Riot at Halifax Town Hall

By Alex Keegan

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I know it's not black but it's so dark brown it's almost black, I reckon, and anyway it's not the colour of the tie that matters, is it? It's me being here to say my goodbyes to Tom (and to Jenny, and Cedric, Peter, Margaret, the four dogs, the parakeet, and the traffic-warden who was passing).

I told Tom, "Gas, mate? Don't mess about, call in a professional, call in a bloody professional. It might save yer life one day! It's pissing down, of course. Well what do you expect, from this bloody place? It's a Monday in January, half-past-four in the
afternoon, (there's a discount after four on account of it gets dark soon) like Tom, Jenny and all are worried? I'm at a funeral in Halifax, and it's raining. Ring the BBC. It's piggin' Halifax. HAL-I-FAX. It would be raining if it was mid-July. “It were a good summer in Halifax last year but I was having a bath and I missed it.” Right that's it, no more funeral stuff. They're dead. In the ground they go (all the bits in one coffin saved a few bob, I can tell you) and it's us down the Crown now for happy hour at six.

Cedric's very good friend is here, a little bit too close if you ask me. He's all long fingers and that look you know? "Are You Being Served?" "Shut That Door!" walking along like he's got a couple of sheets of greaseproof paper between the cheeks of 'is arse and doesn't want t'lose them.

Margaret's husband's here too. Poor sod didn't know she was having it off with Peter, did he? Well he bloody does now! When they found 'er arm, guess what she 'ad in 'er 'and? That was the only reason the two of 'em attended Halifax North End's Creative Writing Group. Why else would anyone go to something as dumb?

OK, OK, so I have to explain Tom and Jenny. Tom and Jenny, the perfect couple. They went jogging in identical track-suit bottoms, matching strides; they even threw up at the same time in the Ilkley Moor Half-Marathon. You know the type. The matching pair. Tom was Jenny's feminine side, and she was his masculine side (but with a better moustache). If Tom got a cold, Jenny sneezed, he wiped, she got the sore nose. Made for each other.

It was Tom; he got interested in creative writing (and D-I-Y gas boiler repairs) and, quite naturally Jenny came along. I shouldn't have to tell you, but they had matching A4 Folders, matching pens, bought two matching Dell PCs and got writer's block at exactly the same time, then somehow had their taste of glory (other than the few seconds flying and free-fall at the end, but I don't think that counts) when they were chosen as story for the day on some internet site called "Why Not Be a Writer?"

So we're in the Crown and Cedric's friend asks for a G&T, ice and a slice. I have to tell the daft bugger (well he isn't very bright, geddit?) that this choice of drink is both cliché and passé. He looks at me as if I've just asked him what happens if we extrapolate the imaginary number i, parse a derivative and matriculate his isosceles. A gay goldfish. You do not want to spend Monday evening staring at a gay goldfish.

The traffic warden's widow looks a bit of a slapper. I think I might've bin with her once, but then it's tricky as I'm mostly pissed when I go out on the razz and there aren't that many I haven't, if you get my drift. But I'm feeling a bit charitable and I do one of those
"Ah, life!" deep looks, and give her a real sad wink. She bursts into tears and runs into the toilets, mascara everywhere. Nice one! While she's in there I finish my first Tetleys (flat and tastes like piss) and tell Jack (that's Margaret's husband) that if he plays his cards right he could be in there.

Jack asks me, "Don't you have any respect?" and I tell him the Halifax North End's Creative Writing Group has made a very good career move, getting to be dead, and let's face it we're none of us getting any younger, and the traffic wardens wife, isn't a bad shag. (I've remembered).

"Oh, Norman," Jack says, “How could you? And so soon?” The black widow comes back as my second Tetley's starts to kick in. One of her eyelashes has got summat thick and gooey on it. It looks like she's caught a low flying creepy-crawly in the face. I'd tell her, but then:

"OK," I say, "Listen up everyone. It's all over, very sad, blahdee-blah. I've got two hundred-weight of fish-paste sandwiches round at my place. We can get off there, eat a few, bore each other faceless, OR. Or we can give the Halifax North End's Creative Writing Group a proper send off by getting legless here and then going on to a club I know. Should we take a vote on it, or shall I just go now?” They just look. Oh bollocks.

Y'see, I'm Tom's executor. I'm Jenny's executor. Actually, I'm Jenny's brother, too, but we don't talk about that too much. And guess who Cedric put down as his executor? And Peter. And Margaret. Do I sound happy?

They all had one wish. That if they should die, their work would be read in public. At Halifax Town Hall. At seven-thirty tonight. And guess who is the star of the evening? Guess who is the bard, the raconteur, guess which tosspot drew the short straw, and tonight, in front of five hundred people or so, is going to have to read this crap?

"We must hold the performance, Norman."

"Cedric would expect, no less."

"We have to, for Margaret."

And then Jack adds, self-sacrificially, "And Peter."

The warden's widow smiles.

Hello, Dead Man Walking.

It's seven-twenty-five and Halifax Town Hall is bursting at the seams. The stage is decked out in pink (for Cedric) and in black and navy for the rest of the very dead low-flying Halifax North End's Creative Writing Group. The Town Hall is full. I was expecting six train-spotter types, a couple of lost people, and maybe a wino or two, but the place is freaking full. What the hell?

And then it clicks. Tom's piece is Les Bean Wrestles (a serious, deep, philosophical monologue on the tragedy of needing to eat versus the need to express one's inner self darling. Jenny's work is called New Dancing (a poem on finding love again at fifty). Cedric's essay is called Full Frontal, a New Ditty.

It hits me like a wet football in the mush. I didn't send a letter to the press did I? No, Norman doesn't need to bother with formality. Just pick up the telephone, get the newspaper on the line. I'll tell them, no need for a letter, no need to dick about.

"The editor is out, but you can take a message? Fine, fine."

I'm looking up now, looking at the back row, some very big blokes wearing leathers, one has a nail going through his nose. All of a sudden, as I wish I'd been sitting on that gas boiler when Tom said, "It's OK, it's just the pilot light." I find myself standing, hear
myself start to speak. As I begin, I hear what the cub-reporter heard: "Lesbian Wrestlers, Nude Dancing, Full Frontal Nudity"

What I'm thinking as I speak is what will it be like? Will they merely throw rocks? Will they rush up to the stage and merely beat me to a pulp and leave me dying in a pool of blood? Or will they drag me into the streets, strip me, rip of my testicles and fry them in the nearest chippie?

I know I'm talking, and I know I say, "Les Bean Wrestles" and I know that not a person in the building hears the words, they hear what they want to hear. I tell them about Cedric's essay. That's a waste of time, I know what they hear, and as I finish explaining the rest of the readings, I suddenly wish I had led a slightly better life, that I could go to Him, purer of heart and soul.

"And finally, a collaborative venture, a complex poem by Peter Flint and Margaret Wagstaffe. An unusual piece, a poem in a rarely-heard dialect from Denmark. It is a deep, spiritual elegy, a lyric poem about men at war. In it Orlof ByeKas, Ars Vankas and their friend Puffs meet and discuss Valhalla. This is my tribute to my sister, her dear friend, and the Halifax North End Creative Writing Group.

And now I have to say it. I close my eyes. The title is etched on my heart and it will soon be tattooed on my dick. Ladies and Gentlemen.

"Orl Bikas, Are Wankas,and Poofs."

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Alex Keegan is occasionally serious and writes a lot of stuff. Some of it is almost OK, and his website is http://www.alexkeegan.com. He runs a writers group which is seriously helpful but definitely kick-ass called Boot Camp.