Daft Wee Stories (25 page)

Anyway, I recommended a film to him, because I'm a bit of a film buff myself. Not enough to stick ‘Film buff' in my bio, mind you, I don't take myself that seriously, but I know a good film when I see one. And this one I recommended was good. It was Danish. I told him about it, and a few days later I asked him what he thought. He said he thought it was crap.

That was the word he used: ‘Crap'.

I told him I thought that was quite blunt, telling me one of my favourite films was crap, and I laughed. I laughed to pretend that it didn't bother me, but it did. I think what he said was actually out of order, it was just fucking rude. He said he didn't mean to offend me; I told him that I wasn't offended, it was only a film, haha. He said that it's not as if I made it or anything; I told him I knew I never made it, I wasn't claiming I made it, just drop it, it isn't a big deal. But I did say to him that to tell me one of my favourite films is crap, all matter-of-fact like that, some people would find that offensive. He said he didn't say it was crap, he said he just thought it was crap, on a subjective and personal level. He said it wasn't like he was saying I liked crap things. I said that's exactly what he was saying. He said it wasn't, it was just that he thought it was crap himself, that's all. I personally don't see the difference, but I told him again to just drop it, it isn't a big deal. Haha.

So he dropped it. But then I told him to recommend a film to me. ‘On you go.' He said he didn't want to. I said, ‘No, go on, recommend your favourite film to me. Go.' So he did. He recommended a few, and I told him no, I wanted his favourite favourite. Step into the spotlight, mate, and recommend your all-time favourite. He said it was really hard to pick an all-time favourite, and I laughed. Calls himself a film buff yet he struggles to pick his favourite film. But eventually he picked one. Eventually we got one out of him. Hallelujah.

So I watched it, and it was good. I liked it. I really liked it. I'd say it's one of my top ten films, in fact. The sort of film you like even more as time goes on, long after you've watched it. It just keeps popping into your head now and again. Brilliant film. Anyway, after I watched it, I sent him a message, and told him it was crap.

He said, well, that's my opinion and that I'm entitled to my opinion, just like he was entitled to his. I said no, it wasn't my opinion, it was a fact, his film was crap – ‘Sorry to break it to you, mate, but it was.' He told me again that I was entitled to my opinion, but that a lot of people disagreed with that opinion. I told him that they were wrong as well then. He said, ‘Wrong?' and asked me if I was saying he was wrong to like that film, if having that film as his favourite was, in the eyes of the universe, wrong. I said, ‘Maybe.'

He said he needed to go, but I told him to wait because it was my turn to recommend a film. He told me he didn't want to get into all this any more. I asked him what he meant, get into what? I was only wanting to recommend a fucking film, he needed to seriously lighten up. He said all right and that I was to message him when I thought of one, but I already had one in mind. I told him what the film was, and he said he'd watch it but I wasn't to get offended if he thought it was crap. I told him that I'm not that easily offended, mate, I'm a big boy. And anyway, I won't mind if he thinks it's crap, because I think it's crap as well.

He asked me to repeat what I said. Did I just recommend a film to him that I thought was crap? I said, ‘That's right.' He asked me why. I told him that although I thought it was crap, I reckoned it would be right up his street. Because that's the sort of thing he likes: crap. He told me he wasn't going to watch it, and he didn't like the way this whole film thing had ‘soured' things between us. I laughed it off and told him that I didn't sense any sourness, if there was any then it was coming from his end, and that I was sorry to hear that. I told him to just watch the film. He said, ‘No,' then went offline.

But I know that he will. And I know what he's going to say. He's going to say that he liked it, and that I only think it's crap because I don't get it. But then I'll have him, because then I'll tell him the truth. And the truth is that I don't think it's crap. It's actually one of my favourite films. The look on his face when I tell him that, when he realises what he's done, when he realises that he's effectively admitted that I do know my stuff, despite me not having ‘Film buff' in my bio, despite me not having studied films in college when I was too busy working, mate, despite me not being one of his new intellectual crowd that he's so fond of tweeting pictures of these days.

