marmaduke_the_early_years calum I will write this in installments. It is very late. I am stoned. Therefore I apologise in advance. In 1955, Marmaduke Cuthbert Reginald Smythe Jenkins Marmaduke (or M.C.R.S.J.M as some of his closer acquaintances would later affectionately call him) was born to Hilda Juno Tetley Tartt Marmaduke (nee' Johnson) and Ferdinand Unsworth Cuthbert Kerr Indigo Marmaduke the third (or F.U.C.K.I.M as young Marmaduke was often heard to call him) in a medium sized country villa in Dorset in the United Kingdom. As his mother was later to recall Marmaduke was a placid baby whose particular pleasure was to watch the cat for days on end until the poor animal became beset with a kind of pathological paranoia which resulted in it's twice trying to kill itself by jumping from the roof of the family home. Interestingly enough, this was the first cat to be sectioned in Britain. Unfortunately, however, after more bungled but nonetheless injurious suicide attempts on the part of the despondent feline, Sparky had to be put down for his own sake. Hilda has often said that enduring this experience had made a profound effect on the young marmaduke's psyche, and that many of the actions and decisions of his later years could be seen in the light of this personal tragedy. In some way, Hilda would say, it was almost as if ,through all his attempts to show men the path of poilitcal and spiritual harmony, he was all the while trying to atone for the death of sparky, his beloved little pussy cat. 030912 ... marmaduke vote_marmaduke 030912 ... Edgar Beelzebub Smythe When young marmy was five, still but a babe in arms, a second tragedy was to befall the house of Marmaduke. The details are still unclear and what is more, the passing of time has enveloped them in it's foggy embrace but nontheless I shall do my best to reconstruct an account. It seems that F.U.C.K.I.M, father of Marmaduke contracted some rare venereal disease while shooting Lion in the Gambia. Now seeing as the incubation period of said disease was only two days and that F.U.C.K.I.M died in the savannah, absolutely miles from anywhere, having not seen a woman in weeks, we might safely say that the contraction of such a disease is suprising in the extreme. According to Wole, F.U.C.K.I.M's companion for the trip, they had been persued for some forty miles by an irate troop of howler monkeys. Two Days before he started to sicken, Wole had heard what sounded like the insane cackling of some simian animal and sounds of "extreme human discomfort" emanating from F.U.C.K.I.M's tent. Two days Later F.U.C.K.I.M. was dead and the banner of the house of Marmaduke passed necessarily from father to son. 030925 ... edgar-a lyrical flourish like a ghost marmaduke wandered lonely long round the byways of his youth. Only dusty books for comfort. 030925 ... Edgar the tradgedian The house was heavy like choking. Hilda was distraught; and everything turned to ashes in his wake. Then they sent him away... When Marmaduke was seven Hilda decided to send marmaduke to school. She knew how long at night he waited, brooding, waiting for something, anything to tell him it would be alright. He wailled himself awake and then he could not sleep and the nights were long and hard for him. Far from home, in another place, merciless they bullied him, bully him in all his waking dreams. 030925 ... Edgar the Record-keeper Four demes like Attica in ancient times. A study. Books. Interminable cold and a stammer fast developing-stutters all his speech into nothings. Graynose academy; a school for the unwanted from the middle classes. And this is where she sends him... Marmaduke would never forget his years at Graynose. He would spend the entirety of his youth in the wooded environs of the school and later he would come to think that the single most determining influence upon his later career would be the library of that hallowed institution. Marmaduke found it difficult to relate to the other boys. It seemed to them that he was aloof, unmanly even, with his hatred of the cricket pitch and his propensity for study. In the spring the woods around Graynose would be bejeweled with bluebells and he would take his battered volume of keats and frolic naked in them, thinking himself to be a satyr or a spirit of the woods. This naturalism attracted the derision of the other boys and he was soon singled out for a particularly brutal and prolonged stint of physical and psychological hardships. The biographer now would like to pose a question. Why is it that those who are in youth free of the coruption of cynicism, those who revel in art and life and love so punitively treated by the rest, those cynics and skeptics who feel so little so that , in the end, those who were born free bend their necks to the yoke and submit, becoming themselves dull and lustreless?. To his great credit Marmaduke never once lost his love of man and his alma mater-the library sustained him through his ordeals. There in that place amid the time-worn tomes he found Euripides, Plato, Sophocles, Epicurus, Euclid, Aristotle and a collection of ninteenth century homomerotica left there by some long gone schoolmaster.And In some ways it was this latter discovery that was to prove most truly life-shaping. 