Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown (17 page)

"
Hurry up, son,
"
his dad would say.
"
It doesn't take all day to find a little hole.
"

"
Sorry dad. But you can't be too careful with genus
Architeuthis
. It's a giant squid that lives in the depths of the ocean. Adult females can grow to 40-feet long
. You don't want to mess with
Architeuthis
.
"

"
I'll give you archytoothache, if you don't get on with it,
"
his dad would say, grinning behind his hand, secretly pleased that his George was easily one of the smartest kids in his class and one day would make something of himself and not be mending punctures in a little shop on the high street, not that there was anything wrong with that.

At the age of 12, George went to the local grammar school. It was a typical post-war brick structure with an imposing neo-classical façade and behind it classrooms grouped around two grass-covered quadrangles upon which no one ever set foot except the gardeners. Behind the school was an expansive two-tiered playing field. The top field was the cricket pitch, circled by a quarter-mile running track, and the bottom field, less well manicured, had two rugby pitches laid out side-by-side. Behind them was the school canteen where hot meals were served and at lunch time the boys queued up noisily for a slice of meat and a dollop of mashed potatoes and peas pudding, which George hated, grateful there was always someone willing to take it off his plate. In the classrooms, the wooden desks were arranged two-by-two in rows in front of the blackboard with an aisle between them so the teacher could patrol up and down. George's deskmate was Christopher Marples whom he knew from primary school and the two were firm friends, often cycling home across the park together, sometimes helping each other with homework at one or the other's house..

George was the shortest boy in the class and his physical development lagged behind the others. Despite his diminutive stature he loved rugby because he was a fast runner and he was put on the wing where the ball seldom reached him, but when it did he could sometimes outpace his pursuers and he learned to bob and weave and cut inside to score under the posts. But as much as he liked to play the game, he dreaded going to the showers afterwards. The other boys all had pubic hair and he had none. He was terribly embarrassed and covered up with a towel as much as possible, turning his back to them when he put his underpants on. The thought of girls and what to do with them was a mystery. When Charlie Langlois, who sat two rows behind him, bragged about 'getting a bit' he had no idea what that meant, a bit of what, he wondered? And although he knew about playing with himself, and sometimes did it under the sheets, he was unclear what was supposed to happen, except 'the feeling' as everyone called it and a wonderful juddering sensation at the end. In George's case the whole thing usually lasted
less than a minute. He fantasiz
ed that he lived next door to a beautiful Arabian princess who would be aroused to the point of ecstasy by eunuchs – he had read about eunuchs in bible class – until at the very last minute she would send them all away and call for George.

During some classes at school, Latin, for example, where Mr. Erebus was so short -sighted he couldn't see past the front two rows, the boys at the back of the room passed the time by playing with each other's willy, little fingers unbuttoning the fly of their neighbor and little fists jerking up and down. During art class, when Mr. Dupont was absorbed at his easel, attempting to demonstrate the subtlety of perspective and how the figures on the Sistine Chapel appeared one way to Michelangelo at ground level and quite another when the maestro climbed the scaffold to the ceiling, some of the boys daubed paint on their willies. It was an excuse to get it out of their trousers.

Unlike most of his classmates, George enjoyed going to school although he would never admit it, but when the bell rang at ten to four he didn't hang about in the playground as some of the boys did, but cycled home right away for tea. He would take his seat at the parlour table while his mum fussed with the place mats until they were lined up just so, then brought in tea and biscuits on a silver tray and sometimes, if he was lucky, slices of her home-made fruit cake.
"
Only one piece George, or you won't be eating your supper.
"
Then she would take her own cup over to the fireplace and pick up her knitting.

"
What did you do at school today, dear?
"
she would ask him. He was always prepared for this question.

"
Not much, although we learned about perspective in art class and that was interesting. Did you know that Michelangelo had to paint stuff high up on the ceiling as if he was seeing it from down on the ground? Can you imagine how hard that would be?
"
He didn't tell-her about the boys who painted their willies, although that was easily the most interesting thing that happened.

On Saturday afternoons, after he finished at the bike shop, George was allowed to go to the pictures at the Metropole. George would spend fourpence on a packet of sweets which he shared with his friend Christopher. The cinema showed all the latest Disney cartoons, but what George liked most were the old ones in black and white. He howled with glee at the misadventures of Laurel and Hardy, but his all-time favorite was the little tramp with the bowler hat and baggy trousers and his curved walking cane. There was something about Charlie Chaplin that George identified with. And years later when he went to work at the town hall as a junior clerk, he could indulge himself by sporting a bowler of his own and he learned to do the little Chaplin jig, clicking his heels in mid-air and twirling his rolled umbrella, a proper Charlie. Sometimes when things were going well, or a particularly pleasing thought popped into his mind, he would stop what he was doing and do his little jig. It was a George thing, his personal commentary on the vicissitudes of life.

