Ugly Puggly 15

I couldn’t get the electricity to work. I tried everything but paying for it. Flinging my arm around Dave’s shoulder in a rough clutch, he turned his head and his eyes away from his phone. His arm trembled. I gave a hearty slap on the back. ‘C’mon Toots, we need tae go up tae the hospital tae see yer pal. I’m sick of fish suppers and you cannae even dae the washin-up properly—without hot water.’

Leaning over his chair, I sniffed about his head. ‘You’re gettin a bit fruity tae.’

‘So are you,’ he replied. ‘Yeh smell like an old jakey.’

‘That’s cause I’m ur one, ya cheeky cunt.’

My jacket was hanging in the lobby. I came back into the living room with it on. Van keys in my hand. ‘You coming or no?’

He looked up from his phone and scrolled through pictures of men his age. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Tell him I was asking for him.’  

‘Fuck off. Tell him yesel when you see him.’  

Backing the van out of the bay, I was concentrating on my wing-side mirror, and not hitting one of the neighbour’s mobile home that he’d plonked down like a spaceship with twin bikes attached precariously on the narrow road. Dave came trotting out in his slippers, clutching his arms across his chest to keep out the cold. I parked the van in the middle of the road. He pulled the passenger door open and jumped into the seat and turned the heating up to full.

‘Whit’s wrang wae yeh?’ I asked. ‘Did yeh fall oot wae yer phone?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking we could get a bottle of wine on the way back.’

I indicated and waited for a Fiat to clear the hill. ‘We’re no even up there and you’re already making plans for the way back? You’re here on sufferance.’

‘What does that mean?’ he finally asked.

I stared into the road. ‘Ne’er mind.’

He fiddled with the radio. ‘Don’t touch that,’ I growled and felt like slapping him.

But he didn’t seem to notice. Yawned, stuck his fist over his gob and shut his eyes and seemed to sleep for part of the journey.

We’d hit peek visiting hours and finding a parking space was difficult. Ugly Puggly didn’t seem that surprised to see us. We found a table and he went and got the teas for us and himself. Dave sat next to me and pulled his chair in too close. He actually held a hand up and waved at him. I glared at him through squinted eyes. ‘Whit the fuck yeh daeing?’ Pointed a finger. ‘He’s jist sittin oer there.’

Ugly Puggly pushed a mug of tea across and shrugged. ‘Some people get like that in here. Fear softens the body and tears at the soul. He’s just being a bit boyish.’

I sipped at my tea. Made smacking noises with my lips. ‘Nae sugar?’

‘Yeh, no where it is.’ Ugly Puggly gestured behind him and the woman in the next table looked over.

I stood up and leaned over with my knuckles on the table. ‘I’ll leave you two tae it.’

Picking up my mug, I took the long route to the table with milk and sugar. A staff member with square specs stood up.  

‘You want more tea?’ he asked.

‘Nah, sugar.’ I reached for a couple of sachets. A choice between brown or white sugar. I went with the healthy brown. ‘I’m sweet enough,’ I said, stirring my tea.

He gave me the standard fake smile, but relaxed a bit. I nodded towards Ugly Puggly. ‘When’s he getting oot?’

The nurse pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. ‘How long is a piece of string?’

I used the heel of my hand to wipe at my eye. ‘Nae bother,’ I picked up my tea and walked back to the table. Being crazy was a serious business and he was burying me in banalities.    

Dave had pulled his phone out of his pocket and was checking it. He lifted his eyes towards my face and stuck the phone back in his hip pocket. ‘So,’ he said.

‘So,’ I said, squeezing into the chair beside him. ‘Whit you two been talkin about?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dave.

‘Not exactly nothing,’ Ugly Puggly replied. ‘Even when you’re talking about nothing, you’re talking about something.’

I swilled at my tea. ‘Well, here’s something. I cannae get the heating tae work. There’s nae electricity. How do we get it tae work?’

‘Simple,’ said Ugly Puggly. ‘I’ve unhooked the current from the meter. You hook it up to the car batteries wae butterfly clips. Put it through the transformer. And, hey Presto!’

I leaned across the table. ‘Hey Presto fuck aw. I’ve nae idea whit you’re talkin about.’

‘Can’t you just come home and show us?’ Dave asked.

We both stared at him.

‘Whit?’ he asked and his face reddening.

‘Nothin.’ I shook my head. ‘Look,’ I said, to Ugly Puggly, ‘I don’t mind a bit of theft—after aw, I work for the Council—but this cable thing, is it no a bit dangerous?’

‘Oh, yeh, it could kill you if you mixed up your wires, but theft is a relative term. Marx and Engels got it mostly right with their property is theft angle, but they got their figures all wrong.’

‘Look mate, I don’t really care about Marx or Engels, but being dead is never relative in my book. I’m quite attached to being alive.’

Ugly Puggly sipped at his tea. ‘That’s relative too, and conditional.’

Dave stroked the back of his head. ‘Conditional on what?’

‘Well, let’s assume that Marx and Engels were broadly right, but underestimated that nine-tenths of property is owned by one-tenth of the population. In modern jargon, the 1%. Those that owned the land owned the people on the land. And they owned their labour, which fed their wealth.  

Abraham Lincoln in an address to the Wisconsin Agricultural Society added another general rule. That educated people did not perform manual labour. Bolsheviks, for example, had a simple test of who to shoot first. Those with soft hands were slackers, however much they tried to dress it up. But as Lincoln concluded, this state of affairs was only feasible as long as those with soft hands were very small.’

Dave pulled his phone out and glanced at the screen. I pointed to the clock above the shutters. ‘We’ve only got one lifetime,’ I reminded him, ‘and we’ve no even got to how tae hook up the butterfly clips.’  

‘I’m getting tae that,’ he said. ‘What you’ve got to remember is what economists call externalities. Power was as rough as our hands. For every coal boiler during the industrial revolution there were stokers attached. Railways ran between steelworks with their billowing chimneys and dumping the slag in the nearest river. Every terraced house adding to the carbon load. Ships of the world, every nation, puffing away. The internal-combustion engine and coal became petrol became gas. External costs, what went up in the air didn’t matter. And was never accounted for—until now—and the bills came in wae global warming. Whit they stole far us was our future and there’s nae price on that.’

‘Look pal,’ I need to be goin.’ I nudged Dave’s leg and he looked back at me with sleepy eyes.

‘Me too,’ Dave said.

‘It’s just,’ and Ugly Puggly sighed. ‘Imagine you were at restaurant. Nations like Britain came in and tell everybody they didn’t order that, because they’ve already eaten earlier. America says it doesn’t like anything on the menu: Avoid or void isn’t what they ordered and they’d prefer to order something else and sure as hell not going to pay for somebody else’s meal. You can just go and tote it up again. China said it wants the same thing as Britain had earlier, because that’s only fair. India says it wants a bit of what China is having, but with a dash of British and America is paying. Africa has paid for most of the meal by not eating, but can’t afford a noodle and wants to share a noodle, with someone else, anyone else?’

I get up to leave and he was still talking. ‘Catch you later,’ I said.

‘Not if there’s no later,’ he replies.

He nods at me and Dave follows out at my back.

‘What the fuck was he talking about?’ Dave asks when he was safely back in the van.

‘The great beauty, you ask him wan thing,’ I checked my mirrors and pulled out. ‘And you get another—ten.’