SOS ~ Save Our Shops. Time for action

In 1991 a ferocious tempest wrecked havoc in the North Atlantic. Sebastian Junger titled his best-selling account 'The Perfect Storm', his phrase since adopted to characterise those cataclysmic events – meteorological, economic or political – that result from a rare confluence of severe adverse forces. Long before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, traders on the British High Street were already in choppy waters, blown off course by the all consuming growth of the supermarkets and a rampant internet.

Add to these threats the credit crunch and a recurrent recession and town-centre shops now face a perfect storm of their own. A walk along any high street in the UK reveals the extent of the damage so far. Vacant shops leave gaps in the grin of even the newest town-centre development. The Sunday Times published an unenviable Top Ten of towns with empty units, a nationwide catalogue of commercial misery ranging from Ulverston with one-in-five, Rochdale with one-in-three up to Holyhead with nearly 40% of shops vacant.

It is a universal problem that needs a local response. Independent traders can batten down the hatches, reduce their costs and the stock they carry while still playing to their strengths – accenting their personal service and celebrating their individuality. The Local Authority could look to use revised parking facilities and charges as a positive incentive to bring in more shoppers.

But these measures are equivalent to relieving oneself into a gale. It could be argued that we have the retail landscape that we deserve; supermarkets are dominant because they are popular, the internet is cheap and convenient and is already the shopping destination of choice for a new generation. No amount of window dressing, street cleaning or advertising will draw the crowds back to the high street in their previous numbers. The battle needs to be for the hearts and minds, as well as the wallets, of the local population.

Market towns grew out the need for sellers and buyers to meet, and from this economic necessity grew the facility for people to socialise. Markets are where people gather, not just to trade but also for the crack, for friendships made amidst the deals. This human interaction is the real casualty of the current retail wars. What society is left when all shopping is with a trolly or a mouse?

This is an SOS.  We need a call to arms to Save Our Shops. Shoppers, you need to be aware that if you don't use them, you will lose them. Do not wait for an election or for Mary Portas to sort things out.  Act now ~ treat every £10 note as a ballot paper. Cast your vote in your high street today. Make a point of shopping independently at least once a week. Numerous simple individual actions can aggregate into a tidal wave of public support.

First published 'Times & Star' October 2009
 

The Reluctant Rambler ~ Wainwright's latest recruit

Virgin on the cliff edge

Knocking on 50 and tipping 15 stone I hear the call of the wild. Some retired friends invite me on the regular Friday ramble; ‘Come for a walk in the lakes’. Yes, I need to get out, it’ll do me good. I’ve lived in the shadow of the fells for ten years and only ever scaled their peaks with a glance. Yes, I can do it. I can manage a gentle stroll.

What will I need? ‘A decent pair of boots and the proper kit – you know the modern breathable / wickable stuff. You’ll need a rucksack for your food and your water, a cap, something to sit on, your binoculars, camera, mobile ‘phone, and bring some extra layers. And some waterproof leggings. And you’ll need a pair of walking sticks.’ I was being laden like a Himalayan sherpa – a far cry from the Wainwrightian ideal of simple pleasures, the high moorland way. As was the next bit: ‘And don’t worry about a map and compass – we’ve got SatNav.’

No sooner were they out the door than my imagination roamed the fells with romantic abandon. I strode manfully along the perilous edge, leaping in one bound from summit to summit. Soon the roll call of trophies would be mine to name-drop; mighty Helvelyn, Great Gable, and Giant Haystacks. In years to come I’ll have bagged the Munros and the Corbetts as well as conquering Snowdonia, the Peak district and the North York Moors. But so far all I’ve climbed are the stairs to bed.

The Bank holiday finds four of us at St Bees reading Wainwright’s plaque marking the 200 mile Coast to Coast trek. ‘Looks easy enough’ I condescend. Immediately St Bees Head rises above the bay taunting me; ‘come on then, if you’re hard enough’.

The ascent soon takes its toll on thigh and lung. After a lifetime I ask if we are nearly there yet. Despite the iron band around the chest and the jelly legs I am told we have climbed just 50 metres. Thousands of pairs of eager feet have carved out multiple paths to the top and I take advantage to sidle off into the crawler lane. A backlog of 10 year olds flip-flop past. I eat their dust and inhale humiliation. But the rest provides the opportunity to savour the view; to feast with my eyes on a landscape out of the ordinary, to marvel at God’s own county.

I retackle the summit in renewed spirit, this time at a steadier pace with more modest strides. I’ve learned my first lesson – it is not a race, the journey is as wonderful as the destination. I take smaller steps and look round often at the retreating beach and the column of ants behind us. At the summit my pounding heart beats with pride before slowing with contentment and quiet satisfaction.

The descent starts well. But I discover that what went up slowly and painfully wants to come down quickly and painfully. Applying the brakes on every step is exhausting and when we reach the foothills with the end in sight I lose the will to check my progress. I have revenge for my earlier humiliation as a runaway juggernaut skittles the juvenile flip-floppers in an uncontrolled slew to the bottom.

I struggle to the car, foolish pride ferments my stagger into a swagger. With the zealotry of the convert I now plan assaults on the north face of the Eiger and the Matterhorn. K2 will be a breeze, Annapurna a piece of piste. Afterall, I am now a climber. It’s official – I’ve bagged St Bee.

JB

Billy Bragg & Clive James; autobiographies

BOOK REVIEWS  ~  Life is a cabaret

 Willkommen

‘Welcome to cabaret ..’ intones oscar-winning Joel Grey at the beginning of the eponymous musical. Against a backdrop of circus mirrors that distort the audience’s image of themselves the garish assortment of entertainers reflect on their decadent interwar society. Singers, comedians and musicians act as social commentators, interweaving personal with political while moving seamlessly from the particular to the general.

Clive James and Billy Bragg are two contemporary entertainers whose material both feeds off and informs our current culture. Their two autobiographies conspire to cover the last 50 years; ‘North Face of Soho’ is Clive James’ fourth volume of unreliable memoirs and takes us from his marriage in 1960 to the demise of Fleet street in the 80s when Murdoch moved to Wapping. Billy Bragg’s book is something else altogether.

One of Bragg’s signature songs evokes the ‘Cabaret’ era. ‘Between the Wars’ is more Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weil than Christopher Isherwood but the inter marriage between poem and polemic works well. ‘The Progressive Patriot’ uses the bare bones of his life as the skeleton on which to attach his sometimes didactic anti-establishment diatribes. Bragg builds a body of social comment that neatly dovetails his life story with contemprary British, and particularly English, society. The bookshop customer is as likely to find Bragg’s book amongst the politics titles as among the music books or the biographies.

‘I was a miner, I was a docker, I was a railwayman between the wars’. Perhaps unsurprisingly Bragg’s prose style echoes his lyric writing; unashamedly proletarian in appeal, direct in style and economic in structure. But his music is not all Dave Spart posturing and nor is this book. Bragg’s best known track, ‘A New England’, is a love song in which he explicitly affirms that personal emotions have primacy over political agenda. Likewise ‘The Progressive Patriot’ makes room for adolescent inadequacies and the poignant first experience.

His musical awakening strikes a chord. At twelve years old he catches a snatch of a song that touches his emerging sense of self and he then spends months tracking it down. ‘I am just a poor boy, ‘though my story’s seldom told ..’ A working class lad from Barking hears a universal truth from another continent and a world of opportunity opens up.

Money, money

Known now principally as a TV critic Clive James’ early witing efforts were also as a lyricist. When he arrived in 1960’s London from working on The Sydney Herald he wrote in every form known to pen and paper; book reviews, film reviews, stand-up, song lyrics. sketches, poetry, and literary biography. He wrote, directed and produced mock epics in rhyming couplets. He even corresponded with friends in verse letters. In ‘North Face of Soho’ James spares us such pyrotechnic poetry and recounts in standard prose his desperation to earn a crust from his fecund gift as a wordsmith.

Graduating from Cambridge and directing Footlights James set about acquiring an income by not saying no to any literary work offered him. This meant saying yes to poorly paid, short-deadline book reviews and on occasions working for free. His new wife was not impressed. However Grub Street embraced him and soon he was accepting poorly paid, short-deadline cinema and radio reviews as well.

James’ arrival and progression as a media observer and contributor coincided with the social and technological revolution of the 60s; in particular looser social mores and mass entertainment for TV audiences. In time Clive James was to prove not merely a rider of this tiger but also the guy with the top hat and whip. TV criticism was looked down on by snobbish literary hacks until James dragged the broadsheets down the cathoray tube and into the light with his highly popular Observer column.

A lifelong journalist Clive James knows that one picture is worth a thousand words and his great talent is to construct phrases that paint a unique and unforgettable image. His favourite and the one widely quoted as his signature witticism was describing Arnold Swartzenegger as ‘a brown condom stuffed with walnuts’. James includes it here alongside other self-congratulatory examples of his abundant linguistic gymnastics. He blows his own trumpet with as much charm as skill and we forgive him the indulgence.

Except it is not a trumpet. He leaves that to Spike Milligan in one of the many name-dropping anecdotes - Clive James drops names like Billy Bragg drops aitches. James blows less of a trumpet and more of a didjeridoo, an instrument that requires the respiratory skill of circular breathing. Whether or not this anatomical trick is on the Australian Schools Curriculum James has mastered it anyway. Each ego-inflating inhalation is paired with an equal exhalation of self deprecatory humour. He boasts of dining with Meryl Streep only to puncture his pride and his palette with a mouthful of needle-sharp fish bones. He persuades his publisher to proceed with his first autobiography precisely because he has achieved nothing in life.

Tomorrow belongs to me

The sparks that combined to ignite the touch-paper to Bragg’s incendiary book were the July 7^th London bombing and the election of British National Party councillors onto the authority in his native Barking. Bragg’s self perception is as an interventionist entertainer and he has chosen his autobiography as the instrument to initiate debate and change in our national self-perception. He is arguing for the left to adopt a progressive patriotism to undermine the knee-jerk appeal of the BNP in times of volatile social change.

In one of the early autobiographical chapters Bragg describes the seismic shockwave that blew through Britain when his generation found their identity and musical voice via Punk. An early adherent to The Clash, Bragg recalls his first self-conscious political act in marching through the East End of London to the 1978 Rock against Racism concert in Victoria Park. He has remained a committed anti-fascist ever since and the BNP electoral success on his own manor patently hurts.

Bragg explores Englishness by portraying the classic idyllic models from the past alongside his own family’s experience over generations on the banks of Barking Creek. He quotes Kipling and Orwell alongside his grandfather’s wartime diary. The growth and development of trade unionism is told through his great grandfathers employment at the nearby Beckton Gasworks. His view of Englishness is fundamentally romantic; fuelled by nostalgia for the Trade Union ‘banners of the days gone by’ as much as by George Orwell’s ‘The Lion & the Uncorn’. Onto this traditional core Bragg attempts to graft a modern multicultural identity – not altogether successfully as he admits ‘multiculturalism’ means many different things to many people. Collectivism and tolerance are key – ‘sweet moderation, the heart of this nation’.

Frustratingly we hear only fragments of Billy’s own contribution to the radical tradition, literally one passing reference to the founding of Red Wedge and a guest appearance at an anti BNP rally in the west country and that’s it. This is a real shame as his story and his actions speak louder than his agitprop words on the people’s history. Too many times the energy and interest generated by creative, imaginative and personally inspired writing is disipated by a pedantic lecture. Yet his multiculturally inclusive solution to the rise of the extreme right is beautifully simple – all England should gather under the flag of St George, thus reapproriating our identity and simultaeneously disenfranchising the fascists.

Cabaret

These two books provide sketches and snapshots of English life and culture over the last half century. We witness the liberalising of society during the 60s, the rise of the mass media and the television age, the consequent counter revolutions by punks in the street and by Thatcherism in the body politic during the 70s and 80s, and Bragg’s attempt to address the new world post 9/11 and 7/7.

Clive James never set out to write an illuminating manuscript of social history. 'The North Face of Soho' is a deeply personal, honest and reliable memoir by an entertainer and devotee of words. He has his cake and eats it with glutoness pleasure - he had such fun, and has fun telling us what fun it was. Having tried his finger in every literary pie he plums for Cabaret – he likes the scale of it.

Billy Bragg still has a story to tell and on this evidence he has the skills to one day tell it well. ‘The Progressive Patriot’ applies more to his notion of a model citizen than an account of himself. His song ‘Between the Wars’ is beautifully crafted, summoning up a nostalgic era of banners and a belief in the ‘fellow man’. A safe sepia-tinted period piece you think until Billy headbutts you in the chest with the final line:

‘Sweet moderation, heart of this nation, desert us not we are between the wars’.

First published in 'THE Book Magazine'  Winter 2006

Austerity ~ British style. 2 perspectives

AUSTERITY ~ BRITISH STYLE.     TWO PERSPECTIVES

HAVING IT SO GOOD, BRITAIN IN THE FIFTIES

 by Peter Hennessy

Ask someone under thirty years old to list a word association stimulated by the 1950s and they will reply ’black & white television’ and possibly not much else. For anyone born in that decade or earlier the iconography is almost limitless; the Atom bomb, walking to school, Bill Haley, horse-drawn deliveries, National Service, the Korean War, Teddy Boys, the Suez crisis, the Festival of Britain, Sputnik, the Stanley Mathews final, rationing, the Goon Show, austerity, and black and white television (including the potter’s wheel). Peter Hennessy’s ‘Having it so Good, Britain in the Fifties’ lists the lot, alongside a detailed chronology of Governmental change and policy shifts.

Chopping British history into decade-sized chunks imposes artificial faultlines in the telling of our Island story. What began as journalistic shorthand has found a permanent residency in our lexicon of national introspection; the 50s were austere, the 60s were swinging, and the 70s were naff. However, global and national events, processes and trends that adhere to their own logic and timescales pay no consideration to the arbitrary falling of a copy-editor’s axe. History thus shoe-horned into convenient media friendly packages is necessarily compromised.

Or is it? There is no one better placed to attempt the task of squaring this circle than writer and broadcaster, journalist and historian, Peter Hennessy. He currently holds the oxymoronic title of Attlee Professor of British Contemporary History at Queen Mary London University, having previously worked 20 years as a heavyweight journalist for The Times, Sunday Times and The Economist. Hennessy’s published track record detailing the Machiavellian machinations in the corridors of power is exemplary. He has examined and dissected the body politic organ by organ; ‘The Cabinet’(1986), The Prime Minister’(2000), ‘Whitehall’(1989), ‘The Secret State’ (2002).

