Igor's Story

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“I've stolen the idiot's brain from the medical centre in yonder town as instructed, Master,” doctor Frankenstein's henchman said, peering through the gloom beyond the pale glow cast by his hurricane lantern at the shadowy figure of the Baron at the end of the corridor. “I haven't accidentally pinched the brain of a genius, honestly I haven't, otherwise your monster might turn out to be a clever Dick, which would spoil the plot. And I never accidentally tripped over and accidentally dropped the aquarium containing the idiot's brain and a couple of goldfish onto the cobblestones where it accidentally smashed to pieces and the contents were devoured by a slavering Rottweiler –that didn't happen, whatever anybody says to the contrary, and even if it did I wouldn't have replaced it with my own brain or Sheena Easton's brain to avoid suspicion.”

“Excellent!” doctor Frankenstein replied. “Your brain, Sheena Easton's brain, no matter! Those technicians hiding behind yonder polystyrene and papier-mache wall rattling an oil drum full of crockery, banging an oversized frying pan with a hammer and turning a torch on and off in front of a piece of crumpled kitchen foil to emulate thunder and lightning tell me there's a storm approaching. Wahaay!

Come, Igor, I need your help, my trusty hunch-fronted henchwoman. We must go to my secret laboratory in yonder tower immediately - you know, the one with the multicoloured flashing neon 'Secret Laboratory' sign that can be seen from miles away. I must operate straight away, I must implant the lovely, freshish brain in yonder carrier bag into the skull of my creation. I must fill the creature I have assembled from fallen livestock and bits of dead bodies with bursts of crackling, life giving electricity so that he may live, so that he can wander moronically through the countryside ripping the tits off wandering milkmaids, pulling lumberjacks' arms and legs out of their sockets, sucking out the brains of innocent children through their nostrils with a straw and pissing off local farmers by raping the shit out of their cattle and leaving monster sized turds in their turnip fields.

Igor, think of the envy a lumbering great monster with Sheena Easton's brain would cause in the scientific community! We shall put him on the stage at the Natural History museum in Berlin. No doubt he will snap his chains and rampage through the audience in high heels and a nice blue frock, casually flicking glitter into the eyes of old ladies and randomly biting the heads off Cocker spaniels. I shall be rich and famous! I, Victor Violet Frankenstein, will have living proof that I can create life! What are you doing with that paraffin lamp, Igor? Why don't you turn on the lights? I wondered why I kept tripping over my Dachshund, I wondered why I couldn't do my frigging crossword.”

“I found the lantern in yonder shed, Master. I can switch the lights on if you like, but they don't bloody work – Mpower cut off castle Frankenstein's electricity last Tuesday while you were out playing Bingo because you haven't paid the bill, which makes filling your monster with life giving electricity a bit problematical unless there's a real storm looming. Why is your middle name Violet, Sir? Are you a transvestite? And why did you call me your hunch-fronted henchwoman? I'm not sure if I like that.....”

“Yes, Igor, I am a transvestite, but that's beside the point – what a man does in the privacy of yonder bedroom is his own business. I apologise for calling you my hunch-fronted henchwoman, I must have confused you with someone else, a lost three headed love from sunny Chernobyl, perhaps. And for your information my middle name was supposed to be 'Violent,' after my dear departed and thankfully never regenerated mother, but the registrar of births, marriages and deaths in my home town was drunk or blind or dyslexic, or maybe all three. No, I remember now, he was dead - he was my first victim, he was the first person I brutally murdered, wired up to the mains and brought back to life again. And then I had to re-murder him because he threatened to expose me for the monster I surely am!”

“Cut!” the Director yelled. “How many times do we have to film this scene before you two dolts get it right? I know you have a single idiot's brain between you, but that doesn't mean that you can make up your lines as you go along. Just say what's in the sodding script - it's not rocket science. Glue Igor's beard back on, someone, for heavens' sake.”

“Every word we uttered is in the script, actually,” Frankenstein complained. “The original script was tampered with, remember? Which was fortunate, because it wasn't good enough to wipe my bottom on. Olga, the French Canadian researcher-cum-screenwriter behind this economy remake of Frankenstein, had her notes pilfered from her handbag and returned the following morning; she said it happened while she was in the library Googling Bavarian castles, but I heard that it happened while she in a shrubbery canoodling with Vince, the cameraman, but don't tell Mrs. Vince that or they're both dead meat.....

Apparently the mysterious script rewriter was a mischievous fourteen year old schoolboy whose father was a visiting Austrian lard salesman. The calamity was overlooked until the script was typed out by Olga's dozy, opium addicted secretary, and by then it was too late to make amends.

