The next Wire Writers Friday get-together is June 21. We’ll be joined by Clive Crossingham, who will be talking about his career path, writing and publishing experience and delivering a coaching session.
The session will, as ever, be at Bank Quay House Art Gallery and we’ll be starting at 7pm. Non-members of Wire Writers are welcome to come along, subject to a £5 charge to cover our costs.
CHAPTER ONE _Watching Transformers on Movie Channel
Despite what people think Megan Fox is a credible actress and I would say one of the foremost impressionists of our time. She just came round to show me her one-woman scouse version of The Iliad when we heard the key in the door.
“Quick, into the cupboard”
“RA, la”, she said, picking up her armour and sword before throwing herself into the cupboard. ”And make sure that shield doesn’t scratch the hoover.” I could hear the wife’s key struggling in the lock. Thank God it has rained, she must have slippery fingers and I could hear muttered curses from the behind the door.
“Do you think I should take the helmet off for Act two or leave it on?”
“I don’t think…”
“You see, every time I take me clothes off, I am not taken seriously, you know what I mean?”
“I appreciate your predicament”
…and I’ve been transformers. One and two.”
“Yes, if you just slip behind that Llama costume in there, she shouldn’t see you…Okay?”. I can hear the key in the door again. Megan presses her lips
“. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t coached me to do Confessions of Teenage Drama Queen…
“Yes.”
“And revenge of the Fallen”
“It was my pleasure…Do you want this?”. I hand her a studded purple leather bustiere “Don’t let anybody tell you that you don’t have talent.”. I close the door and another one opens.
CHAPTER TWO _ Watching the England Montenegro game
Is it me or is Fabio Capello behaving a little strangely? Mind you if he continued with his therapy sessions and took his meds then….
The door knocks. “Come in”.
“I’m terribly sorry, Doctor, but its Mr Capello. I tried to explain to him that it is outside office hours but he insisted…”. Marjorie, 42-28-34, a former bed-wetter and compulsive liar, has been my secretary for the last five years.
“It’s Lampard again, isn’t it?”. I put down my still lit pipe on a pile of case notes and exhale a long wreath of smoke in the shape of a diamond, “Its okay, Marjorie, send him in.”
“Yes Doctor.”. She clicks away to the door on a pair of thigh-high black leather boots, puts her hand on the knob and turns, “Oh Doctor?”
“Yes Marjorie?
“My name is Pamela”
“Yes Marjorie. Send him in.” As I put out the flames from the smoking papers, Fabio enters. He is dressed in the garb of his native land. Peckham.
“Alright me old cocker?”, he greets me heartily and I shake his hand and collection of pearly buttons slips from his sleeve and mingle with the ash on my desk. “Strewth what a night guv. I is all like fractious and vexed like.”
“Fabio. Before we begin I need to talk to you about this bill”
“You see. Everyone is against me. The press, the FA, the fans, the weather. Oh my days even God is against me and him what is english too.” He throws a bottle of water onto the floor and punches a picture of Stewart Pearce that David James gave me for sorting out his cross-dressing addiction. “It’s Lampard.” He sinks to the floor, all anger spent.
“Is he still not taking your calls, Fabio?”
“I is in love with him….be-yatch”
“Fabio, have you thought that maybe Frank needs more than just a holding role in midfield. He needs to be set free, to roam like the natural predator he is.”
“Blood, he is always on his iphone, or passing the ball to that slut Terry. If I can’t have him, then no one can. I’ll bench him for the rest of the year.” He takes up the shattered picture of Pearce and storms out the room.
I stare down at the pile of buttons on the table, the unpaid bill in my hand and the still smoking pipe. Football is a cruel mistress.
CHAPTER THREE After the England Montenegro game
“Murder is such an ugly word. I prefer to call it pest control, init guv?”. Fabio was back and this time he was fingering a stiletto and holding a VHS copy of Murder She Wrote. “Its Wayne…he’s gone and done it again”
“Do you want to put down that vicious looking Angela Lansbury and give Marjorie back her shoe?” It was going to be a long evening.
CHAPTER FOUR Watching the Pride of Britain Awards
Is it me or is Carol Vorderman looking a bit ropey? Mind you if she replied to my emails and sent me those picture texts of her factoring a few prime numbers that I requested.
The phone rings. “Is that Mr Earley?”. My mouth goes dry, I feel warm spit balls of cotton like insulating foam form in the roof of my mouth “Carol?”
“No. It’s Carol’s husband, Mr Vorderman, Mr Earley”
“Listen, you jobsworth, just because you married her doesn’t mean you own her. This isn’t the third world. This isn’t Somalia. Put her on.”
“Look, I don’t want to involve the police but if you don’t stop bothering my wife I shall have…”
“Oh, that’s the way it goes does it, MISTER Vorderman. You got her tied up in the basement, have you?, MISTER Vorderman. That’s not her on the Pride of Britain is it? That’s your doppelganger, you sick, calculating bastard. Put her on.”
“Look. She’s taken out an injunction….”
“You don’t what real love is do you, MISTER Vorderman? You sit there with your pringle jumper and your book of sines, cosines and tangents, with your flaccid member hanging limply over your texas instrument, you don’t know…..!”
