THE WEEKEND Part 2 – Friday, ‘Don’s’
By Albert-W
- 1473 reads
THE WEEKEND
2
Friday Night – ‘Don’s’
Don's shop was painted maroon on the outside. The boys thought it was 'smart', externally at least, though it was difficult to form a judgement about the inside. The empty display window was backed with pegboard and the door glass plastered with traded Superman, Marvelman and Spiderman comics, so hardly any light got through and you could see very little, which was just as well for under-agers who Don would allow to smoke themselves sick behind the Tizer crates.
He was a vulgar little man, a quality that enhanced his reputation no end with Ronnie and Greg. He would stay open late on Friday nights and they would go there to drink bottles of soda pop, smoke cigarettes and, if they were still around when he was cleaning his machine for the night, devour the crystallised candyfloss remnants that he would scoop out with a wooden spoon. Sometimes he would pass round the dog-eared black and white porno pictures that he kept in a shoebox behind the counter; otherwise he would tell crude jokes, his sneaky look making even the corniest of his chestnuts seem even dirtier.
If it was quiet, as it was tonight, Don would sit in his back room watching television - which is what he was doing when, on their way back from the ‘flicks’, the boys breezed in.
"Here Donny Donny Donny, here Donny Donny Donny," Horsefield called out, as though summoning a pet. He used to say that the man's silver-grey hair with its Brylcreem-matted crest poking up reminded him of a cockatoo.
Being baited in this way, having his cage rattled, irritated the shopkeeper immensely. "What do you want Shagnasty?" he grunted as he reluctantly emerged from the warmth of his perpetually burning Aladdin paraffin heater.
"Dun'no," Ronnie shrugged. "Still thinking about it."
"I'll have a penny drink," Greg said. You could choose how much-worth you wanted. A penny drink was one measure of cordial in a bottle of gassed water from a goldfish bowl-like dome. A twopenny drink meant two measures of cordial or, if you preferred, one measure mixed with a spoonful of coloured sherbet powder.
Don put his thumb over the neck of Greg’s bottle, shook it to make it froth and handed it over. "Made your mind up yet Horsefield?" he asked.
Ronnie had been standing behind Don, pulling dotty faces at and dreaming up ways to annoy the man. "Yeah;" he said, taking the last half-crown from his pocket and idly scratching it along the counter, "give me a two-bobber, with sherbet."
Don looked skyward and tutted. "Bloody crackpot."
"Well what's the strongest you can mix?"
"About eightpence I suppose."
"OK. Give us an eightpenny one Donny. Two juice and six sherbet."
The drink looked as revolting as it was going to taste; a super-saturated sludge of plum coloured syrup with vivid green powder in suspension. "Rather you than me," Don sniggered through a cough from the smoke of the Kensitas cigarette between his lips.
The fat boy re-pocketed his coin and made for the door.
"What do you think you're doing?" Don’s jaw dropped.
"I’m not drinking that shit. See ya Donny."
Greg drained his bottle, left a penny on the counter and followed.
Ten minutes later, Don's door flew open and closed again before he had time to get up from his armchair. The boys were now twenty Escort fags better off.
Like Alan, Ronnie was still on probation. He had broken into a grocery-cum-sub-post office one night and helped himself to cigarettes and chocolate bars. Then he had the bright idea of telephoning the police to report the crime. He thought it would be fun to watch them arrive, so hung about outside, smoking and munching Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut. "Hello Constable," he greeted the Sergeant. “Just saw a big black man running off down the road.”
“Really... and what’s that up your jumper?” the officer was no more fooled than a certain Mr. Goodson had been when Greg and Ronnie undertook to do some 'Bob-a-Job' gardening for him during Scout Week. Their foul language wafting through his window, and the sight of them chain-smoking, raised doubts in Goodson’s mind. He asked which troop they belonged to.
"Ninety-Fourth Brockley," Ronnie got in seconds before Greg with the absurd claim. Greg had intended to say Fifteenth Sydenham – an actual troop he had once belonged to.
Goodson refused to pay. Two mornings later, when he opened his door to get the milk from the step, the entire contents of his front garden fell in on top of him; shrubs, young trees, flowers, crazy paving, even the wrought iron gate with its spirals uncurled.
"And a very good morning to you, Mr. Goodson," Ronnie just had to be there to gloat; savour the victim’s reaction. "Nice day for a spot of pruning."
The fool could never resist going back, returning to the scene of the crime and opening his mouth. He was lucky on that occasion - and so was Greg. Horsefield senior silenced the man with forty pounds.
Don's 'complimentary' cigarettes were opened on St. George’s Corner, the favourite loitering place where they would sit on the low wall poking fun at passers-by. It was a five point road junction which meant that busses had to slow down before joining the mainstream coming down the hill; the ideal pitch to annoy the passengers. They hung around until almost eleven.
A bus pulled up and some people got off. "What ho chavvies," came a familiar greeting.
"What ho Ken," Ronnie chimed. "Give us a chip." He dipped into the newspaper wrapper that the boy was holding.
"There's only bits left," said Ken. "And some fish skin."
"Smart," said Ronnie, delving all the more. "I love the skin."
Another bus slowed down to wait its turn at the corner. Ronnie extracted a saliva'd finger from his mouth and stuck it up in the air by way of an impertinent signal to a woman passenger. Then the big diesel engine opened up for the heavy vehicle to move on.
"You buggers!" yelled the conductor from the open platform, shielding himself against a shower of batter crumbs and fishbones.
