The Lamentable Tale of Wee Kenny Eyeballs
The setting: Isle of Lewis, Scotland; circa 1985.
Wee Kenny Eyeballs almost choked to death on his fish finger when his sister told him The Latest. The latest Latest was that the Siarachs* were going to march on the capital (Stornoway) tomorrow with a list of demands, chief of which was the assertion of their right, as Free (Free, mark you!) Presbyterians to scribble HEATHEN on the door of any person or persons hanging out their washing on the Sabbath.**
Anyway, Kenny almost choked to death at that news but didn’t and was fully composed again by pudding time. Wee Kenny Eyeballs almost choked to death a lot whenever he heard upsetting news during meals. A childhood pyloric stenosis and an unresolved mos vivo*** coupled with recurring throatal occlusion had caused repeated sudden rises in intra-ocular pressure and led to his Unfortunate Protruding Eyeball Condition (UPEC.) (And also his Bulging Forehead-Vein Disorder (BFVD)). That was how comes he got the name Kenny Eyeballs: The Wee was just by the way.
However, when, at pudding, his sister told him The Other Latest – which was the story going round the village about Kevin Drooly and Marina Shed and the peat-stack and the windy day and The Best of Slow Jazz cassette-tape and tape-recorder and the pot of honey and the unexpected bee attack and the missing-presumed-blown-away-clothes and the desperate phonecalls to Karen Drooly at the pub and the four dark, wretched hours before she and her drunken pals picked them up and the car-ride of shame and subsequent treatment in Accident and Emergency for exposure and 3rd-degree stings – Kenny did indeed choke entirely to death, undone by a mouthful of Swiss roll and custard.
His sister couldn’t be sure but she did say his last words sounded a lot like “Narina, ny girl! Chchc snrfl ack chhh. Ang ny “est og azz” take! Orra astard! Mmrfl.”
At the funeral, as the mourners threw their flowers and handfuls of dirt down onto the coffin, Kevin Drooly, heavily bandaged on account of the bee-stings and with tears clouding his vision, threw an old battered cassette tape with the words ow Jazz barely visible beneath its covering of tear-streaked peat-dust.
“I’m sorry old pal, I was going to give it back! I was!” he said.
Kevin was sorry also for (very nearly) having it off with Marina Shed, Kenny’s girlfriend of a week, but did not mention that then. He knew that, for young men of a certain age, mere women could never truly come between best friends. But the music could. The music could. The theft of another man’s Best Of Slow Jazz was a hideous, ear-ripping betrayal. He may as well have baked that Swiss roll and cooked that custard himself and then rammed the down his friend’s throat, tamping the gloopy mess down with a spoon until the whole windpipe was blocked, before dancing round the convulsing corpse.
One whisky-soaked week later, in a pit of remorse so hopeless and metaphorically pit-like, Kevin Drooly and the similarly guilt-wracked Marina Shed went back to the same peat-stack at which they’d met for their doomed night of honey-love. They stripped themselves bare, the angry red weals from their previous stingings still swelling all over their pale goosebumped flesh making them look, in the pale moonlight, like human raspberry-ripples. And then, weeping and singing the song “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees, the two flung themselves on the formerly unexpected but now wholly established peatstack beehive in a last act of penance for their treachery. The repeat exposure to massive stinging killed them both puffily.
THE END
* People from the west of the island.
** This – the scribbling of the word HEATHEN! on the doors of demonstrable heathens – was subsequently allowed but was tempered by a controversial “No Indelible Ink/Pencil Only” clause that opened a bitter rift between the town and all those West of the cattle-grid. This observer is unhappy to have to report that many sorry blood-baths followed.
*** The will to live
May 28th, 2007 at 9:21 am
You make a powerful case against naturalism, Sam. I see you as a political moderate, bridging the chasm between the Presbyterians and the nudists. I hope you become famous so I can watch you on TV.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Ah SAM, I just cannot continue the typing the good things and am moving to a star system. So, ******, and when I discover how to make them bigger, I will.
