My Uncle Henry, The Bampot

The technical term to describe my Uncle Henry is ‘Bampot’. Sure he was run out of Glasgow for trying to sell the horseless carriage concept to the City Council. It involved taking off the horse from a carriage and replacing it with six little people from the local circus. But he was still my Uncle Henry, and a kinder heart would be hard to find.

In the end, his genius was all rolled up into one mighty concept, that of the ‘Auto Copter’.

He trialled it in the middle of the night, and it led to a few stories in the newspapers of Phantom Riders in the streets of Edinburgh (the city he snuck into after his Glasgow debacle).

It could reach a nose bleeding speed of 18 miles per hour – a factor that inspired my uncle to attempt to sell the beast to the Edinburgh Police Constabulary. To be fair, they did try it out one Sunday morning on Princes Street. It hit three people, cut off Mrs McKenzie’s hat, and then careered down the embankment into the park below Edinburgh Castle.

Uncle Henry still had the cheek to ask, ‘so what do you think? Brilliant or what?’

After they run him out of the City of Edinburgh, my uncle and his Auto Copter rode all the way to Eastbourne, on the English South Coast.

My uncle spent his final days there, having adapted the beastie to pull passengers – he would take them along the front of the town for a farthing a trip.

It all went well until Henry decided to cash in on his Scottish heritage and wear a kilt while driving his invention.

As the local Police told the judge in court - when the Auto Copter got to a speed of 15 miles per hour my uncle’s kilt blew over his head – thereby not allowing him to see where he was going – and enabling the unfortunate population of Eastbourne to see everything he had under his kilt.

As I said, my Uncle Henry, the Bampot.

bobby stevenson 2020

The Man Who Bought Hair

 

Now I isn’t here to argue the toss about, Robert Holloway. I knows what folks says about the fellow, and I says they are all wrong. Robert is my friend - well probably my only friend in this world – but what I lacks in quality of companionship, I makes up for in quality.

Yes he can be trouble - but then I got to ask you and Good Queen Victoria – who ain’t in these deplorable times, I mean who ain’t?. We all got to live. Can’t avoid it – ‘cause, as my dear Aunt Fanny used to say, ‘if you ain’t living, then you’re dead. Simple as that my boy’.

As with most things, my Aunt Fanny was always right (or there and thereabouts).

Now to get things in order, I have to tell you, my lovely readers, that I lives in the little place above Robert’s shop. From my window, if I dropped something heavy out of it, it could easily go right through the shop roof and hit someone (I only mention that in passing, ‘cause it actually happened).

Apart from my good self, (Zachariah), my pal Robert had two other acquaintances in his life. One was his boy, Albert, who had scarpered to the Americas on account of the Peelers looking him for some misunderstanding or another. The other was his wife of thirty years, Maisie.

It could be that Maisie was misunderstood or it could be that she was just as lazy as everyone said she was. The name the neighbours gave her up the street was the ‘Coat-tail Hanger’. On account that she was too lazy to walk up the street, and so she would grab on to a passing stranger’s coat-tail and get them to pull her up the hill. Now I know it is a steep hill, but still there are limits. When she got to the shop, she’d let go, and shout some complaint or other after the poor soul. Either that he was too slow, or too fat, or even too quick: ‘’E nearly took me breath away’ was one of her favourites. She was one of those little soul suckers who thought the world owed her a living, and that all she needed to concentrate on was breathing. We all know them. We all got them.

Locally, Robert was known as two things – 1. The man married to the coat-tail hanger, and 2. The man who bought hair.

For that is what he did - among other less lucrative things. The poor and the hungry would cut off their lovely locks and take them into my friend’s shop in exchange for a measly farthing or two. Some folks sold the hair from their recently departed (or Heaven forbids – the less than recently departed, if you gets my drift).

It was then my job, Good Zachariah of this parish, to wash the hairs, then stick them on to cloths, and shape them into wigs that could be used by gents and ladies of this fair town. Sometimes, you spent the whole day just killing the things that lived in the hair. Me and Robert would split the money 40 for me, 60 for him, on account of him acquiring the hair in the first place.

We used to keep the wigs in my house as Maisie sometimes took a fancy to one of them and would decide to place it on her riddled head and that would be that. Money lost.

The weirdest wig I made, at least so far, is one I made for a rather rich Gent who knocked on me door one Thursday evening.

“Just coming,” I shouted expecting that to hold the knocking, but instead it just kept on coming, harder and harder.

“What!”, I shouted as I opened the door, ‘cause I don’t like to be put upon, I don’t likes it at all.

“Well blow me down with a feather,” is what I says when I sees who it is at the door.

“Come in, come in,” I says to him.

Now I’m trying to act all……….well you know whats I mean. Here in my little room was Mister Charles Dickens – greatest writer alive – well that’s what me and Robert says.

And here’s the strange bit – he wanted a wig to fit him, but not a gentleman’s wig but one closer to a lady’s. Yes, you did read that right. He had a second request: if there was by any chance a lady’s dress that he might acquire, he would be ever so ‘umble. He really would.

It seems (and this is only between you, me and the Bells of St Mary’s) that he has a young lady companion who he is utmost fond of, and would like to travel in her company incognito. Can’t blame a man for that, can’t blame him at all.

