Rusty Gets the Collywobbles

I had been ordered by the headmaster to get my hair cut before I could attend school in New Zealand…

“Huh?” I repeated. “Short what and what?”

"Short back and sides, young man," said he. 

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“All students,” Mr Hamilton intoned, “without exception, will comply with the regulations regarding hair length. The regulation, young man, is short back and sides.”

He looked down at his work and waved me away, saying, “This discussion is ended. Report to me before assembly Monday morning. Be gone, boy.”

Next day I caught the bus into Avonmore to get a haircut. As I entered the little town’s only barbershop, a group of four boys about my age followed in behind me.

The barbershop had been empty until our arrival. Seeing me, the barber motioned that I was next, and the boys behind me seated themselves on a bench to wait their turns.

“Step up, if you please, sir,” said the barber with a smile. 

“Well,” I shrugged. “Okay.”

I eased myself into the barber’s chair, saying, “Short back and sides, please.” Even with these few words, I could hear my American accent resounding within the mirrored barbershop. The boys on the bench, hearing me, perked up, and paid more attention.

“Which school?” asked the barber. 

“Huh?” I answered. I was surprised by the barber’s question, and unsure if I had heard him right. Surprise and uncertainty, my usual state since arriving in New Zealand. I answered his question with a question. “What do you mean?” 

“Which school are you attending?” he asked. 

I heard stifled laughter from the boys on the bench. I could tell I was making a fool of myself. Gathering my courage, I asked, “Why do you need to know which school?”

[For my American readers, I will interpret the barber within these brackets.]

“Crikey, mate! [Jeepers, friend!]” exclaimed the barber. “For a minute I forgot you was from America! Strewth! [God’s truth!] Went on a little mental holiday, I did. Haha! That makes me a bit of a dag [a bit of a fool], don’t it, sir?” 

It was known in the town that Jack and Rose from Manuka Farm had inherited an orphaned American boy, and the barber, hearing my accent, had put two and two together and come up with… me.

“I need to know which school,” he said, “in order to give you the correct haircut. Short means short, to some, and not so much to others.”

“Avonmore College,” I said.

A gasp went up from the boys on the bench. “Hammy!” 

“Ah. Mister Hamilton, is it?” said the barber. “Then it’ll be short means short.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry,” assured the barber. “You’ll be chuffed [pleased].” 

“I’ll be what?” 

“Chuffed, mate. Dead chuffed [very pleased]. You’ll see.” 

He stood back and looked at my head with the air of an artiste. “Let’s take a squiz [look] at you, mate. Yes,” he said, “It ought to be easy enough… a plate of piss  [a piece of cake]. No need for the collywobbles. [No need to be nervous.] 

“The what?” I asked, but he had already begun to snip away at my hair, talking all the while.

“Avonmore College, eh?” said the barber. “Used to be an American Navy hospital, back in the war.” He raised his voice to include the audience of boys on the bench. “Did you know that, lads?” They looked as if they did know, and had heard it all a thousand times before, too. He turned back to me. “You being a Yank, I suppose you’d appreciate that, eh? Haha! Oh, don’t get me wrong, mate, I like yanks. Sure I do! Some folks finds them a bit dodgy [doubtful] maybe, a bit stroppy [excitable] sometimes, but not me. Why, I remember back in the army, they was always free with the smokes and good with the jokes!” 

“What about their bleedin football?” asked one of the boys derisively. “Whataya call that?”

“They don’t play footie!” said another. “They play grid iron!” 

“Now lads,” said the barber. “They can’t help it…”

They argued good-naturedly about football for a minute while I listened without comprehension. The barber was enjoying himself, I could see that. He was a likeable fellow, with a friendly way about him. 

“Yes,” he continued, “back in them days we was even too knackered to rattle our dags! [too tired to move our backsides!] We was even too skint for the sparky [too poor to afford an electrician!] and just about buggered [done in]. Too bleedin right!” [Ain’t it the truth!]

“What? I’m bleeding?” I asked, but he didn’t hear.

“Yes, no time for wankers! [self-lovers!]” he exclaimed. “No place for pikers! [quitters!] No use for bludgers! [parasites!]”

