|
|
Post by sparacus on Jan 2, 2014 15:51:37 GMT -5
Story 1 : "Alfie"
Ever since the day he was born, on a cold November morning in 1994, Alfie North had seemed a peculiar child. His parents, Joe and Lara despaired that Alfie would spend hours sitting in the corner of his room spitting at the wall. Often they would find him sitting in the garden by the lupins picking up ants and eating them. At first Joe assumed that these were just childish habits that Alfie would grow out of when he got older. However matters became more worrying when Alfie was six years old. Joe, who was a self-employed builder, was constructing a conservatory in the back garden. As his back was turned, studying his work on the foundations, Alfie picked up a half-brick, climbed onto a pile of logs by the garden fence and threw the brick at little Rosie Miller next door. It missed Rosie's head by an inch however it hit her mother Carly, who was lying on a sun lounger, smack on in the face, breaking her nose. Alfie laughed with joy as the blood gushed out of Carly's face as she lay screaming for her husband Jeff.
Reluctantly that evening Joe and Lara decided , over a bottle of wine, to take Alfie to see the Doctor. They made an appointment for Alfie to see their local GP Doctor Shah the following Monday morning. However when the day itself came, Alfie was reluctant to go. He screamed, cried and bit into his mother's arm so hard that his top teeth penetrated the flesh leaving a deep wound. Joe dragged him kicking and screaming to the car and on the drive to the surgery Alfie caused so much commotion that the car nearly crashed into a bus. In the surgery, as a nurse examined Lara's arm, Dr Shah studied Alfie, who kept repeating the 'c' word over and over again in a slow rhythm.
"I may have to refer him to a specialist. That matter with a brick could just be something the kiddie has picked up from watching too much violent television. However he perhaps ought to be tested for tourettes", Dr Shah advised. As he finished speaking, Alfie pulled out a syringe which he had carefully lifted from a tray in the nurse's station outside and rammed it into the Doctor's side, bending it sharply to the side in order to snap the end off. Dr Shah howled with pain as Alfie grinned and spat at him:
"Get the little bastard out of my surgery. You can find another GP, the whole damn lot of you" Dr Shah yelled.
As the years went by, Alfie's behaviour became gradually more and more bizarre. He would skip school and be found wandering in and out of hardware shops, his pockets full of stolen nails, or be found lurking around an area of wasteland at the back of the school looking for insects. One of his favourite pastimes was to collect ladybirds, find a thorn from the hawthorn hedge and skewer them on it. He perfected a technique of self-induced projectile vomiting which he would use to intimidate the other children by covering them when they least expected it. However it was when he killed the family cat, Smokey, with a red hot poker that he had heated up in the log burner in the new conservatory that Joe and Lara finally snapped. Reluctantly they decided to have their son committed, a process which had begun some months before when the school had reported the Norths to social services after Alfie was found to have a locker full of stolen ladies' underwear and dead rats. "He's just a habitual thief but he'll grow out of it," Joe had protested at the time , however now he reluctantly agreed to sign the requisite documentation. Lara cried hysterically as two male attendants dragged Alfie towards the entrance of Barton Le Hays Hospital, or 'The Nut House' as it was dubbed by the locals. Alfie looked at his mother with eyes of burning hatred as he was institutionalised at the age of twelve.
As the years passed by, Joe and Lara, who couldn't have any more children, consoled themselves with their love of animals and their hobby of hillwalking. They kept fowls in the back garden and went on walking trips to Scotland and the South Downs. In time the pain of losing Alfie subsided into a dull ache.
On the morning of Alfie's seventeenth birthday nurse Amy Preston went into his room to give him his mail, a birthday card from Joe and Lara. She walked in smiling and pulled back the curtains:
"Come on Alfie wake up. Like Happy Birthday! Its like a gorgeous day out there. You've got a card here." The shape under the bedclothes didn't move. Amy cheekily pulled them back however she was shocked to see that it was only a spare pillow stuffed down the bed. Quick as a flash, Alfie jumped on her from behind the door and slashed her throat with a razor blade that he had been concealing for days. He then snuck out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him, and hid himself in a large laundry trolley on wheels, full of heaps of used sheets. A short time later the orderlies wheeled it outside to the laundry van and attached it to the pully device that lifted it up and emptied the contents into the van. They stood chatting and smoking and did not notice Alfie jump into the van with the sheets. The van sped off towards the laundrette in town and as it slowed down at some traffic lights, Alfie undid the back door and jumped out. He ran to a nearby cottage where he broke into the shed, lifted a hammer and used it to break into the cottage itself. The occupants were out so Alfie lifted some clothes from the wardrobe that fitted him. Now at last he could plan his revenge. The years he had spent institutionalised had given him a burning hatred of his parents. Now at last he could satiate the need inside him.
Joe North came home from a hard day renovating some flats and kissed Lara as she prepared spaghetti bolognese.
"I'd better feed the chickens" he muttered, picking up a pile of kitchen scraps. He stepped out into the back garden and saw in front of him a scene of utter horror. Dead fowls were strewn across the back lawn, disembowled and dismembered. For a moment he thought they'd been killed by a fox, but then he saw on top of the shed, neatly arranged, a row of severed chicken heads. Suddenly there was a terrible scream from inside the house, which he recognised as coming from Lara. He ran back inside.
They found Alfie the following morning. He was sitting on the front lawn cross-legged humming to himself and reading a copy of William Blake's 'Collected Poems' that he had lifted from the local library. Inside the house were the dismembered corpses of his parents.
THE END
|
|
|
|
Post by sparacus on Jun 12, 2016 14:46:18 GMT -5
Story 2: "The Burglar"
THE BURGLAR
It's a funny old life innit? I'm sitting here going stale in this rotten prison not because I'm a nasty bastard like a good few of the others in here but because I'm a pretty ok guy who just tried to do some good for people. Even stuck in here I tries my best, y'know. Jeff, who's fast asleep in the bunk below me, can't read and write and so I'm teaching him the basics. He keeps asking me to read him out the letters he gets from his bird but I have to be sharp and not read him everything as she's a spiteful sounding cow who keeps blaming him for all her problems with the rent, bills and stuff. You just think, give the guy a break will you love. He's in here for nicking to make ends meet, repeat offending and so on. He's ok Jeff but a bit dense which is why he nicks stuff I suppose. Mind you I can hardly talk as at one time I was all intent on doing that kind of thing as well. But I saw a better way than that, I used my brains as well as other things. But then I ends up at 23 years of age lying in the same stinking cell as Jeff. Life ain't bloody fair, but then I always knew that.
Any road up, I suppose I ought to start at the beginning. I'm Jason but everyone calls me Jase. My mam and dad were ****ing clueless prats, it has to be said. My first memories are of him coming in rat arsed and knocking her and me about. Then he walked out on us and I was left with her and her ever-changing boyfriends. There was Ray the car salesman, who left her when she started doing smack, then Pete who was one of her junkie mates who used to roll me spliffs and send me out to do some shoplifting so they could sell stuff for more smack. I hated thieving even then and knew it weren't my thing, but the bastard used to knock me about if I didn't do it. What do you do when you've got clueless prats for parents? Then clueless prats at work. And there are so many of them. It's like you just get handed on from one lot to another.
Anyhow, after I got kicked out of school for breaking in and setting fire to the place, I decided to leave home. I dunno what me mam's doing now and I don't care to be honest. I gets a few jobs on building sites but my heart wasn't in it and it barely paid the rent on the scummy flat I lived in. I was doing ok with pulling the birds but I couldn't keep hold of them, not the keepers anyway, only the ones with the drugs problems or the issues and I ain't interested in hanging on to birds like that. I've had enough of that with me mam. I guess I'm not the marrying kind, although I love women and love making a bird feel special and good about hereself. Its just a natural thing with me, women just like being with me. I'm not bad looking and I work out a lot to keep my body trim. But that ain't it all, I also know how to be attentive to a bird and listen to her. Not many blokes can do that, as I soon found out when I started my career, or I suppose vocation.
It all started one night when I was at a loss how to pay the rent and the leccy bill after getting laid off at the end of a roofing job. I thought I'd do a bit of housebreaking, purely out of need like, I ain't no thief. Anyhow, there was this big house at the end of Elston Road and there never seemed to be any lights on. There was no car in the drive that night so I crowbars me way in and starts to go upstairs to have a rummage around. Suddenly this bird appears at the top of the stairs in hysterics, she must've seen me torchlight. She was screaming and the like when suddenly she starts to faint. I rushed up and grabbed her so she didn't fall downstairs and carried her down and laid her on the sofa. When she comes round I'm like all caring and apologetic and stuff. She just starts crying and telling me all about her husband and how he's out seeing another woman and leaves her all alone every night. I call him a stupid bastard and say if I had a woman like her I'd not need to look elsewhere for me oats. She gets up and offers me a drink and we talk for hours before she asks me to come upstairs and to bed with her....
