thanks for reading - Asherman and Edgar
i appreciate it
hope you like this one (tried to make it chilled) :wink:
The Great Escape
"Come in Alec. Sit down. "
The room was tiny. A clock hung on a green wall next to a painting of some crisp-looking sunflowers - brown and dying. If they were meant to cheer people up, I could probably do a better job myself.
Below a window's ledge stood a small table, with two chairs placed either side of it.
The doc sat down in the far chair and crossed one leg over the other.
On the table was a box. It had a leaf of white tissue poking out the top of it. I wondered if the doc had opened the box himself and placed it just so on the table and then, as an afterthought, tweaked the tissue out of its packaging. Go ahead, punk. Make my day.
I sat in the wooden, L-shaped chair and its cushion sank beneath me.
The doc had a clipboard in his hands and was holding up a sheaf of paper to read what was written underneath.
He wore big, gold-rimmed glasses, a thick tie over a grey striped shirt and new black jeans.
Thin yellow hair greased his collar.
"You were picked up by the police... again. Drunk and trespassing at ...,, four o'clock in the morning. "
He raised his chin to look at me and the sun hit the lenses of his glasses, turning them gold. When I didn't respond he looked back at his notes.
"Down by the railway.... again
Can't take the time to read this just at the moment. I'll try to get around to it by sometime on Sunday.
How is the work proceeding on the novel? That is truly the thing from your pen that I'm most interested in at the moment. You have a very good novel, so don't let it die from neglect.
i hear what you're saying and appreciate it. but that novel isn't easy for me to work on right now. i've read it through for the first time a couple of days ago. I know what i have to do and it isn't a great deal - i'll do it as soon as i can. as soon as i can. - have a good weekend - catch up with you later
Enjoying your writing Endymion.
Hey, Tai Chi
I'm really honoured you'd take the time to read my stuff - and I'm glad to share it with you.
peace, Endy
Endy - I love it. Love Mick. Love the whole scene with the doctors and nurses (for reasons of my own- I've been patronized by doctors myself- once a doctor explained something to me and then asked, "Do you think you can understand what I'm telling you?" I just looked at him and answered, "Yes, believe it or not, I do think I'm capable of grasping that."
And I don't even want to talk about nurses...for reasons of my own
Anyway - love the breakout scene with the guy in the car- great dialogue and characterization.
But the best line was the last one.
I'm sorry to disagree Asherman - but I think he needs to keep this up...if only for me to find out what happens to Mick - is his daughter still around? Will she take him in? What kind of relationship will develop between Mick and Alec?
You see Endy - you have to keep going...
thanks Rebecca - you made me smile
Hey - we've just been given severe storm warnings for this area tonight - so
I'm going to go and check around the place - prepare to batten down the hatches - speak to you later
Train Dreaming
I like riding the outward bound trains at night; journeys with no particular end; lonely stations that slip empty by, and far-off lights, trailing, stretching out across the darkness; my own face a strange ghost riding alongside.
I can sleep on a train. The continuous, drifting motion soothes me and the
murmur of the engine calms me. I relax in its familiarity, gently rocked into submission.
Pulling out of Paddington, Waterloo or Euston Station, leaving London behind
it always feels good. Bright, high-street windows slip far behind, and are replaced by tall brick houses, open playing fields, black trees; until eventually there is only the darkest pitch beyond my reflection.
I am vaguely aware of the murmuring voices of other passengers, as together we ride inside this snaking tube of light, chasing a hidden moon.
I close my eyes and hunch down inside my coat. Speeding through the green, sleeping farmland, dreaming.
Sometimes it feels like a great thing - to be free, to be alone and able to choose. Who needs parents, right? Who needs the f*cking hassle? Todd laughed when I complained about not having any once. He said I could have his bloody mother!
I'm seventeen and I don't have to answer to anyone. I can work where I want, eat what the hell I want, wear what I want; do pretty much what I want to do. Okay, I'm always short of cash and sometimes I feel like I might be an alien from another planet
but the truth is that I don't want to 'belong' either. I work alone. I make my own decisions, for me. Why make close friends? Where can a friend go from being your friend
.other than to being your enemy?
When I wake rocking in the speeding train, I am cold. I wipe the dream from my eyes and see a couple sitting opposite me, the woman with a small child on her knees.
They all three smile at me and I smile back.
Life is lots of things, isn't it? Different things all rolled into one.
*
*
Todd and I were sitting in the car, parked up outside the Co-op. We were watching the telephone box on the pavement a bit further along the road. Inside it, Mick was just a blur. He looked like he was talking to someone
or at least, he had the receiver to his ear and his other hand was waving around.
"We could drive off now and leave him." Todd said.