A picture of Marty Feldman in ‘The last remake of Beau Geste’ lobbed itself into my mind on reading the description of Kenny. While the vanishing clothes, the summer of 1985 would have left you a strong eleven
.
He knew that, for young men of a certain age, mere women could never truly come between best friends.
The above sentence contains a glaring error.
May 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am
So you could say poor Kenny was desserted?
May 28th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I’d have diagnosed an overactive thyroid in Kenny’s case. Somewhat ironic that he comes to a glottal stop.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
It’s like “The OC,” but in Scotland…. You should definitely be shopping this around.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Nanas, nudism has no future in the Western Isles. If I were ever to run for public office I would make that my platform whether I was running in Lewis & Harris or Kensington & Chelsea. Pneumonia considerations alone would make it a catastrophic public health decision.
Vince, is it the “young men of a certain age” bit? I was hoping nobody’d notice that. Dratfinks! I am ashamed to admit I had to Google Marty Feldman. He googled back at me and then I remembered his face. And those eyes!
Caro, you could very well say that but you might be accused of making but a trifle out of a tiramiserable situation.
Conan, stops don’t get no more glottal than that, my friend. and you’re right about his thyroid being overactive – it was diagnosed with ADHD in ‘79, although many at the time thought this was just a fad diagnosis. In any case he was never given any medicine other than laughter for his UPEC or his BFVD.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Sparra’ it’s just like the OC but this version has people with little early orthodontic intervention and more visible veins than anyone else on earth.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
What a terribly tragic story. To die puffily, this is truly an honorable demise.
And poor Kenny’s sister. Nobody left to eat her swiss roll and custard.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Carolyn, it’s Kenny’s sister that I feel for in this whole thing. Dying puffily is a horror of mine. I’d rather die spottily or wartily or, if at all possible, peacefully.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Kevin got what he deserved! Not returning a cassette tape, my God! I heard another story about a guy who never returned a cassette tape. It didn’t end happily either. Oh, the humanity of it all.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Marina Shed – Did she have a first cousin once removed called Marino Shed and another called Texel Shed? They’d be distant relations of the Cheviot Pens over on South Uist.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Knew and young men ???. The very idea of knowledge and young men. Is error filled on Sooo many levels. Mind you young women are not much better, but at least they can hit the loo, mostly.
And you may well be correct, for men of any age, ‘mere women could never truly come between best friends’.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Those filthy Sheds! Well known for their carry on, let me tell you. But for jazz?! Thrre is no pit deep enough.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Oh schism over heathens I love it. Clearly a case of “Sting something simple”
Does Marina have a sister called Allegro Butt n’ Ben?
May 29th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Poor honey.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Reminds me of modern day Ballymena, but they pass on the rather friendly “heathens” and just go for the rather less friendly “fenian” or “taig”. Bless
May 29th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Dying puffily due to the deceased’s skin puffing-up from massive over-exposure to stinging nettles, and not from being squashed by a steam locomotive nor being suffocated by a powder puff must be extremely common cause of death on the island, I imagine. A terrible way to die in any circumstance.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Brianf, we would all do well to pay attention to stories about cassette-tapes, such as these.
Sneezy, distant relations and also married. Wha? It’s a small gene-pool, for crying out loud! I don’t know what all the fuss is about inter-familiar marriage. Why I know a family like that for every one of my eleven fingers.
Vince, I don’t understand why men don’t just use funnels.
fmc, let us dig The Pit for Jazz together, friend. Let the earth muffle its tormenting strains. Then we’ll go to the pub for a nice sit down and a wee drinkie. Howzat sound? The Sheds are a horrible bunch right enough. Related to the Sheilings – another rum lot.
Apprentice, Sting Something Simple – haha! Yes! The Sheds are cousins of the But’n'Bens!! And mortal enemies of the Bidey-Ins
May 29th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
It occurs to me that heathen is only one small letter away from heather. Could be useful. Altering graffiti etc. Kenny Everett, in the nicest possible way , came to mind. Is custard and Swiss Roll a Scottish thing? Like whiskey and lemonade?
May 29th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Sassy – yes, I felt sorry for the honey too. It was totally overlooked in the grief that followed.
