Sour Grapes

I've pushed hard
against the door of Life.
Only to find it still won't open.
For me.
It's tantalisingly ajar
so near yet so far
I can feel the magnificent draught
and I've laughed...
but I still can not get in.

There's a foot on the other side
that stops it from opening wide.
Maybe someone long gone
who put a curse upon
my forgotten family's wrong?

What have I done to deserve
this unexpected swerve
from life's straight and narrow curve?

I've tried my best
to invest
in treating others
like my brothers.
Yet that damn door still won't let me in.

ALL THE GOOD THINGS. (OR MR. JONES FACES THE MUSIC).

Note: Everything seen is from Mr Jones’ POV.(Except Sc 11)

FADE IN:

1 INT. A BATHROOM – DAY

Mr Jones’ POV:
We’re looking at a wall of bathroom tiles.

In the background there’s the sound of Mr Jones’ pee hitting the water at the bottom of the toilet.

The flow pauses...then starts again.

Then again.

The flow stops and at the sound of a zip we PAN downwards to see a reservoir of blood-flecked urine.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:
2 EXT. A STREET – DAY

Mr Jones’ POV:
Everything seems wrong. The colours aren’t right. The sound is muzzy.

Jones walks at a fast pace, his eyes taking in everything as he moves.

Shop prices. Goods for sale. Snatches of conversation. A growling bus.

Jones locks on to a particularly attractive woman who walks slowly in front of him.

Jones takes in her form.

Her neck. The curvature of her spine, down to the beautiful contours of her bum/arse/ass/backside. (As someone once said ‘Like two small boys fighting under a blanket).

Jones lingers for a moment too long...

The woman turns. She glares at Jones...

WOMAN: Is there something I can do for you?

An embarrassed MrJones swerves around her in an attempt to put space between him and her...she snears

WOMAN (O.S.) : You dirty old man.

Jones breathing increases as he gathers speed in his bid to escape.

Safe for now...Jones slows to walking pace.

The sights and the sounds of the street rise and fall in his consciousness.

The sounds are as murky as ever and the colours seem washed out.

Jones moves on.

The hum of the traffic grows in its intensity and an aeroplane drones across the sky.

We can hear Jones’ breathing. And heartbeat. Both of which seem to quicken and slow in no particular discernable pattern.

Jones moves on.

A baby in a buggy.

Jones slows to a stop and admires the sleeping and gently snoring child.

From somewhere in the darkest reaches of Jones’ brain, his mother recites a long forgotten nursery rhyme...

MOTHER (V/O) : Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.Up above the world so high,like a diamond in the sky.Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.

A pause...the baby farts loudly then fills its nappy in one dynamic and noisy rush...

Jones moves on.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:
3 EXT. A PARK – DAY

Mr Jones POV:

Peace at last. No traffic. No people. Just Jones and nature. Grass and flowers.

We CU on an unknown flower. Bright yellow with a red centre, Jones cannot resist the urge to move in close and sniff its exotic scent...

Jones cries out and pulls back suddenly.

We have an enormous CU of the underside of a bee clamped to Jones nose.

Jones runs for his life.

We watch as his hand banishes the bee from his face.

Breathing heaving with a pounding heartbeat as accompaniment, Jones slows to a walking pace, then stops suddenly.

His heartbeat rises as we PAN down to his feet.

Jones slowly lifts a dog-shit impregnated shoe.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:
4 EXT. A MULTI-STOREY CAR PARK – DAY

Mr Jones’ POV:

Standing at the entrance of the multi-storey is a street entertainer, (young man with a guitar).
At his feet a guitar case, empty except for a selection of loose change.

He sings...Blackbird (Beatles) beautifully. Jones takes a moment to listen and watch.

We PAN back down towards the guitar case and watch as a wad of high denomination notes thump down amongst the loose change.

The guitarist hits a bum note in shock and Jones moves on.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:
5 EXT. A GLASS DOOR – DAY

Mr Jones POV:

Jones’ hand pushes the door open and he enters.

6 INT. A DOCTOR’S SURGERY- DAY

Mr Jones’ POV:

Jones approaches the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist smiles...

RECEPTIONIST: Mister Jones isn’t it? To see Doctor Clarke? If you’d like to take a seat I’ll tell her that you’re here.

