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Blakey the Jakey: A Modern Scottish Fairytale – The Conclusion

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The story so far: as we prepare for the concluding chapter of the Blakey saga, we find our hero in his grandma’s house. He’s lost his money, his family, his self-respect (what little he possessed) and now grandma is the only one who can help him turn things around. In a nutshell: he’s fucked. Or is he? (yes, yes he is)

Catch up with Part 1 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/

Catch up with Part 2 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/14/btjp2/

Catch up with Part 3 – http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/22/btjp3/

Catch up with Part 4 –  http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/28/btjp4/

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As Grandma listened, with a mounting sense of boredom, to Blake’s tale of business acumen gone wrong, she occupied herself by burning a chunk off of the armchair and crumbling it into a large cigarette paper.

This was because all of Grandma’s furniture, from the armchair to the sideboard to the footrest to the mantle-piece, was made out of massive, sculpted blocks of cannabis resin. Her footrest alone had a street value of thousands.

‘So, ye sold yer maw’s car tae some jakey at the market, eh? Ye daft wee bastard,’ laughed Grandma, rolling the rest of her fancy cigarette into a perfect cone shape.

‘Aye,’ sighed Blake. ‘and ah cannae go hame till I’ve goat the cash back. She’ll kill me, gran.’

‘Take yin ae ma shelves,’ she said, pointing behind her, ‘Ye’ll make gid profit.’

‘Thanks, gran, that’s magic,’ smiled Blake, clapping his hands with delight.

Grandma indulged herself in a moment of thoughtful inhalation. ‘Aye, son,’ she began, exhaling a jet of sweet-scented smoke in his face, ‘But if ye dinnae pay me back in a week yell get yer knees broken.’

Blake nodded.

‘Ah mean it. Business, family or no. Ye’ll be on crutches.’

Blake actually rose and kissed his grandma. On the forehead, though. And quickly.

The blaring wail of police sirens assaulted his ears before the sound slowed and died, like the batteries had failed. A high-pitched squeal then made way for an echoed-clicking as a policeman’s voice bellowed through a loudspeaker.

‘We know you’re in there, Grandma, the game’s up.’

‘Fuck,’ she lamented.

‘Ho, you, ah didnae lament,’ said an irritated grandma to Jamie Andrew as he wrote her words on this screen, ‘and ah’m no irritated, ah’m fuckin’ furious. Efter ah escape from the police ah’m gonnae come efter you and knock fuck out of you.’

Jamie was certain that Grandma wouldn’t survive her encounter with the police.

‘Third wall?’ laughed Grandma, ‘Jamie Andrew, ah’ll pit you through the fourth, fifth, sixth and fuckin’ seventh wall, ya cunt!’

Anyway, Grandma leapt from her seat and wrenched a shelf from the sideboard, handing it to Blake. Blake accepted it and tucked it firmly into his jacket. The boy looked like he was half a turtle’s head away from destroying his boxer shorts.

‘Get oot the back door and run, Blakey,’ she implored, ‘and take this tae.’

She handed him the cone from her mouth, slapped him on the back and swiftly ushered him towards the kitchen.

As Blake threw open the back door and began his rush into Grandma’s garden, and the hedgerow and park beyond, he could hear her loading her pump-action shotgun and striking up a dialogue with the officers out front.

‘Right, little pigs, come get it!’

‘Grandma, if you don’t let us in we’ll be rough, we’ll be tough and we’ll blow your door down.’

‘No by the hairs oan ma sticky big baws!’

*** 

And so Blake merrily zig-zagged his way through the streets, selling chunks of his shelf along the way until a long line of pink-eyed, crisp-munching pot-heads were shadowing him like a dragon’s tail. The only sounds that could be heard were a hundred or more people crunching Monster Munches, snapping off segments of Dairy Milk bars and frantically trying to re-arrange their JSA appointments on their mobile phones.

‘Follow that wee laddie,’ they shouted.