“For who?” I asked.  

“Pikers, mate! Nor wankers neither! Bunch of drongoes [fools], the lot of ‘em!” 

He snipped away at my hair.

“Well, mate,” he asked. “What do you think of Godzone?”

“Guards what?” I answered.

“God’s Own,” he replied, speaking louder and more slowly. “New Zealand. God’s own country. What do you make of it so far?”

“Gee, uh,” I said. “I don’t know.”  

“He don’t know,” mimicked one of the boys, and they laughed a little.

New Zealand? I really didn’t know. Everything was different. Why were even the simplest things, like turning on a light switch or the names of food or even understanding what people were talking about, so difficult now? 

“Well, give it time, lad,” said the barber. 

“Yeah,” I said quietly, not wanting anymore comments of mine to draw anymore comments from the bench. 

“I came to Avonmore after the war,” the barber continued. “Married a kiwi sheila from the wop-wops [a New Zealand girl from the rural districts] and settled down in the bach on Whangaparoa [lived in a small house by the sea]. ’Course, it wasn’t all chilli bins [ice chests] and jandals [flip-flops, it wasn’t all a day at the beach]. No sir! But we got our A into G! [our Asses into Gear] We got stuck in! Went for the hard yakka [difficult work], and stayed off the dole [refused unemployment assistance], until it all come a-cropper! [until it all failed!]”

He paused a moment, as if to reflect. “Oh, well,” he added. “Here I am now, good as! [good as gold!] No time to pack a sad [feel sorry for one’s self], eh? Haha! It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.”

It’s a good life if you don’t weaken. Somehow the truth of this stood out like a bright diamond to my young soul, and has done ever since.

The barber switched from using scissors to electric clippers. With a load click they began to buzz.

“What part of the States are you from?” he asked over the buzzing.

One of the boys from the bench said something I couldn’t hear and they laughed again. I wished I could join in and have a laugh too. I hadn’t talked to any boys my age since arriving in New Zealand.

Before I could answer, the barber continued, “I’ve got a nephew in, ah, let me think… Tampa Bay.” He paused a moment to consider. “Yeah. Tampa Bay. Maybe you know him? Name’s Nick? Nick Botica? Big bloke, used to be a panel beater [straightener of automobile bodies]. Loves to knock ‘em back when he’s on the piss [enjoys a few beers when he has the opportunity]. But mind you, he won’t be laughed at, chafed at, or slung shit at! Haha! Not old Nick!”

“Sorry,” I replied. “I’m from Cali…”

“Never mind,” said the barber. “Not to worry. She’ll be right!”

“Shelby who?” I asked. I had been hearing this person’s name since the day I arrived in New Zealand. Shelby Wright? I didn’t even know if it was a boy’s name or a girl’s, yet it was on everyone’s lips. Shelby Wright!

With a click the clippers stopped buzzing and the laughter of the boys entered my consciousness.

What was so funny, I wondered?

The barber stepped back from his work and I glimpsed myself in the mirror. 

It was me that was funny. 

“Whaaa?” I gasped. I was stunned. All that remained of my hair was a tuft of whitish blonde, perched at the very top of my pale, shiny cranium. The rest was gone! No more Viva Las Vegas for me. My head looked rather like a small white dove was attempting to land on an overturned china bowl, flapping it’s wings for balance. 

Only nowhere near as beautiful. Some things are too horrible and I had to look away. 

Seeing this, the barber spoke.

“No need for the collywobbles, young sir,” he said. “Avonmore College. Mister Hamilton. Short means short, to some. There, there, sir, Shelby Wright!”

"No Foolin!" Pt 2

[New York City. Winter, 1987. I was standing in Vinny's office, applying for a job as a messenger.]

“Criminal record?” he enquired.

“Not in this country, mate,” I joked. “Haven’t had time. Haha! I just got here last week! Hahaha!”

“I thought so!” he exclaimed. “Back in New Zealand, huh?” He leaned back in his chair and asked, “What crime? Felony or misdemeanor?” 

Now, maybe it wasn’t too smart to make a joke about my criminal record to my potential employer like that, but after my sour-apple-shit-hole outburst of earlier, I kinda figured we an an understanding, Vinny and me.

