A Scruffian Funferal: Fabbles, #3

By Hal Duncan

Waifs of history put under the Stamp. Fixed imperishable to skivvy forever for the groanhuffs. Scarpered to live wild, fight back, liberate every scruff still in chains. 

Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids...

It's over a century now since the Scruffians nicked the Stamp, done for the last of the Waiftaker Generals, and brung down the whole bleeding Trade. Still, there's cribs being raided & scruffs being scrobbled, which means there's comeuppances called for, innit. So sharpen yer shivs, scamps, and get ready to rumble. It's time for a little old school Halloween fun, on the night when every scruff is hellion and every groanhuff best be scared.

Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits...

Like fugitives from the musical Oliver! by way of Clive Barker, like some queer punk bastard brat born of Neil Gaiman and William Burroughs, the anarchic Scruffians should appeal to readers of dark fantasy with a wicked sense of black humour and a fierce passion for social justice. Ain't no escapism without equality, mate, far as scruffs are concerned, so for those who've lost their spoons to the fuckeries of power and privilege, well, yer new cribmates have spoons to spare, innit. Sharpened to shivs, natch. Wielding whimsy in the service of satire then, with a wink to Peter Pan, a nod to The Borribles, and a salute to Sweeney Todd, this is punk fiction for yer inner feral child.

Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps....

From short stories boiled down to pack the punch of a three-minute garage rock song to sprawling novellas as the pint-sized picaresque adventures of scallywag heroes of yore, here you'll find a panoply of postmodern fabbles ("it's like a fable with a bit of fib and a bit of babble thrown in for fun, innit!") packed full of the profane and the poignant. Offering humour in the face of horror, farcical and slapstick as a Punch and Judy show, solace in the face of sorrow, heartwarming as a locket from a dead mum set in a sniffly orphan's hand at Christmas, these are tales to break yer heart and remake it bigger than ever.

Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!

Whether it's a quiet contemporary fantasy story of gay foster kid runaways drawn into this queer found family or a riotous historical fantasy yarn told by the fabbler of their new crib to "explificate" the Dire Situation of waifs down the centuries scrobbled and Fixed to serve as mill workers, chimney sweeps or worse, every story stands alone, self-reliant as a Whitechapel guttersnipe. Across and between these stories though, in the sneaky hints and clues of a Big Picture, there's shenanigans and malarkey afoot too, for any reader ready to play along and delve ever-deeper into the world of the Scruffians.

Praise for the Scruffians

"The post- post- modern Victorian fables that comprise Hal Duncan's A Scruffian Survival Guide inhabit a unique dark fantasy world – a feral dream. The language is mad genius." — Jeffrey Ford on A Scruffian Survival Guide

"Hal Duncan's cheeky and charming Scruffian stories hide a steely shiv of inspection that digs uncompromisingly into the ribs of  the establishment. This latest volume, populated as always with wonderful characters old and new, deepens that exploration and brings it bang up to date. I loved every word of it." — Neil Williamson on A Scruffian Survival Guide

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Sodom Press
• Release date: Oct 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386461647

Hal Duncan

Hal Duncan is the author of VELLUM and INK, more recently TESTAMENT, and numerous short stories, poems, essays, even some musicals. Homophobic hatemail once dubbed him "THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!!" (sic), and you can find him online at http://www.halduncan.com or at his Patreon for readings, revelling in that role.

Book preview

A Scruffian Souling Song

God bless the mistress of this house,

The lord of this estate,

And all the little Scruffians

That round your table wait.

The scamps and scrags and scallywags

That work behind your doors,

For all who serve within your walls,

We’ll serve you ten times more.

•

A soul, a soul, a soul-cake!

Good Missus, please, a soul-cake!

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,

Or any sweet meats to make us merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for the Devil who made us all.

•

Down into the cellar,

And see what you can find.

If the barrels are still full,

We hope you will prove kind.

