42-a-story-to-die-for

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A Story to Die For

He would always set up his wooden box in the busiest part of the

monthly car boot sale."Give me some space will you."Impervious to

the pushing and jostling, he'd climb aboard and balance

precariously. The crowd would part around him - almost recoil.But

then as he talked in his special way, people would become curious.

Like snakes fascinated by the charmer, they would move closer.

Each time he would have a new theme. Then whatever he said and

whatever he sold to the crowds around him would act as a pall over

the ensuing weeks or bring a cheery grin to passers by - until the

next time.Waving above his head a slim bundle of pages, he would

peer down at a middle aged Mrs., comfortably replete in slacks androlling contentedness, with his single eye."Madam," his voice was

deep and resonant. "Madam, what do you know about adultery?"The

implication was that she knew more than she would be willing to

admit."Madam, would you walk away and miss finding out what

happened?"This was his favorite phrase. It raised a question in the

minds of those around him. It tweaked their curiosity."This week," he

would say, "I have an account that is depraved and disgusting.

Those of a weak disposition MUST NOT .." His voice rose into a

tremulous falsetto, "MUST NOT purchase this slim tome - for I will

not allow it.""Only those who, out of a sense of outrage, are brave

enough to experience first hand the fruits of true sexual peccadillo

should dare to delve within.""Go on, you don't know what you are

talking about, One Eye!" scorned a pretty young twenty-something.

Her slim hips had been poured into cut off shorts and her push chair

was loaded with bargains and snoozing offspring."And you're in the

story too, so you can't talk," said One Eye. The girl giggled."If I'm in

the story it'll be a pretty boring story judging by my sex life," shesaid.The crowd around tittered."You can talk and laugh as much as

you like," said One Eye, "but I have conducted extensive research

for this little piece of investigative journalism and I know that the

people exposed in these pages are at this very moment quaking

with fear."He surveyed the growing group around him, his one eye



shining brightly."Quaking in their shoes and underwear, and more

about that I will not say for fear of offending you gentle country folk

gathered here to celebrate this piece of literary genius."And so the

haranguing would go on backwards and forwards between the local

writer and the crowd. Then one by one they would pay their poundsterling and carry away the slim volumes to read either in their cars

or later when they got home - just in case a neighbor would see

their blushes.Then the rumors would start."I reckon its that John that

did it, you know him that lives down by the marshes.""Never, he

wouldn't have the courage - it's Fred over on the other side of the

hill. He always had an eye for the ladies. I knew one who stayed

overnight and she was never the same again and wouldn't talk

about it.""What a thing for a woman to do - can you credit it -disgusting I call it and, all the time, her husband next door."The

conversations went on and on. Always puzzling, always wanting to

know. Sometimes the response was angry."That vile man. All that

power and he uses it like that. He is supposed to be working for the

community but he's got fat on it and is kept in office by elderly

voters living in the past. If I could get my hands on him in his posh

London Board room, I'd give him a talking to.""Go on, he doesn't

care. It'd be water off a ducks back. He's laughing all the way to the

Bank with his cronies - and they own the Bank. He'd laugh in yourface.""Then I'd dot him one right in the middle of his stupid face, the

slimy rat.""Anyway, it's supposed to be a story. You don't know if it's

really about him.""I know enough! One of my business mates tried

to get some help from him - as is his right - and said more or less

the same thing. He was more interested in whether a non-executive

Board room job was likely to become available than the merits of

the case."Backwards and forwards the conversations went. It was

supposed to be fiction but everybody believed it was fact and in asmall community everybody believed that they could spot the

characters. And then the next time would come and grudgingly they

would crowd around him and buy his latest offering.

If the books had been sold in the local book shop nobody would



have bought them. Next to the bright covers of historical romances

and hi-tech thrillers, the photocopied pages, hand folded and

wrapped in a blank cover would not have appealed.

It was the immediacy of his presence and the knowledge that otherswould inevitably buy or, on a bad day, be given the secrets to which

he was privy that brought the desire to know.

Whether all that he wrote was as a result of extensive research or

whether he was just a good and shrewd judge of character, nobody

knew. Perhaps he just had a very fertile imagination and the

courage to stand up literarily and be counted.

But his descriptions never disappointed. His imagery was sharp, his

character descriptions poignant. You could taste the food on which

his characters dined and the cider that they drank. His bushes were

a deeper green and his roses blossomed more brightly.

At the end of an account, he always left you feeling better. You had

lived through an event that was important for somebody. You were

uplifted by the experience. Drawn in by curiosity, the form of his art

was to supply nothing less than satisfaction.

"You should get yourself published properly, Jack," one onlooker

shouted.

"And one day I'll write a story to tell you exactly why I'd never do

that," yelled back Jack. His thick set lips curled with distaste in the

mass of his ragged beard at the thought of fame, fortune and

corporate money.

One day he was recounting the outline of a story to the gathered

crowd when a stranger pushed through and tugged on his arm.

Hesitating for a few minutes and then obviously in distress, Jack



gathered up his box and followed him away from the crowds and out

to his old Ford motor that was always parked outside the car boot

area.

Then he disappeared ......

People instantly missed him.

"Where's old One Eye", they would say at the car boot sale. "He's

not been around for a while. Silly old duffer - hope he hasn't come to

harm. Couldn't write of course - but I'd buy the odd one just out of

charity really. Do you know where he lived - did he have any

family?"