‘Having it so Good’ is the natural successor to his 1993 publication ‘Never Again; 1945 to 1951’ and is the second in a planned sequence of titles that will climax with the Thatcher ascendancy. At a stroke Hennessy slays one of the dragons of ahistory; his decade sized chunks are merely parts of a greater all encompassing oeuvre.

‘Having it so Good’ is a thoroughly researched, well documented rifle through government records and papers. This audit trail of primary sources is augmented by contemporaneous comment from the printed and broadcast Press and enlightening and entertaining interviews with key Government and Whitehall players. Hennessy comes across as more than inquisitive, nosy even, in his search for the fuller story. The mental picture is of him rumaging through the drawers in the PM’s desk like Dick Barton, Special Agent. The results of his digging are terrific; not only do we read Winston Churchill’s confidential minutes to and from his atomic advisor re the British H Bomb, but we also get Churchill’s handwritten underlinings and crossings-out from those same annotated minutes. This is the equivalent of the stump-camera in TV cricket coverage. Hennessy gives us detailed slo-mo replays of key decision making moments in history from the heart of the action.

Initial stereotypical impessions of the 50s suggest drab austerity slowly lightening-up towards the end of the decade to allow colour and prosperity to enter everyday life. Hennessy paints a detailed canvas detailing the major national events and geo-political crises interlaced with the gradual improvement of the lot of the general population, viz Atom bombs and Gaggia Coffee bars, Suez and Jazz, the Korean war and the Coronation..

The Coronation of Elizabeth 2^nd works well as a vehicle for exploring life in Britain in 1953. Hennessy is able to examine the diminishing significance of the Commonwealth (the Empire as was), the role of the monarchy, and our own sense of self in a world pulled between emerging superpowers. As news of Edmund Hilary reaching the peak of Everest coincided with the ascendancy of a young queen, Britain took comfort from some old fashioned national pride – even adopting the New Zealander Hilary as an honorary Brit. Meanwhile the global forces reshaping the postwar world continued unabated with no reference to Britain. We found ourselves not knowing where we fitted between the decline of Empire, the dominance of the US, the emergence of the Warsaw Pact (1955) and the nascant European Union.

Hennessy’s account of the 50s is largely the story of three Conservative Prime Ministers and how their individual qualities and fortunes coincided with the fate of the nation. Winston Churchill was an ageing force during his final term in power and manifestly was no longer capable of the job, physically or mentally. Unable to cope with briefs more than one side of paper in length, he increasingly regressed into wartime mode, wishing for a government of national unity. His slump into irrelevance mirrored the imperial decline of Britain and lack of global punch. Hennessy documents Churchill’s incredulity that the US would no longer co-operate on nuclear matters, convinced as he was that wartime alliances and understandings still held.

The debate about imperial decline, whether real, imagined or exagerrated hangs over the early part of the book. In Hennessy’s decade Anthony Eden is at the helm when the tipping point finally arrives. The 1956 Anglo-French invasion of the Suez canal zone was a military and political disaster that definitively signalled the end of Britain’s aspirations for world power status. Eden’s fate and Britain’s imperial dreams collapsed together in ignominy. Hennessy unearths a gem from the declassified records. On receiving his orders the British Chief of Air Staff briefs his men with the stirring crie de combat : ‘The Prime Minister has gone bananas’.

The third Tory Prime Minister is the dominant character of the book, whose famous quote gives the book its title, and again journalism and history conflate in the media creation of ‘Supermac’. Just as Churchill had shied away from the radical economic policy of a free floating pound (aka ROBOT) to safeguard the middle ground of Hennessy’s British New Deal, so in 1958 Harold Macmillan dispensed with his treaury team, including his chancellor Thorneycroft, in order to pursue reflationary policies. Macmillan had witnessed the consequencies of a deflated economy as an MP in the interwar years and was determined that Britain would never experience such rampant unemployment and dire deprivation again.

Macmillan’s fortune was to stoke the economic fires at a time of global economic growth. The decade closed out with output up 10%, unemployment down 100,000 and a record drop in the Balance of Payments deficit. There was an electoral dividend to be reaped from having it this good in the form of an emphatic Parliamentary victory in 1959.

Interspersed with the Cabinet minutes and the tables of economic output are lighter analyses of newspaper reading habits, cinema attendences, changes in musical taste, and patterns of worship. However the overarching shadow of the Bomb is never far away. Hennessy makes the extraordinary revelation that in 1951 Churchill inherited a clandestine H Bomb programme that Parliament had known nothing about that included a hidden £100 Million annual spend.

Hennessy’s great attribute is as one of the power elite. From his university education, via his prolonged stint as Whitehall correspondent, and the comprehensive research undertaken repeatedly for his numerous books and broadcasts Hennessy has become part of the world he observes. This is another of his productive contradictions as a social commentator; not only is he a contemporary historian but he is an objective insider.

So he is able to lunch with Mervyn King, one-time Governor of the Bank of England and one-time student flat-mate, and elicit responses others would not be able to. In a neat journalist trick Hennessy asks King to jot down on the back of the menu those defining challenges that characterised Britain’s Post-War economic peformance. Without warning, and without hesitation or prevarication, Mervyn King lists seven bullet points which Hennessy is later able to digest and test at his leisure. He finds King is on the money, literally.

He plays a similar trick on former Tory Education Secretary Gillian Shepherd. He asks for an off-the-cuff word association on the landmark 1944 Education Act and gets an instant, no-hesitation reply which stands up well to subsequent cross-examination. In a book that is not short of tables of statistics and indepth explanation and exploration of government policy these human yet telling observations add spice to the fare.

Peter Hennessy grew up in the fifties and admits a nostalgia for steam trains and the smell of woodsmoke from allotment bonfires. He has used his childhood memories, his first hand experience, his journalist’s cunning and the craft of a skilled historian to produce an excellent account of the early years of our postwar experience. 

AUSTERITY BRITAIN 1945 – 1951

by David Kynaston

After six years of war the population of Britain, anxious for circumstances to improve, had to endure hardship for a further decade; rationing for some products continuing well into the fifties. David Kynaston has homed in on this key aspect of immediate postwar life for the title of his new book ‘Austerity Britain’ - the first in a series of histories comprising a larger work titled ‘Towards a New Jerusalem’.

Hennessy’s book is a model of construction; a journalist marshalling diverse content with academic rigour. Facts and figures, attitudes and opinions, events and their outcomes are collated, ordered and presented with elan and enthusiasm. David Kynaston has taken a different approach; he has stood in front of the massive tide of data and welcomed the deluge as he opens the flood gates. Forsaking the dry burrowing through dusty archives, looking for telling minutes from forgotten meetings, Kynaston stands drenched to the bone in a tsunami of anecdotal firsthand accounts.

In contrast to the journalistic immediacy of the Hennessy ‘decade’ approach, Kynaston has chosen to examine one particular historical trend – the political concensus that prevailed from 1945 to 1979. The war experience convinced economists, town planners, politicians and not least the majority of the population, as witnessed by Labour’s landslide victory, that there was to be no return to interwar social inequality. Across the party divide it was generally agreed that private capital on its own had failed and a more centrally planned economy, as practised successfully during the second world war, and given a social conscience by the Beverage Report, was the way towards a more stable economy and a more just society. This concensus informed the policies of the Attlee, Churchill, and Macmillan administrations most noticeably, and was still in evidence until dramatically and aggressively thrown out by Thatcher’s first term in 1979.

Kynaston has not mined the same mother lode of primary data that Hennessy dug so productively – Government papers and the documented thoughts, words and deeds of the key dramatis personae of public life – but has instead used the first hand accounts of the everyman and everywoman. The submissions of the contributors to Mass Observation get so frequent an airing that the source is soon abbrieviated to M-O in Kynaston’s text. He has also raided the autobiographies of the postwar literati; Alan Bennett and Kenneth Tynan for accounts of VE day celebrations and Glenda Jackson recalling her 11+ exam; just three among hundreds quoted. The early inference is that the 75% of the population categorised as working class at war end were not able to articulate political desires in tune with the Parliamentary consensus beyond demanding a vague ‘change for the better’. The discrepency between government rhetoric and street level testimony is a recurrent theme for Kynaston.

These individual musings on the great events or the big ideas of the day are more than numerous but add little to our existing understanding. In contrast the experiences of returning from the forces that occurred within the privacy of the marital home reveal a fascinating negative dividend to victory. Adjusting to longterm separation was difficult enough but in addition many couples struggled with the return to the prewar domestic status quo. Many women had gone into wartime employment as well as taking responsibility for home and children and were not willing to abandon this autonomy on the husband’s return. Some of the most poignant testimony is from children who could not warm to or even recognise this stranger that re-entered their lives – their long absent father. In 1939 the number of divorces was 6,000 – eight years later the rate had increased tenfold and the total number for 1947 exceeded 60,000.

Kynaston has chosen to plough through his collection of personal testimonies in linear fashion, clocking off the years chapter by chapter. One year on from victory and shortages for clothes and food are continuing and in some cases worsening. This lack of improvement in basic living conditions created much resentment and on Kynaston’s evidence there was little hesitation in expressing it - by all sections of society. The introduction of bread rationing – something that had never happened during the war – was particularly unpopular. Kynaston’s methodolgy of relying principally on contemporary verbal testimony or personal diary entries highlights well the potential disparity between real hardship and the perception of it.

Public perceptions of hardship had every reason to escalate as 1947 then 1948 witnessed worsening experiences. The weekly bacon ration was cut to just 1oz and potatoes were rationed for the first time. A survey in this year reported that 53% of the British population wished to emigrate. The Government seemed unwilling to address this low morale – the restrictions of football matches and cinema showings seemed petty and ineffectual and certainly contributed to the austere atmosphere. The blackmarket and crime generally flourished in the environment of scarcity and resentment. The value of stolen goods in 1948 was four times the level of ten years earlier, adding to the sense of despair.

During the first half of the book Kynaston repeats his assertion that the visionary enthusiasm of those planning a postwar socialist utopia was not always shared by the population as a whole, or even by the working class – that sector singled out to most benefit from a more equitable society. Kynaston illustrates his point with genuine poignancy when contrasting opinions at the pithead and down the mine with the sentiments of the Labour politicians who had secured the nationalisation of Coal. While those ex-mining MPs went through the division lobby voting ‘aye’ with tears streaming down their faces and singing ‘The Red Flag’, the miners themselves effectivley shrugged their shoulders – it made no difference to them who owned the mine; they still had a filthy dangerous job to do and they did it.

This is Kynaston’s only point of analysis and he repeats it less often as he progresses into the second half of the book. The intial premise of analysing the political concensus that prevailed is not addressed. It is as though Kynaston has willingly succumbed to the tidal wave of subjective testimony. Swamped by the huge number of individual voices he is unable to channel the flow so he goes along for the ride. This broad and unstoppable river meanders through the six years until 1951 touching on the Korean War, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war on one bank and depositing cultural ephemera, such as the universal popularity of radio and the emergence of TV, on the other.

This work was a manifest herculean task to assemble and at 600 pages it is a task to read as well. Kynaston’s approach lacks the academic rigour of the Hennessy book; the reader is invited to join him as he surfs this huge wave of anecdotal history but is given no direction nor critical examination of the source material. The frequency of referral to Mass Observation merits an indepth critique of this source at least. The immediate postwar years were formative for all of us, even those born decades later, and although this collection of testimony is important and fascinating it could have been doubly so if half the length.

‘The Girl with the Millennium Laptop’ Steig Larsson

NORDIC NOIR ~ in print and on the screen

‘The Girl with the Millennium Laptop’

 Eva Gabrielsson

Crime writing has long been a favourite genre for film and TV to steal from; Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe led the way to be hotly pursued in more recent times by protagonists from the pens of Rankin and Grisham. The latest genre hero to implicate the screenwriters is the Scandinavian copper. Henning Mankell was lifted into the mainstream by Kenneth Branagh’s intense adaptions of the Wallender novels for BBC television. If Branagh’s portrayal is too manic depressive for your tastes then grab the Swedish TV versions on BBC4. Better still return to the source and read the books to watch the movie in your head.

Today the head of the Most Wanted crime writers’ list is another Scandinavian, Steig Larsson, creator of the brilliant, zany zeitgeist-riven Lizbeth Salmander. His heroine is a superb inversion of contemporary victimhood; a neo-anorexic, abused, mentally ill geek triumphs over evil with the courage, ingenuity and wit of an outlaw punk. Larsson introduced us first to the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ – now a major movie – and followed up with ‘Girl who Played with Fire’ and ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’. All three are available in paperback from your local independent bookshop.

The latest Larsson thriller features a one-time political journalist, a multi-million pound fortune, secrets embedded in a laptop, family politics and untimely death. The ex-journo, scourge of extreme fascist groups dies young, unaware of his latent legacy and mega wealth. The heroine holds the secret but wants justice, and those with the money want the laptop and its enigmatic contents.

But ‘The Girl with the Millennium Laptop’ is no novel. The author died without leaving a will before any of his existing trilogy were published. His estranged family has subsequently received the rewards of his 65 million copy worldwide sales, but not his companion of the previous 32 years Eva Gabrielsson. But she does have the manuscript for the fourth Millennium book on his old laptop, and cryptic notes outlining the plots of a further six novels. A courtroom drama worthy of John Grisham at his finest is on the cards and it can’t be long before the screenwriters work their alchemy and get their art to imitate life.

JB June 2012

Banksy and the Jubilee

BANKSY ~ Public Artist Number One

That Grafitti offends is a truism – it is meant to offend. It is the conspicuous conscious leg-cock of a testosterone-induced drive to mark a territory. It defiles the established ownership of public space while simultaneously laying claim to it. Involuntary exposure to aesthetically ugly, verbally violent sub-porn is a violation of our right to feel safe when out of our homes in our own culture. As offensive as the grafitti is, the higher crime is the pseudo-sociological elevation of this pissing contest to a supposed art form.

Sociologists interpret crass wall scrawls as the 21^st century equivalent of Lascaux cave art; grafitti artists as modern society’s naieve visual poets; part modern-primitives, part urban-shamen. The crude, rude renditions of body parts and the inarticulate inaccurately spelled expletives are allegedly the legitimate expressions of an alienated, dispossessed underclass. An attack on a wall is seen as a valid political act of sabotage by freedom-fighters, a nocturnal raid behind enemy lines, an action typical of a guerrilla army waging war against an overwhelmingly superior force. When in reality the poorly executed drawing of genitalia is an act of flashing by proxy. Not so much a terrorist as a tosser.

