Chew-chew has fallen ill – caught unawares by a new bout of Covid, he says. I told you he was out of kilter with fashion, didn’t I? Did I? I can’t remember. Did I even tell you what he looks like? I thought I did. Perhaps not.
You know how, back in the day, that flares had to be just so? A little short and you looked like Farmer Bill’s Cowman; too long and they all cuffed up and tore along the hem, and you looked like an impecunious football hooligan. It was important to find the sweet spot between those two social faux pas, where they fell so perfectly that they covered the shoe without touching the ground. A tricky feat to pull off with platforms; and virtually impossible with flats. In fact, it is only a certain type of snake-hipped, lounge lizard that can accomplish the illusion with the latter, and only then if he remains indoors and shuffles instead of walking.
Chew-Chew can. He propels himself with this sort of soft-thrust, hip-powered, fey mince, as if he were consciously keeping his waist at a set distance from the ground, so that his legs can dangle from it and reach the surface with perfect timing – imagine an AI empowered mannequin. It’s a manoeuvre goes some way to explaining his perma-grimace too.
But for now, he lies vulnerable, fearing a new strain has him in its grip. I’ve told you before that he doesn’t really like me being in his house – the arrangement we’ve been working under sees me tolerated, as long as I’m out of sight, for as long as it takes me to prepare meals and do the laundry. Now though; now that he has Covid, I am expected to be at his beck and call. Get that, do you? He is prepared to endure my presence, at the risk to my health, because he needs me. I haven’t officially resigned yet, but I’ve told Friend John that Chew’s options, as far as I am concerned, are either a) to make do without me; or b) to have his house burned down, then make do without me. He will miss my messianic ability to make a very small amount go a very long way. Pro tem, Friend John has stepped in with crucial ministrations – a cup-a-soup with some horse manure stirred in, to build up his antibodies. Mushroom and lentils with croutons.
Friend doubts that he has Covid, on account of his anchorite disposition, not to say obnoxiousness, keeping him safely at bay from the rest of the human race. He came back this morning with stories of stomach complaints, and long hours absent in the bathroom. Makes me think actually…, but that wasn’t the interesting part of the story. According to Friend, Chew-Chew left a page open on his laptop, called… well I’ll spare you that, but it was something that sought to make an artform from an act of intimacy that is usually kept private. I don’t know how closely he related that observation to his next comment, but Friend John then said, ‘All the most beautiful girls in the world are from Ukraine and Russia, don’t you think?’
They may well be, I tell him, but I feel that I need to do more to lead him from the path of desiring porn stars as things of beauty. I’ve only seen a few girls in over a year, and besides Scrubber’s Haircut, who works for the farmer who rents the barns, they’ve all been dressed in army fatigues – so my local knowledge is limited. If he were ever to meet one, the smell of ointment would probably be enough to put him off, but, just in case, I see it as my moral duty to usher him into the light of righteousness, like little baby Jesus, who made do with just one prostitute, for his entire life (no wonder they wrote a book about him). But how to find the words for Friend?
Different cultures have different sensibilities to porn stars. In America, they seem to be celebrated as successful entrepreneurs. Trump admitted that he paid one off so that she wouldn’t reveal their affair to anyone, and it doesn’t even make his Top 5 humiliations.
I tell Friend that it is time he met some normal girls, and I resolve to take him out for the night to show him what that amounts to. It’s going to take some planning; we are deep in the countryside, in a war zone, and neither of us have any money, or clothes. If we run into any porn stars, we’ll at least have something in common with them, I suppose. But short of that, there is going to be a resource problem, which I can only see being resolved by imposing a charitable gesture on Chew as he lies dying.
All of this, I somehow find inspiring. Like a proving ground for small miracles before moving on to larger ones. Little-BJ started with wine and water, didn’t he? And as he found out soon after, little fish are sweet.
Dickie White's Diary 
Excellent blog today throughly enjoyed it very funny keep it up but mind your Flares.
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