“Criminal record?” I started to protest. “There wasn’t any…” 

But you know how it is… people hear what they want to hear. 

“Wait a second!” he interrupted. “Let me see if I can guess!” 

“Really,” I began. “There wasn’t…” but he held up his hand, stopping me short.

“That’s all right!” he said. “Let me guess! I like to guess.” He looked at me and cocked his head. “Arsonist? Naw, you’re not an arsonist and you couldn’t be a murderer, either. Nothing too serious. You’re too goggle-eyed for that!”

“Huh?” I said. “Goggle-eyed?”

He ignored me, continuing his critical appraisal, “Yeah, and you’re kinda skinny, too, and with yer accent and that suntan ya look damn suspicious. A hustler, maybe? Dope freak? Second story man? Wait a minute! Don’t tell me!”

I laughed inwardly because I’m not a second story man and never could be… 

I’m a backdoor man. 

I stood and said nothing. It occurred to me that Vinny had probably encountered, in his working life at Empire Messenger Service in NY, NY, an extremely broad range of humanity… most of them, it must be admitted, the poorer, more marginalized members of society. 

I couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. 

Let’s face it, friends… You don’t have to be poor or different to be treated like a criminal in this country… but it sure helps! 

He smiled and leaned forward across his desk. “Got it!” he said. “You’re a flasher!”

“Huh?” I stammered. 

“Yeah, that’s it!” he said in triumph. “I’m never wrong! Flasher, right? A dog-gone wienie wagger!”

“I never…” I began, but he mistook this as a natural desire on my part to keep it quiet and interrupted again.

“You never flashed kids,” he agreed. “Did ya, Flasher? Good! Good!”

“Of course not!” I insisted hotly. “Please don’t call me Flasher.”

“Sure!” he said breezily, “I can see why you’d be sensitive about it. But don’t worry, we’ve got all kinds of perverts working here. We’ve got a …”

“I’ve been trying to tell you …” I said.

“Okay, Flasher. Okay. I don’t care what you do on your own time. Just keep it zipped while you’re working for the company, right?”

“HOLD ON!” I finally insisted. “I don’t have a criminal record.”

“Oh?” He seemed disappointed. “You’re sure?” He looked at me hopefully. Maybe I could come up with something if I thought hard enough?

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

Then my intuition quietly told me I was going to get the job, and I said to myself, ‘Careful what you wish for, Flasher old boy.’

“Okay,” said Vinny a little resignedly. “See the girl out front. Fill out these forms. Ya start tomorrow.” 

He handed me the forms and I turned to go, pausing at the door. “Thank you,” I said. “You won’t regret …”

“Sure, Flasher!” he interrupted. “Good luck. And for god’s sake keep your dick in your pants! Okay?”

“Okay,” I laughed. “I’ll try.”

I stepped through the door.

“Next!” he yelled past me into the waiting-room.

Hungry Artist

NYC 1987

Hungry Artist

Alas, it was art for art’s sake once again, and we were broke.

I couldn’t find any work. I don’t know why I should be surprised, me being a film animator. 

I’d been looking for a job for weeks.

And getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, Suzie had found part-time work at a travel agency uptown. Owing to her temporarily doubtful immigration status, she didn’t earn very much, but the money she made kept us in pizza and beer, the two inexpensive staples of the struggling artist’s life.

It became a game; where to find cheap, edible food? 

Breakfast specials, at ungodly ‘Early Bird’ hours, could be had at any diner up and down Manhattan. Coffee, one egg, potatoes and toast, all for $1.29 and made to order by the sleepy cook. A meal like that could last you all day, and sometimes did. But you had to get there early.

It paid, I soon learned, to avoid the 99c and the 89c an especially the 59c breakfast. No matter how early the bird… from these breakfasts that’s all you got… the bird.

Thank god for pizza! Plain pizza was under a dollar a slice anywhere in New York, and they were big slices too. Rich and tasty, served piping hot. We watched the locals and followed their example, folding the slice lengthwise and eating from the pointy end, careful not to scald our chins with dripping hot cheese. 