A Grauniad journo got into Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner claiming grafitti made him ‘feel optimistic about shared dreams and common ownership’. But then he wasn’t writing about any old vandal, he was commenting on the literati’s favourite adopted hoody, the ‘art terrorist’ known as Banksy. You have to hand it to him Banksy is a few strokes above your average teen tagger. It is a knowing post-modernist that installs a fake cave drawing in the British Museum. A drawing that depicts the cave dweller spearing a bison with one hand and pushing a shopping trolley with the other. Not only is this an attack on what constitutes artifact orthodoxy and a blast at contemporary consumerism, but it also references grafitti artists being latterday practioners of cave art.

And Banksy is back in the fray for the Diamond Jubilee. For the 'Silver' the Sex Pistols held the line for the two-fingers brigade, this time around it is Banksy with a twin-digit reposte – a stencil on a London wall depicting a sweat-shop kid churning out Union Jack bunting. A class act. Is it offensive? .. I hope so.

Mixed Metaphor Man June 2012

MMM on the WWW

A blog blast form MIXED METAPHOR MAN

By day mild-mannered and middle-aged, befuddled and bespectacled – by night a bludgeoning blogger.

SHANE WARNE – MY ILLUSTRATED CAREER 2006

SHANE WARNE – MY ILLUSTRATED CAREER

July 2006

To the coast in a heatwave – well someone’s got to do it. Hampshire County Cricket Club is experiencing a renaissance at their new Rose Bowl venue under the inspirational captaincy of the cricketer Richie Benaud has called ‘the greatest I have ever seen’. My trek south starts from Cumbria at 4:00am to reach Southampton in time for the start of play as hosts Hampshire entertain Yorkshire. The ‘greatest’ is my host for the day. A varied assortment of the Press and the publishing industry have been invited to enjoy a VIP day at the cricket courtesy of Cassell Publishers and their latest signing, the leading test wicket taker of all time, Shane Warne.

With assistance from Times correspondent Richard Hobson, Warne has penned a pictorial autobiography; ‘Shane Warne – My Illustrated Career’, published this winter in time for the lucrative Christmas market. At more than 250 pages long with hundreds of full colour photographs the book tracks Warne’s childhood and career concentrating primarily on his ‘on the field’ encounters in the international cricketing arena. His publisher has organised this day to pump prime the selling and marketing machine that will propel the book to the top of the bestseller charts. Booksellers – bookshops and wholesalers – get the opportunity to discuss promotional plans with marketing and PR personnel, book reviewers get advance copies, and everyone has access to the free bar…. and all day we are teased with a promise of an appearance from the man himself at the close of play.

By mid morning the heat is oppressive, driving the spectators out of their sunsoaked seats in the open into the cool refuge of the bar. This promotes free association between the diverse guests, initially taking the form of a dozen concurrent – but not always convergent – explanations of the rules of cricket to the 50 per cent of the party who think they have arrived on another planet. A world with its own arcane laws, secret language and coded hand signals, where spontaneous applause breaks out for no apparent reason, and where – let’s face it – not a lot seems to be happening.

Midday passes and the tension within our group rises with the temperature and humidity. Fuelled by hunger and alcohol, by the mounting physical discomfort and the knowledge that there are still six hours to go before we get to meet the main attraction, a tetchy irritability is threatening to undercut the early bonhomie. A good storm would clear the air.

Hampshire have edged the morning session against a lethargic Yorkshire batting performance, the clammy humidity giving significant swing to the bowlers. The imminent arrival of lunch is signalled by Shane Warne taking the ball for one over of spin before the break. Spirits rise again with the introduction of our hero and the immediate prospect of food.

As the players drift off the field to take their lunch our party piles into the airless, aircon-less lounge to refuel. Doing nothing watching others do apparently not very much is truly exhausting. A sub group of independent booksellers coagulates in the heat at one of the round tables and attacks the buffet in a shark-like feeding frenzy. As they swap tales of retailing woe with mouths full of free food a fresh face sits down to eat. ‘Hello, and who do you work for?’ ‘Hi, I work for Amazon’. The sound of dropped cutlery rattles round the table like the grumble of approaching thunder. A good storm would clear the air.

A loud thunderclap as the doors burst open announces the arrival of DS, the man charged with selling the print-run into the booktrade prior to publication. A man habituated to going through doors without opening them first, DS has patently sacrificed the back nine holes – but not the nineteenth – to get to this free lunch on time. His cheery, ‘Hail fellow well met’ enthusiasm and energy ease the tension and the sound of laughter and vigorous back slapping joins the popping of corks and clinking of glasses.

The interval in play allows more mingling and networking. Both a serialisation in the Sunday Times and a slot on ‘Parkinson’ have been confirmed and we are still four months from publication. Armed with this ammunition this early gives the sales team a great advantage when selling the book into the shops. Bestsellers don’t just happen – they are conceived, planned and made by editors, cover designers, marketing departments and sales reps. I raise a somewhat unsteady glass in admiration – six months from Christmas and Shane’s book already looks like a top ten shoe-in. Another glass of red and it looks like Number One.

I don’t know what the home team were drinking during their lunch break but it reaches parts other drinks don’t – in particular the outside edge of the bat and the top of off stump. Hampshire bowler Dimitri Mascarenhas produced a devastating spell, five wickets for 33 runs that effectively deadheaded the white rose of York.

With the home team coasting, attention switches from the game to the inspection copies of ‘Shane Warne: My Illustrated Career’. The cover of embossed gold on Aussie green featuring a rampant Warne looks stunning and the contents live up to the promise. There is a short section at the beginning that lays down the basics from his childhood, but the vast majority of the book portrays Warne in action against test playing sides, including special chapters on the Ashes and the Australians. Pictures dominate this record although there are significant written contributions wrapped around the many images of Warne in arm-pumping priapic celebration. The book is written in an easy conversational style as Warne talks us through his cricketing life. The biggest talking point during the tea interval however is from the chapter on his childhood.

The book contains an extraordinary photograph of the eight-year old Shane lying prone on a trolley with his legs in plaster. Another boy at school had jumped on him and broken his legs – at one time both legs were in plaster from the hips down. He was restricted to this low level aussie surfboard on wheels for 12 months. Warne speculates that propelling himself by use of his hands developed the powerful shoulders and wrists which enabled him to give the cricket ball a ‘real good rip’. He makes no mention however to what the effect this confinement must have had on him mentally. I suspect the experience was as formative in toughening up his mind and his will-power as it was on his muscle mass – you don’t become the best in the world in a highly competitive sport by simply having the most talent. You get there by guts, grit and bloody-minded determination.

The afternoon session is drawing to a close, Hampshire have been in to bat and reduced the Yorkshire lead to 98. We have seen over 300 runs and eleven wickets – a good day’s cricket. It’s seven o’clock and the players finally leave the field and our party gathers in the lounge in an excited gaggle, eagerly awaiting the appearance of ‘our’ man. I return to the pictures in the book and am soon lost in thought as I flick through the hundreds of photographs of Warne and his cricketing contemporaries doing what they do best.

I look up and do a double-take. The diamond-studded, blonde haired, spin king has leapt from the page and is here in the flesh. He has changed into suit and tie to meet us and is keen to greet everyone individually – a media professional, he’ll do well on Parky. I say he must be pleased with his team’s performance and ask does he think it’ll be over in three days. He beams back ‘I hope so – maybe I can play some golf’. Right – he gets get a day off from playing sport for a living so he plays sport for fun.

At the time of writing Warne had 685 test wickets and was looking to notch up 700 during this Ashes series, assuming he stays free from injury. I advise him not to tread on any training balls – a misfortune that derailed his aussie team mate Glen McGrath before an Ashes test. He does not find me amusing and moves off round the room glad-handing his other guests. We move onto the balcony for a photo opportunity and a succession of other players pass on their way to a beer. This is an important part of the game for an Australian cricketer – you fight like tigers on the field and when play is over you share a beer with the opposing team. It is credit to the man that he was prepared to share some of that valued, hallowed time with us.

John Bailey

July 2006

WATERSTONES ~ THE TURKEY THAT VOTED FOR CHRISTMAS

WATERSTONES ~ THE TURKEY THAT VOTED FOR CHRISTMAS

A blog blast form MIXED METAPHOR MAN

By day mild-mannered and middle-aged, befuddled and bespectacled – by night a bludgeoning blogger.

James Daunt, the new MD of Waterstones, is given to Quixotic behaviour, one day tilting at the online sales of Amazon, only to cosy-up the next. The latest announcement that the big 'W' will sell Amazon Kindle ereaders from their bricks and mortar stores smacks of turkeys voting for Christmas. Booksellers face a triple whammy as shoppers desert the high street for supermarkets and the internet, and buyers enthusiastically adopt electronic books.

The Waterstones response to the threat of the digital age shows a lack of understanding by the leadership, both of the nature of the threat and the character of the threatener. Previous techno changes to the book were complimentary, publishers and booksellers sold the author's work on paper, on cassette or on disc. The ebook intentionally cuts out the middleman – the format is not complimentary but competitive. And Amazon has no intention of investing in the long-term vitality and sustainability of the publishing industry . On the contrary it wants to replace it. Amazon sees itself as one of the Big Three that will dominate publishing in the future; Amazon, Apple and Google.

Daunt's model envisages the public seeking out his stores as environments in which to download titles onto their kindles. That might be how selling physical books used to be done but for ebooks it's the exact opposite – you don't make all that effort to go somewhere (at a time that suits the store) when you can 'do it' in bed, in the bath, wherever and whenever you like.

Amazon gets massive exposure and promotion to the Kindle's key market and Watestones gets nothing. Worse than nothing, they get a Trojan horse in every store. Daunt is running around like a headless chicken, not knowing what direction to go in - and not knowing it's already too late. Christmas is coming.

MMM on the WWW

Ode to Billie Joe ~ Bobbie Gentry

'Ode to Billie Joe' by Bobbie Gentry

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet"
And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"
"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"
And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"
"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Big Brother Big Lies. How supermarkerts steal our liberty

Big Brother & the Holding Company

I have been round the block too many times to be taken for a ride. Time is running out, life is too short to be lied to anymore.

In the three ages of man we first believe the advertiser’s claim or the politician’s promise, in our more mature middle years we tolerate the untruths - because we are complicitly compromised – but in the invigorating climate of encroaching old age and second childhood we can stamp our feet and shout freely that the emperor has no clothes.

Between them George Orwell and Josef Goebbles prophesied and practiced the truth that the bigger the lie the more readily it will be believed. Where they, and we, got it so wrong was to think that Big Brother was a dictatorial superstate – none of us cottoned on that the lying contol freak was going to be privatised, nor that we would subscribe to it so enthusiastically. We have enjoyed being lied to and controlled – have enjoyed being sold to and corralled into supermarkets and identikit shopping malls.

By virtue of their ‘Loyalty’ card schemes these mega-multinationals now know more about you than the secret police ever could. They have a record of everything you bought, when and with what. They can track your movements across country from store to store and even across international boundaries. Computer analysis of your shopping characteristics  allows them to deduce your marital status, how many children you have, which partner has the major income (and who makes the decisions) - even your sexuality is fair game. They are looking at the newspapers and books you buy (and deducing your voting patterns accordingly) and your children’s taste in films and music. They are monitoring your increasing consumption of alcohol and ulcer tablets. And their masterstroke is to kid us that it is a ‘loyalty’ card for our benefit.

These ‘supersellers’ have won the propaganda war. They have convinced us that black is white and night is day; they present themselves as the champions of choice while simultaneously destroying local competition – what choice do we have when there is just the one place left to shop?

The word games take place on the shop shelf as well. Close examination of the contents listed on an ‘Italian Style Pizza’ reveals that this actually means ‘This product has nothing what-so-ever to do with Italy’. ‘Fruits of the Forest’ yoghurt in reality contains not the fruit from the forest floor but all the crap swept up from the factory floor.

In the DIY superstore to replenish my stock of ‘everlasting’ lightbulbs I noticed they are now advertising their garden floodlights as being ‘Dark Skies Friendly’. Have I got this right – is their USP that their product will not work? This is as non-sensical as vegetarian butchers and agnostic priests.

JB

First published by the 'Observer Group' May 2006

Cardio Tennis in Maryport 29th May

FITNESS 

FUN!with

'CARDIO TENNIS'

Tuesday 29^th May in the Netherhall Sports Centre

7 to 8 pm for those that haven’t played tennis

8 to 9 pm for those that have played tennis before

Aimed at providing fitness fun, these sessions are led by Senior Tennis Coach Lee Burrell.  'Cardio Tennis' is intended for anyone and everyone – whatever their ability.

'Cardio Tennis' is a series of tennis-based drills and activities played to up-tempo music. It does not require tennis skills, but is all about keeping your heart rate up, burning calories and having fun.

'It doesn't matter if the ball goes out ~ the purpose is to get fit.'

The sessions are perfect for adults who want to do something new or those who have always wanted to try tennis. Participants are supplied with heart rate monitors so they can see if they are working hard enough … or too hard! This is a one off taster session.

Places can be booked at Netherhall Sports Centre. 01900 813434

The cost is just £1 per session.

Banks - small business salami sliced to death

BANKS – ‘whose money is it anyway?’ MARCH 2009

I am right, aren’t I? It is my money, isn’t it? As a sole trader of modest means money is important to me – especially my money, yet my bank takes a slice at every turn. I’m being salami-ed into insolvency.

On the Monday a customer parts with their hard-earned wages for the latest must-have paperback from my shop and I bank said brass on the Tuesday. Or so you might think. If I deposited cash as coin of the realm then bingo, by the time I have returned from the local branch my internet banking shows my account credited - but at a cost. I am charged for crediting my own bank account with my own cash. But at least my money is mine – perhaps I have not paid in as much as I thought but it does register as mine to do with as I see fit.

If I had paid in a cheque with the folding stuff then I have to wait 24 hours for the credit to show – cash included, and a further three days for the cheque to clear. Oh and I get charged an additional 28p per cheque on top of the charge of 70p for making the manual deposit – I’ve been sliced twice on the one transaction. In fact closer inspection of my statement and breakdown of charges reveals that I get salami-ed a third time; I pay a further 0.6% of the total cash paid in every month.

