Don't Jump I'll Miss Celebrity Squares

'm P.C. Mike Edwards Cheshire Police, Runcorn.Home of ICI, a Beezer Homes Leaguefootball team, a disproportionate number of single mothers and most importantly for our purpose the fabulous Runcorn Suspension bridge. A feat of Victorian engineering and magnet for every depressed housewife, failed businessman and disgraced clergyman this side of the M53.Built when we knew how to engineer quality structures. I've had three call outs already this month and this was my fourth and it was April. I mean you usually get a run on around christmas time, you know when people get to dwell on things and that Billy Smarts Circus is enough to drive anyone over the edge if you ask me.I hadn't been so busy since they brought out the song from Mash declaring Suicide is Painless. It could be I suppose but nobody has ever lived to tell. I mean its no good asking the poor sod when they're splattered across the mud flats of the Dee is it? Attempted suicide isn't painless I can vouch for that. I've seen too many poor broken sods carried into ambulances. I'd just popped a findus Cod in Parsley sauce into a pan of boiling water when the call came. It was a shame cos I like a nice bit of processed fish moulded untidily into a rough square shape. Reminds me of happier times. So it was off with the gas and on with the coat.When I got there they had already closed the bridge and a couple of hundred stranded drivers sat glum faced. Some were out of their cars