He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers, leaned in and turned the volume on his car stereo up another notch. Chelsea were playing West Ham at home.
"Come on you 'ammers," Todd sang, half taking the piss.
A woman with bleached white hair hurried across the road in front of us. She was dragging a small boy by the hand.
"You'll do as ya, f*cking told, d'you 'ear, Matthew?"
Her voice was a cruel whip.
I shivered without my coat. The day was turning dark. A slight drizzle suddenly powered into hail, which pelted the car violently until it felt like we were sitting inside a steel drum. After watching ice on the windscreen for a moment, Todd set the window wipers in motion.
"F*cking weather," he moaned. "What's 'e doing in there?"
When I didn't answer, he switched his lights on full for a few seconds. The old man became suddenly visible through the plummeting hail. He turned and scrunched his face up at us and waved a dismissive hand before showing us his back.
Todd dimmed his lights. "I wonder what 'e would do if we drove off, like?"
"I'm not going anywhere without my clobber." I said. I meant it too. My coat was a fairly new purchase, picked up for a fiver at the Army Surplus store, but the doc martins (I'd also leant Mick) were two years old. I'd brought them two sizes too big, when I was fifteen; my feet had grown into them and they were now my most prized possession.
"Fair enough. The old boy's nuts, yeah?"
When I didn't answer, Todd grinned through the windscreen, "He's probably found dial-a-slut and God knows what 'es up to in there."
That got a laugh out of me.
Thunder suddenly boomed overhead, making us both jump. The hail stopped abruptly and for a moment, the sun came out, bright on wet pavements. Then big spots of rain hit the ground and splattered.
"F*cking weather." Todd sighed. "Why can't it just make up its f*cking mind."
I searched through my pockets, found the wallet I'd been given for my birthday and opened it. Inside were a couple of notes. "I've gotta get some booze." I said.
I didn't fancy it without my coat or boots but I knew there was no point asking Todd to do it - he wouldn't leave me here parked on a yellow line, (for a start I wasn't licensed to drive away if a traffic warden or copper showed up) so I reached down and took off my socks, before opening the car door and stepping out.
The kerb was wet beneath my feet and I checked around for dog-****, to be sure that if there was any, I missed it.
"Your both f*cking nuts." Todd yelled, before I slammed the door shut on him and ran for the shop entrance.
*
*
It's a small, quiet place and no one's behind the counter, so I stand on the mat inside the door for a moment or two and let the warm air roll over me. Rain has plastered my hair to my head and I can feel it running down my neck and face. My feet are freezing.
Looking straight down the only aisle, I see a girl walking towards me. Suddenly she is the same girl I'd seen pushing the pram a few weeks ago. The one I upset by saying something stupid to. She doesn't have a pram with her today or the jacket with the peace signs, but I'm sure it's her.
I can't believe it. I've been dreading bumping into her again and suddenly here we are, alone. I look all around. Where the f*ck is the staff?
Standing bare foot, shivering in my shirt, I try to look like I don't care.
She recognises me easily and I see her hesitate. We stare at one another. She starts circling me, giving me a cold look, as if she intends walking out without turning her back on me.
I step closer to the counter, to give her some space, but she turns towards me, and staring at my feet, walks right around me and the counter, to stand waiting. For some reason, it hasn't occurred to me up until now that she might work here.
"What can I get you?" She says, unsmiling. She doesn't sound very happy to see me.
"How about a towel?"
"Raining is it?" She folds her arms.
"No. I just swam the river Thames."
"Very funny, what you training for? The boy scouts?"
For a moment we stand there silent, staring at each other.
"Look what do you want?" She asks.
"One of them small bottles of vodka behind you. The cheapest one."
For a moment she doesn't move. Then her eyes narrow.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen. What about you?"
Her cheeks turn pink. "Twenty."
I try hard not to gulp. Twenty! I can't believe it. I'm sure I'd seen her around school just last year. Twenty? ****. That's like, well that's practically a woman.
"D'you work here full time?" I ask, just for something to say, watching as she turns and takes down the bottle and starts wrapping it up.
"Hardly."
"Oh."
She rings up the cost.
All of a sudden I 'm trying to pull my wallet out of my jeans pocket, which appears to have shrunk.
"****."
Outside, Todd beeps the horn on the car.
"****."
"That's two pounds, fifty, please." Now I hear a slight note of humour in her voice.
Todd beeps again, impatiently, just as I pull the wallet free.
A fat man in a shirt and tie has appeared beside me, silently, as if from nowhere. His grey hair circles a bald spot on the top of his head - like Friar Tuck, but he isn't smiling. A plastic badge on his pocket says 'Steven Dowby ~ Manager.
