Ordinary Joe

by Jon Teckman

  ‘Actually, I do,’ said Bennett, the first coherent comment I’d heard from him all day. ‘You should try it, West. You look a bit uptight yourself.’

  ‘That’s not such a bad idea,’ said Rodney, replacing his glasses, an action which probably diminished rather than improved his eyesight. ‘I might come back to that later. But first I want to have a look at the results of your questionnaires. Give me a few minutes to go through them and do the scoring bit, would you, gentlemen? Why don’t you go and refill your coffee cups and I’ll call you back in, say, ten minutes? Lovely.’

  ‘So what do you reckon so far?’ Bennett asked while the coffee machine sputtered boiling coffee and a strange white, milk-like substance into his cup. He had clearly enjoyed the punching exercise and was finding it more difficult to maintain his earlier sourness. ‘Complete bloody waste of time, if you ask me, but that last bit was fun. I could have got a damn sight more out of a session on the heavy bag down at the gym, mind you. Have you ever boxed, West? We must have a go later on – I only hope my hands can withstand the pummelling you’ll give them.’

  He laughed at his joke and I smiled back, glad to draw some of the chill out of the room. ‘It will be interesting to see if this questionnaire throws up anything, won’t it?’ I said, trying to keep the mood pleasant.

  ‘D’you think?’ Bennett replied. ‘I hate those bloody things. I must have done dozens in my time and they’ve never found anything of any interest.’

  Our conversation exhausted, we sat in silence drinking our coffees until the door opened and Rodney emerged from his room, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Come in, lads, come in!’ he said with the fervour of a novice Boy Scouts patrol leader. ‘This is all most interesting. Most interesting!’

  We trooped back into his room and took our seats. He looked genuinely pleased to see us as if he had expected us to run away the moment his back was turned. Perhaps that’s what most of his clients did. ‘Right,’ he announced, clapping his hands together, ‘I have the results from your questionnaires. Are you happy for me to divulge them in front of one another?’

  We nodded obediently. ‘Yup, bring it on,’ said Bennett.

  ‘Splendid! First, let me explain again what this instrument is about. It is not a test of intelligence and there are no right or wrong answers. It is simply a set of questions designed to find out more about what makes you tick. The test has been validated and proven to provide reliable and relevant information. I am a fully qualified Stage 1 and 2 practitioner in the instrument—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ Bennett said. ‘Now, could you please tell us the results? Am I going to live, doctor?’ Invigorated by the boxing, Bennett was starting to sound more like his old, insufferable self.

  ‘No, no, Mr Bennett, it’s nothing like that,’ Rodney laughed. ‘This just helps me – and hopefully you as well – see what kind of people you are and what might cause any difficulties in your relationship. And then, of course, gives us some ideas about what we can do about them. I must say, it’s very clear from your reports why you might rub each other up the wrong way from time to time. You are very different.’

  ‘With all due respect, Taff, I could have told you that an hour ago,’ said Bennett.

  ‘Yes, I appreciate that,’ Rodney replied, ‘but now we have some objective data to work with. This report considers your answers to the questions and then defines your character along two different axes: what motivates you and how you like to relate to other people. And then, to make it easier to remember, it translates this into a colour and an animal. For example, Joseph B., your results indicate that you are a Purple Stallion.’

  Despite our general frostiness and recently glacial relationship, Bennett and I couldn’t resist exchanging smiles at that. It didn’t matter what kind of school you went to, having the teacher refer to someone as a purple stallion would always get a laugh. Rodney could see us smirking, but continued undaunted.

  ‘Now, you see, this tells us that you are motivated by getting things done and are driven by a desire to win at all costs – that’s the purple bit – but you are also something of a loner, happiest leading from the front and charging on, even when there’s no one following behind you. That’s the stallion. Does that sound about right?’

  It sounded spot on to me and Bennett also concurred, no doubt enjoying the image of himself as a kind of modern Bucephalus, tougher and even more driven than the great Alexander on his back.

  ‘Yup, that sounds like me, wouldn’t you say, West?’

  I nodded. I could already imagine his new business cards: ‘Joseph Bennett, Head of Entertainment and Media Division. Purple Stallion’, alongside an image of something suitably large, muscular and purple rising up to pursue a mighty quest.

