GUEST BLOGGER: Royston Blake - "Blakey on tour Part 4"

(A serialised story. Part one here)

I loves driving. Ever since I were old enough to drive - aged nine - I always appreciated the special magic that is created when man gets behind wheel. There's only two other things I can compare it to - shagging and having a dump. But it sets itself apart from them two.

It's pure, driving is.

You don't have to wipe your arse afterwards and you don't have to fart and roll over, then wake up a few hours later with your cock dried to the sheet. With driving, it's man and machine in total harmony, teaching the world to sing. You're in a different world when you're bombing along like that, one hand on the wheel and the other behind the passenger headrest, fag in mouth, pushing sixty up the Wall Road and not a fucking worry in the world. For that brief moment, I swear you come a bit closer to heaven. Then some cunt in a van pulls into the fast lane, and you plough right into the fucking back of it.

A while ago I were telling you about Jock the burger man, him who used to flip and flog bits of gristle out the side of a van in Frotfield Way. You can guess what I'm gonna say next, can't you, you being a clever fucker? That's right - the bloke I'd just slammed backwise into weren't Jock, but some other fucker entirely. In fact, now I came to get out of my hearse, and puff my massive chest out as I went up to exchange insurance details, I realised that it was Alvin.

Of Kebab Shop & Chippy fame.

But, right, he were in Jock's burger van.

'Alright, Alv,' I says, opening his door for him.

He were rubbing his neck and not turning it in my direction. 'I got whiplash,' he says.

'You pull a stunt like that again, hauling in front of me at 30mph on the Wall Road, I'll give you fucking arselash.'

'But it's a 30mph zone, Blakey.'

'Exactly. You're meant to go a bit over, not stick to it like a fucking granny in a wheelchair.'

'But you was doin'--'

'More to the fucking point, Alv, what the fuck is you doing in Jock's burger van?'

'I got a new line o' work, ain't I?'

'Since when?'

'Since I beat Jock at cards last night. You know that arselash you was on about? Tell you what, I reckon I got a bit already. This seat's shot.'

'Jock's a big lad.'

'Erm, I'd describe him more as big boned, and--'

'Bollocks, he's a fat fuckin' bastard who eats more burgers than he flogs. Tell you what - I seen him once flip a burger in the air and catch the fucking thing in his gob, swallowing it whole. He's like Jabba the fucking Hutt with glasses on. Even his glasses is fat. You seen the lenses? Fucking two inch thick they is.'

'Erm...' Alvin didn't seem to know what to say, prefering to hoik a thumb behind him and cover his face.

I leaned over to see where he'd been pointing to. 'Oh, alright Jabba?' I says, noticing him there. 'I mean Jock.'

He didn't reply. Always were a quiet one, Jock. I think it's cos of him being foreign.

Sight of Jock and Alvin in the same place had brung a sudden and violent hunger to me guts like I'd never known. 'Listen, lads,' I says, backing out and thinking of the chippy round the corner, 'I'd love to stay and have a chat with you, but--'

'Hang oan,' says Jock. I think that's what he said anywhow. 'Whit are yis doing in that funeral car there?'

I looked at his fat face for a bit, thinking hard about it, then says to Alvin, 'Do you know what the fuck he's saying?'

'Yis fill will fuckin' ken whit am sayin' tae yis, Royston. Yis have jist crashed a filly laiden hearse intae ma van. Yis have spilt the fuckin' coafin, ya wee daft preck.'

After a bit of silence I nudged Alvin. 'Did he just swear at me?'

'I reckon we should just go and have a look, Blakey.'

'I ain't having cunts swearin' at me, Alv. Not even in foreign.'

Alvin was already getting out of the van, taking a wide berth around me and pottering off towards my hearse. I found it embarrassing to be in a one to one situation with Jock and no interpreter, so I gave him a thumbs-up and went off to join Alvin, who were peering into the back of my new motor. I were more interested in the front meself. Grill were hanging off and one beam gone, and the hood had popped up and wouldn't latch down proper. 'For fuck's fuckin' sake,' I said.

'Can I just ask why you've got this?' says Alv, looking like he'd rather be deep-frying his cock than having this conversation. 'I mean, are you working for them now, or what?'

'This ain't work, Alv. this here is for my holiday. I'm off on an expensive caravan holiday.'

He glanced behind the hearse, maybe wondering where the caravan were. He could be thick sometimes, Alv could. 'Fair enough,' he says, 'but, I mean, where'd you get it from? Were it Joslin's Funeral Dir--'

'Fuck sake, Alv... do it matter? I got her from a place up by Vomage Park. Fucking creepy place, as it turns out, but I'll tell you about that in a mo. Anyways, I've had me eye on her a while now, seeing her going in and out of there a few times over the years. Tell you what, Alv, she's going to waste there. Every time I seen her, she's going about 10mph. Do you realise what this engine here is capable of?'

'Erm,' he were saying. Ignoring us, quite frankly, but I let it pass, considering what happened next. 'There's a coffin back here, Blakey. And it's... well, it's fell over a bit, and the lid's come off and...'

I weren't harking him no more. I didn't have to cos I were clocking it for meself, seeing a leg hanging out and a size ten patent leather shoe on the end of it, ankle stiff like a mannequin. 'Shite,' I says. 'Fuckin', fuckin' shite.'

'Look, Blakey, it's alright. We'll just pop him back in and take the hearse back to--'

'That ain't the problem, Alv. You dunno the half of it. See, back at the place I got this hearse, well, I sort of had a little scrap with... And I swear I fuckin' never noticed this fuckin' coffin when I climbed aboard. Do you really reckon I'd have drove off in her, knowing there's a...? Ah, shite. Shite.'

'Blakey, what's you tryin' to say?'

I looked at Alv. It were the most serious look I'd ever gave anyone, cos right here I had a problem like no other I'd ever head, and I were being forced to share it with him. 'That ain't no normal corpse, Alv,' I says. 'It's a fuckin' vampire.'

(Come back tomorrow for the next bit...)