Blakey on Tour - Part 19

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

In a way you could blame my recent run of shite luck on Rocky III.

I realise how that sounds. I'm as big a fan of that film as the next man, and I wouldn't ever say nothing bad about it nor insinuate that it ain't right up there at the top in terms of all the films ever made. But there's one scene in it, and it came to us of a sudden about a year back, when I were playing pinball in the arcade. You know the bit near the start, where Paulie's in the pub and he gets arsey cos the barman keeps going on about Rocky? After that, right, he's staggering down the street, pissed out of his fucking swede, and he sees an arcade and goes in it. Looks like a top arcade as well, with way more folks in it than you gets in the Mangel one. Mind you, we got Fat Sandra in ours, which is a built-in customer deterrent, unless they'm into walruses poured into glass boxes, which is what Sandra looked like in her change kiosk. But fuck that – I'm on about me and my episode, which is how come I got saddled with council cunts like Dobson on me fucking back all the while, jabbing needles into my arse cheeks and giving us grief. More precisely, I'm on about Rocky III.

Cos there's parallels, see.

What happened in the film, right, is that Paulie's having a gander around this arcade in Philadelphia, which as well as being where Rocky comes from is where they make that fucking shite cheese that only birds on diets eat. He's having a smile and a chuckle at most things, including one feller who's got a mullet like you ain't ever seen. I've always sported the cropped look meself but I dunno, there's summat that appeals about this one in a way I can't put me pointer on, and if long hair of any sort on a male weren't considered a safety hazard in Mangel, I might give it a go. But that weren't what finally grabbed Paulie's attention, pissed as a cunt like he were and lairy in the head, despite his jovial wossnames. It were the Rocky pinball machine. Just like the one we got here in Mangel.

And that I were playing on a year ago, when all this came to us.

Everyone knows what happens next. It is a scene more famous even than the one in First Blood where Rambo chucks that rock at the helicopter and the bloke falls out. It is a scene that is full of shock and drama and pure horror. Not horror like zombies and Frankenstein and shite, but horror like when summat precious has just been destroyed. Cos that's what Paulie does, the fucking twat. He's jealous of Rocky and pissed off cos Rocky buyed him a watch instead of a sports car, which is what he really wants (Escort MK2 RS Mexico, I bet), and so he takes his whisky bottle and lobs the fucker at the pinball machine, smashing it and thereby setting the alarm off.

That scene just came to us, stood at the pinball like I were, full can of Strongbow Super in one hand and fag in the other. I were trying to get the ball in that hard bit up on the left and not getting no nearer, no matter how rough or gentle I handled the flippers. I'd never got it in there, not in all the long hours I'd spent playing that fucking machine. And it weren't like it were fixed nor nothing, cos I'd stood by like a twat and watched while others had done it. Even a couple of birds, for fuck's fucking sake.

So why couldn't I?

What's wrong with old Blakey?

And when you thought about it, it weren't just the pinball. It's every fucking hurdle life puts up, as far as old Blakey is concerned. Every other cunt gets over them hurdles, running up and clearing em with nary a grunt nor a blink, but when it's Blakey's turn to make his run-up, some cunt goes and makes the hurdle higher. So Blakey clatters into the thing, damaging it quite a lot but not getting past it. He's stuck the wrong side of it, watching all them other cunts forging decent and respectable lives, getting wedded and having younguns and buying nice houses with ponds round the back and koi carp in em. Where was my koi carp? And why the fuck couldn't I get that ball in the hole up there?

Looking at all that, you can see why I suddenly realised how much like Paulie I were, so much so that I took the can of cider and lobbed him at Rocky Balboa's smug face, which didn't look nothing like him anyhow.

It were the coppers first. Six of em, headed up by Jonah in his stupid fucking bullet-proof wossname. Someone else had a megaphone (Plim, I think), and he were out there on the street, blaring at us to throw down me fucking weapon and think about my family and friends. Family and friends? If they'd done a bit of asking about they'd know I didn't have no kin left (except Little Royston who'd been snatched by that fucking witch), and any mates I had was all cunts. And what fucking weapon anyhow? How could I throw down a weapon I didn't have? Then I looked at my paws and clocked the monkey wrench, which I had poised just then above Fat San's swede, her having come out and had a pop at us about the pinball.

