Bog Off Gregory

Until his Uncle Dennis snapped at him, Gregory had been a child to
be adored by all who came into contact with him. That he became an
outcast and chose to reverse the polarity of his personal magnetism was
apparently the fault of this grumpy uncle.

Gregory had tried to engage Uncle Dennis' attention, noisily and
insistently, as small children do. His uncle was not impressed. He had
wanted to watch the racing on TV. In fact he had far too much money bet
on a complete outsider and was rather fraught because of this. When he
had spoken impatiently to Gregory, female relatives within earshot had
descended on him like harpies.

'What a shocking thing to say'
'Don't upset the child.'
'He's far too young to be spoken to like that.'
And so they went on.

Gregory was not upset at being snapped at but the reaction of his
female admirers caused him to crumple his little face and howl. He
didn't know why but felt it was appropriate. Obviously the words had
major strength. 'Bog off', he pondered to himself, must be really
powerful. Gregory's uncle had actually said, 'Bugger off you little
sod' but the toddler had immature hearing and very poor speaking
ability so it became 'Bog off'.

Before this he hadn't bothered much with speech. He had preferred to
watch, listen, and keep his own counsel. Now he decided to speak, but
only two words. 'Bog' and 'off.'

He mulled it over for a few weeks. The first time he tried it out, he
was in the middle of a game involving a toy truck and a tower of bricks
which could be crashed in innumerable exciting and satisfying ways. In
response to his mother's ' Come on, Gregory, time for bed. Tidy up
NOW.'

He said 'Oh, bog off.'

What a terrific reaction! It wasn't of course aimed at him, but at the
vastly impoverished uncle who had left by now for a doss house on the
other side of town. Gregory relished the feeling of power. He enjoyed
the words. They became his standard answer to any conversational
confrontation.

'How are you today my little man?'
'Oh, bog off'.

'Looks like a nice day, Gregory. Let's walk to the park.'
'Oh, bog off.'

He particularly enjoyed the effect on his granny.
'Who's granny's little angel then?'
'Oh, bog off.'

Granny cried. She shrieked. She called down the wrath of heaven on her
son, Gregory's uncle.

By the time Gregory went to school he was becoming a major
embarrassment. Total strangers were not used to patronising infants in
the normal manner and being rewarded with 'bog off'.

The numerous schools he attended had tried hard. Child psychologists
had been called in and had been totally unsuccessful. Gregory had stuck
to his extremely limited vocabulary and got by very well. He sometimes
added the odd nod or shake of the head and even a winning smile when
required. He had been excluded from school for a while, but that had
been successfully contested. With the plethora of four-letter words
creeping into most TV programs, how could you exclude a child for
saying 'Bog off'? As long as no one asked him a question or required
him to speak, he didn't say it and was completely silent. If any
question at all was asked, the response was predictable. He became
known as 'Bog Off Gregory', or just 'BOG' among school social
circles.

Eventually he was left to his own devices and seemed to enjoy that. He
may have been learning. No one knew. It was easy to ignore him and his
teachers found it quite restful to have him in a class as he provided
an oasis of quiet in an often-turbulent environment. He even had his
retinue, a clique of silent children. Most of them didn't last the
pace, but for a while he had a cult following.

After a traumatic school career (traumatic for others, not Gregory), he
tried various jobs. None of these lasted for more than a week. As soon
as he told the wrong person to 'Bog off' he was unemployed again. He
hung around his childhood home for a few years, then he disappeared.
His peers worked, socialised, married, had kids, and forgot that
Gregory had even existed. His parents moved away. If Gregory was still
staying locally he didn't make himself known.

Years went by and still nothing more was heard of him until the body of
a tramp was found. The corpse wouldn't have merited more than standard
administrative attention by the police if it hadn't been for the
ghastly facial expression. It was the usual 'down-and-out dead in the
ditch' scenario and the police officers called to the scene sighed
wearily thinking of all the reports to be done and the sheer bother of
having to deal with all the red tape. Only Detective Sergeant Charlie
Collins thought of the tragedy of the wasted life in front of him and
even considered the human implications of the death, briefly.

The member of the public who had found the corpse was hanging around
importantly, although looking rather traumatised. He had found the
tramp when his dog investigated what appeared to be a heap of old
clothes as they trudged and gambolled respectively on an rare early
morning walk in the park. The witness was in a state of shock. He'd
looked down at a dead man. The face looking up at him had been
undeniably lifeless, but the lips were drawn back from the toothless
gums in a vicious snarl, and the wide-open eyes had a terrible look of
hatred. (In fact, months of therapy would fail to remove that
expression from his dreams.)