So I go downstairs and ask if Maisie has any clothing that she doesn’t need. ‘All of it’ was what Robert said, but I took a little number I thought might go with the wig Charles was going to wear. Robert didn’t ask why – which in itself was a bit strange.

Anyway, within the hour Mister Dickens (or Toloola Bell as he asked me to call him) was on his way and off to meet his little concubine.

The funny thing as I was taking him down the stairs, Robert was on his way up with new hair, he said, ‘Evening Zachariah, evening Mister Dickens’. So much for the disguise I thought.

‘Does all the time,’ Robert told. Last week, Mister Dickens was a red-head called Cheeky.

bobby stevenson 2017

https://thougthcontrol.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/the-man-who-bought-hair/

 

The Man in 221A Baker Street and the Strange Case of Jack the Zipper as Told by Doctor Watson

1.Introduction

I have been living beneath the strange man who lives upstairs, nigh on ten months now. There is much comings and goings at all times of the night, and although I have reported such extravagances to the authorities, I have been informed that Mister Holmes is a singular man and as such, is prone to eccentricities.

Mrs Hudson, his housekeeper (if indeed that is what she is) – is to be found, on a regular basis, lying at the bottom of the stairs with an anatomy book and a bottle of gin.

Mister Holmes has a gentleman caller by the name of Doctor Watson, who seems a smidge too normal to be an acquaintance of the mad man. Still this world welcomes many types.
 
The other evening, I answered the door, as Mrs Hudson was slightly inebriated and Mr Holmes was nowhere to be found.
I was a little miffed and answered the door, abruptly.
“Yes!” Said I.
 
At the door was a six-foot tall woman, with a great deal of facial hair for one, I would assume, so delicate. She had the most brutish shoulders, but I attempted not to stare as the poor soul, who has probably been a victim of such wickedness throughout her pitiful life.
 
When all of a sudden, in the deepest of deep tones, comes a voice:
“It is I,” says the woman.
“Who is I?” Asks I.
“Why, it is me, Sherlock, your neighbour and friend from the top of the stairs,” says she.

Then on closer inspection, I see that it is indeed, Mr Sherlock Holmes in what can only be described as an excellent disguise.
“Well done,” says I.
“For what?” Asks the genius, that is Holmes.
“Why, the disguise, “I add.
“What disguise? Oh this. I was out with Mister Oscar Wilde and I had nowhere to put my key,” says Sherlock, as he runs up the stairs giving one the certain impression he is being pursued.

And talking of being pursued. Last Thursday I happened to look out of the window on to a sunny Baker Street when I see Mister Holmes running as if Old Nick was chasing him to the very heart of Hell. When I see that indeed he is being chased by the biggest hound I have ever set eyes upon. Mister Holmes keeps running, back and forth, back and forth, and each time he passes, he shouts one word that I may understand.

The first time he passed, the word was ‘Throw’ and the next time, a few minutes later, ‘The’, then even later still, ‘Dog’, followed by ‘A’, then ‘Bone’.
‘Throw the dog a bone’, was his secret message. How clever. I shouted on Mrs Hudson but she was in the process of drinking herself into oblivion, so I picked up the first bone I found in Mister’s Holmes’ parlour. Later I found out that it was a treasured dinosaur bone, still it stopped the dog.

Apparently the huge dog had been following Holmes and Watson since their little outing to the south-west of England. I helped Mister Holmes up the stairs as he was particularly flustered and looked as if he might collapse at any moment.
When we entered the parlour, once more, Dr Watson was sitting doing nothing much, other than looking at his fingers.
 
I helped Mr Holmes to a seat. “Why there you are Holmes,” said Watson, quite eagerly. “Have you ever noticed Holmes that each person’s finger has a different pattern – and may actually differ from all others in this world,” said Watson, smugly.
“And your point is?” Asked a rather angry Sherlock.
“Well, it could be used to solve crimes and such,” he said, even smugger.
“Watson?”
“Yes, Holmes,” said an expectant Watson.
“Do shut up,” said Holmes, obviously having had enough of the little doctor.

One night, last weekend, Holmes and Watson did invite me out (not with Mister Wilde) but to help them solve a crime.

We entered the unsavoury East End of London, upon a dark and foggy night, on the chance that we might apprehend a devious fiend. From all accounts, he was short of height but carried a step-ladder with him, in order to do dastardly deeds - one of which was to unzip ladies’ dresses. Naturally the dress would fall and everyone would give a cheer. Each time, he carried out such an outrage, he left a card with the motto:
“You have just met Jack, the Zipper.”
 
As Mister Holmes says, he must be caught and we are just the men to do it.

2.The Strange Case of Jack the Zipper as told by Doctor Watson.
Of all the cases that my friend and colleague, Sherlock and I, have attended this was possibly the strangest.

It seems that humanity can know no bottom level to the depths of its depravity. When one thinks that one has heard all about the miscreants and their dastardly deeds, along comes another horrid and dark crime more heinous than the previous.

So if you are ready to listen and your loins are girded, then I will continue.

It had been a rather quiet afternoon, except for Sherlock who was in his room playing the most hideous music on his violin. He said that he called the music ‘punk’ and that one day all polite society would come to know its charms.