“I’m hanging up now…”, he shouts.
“I’m coming for you Carol…”
“Leave us alone”.
Sometimes one plus one makes three.
CHAPTER FIVE _ Watching Ringer on Sky One
Is it me or does Sarah Michelle Geller look…a little ropey? Don’t get me wrong if she knocked on my door, tore off my lanyard and screamed, “Take me roughly from behind you brute.”
Slowly unbuttoning her dress she walks towards me
“You broke my lanyard”, I reply. Taking my shoulders in her surprisingly strong yet willowy arms she pushes me to the bottom of the stairs. We tumble to the floor in a heap blonde hair and pieces of plastic. “You have surprisingly strong yet willowy arms.”
She whispers huskily into my good ear, “Never mind that now, I want to feel your pulsating manhood thrust into my moist lady garden”
“Before we discuss the possibility of…er…gardening…shouldn’t we talk about possible compensation for the broken lanyard”
She kisses me roughly, her tongue like a slippery wet salmon forcing its way upstream looking for a place to spawn, seeking, searching, probing. “Take me, use me…I am yours”
“Sorry Sarah MIchelle Geller…but I am allergic to salmon….”
CHAPTER SIX Peter Andre turns on the Warrington Lights (Children in Need Night)
“Jeez. I’m pooped. I mean those crowds were humongous man and HArvey really freaked out.” Pete had popped round for a wheatgrass coffee because he had a gap in his schedule and we go back a long way. He likes to drop in whenever he can and he doesn’t hold a grudge. It was me that introduced him to Jordan, as she was then, when he was just an up and coming singer and she was a toilet attendant at the Fairfield halls in Croydon in 1998
Strangely it was the same night that the wife and I first cemented our relationship. Now of course she’s in a different kind of cement propping up a fly-over on the M6 (at least that is what I tell the cat, actually she is shacked up with a body-builder from Droitwich who sells insurance and wears scuba gear around the house, even when he isn’t in the water or covering himself in vaseline. Either way he is a slippery customer.
But Pete is feeling a little green around the gills and in need of a pick me up. ever since he got trapped in one of the en-suite’s at the Grovesnor Hotel in London with only a bottle of evian and prosthetic breast he had managed to get from the divorce he has developed a bit of a stutter. And a lisp. And a limp. And a tendency to wet the bed. “How was it tonight Pete?” I ask. “D-D-d-on’t ask” he replies and downs the wheatgrass in one quick draught.
It was going to be a long night. I lean over and speak into the speakerphone on my desk, “Hold all my calls, Marjorie…and see if you can find a copy of beautiful girl in the CD rack. The one played on the didgereedoo”
“Thanks mate”, Pete murmurs through his glass, “I really feel like I need to get back to my roots”
“Its okay Pete. Together we can work it out”. Pete puts down the glass.
“Hey, that could be a great idea for a song. Yeah….” Pete pats Harvey on the head who looks up from his bucket of fish-heads with unseeing eyes full of love, at his father. “Yeah. We can work it out….”
Andrew turned the lock and allowed the front to gently swing inwards. He stood there looking though the doorway into the dark hall, the sunlight illuminating dust disturbed by the unexpected breeze blowing into the house. He was overcome.
From behind, Andrew felt a hand touch his side and from his left ear came a voice,
“Are we going in?”
“Sure Helen. No point coming all this way and standing on the doorstep.”
Helen’s hand gently nudged Andrew into the hall. She could tell he was nervous and wondered why. This was Andrew’s childhood home after all, the place he talked of with the fondest memories. Maybe it was the length of time he’d been away that filled him with trepidation, maybe it was the circumstances of his return, or maybe it was something else; something deeper.
The house was quiet but it wasn’t only this that unnerved Andrew. The place was no longer comfortable, it was filled with emptiness and feeling of loss. It was as if the building was in mourning for the dead.
Helen too felt coldness in the air and needed to cut through the atmosphere. Looking down the hall a photograph hanging on one wall caught her eye
“Hey, is that you and your parents?”
“Yes.” Andrew touched the frame, “I was eight years old and we were on holiday in Blackpool. You can see the Tower in the background.”
“Weather looks nice. You told me it always rained in England.”
“Maybe that was an exaggeration. We did have the odd nice day.” Andrew turned to face Helen, “Did I tell you what my dad said about the weather?”
“No, what?” Actually Helen had heard this story several times however she wanted Andrew to tell it again.
“My dad used to say that clouds were made in factories and sunny days were caused when the factories shut down for the day. I believed him completely for about six months.”
Andrew stroked the picture frame then lowered his hand. Helen placed his hand in hers and said,
“Your dad was just trying to make sure you had some magic in your life. All kids need that.”
For the next few hours they toured Andrew’s childhood home. Carefully wrapping his parents’ possessions, cataloguing things as they found them. Moving from the living room, to the dining room, to the kitchen, to the spare room. As they journeyed Andrew relived his past, telling stories, bringing each room to life again.
Eventually it came time to enter his parents’ bedroom. Once inside Andrew sat on the edge of the bed. The energy that has sustained him suddenly drained away. Helen entered the room, sat next to him, and placed her arm around his shoulder.
“Feeling drained?” she asked
“A little. It’s just odd being here. I guess I see this as my parents’ secret room. The one place in the house I needed permission to come into.” Andrew sighed, “I should have visited more often you know.”
“Everyone says that.” Helen patted him on the shoulder, “We all think our parents will live forever. I’m sure they knew how you felt about them.”
“You’re right. It’s been a tough couple of weeks and maybe it’s all been a bit much for me. I’m glad you’ve been here though. I couldn’t have got through this if you’d been half way around the world.”
“Let’s start with that wardrobe shall we?”
Helen stood and opened the wardrobe door. Several jackets, male and female, hung inside and at the bottom was a wooden crate.
“Any idea what this is?”
“I think,” Andrew stood, “`I think it’s where I used to keep my toys as a kid. Let’s have a closer look.”
Andrew dragged the box from the wardrobe onto the carpet and opened it up. Inside were various items from his childhood kept by his mum and dad, their attempt to hold onto precious memories. Andrew looked inside and pulled out a spinning top.
“See this?” he held the top out with his hand, “My dad told me this worked because inside were two very small mice. When it spun they ran round really really fast and the reason it toppled over was because they got dizzy”
“I see it even has pictures of mice on the side.” Helen bent down on her knees and looked into the box herself
“Oh yes. You know I don’t think I ever noticed that before.”
Something in the trunk caught Helen’s eye and she pulled out a small wooden box.
“What’s this?” she asked as she passed it onto Andrew.
“It’s my old music box. You wind it up and when you open it it plays a tune. When I was little I used to play it when falling asleep. I found it stopped me getting scared of the dark.”
“And what was your dad’s story of how it worked?”
“Oh it had a ghost in it. The ghost was somebody who’d been naughty as a boy and his punishment was to play the music whenever the box was opened. It was the standard punishment for not doing what you were told my dad said.”
“Shall we see if it still works?”
Helen took the box back from Andrew and began winding it up. Once it was fully wound she opened it up and the two of them sat on the floor as its music played.
Several years later Andrew was sitting with his own daughter on his lap. In his hand he held the music box.
“See this box?”
His daughter nodded.
“Well this is a magic box. Inside is a ghost and when the box is opened the ghost plays a tune to make you smile.”
His daughter tried to hold the box in her small hands.
“Who’s the ghost daddy?”
“It’s the ghost of your granddad, who you never knew, and he’s playing because as long as the music plays then you’ll know that, even though he and your gran can’t be with you, they both love you very much and are looking after you from heaven.”
Thanks to everyone who entered the RSPCA Warrington writing competition. We’ll be letting the winners know this week, and updating Wire Writers after the weekend.
In total, the competition raised over £100 so thanks to everyone who entered.
MUDGUARDS
If you are buying a new bike for Christmas, there are two things you should always buy. Firstly, for safety’s sake, lights. Secondly, mudguards.
You might think that mudguards will spoil the sporty effect of having the latest trendy 32 gear mountain bike. You may think that it is ok to have a lineof mud up your back like you are wearing a pair of dirty underpants outside your trousers.
The back end of the bike is the least of your worries. It’s the front front wheel that you have to look out for.
“Why?” I hear you ask.
Let me tell you.
There you are, happily riding along and, for the first time in over a month, it starts to rain. I mean really piss it down!
“Never mind”, you think, “it’s quite refreshing after all that scorching hot weather”.
You can put up with a bit of rain and a wet stripe up your back. But are you prepared for what happens next? You suddenly remember that pile of manure that was dumped by the rag and bone man’s horse yesterday. You rode around it when it was still steaming, thinking to yourself, “Good job I missed that lot”.
Twenty four hours of cars and busses running over it has spread it right across your side of the road. The heavy downpour has liquefied it and you now have no choice but to ride through it.
You emerge the other side from a golden rainbow with a brown streak up your back and, worst of all, you are riding along smelling like Red Rum’s stable with a brown stripe up your face spitting out bits of second hand straw wishing you had bought some mudguards…..
The day had just begun when we found her. It was barely light; Donnie was herding Baby and me to school. We were dragging our feet, shoulders and ears hunched against the sharp crystal air. The ground was cold and hard from a late spring thaw; deeper patches of snow still clung despite the warming days.
“What is it?” Baby whispered, standing well away.
“It’s an angel,” I whispered back, my fingers poking small wet flakes from her dark hair.
“That ain’t no angel,” Donnie hissed. “Don’t touch her; you know what Dad says about strangers.”
“Strangers carry diseases. Strangers can kill us.” Baby recited, sucking her thumb.
Donnie dropped his school bag in the snow. “Cassie, I’m going to get the horse. We’ll take her up to Old Winston. She might be worth something to him. Maybe he’ll cut us a break.”
It didn’t take a genius to know we’d had a bad season last year. Money was tight, the rent was months overdue. Mother and Dad thought we couldn’t hear when they sat over the kitchen table at night, counting out the pennies and fretting, but we knew.
Old Winston was our landlord. He had the big farm house and hundreds of lush acres. We paid him four hundred a month for a leaking, wind-rattled shack and twenty acres of the hardest soil in the county. Father ploughed Winston’s land to earn steady money but it wasn’t a lot, so we farmed our bit to make up the difference.
I didn’t like Old Winston.
“Get lost, you skinny little bastards,” he’d grumble, snatching the brown rent envelope from Baby’s hands, swinging at her ankles with his walking stick. He wasn’t very quick and Baby was always off the porch fast, laughing as the wind blew his curses across the fields after us.
On top of that, he never fixed anything on the house, even when the roof fell in over the kitchen. He smelled of sweat and old pipe smoke and dirty socks. And when Father was away at market he’d come round and touch Mother’s hair and find excuses.
I stamped my cold feet, and blew on my cramping fingers, staring at her as she lay on the hard ground in nothing but a thin dress. “You can’t do that,” I choked. “He’ll hurt her, and you know it.
Donnie grabbed my wrist hard and twisted. “What I know is mother’s got cancer, we got bills, and she’s going to Old Winston.”
As soon as Donnie disappeared down the hill, her eyes opened. They were the colour of dewdrops glinting on ferns in the early light.
“Hello, Angel,” Baby cooed, handing her a boiled sweet.
“Thank you Baby. I love Lemon Drops.” The Angel’s voice sounded like old church bells ringing on a faraway hill.
“What’s your name? Are you really an Angel?” I whispered, voice catching in my throat. She was glorious: her eyes, her hair, her skin. They all had a glow that was nothing to do with the frosty air. Every inch was beautiful.
“I’m whatever you need, Cassie. My name is Pearl. ”
“Like from the ocean?”
“Maybe, Cassie. Maybe.”
She put her arms around the horse’s neck and climbed on, Donnie still too skittish to touch her. I reached up and held her hand as we walked, down the hill, across two fields. Just to make a point.
Old Winston grinned ear to ear, the first smile I’d ever seen on him. He wrote Donnie a note, signed and dated.
All debts forgiven.
Abram Winston.
Pearl put her slender white hand on his arm and smiled up at him. Underneath he added:
Plus two months’ rent free.
Pearl touched his cheek. He crumpled up the note and started over.
All debts forgiven + three months’ rent free
Abram Winston.
Pearl never uttered a single word, but her eyes said goodbye in a way that scared me. My heart shrank watching her beautiful pale hand on his leathery wrist.
“You can go now children,” Old Winston grunted, shutting the door firm behind us. It was the first time he’d ever addressed us without swearing.
“But he’ll…” I stood rooted to the porch.
“Forget about it, Cassie. Pearl said she’s whatever we need. You told me that yourself.” He shoved the note under my nose.
“What we need is THIS. She can take care of herself.”
Donnie pulled me off the wooden porch and threw me up onto the horse behind Baby. I cried all the way home. I cried all through dinner, never answering Mother’s questions. I cried at bedtime prayers. Each tear sliced through me. We left her there. We left her with him.
Sometime that night, a fire started in Old Winston’s house. His bedroom and the side porch blazed, scorching the ground, turning the remaining snow into steaming puddles that iced over into a smooth glassy sheet by morning. But for the smell of smoke, the rest of the house stood firm, as if it never happened.
The bank manager came a month later. Old Winston had no kin. The whole place, main house and shack, was ours if we’d take over the mortgage payments. Old Winston was paying the bank a hundred less a month than he’d been charging us just for the shack.
That summer we started rebuilding. With soot smeared fingers, Baby and Donnie unearthed hundreds of tiny glowing pearls from the rubble. I washed them carefully, then put them in a jam jar on the kitchen table, kissing each one before it landed, plink plink plonk, in the bottom of the jar.
By Joanna Delooze
Before Swine is also available on Pure Slush.
Wire Writers was saddened by the news in the Warrington Guardian that the Warrington RSPCA centre is suffering a cash crisis, and may have to close if £1,000s cannot be raised before Christmas. To help raise some much needed money for the animal centre, and raise awareness of the problems they face, we have decided to run a writing competition.
We’re looking for local writers, of all ages, to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and come up with 700 words (or less ) on the subject of “Pets I have had, or wished I had.”. Prizes include a signed copy Shaun Attwood‘s latest book (for the winner of the adult’s competition) and the judging panel includes Kevin Oxland, David Barber, and Zoe Sharp.
The winning entries will appear on the Wire Writers website, the Warrington Guardian website, and an extract may appear in the print version of the Warrington Guardian.
To enter costs £3, with all money going to the Warrington RSPCA shelter. The full details are:
Theme: Pets I have had, or wished I had
Categories: Under 16s (with parents consent) and Over 16s.
Max. word count: 700
Deadline: 1 December, 2011
How to enter: Firstly make a donation of at least £3 to RSPCA Warrington using this link. Then email your entry (in the body of the email) with a copy of your electronic receipt from donating to rspca-comp@wirewriters.org.uk.
All rights remain with the author, though by entering the competition each entrant gives consent for their entry, should it win, to be posted online at www.wirewriters.org.uk.
Please do not submit entries that are violent, cruel or use offensive language.
Wire Writers would like to express our thanks to those judging the competition and the authors who have donated prizes. More information on each of them can be found at…
David Barber — David Barber’s Fiction World, The Flash Fiction Offensive and The Laughter Shack
Kevin Oxland – Kevin on Twitter, Kevin’s website, Kevin on Facebook and Peach Stone Publications
Shaun Attwood — shaunattwood.com and jonsjailjournal.blogspot.com
Zoe Sharp —zoesharp.com
THE SET: A raised carpeted platform centre stage on which there are as many chairs as are necessary for each scene. Behind the platform there is a large video screen onto which are projected the VT elements and when not in use the name of the host is projected throughout. There are two entrances upstage left and right. .
VT: OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE
MUSIC. Couples arguing, storming off, throwing punches. JEREMY looking shocked.
ENTER JEREMY. Audience applause.
JEREMY; Good Morning. On this morning’s show a Prince looking for proof that his wife’s reputation is
whiter than snow…will it be Heigh-ho or heave ho for Snow White…. Lie detector results coming up.
VT: SOUND BITE
“I swear they are trying to kill me”
“Don’t you dare talk about my family like that”
JEREMY: Coming up. IS it time up or time out for one wolf and his little red girlfriend.
VT: SOUND BITE.
“I thought you were a real man”
“You have lied to this girl. Yes or No?”
JEREMY: By hook or by crook…. a father looks to save his relationship from going down the pan.
DNA results coming up later….
VT: SOUND BITE
“Peter flies around at night, looking in at windows…looking for his mum and
Dad”
JEREMY: But first lets welcome Prince Charming onto the stage
FX; MUSIC
ENTER PRINCE CHARMING
JEREMY You’ve been married 10 months, your wife has just given birth to a baby boy, and you are
incredibly charming, what’s the problem?
PRINCE: Well, Jeremy, its like this. I don’t think the baby is mine.
JEREMY: The baby isn’t yours?
PRINCE: He doesn’t look like me. He’s very small.
JEREMY: Come on most newborn babies are small…what makes you think that he is any different?
VT: Picture of a baby looking just like one Of the SEVEN DWARVES
PRINCE Its not just me, mummy and daddy think so to.
JEREMY: Mummy and Daddy!? How old are you? Grow up. You told my researchers that one of the things
that made you suspicious was the fact he liked to dig in the back garden and he likes to sing.
PRINCE: He’s always digging….Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig the whole day through
JEREMY: All babies like digging..
PRINCE: He dismantled his cot to make pit props. We’re up to ears in gold nuggets.
JEREMY: What does the Princess say?
PRINCE: She just says I’m being a silly old goose.
JEREMY: Well, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this. Snow White’s on the show, guys.
FX: ENTRANCE MUSIC STING.
ENTER SNOW WHITE, very upset.
SNOW WHITE: What about you and that Cinderella, eh? I know you’ve been sneaking out of the palace at night…
PRINCE: You told me he wasn’t mine…
SNOW WHITE: Ask him about the text messages. Ask him about the phone calls in the middle of the night. Ask
him about the messages on Face scroll. Ask him…
JEREMY; Welcome to the show sweets. [To SNOW WHITE] You told my researchers that he only wanted you to
get his mum and dad off his back.
SNOW WHITE That’s right. He said his mum and dad were nagging him to get a wife and get her knocked up.
They fixed it up so that he could meet all these girls and some of them were no better than
prostitutes.
PRINCE: Your mother you mean.
SNOW WHITE: Don’t you dare talk about my family like that.
PRINCE: A mother who’s mental.
SNOW WHITE: She’s not mental.
PRINCE: She spends all day dressed up like a crone talking to a mirror. She should be locked up. She
tried to poison her with an apple
SNOW WHITE: He told me that if any of my little friends came round he would set the dogs on them.
PRINCE: TOO BLOODY RIGHT I WOULD. They’re a menace, all that digging. I was walking across the lawn
the other day and I fell in one of their dirty great big holes. I swear they are trying to kill
me.
SNOW WHITE: You see, totally paranoid.
JEREMY: So who do you think the father is?
PRINCE: Well, its obvious isn’t it. She spent ages shacked up with seven men in the forest, it could be
any one of them.
SNOW WHITE: Well that’s charming.
JEREMY: Can I have the lie detector results please.
CREW MEMBER passes JEREMY a sealed envelope
JEREMY: You were asked: have you ever had any sexual intercourse with anyone other than your husband?
You answered “No”, the lie detector said…she was telling the truth…
SNOW WHITE: You see…
JEREMY: You were asked have you ever had any sexual contact, which could be a passionate kiss up to
intercourse, with anyone other than your husband…you said “No”..the lie detector said….she was
telling you the truth…
SNOW WHITE: Put that in your glass slipper and smoke it.
JEREMY: Finally, you were asked had you kissed anybody other than your husband, you said “No!”.the lie
detector said….you were lying….
PRINCE You see, I knew it. I bloody well knew it. You lying cow!
EXIT THE PRINCE followed by SNOW WHITE
SNOW WHITE But that doesn’t count. It was only a frog. Frogs don’t count. I was just experimenting…
JEREMY: Well, there we have it. Coming up after the break…
VT: SOUND BITE
“Isn’t it the case you lied to your girlfriend. Yes or No?”/
"You told me you loved me. I thought you were a real man.”
FX: MUSIC & TITLES for PART TWO of the JEREMY KYLE SHOW.
ENTER JEREMY KYLE. Applause.
JEREMY: Welcome back. Coming up…true life confessions and confrontations.
VT: SOUND BITE.
“Isn’t it the case you have lied to this girl. Yes or No?” /
“You told me you loved me. I thought you were a real man.”
JEREMY: Mr Wolf is on the show, my friends…
FX: MUSIC. Don’t Cha/My Humps
MR WOLF enters dressed as GRANNY.
JEREMY: Take a seat, my friend. So, what’s the story Mr Wolf?
WOLF: Actually Jeremy, when I am dressed like this I prefer to be called Susan
JEREMY: What’s going on?
WOLF: I’m just more comfortable in women’s clothes.
JEREMY: Are you in a relationship?
WOLF: Engaged.
JEREMY: How long?
WOLF: About two years
JEREMY: Does she know about…Susan?
WOLF: Well I guess she does now Jeremy.
JEREMY: Let’s bring her out….Please welcome Red Riding Hood is on the show, ladies and gentlemen.
FX: MUSIC
ENTER LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. She runs on stage and starts hitting the WOLF.
RED: You told me you loved me. You sat in my granny’s house and proposed to me. I thought you were
a real man.
WOLF: I do love you…I just like wearing girl’s clothes…
JEREMY: Good morning sweets. Take a seat. I guess this is a bit of a shock. You had no idea that your
fiancé of two years was, infact, Susan.
RED: Not at all, Jeremy. {TO the WOLF] How long has this been going on, eh? When did it start?
Well come on.
WOLF: When we first met. You were wearing that red cloak and matching shoes and you looked so cute.
JEREMY: You tried to eat her grandmother and take her place…
WOLF: No Jeremy I was just trying to…
JEREMY: You hit her on the head and stuffed her in the wardrobe.
WOLF: No, I was hiding in the wardrobe when Granny….
RED: You told me that you were helping her move the wardrobe when it fell on her….
JEREMY: Isn’t it the case that you have used this girl and her family in order to fuel your sick habit
for wearing women’s clothes?
WOLF: No, I love her…
JEREMY: Isn’t it the case that you have lied to this girl? Yes or no?
RED: You lied to me for two years. I stood by you during the court case with the pigs…I believed you
about granny…. but this….I just don’t understand this…
WOLF: I just want you to know the truth. I’ve been living a lie for two years. It’s not sick. I still
love you. Can you forgive me?
RED: I just don’t know…You have to be honest with me. But I guess we can try…[She hands him the red
cloak]…
WOLF: [to RED]…Call me Susan…
JEREMY: Well…sometimes love can conquer all. You two go off backstage and see our aftercare team. Give
them a big hand, my friends.
EXIT WOLF & RED
JEREMY: Coming up in the show…a boy trying to stop his relationship from going down the pan by finding
his true father
VT: SOUND BITE
“Peter flies around at night, looking in at windows…looking for his mum and Dad”
JEREMY: That’s after the break.
FX: MUSIC & TITLES for PART TWO of the JEREMY KYLE SHOW.
ENTER JEREMY KYLE.
JEREMY: Tinkerbell is on the show to get boyfriend Peter to grow up and face the truth…DNA results will
settle once and for all who’s the daddy. Tinkerbell is on the show, ladies and gentlemen
FX: MUSIC
ENTER TINKERBELL
JEREMY: Hello my friend how are you? What’s today about?
TINK: I’m just sick of it Jeremy. The arguments, the kidnappings, the walking the plank….I just can’t
deal with it any more.
JEREMY: You say, your boyfriend, Peter, is all confused because he fell out of a pram when he was six
months old and he doesn’t know his mum and dad?
TINK: That’s right Jeremy. Peter flies around at night, looking in at windows…looking for his mum and
Dad….
JEREMY: You told my researchers that you have an idea who Peter’s father might be?
TINK: That’s right Jeremy.
VT: FLASH PICTURES: CAPT HOOK/ADOLF HITLER/BRIAN BLESSED
JEREMY: What’s this about a girl flying off with your boyfriend for late night jaunts across Neverland?
TINK: She’s a slut Jeremy. She comes across all la-di-dah, like butter wouldn’t melt but she’s a
total slapper….
JEREMY: This is Wendy, the girl you say tried to steal your boyfriend away.
TINK: She’s like all posh and just makes stuff up. Like stories. And she’s not helping him. She’s a
total waste of space…she can’t even fly by herself.
JEREMY: Let’s get Wendy on the show.
FX MUSIC
ENTER WENDY DARLING.
JEREMY: Good morning sweets. Have a seat. You told my researchers that you’ve tried to help Peter find
his real parents and that you even offered to let him be adopted by your own parents. Is this
true?
TINK: That’s only ‘cos she wants him for herself.
WENDY: I have tried to help Peter, yes.
TINK: Oh you liar, you let him call you mother you sicko.
JEREMY: You let him call you mother?
WENDY: When we first met and that was only in front of the other lost boys. It was a game.
