Three o’clock found Sweet Benny climbing out of Joe’s bed, carefully. He went outside and climbed the wall opposite into the Southern Cemetery, his favourite place. It wasn’t so peaceful these days, since the AnnoDomino had opened their headquarters nearby. Couldn’t he ever escape the twin demands? Hackle’s sweet home and the bone pavilion, both of them calling. The House of Chances dominated everything, of course: with the giant domilith flashing its mutant dots in the forecourt, the securiblurbs patrolling the ground, singing go-away songs; the swarms of adverts flying over the cemetery, either heading hivewards with old messages, or outwards with new. Flashes of wing-beat, a whispering million. Sweet Benny shuddered.
As Daisy Love, cold at heart, headed back to her flat. To sleep a thousand miles, unconscious. As the city dozed in its losing bones.
Manchester sleeping. Daisy and Jaz and Benny, finally, and Celia and Joe and Dopejack. Even the winners of the half-blank were asleep; no harm came to them, by the way, except that they all dreamed the same dream, of a skeleton chasing them through some misty landscape, all rattling bones and clattering teeth. They all woke up at precisely four in the morning, covered in sweat.
Somewhere else, somebody else was still dancing. The very final person awake that night, holding tight to a living chance, the magical four-and-a-blank combination. His name has no importance, only the winning bone that he couldn’t quite believe. Domino! The master! The 10 million lovelies of a domino’s kiss, delivered by the good Cookie Luck herself. The queen of numbers, coming out of television.
Somewhere else, maybe somebody was taking a hammer to a dead bone, swinging it again and again to break the domino. Believe me, the hammer would break first.
Somewhere else, another person lay dead in a car park, killed by petty human jealousy. That’s the way it is with the game, winners and losers.
As the blurbflies circled in the air. Singing, so singing.
Play to win
Game 42
Domination Day, lucky old Bonechester. The naked populace, making foreplay to the domiviz, bone-eyed and numberfucked as the opening credits came in a shower of pips. Tumbling jig of dominoes, watch them dance now, forcever chancing zero. Jig that sexy jumble! Even the air had a hard-on, bulging with mathematics. Turning the blurbflies into a nympho-swarm, liquid streets alive with perverts. Play to win! Play to love! And all over the city that hot and juicy evening, three hours from midnight and shrouded, gangs of punters were plaguing the city, stroking their bones on napkins and trousers, blouses and dresses, breasts and groins. Voyeurs of probability. Gazing, full-on, as some fractal dots pulsated to the theme song.
It’s domino time! Domino time!
Dom, dom, dom, dom, domino time! —Blurbflies
Game 42. The year dot. Mister Million, the King Bone had deemed it so.
In factories and bathrooms, abattoirs and dog kennels; all-night shopping toilets, non-stop cemeteries; swimming pools and sauna pits; anywhere there was a private TV or a radio or a public screen, all the Mancunians were lubeing their wishes with winning-juice, hoping for a Cookie Luck kiss.
Why not chance a throw?
You might as well have a go!
With your lucky little domino! —Blurbflies
Go on, go on! Chance a puny. Chance a fucking puny! Why not have a go! Go on, roll them bones! Look at the kids even, running through their dreams, playing with their Dominic Domino dolls. See them squeeze that bone! Singing aloud and learning how to play. Learn to win! Learn to win! Play, play, play! Make yourself 10 million lovelies!
Play to win
Ignore Daisy Love and Jazir Malik for the moment. Let them go through the usual rigmarole ritual. They’re only going to lose again, anyway. And then Jazir’s gonna ask Daisy to the Snake Lounge, Saturday night. He’s gonna tell her that the ultracool Frank Scenario is singing again tomorrow night at the club, but she’s still going to refuse. Assignments, assignments.
Also, try your best to ignore the scents of Aloo Josh and Tandoori Murghi, drifting ever upwards from the curry house.
Forget Dopejack and Sweet Benny and Old Joe Crocus, all in a car somewhere. Let them all lose. Because when Cookie Luck dances to a standstill that Friday night at nine, her costume is a map of sad chances. A pip on each breast. Pips on each hip, a pip on each thigh, another in the groin. The way the cookie crumbles, sadly.
A two. A five. A two-and-a-five, the lonely winning bone. A seven combination and an extra prize for the winner, another million lovelies.
Instead, focus on the kid, Little Miss Celia…
Look at that girl fly! Running through the dark streets of the city, her little domino in her little hand, with a tribe of big old dirty beggars chasing after her. The once proud and faithful family of tramps, chasing Celia along Market Street where the bombed-out Monstermarket lay dark for renovation. Along Tib Street where the nocturnal joke shops sold their ‘pink and steamy adult toys’, a left turn on to Swan Street, where the Snake Lounge club lay waiting with its posters about Saturday’s gig by Frank Scenario and DJ Dopejack. Also upon this street, Celia’s chosen and secret homeless house, out of bounds with the pack of tramps sniffing for her winnings. And where in the hell was Big Eddie Irwell when Little Miss Celia needed him the most?