Jones makes his way into the patients area, where one or two sick looking people cough and splutter.

Jones sits. He’s still having trouble with his hearing and sight. His breathing seems hurried and his heart is pounding.

Jones notes the woman sitting opposite but doesn’t realise that it’s the same woman who he was walking behind earlier on.

He’s far too busy taking in the rise and fall of her cleavage to notice anything familiar about her.

She frowns...she knows him from somewhere but...

A voice crackles over a tannoy system.

WOMAN’S VOICE: Ms Davidson please. Ms Davidson.

The woman with the cleavage stands and leaves.

Jones hums tunelessly and begins to take in the posters that line the walls.

IBS. We can help.
Pregnant? Worried?
Yoga. You don’t have to be bitter and twisted.
If you think you have a sexually transmitted dis-

The tannoy system cuts in again.

WOMAN’S VOICE: Mister Jones please. Mr Jones.

Jones is on his feet immediately.

He walks from the patient’s waiting room and up a set of stairs.

He pauses in front of a door that bears the sign...Doctor Joan Clarke.

As Jones knocks his breathing and heartbeat come to the fore.

A voice from within...

DOCTOR CLARKE (O.S.) : Come in.

Jones calms, pushes the door and enters.

7 INT. THE DOCTOR’S ROOM - DAY

Mr Jones POV:

A small attractive woman dressed business-style, smiles and motions for Jones to take a seat.
They both sit.

There’s something wrong.
Doctor Clarke seems nervous, unprepared, she clears her throat...

Jones’ vision still isn’t too good. Doctor Clarke fades in and out of focus.

DOCTOR CLARKE: (Smiles nervously) Well Mister Jones. Roger. Erm... (A pause) I’ve er...I’ve had the results back...(Pause) I’ve had the results back and I’m afraid...I’m afraid the news isn’t too good. I-

Jones has totally lost focus. Although the Doctor continues to speak all we (and Jones) are picking up is a mish-mash of sound and images. Like a badly tuned radio.

Nothing makes sense anymore...the Doctor’s morphing into some kind of monster and her speech seems to be turning into a high-pitched wail.

Jones stands suddenly and heads for the door.

Everything’s a total whirl now.

The door. The stairs. The Patient’s waiting room. The receptionist.

It’s as though there’s a total re-wind of the last few minutes of Jones’ life.

Jones faces the door to the street.

CUT TO:
8 EXT. THE STREET– DAY

Mr Jones POV:

Jones breathes heavily. He takes in the street noise and what appears to be a constant rush of cars. His breathing and heartbeat to the fore, the whole world seems to be closing down on him.

If it was bad earlier on, now it’s a nightmare.

Passers-bye stare at him.

The traffic snarls at him.

Even the air that he breaths appears to be attacking his already bursting lungs.

The sound of his beating heart fills his head.

Jones gathers speed until he’s on the run.

Faster...faster...

A few hundred yards ahead of him Jones can see the busker, who has burst into another chorus of Blackbird. Not so beautiful this time.

Jones bypasses the serenade and enters into the dark recess that is the multi-storey car park.

9 INT. THE MULTI-STOREY – DAY

Mr Jones POV:

It may be daytime but it’s dark in the car park as Jones hurries around and around the car park’s spiralling roadway.

Oncoming cars flash their headlights and hoot their horns at the rapidly panicking Jones.

We’re on a quiet floor.

There’s no traffic and only one or two parked cars.

Jones is still in a bit of a state and collides with one of the parked cars setting off its alarm.

The constant beep, beep, beep and the flashing lights don’t help. Jones panics.

He rushes to a low outer wall and looks down.

We can see the pedestrians moving like ants along the street.

We can see the street musician going about his business.

Jones heart rate is off the scale. Fit to burst.

CUT TO:
10 EXT. STREET LEVEL – DAY

The street musician’s still doing the Beatles. Norwegian Wood.

Suddenly a scream.

The musician stops mid-lyric, pauses, then looks up.

The street musician’s POV:

A dark shape fills his vision.

BLACKOUT


WE FADE TO THE TUNE OF ‘BLACKBIRD’ BY THE BEATLES (WHITE ALBUM).