In New Zealand, as with almost everything else pizza was pizza, recognizable as such like a telephone is a telephone or a motorcar is a motorcar, yet different from the American version. 

A pizza in New Zealand might, say, have baked beans as a topping.

And be served for breakfast. 

Yes, a kiwi loves his breakfast! And he likes baked beans, too. You’d be surprised where and on what a kiwi might put baked beans and call it breakfast.

I know I was.

But that was decades ago. Eventually one acclimatizes oneself to the cultural differences all around. 

 That, or go hungry. Yes? 

Another cheap Manhattan lunch option was a hot dog from one of the ubiquitous Sabrett street carts. A hot dog was a good change from pizza, at about the same price. The trick was to ask for your dog “all the way,” that is with every available topping, to increase the food value. 

“Over the top, please,” ordered Suzie and we laughed. She always got it wrong. 

“Me too!” I’d add. “With extra relish.” It’s a wonder we avoided incontinence, with all the pickle and sauerkraut in our diets. 

“Finish your hot dog,” I said to Suzie. “And we’ll get a drink. I found a place…”

It was probably all the beer we drank, counteracting its effects.

The incontinence I mean.

Pretzels, also served from carts, did not appeal to me after trying my first salty, doughy, tasteless, glop of a thing. Inexplicably, it was served with yellow mustard, adding not one iota to the deliciousness of it, which stubbornly remained at nought.

A New York City pretzel is more suited as a salt lick and rutting plaything for a moldy old stag than as food for a human being, but that’s just my opinion. 

If we had a little cash and wanted to eat out, we might stroll down to the Village and eat at one of the Indian curry houses on St. Marks or the Polish place a few blocks over. It was there, by the way, that we discovered Suzie could speak a smattering of Polish, if she had drunk enough potato Vodka. Or maybe it just sounded like Polish, after I had drunk enough potato vodka. 

“Zdrowie wasze w gardia nasze!” said Suzie and we’d drink.

(To your health and down our throats!)

Suzie was dazzling during these difficult days. She never complained or grumbled about our lack of everything, or the fact that we were sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a friend’s apartment, or that I hadn’t been able to find work yet and we had no money. 

“We’ve got our health and we’ve got each other,” said Suzie. “That’s the main thing.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that in New York some days we went hungry, yet Suzie faced it all with a laugh and a joke.

I loved her more than ever.

“Na zdrowie!" said Suzie and we drank.

(Your health!)

Prologue with Señoritas

I’ve always been a lucky son-of-a-bitch. 

Ask anybody. 

For instance, they paid me eight-and-a-half thousand dollars to write this prologue, and I haven’t even finished reading the manuscript I’m supposed to write the prologue for.

Wouldn’t you say that was lucky? 

Or at least admit that I’m a son-of-a-bitch?

My publisher finally tracked me down at El Gato in Madrid. “Where’s that prologue?” she demanded over the phone. “And keep it under five-hundred words this time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied sarcastically, trying not to let her hear me laughing with glee.

“Who’s that with you?” asked my publisher, somewhat annoyed. She thought I should always be writing, not enjoying myself in some tapas bar with the señoritas.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. “Shhh, she can hear you,” I said to Glee and the others. “Stop that! Please girls! I’ll be with you in a minute. Order me another Mahou and some croquetas, will you?” 

“Is that your wife?” asked another, reaching for the phone. “Let me talk to her.”

“He’s married?” asked a third. “He sure doesn’t act like it.”

“Shhhh,” I hissed at them. “Quiet girls, please!” 

“There’s nobody here with me,” I lied into the mouthpiece. “I’m writing.”

With any luck, of which I have plenty, I’ll knock this prologue out by siesta time, I thought. Then maybe go uptown, get a bite to eat. I know a great little place just off the Calle de Alcala.

“I need it by Friday,” said my publisher. 

“What’s the hurry?” I asked. “It’s just an autobiography by a broken-down old animator, isn’t it? How interesting could that be?”

“The Company thinks it has great potential,” she answered.

“He named it Hold the Beetroot, for fuck’s sake,” I said. “What does that even mean?”

“Remember, Rusty. By Friday please.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “Bye.”

