A comic story of a man with a plane and his fool of a mechanic. In this episode, two men’s lives cross unexpectedly in a twist of fate and a tangle of banners.
For Jolene
Chapter 1 - The Pride of Joy
Mr Biggles Joy patted the old girl fondly. It had been many a year since she and he had been in the service, but his fondness for The Pride of Joy had never faded. They had boldly taken to the skies when people thought it was either terribly courageous or sheer madness to fly into the heat of battle for King and country, and it was with a teary eye and a battle-scarred body that he and his long companion were finally decommissioned in great hurrah and celebration after the end of the war. Mr Joy himself had been in close encounters with death, but it was with tremendous luck that the bullet had passed within an inch of the engine and out the other end of the Pride, but left it unharmed otherwise. The Pride of Joy was because of this, in every way its namesake, and Mr Joy never failed to keep her red body (since repainted) shinier than his own shoes (which were very shiny indeed).The plane itself was over a decade old, but she never looked more than a week fresh off the factory line due to his constant buff and polish.
As he passed his polishing cloth over the name painted on the body, he gave the little dent on it extra care and attention. This, as he would tell and retell to friends and family, was the very “near hit” that almost cost him his life. Despite various offers to repair the damage, Mr Joy refused to seal the tear, as it was proof that it had really happened, and the story was nothing without the evidence. And though the bullet failed in its purpose to take out the engine, it had not failed in taking out clearly and quite cleanly, a single letter in the name printed on the side of the plane. In Mr Joy’s insistence of retaining her battle scar, this unfortunate letter could not be painted back on. Friends and family on seeing the edited version of the plane’s name, fell into the habit of a new nickname for it, leading to the initial incurment of Mr Joy’s wrath at the sacrilegious treatment of his dearest friend, but in time, he learned to embrace The Ride of Joy, and even named his new company in the same spirit.
Chapter 2 - Joyrides
Mr Joy was down with the flu. Mr Joy himself was rarely laid up, but it was most unfortunate that it just coincided with a sudden influx of work. His company (with its lone plane) provided services to people with a need for a plane - a flyover, a banner display, a charter service or even joyrides for the rich who had nothing better to do than take a spin in a shiny old red plane. This meant that all the work would have to be done by his fool of an assistant, Mac Everton. Everton perhaps had more of lint and dust for a brain, and it was to Mr Joy’s constant wonder and amazement that Everton had even been able to scrape a pass in flight training and the last of the perhaps nine or ten flight tests he had attempted. But for one thing Joy had to give him credit: this man had persistence, although it was usually the kind of persistence that a rat after a piece of camembert possessed - struggling on even after receiving numerous blows to the head that only seemed to make it more dumb and resilient at the same time.
“Mac, there’ll be two banner flyovers tomorrow. Mr Longford will be coming over with his
banner today. You will have to fly it over Reading at 1400 hours along the route I showed you
yesterday-”
“Yep.”
“The red banner for Mrs Bagnet will fly at nine o’clock for her son going off to the war.
Got that?”
“Yep.”
“You’re sure? Have you written it down, just to be sure?”
“Ha’ ah writ’en it down? Oh yes ah ha’. Ah’ve-” There was a awkward fumbling noise at
the other end of the line which sounded much to Mr Joy like a scramble for pencil and paper.
His heart couldn’t help but sink a little.
“Ah’ve got it, ah’ve got it.”
“Which banner is for who?”
“‘E green for Reading at 1400 ‘un ‘e red for ‘e Beaufort boy at nine sir.”
“Good. Are you sure you’ve got this down?”
“Yes. Yeh see ah’ve got this method of remembrin’ it all down, sir. ‘E green ‘un is for ‘em suicide peeps ‘cause the grass ain’t greener on ‘e other side, right? An’ ‘e red ‘un is for ‘im soldier boy ‘cause it's’ all blood an’ glory, king an’ country, eh?”
“Are you sure you can remember it that way? Are you absolutely sure you’ve got it?”