Manuel, I’m sure we have the front-door daubing of “Fenians” in us too but we’d have to travel to the Southern Isles to find any and we’re just not that motivated. And it’s cold, probably. And the footie’s on. We’re just too lazy for long term animosity in the Western Isles. We’d rather have a cup of tea and a Kitkat. And besides, God has arranged it so that the Proddies in the North and the Catholics in the South of the Hebrides hardly ever meet and are roughly equal at football.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Pat, Kenny Everett, eh? I must hie me off and Google his connection with grafitti. Sorry – I’m dim again today. I’m hopeful the crack cocaine will kick in pretty soon though. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!
May 29th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Pat, Heather is a Godless plant, you’re right. We burn it when it gets too close to churches.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
What, a funnel. How in hell would a second funnel help anything. When the one we have is under such a targeting system.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Hi American Fez, welcome! I just found you lurking in moderation although, for all I know, you might be the most immoderate lurker in the whole wide world. I wouldn’t want to die by the claw of a tiger. Or by the slow nibbling of killer fieldmice. How wouldn’t you want to die?
Vince, The targeting system need refining. Or maybe its operator error by men. I swear my husband must not even face the toilet sometimes.
Medbh, I don’t know where your comment’s gone! I moderated it in the affirmative, same as American Fez – Wordpress has me do that for first-time commenters – but I’ve no idea where you’ve gone. There’s a bar down at the bottom of the sidebar – you’re not down there by any chance are you? If you are, tell Knudsen that we’re out of Jamesons and Cheese and Onion so he’ll have to make do with Whyte & MacKay and maraschino cherries.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
A rum lot you say? Rum? let us sprinkle top soil on the acursed Jazz, a chara deas go h’an a mhaith ar fad! and be off, I know a place where lock-ins are plentiful and the rum butt and web free. They’ll like your sort, sheet, they like mine.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
fmc, will I have to know what sort I am? Cos I haven’t the first idea. I just know I’m not the sort-who-put-up-with-that-kind-of-thing but I’m not even sure what that-kind-of-thing is. They won’t ask me at the door will they? Will they? God, social situations are just hard, you know. Would it be OK if I just said I was the sort who wasn’t sorted yet? Offered them a liquorice allsort?
May 30th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Just say you’re the sort who drinks rum, that should have you covered.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Sam, I’ve been meaning to mention I’ve antecedents in the Western Isles (centuries back). I take it the gene pool’s 50% Dalriada Gael and 50% Viking?
May 30th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Genius.
I can’t say more than that without getting choked up.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
fmc, gin do?
Conan, it is and the ways it comes out are peculiar. You get entire families who are tall and fair and then all of a sudden a smaller, darker haired person is born, and vice versa. You never hear about people from the village of Ness being called wee Nisachs because people from Ness are usually tall and big-boned and blonde.
Kieran, a wise man once told me to avoid choking and, do you know, I think he was right.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
On the just above,,,,,,, the sea stallion of Glendalough+ will be passing your way mid-summer ish. Viking raiding boat… and on the same, not all on the west were blackhaired before the Danes, might as well have been though;). And the archaeology bods have discovered the bones of sheep a few thousand years before hide or hair of the buckoos , so we cannot thank them for the black/speckledfaced wirewooled belligerent fuckers, who would prefer by far to be hanging upsidedown on on some rock than down on a decent pick, either.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Would love some pudding and a delicious swiss roll. I will be sure NOT to listen to any news so that I don’t choke. Great life lessons can be learned on the ‘net!
May 30th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Gin’s in baby!
May 31st, 2007 at 2:13 am
Jesus, that’s a fukken sad tale. A tragic story. Sorry for not commenting earlier, only I was crying so hard, the tears were shorting out the keyboard.
Christ Almighty, does it get any sadder than that?
