Funny Man(Lucky Jim?)

I used to know a funny man, who actually wasn't funny, no I mean he
was funny, just not funny, do you understand what I mean by funny? Tell
you what I attract these funny people all the time, who plainly just
aren't funny, no not in the slightest bit amusing at all, and I've done
it for as long as I can remember, never more than one at a time but as
sure as one goes another appears, with their best masked unfunny face
on, this because I think they desperately long to be unfunny.


It sometimes takes a while but the mask eventually,
slowly, peels away like ageing wallpaper to reveal the funny person. I
say people, but in reality it is nearly always men, and I say funny but
in reality it's nearly always men somewhere along that long lonely one
way street we call despair, so it's not funny at all really, it's
really rather sad and it's sad because sometimes they're just not aware
of this. I feel I'm an expert in spotting the funny person, because
there is always a tiny spot or corner of the wallpaper just beginning
to peel, I look for it and when I spot it I sit and wait, and sure
enough just as soon as you gain their confidence the rest tears slowly
but effortlessly away, you find that nearly all funny people are just
dieing to be revealed and share what they believe, I like to say I'm
immune now to their behaviour and their philosophies, their ranting and
peculiar laughs pass over me, an occasional nod and smile in their
direction will always suffice when they're in full flow, and gives them
an idea that you respect them and their ideas, sometimes I can manage
the former but never the latter. I've grown to learn that funny people
in general burn brightly in one spot, fade and move on, eventually they
learn not to deny and that they are being laughed at behind their backs
by the people who like to ridicule, who aren't immune, trouble is they
quickly forget this after they've moved on, either that or they refuse
to accept they're a lost cause.

But for some reason
other people I know find this genuinely funny. These are people who
don't attract funny people like I do, apparently they apart from
themselves aren't able to 'suffer fools gladly,' they're not immune
like me, they still gain a cruel glee and they guffaw their surprise at
the things funny people do, these are the people who like to ridicule.
These people- by the way did I mention these are also in the main men-
who aren't immune realise their own despair, they laugh because they
think funny people are worse off than they, people who aren't immune go
to their graves fully comprehending their lives that have just come to
an end were shit, maybe just as the final curtain was falling, but
never the less they realise, on the other hand some funny people die
without ever realising they were unhappy, so as a matter of interest
which do you think is sadder? I think someone once said, " Those who
laugh the loudest and the hardest, are sometimes some of the most
unhappiest people around," and even if they didn't say it and I've just
made it up, I still think it sounds like it might have a ring of truth
about it?

So ok this funny man was called Jim, and
unlike the other funny people I'd known, Jim's wallpaper had been torn
down long ago, so he was fully revealed, but unlike other funny people
he hadn't moved on, sadly he was unaware that the people who weren't
immune were laughing behind his back, ridiculing him. Sadder was the
fact that Jim actually thought he was part of the gang.


Jim was in his mid- forties when I met him, he was
from Dundee, five foot two, balding had bad breath and looked like a
cross between a Goblin and a Dwarf, with a crooked tooth grin and an
unappealing hissing whistling laugh like Muttley the cartoon dog off
the TV series 'Catch the Pigeon,' so Mr Universe he wasn't. He also had
rather manic twitching eyes and combed the few remaining strands of
hair he had left on his head across his pate 'Bobby Charlton,' style,
and then criticised our national hero for doing just that very same
thing, as I say Jim was a funny man. His personality was arrogant,
bigheaded, tactless and blunt. Around Jim one quickly had to learn
quickly to cringe with subtlety and stifle groans of
disbelief.

A couple of occasions stick in the mind,
one where he asked a lady to join our quiz team, she was flattered
initially only to be informed by Jim that she might be needed to answer
questions on cookery, knitting and soap operas when she wasn't fetching
the beer, surprisingly she declined to join much to Jim's chagrin. On
another occasion Jim whilst playing a quiz machine in my company in a
rough pub, was approached by one the regulars I knew as a local
villain, I looked on nervously as the worse for weather Jim was spoken
to by this character, who by the way was well oiled
too.

"What you doing mate?" He began quite
amiably.

"I'm playing the machine," Replied Jim
Curtly, barely acknowledging our friend.

I smiled
sweetly and said, "Alright (shit!!!) Mate?" I was
ignored.

So he continued, "It's just that I never
see anybody win on these things, and I wondered how you lads did it?" I
was now getting concerned (please don't Jim).