END

On the perfect road

I thought I saw you again.
From the corner of my wet eye.
A sudden flash of movement
that made me think
that made me hope
that you might be visiting
to tell me all is well.
That the pain had gone
That youth had returned.
And I need not worry anymore.
That life was as good as new.
That you were swimming in the purest water
and cycling on the perfect road
...and making love.

Davy Stoker (deceased). The luckiest man alive.

Davy Stoker was not a well-liked man. I don’t necessarily mean he was hated but he was the kind of guy whose funeral you could guarantee would not be that well attended. That’s not to say he wouldn’t be missed, there’s no doubt in my mind that folks would, after a suitable period of Davey Stoker-free time, wonder where the hell he’d gone and upon being told he was dead would say, ‘Oh...shame’. The thing is, they wouldn’t really care.
His was a personality that you could take or leave and to be truthful, if you had the choice, you would leave it. If you did happen to find yourself at the cemetery to see him laid to rest then you’d be there out of curiosity and not because you were grieving a whole lot. You’d want to know if he would stay down.
In his time Davey Stoker was called many things, stupid being one of the more frequent. Yet despite this, in our neighbourhood he was somewhat of a living legend. Renowned far and wide for his ability to ingest an enormous variety and amount of illegal substances and remain upright. He was also arrogant. He’d roamed the streets of the borough with an air of smug self-satisfaction and an attitude that said out loud, ‘Look at me I’m invincible’. And it has to be said, no matter what your personal feelings as to Davey Stoker’s right to life, you couldn’t help wondering if his self-assessment didn’t have the ring of truth about it.
If you knew Davey like we knew Davey, then you’d know he was apparently bomb-proof, bullet-proof and it wouldn’t surprise me to discover, immune to all diseases known to man. Davey Stoker was a lucky guy. Davey Stoker was the original man they couldn’t kill although, not through want of trying.
If I were to supply you with the necessary information and then ask you to ponder awhile on Davey Stoker’s existence, it would only take you a moment to come to two interesting conclusions, conclusions that I shall now list...

Conclusion number one.
Someone of Davey Stoker’s ilk and lifestyle must have a whole barrel-load of enemies.

Conclusion number two.
Substance consumption especially at Davey’s level of abuse, must cost much money.

Now, it doesn’t matter in what order you come to these conclusions but come to them you would, so let me deal with the money thing first as the enemy thing, will follow naturally. It goes like this.
If Davey Stoker wasn’t injecting then he was introducing massive amounts of brown or white powder into his body in some other way. ‘Stuff’ of various descriptions (and prescriptions), found a way into his frame through most of his orifices and possibly other routes that normal mortals would have found impossible not just to bear, but to have the imagination to conjure up. And remember, all of this happened every day, morning, noon and night. Such were the levels of chemicals in his blood, that I have personally witnessed flies landing on him and keeling over almost immediately. This being so, it does not take a mathematics professor to work out that for Davey to remain at his preferred level of toxicity, i.e. high, then he would have to be living off a fair sized inheritance or have the borrowing capacity of a small third world country. So how did Davey manage it? Easy. Davey Stoker’s World Bank was the Morelli Brothers.
The story goes that Vince and Quince (true) Morelli, bankrolled Davy and his unsavoury habits in return for the odd piece of dirty work. As the Morelli brothers had their grubby little fingers in most pies you could be sure that this ‘dirty work’ took the form of anything from the wallpapering of an old lady’s front room, to the dispatching of said old lady for not paying her rent. The Morelli’s were like that.They saw themselves as a cross between Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham and they ruled over an area the size of a small forest with an iron fist inside a brass knuckle-duster. They were the Spawn of Satan but with a mother who loved them. And they took no prisoners as they rode roughshod over anything and anyone who got in their way, including their aforementioned Mother but that's another story.
It would appear that Davey Stoker was their ‘Arson Man’. There were too many occasions when Davey was seen running from the scene of a small explosion with smouldering hair and his pants on fire to think otherwise. In fact, it wasn’t that unheard of to hear that Davey Stoker had been detained by the police on suspicion. One visit however from the Morelli family lawyer and Davey was never charred-sorry-charged. Despite this nonsense and play acting by both legal and policing professions, anyone with eyes in their head and shoulders on which to balance it, knew darn well that Davey Stoker did jobs for the Morelli’s. He was their muscle and therefore a force to be reckoned with. A man with dangerous connections. If you had occasion to talk with Davey Stoker, you laughed at all his jokes, even the pathetic ones.