She were giving us a fat smile, letting us know she didn't think I had it in us.

To be fair, I dunno if I did. Sandra were a bird, if you wanna be strictly technical about it, and I got a rule that I don't harm the fairer sex unless they'm trying to take my life, which meant that not many birds at all had felt the back of my hand or been killed by me over the years. But Fat Sandra were hardly the fairer sex, were she? A fucking one-eyed mongrel with an external tumour is better looking than her. Plus she were asking for it, weren't she? She represented every cunt who done their best to raise the bar just as I'm coming up to clear it. I raised the wrench, just as summat hit my neck like a big wasp crash-landing stingwise into it. I went down. And stayed down.

And I hadn't got up since.

Not when you thinks about it.

These was the reflections going through my swede as I lay on the floor of my room, still with me trolleys down and a mouthful of axminster but not feeling the sting from the needle no more in my arse cheek. Or maybe I did feel it, and just didn't give a toss. It were always the same, each time they pumped that shite into my bloodstream and fucked off until the next time. That's what my decision were about, the one I hinted at earlier but never actually told you about cos you got a big mouth and I don't trust you. But I don't give a toss now, do I?

What it were, right, is that I'd woke yesterday morning, which is when all this recent shite had got started, and seen things different. A bit of sun were slicing between the curtains like a massive lightsaber, stretching bright and yellow across the dust- and fart-filled emptiness and hitting the wall opposite, illuminating a bit of wallpaper the shape of a squashed diamond. And that don't mean much, taken like so and in the tepid light of day and with an arseful of anti-wossname. But yesterday morning, with me swede clambering out of a barmy dream and my muscles flexing and my cock standing proud like a tent-pole (without meaning to brag), I seen the light. The one on the wall, which were vibrating a bit like an alarm clock. Wake up, it were shouting. Wake the fuck up, you fucking twat. Meaning don't go down the clinic first thing and get your arse shot up, like I'm meant to. Go on an expensive holiday instead.

In a caravan.

And now here I were, back to peg fucking zero and pumped full of the anti-wossname once again, and further from going on holiday than a sheep is from leaping over the fucking gate. I craned my neck a bit, looking at that same bit of wall where the squashed diamond wossname had been only a day prior. No light there now. I think it were raining.

I listened to the big drops falling overhead, plop plop plop. Fucking massive raindrops, these was, and not many of em. Not very watery neither. More like a person doing a series of dumps from a great height onto the roof.

'Hello? Mr. Blake? I'm looking for a Mr. Blake.'

That didn't sound much like rain neither. More like a human.

'Hello? Is there someone home? I'm sure I can hear someone in there.'

A female human, aye, with big tits and blonde hair and an alright face. Cos you can tell, can't you? All the important things about a person, you can tell it in their voice.

'Well, OK, maybe not. I'll be off, then.'

'Hold up a min,' I shouts, staggering up and putting shoulder to wood. Or granite, more like. It's them cunts Dobson and Bean again, sliding the wardrobe even more in front of the doorway after they'd pissed off. I gave up and started shoeing the back panel, which were made of ply or summat and gave way sharpish. Then I stuck my swede out.

And saw her.

She were halfway down the first flight, turning back to us and smiling. At that selfsame moment the clouds cleared up outside and the sun came bursting in, filling everything with a warm, soft light like you gets when you stick your thumbs in your eyes and press hard for a few minutes. Or maybe it were still pissing down and grim outside, and all the light were in here, coming from that smile. Either way, it were in me now. I felt the anti-wossname getting swept aside and flushed down the drain, replaced by that light. I felt meself stirring. Stirring so much I had to bend over a bit.

'They said you might know where my dad is,' she said.

She were the most beautiful woman I'd ever clocked.

'His name's James McCrae, but people call him Jock.'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)