Blake happily puffed and sucked on his cone: the more it burned, the slower he and his vast procession of stoners became. With stacks of tens, twenties and fifties poking out of his jacket pockets, the happiness overwhelmed him and he began humming, shouting and singing pro-IRA songs, all the while mimicking the playing of a flute.

Children saw the procession and hollered with glee: ‘It’s the pie-eyed Piper of Hampden!’ And they followed.

‘Wait a minute,’ said a confused bystander. ‘Isn’t it more the other side that’s traditionally associated with flute-playing? This muddled sectarian reference doesn’t make any sense!’

‘It’s called creative license, you picky prick,’ said another bystander.

‘It’s called thon Jamie Andrew bein’ a daft cunt,’ giggled grandma as she thundered down the road with her shotgun. ‘And ah’m no gigglin’, ya fuckin’ smart arse!’

***

Blake arrived back at his family home with more than enough money for a new car and a nice holiday. He was eager to make his mother proud and happy. And having a roof over his head and not getting his throat slit was a bonus, too.

‘Hello,’ he shouted, fingers prising open the letterbox. ‘Maw?’ he shouted through it again. ‘Aw, YUK!’ Blake wiped away his piss from earlier with disgust.

Eventually, just as Blake had started kicking the door with all of his might, it opened to reveal his mother, half-naked and with a large half-naked bear of a man by her side.

‘Aw, it’s you,’ she snarled. ‘Thought I told ye no tae come back.’

‘But maw,’ beamed Blake, holding up the money, ‘I goat aw the cash back. Double. Triple even! In fact, ah widnae be surprised if it wiz qua… kawrd… kwardroo… fuckin’ four times as much!’

His mother snatched the money from his hands and stuffed it in her blouse. ‘Gid,’ she smiled, ‘But ye can still piss oaf, because ah met a new man, we’re gettin’ mayried and we’re movin’ tae a different toon.’

‘Bit…’ Blake was aghast. He stared up at the big fellow bear-hugging his mother. ‘You’re the…you’re that bouncer fae the nightclub,’ said Blake.

‘Aye,’ the big man replied, ‘Yer maw was oot dancin’ last week an she loast yin aye er orthy-pedic shoes, fir er corns and that. I kinna thought it wiz hers so ah brought it roond the day, she tried it oan, it fitted and then…well…’

He winked.

‘Then he telt me he had a few boab and pumped us on your bed, ye wee dick,’ beamed his mother, before slamming the door in Blake’s face.

***

Blake found himself sitting back on the grass where all of this had started. He passed the time throwing stones at the neighbours’ cars and listening to his mother’s shrieks of delight from the house.

Before long he felt a large hand on his shoulder.

‘BAD DAY, LITTLE MAN?’ asked the genie.

‘Aye, somethin’ like that.’

‘TELL ME ABOUT IT. I HAD TO QUIT MY JOB TODAY. STRESS. I’M OFF ON ILL HEALTH, CONSIDERING EARLY RETIREMENT.’

‘Aye?’ replied Blake, not really interested; too busy staring at some teenage temptress teetering across the road, all tits and legs. ‘How wiz London, ye ken, wi they seven wee guys in the car?’

‘IT STARTED OFF QUITE BADLY, A BIT MUCH TO TAKE. I FELT BETTER ABOUT IT ALL ONCE I’D DISEMBOWELED THEM AND FED THEIR INNARDS TO THE DOGS, THOUGH. GUESS I’M NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF WORK ANYMORE.’

‘Dunno whit ah’m gonnae do either, like. Nae hoose, nae family, nae money.’

‘TELL YOU WHAT,’ smiled the genie, ‘HOW ABOUT I GRANT YOU ONE MORE WISH, ON THE HOUSE. ANYTHING. ANYTHING YOU WANT. I’LL GRANT YOU MY LAST WISH. GO ON, KNOCK YOURSELF OUT.’

Blake stared on as the girl’s tight buttocks swayed out of view. He looked up at the genie with a relieved smile and then back down at the ground. He was thinking hard.