Back at the station, Charlie Collins sighed. It was always a problem,
the death of a homeless person. Probably this was just another drugs
death, or maybe he'd just got tired of the struggle to survive. The
cause of death would have to be found first and the identity
established. Charlie hated all the fuss. Probably no one would miss the
tramp at all. If he belonged to the area, someone would have known that
he was sleeping rough and perhaps taken him in.

The detective sergeant pulled himself up short. He knew better than
that. After the number of years he had put in as a policeman, the way
that members of a family could treat their relatives should not
surprise him at all. He set about making arrangements to publicise the
death. Perhaps a photo in the paper? He thought of the man's expression
and thought again. However, after having gone through the process of
trying to identify him from his fingerprints, he gave in, arranged for
a photographer to take a digital photograph and a computer expert to
remove the snarl and the expression in the eyes. The end result
surprised him. Such an ordinary-looking individual. .

After the photo appeared nothing much happened for a few days. Then a
trickle of people started to phone the number given in the newspaper.
Some were of the 'Yes I killed him' variety. 'Stuck a knife in him I
did because he looked like Joe or Frank or the Prime Minister. . .'
Yes, well, they knew to ignore such calls, but recorded them just in
case.

Then one or two started to ring true. 'That's Gregory Smith. You've
cleaned him up a bit and made him smile for the camera. However did you
do that? But it's Gregory.'

One caller claimed to be a cousin and blamed 'Gregory' for his father's
financial downfall and subsequent disappearance. Revenge? Every
police-trained cell in his body on the alert, Charlie Collins
quivered.

Someone claiming to be an aunt also phoned the station. She was tearful
and went on about Gregory, the 'lovely boy'. Charlie thought of the
pile of rags and doubted her memory, or indeed whether she had known
him at all, but asked her to make a statement as soon as possible, just
in case.

There was one thing Charlie was curious about. In the dead man's pocket
was an assortment of items including pages torn from a notebook. He had
scanned them thinking it was a diary or would give a clue to motive.
The writing was almost indecipherable after who knows how long in a
ditch, but after patient effort it was just legible. It seemed to be
poetry. The sergeant sighed. Was nothing easy? He would start by
interviewing the 'aunt'.

She gave him an insight he would rather not have had. She gave him all
the details of his childhood including his cult following at school,
which she was strangely proud of.

Charlie Collins knew what belonging to a cult was like. In his youth he
had been a member of such a group. It was in his anti-establishment
period. That's how he fondly remembered it. However he hadn't mentioned
it since joining the one establishment that had been the target of most
of his youthful attacks. He had held his peace and progressed to being
a detective sergeant. He often thought of his youth and strangely
enough, it didn't make him less hard on the juvenile miscreants he had
to deal with, rather the reverse.

The forensic investigation had brought one thing to the fore. A blow to
the head had killed Gregory Smith.

Everything hotted up a pace. Now there was no end of red tape and
bother. The whole station collectively sighed wearily. So someone had
reacted badly to an old tramp telling them to 'Bog off'. So what was
new? Some people took every remark far too personally.

Charlie Collins now had a more important role. He relished this in
spite of the extra work. He surprised himself by admitting this. It
wasn't often that murders happened in his area. He enjoyed the news
conferences. Well, he enjoyed the kudos it brought him. He wasn't so
happy with the questioning.

When one weasel-faced reporter asked a particular question Charlie was
grimly silent for a moment. It was obvious the reporter had inside
knowledge. Someone had been talking out of turn in the pub again. He
frowned long and hard and thought what he would say carefully. When he
did speak he put his foot in it, of course.

'Well, yes, there was a quantity of poetry found in the dead man's
pocket. We can categorically say at this point that it was the original
work of Gregory Smith.'

That's how the cult of Gregory Smith, newly discovered proficient poet,
started. University students became silent while writing reams of
poetry and telling each other to 'Bog off'. They couldn't be arrested
for it, so gradually it lost its appeal but Gregory had made his mark
on society. The 'Silent Poet', they called him.

Only one month later, another tramp was arrested for the murder of
Gregory Smith.

'Told me to 'bog off', he did, so I thumped him with a rock.'

Dennis Smith, Gregory's uncle, looked indignant as he was led away to
the cells.