Jim
replied nonchalantly, "Well, you never see anybody win in here because
the place is always full of idiots, so I wait for you idiots to fill
the machine then I come in and empty it. Voila!!" He then grinned and
laughed Muttley style, rubbing his hands together as another jackpot
tinkled in machine winnings tray. I was biting my knuckles? subtly (I
knew it, I bloody knew it).

Our villain friend
smiled momentarily, too drunk to realise at first the enormity of Jim's
insult, Jim drunk or sober would never comprehend that his last remark
could ever be construed as insulting, he was just being honest. After
it had gradually sunk in our unwanted associate's smile began dissipate
into a menacing frown, drunkenly he turned to his cohorts strewn in
various pose around the bar.

"OH Yeah! Well that is
nice isn't it? Lads can you hear this, very nice that is, very nice,
we're all a bunch of twats in here apparently," for a moment I had to
clench my buttocks tightly, visions of being pummelled to a pulp were
doing a rapid-fire slide show in my mind. But thankfully one of his
band of muckers called him back.

" Brian just sit
down, just forget it man, leave it," apparently we were too pathetic
and weren't worth the effort of mutilating. After we left the pub
(fifteen seconds after the discussion) we heard later that day, a
full-scale battle took place in the pub after an argument over a game
of Pool, we were lucky, early by about half a dozen pints of
beer.

Jim also had a prodigious appetite, an
appetite that was a legend. One night after a works do where he almost
single handedly devoured the buffet, he on returning to the Coach
popped into a Chip shop, where he demolished a hearty fish supper only
to vomit it immediately over a wall once he commenced the journey back
to the coach. His hunger still not satisfied he popped into another
takeaway and did the very same with a Pie and chip supper, the distance
between the work's venue and coach was about 200 yards. Another time he
argued for over ten minutes with a Canteen manager at work about having
to pay for the bones in a Pork chop.

Jim was also a
great music lover and collector, he was also a man of facts and
figures, useless info some might call it. Combined these two interests
made Jim 'King of the who wants him
club.'

"Question," he would announce chirpily, he
would then ask "What have," followed by a conundrum no one but Jim
understood, for example, " Brigitte Bardot, Shergar and Gandhi got in
common," followed by his irritating whistling hissing Muttley laugh,
because he knew you weren't going to get it. I listened to these
questions everyday for over a decade, Jim would follow up his questions
by saying encouragingly, "if you think about it, you'll get it," this
was as true as saying if you keeping drinking from it, one day you'll
drain the Pacific Ocean by yourself, but after a decade of Jim's
questions I would have given great thought to giving the Ocean a
try.

There are many more of these stories; they're
funny and sad at the same time, I may have laughed a few times and I
may also have been angry with him and yes even wanted the ground to
swallow me up, but in the main I was sad because Jim was striving
against in surmountable odds not to be funny, trying so hard to blend
in with the unfunny crowd.

"Why did the chicken
cross the road?" He asked a gang of us one day, followed by that hisssh
hisssh laugh that everybody mimicked. Jim liked to tell jokes and laugh
at them, and he would laugh at them until you laughed, and you had to
laugh because otherwise if you didn't he wouldn't go
away.

"To avoid you Jim, because you're a pain in
the arse," came the acidic reply from one of the non-immune. After the
'Thunderous silence' that, that response incurred, Jim laughed bravely
but then slunk off I imagine hurt when he realised he was being laughed
at not with, splutters and then gales of laughter followed as he
traipsed off forlornly around the corner." Man i hate that guy,"
continued our pugnacious friend.

The remark came
someone who was a Diabetic, they're known for having mood swings, sadly
he died a few months later never regaining consciousness after drinking
himself into a coma, after forgetting to take his Insulin. His
girlfriend had just left him. He laughed the hardest that day; but
behind his laugh and his rough boy edge you could sense his sadness,
not a bad bloke by any means, but sometimes-unhappy people need those
around them to be unhappy too.

I met Jim's wife
Susan for the first time after I known him for several years, he was
showing me how he indexed his CD collection one day at his house, no
detail was left unrecorded, and I remember the mind numbing experience
of him in his element as he explained the conception, birth and death
of each Artiste lovingly in detail, the book he showed me contained
every single fact that one would not want know about dreadful middle of
the road American rock bands, written down in controlled Teutonic
calligraphic style, Jim admired Germans because they were so organised
and neat.

