Tampon Bay

The Clydebank Post had it as a headline between son steals his mum's purse and Lizzie Dailziel breaks record and commits 152 breach of the peace and claims 'it wisnae her': In the piece they interviewed Lizzie's brother, to give the front page some kind of continuity. Willie Dailzel said,

'I've no lost a job, since I'm no working and that's no the kind of job I'm looking for anyway. I was on one of those Job Creation schemes when I was 16 and the money was crap. Right enough, we did nothing'.

The local councillor, William McFall, offered the politician's view on page 18 below a half page advertisement for a funeral home. Why they thought themselves as a home nobody mentioned, but William McFall (prospective Labour MP did say):
'It's with a deep regret that I have to announce the potential loss of tens of thousands of jobs, not only in the construction industry, but also in the service sector. We need this Government to believe in us and invest in the skilled workforce of Dalmuir. There would have been no better place to escape the harsh UK winters than Tampon Bay. And it would have been environmentally friendly, with the heating climes being provided locally by Dalmuir Sewerage works. It would have been a year-round destination, for swimming, wind surfing, and cycling, with the friendly local gastro bars within walking distance. The hotel and marina complex will, however, no longer happen...'

Commercial competitiveness attacts ugliness and in Tampon Bay that ugliness was being played out in a summer sun that had made a thousand white backs different shades of red.

Willie Dalziel reached for a can of Tennent's Lager, but he wasnae quick enough it was snatched out of his hand before he could even spark it. The taste was almost on his tongue. He was frothing at the mouth at the nearness of it all.

'You still owe us one from the last time.'

Charlie Mac was eyeballing Willie Dalziel, making him understand, with that one look, that there was no way that he would ever touch one of his cans ever again, that he had more chance of sleeping with his wife and three daughters, one after the other, while Charlie watched, than he had of getting one of Charlie's cans, unless he had made up the can deficit. And if Willie did think about taking one of his cans, wihtout squring up the can deficit, then he was likely to end up in the Clyde, his body washed in and out of the inshot of Tampon Bay, like the tampon carcases from Dalmuir sewarage works.

Willie lauged, but only because he knew that Harry B would provide a can safety net. He would give him a can, but it was no longer about the can, it was about the injustice of it all. Willie had to ask, because he was stupidier than he looked.

'This is about the holiday, isn't it?'

Willie and Charlie Mac had went away together on one of those cheap flights. Their wife's had told them, but they didn't really know where they were going, or how they got there, but it sounded good. And even if it wasn't good it was cheap, which was the next best thing.

Charlie Mac and his wife had got into one of those stupid arguments that they were always having. She blamed Willie for allowing Charlie to give all his clothes away. But it was hot! And if Charlie wanted to go naked that seemed quite reasonable. They were on holiday, after all. And if wasn't really that much money that he'd given away. They'd already spent most of it. It just seemed a lot because the notes were in big denominations. Back home it wouldn't have been any more than a case or two of beer. And if Charlie had wanted to help the native boys plant their paddy fields that was commendable, even though he was a brickie and not a paddy. But the problem with Charlie was he never knew when enough was enough. As he was covered in mud and stinking of shite he thought it would be a good time to wrestle a water buffolo. Willie did see a certain logic in that.

But Charlie's wife had suddenly appeared, perhaps attracted by the natives wrestling with Charlie, but not in a bad malicious way. It wasn't like that cheap and nasty way those bastards from Renton took advantage of the daft you-asked-me-for-directions tourists, and hijacked them on the cycle paths, and stole their bikes and backpacks at Bowling Harbour, or even worse than that, the way that those fly bastards from Yoker didn't even bother hijacking, just flung the tourist, his bike and his pack into the canal and watched to see if he drowned. Nah. It was none of these things. It was just a couple of wee guys holding Charlie down in the mud and shouting a lot. If Charlie hadn't given his camera away Willie would have taken a holiday picture.

Charlie's wife had made it worse by all her screaming and shouting and carry on.

'Do something!' she'd said to Willie and nudged him in the ribs.

Willie didn't really know what had happened next as he had fallen asleep standing up, but his wife had later told him that was no way she was going to let that stuck up cow hit her man, just because she was a Math's teacher, so she had belted her, for him.

Charlie and Willie both agreed on one thing. It was the woman's fault and it was up to the men. They'd need to square it up. But for some reason, nobody could figure out that common bond marked by friendship and common sense just began to unravel.

'There's no way that I'm paying for a fucking glass table that I've hardly even used,' said Willie, stating concisely and almost coherently, the common sense position.

Charlie mumbled, word for word, the exact same thing out of the corner of his mouth, whilst trying to light a cheap fag, that wouldn't light, because the daft foreigners had put the filter around the wrong way.