That was the start of it and it went on from there. I got myself a job helping out at the gym where I work out and also a bar job in the Dog & Gun. Crap wages for both but I could size up the women and get a feel for which ones were lonely or desperate. The ones just entering middle age are the best, y'know in their late-30s like. Add a selfish **** of an husband and no proper job into the mix and you're on the right track. They ain't all up for it but I'm a lad with intuition me and I gets a good idea if they are from a couple of chats. Many of them say its my smile that's my best physical feature, well apart from the obvious one, and my consideration is my best quality. Any road up, after I've honed in on a woman its an easy job to case her house for a couple of nights then to break in when the husband or fella is out. Once inside and they confront me I uses all of my charm and understanding on them. Nine times out of ten they're offering me drinks within a few minutes and bob's yer ****ing uncle. Sometimes its just a one-nighter, other times they're asking me back for repeat sessions. Either way I never leave empty handed. One bird, Rose, only goes and raids her husband's safe and hands me a ****ing diamond necklace. She said that she'd rather have a night with me than any of the jewellery he buys for her. Mostly they give me cash, or just let me leave with their bank cards. I always pop them back through the letterbox later after drawing out some dough as I ain't gonna nick from these women. I like them too much for that.
It's only ever gone wrong twice and the second time is why I'm lying here in this stinking hole with Jeff snoring away below me. The first time was when I had a bird die on me. True as God's me judge, and I ain't proud of the fact. She was a bit on the old side, early fifties, but she was still a bit of a looker and she'd have been as hot as hell when she was young. Jane she was called and she lived up Beck Close with her husband who was a sales rep. Kids had left home and Jane was bored as hell as I found out when chatting to her in the bar. I could see her staring at me crotch and I knew then that she'd be up for it. Anyhow, I breaks into her posh house ands man it took some doing as the back door had all the fancy locking systems and stuff. I got it open but a friggin' alarm started going off, real loud like. I was about to leg it when Jane comes tearing downstairs then stops, clutching her chest, and collapses. I thinks to myself: Jase you've got to get the hell out of here. But I stopped long enough to check her pulse and that she was a gonner. I'm like that, considerate.
The second time landed me in here. Miriam was her name. She's a thin, wiry bird with dark hair. I saw her sitting on her own in the bar knocking back vodkas and orange and I thought to myself, here's another one Jase. Now most birds, for all their issues, know the score with me and like to be in control. They're after a bit of fun and no more. But not this Mirium. After I broke in and worked me charm on her it was just as it always goes at first. I gives her one and she gives me loads of cash and jewellery. She asks me back for more and I'm willing to oblige, even though she was no looker. But then it started getting all weird. She starts telling me how she loves me and how she wants to tell her husband and leave him for me. She wants to use her dough to set us up with a cafe in Spain. I was sort of tempted , y'know for the money and sunny Spain. But she was so needy like and started getting all strange. She said that if I was seeing other birds then she'd kill herself, and me. I'm like, look love, I think we'd better take a break as you're getting too attached to me. I'm just a poxy house breaker who's good in bed and knows how to make a woman forget her dreary life. But she weren't having it. She threatened to tell her husband that I was blackmailing her if I didn't go to Spain with her. I'm like, "bye love".
The next thing I knows, the coppers are arresting me for everything under the ****ing sun. I'm accused of finding out that she was cheating on her husband after she blurted it out in the bar when drunk. She claimed that I broke into her house and threatened to tell her husband if she didn't sleep with her. She then says that I forced myself on her, stole from her and knocked her about. Daft bloody jury believed her an all, well they weren't gonna believe me not with my criminal record.
So there we go. I says from the moment I get here that I don't wanna go on a nonce's wing. I'm toughing it out in the regular wings. I don't want no paedo in my cell going on about what they get up to. When I get out I suppose I'll go back to my career in a new town somewhere or even abroad. Wherever there are birds who need a guy like me to help them out. I'm no thief though and I hate being labelled as one. I just provide a service like and its a real waste that all I get to service in here is my right hand.
|
|
|
|
Post by sparacus on Jul 5, 2017 18:03:08 GMT -5
Story 3: Beryl the Nympho
Life had never been kind or fair to Beryl Jones. Growing up in Stockport in the 1970s as Beryl Potter, she had been one of those girls who had been written off as factory and shop fodder by her teachers and had witnessed domestic violence at home. Her father Jim had used her mother as a punch bag and then walked out on the family when Beryl was eight years old. Her older brother Kevin had died of a heroin overdose while the pair of them were watching Tiswas one Saturday morning. Beryl remembered being annoyed at the ambulance men blocking her view of the telly and talking as they took the corpse away.
Beryl now lived at number 42 Gladstone Road with her husband Phil and children Craig and Shannon. None of them enhanced her life in any way. Phil was a plumber and pipe fitter whom Beryl had met in Boobies Nightclub in 1984. He had been a good-looking youth back then and Beryl remembered with fondness his long, curly hair and vibrant lovemaking. Now he was a dull, obese warehouse worker who stank of beer and spent most of his evenings in the pub with his builder mates discussing football.