“Don’t you hang up on me!”

“Eureka!” I answered. “Inspiration has just struck! Gotta go.” 

“Inspiration my ass! Listen, you no-good, lazy …”

I hung up.

Turning to the girls, I said, “Sorry ladies, I’ve got to get to work. Why don’t you meet me at La Paloma tonight about ten o’clock. Okay?”

The girls picked up their things and left, calling me a few choice names in Spanish.

That was okay. Luckily, I don’t speak Spanish very well, so I couldn’t be too offended.

The beer and croquetas arrived.

I picked up the manuscript and began to read…

A Star is Porn!

This week I thought I'd share my script from the short story "A Star is Porn!"
I say script, because I rewrote the story as a performance piece specifically for speaking aloud..
Which I did at Stardust Video & Coffee in Orlando, Florida.
Last month sometime.
I hope you enjoy it today. 

[Reads from script]

Thank You.

I’m Rusty Pliers.

If you could please hold your, uh, applause,

until the end … 

I’d appreciate it.

Thank you.

(Laugh gently.

Clear throat.

Big breath.

Be Rusty …)

A Star is Porn!

or

How With the Aid of 

Kitchen Counter Serendipity

I Acquired the Non de Plume of … 

Rusty Pliers!

[Prologue]

     It all started in the 1970s when I’d been bumming around Europe for a couple of years, trying to make my living as a film animator.

     I say trying to make my living as an animator because sadly, to be an animator in this world is to learn the true meaning of the term …

   …Art for Art’s Sake.

[Pause]

   So, when I was flat broke in Paris I answered a want ad in a Left Bank newspaper and, after a most memorable job interview (which unfortunately we haven’t got time to go into now)…

  … I was hired as an actor in pornographic films. 

[Matter-of-Factly]

  I signed a one-picture deal with a three-month option and they told me to be in Stockholm by the end of the week.

[Reflective]

  That night, sitting alone on the train to Sweden, I stared out the window and listened to the wheels rolling rat-ta-tat-tat rat-a-tat-tat rat-a-tat-tat …  and I thought, not for the first time since becoming an animator…

   “What have I got to lose?”

[Act I]

[Eye Patch Gag Here?]

   So I found myself in Stockholm with my pants down… trying to make a buck, you’ll pardon the expression, the hard way.

[Pause]

   Ah, but the gods love a fool because while we were filming that week a wondrous thing occurred! 

   A thing called serendipity!

[Pause]

   It was during the kitchen counter fellatio scene.

   While my partner was down getting her close-up I happened to notice, just off-camera beside me on the counter, a pair of stainless-steel vice grips.

   They gleamed beautifully in the bright studio lights.

   Right then and there, serendipity struck me! 

   I introduced the vice grips into the scene.

   My partner, whose name was Heidi, found this quite stimulating … so as the cameras rolled Heidi and I improvised with the vice grips while the crew looked on in amazement and, I like to think, in awe. 

[Slight Pause]

   The scene was very successful.

[Pause]

   Especially the happy ending.

[Pause to let it sink in]  

   We got it in one take. 

[Up Tempo]

   “VOILA!” cried the director, who was French.

   “Bueno!” added the asst director, who was Spanish.

   “My close-up, it was good?” asked Heidi, who was German. 

   “A star… she is born!” predicted the director.

   Only he didn’t mean Heidi.

   He didn’t mean me.

   He meant the vice grips.

[Act II]  

   That night I got to know the cast and crew a little better over a few drinks at Zum Franziskaner, an ancient pub just around the corner from the studio in downtown Stockholm. It was here, in the cozy beer cellar running up a ruinous tab, that I acquired the non de plume of Rusty Pliers.

   Everybody in the business had a non de plume, Heidi explained. Now that I was in the business, I needed one too.

   So we had a few beers and we thought about it.

   “How about Lonesome Orgasms?” I suggested.

   But nobody liked that one.

   “Bob Drillin?”  

   Nobody liked that one, either.

   After about the eighth beer the cameraman suggested Holden McGroin which made us laugh, but then guess what?

   Serendipity struck again and without thinking I said, “How about Rusty Pliers?”

