Greater Expectations
Read Greater Expectations Online
Authors: Alexander McCabe
Greater Expectations
Published by Alexander McCabe
Copyright
Alexander McCabe 2014
Kindle
Edition
The right of Alexander McCabe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claim for damages.
This is a work of fiction and, as such, any reference to any persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.
The author accepts no responsibility nor liability for the information contained herein including, but not restricted to, any and all persons, websites, places, work premises and establishments. The inclusion of such does not, in any way, constitute an endorsement or association by or with the author nor the content, products, advertising, or other such materials presented by such persons, websites, places, work premises and establishments.
Artwork by Kirsty C. Maclauchlan
For Marie
Table of Contents
Chapter 2 - The Algorithm Of My Heart
Chapter 3 - A “Chat” Becomes “The Talk”
Chapter 4 - An Exceptional Stereotype
Chapter 7 - Pugilistic Tendencies
Chapter 8 - Caught Between “Rocky” And A Hard Place
Chapter 10 - The Lady And The Tramp
Chapter 12 - Penny For My Thoughts
Chapter 14 - The Wedding Crasher
Chapter 15 - Wishing I Was Lucky
Chapter 16 - Deaf, Dumb…And Dumber!
Chapter 22 - Cut Off Without A Penny
Chapter 23 - The Marital Carousel
Chapter 25 - The Joke To Recovery
Chapter 27 - Heartbroken Heartbreaker
Chapter 28 - Enabled In The Disabled
Chapter 30 - Desperately Seeking Susan
Statistics
Wednesday 7th January
I derive an absolutely ridiculous amount of pleasure from reading any statistic that places me firmly in the minority. Not those statistics that would see me placed in the “Ted Bundy” or “Fred West” categories you understand?
No, not those.
Never
those.
Those are the sort of statistics that make you wonder who and why anyone would want to compile statistics? Rather, those other statistics that imply that you are in any way “normal” or “average”. Is it not simply abhorrent to think that you could ever be categorised as such? Worse still, who would ever want to be considered as “normal” or “average”? It’s a concept that irritates and irks me no end. The very idea of it. Everyone is an individual and, as such, we are all of us special and unique.
Well, almost all.
As that most eminent of philosophers Dr Seuss
said, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
So there was I sat in my truck cab enjoying the first of undoubtedly many coffees
and reading today’s newspaper–as I am inclined to do from time to time, such is my want–when I stumbled across such a statistic. One of those solitary, soulless, single sentence side column statistics that suck the very life from you and are there for no other reason than to fill out the page of the newspaper.
This particular nugget stated:
“Statistics show that today is the day, and January the number one month, that most couples–especially those with children–are likeliest to separate due to overspending throughout the Christmas period.”
I mean, come on. Who wants or needs to know that? Not only is this a depressing statistic in its own right but, worse still, they actually integrated it within an actual league table.
A statistic within a statistic.
As the rain relentlessly pounded against the cab, my mind wandered to contemplating those unfortunates sat at their breakfast tables reading this very statistic. Spouses who were blissfully unaware of exactly how much had actually been spent over the Christmas period and, as they did so, this coinciding with the very moment that the mailman was dropping in their credit card statement. In providing any merit to this statistic, then it now validated an option that they had not even considered in the very seconds before reading it. Worse still, should their partners also read this innocuous little paragraph, then it presented them
with the very same option too.
If it were me, I’d have binned the newspaper immediately and so withdrawn this option for my partner.
Sipping my coffee, my mind now drifted to imagining a loving couple that had awoken that very morning. Content and happy within the stable familial relationship that they had created and ready to face the day together, with all the challenges that it brings. Here, now, there is suddenly this very real option to separate. Those options can play with your head. It would be an option that would certainly play with
my
head. Especially if the credit card bills were what I deemed “excessive”. Yet, I have no idea what such an “excessive” figure would be. Naturally, I began to wonder exactly what that mysterious cut off figure is that so determines the financial value of a familial relationship. The true cost of family. Surely such a figure would have to be relative to the household income. There must be a statistic about it. Now that would be a statistic that I would actually be interested in.
How curious.
However, today’s statistic presents neither nice thoughts nor good options, especially for those who woke up in just such a secure and happy state of mind. It is the last thing anyone wants nor needs to read in an already throwaway society that focuses more on material possessions than familial ties.
It was a spiteful, horrible, and just plainly mean statistic. It served no real purpose and was subject to way more consideration from myself than it merited. It was a statistic that I read and reread before realising that it had brough
t the biggest smile to my face.
For I had happily separated the week before and so was delighted to be firmly entrenched within the minority.
Delighted?
Really?
Hardly.
Who was I kidding? I was raw. Isolated, alone, and confused. If truth be told, I was utterly devastated and distraught. Apart from all that, I was just fine. I find that I keep questioning myself, what more could I have done to make us work and save our marriage? Could I have been more supportive financially? Emotionally? Physically?
I didn’t want to be any part of this statistic. It had made me re-evaluate my own self worth and my value within the relationship and I hated it for that reason alone. I had trusted my wife and now loathed myself for doing so. My trust had been used and abused and cast aside like a dirty rag. This knowledge generated almost every negative feeling and emotion I have ever known. Never have I felt so powerless or weak.
I will
never
buy this particular newspaper again.
I had wholeheartedly believed that when we married we had each
other’s backs. We were the epitome of the old cliché, we two had become one. I had certainly believed it and yet I despise myself for deriving such great pleasure from this statistic for the mere fact that it makes
me
happy.
Not
us
happy.
Me
happy.
It just serves as evidence to prove how desperate I am to regain my sense of self, my sense of identity, as quickly as possible. This statistic had given me the smallest of victories and I was going to savour every last moment of it.
I
may
just buy this newspaper again.
The banging on the cab door startled me and brought me crashing back to reality as my natural reaction saw me jump from my seat. Actually, I very nearly shit myself. I looked down through the rain to see the smiling face of Mike Taylor
–
who else?
– “Alright son?” He seemed to be planted beside my driver’s door and was looking straight up at me. His eyes were barely open, fighting against the torrent that was attacking his head and cascading off the end of his nose.
He was a pitiful sight but, to me, never has there been one more welcome.
“What the fuck are you doing standing out there? Get yourself in the passenger side you daft twat! Why would you ever stand there in this rain waiting for me to tell you that, you eejit?” I shouted this through the window as there was no way I was opening the bloody thing.
I might get wet.
He ran around the front of the cab and as he climbed in he said “Never again son. I was presumptuous that way once before and so never again will I ever jump in the passenger side of another man’s truck without telling him first, just so he knows. I used to just jump in carte blanche, without giving it a second’s thought, but not now. Not no more.”
It was great to see Taylor, drenched as he was. Just what I needed to break my gloom. I knew that there was a pearl of a story coming and it was made all the more exciting because I just could not imagine what had happened that had made him so blatantly refuse the mundane action of jumping int
o another man’s passenger seat.
A friend’s passenger seat at that.
“Well son, you see…” And we were off. We both knew that there was more than a touch of “poetic license” in his stories but that really did not matter–does it ever? In actual fact, experience told me that this particular practice was to be encouraged in him. His imagination ensured that it only added value to his tales.
Anyway, why let the facts or the truth
get in the way of a good story?
It transpired that he had been working as part of a two truck convoy system running stone chips for resurfacing work on a quiet country road back home in Scotland. It was approaching his lunch hour when he saw his companion’s truck already parked in a lay by and there was enough space for his truck too. So he took the opportunity to take his break and have a catch up at the same time
“…two birds with one stone thinks I, son.”
Parking in behind his colleague, Mike jumped out of his own cab and nipped down the passenger side of his mates’ truck.
In one motion, he opened the cab door and started to climb in.
“Then it happened son. As I was climbing up, I said,
“Alright Tam, how’s thing….”
Glancing in, I froze on the step, halfway in and out with my hands on each guide rail and one foot now dangling. For inside I saw that he was sat on the edge of the bunk–between the driver’s and passenger’s seats–
giving himself a treat son!
