Another new morning in Deal. I haven’t checked the telephone, and I sure as hell haven’t switched on the TV with all that news.
So I lie there and wonder if my lucky dip has won the Lottery, and I decide that it has. Until I find out otherwise. So I will buy that villa in Barbados and the flat in the city. And I can see the smiles on my pals’ faces as I hand them cheques for lots of money.
No one I know is sick or unwell. They have all recovered during the night. Friends and family are all happy to a soul. Nothing is out of place. Nothing sad has occurred.
The sun is shining brightly and a gust of wind shoots in the window with a smell of the sea and takes my breath away. I feel at peace.
Another new morning in Deal and (for now) the world is a perfect place to be.
Christmas that year had been sad and disappointing. Sad, because it had been the first one without his mother, and disappointing because his cousin, Fred, in England had promised to ship a copy of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks and it still hadn’t arrived.
He’d have to hide it when it arrived since his father had become real religious since his mother had been taken. His father had wanted to cancel Christmas, but his aunt had made sure there was food on the table and a little present for each of them. In front of his plate was an envelope. It didn’t seem promising. In it were three tickets to something called Star Wars, due out of the 27th. He smiled a token smile. ‘Thank you’.
What the hell was Star Wars? And today, as on old man, in 2023, he thought back to that Christmas and the tears ran down his face. If he’d only known back then what Star Wars would mean to his life, he would have jumped from that table all those years ago and kissed his aunt.
You’ll make it, I know you will, You’ve come too far and now is not the time. If only you stopped and thought about it all The walls you’ve climbed, all the troubles crossed All the failures faced, all the little victories And one day soon you’ll make it across To where you can start again I know you will You’ve come too far, to stop. bobby stevenson 2023
They had come from somewhere out there. Some folks said they had lived underground; others had said that they were from Atlantis.
One guy went on the television and told the world that he had been abducted by them and that they came from a star second from the right and straight on till morning. But we all kinda knew that he was plain crazy.
What wasn’t crazy was the fact that they came for people. Sometimes in the middle of the night, a soul would hear a knock on the door and there they would be.
And here’s the strange thing, I heard that they came to hunt down the Unloved - and that would naturally get you thinking that they were talking about the homeless, or the lonely or the suicidal, or whatever.
But it wasn’t, sometimes they knocked on doors where large families lived, they’d asked for the soul in question, and they would hug them and hug them until the sadness had been squeezed right out of them.
What those strangers knew was that folks could feel unloved anywhere. They knocked on the doors of the rich, and the poor alike. The well fed and the hungry. The married and the single. The saint and the sinner.
You couldn’t tell that someone was unloved just by looking at them. Some hid their sorrow behind the grandest of smiles or would give the impression of being the most confident son of a gun going. But they weren’t - and they never had been.
So, friends, if, or when, they come knocking on your door, it might be that they are just coming to hug the sadness out of you.Let them
I know when I first saw him, it must have been back in Washington Square around the early Sixties. The story I heard was that he’d been brought up somewhere upstate. His grandpa or his great grandpa (I ain’t sure how long these things lived) had been brought back from the War and kept in a garage in Saugerties.
He’d been taught to play the banjo for cents and dimes, and he could dance too. At Christmas all us kids could talk about was going to see Crazy (that was his name) – the dancing, banjo playing, monkey.
When he started to learn to sing that I could not tell you. I heard that some crackpot folk singer from back West had taught the ape, or whatever he was, to sing the folkie’s songs.
One day a real important guy from Hollywood came and took Crazy away to be a big star. As for the crackpot folk singer, I heard he got paid off, and was working in some burger joint in Harlem. I’m thinking he was called Mylan or Dylan or something like that. Never did hear from him again.
And as we all know, Crazy the Monkey, is now the biggest star in the world. All singing, all dancing. Me and the family watched him down in Austin being supported by some guy called Elvis.
There are those amongst us who slip into to this life like a well-worn glove, who very rarely question its strangeness and in most circumstances prefer to take everything that it offers.
Then there are people like me, Michael Andrews, sometime author, sometimes happy but mostly otherwise confused. There are days when I intentionally tell myself I’m stupid so as not to think too much, so as not to over analyse too much. But on other days…well on those other days I look around and scare myself with what I see. All of us sharing a little rock in space without rhyme nor reason, perhaps that is part of what makes me an author or maybe I’m just going plain mad.
