Knuckle Men
A story about well 'ard geezers and punch up twatting.
Chapter 1 - Of men and Knuckles.
1975, 22 years after the big one.. World War deux. Up to 500 men were killed in the fray, but some survived. Many went back to old blighty expecting praise and gold shillings but what they got was far different, unemployment and only brass farthings. Big Reginald was one of these men, counting his brass farthings and wondering where the time had gone, the best years of his life spent doing in foreigners in foreign countries under foreign skies. All he knew for certain was that wherever they came from they made the same noise when he punched them in the neck. That noise was "erk".
Big Reginald was the best at punching people in the neck and other fighting as well. He even won medals for it, medals like the Victorian Hexagon and the order of Aster phoenix. Last week he sold those medals for a loaf of bread, he didn’t want to do it...but he HAD to. The trouble was Big Reginald didn’t know how to do anything else but fight, he had tried a taster course in using the internet at the local library but it all ended in tears after he tried to punch Google. His big meaty fists, the same fists he had used to drive back Hitler and his fiendish minions (Himler, Martin Heidegger and Baron Zemo), were simply too big for the delicate keys. A regular Uncle Pete! Google was the only thing that had ever defeated Big Reginald, he remembered the two O's one red, one yellow they goaded him. He broke the screen and a librarian's nose, but Google yet lived. It haunted him in his dreams. In the end Big Reginald ended up in old chokey for punching a police in the neck, he didn’t want to do it...but he HAD to.
Chapter 2 - Knuckle 2 Knuckle
Big Reginald found things easy in the big house. He found that not only was there honour amongst thieves; there was honour amongst drug users, rapists and war criminals as well. Especially when you were good at punching people in the neck and big Reginald was VERY good at punching people in the neck. Everyone was straightforward, there were no promises of gold shillings here and everyone knew what the beef was. Except for the nonces.
By the mid 80's Big Reginald was the 'ardest nut on B-Wing but a new prisoner was attracting all the attention on X-Wing. Stanley Eyeballs was a huge man with even larger eyes. Eyes that could stare into the very windows of a man’s soul just long enough to distract that man while he snapped all his bones. He had already taken out Laurence 'Shin bone' Wilson and it was clear he wanted the place of Big Reginald as major bitch of B-Wing. The fight was agreed like gentleman, behind the flower shed after hours but before lock up and lights out. Whoever lost would get stabbed into the next world by a hundred angry prisoners with a taste for blood. The winner would take more power than the warden and more glory than Santa at the ice rink. Big Reginald knew that Stanley would be a formidable foe, but he also knew that he could grind him into the very tarmac under foot. He was prepared to fight...and the fight was tonight.
In fact the fight was now and Stanley was raining down blows on Reginald like a mighty windmill. Each blow from his powerful claws brought Big Reg closer to oblivion. Big Reginald didn’t like oblivion, he liked Nemesis and he was the nemesis of Stanley Eyeballs. These thoughts gave him the resolve he needed to dodge or 'strafe' sideways and cause Stanley Eyeballs to needlessly strike the very air than everyone would breathe. From there Reginald just needed to use his fabled Highball Ricochet Punch (taught to him by a Korean prisoner of war during the invasion of Constantinople) straight onto the noggin and do that he did. Stanley didn’t stand a chance and his fabled eyeballs were now bruised like a used peach, he spat blood and mucus onto the floor then swiveled like a duck before finally collapsing. "I’m the 'ardest geezer ere" quoth Big Reginald "and you my friend are a defeated bitch". The prisoners cheered wildly out of both admiration and fear....fear of Big Reginald and his fists o' furious. That night Reginald slept soundly dreaming the sweet dreams of victorious. (Being the victorious bitch)
Chapter 3 - Knuckled out
That morning Big Reginald was released by the guvna. He was too dangerous to contain in prison and the fight against Eyeballs had proved it. The guvna wanted him outside cos they both knew who had all the power and it wasn’t the guvna. (It was Big Reginald.) So there he was on the street with his sack 'o clothes and prisoners pay. Big Reginald reflected on the irony as he had been given of all things, a gold shilling. Of course it was worthless due to the Wall Street crash. The system had screwed big Reginald again.
It was at this juncture that Curious Cornelious the Fleet Street gimp stepped in to offer Reginald a helping hand. Or should I say a helping fist, as Reginald would never have recognized a hand that wasn’t fist shaped due to his life of intense fighting. Cornelious (Ol'Cornflake to his muckers. and Centrifuge to his dear mother) offered Reginald the chance to fight in his dodgy bare knuckle ring in return for money cash. In return for breaking the necks of a few dozen Polish sailors every Saturday Reginald was got 500 Phennigs and as much black market silk as his pockets could carry - in other words he could live like a king. But first he had to prove himself and that meant fighting Ol'Cornflakes favorite eastern bitch, 'Ladies Man' Hector Priory. Priory had been fighting the ol’ ringside for years but he had got greedy because of having so many illegitimate children and was demanding and extra line of caps for his cap gun after every fight. Naturally Cornelious couldn’t afford this type of luxury and he needed someone to give Priory a lesson in frugality and as everyone knew in the war years frugality was PAINFUL. Reginald wondered if he could beat a man who had touched so many ladies over the years, it was the first time he had ever experience doubt and it caused his eyes to bulge like a crackerjack, one thing was for sure...the fight was arranged for mayday and only one man would walk away the winner. (The other would slink away not the winner or be dead.)
To be continued....
No comments:
Post a Comment