In order to accept card transactions I have to hire a PDQ machine (from the bank) and then I am charged per transaction – you guessed it, by the bank. Having shaved me twice already the bank takes a third charge when the credit eventually lands in my account. Bearing in mind I have to wait three days for my money to reach me this delay could itself be construed as a charge. I will have been sliced four times by my bank for the one transaction; remember this was for a deposit transaction, I haven’t borrowed a bean. The bank has charged me three times on the cash credits and four times on the automated credits for providing it with the funds for it to earn interest by lending to others.

Or to me. In order to pay the bank’s charges I have paid an overdraft arrangement fee and interest on the loan. My bank is now slicing me either 5 or 6 times on every sale.

But I am mistaken … it is not really my money. The money I receive for the bestselling book sold has to pay the supplier, the rent & rates, the wages, the overheads, the advertising - leaving me with the thinnest of wedges from which to pay myself and of course my bank. Since it isn’t my money, since I need to pay the supplier I will have to make another bank transaction to effect this payment – and yes I am charged for that as well. In order to sell one single item to a customer I can be sliced 7 times by the bank – it’s death by a thousand cuts.

JB

First Published 'The Observer Group' March 2009

The Nighthawk - one hour radio drama

The Nighthawk

 by John Bailey

SCENE 1: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. THURSDAY, AROUND MIDNIGHT

FX: AMERICAN RADIO BASEBALL (of game in Western time zone) COMMENTARY CIRCA 1947, QUIET IN BACKGROUND

BIG JOE:                                            Hiya … what ‘ill it be?

SOLDIER:                                          You gotta beer?  .. something local, not too strong.

BIG JOE:                                            Goose Island Red?  From two blocks along  ..  good ‘old country’  taste.  Around 4%..  just enough kick  -

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah, yeah ..  whatever.

FX: sound of pouring beer and glass landing on bar

BIG JOE:                                            One Goose Red.  .   that’ll hit the spot. ........ You look like you need it.

SOLDIER:                                          What does that mean?

BIG JOE:                                            Hey  .  I don’t mean nothin’.  Just you look beat, like you been travellin’ a long time.

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah  … well I have.  You got a problem with that?

BIG JOE:                                            No, no.  Like I say. I don’t mean nothin’.  I guess I just like to talk, when it’s quiet.

SOLDIER:                                          Well yeah, I can see it’s quiet.  Just me and the dame in the corner ....   talking to herself.

BIG JOE:                                            Ah, She’s OK.  She’s here most nights. Talks into a …  a voice recorder  …that machine on the table  

SOLDIER:                                          - a dictaphone.  They’re called a dictaphone.

BIG JOE:                                            Dictaphone?  Yeah, could be you’re right.  Dicta-somethIn’ she called it.  She’s no trouble, just talks into her machine and downs martinis. …  and margoritas on Sundays.

SOLDIER:                                          What day is it today?

BIG JOE:                                            Hey fella, you are busted.  It’s Thursday   … except it’s not  .. it’s now turned Friday.  You must’ve been on the road a long time.

SOLDIER:                                          Yea, well, on the road, in the air … whatever.  It’s been some week  … and it ain’t finished yet.

BIG JOE:                                            Does this bother you? ...  the radio ...  I can turn it off if you want.

SOLDIER:                                          Naw .. leave it on  .... I played a bit, an age ago..  It’s the Cubs I guess  ..  playing away?

BIG JOE:                                            Yessir .. the Cubs out west.  ..  So you played a bit . .. I pitched at college but was nowhere near the draft, still follow it .  Did you play for real?

SOLDIER:                                          ‘Play for real?’.... interesting words  .. I guess I know what you mean ...  and yeah I played and I hit my share of home runs in the army  ..  but that’s as far as it went.

BIG JOE:                                            So what now?  What brings you to the windy city?

SOLDIER:                                          Oh, the usual.  Yer know  ..  buying and selling.  This and that.

FX: SOUND OF DINER DOOR OPENING, NO STREET NOISE

BIG JOE:                                            Oh excuse me a moment ... Father Michael, we’re just closing, it’s too late to serve you now ...

FATHER MICHAEL (WORSE FOR DRINK):                    Bless you my son, I’ll just have the one medicinal sup for the road and I’ll be gone .. I’ll not delay you, Joe. 

BIG JOE:                                            Father Michael, you must leave now  ...  it’s too late ... I’ll not be serving you ... careful,  Father, mind youself now.  Please don’t do that .... It’s OK, I’ve got you – I’ve got you. ...Please don’t do that.  You need to let go of the bar now Father  ....  We’re just going to walk back to the door Father, and then I’m locking up for the night. 

Yeah, Please don’t do that ... 

That’s it,  just put one foot in front of the other and we’ll get there...  Now do you think you can walk back on your own ....  You don’t want me to get Father Ignatious to collect you?

FATHER MICHAEL:                         Oh no, no no we don’t want to trouble the ‘Revered’ Father ..no, no, no I’ll walk ..  it is only next door.  Bless you Joe, and I know we know the value of discretion don’t we ... no, no, no, ‘Father Indignatious’ really doesn’t want to be troubled if we can help it.

BIG JOE:                                            Well Good Night Father ...  and I’m locking the door after you. ....  Good night Father.

FX: SOUND OF DINER DOOR OPENING, CLOSING & BEING LOCKED

SOLDIER:                                          That man was a priest .

BIG JOE                                             He still is soldier, he still is!  ...   Was it the dog-collar or the frock or that I called him ‘Father’ that gave it away?

SOLDIER:                                          .. and he was blind drunk.

BIG JOE:                                            Observer Corps was it?  Your time in the army?  .   the seminary’s next door.  Father Michael’s one of our regulars.  He’s surprisingly handy with his fists when the mood takes him, and he does this thing with his  ...  Anyway ...  he’s gone now.

SOLDIER:                                          So I’m locked in now am I?

BIG JOE:                                            Only for the four minutes it takes the good father to find his door.

SARAH:                                             ‘Good Father’ .. my arse!

BIG JOE:                                            Thank you, Sarah.

SOLDIER:                                          Arse?

BIG JOE:                                            It’s a limey word for ass.

SOLDIER:                                          I know that!  ...   just haven’t heard it in a while.

BIG JOE:                                            Sarah ......  - is English.  Which explains the dislike she has for Father Michael...  when he’s ‘in the mood’ he takes to singing IRA songs and passing round the hat.  That upsets her ladyship a bit.

SOLDIER:                                          I get the picture. .. for me, I like the limeys .. good in a firefight anyways.  I’ve got time for them. .. don’t know how much time I got for drunken priests.

BIG JOE:                                            I don’t judge from this side of the bar.  Your glass is empty .... another beer?

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah, it’s a sweet drop ... I’ll have another..

FX: SOUND OF BEER BEING POURED

BIG JOE (over his shoulder):           Before we were interupted by Father Michael you were telling me what you did.

FX: SOUND OF BEER GLASS LANDING ON BAR

SOLDIER:                                          No, I wasn’t. ... You were asking ....  but I wasn’t sayin’.

BIG JOE:                                            So what is your line?

SOLDEIR:                                          This and that.

BIG JOE:                                            Oh-kay?.

SOLDIER:                                          Like I say ...  this and that .. you know,  basic commerce, it’s what makes the world go round ... I buy and sell ....    this and that.

BIG JOE:                                            This and that?

SOLDIER:                                         OK...you want an answer? ... I buy and sell paper and metals ...  you know; silver, copper, brass, some nickle.  And every now and then I trade a bit of lead.  OK? ... you got a problem with that?

BIG JOE:                                            No problem, no problem at all. ... just making talk.  I don’t mean nothin by it.

SOLDIER:                                          Good ... hey I’m sorry .. I’m beat OK?  ..  but you know .. you stop pitching .. and I’ll stop hitting  ...  I think your other customer wants you.

SARAH:                                             Hey Joe!  Another ‘straight up’ – a girl could die of thirst over here.

BIG JOE:                                            Sure thing Sarah

(IN A WHISPER TO SOLDIER)

She thinks she’s a writer or somethin’.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            It’s nearly a week ...  shame about Joe’s mirror. A guy from out of town rolled into the bar, maybe 10 minutes ago.  Joe’s doing his usual,  harassing the poor devil.  He sounds tired.  Could put him in the next book:  a tall, dark stranger, maybe.

Well I’d say he’s out of town, because he’s dead on his feet and his accent’s different.  Where shall I put him on the character scale, zero to hero?  – travelling rep in hotel linen, a private eye or a mafia hitman?

I guess I can make him whatever I want him to be.

SARAH:                                             Thank you Joe, you sweetie.  You do look after me very well my dear.  Who’s your new friend?

BIG JOE: (INTIMATELY)                  Some fella that doesn’t say much.  Bit touchy  .. could be he’s just beat.  Or it could be he don’t say much cos I do all the talkin’.

SARAH:                                             You don’t say.

FX: BAR CLATTER, GLASSES ETC

BIG JOE:                                            Do you want another Red?  Or a different beer? Or fancy a shot before you go?

SOLDIER:                                          I’ve had enough of what made Milwaukie famous …  I’ll have a whiskey  ..  an Irish if you’ve got one.

BIG JOE:                                            Bushmills or Jamesons?

SOLDIER:                                          Bushmills.  

BIG JOE:                                            I don’t know if you know it, but your Irish whiskey is chasing Irish beer.  You from the old country yerself – going back I mean?

SOLDIER:                                          There you go … questions, questions.   …  OK, put your hands down I ain’t gonna shoot. ....   But I’ve got one for you.

BIG JOE:                                            Go on.

SOLDIER:                                          What’s missing behind the bar?  This place is a temple to glass and chrome .. and behind the bar – in pride of place – there’s a big hole in the wall.

BIG JOE:                                            That ... that was my pride and joy…  an engraved mirror.  The full size of that there. ... what’s that?  Ten feet across, 6 high? Cost me a fortune.  The whole glass was this eagle swooping with its talons open, like that.  I loved it, swear to God.  Stencilled across the top in 10 inch letters  ...  ‘The Nighthawk Diner’.  ...  Gone now.  Gone in a blast from a pump.

SOLDIER:                                          No say?

BIG JOE:                                            Some guys had a disagreement that began in the bank – over there, other side of the road – and they decided to carry on the fight in here.  Over in a minute.  Scary.

SOLDIER:                                          I bet.

BIG JOE:                                            Never had any trouble here, in 15 years. Nothin. Then boom.  My bird’s blown outta the sky.

SOLDIER:                                          I’m sorry to hear that.

BIG JOE:                                            Thank you, sir.  I appreciate that.

SOLDIER:                                          Two men you say?

BIG JOE:                                            Well no, not in here,  just the one guy came in here.  He was mighty agitated .. and it happend so fast ... boom!

SOLDIER:                                          He didn’t say nothing?  Just started shooting?

BIG JOE:                                            He crashed through the door, that’s what made everyone turn .. then it was like he was looking for someone ..  he continues walking into the bar and sees the mirror.  He fires two shots and backs out into the street and disappears. ... Now you tell me, Army man, you been around guns and the people who use them .. what’s your take on that?

SOLDIER:                                          I ain’t got a clue, but if I had to guess, hell knows  ..  you said there was more than one of them and this guy was looking for someone, and he was .. you said ‘agitated’ ... so maybe he sees this guy coming towards him with a gun and shoots first ... not realising that it’s his own reflection he’s wasted. ... listen I don’t know  ...  who does, does the shooter even?

BIG JOE:                                            Mighty strange ... that’s all I can say .. but you could be right ..  especially if he couldn’t see too good.

SOLDIER:                                          How do ya mean – couldn’t see too good? .. what’s that about?

BIG JOE:                                            Didn’t I say ... he had an eye patch.  .... 

SOLDIER:                                          HA, HA!

BIG JOE:                                            .... what’s so funny about that?  What’s so funny about an eyepatch?’

SOLDIER:                                          Ha ha .. I come into the quietest bar in the whole mid-west and you’re spinning me a tale about wild shoot outs ..  look at this place .. it’s as good as empty .. no offence but I’ve seen more life in a morgue.  There’s a weird dame in the window, wearing dark glasses in the middle of the night, talking to herself ...  there’s you and me crying into our beer about them glory days we played ball ...   and on top of the drunken priest you throw in the eye patch.  I’m too tired to work out who’s fooling who and why ..  is this for real?  Or are you playing me or something?

BIG JOE:                                            Buddy ... believe me it happened.  Come back tomorrow when the joint is full and you’ll see.  It’s still the only topic of conversation .. that and the Cubs.

SOLDIER:                                          Well I’m gonna turn in.  There’s  twenty bucks, put the rest to your new mirror.

BIG JOE:                                            Thank you. Thank you very much. 

SOLDIER:                                          Good night.

BIG JOE:                                            Sleep well , soldier.

FX: GLASSES CLASH AS JOE CLEARS UP, HE TURNS RADIO OFF

BIG JOE:                                            Now, Sarah are you done? cos time’s getting on.

SARAH:                                             Yep, I’m through.  Put it on my slate dear boy.  You know,  I was thinking about your new friend at the bar  … did he remind you of anyone ?

BIG JOE:                                            Anyone in mind?

SARAH:                                             I’m thinking of our visitor last week  ...  the one with the violent antipathy to birds.

BIG JOE:                                            Aw ,  naw  …. I mean I’ll give you the same build, same age,  .. but no.  This guy was ok – he donated a portrait of Jackson towards a new mirror.  ...   and he had two eyes.

SARAH:                                             Remember I’m English Joe.  Portrait of Jackson? ...

BIG JOE:                                            Yer know, on the dollar bills – the Presidents ... Washington on the £1 dollar.  Andrew Jackson’s on a ‘twenty’.  The ones you want are Cleavland on a $1,000, and  the cherry on the pie – Madison on the five Grand.

SARAH:                                             I’ll bear that in mind – but your new customer… I know he’s not the same guy  .  but he’s the same kind of guy.

BIG JOE:                                            What makes you say that?

SARAH:                                             Easy ... his shoes.

BIG JOE:                                            His shoes?

SARAH:                                             Yes, his shoes!

BIG JOE:                                            You’ve got an over active imagination and it’s late...  I’m closing up and sending you home.  I’ll call the taxi for you, OK?

SARAH:                                             OK, Joe ... whatever you say.

FX: CLICK AS JOE TURNS RADIO OFF, SILENCE

SCENE 2: AT THE BAR IN THE DINER. FRIDAY, AROUND 6:00pm

FX: NOISY BAR CHAT FADES UP, COMPETES WITH RADIO (JACK BENNY, JUDY GARLAND, PAT BOONE, GLENN MILLER)

BIG JOE:                                            I can’t hear yer, soldier, you’ll have to speak up!  I said last night it would be busy!