I can vaguely hear football commentary coming from somewhere, as if he's left a door open behind him.
"Any problems here?" He asks, giving me the once over with his puffy eyes, like he has reason to believe I might be carrying rabies or something. Maybe he thinks I'm one of the gypsies from the camp under the fly-over. Too skint to buy shoes, like
'Gypos' he probably calls them. Nearly everyone does.
"No problems, Mr Dowby
" The girl says, but before her last word is out, he cuts across her. "How old are you?" he asks me.
"Nineteen."
"Have you seen some proof of age then, Claire?"
Claire shrugs, plays it cool.
"Its alright, Mr Dowby
. I know him," she says.
"Right. Well don't come in here again with nothing on your feet, d'you hear?"
He looks around the floor as if expecting to discover dirty foot prints. Seeing nothing there, he looks back at me, "Get a f*cking life, kid," he says, before turning abruptly and walking back the way he's come.
We watch him in silence, then I turn back to the counter.
"Thanks," I say, exchanging cash for the bottle. "It's for my old man."
"Yeah, right."
"Look err
.."
"Oy, Alec? "
I turn and see old Mick, standing just inside the door, hunched in my khaki jacket and the pyjama bottoms, which only just reach the top of my doc martins. The boots are much too big for his feet. His bare chest and stomach glisten with rain.
"Move ya self, lad. There's a copper coming." He says, and disappears again.
"Who's he? Scout leader?" Claire asks, and laughs.
"He was at Monte Cassino." I say.
"Monty who?"
Outside Todd has the car revving. The front passenger door is open and I slip in and slam it shut, then hit the dashboard as Todd rams his foot to the floor and we wheel spin for a moment, before shooting out into traffic (missing the back end of a bus by not much).
Todd adjusts his rear-view mirror, switches off the stereo and glances briefly at me.
"Where the f*ck were you?" He seems really pissed off about something.
"I got asked my age
what's up?"
"Mick 'ere
'e wants to go to Little'aven - on the f*cking coast. Sussex. Tonight, like."
I turn in my seat and look back at our passenger, who leans forward. He appears about ten years younger than he had walking from the car to the telephone box earlier.
"She probably hates me." He'd said. "Probably wants nothing t'do with me."
"Did you ever hurt her
like really, ever?" I asked him.
He stared at me a moment. "No. Never."
"Then I think you're doing the right thing."
"What happened?"
"I got 'old of my Joyce. Pleased to 'ear from me, she says. I wanna give it a go. I've got her address."
"That's good."
"Yep
on my way."
He sits back and looks out at the street dissolving from his life, behind him. Maybe he is dreaming of a day when he will be sitting in a deckchair on the sand, with his family around him.
I look at Todd, who is lighting up a cigarette one-handed. He glances in his wing mirror nervously, like he thinks the police are going to be out hunting us down for kidnapping or some ****.
"He ain't got a penny on him." Todd says.
I unscrew the lid on the vodka bottle and take a mouthful. Screw the lid back on.
"What d'you think?" I say.
"F*ck knows."
Todd turns a corner and narrowly misses a woman on a bike, "Silly bitch," he yells.
I notice he is driving towards home.
"I can't take him back to my place." I say.
"Well, 'e ain't dossing at mine."
"I don't want to cause you boys a problem." Mick says from the back seat.
"Look, take us back to your place
" I say to Todd.
" I can go home and get him some clothes and enough money to get a train. It'll just be for an hour."
"Suze is at my place."
"She won't mind. Tell her he's an old rocker - played with the stones or something."
Todd looks across at me and rolls his eyes, but I can tell he sees it makes sense.
"You'll have to get him to the station yourself
I told suze I'd take her out tonight."
"Alright."
I turn and look back at the old man riding along with us. "Is that good with you, Mick?"
"It is. And I can send the fare back to you, an' all."
I turn and settle into my seat, "That's that then."
But of course, that wasn't that.
Life is strange like that.
The best laid plans
and all that.
(to be continued...)
Endymion 2008
I like it Endy.
My favorite line this time was when Claire asked if Mick was the scoutmaster...
Also like the description of the land passing by outside the train window at the beginning and the train itself as a tube moving through the night.
I thought the description of the woman's voice as she dragged the little boy along (speaking in a voice, "cruel as a whip") was very effective.
Mick is great - that description of him standing in his pajama pants with the too-big Doc Martens on is perfect.
I also like how Alec is so kind to him.
Jesus, i can't spell for ****. Funny but back there (Tico kindly noticed) i wrote "the souls of his feet" Can you believe it?
Now 'Doc Martins'
i think i must be working my way up from the bottom!
thanks for reading this, Rebecca
e
