The Wobbler

The Wobbler

We had only been out of Hospital for a week when the funnies started again.
It was on a Friday night, as usual the Vicar came knocking on the front door with his collection box.
'Collection for the Bell Tower' he said
He'd been at it for two years now and must have made well over and above the amount required for two ropes.
We looked at this huge man towering over us blotting out everything in the porch in his black smock pure white shiny collar and silver Boxing trainers, queer as a bottle of chips we thought,
'Haven't got any money Vicar but If we gave you a thundering great crack over the dome with a mallet that might get your bells ringing'.
He dropped the collection box with a jingly crunch and stood there transfixed. Back at the dinner table Mother asked us if it had been the Vicar, we said we couldn't remember, and it was of no consequence.
On the job Monday morning, a friendly floor manager came over and patted us on the shoulder.
We said, sniffing and smelling………
'Have you been eating cat-food sandwiches over the week-end? If we were you we would tell our wife to go and learn how to cook a decent dinner or bung her back to her mother where she belongs. It smells like an old dock around here'.
We got sacked on the spot. On our way home in the wind sleet and rain the car broke down and we had to battle our way through the weather and hitch-hike a lift. After a short while a kind elderly gentleman in a big old car stopped and picked us up, he drove painfully slow.…
'look if you don't put your foot down hurry up and get a move on we’ll have to wrap a crowbar around your neck, and use your head as the steering wheel'.
The old man looked at us shocked, afraid and inadvertently swerved off the road and crashed into a Police Station.
After spending the night in jail for threatening an innocent citizen with violence uncle Osmond came over and bailed us out. Mother and uncle Osmond sat around the front room table and it was decided that after insulting the Vicar getting the sack and being arrested it was time to call in Doc Irvington.
Doc Irvington, who should have changed his glasses years ago, was an old friend of the family and been banned from practising medicine after maiming for life two of his volunteer test patients. Irvington had once invented a lotion made from acrylic sediment and caustic soda designed to be used in the decoking of the male tap and known in the trade as 'Pink Willy'. Doc Irvington was a menace to society but the family thought that old friends should be stood by through thick and thin and in most cases they were probably right. Sitting on my bed later that day he slammed us on the knee-cap with an ivory hammer to test our reactions which happened to be violent in the extreme. Then while we writhed on the floor clutching the bend in our leg, he looked at the mirror and poked the only stethoscope that had not been confiscated at what he thought was us and yelled……
'Its back to Hospital and get sorted out!’
In the Ambulance later that day we sat opposite a male nurse and it seemed to us that he had just had a haircut.
'Have you just had a haircut?’ we asked him,
'Why yes I have, Its my birthday tomorrow and I thought I would buy myself a favour so I went to a very expensive barber salon in the city it’s nice of you to notice',
'We should be passing the Law Courts in about five minutes, you might register a complaint and sue the Barber, psychopaths like that ought to be locked up, we’ve spent better times in the Dentists chair than looking at the mess on the top of your head'.
'Right', he said, and he must have been a darts champion in his spare time because the way he flung the hypodermic syringe into our arm was the work of an expert.

The family and Doc Irvington thought the problem was all down to exhaustion and a sleeping cure needed.
When we woke up a few weeks later we had a permanent smile on the face, and willing to go out of our way to help anyone and everyone. No more slips of the tongue but inside it felt as though something was definitely amiss. We first noticed this new state of being when Roman the milk-man knocked on our door. Roman and his wife had been visiting their small village near the Polish border, now they were back and wanted to invite us for dinner to try an ‘old country’ speciality which apparently had to be consumed in a hurry. The next evening sitting at the table in Romans house, his wife came in from the kitchen carrying a heavy dark brown steaming sausage and gave it all to us, they both settled into fish and chips. The ‘old country’ sausage had a mighty strong taste, made tough eating, and we didn’t like it at all. Even so, we showed gratitude and expressed many thanks for their trust in our palate. Roman said it was nothing, and explained how the sausage had been made.
'The fine texture on the outside comes from the continuous rolling of the sausage under the armpit', he said, 'this one was prepared by my wife's Grandmother'.
We found a grey hair in the sausage and discretely managed to push it to one side of the plate, unnoticed.
'The delicious tender meat on the inside' Roman went on, 'is a direct result of my wife's chewing on it for hours before cooking'.
This was too much and our hand made a dive for the wine bottle, we drank with great haste and it burned our mouth and throat, pancreas and stomach, then Roman and his wife collapsed into fits of laughter and we saw his wives broken and blackened teeth.
'That was the vinegar' said Roman.
Coughing and choking we made a hasty retreat to the bathroom.