I very much doubt it. I very much doubt it, indeed. The song he had been composing was a little ditty called ‘The Queen Doesn’t Wear Any Knickers’. I must say that Sherlock sometimes walks a fine line between being eccentric and a very good chance of losing his head one day.

That aside, the afternoon was interrupted by Lestrade of the Yard calling upon us. He asked us to sit down and for Holmes to stop playing that wretched music – Holmes was reluctant to stop as he was half-way through his favourite song: ‘Anarchy In The Vicar’s Drawing Room’.

But stop he did and Lestrade told us of the fiend who was running amok in the East End of this fine city.

“He may be a midget, but he carries a ladder of six-foot or more long, which assists him in climbing up behind the woman and undoing her dress,” said the policeman. “He pulls down their zip and the dress falls to the floor. Then he shouts ‘you have been done by Jack the Zipper’. You can imagine the pain and distress this causes,” added Lestrade.

“The man is a blighter, there I’ve said it,” said I.

Jack the Zipper’s techniques seemed to perplex Holmes.
“Why aren’t the women aware of him putting a ladder on their backs?” Asked my friend and a good question it was too.
“Because the man is a fiend and that is what fiends do,” said Lestrade convinced that his explanation would suffice. With that Lestrade was out the door and into a Hansom cab back to the Yard.

I had grown accustomed to that look on my friend’s face, and knew it meant that Sherlock would lock himself into his bedroom for several hours while he cogitated the facts. I heard him start the first few bars of ‘Never Mind the Futtocks’, and decided to give him some time to himself, while I went looking for Mrs Hudson.

I didn’t have far to go as Mrs Hudson was lying face down on the floor, outside the young gentleman’s apartments at 221A. I had to admit that Mrs H was particularly heavy that day (which I later found out was to do with the amount of anatomy books she had concealed about her person) and so I decided to knock the door of the good gentleman to assist in her removal.

I was not ready for the wonders that awaited me in that grotto of 221A. The boy is a genius of Sherlock proportions.

In the corner of his main room stood a large contraption which he called a ‘radio’ or some such nonsense. He instructed me that it was to communicate with person or persons out with our immediate area. I must say, I’d never heard the likes.

I was about to attend to Mrs Hudson who was moaning quite loudly in the hallway, when a voice came through the contraption.

“Allo, ma name ees, Guglielmo. I am 13 yearsa of age. I have invented this radio thing to find young ladies of 13 years of age. Any ladies out there want to meet up, you calla me. Ask for tha Marconi family and we can hava kisses all night.”

Then there was a noise and the thing started buzzing. The young man from 221A, thumped the contraption which stopped the noise but also the contraption, apparently.

As the young man from 221A told me, he liked to invent things. I wondered if perhaps he could be useful for future cases. He then took me into a back room to show me his most important invention. It is called a televisor or television (as his granny had named it). The young man asked to be excused and I couldn’t help myself but throw a switch on the box to see what happened.

Again, it was noisy and crackling then a picture – without the word of a lie – a picture of a boy’s face. It was in monotones but still discernible as a boy. Then he started to speak, in a very strong Scottish accent, I may add.

“My name is Willie Logie Baird. I’ve invented this wee machine which is a scunner to work, in order to meet lassies. I live in Helensburgh and there’s only me, my mammy, and my new wee brother John. I need to meet nice lassies – so if there are any oot there, just ask for the Bairds. We can meet up for a smootch.”

That too then crackled and afterwards the picture disappeared. I was about to tell the young man who had re-entered the room, when Mister Holmes burst into the apartments shouting the words:
“There is no time to lose, the game is afoot.”

Apparently we were to go to the East End that very evening to apprehend the rascal known as Jack. Mister Holmes’ plan was simple – he would dress as a woman (something he felt very comfortable with) and would act as the bait for the Zipper fiend.

The three of us hid outside the public house known as the ‘Cocken-knee Bar’ – where only Cocken-knees were allowed to drink. I had asked our young man from the flat 221A to build a smaller version of the radio so that we may talk to each other, even although we were not standing next to each other.  And that he did. Except he only made one of them. So really there wasn’t much point in having only one radio contraption (or walkie-talkie as his granny called it).

He apologised and said he would keep watch instead. Mister Holmes stuck the contraption under his dress for safe keeping.

Then Sherlock wandered into the Cocken-knee Bar looking like a right trollop (I think he may have done this before).

Things were going all right, Sherlock (or Eileen as he was known in the bar) was the centre of attraction of several men, when a little midget ran into the public house with a step-ladder and flung it up against Sherlock’s dress. The midget was about to undo the zipper when a voice came out from Sherlock’s undergarments.

“I woulda likea to meet young ladies. My namea is Marconi….”
The midget fell off the ladder in shock and me and the young man burst through the door and captured the fiend that is (or was) Jack the Zipper.

A job well done, even although I say so myself.

We lost Sherlock that night as he apparently ended up on a ship going to Hong Kong. He told me months later that he had been working on a case but to this day, he still receives letter from China addressed to a Miss Eileen Holmes.

bobby stevenson 2016

Me and Buzz and Smilin' and Girls

1.Smilin'

Like I’m always tellin’ you, Buzz thought he was born with a tongue that had been stolen straight from the mouth of an angel and that nothin’ and no one could resist the stuff that floated out of that great big pie hole.