So there I am riveted by Jim's fondness
for detail to a Reo Speedwagon album when in walks his wife. So I look
up and see something I don't expect to see, I see a woman who
definitely wasn't meant for Jim, ok she wasn't 'Sophia Loren,' but my
immediate unfair thoughts were why did you marry Jim and more
importantly why are you still with him? She was seven years younger and
seven inches taller than Jim and I could tell that in her day she would
have been a strikingly good-looking woman. And then I began to think
more unkind things; things I had no right to think at all, I mean I'd
just met her two seconds ago. Although they'd been married for over
twenty years, my thought was that this marriage was on borrowed time,
her hello and smile said it all, the forced smile of a decent person.
But a weak smile that couldn't cover the face of total disillusionment.
Jim guffawed again unaware with another useless bit of tat, and I saw
her cringe ever so slightly, she'd learned in company to cringe with
subtlety. And I thought how frightening you've lived with him and that
bloody irritating laugh for over twenty years, for twenty years you've
inhaled his stagnant breath when you've kissed him, you've woken every
morning to see his ugly repulsive gnarled little face opposite you???.
my you've even copulated with this revolting little man. You have two
daughters by this man; I really do pity them and you, yes I really do.
You've heard all his awful jokes and questions haven't you, I can tell
you have because no normal person's face could mask the mental cruelty
you've had to endure. Do you not wretch when you watch this repugnant
Hog snuffle at his trough? Twenty years is an awful long time to bite
your lip Susan, how do you and other women do it? I almost whispered
this. God, I thought life could be so very cruel sometimes without
trying.

I was annoyed even shocked with myself for
having those thoughts, but those truthfully were some of my thoughts,
the one's I can recollect anyway.

So those cruel
thoughts made it clear that I wasn't Jim's friend, in fact I obviously
really disliked him, I mean why else would I think those things? So I
did what I thought was the decent thing, it was unfair to maintain the
fa?ade of friendship and too hurtful to blurt out the hard facts, so I
decided to distance myself slowly from Jim, abandon him to those who
weren't immune, to those who liked to ridicule, to those who hunted
like Wolves. What I did wasn't decent at all; it was a totally gutless,
spineless thing to do.

A while later, I'm not sure
how long later Jim announced that Susan had left him, I remember his
tortured face racked with pain, shock looking at me, puzzled that I
wasn't even perturbed.

"I'm sorry to hear that
(well what did you expect you silly little man?) Mate, I didn't realise
anything was wrong (Right!!!). What happened?" I offered lame
unconvincing sympathy.

Apparently Susan had found a
new hobby, line dancing five nights a week Monday-Friday, from 5pm to
11pm, I barely stifled a laugh when Jim told me this. He eventually
cottoned on after several months and confronted her; she told him
bluntly she'd found someone else.

" Choose then,"
said Jim, "It's him or me not both," he continued defiantly. The poor
man was genuinely surprised she chose the former, "what did she want?"
he asked.

I replied, "I don't know mate, women are
hard to comprehend sometimes." What she wanted was a twenty year rebate
of her life back, she wanted to smile instead stifling frowns, to
scream her head off and release twenty years of pent up steam, maybe
have enjoyable sex, as I said twenty years is along time to keep biting
your lip and to subtlety cringe. And so it was poor old Jim who was
left with the achey breaky heart. No don't laugh, that isn't
funny.

Jim retired from work shortly after this
news, shame or perhaps loss of pride made it impossible to work where
everybody knew, he mentioned a new start, a new life, making real money
compiling quiz's for big venue's, I stopped myself laughing but I did
smile but lucky for me silly old Jim thought it was a smile of
encouragement and not condescension and so off he toddled into the
sunset.

A few years later I met Jim with his new
wife, now this was the girl meant for him, I won't describe her but she
was terrifyingly the female equivalent of him; these two were the
perfect match. The quiz thing hadn't worked out surprisingly and Jim
was back working on the treadmill 9-5, I genuinely hoped to see
happiness in his eyes now that he had found the girl that was meant for
him, instead I saw the image of his former wife imprinted in his tragic
eyes, her shadow still hung over him, he didn't want the girl that was
meant for him he wanted HER back, he'd settled for his match because
that's all there was left for him now, sad. I said goodbye quickly,
because again I began to think things I really had no right to think.
And that was the last i saw Jim.