and peered up to the top of the bridge in the vain hope of communicating some sort of get down and don't be stupid message. Some sat in sheep like tolerance and mused about divorce, deadlines and drop dead gorgeous Australian soap stars. I was met by wingnut from Traffic. I swear you could get Sky on those lugs of his, the slight wind had given his ears a comedy tip of red, he told me the jumper was a male, they nearly always were, you see us men tend to bottle things up and let it get on top of us, women in my experience weep at the drop of a hat, they tend to let it all out once and a while, that's why you always see them coming out of toilets dabbing their eyes with hankies.Some don't even bother going to the toilets. I had a young WPC with me who'd cry at the slightest of things. All it took was for a suspect to be playing The Commodores and she be end up looking like Alice Cooper chopping
onions. Anyway it was a bloke up top and he was threatening to jump. 'Wingnut' had got halfway up and his vertigo had kicked in. Which wasn't surprising a good gust behind those lugs and he'd have ended up in St Helens. Like Mary Poppins only with thicker wrists gliding on the wind. I was used to heights it didn't bother me, I'd been up in all weathers, I preferred summer obviously I'd once spent a glorious afternoon with a failed businessman spotting red Seirra's and laughing about Basil Brush.I was quite disappointed when he wanted to come down.
I climbed onto the steel walkway and proceeded to make my way 300ft up to the top. As I got nearer the thick ginger hair and the round shoulders looked familiar. It couldn't be. It was. Ginner is that you I asked. Ginner was a mate all through school and for a couple of years after until he left to become a priest with The Salesians Of John Bosco. Ginner looked at me. "Edwards? He squinted. "My god man. I sighed, as I took a seat next to him on the cold steel. "Fancy meeting you here.He had obviously fulfiled his ambition as he was in the regulation black outfit and his dog collar was stuffed untidily into his top pocket. Ginner stood up in 'a I'm going to leap now' sort of stance. "Sit down you rum bugger" I winked. He took another step.
"Listen rusty nut sit down or I'll give you a slap".I slipped into fourth form bully mode. It worked. Ginner sat down.
"Let me guess I said, you've been a little liberal with the church plate collection?" Ginner shook his head and spoke a solemn
"I wish. I'd tried this route first after his scam with the school tuck shop money in year two. Nothing was ever proven but I was privy to the Kwik Save bag full of copper he kept buried underneath his dads leggy tomatoes in his back garden." A little trouble with er.. Choir boys?"
Ginner sneared at me. "What Do you take me for?
I'd only suggested this because I vaguely remember he backed his Geography text book with a picture of Liberace and refused one day at the bus stop to round on the boy from St Martins private school that spoke like Danny La Rue. "Woman trouble?" I suggested, it was usually one of four things this being the third and only remaining possibility the fourth being failed business and as far as I could see any business with God as the Managing Director couldn't really fail.Ginner nodded. It began to take shape. Priest falls for pretty member of congregation.Home-made scones long chats, light summer dresses and flashes of olive inner thighs and white knickers. "Was she married? I asked. Ginner shook his head. "No, but I am.
"What?" I thought and I never even got an invite to the reception.
"Married to God, Ginner continued.
I thought it was nuns who were married to God as the catholic church didn't approve of homosexual marriages, but I decided to concede on this point all things
considered.
"What's her name?" I asked. Ginner stood up.
"Steady on steady on", I urged,
"Don't worry I'm just getting you a photograph." He passed me a picture of what
looked like a summer camp. Two kids with that gawky thirteen year old look - head
full of teeth and gangly stood each side of a dowdy woman in a green Peter Storm
cajoule, muddy leggings and hiking boots.
:Very nice" I said, well what else could I?
when you're three foot away from ending it all for a woman that looked like no fun
whatsoever. My initial thoughts of summer dresses and olive thighs with white
knickers turned to polyester trousers, orange peel legs and a VPL more prominent
than a cheap toupee.
" Give me a good reason then?" Ginner stood up.
" Good enough not to jump right now?"
"I'll miss Celebrity Squares." Well it was the first thing that
came into my head. Ginner sat down.
"What you like it too?
"Yes, I said". I'd done it, the first rule of thumb when trying to get through
to a 'jumper' was to establish a common item of interest and the gameshow
where minor celebrities get a chance to be funny and revive their flagging
careers with a couple of witty remarks seemed to do the trick.
"Who do you think was the best?" I asked.
"Bernie Clifton". he replied without hesitation. I used to think he was no more than a second rate holiday camp entertainer stuck forever with that bloody ostrich, but the answers to those questions were so funny, he was a real talent. I agreed, not because I thought the said Mr Clifton was the best, oh no I felt that that honour should go to Ted Robbins, famous for being the unfunny brother of Kate Robbins who was famous for being ..er well dunno but I think it's something to do with The Beatles, she bought a hamster off George Harrisons sister or something insignificant like that. We mused about it for a while then Ginner stood up again he took a deep breath....From Norwich... it's the quiz of the week!" I stood up too and we both began to dance in a sort of twist like fashion. Like a pair of embarrassing wedding uncles a twist but not a twist just a two uncles trying to dance. After we'd forgotten the rest of the tune we both sat back down. "What's he like to work for then, this God fella?" I asked.
Ginner smiled." Alright, he replied no fear of the salary cheque ever bouncing
and if you want a word with the top man there's no need to make an
appointment you just drop to your knees and open your mouth."
"A bit like Monica Lewinsky eh ? "I joked. Ginner looked at me like he did when we werein the fourth form together and I had systematically bored a hole through the
wall of the girls changing room with a drill bit purloined from metalwork.
"Look ginner I grinned... Beaver!" it was that look, the look of disappointment.
"You've always been the same haven't you Edwards he said. Always the same.
a beast,"
" Steady on Ginner, I protested, I'm hardly a beast!"
" Really?" his eyes looked dark and black. "Beast",he repeated. Then turned to me in a most priestlike manner. "Tell me about the books Edwards. The mucky books the filth -ridden books filled to the frothy brim with black eyed ghoulish teenage girls?"
I didn't know what was worse the way Ginner seemed to be looking into my soul or the fact that I had been sleeping on a tilt on such a pile of the very same teenage porn. Ginner was right and he knew it. Suddenly it felt cold.
"Your life is shit Edwards."
"Should a priest say shit?" I asked
"I say it like it is Edwards. Shit. Like the shit bit of processed Cod you've left on the stove."
This was getting spooky. Ginner was right my life was shit, living alone was shit, being a policeman with everyone hating you apart from people over fifty was shit, wanking off to ghoulish pictures of teenage girls in bitty Marks and Spencers knickers was shit. My relationship with my family was shit. My colleagues thought I was a sad shit. Even my cat thought I was shit.The wind swung me back facing upwards. I saw Ginner smirking, I the wind parted his hair slightly at the forehead, It might have been just an illusion, but were they horns?

The End.