Short Fews 1 & Short Fews 2: Humorous Short Stories Collections - 8 tales in each - Richard G. Stevens

SHORT FEWS 1

Short Fews 1 is a collection of 8 short stories based on the truth. But what is truth? It ranges from the zero truth of some politicians to the infinite truth we could expect from a woman in Holy Orders.

Now I have never been a politician in the normal sense of the word but some have suggested that my tongue is sufficiently forked to qualify me for the highest office. Obviously I couldn’t possibly have been a nun in Holy Orders, but I did borrow a nun’s bike from outside a convent once, because it had a nice looking saddle. In between are shades of grey and it is for you to decide what I actually did or have come to believe I did.

These stories span some thirty years and have been chosen because when I have recounted them, they have elicited a variety of reactions from the incredulous to the astounded, but rarely without some amount of laughter. They are based on explosive experiences I have had over some thirty years, ranging from a 10 year-old potential boat destroyer to a forty year-old taking desperate steps to join the exclusive Mile High Club. In between are revelations that might shock, but I hope will amuse.

If you should only chuckle at each of my stories, publishing this book will have been worthwhile.

Below are a few 'teasers' for you to read:

Broadside

I love driving things – animate and inanimate. Teachers mad, women wild (I can dream can’t I?) and parents to the wall – I expect you can come up with a few more...Answers on a postcard please.

In the inanimate section apart from ‘hard bargains’, I’ve driven trains, cars, lorries, motorbikes, aeroplanes, but not many boats. I tried it once and Higher Authority looked down on my disastrous experience and He said ‘no more’. He should have said the same to the captain of the Costa Concordia long before he became a Captain, in fact long before he left school; but He has the Pope to look after His affairs and to do His work in Italy, so it wasn’t God’s fault the captain slipped under His radar.

Anyway, He must have had His beady eye on me the day my father and I, his mate Reg Sweet and two teenage sons headed off from the West Country to Norfolk for a week on the Broads. This was in 1958, in pre-motorway England – pre-motorway apart from perhaps the Preston By-pass, but, up there in the north-west, knocking on Scotland’s door, it wasn’t much good to us.

The journey took forever, or seemed to, even though I slept most of the way, in between eating and then yawning (of the tomato skins and grated carrot kind). Excitement echoed around the trusty Ford Consul as we crept towards our embarkation point – a shipyard just east of Norwich on the River Yare. We had thought we might moor up for dinner at Acle that evening. But this decision was only based on the rudimentary river and Broads map sent to my dad when the booking was confirmed. We had no idea what might be open for food and it was too far to Great Yarmouth so, luckily as it turned out, we decided on fish and chip sustenance well before we arrived at the boatyard late that fateful Saturday afternoon...you can read the rest of 'Broadside' here

Exploded Parts

What you may wonder are exploded parts? Are they remotely like fragmented bits? Could they possibly be caused by a surfeit of onions or a big batch of beans. More to the point, does it hurt?

I can tell you without a word of a lie that the exploded parts in question were obtained at the expense of pain and bloodshed. My pain and bloodshed, although at sixteen bedecked in a leather jacket and blue denim jeans bottomed off (is there such an expression – there is now) by a superb pair of black winkle-picker jockey boots, even if one felt pain, it was expressly forbidden to show it.

Now, having recently escaped from a school where such luxuries as beatings were still meted out with abandon and received with resignation, pain was one of those things that had to be endured. In fact we in our gang of teenaged tearaway motorcyclists, otherwise known as Rockers, wore pain like a medal from the war handed out for conspicuous gallantry...

Family Skeletons

I saw a joke on Facebook a few days ago, it went something like this: while you were laughing at other people’s misfortunes you left your cupboard door open and all your skeletons fell out.

All families have such skeletons. The better placed the family, the easier it is to acquire a harmful skeleton. I suppose it works along the lines that if you are a member of a respected, moneyed, or political family, a skeleton of a particular size and nature will have a worse impact than a similarly sized skeleton would have to a family that collects them like maiden aunts collect bric-a-brac. Thus an illegitimate child to a family full of such doubtful lineage, would be as nothing if publicly broadcast, compared to say, that of the mayor of a borough who stands on a platform of moral rectitude.