Nobody was really sure what happened to turn things around. But turn around they did. Some say Davey got religion but I find that hard to believe, as a few weeks previous Davey had given the local Priest a beating as a reminder that he owed the Morelli’s some money.So Holiness was out of the question. Whatever had caused the change in Davey, it was a major surprise, no, shock, it was a major shock to everyone.
Perhaps, people pondered, Davy had discovered a new drug. A bravery drug. Whatever it was, something gave Davey the push and wherewithall to quit the Morelli camp. One morning Davey Stoker woke up and just said no. No to the Morellis and no to anything of a dubious nature. And, of course, from that day forth, things took their inevitable course.
As is the Morelli’s wont, especially when they’re upset, they shot guns at Davey. They missed. They bombed Davey. He wasn’t in (but his mother was. It was a nice funeral). They cut the brake cables on Davey’s car. Davey didn’t own a car (that was a nice funeral too). And so on, and so on. A catalogue of bungled attempts at ending Davey’s life followed one after another. All in all, there must have been at least ten tries at sending Davey to meet Jesus, none of them successful. (You could almost hear Jesus breathing a sigh of relief).
If it had not been so serious it would have been funny. So bad were the Morelli brothers at doing their own dirty work that Vince Morelli lost three fingers off his right hand when a small parcel bomb he was keeping in his jacket pocket ‘for later’, exploded prematurely. When asked by the only honest cop we have in our neighbourhood, Honest John Smith (believe it or not), what the hell a small parcel addressed to Davey Stoker (forensics) was doing in his pocket, Vince replied that the parcel had actually landed on his doormat only that morning and as he couldn’t read, he had assumed that it was for him etc, etc...
Anyway, for Davey Stoker this accident was a blessing in disguise. Vince Morelli’s disfigurement was the end of it. For what was probably the only instance in the Morelli’s grisly family history, they gave up on a vendetta and let Davey Stoker walk free. They never spoke of it again, and apart from spitting on the pavement every time they passed a member of Davey’s household, it seemed like it was really over. It looked like Davey Stoker would live out his remaining years in his normal luck-filled fashion.
Wrong.

It was such a tiny object. So small to be almost invisible to the naked eye. It was amazing to think that such a tiny thing had probably been twice around the Universe and then back again. That the last time it passed the planet Earth, Jesus was living it up with his mother at a party in Canaan and the time before that my ancestor was chewing at a dinosaur bone. If only it could talk. The sights it must have seen. Round and round, star system to star system, light year to light year, amazing, and here it was again, but this time, its long journey finally over. Bursting through the atmoshere at a zillion miles an hour it suddenly found itself snug and cosy, imbedded a warm and comfortable three inches into Davey Stoker’s mashed up brain.

And you know what? Davy never felt a thing. Now, that's what I call lucky.

Why? What? When?

So, when I stand before you
can I enquire why?
You inflicted the pain again and again
and why did they have to die?

So, when I stand before you
can I enquire - what?
You put me here for what it's not clear
then left me to carry this lot.

So when I stand before you
can I enquire when?
You intend to return and maybe re-learn
to start all over again.