030925 ... Edgar in tears There was one boy- a beautiful fawn, his name was goeffrey and his beauty was never meant to last. He had about him an intoxicating, deathly beauty and Marmy loved him. They spent, he and marmy, all their spare time together. They read together, they played together and they were for each other a bond so storng such as has not been seen since Achilles first laid eyes upon the youthful Patrochlus. But the world, cruel as she is, grew jealous and took from marmaduke his beloved companion. Geoffrey Ingenu Mordred Percy or G.I.M.P. as he was often called died of tuberculosis in 1965 when Marmy was only ten and never again would he find a companion so dear. He would tell me later of the time they found a wounded dove in the gardens of the school and knowing full well the cruelty of the other boys they took the little creature under their care nursing it back to health until it was well enough to fly again. Unfortunately when the released the animal, now restored, it inadvertantly flew accross the flight path of a pheasant shoot whereupon they witnessed in horror from their dormitory window the downward trajectory of the felled bird as it's crumpled, lead-stuffed body sailed towards the earth for the last time. At the funeral marmy chose some lines from Shelley and they went thus: Peace, peace he is not dead he doth not sleep He has awkened from the dream of life, tis we who lost in stormy visions keep WWith phantoms an unprofitable strife and in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulneralbe nothings..... 030925 ... Edgar from berryman I don't suppose in all them years a day went ever by without a loving thought for him. Welladay. In the brightness of his promise. unsustained. I saw himthro' the mist of the actual blazing with insight. 030925 ... Chronicles of Marmaduke When geoffrey died marmaduke was left alone and friendless in that cold gray building. Another three years passed. He showed much academic promise but there was about him a certain sadness a look like a matyr before his death, a kind of beatific resignation. The other boys soon got tired of torturing Marmaduke. He was after all an easy prey. But he never one cried or betrayed himself during their cruel games. So they moved on to boys less resigned to pain, boys whose childish protestations were more satisfying to the torturers. At the age of thirteen Hilda decided to get Marmaduke into Eton. Ah Eton. Those hallowed halls. Valhalla. How many a flaxen lad has wandered round those grounds. How many great men have been reared in those buildings. Maramduke Cuthbert Reginald Smythe Jenkins Marmaduke entered Eton in 1968. His form master Piers Houyhnhnm was a very erudite man indeed. He was also homosexual. They hit it off immediately. There have been suggestions that the two of them embarked upon some kind of physical relationship. And While I have seen no evidence to sugggest that this is a false premise, I shall nontheless utterly discount it in this narrative on grounds of taste alone. Firstly because Piers Houyhnhnm had been injured in the war and had only stumps for arms and secondly because he was an idolatrous catholic. 030926 ... Edgar from Wordsworth My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began; So it is now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die; The child is the father of the man; I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. 030926 ... I am stupid Marmaduke 031218 ... Edgar the indignant I am sorry for my tardiness and I am also sorry that some tawdry slut has chosen to sully the chronicles of Marmaduke with his/her shit stained fingers. But in life, as my father once said over coffee and cake at the saint james' club, it never pays, my dear friends to put one's faith in a malodorous shit stabber. And now that you are back again with the relatively turd free edgar, I shall continue. 