COCKY: THE OPERA (2)
By:
April 13, 2025
An excerpt from a musical in progress, which takes as its source material the author’s swearing-animal epic The Ballad of Cocky the Fox, serialized here at HILOBROW 2010–11. Opera installments illustrated by Kristin Parker.
COCKY: THE OPERA: PRELUDE & ACT ONE, SCENE ONE | ACT ONE, SCENE TWO | & more to come.
ACT ONE
Scene Two
Darkness.
A streetlamp goes on.
At its base, in a yellow pool of light, is a knocked-over rubbish bin, its black bags spilled and torn open. An elderly fox — patchy in the coat, slack in the shoulders, very much alone — is picking ill-naturedly through the refuse. He mutters to himself.
CURRY TONY: Fuck all. Again.
He looks up and addresses the audience.
(sings) What nosh, what nosh for an old
fox?
What nosh for a feeling-the-cold fox?
I poke and I poke and I poke
a-round…
He turns over a little rubbish-pile with his paw and inspects it.
What did I expect. Bastards got here before me.
(sings) Night after night after night
I encounter the usual shite.
Still I poke and I poke and I poke
a-round…
Where’s a fox to get his fill?
Rip the bags and let ’em spill.
Snuf-fling and scuf-fling and —
Abruptly he draws his head back, and then begins to sniff with renewed interest. He has found something to his liking.
Hang on a minute.
He sniffs passionately.
Ooooh yes. Oh tremendous. Yes yes yes.
He drags it to one side. It’s a cardboard tray of takeaway curry.
Bingo.
(sings) Now here’s the pressing question.
Will it give me indigestion?
Considers for a moment.
Haha!
Noisily, with relish, he sets about his food.
Then he freezes and goes into a furtive crouch, looking sideways. He has smelled something. Or someone.
Ah cobblers.
Enter, triumphantly, struttingly, to brassy music, BILLY FIVE WIVES. He is accompanied by the vixen CHASEY.
Billy is loud and handsome, shedding beams of Big Musical Energy. An instant stage-filler. Chasey is very beautiful but giving off dissociated Melania Trump vibes.
They have not noticed Curry Tony, who watches them warily from his little rubbish-situation, orange-red curry sauce dripping from his muzzle.
BILLY (sings): Observers of the scene, take
note!
I am here to take this story by the throat.
The old regime is ended.
Can I help it if I’m splendid?
Now the Borough belongs to MEEEE
CURRY TONY (sotto voce): Insufferable vanity!
BILLY: Observers of the scene, please
remark
that I do my business mainly in the dark
and to safeguard my survival
I’ll be sorting out my rivals
so the Borough belongs to MEEEE
I’ve got foxes who will do my fighting for
me
I’ve got vixens who do nothing but adore
me
Can I help it? Don’t resent me.
With their arses they present me
now the Borough belongs to MEEEE
CURRY TONY: I’ll grant him a certain esprit.
BILLY: Round the bins and down the alleys
hear the chorus of acclaim
all the foxes know my name
all the foxes know I’m game
and their loving protestations
I do so appreciate
but how much more delicious
is their sec-ret HATE?
CURRY TONY: He’s tempting fate.
BILLY: Observers of the scene, be advised
if you look too close I might scratch out
your eyes
Shall I tyrannize? I shall
from the rails to the canal
because the Borough belongs to ME ME ME
CURRY TONY: We shall see.
Billy sniffs, smells the chicken tikka, turns.
BILLY: I know you. Now what do they call you…? Curry Tony!
CURRY TONY: And I know you, Billy Five Wives.
BILLY: Surely you didn’t used to look so disgusting. What happened to you?
Moves closer. Tony’s hackles go up.
What do you think happened to him, babe?
Chasey rolls her eyes. Curry Tony growls.
BILLY: Give me that chicken tikka masala.
CURRY TONY: Get fucked.
CHASEY (peevish): Bil-lee… Let’s go.