We hope you will prove kind, good sir,

With apples and strong beer,

And we’ll come no more a-souling

Till Halloween next year.

•

A soul, a soul, a soul-cake!

Good Missus, please, a soul-cake!

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,

Or any sweet meats to make us merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for the Devil who made us all. 

•

The lanes are very dirty.

My shoes are very thin.

I’ve got a little pocket

To put a penny in.

If you haven’t got a penny,

An ha’penny will do;

If you haven’t got an ha’penny,

We’ll take a pound of you.

•

A soul, a soul, a soul-cake!

Good Missus, please, a soul-cake!

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,

Or any sweet meats to make us merry.

A liver, a heart, a tongue, or a cheek,

Treats for a Scruffian, blessings for the meek.

A Scruffian Halloween

• Souling

—A soul, a soul, a soulcake! the children sing sweetly. Good Missus, please, a soulcake!

Stood at the door in the cutest Victorian urchin garb they are, the gang of them. So cute they are, the groanhuff thinks.

—An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry! Or any sweet meats to make us merry!

Although. The muslin masks, with rips for eyeholes, slash for mouth… that is properly creepy. She doesn’t know the term folk horror, the groanhuff, but that’s what she’s thinking. Vintage weirdness.

—One for Peter, two for Paul, three for the Devil who made us all.

•

The turnip lanterns are a cute touch too, she thinks. She remembers that from her own childhood, back in Saint Andrews, the hollowed-out neeps with candles burning in the cavities, the hacked holes and rough drab turnip skin (turnip, swede, rutabaga, whatever) that makes them look… not unlike the children’s masks, really. Lumpen. Like some sackcloth-bandaged burn victim. The Orphanage meets The Elephant Man.

She didn’t think anyone still made turnip lanterns, thought it’d be pumpkins in this day and age, if anything. Did they ever do that in England, actually? Wasn’t it just in Scotland and Ireland?

•

—The lanes are very dirty, they sing. My shoes are very thin. I’ve got a little pocket to put a penny in.

It’s the third verse. The second pleaded her to go down into the cellar, promised if she’d apples and beer for them, they’d come no more a-souling till next Halloween. The first was odd, blessing the master and mistress, but… something about serving them tenfold for every scruffian serving inside. Whatever a scruffian was.

—If you haven’t got a penny, an ha’penny will do, they sing. If you haven’t got an ha’penny, we’ll take a pound of you.

•

As the children hit the chorus’s second line—Good Missus, please, a soulcake!—their chaperone’s deep voice comes in with the first—A soul, a soul, a soulcake!—a teenage lad in tinker rags and whiteface. A round—how lovely! As this scofflaw hits the second line, as the scamps hit the third—An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry!—from out in the night beyond, voices of scrags enter that chorus now. Or any sweet meats to make us merry!

And scallywags.

—A soul, a soul, a soulcake!

Behind her.

—Three for the Devil who made us all.

• Jack O’Lanterns

—Each lantern, says Gobfabbler, it were for a soul as couldn’t go to neither Heaven nor Hell. In them groanhuff’s tales, see, it’s from a scallywag called Jack what’s toddling home from a night on the town—not a proper scallywag, as they tells it, mind, just some lanky layabout lad out on the lash. Though that do sound like yer average scallywag, right enough. Anyways, he’s swaggerystaggering along the lane, when who should he meet but the Devil himself! Bollocks, thinks this lad. He climbs up a tree, but the Devil climbs up after him. So he jumps down.

•

The fabbler stabs the kitchen knife down into the turnip, with a grin like he’s Flashjack shivving a stickman in Ripper Vicky’s Whitechapel, Vermin slashing a toff’s throat in Sawney Todd’s barbershop, the Butcher’s Boy thunking a cleaver deep into some twerp’s brain in any city or town where scruffs chant that grisly rhyme and say it happened here. Cross-legged on the floor, turnip cradled in his lap, tongue poking sideways from his namesake, Gob stabs again. Exuberantly.

