Some people have told me that they can’t make any sense of this blog.
Firstly, I can’t make much sense of it either. Secondly, to understand what’s going on, you need to start with the very first post.
The first post is called ‘Family’ and can be found in the month of February in the BLOG ARCHIVE section to the right. Read that and then read the next one above it. Continue doing this until you’ve either had enough or have reached the latest post…or you can go for a lucky dip approach and just click on any of the titles in the archive.
I woke up early to prepare for my court appearance.
I walked into the kitchen. The wife punched me in the eye.
I have no idea why the wife punched me in the eye.
I went to the pub and was unlocking the back door, when I heard a noise coming from one of Barty’s vans.
I phoned Barty to let him know there was someone in one of his vans.
Barty stepped out of the van. His eyes were bleary.
“Barty, did you sleep in the van last night?”
He looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. “Yeah.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Got nowhere else to sleep.”
I heard a noise from inside the van. “Is there someone else in there?”
“Yeah, my uncle.”
Barty’s uncle was only in his fifties, but he had Alzheimer’s.
He worked in a cabbage-processing factory. At the end of every day the factory would sack him because he’d done nothing but talk to walls, but the next day Barty’s uncle, having forgot that he’d been sacked the night before, would turn up for work as usual.
Barty loved his uncle.
“The missus left me months ago, eez. I’ve lost my house and my uncle was thrown out of his lodgings because he ate the landlady’s cat.”
“He ate a live cat?”
“No, the cat had been dead for some time.”
“Why don’t you rent a flat?”
“Can’t afford it. The demolition work’s not gone too well since I wrecked the wrong hospice.”
“But, I give you three hundred quid every week, surely you can get a place for that?”
“I have to give two hundred and fifty pounds every week to a debt collection agency, eez.”
“Have you applied for any help from the state?”
“I tried, but you know me; I couldn’t understand the forms, so I threw a cement mixer at the council’s offices.”
I looked at Barty. When there’s work available, you’ll find nobody better.
If you gave him a spade and told him to dig a hole, he’d carry on digging until he surfaced in China. He’s not a bad person; he’s just ‘different’.
“Well, fuck that, Barty! Bhoppy’s old apartment above the pub is empty, get yourself and your uncle in there.”
“I’ve told you, I can’t afford rent.”
“I don’t want any rent. You’re a mate. Stay as long as you want.”
“eez, I can’t do that.”
I picked up an empty beer crate and whacked him in the face with it.
“Barty, stop talking like a tit, give me the name of this debt collection outfit and get yourselves into Bhoppy’s old gaff. Then, take this down to the store,” I passed him five hundred quid, “and get whatever you need.”
Barty looked as if he was going to cry, so I hit him with the crate again.
An hour later I was talking to a bank manager that I’d caught pumping a rent boy in the back of a removals lorry.
“A mate of mine’s going to be at your bank in an hour’s time. He’ll need an account, a credit card and a short term loan.”
“I can’t do that!”
“You can do that and you will do that, or I’ll tell your wife you’ve been banging the Boys Brigade.”
“That’s blackmail! And I don’t care if you tell my wife, I’m not scared!”
“I’ve seen your wife. Stalin would be scared of your wife.”
“Give me his name, then.”
A lawyer friend of mine threatened the debt collectors with everything from corporate fines to twenty years in the slammer.
Corky followed on from the lawyer’s verbal onslaught and visited the collectors’ offices.
While his men trashed the place, Corky ‘questioned’ the boss with a baton.
My court appearance had been deferred until the following day and I was enjoying the afternoon serving behind the bar.
Two strangers walked into the pub and waddled up to the bar.
Strangers in the pub aren’t that rare, but female strangers are most uncommon.
“Ladies, how can I help you?”
“Two pints and the menu.”
As I poured their drinks, I looked at them. They were monstrous. They were ugly lumps from head to toe, with huge eyebrows meeting in the middle of their foreheads.
If the carpet matched the curtains, it’d be like the Sequoia National Park between their legs.
I gave them their drinks and quickly took their money.
“Where’s the menu?”
“We don’t do food.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Look, you asked for two pints and the menu. For this place, two out of three isn’t bad.”
“We want food.”
“Bloody hell, I’m doing you a favour here. Look at the size of you!”
“You have no idea how much I weigh!” the larger of the two shouted.
“Maybe I don’t, but I do know that if you shut your mouth and gave your arse a chance, you’d lose some!”
“I need food!”
“You don’t need food! I bet you’ve never had a bloke between your legs, have you?”
“Well, I…”
”Come on, be honest, you haven’t popped yet, have you?”
“I’m waiting for the right man.”
“Don’t come across many Cyclops these days, do you?”
She pointed a gun at me.
I couldn’t let it all end like this.
“But, I think I can help you,” I said, “I know a man who’d very much like to know you, er, intimately.”
I called for Barty.
Barty looked at the women, “I’m not sure I want to throw them out eez.”
I whispered in his ear.
“No fucking way! Can’t you just let them shoot me?”
“Barty, are you and your uncle settling in okay?”
“I want a pay rise,” he growled as he followed the women into the stockroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment