On The Right Tracks

There is a little railway station just north of somewhere and to the east of that other place. And one time in your life, you’ll either have stood waiting on a train there or will have passed through it, I promise you.

The station wasn’t anything special, it just helped people get into the city and received their tired bodies at the end of the day. It had been built in the 1850’s and judging by the architecture, it was a statement to a country with an empire. But things change, and empires fall, and now the station just had a ticket office and a toilet.

It wasn’t small enough that people talked to each other, nor was it big enough to get lost in – it was a station of an awkward size, where people saw the same folks everyday but were standing too far away to communicate. And  so life went on as it always does.

Then one cold November, just after that thing that happened, but just before that other thing was about to occur, Jonathon Nasby came to the station as the Station Manager. Okay, all he did was sell tickets and clean the toilet but that wasn’t going to stop Jonathon – who had once dreamt he was going to be an astronaut or failing that, regenerate into Doctor Who.

At first, Jonathon (who had never been actually told to his face, that life was hard) started singing as he sold the tickets. There were those (as there are always ‘those’) who found the humming and singing a distraction, but for most, it was a little break from the hum-drum of travelling to work.

Then Jonathon started to sing as he announced what trains were going where and the ones which weren’t coming. A few faces would crack a smile while standing on the platform and possibly, one or two would forget about their troubles for a few minutes.

It wasn’t long before Jonathon was telling little stories for the folks who stood, waiting:   about how he had got the job, how he had never been picked for sports’ teams at school and how, despite everything, he felt that a Station Manager was a brilliant job and he wanted to thank everyone who had helped him.

One or two of those waiting broke into applause, and like an Oscar speech, Jonathon decided to thank everyone in his life. One morning, a note was left at the ticket office which just said ‘thank you’ and Jonathon felt that was the best note he had ever been given in his life.

In between the songs, the selling of the tickets, the cleaning of the toilet, and the little speeches, Jonathon started to write his own little stories.

One snowy day when everyone was generally feeling miserable he made this announcement:
“Good day my fellow travellers, I want you to think about your problems. I guess most of you are standing there thinking of them anyway. Now, in your head, give your problems away to someone in the station and you take their problems. Swap yours for theirs. And I know you’ve probably heard it before but I, reckon that if you could really see all their problems, you’d be screaming for your own back.”

Then Jonathon broke into his version of Bohemian Rhapsody (doing all the voices). The station became so popular that people started to change stations and leave from Jonathon’s because it made their day. It got so crowded that sometimes there wasn’t room to move.

The big chiefs on the Railway Board decided to investigate and discovered that Jonathon’s spirit and outlook was just what they needed at one of the big city stations. Soon he started to run the Jonathon Nasby School for Railway Enhancement and Entertainment.Jonathon realised that all people really wanted was someone to tell them that they were okay.

Jonathon is the Prime Minister now and of course broadcasts a song to the entire country every morning. Today the song was the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and folks in every city, town and hamlet were heard to sing along with him.

bobby stevenson 2016

wee bobby

The Great Film Fiasco of Shoreham Village

Now I know you’re going to say to me that you’ve heard this story before - okay I might have talked about it as having taken place in another village and in another time, but I was only trying to keep the guilty from being named – honest.

It all happened that one summer, the one in 1940, when the world was turned on its head and the good folks of Kent were waiting on the enemy to turn up at its door.

Let me say from the start that his story isn’t to do with the war, well not directly - I will leave those tales to folks who are worthy of telling them – no, this story is to do with Shoreham Village and about certain individuals who were about to try to cheer the village up.

Above the heads of those Shoreham folks that summer, the Battle of Britain was being fought out; friends and neighbours were sent off to war, and so it fell to one Ichabod Swithin to shoulder the burden of keeping the morale high within the parish.

Ichabod had tossed and turned several nights trying to think of some darned good idea that would be worthy of Shoreham and its inhabitants. He had once been a pianist and tune-smith for some of the well-known stage stars in the early 1900s and thought that perhaps a revival might be on the cards. However, when Ichabod went looking for his old chums he found that they were either dead or too old to tread the boards.

