E: Don't Jump I'll Miss Celebrity Squares

Don't Jump, I'll miss Celebrity Sqyares
by
Ged Backland

I'm P.C. Mike Edwards Cheshire Police, Runcorn.Home of ICI, a Beezer
Homes League
football team, a disproportionate number of single mothers and most
importantly for our pur
pose the fabulous Runcorn Suspension bridge. A feat of Victorian
engineering and magnet for
every depressed housewife, failed businessman and disgraced clergyman
this side of the
M53.Built when we knew how to engineer quality structures. I've had
three call outs already
this month and this was my fourth and it was April. I mean you usually
get a run on around
christmas time, you know when people get to dwell on things and that
Billy Smarts Circus is
enough to drive anyone over the edge if you ask me.I hadn't been so
busy since they brought
out the song from Mash declaring Suicide is Painless. It could be I
suppose but nobody has
ever lived to tell. I mean its no good asking the poor sod when they're
splattered across the
mud flats of the Dee is it? Attempted suicide isn't painless I can
vouch for that. I've seen too
many poor broken sods carried into ambulances. I'd just popped a findus
Cod in Parsley
sauce into a pan of boiling water when the call came. It was a shame
cos I like a nice bit of
processed fish moulded untidily into a rough square shape. Reminds me
of happier times. So
it was off with the gas and on with the coat.When I got there they had
already closed the
bridge and a couple of hundred stranded drivers sat glum faced. Some
were out of their cars
and peered up to the top of the bridge in the vain hope of
communicating some sort of get
down and don't be stupid message. Some sat in sheep like tolerance and
mused about divorce,
deadlines and drop dead gorgeous Australian soap stars. I was met by
wingnut from Traffic. I
swear you could get Sky on those lugs of his, the slight wind had given
his ears a comedy tip
of red, he told me the jumper was a male, they nearly always were, you
see us men tend to
bottle things up and let it get on top of us, women in my experience
weep at the drop of a hat,
they tend to let it all out once and a while, that's why you always see
them coming out of toilets dabbing their eyes with hankies.Some don't
even bother going to the toilets. I had a
young WPC with me who'd cry at the slightest of things. All it took was
for a suspect to
be playing The Commodores and she be end up looking like Alice Cooper
chopping
onions. Anyway it was a bloke up top and he was threatening to jump.
'Wingnut' had got
halfway up and his vertigo had kicked in. Which wasn't surprising a
good gust behind
those lugs and he'd have ended up in St Helens. Like Mary Poppins with
thicker wrists
gliding on the wind. I was used to heights it didn't bother me, I'd
been up in all
weathers, I preferred summer obviously I'd once spent a glorious
afternoon with a failed
businessman spotting red Cortinas and laughing about Basil Brush.I was
quite
disappointed when he wanted to come down. I climbed onto the steel
walkway and
proceeded to make my way 300ft up to the top. As I got nearer the thick
ginger hair and
the round shoulders looked familiar. It couldn't be. It was. Ginner is
that you I asked.
Ginner was a mate all through school and for a couple of years after
until he left to
become a priest with The Salesians Of John Bosco. Ginner looked at me.
"Edwards?" He
squinted. "My god man." I sighed, as I took a seat next to him on the
cold steel. "Fancy
meeting you here".He had obviously fulfiled his ambition as he was in
the regulation
black outfit and his dog collar was stuffed untidily into his top
pocket. Ginner stood up in
a I'm going to leap now sort of stance. Sit down you rum bugger. He
took another step.
Listen rusty nut sit down or I'll give you a slap. I slipped into
fourth form bully mode. It
worked. Ginner sat down.Let me guess I said, you've been a little
liberal with the church
plate collection. Ginner shook his head and spoke a solemn "I wish".
I'd tried this route
first after his scam with the school tuck shop money in year two.
Nothing was ever
proven but I was privy to the Kwik Save bag full of copper he kept
buried underneath
the potted ivy in his back garden. A little trouble with er.. Choir
boys? Ginner
sneared at me. What Do you take me for?" I'd only suggested this
because I
vaguely remember he backed his Geography text book with a picture of
Liberace
and refused one day at the bus stop to round on the boy from St Martins
private
school that spoke like Danny La Rue. Women trouble I suggested, it was
usually
one of four things this being the third and only remaining possibility
the fourth
