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Legs

LEGS

by E M Faustus

Oh… And Chris Davison

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I’m a tough guy. Right?

E.M Faustus. Private Eye.

I do the dirty little jobs the Police can’t or won’t do.

Only work 1940’s genre, where men were men and women…

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……. were damn grateful of it.

E.M Faustus. Hero to the weak and terror to Evil doers everywhere.

Never known to walk away from a fight.

Even when out numbered.

Even when out gunned.

Which is all of the time, because I don’t carry a gun.

I’m English.

Not some fucking psycho…..

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….. Colonial.

I never walk away.

Sometimes I have been known to Run Like Fuck though.

I have run away from Werewolves, Vampires, The Fae, Daemons……

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…. and in the interests of Equal Ops, Angles.

I have run away from Mobs, Gangs, Couples and the Odd Individual. The later mainly being Husbands With Guns. I don’t always know the lady is married.

But one thing I always hate to do, is run away in the company of someone else.

I don’t feel embarrassment at being seen running away.

What I hate…..

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……. is having to throw Humphrey ahead of me to clear these bloody walls. Is it my fault he’s only six inches tall?

And the damn walls are seven foot high?

I was shattered climbing them myself.

“Why can’t I just ride in your jacket pocket?” he screamed as I scooped him up again.

“What jacket?” I asked.

“Alright, trouser pocket.”

“What trousers?” and I hauled back for another throw.

I was wearing boxers, shirt and tie, a hastily put on pair of brogues, and of course, my Trilby.

Well… the Lady liked my Trilby.

Oh… and now I was also wearing Humphrey. My six inch tall Homunculus son. Delivered via nasal birth and….. Look. I don’t have time to explain it. Just trust me. Looks a bit like a frog, and a lot like a pervert.

Humphrey clung to my hand for grim life. “Hat then. I’ll ride on your hat. It’s a nice hat. I like that hat. That hat is my bestest friend ever. I want to marry that hat and have its babies, but more than anything else, I want you to stop throwing me and let me ride on that fucking hat.”

I dropped Humphrey on top of my Trilby and proceeded to climb the next wall. I felt his hands dig into the crown, while his slid his feet into my Puggaree……

What?

What now?

In my business, knowing the difference between the component parts of your head gear is the difference between life and…remembering that Robert Rankin also uses this running gag in his work, so probably a good time to stop it right now.

Shame, because it’s a damn good gag.

“Chickens.” screamed Humphrey as I dropped. I did wonder what he meant, until I was shin deep in poultry…

It had been so simple an idea at the time.

And for once, it wasn’t Pete’s fault.

Or Nelly’s.

Or even Humphs..

Sure. I’d blame them. That’s just the kind of guy I am, but it wasn’t even mine.

It was a nice simple job. Just retrieve a little stolen property from a house. A young woman’s wedding ring. I’d done the usual stuff. Found out who was working an area. Worked out who had it. Then went to see them.

The thief in question had been Cyril The Snail.

His first name had been Brian, but he’d changed it, because it embarrassed him.

He was called Cyril The Snail because of his incredibly big nose, and perpetual cold. He just couldn’t shift it. Consequently he’d leave a trail of lovely DNA loaded mucus everywhere he went. Consequently, when the police got hold of him he spent a long time in The Big House.

Cyril The Snail was currently spending time at His Majesties Pleasure. So we had a plan. Humph and I. I’d keep the lonely lady occupied, while he searched for the ring.

That’s when Hump got caught up in an anti-mascara.

And our plan went to shit.

Apparently the classes in jail had turned Cyril into a bit of a crochet artiste.

I hoped Pete’s Night Class would do the same for him.

Pete is my business partner. I was left him in a will. Half Daemon, half Angel, half human and all Moron.

I’d sent him on a class that would prove useful. Akido. But there was the moment when the instructor says to ‘Hit Him’… so Pete knocked him into Nelly’s Knitting class, where Nelly was teaching a group of students how to knit barbed wire underwear. Ready for their Friday night B&D class…

Oh…. Nelly. Our six foot six cross dressing, man mountain receptionist.

They do some funny bloody classes at that Community Centre.

There’s one they do. ‘An Introduction to Amateur Proctology: A Hobby for fun and profit’, well it frankly scares me.

So I let him do the one he wanted in the first place. Basket Weaving. How much trouble can you get into basket weaving?

But this was Pete.

Best not to think about it.

Best to get rid of the chickens and just keep running.

I’ve had a lot of unpleasant things happen to me over the years. But no shooting, burning, stabbing, gutting etc prepares you for having a flock of pissed off chickens attack you at naddger height.

Those tiny little love bites from those beaks would take a LOT of explaining to My Lady. And hopefully not give her ideas.

“Who exactly are we running from?” Humphrey asked. “I thought her husband was in nick.”