Beryl sat in the kitchen of her modest little terraced house and finished her cigarette. The morning sun was gleaming down on the yard outside where two cats were having a fight. Into the kitchen slouched Beryl's twenty-something son, Craig:
"Hey, mam, I like need some cash like, y'know. Goin' out later", he moaned. Beryl sighed:
"You could try earning some. Oh why bother Beryl. Here, take this". She threw some notes on the table. Craig picked them up.
"Thirty quid? That ain't enough like", he moaned.
"It's all I've got. If you want more then get yourself a job you sponging lazy parasite. Now ¤¤¤¤ off", Beryl exclaimed. Craig grimaced:
"Ere that's child abuse that is, talkin' to me like that like. I'm like losin' my self esteem." He slouched out of the kitchen in a huff. As he did so, his sister Shannon came bounding down the stairs:
"Hey mam. I've just met this fella online and he's asked me out on a date later." Beryl sighed:
"And let me guess, you want money to go out with?"
"Yeah of course. Well its not like you need it mam, you're ugly, old, fat and northern." Beryl lit another cigarette:
"Well you can't have it 'cause I've just given it to your brother. So piss off and get your fella to pay. Offer him the promise of certain favours". Shannon flounced out in a huff.
Beryl stared at the wall of the kitchen and felt tired. Oh so tired. She was only 52 but she felt like she was 92 and an inch away from the grave. She was sick of her grisly, smelly husband and sponging, whiney twenty-something kids. She wished that she was back in her old bedroom in the 1970s, listening to her David Cassidy records and staring at his picture on her wall. But that was a very long time ago and her family from back then were all dead. Not that she missed them that much, but she missed the time and the promise of youth. Before all of that was pissed away. She finished her cigarette and decided to go for a walk.
She walked out of the house and down Gladstone Road, gazing at the houses of neighbours she didn't really know with front gardens full of black bin bags and motorbikes. She walked past ASDA and down Military Street towards the alleyway behind the old Adams factory, now boarded up. Eventually the alleyway led onto some waste ground behind the new Aldi and to Jackie Powell's Pond. The pond had once been quite large but part of it had been filled in when they built the Aldi so now it was a rather pathetic ditch full of brown water. Jackie Powell had been a young apprentice who had drowned himself in the pond in 1888. Since then it had acquired a reputation as a suicide spot and Beryl stood and stared into the water. She wondered what it was like to drown and whether you passed out after breathing in the first lungful of water. As she stared into the murky depths, Beryl realised that her life hung in the balance and that she had two clear choices. She could either end it all now by throwing herself into what was left of the pond or she could go home and listen to the Smiths. Reluctantly she chose the latter.
Back at home, Beryl lay on the settee eating a packet of Walkers cheese & onion crisps and listening to the Smiths' 'The Queen is Dead' lp. The song 'The Boy With The Thorn in his Side" was playing and Beryl listened to the words:
"And when you want to live,
How do you start, where do you go,
Who do you need to know...."
She had these words many times however this time was different. Because suddenly a shock revelation occurred, like the conversion of St Paul. Beryl realised that she new the answers to the questions that Morrissey was posing in the lyric. How to live and where to go..... the answer was clear. She would become a sex-crazed nymphomanic and go out on the pull. Starting right now.
Two hours later, Beryl was squeezed into her tightest skirt, dolled up in make-up and strutting down Balaclava Street towards the Cross Keys. In the pub she ordered a double gin & tonic and sat at the bar on a stool, pulling up her skirt to reveal her shapely thighs. Several young men started mumbling something about mutton dressed as lamb but Beryl gave them a wink and grinned:
"Better a bike that has some miles in it than a brand new thing that's so stiff it needs oiling."
Within a few minutes she was being chatted up by a car salesman from Salford and Beryl offered to go with him to his car for a quick one on the back seat.
And that was how it started. From that day onwards, Beryl's life became one long moan of pleasure. She had Barry the fishmonger in the back of his fish van, two apprentice mechanics in Bentley's Garage and even old Stan, the landlord of the Cross Keys, to name but a few. Some were acts of charity but most were extremely enjoyable romps. When her husband Phil was sentenced to five years for armed robbery and Craig and Shannon moved in with their dopey mates, she converted the house into a love nest and splashed out on a whole new wardrobe from Anne Summers with money given to her by various men. Beryl was the talk of Gladstone Road and she loved every minute of it. Whoever would have thought that life would begin at fifty-two she often thought to herself with a grin.
|
|
|
|
Post by sparacus on Jun 17, 2021 16:52:00 GMT -5
Story 4: The Chef
Craig Kerrigan kissed his girlfriend Shana goodbye and set off for the interview. It was a warm and sunny Saturday morning in June and Craig was feeling happy and high. He was two years into his catering course at college needed as much practical experience as he could get, yet he feared that he would be spending the summer working at MacDonalds or KFC and that was if he was lucky. However his mum Kathy had spotted the advert in the local paper that he hoped would give him experience of a much higher level of culinary enterprise:
‘Temporary Catering Assistant Needed’
To start work immediately at Wydevilles, an exclusive restaurant for the discerning. Preparing high quality cuisine for the higher end of the market. No online interviews only in-person. Write to the address below for an application form’.
Craig had thought that the lack of an online application process was a bit strange, however he assumed that a top restaurant may find that method too commonplace or distant. They may wish to see him prepare some food in person before even considering him. However Craig was mentally prepared for this, having watched ‘Masterchef’ since he was a young boy and planned out a series of exemplar dishes. After a night spend making love to Shana he felt ready for anything.
As he checked his phone for directions to Wydevilles, he felt like the luckiest boy in town. He whizzed along on his E-Scooter thinking of all the inventive new combinations of ingredients he wanted to try out. As he arrived at Stanley Street, he was puzzled at the narrowness of it, given that a large, exclusive restaurant was situated on it. Indeed it looked no more than a narrow lane. As he rode down the street, he was disgusted at the litter, bin bags spilling open and an underlying smell of decaying vegetable matter. Then he saw the neon sign hanging over a dingy looking cafe at the end of the street, opposite a boarded up house: ‘Wydevilles: Exclusive Cuisine For The Discerning’.
Craig froze, disheartened and annoyed. It was a grubby little place in a run down street, not at all what a middle-class student chef was hoping for in terms of experience. He was about to leave when two men arrived in a van and started unloading boxes of vegetables.
‘Ere, this place don’t uppen till six’ one of them shouted:
‘I’m not here to eat, I have an appointment with the head chef, a Mr V. Wydeville. For a job interview’, Craig replied. The men laughed:
“‘Ere you mean Auntie Val. It’s Mrs Wydeville, though nobody calls her that only her. I’d run away now if I were you mate”, the man replied.
Craig was about to leave when the door of the cafe opened and a young girl of about 18 grabbed his arm:
“She wants to see you now. Come in.”
The girl looked emaciated , with sunken eyes and Craig thought how she must have multiple issues. He didn't want to lower her self-esteem so he went with her into the cafe.
Wydevilles was decorated in an ostentatious neo-Victorian style with fake gaslights and garish curtains. As he entered he could smell onions frying and several cats ran out of his way, hissing.
“I’m sorry but I’m not sure I want to stay”, Craig said.
“Oh I hope you will my dear” a loud voice exclaimed and from the next room stepped the most extraordinary woman that Craig had ever seen. She was at least in her late sixties and wore a large, elaborately flowing red dress. Her face was caked in make-up, including red eye-liner and painted pink cheeks and she wore what looked like a blonde wig:
“Are you Auntie Val?” Craig exclaimed. The woman frowned:
“ It’s Valerie to you my dear and don’t you forget it. Although I’d prefer Mrs Wydeville. My poor husband has been dead for sixteen years, although I don’t miss him that much. One never does miss husbands when one has one’s cats and one’s work. You must be the student. I like students but only when they are obedient. You will be obedient I hope. Now for business, you will cook me an omelette.’
Craig was dumbfounded:
“Look Mrs Wydeville this is not what I expected. I’d better go”.
“Nonesense, now stop being a yellow belly and come into the kitchen”.
She grabbed Craig by the arm and pulled him into a dingy kitchen with three old cookers and piles of ancient looking pots and pans.
“Now fry me an omelette”.
Craig looked in one of the fridges that was stuffed full of eggs, butter and milk and took out some eggs and began to crack them into a bowl.
“You don’t crack eggs like that you silly boy, get out of the way”, Mrs Wydeville shouted, pushing him over so that he cracked his head on the side of a fridge.
She began to crack and whisk eggs:
“What are you doing on the floor? You clumsy boy”
She snapped her fingers and the girl appeared:
“Come here my darling and pick this clumsy boy up. Don’t maul him. I know you have needs but the kitchen is no place for them”.
Craig stood up and glared at her:
“You shoved me over”.
She sighed:
“Do not be over dramatic in the kitchen. It is a common fault in male chefs. A true chef let’s the drama flow through them not from them my dear boy. Now fry me the omelette, I want to judge your style. I have prepared omelettes for royalty you know.”
“I’m going”, Craig exclaimed. Mrs Wydeville snapped her fingers and a large man with a dropping moustache appeared:
“Hector we have a rebel in our midst”.
Hector glared at Craig:
“You go when Auntie Val says you go. Or I breaks your arm.”
Craig turned around angrily towards Valerie Wydeville:
"Hey, tell this guy to let me go".
She laughed:
"Oh I see, its like that is it. Well no. You were asked to make me an omelette and so you will. Now get to it young man. I want to judge your style. And do try to be a little more vivacious."
Craig was very anxious however he thought that if he made the omelette then he may be allowed to leave. He went to one of the fridges and found some eggs. He cracked several of them into a grubby looking plastic bowl and began to whisk them with a fork. He would have washed the bowl however the sink was crammed full with what looked like a week's worth of unwashed pans and plates . He felt a sharp slap round the head:
"My dear boy you don't whisk eggs like that. Put more energy into it. Dear me".
He whisked more briskly:
"That hurt", he exclaimed:
"Now don't be a moaning Minnie. If you're up to scratch I'll train you to be a high class chef. My father was a master restaurateur. Keep whisking while I go and feed my pussies. *To Hector* Guard him!"
Craig whisked away angrily and turned to Hector:
"Can't you see that the woman is mad. Let me go", he snapped.
Hector grinned:
"Auntie Val pays well. I does as I's told".
"But can't you see that she's not the full shilling? That ridiculous make-up, the wig, the posh accent, the cats... eccentric doesn't even cover it. And then there's the matter of me not being allowed to leave."
Hector frowned:
"Auntie Val pays well. She worked hard to get where she is".
Craig scowled:
"But she said her father was a top restaurateur."
Hector grinned:
"Her dad owned a poxy little chip shop in Tile Street and her mum was on the game. Rough as muck is Val. Don't be fooled by that accent, its all for show, so it is. But she pays well."
Mrs Wydeville returned:
"Right, that's my darling pussies fed. Now get that omelette in the frying pan and cook."
Craig fried the omelette and put jam in the middle as Mrs Wydeville instructed. He handed her the plate and she tried a forkful:
"Oh my, this is far too dry . Omelette's should be runny in the middle".
She took the frying pan and whacked Craig round the head, knocking him out cold. When he came round on the kitchen floor he heard voices in the next room and saw that Mrs Wydeville had pans on the go on every cooker and something in the ovens.She saw him stagger to his feet:
"Ah you're awake dear boy. Good, the customers have arrived. Well come on, get helping me!"
Craig felt the bump on his head:
"You knocked me out".
"Oh don't be so dramatic in the kitchen. Here have a brandy. Live a little. Then fetch me some milk from the fridge"
She handed Craig a glass of brandy which he nervously took and gulped down. He went to one of the fridges and opened it, then jolted back in horror. In the middle of the fridge on a large plate were four dead rats.
"What the hell..." he exclaimed.
Mrs Wydeville gave a sigh:
"Oh stop being a silly billy. My purse can't extend to fresh lamb every night and my customers do like my lamb stew. One has to improvise you know, times being what they are."
"You.. you serve them rat stew?" he stammered.
Mrs Wydeville grabbed him by the arm and led him to the door. Looking into the restaurant he saw an old man scooping food into his mouth and three skinheads scoffing egg and chips and flicking ketchup at each other.
"Now look at those people my darling. Do you honestly think that old Mr Forbes cares what is in his stew? He comes here for the company more than the food. Not that my cooking is anything other than exquisite. And those three boys just want a bit of mothering before they go out and do whatever it is they do. I offer them the chance to dine in a high class establishment."
Craig pulled his arm away:
"High class? You are a disgrace to the catering industry. You serve up rat stew, your kitchen is full of unwashed pans, the fridges look dirty, you're violent and you won't let me leave."
Mrs Wydeville clicked her fingers and Hector appeared:
"Hector my darling, we have another troublesome one here. Take him top the cellar while I stuff this bird".
She lifted a dead pigeon out of a basket and put it on a plate as Hector grabbed Craig and marched him out of the kitchen and down some wooden steps. They came to an iron door which Hector pushed open, dragging Craig inside. Hector switched on the light and Craig was horrified to see two young men chained by the hands to a wall and lying in their own mess. They were gagged but moaned a little. Craig stared at Hector, horrified:
"No.. you can't do this. Let me go."
Hector grinned:
"You goes when Auntie Val says you can go".
..........THE END
|
|
|
|
Post by sparacus on Jan 30, 2022 17:46:45 GMT -5
Story 5: Billy the Skinhead
Billy Hawkins pulled on his dock martin boots and bomber jacket, gave his braces a twang and with a cheeky grin yelled:
"Ere mam, I'm just off down the snooker club to spend me dole money".
Billy's mum Sharon gave a sigh:
"You could try savin' some of that for me housekeepin' Billy".
Billy laughed:
"Don't worry mam, me an' Jezza will do a bit of housebreakin' tomorrow night and see what we can flog down the Swan."
Billy was 19 and had been supplementing the family income by petty crime since leaving school at 16 and becoming a NEET - not in education or training. He had rendered himself largely unemployable after being fined for spraying racist slogans all over front of the local town hall two years before, however this did not bother Billy too much:
"Each to his own and what you own to me", he always said with a roguish smile as he crowbarred another window open or lifted another car to go joyriding in."
