Part four of my storytelling extravaganza, a story that took me down memory lane, when I was a teenager and slid myself into jeans so tight I couldn’t sit down.
I spent hours putting off writing part four so I could listen to all of Marvin Gaye’s songs to find the right one (which I’m listening to just now). Before I knew it I was watching a young Ton Jones dancing like he was on something and James Brown doing more splits than a banana- (another seventies/eighties thing banana splits) .
I even listened to seventies music I never listened to when I was living in the seventies because it to quote James Brown, ‘made me feel good’. There is something about the romance of memories, and I love to tap into that when I write about folk——- the other side of fifty… sixty and beyond.
I hope you enjoy my trip down memory lane.
I am still working on my novel called “The Woman Who Wanted To Be Funny. It is about halfway through and I plan to serialise it before I publish it. I am not quite ready yet but I will keep you up to speed even with a taster.
The Three Omigos Part Four
If Rita was a good-time girl and Kenny was the pelvis of the north, Elsa was the fastest cleaner in the west.
A woman who wielded a mop like it saved lives, who dusted for king, country, and her fellow man, who knocked up teas at a moment’s notice, and coffee with that extra bit of froth.
Who polished floors to a mirror sheen, and the odd window, although she often left a smear. Her idea of a good time was the smell of polish, the shine of a desktop, and a crisp sheet flapping in the wind.
Well, so she thought until she spied the Back Street Boys or Kenny imitating them. Before she knew it she was sixteen again, back at the village hall moving with Kenny to Martin Gaye’s. “Let’s get it on.”
Kenny in his tight seventies jeans, flares so wide you could wipe the backside of an elephant with them. Kenny with a buckle belt the size of a Russel Crow’s gladiator shield and a tight denim shirt reeking of Brute.
Kenny a few years older was the snog of the century. He had the hips of Rod Stweart and the lips of Mick Jagger…one kiss from him and you were riding the Big Dipper…
So her best pal Jessie said.
Elsa had no idea She’d never danced the last song before, let alone snogged…
They swayed in the dark, his hands on her hips, his lips on her neck.
Jessie gave her the thumbs up.
He had a Ford parked outside with a bench seat and if she played her cards right she’d be there soon and not upright.
“Let’s get it on…”
His nose touched hers.
She tilted her head to the right… left… shit… right the lips inches…millimetres… Then....tap tap tap
On his shoulder…
“You gotta fag?”
Friggin Rita.
Rita got more than a fag that night.
And what did she, Elsa get? A few sips of a warm iron bru and a walk home with Ned. Ned, who smelt like a tuna twist and was as snog-able as a bulldog.
Elsa clutching the bath mat stared at Kenny naked to the waist.
He still had the Mick Jagger lips——the elderly kind.
Elsa had spent months training her boys.
She’d spent hours on YouTube, learning from the good old days, none of this ‘Magic Mike’ for her boys. Her boys had more experience in their little finger than Channing Tatum, and the long johns to prove it.
She taught them to work at a Hen Do’s like a sixties Tom Jones, to slide across a table like Peter Kay, until a flying ashtray knocked the bride-to-be in the nose. To strut like James Brown, swing a broom like a microphone stand, until Glen got so carried away he dropped into the splits and did his hip in.
A bit bonus really, as he went to the top of the hip replacement list after that.
Elsa glared at Rita, a woman who had aged annoyingly well…like a Botox Barbie doll. Not this friggin time she thought.
Rita made a dive for the bath mat.
Elsa tugged it back.
“Hands off” shouted Elsa.
Rita pushed her.
Elsa pushed back.
“Catfight” yelled someone.
Rita stumbled to the floor.
Elsa made to jump on top.
The postie jumped in to stop.
Kenny spying the postie lunged towards him stretching the elastic of his long johns to the limit.
Ping!
The room fell silent.
Kenny a man who liked to go commando put many off their drinks.
Every man and his dog dived for the Kenny poncho
But it was Rita who got there first.
And Elsa fumed until she caught the Postman’s eye.
until next time happy reading