‘COME ON, ANYTHING. MONEY, FAME, WOMEN, POWER, AN ISLAND, A COUNTRY, A HIT RECORD, THE PLAYBOY MANSION, AN ARMY, A PLANET, THE UNIVERSE? ANYTHING! USE YOUR IMAGINATION! HONESTLY, ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING! I WANT TO HELP YOU.’

Blake stood up, full of hope and excitement, finding it hard to restrain the impulse to grab and kiss the genie.

‘It’s goat to be money,’ laughed Blake, jumping with delight, ‘I wish I wiz the richest person in the whole world.’

Blake stopped and stood deathly still, screwed his eyes up expectantly and tensed his shoulders. He expected to open his eyes to see a fortress of gold surrounding him, a throne at his rear and all the women of the world lying like a naked, writhing carpet at his feet. He opened them and all he saw was a giant middle finger pressed into his face.

‘SWIVVEL, YOU LITTLE BITCH. WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A FUCKING FAIRY TALE?’

Pouf. And he was gone.

Blake went off in search of some more Buckfast. Not to rub this time. Just to drink.        

THE END

Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 2

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The story so far: Young Blake’s squandered the family ‘fortune’ on magic beans, and found himself banished from his family home by his mother as a consequence. Just as he thought all was hopeless he rubbed the dust from a magic bottle and found himself face to face with a genie. Click the link below to revisit Part 1.

 http://www.jamieandrew-withhands.com/2012/06/10/btjp1/

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Having consumed enough of the magic brew to make his mind mellow, Blake was quite ready to accept the disappearance of the local drunk and the appearance of an ancient genie in his place.

‘So ah’ve goat two mair,’ Blake stated. He knew the facts when it came to cartoons.

‘NO!’ boomed the genie again, stony faced.

‘Nut? Whit dae ye mean, nut? How no?’

‘CUTBACKS.’

‘Cutbacks?’ Blake rocked his head forward and shot a laugh out towards the ground. ‘Whit are yoo talkin’ aboot, man? Cutbacks!’

‘ONLY ONE MORE WISH, LITTLE MAN.’

Blake considered this for a moment.

‘Ah wish I hud a million wishes!’ he laughed. ‘How’s that?’

‘NICE TRY.’

‘You’ve goat tae gee me them wishes, fur ah wished fur them!’

‘DO YOU THINK YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE TO TRY THAT? WE’VE GOT LAWYERS FOR THIS SORT OF THING. ONE. MORE. WISH.’

Blake massaged his forehead with his free hand, unsure whether to laugh, cry, argue or vomit. His body felt like doing all four at once, his stomach leading the uprising.

‘Whit’s happenin’ here, sir? Ah’m believin the genie bit, but…lawyers, cutbacks…I jist…’ Blake held the bottle aloft. ‘Ah thought yoos were meant tae be in lamps, like in Aladdin an that. Fucking lawyers, man.’

Where Blake had brushed the dust off with his hand, a line of letters proclaimed, ‘BUCKFAST.’

‘ALADDIN!’ snorted the Genie, ‘THESE DAYS WE LIKE SOME JOB SECURITY. I’M NOT HIDING IN SOME DARK CAVE IN ARABIA FOR SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS ON THE OFF-CHANCE THAT SOME JUMPED-UP LITTLE PRINCE IS GOING TO SWAN IN AND GIVE MY LAMP A RUB!’

A curtain in every flat along the street was twitching.

‘Is that oor Blakey ootside getting pished up an’ chattin’ wi a magical entity, Morag?’ asked old Mrs Archibald at number 57.

‘Aye,’ replied Morag. Within seconds they were back on the settee and knitting furiously.

‘Wisnae like that in ma day,’ scowled Mrs Archibald.

‘Aye,’ agreed Morag.

If the finger work had been just a fraction more furious, flames would have engulfed the half-knitted sweaters that were cascading over their knees.

‘Pass us the crack-pipe, Morag.’

‘Aye.’

Outside, the genie was losing patience and two minutes away from contacting his union official.

