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Arching eyebrows and a chalked door.


X marks the spot of visceral malevolence: cracked lips, thin as slit wrists, collide like tyre tracks. Sweat pours past blemish past blister, words rock back-and-forth, like kids on swings. This is a man condemned: a gravy blooded, Xed, hexed, body filled with AIDS. As do all commanders of devilry, he purveys vicious charms, many men, fond of fame, have followed him to battle; each battue


comes cloaked as coup d'état. Jean: an Algerian abdicator, a French defamer, an aficionado of wartime suffering - how at home he felt, hiding out in Nam, flogging filth to US soldiers. Under stolen stars they sparked Lucky Strikes and staked-out claims for infinity. Now on sojourn, in Cambodia, with a free bar, he’s bragging to strangers: about harm, necessity, seeing things through.


Assumes each too wasted to collect quotes, tap scales or severities, too scared to repeat the rendezvous. Regrets? Only misfortune: “I’ll never see my son grow old. I’m withered, dying because of heroin. Cut-loose by two countries, pariah to both cultures”. Had I been on spirits I’d have piped-up and said it: “If I ever meet your son, I’ll tell him his dad was monster - he called Bob Dylan an asshole”.


MICHAEL PEDERSEN


15


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