31/01/2013 - ERASMUS THE INNOCENT

They said he was Erasmus the Innocent but I knew him before they started handing out names. He had a little pigeon which he brought out on weekends to exemplify the effects of particles on West Ham supporters. He had an eye that swallowed a jewel in front of the blind spot. He had a plastered ball that he threw at the Quakers whenever they wished him a Merry Christmas bleeding all over the gropers. He always found a reason to exit stage north, provided that nobody implemented a hasty dash in front of the period in his name. He called it a full stop and wouldn't let anyone touch it for fear that a shrivelled finger might prod it into submission. He had a brochure to do the laundry for him and demanded that Rachel change her name to Raquel for the sake of the children. He was a warlock drinking hemlock. He was a right-handed bastard when you wanted him to be a left-handed wazzock. He was a textbook case for something yet to be written about in the big anthologies. He was a friend and he was a liar and always at the same time. He had a favourite piano key that he insisted on playing whenever his girlfriends used the rest room. He had a marching tune that he wished no elephants would stomp to. He kept a gallery of pen lids in case the world should end and the crayons dried out. He would have gladly given his life for you provided that you were a hirsute Asian housemaid. He would have gladly given his feet for a dance with Bloody-Stump Susan, in the pale moonlight of yesterday evening. He never bit, he byte. He rectified situations that were above his comprehension as well as his pay cheque. He grew flowers in his garden.

Erasmus was a friend who lived in your kitchen cupboard. Erasmus hated contractions of his name and abhorred the way that nobody listened to the sound of his hair growing into wire. Erasmus was a force to be reckoned with if you were made of slate and lacked functioning thumbs. Erasmus left my publisher and drowned his cat in a bathtub of dog mush. I pinned my hopes to his notice board and watched it biodegrade. Erasmus had mugs without handles and that was why he was the best man at my son's wedding. When my boxing gloves blew up, Erasmus provided a feasible explanation that didn't require permanent markers or multiple pencils. Erasmus, Erasmus, Erasmus lingered on the tip of my axe. I bit his skull and sent it flying into the chasm. He sang a song that dreaded symphonies with a cold sweat and soggy lip syncs. Erasmus grabbed good people and gave them cigarettes to play with on their mother's front porch. Erasmus was a bad man: he wore tie-dye shirts and took long walks into ear canals. We may never see the like of him again in all predictable lifetimes. Such good, good badness.