A Recent Encounter

 

“You need to look where you’re going mate.”  

“You what?”  

“Deaf as well,” said the football hooligan.   

“Who you calling deaf?”  

“What?” 

“Funny bastard,” said the vicar. 

“Are vicars supposed to act like arseholes – apologise,” said the football hooligan.  

“Do you know how much of a fucking cliché you look right now. Go home, drink your Stella and beat your wife,” said the vicar.   

A traffic warden comes within ear shot followed by a policeman who hears raised voices. 

“Is there problem here?” 

“Fuck’s it got to do you with you Plod?” said the vicar.  

“I beg your pardon are you mad?” said the policeman.  

“Mad! I’m fuming mate, this arse clown bumped into me and made me spill my whiskey.” 

“Whiskey, they have whiskey,” said the policeman. 

“Don’t get excited it’s a single malt. I’d try the bourbon,” said the vicar.  

“I’m from Scotland I’ll stick with the malt,” said the policeman. 

“Hellooo, I’m still waiting for my apology,” said the football hooligan. 

Elvis swans into the, now most interesting, circle with Marilyn Monroe on his arm.  

“What we missed?”  

“Apparently, there’s some deaf, wife beating clown from Scotland moaning about the bourbon,” said the traffic warden.  

“I’d like to remind everyone,” said Cinderella, “this is meant to be a charity do.”

No More Cheek Kisses Pilot - Extract

 

Somewhere in Spain… 

 

Cloistered community convent, white cal walls stained dark by shadows and the sins of a bygone era. A sparse room, one bed, a large wooden crucifix nailed to the wall. 

Buttocks flashing white as they pump between the legs of a suntanned beauty, heaving breast atop a head of black hair as he motorboats her. She wears the habit of a nun pulled over her shoulders. This is no Bronte novel. He comes, she fakes – they arrive at their contractual goal. 

There’s a faint scream outside the room. 

“Go – dey vill kill you!” said the prostitute. 

“I’m here to help you get out,” said the journalist, snapping on his underpants with his thumbs. 

“Are youse stupid? Do I look like a Ukrainian sex worker?” Her ascent changes from quasi-eastern bloc, broken English, to scouse. 

“Actually, yes I’m remembering the whole – they have my passport and child hostage in Odesa thing.” 

“Fucksake lar, why the ‘ell would I want to leave ‘ere. I’m ten grand from buying a fucking house,” said the prostitute. 

“You’re an oxymoron,” said the journalist, incredulously.  

“I’m an artist, now come ‘ed.”  

“Con artist, luring unsuspecting, vulnerable old men into saving you from sex slavery with their pensions and nest eggs.”  

“Boo hoo,” said the prostitute. 

A flourish like some street magician she produces a taser, swipes at him. The journalist blocks it and pushes her onto the bed. He backs off, pulls on his hassock and opens the window, dithers, turns and spears her a look of self-righteous indignation, snatches up the cash he had left on top of a cupboard. He lurches in a leap of faith. 

The door burst open. Two, no-neck, gangsters rush to grab him. 

“Bastardo!” 

The journalist, Mat Sharkey, lands, forward roles and runs across the manicured lawn of this ancient monastery. 

He's got handsome but doesn't let that hold him back from not giving a shit. He will do whatever it takes to grab a scoop, but things don’t always go to plan. 

Mat ties his hassock stopping himself from spilling out as a black Wrangler Jeep pulls up and swings open the passenger door. A town called malice, by The Jam, pumped through the radio. 

He jumps in. 

“Gun it baby!” said Mat. 

The driver, an Iberian beauty, his sidekick, her name is Charlie, but she is no angel. She sniffs up. 

“I can smell vagina emmm… I though jew are on a crusade to save the oppressed, trafficked, enslaved,” said Charlie. 

He offers a baleful look. 

“I'm...” 

“Weak and pathetic,” said Charlie. 

“Drink, bar,” said Mat. 

“It’s...” 

“Not early enough,” he pauses and sees she is just wearing a bra and sarong. Off his look... 

“Work we were in the middle of a costume change.” 

“What you playing this time?” said Mat. 

“I’m tied to the mast and aboard the hero swings, saves me from the lusty pirates.” 

“Sounds erotic. I've got a touch on,” he said, holding his groin. 

“It’s a kids' theme park show jew perv, joder! Anyway, I can use your Jeep for the rest of the day?” 

“Sure.”