‘NOW HURRY UP, I’VE GOT TO GET TO TESCOS IN DAGENHAM AND SQUEEZE MYSELF INTO A BOTTLE OF CALIFORNIAN RED.’

‘Whit’s Californian Red? Beetroot or some’hing?’

‘RED WINE.’

‘Ooooh, red wine! La de da! Dae ye take it up the arse, likes?’

‘LITTLE MAN, I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A GRAPE AND MAKE WINE FROM YOUR BLOOD.’

‘Just try it, pal, ma big brother’s in the TA, ye ken.’

The genie slapped his forehead in exasperation and let out a deep sigh that could have blown the clouds from Scotland to Pluto.

‘THIS IS MAKING ME NOSTALGIC FOR THE OLD NIGHTS IN ARABIA. GENIES KNEW HOW TO MAKE MORTALS SUFFER IN THOSE DAYS.’

‘So you lot shrink inside bottles of booze until some alkie gees ye a rub and lets ye oot?’

‘IT’S ONE OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS. PREVENTS ANOTHER ALLADIN INCIDENT. WE KNOW FOR SURE THAT WE WILL BE RELEASED. ESPECIALLY IN YOUR COUNTRY. ONLY RUSSIA KEEPS US MORE BUSY. NOW MAKE A BLOODY WISH.’

‘If I cannae hae a million wishes, I guess I’ll just have tae hae a million poonds, eh?’ smiled Blake, gulping another river of Buckfast down his throat.

‘YOU MUST USE THE CORRECT WORDS OR YOUR WISH WILL NOT COME TRUE.’

‘Whit? Just gee me a million poonds, eh? Or yell be hearin’ from ma lawyer, ya big blue bastart. Ma lawyer’s got five knuckles an’ a sovvy ring.’

‘I DON’T MAKE THE RULES, LITTLE MAN. SAY THE WORDS. IT’S GENIE POLICY.’

Blake gripped the bottle neck and brandished it like a weapon. ‘You’re aboot two seconds away fae a glassin’, big man, nae shite.’

‘JUST PHRASE THE WISH CORRECTLY. BEGIN IT BY SAYING, “I WISH”…’

‘Ah wish you’d bloody shut yer big mooth, ye big blue fuckin’ shi… AH FUCK!’ hollered Blake, as he realised the enormity of this very unintended wish. He shot to his feet and was seemingly sober within a second. ‘Nut, that’s no fair! That’s no fair!’

The genie said nothing. Unsurprisingly.

His arms stayed wrapped against his big, bulging chest, and his bull-neck froze. The only things that had altered pose since the big man-of-magic’s arrival were his lips. Now, a huge grin spread them apart.

Pouf! And the genie was gone, leaving Blake with nothing but an overworked liver.

Auld Jack was in Dresden, swigging back another Grolsh. He’d trimmed his moustache into a neat oblong.

At the same time, Blake’s kitchen window was blown open by a gust of insults.

‘If you’re no oota ma sight in two meenits, ah’ll be oot there wi ma saucepan and brush, do you hear me, Blakey?!’

There were few that didn’t hear her. Perhaps even Auld Jack had heard her.

‘Ho, ya cow, some of us are on the nightshift here!’ shouted a particularly brave neighbour from his bedroom window.

‘Yell be on the graveyard shift if ye dinnae bugger aff, ya nosey shite!’ roared the beast in reply. ‘You too,’ she barked, eyeballing her son, ‘and dinnae even think aboot coming home unless ye have a million poonds in yer back pocket!’

Slam! Blake stood up, rocked on his heels, then took another long, lingering, sloshing slurp of the Buckfast.

‘This stuff’s magic!’ he said.

The bottle was soon discarded in the grass, taking pride of place in the man-made flowerbed of used condoms, bloody sanitary towels, syringes, crisp wrappers and fag ends. It was time to think. Finally. He had managed to avoid it for close to sixteen years. The bones of a plan quickly formed a skeletonic idea in his head. A smile crept upon his face, which lit up his drink-fogged eyes.

‘I know what tae dae!’ he exclaimed.

