Jam Tops, the Fonz and the Pursuit of Cool

by Kris Lillyman

  “What? You know all of those?” He said incredulously.

  “Yeah, We’ve got most of them at home, or at least my Mum and Dad have - but I’ve listened to them - the ones they haven’t got I’ve heard on the radio - but I know them. Don’t you?”

  “Erm, no. Not really, no”. Gordy said honestly but genuinely impressed that Daisy did.

  Alan Brewer, Gordy’s dad and Barb Brewer (short for Barbara), Gordy’s mum, did not have an extensive record collection, in fact ‘collection’ was rather over stating it somewhat. Alan had This Is My Life by Shirley Bassey, a Glenn Miller LP and an old Lonnie Donegan 78 that he’d bought when he was in The Forces and Barb had a Jack Jones Live LP, Frank Sinatra’s Songs For Swinging Lovers and the soundtrack to The Way We Were.

  That was it. Those were the parental influences that Gordy had been subjected to.

  No wonder that his own singles collection comprised of Jimmy Osmond’s Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool, The Pushbike Song by The Mixtures, Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon, and You Can Do Magic by Limmie and The Family Cookin’ (who, prior to this moment, Gordy had thought of as pretty ‘edgy’).

  As for LPs, he of course had the stalwart of every young teenager’s record collection; the Top Of The Pops album with the obligatory ‘dolly-bird’ on the front cover - which was really why any boys ever bought the things in the first place.

  However, Volume 18, which Gordy owned, did feature Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - which was one of his all time favourite records (although he was thinking now might not be the best time to mention it).

  He also had John Denver’s Greatest Hits which he’d bought on impulse with a record voucher he’d been given for his twelfth birthday as he’d seen it advertised on the telly (slightly more times than The Beach Boys’ 20 Golden Greats, which he now wished he’d bought instead) - although, in fairness, he had only really listened to the John Denver LP once because it was shit.

  But that was it. That represented the extent of his musical taste and suddenly he felt ashamed.

  Even worse than that, he was standing there next to Daisy ‘Hair-Bear’ Flynn who he had previously thought of as perhaps the most uncool person in the world and who he now, rather surprisingly, viewed as someone very cool indeed (only, of course, where music was concerned and obviously ignoring the glasses, hair, freckles and total lack of any dress sense whatsoever).

  Suddenly Gordy felt very, very uncool. Which, considering his objective was to actually become cool was tantamount to complete and utter failure.

  Gordy heard himself say the words before he really meant to say them, but by then it was too late. “Wow!” He said, as Daisy began flipping through box after box of LPs, “You know loads about music! Can you teach me?”

  Daisy stopped what she was doing and looked at him strangely, as if what he’d said was news to her too. She’d never considered that she knew much about anything (except God and glasses and being ginger) but suddenly it seemed that she did. And, even better than that, it was something that somebody thought was good, which was a whole new experience for her. Nobody had ever wanted to know what she knew and, frankly, she never knew that she knew anything.

  She smiled slightly, her face colouring a little. “Okay”, she said.

  Chapter Five

  In early August three seriously bad things happened.

  The first was Jaws 2.

  Gordy had been just eleven years old when as a Boxing Day treat his mum and dad took him and the then thirteen year-old Kev to see Jaws 1 (or just Jaws as it was called then) at the local Savoy cinema in Bradley. After all, what could be more reasonable at Christmas time, with all the twinkly lights and sparkly tinsel than taking an impressionable young lad to see a movie about a mean, mutant, monster-sized, man-eating great white shark with a seriously bad attitude? Were they fucking insane?

  To say it scared Gordy to death would be the understatement of the century (it would also, technically, be incorrect as he was still actually very much alive but it did seriously scare him).

  Trips to Mudeford - or ‘Muddy Foot’ as Gordy thought it was called - where the Brewer family used to holiday each year, suddenly became a terrifying prospect. The thought that there might be a rogue shark on the loose was just too much to bear (although perhaps even sharks wouldn’t entertain the thought of holidaying in ‘Muddy Foot’ for fear of maybe getting a ‘Muddy Fin’).

