Charlie and Me. The Saga Continues

Outtake #7

This didn’t make it either, but I like it because it gives Rick a bit of a chance to shine away from Charlie and the barely controlled lunacy she inspires in him.

This is dedicated to El Cummings, who only recently joined the flock. I reckon she feels a bit sorry for Rick, too.

*****

Charlie and Me. Outtake #7

I once knew a pair of twins both baptised Matthew because the godfather and parents had been a bit absentminded and/or drunk as sacks. I’d love to have been there when that happened.

Both Matthews were real dyed in the wool bad guys. But they liked me; bad guys often do, particularly if I add a bit of weight to their henchmen’s pub quiz team. The henchmen called me The Professor. That’s heartening. It may be harder to beat up or kill someone for whom you have an affectionate nickname. I bloody hope so.

‘Bugger me, Prof, how did you know that?’

‘I’m not sure. I just know lots of things. I pick stuff up as I go along. I have a mate. We discuss things that interest us. He and I discuss things a lot, tell each other fascinating facts. Well, we think they’re fascinating.’

‘But I’ve never fucking heard of para.. para.. thingy.’

‘Parotitis. Mumps. It means inflammation of the parotid glands.’

‘Is that a posh word for bollocks? They can swell up if yer get mumps.’

‘Errrmm, no. The parotids are in your neck near the jaw. That’s why your face swells up.’

‘I once kneed someone so hard his bollocks ended up just under his ears.’

One of the others jumped in. ‘Yeah but girls can get mumps, you dickhead. Even you should know they don’t have bollocks.’

‘Oh yeah. Hadn’t thought of that.’

That was pretty standard fare for a conversation with the henchman.

‘I just know stuff,’ I said. ‘But don’t let me loose on sport. Or current pop and rock music. My tastes fairly much ended in the mid 90s, and I was only about 15 years old then.’ It’s always a wise move to hedge your bets.

I didn’t really need to be there, since nobody else would let them lose because they quite liked straight legs. But the henchmen felt good about winning fair and square. I felt good about keeping them feeling good. And their bosses.

Matthew (or was it Matthew?) once offered me 13 tons of aluminium at a considerable discount from the market value. Since I was a student and not a bent scrap dealer with a malodorous yard full of rusty metal and semi-starved Dobermans, I didn’t have a great deal of use for it, but it was a nice gesture. And Matthew (or Matthew) accepted me to the extent I felt quite secure in ribbing him a bit.

‘I assume it’s hot.’

‘Molten. Molten.’ Aluminium has a melting point of around 2000 Celsius, or about 3600 Fahrenheit; that’s pretty hot. It’s also a trivial thing to know, isn’t it?

Another brief encounter with villainy.

Some time ago, probably about 2 BC (before Charlie), a bunch of us went on a boys’ night out and ended up in a club. One of our group was a certain Tony Youngman. I’d known him since uni. He was a real pill monster. He took anything and everything. Ever heard the adage ‘Drugs are for people who can’t cope with reality?’ His adage was ‘Reality is for people who can’t cope with drugs.’

He was wasted all the time. Given his surname he almost inevitably became known as Wasted Youth, or more generally just plain Yoof. Interestingly at the time of this story he was holding down a very responsible job in a drug rehabilitation charity; it gave him ready access to top grade pharmaceuticals from his charges in return for his silence.