And so it went on. For years, although an oddball, he had been part

of the community. Now he was remembered with affection. As the

weeks then months passed, slowly his name passed into folk

memory.

"Used to be a writer at this car boot you know. Suddenly

disappeared. Never did hear what happened to him. They say he

was offered a job on a London Magazine as a features writer -around here probably wasn't not good enough for him, I'll warrant.

Of course we felt let down after we'd supported him all those years

by buying his silly stories. I doubt we'll ever know where he went to

now.

But they did get to know and in the strangest way you could

imagine.

Photocopied sheets of typed paper suddenly began to appear

around the town, in a telephone box … on the counter of the local

paper shop.

"I don't know how they got there," said Barney, the owner.



More copies appeared and each without warning and from

unexpected places.

Some people, once they had got a copy and got over the shock of

the contents, did more. They copied the pages again - and gavethem to their friends.

"It reads like One Eye, the style is the same and the pages look the

same, but when you read inside, you can't see how it can be!"

The same phrases passed backwards and forwards from mouth to

mouth and each time another pair of eyes would avidly read the

lurid tale. Some were moved to tears.

"I could just see the woods and feel how he loved them as he

walked on that final journey. Rhododendrons have always been a

favorite of mine but to be buried under one - I couldn't bear that.

"For me it was the way he fought of his attacker until his one eye

got so damaged he couldn't see at all. How he broke away at one

point and then hid from them wounded and bleeding for hours - how

they eventually found him again and even then he still fought on."

"But he was outnumbered and they got him in the end. And the

people responsible did it all for a contract - they had nothing against

him themselves. It was all just for money."

"I reckon it was money that was behind it anyway. He'd offended too

many local people in high places."

"In my opinion the police ought to investigate that politician, he's

the one that the stories were about. He's the one that had the

motive and the money and opportunity."

"Don't be daft, it's only a story!"



"I'm not so sure - it rings true to me - more than you might think.

"Anyway how would the police know which rhododendron to look

under. There's hundreds up there in the woods."

"They could get our help - I'd be willing to put in a few hours with a

shovel and a fork for good old One Eye."

"And what about if you found him, you'd jump a mile high in the air

you would. You nearly fainted when they killed that goose at the last

'Goose Fair'.

"I don't care. It would be worth it if it got the heap of slime that didit his just desserts.

"Well you can bet I'll never vote for him again!"

The elections came round and the local dignitary was appalled at

the result of the votes. In office for years, he now came a dismal

third. His speech was full of half references to unsubstantiated

gossip and rumor mongers but he was out of office and many

people felt a little better.

Then television latched onto the story and pretty soon the now ex-

politician was facing their investigations into his activities. Yet more

printed details of One Eyes' final hours were found in public places.

They told of how his home had been broken into and his family

threatened. Steamy details of the dignitary's love nest were also

revealed and still nobody knew where they came from.

"Bank accounts in Switzerland, he had and an illegitimate son from

that dolly bird he kept in his London flat - and him a married man

that we're supposed respect!"

"That bit about him, dressing up at that party was too smutty for



me. I don't like reading about that sort of thing - it's filth."

"But you can't deny that it goes on. Better out in the open where

everybody can know about it."

Then, one morning, posters appeared everywhere around town

inviting residents to go to the police station at one o'clock in the

afternoon to carry out a search of the woods to assist police

enquiry's.

When they all arrived, the Chief of the local constabulary didn't like

to admit that neither he nor any of his officers had issued the

posters. Fearing a public riot, if he didn't appear committed, hequickly organized the search.

The area they concentrated on was a bleak tree covered hollow

between the two parts of the village. Nobody had ever built any

properties there because of the marshes. But the rhododendrons

loved it and thrived in the hundreds.

Some brought their children to help, running and cavorting besides

them. Others pushed their young ones along in buggies thatsnagged on the uneven paths. Amongst all was a steely

determination that at long last, justice would be done.

When eventually, after hours of determined searching, the body was

found, the cry that went up was fit to have wakened the dead and

echoed eerily around the surrounding hills. Then, silently, with

heads bowed in respect and tired sadness they trudged back

through the woods to await the autopsy in their homes.

The arrests followed soon afterwards. The politician first and then

his helpers. As he tried to wriggle out of it by saying he had only

meant for the hired muscle to frighten One Eye not to kill him.

And how had the autopsy confirmed their guilt? The horrifying facts



soon became clear.

Inside One Eyes rotting stomach along with the residue of his last

days meal was a plastic coin bag. Inside the coin bag was a

hurriedly hand written sheet that described his attackers and theirpaymaster, gave their names and full details that eventually let

directly to their imprisonment.

In those last moments of freedom before his attackers had found

him again, grievously wounded and knowing that he had only

minutes more to live, One Eye had written down everything that he

knew, placed the A4 sheet in the coin bag and swallowed it. It was

enough to seal his attackers fate.

And who was it that somehow knew where to find him? Nobody

knows. But to this day, when the local car boot sale comes round,

there is a new figure on the wooden box declaiming to the

assembled crowd about stories they won't dare to read and then

selling them for only one pound sterling each.

Some say he's also been published by a London company and that

the book carries a dedication:

"To the bravest man I've ever known - my dad!"

The End

© Rob Hopcott 1999 - 2006, all rights reserved. All characters arefictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any personliving or otherwise.

42-a-story-to-die-for

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