   Everyone liked that, including Heidi.

   “Rusty Pliers,” she purred, trying it out in her luscious porno mouth.

[Pause]

   She said it suited me to a tee.

[Act III]

    At the wrap party later everybody predicted the movie would be a box-office smash. 

   “I smell a big hit!” said the producer, who was Hungarian. He liked it so much he picked up our options and gave the crew the green light to make a dozen more films. 

   That pleased everybody because, as I said at the beginning of my story… it’s a wonderful thing to find steady work in show business. 

[Pause]

   So, over the next three months we made seven toolbox movies in Stockholm, and four in Paris. 

   Oh. And one on the overnight train to Paris.

   That was a quickie, as we called it.

[Pause]

   They even hired a scriptwriter. You should’ve seen the crazy situations he invented to have a man with a toolbox arrive and fornicate repeatedly with a beautiful actress and / or her friends and the hand tools they so desperately craved!

[Laughs]

   Oh boy! It makes me laugh to this day!

[Reflective]

   (Sigh)… Show Business …

   … there really IS no business like it. 

[Pause]

    ….But no animal acts!

    I was very particular in that respect!

[Epilogue]

 Well, that’s the story of how Rusty Pliers got his name.

   If there was any kind of deep wisdom or high moral to be learned from this story… then this would be the place you’d expect to hear it, isn’t it?

[Pause]

   I’d like to thank you for listening. 

   It felt good to tell it. 

   To let it out, so to speak.

   You know, I’ve been calling myself Rusty Pliers for so long I can hardly remember what my real name ever was…

[Big Smile]

   But that’s okay … I like being Rusty Pliers!

[Pause]

Thank You!

You made it fun!

If you enjoyed my story,

Please follow me on social media.

If you didn’t enjoy it … 

… Thanks for not throwing things!

I’m Rusty Pliers!

Goodnight!

[Time; Around 5 Min?]

Inkfinger

   “You have made a very poor start, sir,” said Mr Hamilton, the assistant headmaster. 

   Why did he call me ‘sir,’ I wondered, when the tone of his voice said ‘little boy?’ 

   I was in trouble for my conduct again. That was happening a lot since I’d arrived in New Zealand, about three months before. 

   “Stabbed who in the heart, sir?” I asked. I didn’t yet understand the New Zealand accent very well and wouldn’t you know it? One of the people I understood the least was Mr Hamilton.

   “Made a poor start, boy!” he corrected me raising his voice.

   “Yes sir,” I said.

   I really was trying my best at school, but it was hard being the new kid from America with the funny yank accent and baffling stupidity about everything. And the lessons. Who knew other countries had their own history and geography and social studies? Not me. Even English wasn’t English anymore, not the way they spoke it and spelled it. I was tall and gawky too, an easy target for the derision and ridicule of my schoolmates.

   Unknown to me at the time I was learning one of life’s lessons. 

   The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. 

   I sat and listened as Mr Hamilton droned on about what a bad boy I was and how much trouble I caused everybody and when would I ever learn? There was also the usual reminder about the glory of Avondale College and its noble traditions, and how I wasn’t living up to them either. With every minute in his musty office the feeling of confusion and failure weighed heavier and heavier upon me. It was like some dream where you are on trial for you don’t know what in some place that you never have been and everybody there whom you never have met is ready to convict you just to teach you a lesson that you never will forget.

   I was sitting there listening to Mr Hamilton's oration about what a failure I was when suddenly, unbidden to my mind came a childhood recollection.

   I can’t help it. Sometimes things pop into my head. 

   It probably happens to you sometimes, too. 

   It was a vivid recollection about Mr Wilson, the angry man who resided in the house down the street when we lived in Englewood, California. I must have been about seven or eight years old at the time. 

   It was summer. 

   Hot, bright, dry. 

   I could almost hear the cicadas singing and smell the newly mown grass. 

   His grass! 

   “Keep the freaking freak off it, you little freaking so-and-sos!”

   He used to run out from his house hitching up his trousers as the screen door slammed behind him and shout forth a volley of hateful cuss words if we ever so much as set one foot on his precious lawn! He spent countless hours in his yard, pruning or mowing or whatever, glaring at us all the while, daring us to, “Just try something, you little sons of bitches!” 