SOLDIER:                                          I’ll try another beer, like last time... the same but different,. know what I mean?

BIG JOE:                                            No problem, I’ll find you somethin...  this is Heinrich by the way, he was here last week,  he can tell you about the shooter.

SOLDIER:                                          Hi Heinrich, so it’s true is it?  This guy walks in off the street, goes up to the bar, lets rip with a shotgun, and then walks out again.  That’s what happened ?

HEINRICH:                                         Yeah, that’s right ,,,,    I’m a cab driver.

SOLDIER:                                          Say again?

HEINRICH:                                         You know, big yellow cabs!  I drive cabs.

SOLDIER:                                          Are you not hearing me too good here?

HEINRICH:                                         Yessir,  I drive them big yellow cabs, all day and sometimes all night.  That’s what I do.  I drive my cab.  Say you’re not from around here are you?  ....  cos in forty years I’ve driven most everyone in the back of my cab....  and I’ve got a good memory for faces.

SOLDIER:                                          Oh Great!   you don’t have a clue what I’m saying.   (SHOUTS)  LAST WEEK! ....   LAST FRIDAY!  DID YOU SEE THE SHOOTER?

HEINRICH:                                         Yessir! ... yessir, I saw the whole game.  Are you a Cubs fan too?   So how come you follow the Cubs if you’re not from round here?  Hey, Joe whadyaknow?  This outta-towner’s a Cubs fan , whadya make of that?

BIG JOE:                                            Try that for size,  it’s an English style, a warm beer ... You might have had something similar in England – I am right you did serve in England in the war?

SOLDIER:                                          Uh huh. ....  Me and Heinrich here are having a little communication problem.  Something tells me he’s a little deaf.

BIG JOE:                                            You’re wrong there soldier – he ain’t a little deaf, he’s completely deaf.  And I did tell you the only topics of conversation would be the shooter or the Cubs. ....  Looks like you drew the Cubs.

SOLDIER:                                          A deaf cab driver – how does he manage that?  I mean it must be a miracle anyone gets to where they need to be.

BIG JOE:                                            Over 40 years Heinrich’s got to know his fares and where they want to go.  And – this is the smart bit – he lip reads in the mirror.  He doesn’t hear too good, but he compensates by seeing everything and remembering what he’s seen. 

SOLDIER:                                          Is this whole town weird? ..  or is it just this bar?

BIG JOE:                                            Who’s weird soldier, huh?  Who’s normal?  . Anyways I got customers to see to ...  enjoy your beer.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            I can hear the raised voice of our east- coast arrival.  He must have discovered Heinrich – and he’s plugging him about last week.  Why’s he so interested? ...

The book .. I need a leading lady to pitch against my hero.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      You the fella hollering about the shooter?

SOLDIER:                                          Who wants to know? ... oh .. I see .. You on duty?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Relax, Mister ... this is my downtime .. there’s quite a crowd on a Friday night doing the same,  much the same as last week.  Forty guys with forty different versions of what happened ... I should know ... I’m the sap that interviewed every one of them.

SOLDIER:                                          And you saw it yourself, right?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Right, right ... come straight off the shift.  Had one quick beer and was enjoying a slower second when ‘BOOM, BOOM!’, Joe’s eagle was dropped from the sky.

SOLDIER:                                          Real lucky that none of you was hurt bad .. all that flying glass, I mean.  Would the shooter have been cut? .. was he close enough to the bar?

OFFICR TREMBLE:                         What’s with all the questions fella ...  doya fancy you can do my job better than me?

SOLDIER:                                          Easy Officer, easy .. you gotta admit this doesn’t happen everyday in your average joint.  I came in last night – and the Bartender told me what happened ... I liked his beers so I came back.  He said there would be two conversations tonight – the shooter and the ‘Cubs’, and I’m really not a Cubs fan.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      No .. you’re east coast right?

SOLDIER:                                          Sorta ..  you could say I prefer red Sox to white. ... but tell me .. I was busy all day and never got a chance to cash money for the weekend.  I guess no banks open in this big city of yours, at this time?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      No way, Jose ....  but Joe’ll cash a cheque for you.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Officer, Officer, I’m real sorry to interupt ...  but I’ve been a real bubblehead and locked myself out of the apartment.  Is there anyway you can help? .  It’s only round the corner.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Hey sweetie, you’ll probably need a locksmith, but I’ll come and look.  Nice meeting you fella.

BIG JOE:                                            Now who wouldn’t walk round the corner with a looker like that?

SOLDIER:                                          She’s sure a picture.

BIG JOE:                                            She is .. but scatty as hell.  She lives in the corner building – you can’t miss it, white, all corners, cuved glass – she’s got the ugliest cat you ever saw.  Unkind people say Josephine got the looks, but the cat got the brains.  Another beer?  Something to eat ...  eggs and sausage?

SOLDIER:                                          Not to eat , no.  But sure, same again with the beer ...  I like the taste of Memory Lane.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            Right on cue!  Josephine Mankievitch ... five feet 10 inches of stilletto heeled, melodrama-laden, buxom, red-haired narrative dynamite.  Lobbing her into a crowded script will sort the men from the boys.

BIG JOE:                                            There you go .(SOUND OF GLASS ON BAR)  what the Limeys call a Pint.

SOLDIER:                                          Cheers! So is this your normal crowd .. more or less .. for a Friday night?

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah, maybe up a little bit ..  they’re swapping stories of their moment of fame..  getting braver with every telling from what I can hear. ...

 Hey! Pop! Great to see ya up and about ...  (see ya fella, enjoy your beer)

POP:                                                   Hi son, good to see you too!  Your Mom’s wrapping me in cotton wool, I’m suffocating.  I’ve come out to prove to her I’m OK – I even drove one of the trucks – see, I’m right outside!

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah well don’t over do it .. I reckon it was driving the truck all that way that laid you out ... you’re not as young as you were Pop.....   and the truck’s had a re-spray!  What’s all that about?

POP:                                                   Well the old bird was looking tattered and down on her luck – but don’t she look great?

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah! Pop! ... she looks great.  ......   Yes soldier? ..  another beer already?

SOLDIER:                                          No I’m fine for beer but, excuse me for askin’,  but is that Eagle on the truck the same as yours – from your mirror?

BIG JOE:                                            Yep, it’s the same – taken from the same drawing of an American Eagle.  .....   I got told all the time that it’s not a Nighthawk , but I know that!   What the punters don’t get is that they’re the Nighthawks – the bar’s named for them!.

SOLDIER:                                          After the painting ..

BIG JOE:                                            Well done soldier boy, look what they teach in the Army! – about five years ago this painting of a diner goes up in the Institute and as soon as I see it I had to change the name of my bar.  Have you seen the picture?

SOLDIER:                                          Only in a magazine.

BIG JOE:                                            Well it’s THIS bar right?  (JOE STABS COUNTER WITH FINGER, 3 KNOCKS)..   On a corner,  all glass,  me behind the bar in my whites.  This is life imitating art imitating life or whatever   ...   the eagle came from Pop’s business, he was using it on his trucks.....and I’m your regular patriot and it’s the American Eagle, right?  but listen if you’re here over the weekend and you’ve got time out from your ‘this and that’, get yourself down to the Institute and see the picture for real.  I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout art .. but I know what I like and that picture is a picture .... just like Josephine here, looking gorgeous ...  the Lady in Red!

JOSEPHINE:                                     Big Joe, you’re a charmer ...  hi Pop.  That kind Police Officer got me into the lobby by flashing his badge – I kinda liked that! – and whaddya know? ... the key was still in my door!

BIG JOE:                                            Josephine, I’d like to introduce you to our new soldier friend here who’s come all the way from the east coast to sample our famous beers (and to do a bit of ‘this and that’).  He wants to go to the Art Institute tomorrow and see the picture of my diner – be an angel and take him, would ya?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Oh for sure ... a soldier boy for the weekend .                                                       ..  Christmas has come early.

FX: SOUND OF BAR CHATTER FADES OUT

SCENE 3: OUTSIDE THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SATURDAY, AROUND MIDDAY

FX: SOUND OF ROADWORKS (JACKHAMMER).  TRAFFIC NOISE, A KLAXON SOUNDS AS IT PASSES. SOLDIER & JOSEPHINE ARE FORCED TO SPEAK LOUDLY TO BE HEARD

SOLDIER:                                          Thanks sugar, I really appreciated that, now let me treat you.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Oh yeah, soldier boy, I’m starvin.  You know what  ... I kinda like it when you call me sweet names, like ‘Sugar’ and ‘Honey’.  You’re cute.

SOLDIER:                                          So why the sad look sugar? 

JOSEPHINE:                                     Oh, I dunno  .. just with me when things go so right it means they’re just about to go so wrong.

SOLDIER:                                          Hey, snap outtavit!  ...  I’m about to treat ya to the best that Joe’s can offer.  Come on candy-girl ..  smile again for your soldier boy.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Ohhhh, Kaaay.  Are we gonna eat now?

SOLDIER:                                          Sure sugar, but I wanna cross the street and look at Joes from the same angle as the picture ...  (JOSEPHINE LAUGHS AND SQUEALS AS THEY DODGE THE TRAFFIC TO CROSS THE ROAD)

I reckon if we stand by this bank building ....  and lets pretend it’s midnight.

JOSEPHINE:                                     I’m gonna squint ...  haha .. are we crazy or what?

SOLDIER:                                          Well wadya think? ....  it’s close ain’t it?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Close? ...  I reckon it’s a ringer!..   except this red-haired lady’s on the outside.

SOLDIER DRAWS CLOSE TO JOSEPHINE – TRAFFIC NOISE RECEDES

SOLDIER:                                          Listen sugar, can you keep a secret?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Yeah, ‘course ...  but it depends how secret I mean if it’s really, really secret then loadsa folks are gonna want to know, know what I mean?    ..    but I won’t tell that many.

SOLDIER:                                          The thing is, sugar, now listen,    the painting ain’t Joe’s bar ...  I know he thinks it is  ... and he’d be mighty upset ...   but the original diner’s a long ways away ...   in Greenwich Village ... or was ... I think it’s a parking lot now.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Hey, why you telling me this,  it’s sad stuff  ..  ah, poor Joe .. you’re right it would kill the big guy. ...  but I don’t care what you say, I say the picture is Joe’s ...   and Joe’s is the picture.   Now come on let’s eat!

SARAH (CLOSE):                            It’s the writer’s curse that when all is going well, conflict has to rear its head.  But where will the axe fall, whose breast will the asp bite? The narrative river will race, twist and turn aplenty before it finally melds with the redemptive sea.  But on whose fate will the pen descend, who will be written from the book?

SCENE 4: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SATURDAY, AN HOUR LATER

FX: SOUND OF CUTLERY FINISHING ON CROCKERY, RADIO ON QUIETLY

JOSEPHINE:                                     I’m soooo full ... I’m going to pop!

BIG JOE:                                            You ok you two ... enjoy the gallery? ... hey, let me take those .. you’re finished right?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Take em away Joe ...  I couldn’t eat another thing. And we loved your picture, didn’t we soldier boy?

SOLDIER:                                          Sure did honey, sure did.

FX: DINER DOOR OPENS & CLOSES,  LETTING IN NOISE FORM STREET

JOSEPHINE:                                     What’s up Big Joe ... you seen a ghost?

FX: BACKGROUND SOUND FADES TO SILENCE.

BIG JOE:                                            Good afternoon Signor Falcone.

FX: RADIO STARTS BASEBALL COMMENTARY

RADIO COMMENTATOR:               And the two sides are lining up for what is an uneven contest- (CLICK, AS RADIO TURNED OFF)

FALCONE:                                        Bon Giorno, Signor Kay.  It’s a long time since I pay you personal visit, yes?  Are you well? ... and the family? ..  your ‘Pop’ in good health?  And your little ones, are they safe?

BIG JOE:                                            Yes, thank you Mister Falcone.   But what can I do for you  ...  I hope there’s nothing wrong?

FALCONE:                                        Why should there be anything wrong? We are business partners, arn’t we,  and I have come to check on my investment ...  But  ..

(PAUSE)   but you do hear stories ... and you know...   ‘Big Joe’ ...  I don’t like ‘stories’ ... I like the quiet life ... the quiet life is good for business.  So please ...    tell me what going on here?

BIG JOE:                                            Nothin’s goin on mister Falcone ...

FALCONE:                                        Don’t lie to me Joe.  behind your bar, there’s a hole in the wall.

BIG JOE:                                            Oh that,  I don’t know ...  I have no idea what happened .. some maniac let loose with a shotgun.

FALCONE:                                        Listen Joe ... come here .. lean over the bar, get real close, I want explain you something. ...  that’s it, real close.  

FALCONE (STAGE WHISPER):    Everybody knows you pay me for the protection this place  .. OK?   Everybody knows!  And you let this happen!   Why you do this to me? You want  make me look stupid?  I can’t have this, don’t you see?  So this is what we gonna do  ... you’re gonna find out what stray dog cocked his leg on my block... and you’re gonna deliver him to me ... can’t be difficult to find one-eyed ‘maniac’ with face full of glass   ...   Meanwhile  I’m putting your insurance up  ...  gonna double each week you don’t bring me this guy.

BIG JOE:                                            How am I goin to do that .... how can I afford to pay you double?

FALCONE:                                        That’s your problem ‘Big Joe’. ...   but you’ll find a way ... for the sake of the family.

Now what we have here   ...    what Do We have here?   Well, well, well ....  what’s a beautiful dame like you doing in a dump like this?  Come here beautiful ... and I’ll take you to the choicest spots in town ...away from all this..  and all these lonely losers.

SOLDIER:                                          She’s with me fella ... and she ain’t goin nowhere.

FALCONE:                                        Who the hell are you? .  talkin to me like that?  Don’t you know who I am?

SOLDIER:                                          Don’t care who you are ...you got a problem with that?

JOSEPHINE:                                     It’s OK soldier boy ....  you done your bit.   This gal can look after herself from here.  Hello Enrico  ..  it’s been a while.

SOLDIER:                                          You don’t have to sugar  -

JOSEPHINE:                                     I said it’s OK didn’t I?

FALCONE:                                        Are you getting the picture ..  ‘soldier’? ...  ‘Sugar’ wants a taste of the sweet life.  I’ll see you around Joe ..  remember, I want that schmuck on a plate .. soon.   Come with me, bella, let’s get out of this place.