Except for Beccy Swizzle that is. Buzz could be havin’ one of those days when he could make a blind man smile and then he’d get to Beccy Swizzle and she was like a cold day in Minnesota.
“She ain’t got a heart, that one” said Buzz after his twentieth attempt to get Beccy smilin’.
“Maybe she ain’t got a brain, too,” he said, a little unkindly.

I’m thinkin’ that if she didn’t have a brain she’d be doin’ nothin’ but smilin’, the way Farmer George’s boy does ever since he was kicked in the head from Daisy the bull. Yeh, you heard right, a bull named Daisy. No wonder he kicked people in the head. Anyhoo I’m getting’ all confused now, what was it we were talkin’ about? Oh, yeh, Buzz and Beccy and the smilin’.

I heard from Tommy Kinder, who’d heard it from Beccy’s Maw’s best friend, that Beccy came from a family of folks who were missin’ muscles in their faces.  You could tell them the saddest story that a man (or woman) could ever tell and that family would just look at you mean, like.

So if this was true, then Buzz didn’t have a snowball’s chance of making Beccy or anyone with that blood, smile. And yeh, you can guess I never told Buzz that little bit of the story. I just bet him 5 bits that he couldn’t do it.
“You see if I don’t make her smile,” he said, real honest and mad, straight to my face.

I hate to take a man’s five bits but a bet’s a bet. Except I knew Buzz would never have the five bits to give me. Even if he did, his Maw would steal it out of his britches before he was awake.

That was the kinda Maw that she was.

Buzz felt that he needed to warm up to compete with Beccy and her sour face; the way one of those runners does in competitions. So Buzz would start the day smiling, and that included at school when he got into trouble from Miss Hoster for smilin’ when she was tellin’ the class all about her cat and how it had been hit by Old Creeky McGuire’s tractor.

He smiled even when he was eatin’ and I reckons, you should get some sort of medal to be able to do that stuff. Buzz is real talented in ways I ain’t sure if God meant him to be.

Anyhoo, Saturday morning and the dead faced Swizzle family are out and about goin’ here and there but you’d bet that they’d just come from a funeral or were goin’ to one.

Buzz stands right in the middle of the sidewalk and grins the biggest grin he’s ever grinned at the Swizzles. Boy, I didn’t know anyone’s mouth could go that wide (apart from the wide-mouthed-frog we got in our back yard).

You can see from the look on Beccy’s paw’s face that he ain’t too happy with Buzz threatin’ his kinsfolk with a stupid grin, and so Beccy’s paw steps forward to ask Buzz to move. But Buzz thinks that the paw is goin’ to hit him and steps back off the sidewalk, and tumbles face down into some horse manure.

Well, I ain’t so sure that the Swizzles do have a muscle problem in their faces,‘cause the way they laughed, you would have thought they were gonna burst.
And Buzz, well he wasn’t smilin’ anymore but I did give him his five bits, ‘cause he sure earned it.



2. Girls

I remember the first time that Buzz fell in love. It was with a pretty girl called Sally Watson. Buzz had just hit thirteen years of age and his hormones were fit to be tied. I mean those things were running around his body and making him feel all sorts of things – good and bad.

Sally Watson and her family had blown in from Minnesota the previous month and had caused  ructions all along Main Street, one way and another.

Her father had come to our little part of the world to ‘help his career’ - apparently he was a banker or something. Sally’s mother was the kind of woman who’d step on you to get somewhere else – I don’t mean to talk unkindly of the woman but she was real mean and ambitious. So Buzz hanging about their door wasn’t the kind of thing they were looking for. I reckon if Mister Watson had got it into his head to buy a gun then Buzz would be picking the pellets out of his bee-hind. I kid you not.

“I have just seen the most beautiful girl in the world,” was what he said that Wednesday.
“Who?”
“She’s a vision,” said Buzz. Let me tell you with a hand on my heart that Buzz never, ever said things like that before the hormones went crazy like.
“Who?”

Buzz shrugged his shoulders, ate a couple of my mom’s cookies and then remembered he was in love and a gave out a huge sigh.
“I am in love,” he said after lying down on my sofa.
“I hope it ain’t catchin’,” I said, not wanting to have to lie on people’s sofas or anythin’.
“She’s an angel.”
“Who?” I said again, remembering that he hadn’t told me nothin’.
“That new girl, the one whose family have moved into number seventeen, the house at the top of the hill, the one nearest Heaven,” he said. I kid you not, that’s what he said. Buzz, newly turned thirteen and he’s talking like....well a crazy kid.
I asked him if he had swallowed somethin’ real bad and Buzz said that it was just the breath of love. My stomach nearly dumped my breakfast on the sofa beside Buzz ‘cause that kind of talk makes a man feel kinda sick. I kid you not.

I left Buzz on the sofa to get better and went and played Cowboys and Injuns with the Hardy Twins who were only twelve and immune from love.

The next day I was walking to the Harper's place, up on Indian Ridge and I spots Buzz sitting outside the Watson's house, doing nothing else but looking at their windows with his hands under his chin and sighing. No idea why he kept sighing but he seemed to like it.
“You okay?” I asked.

He just nodded his head and wouldn’t turn to look at me, he just kept on looking at the house.
“She’s in there. My angel,” said Buzz.