Ichabod almost gave up in his quest to lift the spirits of his Shoreham family - when one warm Saturday his grandson, Samuel came calling. The two of them were best of pals and enjoyed a pint of ale in the Crown, followed by a walk along the river – and it was here that Samuel let it be known to his grandfather that what he was doing was all ‘hush-hush’ and that he was enjoying it immensely.

Samuel asked his granddad why the old rascal he was looking so glum and Ichabod told him all about the problem he had with trying to cheer the village up.

“What if I could get you a film to show,” said Samuel.

“Like what?” Asked his grandfather.

Ichabod was thinking that perhaps they could show a few Charlie Chaplin reels and a cup of tea to follow. Surely that would do the trick? But Samuel had grander ideas.

“It would mean us getting our hands on a large projector and perhaps you could hang a large sheet from the stage,” said his grandson.

And that dear folks is how it happened. The following Friday evening was the allocated date and the film was to be shown to the good folks of Shoreham for a penny each.

Like all things in life, the best laid plans (and all that) went slightly off course.

Samuel had done Ichabod proud and had got his hands on a very famous film to show (it helped that Samuel worked in the propaganda department of the war effort – where they made movies to bolster the good people of Britain). The film was Gone With The Wind and it had only been released in Britain several weeks earlier.

The problem – and it was a problem – was that the film was four hours long and no one had that amount of time to spend – not with farming, feeding families and a war going on above their heads.

So it was decided by the council that they would show it in two parts; two hours on the Friday and two hours on the Saturday. That seemed like a practical solution and so everyone was happy.

That is, until the word got out, up and down the valley, that a grand film like Gone With The Wind was showing for a penny in Shoreham.

The queue reached all the way from the village hall to the railway station (which, to those who don’t know the place is about half a mile). There were a lot of disgruntled people that night – and what hurt Ichabod was that many who had gained entry to the film-showing weren’t from Shoreham.

Samuel came up with a plan to show the film in two parts the following Friday and Saturday as well. Ichabod was happy, as were the rest of the council.

Here is where it gets tricky – there was a big queue, if not a bigger one, on the Saturday night and some who got in, hadn’t seen the first part – and some had seen both parts. You’d think that would keep some of the people happy – you’d think – but no, folks started using the fact that they’d seen the Saturday night half to their advantage.

The first incident was when Old George Smith (who had been to the film on Friday) punched his best pal (who had been to the Friday and Saturday showing) in the face when he threatened to tell him the ending of the film.

The next big upset was when Egbert Cuthbert stood up in church the following day and told the congregation that if they didn’t give him the contents of the collection plates, he’d tell them all how the film finished. Big Sam, the farmer, manged to grab Egbert and throw him out the building before he got around to telling the good people anything important.

One masked man (everyone guessed it was Egbert again) was found to stand in the High Street and ask for money or else he’d tell them the whole of the story. Mrs Lupin battered the robber over the head with the Margaret Mitchell novel and said she’d already read Gone With The Wind, thank you very much, and she hurriedly moved on. 

Some of the Friday/Saturday night people were seen to huddle in little groups in the village shops and butchers – and they would look over at those who hadn’t seen the whole film with a look of pity.

If ever there was a way to divide a village, this was it and it wasn’t what Ichabod had wanted.

Things only got worse the following weekend, when they showed part one again - but there was an air raid on the Saturday and the whole thing was cancelled.

And that is why some folks are still not talking to each other in Shoreham – and why Ichabod ended up with a ninety-five year old tap dancer and Ichabod on the piano in the village hall.

It might not be Hollywood but frankly who’s giving a damn.


bobby stevenson 2016

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

Me and Buzz and Grooviness

When me and Buzz were about 15 years old, Buzz turned to me one day and told me, straight in the eye like, that he had ‘an itchen’ for a hitchen’.

“Let’s hitch right across the country to... well, the end,” said Buzz not sure where the end of the country was.

“Then what?” I asked just to see what he’d say. “Why then we’ll come back again, groovy boy.”
The problem was that Buzz had started reading books, comics mostly, but there was one book in particular that he’d taken to - a book about being out on the road and discovering the real old tracks of this great country and it kind-a hit a nerve with old Buzz.

He started wearing a beret and calling everything and everyone ‘groovy’, something Mrs Mitchell, our teacher, didn’t take too kindly.
“Shakespeare isn’t groovy, Buzz. Now sit down and take that stupid hat off.”

