Free Wildlife by Joe Stretch Page B

cool young man en route to a Fuck Festival. Did I think the word booty? I did. And I’m right. Both women bend extremely into their pushchairs, exposing large denim behinds that bubble along to the grooves of the N-Prang. As he passes by, Janek glances into the pushchairs and notices that both babies are crying with joy.
    The swimming of the elderly in the freezing lake is entirely synchronised. Janek arrives and watches as a dozen pairs of pink-wetsuited legs rise up from the murky Serpentine and dance in unison in a hip-hop style. Twenty-four pink knees bend in fashionable, robotic jerks that are difficult to pull off in music videos, let alone when you’re old and you’re holding your breath under ice-cold water. Janek stares in disbelief. This is what he loves about London. The way little communities like this come together and battle against the anonymity of the city with well-practised and flamboyant skills. Behind him, ten swans march in single file, all their white wings spread wide like Nazi eagles. It’s funny, thinks Janek, standing at the water’s edge, wondering when the swimmers will resurface.
    After some time, the solitary head of an elderly man rises out of the dark water, then his pink-wetsuited shoulders, then his waist, then his legs. The man, it turns out, is standing on a woman’s shoulders, she’s now rising out of the water, too, lifting the guy even higher. And, of course, she’s standing on top of someone else. Now they’re rising. So it continues, elderly swimmer after elderly swimmer rising out of the water with their feet gripping the shoulders of the person under them untilthe first man is very high up and Janek is clapping in astonishment. Clapping claps he can’t hear because of the bass-heavy music in his ears. But clapping claps anyway. Because this is amazing.
    He takes the earphones of the N-Prang from his ears. He turns to the row of swans. They are pecking at the tarmac ground now. Or hissing. Or beating their large wings for no apparent reason. In the water, the elderly swimmers have begun to lower themselves safely back down. When the first man is back in the water all the swimmers gather round him, some gasping, some smiling, congratulating each other on the success of their performance. They are treading water and exhilarated. Janek is passed by the two women with the pushchairs. Over the tears of their babies, they are talking about Asa Gunn. One declares that no matter what, they still believe that he is a superstar.
    Are these signposts? I feel happy. The drugged lions, the sawdust air and the nervous clowns. Are these the well-trained elephants of the Fuck Festival?
    At the end of their world tour, Snoop Dogg placed a hand on Janek’s forehead and asked if he was OK. Snoop said that he’d never seen someone have so little fun, even growing up in Long Beach. Janek had agreed, saying, ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, Snoop?’
    But Life is a better fun-haver than Snoop. Oh, Life. Fucking fun. Funny fucking. Fucking funny. Death. When they had sex, when they did it, Life made both of them crane their necks to stare at the penis and the vagina. ‘Watch it go in and out,’ Life cried. And they did. She and Janek stared at their interacting sexes until they felt distancedfrom them and entertained by the performance. They stared at their bodies like they were pieces of miraculous evidence. For the first time in his life, Janek was able to forget about his circumcision during sex. Such sensory concerns were secondary. Just stare at the proof. We live. Inside and outside.
    Once his mum is safely buried, Janek decides he will meet Life in the virtual city of Wow-Bang. He decides that he will try to begin a relationship with her. But for now he is in London. He makes his way to Oxford Street where the air is solid with noise until he takes out the N-Prang and switches it on.
    He is striding along with humans on the enormous