Funny thing though
after Jim left the scene, no one followed in after him, I mean usually
someone of this same but vast brand of funny people would follow, but
no one did this time?strange? Later I was speaking to a few of the lads
at work and we were reminiscing and laughing about Jim's little
foibles, and I left them laughing heartily I did, but as I turned the
corner the mood of that laughter changed to that crueller snider tone
I'd heard before?. maybe I was being paranoid, but I swear the chaps
were???? laughing at me. I used to know a funny man, who actually
wasn't funny, no I mean he was funny, just not funny, do you understand
what I mean by funny? Tell you what I attract these funny people all
the time, who plainly just aren't funny, no not in the slightest bit
amusing at all, and I've done it for as long as I can remember, never
more than one at a time but as sure as one goes another appears, with
their best masked unfunny face on, this because I think they
desperately long to be unfunny.

It sometimes takes a while but the mask eventually, slowly, peels away
like ageing wallpaper to reveal the funny person. I say people, but in
reality it is nearly always men, and I say funny but in reality it's
nearly always men somewhere along that long lonely one way street we
call despair, so it's not funny at all really, it's really rather sad
and it's sad because sometimes they're just not aware of this. I feel
I'm an expert in spotting the funny person, because there is always a
tiny spot or corner of the wallpaper just beginning to peel, I look for
it and when I spot it I sit and wait, and sure enough just as soon as
you gain their confidence the rest tears slowly but effortlessly away,
you find that nearly all funny people are just dieing to be revealed
and share what they believe, I like to say I'm immune now to their
behaviour and their philosophies, their ranting and peculiar laughs
pass over me, an occasional nod and smile in their direction will
always suffice when they're in full flow, and gives them an idea that
you respect them and their ideas, sometimes I can manage the former but
never the latter. I've grown to learn that funny people in general burn
brightly in one spot, fade and move on, eventually they learn not to
deny and that they are being laughed at behind their backs by the
people who like to ridicule, who aren't immune, trouble is they quickly
forget this after they've moved on, either that or they refuse to
accept they're a lost cause.

But for some reason other people I know find this genuinely funny.
These are people who don't attract funny people like I do, apparently
they apart from themselves aren't able to 'suffer fools gladly,'
they're not immune like me, they still gain a cruel glee and they
guffaw their surprise at the things funny people do, these are the
people who like to ridicule. These people- by the way did I mention
these are also in the main men- who aren't immune realise their own
despair, they laugh because they think funny people are worse off than
they, people who aren't immune go to their graves fully comprehending
their lives that have just come to an end were shit, maybe just as the
final curtain was falling, but never the less they realise, on the
other hand some funny people die without ever realising they were
unhappy, so as a matter of interest which do you think is sadder? I
think someone once said, " Those who laugh the loudest and the hardest,
are sometimes some of the most unhappiest people around," and even if
they didn't say it and I've just made it up, I still think it sounds
like it might have a ring of truth about it?

So ok this funny man was called Jim, and unlike the other funny people
I'd known, Jim's wallpaper had been torn down long ago, so he was fully
revealed, but unlike other funny people he hadn't moved on, sadly he
was unaware that the people who weren't immune were laughing behind his
back, ridiculing him. Sadder was the fact that Jim actually thought he
was part of the gang.

Jim was in his mid- forties when I met him, he was from Dundee, five
foot two, balding had bad breath and looked like a cross between a
Goblin and a Dwarf, with a crooked tooth grin and an unappealing
hissing whistling laugh like Muttley the cartoon dog off the TV series
'Catch the Pigeon,' so Mr Universe he wasn't. He also had rather manic
twitching eyes and combed the few remaining strands of hair he had left
on his head across his pate 'Bobby Charlton,' style, and then
criticised our national hero for doing just that very same thing, as I
say Jim was a funny man. His personality was arrogant, bigheaded,
tactless and blunt. Around Jim one quickly had to learn quickly to
cringe with subtlety and stifle groans of disbelief.

A couple of occasions stick in the mind, one where he asked a lady to
join our quiz team, she was flattered initially only to be informed by
Jim that she might be needed to answer questions on cookery, knitting
and soap operas when she wasn't fetching the beer, surprisingly she
declined to join much to Jim's chagrin. On another occasion Jim whilst
playing a quiz machine in my company in a rough pub, was approached by
one the regulars I knew as a local villain, I looked on nervously as
the worse for weather Jim was spoken to by this character, who by the
way was well oiled too.

"What you doing mate?" He began quite amiably.

"I'm playing the machine," Replied Jim Curtly, barely acknowledging our
friend.

I smiled sweetly and said, "Alright (shit!!!) Mate?" I was
ignored.

So he continued, "It's just that I never see anybody win on these
things, and I wondered how you lads did it?" I was now getting
concerned (please don't Jim).