He was given the middle name Aloysius in honor of his great, great grandfather Aloysius Spencer Brown, who according to family history was an early explorer of the Amazon and a contemporary of the legendary Percy Harrison Fawcett who led many expeditions to the Amazon basin beginning in 1906 when he was commissioned by the National Geographical Society to map the border between Bolivia and Brazil. Aloysius Brown had no such commission and funded his own expeditions, but like Fawcett he believed in the existence of the
Lost
City
of the Amazon, which was rumored to be in the Mato Grosso region, and its discovery, if he would have found it, would undoubtedly have brought him fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his diaries were destroyed in a house fire in Aberistwyth in 1928, but there is evidence that the explorers crossed paths on at least one occasion during their travels deep in the jungle. When George was a student at the London School of Economics, which he attended on a scholarship after leaving high school, he found the evidence he was looking for in the archives of
The
Times
, a letter to the editor written by his distinguished ancestor in 1907. Aloysius Brown had led a very public defence of Fawcett who had been widely ridiculed by the scientific community after claiming he had shot a 62-feet long anaconda. Aloysius Brown who had entered Fawcett's camp the following day, not only saw the dead snake but helped Fawcett remove a partially digested jaguar from its belly. He had no time for armchair explorers.

"
In simple terms that even a desk-bound scientist would understand, I estimated that Fawcett's anaconda when stretched out from head to tail was slightly shorter than the length of a cricket pitch (66-feet, or 20 m),
"
he wrote in a letter posted in Iquitos, Peru, which took seventeen
weeks to reach the offices of
The
Times
.
"
I can only hope that the so-called 'scientific community', which evidently has much to learn about giant anacondas, has a clearer understanding of the distance between the stumps.
"
The letter was published under the heading
"
Clean Bowled.
"

George had roared with laughter when he read that and tucked a copy into his wallet. To him it was proof that there is no experience like being there and after he got a job in the recycling department at Putney & District municipality, he never accepted without question the evidence of the 'scientific community.'

"
Interesting, if true,
"
he would say to himself.
"
But how long is an anaconda?
"

George loved the simplicity and beauty of words and quickly established a reputation for the clarity of his reports. But at first his superiors were not happy and he was summoned to the office of municipal manager Harold Cowperthwaite. 'The Chairman' as he was widely referred to – although never to his face – had been a civil servant for forty years and had written innumerable reports. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt with a high winged collar and steel-rimmed glasses through which he was studying, without discernible enthusiasm, George's report to council on the fiscal feasibility of a new recycling facility.

"
Mr. Brown,
"
he began.
"
The documentation here seems to be thorough, but you haven't quite captured the tone required of reports generally submitted to council from this office. For example, in your conclusion to the executive summary you have written: 'There would be a considerable cost saving to taxpayers if the project were to be fully funded now.'
"
Mr. Cowperthwaite looked at George sadly.
"
Oh dear, dear, dear,
"
he said.
"
This is not quite the language to which council is accustomed and I have taken the liberty of re-writing it, so.
"
He handed George the amended document as if it were the Holy Grail.

This is what George read:
"
A greenfields facility such as is being posited might be unable to converge in the growth equilibrium if the initial endowment with resources and capital is too low.
"

"
Do you see the difference, Mr. Brown?
"
George did see the difference, but thought it best not to say so.

"
And here's another example.
"
There seemed to be so many. Mr. Cowperthwaite was on a roll. He continued:
"
In reference to council's position on the environment, Mr. Brown, you have written: 'Construction of what will likely become an internationally acclaimed facility will enhance Putney's environmental reputation.' Welcome words, indeed, Mr. Brown. Our councillors like to be thought of as global innovators, but for report purposes, it is perhaps better expressed thusly:
"

George groaned inwardly when he read: 'With its blue sky thinking and can-do culture, council will be able to value-add towards a single point of contact that should define the coterminosity parameters for the predictors of beaconicity.'

"
Now, that, Mr. Brown, is the sort of language that is required.
"
Mr. Cowperthwaite sat back in his chair and clasped his hands together over his fob watch.

But George persisted. And as he rose through the town hall ranks, he was gradually able to change things. Words like double devolution, holistic governance, inspectorates, place shaping, blue sky vision, and provider vehicles were discouraged, as were step changes, public domains, stakeholder engagements, performance underpinnings and a host of others. By the time he was appointed to the municipal manager's office, most other local governments had followed Putney's lead and
Britain
's Local Government Association had banned such incomprehensible jargon. George Aloysius Brown, who had started the linguistic revolution, was invited to be a keynote speaker at the 23rd annual convention of the International Association of Municipal Government Authorities, in
Kuala Lumpur
. And so it was a happy and buoyant George three months later, a first class boarding card firmly in his grasp, who stepped aboard Indonesian Airlines Flight 863 at Heathrow International. Indeed, he had reflected with a degree of satisfaction during the long walk to the gate, the only 'blue sky vision' in his immediate future, would be the blue skies over
Malaysia
.

"
Welcome aboard, Mr. Brown,
"
said the flight attendant.
"
This way, please. May I offer you a glass of champagne before takeoff? If you require anything else at all, please let me know.
"

What a lovely smile, George thought.

"
Thank you,
"
he said.
"
And you are?
"
George knew that getting people's names right is respectful and he couldn't quite read her name tag without his glasses.

"
My name is Pem Surjani.
"

The area around St Saviour's Dock, once known as Jacob's Island in the
London
borough of Southwark, was, in Charles Dickens day, a stinking riverside slum. Dickens described
"
wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage…
"
In other words, George thinks, the perfect environment for a maker of pornographic movies.