being failed business and as far as I could see any business with God
as the
Managing Director couldn't really fail.Ginner nodded. It began to take
shape. Priest
falls for pretty member of congregation.Home-made scones long chats,
light
summer dresses and flashes of olive inner thighs and white knickers.
"Was she
married?" I asked. Ginner shook his head. "No, but I am." What, I
thought and I
never even got an invite to the reception. "Married to God," Ginner
continued.I
thought it was nuns who were married to God as the catholic church
didn't approve
of homosexual marriages, but I decided to concede on this point all
things
considered.What's her name? I asked. Ginner stood up steady on steady
on I urged,
Don't worry I'm just getting you a photograph.He passed me a picture of
what
looked like a summer camp. Two kids with that gawky thirteen year old
look - head
full of teeth and gangly stood each side of a dowdy woman in a green
Peter Storm
cajoul, muddy leggings and hiking boots. Very nice I said, well what
else could I
say, you're three foot away from ending it all for a woman that looked
like no fun
whatsoever. My initial thoughts of summer dresses and olive thighs with
white
knickers turned to polyester trousers, orange peel legs and a VPL more
prominent
than a cheap toupee. Give me a good reason then. Ginner stood up. Good
enough not to jump right now.I'll miss Celebrity Squares. Well it was
the first thing that
came into my head. Ginner sat down. "What you like it too?"
"Yes," I thought. I'd done it, the first rule of thumb when trying to
get through
to a 'jumper' was to establish a common item of interest and the
gameshow
where minor celebrities get a chance to be funny and revive their
flagging
careers with a couple of witty remarks seemed to do the trick.Who do
you think
was the best, I asked. Bernie Clifton he replied without hesitation. I
used to think
he was no more than a second rate holiday camp entertainer stuck
forever with
that bloody ostrich, but the answers to those questions were so funny,
he was a
real talent. I agreed, not because I thought the said Mr Clifton was
the best, oh
no I felt that that honour should go to Ted Robbins, famous for being
the
unfunny brother of Kate Robbins who was famous for being ..er well
dunno but
I think it's something to do with The Beatles, she bought a hamster off
George
Harrisons sister or something insignificant like that. We mused about
it for a
while then Ginner stood up again he took a deep breath...."From
Norwich... it's
the quiz of the week! I stood up too and we both began to dance in a
sort of
twist like fashion. Like a pair of embarrassing wedding uncles a twist
but not a
twist just a two uncles trying to dance. After we'd forgotten the rest
of the tune
we both sat back down. What's he like to work for then, this God fella?
I asked.
Ginner smiled. Alright, he replied no fear of the salary cheque ever
bouncing
and if you want a word with the top man there's no need to make
an
appointment you just drop to you r knees and open your mouth. A bit
like
Monica Lewinsky eh ? I joked. Ginner looked at me like he did when we
were
in the fourth form together and I had systematically bored a hole
through the
wall of the girls changing room with a drill bit purloined from
metalwork.
"Look ginner I grinned... Beaver! it was that look, the look of
disappointment.
You've always been the same haven't you Edwards he said. Always the
same.
A beast, Steady on Ginner, I protested, I'm hardly a beast! Really, his
eyes
looked dark and black. Beast he repeated. Then turned to me in a most
priest
like manner. Tell me about the books Edwards. The mucky books the filth
-ridden
books filled to the frothy brim with black eyed ghoulish teenage girls
I don't know
what was worse the way Ginner seemed to be looking into my soul or the
fact that
I had been sleeping on a tilt on such a pile of the very same teenage
porn. Ginner
was right and he knew it. Suddenly it felt cold. Your life is shit
Edwards. Should a
priest say shit I asked.I say it like it is Edwards. Shit. Like the
shit bit of processed
Cod you've left on the stove. This was getting spooky. Ginner was right
my life
was shit, living alone was shit, being a policeman with everyone hating
you apart
from people over fifty was shit, wanking off to ghoulish pictures of
teenage girls
in bitty Marks and Spencers knickers was shit. My relationship with my
family was
shit. My colleagues thought I was a sad shit. Even my cat thought I was
shit.

The wind swung me back facing upwards. I saw Ginner smirking, I
the wind parted his hair slightly at the forehead, It might have been
just an illusion,
but were they horns?
The End.