  ‘What about West then?’ Bennett grinned, ‘what’s he?’

  I ran through the possibilities in my mind: a Green Tiger, perhaps – sleek and powerful, yet environmentally friendly? Or a Scarlet Elephant – fiery and strong, but silent as the night? Or—

  ‘Ah, now that’s the interesting bit,’ said Rodney. ‘You see, Joe here comes out as a Yellow Meerkat …’

  Bennett exploded into laughter. ‘A yellow meerkat! Isn’t that some kind of giant rat? That just about sums you up, West! A skinny yellow rat! That’s priceless!’ All of a sudden his day had become very worthwhile.

  Rodney ignored Bennett’s outburst and carried on. ‘Yes, a Yellow Meerkat. Remember, Mr Bennett, there are no right or wrong answers or better or less good animals to be under this test. It simply provides a way of looking at the differences between people. Your Yellow Meerkat is motivated by helping people, is generally optimistic and enjoys working closely with others, but probably as part of the team rather than as the leader. All organisations need a few Yellow Meerkats scurrying around behind the scenes if they’re to be successful. Does that sound like you, Mr West?’

  ‘Absolutely spot on!’ roared Bennett.

  ‘But, remember, Joseph,’ said Rodney, irritated by Bennett’s triumphalism, ‘a single meerkat can kill a deadly cobra if it is motivated to do so.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bennett, ‘and so can a stallion if it stamps on the fucker!’

  Rodney made some notes on his pad, then handed us a copy of our individual reports. ‘You can read through these at your leisure, folks,’ he said, still retaining his enthusiasm.

  In his world there really were no good or bad results, just more or less interesting subjects. Bennett flicked through his report, smiling occasionally. I placed mine on the floor and made a mental note never to look at it again.

  ‘OK,’ said Rodney, clapping his hands again to regain our attention and rubbing them together briskly like a vagrant searching for kinetic warmth, ‘what do we learn from all this?’ The question was meant rhetorically, allowing him the platform from which to announce his pre-prepared conclusions, but Bennett was too quick for him, striking like the cobra I would now dearly love to kill – metaphorically, of course.

  ‘This completely explains why I find West here such a terrible drag. While I’m trying to get things done, he just wants to fanny about making sure everyone’s happy. I mean, isn’t that why we’re here? He couldn’t tell that American girl the truth, so he let her think I’d go and see her. For God’s sake, even if I had diddled her in New York – which I absolutely did not – I still wouldn’t have strung her along like this. It would have been wham bam, thank you ma’am – now fuck off! That’s the Purple Stallion way.’

  The most appalling thing about this analysis was that it was almost 100 per cent true. If I’d been more decisive, I could have stopped the whole thing weeks ago. Instead, I’d let it run out of control. Trying to please everyone and ultimately pleasing no one. That, I’m afraid, is the Yellow Meerkat way. And that’s why Purple Stallions rule the world.’

  ‘That isn’t exactly how I’d have put it,’ Rodney replied slowly, ‘but you are correct, Joseph, that your two types are so different that you may find it difficult to gel. T
he friendly, sociable meerkat will often find the stallion a little too, er, robust, whereas, as you’ve said, the meerkat can be a touch too reflective for your rampant, thrusting stallion.’ Bennett sniggered and snorted but Rodney carried on. ‘But that doesn’t mean the stallion and the meerkat can’t work together – you’ll just have to put more effort into it. You may never be great mates, but you should be able to get along perfectly well. Do you follow me?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Bennett. ‘West and I can work together fine as long as I lead and he follows and I try not to crap on him too often. And the slower he is running after me, the more crap he’ll have to dodge.’

  ‘Again, not quite as I’d have put it,’ Rodney said, his enthusiasm finally beginning to wilt. ‘What I mean is that you’ll have to draw on the best aspects of both of your profiles to create a winning combination. It’s like your forwards and backs at rugby. Different shapes and sizes and different roles and skills but all needed to get that ball over the try line. Do you see?’

  ‘Got it! So it’s for me to do all the hard grafting at the front, then get the ball out back to Westy to do the Fancy Dan girly stuff,’ said Bennett. ‘Is that it? Can I go back to work now?’