It was then that Mister Watson stormed out the house and came up to me, real angry like.
“Are you related to this lunatic?” Mister Watson screamed, putting his face so close to mine that I could see the hairs up his nose.
“No sir, he’s my best friend in the whole world.”
“Do you know that friend of yours has been sitting outside our house all night,” said Mister Watson.
“I did not sir, but surely he ain’t causing trouble?” I said.
“You’d think? At least not until your lunatic friend started singing at 3 in the morning, at the top of his voice. What have you got to say to that?” Man was he angry.

I said that I didn’t know that Buzz could sing and that was when Mister Watson started chasin’ me down the hill. That man could run fast when he was angry.

The following morning I just happen to be looking out of my bedroom window getting ready for church when I saw Buzz getting chased up Main Street by Mister Watson in his Sunday best. Mister Watson that is, Buzz didn’t have a Sunday best.

I reckon the path of true love ain’t that easy as that English guy said, or maybe it was the Bible, I ain’t too sure.

I didn’t really see Buzz over the next two weeks, except when he was being chased by Mister Watson. I hung out with the rest of the town’s kids who were all safe from this love thing.

I remember that warm Saturday evening down by the stream, I saw Buzz sitting under the large Southern Magnolia. I thought he was laughin’ but he wasn’t, as I got closer I sees that he was cryin’ real hard.
“What’s up?”
“She loves another.”
“Who?”
“Sally Watson. She says she loves Jesus and she ain’t got time for me,” said Buzz, who was real heartbroken.
“What you gonna do?” I asked.

And he told me that he hadn’t a darned clue what he was going to do as there was no way he could compete with Jesus.

I guess he got that one right. The next day he came around to my place to eat all our food, like he usually did, but he looked a darned sight happier.

I asked him if he had decided what to do about Sally Watson and he said:
“Who?”


bobby stevenson 2016

Me and Buzz and the Hospital

This is just one of those quick stories I gotta tell you 'fore Buzz finds out.
Some of the sharper of you out there might remember the time that Buzz broke his leg in two places – the yard and the driveway – yeah, I know, it’s still not funny.

But it did mean that my best bud in the whole world had to spend several of his summer weeks in Hot Springs Creek Hospital. Very few folks come out of that place alive, and Buzz was squealin’ all the way there about the fact that he was fine and that a day lyin’ in his bed would fix everythin’.

He ain’t no coward, is Buzz, but every one of his family who ever went into that place came out in a wooden box. Okay, so most of them were over ninety years of age. Okay, all of them were over ninety years of age but hey, you see what was troublin’ my bud?

When they tried to wheel him into the hospital on a gurney, he wouldn’t let go of the ambulance. Jeez, I thought they were gonna have to cut his hands off too, but his Mom used her tried and tested method and hit him on the knuckles and he soon let go. Yeah, you’re right, she was a hard woman.

Anyhoo once they got my bud into a bed, and he realized that he wasn’t goin’ nowhere for a while, he kinda settled down. That was when he told me, that it was my job to keep him entertained, ‘cause that’s what a pal does. First I heard.

The followin’ day, I borrowed Ma Cooper’s donkey and tried to get into the hospital. I got as far as the front door but the critter was just as stubborn as Buzz. I got around the back of it and pushed the donkey’s ass, but it didn’t shift much. Just as the donkey’s head got through the hospital door, someone screamed and they all came runnin’ – meanin’ that I got scolded and sent home with a letter and the donkey. I was told that when Buzz heard that story, he nearly wet the hospital bed ‘cause he had laughed so hard. Me and Buzz were always havin’ trouble tryin’ not to laugh so hard that you gotta pee -, it just one of life’s things you gotta accept. Part of bein’ a man, I guess.

The next day, I got the Shaker Twins, who is midgets, to stand on the other’s shoulders and walk past Buzz’s window with a big coat on – well I thought it was real funny but when Joey Shaker (the smaller of the midgets) tripped on a stone, he fell off his brother’s shoulders and it kinda, (only kinda mind you), looked like a man had been halved in two. All I heard was Mrs Treats screamin’ that a man had been cut in two outside her window and that, help her soul, Satan could just swaller her up right here and now, ‘cause she’d seen it all.

I gotta say, and I know it ain’t kind, but Mrs Treats is a bit soft in the old head on account that she was the town’s teacher for nearly a hundred years (or somethin’ like that). You can guess that I got another letter home to my folks.

My final attempt wasn’t like, my greatest one. Becky Callister is known to drop her knickers and show her bee-hind to anyone who will give her a candy. Okay, so I was desperate. Anyhoo, I gave her two candies just to make sure she done a good job. Can I just say right here, that Becky ain’t the sharpest knife in a drawer and she showed her ass to Mr Hope (the next window along), who was recoverin’ from a heart condition.

Okay, so you’ve guessed again, yep, I got a letter and yep, I got told to stay away from the hospital or they’d call the police. It’s another three weeks until my bud gets released, I just hope I can last.


bobby stevenson 2016

wee bobby

Me and Buzz and The Roadsmen

Buzz kind-a discovered money late in life and I don’t mean as some type of granddaddy who found a box of cash in the back yard. I mean that as a kid he’d never really had the need for money, ‘cause - as he was always tellin’ people - Buzz lived off his God-given personality and his killer good looks.

