Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O'Hagan

Author:Andrew O'Hagan [O'Hagan, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9780571258512
Google: PzmXSQAACAAJ
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2010-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

‘Nu-uh.’

‘Ah pipe down, Kimble. You gettin’ your turn. Here’s the stuff am gone be looking after.’

‘You talkin’ ’bout that li’l dawg?’ said Margie.

‘Nu-uh, I aint, Miss Plug Ugly. I’m braggin’ ’bout this here jungle juice. Kimble made it.’

‘Give it here, Hintze!’

The Margie girl rubbed me around the ears and put me on her lap. ‘Hey, Arlene. Look at this li’l feller. You had him all day?’

‘All day. All night,’ said Raymond. He liked to think he was the daddy of the group.

‘No way, man.’

‘What?’

‘Pass the juice.’

‘What?’

‘Arlene, the li’l dawg here’s like a gnat in a rainstorm. Can’t we drop him off somewhere?’

‘He’s bin dropped off somewhere. With us,’ said Raymond looking in the rearview mirror.

‘He’s fixin’ ta bite your hand off,’ said Kimble. He lit a cigarette nd looked sideways with his puffy eyes, looking all crazy towards Margie and me. ‘He’s one agger-vated dawg I’m tellin’ ya, and you, girl, are one sorry-ass babysitter tonight. You better keep this li’l chicken far ’way from them flying saucers! This pony gone be shit-scared.’

‘Am more worried about you,’ she said.

‘Yeah, pass that here, you maniac,’ said Arlene. She twisted the radio dial and everybody laughed at nothing while taking large, acrid swigs, the vapour in the car becoming so dense you could lick it off the windows. It was dark outside and the cicadas were veep-veeping. Their wild conversational gambits rolled around the car from window to leatherette seats, the young people saying things then unsaying them, clicking their fingers against the beat, spewing cigarette smoke and feeling embarrassed about nothing in particular, while Raymond wound down the window and countless small essences escaped into the trees and the lighted houses, the voice of Eddie Cochran falling behind us on the road to Cedar Hill.

Over the town, the TV antennas blinked like fireflies. The Texas sky seemed placid enough but grave, too. People were talking and the sound they made was burnished by yet more of the insect noises. Together they made a happy sound in the grassy amphitheatre of the hill. This was, they said, the highest point in the state between Red River and the Gulf of Mexico, and the height, the fireflies, the cicadas, the flash of cigarette lighters and the sudden gleam of tilted beer bottles and of moisture in the eyes of maybe a hundred or so young people, brought the evening into line with some great Aztec evening of yore. That’s what I thought as I watched them peering and necking up there at the edge of Cedar Hill State Park: they were watching the sky in the full flow of their youth and in the face of the changes that their youth would bring about, but the gesture was old, the instinct to look up was old and the hope of awe was older still. They all sat on the grass and I liked them and ambled among the sneakers looking for something to eat.

Joyce was telling Hintze that she once saw one from the top of the rollercoaster at the Schaeffer Carnival.

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