Concerning Brother Surf

For connoisseurs, the following is a piece roughly contemporary to the fabled Baiting of the Marshfish, and appears to occur jointly in the world of that and of The Jonathan. Curious. Precise provenance cannot be determined.

Brother Surf walked into the Egg, with his beach-time anecdotes and propaganda, all his shit, every last morsel of that shit we’ll never, ever countenance. Well, he came to the bar, I was sitting on a stool, Stephen was slouched on the bar, and Apricot was looking at him askance, wiping a glass.

“Hello, Brother Surf,” I said, he had not yet reached his podium there by the bar, the place he would stand righteous and harass the bar staff, leaving us in the middle, or rather me in the middle, Stephen would never involve himself, crossfire or not.

“Yeah… Apricot, cider please.”

“Yes,” Apricot was blunt as ever.

“You know what?” Brother Surf preached his usual opening question.

“No.” Stephen spoke up unexpectedly.

“No? Ha! Well, I bumped into the bishop, the cunt, may he die, and you know what he said?”

“No,” this was turning into a real conversation for Stephen.

“I wouldn’t expect better from you – yeah, you – the silent one. Cunt. Well, yeah, so the bishop, yeah? The bishop – Bastard! – he told me that there had been complaints, you see, complaints,” seethe, “about my mosque. I mean, Jesus Aloud, what about Me? Fucking bishop, whole fucking diocese, it’s rotten. You hear me, Apricot?”

“Yes.”

“Slut. Yeah. Tell you what, Apricot. I’ve got a friend needs servicing. Think you could help? Ha! Well, what do you reckon I should do with the bishop?”

“Does he have a daughter?” Stephen offered.

“Oh! No,” Brother Surf was often sarcastic, “What do you think, Jack?”

“Petrol-bomb the fucker.”

“No. I’ll invite him to the beach. We’ll fight it out like men. Not worms, you fucking worm. Well, thanks for nothing, I’m leaving now, keep the change, ha! You’ll see, you’ll see,” and he left, swiftly, spitting.