031223 ... Edgar from tennyson the lovely man Be near me when my light is low When the blood creeps and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick And all the wheels of being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; And time; a maniac scattering dust And life; a Fury slinging flame. Be near me when my faith is dry And men the flies of latter spring, That lay their eggs and sting and sing And weave their petty cells and die. Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day. 031227 ... Edgar the moralist O dear reader you may ask why it is that i include these seemingly irrelevant passages from these dead men with their time forgotten axes still unground. Well I say to you; is there not a case to be made for verse that it is the the art of dressing up shit with verbal perfume and is that not what Marmy did to the end, to the very bitter end. Then let this be a lesson to you; read less, think less, dwell less, perfect your guises. Then shall you be happy, never flinching, never moved from the trusted path, a contented automaton, strong, untroubled,secure. And now back to the path I'll go. 031227 ... Edgar Again For those of you as yet unaquainted with the , rugby is a pastime much beloved of repressed homosexuals everywhere, except of course in America where our delightful cousins have perfected a similarly rough and tumble, ball-fondling activity, known there as the Gangbang. Anyway rugby is seen in certain hallowed institutions as a character building rite. I mean what right minded adult could not grasp that the collective post match shower/gangrape/singalong is a necessary and edifying ritual for any young person making their first, tentative steps into the world. Who could not see that character is built by being buried under tons of sweaty male felsh while in pursuit of a ball so badly designed that it will not even bounce in a straight line. After all, If life is indeed as absurd as the existentialists would have it, then surley this is the appropriate initiation for anyone who wishes fully to engage with its complexities. Although the thought of seeing the other boys willies exposed at least twice a week was always going to entice marmaduke, in practice Marmy's glabrous, elfin body was never quite equipped to deal with the punishment meeted out to him in the foot-deep mud, under the rain pregnant sky, with the sadistic master egging on his peers to pound him, punish him for his sensitivity. 031227 ... Bawdy Edgar The child is the father of the man and in this, the first bloom of youth, Marmaduke flies from the rugby pitch and the cruelty of the other boys into the arms of Piers (who had none) and poetry and a new friend, whose name was Maximus, Maximus Coon. 031227 ... Editorial edgar "Maximus is tall and his arms are big and strong. I have seen his willy and oh god it is as large as a marrow. " This is an entry from marmaduke's diary dated june 1970 and from which we can assert that Marmaduke had just entered his fifteenth year. Here are some poetic fragments collated from his notebooks of that time and in them we can see the unmistakable influence of the great modernists Eliot and Pound. Throbbing i feel in The seat I am forbid to name. Veiny presence of of carrot and totem but tears ceaseless flowing ever For love I cannot consumate. Prize open the lid. Look inside. If ever I said I did n't want it. I lied. Here in this poem we see the begiinings of a more informal, colloquial diction. (Perhaps the influence of Larkin?) Take me you fucking bastard Take me now for I am thirsty and will drink deep from your goblet. 031229 ... Young Love It is a well known fact that some men when sexually deprived will take up the act of "probing the rhino" with other men in order to gain a kind of carnal catharsis. Personally I would like to state that never once has the sight of a hard, throbbing, veiny, semen tube induced in me any kind of desire to embrace it with my narrow, fudgy tunnel. But there you go. Anyway, It was common knowledge at eton at that time that in the heightened trance that arises from deprivation of the penile kind, boys would find solace in the murky orifices of their peers. At fifteen Marmaduke looked like this; thin, pale-white body; Mid length blond hair in the shellian mold; Expressive blue eyes. Narrow shoulders and hardly a hair about him anywhere. At the same age Maximus looked like this; heavy darkened monobrow, bursting muscles hulking shoulders and knuckles that only just avoided trailing the ground- even Amazonia possessed less dense foliage than his pubic region. Marmaduke was five foot six in his stocking feet. Maximus was nearer seven. One Cuthbert Toole, corridor mate