TINK: You see, that’s the problem, its all games with you. You won’t let him grow up.
JEREMY: [To TINK]…You told my researchers that the only way that Peter can move on is if he leaves Wendy
to find out who his real father is.
TINK: That’s right. That’s why we want a DNA test.
JEREMY: Before we give out those all-important DNA results let’s get Peter on the show.
FX: MUSIC
ENTER PETER PAN. He sits next to WENDY.
JEREMY: Good morning fella. Take a seat, my friend. So, what are you looking for today?
PETER: I’m looking for me Dad.
JEREMY: Do you have any ideas who it could be?
PETER: I’ve got me suspicions, yes.
VT: FLASH PICTURE of HOOK.
JEREMY: Both the women in your life believe you won’t be able to move on until you get the result is
that true, yes or no?
PETER: Yes, Jeremy.
JEREMY: Well, let’s have those all important DNA results.
CREW MEMBER hands over envelope.
JEREMY: The DNA results show that Captain James Hook is….NOT the biological father….[reaction]….Wait a
minute, I’ve just been told that there is a positive match with one of the other candidates and
he’s here in the studio. Do you want to meet him? Please welcome onto the stage, Peter Pan’s
long lost father….
FX: MUSIC. STAR WARS
ENTER DARTH VADER
PETER: You can’t be my father.
DARTH: I am your father.
PETER: No, this is a lie.
DARTH: Search your feelings you know it to be true.
JEREMY: DNA results are 96% positive and he is your father.
PETER: No….NOOOOOOOOOOO…..
JEREMY: Well, if you need a moment with our aftercare team they are waiting backstage with the fabulous
Graham? That’s all from the show this morning, thanks to all our guests but most especially to
you for watching. Thank you and good morning.
FX:MUSIC
End titles.
Of all the bars in all the world I had to walk into that one…
Lucky me…
I was that day.
June 21st 1967. Dave’s birthday.
We were on a week long stop in San Francisco.
Not because we were scheduled to, but because the ship was old and knackered and the engineers were working non-stop to try and fix the air conditioning.
All the stores had been loaded and put away.
The chief storekeeper had volunteered to stay on board in case anything was needed.
( His main reason was to fiddle his accounts and “borrow” a couple of bottles of rum from the bar stock. )
Four of us had gone ashore, but it was just me and Dave who wandered into the bar on the corner of Haight Ashbury, Dolly and Squirrel having gone off looking for a gay bar earlier.
I hoped they were having better luck in their world than we were in ours.
As we walked in, the place was heaving with sweating bodies and the air was thick with a haze of blue smoke.
Dave turned and said, “ Come on, let’s go. This place stinks.”
That was when I recognised the” stale perfume” smell.
It was so thick it was like being in a London fog of marijuana smoke and I was getting high on the second hand fumes.
I also recognised something else.
The guitar music.
I looked toward the sound and saw him, literally, through a purple haze.
There, stoned out of his mind, playing on stage was the man himself….. Hendrix…..
I have no idea what it was that he was playing. It could have been “Hey Joe, Purple Haze”,or even “God save the Queen” for all I knew because by then I was way out of my tree from breathing in the purple haze of a hundred joints .
It was Dave’s birthday. June 21st 1967, a couple of days after Monterey, the first of the big rock festivals. A year before the very first Isle of Wight Festival and two years before Woodstock .
Jimi Hendrix had wandered into the bar, high as a kite, gone up on stage, picked up a guitar played for about half an hour, then about ten minutes after we got there he came off stage walked past me, there two feet away, and went on his happy hippy way.
My own Jimi Hendrix Experience…
When the sand puffs at my heels as if the shore itself is spitting at me, when the crystals catch the light in a tiny galaxy of stars, sometimes close enough to sting the skin, that’s firework sand. The tsunami took his hearing, left blood trickling from his ears long after the water drew back, but I can hear them. I can hear the deathly cracks.
There’s a seagull wreathed in seaweed, green fronds fondling it in the shallows, and I must get it, I must, if we are to eat tonight. Sometimes cows wash up, bloated with the stinking sighs only the dead can hear. Once there was a giant squid, melting pearl and smelling of toilet cleaner, delivered by the waves.
They took it back again, and the cows. We don’t eat those, nor the pets or the bodies, but the fresh corpses, the new dead, we do. We have to. We must.
Kyle’s so thin his fingernails look as though they’ve come from bigger fingers, maybe dad’s. But I don’t want to think about him, just now. Sneak… sneak… a suicide sneak, past the rocks and the barnacles and the fallen trees, over ropes and nets and bottles and buoys, under the beams and rafters of a roof wedged tight with exhaustion with boulders for walls. Is there anybody there? Are they watching? Are they peering through small circles of sights, taking aim, ready to fire?
They blame us.
He’s five and I’m ten and they blame us.
It’s not long dead, caught in some netting, drowned I think. When I lift its sopping weight from the waves, the netting comes too, and there’s a lot of it. It’s heavy, too heavy, and I can’t break the mesh, daren’t use my teeth. Instead I pull, turning to go, ready to dart left and right, port and starboard, up and down, to dodge the bullet and their blame.