“Yes, ah ain’t stupid y’know sir.”
Mr Joy hung up with a deep sense of unease and dread, but there was nothing much else he could do but hope that Mac would indeed get it right.
***
Mr Longford didn’t seem at all the kind of man who worked for the council. In fact, he didn’t seem at all the kind of person to sit an office, let alone wear a suit. Indeed Mr Longford was very uncomfortable in the stiffly starched white collar of his dress shirt and looked as if he only needed the provocation of a sneeze to burst out of his rather ill-fitting clothes. Mr Longford looked not a day over twenty even though he was well into his forties. His tousled brown hair, bright blue eyes and fresh complexion coupled with a pair of perfectly sculpted cheekbones made him look like a young Adonis. Mr Longford was the kind of man who not only undoubtedly had women throwing themselves at him, but was also the kind of man who received the admiration of other men who wished to possess a body like his. To add to the jealousy of most men, Mr Longford professed never to have exercised a day in his life, yet his body resembled an athlete’s, and the ease with which he carried the large bundle that was the banner across his shoulder into Mr Joy’s shop simultaneously struck fear and awe into the heart of every beholder.
Mac could only stare as the large green banner landed on the counter with a loud “kerplunk”.
“Mr Joy?”
Mac could only open and shut his mouth like a landed guppy, offering a weak hand to the young demi-god that had appeared before him.
“Pleasure, pleasure” boomed the mellow baritone. “You have received the money due you?”
Mac’s jaw soundlessly flapped up and down.
“Good, good. I await a splendid result tomorrow.” The demi-god turned sharply in his heels and strode off, not without snapping off a quick salute to the still pillar-like Mac and tipping his hat to the cleaning lady passing by.
“My, my. What a charming young laddie. Too bad we’ll probably never see him again.”
Chapter 3 - The Farewell Party
The Bagnets were perhaps the finest and most time-honoured military family in all the English country. From time immemorial the Bagnets have produced generations upon generations of the finest generals and sergeants, captains and colonels, artillery, infantry and navy alike. Never had there been a lily-livered, gumption-lacking young Bagnet, and not even the womenfolk were excluded these days, with most of them throwing themselves head-first into the service as well. Not surprisingly, the line was dying out, due to the sheer number of menfolk throwing themselves barechested into the battlefields of life (and death) and the womenfolk rather busy playing their part than staying home to suckle younglings.
So you see, growing up in such a family was rather a curse to the youngest of all the Bagnets, and you only had to look at him to know just why. James Wallace Bagnet II was a shrivelled leaf on the great oak, the runt of the litter, frailer still than Grandmama Bagnet, who still took rigorous walks over the countryside daily, in rain or shine, wielding her cane and shaking it at the dog when it lagged or stopped to sniff at a fox den. When season came round, Grandmama’d saddle up the horses and run the hounds, her eagle eye and quick finger ready to fire at offending foxes. And poor little Jim just could not seem to catch a break when all he wanted to do was sit down quietly and do his sums. He’d be laid up all winter, miserable with the cold and the measles in the infirmary, crying and crying that he’d been forbidden to go to class, when all the other boys wanted to catch the flu from him to skip school and be sent home. And when the sun came out, his complexion and nasal passages cleared with the gray clouds, just in time for him to drag his feet out to the stables, only to wish he keep fall out of his horse and break his neck, except he never did.
Somehow or another, scrawny Jim had struggled by and lived to see his twentieth birthday, and it was time for him, like all the other Bagnet men before him (some even as young as age 17), to enlist. All his other brothers before him had perished gloriously in the previous war (their medals of service cluttering up the peeling walls, squeezing in every conceivable space between the large ancestral portraits of great-great-so-on-and-so-forth grandfathers looming down), making him the last of this family branch. Despite this final act of war spelling the inevitable doom of the family tree, Grandmama Bagnet was making no exception for this ghost of a boy.