No one could tell Buzz that Shakespeare wasn’t one of the grooviest beat-nicks to come out of England.

Buzz reckoned if we got to hitchhike at least 20 miles a day, then by the end of the year we’d be.......well, pretty far away from town. He got that right.

Buzz started to grow his hair real long and Pastor Simmons used to mention in his Sunday sermon about boys who looked like girls ‘cause of their hair and everyone in the congregation turned and looked at Buzz, who was sleeping with his beret over his eyes.

One morning at Sunday school, the teacher asked what word could describe Jesus and Buzz stuck his hand up right away. I was wishing that he wouldn’t say what he was going to say but he did.

He had to stand in front of the whole congregation the following Sunday and apologise to God for calling his son, groovy.

By the time the summer came, Me and Buzz were ready for the hitchen. Buzz couldn’t make up his mind which direction we should start to hitch. So one Thursday, he said we could decide by following the way the wind blew; however that day would have meant us hitchen right through Tasker’s slaughterhouse, into the Hotel La Boomba and finishing up at the school hall before we even got outta town.

Each day would come and each day Buzz couldn’t or wouldn’t decide which was the best direction outta town. It got so bad that it made me say somethin’ I didn’t wanna, but it had to be said.
“Are you sure you wanna go hitchen, Buzz?” There I said it right in his face.
“Are you crazeee?” He hollered but I knew Buzz and he said ‘crazeee’ a little too crazy like - which made me think he was hiding something.
“I ain’t crazy, Buzz, I don’t think you want to go a-hitchen.”

Then he came out with the truth - right there and then - and said he’d read a book called War of The Worlds and that he was thinking that maybe we could go to Mars instead.

I slapped my old pal on the back and said that sounded like a real good plan and as I looked back at his house I saw his maw in the back yard wearing Buzz’s old beret.

bobby stevenson 2016

Jinky, the Nutcase

“So what do you want me to call you, Jinky or Jenkinson?” I asked him.
“Why is that so important?” He replied.
“So I know what name to give to the police when I call them,” I added.
“And why would you do that?” Jinky or Jenkinson responded.
“Because, it’s 3am, I don’t know you from Adam, and you’re sitting on the end of my bed.”
“And your problem is what exactly? And by the way, I prefer the name Jinky.”

“My problem is, that you’ve broken in to my house,” I said.
“’Breaking in’ is such an emotive way to put things, but then again I guess you’re a writer and you can say things like that. People who break-in usually steal things. I don’t want to steal anything apart from a few minutes of your time.”
“But why at 3am?” I asked.
“Because I knew there was a chance of getting you in. I have come to your door several times during the day and there’s never anyone home. And, may I add that would be a better time to break-in rather than at 3am.”

The stupid thing was I could see that he had a point. Still, with my finger on the police speed dial button, I thought I would give a chance to explain himself, 3am or not.

“I want you to tell me what happens at the end of your story.”
“Which story?” I thought I should ask.
“’The Shenandoah Reclaim’, the story where the cowboy rides off into the sunset,” he said.
“How should I know?” I asked wishing I had called the police.
“Because you wrote it, but only up to a point,” he said, annoyed.
“I like to leave the reader to make the rest up for themselves, I like to let them take over the story,” I lied.
“What if they don’t want to?” He demanded. He was no longer sitting on the bed but standing.
“Tough!”
“Tough? What kind of answer is that?” He shouted (and he was shouting).
“The only one you’re going to get at 3.15am,” I said smugly, although wishing that I had more than a couple of Dan Brown novels next to the bed to throw at him. I knew they would come in handy someday as they are no use when you read them.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what happens and without any help from me,” he said pointing his finger straight at me.
 
So that was what I did for the rest of the night. I made up a story about Gene, the cowboy and the things he did next after riding into the sunset.

I awoke about 10am to find that Jinky (as he likes to be called) had disappeared as mysteriously as he had turned up. Although he had left a note saying that he was unhappy at my ending of ‘The Rose Girl’ and would I mind if he dropped by at 3 to 3.30am tomorrow to find out what happened next. 