Billy strode into Smith Street Snooker Club and went up to the bar:
"'Ere Jeff, gis us a pint a mild an' some fags".
Jeff Bates, the one-eyed barman, gave Billy a stern look:
"Billy 'e wants to see you".
"Who?"
Jeff nodded towards the man sat in the corner in a sheepskin coat, smoking a cigar. Billy gulped as he regognised Daz 'the Naz' Dawson, local gangster and head honcho of the Highfields Babysquad gang. He walked over:
"Er hello Mr Dawson". Dawson grinned:
"Ah Billy. Come and join me for a chat. Relax and 'ave a cigar".
Smith Street Snooker Club was immune from the indoor smoking ban, given that no police officer would dare enter it and the last one that did ended up in A&E with two broken legs, a punctured lung and a missing front tooth. Billy puffed on the cigar as Dawson grinned at him:
"I 'ave a job for you Billy".
"What, a bit of protection racketin'? Hows about I collect from them Bangladeshi shops on Factory Road. Wouldn't mind smashin' them up for ya Mr Dawson". Dawson smiled broadly, revealing yellow teeth and receeding gums:
"No Billy. I want you to deliver Jeb Gibbs' smack and coke rounds. Gibbo is out of action for the forseeable and I need someone to cover for him."
Billy gulped his pint:
"Ere Mr Dawson, you know I don't do drugs, I'm a clean livin' lad I am. What happened to Gibbo, is he doin' time?" Dawson gave him a cold stare:
"He was sellin' over the agreed price then pocketing the difference for himself. So it was arranged that he had an impromptu appointment with the dentist and is now missing all of his teeth. He should be grateful, cheap dentistry is hard to come by these days".
Billy gulped:
"But you know I don't do dealin' Mr Dawson". Dawson laughed:
"I really don't understand your prudish attitude to dealin' Billy. You're happy enough to vandalise cars with your mates or beat up Asian taxi drivers for kicks, but turn your nose up at selling a bit of smack to some loser junkie. But let me be straight with you: if you don't do this job for me then the dentist will be happy to see you... with his pliers. You with me?"
Billy gulped.
A short time later, Billy was striding angrily down Viaduct Street with a bag under his arm. A car screeched to a halt by him and a skinhead youth stuck his head out the window:
"Whazzup Billy?" It was Danno Wilson.
"I'm ¤¤¤¤ed off Danno. Dawson wants me to deliver his stuff to the smackheads. He knows I don't do this".
Danno opened the car door and Billy jumped in, throwing the bag on the back seat. Danno gave him a hug:
"Year life's ¤¤¤¤ Billy. Hey why don't we nick his stuff and drive up north. We can sell it there an' live off the money. Billy glared at him angrily:
"Yeah right. Then Dawson gets his men to do me mam's house over an when he finds out where we are we lose our ¤¤¤¤in' teeth! I like it".
Danno shook his head:
"So what else is there? Either we split or you just become Dawson's delivery boy". Billy felt tears running down his face:
"He knows I don't do drug dealin'. My dad was a junkie and overdosed on smack after getting out of hospital when he threw his self out of the co-op window". Danno gave him a hug:
"Yeah I know. Come on lets get some food with the lads and think."
A short time later, Billy and Danno were in the Ashiani Curry House with two of their skinhead mates, Kenny and Baz. Danno was reading his BNP newspaper while Kenny and Baz played cards. Billy was downing his second lager and intent on getting drunk. He shouted towards the waiter:
"'Ere Gunga Din. Hurry up with our lamb vindaloos will ya or I'll have no room left in me guts for mine".
The Manager, Rifat Patel, overheard and approached their table:
"Excuse me but I'd thank you not to address any of my staff as 'Gunga Din'"
Billy scowled:
"Ok mate, I'll just call you it then. Now hurry up with my food".
Billy downed the rest of his lager:
"And bring me another of these, chop chop".
Baz looked up:
"Whats up Billy, you seem ¤¤¤¤ed off".
Billy lounged back in his chair, belched loudly and proceeded to recount his problem with Mr Dawson to Kenny and Baz. As he went through all the details, he failed to see that Mr Patel had returned with a fresh lager and was hovering in the background.
A short time later, when the vindaloos were eaten and several plates had been thrown at the posh couple sitting at the end table, who had hastily left, Billy and the others were laughing and telling racist jokes. Mr Patel approached the table with their bills.
"You're 'avin a laugh aren't you mate. We ain't payin' so there", Baz shouted at them.
They were all surprised when Mr Patel just smiled and took back the bills.