FX: THE DINER DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES – TRAFFIC NOISE SWELLS AND FADES.  CHAT RESUMES, SLOWLY.

BIG JOE:                                            She did the right thing soldier.  She saved my bar and your life ...  she’s not as dumb as she makes out.

SOLDIER:                                          Give me a whiskey, a large one.  And put the radio back on   ... gimme somethin blue.

FX: BIG JOE TUNES RADIO TO ELLA FITZGERALD ‘ALL BY MYSELF’

FATHER MICHAEL:             Let me have the honour of paying for that.

SOLDIER:                                          Father! ...  As you wish.

FATHER MICHAEL:                         There’s not many men would have spoken out against Falcone – certainly none in this bar at this time.

SOLDIER (BITTER):                         And certainly not you, Father ...  not have enough dutch courage?

FATHER MICHAEL:                         Ah... even strangers know my reputation – or lack of one. ... Signor Falcone is not one of the God fearing Italian-Americans ..  we never see him in Church, unlike his countrymen who grew up here.  Falcone is from away.  Can’t remember exactly from where  .. or when he appeared, suddenly he was in our lives causing trouble.    He would not have noticed me.  There’s nothing I can do against the likes of him.

SOLDIER (RELENTING):                Don’t say that Father .... don’t  underestimate yourself .. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe   ...  I’ve seen the bravest men paralysed with fear and I’ve seen cowards do amazing things  ..  you may yet play a part.  Cheers!  (DOWNS WHISKEY IN ONE, GASPS, BANGS GLASS ON COUNTER) Can I buy you a drink Father?  I like the idea....  corrupting a man of the cloth.

FATHER MICHAEL:                         Thank you my son, but no.  I’ll not be staying.

BIG JOE:                                            Father Michael, not for you?  ...  Soldier, how about you ..  another Bushmills?

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah ..  make it another large one.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      This one’s on me Joe.

BIG JOE:                                            Sure thing, Officer.

SOLDIER:                                          What is this, can’t a man buy hisself a drink in this town?  Were you in here for that Officer  ..  and you don’t do nothing?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Listen soldier, I admire what you did, speaking up like that, I really do ... but we live here, we can’t pack our bags in the morning and catch the next flight.  We gotta stay.

SOLDIER:                                          He saw your uniform and took no notice.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      I’m just a beat cop .. I’ve got nothing but my night-stick and 30 years service ..  I’ll never put bracelets on the likes of Falcone.

SOLDIER:                                          Like I said to the Priest .. never say never ... you don’t know what you may do.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Well whatever ..  I’m on my way.  Take care soldier, don’t expect folks to stick their necks out for you. See ya around, ..   I hope.

BIG JOE:                                            You OK soldier?

SOLDIER:                                          Oh Yeah, Joe, I’m just fine ...  considering I’ve just been castrated for all to see, But Falcone is a sideshow anyways .. what about the mirror shooter? ...  you gotta find him now, Joe.  And, Joe, I gotta start moving things on myself ... can I clear my slate?  There’s the dinner for two, and some beers and stuff from last night.

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah, Yeah .. your check’s ready .. here...  $15, 50 cents ....   what’s all that?

FX:  SOUND OF A LOUD CLATTER AS A PILE OF COINS ARE DUMPED ON THE BAR

SOLDIER:                                          Dollar coins Joe .... 11 , 14 and 15.  And another five for your tip.  Why, What’s the matter? ... you gone ghost-white again Joe .. anyone would think ‘Signor Falcone’ walked back in.  Is it the coins?  My money not good enough for you?

BIG JOE:                                            No,  ... no, no problem soldier.  That’s just fine.

SOLDIER:                                          Over the last coupIa days I give you portraits of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, and you don’t bat an eye.  But I give you a load of brass and nickle and you go white as a sheet

whoa! ..

FX: ANOTHER BANG AS THE GLASS IS SLAMMED ON THE BAR

that whiskey’s gone to my head ...  shouldn’t drink in the middle of the day. .. I’m goin back to the hotel ....

(SOLDIER TALKS TO SLUR)

but I’ll see you another time  ..  

 tomorrow, I’ll be in for sure.  ..

We need to talk, you and me.  ...

You know Joe, you just need to find that shooter and all your troubles will fall away.  (VOICE RISING AS HE EXITS)  Find the shooter, Joe.  Find the shooter!

FX: SOLDIER EXITS TO THE SOUND OF COUNT BASSIE ON THE RADIO – ‘OPEN THE DOOR RICHARD’.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            The river’s picking up speed, the twists and turns are coming thick and fast.  Boy meets girl ...   boy loses girl.

SARAH:                                             Hi Joe, is that for me you sweetie?  -  you are good to me.

BIG JOE:                                            Sarah, I got a question for you.  The other day you were saying something about Soldier reminding you of the shooter ..  remember? .. something about shoes?

SARAH:                                             Has our friend from the east upset you Joe?  I thought you were getting on so well together.

BIG JOE:                                            I don’t know ... just he’s always on about the shootin  ..  and why did he turn up when he did? .. and why’s he so cagey about what he does?  I don’t know ... is he a Fed, is he a gumshoe?  Maybe he wasn’t phased by Falcone because it takes one to know one, yer know what I mean? .. is he an east coast mobster?  Jes -

SARAH:                                             Joe, Joe  -  this is so like you!  You ask a question and then you do all the talking ..  You asked about what I meant by the shoes ...  well it’s simple;  they sound the same.

BIG JOE:                                            They sound the same?

SARAH:                                             Yes, sound the same.  Our soldier friend will have carried some old habits into civilian life – like keeping his kit in tip-top condition.  Next time you see him, look at his shoes.  Highly polished, I’ll bet, even the leather soles – he squeeks when he walks. Well ... the guy with the shotgun .. he did the same.  I played my ‘dictabelt’ back the other day. You can hear on the recording .. the guy crashes open the door, and walks towards the bar.  There’s a shout to ‘Get down!’ from Officer Tremble .. then it’s silence ... and then it’s squeek, squeek .... boom, boom!

BIG JOE:                                            So the shoes sound the same.

SARAH:                                             Yes Joe, the shoes sound the same.

BIG JOE:                                            So ..?

SARAH:                                             Oh come on Joe, do I need to spell it out?   The shooter’s army ...  just like soldier boy!  That raises the possibility they know each other ... yes?

BIG JOE:                                            Guess so ... he says he’s coming back tomorrow – he made it sound like a threat.

SARAH:                                             Joe ...  you need to speak to Pop –

BIG JOE:                                            - Hey, I was just goin to...  how do you keep doing that Sarah? .. you seem to know just what’s going to happen next.

FX: RADIO FADES INTO SOUND OF ‘PHONE DIALING

BIG JOE:                                            Hi Mom ... can you put Pop on the line?

MOM (‘PHONE DISTORTED):        Hello Joseph ... He’s just sat down in his chair ... I don’t want to wake him right away.  To be honest Joseph, I was thinking of calling you,  he’s gone that colour, like before, when we had to take him to the hospital.  He says he dosen’t want the doctor – which means he dosen’t want to pay for the doctor – but I don’t know son, I just don’t know.

BIG JOE:                                            I’ll come round now, Mom, and see for myself.  If he needs the doc, I’ll pay.

FX: SCENE ENDS WITH ‘PHONE BEING CRASHED DOWN

SCENE 5: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SUNDAY, AROUND MIDDAY

FX: NO BACKGROUND CHAT, BAR IS EMPTY, ECHOEY – RADIO PLAYING BIG BAND MUSIC, QUIETLY.

DINER DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES LETTING IN A LITTLE STREET NOISE  – FOLLOWED BY THE SOUND OF SQUEEKING SHOES .

BIG JOE:                                            Hi soldier .. how ya doing?

SOLDIER:                                          Fine ..   how did you know it was me, with no mirror ?

BIG JOE:                                            Easy ...  your shoes squeek.

SOLDIER:                                          Well how about that.  ...  Open on a Sunday? You work seven days?

BIG JOE:                                            Yep, I work every hour God sends ..  when it’s yours you have to.  What can I get you.

SOLDIER:                                          I’ll have your famous egg and suasage and a coffee, strong with just a dash of milk.

FX: ESPRESSO STEAM SOUNDS, CROCKERY LANDING ON BAR.

BIG JOE:                                            There’s your coffee, add your own milk – the food’ll be a minute.  Manolo will bring it through when it’s ready – over easy, right?’

SOLDIER:                                          Right.

BIG JOE:                                            You said we needed to talk ... what’s on your mind?

SOLDIER:                                          I though I’d come in while you’re quiet – not expecting many Sunday, middle of the day?

BIG JOE:                                            Naw – just a few.

SOLDIER:                                          Well, to do with the shooter ... Why did you say there were two guys? .. and why did you say they were coming out of the bank? I checked the times with the beat Officer, the banks are all closed at that time.  (SIPS FROM HIS COFFEE, SOUND OF REPLACING IN SAUCER)

And there never was a second guy was there?  No one else saw one, Police ain’t looking for another ...  not even the well-informed Signor Falcone thinks there’s another. ...  so?

BIG JOE:                                            Who are you?  .. and what are you after?  I don’t think you’re so clean in all this.  Why you so interested?

SOLDIER:                                          Why did you say there was two, Joe?  .... I’ll tell you what I think, ... (PAUSE)

 You were giving a false lead .. by saying there was two means the fight was between them, and you and your bar are in the clear ...  but Joe, we both know that’s not true.

BIG JOE:                                            Why would I be the target? What have I done? I have no idea who this guy is  (PAUSE)

but I’ve a notion you do.

SOLDIER:                                          Oh yeah? .. what makes you say that.

BIG JOE:                                            He’s an old army buddy of yours, right?

SOLDIER:                                          No offence, fella, but I don’t think you worked that out by yourself.

BIG JOE:                                            I’ll take that as a ‘Yes’ then.

SOLDIER:                                          Maybe ... maybe not. .....(PAUSE)

How’s Pop, Joe?

BIG JOE:                                            What? ....   what the hell do ya mean by dragging him into this?

SOLDIER:                                          Why’s he so wasted Joe?  .. was it that big job the other week, the long haul to the east that needed all three trucks.  And the load was real heavy right?  Back breaking stuff .. and they drove back mighty quick ..  long hours behind the wheel ..   must have been in some kind of hurry.

BIG JOE:                                            Listen fella you are getting well out of line – my Pop’s not so good, he’s back in hospital.  I’m not in the mood for this – I’ve a mind to throw you out.

SOLDIER:                                          Easy big fella ...  you’re not throwing out the one guy who may know your shooter ... You might not know all that’s gone on, and you might not like me bringing ‘Pop’ into it -  but it ain’t me that’s dragging him in.  He’s in this up to his neck –and I didn’t put him there.  So we goin to discuss this like grown men or what?

BIG JOE:                                            Say what you got to say ..

SOLDIER:                                          I’m guessing .. but I’ll bet our friend Falcone has his talons into your old dad, am I right?  I’m thinking Pop’s got serious money problems; IRS, the bank ...  the local mob?

BIG JOE:                                            If he has it ain’t none of your business.

SOLDIER:                                          What makes your Pop my business, and you my business are these ....  these here $1 coins that spooked you so much.  I told you I was trading in metals.  Each one of these is 88.5% copper, 3.5% Manganese, 2% nickle and 6% zinc.

BIG JOE:                                            Well that’s all very interesting, but we don’t get much call for them round here, except for kids at Christmas – this is a greenback town.

FX: SOUND OF DOOR OPENING& CLOSING ONTO STREET

SOLDIER:                                          Still playing it cute ain’t you Joe ... like you don’t know what I’m talking about.  There’s one other big call on Dollar coins, Joe, and it  ain’t for kids –

MANOLO:                                          One egg an’ sausage! There you go sir.

FX: PLATE AND CUTLERY LAND ON BAR COUNTER

BIG JOE:                                            You eat up .. I’d better see to my other customer.

SOLDIER:                                          Take as long as you like, Joe, I’m not goin nowhere.

BIG JOE:                                            Father Michael ..  I don’t think I’ve seen you in here on a Sunday before .. to be honest Father you don’t look too good ...  you’re looking kinda yellow .. are you alright?

FATHER MICHAEL (WHEEZING & OUT-OF-BREATH):            Bless you Joe .. always thinking of others ...  I’ve not come for the usual ...  

I just wanted to tell you that I may not be in again ..

I feel a state of grace approaching ..

it’s so hard to breathe ...

the good Lord has smiled on me Big Joe -

BIG JOE:                                            Father, you’re not making a lot of sense ..  and I think I should get you back, you’re really not looking too good.

FATHER MICHAEL:                         Joe, it’s hard to talk ..

but I’m so happy today ...

the Lord will receive me in his arms on a Sunday .. and sober .. 

Joe it’s getting hard to see, and I’m feeling very dizzy -

BIG JOE:                                            Hey! Soldier!  Put your food down and help me with the Father will ya?  No steady Father, no don’t try walking back on yer own

FX: SOUND OF FURNITURE SCRAPING THE FLOOR

Father .. Father! ... Oh Christ!

FX: FATHER MICHAEL CRASHES INTO TABLE ON WAY TO THE FLOOR

SOLDIER:                                          Jesus, he’s gone down like he’s shot.

BIG JOE:                                            Help me soldier, for chrissake!

SOLDIER:                                          Mind out Joe, I’ll feel for a heart beat.  We need to turn him over....  (SOUND OF EXERTION TURNING BODY OVER) that’s it ....  I need to clear his airways... Jeez,...  Joe I ain’t getting a pulse, not a flicker. .... I’ve been here before big man – too many times – we’ve seen the last of Father Michael.

BIG JOE:                                            He’s dead? ... just like that?

SOLDIER:                                          I could try pumping his chest, an’ mouth-to-mouth but ... little point ... sorry Joe but he’s gone. .... hell, I guess he’s where he wants to be.

BIG JOE:                                            I’ll call the hospital – they’ll send a doc to certify he’s dead.

SOLDIER:                                          OK ...  no, just hang fire a minute Joe ... (PAUSE)  Joe I’ve got an idea ...  the good Lord is about to deliver us from evil ... give me a hand will you.  We need to get him out of sight ... you got a cold store or something?

BIG JOE:                                            The cellar’s cool ..  what are you thinking soldier?

SOLDIER:                                          I’m thinking this could be Father Michael’s finest hour.