If I’m lucky, if we’re lucky, there’ll be fish caught too, fresh ones with plenty of meat on them. I try not to think what they’ve been feasting on, somebody said we are all made of stars but as far as I can tell, we’re all made of things eating other things, dead things, not just plants but names and faces. Maybe my pinky finger has a bit of Elvis somewhere, maybe my kidneys a little Cleopatra. Perhaps my nose was once a dolphin, my skin a dinosaur’s tail. Mum and dad are probably whales right now; fish first, then whales, then something else, something wonderful and strong.
It’s really dragging on the sand and I can’t help but glance at the mountainside trees, at the deep dark green with the villagers within. Maybe there’s no-one here today, maybe I’d be okay to wander and walk, to traipse and dawdle, write my name in the sand and sunbathe. More likely they want a clean shot, or for me to be higher up the shore, or west a bit, or standing, or sitting, or whatever the heck it is they think a ten year old girl, a tourist for goodness sake, should be doing as penance for their loss.
It’s really heavy. I’m moving as fast and as secretly as possible, but the net’s dragging on the sand. If it’s got bodies, I’ll leave it by the cave; the tide can do with it as it will, but if it’s fish or things, good things, interesting things, helpful things, then by golly we’ll sleep well tonight. Once there was somebody’s suitcase on the shore, all packed and ready to go, maybe from the hotel by the harbour, no, that used to be by what was the harbour. We’re still using the toothbrush and smearing the paste, like our folks taught us, like we did at home. Kyle sleeps in it at night; it’s big enough, just. Curls up in a ball in a nest of old lady clothes, pinks and purples cosy in the darkness. I have a bed next to him of sand and seaweed that I clear daily, high up in the system of caves. It doesn’t even smell bad anymore, not since I got rid of the stink. The stream trickling inside, rainwater from the island above, used to make me want to pee a lot, but now I barely notice it.
I want to look, oh boy do I want to, but I have to keep my eyes on the trees, watch out for a glint or a movement that means the sand will be spurting today. Kyle’s at the entrance, I can feel him watching me, thumb in mouth, waiting for my safe return. He knows better than to call out, knows better than to come out onto the pale sugar sand; we used to be three.
Then they shot Lorna, and that was that. We were two.
Perhaps another two hundred yards to go. I’ll need to avoid the outcrop and the wreckage, else the net might snag. It’s heavy and I feel too exposed but now I’m on the drier sand it’s not so slow.
Their superstitions work in our favour too. Not enough to make up for the shooting, the murder and the fear for our lives, but enough for us to find refuge in their sacred caves and not be hunted there, too. We found gold and a skeleton, an old one with busted legs. Kyle was thrilled, swaggering about pretending to be a pirate, ‘aarr’-ing and playing with thick heavy coins. I was better pleased with the knife by its side, something to carve our meals with and protect us against those who would do us wrong. Kyle keeps it whenever I go.
Nearly there. A bit of sick, maybe only a spoonful though it feels like more, is burning at the back of my throat and I really really want to scream.
In, I throw myself in, and roll with Kyle on the sand, fizzing with the relief of being ‘home’. The net can wait, now. We’ve made it, we’re here.
Kyle helps me haul it in, he’s strong for five, strong for starving, and I’m pleased. We climb up the rocky stairs within, rubble really but stepped just so. He’s left the knife by the entrance and I let him keep pulling the net up as he stumbles towards the sky hole and the light when I too stumble. I see what he’s dragging in.
She’s beautiful, shivering and shiny, twinkling with her own tiny lights. Older than me, I think, but sheathed in the twisting twining mesh it’s hard to tell. Her skin is the pale green of a bark-stripped sapling, her hair blacker than tar, and the lower half of her body is the rainbow’d silver of salmon. Plucking the knife from the sand by our entry hole, I run up the rugged steps to my brother and motion him to stop. He smiles, and I kiss his nose and pat his bum so he’ll sit down, then scamper back down to our catch.
Could we eat her? She’d keep us going for weeks if I lay strips in the sunshine under the sky holes, drying fillets for jerky later. Was she more fish or more human, or neither… was she even edible?
If I was going to do it, I should do it now while she was out of it, unaware, unfeeling, defenceless.
Where? Would her neck be best, her chest – I couldn’t help but notice it was fuller than my mother’s – or was it different with them?
No belly button. No fingernails. I didn’t need to know how she poo’d.
Cutting the net instead, the plastic tough, its fibres splaying, I remembered how I used to pull the red netting apart with just my fingers when dad brought a bag of satsumas home from the market where he worked. Fruit… my mouth watered and I looked at the rounded green of her, swallowing, wondering.
She sat up and I could see the ocean in her eyes, smell the sweet salt of her breath, hear the rushing of the waves outside as they came to claim her. Froth swirled round her in a tickle of bubbles, pulling her beauty away, and her smile was the pinky pearl sheen of an empty shell. Salt water rushed down my face, another loss, the entrance emptying again and I stood to go to my brother, feet sinking into sand.
Then another wave, a gush of bounty. The cave filling as never before.
And I knew we wouldn’t go hungry again.
by Gill Hoffs
Firework Sand first appeared on the Spilling Ink website.
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