Excerpts from 'BIG MAN & Other Stories'

The First Day:

    ‘You have to make tough decisions in life, but you should never lose sight of what your ultimate goal is.’  He was looking at me now, and I realised what a friendly face he had.   

    ‘Why are so many people content to plod through life?  I did it for a while, I must admit, but I realised it wasn’t for me.’

 

Do We Leave Him Here? (or 'Dead Weight'):

‘Do we leave him here?’ asked Jerry. 

    I laughed loudly.  Big Gary had been slumped on the table for almost an hour now, passed out.

    ‘Leave him here?  How would you like that if it was you?’ answered Pete.

    ‘Yea but…’

    ‘Leave him here…’ Pete muttered laughing wryly and shaking his head.

    ‘Well…’

    ‘We’re in a foreign country!’ I snapped angrily, ‘Do you think he wants to be woken up at six o’clock tomorrow morning by some Turkish trucker?’

    ‘Yea…or robbed,’ added Pete

    ‘Aye’.

    ‘Okay okay, I get the picture.’ Jerry scraped his chair in noisily.

 

An Affair:

    She was mesmerised now; she couldn’t have told you how long she stood watching him, but she couldn’t take her eyes away – loving the way he moved; his cool, casual air.  She imagined the way he smelled, the way he looked and remembered the way she’d went nearly breathless the first time he had held her in his arms.

 

Big Man:

    A tear rolled down Toby’s right cheek and he hurriedly wiped it away with the back of his hand, then looked round nervously to see if the old man had noticed.  He turned and walked back by Toby at that moment so he quickly wiped his face and eyes with both hands this time, determined to get all signs of the tear out of sight.  The headmaster was sitting down again.

    ‘You’d better hope…’

    Toby looked at him briefly before looking down again to where he had been looking before.

    ‘You’d better hope, that Brian is okay…comes back as normal, otherwise…well, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.’

    Toby’s eyes almost ran again, but he was determined not to cry in front of old Morris.

    ‘Get yourself along to your next lesson Toby.’

    Toby looked up, able to hold Sir’s gaze this time.  When he got up to leave he couldn’t feel his legs properly, they felt like jelly and he couldn’t feel them fully as he walked.

    ‘And Toby?’

    The boy turned round and saw Sir again; he looked bigger and more imposing to him somehow, seemed to be almost staring into him.

    ‘These are your friends.’

 

One More Hand:

I’m mentally exhausted…had it up to here with Vegas and Blackjack and chasing money and trying to think of what to do, what to bet.  It seems like in this god forsaken place everything is against you…not only have you got the odds against you, but you’ve got clueless players coming in and out of the game, you’ve got dealers who can’t wait to pull the next card, not giving you any time to concentrate…you’ve got all the noise distracting you – not allowing you to focus…you’ve got the sheer, overpowering size of this place…’

 

Best Man:

    I remember the first five minutes being pleasant enough, but as the drinks started to flow, Debbie seemed to be griping about everything and answering Tony back rudely whenever he dared to speak.  I recall at one point early in the meal staring out across the Strip and realising that the view was different from what it had been when I’d first sat down.  I tried to concentrate my mind – thinking perhaps that I might be losing it completely – but as I stared across the table and out through the windows, I realised that the restaurant was ever so slowly revolving!

        ‘Yea we’re movin’’ said a middle-aged American man on the next table to us, sat with his family, ‘isn’t it neat?’

    As if my head wasn’t battered enough already.

 

The Real Mrs. Docherty:

    ‘Do you want to take a walk for a while Mrs. Docherty?  You can always come back, and we’ll tell you immediately if there’s any change.’

    Marie looks up to the nurse then, wide-eyed, as if aware of her for the first time.

    ‘Yes…yes…okay,’ she looks back to her husband on the bed, her hand still clasped in his – loosely now – but she can’t let go somehow, as if letting go of his hand was to let go of everything they had.