of the two young lovers, relates to us his experience of their relationship. " Maximus would come storming in to Marmy's room around two o clock in the morning. He smelt terrible. We could smell him before we could hear him, grunting and groaning like a constipated ram. Then there were worse noises. We could hear Marmaduke whining. I had never heard anything like it. Last christmas I was watching a documentary with my grandchildren. It was about the wildlife of the Andes and in it they filmed the death throes of a cancer-ridden llama. Took me right back it did. We never used to get a wink of sleep. It was horrible". Thank you cuthbert. At four a clock every morning when Maximus and Marmy had played out their innocent rituals of bonding maximus would toss the young Marmy out of the window because he took up too much space in the bed. But how Marmy loved him 031229 ... Larkin- he said it (merry christmas from Edgar|) Love again: Wanking at ten past three (Surely he's taken her home by now? The bedroom hot as a bakery, The drink gone dead without showing How to meet tomorrow, and afterwards, And the usual pain like dysentry. Someone else feeling her brests and cunt, Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare And me supposed to be ignorant, Or find it funny, or not to care, Even..but why put it into words? Isolate rather this element That spreads through other lives like a tree And sways them on in a sort of sense And say why it never worked for me. Something to do with violence A long way back, and wrong rewards And arrogant eternity. 031229 ... edgar but you can call me hilda ...And then love or lust fails and there is an aftermath. For someone. So Maximus grew bored. And Marmy was broken. In the height of his passion, first love, marmy was cleaved in twain. 031229 ... edgar In later years Marmadke would ocasionally arrange to meet with Maximus. Secretly perhaps Marmaduke entertained a hope that he might confess a hitherto unexpressed regret at his treatment of him, or even better, that he might confess his love. On this level maximus, the great unrequited love of his youth, was a bitter disappointment. I remember Marmy saying once that meeting a former love in later life was rather like going to the dentist; beforehand one would feel not a little apprehension, the experience itself was rarely pleasant, one felt numb for at least half an hour afterwards but once the numbness passed one would be relieved that one's duty was done and happy also that it would not have to be repeated for at least another year. I recall him also quoting from confucius: "his river is flowing in a different direction from a unknown source towards a strange sea. I shall not be fishing there again." Such was the stoicism of later years but it was hard and bitter torment to see him abusing other arseholes in other rooms and to hear their yelps as he threw them callously from high windows that were not his own. Later on, while tracking the fabled Yeti in the Himalayas, Maximus was to die from a ruptured colon, having probably found the only human within a million square miles with a larger penis than himself. The locals, with their customary crudulity took his death a) as evidence of the beast's existence and b) that it had a liking for large men. A sorrowful Marmaduke always took consolation from the knowledge that he died serenly and with a smile on his face. Even in this egotistical age, love, it seems, will not so easily die the death. 040105 ... incidentally-Edgar Two years ago a bemused American traveller by the name of Bunglefleisher while journeying in the himalyas near the indian border with nepal, was astounded to be informed by the locals, that because he was a big man and because the "white beast" [sic] had not sodomised anyone for some time, that he should take care to protect his "cakehole" [sic] from any likely "invasion" [sic]. The poor bugger could make neither head nor tail of this mysterious warning and journeyed on up the mountain regardless. Unfortunately for Bunglefleisher there proved to be some ground to their forebodings. The man was found on his knees with his head buried deep in the snow and his arse perched in the air like two baloons tethered to a gatepost. His trousers and underpants were wrapped around his ankles and there was certain evidence of largescale intrusion in the region of his perianum. The coroner at the American consulate pronounced he had died of a ruptured colon but no one was make sense of the abnormally large, six-toed footprints leading away from the scene. 040108 ... yuck yuck Have you considered having a go at Alfred? I hear he's available. 