list.co.uk/festival Alan Warner | FESTIVAL FEATURES
began to motor south at great speed, forcing Draw to perform dangerous trafi c manoeuvres and to ‘run red lights’ in ‘mainstreets’ to keep up with the lead vehicle. Draw become convinced the asshole – as he put it – was trying to lose him in some kind of mocking chase, so Draw slowed his convertible down, i nally giving up, and he began to formulate other plans for his evening. But low and behold as Draw cruised through the next small hamlet, the good old boy from Biloxi would be pulled over at a side-walk ‘kirb’ in his tow-truck, waiting for him and would take up the lead once more. Draw became puzzled by the man’s precipitate waitings, so at the next town Draw decided to, ‘Abort this perverse convoy,’ hooked a hard left and accelerated down a west-bound highway in the wrong direction. Incredibly, waiting for him i ve miles up this road was the Biloxi old boy in his mobile crane.
The tale continued. Girl called Tidy leaned across and whispered in my ear, ‘You should dei nitely kill this guy,’ but I was distracted and just nodded. I was sure I was getting somewhere in trying to work out where I had seen this man and his movements before. Marshall Draw had driven on, following the old boy across the l atlands and – presumably – through the mangrove swamps. It was now dark, Nightfall had descended as Marshall Draw in his bug-spattered convertible followed the phlegmatic . . .
‘It was the devil,’ I yelled out. I just couldn’t help it. Marshall Draw swung round and pointed directly at me, ‘No Sir. No Siree. This man makes a damn good observation; was the hairy-legged one leaving his cloven hoof on my ass? But no, this man was of pure l esh and blood. That sinner was committed to the l esh even more so than you or I, he and I will prove it . . .’ I clapped my hands together and yelled, ‘Hoi! I know who you. You’re Ewan McEwan from the primary at Lochearn.’
Marshall Draw tipped his hat brim towards me. ‘Ewan McEwan from Lochearn. You ate that dried cowpat for a joke in Primary 6. It’s Crelan. Crelan the smithy’s son. I was told you’d come back a couple of Christmasses when we was older, but I’d already gone away to the Uni.’ I turned around, the better to inform the rest of the audience of this amazing fact, ‘He’s no from the Isle of bloody Soay, this cunt’s from the shores of Lochearn.’ The hat brim nodded. ‘Big Crelan the Hammer. I remember you. Yes I do.’ He still persisted with the Texan act.
‘Aye. One day your parents upped and left the village. Apparently your Mum was knocking the postie and your old man was no having it. Did yous go to Texas?
horses and the dobbins.’
I turned around again, the better to inform this traveller in our lands and bring him abreast of the facts. ‘Aye, that’s right enough. Towards the end it was more wrought iron gates we was always working on. Less and less call for horse shoeing after the pony trekking went.’ I frowned, ‘Hoi you, specky, frizzy haired smurf. I’m talking to you.’ Marshall spoke from the stage. ‘Calm, calm. Come up here Crelan, come and join me. You used to let us all pump the bellows at the smithy.’ My head jerked to McEwan. ‘What? No. No no. I can’t
go up there.’
‘You don’t wanna?’ ‘No no way. I’m i ne here. I don’t want to go up. There.’ ‘C’mon. Come on up and tell a wee funny story.’ ‘Don’t,’ a voice called from the back. ‘We’re mostly amongst friends here. We’re all into
comedy are we not, we are an understanding brethren?’
I was sweating, I was experiencing an almost unheard of emotion. Fear. I was shaking, managing to turn my head from side to side. ‘I’m not a comedian, ‘ I whispered. ‘It must be part of the act,’ came that voice from up the back. He was talking to another member of the audience. ‘This is the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen,’ said
another voice. Female this time and horribly old.
Girl Called Tidy turned right round in her silver dress which caught sparkle from the single spotlight. ‘Shut it spazz, yer spoiling it,’ she yelled. I was gazing up at McEwan. He was adjusting his hat in surprise at Tidy’s outburst. ‘This is Girl Called Tidy,’ I said, ‘She’s with me.’
‘Gal Called Tidy; well very pleased to make your acquaintance Ma’am. You’re with Crelan? Is there nothing we can do about that?’ He laughed. So did Tidy. He touched the brim of his Stetson the way they do in i lms – or in Texas. Dropping l at into a Scottish accent he said, ‘So what happened to the smithy, Crelan?’ ‘Well we’ve still got it on the lochside there. We’ll probably sell it soon for bloody holiday chalets. That is right enough, the Old Man used to let yous all work the bellows when he was hammering. I’d forgot that. He’s dead now the old man. We all got to die sometime. I took over for business a spell but the work was gone, hardly any wrought iron gates needed down in Glasgow after electric ones come in on all the posh houses, so I bought a JCB and basically became a horse and cow knackerer. I’d bury all the local horses and cattle that popped it within forty mile. I made a killing during the foot mouth.’
Tidy nodded energetically beside me. I coughed, ‘Making a killing. Wee joke there. I dig
drainage ditches with the JCB too. Council contracts.’
‘Naw. Mauchline. Ayrshire. I’ve never been to the States. Ewan McEwan said, ‘Well what a turn up for the books.
I’m saving up.’ ‘Excuse me?’ Someone up the back had spoken. ‘Is this part of the show?’ Marshall Draw, or Ewan McEwan, looked toward the peon who had thus spoken from the rear. I could just distinguish this thing’s i gure in the great gloom of the place. It had one of those tags sealed in a l at, rel ective lozenge of plastic round his neck and attached with a leash that I could have strangled the breath out of him with. A pen protruded from the breast pocket of his pale shirt. ‘What?’ said Ewan McEwan. ‘Is this part of your act?’ ‘Act?’ ‘The Act. I have to review it.’ Ewan said, ‘It isn’t an act mate. It doesn’t get more real than this. That’s the whole point. It’s not an act. None of this is an act. This big fellow here, I was at Primary School with him and it is poetry that he’s joined us. You are all free to join in. This is a communion of souls, not an act. Now Crelan was a bit of a playground bully but he never bothered me. His Dad was a smithy, a real blacksmith back in the 70s. Isn’t that right Crelan? For shoeing the
Crelan the Hammer. You’ve not changed a bit.’
‘I’m fat as fuck’ ‘Naw. I mean your nature. Your forthright nature. Anyway. There’s this plane, this aircraft, this piece of equipment. It’s a small cargo plane and they have a contract to l y a bunch of circus monkeys from one side of the country to another.’ I didn’t know what he was on about. Thought he’d l ipped out then remembered he was a stand up comedian. ‘Hey Ewan, Hey.’ I had put my hand up again. ‘What about the old boy in Biloxi? What happened?’
‘Never mind that. There’s this aeroplane l ying these monkeys from one side of the country to another.’ He was telling us this tale in a Scottish accent now. He had abandoned the Texan twang. ‘Now this pilot and his co- pilot are getting driven mad by the racket these gibbering monkeys in their little cages are making, so after they have taken off and are l ying along, the copilot tosses each of those monkeys in their little cages a good big bunch of grapes each, to try and shut them up. Now this one monkey in his cage he eats the grapes okay, but every minute or so he suddenly spits out a grape pip with a really good aim towards the pilot and co-pilot. One pip hits the pilot right on his ear. Another pip hits the windshield and it sticks
14–25 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 25