There can only be two answers to this universe; either there is a God in control of everything or there is no one in control and now that I’ve had that thought I don’t want to get out of bed – ever.
Perhaps I’ll just hang on to my mattress and hope that Gravity does its job and keeps me in place.
So on the days I have to go into the city to see some colleague or other, I look at the faces on the subway or on the buses or on the trains or in all those faces of people walking. I look for some recognition that I am not alone in this belief, the belief that this existence really is only for the stupid and that the rest of us are terrified out of our minds the whole time.
And then there is always that nagging feeling which has been around since I was a kid – a feeling that I might have forgotten something important, something that when I remember it will make sense of all of this.
Then I see those faces in the city, those faces looking back at me and I rub my own face looking for marks, or bleeding from my nose or words written on my forehead that say ‘stare at this man’ – but there’s nothing on my face, it’s just the look of strangers.
Maybe they are also looking at me for some recognition that I am going through the same hell as them, but I have that well disguised expression of the stupid and they find no comfort in my face.
But I now know what it is and the truth is even more terrifying than my fevered imagination could have ever created.
I am going to tell you all this as a warning, to tell you to take care. I will tell you what I know and then let you decide.
Last Saturday morning the sun was bleaching the streets of the city and so I decided to take a walk from the central station up to the bohemian part of town.
I passed by the government buildings, the Royal palaces, the squares and avenues that were full of tourists. I walked under trees and arches and I walked around bistros, street cafes, theatres, cinemas and all of them full of strangers, some of whom caught my eye and other who walked on.
Then as I passed a glass shelter at a bus terminal a strange thing happened, I could see in the reflection that many of those who were behind me or had walked passed me were now looking in my direction.
But when I turned around no one was looking. No one was staring and everyone was going about their business. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying it’s the start of the decline, the start of the long journey into the dark. Soon names will be a thing of the past and I will be left in a corner with vacant eyes.
Perhaps I was thinking something similar myself until it happened again.
I had a pair of sunglasses, the type that allows you to see behind oneself, maybe made for this very exercise and there they were again, people looking at me behind my back and when I turned once again – nothing.
Paranoid? – Perhaps.
I took my phone, the one with the video recorder, and began to keep it in the palm of my hand, always filming behind me. At the Gin Joint Cafe I had a coffee and excitedly started to watch the film.
There they were – people who showed no interest in me apart from a look while passing – who, when they were behind me, would stop, look at me and apparently discuss among themselves some detail or another. People who were apparently strangers were talking about me.
Insane? – You would think.
I did what any insane person would do, I turned quickly and started to follow them through the streets and the arches and the squares until several of them disappeared into a doorway, one that slammed shut in my face. I waited on them but no one came out.
I waited and waited and still nothing.
I walked with my head down back to the railway station until in a shop window I saw more of them, a new crowd watching me.
I am ill, I must be.
I let it be. I went about my life ignoring the look of strangers. Some still walked by me and watched my face as if they were drinking in every last detail.
I just assumed I was wrong.
Then one night in the Gin Joint Cafe I drank more than I should have. I sat at the bar like the old soak of a writer I was. It had just gone eleven o’clock when the girl sat next to me.
“You’re Michael Andrews, the writer?”
“What do you want? An autograph or maybe you want to buy me a drink?”
“I just wanted to shake your hand” she said “we are not supposed to do this. It’s against everything.”
“What is?” I asked, slipping back another short.
“Well talking to you, the greatest writer since Shakespeare.”
“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”
“No I haven’t, Michael Steven Andrews, born 1963, died 20… wait I’m not supposed to let you know that.”
“You know when I am going to die?” I asked.
“You died years before I was born” she said.
“We come back to visit all the great ones, you and Shakespeare are the most popular.”
“Come back from where?”
“The future, your future, I mean you have already found out that Einstein was wrong and things can travel faster than light. It won’t be long until you start sending objects back in time.”
I was about to ask what asylum she had escaped from when she disappeared.
So now you know what I know. When you get that look from a stranger then perhaps they are more than just inquisitive. Perhaps they are one of your own descendants or a student or a time tourist.
Who or whatever they are, just do what I do and keep on walking.
When I was ten years old, my father took me on a trip in an old
battered car and caravan, and although I didn’t know it at the time, my
father was dying. He was only forty years of age and he was dying of a
brain tumour. What can I tell you about me back then? That I was the
only son of parents who never got around to marrying? That I lived with
my two sisters and a cat and that despite not having any money, we lived
in a house packed to the roof with love.