"Let's do the gardens," Ken said rather than asked. Ronnie and Greg went along with the idea, knowing the wisdom of not disagreeing with the muscular ex-approved school boxing champion - even though the prospect of doing the gardens worried them; or not so much going along as what Ken might do on the way. He had a tendency to go over the top, like he had done at Goodson's. Greg and Ronnie had only meant to nip off a few blooms that night, untidy the place a bit: certainly not devastate it like Ken had when he'd joined them at the last minute.
Doing the gardens was just another of Ken's exercises in bravado. They would travel the length of the road by way of back gardens, the main challenge to avoid detection. He liked it best when the occupants were at home, when the risk was highest.
Sometimes they would peer into windows if anything interesting was happening; like the time when a teenage girl was strutting around the kitchen in her underwear. She had been one of Ronnie's fantasies for some time so it was a particular treat for him. As he would come to do increasingly in the future, the steamed up adolescent took a souvenir pair of knickers from the washing line and stuffed them in his pocket - though he was good enough to push them back through her letterbox a couple of days later.
There wasn't much on tonight; they had covered nearly two-thirds of the route without incident when Ken stopped to linger in Mrs. Grisewood's garden - the chicken lady. He hadn't been keen on her since she'd thrown a lump of coal at his mother's cat, almost breaking its back, and he'd not had the opportunity to repay her for the kindness. They noticed him fumbling with the latch on the coop door, rattling it and swearing under his breath. Greg sensed imminent vandalism and took off, Ronnie close behind.
"What have you done?" Greg asked when Ken caught up.
"Opened the door. They'll all be out in a minute."
They waited. Nothing happened.
"Bugger," Ken cursed, and was back over the fences again. This time they did come out, being pitched one by one. Lights came on in some of the surrounding windows with curious faces looking out, straining their eyes to see the startled creatures that were making all the noise; clucking and flapping their wings in futile attempts to fly, with Mrs. Grisewood looking remarkably like her charges, clucking her way round the garden trying to coax them back.
In the safety of Greg’s mum's kitchen they made tea and cooked beans on toast. There were several lodgers in residence at the time, so it was a fair bet that there would be somebody around to taunt. There was, and it was Wilfred; a highly nervous little man who had been converted to the Catholic faith in middle age, such faith having developed into religious mania. He was at the dining room table sipping his night-time Horlicks.
"For what we are about to receive," Ken said grace before eating, "may the Lord make us truly thankful... and not give us the farts."
Wilfred shot to his feet, eyes blinking rapidly. "Well!" he was shocked. "I think that's terrible. Don't you know it's blasphemous to talk like that, Kenny?"
"Is it Wilfred?" the altar boy look was hardly convincing.
"Seems fair enough to me," Ronnie called from the larder where he was loading his arms with tins and jars. "We don't want the farts, so why shouldn't we pray not to get them?"
"Really!" Wilfred got half-up then sat again.
Ronnie came to the table almost staggering under the weight of relishes and conserves; and having arranged them around himself spooned out a helping of golden syrup which he allowed to glob in swirling patterns on the beans. This was followed by splodges of jam, brown sauce, tomato ketchup, chutney and a sprinkling of brown sugar. "Smart;" he admired his creation, “pass the Worcester.”
Try as he might to ignore the spectacle, Wilfred had to speak up. "You can't eat that," he said.
"Wann’a bet?"
Greg feigned a coughing fit to mask his snigger. Ronnie had stuffed a sizeable portion of the mess into his mouth and was chewing so disgustingly that its contents could be inspected by anybody fool enough to look. "Hmm," he expressed satisfaction through his nose then swigged his tea on top of the stodge. Wilfred averted his eyes, continuing to shake his head in disbelief.
"Thanks for nothing God," Ken suddenly moaned, raised a buttock off his chair and farted loudly.
Appalled by the proceedings, the little man got up to go, further riled by the burst of devilish cackling that erupted all round him – especially Ronnie's which had been heralded by a spray of the slop from his full, grinning mouth.
The fat boy said he wanted to call it a night. Tomorrow he would be going to Ladywell police station to claim the unclaimed bicycle that he'd ‘found’ and dutifully handed in some weeks before. He had not mentioned that he'd found it outside the owner's house.
Ken had other ideas. Earlier in the day he'd been in the loft, making some modifications to the lighting circuit that served Wilfred's bedroom. It now had a spur terminating in Greg’s. They waited in silence during the bed preparations, assuming that most of the delay was due to the man’s lengthy night prayers. The click of the light being switched off signalled their moment and Ken made the connection. The light came back on. And it came on several times more as Wilfred switched it off. He was developing a mania about lights. Only a couple of nights ago he'd come down from the bathroom to find his room in darkness, the light not working. While he was downstairs summoning Greg’s mother, Ken put the bulb back.
"Look," Wilfred demonstrated as he threw the switch, "it doesn't wor...."
Tonight it was his turn to remove the bulb: the only solution he could find to guarantee darkness. Peace at last, apart from Ronnie's parting gesture from right below his bedroom window. More swallowed air on top of a gutful of beans turned the lad's neck into a tuba as he blasted off. “Boll... OCKS!”
The short walk home gave the Horse enough time to brew a follow-up which he liberated as he entered his house.
"Ronald!" his father heard it from his bedroom.
CRASH!!! the door slammed.
"Olly olly Dad!"
“Sod you! Shut up and go to bed.”
“Olly olly Grandad!”
“I said shut up!”
“Olly olly Mum! Mum... Mum?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake... olly olly Ronnie.”
* * *
© Albert Woods (2014)
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Lively bad lad reality
Lively bad lad reality memories with a good ear for speech. I like it.
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