Stories can have fluctuating gestation periods. Some offer
the writer no resistance whatsoever. From idea to pen to page. Others can be
far more elusive, trickier to subdue, pin down, flesh out, tame, and ultimately
execute. That was very much the case with The Nine Lives of Jacob
Fallada. This series of nine interconnected short stories started out life
as one single scene inspired by yet another odd encounter I had with my old
nemesis: the canine.
One typically English
Easter Bank Holiday – blanket drear, thick fog, torrential rain, blustery wind,
plummeting temperatures – I sought to escape the elements by sensibly taking
refuge in the village pub. Due to the weather conditions, the place was packed
with day-trippers, very much a silver army, the blue-rinsers, the bald,
freckle-spotted pate OAP brigade. You’ve probably seen them around. Baby
boomers. Financially (and literally), the last of a dying breed, in terms of
fully paid up pensions and any chance of financial security in their old age.
But I digress.
As I edged towards the bar, I
noticed a group of these geriatric spendthrifts crowded around the largest St.
Bernard I’d ever seen, a dog that made the legendary Schnorbitz look like a mere
ankle-biter. Keeping my wits very much about me – I’d seen Cujo and
knew how this movie could quite conceivably end – I squeezed my way to the
counter, got myself a pint and a whisky chaser, and somehow managed to snare a
recently vacated seat directly in front of a roaring open-fire.
As I sat there sipping
away at my drinks, I watched this hulking hound bound from one part of the bar
to the other, dash this way and that, turning over tables and chairs, sending
glasses smashing to the floor, paying no mind to the doddery clientele,
knocking OAPs over like pins in a furry game of bowling, bloodying elbows and
knees, noses, snapping brittle, arthritic bones in two. It was chaos, carnage.
The St. Bernard was too big and intimidating, the space too small. It was as if
it was the dog’s pub and us humans had to get the hell out of its way or suffer
the consequences. The only thing that it didn’t do in the short period I was
there was go behind the bar and start pulling pints! I couldn’t believe that
the owner, the landlord, anyone! could let the dog run riot like that. It
started to freak me out, piss me off. I wanted another drink, maybe more, but
daren’t venture from my seat for fear of getting trampled underfoot, bitten,
mauled and/or inadvertently stepping on a fallen pensioner in the throes of a
fit or seizure. It didn’t seem right. The man/beast scales had been tipped. The
pendulum had swung in the wrong direction. The barroom, the last bastion of the
working-class hero, had become the backdrop on which a canine version of The Planet
of the Apes was being conducted right before my eyes!
Naturally, I left as
soon as the dog’s back was turned.
A day or two later, I wrote the
scene pasted below (pretty much as you read it now), but I had absolutely no
idea what to do with it (for seven years):
Jacob Fallada didn't know what shocked him more: that a
hulking St Bernard was sitting on a stool at the bar, smoking a cigar, or that
nobody else in the traditional hostelry was paying the immense canine any
attention – not the morose-looking old-timers sitting at a nearby table, or the
much younger, smartly dressed couple deep in conversation in a booth by the
window.
Almost involuntarily,
Jacob found himself walking towards the bar. When he reached the counter, he
stole a quick glance at the dog. Its thick white coat had black and brownish
flecks; its bull-like neck; its whole body seemed to ripple with a heaving,
muscular vitality that was as impressive as it was intimidating.
The barman, a shifty,
wall-eyed Transcaucasian, shuffled over.
“What can I get you?” he
asked Jacob.
There was a brief
silence, where Jacob tried to divert the barman’s attention, discretely nodding
in the direction of the dog, his eyes (if the barman had been observant enough
to notice), clearly said: Look, there’s a huge dog at the end of the
bar, smoking a cigar, don’t you think that’s a little strange? But
there was nothing, not a glimmer of recognition, indicating that the barman did
indeed find the St Bernard’s presence in any way unusual.
“I said: what can I get
you?”
“Oh, sorry, miles away,”
Jacob lied. “I’ll have, erm…one of those, please.” He pointed to one of the
real ales; one of the cheapest drinks available.
“Coming right up.”
As the barman pulled off
the pint, Jacob darted another glance at the St Bernard, happily smoking away,
seemingly oblivious to everything, like any thoughtful, melancholy drinker
found in any bar across the globe.
“There you go.” The
barman put Jacob’s dark, frothy pint on the counter. “That’ll be seven-forty,
please.”
“Right, okay.” As he
took a handful of coins out of his pocket, Jacob felt duty-bound to make some
reference to the dog. “I, erm…didn’t know smoking was allowed in
public places anymore.”
Something he immediately
regretted. For the dog shifted its immense body around on the stool, and glared
at him.
“No, no,” said the
barman, “that only applies to humans – the smoking ban, I mean. Far as the
management is concerned, any of our canine regulars are more than welcome to
enjoy a smoke at the bar.”
“Oh, right, that sounds
reasonable enough,” said Jacob, nervously, feeling the weight of the dog’s
stare. “Not that it bothers me in the slightest. I happen to love the smell of
a good cigar. It’s just that I wasn’t aware of the regulations.” He placed a
final coin on the counter. “There you go. Thanks very much.”
The barman gathered up
the coins and walked over to the cash register.
As Jacob reached for his
ale, the canine started speaking to him in a clear human voice.
“You have a problem with
me smoking at the bar, young man?”
Years passed (seven, I just told you that) before I managed
to come up with an idea to complete the story: the dog acts as a matchmaker,
setting Jacob up with a young lady with a Lee Harvey Oswald tattoo on her arm,
on their first date they attend a pig circus, where a Large White Bred pig is
dressed up in a tuxedo and tried for its part in a crime it could no way have
committed. Standard plot-like fare you’d find in Brown, Archer, Cooper (J).
Not long after this, I
wrote another story with the same Jacob Fallada character called Three
Little Boys, which has recently been published by Iowa’s Mark Review
literary journal. Here’s the link if you’d like to read the story in its
entirely:
But it wasn’t until two, maybe three years later that I
conceived of more stories (nine, I just told you that), about an outsider, a
lonely, misunderstood young artist who chronicles all the unpleasant things
that happen to him in life. Abandoned by his parents, brought up be a
tyrannical aunt, bullied at school, ostracized by the local community, nearly
everyone Jacob comes into contact with takes an instant, (often) violent dislike
towards him. Like Job from the bible, he is beaten and abused, manipulated and
taken advantage of. Life, people, fate, circumstance force him deeper into his
shell, deeper into the cocoon of his fledgling artistic work, where he records
every significant event in sketches, paintings and short-form verse,
documenting his own unique, eminently miserable human experience. At heart, he
longs for companionship, intimacy, love, but is dealt so many blows he is too
scared to reach out to anybody. On the fringes of society, he devotes himself
solely to his art. When his sketches, paintings and verse finally come to the
attention of a local gallery owner, Jacob tragically dies and never gets to see
his work receive the recognition it deserves.
If you want to find out what the finished product turned out like, the book is now available from amazon:
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