As far as I can remember, Buzz’s first real job was running errands for Mrs Trudy Spencer who ran a little haven from life’s troubles. It was called The House and it sat comfortably at the bottom of Ferdinand Street.Everyone called it The House but the whole town knew what went on there. If you needed it, Mrs Trudy Spencer would sell it to you.

Buzz was probably about fourteen years old at the time but he looked way older. No one would ask him how old he was, as it was always assumed he was old enough. Under the cover of darkness Buzz would carry packages to and from The House.
 
I remember the first time Buzz took me along on a trip. He got to the kitchen door at the back of The House, then knocked in a series of complicated codes. No one knocked back but as I found out later, that was because Buzz had made the knocking codes up himself and of course inside they knew it was him and didn’t bother answering the door.
 
I asked Buzz what was in the packages and you know what he told me? He said it was ‘hooch’.
“Good old Hooch made up on the hills by the Roadsmen,” Buzz told me.
 
  No one ever really knew or met the Roadsmen. They were those people who did all the things that other people should have got blamed for. Even the bad weather was blamed on them.
“That rain was caused by the Roadsmen and their fires,” my uncle once told me when it ruined his daughter’s wedding.  To be honest I thought the package was a bit on the small side for Hooch, so when Buzz went in to talk to Mrs Spencer, I had a peek into the package and it was just plain sarsaparilla for the high rollin’ customers who called The House , a home.
 
I wasn’t gonna tell my pal, I just let him think he was someone who the Feds would be interested in talking to. Buzz would get paid in goods for his troubles. Tonight he had received chocolates and two pairs of nylon stockings.
“Give them to yer Ma,” Mrs Trudy Spencer had told Buzz “I hear she could do with a good man in her life.”
 
I can just imagine that Buzz would have looked hurt at that point as he was the man in his Ma’s life, the man of the house. I don’t think that was what Mrs Trudy Spencer was really talking about. 

That night we lay on the hill overlooking town and ate the chocolates. We both wore the stockings over our faces and decided that maybe we would keep them for the day when we needed to rob a bank.
“Why would we rob a bank?” I asked Buzz.
“In case we needed the money,” he told me.
“We ain’t got money and we’re happy.”
“I know, but maybe.....” then he stopped and I could hear his brain working....”yeh but maybe...one day we’ll get money and then we’ll lose it and then we’ll want to get some more.”
 
Buzz lay back real pleased with himself about that explanation and then pulled his nylon stocking disguise back over his chocolate covered face. He did have a point, one day we would have money and I’m sure we’d miss it if it went away.
 
The rest of the summer Buzz delivered the ‘illicit goods’ to The House (by that I mean, the sarsaparilla I’ve already mentioned, empty bottles, old newspapers, table cloths – you get what I’m saying?) The cops didn’t want to talk to Buzz, no matter what he thought.
 
To save on time and expense, at the start of each week Buzz would pick up some of the packages and store them in a hidey-hole in his back yard. Then each night he’d take some of the stuff over to Mrs Spencer’s.
One night he comes screaming around to my place.
“They’re gone,” he shouted. “Gone!”
“What’s gone?”
“The hooch,” said Buzz. “Someone’s stolen Mrs Trudy Spencer’s property.”
 
I rubbed my chin, as you do in these circumstances, then we both looked at each other and at the same time we said:
“The Roadsmen!”
  The Roadsmen were known to steal everything and anything, even kids. I remember my Ma saying to me that if I didn’t behave (or Beeee-have was how she said it) I would be given away to the Roadsmen.
 
No one really knew what the Roadsmen did with you when they got you – some kid in class said they made you dress as a midget and work in circuses. Me and Buzz didn’t think that would be such a bad way to spend your time.
“I’m going up to the top of Driftward Plains and getting my Hooch back,“ shouted Buzz. Boy, was he in a grumpy mood.
 
I said I’d go with him, I couldn’t let my best pal face the Roadsmen on his own. And anyway I was real curious about what they looked like. 

Right after Buzz made his Tuesday night delivery, we headed up to Driftward Plains on a bicycle that he borrowed from the rear of The House. I’m sure I had seen the bike before and that it belonged to the Sheriff, but I couldn’t be certain.
 
We pushed, or it might be more correct to say, I pushed the bicycle most of the way up Deadman’s Gully. Buzz kept reminding me that he owed it to folks to look his best and that pushing a bike really didn’t help.
“Shh,” he whispered at the lip of the hill. We both crawled to the edge and looked over.
“See the lights?” asked Buzz. “That’s them.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“’Cause who else would be up here?” asked my pal.
“Us,” I said, but I was ignored. 

They were all sitting around a big roaring fire when we jumped out on them or rather Buzz did.
“Woooo!” he shouted but it just sounded real lame like.
 
The six of the Roadsmen that were sitting around the fire just looked up and then back at the fire. I don’t think they were too impressed.
“I want my Hooch back,” Buzz shouted and then he did a funny dance. Not funny as in comic, funny as in he should get locked up.
“Sit and join us,” said one of the guys who must have been over a hundred years old, maybe two hundred.

They seemed a nice bunch of guys and long, long ago when they were our age they'd come up here to try and meet the Roadsmen, but they never had.