During a fierce electrical storm, the elderly people’s home was struck by a thunderbolt, caught fire, and burnt to the ground. Seeing these defenceless old people wandering around homeless smote our heart a vicious blow, it was time for positive action of a constructive kind, in only one day we managed to get all the elderly people lodged in spare rooms up and down the street, even Mr Spinwicket the undertaker said that he had three comfortable places all made up and ready for accommodation in his morgue. We had to refuse; it was far too soon for that kind of hospitality.
In desperation we knocked on the door of every house, factory and shop in the street and found everyone willing to give up bedding and room, this was solidarity of a very special kind. Within time the Elderly people’s residence was rebuilt and because of our good work during the crisis, we were thought of as ‘the most important in the street’ after the vicar of course, two years later we became M.P for our city and after only four years elected leader of our own political party. We received much criticism from leading figures around the country, but when speaking in Public we were always very respectful towards them, saying that they were all both wise experienced and should be listened to’. We made it known also that we had no personal interest in power or wealth, we only wanted to get the country back in order, and that's all. After our election as leader of the Party, our opposite number speaking from the other side of the rostrum said…. .
'May I congratulate the gentleman on his newly appointed office of leader, that justice and peace be with him and may his celestial ship of prophylactic principle remain forever undisturbed on a sea-bed of democratically bound paradise, the one formed around us'.
These sounded like fine words and we replied……..
'As it was common knowledge that all of the gentleman’s party, their voters and respective families had only one brain between them, would the gentleman kindly assure himself that it was his turn to use it the next time he addressed us'.
A cold silence came over the entire House and we were advised to withdraw the remark immediately. Suddenly we felt a gentle tapping on our shoulder, looking round too our great surprise there was the Vicar again, this time waving his collection box and shouting…….
‘If you think this political business a load of old bunk you better say so out loud and let everyone in on the secret’! So we did.
*
We’d been in so much trouble by now we thought we’d really bought it and doc Irvington was brought in again. This decision didn’t please us at all. If he hit us again with his ivory hammer, there’d be a serious crime on our hands.
After a quick look Irvington thought that our problem was most definitely way off his bench and sent us to a specialist friend who had also been thrown out of the Medical Establishment. Irvingtons friend was now only a part time unofficial docter but he'd become a full time acoustic engineer. After a serious examination he frowned ….
‘You are suffering from accumulative brain cell erosion and double schizophrenia’. This didn’t mean a thing to us so we asked him if he could explain the complaint in less scientific terms and more man on the street level, but it wasn’t a complaint, it was far more serious.
‘This is a life taking terminal disease were talking about that creates split personality. Try to imagine it in audio terms like in stereo where we have two sounds coming from one source instead of mono where there is only one sound coming from any number of sources’.
We said, ‘you mean we have an illness in stereo and everybody else is dying in mono?’
‘Your illness is a rare type of brain disorder which puts us on a quadraphonic level’,
‘Quadraphonic? What? You mean like four amplifiers, all on the blink?’
‘Well it’s more than amplifiers on the blink where you’re coming from but there is definitely a breakdown in output from a multiple direction!’
Clearly the more Irvington’s friend tried to explain the less we understood. His diagnosis didn’t sound good though, the thought of having our life taken by this illness struck us a vicious blow. Miserable and unhappy we ambled back home, slowly climbed the stairs and wandered into Mothers bedroom. We sauntered over to a weather-beaten chest of draws and took out the tattered shoe-box containing dad’s old service revolver; we loaded it, curled our finger around the trigger and pointed the business end between our eyes. As we stared down the massive barrel it occurred to us that terminal illness was nothing more than a fiendish bother and should not be allowed to prevent us from living our precious little life to the full, though be it a short one. Furthermore we didn’t honestly feel like blowing our brains out, this revelation brought us overwhelming joy and caused every muscle in our body to contract. Suddenly the gun recoiled; there was an enormous bang and the sound of bells ringing…..

'Collection for the Bell Tower' said the Vicar.
Well he might have been at it for two years now and made well over and above the amount required for two ropes but with all the trouble I'd been in and all that had gone down recently I just wasn't ready this time.

“Thank you kindly my son, thank you” he said but instead of putting my money in the collection box, he put it in his pocket.
Then humming softly he tucked the box away under his arm and silently slid out through the porch door.
I watched him stroll down the street jauntily knowing I’d been done, yet again.

Every Friday night its the same, every Friday night I get done.
And every time I get done we throw a Wobbler.



The Wobbler * Moreng Swin-burne