  ‘Good gracious no,’ said Rodney, smiling again. ‘That instrument is only one part of the process I want to go through today – we’ve barely scratched the surface. There are a couple more exercises I want to do with you this afternoon but, right now, I think we could all do with an energiser. Why don’t we go with Joseph’s idea and get the old boxing gloves back on? Is that OK with you?’

  ‘Actually, no, it isn’t …’ I started to reply but was quickly bulldozed into agreement by the others’ enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Bennett as if he was talking to one of his mates, ‘it’ll be fun.’ Without waiting for further instructions, he pulled on the sparring mitts and started slapping them together like dustbin lids.

  ‘Here you go, Joe,’ Rodney said, presenting me with the two enormous leather gloves. ‘As Joseph says, this will be a bit of fun, but I also want you to get some learning out of it. What I’d like you to do is think of a succinct sentence that expresses something you would like the other one to do differently in order to improve your relationship. Then, as you punch the mitts, you announce that sentence one syllable at a time in time with your punches. Do you see what I mean? For example, let’s say that I would like my wife to give the bath a wipe-down after she’s used it, to get rid of all the hair and stuff she leaves behind. What I’d do is tell her what I wanted her to do differently and hit her to emphasise each syllable.’ I was unsure now whether he was still explaining the exercise or confessing to being a wife-beater. ‘So it would go: “Dar (he feinted a punching motion towards one of Bennett’s padded hands and made the sound of a punch)-ling (whack), would (pow) you (smack) clean (bam) the (whop) bath (doov) prop-er-ly (a rapid left-right-left combination: bish-bash-bosh)?” Do you see?’

  ‘Yes, we see,’ said Bennett, stallionly. ‘Come on! Let’s get on with it.’

  Still feeling some trepidation, as well as enormous sympathy for Mrs James, who I imagined was even now on her hands and knees polishing her bath to a state of showroom brightness in readiness for her husband’s return, I sidled up to within two feet of Bennett, my fists so weighed down that I could hardly lift them. I wasn’t sure what I feared most: the humiliation of not being able to land a meaningful blow on Bennett, or the pain of his reply. I conjured up the shortest sentence I could think of, hoping that when it was my turn to be his punchbag, Bennett would also go for something neat and pithy rather than delivering my full annual appraisal punctuated by bone-splintering punches.

  I began my routine, spelling out the sentence one syllable at a time, landing an ineffectual blow to one of Bennett’s hands with each utterance: ‘Why (splat) can’t (plop) you (nudge) be (thwat) nice-r (tap-tap) some (pat) times (pfff)?’

  By the time I’d finished, Bennett was bent double with laughter. If it had been a boxing match, the referee would have had to stop it because he was incapable of defending himself. Rodney was trying hard not to join him, years of training and experience being stretched to the limit. Clearly, he had never before seen such a pathetic attempt at hitting anything.

  ‘Are you ready to continue, Joseph,’ he said, when he was certain he would not start laughing, ‘or do you need a little longer to recover?’ That set Bennett off again and, this time, Rodney joined him, convincing himself he was laughing at his own witticism rather than at the feeble joke standing in front of them.

  When they had recovered some semblance of decorum, I swapped the gloves for Bennett’s sparring pads and he took up his stance in front of me – six feet plus of well-honed muscle and properly drilled technique. My first instinct was to throw the pads down and run for my life, but I was comforted by the thought that his mood had improved a great deal during the course of the day. The Bennett who had arrived that morning would have been a murderous prospect indeed.

  I held my hands up in front of me and prepared for the assault. What follows – like my teeth – has been pieced together from contemporary records. Bennett threw a flurry of punches with the rhythm and power of a professional cruiser-weight. He opened with a left cross into my left glove as he shouted ‘West’. This was followed by a hard right to my right to illustrate the accusative ‘Why’, then a straight right to my left – ‘don’t’ – followed by another left to my left – ‘you’. The force of the successive blows was driving my hands back towards my body. A right to my right – ‘stop’, a straight left to my right – ‘be-’, another left, this time across my body to my left hand – ‘-ing’, a powerful straight right that knocked me off balance – ‘such’; then he took half a step forward to deliver another left, this time, I think, to my left but, by then, I’d lost all feeling in my hands – ‘a’. Another straight right was followed by a flurry of punches – right, left, right, right – which backed me up against a wall – ‘mis-er-a-ble’, before another left/right combination stamped out the word ‘lit-tle’ on my battered palms.