  Nevertheless, showers replaced baths which became completely off limits - just because a shark had never in the history of mankind ever chomped off someone’s leg whilst they lazed unsuspectingly in the tub didn’t mean one never would - or at least not in Gordy’s over-active imagination.

  Anyway, Gordy’s irrational fear of sharks started back in 1975 on that fatal Boxing Day evening.

  By 1978 he was just about getting over it - just - which is to say he’d recently started to take baths again, albeit very shallow ones - so that any sharks could easily be spotted if they somehow snuck surreptitiously into the tub.

  So what possessed Gordy to go with Trevor, one seemingly harmless and rather sunny Wednesday afternoon to see Jaws 2 God only knows, because once again it scared him shitless. Just when he thought it was safe to go back in the bath!

  Anyway, that was the first seriously bad thing to happen in the early part of August.

  The second was worse and, even Gordy had to admit, made his shark phobia seem more than a just little pathetic and not really serious at all - especially as he lived over seventy miles from the nearest ocean and the possibility of him seeing a shark - let alone being eaten by one - was about as likely as getting struck by lightening whilst being abducted by aliens.

  The second seriously bad thing really was serious and not pathetic at all. It involved Mr. Bailey or, more specifically, his wife, Mrs. Bailey.

  It was around 9pm on a Tuesday night when the Brewer family were all sitting around their TV listening to the opening bars of The Rockford Files (all but Kev who was upstairs playing Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Fanfare For The Common Man very loudly on his record player with his monosyllabic mate, Pete).

  Anyway, the music kicked in just after the famous “Hi, this is Jim Rockford” answering machine message that started every episode - with both Gordy and Izzy singing along to the twangy synth of the theme tune and Barb saying ‘You know, he really is lovely!’ as she did every week when she spied James Garner’s chiselled fizzog as it appeared in the title montage, when, quite out of the blue and most abnormally for that time of night, the doorbell rang.

  “Who the bloody hell is that?” Alan Brewer said as he stomped off towards the front door with a face like thunder, knowing that he was going to miss the gist of what was happening on his and Barb’s favourite TV show.

  He threw open the front door expecting to see either a door-to-door salesman or bible-bashers (both of whom, on separate occasions, had recently visited the house and disturbed his Sunday afternoon nap - the first had been a greasy-haired oick with a pencil moustache trying to sell him a decidedly dodgy looking vacuum cleaner, the second, and more recent, had been a hippie couple and their ginger-afroed daughter trying to convert him to religion by singing My Sweet Lord rather badly whilst playing a hodgepodge of assorted instruments). Needless to say, neither had been successful and both had been given short-shrift by the short-tempered Alan and he was now expecting to have to do it again - only this time even more firmly. He was just gearing himself up for another unbridled rant as he opened the door but instead of seeing a salesman or the God Squad standing before him, he saw an extremely tall man with Brillo Pad hair and ill fitting clothes, which knocked the wind right out of Alan’s sails.

  “Oh, hello”, said Alan, sounding slightly more surprised than he’d intended.

  “Hello, Mr. Brewer, so sorry to trouble you at this time of night”, said Mr. Bailey who looked more than a little troubled himself. “I wonder if I might
speak to you for a moment - Gordon, too, if I may?”

  “Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Bailey, of course, come in, please”, replied Alan Brewer, now over-compensating slightly for the angry way in which he threw open the door (he and Mr. Bailey knew each other, although not well, as both were members of the local Round Table). “How are you? Well, I hope.”

  “Um, well...” Mr. Bailey began but was interrupted almost immediately as Barbara Brewer suddenly appeared behind her husband.

  “Oh, Mr. Bailey”, she said, “What a nice surprise! How are you, alright?”

  “Good evening, Mrs. Brewer. Um, well...” He began again but was interrupted once more as Gordy appeared from behind his mum.

  “Who is it, Dad?” He said, “You’re missing the Rockford— oh, hello, Mr. Bailey, okay?”

  “Hello, Gordy. Well, um...”

  Then it was Izzy’s turn, whose head popped around from behind Gordy. “C’mon, Dad - you’re missing it!”

  “Ssh! Isobel. Sorry, Mr. Bailey. Please, please, come in!”

