The Digested Twenty-first Century by John Crace Read Free Book Online Page B

wife, Carol, was not paying any attention. Still, at least his friend Shep had arrived.
    ‘Thank God, I’ve got health insurance,’ Shep said. ‘That’s what you think,’ Jackson laughed. ‘Most company schemes are rubbish and hardly pay any of the bills. Shall I go into a long polemic about Medicare?’ ‘Oh shit,’ Shep cried. ‘It was bad enough before it turned into a John Grisham saga.’ ‘Well, don’t expect anything that well written or pacey,’ Jackson said. ‘Sod this,’ said Flicka. ‘Now I really do want to die.’
    Shepherd Knacker, Net Portfolio Value: $721,778. ‘There are two sorts of mesothelioma,’ Dr Goodman said. ‘And Glynis has theworst.’ ‘Obviously,’ Shep answered. ‘It’s going to cost you $721,778 over and above your healthcare to keep her alive for a bit.’ ‘That’s typical of the way the US rips off honest people . . .’ Jackson droned for the 17th time. ‘Yes, yes,’ Glynis interrupted. ‘Mesothelioma is caused by asbestos so you’ve probably killed me, Shep.’
    ‘Enough of you,’ shouted Beryl, Shep’s sister. ‘I need to sponge money off you and you need to look after dad because he’s broken his leg. I know you’ll do it because you’re such a pussy. I mean so nice.’ ‘Jesus,’ Shep moaned. ‘Not even a third-rate character would come up with that plotline.’ ‘Too bad I’m fourth-rate then,’ Beryl snapped.
    ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ Jackson muttered to himself, while fiddling with his apology for a penis. He had always known Carol wanted him to be better hung, so had undergone secret extension surgery – which, predictably, went wrong – leaving him with a lumpy tuber.
    Shepherd Knacker, Net Portfolio Value: $000,000. ‘Don’t expect me to be nice just because I’m dying,’ Glynis sneered. ‘Why would we?’ everyone sighed. It was time for the final meeting with the doctor. ‘How much extra time did spending my entire savings buy Glynis?’ Shep inquired. ‘A good 400 pages,’ Dr Goldman replied. ‘They weren’t good pages,’ said Glynis.
    Jackson showed Carol his new, deformed penis. ‘I’m not going anywhere near that,’ she shrieked. ‘Nor am I!’ screamed the prostitute he showed it to later. ‘Fuck the lot of you,’ Jackson wept, putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. ‘It’s sooo unfair,’ Flicka said. ‘How come Dad gets to kill himself and I don’t?’
    Shepherd Knacker, Net Portfolio Value: $800,000. ‘Don’t worry,’ Shep said. ‘None of you seem to miss him much, and I’vehad some luck. It turns out I didn’t kill Glynis, so she’s just lied to a tribunal and got an $800,000 payout from an asbestos manufacturer who didn’t kill her either. So I’m going to take Glynis, Zach – we can forget about my daughter Amelia, because everyone else has – and my dad to Pemba. And you, Carol and your ugly sister can come with us.’
    Six months had passed. Glynis, Flicka and his dad were rotting together six feet under the African soil, when Carol came into Shep’s room. ‘I bet you’ve got a huge penis.’
    Digested read, digested: We Don’t Need to Talk About Lionel.
Imperial Bedrooms

by Bret Easton Ellis (2010)
    The movie was based on a book written by someone we knew. It was labelled fiction but most of it – the snuff movie, the gang rape – was true. The only bits that hurt were those that chronicled my relationship with Blair as the writer was in love with her himself, though too immersed in the passivity of writing and too pleased with his own style to bother with many commas to admit it so he wrote me into the story as the man who was too frightened to love. Make of that what you will, though the real message I want you to take is that I’m a smartass seller of banal meta-fictions.
    I went to the premiere in 1987 with Blair, Rip, Julian and all the other empty narcissists who had somehow dazzled the literary establishment. The movie had been a pile of shit. Bret