IT TOOK TWO TO TANGO, and Sweeney was proving himself to be a most unwilling dancer. PUT ON YOUR FUCKING RED SHOES: there was a saxophone and a bass to lay down a melody, a HOOK for every dolt to feed the EAR WORM that lurked in the bar. He wouldn’t fucking sway, he wouldn’t fucking dance – expression twisted; that DEAD-EYED look vanishing as he PAINTED AN OVERTURE upon his face. Contempt. Rage. Real and raw emotions he’d covered with a mask: Sweeney’d been TALKING TO A FACELESS MAN until now, a hollow man, a shell of a man. WE NEVER LOST CONTROL: We were the world / the flow / the product. Beneath the neon lights, Bowie looked like HELL: the thin white duke in the bathroom had taken its toll and left him STRUNG out.
“I know you.” So sure of himself; he parroted; nails tapping against the sticky, lacquered wood of the counter that had seen too many Belfast bar fights. “You think he owes you a FIGHT. Maybe you think you owe a fight. Either way, you’re both looking for some fucking skulls to crush. You understand why World and I do not want this. Needless bloodshed that could be avoided with an UPGRADE: you have no purpose now, Sweeney. You’ll have that again, and MORE if you sign on.”
FOR IN TRUTH, IT’S THE BEGINNING OF NOTHING. Sharp as a double edged sword, twice as deadly. How did it feel to merely EXIST? To get by on scraps of belief brought on by fucking cereal and Disney films. Clap if you fucking believe in faeries that GLOW ! Nails dug into wood. Dragged. Gouges were left in his wake; patience wearing thin. No, he won’t dirty his suit: won’t have the Children do his fighting for him. REBEL, REBEL: he won’t rise to the sidhe’s bait. Not here. Not yet. It’s a STRANGE FASCINATION: it’s the fucking third cosmopolitan he’s ordered talking; downing it in another gulp like a man dying of thirst.
His smile was HOLLOW: it had worked on countless fans; studio big Whigs. But not Sweeney: he was only good at acting if the audience BELIEVED in him. This one did not. IS IT ANY WONDER YOU ARE TOO COOL TO FOOL ?
“You’ve helped to create a fucking powder keg I’ve got to diffuse, Sweeney. Shut up, sit down: drink and fucking FORGET all you’ve done in the old and new world. DON’T LET ME HEAR YOU SAYIN’ LIFE’S TAKING YOU NOWHERE – It fucking isn’t, Sweeney. We’re fucking it, babe. You understand?” A deep breath: his nostrils flared and his eyes BURNED. Music shifted; STATIC underneath it all. A bad signal. “FREEDOM: THE LESSON WE MUST LEARN: We’ve given them purpose again. A chance to be as they were. You sit here in this bar, you rot. You wait for a man who doesn’t give a fuck about you. YOU SAY YOU FIND IT HARD TO LEAD THE LIFE YOU ONCE KNEW – There’s no going back. Only EVOLVING. Wednesday will kill you. You will be forgotten; maybe come back as Lucky if I have my way. Would you like that?”
Eyes narrowed: steely BULLETS that zoned in to their mark. Every old fuck and their mother thought they could hide from him: thought they could simply press a button and be rid of the World’s right hand man. As if his eyes weren’t everywhere: as though his voice had not touched everyone somewhere, somehow. YOU CAN’T IGNORE THE MEDIA. Vinyl platforms hit the hardwood: the chair grating and squeaking as he pushed it back; leaned until he was face to face with the drunk son of a bitch who acted like he had a CHOICE.
“I have made it.” A murmur; he’s uncomfortably close; can smell the cheap shit on Sweeney’s breath from here. “You’re a COWARD, Mad Sweeney.”
IT WAS A SILENT CHASM that exposed itself to Sweeney. A silent terrible thing breaking wide open and breathing hard breaths into the world. In a moment Media was ALIVE --- dazzling technicolor come to life in 3D not the flat one dimensional STANDEE that’d been before him. And Sweeney thought, for a moment, terribly --- f i n a l l y. Now this was a fight, this got the blood pumping something he could sink his fucking teeth into.
The false-faced God spoke with the same full bodied ARROGANCE that spoke of not believing in a higher power. Not, in part because they WERE the higher power --- BELIEVED with all their might that they truly were the superior one. And belief, even the belief of a God was a heady, powerful thing when it was wont to be. Enough so that they could speak in damnable circles around him, spitting words like bullets. Pinhole moles carved entry wounds into constellations.
THE PITCH WAS A TECHNICOLOR NIGHTMARE. a laugh riot of pointed words striking at the soft points, an aching red heart burned by gold and buried in the cool earth. Words of power were thrown out like blunt instruments and Sweeney’s smile was ALMOST the curve of a splash of blood.
What good was a purpose to a man who’d cast his aside ? CURSED, Mad Sweeney was, and damn it all whatever the fucking saint had laid on his brow it’d done more than it said. More than Sweeney could have FATHOMED.
He’d been a king, he’d been in love with the green of his land and the people who’d claimed it. He’d been a king with gold and armies and a family to protect ---- enemies to fight. He’d held the gift of the sun in his hands and lived a life so long it seemed that the shadow on his sundial would never move. Mad Sweeney had no use for purpose, he was outdated, obsolete --- that didn’t mean he couldn’t still take the job he was given.
No love for this land --- no respect for Grimnir, but he has the bloodrage of a battle. The pounding war drum of a heart, the grit teeth, jaws locked like the wolf Fenrir. He has his humor. His raucous CRACKED, mad and moody and violent laughter.
His voice was a whisper --- thick and almost sweet.
Sweeney surged forward, buzz sliding away against the tide of LIQUID fire in his veins, adrenaline burning it out of his system so quickly it was a wonder he wasn’t letting off steam. No thought, no planning, THE POWER AND PURITY OF INTENTION. There’s blood in his mind, behind his eyes and in the snarl of his teeth. There was a WAR to be fought and Sweeney wanted it to begin now, in this bar at the end of the world, with his rage and his beer and the pain of his skull --- more heat than sting.
He was red, alcohol, exertion and the flush of blood to the surface of pale skin, his grin was the edge of a coin --- the feeling of a decision freshly made. His stool had toppled over when he’d stood, long legs swallowing up space, forcing him to tower over most. He was intent, single minded in a way that spoke of screaming hunted rabbits and the foxes that came to feast.
“ Go on then ! You bloody cunt. The PARASITE of America ! Purposeless ! I may lack purpose but it’s a far cry better than you --- lacking a REAL name, lacking an identity. B A B E. Who are you ? Everyone or NO ONE ? Show GRIMNIR your power, the power of so-called GODS who haven’t heard even a WHISPER of a fucking prayer to their names. “
He’s a snarl, one long roiling thing, angry dogs finally unleashed tearing through his chest to snap at his vocal cords, running, chasing out of his mouth.
MAD SWEENEY LIVES UP TO HIS NAME TONIGHT
“ You peddle glamoured garbage and say Grimnir offers nothing ---- a war was promised and a WAR IS COMING, whether i live to see it or not. You name me COWARD. You ? “
He felt the starburst of pain in knuckles already hardened to rage, toughened by fighting, he had never, as he could recall, punched the glamour of a dead man in the face until now.
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