This tale relates to my aunt. No not either of my aunts married to my dad’s brothers or my mother’s sister – in fact this aunt would not really qualify as my aunt, but more my great aunt half removed...

fill your boots

I pressed my clothes into the fold of my left elbow – I could hear ’em downstairs arguing quite clearly – he wasn’t about to go back to work. Please God – help, I’ll be good, I promised. But He obviously didn’t believe me, there was no miraculous draining away of my pressing problem. It was now down to self-help.

Bending my knees slightly I felt around beneath me and hit the jackpot straight away. It was a woman’s winter boot but it had a zip, so I felt around for its partner. For the first time in over twenty minutes I was glad I was naked. With one boot in my left hand, I held the other in position, ‘Here goes, sorry Carole.’ I mouthed as the hissing reverberated around the wardrobe. I judge that I hadn’t filled it to leaky zip level and swapped to finish off in the other.

I waited and kept on waiting, I could hold on to the boots no more so I eased them down where they’d come from and hoped they’d stay upright. A noise below – oh please let him be going. ‘Jesus, what if he comes up here? She’d never let him come up on his own, surely.’

Bang Goes Mr Pike

I went fishing a few weeks ago with two of my grandsons – the first time for years. Even now they haven’t perfected the genetically engineered maggot that self hooks and which would have solved Leonard’s problem. Imagine just dipping your hook into your bait box, counting to ten and there’s your maggot raring to go! Count to twenty and there’s two of the little heroes in place ready to do battle with Freddie Fish. Anyway, I digress. Whether they have them now or not, doesn’t matter. Back in the late ’60’s you had to do it yourself or get someone else to do it if you were squeamish or a wuss.

Now Leonard was neither of these. What wuss would ask for his hand to be chopped off? “Show me what you are doing,” I ventured.
“What I always did before, look,” he replied, near to tears. I watched as he took the fishing line with is tiny brass hook on the end and transferred it to ‘Captain Hook’, a dwarf’s hook within a giant’s hook, so to speak. Now he selected a nice fat maggot with his right hand (he’s only got one – remember). He offered the wriggling creature’s arse end to the barbed point of the tiny hook and tried to push it through as normal. Just as the point was about to penetrate the maggot’s skin the tiny brass hook swung round and ripped the skin off before penetration. Can you imagine just how painful that might be? Well can you?

Intro-Mission at 6,000 Feet

A funny title you may think? Yes, but the event was not easy so why should the title be?

Now there is a badge, which is proudly worn by real and imaginary achievers, but we all know the perils of self-certification. If the ‘partner’ is unknown then conformation is impossible and some participants like Mrs Waldo Polk would not want a spouse to find out. This leaves only a few achievers who will honestly vouch for each other in this consummating aerial activity.

Anyway, I wanted in – and just like many of those Jumbo encounters of myth or legend, it had to be almost spontaneous, at that fresh and dizzy stage when two people come together for the first time and consequences are disregarded in that frenzied, almost mindless quest for release.

commical shearing ink

Yes, I’d been told by my great Uncle Reg Trott that sheep can’t get up once their legs are pointing skyward and they can neither eat nor drink and they’re prey to foxes and vermin. He told me that they had to be heaved on to their feet before those dear little legs stopped pumping and from my vantage vista, I could see she was pumping slower each minute. Decisively I pulled on a rugby shirt, a cagoule and my wellies and was half-way across the road and considering vaulting the five bar gate, when I realised two important things.
Firstly, the Welsh gate-maker was innumerate (probably illiterate as well) and had built a bloody six bar gate that I couldn’t vault in a month of dry Welsh Sundays and secondly, I had forgotten to pull my trousers on in my haste to rescue poor Blodwyn in distress. I hesitated in the middle of the road until a furniture van made the decision for me and I jumped clear toward that over-barred gate. I was about to climb over, but a draught around my rugby tackle reminded me again that I had forgotten my trousers.

SHORT FEWS 2

This book is a riot! Each of the 8 stories includes an act of rebellion from boss-baiting, to doctor-denigrating and manager-manoeuvring with a liberal dose of police-persecuting. Put simply, doing what many people would be reluctant to do and, as symbolised by the mocking bird, to hell with the consequences.

Put someone in a uniform and the person is subsumed into the character of the uniform. Some of the tales in this book relate to our dear friends in the police. I have had some good policeman friends – there was once a policewoman I had as a friend and she was my friend it is true, but it was the ‘full with benefits’ part of the package she baulked at. All went well at first but after a while I thought she was being unreasonable. She had told me herself about chasing after a man and pinning him down whilst on duty.