Jim replied nonchalantly, "Well, you never see anybody win in here
because the place is always full of idiots, so I wait for you idiots to
fill the machine then I come in and empty it. Voila!!" He then grinned
and laughed Muttley style, rubbing his hands together as another
jackpot tinkled in machine winnings tray. I was biting my knuckles?
subtly (I knew it, I bloody knew it).

Our villain friend smiled momentarily, too drunk to realise at first
the enormity of Jim's insult, Jim drunk or sober would never comprehend
that his last remark could ever be construed as insulting, he was just
being honest. After it had gradually sunk in our unwanted associate's
smile began dissipate into a menacing frown, drunkenly he turned to his
cohorts strewn in various pose around the bar.

"OH Yeah! Well that is nice isn't it? Lads can you hear this, very nice
that is, very nice, we're all a bunch of twats in here apparently," for
a moment I had to clench my buttocks tightly, visions of being
pummelled to a pulp were doing a rapid-fire slide show in my mind. But
thankfully one of his band of muckers called him back.

" Brian just sit down, just forget it man, leave it," apparently we
were too pathetic and weren't worth the effort of mutilating. After we
left the pub (fifteen seconds after the discussion) we heard later that
day, a full-scale battle took place in the pub after an argument over a
game of Pool, we were lucky, early by about half a dozen pints of
beer.

Jim also had a prodigious appetite, an appetite that was a legend. One
night after a works do where he almost single handedly devoured the
buffet, he on returning to the Coach popped into a Chip shop, where he
demolished a hearty fish supper only to vomit it immediately over a
wall once he commenced the journey back to the coach. His hunger still
not satisfied he popped into another takeaway and did the very same
with a Pie and chip supper, the distance between the work's venue and
coach was about 200 yards. Another time he argued for over ten minutes
with a Canteen manager at work about having to pay for the bones in a
Pork chop.

Jim was also a great music lover and collector, he was also a man of
facts and figures, useless info some might call it. Combined these two
interests made Jim 'King of the who wants him club.'

"Question," he would announce chirpily, he would then ask "What have,"
followed by a conundrum no one but Jim understood, for example, "
Brigitte Bardot, Shergar and Gandhi got in common," followed by his
irritating whistling hissing Muttley laugh, because he knew you weren't
going to get it. I listened to these questions everyday for over a
decade, Jim would follow up his questions by saying encouragingly, "if
you think about it, you'll get it," this was as true as saying if you
keeping drinking from it, one day you'll drain the Pacific Ocean by
yourself, but after a decade of Jim's questions I would have given
great thought to giving the Ocean a try.

There are many more of these stories; they're funny and sad at the same
time, I may have laughed a few times and I may also have been angry
with him and yes even wanted the ground to swallow me up, but in the
main I was sad because Jim was striving against in surmountable odds
not to be funny, trying so hard to blend in with the unfunny
crowd.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" He asked a gang of us one day,
followed by that hisssh hisssh laugh that everybody mimicked. Jim liked
to tell jokes and laugh at them, and he would laugh at them until you
laughed, and you had to laugh because otherwise if you didn't he
wouldn't go away.

"To avoid you Jim, because you're a pain in the arse," came the acidic
reply from one of the non-immune. After the 'Thunderous silence' that,
that response incurred, Jim laughed bravely but then slunk off I
imagine hurt when he realised he was being laughed at not with,
splutters and then gales of laughter followed as he traipsed off
forlornly around the corner." Man i hate that guy," continued our
pugnacious friend.

The remark came someone who was a Diabetic, they're known for having
mood swings, sadly he died a few months later never regaining
consciousness after drinking himself into a coma, after forgetting to
take his Insulin. His girlfriend had just left him. He laughed the
hardest that day; but behind his laugh and his rough boy edge you could
sense his sadness, not a bad bloke by any means, but sometimes-unhappy
people need those around them to be unhappy too.

I met Jim's wife Susan for the first time after I known him for several
years, he was showing me how he indexed his CD collection one day at
his house, no detail was left unrecorded, and I remember the mind
numbing experience of him in his element as he explained the
conception, birth and death of each Artiste lovingly in detail, the
book he showed me contained every single fact that one would not want
know about dreadful middle of the road American rock bands, written
down in controlled Teutonic calligraphic style, Jim admired Germans
because they were so organised and neat.

