R.B.N. Bookmark
lager
1980
something……….
Back then, Joe Berry was
banned from just about every major football stadium up and down the country.
A hard man who neither gave, nor expected quarter and whose battle
scarred reputation, earned on the Scoreboard terraces at Old Trafford, demanded
respect from lesser men.
The stretches he served in prison had only served to make him more
rebellious and an even greater threat to society. Joe`s parents had
all but given up on their only son, who it seemed was hell bent on a life of
crime.
The present
Long gone is the trendy Stone Island casual clobber and the “Fuck
Off” attitude - that was the swashbuckling Joe Berry of old. All that remains is
the ACAB (All Coppers Are Bastards) tatoo on the knuckles of his right hand, the
ink like the past faded with time.
Let me now introduce you to the present day Joe Berry.
Gone the six pack and the once intimidating physique of a
streetfighter. You see before you an overweight family man, with a receding
hairline that has stopped halfway up his back. A seemingly
average 33 year old home owner, living in an average leafy suburb of Cheshire in
North West England. A once illustrious past has given way these days to mortgage
rate worries, bringing up two young boys and raising them in the designer
clothing bubble all budding Man Utd hooligans should be accustomed to. High
blood pressure and cholesterol levels one could drown in, were it possible to
wade in his bloodstream were the only thing fearsome about him
nowadays.
Joe had married and settled down with his childhood sweetheart Mona,
and they went on to become the proud parents of two young boys now aged six and
seven.
It was no easy task, yet he had turned his back on the past and had
become a respectable member of the community. Still, despite the aura of
repectability, he always slept with a baseball bat under the mattress.
Joe`s parents were understandably relieved, and as proud as can be of
their reformed son. No longer was he the family renegade once dubbed by his
father as “The Blackberry of the family”.
Yet Joe found the stresses of family life, surburbia and encroaching
middle-age far harder to digest than his inglorious past – he missed the old
days.
Little did he know his middle-age crisis would get a helping hand in
the shape of Bingo, the family black and tan Belgian Hovawart.
It was the 3rd July 2013 and Joe
Berry had decided it was time to remove that troublesome wasp’s nest, from under
the guttering above the boys` bedroom window.
Mona had implored him to employ Anticimex to do the task, but to no
avail.
Joe Berry was a stubborn chap, and even more so should it involve
money. Mona would wryly call him Stingey Berry, noting it was a wonder he could
part with wind let alone money.
‘I`ll be done in a jiffy and it won`t cost us a penny’ he said as he
nipped off to fetch a pair of step ladders from the garden shed.
Perspiring heavily and out of breath, he returned with the ladders,
placing them just under the boys` bedroom window. Wearing a motorcycle helmet
and a pair of Mona`s flowery kitchen gloves as protection, Joe`s cumbersome
frame slowly made its way up the ladder.
Once at the top, he opened up the black bin liner he was clutching in
one hand, carefully placing it beneath the wasp´s nest until the nest was within
in its confines.
It was just at that moment a magpie landed on the bottom rung of the
ladder.
All of a sudden Bingo the dog caught sight of the magpie, an ill omen
if ever there was one.
Bingo you see was a fervent Sunderland supporter who hated the
“Magpies”.
With one fateful lunge the dog removed the ladder from the equation,
and Newton`s Law did the rest.
Bingo
- a fait
accompli.
It
was like waking up from a dream: there was an ambulance in the driveway and two
paramedics crouching over a figure while swotting irate wasps that were orbiting
whoever it was that lay there. The figure was lying prostrate on the crazy
paving Joe had laid the previous year, but had never got round to finishing the
pointing.
Mona and the boys stood
ashen faced, looking on from a short distance. Mona embraced the boys, each
clinging onto one of her legs, hiding behind her back whenever an angry wasp
made a beeline for them.
Perched on top of the
Meyer lemon tree, that Joe and Mona had been given as a wedding present, sat the
magpie, peering down at the proceedings below.
At
the base of the tree, staring up at the magpie sat Bingo, oblivious to the
commotion going on around him.
A
small band of neighbours had now gathered across the street. A bit like when
Pavlov`s dog reacted to the sound of a buzzer, only their salivary glands were
activated by the sound of ambulance sirens – gossip being their
reward.
While all this was taking
place, there you were Joe. The onlooker.
It
was as if you were still on top of those ladders, looking down at everyone, when
all of a sudden your bird`s eye view was interrupted by a tap on the
shoulder.
‘Excuse me,’ came a croaky
voice from behind him.
Joe turned his head
slightly and caught sight of the magpie sitting on a branch in front of
him.
‘I´m afraid this tree is
taken man,’ said the magpie.
‘I´m sorry mate, I didn`t
mean to rattle your cage,’ whispered Joe under his breath as he half heartedly
apologised, in disbelief and taking in the strange sight before his
eyes.
The magpie was wearing a
pair of turtleshell Raybans and smoking a spliff in a long black shiny
cigarrette holder so as not to get nicotine stains on his wings.
Hearing Joe`s barely
audible comment, the magpie let fly with an irritated “Squaaaakkkk”. His Raybans
slid down his beak and peering over the top of them he said.
‘Take a pill and chill
dude, that cage jive not called for man. I´m a free bird baby - you ain`t a cop
are you?’
‘Me?’ replied Joe, feeling
his hooligan cred had been dealt a low punch.
‘No, I´m not a cop,’ said
Joe.
‘I´m just a dude stuck up
a tree talking to a magpie smoking a spliff.’
While Joe was strongly
reiterating his non affiliation with the forces of law and order, he observed as
the magpie inhaled deeply from the spliff hanging precariously from his
beak.
Disappearing behind a
thick cloud of Lebanese Black, the magpie coughed and wheezed as he attempted to
catch his breath.
Wafting away the smoke
with his wings, he finally got his bird shit together and said ‘Man you`re one
chillin suspended in the air cool dude.’
‘Cmon over to my place and
perch your ass beside me brother,’ said the magpie, inviting Joe to share his
branch and a spliff with him.
Just then the sound of a
moblie phone and a Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe ringtone
blaring from his feathered hipster pocket had the magpie clamouring to answer
his Iphone.
“Hey Joe, where you going with that
gun in your hand, hey Joe where you going
with that gun in youuuurr hand.”
Magpie: ‘Dude,
I
need you to do me a cosmic favour, it is my old lady being uncool and cramping
my style. Will you take this call for me? Just say I´m
helping out a friend moving to a new nest. Tell her I`ll be back for tea……oh and
send my love to the chicks.’
‘Ok,’ said Joe, feeling
sorry for the magpie.
‘I´ll answer the phone for
you. Hey,
did I tell you I´ve got two chicks of my own?’
Joe: (what am I
saying….chicks???)
The magpie stretched out
his Iphone to Joe.
Joe: ‘Hello’
Iphone:
‘Joe?’
Joe: ‘Yes?’
Iphone: ‘Joe?’
Joe: ‘Yes ……is that you
Mona???’
Iphone: ‘Joe, wake up
……you’re late for work!’
‘Oh Mona it`s you!’
exclaimed Joe.
‘You wouldn`t believe the
dream I have just had.’
About the author
R.B.N Bookmark was born in Manchester,
England during the late 1950s.
Having been surrounded by
extraordinary real life characters all of his life, it comes through in his writing.
When times are hard the one thing that’s plentiful is humour…..and its free!
Nowadays he lives and works
in Scandinavia.
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