John was something of an artist, not pictures but books, stories. And he told crackling good jokes.

The near infant girl he'd slept with had supple small child breasts. Like anyone he bedded, he loved her. You know, as love goes. Now he was awake, and the little girl took her clothes and left, clutching her 10 pound note. Sweet bum, tiny. O joy. John watched her dress, so little, such a little girl. So dripping wet sweet. He always gave a girl something if she was really young and he enjoyed himself. He could make little jade figurines, just by rolling his hands in a certain way. It was a gift. He gave gifts. A 10 pound note and a jade water buffalo. Happy, happy little tart. Tra la.

He got up, began to drink the peaty Laphroig which for some inconceivable reason he'd put in the refrigerator.

He had a job of sorts, if he wanted to. If he didn't feel like it he'd not come in, and when he wanted time off he just took it, nice enough though to tell the station. This day, drunk before 10, he called in "sick". Usually, midday here in the Midlands, he sat down for a couple hours and played CDs and vinyl of music he liked, putting it out on a pottery district radio station. Occasionally he let listeners talk on the air. "I li' the ol' folk stuff best," one regular caller always reminded him. He rasped and huffed like an emphysemic with a dude in his mouth. One day he stopped calling. The old folk stuff was bar music recorded round the Isles by Lomax, plus American boys.

"I like Mussorgsky too," Byzantine told his listeners once, he with big headphones on and not hearing anybody out there. He put on a cranky old recording from WW the 1st yessir the big one to end 'em all. Chaliapin pere. Then he did a weekly thing for months with Roland Hayes records and John McCormack, until finally some old frigid cracklecorn voiced woman near 90 called up and ripped him a new hole. "I had sex with John McCormack!" she spumed, "Stunk of farts and cigars! Ya know, the fat thing ate bleu cheese on his taters?" she claimed. Yeah, right, JB figured. A papal Count once shagging this old prune.

Well so that's what John Byzantine did day shift. When he felt like it.

That night at John Noggin's Pub, Byzantine partied with a young girl named Cat. Cat was a good sort, somewhat blank about the brain department but sweet, and she kept herself shaved. The two were well on their way when, about 9 of the ol' clock on the wall, Frankie Dirk came in. He was dating Byzantine's daughter. Her name was Pandora.

A nastier, slimier piece of wet dogshit than Frankie Dirk one could not find outside a spaying clinic. But allegedly he was hung like a Calabrian and he looked sharp in his sleeveless leather vest and crotchhuggers. His eyelids were tattooed "LO" and "VE". He'd tattooed "Grief" on his fingers but started on the forefinger rather than thumb so ran out of space. Pandora stood in the doorway of the pub, her eyes seeming to capture the whole room. They were black as Bluebeard's heart, and the sockets sank inward sharply giving her eyes the look of stars. It was hard to look at Pandora without being hypnotized. Hypnosis was a little skill she had, like her pa. When she saw her father at the back of the room, fully blitzed, she told Dirk to mind his own time for awhile, and went to his table.

"Hello, John," she said. Her voice was as sweet as a strawberry.

Byzantine looked up slowly, checking the child's hot pants. They were ridiculously tight, her little pout clear as two wedges of a satsuma. He raised his head with the artful stolidity of one thoroughly drunk and recognized his daughter. "Well, Pandora!" he said, and he slapped his hands down on the sodden felt table top the way he did on a blackjack. "So, my! Well, well."

John had spawned her when he was still at St. Eustace Reformatory back in Wales. He was 16. He'd broken his knee while exploring the cliffs, and during his recuperation a young nurse named Emily attended him. Emily was red-haired, 20, flat chested, dimpled and bulbous nosed. She had next to no hips, might as well have been carved out of a ruler. John felt sorry for her. Emily loved the boys at St. Eustace. She was a sweet good-natured girl who masturbated all the time. John could smell it on her.....(cont)