  ‘SHIT!’

  What the fuck was that? I didn’t see no train coming. Did you see a train coming? Pardon me boy, was that the Chattanooga Choo Choo? Track sixty-nine, was that it? No, that’s not right. Thirty-nine? Twelve? Twelve Days of Christmas? Twelve Angry Men? Henry Fonda. He was in Twelve Angry Men. Daughter’s called Jane, Saigon Jane. Miss Saigon. ‘On the other side of the earth, there’s a place for us’. No, wait. That’s West Side Story. Natalie Wood and what’s his name? What’s my name? Where was I? Where am I? Who am I?’

  The room had turned horizontal: the walls were where the floor and ceiling should have been and vice versa. My head was scrambled and my face felt cold and wet. I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth and found a gap where my front teeth had been when I’d brushed them that morning. This knocked the crust off some semi-dried blood and it started to run freely again out of my mouth and down my chin where, because my face was lying at 90 degrees to its usual elevation, it took a right turn down my cheek and dripped into my ear.

  My vision was badly blurred, although I realised later that was because the blow had knocked my glasses halfway across the room. I could just about make out Bennett and Rodney standing over me. They eased me up to a sitting position with my back against the wall and Rodney pressed a pad of toilet tissue to my mouth and offered me some water. I sipped on it and let it dribble back into the glass, turning the contents a washed-out pink. Rodney put my glasses back on my nose, where they rested at a jaunty angle.

  ‘Sorry old boy,’ I heard Bennett saying through the fog. ‘That last one got away from me. Softened you up with a nice left-right combo and then sneaked one through your guard. Went down like a sack of spuds, didn’t he, Rodney?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Rodney, ‘we’re going to call you a cab and get you home. I think we’ve done enough for one day. But Joseph and I agreed that, given how things turned out, we should get together
again some time to carry on. And this time, you can have one free hit at his face. How does that sound?’

  I was incapable of speaking or of moving my face to show any reaction. It all hurt too much. Eventually, I flicked my watery eyes up and down in a gesture that could have meant anything from ‘That would be lovely, thank you’ to ‘Call the police’ and settled down to wait for the taxi.

  When the mini-cab arrived, Rodney helped me down the stairs and into the back seat, explaining to the driver the reasons behind my dazed expression and blood-soaked clothes. As we were pulling away, Bennett came running out of the door shouting for me to open the window.

  ‘Don’t forget these, old boy,’ he said, handing me a piece of blood-stained tissue paper. I opened the package as the taxi pulled away – and saw my two front teeth smiling up at me.

  MILL HILL, NORTH LONDON

  The journey home seemed to take forever. The traffic, even in the early afternoon, was horrible, forcing the driver to weave through narrow side streets in desperate pursuit of a few feet of unoccupied road. As we drew nearer to my home, he had to ask me for directions, in response to which I could only mumble and splutter like the Elephant Man chewing a toffee. Every time I tried to speak, a crimson stream dribbled from my mouth into the sodden red paper napkin I was holding to my battered face. The cabbie checked occasionally that I wasn’t bleeding on his upholstery, but otherwise seemed unperturbed by my plight.

  When we got to within a few minutes’ walk of my house, and tired of trying to make myself understood through swollen lips, I asked him to pull over. I handed over the contents of my wallet in settlement of the fare and shuffled home, engendering fear or laughter in the people who saw me, depending on their predisposition towards bleeding men in suits.

  I eventually made it to my front door and fumbled for my keys with my left hand, while my right stayed pressed to my face, holding the napkin in place. I managed to hook them out of my pocket, but then dropped them behind one of the pot plants that adorned our front step. Even the thought of going down on my hands and knees to grope for them gave me a headache, so I rang the bell. There was no answer. Looking at my watch, I realised that Natasha must be collecting Helen from school. I was close to tears, not of pain – although my whole face felt as if I’d been used for batting practice by a Major League baseball team – but from the accumulated anguish of a day that had started brightly but had descended to my being labelled a cowardly weasel, punched in the face and made to struggle home only to find myself locked out.