I cannot fucking wait to see the look on his face. I haven't seen him in a while, though. A good few months. He said he's snowed under with work.

‘Work', haha.

What does he know about work?

There once was a man who found a wallet. He found a wallet on a train, a wallet that wasn't his, and he kept it. What a dick.

This wallet was made of black leather with a light grey elasticated band, and on the band was a wee red label that was half hanging off due to wear and tear. In fact, it was a bit like my own wallet. The one that I lost. But this isn't about my wallet, this is another wallet. This is just a story.

Now, the wallet itself was worthless. Like I said, it had suffered from a good bit of wear and tear over the years, it was even a bit stinking. It was what was inside the wallet that was the most costly. It wasn't losing the cash that was costly, I don't think there was that much cash in it. It was the cards, the bank cards. Losing the cards was costly, in terms of time. The poor guy who lost the wallet had to phone up and get all the fucking cards cancelled, and you know what that can be like, those call centres. The waiting. Having to prove that you are who you say you are, then getting put through to somebody else, then having to explain everything again to them, then getting cut off, then having to start from the beginning with somebody else. Then eventually you have to actually just go into the branch in person, like it's the fucking Seventies.

Sorry, did I say that the poor guy ‘lost' the wallet? That's not quite right, is it? It was stolen, because to take a lost wallet and then not hand it in, that's theft. Look it up. You can't just pick things up that don't belong to you just because the person that owns it isn't there at that time. That's theft. You may as well have took it right out of my fucking pocket, mate.

Sorry, not ‘my' pocket, I mean the poor bastard who lost the wallet. Because, remember, this isn't about my wallet, this is another wallet, this is just a story. Any similarities between anybody in this story and any real person living or dead are purely coincidental, etc., etc. You've got to say that in case you get sued. But I don't need to say it anyway, because it's just a story. The guy who took the wallet, he's not real, completely fictitious. And now that I've said that, let me say this …

I want this guy dead.

Or woman. Could be a woman. But probably a guy. And I want him dead.

In the story, I mean. It's important for me to say again, for legal reasons, that this is just a story, in case I get done for encouraging somebody to do me a big, big favour and kill this guy for me.

Now, back to the story. Will anybody bring this chap to justice? Who will be my hero?

Maybe somebody in the story finds out that a guy they know had recently come by a wallet. Maybe the guy they know is a colleague or a friend or a family member, boasting about finding a wallet on a train, a black leather wallet with a light grey elasticated band with a wee red label on it that's half hanging off. Maybe the guy mentioned something about trying to guess the PIN at cash machines in the Finnieston, Partick and Hyndland areas of Glasgow, according to what the banks said. The banks in the story.

And maybe that person in the story, the one who discovers the villain, our hero, is a decent person and they feel outraged, and feel angry, and want to do something to redress the balance. So maybe they do something to bring harm to the thief. Maybe if they work with the thief, they could serve him a cup of tea, with some bleach in it. Or maybe if they live with the thief and the thief is fitting a new light or whatever, our hero could tell him that the electricity is safely switched off, when it isn't. Something like that. It's really up to them.

It's really up to you.

It's really up to you, because this is one of those stories that leave the ending up to your imagination. I'm going to leave the ending open. I'm going to leave it up to you.

I hope you give it the happy ending it deserves.

Charlie was about to get the attention of the waitress, before noticing the wee device on the table, the one with the buttons. One button was for the bill, one was for service and one was blank. He pressed the one for service, and sure enough, a minute later, over walked a waitress asking how she could help. Charlie asked for one last cup of tea and that was that. When he was finished, he pressed the button for the bill, and a minute later, over came the waitress with the bill in her hand.

