Bob the Balloon, Al Capone and the Two Bob Bouncer

by Michael White

  Bob the Balloon, Al Capone and

  The Two Bob Bouncer.

  Michael White

  (Copyright © 2012)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  By The Same Author

  Paul McCartney’s Coat and Other Stories

  Tours of Note

  The Fae Wynrie

  Vallum Aelium

  The Greatest Virus of Them All

  Here Be Dragons

  The Road from Ballylaneen to Skellig Michael

  Liverpool

  Overboard!

  (Autumn 2012)

  About the Author.

  (Or... “It’s all about me.”)

  Ex-drummer, ex-software author and ex-flares wearer Michael White was born and lives in the north-west of England. In a previous life he was the author of many text adventure games that were popular in the early 1980’s. Realising that the creation of these games was in itself a form of writing, he has since made the move into self-publishing, resulting in many short stories and novellas. Covering an eclectic range of subjects the stories fall increasingly into that “difficult to categorise” genre, causing on-going headaches for the marketing department of his one man publishing company, Eighth Day Publishing.

  Having accidentally sacked his marketing director (himself) three times in the last two years, he has now retired to a nice comfortable room where, if he behaves himself, they leave him to write in peace.

  In his spare time (!) Michael likes to listen to all kinds of music, and is a big fan of Steven Moffat, whether he likes it or not.

  Michael is currently working on several new projects and can be contacted on the links below.

  Website: www.michaelkwhite.co.uk

  Email: mike.white2012@gmail.com

  Twitter: @mikewhite2011

  Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B006Y7JHCK

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mikewhiteauthor

  “The Sound of Guitars...”

  Liverpool. A city of poets, musicians, comedians and several banana shaped lamb statues. Oh, and a yellow submarine – and a cathedral (or two), and now a collection of fifteen short stories, tall tales and mysterious occurrences celebrating the city as well.

  Wrapped around Liverpool in the same way that the river Mersey wraps around the city itself, intertwining with its people and places, “Liverpool” showcases the love of life, laughter and music that the city embodies, and makes its own.

  Come with me now to see the mist rolling off that wonderful, beautiful river, and if you were to let your mind wander and imagine that the river is a song then that song would be a shanty, sad and melancholic, yet lifting as well. It would make you laugh, it would make you cry. It may even make you think, but for sure it would most definitely break your heart.

  Welcome to Liverpool, the gateway to absolutely everywhere else.

  Bob the Balloon, Al Capone and

  The Two Bob Bouncer.

  When I first started work on the docks one of the very first things that the foreman said to me was that as I was new, all of the other Dockers who I worked with would listen quite carefully to every word I said and that they would then choose a name for me from something that I had said, perhaps how I behaved or even perhaps something I wore. To give you an example, the foreman, whose real name was Bob was called, “the balloon”. Bob the balloon, see? They called him that because he had a habit of saying, “Don’t let me down lads, or the bosses will blow me up”! To be honest in that first week I heard him say it a fair few times so fair do’s. Bob the balloon it was.

  The second bloke had given his favourite saying away before I ever learnt his name. On my first day he had popped his head around the corner of the shed we were in and asked, “Where’s the gang, Bob?” That was Al Capone of course, which even I managed to work out straight away. Anyway, I was a stubborn bugger back then and so I thought to myself, “well okay. I’m not going to make it easy for them. I’ll just keep schtum for a couple of weeks and only respond with a “yes” or a “no” whenever it was needed. Apart from that nothing at all. I’ll try and act completely normal and not wear anything outlandish.” So that’s what I did. I just thought that it would be funnier if they had to work at it than if I gave myself away by saying or doing something daft that they would immediately pick up on.

  You could see that some of the older Dockers had sussed out what I was up to, and just left me to it. They had probably seen this hundreds of times before. A few of the other blokes tried to get me talking but I wasn’t having any of it. I had set myself a couple of weeks and then after that see what happened. Looking back this was quite some years ago now, but the way I remember it, it only took them until the start of the second week to give me a name. To this day some people on the dock only know me as “The quiet man.” and so, “The quiet man” it was.

  How can I describe the docks to you when I first started there if you had never been there at this time? You were looking at just over seven miles of industry, cargoes from all over the world bound for every corner of the country, and every single bit of it was man handled by thousands of the hardest working, funniest men I have ever had the privilege of meeting in my entire life. Don’t get me wrong but it was almost like being on a completely different planet. It wasn’t just the exotic cargoes that used to pass through every day, because a lot of them weren’t very exotic at all. In fact some of them were downright nasty. Chemicals and what have you. Stuff that you most definitely don’t want to be trailing home. Of course there were an awful lot of things that you did want to follow you out of work, and believe you and me, an awful lot of it did. That would be the “take home” as we called it. The biggest culprit of the “take home” was the docker called “The Drunken Overcoat” as he used to stagger out of the gates laden down with his “take home” every night. Rumour had it that on one occasion he had smuggled out an entire dinner service, including a huge soup tureen, all under his overcoat.