Now I have to admit she was damned good at the pinning down business, but try as I might she refused to pin me down whilst sporting her uniform. I thought she was being miserable – she thought I was perverted. Up until then I had always wondered exactly what the term ‘perverting the course of justice’ meant. Anyway, it signalled the end of a short but potentially interesting union. It would never have led anywhere and I guess the ‘uniform’ thing just tipped the balance enough to stop her kidding herself it might.

Something that has always intrigued me is the donning of the corporate cloak; take any reasonable individual and put him or her in a position of authority and you have a very different being. It’s the same in almost any walk of life – the person will be transformed into something so different that it’s frightening. Every time I have some bombastic ‘jobs-worth’ telling me why such-and-such must or must not be done, I wonder whether family members would be treated in the same contemptuous manner. I heard about a policeman who gave his own father a speeding ticket – that must be the ultimate subsumption, but such corporate veils don’t just apply to the police, as you will see.

Below are a few 'teasers' for you to read:

LOOK INSIDE

Belt Up

It wasn’t long before the ‘Old Bill’ were on my tail again. I did wonder if they were joining in my sport – but this was a different Police Authority in a different county, so it was unlikely. Again I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, but this time I was driving a more modern car, but it was quite soon after the change of law, so I had just forgotten.

I had been driving happily along a dual carriageway and slowing down for a queue of traffic in both lanes, approaching traffic lights, when I spotted a police car that surreptitiously moved into that blind spot of my door mirror. Unfortunately just because you can’t see them, does not mean they can’t see enough of you. I came to a halt and put my seat belt on.

They slowly overtook me and stopped in their shorter queue. When the lights changed I pulled gently away in the forlorn hope they’d bugger off. While I enjoyed the occasional tussle with the boys in blue, it was getting to be too often and, being a pragmatic bloke, I recognised that the more often you engage in dangerous sport, the more likely you are to get hurt.

I decided to turn left up a side road that looped around to where I was headed but I cursed when they slowed down, switched lanes and followed me. I stopped in the road outside a pub...you can read the rest of 'Belt Up' here

Pigs Might Fly

I was sitting at our local flying club one overcast Sunday afternoon with Sergeant Shuman and our respective ladies of the time, when he asked me about the Turbo. “It’s good for 126 but you’ve got to watch the torque steer when you wind it up quickly,” I replied.
“Can I try it?”
“Yeah – let’s get out of here.”

Paul headed out into the modest traffic of the by-pass and soon was whistling along at 100 plus. The dual carriageway gave way to a motorway and we were hammering along nicely when he suddenly indicated he was turning left off the motorway. Although he switched to the left-hand lane and moved slightly into the slip road, he barely slowed down. “See ’em?” he asked, gesturing overhead with his eyes.
“Oh shit!” I groaned as I glanced up at the speed cop sat above us, “reckon he clocked us?”
“Doubt it, but he’ll come after us ’cos I pulled the wool.”

a world of adventures by train

World of Adventures by Train from Short Fews 2

Now Jack had minutes earlier predicted this embarrassing scenario, remarking that he hoped ‘Larry’ would not shut off steam before the station, slow to a virtual stand and then play to the gallery of photographers and enthusiasts. By this he meant closing the regulator (throttle) drifting in slowly and then ‘opening up’ and noisily puffing in, “Why?” I had asked.
“Because he won’t get going again on these wet rails – that’s why,” said Jack as if he had a crystal ball.
As per usual and true to form, Larry played to the gallery and, just as Jack predicted, when he re-opened the regulator a moment before he came to a stop, the huge wheels of the engine just slipped round and round in their quest for adhesion. Jack and I, faces carefully adopting a concerned but barely masked amusement, walked down the platform ramp and along the line-side a short way to the stranded train. We watched from track level as Larry tried repeatedly to get underway.

On a Pedestal

To err is human’, said Seneca.

Yet we will not believe that all humans err. Some we set on pedestals in god-like omnipotence. These demigods are rarely seen to fall from their lofty pedestals, but when they do, it is best that humanity does not bear witness, for where then would we place our trust?
Horis Rouka, 1948

Anyway, the buzzer sounded and everybody looked again at the number-bearing-plastic disc that they had looked at a hundred times already, like a bingo player excitedly waiting for the next number that might herald their success in the waiting-room lotto. Eight buzzes on we looked at her number and again at the electronic summoning board to see that she would be seen by yet another different doctor from amongst the lottery of available white-coated medicos from within the group practice.

