October skies

‘All right then,’ she said, delving into her bag. She took out a folder, flipped through a dozen pages, settled on one and then pulled it out. ‘Would you have a look at this?’

He looked at the sheet of paper, bemused. ‘Now? Here?’

Rose looked around the bar. Being early evening, it was relatively quiet. She imagined in a small nowhere place like this, it wasn’t likely to get much busier tonight. ‘Yeah, why not?’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll take a look at what you got, if you like.’

She passed him the sheet of paper, and immediately he frowned as his eyes scanned the page. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s transcript taken from a diary that I’m busy researching. I’d love to know whether the author was writing what he saw or’ — she looked at him — ‘whether this might be made up.’

Lance nodded. ‘Just this page, right?’

‘If you’re game for it?’ she said, smiling sweetly.

‘Right… take me about five minutes, at a guess.’

‘Okay. I’ll order us another beer whilst you’re at it.’

He asked the barman for a pen. ‘Need some quiet. I’ll be there,’ he said, pointing to an alcove away from the bar and the noisy television sitting on a shelf behind it. She watched him go, sit down and begin to examine the words, underlining one every now and then with the pen.

Rose felt a further twinge of guilt, watching him. The kid clearly thought he was going to score tonight, but Rose had decided at least an hour ago that this had been something of a mistake. He was after a novelty notch to put on his bed — that was all.

She had been on the point of deploying a polite exit strategy when he’d moved on from regaling her about his frat-boy life-style to discussing his course on linguistics.

And that had most definitely piqued her interest.

She turned back round to the bar and ordered another two beers, as promised. Her attention drifted to the TV behind the bar. Report Card was on, a satirical news show that featured a couple of vaguely recognisable comedians as news anchors.

‘… and in a surprising announcement this week, William Shepherd, the Mormon independent candidate from Utah, decided to take time out from his early campaigning to talk with his strategy team: God.’

There was a ripple of laughter that Rose recognised as canned.

‘That’s right, Steve. It seems Shepherd’s taking a rest between rounds like Rocky Balboa and grabbing a little coach time.’

The image on TV changed to show the corner of a boxing ring and one of the comedians, sweating and gasping with the iconic Rocky bruised-and-battered make-up job. A well-groomed silver wig on his head and a Bible under one arm signalled that they were spoofing Shepherd. Into shot appeared the other comedian, sporting an impossibly bushy white beard and monstrous Old Testament eyebrows beneath a grubby woollen hat. He vigorously worked on ‘Shepherd’s’ shoulders.

‘Ya gotta get out there again, Sheppy!’ he barked with a grizzly Philly accent. ‘Them big bastards’ll drop like a sack o’ grain if you land ’em one on the kisser.’

‘I dunno, God,’ gasped Sheppy, ‘they’re killin’ me out there, man.’

God held a spittoon out and Sheppy spat. ‘Ya got’s ta hit ’em where it hurts, Sheppy? Ya unnerstand? Hit ’em where it hurts.’

‘But where’s that?’

God shrugged. ‘Hell, I don’t know. Use ya damned brain, fool. Dat’s why I gave ya people one.’

A bell rang and Sheppy disappeared out of shot. God watched and winced at the sound of heavy blows being traded. Another bell and Shepherd limped back into shot, even more battered and bruised.

‘They’re big sons-of-bitches, God. They’re kickin’ my ass.’ God scratched his bristles for a moment. ‘Sheee-it. Wan’ me to tag for ya?’

Sheppy nodded. ‘I gotta rest up.’

The bell rang and God climbed through the ropes. ‘Wish me luck.’

Out of shot, for a few seconds there was the sound of blows being traded, then a blinding flash flickered on screen followed by the sound of thunder. A waft of smoke crossed in front of Sheppy’s face.

God walked back into shot with smoke rising from sooty boxing gloves.

‘Bunch a’ pussies.’

Canned laughter mixed in as the image cut back to the two comedian anchors.

‘Sheeeesh, Steve. You get God pitching on your side, you just can’t lose, eh?’

‘S’right. God, and about two billion pledged campaign dollars.’

The image on the screen cut to footage of Shepherd talking at a rally earlier in the week, camera flashes popping and strobing. Shepherd talked energetically, flinging his hands in the air, but his voice was dubbed over by one of the comedians.

‘… and ah promise you good folks out there that ah’m gonna have me a big ol’ talk with God about a’ bunch a’ things. Oh yeah. We gonna talk about puttin’ things straight here in the US of A. First up, ah’m putting God in charge of the Federal Ree-serve. Maybe he can go rustle us up some real dollars, ’stead of the paper shee-it we call money now. Then, ah’m gonna get him to do some ass-whuppin’ over in the Middle East…’

The barman leaned across and switched channels. ‘Assholes, ’ he mumbled.

‘You a fan?’ asked Rose.

‘Of the show or Shepherd?’