Free Stealing Picasso by Anson Cameron

leather and big outlaw hair and dark shades. Seeing Marcel, Larry Skunk says, ‘Shit. Michael Jackson … beat up.’ Marcel smiles and says, ‘Hello,’ in Michael’s falsetto.
    â€˜Hell happened to you, Michael Jackson?’ Wal asks.
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜No, tell,’ Larry Skunk says.
    Marcel’s eyes are swollen black from being beaten senseless by four friends of a client who had paid $500 for a night with him. Having satisfied his own libido inside ten minutes, the client figured that, as he’d handed over five big ones for thenight, Marcel was still his property and he could do anything he wanted with him until morning, including making a tidy profit by subletting him for $2000 to four like-minded acquaintances he called in on his phone.
    Marcel, when he was told of the arrangement, for legitimate health and business reasons, refused to sublet himself. When the quartet of wannabe sub-lessees of Michael Jackson’s surrogate arse had Marcel’s stance explained to them by the original lessee, they were, at first, only stamp-foot angry and edgily horny. But all four, having given up other Saturday night recreations for this taste of cloned star buttocks, soon went into a huddle and talked up a moral outrage between themselves. ‘Shit. This guy’s interfered with kids.’ Then they beat Marcel unconscious.
    When Marcel finishes telling this story to Larry Skunk, the man raises his eyes to the heavens and looks at Wal Wolverine Symonds and shakes his head, and Wal Wolverine Symonds shakes his head back, acknowledging what a crazy, disappointing world we are forced to live in.
    â€˜Legitimate businessperson like yourself. I’m Larry Skunk Monk, presidential guard of the Stinking Pariahs.’ He holds out his hand. ‘You need protection. What’s your name?’
    â€˜Marcel.’
    â€˜Arse Sell? You’re kidding. Arse Sell?’
    â€˜Marcel. With an M. Marcel.’
    â€˜Right. Marcel. Only, I knew a guy called Bernie who was an arsonist.’

    Larry Skunk comes from Mount Beauty, a hydro town in the mountains. Left school early and started work for the hydrocompany alongside the other men in his family. But one day he was late for work and when his foreman called him a lazy little shit in the smoko hut in front of a gang of linesmen, Larry was astonished to see that foreman turn into a grizzly bear before his very eyes. Especially astonished since that foreman had been, up until then, his beloved Uncle Bruce. No matter – a living, breathing, drooling grizzly bear needs to be brought under control, and Larry Skunk brought him under control by whipping him with a length of steel rope. Then he scarpered as the prostrate grizzly began to show signs of turning back into Uncle Bruce, trounced and bloodied.
    That event was Larry Skunk’s first realisation that he had a psychosis that blurred the lines between bears and beloved uncles. He came down to Melbourne, where a man could comfortably live with such an affliction, and fell in with the Stinking Pariahs by beating up a Bandido. After Larry Skunk had performed the Twelve Labours of Hercules: stealing the Golden Harley of the Hell’s Angel’s master at arms, homiciding Alphonse of the ten-thou heroin debt, poisoning a kennel of Drug Squad rottweilers, conflagrating the Sydney Road Souvlaki Palace, etc., the Stinking Pariahs inducted him into their exalted ranks with a coat-of-arms tattoo, a bottle of Jim Beam and the two-hour rental of a seen-better-days street-corner slut. Welcome to the gang, Larry Skunk.
    A decade of dope, LSD and speed has not helped Larry Skunk overcome his propensity for psychotic delusions. Fantastical comic-book hallucinations pop up before him like cardboard cut-outs in a shooting gallery. He is about as crazy a man as can operate within the confines of an outlaw motorcycle gang without being thrown out for being crazy. Beasts and goddesses appear