The eye of the beholder

There was never any doubt in my mind, none at all. As far as I was concerned, Sheba Lee was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a Goddess. She exhaled gold dust and whatever she touched she consecrated. Her natural odour made my nose twitch with delight for up to three days after she passed and I could have made love to her shadow. I would have paid good money to have her hair woven into cloth and made into the best suit I ever had. She was the sun, the moon and all the other astronomical stuff you could think of. Elizabeth Taylor should have been her handmaiden and me the saddle on her bike when she made those long physically exhausting trips to see her ailing mother. She was everything I ever dreamed of in a woman and much more besides. And that was it...I only ever dreamed.
In truth, Sheba Lee was untouchable. Apart from being twenty years older than me she had eight children and a brick wall of a husband known in the neighbourhood as ‘Beef’ on account of the fact that he was big and worked at the local abattoir. Beef was a man who could and would, upon hearing one misplaced or spoken-out-loud rogue thought concerning his wife’s heavenly attributes, deliver instant death or at the very least, physical disfigurement, all in the blacking of an eye. So, to all but the incredibly stupid and those with a death wish, Sheba Lee was best admired from afar.
My own personal strategy developed I might say over a number of careful years, required that any thoughts that I had concerning the divine Ms Lee, were instantly consigned to that small, damp, dust filled room that was situated way, way, back in the deep and darkest recesses of my mind. A room that was specially fitted out and set aside for those exciting yet guilt-inducing times when Mister Hyde would come to call. A secret space secured by the best locksmith my imagination could provide and moved (for reasons of security), to a fresh location in my head every week. In this room and in this way me and Sheba became very close. In fact, inseparable.
In those annoying moments when reality encroached on my secret life with Beef’s wife and we were forced apart, I found myself behaving like one of those tiresome but proud, happily married men you sometimes run across on railway station platforms. The sort of men who will insist on talking to you just so they have an excuse to pull a tattered photograph of their wife and kids from a battered old wallet. I invented a life for Sheba and me. And it was good. I cut a picture from a magazine and pretended that it was her. Not as pretty but it served a purpose. It helped. You know, looking back, my love story deserved its happy ending. When I think of the sheer effort I put into the relationship it seems only fair and right.
Apparently, Sheba was on her way back from visiting her sick mother when the truck driver’s concentration was broken by a tantalising flash of tanned thigh, revealed no doubt, with the help of the soft breeze that was blowing on that wonderful day. It was strange but a few hours before she took that ride, I had actually visited our room in my head and asked her to be especially careful. I remember my exact words. ‘The way you ride round on that thing. Too fast. You must be more careful. The roads are full of maniacs, drunks and God knows what’.
I remember my imagination made her laugh at my concern. She threw back her dark mane of hair and told me that I was like her mother...’a worry wart’...whatever that is.
Eyewitnesses swore that the truck driver had wound down his window, wolf-whistled, then swerved directly into the path of an oncoming milk truck, killing both himself and the other driver. My beautiful Sheba was terribly injured.
I have heard it said that monumental happenings in people’s lives can sometimes bring changes that are, in the long run, for the better. That for instance, the aftermath of a terrible accident leading to say, an unexpected death, can bring fresh meaning to a life that might have been an ongoing chore or a painful effort to sustain. Some say, that in the midst of the most heartfelt misery there can be transformation, rebirth even. I think I believe that to be true.
After the accident things began to happen. The door to my secret room was thrown open and the light flooded in. It seemed that the time for secrets was over.
Sheba Lee spent a year and a half in hospital. When she returned to the neighbourhood there were those who said that she was not the woman she used to be, and harsh though that may sound, their words were accurate enough. I knew what they meant. Sheba Lee had become an invalid. God. How I hate that word. Invalid. In-Valid.
My Sheba didn’t recognise her own children. She stumbled around the house as beautiful as ever but didn’t know where the hell she was. She had to be fed. And changed. And groomed. And...and...everything. Poor Beef tried the best he could and in doing so, shone. Which goes someway to proving the theory I mentioned earlier, that in the midst of misery, people can and do change. With the kids farmed out to relatives Beef was on call for twenty-four hours a day to that woman’s every whim, every need. Morning, noon and night Beef was there, ready, willing but unfortunately, highly un-able. As my love’s general appearance and health plummeted, Beef had to face the fact that no-way could he go on accepting total responsibility for his wife’s general well-being. He finally had to admit to himself that he needed outside help.
There was a settlement thank God. The truck owner’s insurance company paid out a large sum. A substantial amount of money that enabled Beef to return to the work that he loved down at the abattoir, with enough over to employ a full-time nurse to cater for Sheba’s ever-increasing needs. But of course, even nurses have to rest. There are times when the dedicated health professional has to have the luxury of time for themselves. Times when a break from such a demanding patient as Sheba had become, was essential. Someone else was needed to share and shoulder the burden. An hour or two a day that’s all. A walk in the park. A breath of fresh air. Someone to watch over her. I applied as soon as the advertisement appeared.
I got the job.

On seeing old folk shopping

Side by side
lumbering.
A herd of wounded rhino
bent backed stick heavy.
Tottering towards termination.
Taken by Tesco trolley towards checkout.

What becomes of the broken hearted?
Alone.
Companion-less.
Worn on the wheel of life
devoid now of the man or woman
they never truly loved but miss all the same.
An empty basket.
No honey
No money
It's not funny.
It's life.