  That was all ahead of me, though. Once I had the nickname of “The Quiet

  Man” I admitted defeat and I began to open up a bit, and soon I was accepted as just another one of the lads and that was that. I was surprised to find that on different days you would be working on all kinds of different cargo, and depending on what it was or the size of it, you were mixing with lots of Dockers on and off. It soon became obvious that everyone had a tale to tell about someone else on the dock. Who was up to what, and so on. The names went on and on. You found yourself forgetting their real name and using their nickname instead. Quite often you would be working with someone for years and never actually know what their real name was. You would just refer to them as their nickname. Like “The London Fog”. You’d probably refer to them as a glass back these days, but it means the same thing. London fog never lifts, you see?

  One of the Dockers I worked with all of the time was called, “The Ghost”, because he was always moaning, and me other big mate at the time hated the bloody place. He was always saying he wanted a change so he was called, “Doctor Jekyll”. We were put into a gang which was usually about ten of us, though the number of people in it tended to change from time to time. I can remember “The Plazzy Surgeon” (he was a good grafter), “The Reluctant Plumber” (wouldn’t do a tap), “The Lazy Lawyer” (he always used to struggle with cases), “The Two Bob Bouncer”, “Van Gogh” (when asked for anything he would always say, “I’ve got one ‘ere”) and “The Olym
pic Torch”, who never went out, allegedly.

  On most days the ten of us used to have our lunch together, and what with times being hard and what have you we tended to find that whatever we had on our butties that day was what was going to be on them all week. So we devised a system called, “The Divvy Up”. What all of us would do is to put all of our sandwiches still wrapped up on the table in the shed, or wherever we happened to be, and then we would all take turns to pick one out that wasn’t our own. That way we would all have a bit of variety throughout the week. Sometimes you would end up with jam or even marmalade, though sometimes it worked out okay and you had something that was nicer. It was a good system and it worked pretty well.

  We were sat there one day chewing over our sarnies and discussing the policeman on the Gladstone gate called “One a Day” as he used to, as you would expect, catch one a day with his “take home”. The good shepherd had been caught with a whole frozen lamb under his coat the week before, and his explanation that he was simply keeping the lamb warm didn’t count for much at all.

  “He’s lucky he didn’t bloody end up with pneumonia” said the Lazy Lawyer, to which Van Gogh just nodded.

  “Should have cut it up first” mused the Olympic Torch and there were several nods of agreement. We carried on with our food and some of us had a smoke when the vicar put his head around the door.

  “Hey men!” he shouted, “The Piano” (as everyone plays on him) has some nights going if anyone’s interested?” Most of the lads shook their heads. It had been a long week and we were all pretty knackered. Everyone except the Two Bob Bouncer who just strode along ahead of us the same as usual, he didn’t seem to be tired at all. Mind you, I did notice that even he didn’t take up the offer of doing a night shift. “The Jelly” would probably snatch their hand off, though. After all, he was always saying it would only take one night and he would be set.

  One by one we headed back to work. I was walking with The Reluctant Plumber, who true to his name seemed to be lagging behind me just a bit. “Why do they call him the Two Bob Bouncer?” I asked, realising that I either couldn’t work it out or hadn’t been told.

  “Dunno.” said the Reluctant Plumber, and turned to the Plazzy Surgeon who also shook his head.

  “No idea.” he said. I just smiled and left it at that. It probably had something to do with his size, I remembered thinking. Two Bob was in fact, enormous. Perhaps time is playing tricks with me but in my head when I think about him I have him as at least six and a half foot tall, and probably just as wide as well. What I do remember for certain, is his hands. They were like bloody shovels. Enormous. Each finger was about twice the size of mine, and I’m not a small bloke by any stretch of the imagination. Suffice to say that the Two Bob Bouncer was very popular on any gang he worked on purely for how strong he was. Sometimes it seemed as if he could manhandle a crate out of the hold on his own. A big man. A very big man.

  He had been there years, as well. Longer than most could remember. The Ghost told me that he was sure he would be coming up for retirement this year. He certainly didn’t look old enough to retire by the look of him, but generally he was that big that it was difficult to take him all in at once anyway. So I assumed because he looked like a bouncer then that was where his name came from. But it’s not like me to let anything go, and over the next few days I asked a few of the older guys on the dock if they knew the origins of Bob’s name.

  None of them did.

  It was quite funny really, seeing them searching their memory for any recollection of exactly where the name The Two Bob Bouncer came from. Especially when I was told that his real name was Martin, though I for one had never heard him called that. There were a few outlandish theories pushed backwards and forwards, but nothing that made any real sense. Most of them concluded that it was indeed, as I thought, merely something to do with Martin’s size, and simply that he would definitely make a very good bouncer. Not that, as far as any of us were aware he had ever done any work as a bouncer. In fact he was quite the opposite. A gentle soul. Rarely had anything bad to say about anyone, even when they deserved it, and he pretty much kept himself to himself.