As he was getting on his jacket, ready to leave, he had a look at the device again. He had a look at the button. You know which one. The one with nothing on it, the blank one. He wondered what it was for. He was going to press it before walking away, but he was forty years old, that would be juvenile. One of the waiters walked by, and Charlie felt like stopping him to ask what the button did, but the guy looked like a bit of a grumpy sort so Charlie didn't bother.

Charlie pushed out his seat to stand and head for the door, but before he left he had one more look at that button. What did it do? It wouldn't hurt to press it now – he was just about to leave; if something embarrassing happened it would be all right, he was heading for the door. So he pressed it, and started walking slowly towards the way out, looking around, looking behind, curious to see what would happen. But nothing did. Not right away.

As Charlie got to the door, he saw the grumpy waiter walk over to the table where Charlie was sitting. When the waiter saw that nobody was there, he looked around, puzzled, before looking at Charlie. Charlie was about to turn to walk out, but he saw the waiter walk towards him, waving for him to stop. Charlie wanted to make a run for it, but he didn't want to look like a teenager, so he stood his ground. Besides, he wanted to know what the button was for. It was blank, so why did the waiter come over?

The waiter came over to Charlie, and spoke quietly. He asked Charlie if he pressed that button. Charlie denied it, thinking that he could get away with saying that he must have pressed it accidentally, if this all turned serious. The waiter apologised, then turned to walk away. Charlie stopped him by saying aye, he did do it. The waiter turned back towards Charlie and asked him why. Why did he do it? Charlie replied with another question: what's it for? Why is it blank? The waiter said it was blank because it used to be a button for ordering a drink, but seeing as there was already a button to get service, it only caused confusion, so they rubbed it out. But that was beside the point: the waiter wanted to know why Charlie pressed it. He took a step towards Charlie, looked over his shoulders, then whispered the question.

‘Why?'

Charlie felt uncomfortable, he didn't know what was going on here really. He answered the question. He was curious, that's all. Just curious. The waiter asked him if he was a curious type of person, and Charlie said yes. The waiter said that was good, because he was the curious type as well.

Charlie pointed out that he wasn't gay. He wasn't sure if that's what this was, but he wasn't, no offence. The waiter said he wasn't either. He just meant he was like Charlie. Curious. Curious about what's out there. He was into trying new things. Unknown things. Nothing illegal, of course. Just stuff that's a bit off the beaten path.

Charlie told the waiter that that sounded interesting.

I saw them on the news the other day.

They got twenty years apiece.

He was standing at the platform in the underground, waiting for his train. He couldn't get Twitter down here, so he had a look around. He glanced to the left and saw folk staring into space. He glanced to the right and saw a newspaper on a seat that he couldn't be bothered reading. So he just glanced ahead at the posters on the wall at the other side of the track. It certainly was a good place to advertise: there was nowhere else to look.

One of the posters was for hair straighteners. Another was for holiday homes or something like that. But this one straight ahead was quite intriguing. It was intriguing because it wasn't that obvious what it was for. All it was was a giant ‘0%' and nothing more. It didn't say if it was 0 per cent finance, or if it was the percentage of people who said they were unhappy with whatever product it was, if it was a product at all. It was just this big ‘0%'.

Oh, and some small print at the bottom.

The man leaned his head forward a bit to read the small print, to see what these folk were trying to sell him, but he couldn't see. He took a tiny step forward, leaned out again, but still, the words were just a bit too small. So he left it.

He waited a bit longer, waited for his train, and looked around once again. The people, the newspaper, then that poster again with the small print. He heard the train coming, finally.

As people started to nudge their way to the front, he stepped closer to the edge, and glanced at the poster once more, at the small print in particular. It was almost in focus, but not quite. He quite fancied seeing what the fuck the small print said before he got on the train; he knew it would bug him if he didn't.

He stepped even closer to the edge, and leaned forward, putting his head out just that wee bit more, then just a wee bit more than that. Then he fell onto the fucking track.