Scotty

When I worked at the chemical factory in my youth, I’d sit in the car with Scotty at lunch times and listen to him comment on the radio program that he listened to each day. Scotty was a seventy-five year old man who had retired many years before but had run into financial trouble through illness and bad luck and had been given a job back at the company where he’d worked earlier in his life. He was the storeman and this position afforded him the luxury of a steady income with very little work. He passed most of his days singing Frank Sinatra songs to the factory staff. I worked in the laboratory at the bottom of the factory but always spent my lunches with Scotty. Everything about him was fascinating, from his brilliant white spikey hair to his stories. The radio host to whom he devotedly listened was a woman named Jenny Williams and she deliberately tried to be controversial, usually in a sexual way. Scotty would sit back in his car seat, almost lying down, with his arms crossed and his hands tucked under his armpits and he would shout things at the radio such as ‘Fuck you, Jenny, you bitch… you love talking about sex because it’s all you know.’ Then he would look at me and say ‘Jesus Christ, this bitch has had more cock than I have had hot breakfasts.’ He’d go silent for a while as he listened a little further and after a few more words I’d see his face begin to contort in pain before once more shouting ‘FUCK YOU… YOU… YOU… BITCH.’

I recall one day I had gathered a couple of slices of chocolate cake from one of the offices in which one of the staff members was celebrating a birthday. Scotty was a great lover of food and he was delighted when I produced the cake. He suggested we take it to the car and eat it on our lunch break whilst listening to Jenny. He was lying back in his customary way, loading cake into his mouth, when he suddenly shouted ‘SURE, YOU’D LOVE A SEVEN INCH COCK, YOU BITCH’, chocolate cake flying from his mouth as he did so. I was in tears with laughter, as I so often was around Scotty. He looked at me and said ‘Jesus, a man with a seven inch cock must be fucking angry.’ I thought that I might die with laughter, it as a while before I was able to breathe again. When we stepped out of the car I walked behind Scotty and noticed that the chocolate cake had flown from his mouth onto his car seat and under the seat of his trousers where he had sat on it throughout lunch. It had stained them brown as if he had let go of his bowels. I could hardly walk with laughter. I told him and he just mumbled ‘fuck it’ as he walked back to his seat in the store office. As we sat down, the factory supervisor, Pete, walked in and started to tell a tale of woe about his sister. Scotty stopped him ‘Your sister??? Your sister??? Pete, stand them on their heads and they are all fucking sisters.’ Pete and I cried with laughter for a long while afterwards.

                A year or two later they made Scotty retire again. He gave a speech and cried as he thanked me for my friendship, companionship, and help over the time I’d been there. I stood at the back of the crowd and tried to hide my tears as everyone turned to look at me. I went to visit Scotty at home about six months after that and he seemed to have lost most of his fire. He was quiet and calm and almost bored. I went to see him again a few months later but the garden was overgrown and the place was empty. His neighbour came out and told me that Scotty had died a couple of weeks earlier. I got into my old Ford and drove away with tears in my eyes once more.