwrecked, did ya?” leered the aptly named Rat, exhibiting his sharp,
narrow teeth.
“No, I died, so I didn’t need a vessel. Every day, so cold, she had me up at five to
instruct her. She was so strong, demanding to understand how body and soul are
connected when we should have been still dreaming, leaving the body to its own
animal spirits. I could barely open my eyes, barely stop shivering. A very
imposing queen.”
The friends looked at each other and tentatively laughed, thinking it could only be
a joke.
“I’ve been and found myself. She had me painted, you know, in a portrait, not
bad at all¸ you can see me thinking about what the artist knows. Now I know who
I am, I can just be and not worry,” Pyrrho went on, with five pairs of round, firelit
eyes staring at him.
“Shit, how’d ya do that?” asked the girl, pretending to lead him on for everyone’s
amusement, but actually curious. She liked men who reminded her of her old
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Greek grandpa, who used to tell her the ancient mystical legends, whose death
had left her without inspiration at a suburban high school. Cheap wine and the
caprices of her adolescent friends only made the loss more tangible.
“Someone helped me transcend the barriers of space and time. Someone
magical, divine. Someone I thought had deserted me…”
He stopped as Boofhead returned to check if his bloody head needed cleaning
up again.
A bulky, slow figure pressed his rugged head forward between two of the others
saying, “I think it’s time to get going.”
“Shut up Toad,” said the girl, who seemed to be the leader of the group. “You can
piss off if you want to, but you’re not having the torch.”
“You’re a bitch, Mole. You think you can tell us all what to do,” Toad complained,
withdrawing his ugliness into the shadows.
“That’s because I can and you all do what I say. It’s easy to boss fools around.”
They all accepted her scorn, but Pyrrho was bewildered. They were unlike any
young people he had ever known.
Boofhead
“Rat…Toad…Mole?” he asked, querulous.
“Yes, and Badger,” said Mole, giggling. “It suits us. We’re only half human. We
don’t want to be like other people, y’know, tamed. We’ve made a pact to stay
free.”
Pyrrho was impressed, enchanted.
“I wish I’d have known that before. I’ve only just got free now. I thought I could
work it all out; write it all down, the conditions for acquiring freedom,
inconsequentially, within a rational paradigm. I never had a clue that you could
just say ‘Let’s do it.’
They gaped at him. An elder, who neither laughed at them nor told them to wake
up and get real. He was OK. Or at least Mole thought so. She wanted to
appropriate something from him, the point of disconnection from the mundane
where you could have a journey, a fantasy life, a reincarnation. Only little kids
were allowed to go there, then you had to grow up. The boys remained
suspicious.
Boofhead
“Where do you live?” she asked in her honey voice, the voice that usually got her
what she wanted, mostly on her own terms, though sometimes some arsehole
had to barter.
“Well…” said Pyrrho, wondering. “I lived in a house before…somewhere…but
now, now I live here…anywhere…I don’t care really.” And he laughed a
distracted laugh that came out in jerks and spasms. He badly needed water.
Rat interrupted him with a tone of menace.
“Where’s our bloody flagon, you old nutcase?”
“What’s up with you, ya deadshit?” Mole snapped at him.
“Shut up, bitch. I want me bloody drink that’s all.”
His aggression trailed off to peevishness and he groped about in the shadows for
the bottle. Mole ignored him and turned back to Pyrrho.
“So will you stay here tonight? I could bring you something to eat in the morning.”
Rat forgot the flagon and swung round at her, furious.
Boofhead
“Whaddaya want him hanging around our spot for? We don’t want any old goats
campin’ here. This is our place!”
The scrawny rodent was a territorial animal who wanted to own everything on his
patch. Including Mole, even if she was just a stupid tomboy.
“I don’t give a stuff what you say you dumb twerp,” she flared at him. “Why don’t
you just piss off if you don’t like it?”
“Right! Fuck you then!” Rat leapt to his feet, making a grab for the torch. “I’m off.”
He flicked on the light and whistled up Boofhead, who had subsided on Pyrrho’s
leg in a drunken slumber. The other two boys stumbled over each other and the
dog to get up in time to follow the light home. Without a torch it was impossible
on a cloudy night. The dog howled and snapped, his teeth latching on to a
clumsy passing ankle that had bruised his snout. In the chaos, the light held by
Rat was disappearing up the track. They could hear him laughing at the uproar
he’d caused, then he stopped and called the dog again.
Boof took off out of the tangle of feet, just avoiding another kicking, with Toad
and Badger lunging after him, hanging onto each other in the darkness.
Boofhead
“You bastards! You cowards! Thanks a fucking lot you useless morons,” Mole
screamed after them, but the light was gone.
“Oh shit,” she said to herself.
“At least he forgot his bag,” she told Pyrrho.
He could hear her groping about in Rat’s survival kit. He scraped together a few
dried leaves and twigs and tossed them onto the embers of the fire. When they
flared up, Mole could see for a minute.
She turned and threw him an old sloppy-joe to put on, then pulled out Rat’s
nooky blanket, badly in need of a wash. Underneath she found a few edible
provisions which Rat usually refused to share with her, nooky or not.
She dragged the booty over to Pyrrho, grinning at him while she spread the
small rug over her bare legs. It was the only cover she’d have for the rest of the
night. He had his towel which he could drape over his legs to replace the warmth
of the dog. And they had the flagon.
As the little burst of flame went out, she leant towards him saying, “Wanna chip
Grampa?”
(1781 words)