An Early Childhood Chapter 17 Part 1

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A SUBPLOT WITH A PLOT, OR VICE VERSA (PART 1)

Continued from Chapter 16 Part 2.

            Meanwhile, back in Fantasy Land…

            Black Typo turned to me.

            “So…you’ve had your trailer.”

            “Yes,” I said. “Now take me to Floudh Rak the evil weatherlock.”

            “The evil weatherlock? Are you sure?”

            I touched the comb in my pocket, the gold comb of the banshee found at the scene of a double murder.

            “Yes,” I said.

            “You need to go to the realm beyond this,” the fox explained.

            “Back to the world of the trailer?”

            The fox shook his head.

            “Deeper than that,” he said. “You need to follow different conventions, and this place represents a purgatorial environment with which you are not familiar now. But you will understand that environment while you are there, much like you understand things in dreams that on waking make no sense.”

            “I don’t getchya.”

            “You don’t need to “get” me, Paddy. You only need to know that the future will be the past, and the past the future. And it will be unlike any world that you know now, although you will be familiar with it once you are snuggled into its parodic conventions.”

            Black Typo reared on his hind legs and completely sprayed me in a gush of what I hoped was urine.

            I stood gasping at him.

            “What did you…?”

            A second stream of fluids covered me, leaving me gasping.

            “My God, man!” I shrieked, disgusted as I licked my lips, and then spat, cringing at the taste. “What the hell are you…?” I felt myself going weak at the knees, both from drowning in the fox’s liquids and from the sheer disgust at my predicament. I fell to the grass, into a slumber.

            “Ashes to ashes…” the fox intoned, his voice ringing in my ears.

Act I – Scene I

INT. LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE STATION, OCTOBER 1985 – AFTERNOON

GENE HUNT, ALEX DRAKE, RAY CARLING, CHRIS SKELTON, SHARON GRANGER AND EIGHT OTHER DETECTIVES ARE GATHERED AROUND THE OFFICE. THEY ARE DRINKING TUMBLERS AND MUGS FULL OF WHISKEY. GENE HAS A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE IN HIS HANDS.

GENE

Happy Birthday, Raymondo! The big Four-Oh! Does that mean Chris gets to inherit all of your porno mags?

EVERYONE CHEERS LADDISHLY

CHRIS

What’s a porno mag? Anyway, happy birffday Ray-zor!

GENE POPS THE CHAMPAGNE OPEN. EVERYONE CHEERS.

RAY

I’m not into porno! Porno’s for poofters!

EVERYONE

Yayyy!!!

DETECTIVE (OUT OF SHOT)

Hurray for porno!

ALEX

I can only hope, Raymond, that you realise that you’re among friends. And friends…are the best. And the best…are friends. Here’s to friends, Ray! (SHE RAISES HER MUG WITH A SMILE. THERE IS SILENCE. EVERYONE STARTS TO MOVE AWAY, TO GO BACK TO WORK.)

RAY (TO HIMSELF)

Party pooping bitch.

THERE’S A KNOCK ON THE OFFICE DOOR. VIV COMES IN, WHEELING A MASSIVE CAKE.

SHAZZ

Oh, look – a big cake! (SHE GETS A KNIFE AND SOME PLATES FROM OUT OF A DRAWER) Ray – everybody – tuck in!

RAY (SMILING TO HIMSELF)

That’s not a real cake, Shazz – there’s a stripper in that!

(THE TEAM GATHERS ROUND THE CAKE, PEERING AT THE TOP.)

GENE

You can come out now!

(THE CAKE EXPLODES, AND EVERYONE DUCKS FOR COVER AS A THICK SPRAY OF GLOOPY LIQUID COVERS THE WALLS, DESKS AND DETECTIVES. GRADUALLY, SLOWLY, EVERYONE GETS UP, WIPING THEMSELVES DOWN. THEY LOOK DOWN AT WHERE THE CAKE WAS. IN ITS PLACE LIES A MAN IN A FOETAL POSITION, JUST COMING INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. HE IS WEARING NOTHING OTHER THAN A PAIR OF FRILLY KNICKERS, A BRA, AND A PAIR OF SUSPENDERS. IT IS DETECTIVE INSPECTOR PADDY FLANAGAN.)

FLANAGAN (LOOKING UP)

Where…where am I?

RAY (FROWNING, STARING AT FLANAGAN)

Guv…Is that one of those…Tory politicians?

FLANAGAN

Oh boy!

ROLL CREDITS.

SEQUENCE WITH FLANAGAN WALKING BRISKLY INTO A QUINNSWORTH. AS HE REACHES THE DOOR, HE TURNS AROUND TO FACE THE CAMERA, WHIPPING OFF HIS SUNGLASSES.

FLANAGAN (IN VOICEOVER)

My name’s Paddy Flanagan. I’ve just been jazzed all over by my fox spirit guide Black Typo, whose chemicals had a kind of electrifying penile electricity that was so electrifying that it has sent me forwards in time to the year of our Lord 1985. AD. Or am I stuck in some kind of a sci fi British screenplay parody that was itself quite parodic, from circa 2008? Don’t forget, I have been fired at by a fox! So your guess…is as good as mine!

Continued in Act I, Scene II.