You see I only wrote these things to pass the time, if I thought people were going to read them, I wouldn’t have bothered.

bobby stevenson 2015
http://www.randomactsstories.blogspot.co.uk/

Me and Buzz and the President

Okay, so you may (or may not) know what happened to Buzz and how he turned out - and so you may (or may not) want to know when all this stuff kinda started.

I’ve been thinkin’ about it and I got to say it was probably that day - the day when the President came to town. The Chief of Staff was kinda passin’ through town on the way to seein’ some of his kin who lived up the valley. There was an election comin’ up and they wanted to show the President as a man of the people (well that’s what my granddaddy says, and he usually knows ‘bout these things).

So Buzz says to me that he’s never seen a President before, leastways, not in the flesh and I say why don’t we sneak off and watch the whole show going through town.
Me and Buzz sit in the big tree that hangs over Main Street and wait. Nothin’ happened for a long, long time. Well not except for Maise Blue who was walking up and down, like she always does, searchin’ for a boyfriend. She’s always lookin’ for a boyfriend. Everybody in town knows that.

Then this kinda scary guy shouts up and asks what me and Buzz are doin’ up the tree. I shout and tells him that we are waitin’ for the president. He says, have we got a gun. Before I know it, Buzz says he has, but he means the one his maw keeps in the attic and that was when all these guys surrounded the tree and told us to get down.
When I explained that Buzz was a bit stooped sometimes, the guys agreed and said they were sorry for the trouble and did we want a soda.

It was while we were drinkin’ our sodas, that everyone started to get excited and some guy in a dark suit shouts that Eagle has landed or somethin’ and everyone starts runnin’ around.

The cops are standin’ all the way down Main Street keepin’ the good folks of town back on the sidewalk.
One big tall guy who kept talkin’ to no one that I could see, said that it was too late for us to go back into the crowd and that we should just keep followin’ them down the street.
Well there’s me and Buzz followin’ the President and his security men and folks are cheerin’ and shoutin’. So Buzz starts to wave back and folks wave to him. So I’m thinkin’ this ain’t a bad idea and then I start waving.

Then it hits me, what if there’s a real madman with a gun in the crowd, and what if he’s cross-eyed (like Luke McAllister) and shoots one of us. While I’m wavin’, I tell Buzz this and he says that if we kinda danced it would be harder for the cross-eyed gunman to hit us.

So me and Buzz start kinda dancin’ and the crowd cheers even louder. When I say dancin’ I mean we were jiggin’ as if we had ants in our pants but it went down well with the folks.
Then Buzz got carried away and he started all that barn dancin’ stuff and started linkin’ arms with me. It was only when he tried the same with the security man that it all went wrong.

Anyhoo, the security men had me and Buzz in a real tight hold when the President’s window went down and he kinda said somethin’ to one of the guys in black.
Next thing we know, me and Buzz are sittin’ in the car with the President and talkin’ to him. I kid you not, may I pee ma pants for ever if I’m lyin’.

The President asks me what I want to be when I grows and I says a writer and he says that’s a good thing to be. Then he asks Buzz what he wants to be and Buzz says 'president, just like you’, he says.
Well that was the first a heard of that one but Buzz crossed his heart and hoped to die if he was lyin’.
And some of you out there know what happened to Buzz and ain’t probably surprised at this story. 


bobby stevenson 2015
http://www.randomactsstories.blogspot.co.uk/

Me and Buzz and The Madman

That day started like any other Saturday.

My Grandma was washin’ the back of my neck with all my family lookin’ on. When she got into rubbin’ real hard I would turn my neck a little so that I could see out the window. That morning was just like any other, Jake Van De Berghe was getting chased up Main Street by another angry husband. You’d have thought he’d have run out of married ladies by now. When my Grandma let my ears go, I met Buzz down at the corner of Lincoln Street.

Buzz was holdin’ something, which turned out to be his Maw’s curtains from her best room – it was called the ‘best room’ ‘cause Buzz wasn’t allowed anywhere near it. No sir-ee.

Apparently Buzz had to get the curtains back home before his Maw returned from Johnstown at sundown, or Buzz’s Maw would skin him like a desert rat. Now I know he ain’t tellin’ the whole truth ‘cause he’s used them curtains before and his Maw didn’t even see they were missin’.