Slickspit Hamhankery, fabbler-to-be, watches closely, the school jotter with the souling song lyrics open on his lap but forgotten.

•

—Sharp as a tack and quick as a flash, he whips out his shiv, see, carves a cross into the bark. Won’t let the Devil down lest he makes a deal to never take his soul. Has an whole lifetime of debauchery then, does Jack. Only, when’s he dies… well, all’s the Devil can do is chuck a bit of Hell at him, a lump of coal, what he catches and puts in an hollowed-out turnip. To keep it lit. But he ain’t getting into Heaven, duh! So, he wanders the world forever, looking for a place to rest.

•

The scamps sit in a horseshoe audience, watching, listening, copying, hacking at their own turnips with penknifes and switchblades, shivs made from broken scissors and sharpened spoons. (He explained Spoon Theory to Gob the other day, ignoring Joey’s rolled eyes in the background at talk of the fabbles as self-care. Gob had nodded sagely. Sometimes yer needs spoons to make shivs, he’d said, looking pointedly at the scofflaw.) It’s a messy business, the lantern carving, half the turnips as big as the nippers’ heads, more verve than dexterity leading to blunders and blood.

Vermitrude excepted, of course. She’s… accomplished.

• No Fucking Pumpkins

—Typical groanhuff victim-blaming, eh. Like that scallywag weren’t scrobbled by a devil we knows all too well—a waiftaker. Like the cross in the bark of the tree ain’t the Stamp carved in that stripling’s skin. They’s pulling an allegorical flummery, I tells yer, in switching the human devil as done him over with yer metaphysicksal Devil tricked into climbing up into that stripling’s crown—his noggin. That’s their way of saying us scruffs might have our souls ripped out and stuck on our chests, but we also still has the sin inside us, the Devil in every thought.

•

—Wouldn’t pumpkins be easier? the apprentice fabbler had foolishly asked when Chipper and Larker huffed in and emptied their poly bags on the floor of the crib’s living room—two bags each hand, a mound of tumshies, and fuck knows where they nicked them from. Knees up on the sofa, scribbling down the souling song—We hope you will prove kind, good sir—he’d remembered watching a mate’s nan carving a lantern, how tough it looked.

—I mean, pumpkins are softer, he’d said… foolishly.

Cue one foul-mouthed tirade on fucking American fucking bowdlerised fucking Trick-or-Treat fucking bollocks.

•

—And being Fixed, says Gob, that’s why yer can’t go to neither Heaven nor Hell, scamps—apart from them being a big pile of wank, that is—because yer can’t never die to do so. And they says we’s got no souls. But we still has our hearts, says we, burning with all’s what was Fixed in em, fear or fury, horror or hope. So each year, we cuts em out, and puts em in our lanterns, to show all em fucking groanhuffs how they burns and they grows back just the same. They grows back just the same, scamps.

•

Squidge has her turnip stuck on one hand’s knuckle-blades, her shiv tweaked into her Stamp in a mimicry of Wolverine that was perhaps… imprudent. Feet planted on it like a chimp for leverage, leaning back to pry it loose, swaying… the prentice fabbler can see exactly what’s about to happen as Pipsquirt pokes his head in to boysplain that she should aaaahhhh!

And yes, it would be his good eye, not the conker.

—Yeah, Gob is saying, that’s why ye’ll want it doused good in the lighter fuel, scamp. The hearts don’t aktcherly burn, I mean. Unless yer Flashjack.

• Supper for a Song

—Jethuth fuckin ow! says the prentice fabbler. Wha’ the fuckin…?

He spits a mouthful of colcannon into his hand, the mashed tatties and cabbage red with blood. A thin edge of steel jutting out.

—Ooh! says Gob excitedly. Did yer get a charm?

—It’th a fuckin raythor blade, says Slickspit.

He pulls it out of the mush, glowers.