Full of excitement, he quickly set himself to the task of urinating through his mother’s letterbox. Then, the real plan hit him.

‘I’m gonnae go and see ma gran. She’s a bit of an effin’ weirdo, likes, but I ken she’ll help me! At the very least I can sell some of her stuff.’

‘Or her,’ he thought cheerfully to himself.

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TO BE CONTINUED…

Blakey the Jakey: a Modern Scottish Fairytale – Pt 1

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‘You did whit, Blakey?’

‘I sold the car, maw.’

A sharp slap echoed across his hollow cheeks.

‘Whit did ye sell the Escort fur, ye wee bugger?’

‘Fur a load ay magic beans, maw.’

Another slap clapped across Blake’s already stinging cheek.

‘I didnae ask whit ye goat fur it, ah said whit did you sell it fur!’

‘Fur money, maw. This guy at the market said he’d gee us loads ay money fur it.’ A sliver of snotters sniffed their way back up Blake’s nostrils and a grazed knuckle rose to sweep away a clove of tears. ‘Yer aye sayin’ yer efter a holiday, ah thought I wid get ye the money for yin, cheer ye up, like.’

Whoosh. Slap. Oyah!

‘Cheer me up? Whit holiday am ah gonnae git wae magic bloody beans, ye wee toley? And noo I’ve no goat a car!’

Blake’s mother slumped her plump frame into a chair and began to sob her woes out over the kitchen table. Blake felt helpless. He sunk a clammy palm onto her shoulder. Sensing his guilt and sadness, she rammed her elbow into his stomach.

‘Bugger aff!’ she wept.

‘But, maw,’ whined Blake, glad that the elbow hadn’t sunk any lower, ‘we kin sell the Magic Beans. Guy at the market says we kin make a killin’, like.’

The sobs clicked off. ‘The only killin’ around here’ll be dun by me, ye wee tyke,’ she spat, ‘An ah could caw ye worse than that, the way am feelin’ the noo, ye wee useless cunt!’

Blake reached into the pocket of his jeans and took out the small, clear plastic pouch containing the beans. He waggled them in front of his mother’s face.

‘Let’s sell them, maw, let’s sell the hings. Ah’ll get the money back, promise ah wull.’

Blake’s mother shot to her feet, grabbed the packet of beans, stormed over to the open window and tossed them down onto the grass below. She pirouetted in a whirlwind of rage to face his downcast head, and laid down upon it a demand for exile.

‘First thing the morra’s mornin’, you’re oot o this hoose, or ah’ll bloody fling you oot the windae!’

***

And so, as the moon revolved into its night-time slot, knocking the sun down below the horizon, the nocturnal denizens of Grangemouth scurried out from the back of supermarkets, from bus shelters, from alley ways and from play-parks, to gather in the flickering lamp-lit streets like zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

As if driven by some deep, buried instinct, they found the packet of Magic Beans lying in the grass at the foot of Blakey’s flat. A circle of baseball caps peered down, before a cygnet-ringed hand scooped them up and held them aloft. A cry of feral triumph whooped into the air.

In the morning, the magic beans were missing: presumed gubbed.

Outside the kitchen window, twelve baseball caps saluted skyward from the grass, attached to twelve bleary bodies in varying states of consciousness. A ghetto blaster, powered by a length of extension cable, bang-thud-jerked its techno-menace over the still-sleepy street.

A lone ‘dancer’ – the term applying loosely – shuddered violently to the beat of the bass-line, a carnival of jutting, punching limbs. His pupils shifted from big to small, like some demented camera lens, and sweat lashed his exposed skin.

‘They beans are magic, sir!’ he exclaimed with ecstasy, lost in the dance.

The kitchen window of the Blake household flew open on its hinges and the curler-clad head of Blake’s mum burst out.

‘Ho, John Travolta!’ she yelled to the ‘dancer’, ‘Shut that bloody racket aff, wake up that pile a’ deed ducks on ma gress an’ bugger aff the lot o’ ye!’