Apparently Buzz had found a book with superheroes in it and that was what we were gonna be, this here Saturday.

I gotta say, at first, I kinda felt stupid with the cape around my neck but it started to feel good and I could see what Buzz was up talkin’ about.

We were just about to begin fightin’ crime when all of a sudden Jake Van De Berghe comes rushin’ around the corner and shoved me and Buzz into the Ice Cream & Sarsaparilla Café.

The minute we were through the doors, Jake shouts,
“Help me boys, keep this mad man out.” And by madman he means a mad husband – but like I say, it was just another Saturday in town. I hear tell that Jake has a wife of his own but that she don’t mind if he runs after other women on account that he really annoys her and has bad breath. Least ways that’s what Becky told me in school.

So there’s me, Buzz and Jake trying to hold the madman from breaking down the door. Every time he charges at the door, we move forward some and then we’d push back and then it starts all over again.

Crazy Eddie, who ran the café, was getting real worried about a madman getting’ loose in a Sarsaparilla store, and so he helped hold the door, too.

For a moment it all went real quiet and Jake was about to say that the madman had probably given up, when I turn my neck the way I do and look out of the window to see that the madman has gone all the way across the street to the Chip and Shoulder hardware store.

I was just about to tell them that the madman was gonna take the longest run ever in the whole world when the he burst through the door throwing me, Jake, Crazy Eddie and Buzz out of the way and got his head well and truly stuck in the Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream machine.

“I’m tuck,” was all the madman could holler.
“I’m really, really, really tuck.”
“I think he means he’s stuck,” said Crazy Eddie.
“Tat’s what I said,” hollered the Raspberry Ripple madman.

Buzz threw his cape around his back and decided it was the right time that me and him were superheroes.I pulled the man’s left leg and Buzz pulled the man’s right one.

“Tat hurts.”
“Sorry,” I shouted.
“Wot?” The madman hollered back.

It was no use, the man’s head wasn’t going anywhere and he was complainin’ that he was getting brain freeze. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

“There’s nothing for it, I’ll need to call Stupid Larry,” Crazy Eddie said sadly, ‘cause apparently Stupid Larry wasn’t the cheapest in town, but he was sure good at getting’ people out of holes. When Buzz’s Maw fell down that Main Street drain and got stuck good, Stupid Larry got her out of there in two shakes of a lambs tail, although he did charge her fifty bucks.

When Stupid Larry saw the madman’s predicament, he looked at it one way, “Mmmm,” he said. Then he looked at it another way “Ohhh,” he said, shakin’ his head. Then he kinda crawled around in on all fours, “tut,tut,” he said. Now some of the less kind folks in town used to say that all this walking around the problem wasn’t exactly necessary and it was only to make you think that Stupid Larry was givin’ you your money’s worth.

“Nope, we’re going to have to get him back to my workshop and cut him out.”

So Stupid Larry unhooked and unscrewed the ice cream machine with more show than a magician, I kid you not. Once we’d bumped it down the stairs, Jake and Crazy Eddie pushed it up the street, with me holding one leg and Buzz the other. Stupid Larry ran ahead to get his workshop all fired up.

When we were just passing the courthouse, the wife of the madman came over to Jake and asked him how he was doing and had he seen her husband. She didn’t think to ask about the pair of legs that were sticking out of the ice cream machine. Jake said, he couldn’t help her and he was sorry but he was real busy and if she didn’t mind they’d like to be off real quick. Kinda trying to pretend that he didn’t really know her and all.

When Stupid Larry started using the torch to cut open the machine, Crazy Eddie kept saying “This is gonna cost you, mark my words, cost ya good,” to Jake. To be honest I don’t think that kinda talk helps much.

Anyways, when Stupid Larry got the bottom off the machine, the madman’s face was frozen stiff, I kid you not.

Buzz was sure that the madman was dead, but Crazy Eddie gave the madman the kiss of life by blowing into his mouth. He said it wasn’t the first time that someone had got stuck in his machines, last time it was the pineapple caramel. Crazy Eddie also said that the Rasberry Ripple did taste real good even if it was on another man’s lips.
The next time I saw the madman he was sitting in church with his wife and his face was Raspberry Ripple Red.
The curtains were a real mess, so Buzz told his Maw that someone must have broken into the house and stolen them.