May 31st, 2007 at 3:02 am
damn, sugar…i am so changing my plans to visit ireland, scotland and hell..even england…i can’t bear the sorrow, the sadness…the lunacy…i can get all that shit here in the south! *wailing&tearingmygarments*
May 31st, 2007 at 3:10 am
I wouldn’t like to die by having olives shoved down my gullet until I couldn’t breathe anymore. In fact, having them shoved anywhere, even if I lived to tell the tale, would probably be quite unpleasant.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Vince, I love sea-horses! And Viking sea-stallions are the ones that get pregnant (the males! How enlightened is that!) and shed tiny wee viking sea-foals (canoes) all over the North Sea where they grow into destroyers of others’ way of life. It’s a lovely story.
Jali, peril is everywhere. One minute you could be choking on a cornflake causing you to stagger out of the house and into the road to find help – the next you could be hit by a semi sending you flying through the air before coming to land on the business end of a church spire to meet your slow gurgly end. I stay indoors whenever i can. With the curtains closed. Sitting perfectly still. People might mock but there’s nothing wrong with good healthy terror.
Fmc, what sweet words speak you? Ahh – the sweetest!
Bock, see, I look around me at the vast areas of the world where there is absolutely no trouble or pain and I think that what the world needs now is not love, sweet love – it just needs a fewmore heartbreaking tales of sorrow, hurt and suffering. Just doing my bit.
Savannah, we’re a maudlin bunch and no mistake. ‘Neath every rosy drinker’s nose you’ll encounter in Britain and Ireland lives a world of pain – our sinuses are shocking bad, practically live on Sinutab, we do.
American Fez, I was planning on dying in just that way ’til you said that. Now I begin to see the pitfalls of the idea; the olive-pitfalls. HAHAHAHAHA DID YOU SEE THE SPLENDID JOKE WOT I JUST MADE THERE?? And, you’re right, that might be better left a story untold.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:00 am
And then, weeping and singing the song ?Tragedy? by the Bee Gees
Originally I had requested “Stayin’ Alive” to be played at my funeral. After reading this I am changing it to “Tragedy”. On second thoughts, “Stayin’ Alive” seems less appropriate so I’m keeping it…..I think.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm
So…being “at pudding” is an event? Like tea time? Or Presidential Inaugurations?
June 4th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Free Presbyterians huh? I fell into that crowd once, I still like to go around and spit on people who work on the Lord’s day, all the local ministers have banned me for life. Jazz is the devil’s sex music.
June 4th, 2007 at 10:49 am
poor bees
June 4th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I’ve got lots of good healthy terror!
June 4th, 2007 at 11:19 am
After this:
“Kevin Drooly and Marina Shed and the peat-stack and the windy day and The Best of Slow Jazz cassette-tape and tape-recorder and the pot of honey and the unexpected bee attack and the missing-presumed-blown-away-clothes and the desperate phonecalls to Karen Drooly at the pub and the four dark, wretched hours before she and her drunken pals picked them up and the car-ride of shame and subsequent treatment in Accident and Emergency for exposure and 3rd-degree sting”
I had to take break in order to get some oxygen in my lungs. You could’ve killed me, woman!
June 4th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Eddie, my Grandpa wanted Fight The Good Fight at his wedding and my granny was all for it but more matronly heads prevailed. They had a long and happy marriage anyway, in spite of their mothers-in-law.
Kara, you’re quite right. Being at pudding is an ancient British ceremony steeped in mystery and tradition. And hot water. The rite of the spotted dick alone requires 643 teaspoons and some ointment. (Spotted dick is a raisin studded spongy pudding – this is not a joke. British people never joke about pudding.)
Old Knudsen, I was watching some red-headed turkey vultures drying off their big black wings the other day, looking for all the world like a synod meeting of Presbyterian elders.
birchsprite, there was a world of hurt and upset in the hive after that night of almost honey love but did anyone report on that? No. You don’t have to dig very far to see that Rupert Murdoch is behind that somewhere.
Pat, a glass of red wine and a thorough terrifying daily as practiced by edgy Mediterranean peoples is widely held to be the key to longevity.
SafeT, I didn’t mean to kill you though, hun! I was after Karl Rove with that one. He trawls the internet daily for tales from the Hebrides and I thought perhaps I could get him to choke on an adorable breakfast kitten or maybe scald himself on some hot bile.