  They all traipsed through to the living room, Alan Brewer leading with Gordy and Izzy bringing up the rear behind Mr. Bailey.

  “Like I said”, said Mr. Bailey, over the top of Jim Rockford, as they all sat down in the living room. “I’m so sorry to bother you at this time of night but I’m afraid I’ve had some rather bad news and I was hoping that maybe young Gordon might be able to help”. Gordy immediately noticed that Mr. Bailey looked most aggrieved, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders and far removed from his usual jovial self. Gordy instinctively knew something serious had happened.

  “Of course, Mr. Bailey, of course!” said Alan Brewer, immediately volunteering his son’s services for something he knew not what (for all he knew Mr. Bailey might have wanted Gordy to assassinate the President of the United States, or to use him as the key protagonist in an incredibly audacious plot to steel the Crown Jewels, maybe he intended to sell Gordy into slavery and abscond with the illicit profits - but no matter, Gordy’s dad had already agreed, so that was fine!). “Gordy will be pleased to help, won’t you Gordy?” said Alan as he stood up and turned off the telly so that his son’s answer could be heard over the roar of Rockford’s gold Pontiac Firebird (that both he and his dad drooled over every Tuesday night).

  For some reason, Gordy felt inexplicably sorry for Mr. Bailey even though he was yet to find out what was wrong. “Yeah, course”, he said, surprised to find that he genuinely meant it.

  “Thank you, Gordy,” said Mr. Bailey. “It’s my wife, you see,” he continued, speaking to them all but with his eyes now downcast, “As you may already know, she has not been too well of late - with cancer, I’m afraid to say and well, she’s taken a bit of a turn for the worse―”

  “Oh, dear,” interrupted Barbara Brewer, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Mrs Brewer, you’re very kind. It’s just that with Vera being so poorly I was hoping to take a little time off to be with her - not every day, you understand, but perhaps three days a week and every weekend. It would mean so much to us both as we’re just not sure how much―” Mr. Bailey was suddenly choked and was unable to speak any more.

  “Of course, of course,” said Barb, sympathetically, her eyes moistening. “Please, tell us how we can help.”

  Mr. Bailey sniffed and took a deep breath before continuing. “So kind, Mrs Brewer, so kind,” he said. “It’s just that I was hoping - because it’s the school holidays - that young Gordy maybe able to help with the running of the shop on the days I’m not there - for a fair wage, obviously.”

  Gordy was stunned. It was bad enough having to go into that drab mausoleum for one day a week let alone four, but then he felt so sorry for Mr. Bailey who really seemed extremely worried and upset about his wife. “Yeah, that’s okay, Mr. Bailey, course I can,” he heard himself say out loud, equally stunned at his apparent readiness to help out.

  “Are you sure, Gordy?” his mum and dad chimed in unison, their shock at his philanthropic self-sacrifice clear to hear in their incredulous voices (which he found both fair and slightly hurtful at the same time - was he really so selfish normally? It was a question he suspected he already knew the answer to so decided to pretend that he had not asked it of himself at all - that way he could not be disappointed by the answer).

  “Yeah, sure,” he said rather pointedly.

  “Thank you so much, Gordy - you’re a very kind lad,” said Mr. Bailey before turning to his parents. “Would that be alright with the both of you?” He asked (Alan and Barb were still looking a little shocked by their son’s kind-spirited generosity - which Gordy was starting to find a little offensive to be truthful).

  “Yes!” Of course,” said Barb.

  “Certainly! Anything you need, Mr. Bailey,” said Alan.

  “Thank you. Thank you all,” said Mr. Bailey, a little embarrassed by their kindness. “Just one other thing you may be able to help with, Gordy - I’m so sorry to trouble you with anything else - and I know you’re eminently capable of taking care of things - but do you know of anyone else who may be able to help you? Somebody trustworthy who could perhaps give you a hand - just in case you get caught short and need to leave the shop unattended or get a sudden influx of customers who all need serving at the same time?”