Wet Pet by Mark Shearman

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WET-PET-Stories-Mark-Shearman-ebook/dp/B017Z4LQSS

Piano Playing Dogs by Mark Shearman

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B091QF5N8C/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piano+playing+dogs&qid=1617714609&sr=8-1

 

Extract from Zorro's Last Stand by Mark Shearman

---

The crest of the hill emitted shimmering waves of heat, flickering and obscuring a figure. The dark silhouette against the blue haze of the morning sky, not quite in focus yet, resembled someone familiar. The waves of heat depleted the closer he came into view. A Cordebés hat was clear as he spun around — Zorro? A black cowl mask: it was El Zorro. The cunning fox was free, but why was he here on the Costa Blanca?

Zorro's long black cape trailed, flouncing behind him. He sprinted zigzagging in an exhaustive pursuit. Drawing his flashing steel rapier, leapt and spiked a piece of paper— stopped—lifted the note to admire it, and smiled self-congratulatory.

A scruffy grey donkey heaped with baskets of orange nísperos eyed him, chewing from a nosebag like he didn't care. His owner, a chubby, ragged farmer, flipped a pot to his crease-crazed face, pouring without touching his gurning lips. He smacked the rump of his donkey to elicit movement, multi-tasking.

A swoosh of wind fluttered and lifted the spiked paper from Zorro's sword, swishing and rolling in the breeze.

"Bastardo!" Zorro rasped.

He resumed the chase with more teeth-gritted venom. The paper hit and tumbled along the side of the torque body of his shiny, black and rigid stallion. The horse, made from fibreglass, was bolted atop his tired 1969 Volkswagen bus, two-tone creams, rusty and pitted with holes. The van was parked in a residential car park and the horse a prop to his unusual job.

He rushed the horse in a flourish of upward stabbing motions and missed skewering the paper by inches. The paper, a thousand peseta note, swirled off in the wind avoiding capture.

Inside this Zorro'd up van, he lifted his cape, sinking into the seat, flustered from the exertion. Flipped up the black mask onto his sweaty forehead, despondent, revealing a bruised black eye. He sighed, closed his blue eyes as his shoulders sank back deflated.

He slouched into his ripped seat, wiped the sweat from his blinking eyes and turned the key. The tired engine flushed, that familiar water-cooled VW sound, ticked over and then died. He sat back, emulating the engine, fed-up.

Under that unusual work attire, a handsome, albeit rugged man, El Zorro ‒ Danny, when not at work, studied the rings of blue and yellow around his right eye in the mirror. Suddenly something flashed to his left catching his other eye. He oscillated his head, searching for the source and instantly recognising the person he was there to shame into paying her debt.

A breast heavy, rotund woman, the wrong side of fifty, but being Mediterranean could be a lot older, wearing a house coat and slippers, clutching a brown crusty loaf and pinch purse.

The woman peered over the bonnet of a blue people carrier from a crouching position. Her crow's feet squinted, desperation in her dark, Moorish eyes. Breathing became heavy, progressing into a pant. She abruptly stopped; her breath caught in her throat. She stole another glance at her pursuer and flinched.

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zorros-Last-Stand-Mark-Shearman-ebook/dp/B07879KQGJ

 

My Migrant Hostel South Australia by Mark Shearman

 

In this photo I am with my older sister Wendy, we are in Adelaide Australia fresh off the ocean liner SS Canberra walking across the street where we were first housed in prefabricated Nissen huts.

Pommy Town, a bushland-fringed housing estate. These corrugated huts were designed by a British army engineer, Canadian, Captain Peter Norman Nissen, as portable accommodation and to some, Ten Pound Poms, it was paradise because of its indoor plumbing, a large backyard and, in many cases, ocean views.

In this photo, I'm returning from the hospital. In the middle of the night, I had climbed out of bed in search of water in the stifling heat but couldn’t find any. I unscrewed the top off a French-made Fly-Tox fly sprayer and drank the caustic liquid. My sister saw what I had done and alarmed my parents. My father snatched me up, borrowed next door's pickup truck and drove to the hospital like a twocker.

My parents hated living in the huts and eventually, we moved into a house that was built, exclusively, covered by a mortgage which was also something amazing to them in the late sixties as we had moved from the Victorian slums of St Ann’s Nottingham

Ten Pound Poms (also ten-pound tourist), refers to people from the UK who migrated to Australia under the Assisted Passage Scheme, run by the Australian Government after the Second World War.

The fare for passage to Australia was set at £10. And they could return for free within five years.

Australians referred to us as “Poms" either because of the acronym for 'prisoner of Mother England' P.O.M.E), or from a rhyming slang term for immigrant, pomegranate (sometimes spelt pommygrant) abbreviated forms pommy and pom.

I was reminded often about the fly spray incident. Did it change me, no I still hate flies.