The White Trilogy: A White Arrest, Taming the Alien, The McDead by Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page A

him. No, best leave well enough alone. He’d just put it out of his mind. Right! That’s what he’d do. See how decisive he was. Let his ’tache reign supreme.
    Falls was twixt laughter and tears, hysteria fomenting. She said: ‘You know what the ambulance guy said when he saw how Dad was lying?’
    Rosie didn’t know, answered: ‘I dunno.’
    ‘I do love a man ON a uniform.’
    Pause.
    Then they cracked up.

BASIC SURVIVAL
‘How much more can they not talk to me?’ (d.B)
    K EV’S BROTHER ALBERT HAD a grand passion, the idea fixed almost – the Monkees – as they’d been. And due to syndication, in fifty-eight episodes, they would forever be condemned by celluloid to Monkee around – with shit-eating grins for all eternity. A hell of mammoth proportions, proof indeed that God was deep pissed. To Albert, it was bliss. He knew all the lyrics and worse, lines from the TV series, and horror, repeated them.
    When the ‘guys’, in their fifties and looking old, had a reunion tour, he was appalled. Peter Pan can’t grow up, and seeing Davy Jones at fifty-three you knew why. Albert could do the Monkee walk, but had learned the hard way that it’s a kink best kept private. When he’d first shown it to Kev, he got a merciless beating. Albert’s dream was to visit that beach house where the Monkees had such adventures. When he was nervous, which was often, he’d hum ‘Daydream Believer’ and believe the fans were fainting outside. The ‘E’ crew could be like the guys, he thought. He coiled a cog and lit it with a Zippo.
    ‘Hand jobs’ Kev called them. He’d go: ‘Suckin’ on yer hand job. I don’t see Mickey Dolenz smokin’, eh?’
    Not a lot.
    In truth, Albert didn’t like Mickey all that much. He reminded him of their father and that was the pinnacle of mean. The full down-in-the-gutter vicious bastard. Kev was forever sliding in anti-Monkee propaganda, to rattle the cage. As if he researched it! Like: ‘Hey Albert, you dozy fuck, that Mike Nesmith, the one with the nigger hat, he’s not hurtin’. His old lady invented Liquid Paper which crafty Mike sold the patent for. Yeah, the old lovable chimp got forty-seven million from Gillette. How about that for bucks, just a carefree guy, eh? No bloody wonder.’
    And cloud city when Peter Tork went to jail for drug possession; Kev was delighted. Kept needling. Kept singing:
    ‘We’re just goofin’ around.’
    When The Simpsons began to replace the TV show on major networks, Albert hated them double. ’Cos too, they were so ignorant. Homer Simpson was like Kev’s role model. Go figure. Albert had been down Brixton Market and – ye gods, hold the phones – he saw Mike Nesmith’s woolly hat on a stall, told the stall owner who said: ‘Mike who? I don’t know the geezer!’
    ‘From the Monkees!’
    The guy took a hard look at Albert to see if it was a wind-up, then had a quick scan around, said: ‘Yeah, yeah, this is Mike Neville’s hat, the actual one.’
    Albert got suspicious, said: ‘It’s Nesmith’s?’
    ‘Course it is son, but he uses Neville as a cover. Know what I mean, to avoid the fans like.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Straight up, son. Any road, I couldn’t let it go.’
    Albert had to have it, pleaded: ‘I have to have it.’
    ‘Mmmm. I suppose I could let you have it for twelve.’
    ‘I’ve only got this, a fiver.’
    Which was fast snapped up, with: ‘It’s yours son, much as I hate to let it go.’
    Later, the guy wondered if it was that tea commercial with the chimps, but he didn’t remember a hat. As if he gave a fuck anyway. He got out another dozen of them. Kev burnt it the same evening.

To die for
    F ALLS SAID TO ROSIE: ‘You know how much it’s gonna cost to bury Dad?’
    ‘Uh-uh. A lot?’
    ‘Two and a half grand.’
    ‘What? You could get married for that.’
    ‘And that doesn’t even include flowers or the vicar’s address.’
    ‘You have savings, right? You do have savings?’
    ‘Ahm...
    ‘Oh Lord, you’re