   When I later mischievously asked my mother what a ‘sons of bitches’ was, she said to ask your father, then she instructed me to pass Mr Wilson’s house on the other side of the street in future. To spare her feelings, I had not asked my mother about the really bad words he had hurled at us. 

   Stupidly, I asked my father what a couple of them meant and all I got for my trouble was to have my mouth washed out with soap and sent to bed early without my dinner. 

   We children of the neighborhood (I recall there were at least a dozen of us together at any one time that summer) applied our fairy tale morals to the situation and came to the conclusion that the angry, cursing gardener was simply … evil. 

   And mean. 

   The worst sort of grownup. 

   Thankfully, apart from our teachers, they were rare. 

   There could be no other reason, in our limited experience of life, for Mr Wilson's angry actions, and we believed the most fabulous myths about him. How dogs that did their business on his lawn were never seen again. Why? Because they were roasted and eaten, that's why. How he had murdered the weird little runny-nosed kid who lived two blocks over (no one had seen the boy for weeks, it turned out he and his family were on summer vacation). How he buried his victims under his immaculate lawn in the dead of night when the moon was full, or cut them up with garden shears and burned them in his backyard incinerator (which seemed to belch smelly, mysterious black smoke on a regular basis). 

   Most terrifying of all, how he had caught and skinned little boys and girls, and had their hides hanging on the walls of his backyard greenhouse, right beside the dog skins! This last myth, especially when told after dark, would start the little ones to crying, and they never went past his house but at a run, madly dashing past the manicured garden and the angry gardener. 

   Their hysterical crying only increased his ire and he would laughingly taunt them with foul oaths, even throwing things at them sometimes.

   Ha! Ha! He looked so funny, a grown man cussing at children! 

   Turns out he wasn’t 100% right in the head. 

   So my mother told me later.

   Mr Wilson couldn’t help it, she said, he was ill and that made him the way he was. He used to be very kind. She was a little disappointed I hadn’t treated the old man better, she added, and that I had allowed the smaller children to believe such nonsense. 

   “You know he doesn’t eat dogs or hurt children!” she said. “Rusty! I’m surprised at you!”

   But I wasn’t so sure. 

   I surreptitiously appraised Mr Hamilton as he continued to remind me of what a useless little schoolboy I was and how I was letting everybody down. 

   He had the look of a villain from a James Bond novel if you ask me. 

   (I had begun reading Ian Fleming’s 007 books on the ship which brought us from California to New Zealand. I was still reading them. There was one next to me in my schoolbag as I sat there in Mr Hamilton’s office.)

   Yes, he certainly had the look of a Bond villain, with his eerily glowing eyes behind soulless pince-nez, his wrinkle-free skin with its strangely orange tint, his crooked little teeth and his highly polished cranium housing his evil-genius brain. When he smiled he resembled a Halloween jack-o-lantern. The two fingers and thumb of his writing hand were always stained with ink from the fountain pen he used which, because he used red ink, I somehow found upsetting.

   Like he’d stained them doing something unspeakable to some innocent schoolboy. 

   What would his character’s name be, I wondered? A good name was important to a Bond villain. 

   Doctor Odd? Inkfinger? Pumpkin Galore?

   Try as I might though, I couldn’t see Mr Hamilton as a preeminent Bond villain. Oh, he had enough insanity in his eyes, I could see that, but he lacked the driving egotistical ambition for world domination necessary. He’d be a smaller character in a Bond novel, I figured, with a distasteful quirk of some kind, and have a number or a letter instead of a name. Number Two. That seemed to suit him, scatologically speaking. And there would be dark hints of his unnatural (and by unnatural I mean with animals unnatural) sex life, if he had any sex life at all. 

   Then he’d be killed off with much ignominy by the real villain for his incompetence in chapter four.

   I mean he was killed in chapter four. 

   His incompetence occurred in chapter two.

   Chapter two is the chapter that starts off with a steamy sex scene of Bond and twin flight attendants from B.O.A.C. named Barbi and Bambi.