“We just kept missing them,” said the two hundred year old man.”Then we just kept coming up here. Now some of us are alone, some of us are in homes and some of us ain’t got long. We just drive up here is Ken’s old jalopy and watch the sun going down and up again.”
“So you didn’t take my Hooch?” said Buzz.
“Nope.”

We sat there with those guys until dawn just flappin’ our gums and talking about life. Me and Buzz decided that when we got older, we’d meet up on the top of Driftward Plains.
 
When Buzz got back home he found his Ma had taken his packages in to the house ‘cause next door’s dog kept trying to pee on them.
 
As for Buzz discovering about money, well I’m kind-a sleepy right this minute. I guess it would be all right if I tell you that story another time.
 
Keep a watch out for the Roadsmen, unless you like getting shot outta cannon in a circus.

bobby stevenson 2016

wee bobby

The Dog Who Loved To Drive

It was New Year’s Day, 1913 and Andrew was bored. Everyone in the house was sleeping off the after-effects of the Ball which his parents insisted on holding every stupid year. This meant that no one would be driving the motor car that day and this made Andrew smile. All he needed was to rev the old beast up, find Buster and then the two of them could be off to the seaside.

Buster wasn’t just Andrew’s dog, he was his best pal and was probably much cleverer than the boy  - but then again, Buster wasn’t one to brag.

Andrew sat Buster in the driving seat as he pushed the car silently out of the stables and under the nose of Reynolds – the little man who looked after everything mechanical for the big house.
Andrew’s father promised his son his own motor car when it came to the time that he would go up to Oxford – until then he had to take every opportunity to teach himself the rudiments of driving. How hard could it be? I mean, Buster was steering the car along the drive and he was a dog.

Before they got to the big gates Andrew checked there was enough fuel to get them to the coast and back.
“Good man, Reynolds,” thought Andrew - Reynolds always kept the motor car in ship-shape and ready for the off. All Andrew had to do was turn the crank and that would be that. The motor car spluttered into life, shaking and banging before it settled down and began purr like a big cat.

Andrew hopped in and made Buster sit in the passenger seat (much to the dog’s annoyance). It was several minutes before the dog looked in Andrew’s direction again. Okay, so the dog was very clever and very friendly but it could get annoyed if it didn’t get its own way. Andrew knew how to bring 
Buster around by giving him a saucer of champagne – and not just any kind of champagne it had to be the 1893 and it had to be served at room temperature. Buster was a snob, as if I need to tell you.

It wasn’t long before they were on the road to the coast. Naturally being New Year’s Day, the road was empty of traffic without even a horse to be seen. The road was straight enough that Andrew felt confident to let Buster steer the car, Andrew worked all the other buttons and pedals.

Whether it was the effects of a  late night or all the dancing at the Ball, sleep crept up on Andrew and he fell into a deep dream. Buster hadn’t noticed and wasn’t caring since he was driving a human car and it felt great.  As they drove through the next town, a Mrs Styler of Heyham High Street looked out her window to see one of those new motor cars being driven by a dog and a man (who looked unconscious) in the other seat. She was going to mention it to her husband when she decided that he was already looking for an excuse to get her locked up and this would be the perfect gift for him, so she went back to bed and lay down in the darkened room.

Somewhere just outside of town the car ran out of fuel and Buster guided it to the side of the road. He then started to bark at Andrew.  Okay Andrew would have heard it as just barking but to Buster it sounded as if he was telling his lazy friend to fill up the car with more fuel. After what seemed a very long time (which in dog’s years was probably true) Buster decided to fill up the car with fuel himself; a farmer who was in field nearby saw this and decided that he had been working too hard and for the first time in his life went home early.

Once again Buster barked and barked but he couldn’t get Andrew to waken so being a very self-reliant dog, it decided to turn the crank handle itself. With Andrew’s hands and feet still on the buttons and such like, the motor car suddenly moved off on its own. It shot down the coast road with Buster running behind barking that someone should try to stop the human motor car.

The Reverend Dunlop was opening his church doors when he saw a motor car driving down the road with the driver asleep and a dog running behind barking. He smiled to himself and continued with his work.  Just as the motor car entered town, Buster managed to jump back on board and turn the car along the coast road. Buster knew he couldn’t stop the car - so his only options were to drive it into the sea, or let it run out of fuel, or try to turn the motor car around and head for home.

It was then that Buster noticed a large house with many dogs and bitches running around the garden. He turned the motor car into the drive and as the car laboured up the hill, he invited the other animals to jump aboard. As he drove the car out of the grounds there must have been nearly twenty dogs and bitches sitting in the motor car. Two of them were on top of the sleeping Andrew.

Buster continued driving along the coast and at the big pier, the car once again ran out of fuel. So leaving the sleeping Andrew in the car, Buster and his pals spent several hours running along the beach and stealing food when the humans weren’t looking. All too quickly the sun started to go down and so Buster filled the car with the last of the fuel, and got several of his pals to turn the crank.

After a very satisfying day, Buster drove back through the dogs’ home, dropping off his friends. It was dark when the car reached home and as Buster had no way of stopping it, he drove the car into the garage hoping the something would bring it to a halt. Actually the car burst through the back wall and continued across the lawn but by this time Buster had already jumped off.

