Two Wee Men

This happened years ago, so there’s no good going back to check the ‘facts’ if you felt inclined to do so.  I won’t tell you much anyway, except for the bare bones, so you’ll have to make soup out of them yourself.  Here goes as much as I know:

    There were two wee men sitting opposite each other on the last tram of the night, nearly identical in height and appearance and demeanour.  Despite this, they were so mutually lost in their own contemplations that it took a long time for them to notice each other.  One of them had a trim bowler hat with a small feather (possibly retrieved from a fishing hook) tucked into its ribbon.  The second chap had a flat cap – or ‘bunnet’ – which was a little bit posher than the kind of cap worn everyday; so maybe it was his Sunday bonnet.  It was significant that they were dressed up to some degree, though within their means and not ostentatiously.  This being Glasgow they would never have dreamed of dandifying their clothes to the point of making a spectacle of themselves.

   When they eventually caught each other’s eye they might have doffed their hats at each other, except that their respective headgear was shelved on their knees.  They were the only passengers on board the tram car as it glided its way like a rain soaked wraith through the bleary outer suburbs.

   ‘Evening,’ said the one wee man when he finally noticed the other.  ‘How are you the night?’

   ‘No too bad,’ the other replied amiably.  ‘Busy, ye ken.  And how’s yersel?’

   ‘Fine and well,’ said the first, and chuckled. ‘I would like tae say I’m keepin oot o mischief, but that’s no true.’  Another chuckle.

    ‘Oh?’

    The Bowler Hat man leaned forward, cementing the conspiracy.

    ‘I’m awa to kill somebody.  It’s an awfy bother, a sair trauchle.’

    His new friend Bonnet clucked in sympathy and dared to ask who the intended victim might be.

    ‘Disnae matter,’ said the first man. His hand sliced through the cold autumn air.  ‘We’ll jist say that he did wrang and now he’s for the high jump.’

    ‘Fair dos,’ Bonnet agreed.  ‘But how are ye gonnae dae it?’

    ‘Hammer,’ said Bowler Hat. ‘Twa, three dunts on his heid, game ower.  Nae chance.’

    The other fellow wiped a trace of imaginary sweat from his bare brow.

    ‘Sounds fine,’ he admitted, considering.  ‘Do ye hae the weapon wi ye?’

    ‘Naw, that’s ane o the beauties o it.  He has aboot four bloody hammers in his hoose.  The chap’s ane o thae types that’s aye putting up shelves an makin stupid boxes an that. It’s nae trouble stoving in his skull wi ane o his ain mallets.  I ken whar he keeps them.’

    ‘Very good,’ said Bonnet admiringly.  ‘Tell me, does he live by hissel?’

   ‘He does now,’ Bowler said.  ‘He had a wee wife, bonny wumman as well, but she got sick o him clattering aboot the place banging an sawing and making a mess wi his tools.  So she went and stayed wi her sister and her man.  Ah dare say there was other factors involved forebye.’

  ‘I see.’  Bonnet nodded shrewdly.  ‘And nae weans there?’

  ‘Ach, they tried for years for bairns, but nothing doing, which was a blessing really.’

   Bonnet slapped his bonnet on his receptive lap, foreshadowing his witticism.

   ‘Aye, guid job nae weans,’ he chortled. ‘Ye wouldna want to be responsible for orphans now, would ye?’

    They both laughed heartily at this, but kept the volume down, out of respect for the driver who might have suspected he had two rowdy drunks on board, heaven forbid.  When the humour ebbed away the Bonnet Man tried to revive it with an observation, though it was more wistful than funny.

    ‘Jist think o the puir chump,’ he said.  ‘Bet he barely kent that his wife was awa, fixing up another shelf for ornaments and wee things that she was never gonnae use.’

    The picture of the prospective victim’s callous non concern for his wife roused both of them to indignation.

    ‘The bastard!’ Bowler Hat said.

    ‘Aye, bloody bastard deserves it!’ Bonnet agreed. ‘But whit’s the plan wi the remains?’