  When we finished that night I found myself running for the bus with The Two Bob Bouncer just behind me. Best to explain that the buses way back then were not the same as they are now. The old buses had a conductor to collect the fares, and the back of the bus was wide open. A quite wide step led either up the stairs to the top deck, or through to the lower one. The conductor would let the driver (who was cossetted away in a little cabin at the front of the bus) know when to stop by ringing a buzzer or bell once, and ring it twice to tell the driver to pull off.

  As the two of us ran for the bus that day however I could see that it was absolutely chocker. I leaped on to the back of the bus just as the conductor rang the bell twice to tell the driver to move off. The Two Bob Bouncer was right behind me but the conductor held out his hand to stop him getting on as the bus began to move.

  “Full up, mate.” he said, as the bouncer stopped in the road. “No room. Not even for one more. Get the one behind.” Bob the Bouncer just looked at him, now keeping pace with the bus as it tried to move off into the traffic along the dock road.

  “Is that right?” he said. “Not even one?”

  “That’s right.” gulped the conductor noticing for the first time the Two Bob Bouncer’s size. “Not one.”

  The Two Bob Bouncer reached on to the bus and lifted the conductor off his feet and placed him effortlessly on the road. “You have now.” he said gently as the bus gathered speed. Just in time for The Two Bob Bouncer to jump on to the bus in his place. I swear I could feel the platform tilt as he got on. “You have now.” repeated The Two Bob Bouncer as the bus pulled away, the conductor now running after it, trying to catch up with the slowly accelerating bus and failing completely.

  There was a roar of laughter throughout the carriages as it moved away, the conductor in hot, but useless pursuit. The loudest cheers, of course, came from those who had yet to pay their fares. Especially “The Baldy Rabbit” sat down the front who never seemed to have his fare.

  “Hang on! Come back!” we could hear the conductor yelling but soon we were too far away and he just came to a halt in the road, shaking a fist at us as he came to a sudden breathless stop. Then we were gone. The Two Bob Bouncer just grinned at me and we took it in turns to operate the bell as the bus continued on its route, people getting on and off as it went about its way, the driver seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that the bus no longer actually had a conductor on board at all. It was at this point that I decided to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

  “So why do they call you the Two Bob Bouncer then?” I asked, but he just grinned at me and said nothing. There was an awkward silence, but it didn’t last long as shortly after that it was my stop and off I went. Half an hour later as I was supping a quick pint before returning home the conductor passed us, obviously intent on walking to the depot. He got a round of applause as he went past. I seem to recollect that “Beams On Toast” and “Golf Ball” were there that night, and we all stood laughing as the conductor continued on his way. Probably too proud to jump another bus. Beams On Toast, by the way was a right character. Used to operate the cranes. During his first few weeks on the docks he was lifting a cargo of steel girders with the crane with the wind caught the metal, causing it to smash into the canteen that was full of Dockers at the time. It was bloody lucky that the beams only caused minor damage, and the Dockers who were in there having their breakfast were bloody lucky not to be killed. Anyway, beams on toast it was from then onwards. Golf Ball used to work on the ships and he had a talent for falling down any hole that came his way. Not clumsy, as such. He just seemed to have trouble going around them. One thing about Golf Ball though was his singing. Get a few pints down him and the pub would come to a halt as he sang. His voice would lift us, soaring out into the night, and many a man there would join in too, perhaps a t
ear at the corner of their eyes. These were hard men. They had to be. But when Golf Ball sang, some of them used to cry like babies. That was a long, long time ago and I can still hear him singing. I think in my heart I would rather be dead than lose that memory.

  Anyway. Why The Two Bob Bouncer was called that was now beginning to eat at me. Nobody seemed to know! By now people were beginning to get fed up of me asking the question, and if anyone ever asked him directly, as I had found out before he would just grin and then carry on as if no-one had said a word. A couple of weeks later I overhead one of the foremen, “The Mirror” (“Whatever you do reflects on me”), talking to another foreman, “The Sheriff” (“what’s the hold-up” ) about The Two Bob Bouncer, and that he was due to retire at the end of June. That was less than three weeks away. I decided to step up my efforts to find out where he had got his name from.

  To no result whatsoever. Quite simply, nobody knew. It was strange really to see anyone you cared to ask draw a blank. It was almost as if something had been hidden right under their noses, and they had never noticed it. There were then usual theories, but nobody really knew. Not even the Dockers who seemed to have been there forever. Presumably The Two Bob Bouncer had been there longer than them and the origin of his name was therefore before their time. Whatever the reason, nobody could cast a light on where he got his name from. Weeks passed. The Two Bob Bouncer of course, had nothing to say about it at all. Even on his last day he stayed quiet, and slowly I became resigned to never finding out.