Day 1I know you’re asking yourself why on earth an old bus like me would suddenly get the urge to write a daily journal. I know that’s what I’d ask myself if I was in your shoes. So here goes.
Up until last week, or perhaps last month (buses never were much good when it comes to remembering things of that nature), I was just one more old, retired bus, passing the time in a field in back of the one petrol station on the island. Now it weren’t much of a petrol station, not when compared to anything you might find in a proper town or suburb or city, but it had stood at the edge of the field for as long as there’d been cars or tractors (or buses) stinking up the place with blue smoke and dribbling greasy oil spots onto the roads.
The Petrol Station (such as it was) is now owned, along with the small, fairly useless shop-cum-bed sit off to one side, as well the field beyond, by one Fergal Da Fecker. Not that he amounts to much either, for he’s no more important to the events of my life than the twenty-four ewes and three cows keeping the grass mowed and keeping me awake with their infernal gossiping.
Fergal Da Fecker only came into the picture recently, when his Da, Owld Fingus Da Flatulator, breathed his last and expired after mistaking a tank of cheap, watered-down pretend unleaded petrol for his beloved Potheen. Weren’t the smartest thing he ever did, and believe me he hadn’t as much sense as God gave a small parsnip (nothing against parsnips, but they aren’t much to write home about in the wit department). Now, I hear you asking, how did Owld Fingus Da Flatulator mix up a tank of cheap, watered-down pretend unleaded petrol with a tank of rotgut Potheen? Well, from what the sheep told me (and what they don’t know about Fingus Da Flatulator isn’t worth mentioning) there were only two ancient petrol tanks in front of The Petrol Station. One contained cheap, watered-down pretend unleaded petrol, and the other rotgut, brain-exploding Potheen. Apparently one morning Owld Fingus got out of bed on the wrong side, and put his shoes on back to front, and walked to the wrong tank by mistake.
He then lit a cigarette. Too bad he missed the third tank. The Diesel. But that’s life innit.
After they put out the fire and all the island’s biddies talked amongst themselves for forever and a day and discussed everything that had ever been wrong with Owld Fingus Da Flatulator, they were astonished to find that the son they never knew he had, not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker, had arrived at The Petrol Station in the dead of night with a rucksack full of ladies knickers (according to the biddies who keep track of comings and goings and are dedicated to the truth), a portable television set (for watching the footie, of which he was smitten, a can of bilious green paint and a sack of potatoes.
Not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker wasted no time at all in surveying his new domain. He poked his nose into all the nooks and crannies, sniffed here and there, and decided there was money to be made. Fergal Da Fecker loved money, he did (not that he’d never known any personally), and after thinking things through carefully (before and after the cup final, in which his team lost) he extracted a shiny new notebook from his rucksack and a pencil. On the first page, well centred and near the top and bracketed by pointy stars, he wrote the word Prospects. Directly underneath he wrote a large number 1, which he both encircled and underlined two or three times for emphasis.
An hour or so later, having both discovered the tank of potheen and tested its beneficial curative powers, and coming to the conclusion that his cricketty back was feeling ever so much more limber, decided that he’d done enough planning for the day. There was, or so he thought – not having much experience to draw upon – enough pretend unleaded petrol and diesel to service the needs of local farmers and biddies for at least a month. He, therefore, put his notebook into the top drawer of his late father’s bureau, set a pan of potatoes on the hob to boil, and set off to tour his newly acquired empire.
“Oh dear oh dear,” he thought to hisself after examining the ewes living round the back of the little petrol station. “I don’t like the look of them at all.” He sucked a great deal of air between his teeth – a habit of which he was particularly fond – rocked back and forth on his heals, and picked out three especially fat ewes as having the best prospects, culinary-wise. “You’ll be going to the abattoir, my little beauties, no doubt about that.” The rest he would sell for a fat profit. “Cost me nowt, but’ll cost me owt tae feed. Can’t be having none o’that,” he said to hisself in his newly cultivated rustic accents, borrowed from various football commentators from various counties and countries and mixing them nicely together.
Not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker then inspected the cows and they inspected him. Neither liked what they saw. From Fergal’s point of view (not that he’d had much experience to draw upon), they looked to be the oldest, barronest and skankiest cows he’d ever saw. From what they saw, the not-so-owl, scrawny and not very clean Fergal looked like trouble. “As bad as the last one,” they said to each other, “and even worse.” Adding, “wouldn’t trust him further than we could kick him on a rainy day.” The cows, whose names were (and still are, as far as I know), Bernice, Milegarde and Lottie, gazed into their future as it would be under the ownership of Fergal Da Fecker, and saw that there was none.
“Nothing for it,” they said to each other, “but to kill him or run away.”
“Nothing for it,” said not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker, at one and the dame time, “but tae kill ‘em and biyl ‘em up in stew.”
Fergal then, having made up his mind regards his newly-inherited livestock, turned on his heals and returned to his tiny, tawdry so-cum-bed sit beside the petrol station. The potatoes would be biyled tae perfecshun by now (in fact, having forgot to add water to the pot, they had burnt blacker than the inside of a dog) and there was bound to be another match on the telly. He could deal with his future and the fate of his troublesome animals on the morrow.
No sooner had he gone than the cows and sheep came over to me, worried faces upon their long heads. “Oh dear,” they said in unison. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“He hasn’t even noticed me, yet,” I said in reply, sighing deeply. “I expect I’m in for the chop, as well.”
“Well at least you can’t be boiled up in a stew,” said one of the cows (Milegarde it was).
“That’s very true,” I concurred, “but I suspect he’ll be wanting to chop me up and sell me for scrap.”
We all sighed deeply, the ewes and cows and I, and decided we’d keep our eyes open. “If he’s anything like Owld Fingus Da Flatulator,” I said, “he’ll be drunk as a newt (with apologies to the newt) and he’ll have forgotten all about us in the morning. Nevertheless, be on your guards.”
We all bade each other goodnight.
It was after they had gone to sleep that I thought I should write a journal of sorts. No that anything will come of it, especially if I’m chopped up and sold for scrap, you never know.
And so, Dear Diary, I shall keep alert and make note of everything I see and hear, and hopefully I shall rejoin you tomorrow evening.
So endeth the first day.
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