“To be a Bagnet is to die a Bagnet, in the heat of battle, to pomp and circumstance, glory and honour!” crowed the lean old crone, prodding him firmly in the chest. “Don’t slouch! Chin up! Where’s the Bagnet pride! Stop mollycoddling him like a little boy Francine. It’s about time he learned to stand up for himself and be a man! A real Bagnet!” Her claws tugged at the soft tender flesh of a young woman gently caressing the boy’s face and attempting to smooth down an uncooperative tuft of hair off his face, only to have it droop back into its familiar place over his left eye and in his hollowed cheek.
“Never should have let my Francis marry that coussin doux of a woman! ‘No mama, I cannot love anyone who is not her!’ Une jolie femme! All you get from a pretty woman is un homme efféminé! You should have let me stop the marriage, Wallace. I should have stopped it! Now look at your final legacy.” The old crone muttered, casting up her fiery eyes and shaking her cane at the newest of portraits, gazing steely into some distant battlefield. The dog at the man’s feet stared forlornly down at the scene below, its pitying look reflected in the blank, faded blue eyes of the despondent young man with equally lethargic brown hair in a saggy green uniform with obstinate wrinkles that refused to straighten even under the severe ministrations of the stout, re-faced maid and her hot iron.
“Chin up, my love” cooed the young lady, “You’ll write to me, won’t you?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Come on, boy, I have one more thing to hopefully put some fire into that belly of yours, eh?” cackled the old crone, landing a solid smack across the boy’s bottom with her cane. “Come on, then. To the balcony!” One claw sunk into the boy’s arm, her cane pointing out the way.
“Here it comes now!”
Cries and gasps of wonder filled the small sending off party gathered upon the balcony and by the windows (the window party consisting of menservants and maids snuck out from the kitchens) as a glossy red plane soared across the gardens. Another wave of gasps took ahold of the crowd as a large green banner unfolded from the tail of the plane. No one had, in their plane-induced trance, noticed the old crone swoon until they heard the sound of her body hit the ground with a “thunk”. In the subsequent rush to “give her air” and “get the smelling salts”, the message the old woman had read on the green banner was quickly forgotten by all but the old crone herself.
***
Mac had a funny feeling in his tummy. Not a hungry kind of tummy rumble. A really kind of hard-to-get-rid-of pit-in-the-stomach kind of rumble.
“Yeah, yeah. ‘E red ‘un’s for Reading ‘cause it sound alike, an’ ‘e green ‘un for ‘im soldier boy, just like ‘em uniforms.
“Yeah, yeah, ah has it right, ah has it right.”
But the funny feeling didn’t go away.
Chapter 4 - The Fallout
“Direct and impactful,” mused Mr Longford, “Direct and impactful.”
It wasn’t for a lack of trying that Mr Longford hadn’t been able to get his dream job. He was simply “too old”. He’d tried at several different places, but had been rejected on exactly the same grounds. Sure, the doctors looked wistfully at him and sighed, but the administrative staff simply refused to entertain him. Some of the female administrators even tried to persuade him by flirting with him. So he’d settled with the council job he’d found. Or rather, the job he’d been offered. The lady at the front desk had given him a conspiratorial wink as he entered on the first day of work. It wasn’t bad work, but it lack vigour and energy. Excitement. The adrenaline rush of the battlefie-
“Longford! I rather hope you’ve come up with something good this time.”
“I was rather hoping for a direct and impactful message this time sir.”
“Snagsby has been telling me all about it and getting so excitable, frankly it’s getting on my nerves. I hope it will live up to expectations.”
“I hope so, sir.”
“With all this fuss about rising suicide rates and another war, the world is, frankly speaking, going to hell. No, no. The last time, it was already hell. Now we’ve reach the pit of Tartarus! Well, at least this time the war’s in godforsaken Asia. Miles away! No sense of it reaching us here.
“Not like us to go straight to the execution, but since Snagsby vouches for it, I thought, hell’s bells, no sense in delaying anymore, just roll it out straight, hah my boy?
“Very good, sir. I really appreciate your faith. I’m sure you’ll find everything to satisfaction.”
