6582. A SET-TO OF PURE AND CHILDISH DRIVEL

A SET-TO OF PURE 

AND CHILDISH DRIVEL

Here, with the toy box open, are my suicide friends

again. Joe and 'Spunky' both, they've come back but

I don't know why. 'Spunky's' name was really Ed, which

I'd rather much prefer, and Joe was always Joe. In this

set, he's called in, after ten years, with Margaret, to say

he's really alive and this was all a hoax, a cover-story by

him to disappear or to achieve something I didn't quite

get. I told him 'fuck-you, and don't expect me around.'

Ed, on the other hand, had reappeared with bags and

bags, canvas, filled with his tools, which he was giving

away to a kid. They were both perched on the floor and 

the child gleefully looked up and told me 'he's giving me

all his tools!' I smiled and said, 'Ed, no more for you?'

Later on, in that kind of time/no time that we deal with

here, the street outside was filled with huge plastic

toys  -  the kid had been there for hours, arranging these

large planes and cars, each item either orange or blue,

along the street, for some hundred feet along. What a

sight it made, and Ed was in the rear bedroom, still 

pulling out tools, to no one now. I walked in and said

'have you seen what that kid's done out in the street, the 

way kids used to play, outdoors  -  all his toys and cars  -

you never see that anymore, kids outside, minding

themselves and playing set-ups with things in the

street. I remember, we did it all the time.' He didn't

even look up. The other Joe guy, he never did show up.