This time she had a woman doctor; ‘perhaps that might be better,’ she suggested, ‘maybe she really understands headaches and she might be more helpful.’

The ‘Headache-Understanding’ lady doctor was sitting serenely behind her desk and it was soon plain that she was indeed an expert, but not at headaches. She was an expert at passing the buck suggesting that my friend, who was obviously in severe pain, and clutching a part filled sick bowl, should really be seen again by Doctor Lewis, who we already knew wasn’t there today. “But her headaches are getting worse I complained, look she’s just been sick on her way into see you.”

Better the Devil

Mrs Harvey died whilst tending her husband’s grave and arrived at the gates of heaven, “Oh hello Mrs Harvey,” said Saint Peter, “we saw your name was on the list yesterday.”
Mrs Harvey smiled enigmatically, “Bert wasn’t too surprised when I finished on top of him, then – he knew I was coming.”
“Well perhaps you’ll be able to ask him, he’s working in the garden somewhere.”
“How wonderful I haven’t seen him for twenty years – he’ll be like a toy-boy to me, won’t he? Can I go in right now?”
“I am sorry, Mrs Harvey but the rules have changed since your husband arrived, and entry isn’t on the nod anymore.”
“But I’ve always been a good Christian and lived my life by God’s teachings – whatever is the problem?”
“No, no, Mrs Harvey – it has nothing to do with you, we know you are a good woman. No, the devil and the Lord signed up to a new deal where entry is no longer automatic; now you have to spend a day in hell and a day in heaven. Then you decide where you want to spend eternity.”
“But my Bert’s here in heaven.”
“As I said, Mrs Harvey, it’s just the one day, now would you prefer to tour hell or heaven first?”
“Oh I suppose I’d just as well get hell out of the way first – but it’s a total waste of time.”
“I’m sorry, but treaties are treaties,” said St Peter, picking up his telephone. “Ah hello, St Peter here, is that the secretary to Beelzebub?”
“It is.”
“We have a Mrs Harvey here who has just arrived and she wishes to tour your place first.”
“Put her in the lift, I’ll tell my master she’s on the way down.” By the time poor Mrs Harvey felt the bump of the lift stopping, she had got herself into a frightful state.”...

How to Get a Head

Governments of all shades seem to agree these days that schools are better run by the Head-teacher than by the County. On the basis that the County’s agenda may not be entirely devoted to the best education of our children, I would have to agree. However, sometimes the risks of placing too much power into the hands of one individual can be a disaster. A festering, often hidden disaster, which, like a boil waiting to burst, needs but one little prick.

This is a cautionary tale based upon one such Head-teacher; I shall call him Mr Michael, Mr Don Michael. He was a little man and power had gone to his head; it was swollen with the poison of self-importance, bordering on megalomania. I was nearer than most when the boil burst; in fact, I am content in the knowledge that some would say I was the prick that burst it...

hard to swallow

Soon they were on my tail, blue lights flashing.

I switched the engine and lights off – they were generating enough light for both of us. The inside of our car was in darkness apart from their flashing and the light thrown in from the tax-payer draining motorway lighting, so I wasn’t surprised that there was a knock on the off-side window and my young son opened it to a policeman, “How fast do you call that, Sir?”
“Don’t ask me,” he answered, sticking his head out into the light.
“How old are you, Son.”

Now I was beginning to discover that my son must have been equipped with the same ‘wind-up’ gene as I had and almost as well developed, “Sixteen next Thursday.”
“Have you stolen this car?”
“No – it’s my dad’s.”
“Does he know you’re driving it?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I expect we will in due course, Son – but for the moment why don’t you answer?”
“I can’t remember the question.”
“Does your father know that you are driving his car?”
”I’m not.”
“We just stopped you – come off it, Son.”

He crouched down low as if to press my son on his refusal to cooperate, but a groan from the backseat distracted him, “What’s that?”
“My brother – he’s not very well.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m too young to be a doctor, but I think he probably ate something he shouldn’t have. He was going for a take away but right now he really needs to throw away.”

At long last, PC Plod took a better look inside the car, “Who’s that?” he probed, looking at me.
My turn now – yippee, “I’m his dad – it’s my car.”
“What are you doing letting a boy of fifteen drive a car like this at speed?”
“I didn’t let him.”
“Have you been drinking, Sir?” he asked. He did a slow march round to my open window to continue the interrogation, having totted up all my possible crimes en route.