So there I am riveted by Jim's fondness for detail to a Reo Speedwagon
album when in walks his wife. So I look up and see something I don't
expect to see, I see a woman who definitely wasn't meant for Jim, ok
she wasn't 'Sophia Loren,' but my immediate unfair thoughts were why
did you marry Jim and more importantly why are you still with him? She
was seven years younger and seven inches taller than Jim and I could
tell that in her day she would have been a strikingly good-looking
woman. And then I began to think more unkind things; things I had no
right to think at all, I mean I'd just met her two seconds ago.
Although they'd been married for over twenty years, my thought was that
this marriage was on borrowed time, her hello and smile said it all,
the forced smile of a decent person. But a weak smile that couldn't
cover the face of total disillusionment. Jim guffawed again unaware
with another useless bit of tat, and I saw her cringe ever so slightly,
she'd learned in company to cringe with subtlety. And I thought how
frightening you've lived with him and that bloody irritating laugh for
over twenty years, for twenty years you've inhaled his stagnant breath
when you've kissed him, you've woken every morning to see his ugly
repulsive gnarled little face opposite you???. my you've even copulated
with this revolting little man. You have two daughters by this man; I
really do pity them and you, yes I really do. You've heard all his
awful jokes and questions haven't you, I can tell you have because no
normal person's face could mask the mental cruelty you've had to
endure. Do you not wretch when you watch this repugnant Hog snuffle at
his trough? Twenty years is an awful long time to bite your lip Susan,
how do you and other women do it? I almost whispered this. God, I
thought life could be so very cruel sometimes without trying.

I was annoyed even shocked with myself for having those thoughts, but
those truthfully were some of my thoughts, the one's I can recollect
anyway.

So those cruel thoughts made it clear that I wasn't Jim's friend, in
fact I obviously really disliked him, I mean why else would I think
those things? So I did what I thought was the decent thing, it was
unfair to maintain the fa?ade of friendship and too hurtful to blurt
out the hard facts, so I decided to distance myself slowly from Jim,
abandon him to those who weren't immune, to those who liked to
ridicule, to those who hunted like Wolves. What I did wasn't decent at
all; it was a totally gutless, spineless thing to do.

A while later, I'm not sure how long later Jim announced that Susan had
left him, I remember his tortured face racked with pain, shock looking
at me, puzzled that I wasn't even perturbed.

"I'm sorry to hear that (well what did you expect you silly little
man?) Mate, I didn't realise anything was wrong (Right!!!). What
happened?" I offered lame unconvincing sympathy.

Apparently Susan had found a new hobby, line dancing five nights a week
Monday-Friday, from 5pm to 11pm, I barely stifled a laugh when Jim told
me this. He eventually cottoned on after several months and confronted
her; she told him bluntly she'd found someone else.

" Choose then," said Jim, "It's him or me not both," he continued
defiantly. The poor man was genuinely surprised she chose the former,
"what did she want?" he asked.

I replied, "I don't know mate, women are hard to comprehend sometimes."
What she wanted was a twenty year rebate of her life back, she wanted
to smile instead stifling frowns, to scream her head off and release
twenty years of pent up steam, maybe have enjoyable sex, as I said
twenty years is along time to keep biting your lip and to subtlety
cringe. And so it was poor old Jim who was left with the achey breaky
heart. No don't laugh, that isn't funny.

Jim retired from work shortly after this news, shame or perhaps loss of
pride made it impossible to work where everybody knew, he mentioned a
new start, a new life, making real money compiling quiz's for big
venue's, I stopped myself laughing but I did smile but lucky for me
silly old Jim thought it was a smile of encouragement and not
condescension and so off he toddled into the sunset.

A few years later I met Jim with his new wife, now this was the girl
meant for him, I won't describe her but she was terrifyingly the female
equivalent of him; these two were the perfect match. The quiz thing
hadn't worked out surprisingly and Jim was back working on the
treadmill 9-5, I genuinely hoped to see happiness in his eyes now that
he had found the girl that was meant for him, instead I saw the image
of his former wife imprinted in his tragic eyes, her shadow still hung
over him, he didn't want the girl that was meant for him he wanted HER
back, he'd settled for his match because that's all there was left for
him now, sad. I said goodbye quickly, because again I began to think
things I really had no right to think. And that was the last i saw
Jim.

Funny thing though after Jim left the scene, no one followed in after
him, I mean usually someone of this same but vast brand of funny people
would follow, but no one did this time?strange? Later I was speaking to
a few of the lads at work and we were reminiscing and laughing about
Jim's little foibles, and I left them laughing heartily I did, but as I
turned the corner the mood of that laughter changed to that crueller
snider tone I'd heard before?. maybe I was being paranoid, but I swear
the chaps were???? laughing at me.
Print this page