  For a moment Gordy thought he was joking and laughed briefly (he had barely seen one customer during his time at Bailey’s Bandstand so an ‘influx’ was about as probable as tits on tortoise) but then he realised that Mr. Bailey was being deadly serious. “Ahem, sorry,” he said, trying to suppress his laughter, “Erm, yeah. I probably know someone who wouldn’t mind helping out.”

  “Excellent,” said Mr. Bailey. “That would be such a weight off my mind, thank you, Gordy.”

  However, the charitable part of Gordy’s brain had shut down now and the selfish part had kicked in as he saw a perfect opportunity that would undoubtedly help him ascend the ladder of cool in a much quicker time than previously planned. Furthermore, this had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. or Mrs. Bailey and absolutely everything to do with Daisy Flynn.

  ***

  Gordy steeled himself as he stood outside the small, pebble-dashed semi that was Number 23, Glebe Avenue - otherwise known as ‘Hippie Central’, the home of the Mad Missionaries. The tiny front garden was overgrown with long grass that was easily knee high and there were monster-sized weeds everywhere - one particularly evil looking stinging nettle looked as though it had walked (yes, walked) straight out of Day Of The Triffids and was hungry for the taste of human blood, as if it was the Jaws of the shrub world (briefly Gordy imagined going to the pictures to see a film called Nettle and the thought of the subsequent nightmares he might have afterwards sent a shiver down his backbone). The driveway of Number 23 was moss-covered and pot-holed (as if an elephant had spent a delightful afternoon pogoing all over it) and parked haphazardly on it was the famous, brightly-painted, Bible-bus of legend.

  For a moment Gordy’s resolve wavered. It was the God-Squad who knocked on people’s doors and bothered them, not the other way around - who in their right mind would voluntarily disturb the nest of such loons? But Gordy knew he had to. If he ever wanted to be considered cool then it was absolutely necessary.

  Fleetingly, Gordy had considered asking Trevor to help him out at Bailey’s Bandstand and part of him felt extremely guilty that he wasn’t going to. But he knew that it just wasn’t Trevor’s bag and that he wouldn’t want to give up his valuable school holidays to work in a dark, dingy shop even for the promise of extra money with which to buy new comics and costumes. Besides, Gordy felt that Mr. Bailey might not be best pleased if one of his part-time staff turned up to work dressed as a cowboy or a robot or an astronaut or Doctor Who or Superman or (perhaps slightly more worryingly) Lieutenant Uhura out of Star Trek (which Gordy had seen Trevor dressed as only once - which was an image so app
allingly awful that it had burnt itself indelibly into his memory and had proved to be only marginally less traumatic than the scene in Jaws when the human head pops out of the hole in the wrecked boat). Anyway, for those reasons, Gordy had decided not to ask Trevor and hoped that he would understand.

  Besides, Trevor could not, by any stretch of the imagination, help with Gordy’s pursuit of ‘cool’. But, strangely, and almost unbelievably, Daisy Flynn could.

  Gordy approached the faded, red splintered front door of the Flynn residence and very apprehensively pressed the doorbell.

  After a few moments Jesus opened the door - or for a second, that’s who Gordy thought it was before realising that it was actually Roy Wood from Wizard and then more realistically concluded that it was Mr. Flynn, Daisy’s dad.

  Briefly, Gordy thought about abandoning his plan and making a run for it as the pungent smell of very unusual cigarettes filled his nostrils (that Alan Brewer would undoubtedly deduce as the smell of ‘wacky baccy’ or ‘funny fags) which seemed to be emanating from the long-haired hippie in front of him, but then he heard the unmistakable sound of Jimi Hendrix being played somewhere inside the ramshackle home and realised he had come to exactly the right place.

  “Hey, dude,” Glynn Flynn said (in a voice that sounded remarkably similar to that of ‘Dylan’ the rabbit from The Magic Roundabout), “Can I help you, brother?”

  Gordy had never been called ‘dude’ or ‘brother’ before (not even by his brother) and already he felt a little bit cooler.

  “Erm, yeah, thanks, dude,” he said, trying out the lingo for himself and feeling slightly ridiculous. “Is Daisy in, please?”

  “Hey, sure, man” replied Glynn in a welcoming manner, “Come in, come in - I’ll go fetch her.”