    ‘In a moment nurse…I’ll just stay here…’ she finishes speaking in mid-sentence, then the nurse rubs the top of her back gently.

    ‘Okay,’ the nurse says softly, ‘but take a break soon, it will do you good.’

    The nurse leaves the room and Marie suddenly feels more alone than she’s ever felt in her whole life.  She struggles to get a tissue from her bag, as she breaks out into sudden, full sobs of pain and misery.

 

A Girl Called Fran:

As the biggest of the rubbery-looking creatures made a sudden lurch in the direction of the small bunch ahead of Nick, there was a shriek and then a blonde girl flung her arms in the air and ran away, high stepping in the sand.  He looked at the girl closely as the others laughed and edged back too; with her quite tall height and slimmish figure she ought to have been quite athletic, but she seemed clumsy and ungainly as she got a further twenty metres away from the Sea Lions before daring to look round.  She wore a white bobble hat with fluffy pom-poms hanging down at the side, which had been swinging about frenetically as she ran.  She was flushing all over her face as she quickly adjusted her jeans, a big joyous smile on her face.

    ‘Oh don’t pick on me!’ she shouted, as the guide laughed at her, along with the others.  She was laughing too, albeit still red and embarrassed and Nick realised that he hadn’t taken his eyes away from her during the whole incident.

 

Another Late One:

My name is Cockney, except that’s not my real name.  In fact, sometimes I forget my real name, and so do my friends.  I’m also not a Cockney.

    I’m a real easygoing guy, I mean, excessively so; I seem to have a problem saying no to anything.  I let any number of people stay at my house anytime and everybody borrows things from me, some of which I actually get back. 

 

 

 

 

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"COWBOY MIKE"

‘Man, I haven’t told you about Cowboy Mike…did I tell you about Cowboy Mike?  No I didn’t…man!

    ‘We were in this Bar in San Francisco - a few of us from the hostel - and it’s like, this Sports Bar…so we go in, have a couple of drinks or whatever, then we fancy a game of darts; we get some arrows from the bar and we start playing but then straight away, these two couples come up…they’re like, these two middle-aged American guys and their Japanesy looking girlfriends, or wives or whatever. 

    ‘Anyway, they’re really boring, you can tell straight away.  One of them is this guy called Mike and the other is this, I can’t remember his name but he kind of had a Michael Bolton mullet going on, you know…receding at the top and sort of curly and long at the back, but it wasn’t cool I’ll tell you that much.  Anyway, they’re giving it the big one, saying they play for the State at darts or something and they beat everyone in the bar regularly, so we challenge them to a game – and we’re terrible by the way – so me and my mate are playing this Mike and the Michael Bolton guy at doubles. 

    ‘So I’m chalking the names up, and I put ‘Mike’ down, then I’m asking the other guy for his name…so he tells me it and I’m chalking it up, when Mike says, ‘Actually, my friends call me “Cowboy Mike”’ and I just turn and look at him…I stare at him and I’m trying to get it into my head that he was telling me I’d made a mistake – that I shouldn’t have just written ‘Mike’ on the board but “Cowboy Mike”.  I tried to contain myself, tried to hold it in, but I’ve started to laugh because my mate is looking at me with this hilarious, “eyebrows up” expression on his face; I turn around back to the board quickly, then methodically rub out “Mike” and put “C.M.” in inverted commas.

    ‘Then we’ve started playing and me and my mate are struggling to keep straight faces; and they were shite at darts!  They were slightly better than us, but you could tell they were no good; their throwing styles were crap, especially Cowboy Mike.  Throughout the whole game we were saying things like: ‘Your turn Mike…I mean ‘Cowboy,’ and laughing and he didn’t even get the joke…didn’t get that we were taking the piss…he just kept playing and smiling, and his wife didn’t get it either, she just stood there like a lemon and laughed and smiled when they got anything over like, about thirty, as if she was really impressed with her man’s darts prowess, unaware that her husband was full of shit and had told us that he was an All-California Pro or whatever; and his buddy - the whole time we were playing - never once called him ‘Cowboy Mike’.