040108 ... respectfully-edgar But who_the_fuck_is alfred?. 040108 ... Edgar Again sorry i meant to say who_the_fuck_is_alfred 040108 ... Ja is helga here no I dont want buy cooking oils. The sixties- sexual liberation, mind expanding drugs, oriental philosophy and all the rest- hit eton with all the force of an arthritic, elderly poof stroking his pet poodle. After all, this fortress of antiquated values had sucessfully resisted even larger threats to the fabric of its continuity than the ideas of a few disaffected undergradautes with a bad case of the munchies. This is not to say that the zeitgeist could not be felt at all but rather that its effects were somewhat diluted by the probitive force of the cane. In the latter years of the decade and into the early years of the folllowing one there were one or two mavericks, let us call them, who displayed a certain visible approval for some of the ideas of that revolutionary time. Of course most of them were to go to oxford, study law or some such discipline, find a job in the city and end up totally abandoning the idealisim of their youths by spending the remainder of their lives exploiting tomato farmers in the Gambia and trying to preserve their status as newly enntrenched middle class burghers. Such. Is. Life. But there were one or two amongst this rebelious group who were more hardcore. Of these the one to make the most impact on our protagonist was afellow named Cecil, "ketamine" Cecil to his friends. 040112 ... edgar. While walking down an oak-panelled corridor, lined with the serried ranks of private studies that were the living quarters for sixth formers at that time, Marmaduke noticed the strong acrid smell of burning. There was an acridity to this smell, yes, but also a certain organic sweetness, enticing almost. Following this smell back to source, he found that it came from a room at the far end of the corridor. The door was closed and smoke drifted out of the cracks encircling it with a neblulous halo. Sunlight also arrowed in from a nearby window and illuminated the growing cloud with streaks of brightness. The whole effect, Marmaduke thought was almost , mystcical. He stopped outside and put his ear to the door. 040113 ... edgars tale of sin From inside he could the sound of occasional coughing and then infrequent mumblings. Underlying all this was the sound of droning oriential music and the muffled thump-thump of repetitive drums. " Um, I say," he said, "are you all right in there". Silence followed. "Hello, is anyone there". More silence. Just as he was about to go and call the fire brigade, the door swung open and a wave of smoke spilled over him. While Marmaduke spluttered, a boy emerged from the cloud, topless but wearing a kind of oriental, patterned skirt. His hair was long and messy, it snaked over his shoulders in lank, thin strands. Medusa-like. Thin traces of dark stubble coloured his jaw line and his eyes were red and distant, buzzing with a kind of lunatic bewilderment. "Yeah man, whats up?" came the most laconic of greetings. "I, I thought there was a fire in there" stuttered Marmaduke. The boy looked at him disdainfully and said nothing. Eventually, after a long, prickly silence, the boy lifted his hands and eyes to the heavens in the manner of an old testament prophet and said mysteriously " yeah man, there was a fire in there, a big one, and in the flames my soul was dancing, free as a bird dude, free as a fucking bird". Marmaduke wondered at this and decided that it was probably time to leave. "Well, now that I know you are alright, I'll be on my way". He turned but as he did so an arm gripped his wrist and a voice came ominously from behind him, "no man you re coming with me, I got a friend I'd like you to meet, he's called eddie and I think you'll get on just fine". With this he was dragged back into the smoke-filled room in the manner of a wriggling grub fallen pray to a hungry spider. 