Maybe that’s as good as it gets in anyone’s life. My father was
the gentlest of hearts and the kindest of men, and I’m not just saying
that because he’s gone. I’m saying it because it was true. It was his
strength and his weakness. My mother watched so many people taking
advantage of his goodness, that in the end she put herself in the way of
anyone trying to use him. This made her seem hard but she was willing
to put up with that, because that was what our family was always about –
love.
My parents had decided that when school was closed for the summer,
Mum and the girls would go to London for a few days to see a show, while
me and Dad would go north taking his old car hooked up to Granddad’s
caravan. I knew Dad was probably hoping this would be a chance for us to
talk, as he was always working and I was always in my bedroom being
misunderstood. Even at ten years of age I had no real idea how to enjoy
myself.
On that summer, that glorious summer, school finished and my life
began. Dad drove Mum and the girls to the railway station and I sat on
the front steps waiting, bag ready and caravan packed.
I’ll always remember the ‘toot-toot-toot’ of my Dad on the car horn
as he returned from the station, letting everyone in the street know
that the boys were off on holiday. All those unused days were spread
before us, waiting.
If I’d thought that it was going to be a particularly difficult time
sitting in the car with my Dad, I was wrong. I had imagined him and me
struggling to talk to each other and stumbling over words. I guess I’ve
always made assumptions about things. I’ve worried and assumed – I
suppose that’s what should be written on my headstone. There I go again.
As we drove towards the coast, I felt ashamed of myself. Here was a
man who knew all about my writings and about the books I’d read. He
would steal himself into my room after he came home late from work, too
late to wish me goodnight but long enough to kiss me on the forehead and
absorb from the room who and what I was. There was I knowing very
little about him, except he was my father and he was rarely home.
I don’t recall when he stopped the car but I do remember it getting
dark. I had been telling him all about the characters in some Dickens
novel when I must have fallen asleep in his arms. When I awoke, it was
morning and the sun was fighting the condensation on the window. Dad had
placed me in the back seat and covered me with his jacket.
The car was freezing and as I sat up, I shivered. I wiped away mist
from the side window and saw, that despite the sun, the sky and the sea
were a cold blue, broken up by the foamy edges of the waves. We had
parked at the edge of a cliff and Dad was sitting, staring – that was
all he was doing – just staring. When I felt brave enough, I ventured
outside to join him. I’ll always remember his face that day, the wind
had slapped his cheeks into a Santa Claus red and his eyes were
watering, stung by the sea. You could almost imagine that he had been
crying, and I wonder now, from all those years away, if he had been.
He told me to sit next to him and he put his arm around me, “You, and me, son are going on an adventure”.
Now don’t get me wrong, I liked the sound of ‘adventure’ and I loved
my father and felt safe with him but there was always a part of me that
wanted to return to the protection of my bedroom, pull up my arms into
my sleeves and wait on the next hurtful thing. Yeah, you’re right, I was
one weird kid. As we came over the hill I could see it: Blackpool
Tower. I had never seen anything so tall in all my life and was so
excited that I forgot about my misgivings. The place was alive with
people who were swept up with enjoying life and buzzing with laughter.
There were donkey rides by the sea, the odd uncle with a handkerchief on
his head to keep the sun away and people breaking their teeth on sticks
of rocks, slurping ice cream and getting pieces of candy floss stuck to
their noses.
Dad and I went down on to the beach and ate our fish and chips from a
newspaper. I think it was the best fish and chips I ever tasted. “That’s better.” said Dad. “What?” “You’re smiling, you’ve got a nice smile, you know. You should use it more often.” “Oh Dad.” “I’m just saying.”
And do you know what? I felt that I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Just me and my Dad on the beach at Blackpool. “It’s my fault.” he said, sadly. “What is, Dad?” “The fact that you never smile, me and your Mum left you sitting too long in that room of yours.” “I like my room.” “No one likes their room.”
Dad parked the caravan down some quiet side street and told me to get
washed and ready as he took a walk into town. When he returned, his
breath smelt of beer and his clothes of cigarettes. “You’ll never guess what I’ve got in my pocket? Two tickets to see Arthur Askey at the Grand”.
What a night that was, everyone laughing and singing along with The
Bee Song. I looked over at my Dad and he was laughing so hard the tears
were rolling down his face. God, I miss him.