Reynolds found a very confused Andrew several miles away in the forest where the motor car had eventually run out of fuel. Buster on the other hand was safely tucked up in his warm bed and dreaming of more adventures.

bobby stevenson 2016

Me and Buzz and Lyin'

There was a time back then, a long time after Buzz’s pappy had left for somewhere down south, that Buzz took to lyin’ to make himself feel better. Well maybe not lyin’ exactly, more exaggeratin’ usin’ stories that weren’t the whole truth and nothin’ but the truth.

I mean I knew his pappy was long gone but I heard Buzz tellin’ the new teacher – the one with the crooked eye - that Buzz’s pappy was away being King of England. It was a story that probably made my buddy feel a little better and that’s all that mattered.

The teacher kinda smiled at him, as if Buzz was the class idiot (which sometimes he was), and then told him she’d hear all about it later and that perhaps Buzz could take his seat, ‘If his majesty feels like it, that is’. You see Buzz had forgotten that if his pappy was the King then that made him the Prince.
“It does?” he said in a real high voice. “It does,” he said again in a real butch low voice.

It sure did and he spent that summer askin’ folks to call him the Prince. Not everyone took kindly to that - one day when I was in Marty’s Barbers, I heard one of the new guys sayin’ ‘There goes the Prince of Fools’ and when I look out the window to see what he’s talkin’ about, all I could see was Buzz crossin’ the street.

Sometimes Buzz and his exaggeratin’ could get a little out of control. Like the time, one July, a man from the Centerville Times came over to our town to look for ukulele players for some competition in the newspaper. Buzz wasn’t interested until he heard that the prize was fifty bucks. I think Buzz thought the money would get him to find his paw and bring him home, on account that his maw spent most nights crying through the wall of their home.
“Step right up here, ladies and gents and sign up for the most prestigious prize this side of Two Forks River. Step right up. Here’s a fine gentleman ready to put his John Hancock on the paper.”

When I look up I’m already too late ‘cause Buzz has put his signature on the competition entry. I tried to grab the pen off of him but he just looked at me and said that I owed the man one buck entry fee on account that his pockets were empty. Apparently royal people, like princes, don’t carry money. Now, I did not know that.
“You can’t play the ukulele, “ I reminded Buzz, later.
“It’s two weeks to the competition. I can learn it, in that time.
Anyway, what’s got into your breeches?”

Maybe I was being a bit stupid and perhaps Buzz actually could learn to play the ukulele in fourteen days. There was probably a book somewhere called ‘Play The Ukulele in Two Weeks’. A buck fifty for the book and a big load of money in return.

Except there weren’t no book, Buzz had no intention of learnin’.
“Why would I want to learn the banjo?” Asked Buzz

I reminded him it wasn’t a banjo but the ukulele.
“What’s that?” He asked me, and right then was the point that I gave up on my friend. I ain’t proud of it, but I thought there goes my buck down the river. I ain’t goin’ to see that again.
“What’s grittin’ your panties?” Asked Buzz who could see I was a bit disconcerted.
“You ain’t gonna win the money Buzz on account that you don’t know what a ukulele is.”
“Is it a quiz? I don’t think so. I ain’t goin’ to play the thing.”
“You ain’t?” I said wonderin’ what was comin’ next.
“No, I ain’t. Becky Smallhousen is going to play the thing.”

So I can hear you thinkin’, just like I’m thinkin’ at this point, just exactly who is Becky Smallhousen and how is she gonna play the ukulele and make folks think it’s Buzz?

When Buzz told me the plan, I actually thought that it might work. What he hadn’t bargained on was Becky Smallhousen hittin’ a load of poison Ivy on the mornin’ of the competition and her head blowin’ up to three times its normal size. At least that’s what Buzz said.

Becky was meant to hide in a bush behind Buzz and when he stamped his foot three times she would start playin’ the ukulele while Buzz pretended to strum her old one. So they got to practisin’ and Becky happened to hide in the only bush that contained poison Ivy for miles around.
“I ain’t doing it,” I said to Buzz when he said he’d share the prize money with me.
“All you need to do is hide in the bush and play the thing, just like Becky.”
“I can’t play the ukulele,” I told Buzz.
“I’m not askin’ you to, I’m askin’ you to play the banjo,” said Buzz still confused as to what stringed instrument he was meant to be playin’.

So that was the plan, I would hide in the bush and attempt to play the ukulele while Buzz stood out front. I say it was a plan – ‘cause that was what is was, until Buzz bumped into the Smith Twins who could play any kinda instrument. There was a story that they could blow air up any animals’ be-hind and get a tune from it.

There was also the fact that the Smith Twins would accept only five bucks from the prize money - they undercut me.

It started real good, The man from the Centerville Times introduced Prince Buzz, son of the King of England. Buzz stamped his feet and a beautiful ukulele tune came from what seemed like Buzz. The trouble was that as one twin played the ukulele the other twin couldn’t resist joinin’ in on the spoons and it kinda gave the game away.

I mean you can say what you like about Prince Buzz - but playin’ a ukulele and the spoons at the same time ain’t one of them.

The Centerville Times ran a big story on the competition.

Royal man caught cheating it read.

Buzz was famous in three counties for a few days. And me? Well I never did get my buck back.
 

bobby stevenson 2016