040113 ... Edgar- no one likes a smartarse. "Sit the fuck down" boomed the boy, "next to eddie". Marmaduke looked around the room-no sign of eddie. Marmaduke shivered. He thought it best to sit down anyway, perhaps this might diffuse the festering mania of the wild eyed boy now making tea in the corner of the book-strewn study. He came over with two cups of tea, one for him and one for eddie. "Let me introduce you", he said. "Eddie" he said looking over to the empty chair next to marmaduke, "this is...sorry I did nt get your name". "Um, Marmaduke, its Marmaduke". "Eddie this is marmaduke. Eddie has been following me around for the last few years, have nt you Eddie". Eddie made no reply. "I met him first when I took acid on the south coast". " Oh yes" spluttered Marmaduke, repressing a nervous laugh, "thats a nice place to meet. What, whats your name?". "Cecil", replied the lunatic, fixing Marmauduke with a look of sneering incrudlity. Cecil moved closer to marmaduke leaning over until their faces almost touched. Marmaduke was sweating now. He was considering how far the fall from the window to the ground might be. It was a good floor higher than the window from which Maximus used to enjoy throwing him and he was heavier now. It would probably hurt but probaly not as much as enduring one more minute of Cecil and his imaginary friend "Eddie likes yoga, do you like yoga?" 040113 ... Edgar relates the extraordinary. Marmaduke was brooding a response but Cecil seemed to lose interest. "never mind" he said,"not exactly much scope for that sort of thing round here now is there". Marmaduke wondered how this boy ever managed to slip through, the net. His father must be rich, he thought, otherwise they would have turfed him out long ago. "what, what does your father do?' ventured Marmaduke nervously. With an air of exquisite boredoom Cecil yawned and stretched out his arms like a cat. "Precisely nothing" he said, "he's an earl, you know, a kind of high class layabout . Supercillious old bugger that he is. He has no spiritual depth. Eddie does n't like him at all, do you eddie?." Eddie remained tactfully silent. "He knows nothing". Cecil shook his head at the thought of his spiritually impoverished sire. "Drink your herbal tea Marmaduke" he bellowed "its good for you". Marmaduke stared down into the murky grey concoction in front of him. Right, he thought, ill drink this muck and then, while he's not looking, ill climb out of that window and clamber along the ledge until i find a bush big enough to break my fall. The jump probably wont kill me but if it does at least ill be safe from Cecil. Cecil reached behind him and picked up two books from the floor. "Read these", he said, proffering them to marmaduke. "they changed my life and once you've read them you ll never be the same again". Thats what I'm worried about, thought Marmaduke. He took his reading lenses from his jacket pocket and scrutinised the covers. The first book was called "How To Impose Your Inner Chi Upon An Aghast and Disbelieving World" by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. "I got that when I was in India" said Cecil, looking smug. Marmaduke groaned inwardly and took a gulp of his tea. The taste was incomparably vile and it took all his strength not to spit it out there and then.It reminded him of a line from that Owen poem-"obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues..". After a few, ropey seconds, he managed to compose himself. Cecil, evidently had not noticed his discomfort. "Well" he said expectantly, pointing to the books "What about the other one". " I was just coming to that one", said Marmaduke, shooting Cecil a hateful look. This one was called "Transcendental Flying For the Unitiated" by Barry Goldblum. Again Marmaduke groaned, though this time audibly. " You will read them.." said Cecil slowly and menacingly before adding, for effect "wont you my dear Marmaduke.". "Yes of course I will" Marmaduke replied, swearing under his teeth. "Really though Cecil I must go now". Cecil took no notice. "Do you like your tea" Trying his best to be polite Maramduke said" yes of course it was lovely, what did you say was in it again?'. Warming to this, Cecil said "Its an ayurvedic brew really, it purifes one's essences but Eddie thought.." Oh here we go, thought marmaduke ".. that your essences required something stronger if they were to be truly purified, so i put some ketamine in it" "Oh yes" said marmaduke, "whats that then?'. For a second marmaduke thought he saw a kind of demoniac exultation pass over the boy's expression and quite innocently, he began to explain. "Oh i got it while I was in india, they use it to tranquilise livestock" ."What?!" shrieked marmaduke. He made to get up but as he lifted himself off the chair, the whole world seemed to turn black and white and then dissolve. It felt as if there were weights on his feet and his vision became pixelated like the images one sees when looking close up at a television screen. "oh christ" he said but the words seemed to slow down like listeneing to a faulty tape deck. Somewhere in the distance he thought he could hear Cecil. "Look Eddie" he seemed to say, "Marmys flying now. Free as a bird. free as a fucking bird". 040114 what's it to you? who go blather from