BILLY: I can’t, I’m too interested. He’s so awful. I’m compelled.
CHASEY: Ugh.
CURRY TONY: Your mother should have eaten you, Billy Five Wives. You’ve got no respect.
The snarling intensifies.
BILLY: What’s holding you together anyway, you daft old cunt? Sellotape? Marmalade? Bits of clockwork?
CHASEY: Come ON, Billy. Can we please…?
The two foxes are just about to go at it — and it looks bad for Curry Tony — when Billy and Chasey stiffen, raise their snouts and turn their heads simultaneously: they have smelled another fox, incoming. (Curry Tony, his senses being dimmer, is slower on the uptake.)
Enter NORA.
Now the snarling hits a whole new level. Billy infinitesimally recoils as the fox-dynamics shift, and there is the faintest physical suggestion that he is afraid of Nora.
NORA (carefully): Alright Tony?
BILLY (equally carefully): Well well. Look who it is, babe. Some vixen told me you were heading for the Northside, Nora. But that can’t be right.
Billy and Chasey and Nora, ears back, are moving with electrically loaded slowness.
CORVIN (from his branch): They’re gonna fight, yeah?! YEAH.
RANDALL (from his): Hush Corvin.
CORVIN (very excited): Fizzy fear-waves. The hackles crackle.
CHASEY: It’s nice to see you out and about Nora. Getting on with your life. Must be so difficult. I was saying to Billy, it’s wonderful how you’ve adapted.
Nora says nothing.
CHASEY: To being on your own, I mean. To life without Cocky.
NORA (moving forward): Let’s see how you adapt to life without a FACE.
BILLY (enjoying himself): Ladies LADIES… Please! Nora, you’ve undergone a change in status, haven’t you? You don’t have the protection you had before.
Nora snarls.
BILLY: But you’re still my cousin’s vixen. I don’t care what anybody says. You’re still my cousin’s vixen. And Cocky means the world to me. Actually he doesn’t mean that much to me. Actually I hate the cunt. But fuck it. Blood’s blood, right? And the Borough is the Borough. In addition to which, Miss Chasey and I have a prior engagement. (to Curry Tony) So you — it’s your lucky night. Babe, shall we?
Exit Billy and Chasey.
BILLY (singing as he goes): Observers of the
scene, take note
I am here to take this story by the throat
The old regime is ended.
Can I help it if I’m splendid?
Now the Borough belongs to MEEEE
NORA: What a tosser.
Curry Tony groans.
CURRY TONY: Why not just gnaw my bollocks off while you’re at it.
NORA: Eh?
CURRY TONY: To be rescued by a vixen!
Nora snorts in disgust.
CURRY TONY: I was ready Nora. How many times have I licked the face of Death? I know her scent and I know her savour. And now I seek her. I seek her, d’you hear me? I was READY.
NORA: I give up. I’ll see you, Curry Tony.
Exit Nora.
CURRY TONY (calling after her): I was ready Nora. Ready!
(Quieter, to himself) I was ready.
Goes back to eating his curry.
As the streetlamp goes out again, we hear the softly scraping laughter of the ravens.
MORE PARKER at HILOBROW: COCKY THE FOX: a brilliant swearing-animal epic, serialized here at HILOBROW from 2010–2011, inc. a newsletter by Patrick Cates | THE KALEVALA — a Finnish epic, bastardized | THE BOURNE VARIATIONS: A series of poems about the Jason Bourne movies | ANGUSONICS: James and Tommy Valicenti parse Angus Young’s solos | MOULDIANA: James and Tommy Valicenti parse Bob Mould’s solos | BOLANOMICS: James traces Marc Bolan’s musical and philosophical development | WINDS OF MAGIC: A curated series reprinting James’s early- and mid-2000s writing for the Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix | CROM YOUR ENTHUSIASM: J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE HOBBIT | EVEN MORE PARKER, including doggerel; HiLo Hero items on Sid Vicious, Dez Cadena, Mervyn Peake, others; and more.