—Razor blades is ace! says the fabbler. Means you’ll do yer best at fighting this coming year. Coins is for lifting, yer see, keys is for burglerising, and rusty nails is for cribwork, innit!

—Rusty. Nails.

—Ain’t nobody likes getting them, eh?

•

God bless the mistress of this house, the song says, the lord of this estate, and all the little Scruffians that round your table wait. Not much waiting round this table though, not in any sense of the term. Scamps, scrags, scallywags and scofflaws all tuck in to the feast like there’s no tomorrow, no All Hallow’s for the pious, only tonight, when every scruff is hellion. There are splats of mash fired by soup spoon, squeals and shrieks at finding charms.

—How many razor blades did you put in?

Gob shrugs.

—We’ll be needing fighters.

Sobs in the background.

•

Pudding is treacle-covered scones on strings, shoogly chairs under them for players to balance on, one scruff on another’s shoulders.

Propped against a wall, the stepladder Joey used to put the nails in the ceiling waits to be hauled back out for the scrags copping out of bobbing for apples properly. Yer can do it with a fork between yer teeth, Gob said, just drop it from above and try to skewer the apple. Takes half the fun out of it, but if yer takes turns balancing the apple on yer bonce, that adds it back in.

•

Hardwood panelling in the lounge, as swellegant as the table they ate at—now a battlefield atrocity of pink streaks and splatters. The food fight was, in Flashjack’s opinion, EPIC. Armchairs and sofas shoved back to the walls of the lounge. Or to cabinets as fancy as the parquet flooring. Framed photos of His Nibs with other toffs, Tory fuckers—May, Gove, Bojo.

It was a long drive out here in the stolen minibuses to the suburb that used to be a village and the big house that used to be a Big House.

Converted stables, quaint pubs. UKIP country.

• Toffee Apples and Other Traditions

—This one’s for just the scrags and scallywags, says Gob. If yer sees an initial, that’s yer sweetheart.

Slickspit looks at the ribbon of apple peel, carved in one slow methodical flaying and flung over a shoulder.

—Two of yer’s bound to get together then, eh? Tonight.

A wink. It sounds, reckons Slickspit, a lot like—

—Pfft! Spin the Bottle’s some American telly wank, Slick. Tain’t Dawson’s Creek.

Slickspit cocks his noggin at the peel. Fair enough.

—Nah, that ain’t a Q, says Gob. Definitely a P. For Puckerscruff, innit.

The dissent is unanimous.

—Look, I don’t make Teh Roolz.

•

Last night, it was roasting hazelnuts by the fire back in the crib, one for each sweetheart. If they roasts quietly, Gob explained, all’s peachy. If one or tother of em jumps from the fire, that’s a Bad Sign. Or both even. He shook his head with grave dread. Mostly the game seemed a sneaky trick to let couples… clear the air. Guddler and Peacher huffing over the whys and wherefores. Tantrums and tears. Pleadings and pax. Kisses and cuddles. His and Quip’s sat quietly toasting, got munched in a snuggly nuzzle.

—Can’t has beefs still stewing tomorrow! said Gob.

•

—And there’s Pelt-a-Po-Face, where ye grabs an handful of monkey nuts and—

Joey, at the wee mirror in the kitchen, whiteface on, turned from painting his black teardrops under his eyes, objected. Today. Hallowmorn. The crib was chaos, everyone getting their guises on. Grandad shirt with sleeves rolled up, waistcoat, neckerchief, fiddler cap, Joey was to be Tinker Bill, backing vocals for the souling scamps.

—Is too a proper tradition, said Gob. Goes back decades.

—1978, said Joey. It goes back to 1978.

—Well, yer should’ve took me to Star Wars like I asked.

—It looked rubbish.

•

—Squigglish what?

Framed in the doorway, the scamp toes the kitchen floor, hands clasped behind his back, mumbling as Gob cranes his neck to