Before Willie said the words that changed everything, theoretically, before he had even thought of them, because they were in a foregn country, Willie and Charlie were at the same karmic bus stop. In the next life they could have ended up father and son, or son and father, or even father and daughter. The karmic calculator had blinked at making either of them a mother, but the potential for that pairing was also eventually sown. But the karmic calculator had crashed with the possibility of two such ugly bastards pairing off as husband and wife. And although karmic calculators don't usually speak...it nudged Willie and he said those words that changed everything.

'It's your fault!' he said directly to Charlie. There was no escaping fate.

Charlie took a few minutes and shook his head a couple of times to let the words rattle about his skull. He also lifted his head and looked at Willie a couple of times, just to check out that had actually been him that said them, and not some other imposter, that had slipped into the room, and just happened to look a bit like Willie.

If it was a challenge there was no way that CHARLIE MAC would let it go.

'No fuckin' way. No fuckin' way,' he said to Willie and his head dropped down a bit as if he was going to fall asleep, but Charlie Mac didn't believe in sleeping when he was on holiday, enjoying himself.

Willie was encouraged enough by this to take it even further.

'Aye,' said Willie, 'You sprung up off that couch and smacked head first into that wee table that wasnae daeing you any harm and now we'll need to replace it. We'll take the one out of your room.'

'No fuckin' way would I do anything like that,' said Charlie in a way that suggested that no only was it a downright lie, but it was a downright lie about CHARLIE MAC, who certainly would never do anything like that. If there was a Charlie Mac imposter who believed CHARLIE MAC would do anything like that then CHARLIE MAC would find him out.

Willie tapped his forefinger against his forehead. And he had a lot of forehead to pick from, since his hair had used the only bit of sense his head could muster and retreated enmasse.

'You're bleeding,' said Willie smiling that little half smile that seemed to say job done.

But that just goes to show, that sometimes the person you are closest to, you understand least. If a SWAT team of forensic scientists had come in at that point with with masks and white paper suits on and picked up every sliver of glass from the floor and matched it to every cut and abrasion on Charlie's head, that still wouldn't have been enough for CHARLIE MAC. If the forensic scientists had taken DNA samples from Charlie and every other suspect within a square mile and proved that the blood from the broken glass, from the broken table, matched that of one Charles MacIntyre, then that wouldn't have been enough. If the forensic scientists had set up a factory that fired life sized dummies of Charlie Mac, head and hair doo first, from a couch, at the approriately sized glass table, then that might have been something. But what Willie didn't understand,as he swanned in with the unbroken glass table from Charlie's room, to replace the broken one in his room was, CHARLIE MAC just wouldn't do that.

'What the fuck you doin'?' said Charlie Mac springing up and narrowly missing head butting a glass table, because he had already smashed it beforehand, in the same way. So, in a way Charlie Mac was lucky, he hadn't hit the missing table and, as his luck was in, he made a roundhouse swing for Willie, connecting solidly with his famous left swing on the biggest part of Willie's body, his forehead. A fight might have broken out, but Charlie Mac's momentum had taken him out of his natural couch sitting, table butting position, so that he crashed down on top of the the glass table, which was also lucky because he was suddenly incredibly tired having expended all that mental energy problem solving.

It had been many a long year since Willie had been the sensible one, but with Charlie Mac asleep on the floor, it was left to him to try and figure out how to break into sombody else's appartment and steal two glass tables. The appartment windows were too small to fit a glass table through. Willie figured he'd have to smash the window and twist open the apartment door which had simple Yale locks. Willie didn't like that, especially as everybody had different keys. It was getting too complicated. There was only really one thing that he could really do and that was leave Charlie Mac.

The flight home was in two hours. The only thing worse than getting Charlie Mac to go for a sleep, was to get Charlie Mac up, when he was sleeping. Napoleon would have had an easier time invading Moscow. Charlie Mac's wife was a Math's teacher, maybe she could figure it. Willie did the sensible thing and got the flight home. Even his wife was proud of him.

Back home, at Tampon Bay, the blazing sun overhead, didn't even get a chance to fry some brain cells, Harry B slipped Willie a can of Tennent's Lager. Willie sparked it. But his heart wasn't in it. He handed the can to Charlie Mac, because he knew deep down he should never have left Charlie Mac to deal with his wife himself.

'That's the can I owe you,' he said, a martyr among fellow martyrs, to his own conscience, and to those that would appreciate his martyrdom, handing the only can he had to Charlie Mac.

Willie walked up the footpath slowly, but Charlie Mac shouted him back, because he wasn't an unreasonable man and mates were mates.

'Hi,' he shouted, even although Willie was almost standing next to him by that point, 'you still owe me for the two glass tables you broke when you were having a party in my room'.