    ‘Dinna worry yerself aboot that.’  For the first time Bowler Hat slumped back on the bench and seemed wary if not suspicious.  It could have been he was just weary at the prospect of all the work he had to do.

     ‘Tell ye whit,’ the Bonnet Man said after a long, shrewd silence. ‘Whit the hell, I’ll throw my lot in wi you and gie you a hand.  Hows about that?’

    The other man frowned and seemed reluctant to commit himself.  It took a good deal of good humoured prompting before Bowler Hat seemed ready for the possibility of accepting assistance.  Still, he would not come out and actually ask for some help and his new friend was baffled by his behaviour.  After puzzling it out the Bonnet Man snapped his fingers and stated his conclusion:

   ‘I think the reason ye dinnae want my help is that ye’re no feart o getting caught.  Worse than that, maybe ye actually want to get caught and hung for it?  Have I got it straight, pal?’

    Here for the sake of pure theatre he took up his bonnet and solemnly placed it on his head, in the manner of the Lord Advocate acting out the supreme lawful sentence.

    The other man gulped and turned very pale and he started to tremble just a little.

    ‘Ye’re right,’ he said quietly.

    ‘Ho, ho!  I kent that was it.  But, here, there’s nae need for that extremity, I’m tellin ye.  I can see fae lookin at ye that ye’re capable o much mair than this wee murder.  Correct me if I’m wrang, but I believe ye may have someone else in mind tae dae in besides your first intended victim.’

    ‘Ye’ve hit the nail on the heid again,’ the man said, and blushed.

    ‘Listen, I am gonna help ye, whether ye like it or not.  Fact is I’ve got a wee runaround van that the work lets me use.  Also, I have a wee steading place up past the Campsie Fells.  My brither runs it, after a fashion.  One of the craturs he’s got up there is pigs, we’ll no exactly common pigs, but sort of pigs.  They greedy buggers would gobble up anything ye left oot for them, including cut up corpses.  Whit dae ye think?  I’ve got the day aff the morn an could easily gie you an yer deid pal a hurl up there, nae bother at all.’

    The other did become suspicious now.

    ‘Would ye be wanting paid for yer trouble?’

    ‘O, hush, man. I can see you’re the type that likes formalities.  If ye want things on a business footing then we’ll play it that way. I’ll tak ten bob, nae mair or less.’

    ‘Ten bob.  Is that it?’

    Bonnet Man stood up menacingly.  He looked taller now.  The tram swayed gently in one direction and he swayed in the other.  It reminded Bowler Hat of a dead man swinging at the end of a rope.

    ‘Ten bob and ain o yer fingers,’ Bonnet Man said quickly.

    ‘My finger?  How’s that?’  Bowler Hat stood up now, did a little jig and clutched his hands protectively.

    ‘Nae worrying now.  It would be aff yer left mitt, no yer killing, hammering hand.  Call it a wee quirk o mine, and a future reminder for yersel.  A pinkie would dae.’

    Bowler Hat sat down.  He considered.  ‘Jist a pinkie, ye say?’

    ‘That’s richt.  But I would need it in advance, now in fact.  The money can wait.’

    ‘Go on then.’

    It happened very swiftly.  The tram negotiated a gentle corner, accentuating the pattern of rain on the windows.  The driver seemed to let out a muted sigh about something.  The Bonnet Man stretched forward lazily, as if hardly bothering to expend energy in his act.  He must have reached out, although the movement was as amorphous as a cloud, and he must have had a knife, though it seemed to the other like a strangely extended and twisted black fingernail.  The implement snicked off the offending little digit without effort.  It didn’t hurt at all and there was very little blood spillage.

    Bowler Hat man was about to comment on this surprise when he looked up and saw that the man opposite had transmogrified into a huge and ugly boar hog, standing upright and coming right at him, slavering and squealing.

    There was only one man left inside when the driver wearily reached the terminus.

    Instead of telling the fellow abruptly to ‘get aff and go hame’ as was his custom, he smiled and sat opposite him, then proferred a cigarette.  He could see the man was much like himself in age and build.  More than that, he was wearing a tram driver’s uniform and hat.  He leaned forward and began to speak to him.