"Ok boys, I don't want any more trouble from you. Last time you visited my restaurant you started a fight in here. However I couldn't help but overhear your problem with Mr Dawson Billy. He's a terrible, terrible man. Bleeding us dry he is with his protection racket. However, I think we might be able to help each other."
Billy gave him a hard stare:
"What you on about?"
"All you have to do Billy is persuade him and that gorilla of his, Jimmy 'the pliers' Briers to come in here for a vindaloo. Billy gulped:
"'Ere I ain't goin' anywhere near Briers, the dentist. He ain't 'avin my teeth out. He's a psycho".
Mr Patel laughed:
"You young people today are so sensitive. I just need you to get them to join you here for a curry that's all. Leave the rest to us."
A few days later, Billy, Danno and the lads were joined by Daz 'the Naz' Dawson and Jimmy 'the pliers' Briers in the Ashiani Curry House. Dawson gave Billy a sinister grin, his yellow teeth showing:
"I must say that I'm very pleased at how you are shaping up Billy. Now that we understand each other, I think you could be a very valued member of my staff. I can't see your teeth needing many fillings in the near future if you stay on track".
Briers laughed and took a swig on his beer. Dawson continued:
"I am a bit puzzled as to why you offered to buy us lunch here. I'm usually a meat and two veg man".
Billy played with his fork nervously:
"Anything for you Mr Dawson. Old Gunga Din in there does the hottest vindaloos in town and the lamb biriani is ¤¤¤¤ing ace".
The currys arrived and the lads gave each other nervous laughs as Dawson and Briers lifted
their knives and forks:
"Well boys. Here's to the start of a fine working relationship. Tuck in," Dawson said cheerily.
A short time later, Dawson and Briers were gasping for breath and vomiting over the table:
"Whaaa its burning, burning...." Dawson spluttered out, choking and in agony.
Mr Patel and his sons Rajiv and Ravvi came running out of the kitchen and Mr Patel feigned concern:
"Oh deary, deary me. Perhaps the curry was slightly too hot for these two gentlemen. Perhaps they need their mouths cleaning. "
Rajiv and Ravvi grabbed Dawson and wrenched his mouth open, while Kenny and Baz did the same with Briers. Mr Patel put two bottles of bleach on the table:
"Help yourself to some cleaning fluid boys".
Billy laughed and shoved a bottle of bleach in Dawson's mouth, squirting it down his throat, while Danno squirted it into Briers' mouth.
"I think they may need some dental care", Mr Patel said with a grin, as he took a hammer out of his apron pocket and placed it on the table.
Later, Mr Patel, Rajiv, Ravvi, Billy, Danno, Kenny and Baz were all enjoying a lager and a laugh in the backroom of the restaurant. Billy laughed:
"Ere you lot ain't that bad after all. This ain't arf been a good larf. Today has made me rethink all my prejudiced attitudes. I feel a better person for it, more ethical like.".
Mr Patel smiled:
"You boys are welcome in my restaurant whenever you want."
Billy laughed:
"And you fellas can come out with us to the snooker hall for a beer whenever you want. Cheers."
Billy raised his glass and laughed.
THE END
|
|
|
|
Post by sparacus on Feb 9, 2022 17:50:33 GMT -5
Story 6: Ned
Ned woke. He stared at his radio clock alarm, which said 6.30 am. He dived back into his pillow and tried to go back to sleep. He was dreaming of running down an alleyway in the rain, which seemed more appealing than his life. Ned woke again. His radio clock alarm read 8.57. Ned felt cold and wrapped the bedclothes around him. It was too cold to get up; cold in temperature, cold in every other way.
Ned was 24 years old. He'd never had a job because he'd never wanted one. Jobs were full of horrible, shallow people with horrible shallow thoughts. Ned went back to sleep. Ned woke again. His radio clock alarm now read 10.06. Ned felt depressed and stared at the picture opposite his bed, a cheap reproduction of Van Gough's Starry Starry Night. He noticed a small spider climbing the wall. Ned felt the need to piss but it was cold. He went back to sleep.
Ned woke. His radio clock alarm read 11.45. He really needed to piss and so he dragged himself through the cold to the bathroom. The bathroom smelled of mould. ¤¤¤¤ing landlord never did anything to help. Ned had a piss then went back to bed. Ned reached over and grabbed the bottle of beer from the bedside table and drank. He wrapped the bedclothes round himself and went back to sleep. Ned woke. His radio clock alarm read 12.35. Ned reached for the beer and drank some more. Reaching further Ned pulled the curtain to one side and stared down at the street below. A crisp packet blew down the road in the winter wind. Ned buried himself back into the bedclothes and went back to sleep.
The following morning, Ned did mostly the same. But with one difference. There was no crisp packet blowing in the winter breeze.
THE END
|
|