The slam of the window acted as a gunshot to the frightened herd of ravers. Twelve sets of heels pelted down the street, ‘John Travolta’ dancing after them as fast as he could. The wail of an encroaching police siren only encouraged him to dance harder.

‘Tha’s magic, sir!’ he exclaimed, ‘Ah didnae ken they’d released that tune yet!’

One of the fleeing mob ran back and dragged him kicking and dancing around the corner to safety.

***

The street was quiet again. Somebody had already stolen the ghetto blaster, but then it had been stolen in the first place.

Blake sat on the pavement outside of his flat, head in hands, rucksack slung over a bony shoulder. With all of the beans gone, Blake had a mammoth mission ahead of him: find a way to make back money for both car and holiday or… he didn’t even want to think about the ‘or else’ part.

The odds seemed insurmountable. Not to Blake, of course, simply because the boy had no idea what ‘insurmountable’ meant. Blake’s ilk juggled with a few balls less in their vocabulary, but perhaps their stripped vernacular was more efficient in its expressiveness.

‘Fuck,’ he sighed. ‘Fuckin’ shite.’

As if sensing his heavy heart, the magical powers above granted some hope to Blake in liquid form. Pouf!

‘Did some cunt just caw us a poof?’ snapped Blake.

The boy noticed quickly that an object had appeared next to him from thin air. He was bright that way.

‘Where’d that come fae?’ whispered Blake, puzzlement ruffling his brow as he eyed the newcomer. He reached to his right and clasped the ancient-looking glass bottle in his hand. Someone, or something, had scrawled ‘Drink Me’ in the film of dust covering the green bottle. Blake obeyed.

The magical brew tasted to Blake like a mixture somewhere between cough syrup and paint stripper. With a bit of piss thrown in for good measure. It did not take many gulps for the hope-shunned youngster to fall under its spell. A few gulps more and he was entranced. Half the bottle, and his eyes became windows to worlds of magic, his stomach slosh-pit to the ebbs and flows of wonder. The tonic – health-giving though it seemed – was not enough to quell the anger that had built in him since the evening before.

Just then, a gaunt old man shuffled out from a neighbouring block of flats and made his sure-but-steady way towards him. A shell suit hung on his rag-and-wrinkle body and a silver-flecked moustache obscured his top lip. Various species of crumb made the hairy monstrosity their home.

It was Jack the Alike. No one liked him, but he always seemed to be everywhere, rather like Gok Wan. ‘Whit’re ye drinkin’, Blakey son?’ he croaked.

‘Dinnae ken,’ hiccuped Blake, ‘Whit’s it tae you, ye auld fanny?’

Instantly bored by ‘Jack the Alkie’ and agitated by his unwelcome presence, Blake distractedly rubbed at his magical bottle. Dust smeared his palm.

‘It’s guid tae share, son,’ smiled old Jack, a mossy tongue licking at chapped lips, ‘gee auld Jack a swally, noo.’

‘Ma maw aye says that ah’m no supposed tae talk tae strange auld men on account that they might turn oot to be dirty peedos like yersel, ken?’

Jack’s top lip trembled beneath its hairy camouflage. His burst-veined cheeks flashed crimson.

‘Ye ungrateful wee bastard! Efter aw I did fur this country… If it wisnae fur the likes ay Auld Jack, well, you’d be a lad in trouble, that’s fur sure! I did time in a POW camp fur wee shites like yersel’!’

Blake took another teasing swig from the bottle.

‘Ken whit, Auld Jack, I wish the bloody Germans had kept ye.’

Pouf! Old Jack seemed to implode to the size of a marble in seconds, leaving a brilliant white flash of light and a veil of smoke in his wake. As Blake recovered from this optical onslaught, blinking and cursing his sight back to 20/20, he saw before him, through a grey, choking cloud, a bearish, blubbery gent, skin the colour of rust, with a large, blue turban writhing and teetering on top of his head. A giant pair of arms was folded against his massive, shining chest.

‘THAT WAS YOUR FIRST WISH,’ he boomed.

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TO BE CONTINUED

PART 2 COMING LATER IN THE WEEK…