She believed him.

bobby stevenson 2015

Me and Buzz and The Thing

I don’t know when Buzz noticed the thing on the end of his nose. I had seen it that morning but didn’t want to tell my pal on account that he thought he was the best lookin’ guy walkin’ on the face of this, here, Earth. I kid you not. So when Becky Walters said in her usual way,

“You got a big zit on the end of your nose, Buzz,” he kinda took it real bad, which makes me think he didn’t know it was there. I’m thinking how could he have missed it, I mean that thing was so big, it had it’s own gravitational system.

Buzz said nuthin’ and walked off home. Becky Walters looked real pleased with herself and said, “Did I say somethin’ wrong?”. Becky knew she’d said somethin’ wrong, I mean that’s all she was good at, on account of her Mom tellin’ everyone in town that her Becky was a Princess and all.

The next morning, I see Buzz - well I didn’t actually see him, but I knew it was Buzz ‘cause he was wearin’ the same jeans and shoes as yesterday. He had a big brown paper bag over his head and two holes cut out for eyes so he didn’t get hit by cars.

I kinda thought the brown paper bag might look even weirder than a big thing on the end of your nose, but I wasn’t so sure of that fact that I could tell Buzz to go naked in the head department. Apparently Buzz’s Maw had tried to fix the zit by stickin’ a needle in it and it had made it worse. Buzz’s Maw wasn’t real good at doctor stuff but it didn’t stop her makin’ up her own cures for everythin’.

When Buzz had a fever, she had made him lie down in a darkroom with a brick on his head. Apparently it was a cure that had been passed down thru the family. I’m thinkin’ craziness was the only thing that was passed down in that family.

Buzz told me to go round the corner where there weren’t no people to see his nose and he lifted the bag to show me what was happenin’ under there.

“Wow!” Was all I said.

Buzz wanted to know if that was a good ‘wow’ and I told him it was, but I had to cross my legs on account that I thought I’d pee myself, ‘cause I wanted to laugh so bad. Buzz had a tomato on the end of his nose – I mean, a big red bright tomato. No kiddin’.

We kinda tried to pretend everythin’ was all right and neither Buzz nor me mentioned the paper bag. Some folks would shout at Buzz callin’ him names and stuff, but the bag was so thick that Buzz couldn’t hear nuthin’.

I decided since Buzz was my bested friend in the whole wide world I would wear a bag on my head as well. It was kinda cool.

Buzz’ Maw kept trying her medicine on his nose and every day he’d show me it and it wasn’t getting’ any better. I wondered if his nose might not eventually fall off, but I didn’t want to tell my pal on account that it ain’t somethin’ you want to tell a buddy.

One mornin’ Becky Walters was standin’ on the corner being a princess when she spotted Buzz  and me and our paper bags and I’m thinkin’ she’s gonna pee herself - but she didn’t.

“Why don’t ya paint a face on your bags,” she said and know what? I thought that was a great idea, too.

So Buzz and me went off to paint our bag faces but like everythin’ with Buzz it wasn’t straightforward. Next time I see him he’s dressed as a clown. Yep a big clown with big shoes and a white face and a big nose; I mean it was his own nose but it suited the clown face, I kid you not. 

I thought the bag had been all right but I wasn’t following my pal down the clown face road.

It had been his Maw’s idea - she had thought why not just paint a face on her boy and be done with it, and maybe she had a point. At school I could see the teacher kinda lookin’ at him and shakin’ her head but she didn’t say nuthin’. She just went off and got all the other teachers in school to come to our class. And they all left, crossin’ their legs like they were gonna pee themselves, too.

Buzz’s Maw got arrested on the Friday for trying to cure the Sheriff’s daughter of her hiccups by making her stand on top of an auto-mobile. The Sheriff said she was just plain crazy and slung her in jail until the following Monday. The good thing about this was it let Buzz’s nose get a rest from his Maw and so it started to get better. By Monday, Buzz was ready to face the rest of town - just the way God had made him - and he went up to Becky Walters and gave her a big kiss, right there, on her lips.

She kinda giggled and swooned and I knew my Buzz was gonna be all right.

bobby stevenson 2013