    ‘Afterwards we were like, “Yes, you have lots of friends…and they all call you ‘Cowboy Mike.”

    ‘What an idiot.’

The Quiet Traveller

Well, look who it is,’ said Margaret before immediately turning her back on me to face the bar. One of the lads raised his chin a little in acknowledgement of me but without a smile, as the other lad whispered something in his ear. Neither of the young men seemed happy or relaxed but I didn’t get the impression they were talking about me.
    I looked at Margaret in her designer jeans, designer top, designer trainers, designer jewellery and designer hair, half perusing the bottles of various spirits lining the shelves behind the bar and half glancing at herself in the mirror, always careful not to catch my eye. If I hadn’t got the vibe earlier on then I sure as hell was getting it now.
    ‘Thought you’d join us after all then, eh?’
    It was Barry, the dark-haired, shorter lad. I turned to him and mumbled “yeah”, wishing I’d stayed at the hostel now, feeling ridiculous and alone even though they had asked me earlier if I had wanted to join them. Margaret continued to deliberately ignore me and the other lad was still talking quietly into his mate’s ear. Barry laughed this time.
    ‘Yea, better than sitting in the room innit,’ said Barry again, laughing to himself and the blonde lad, Gavin, had turned his back on us and now stood at the bar, smirking. He glanced across at Margaret but she didn’t notice him; she was still sulking.
    I looked at Margaret again, determined to get some sort of recognition from her. What had I done? I kept myself to myself and so did she; what was with the animosity? And…well, look who it is; what the hell was that supposed to mean?
    I offered the lads a drink but they already had one. I didn’t offer Margaret one. She clearly didn’t want anything to do with me. Fuck her, I thought; she’s probably just upset about having such an old woman’s name.

* * * * * * * * * * *
Back in the room lying on my bunk I wasn’t tired yet so I read a book for a while trying to make myself tired. I didn’t want to be awake when they all got back.
    I read for about an hour and it was nearly half-past eleven. I was just about to finish my last chapter for the night when I heard them; I groaned inside. They entered noisily, Barry and Gavin laughing, Margaret talking to them without humour and then they would laugh again.
    ‘Look who it is,’ said Margaret.
    Yes you said that earlier, I thought to myself. I continued to read, determined not to show any sign that they were bothering me. The truth was I was happy relaxing and I was happy that I was me. Let Margaret be Margaret, I didn’t care.
    ‘What are you reading?’ asked Gavin.
    ‘A book,’ I huffed.
    ‘Right…right,’ said Gavin sarcastically, like I’d said something fascinating.
    ‘Leave him alone,’ said Barry.
    ‘I only asked what he was reading.’
    Margaret was fiddling around a lot in her handbag. I tried to continue reading but I’d just read the same sentence four times. I threw my book off to the side, closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

The Road of Life

    We said we’d keep in touch with each other, but of course, we never did.  I figured she’d be at university and was probably loving it.  I took a few weeks off when I got back, then helped a friend out with a bit of casual work for a while.  Soon after my return I was determined to go travelling again once I could afford it, or maybe I’d get a loan or something.  It was all I could think of for a few weeks and it seemed unthinkable to me that I would do anything else.  I had loved it and my memories of it all were wonderful, filling me with happiness.

    Three months after I returned I met Anna, who I started to date.  I wasn’t sure if it would get serious, or if I wanted it to, but before long my whole life was being shaped by our relationship.  We were soon buying a house together and, caught up in many emotions and a wave of happiness and sudden contentment we were married a few months later.  I was happy, I mean, I loved Anna, and it felt right.  It wasn’t until I went back to more serious full-time work and started to pay-off the mortgage and go round the supermarket on a busy Saturday with Anna that I remembered my previous plans to travel again, and thought back to my adventures and of Fran and our week together.  I never told Anna about Francesca, but I guess I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about her from time to time.