We had ice cream topped with raspberry sauce on the way back and I never once thought about my misgivings, not once.
The next morning after a cup of tea and a bacon roll, we left Blackpool still singing the Bee Song, just me and my Dad.
I can’t remember who saw the old lady first. My Dad had stopped the
car because I needed to pee again and I was hiding in the bushes. The
woman was sitting on a bench and at first we thought she was just
sleeping, but her head had rolled forwards and she was moaning. Dad put
his ear close to listen to her breathing. “This isn’t good. We’ll need to get her to hospital.”
I sat with her in the back seat of the car while she rested her head
on my lap. She reminded me of my Gran, I almost said “We won’t be long
now Gran” when she moaned really loudly. The nurse brought Dad and me
drinks as we sat in the corridor waiting on news. It almost felt like it
was my Gran. “Are you family?” Dad explained to the doctor that we had found her sitting by the side of the road.
“There was nothing we could do, I’m afraid. I’m sorry your trip was in vain. She passed away five minutes ago.”
Dad got a bit annoyed but he kept it to himself until we were outside
the hospital. I thought maybe he was sad about the old lady dying, but
really he was a bit angry. “Don’t you ever believe that what we did
was in vain, son. Never think that. That poor lady would have died alone
on that bench if we hadn’t stopped. As it is, you kept her company and
there were people with her when she went. So it wasn’t in vain. Nothing
is in vain. Always, always remember that. Everything matters”.
I guess that’s the kind of thing that happens to a person when they come out of their room.
As Dad drove north, I had the feeling that he just wanted to keep
driving but as soon as it started to get dark, we stopped. Thinking
back, I guess he couldn’t see too well in the dying light, something to
do with his tumour.We set the caravan down in a field that overlooked
Liverpool. What a city.
Looking over the way the setting sun painted the building tops, a
crimson yellow. We were going into town tomorrow and Dad said he had a
surprise. I don’t think I have ever been to a happier city than Liverpool that day.
People were going to and fro but always laughing and joking. Some
were singing, others whistling. I loved every minute of it; every
blooming minute of it.
“I’ve got a pal and he owes me a favour”, said Dad. I felt ashamed
that I hadn’t even known that my father had any friends or who they
were. “He works at a club down Matthew Street. He says if we arrive early enough, he’ll get us in and you can hide under my coat.”
I almost had misgivings again, almost wishing I was back in my safe, warm, bedroom – almost.
We did what Dad said and he put me under his coat and the doorman, his pal, waved us past all the people waiting to get in. “We’ll
need to keep you under cover young ‘un” said Bert, Dad’s pal, as he led
me to a small room by the stairs where he gave me lemonade. “We’ll come and get you when the band is ready” said my Dad. “I’m going to have a talk with Bert. You’ll be okay here?” I would be.
I had just finished my drink when there was a knock at the door, followed by it opening. “Hey Paul, look what I’ve found, the Cavern has little people living under the stairs. What are you doing here, son?” I told him I was waiting on the band and that my Dad was coming to get me. “And what band would that be son?”
I shrugged and the man seemed to find that funny. His pal, Paul came over to have a look at me. “You’re right John, that is one of the little people. You’ve got to be lucky to see them” and then he rubbed my head.
John said it was his band that was playing and I said I was sorry. He
said not as sorry as he was and asked did I want to come to their
dressing room? Although on second thoughts, John said, there was
probably more room under the stairs.
So I went with John and Paul and met the other two, George and Pete.
They were all fooling around and didn’t seem to be in any way nervous.
John asked me what I wanted to do “That is, when you stop being one of
the little people.”
I told him I wanted to be a writer and he said that was probably the
best job in the world next to being in a band, especially his band, and
he went into his jacket and gave me his pen. “If anyone asks, tell them John Lennon gave it to you.”
That night I watched John, Paul, George and Pete play the most
wonderful music I had ever heard or will ever hear. I didn’t know it
then, but a few weeks later Ringo replaced Pete. I never got to meet
him. My Dad died, just after Christmas, that year.
He left me with the best present that I have ever received in my
life. He took me out of my room and locked the door so I couldn’t go
back in. So what if I got hurt? That was the price you paid for being
out there, that was the price we all paid, and the other thing he gave
me was the belief that nothing is ever in vain, nothing.