FX: RADIO FADES TO SOUND OF THE TWO MEN STRUGGLING WITH THE BODY

SCENE 6: IN THE CELLAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SUNDAY, AFTER MIDDAY

FX: ECHOEY.  SOUND OF FEET SCUFFLING ON FLOOR AS THEY STRUGGLE TO CARRY THE BODY

THEIR VOICES ECHO AGAINST THE BUZZ OF A FLURESCENT TUBE, A SINISTER ATMOSPHERE

SOLDIER:                                          Jez .. he’s heavy .. put him down on this surface here.  Phew! ...  what is this place?

BIG JOE:                                            Before it was a diner it was a butchers ...  and this was the cold store ... and this here was the butcher’s block.

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah? ..  is that appropriate?  Now there’s stuff to do  -

BIG JOE:                                            Hey!  .  what are you doing?

SOLDIER:                                          Listen, I’ll tell you what we’re goin to do .. but don’t get all squeamish on me now.  I’m doing this to save your neck ... just remember that.  This is a bit of glass that he broke when he fell...  I’m going to cut his face with it.   Listen Joe  .. listen good .. you need to call Falcone now, I mean right now, so he gets his ass over here pronto.  He doesn’t know the Father ..  so we’re gona pass the priest off as the shooter ... doya get it?  He’s lookin for a one-eyed guy with his face cut from the mirror, remember?  Are you with me?

BIG JOE:                                            Oh Jesus .. I don’t believe this... we’ll have to get rid of the frock.

SOLDIER:                                          Good ... now you’re starting to think straight .. have you got a suit here?  .. No?  ..  OK .. I guess he’ll have to have mine  ....  and I’ll play priest for a while.

BIG JOE:                                            I’ll go make the call.

SOLDIER:                                          Hey Joe .. keep it simple .. the less detail the better .. tell him the shooter won’t be troublin nobody no more ...  and he’s here for him to looksee.

BIG JOE:                                            OK ...  hey where did you get that?

SOLDIER:                                          The eye-patch?  ..  I’ve been busy while I’ve been in town.  I found the same spot – a theatrical store -  where the shooter bought his  .. not far from here ... and not far from the drugstore where he got iodene to treat his cuts ... Jesus Joe .. go make that call for chrissake! ...  (SPEAKING TO HIMSELF) ... now how the hell do you defrock a dead priest?

FX: BUZZ FROM LIGHT FADES DOWN AND UP AGAIN AS BIG JOE’S FOOTSTEPS RETURN

SOLDIER:                                          Well, what did he say? You’re going to have to do this on yer own Big Joe   ... he can’t see me in the frock.  And how’s Manolo, and have you got any customers?

Big Joe:                                              Yeah,  yeah he’s on his way.  And no, no customers and don’t worry about Manolo, it’s not  the first time he’s seen me shut up for Falcone.  Anyway he’s got one of them televisions in the kitchen.

SOLDIER:                                          As soon as Falcone’s gone we gotta work at the double, switching the Father back upstairs, then calling the doc.

BIG JOE:                                            Here, take this, I brought down some iodene. It maight make the cuts look older.

SOLDIER:                                          Smart thinking Joe ..  you’re warmng to this.

BIG JOE                                             No I ain’t ... I feel sick. I don’t know how you could cut him like that!

SOLDIER:                                          Well listen Joe ... you’re goin to have to look away one more time ‘cos there’s one last job I gotta do.  Look away Joe ... look away.

FX: A SQUELCHING SOUND

BIG JOE:                                            Oh Jesus Christ! ... what did you have to do that for .. Jesus,  that’s disgusting!

SOLDIER:                                          It had to be done Joe.

BIG JOE:                                            But why?... you’d got an eye-patch for him..

SOLDIER:                                          Falcone wants to see a one-eyed jack – so that’s what we’re giving him.

FX: BANGING IN THE DISTANCE

BIG JOE:                                            He didn’t waste no time.  Right .. I’d better go and bring him in.

SOLDIER:                                          I’ll be in the shadows ... best of luck big man.

SARAH:                                             I got the next bit from officer Tremble, among the city’s longest serving but least challenged boys in blue.  Officer T has worn his own path in this city’s sidewalks for 30 years with a singular and resentful lack of drama, until today. He milked it for all it was worth   .....  never dreaming he would top it.

SCENE 7: IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SUNDAY, AN HOUR LATER

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Whatcha reckon Doc?  Was it his drinking that did for him?

DOCTOR:                                          I don’t know officer, other than he looks jaundiced which can be a sign of liver damage.  A massive heart failure or a stroke of some kind possibly.  I’ve never seen that before – with the eye I mean.  You say he was a drinker?   ...  an usual past time for a Priest  .. was he a heavy drinker?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Yes, Doc ...  a real problem in later years .. he got real drunk, real quick..  and he used to do this thing, when he was well gone, where he would ..  oh , never mind ... Right I want to wrap up my report  .. just sign here that he’s stiff and I’ll check out the guys who were with him at the end ... Hey, Joe!

FX: SOUND OF TREMBLE’S BIG BOOTS MARCHING ACROSS THE FLOOR

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Hi Joe, you too soldier, so .. exactly what happened?  Big Joe, startin with you.

BIG JOE:                                            Only the two of us in.  The English lady‘s due about that time so I made her Margorita and took it to her table.  As I’m walking back  Father Michael comes wheezing in and follows me.  He tugs my sleeve and starts saying weird stuff about God waiting for him.  He was real breathless ... he started to stagger.  He took small steps towards the door .. and then suddenly ,  as the soldier says, it was like he was shot ... he went down straight onto her ladyship’s table ,  taking the Margorita glass with him.

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      So that’s what cut his face you reckon?  .. yes soldier, you were sayin?

SOLDIER:                                          I turned him ... I was thinkin of what we used to do in the army .. resuss..  I had to pick the bits of glass outta him to do the mouth to mouth ... but o’course as soon as I turned him we saw this business with the eye that kinda put us back a bit.  At first we couldn’t work out where it was .. and then I looked at the table and there in the remains of the glass was the cocktail stick ...  and on the stick was an olive and ... well you’ve seen for yourself .....   next to the olive, skewered like a pickled onion ... was Father Michael’s eye.

FX: STUNNED SILENCE

SCENE 8: IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. SUNDAY EVENING

FX: FADE UP RADIO MUSIC QUIETLY, EXCITED CHATTER

SARAH:                                             Joe, my angel .. if it’s all the same with you I’ll skip the Margorita this evening and stick with the Italian  ..  not sure I’ll brave another olive ever again.

BIG JOE:                                            Oh don’t Miss Sarah .. don’t go there.

SARAH:                                             Have a drink yourself ..  go on .. have it on me.  Whatever tickles your fancy.

SARAH:                                             Thank you, your ladyship, I’ll have whatever’s got the biggest kick.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            You do that Joe ...  get some strong spirit in you ...  you never know what’s round the next bend in the river. 

 FX:The Murmur Of Chat Underscores The Clink Of Ice On Glass

Soldier Boy and Big Joe are listening to the baseball on the radio – where the commentator talks of a ‘double whammy’.   Poor Joe.

FX: RADIO IS TUNED TO BASEBALL

SOLDIER:                                          You done good, Big Joe – especially that line to Falcone when he asked who did for the shooter; ‘Well Signor Falcone, I heard you did.’   He’ll be speading that around like muck on the fields.

HEINRICH:                                         So will I Big Joe – everyone in my cab’s gonna hear how Falcone closed the other eye of the Nighthawk shooter.  Don’t ya worry ya friends will see you right.  Falcone will leave you alone now, right enough.

BIG JOE:                                            Hey, Heinrich ....  how many times have I told you it’s rude to lip read private conversations!

HEINRICH:                                         Ha Ha ...  today’s a good day eh Joe.  Let’s drink to the success of the Nighthawk bar .. and to you soldier boy. Eh, you know I understood every word you said the other night?  Ha!  I loved the way you started shouting , real s l o w  -  you know soldier when you’re deaf the world can shout as loud as it likes, I’m still not goin’ to hear a word you say! – how ever slowly you say it.

SOLDIER:                                          Let me buy you a drink Heinrich.

HEINRICH:                                         Well thank you soldier, I’ll celebrate with a ....   Big Joe I wanna be the first to say this cos you’re goin to get asked a hundred times a day from now on ...  Soldier, thank you ...  I’ll have one of them, you know long tall drinks, whadathey called Joe?  ..  oh yeah ... an ‘ighball!  Ha Ha!

BIG JOE:                                            Ahhh. Don’t!   I swear to God it was lookin at me!

SARAH (CLOSE):                            They’re having a good time at the bar – great to see Joe smiling.  But then there’s that writer’s curse again ... you build them up, just to knock ‘em down..

MANOLO:                                          Ola! ... Senor Joe  .. for you .. on telephone .. the hopital.

FX: BAR SOUNDS FADE TO OUT

SCENE 9: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. MONDAY 7:00PM

FX: RADIO MUSIC FADES UP QUIETLY, CHATTER

SOLDIER:                                          So who’s smart idea to put the deaf guy behind the bar?

HEINRICH:                                         Hey soldier, howsya head?  Good to see ya!  I’m regular stand in  ...  When it’s real noisy I’m the only one that can tell what people are saying ...  what can I getcha?

SOLDIER:                                          A beer Heinrich,  one of them warm English ones.  So no Joe?

HEINRICH:                                         Ahh.   You didn’t hear ....  sorry to say that ‘Pop’ passed away ... his heart failed him one last time.

SOLDIER:                                          No say! ... that’s too bad ... Joe’s having an interesting time of it....

 Well, well what have we here ... of all the bars in all the world, why did yer have to walk into this one?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Hello soldier boy  ... didn’t you just love that movie? ... it’s my absolute fave.  Ain’t yer pleased to see me?  ...  and I came all this way to be with ya.

SOLDIER:                                          Sugar .. you live around the corner.  What you mean is this is the first time you’ve been home – but I see you’re wearing a nice new dress ...  and what’s that on your wrist? ..  an expensive looking watch ..  ..  real diamonds?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Soldier darling, I can’t help it if I like nice expensive things and nice expensive things like me ... they positively fling themselves at me.

SOLDIER:                                          So I see.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Listen I can’t stop ...  Henrich, be an angel and give this card to Joe ..  I did like ‘Pop’.

HEINRICH:                                         Sure thing beautiful, no problem – Joe’ll be along shortly.

SOLDIER:                                          News travels fast, Sugar  -  how did you know about Pop?

JOSEPHNE:                                      Well, I heard Enrico – that’s Signor Falcone to you - saying to some of his friends that they needed to go pay their respects to Joe’s family.

SOLDIER:                                          Sugar ... they’re not ‘friends’, those hoods work for Falcone ..  and they won’t be paying ‘respects’.  Pop will have owed your lover-boy money, a lotta money.  (MUTTERS) No sooner has Joe dodged one bullet, than another heads his way.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Well I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I gotta get ready.  Enrico’s picking me up here at 9:00 – see ya soldier, and cheer up for chrissakes.  If you didn’t act so glum a girl might want to spend more time around ya ..  lighten up a little, why dontcha?

SOLDIER:                                          So long ......        Sugar.

FX: SOUND OF STILLETTO HEELS TAPPING AWAY

HEINRICH:                                         You still sore about that one soldier?

SOLDIER:                                          Ahhh ... can’t make her out ... is she really that empty beteen the ears? .. somehow I don’t think so.  Maybe I’m better off without a woman ...  hey, Joe .. real sorry about Pop .

HEINRICH:                                         Yeah, me too Joe,  listen you didna have to come over, I can handle the bar you know that.

BIG JOE:                                            Hi Heinrich .. thanks, thanks ... but there’s stuff I gotta sort.  Starting with you soldier ...  Heinrich you OK to stay?

HEINRICH:                                         No worries boss .. you wanna a drink?

BIG JOE:                                            Nah .. I need a clear head.   Soldier, come over here we need to talk.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            Watching Big Joe and Soldier is like being ringside – one minute they’re bashing six bells out of each other, and then they’re hugging.  Just can’t tell which way this one’s going to go.

BIG JOE:                                            What’s with these Dollar coins soldier?

SOLDIER:                                          You ready for this .. what with Pop and all? ... and I gotta tell ya that Falcone’s coming here tonight .. in less than an hour.

BIG JOE:                                            What’s with the coins, for chrissake? .. I’ll deal with Falcone later.  When Pop came back from that long-haul east  – Atlantic City, I think he said – he was flush with Dollar coins.  He was like a kid at Christmas. ..  and then you start fishing them outya pocket.  That’s all I know .. other than all this is connected somehow  .. Pop going on that job, the shooter, you.  So talk to me soldier, talk to me.

SOLDIER:                                          This could take some telling .. sure you don’t want a drink? .. OK.  Pop was into Falcone for a lot –we’’ll find out shortly how much.  (PAUSE)  The shooter’s name is Bartoli – I knew him as Corporal Bartoli, he led my platoon ... Sicily and then Italy.  He took a blow to the head at Anzio and was never the same again – but then nor was any other soldier that began the battle as a human being ..  I’m getting sidetracked ..

BIG JOE:                                            The Dollar coins soldier, the coins.

SOLDIER:                                          Yeah the coins ..  remember me saying there was another big call on the coins, other than Christmas? .. yeah?   Does Atlantic City and Dollar coins not ring alarm bells for you  .  it should do .. it’s a hellova dangerous combination.  Let me spell it out..  Casinos.

BIG JOE:                                            I gotcha .. I think.

SOLDIER:                                          Have ya, Big Joe?  Just think it through and see if you can work out how bad the trouble is we’re in here ...  who owns the casinos Big Joe, who’s coming after us?

BIG JOE:                                            Oh Jeez .

SOLDIER:                                          Oh Yes, Big Joe, Oh Jeez .. these guys have the likes of Falcone for breakfast.

BIG JOE:                                            But I’m not involved ... what the hell’s it got to do with me?  And where do you come in?