“It bloody damn well be perfection. Your job and my reputation is on the line here! Now when’s that plane of yours arriving?”
They had meandered down the long corridors to the viewing gallery. The other council members, more important and larger personalities had begun to collect, holding glasses, awaiting to toast to the successful launch of the new anti-suicide campaign as well as the suicide hotline. Some had already begun the celebrations.
“Just minutes now, sir.”
“And a few minutes too long too.”
“So sorry, sir. I think that’s it coming right… now.”
***
Things were not good. Not good at all.
Longford was as good as fired. Well, he was almost fired. He was saved by Mr Carstone, who was just about the fire him, going red in the face and keeling over before he could spit out the words “You’re fired!”. Nevertheless, things were not good.
***
“I forbid it! I absolutely forbid it!” screamed the old woman.
“Mama! Please regain your senses! You simply mustn’t faint again! Think of your delicate health.” soothed the young woman with the pale blue eyes.
“My senses, my senses! I must stop this! I have driven every last one of my kin to their deathbeds!” the old woman howled and tore at her hair, grief and rage wracking her body. The once muscular body of the old crone had become skeletal.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s nothing I can do. The army has accepted his enlistment. He is fit to fight, and must fight, or on pain of death become a defector. I cannot undo it.”
The old woman screamed once more and broke down into gasping sobs.
“Please give her something to sleep, doctor” pleaded the young woman, secretly relieved at the turn of events.
Poor Jim had once again missed a break.
“Just my luck,” he thought, “The old crone changes her mind and now I can’t get out of the war! That’s it then! I’m done for!”
A gentle knocking at the door interrupted his melancholy musings.
“Telephone for you sir.”
“Yer tha’ chap sir, ‘e one with ‘e blue eyes an’ brown hair?”
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Mr Joy says ‘not to do anything stupid’. He’s coming down to meet yeh now.”
“Meet me where?”
“Y’know, a’ ‘e, erm, spot.”
“What spot?”
“Uhm, y’know, ‘e spot… ‘e foot of ‘e Saffron Crow, 8pm. Please, Mr Longford, sir, don’t be doin’ anythin’ stupid now. It’s mah fault, y’know.”
“Mr Longford? Who’s Lo-”
“Please, sir.”
“Alright then, I’ll see you at the Saffron Crow, 8pm.”
Little Jimmy shrugged. Maybe this had something to do with that green banner saying “If you are looking for a sign not to kill yourself, this is it.”
Chapter 5 - The Meeting
“You’ve done me a great disservice, Mr Joy. Now let my death be on your head sir! One job, I had you do one simple job. And you messed up. And now, I’ve disgraced myself, and I’m certainly going to lose my job. Bloody council job. Never liked it anyway. Haha! What irony! The anti-suicide project head dies - via hahaha! Oh sweet, sweet irony. ‘Go forth and don’t look back!’ Oh I won’t be looking back from this one, for sure. Hahaha! Oh yes, when you see the papers tomorrow, I’m going to be all over the front page, and it’s all your fault! You won’t see me... because I’ll be at the bottom of The Saffron Crow, my head smashed all over the front pavement. I’m going to do it. Yes, yes. I’ll do it at 8 tonight. I’ll be gone from this earth by 8 tonight. Don’t try to stop me!”
***
“Message for you, Mr Joy. That big chap with ‘e banner? Says ‘e’s head gonna be all over the front pavement of ‘e Saffron Crow tonight. At 8. Wonder what’s happenin’ at 8.”
“He said what?! Call him back, call him back now you idiot! Tell him not to do anything stupid. I’m going there right now.”
“‘E’s gonna do what?”
“You fool! You got them mixed up, didn’t you?”
“Green for ‘im soldier ‘un red for the Reading chap, right?”
“No, no, NO!” screamed Mr Joy, purple with anger.
“Wait, wa’s goin’ on?”
“Call him back, stall him. Now!”
Biggles Joy flung on his coat and ran out the door, as fast as his short little legs could carry him, to The Saffron Crow.