On the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s death, I flew to New
York and walked through Central Park and climbed the hill to Strawberry
Fields. There was a little boy about ten and his Dad listening to the
music of Lennon and I took out the pen and I handed it to them: “John Lennon gave me this.” Everything matters.
bobby stevenson 2022 https://thougthcontrol.wordpress.com/ https://randomactsstories.blogspot.com/ Dedicated to my mother, Agnes and my father. Thomas – where ever they may be.
Martha had a room, one that she would refer to as a ‘spare room’. Not that the size of her house allowed for such extravagances – she had a kitchen, a little area to sit, a small toilet at the rear of her house, and a little bedroom upstairs. Next to that was Martha’s spare room.
When she and Ted first got married, it had been kept ready for a little child. Ted told his wife that he ‘wanted’ two sons and two daughters, Martha said she would be content with a happy, healthy child.
Ted had painted the walls of the room with characters from books – he had done all this himself in the hope that one day his own child would look up from a cot and smile at the paintings.
In the first two summers of their married lives and with no blessing of a son or daughter, Ted put some of his old books in the room. Martha was understandably upset, but as Ted said, there was nowhere else for them to go.
The years drifted by and no child was gifted to the couple. Then one quiet May morning, Ted went into the spare room and noticed all the junk covering the walls and floor.
He also noticed, sadly, that all the characters he had painted had faded in the sunlight.
“There ain’t no child coming, Lord, I can see that now,” Ted said quietly to himself, and so, that afternoon, he went out and bought the whitest of white paints and decided to throw out all the junk and re-paint the room.
Ted and Martha never talked about children again, but she was delighted with the new white room which Ted had painted.
“This shall be our room for all the good things,” Martha said to Ted.
And that is what it became. All the presents given to them at Christmas or birthdays were placed in the room in order that they could be admired and kept good. Dishes, cups, paintings, bottles of this and that, were all placed in the spare room to be kept good.
Once in a while, Ted would go into the room and admire all the gifts and would ask Martha whether they could use a plate or a dish, but Martha would always say ‘no’ and tell him that the room was to keep everything good in their lives and keep those things safe.
When her few friends came back to the house after Ted’s funeral, she took down some of the china cups and plates from her room and allowed her guests to use them.
With Ted no longer there, Martha didn’t notice her mind beginning to wear away. Sometimes she forgot things; then she forgot names of those who came to call. One morning Martha came down from her bedroom and couldn’t remember who she was.
These days Martha looks out of her hospital room window and not far away is her own home with the spare room. She can see all the good things stored in that room – but Martha doesn’t know that it is her house, or that the objects are all the things she and Ted kept for better days.
bobby stevenson 2022
His name was Sandy, and he’d worked at the Inverlochan Distillery man
and boy. The day after he’d left school, he’d gone straight into the
whisky-making business and had never left. He didn’t need to. He was
content as anyone had a right to be.
He’d met his future wife, Sadie there – she’d worked in payroll – and
on the day they’d got married, the distillery donated a barrel of
whisky to the party. After a few years, they had four kids, one a
doctor, and the other three worked at Inverlochan. Sandy and Sadie had
an extremely happy life.
Sandy used to show visitors around the workplace. He’d tell them
about the barrels and the fact that whisky was a clear liquid when it
went in. Then he’d tell them about the amount of the spirit which would
evaporate every year from the said barrel. It would just disappear, not a
great percentage but a loss all the same. The whisky folks called this
‘The Angels’ Share’.
It was his youngest granddaughter who noticed that Granddad Sandy was
beginning to forget things. They had gone to the shops, and he had
forgotten where the car was. And so it began, the illness. Sometimes he
would get concerned about the location of his wife. Sometimes he even
forgot her name.
And that was when Sadie would step in. She would tell folks that a
little bit of his thoughts evaporated every year. “A small part of my
lovely husband is lost. We like to call it in the family, ‘The Angels’
Share’”.
See you down the road pal See you down the road Thanks for all the love pal For sharing with the load See you down the road friend See you down the road Thanks for all the kindness Until we meet again.
You stood there on the hill, looking down at the town, Thinking of all the things that had gone wrong, All the little dreams that had turned to smoke. “Why me?” Was all you could think of. “Why them?” Was what got you the most. Then that thought came to you And a little bit of warmth hit your smile. Because the day of your greatest kiss still lay ahead And that was forever worth holding on for.
