Bog Off Gregory

BOG OFF GREGORY

The body would not have merited more than standard administrative
attention by the police if it hadn't been for the 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 the detective sergeant 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 unusual 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 the sergeant sighed. They were always a problem,
homeless people. Probably this was just another drugs death. Or in this
case, as he seemed to be such an old fellow, 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. The sergeant 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 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 old chap'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
early death. Revenge? Every police-trained cell in his body on the
alert, the sergeant quivered.

Someone claiming to be an aunt also phoned the station. She was tearful
and went on about Gregory, the 'lovely boy'. The sergeant thought of
the pile of rags and doubted her memory, or indeed whether she did
indeed know him, but asked her to make a statement as soon as
possible.

There was one thing the sergeant 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 have rather not had. Apparently
Gregory had been an enchanting baby. Small, with a sweet heart-shaped
face and delicate features, he had smiled continually. He had been the
centre of attention for adoring females from his earliest days. That he
became an outcast and chose to reverse the polarity of his personal
magnetism was apparently the fault of a grumpy uncle.

Gregory had tried to engage his attention at the age of three, as small
children do. The uncle was not impressed with his social skills. He
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. 'Oh, bog
off Gregory. I'm busy,' was all he had said. 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 must be really powerful.

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

The first time he tried it, a few weeks later, 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 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, the perpetrator of the infamy of introducing
Gregory to the magic words.

No amount of persuasion or threats would stop Gregory using the words.
By the time he 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'.

Gregory still looked angelic. When he went to school on the first day,
floods of little girls gravitated towards him then fled as he uttered
the first of many 'bog offs'

The various schools he went to 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, with the
addition of the odd nod 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. He became known as Bog Off Gregory 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
following, a clique of silent children. Most of them didn't last the
pace.

The sergeant knew what belonging to a cult was like. In his youth he
had been a member of such an organisation. 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 sergeant. He often thought of his youth and
strangely enough, it didn't make him less hard on the young miscreants
he had to deal with, rather the reverse.

The forensic investigation had also brought one thing to the fore.
Gregory Smith had been killed by a blow to the head.

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.

The sergeant now had a more important role. In spite of the extra work,
he relished this. He surprised himself by admitting it. 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 question. It was obvious he had
inside knowledge. The sergeant looked grim. 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.