SOLDIER:                                          This’ll take some tellin an’all.  If you’re not drinkin, I am.  (GLUGS BEER AND LANDS GLASS HEAVILY ON BAR. GLEN MILLER STRIKES UP IN THE MOOD)

There’s these three guys, kicked out the army after the war is over.  No prospects, no skills other than killing other human beings.  What use are we to decent society, eh?  Well my corporal – remember, the guy with the blow to the head – has a brainwave ‘cos he met a guy in the war who knew someone who was related to someone who was married to someone’s sister .. you get the picture.  He learns of these special mints of Dollar coins the Fed Reserve does for Christmas and for the casinos ..  you wouldn’t believe the amounts involved.  ..  .. (REPEATS DRINK FROM BEER GLASS)

So my corporal finds me two years after demob, doin nothin, goin nowhere and puts this plan together.  We gonna rob the mint’s delivery to the casinos in Atlantic City  -  but what he doesn’t tell us until the day ..  is that we’re gonna leave the bank notes behind and we’re only gonna take the coins – cos the notes are traceable and the coins are not.  This is were the tap on the head he took at Anzio plays its part – how did the mutton-head think we were goin to get rid of $2 million in coins without anyone noticing?

BIG JOE:                                            Oh Jeez ...  but how did Pop get involved? .. and are you telling me the Feds are after you for knocking off a government bank?

SOLDIER:                                          Oh no .. we’re not that smart .. no, you see, the casinos – that is the mob – buys the money from the mint and as soon as it leaves the government compound it becomes their property.  My corporal, myself and this other fella only robbed the meanest sons-of-bitches on the east coast.

BIG JOE:                                            What other fella?

SOLDIER:                                          He’s kinda important isn’t he?  In Italy Bartoli hooked up with a GI by the name of Jerry Walsh ... mean anything?  No?   What if I tell you he was born with a different name? ...  Jerzy Kowalkski?

BIG JOE                                             Oh wow! ...  now he was a cousin of sorts .. don’t remember too much ..  didn’t he do time?

SOLDIER:                                          Oh yeah, he did time.  That’s where he got into the habit of changing names. Jerry knows a guy thats got three big removal trucks that can take the bulk and the weight of $2 million in coin –

BIG JOE:                                            Oh no, don’t say – Pop!

SOLDIER:                                          Sorry brother, but yeah your cousin pulled your Pop into this stupid, dumb deal.  Pop painted the eagles off the trucks and told his drivers where to leave them while we loaded and to come back when done.  The drivers never knew, we never seen the drivers.  After the robbery the guys drive back and park up in Pop’s yard and he gives them a month off. ....  and gives hisself a heart attack.

BIG JOE:                                            But the shooter.  And you ...?

SOLDIER:                                          Joe ....  no easy way to say this, your Pop double crossed us.  They were supposed to take the trucks to Nevada and we would flood the machines and the tables there with the coins – like how stupid was that? – but we went to Nevada and the trucks never showed....  Bartoli went beserk.  But before asking him any questions like where might the money be, or who were the truckers – cos we didn’t know – he slit Jerry’s throat.

BIG JOE:                                            Oh Christ! ... and he’s still alive this Bartoli, he’s still around here ... he’s the shooter.

SOLDIER:                                          Yes he is Joe ... you got a heap of problems big man ... you got Falcone here any time now,  you got Bartoli - a homicidal madman who could turn up any time,  you got your pop’s trucks – now your property – that were used in an armed robbery, and at some point the east coast mobsters are going to find out who ripped them off.

BIG JOE:                                            And then there’s you, soldier  -  what are you after, apart from your $2 million I mean?

SOLDIER:                                          Ain’t that reason enough?  I split after Bartoli did his knife act– decided I’d make my own mistakes from then on.  Couldn’t do any worse.

BIG JOE:                                            So how did you find us?

SOLDIER:                                          Your mirror Joe, your treasured eagle mirror ....  you see these new kinda lights you got .. these tubes here?

BIG JOE:                                            The flurescent lights?

SOLDIER:                                          Well they were used in the underground garage where Pop had parked up the trucks – except they were a bit blue.  And they have strange effects these new lights ...  when we were loading the loot you could see the trucks had been repainted – you could even read the old paint underneath, ‘Eagle Transport’ and  ‘Joseph Kowalski’.  And of course there was your eagle  -  exactly the same eagle that Bartoli saw on your mirror that night he walked in.  In daylight they looked plain white trucks, but those tube lights gave the game away.  Of course when he got back Pop had to paint them back again.  It wasn’t difficult after that for Bartoli to track you down – I was just a bit slower, took me a week longer to work it out, by which time it was too late.

BIG JOE:                                            What do ya mean, too late?

SOLDIER:                                          Bartoli found you before I found Bartoli. ...  So now you know Joe.  Anyway here’s your next problem; striding in likes he owns the place.

BIG JOE:                                            Signor Falcone ....   what can I do for you?  I wasn’t expecting you.

FALCONE:                                        Good evening Joseph.  I have come to pay condolences  -  is OK to call you Joseph, now your father has so sadly passed away? It seems only proper to address you in his name.  You inherit his property, you inherit his name  ...   and ... of course his ....  obligations.

BIG JOE:                                            Obligations?

FALCONE:                                        Debts

BIG JOE:                                            What debts? .. I know nothing about any debts.

FALCONE:                                        I put a lot into helping your father  ... when no one else would ; no bank, no help from family, I was there ...  as a true friend  ... I kept giving him more and more....  and more.

BIG JOE:                                            What do you want Falcone?

FALCONE:                                        I want what is mine   ... Kowalski.  I have drawn up legal documents for the transfer of your father’s business and house to me.

BIG JOE:                                            House?!  ...  my mother lives in that house ... it’s hers .. you can’t have that house.

FALCONE:                                        I am a generous man ....  and considerate man at this time of your family’s need.  Your mother may remain in the house ... rent free.  Am I not reasonable? 

(PAUSE)

Rent free to her of course, you’ll have to pay it for her.  I’ve had the documents prepared ... just sign here Joseph

BIG JOE:                                            I’ll not sign ... not my mother’s house!

FALCONE:                                        Joseph, I have already documents signed by your father giving his business and his property as security against the money I loaned him.  I am here to get what is legally mine.  If you don’t sign – I go through the courts, and I take everything, house .. everything.  Who knows – this bar too?

SOLDIER:                                          Hey Big Joe ... sign it.

BIG JOE:                                            Stay outta this soldier .. this is my fight.

SOLDIER:                                          Trust me Joe ...  this is the right thing to do ... do as Signor Falcone says.  As soon as you’ve signed it he’s outta here.  Just make sure you get a copy.

BIG JOE:                                            I don’t have a choice. Do I? ... 

(PAUSE)

OK ... show me where to sign.

FALCONE:                                        Glad you were able to talk sense to him, Soldier.  I’m impressed.  I maybe see you around.

SOLDIER:                                          Maybe .... I’ll keep an eye out for ya.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            That’s heartbreaking to listen to ...Joe down, and taking a kicking ... and he’s still got the east coast gangsters and the madman with the shotgun to worry about .... and soldier of course.

SCENE 10: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. MONDAY 9:00PM

FX: NORMAL BAR CHAT AND BACKGROUND MUSIC

BIG JOE:                                            What am I going to tell Mom?

SOLDIER:                                          You’re not going to tell her anything.  She need never know.  But listen.. you’re not done yet.  I need to speak to the beat officer – does he come in every night?

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah .. he’ll be in. What game you playing soldier?  Whose side you on?

SOLDIER:                                          You’re going to have to trust me Joe ..  well, hello sugar .. you’ve missed lover-boy he left an hour ago ... hey  sweet Jesus, what happened to your face?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Oh soldier darling .. he hit me.

SOLDIER:                                          Falcone?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Well that rather nice wrist watch ...  I didn’t think his wife would miss it .. but he went crazy.

SOLDIER:                                          So he didn’t buy you that watch? ... you just took it?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Uh huh.

SOLDIER:                                          And what’s with this suitcase – you planning on going somewhere?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Well it’s quite a long story – do you think a gal could have a drink sometime soon?

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Soldier I heard you were looking for me?

SOLDIER:                                          Yes Officer  – how would you like the drop on Signor Enrico Falcone? 

OFFICER TREMBLE:                      Are you playing me soldier, or is this for real?  I’m warning yer ..

SOLDIER:                                          Hey Joe, get sugar what she wants will ya?  I need a quiet word with the Officer here.

FX: BAR NOISE DIMS

SOLDIER (CLOSE):                         This is how we get Joe out the jam.  Falcone is sitting on $2 million in cash from an east coast bank job  – you don’t need to know how I know.  You’ve just witnessed what’s gone on here – Falcone now has legal ownership of Eagle Transport and all its assets.

OFFICER TREMBLE (CLOSE):     And so .. just where’s all this headin?

SOLDIER (CLOSE):                         You need to get down to Joseph senior’s yard, like right now.  The 2 Million is still sitting in the three trucks in the yard.  But you’ll need to move fast – as soon as the east coast mob get wind they’ll sort Falcone out and there won’t be much left of him for you.

OFFICER TREMBLE                       You’d better not be bulling me soldier –

SOLDIER :                                         There’s only one way to find out .. and take Big Joe’s copy of the document he just signed.

FX: BACKGROUND NOISE SWELLS AGAIN

BIG JOE:                                            What you playing at Soldier ..  what did you want with Tremble?

SOLDIER:                                          Less said the better.. you’re just goin to have to trust me Big Joe.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Big Joe, are these any use to you? .. here, I put them in the case as I was leaving.  I think they’re some kinda papers to do with Pop.. I found them in Enrico’s safe.

BIG JOE:                                            Let’s see (PAUSE)

They’re the securities for the loans.  Josephine you are a miracle!  Say .. that’s some shiner you got there.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Yeah well, he’s paying for it now... so what do you say soldier .. did I do right?

SOLDIER:                                          Sugar, sounds like you did just fine .. But you’re gonna have to back track a bit .. I thought you were at your own place.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Yeah, I was.  But Enrico came round early in a rage about his wife’s stupid little watch, that I never liked that much anyway.  In the fight I managed to fetch his keys outta his suit.  The second he left to come here I hoofed it round to his place.  His wife was drunk in bed as usual so no one bothered me while I went through his safe. I put what I wanted in this suitcase and came to find my favorite soldier boy.

SARAH (CLOSE):                            The drinks are flowing freely and

alcohol wraps the usual crowd in its warm embrace. 

Suddenly the mood changes, the noise falls away to a threatening silence ..

FX: THE BAR DOOR ONTO THE STREET OPENS AND CLOSES, CHATTER FALLS AWAY, ALL THAT REMAINS IS ELLA FITZGERALD SINGING ‘LITTLE YELLOW BASKET’

(PAUSE)

FOOTSTEPS PROGRESS IN MEASURED STRIDE TOWARDS THE BAR, THE SHOES SQUEEK.

SOLDIER:                                          Hi, Corp ..

BARTOLI:                                           Private.  I see you worked it out ..  Let’s get what we came for and then we can leave these people alone.

SOLDIER:                                          I’ve got what I want Corp, and anyways .. (PAUSE)  you’re too late ... the money’s gone.

BARTOLI:                                           You went AWOL private, you abandoned your unit.  I’m prepared to overlook the matter if we just get the money and go .. now.

SOLDIER:                                          For Chrissake Bartoli, we’re not in the army now – quit playing soldiers and get real will ya?  And I’ve just told yer – there ain’t no money

BARTOLI:                                           You double-crossing snake ..

FX: THERE ARE SCREAMS AND SHOUTS TO ‘GET DOWN’

SARAH (CLOSE):                            Just like before there are two shots in quick succession .. except this time they are not the Boom, Boom of a shotgun – but two loud cracks.

FX: TWO LOUD CRACKS, MUSIC FADES

SCENE11: AT THE BAR IN THE NIGHTHAWK DINER. MONDAY 11:00PM

FX: RADIO MUSIC FADES UP, ON QUIETLY, CHATTER

SOLDIER:                                          Do you remember what I told you Joe when you asked me what I did?  I said I dealt in metal – a bit of brass and nickle. ... and every now and then I traded lead.

BIG JOE:                                            Yeah I remember. (PAUSE)  I get the picture.

SOLDIER:                                          I came for him, Joe – I didn’t come for the money.  It was never about the money.  It was always about him.  When you’ve been through the stuff we went through,  you’re more than brothers.  I knew his scheme was madness, but I’d follow him whatever.  But when he opened your cousin’s throat as casually as slitting a rabbit – I took off.  Over the following days I realised what I had to do.  So I followed the trail of the coins.  I knew they would lead me to him.  I had to stop him, Joe.  I couldn’t let someone else do it .....  and I couldn’t see him in a prison ...  or a straight-jacket.

BIG JOE:                                            What happens now soldier?  Falcone may or may not end up inside, he still legally owns Mom’s house – where do I stand?

SOLDIER:                                          Don’t worry – Falcone isn’t goin to spend more than a day on the inside.

BIG JOE:                                            I don’t follow ..

SOLDIER:                                          We can’t trust the police or the justice system to deal with the likes of Falcone – if we want him out the picture we need the Atlantic City mob to take him out.  Last I looked they weren’t in the ‘phone book – but I’ll bet that within two hours of his arrest the east coast will know who’s in the frame, and within another hour the contract will be out for Enrico Falcone.  A coupla hours after that he’ll be at the bottom of Lake Michigan ...    wearing cement boots.

JOSEPHINE:                                     Soldier darling, I did tell ya you’ve got to lighten up if you want to get the girl at the end of the movie.

SOLDIER:                                          You did sugar. I’m done now.  Now what we going to do you and me?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Soldier boy, cos I love you and I want to look after you I’ve orgainsed it so we can do whatever we like.

SOLDIER:                                          Go on Angel, how have you managed that?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Well, I know you trade in paper and metal so I thought you might like a break from the heavy stuff.

SOLDIER:                                          I’m listening sugar .. where’s this going?

JOSEPHINE:                                     And I know you like art ‘cos you and I spent a wonderful morning together at the Institute .. so  when I was looking in Enrico’s safe I thought to myself – what would my soldier boy like from here?  .. and do you know there it was right in front of me .. so I brought you as many as I could in the biggest suitcase I could find.

SOLDIER:                                          Sugar, what have you done? 

JOSEPHINE:                                     Who’s your favourite President, Soldier Boy?   Washington, Lincoln, Jackson, Cleaver?  Shall I tell you who mine is soldier boy?...  of all the Presidents the one I like the best is Madison.

SOLDIER:                                          Honey are you telling me what I think you’re telling me? ... what’s in the suitcase sugar?

JOSEPHINE:                                     Because I love you so much, I left behind all that lovely jewellry just so I could fill this case, art lover, with portraits of presidents; including a whole bundle of Cleaver and Madison.

FX: PLAY OUT TO ‘BOOGIE WOOGIE BUGLE BOY OF COMPANY B’