As I looked at him, he looks at me, then we both looked at his cock. It’s only then that I see that he’s actually on the fucking
money stroke
. At that point, he literally puts his thumb over the end to try and keep it from spurting.
As God is my witness son, that is the truth.
There was me, still hanging in his passenger door and he was just…well… just sat there with his trousers at his ankles, cock in hand and his
porridge
oozing all over his thumb. That whole scene is emblazoned in my mind son.” As he concluded, he cast his gaze solemnly out the window and beyond the rain.
“That image will live with me to the grave.”
Oh how I needed this very story. It seemed that Mike was more reliving than retelling the memory and was deeply uncomfortable with it, yet this just made it all the more hysterical to me. I was laughing so hard I was crying. The tears seemed to flow all too freely as one. I knew–but he didn’t–that they were a mixture of my own personal tragedy and his comedy. At that moment, I simply could not have cared less. I just savoured the moment.
Another small victory for me.
“So what did you do then?” I had to ask. His answer was completely unexpected although, knowing him, it shouldn’t have been. I’d known Taylor long enough to expect the unexpected, especially in the oddest of circumstances–which he often finds himself in–and where he applies his own unique brand of logic.
I’m certain that there is a decent research paper in the logic of Mike Taylor.
“What could I do son? I mean, I didn’t want to
embarrass
the man. We had been friends for years.” A wistful look fell about him as he continued. “We aren’t friends now right enough. I mean, how do you remain friends with a man after you have seen him wank, far less come?” There was a malevolence in the way he said this that left me in no doubt there was a punch line to follow. Fighting to compose himself, he turned towards me and started laughing as he said:
“That friendship was ruined in the blink of his Jap’s eye!”
I could tell it had been a punch line that had been refined over the years of retelling this story but it was my first time hearing it. It felt like a full five minutes before I had stopped laughing enough to let him continue.
“So I sat down and took my full hour break in the passenger seat, staring at a single spot through the front window. Time seemed to stand still son. I can assure you, that was the longest fucking hour of my life. You know when they say that the loss of one sense drastically increases your other senses? They are fucking right son. Sitting there, everything I heard seemed to be deafening. The wet wipes being pulled from the box as he cleaned himself off. Him pulling up his trousers and doing the button. The sound of his zipper reverberated around the cab, thereafter he meekly settled back into the driver’s seat.
All in silence.
After the hour, I just said ‘Well, see you later Tam.’ He mumbled some sort of goodbye although I couldn’t hear him properly as I was jumping out as fast as humanly possible.”
As a driver, not as a wanker you understand, I find it impossible to comprehend why Tam would not have locked the door and pulled the curtains in his cab when engaging in such a pastime. One of the two at the very least. Such naivety was so baffling to me that I had to ask, “How old a man was Tam, Mike?”
“Och son, he was a few years older than me. In fact, it was only three or four months later that Tam retired.”
“Well I can imagine that was an excruciating time for you having to work with him. I guess the embarrassment was too much for him?” I thought I was stating the obvious. How wrong was I?
“Tell me about it son. It was excruciating and really quite draining having to keep avoiding him. Yet it wasn’t the embarrassment that caused him to retire. No, he was forced to retire due to severe arthritis in his hands.” Taylor’s reply was said so seriously and with such a straight face that it was evident that the irony was completely lost on him. That made it all the funnier to me. My laughing prompted him to
ask, “What’s so funny about that son?”
“Taylor, you seriously don’t see the irony in Tam’s enforced retirement?”
It only took a second when the penny finally dropped and he cracked up. “You know Son, that was over 15 years ago and I never gave it a thought until you mentioned it now.” He reflected on this for a moment, then continued. “His arthritis is bad mind you. I saw Tam only once after he left. It was a good few years after his retirement, at the funeral of a mutual friend, and his hands were all gnarled and tight. All I could do was just gave him a friendly nod. There was no way I was shaking his fucking hand though son, not after what I had seen. I was painfully aware of where it had been. It all came flooding back in an instant–if you pardon the pun.”