***
“Mr Longford, Mr Longford! Stop! Don’t do it!”
Mr Biggles Joy launched himself at the thin, gaunt man with brown hair, throwing his full weight onto him, positively squashing him paper thin, if not for the fact that the man was already pancake thin.
“What’s wrong with you? Knocking people down like that?”
“You-you’re not Longford?” gasped Mr Joy, now positively blue in the face.
“The world’s gone bonkers!” cried the thin man. “First, my grandmama, then the mysterious phone calls asking me to come here at 8 and now strange men throwing themselves at me? And why do you keep calling me Longford? Who’s that?”
“I’m Longford,” boomed a mellow baritone.
***
Mr Joy was amazed. He had been sitting here, speaking to these two men for the past half hour, and he was still amazed.
The resemblance was remarkable.
Don’t be mistaken, the two men were not at all alike. Longford was tall and muscular. Jim was tall and thin. Longford had bright blue eyes and a handsome head of hair. Jim had washed out pale blue eyes and his mop of hair was a sodden mess. A hero and a peasant boy could not have looked more alike the two sitting across him.
And yet, the two were so alike, there was an uncanny resemblance Mr Joy couldn’t quite put his finger on…
The two had fallen into conversation about their lives and found each other agreeable. In fact, the more they spoke, the more they realized the other was living his dream life. Jim wanted a quiet life with a peaceful desk job and couldn’t have it. Longford wanted a life of adventure and to be part of the war effort and was condemned to a life behind the desk. They looked like a father and son in a deep conversation. Longford looked like a younger, fitter Jim. Jim looked like an older, gaunter version of Longford… And then it hit Mr Joy.
Chapter 6 - All’s Well that End’s Well
The two men shook hands warmly like two old friends. Longford even grasped Jim in a tight bear hug. Jim squeaked, recoiling, but gave in. The two men parted ways most amiably and with a positively glowing outlook ahead. Longford no longer contemplated suicide, but a new life as Corporal James Wallace Bagnet II, already dreaming of working his way up the ranks. Jim, well, he couldn’t return as a council member, not straightaway anyways, but he could be anyone he wanted and do anything he wanted, and definitely not a soldier. He walked away from the table with a sparkle in his eyes and a decided spring in his step towards his new life behind a desk.
Of course those at home couldn’t help but comment on the remarkable change in countenance and stature of Jim. After an “enlightening” week spent away from the gentle comforts of home, Jim returned from “a serious soul-searching” a new man. Now a massive bulk towering over both women, Mama positively glowed with pride (“I really don’t know what came over him, it’s a real miracle.”) and Grandmama finally reluctantly allowed him to go to war amid heavy sighs and solemn shakes of her head, and even a slight patriotic glint shone again in her eyes as she waved him off. (“At least now he stands a chance of surviving the war,” she muttered, casting a mournful glance up at Wallace.)
As fate would have it, Jim, or “Longford” to his war buddies returned not only triumphant from the war, with many a medal for bravery and courage displayed in the service, but also with a beautiful young woman of good standing on his arm. They were married and had many handsome and beautiful, courageous young children, such that the doom of the family line never occurred, and Grandmama Bagnet would crow about her youngest and most successful grandson, who initially showed “no promise whatsoever”, had under her own strict upbringing “by hand”, been transformed into a senior General most honoured, to all who would hear of it until her glorious demise.
And those who witnessed the overnight ruin of Longford fell to pitying the skeletal figure much withered from the young Adonis, and the press soon forgot the outrageous scandal of the suicidal anti-suicide council campaigner and turned their attention towards the alleged pimp in Downing street, and the transformed Mr Longford was left alone. In fact, he showed so much more promise than ever, he was eventually re-elected as a minister in a county tucked far out in a corner of the country, and lived happily and peacefully in his country solitude, surrounded by the joy of hard work.
And Mr Joy? Well, he went back to the boring old plane flying. But what a joyride we’ve had, what a joyride!
~The End~
Labels: personal, prose