“I don’t know.” I called back, climbing the next wall to discover it was topped with broken glass. I may have let loose a sweary. “But there’s a lot of them and they are really, really pissed off. Why don’t you turn around and see.”

“Only if you want me to piddle down the back of your neck again Dad.” Just keep running.”

While every Copper, Soilder, Sailor etc knows that one day, you’ll have to run away, none of them really likes it. And for the first couple of years I did it, I didn’t either. But spend enough time in this line of work, not being dead, and you come to appreciate it. Hell, I’d even trained for it. I did a night class in the Community Centre on Hurdling.

But that does not prepare you for a lot of terrace houses, where each house has a back yard, and each yard is separated by a bloody great brick wall.

And I was getting tired.

Sometimes I regret having, certain hobbies.

I know most people would put squiggly bits around the word hobbies. You know what I mean… ‘hobbies’. But I work hard at my hobbies.

They might not be what most people call hobbies.

Coffee drinking.

Very, very occasional recreational drug taking.

The Trick With The Five Scarves And The Ice Cubes.

Heavy smoking.

Right at that minute, I was really beginning to regret the heavy smoking.

I don’t actually count how many I smoke in a given day, but it’s more than a pack a day.

So by the thirtieth wall, I’m not sure I still had my lungs still in my body.

“Keep going. Keep going.” Humphrey shouted

“Is that sweat on my neck or…”

“Sorry Dad, but I turned around.” Humphrey said. “And you really, really don’t want to turn around. Just keep running.”

“What incentive do I have?” I called, resting my head against the wall for a second.

“I could poo. And trust me Dad. That’s a definite option right now. Me bum is going from a penny to a bin lid”

“More info than I needed.” Although a description I completely understood. I got back to climbing.

When you’re running away you also want to have a couple of things to hand. One of these being a pair of trousers.

It was night time. In February. Lightly snowing. Ice starting to form, and my bollocks had receded so far I kept having to swallow to stop me spitting them out.

And something’s you really don’t want to hear.

“Rose bush.” Humph shouted.

Yep. That was one of them.

“Big Horny Looking Dog.”

Yep. That was another.

“Crocodile.”

“Piss off.” I shouted and jumped.

Turns out he wasn’t joking.

One day, providing that I didn’t end up deaded, I would learn to drive. A nice car. A comfortable car. With heated seats. And one of those boots you can open just by putting your thumb on it. And in said boot I’d keep a spare change of clothes. And a packet of fags. And some spare underpants. And Shirt. And Tie.

Now this is just a simple question… Not a hard one at all, but who…just who…

WHO HAS A FUCKING CROCODILE POND IN T|HEIR BACK YARD?

What’s next?

Piranha in the outside toilet?

Rabid shrews in the shrubbery?

Ah. No.

Try Parrots in the shed.

By the time I climbed wall number thirty nine, I was willing to die.

I had rose thorns in my testicles.

My legs had been damn near electrolysised by hyperactive chickens.

My bloody boxer shorts had been eaten by a crocodile.

My shirt and tie had been ripped from my body by psychotic parrots.

My hat had been subjected to a combination of Homunculus poo and pee.

It couldn’t get much worse.

I looked behind me.

I looked behind me some more.

I looked over the wall I’d just climbed over.

Nothing.

“Where did they go?” I asked.

“Oh, the Crocodile’s got them.” Humphrey said. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d like to put some distance between you and the bloodshed. When I saw that…that’s when I pooed myself. Sorry, but it was horrible.”

I slid down the wall. Next to everything else, some brick burns on my back were the least of my worries. “Humph.” I wheezed, “ There are only three things stopping me from hitting you with a brick at the minute. One, I can’t find one. Two. You’re sat on my very damp and smelly hat. Three. I don’t think I could lift my arms.”

Then a security light went on.

I was in a large, walled rose garden. That probably explained why my buttocks felt like they were filled with more thorns.

“What street were we on again?” I asked Humph.

“St Agness Street.” A noise came from atop my head. “Sorry Dad. I’ve just been sick.”

“And what is there at the end of St Agness Street?” I slid a smoke into my mouth and lit it. Something’s you don’t drop.

“Bloody great Nunnery, filled with a bunch of paramilitary nuns who think you’re the anti-Christ.”

“Ah. That explains it.”

“Explains what Dad?”

“Those twenty odd Nuns, standing over there.”

“Those unhappy looking Nuns standing over there?”

“Yep.”

“Those unhappy looking Nuns, standing over there passing each other a selection of gardening equipment that in the correct hands equates to nasty fucking weapons?”

“Yep.” I stood up. “Ladies.” I said, and tipped my hat, pooling sick onto my shoes.

Now I don’t know how used Nuns are to being confronted by stark naked men, covered in sick, poo, piddle and blood, but their response was Universal.

They charged.

“Run?” Humph suggested, but I was way ahead of him.

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

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The post Legs appeared first on Modern Military Mother .