That Austrian schoolboy buggered up the script completely, you and the rest of the so-called Creative Team insisted, but I happen to think of the changes as positive improvements. I'm supposed to be a mad surgeon, but I was a bit of a bore in the old script. In the improved script, however, instead of quietly creating monsters in my laboratory and cackling insanely now and then I'm really crazy. Aaagh! Nipples dipped in hot brandy butter, braised wallabies in tomcat and strawberry sauce! I'm a little teapot short and stout, here's my handle and here's my spout, when I get my steam up hear me shout 'tip me up and pour me out.' Hang on, I can't say 'nipples' – this film is set in the nineteenth century, I doubt if they've been invented yet.”

“Cut, cut, CUT!” the Director said. “Take five, folks. I'm going for a cheese and pickle sandwich, a piss and possibly a swift one off the wrist. Get rid of these idiots before I get back, Mr. Assistant Director, find me a couple of replacements, and make it snappy. It was you who rewrote the script, wasn't it, Frankincense?”

“Yes,” Frankenstein said. “It was me. Don't worry, folks,” he whispered, “I'll slaughter the Director in yonder lavatory, and then I shall reanimate him. Lightly grilled Eskimos and toasted muffins! No, I'll slaughter him and not reanimate him. Or maybe I'll slaughter him, reanimate him and slaughter him again. Apples and pears, I'm a cockney, I'm a cockney, cor blimey, mate, leave it aht. No, no! I'm German, honestly, I'm a very German teapot indeed, you can tell by my habitual use of German non-rhyming slang. Achtung and zeppelins, sauerkraut and swastikas, ginger bastards and the Royal family, donner und blitzen and so on and so forth.....”

“I hate this film,” Igor grumbled as Olive, the make-up girl, reattached his beard and powdered his sweaty brow. “And I hate the Director, he's a complete prick. I hate him almost as much as I hate you, Frankenstein. Mad surgeon indeed - if you're a mad surgeon I'm a..... I'm..... I'm useless, just plain useless. I used to be a bloke wot goes down sewers in big rubber boots, but I lost that job because of poor timekeeping. According to Mr. Raleigh, my headmaster, I'm an inveterate wanker. I'm a goat shagger according to old Mr. Brown at the allotments, but he was mistaken - Flossie and I were just playing leapfrog. I'm a not particularly good bit part actor according to the folk I work with now, but at least I'm not a bleedin' mobster like wot you are, Frankenstein. Or is it a monster that the horde of angry, torch bearing villagers on their way to the castle are at this very moment calling you? I have fantastic hearing, you know. 'Is the doctor really a monster, or should that title be bestowed instead upon his amoral creation?' I just overheard the Bürgermeister, who is, coincidentally, a part time literary critic and a big fan of Mary Shelley, saying in a feeble attempt to appease the mob, but I reckon they'll take some appeasing. 'Death to Frankenstein!' they're chanting. I'm sick of this script, Baron, I don't believe it portrays me in a fair light.”

“What do you mean? How much fairer a light could you be portrayed in than being described as my faithful hunch-fronted henchwoman?”

“I want a bigger part,” Igor said.

“Don't we all? Sadly we have to make do with the measly little bits that God in His infinite wisdom grants us.”

“No, I mean I don't want to be a high and mighty Baron's humble henchwoman. Why can't I just be myself instead of pretending to be Igor Isabelle Singh? Why can't I be the leading lady, why can't I be your love interest or something?”

“Stop fannying around, Igor, we have a monster to create and a screaming mob to machine gun. Of I forgot, we're still trapped in nineteenth century Europe, so I guess we'll have to pour boiling oil over the rabble from the battlements instead. Shit, the mob are at the gate. Quickly, Igor, bolt the door! Put that brain in there and sew up the monster's skull while I point yonder lightning conductor in the general direction of yonder dark, angry cloud. Technicians, yonder thunder's crap, can't you make it a bit louder?”

“Will that do, Master?” Igor grunted.

“Yes, it'll have to bloody well do. Put those bulldog clips onto the bolt in the monster's neck, and then pull that big lever on yonder wall, the one beside the sign that says 'Do not pull this lever under any circumstances, you total knob.' That's it, the lightning is about to strike, I can feel it in my bones! He lives! Igor, he lives! I am a genius!”

The monster rose from the slab, nonchalantly spraying hairspray into Igor's eyes as it back-combed its hair. “My baby takes the morning train,” it sang. “He works from nine to five and then he takes another home again to find me waiting for him.”

“Wild thing, I think I love you,” Frankenstein said, surreptitiously straightening his tie.

“Aaaagh!” Igor squealed.

“I love me too,” said Sheena. “I love me a lot. Now where's this angry mob that you want sorting out?”

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