Drunken Monkey
Originally published in 2014.
It’s school kick-out, and McDonald’s is rammed.
I like McDonald’s, and I don’t think they deserve all that horrible stuff people say about them. Admittedly, the horse meat scandal did give me nightmares….and I do keep getting these weird mental flashes where I’m standing in the queue when a jockey walks out in full kit, serves me a Big Mac and says ‘Oh, you’ll enjoy this one: she was a cracker. I won six races on her.’ I open the Big Mac box, and inside is a story about a horse called Betty with a list of all her favourite things and the big blue rosette she won pinned to the chips.
It makes me wish I was a vegetarian, but I decided against that when I went to a vegetarian authors’ meal in London: the waiter asked who was having soup and only half of them had the strength to raise their arms. I had to help the bloke next to me, who wanted soup really badly but couldn’t do anything about it. I think he started to cry a bit, but that might have been his voice: it was hard to tell.
But, anyway….it’s McDonald’s today: I’m only having a milkshake, and I’ve just agreed a brilliant new book deal, so life is good…..until the two boys walk in.
The two boys I’ve been watching through the window.
The two boys dressed in full karate gear who have been kicking the railings, the wall, the umbrella stands, the lampposts and each other for the past fifteen minutes.
They can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen years old, but within five seconds of them sitting down in the booth opposite me, I know that if my own son turns out anything like them I’m going to blame myself. It’s the things that they’re saying to each other.
I never, EVER get involved in other people’s conversations…and I certainly don’t talk to kids in restaurants (unless I’m shouting at my own to sit down and stop flicking ketchup at each other) but these two…….man……they’re taking me to the limit. They’re also making me feel old, and that’s hard to do: I’m 36, I have long, windswept and interesting ginger hair and I wear a kickass t-shirt.
I guess that what’s upsetting me most of all is that I don’t really understand what they’re talking about…but I think I can see the outline of it, and it’s just……all……horrific. Here’s the conversation, and I kid you not:
‘My dad and your mum. Can you imagine?’
‘My aunty and your nan.’
‘Your sister and my three special cousins.’
‘My uncle and your great aunt. The one that’s DISABLED.’
‘Sick!’
‘Siccccccckk.’
‘Did your dad get his job back?’
‘Nah…..he’s such a loser. Monkey would kick him through a wall.’
‘Drunken Monkey?’
‘No way: not Drunken Monkey. PROPER Monkey.’
‘Oh, hell yeah: PROPER MONKEY would finish your dad. He’d, like, step over him and just whisper and your dad would BURN.’
This last bit actually makes me put down my milkshake. What are they on about? A TV character? Some mixed martial arts show? UFC fighting? What?
‘Proper Monkey died and came back the same day. Like Jesus.’
Okay, it’s definitely a TV character: I remember a show from the 70s with a dude called Monkey. But, just as I think that, out it comes….
‘Proper Monkey said I was getting clever. I helped him with the self-checkout at Tesco because he couldn’t find the bit where the coins go in.’
At this point, I suddenly sit up and turn my head very slightly to see if this is a joke, but the other one says:
‘When my mum walked out on us, Proper Monkey got my mum flowers and told her he’d help us out with money and stuff.
Suddenly my mind is spinning. There’s a man somewhere in Thanet called Proper Monkey? Even as a sort of brown owl for Karate, I think Proper Monkey is the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard.
‘Proper Monkey told me if I keep punching wood fifty times a day, I’ll break through it.’
‘He’s right. Just keep listening to him, and you’ll get like me. I can do that.’
‘Honest?’
‘Yeah: I could break this table in half if I wanted to. I can’t do the other stuff Proper Monkey can do, though. Did you hear how he once stood on one leg in a room with no doors or windows for a fortnight? An actual fortnight. That’s, like, twenty days or something.’
Now I’m actually screaming inside. I want to go and sit in between these boys and say: ‘Now, look, I know I’m old…and admittedly a bit ginger, but nobody – and I mean nobody – can stand on one leg in a room with no doors or windows for a fortnight. For a start, if the room had no doors or windows, how did he get in? Secondly, he would die of malnutrition. Thirdly, he would badly need to go to the toilet after a few hours…and if he stayed on one leg and just went in his pants, then by the end of the fortnight that room would stink so badly that he’d become the first person actually to die of SMELL. Last of all, this Proper Monkey you’re talking about is just a normal bloke – probably some local karate instructor – who gets off on impressing kids with fake stories. There’s a good chance he drives a van during the week and paints fences (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and there’s an even better chance that, somewhere in his house, there’s a gaming console in place of a woman. Your friend, Proper Special Drunken Monkey, badly needs a girlfriend.
‘Okay – how mental is this? Proper Monkey just stepped in the house!!!!!!!’
The second I hear this, I turn very slowly to look towards the McDonald’s counter: a single customer has walked in through the sliding door and is now standing, waiting to be served.
He looks like Fu Manchu in a business suit.
I’m not messing about: I’m serious. This guy, I’d guess, is around sixty years old. He’s definitely Chinese, has wispy white hair secured in a small bun and is – beyond any shadow of a doubt – the most incredible-looking human being I’ve ever seen….and not just in Thanet, where I’ve seen people who look like they’re even going to hurt metal. This old dude is world-class.
I’m not joking, and I’m not exaggerating: not one bit. This man walked straight off the set of Kill Bill and into the Margate Road McDonald’s.
It’s at this point that he spots the two boys, abandons the queue and nonchalantly walks over to greet them. When they’ve finished nodding at him with a level of respect I wouldn’t even have guessed they had in them five minutes ago, he turns to me, spots my laptop and says: ‘I do hope my two young friends have not disturbed your concentration?’
I smile: it’s a stupid, weak, pathetic ginger smile. ‘Not at all,’ I laugh. ‘I…er….I didn’t even know they were there!’
All the time, I’m thinking: this man stood on one leg in a room with no doors or windows for a FORTNIGHT…and, for those of you who know Jack Shit about anything, a fortnight is twenty days.
