Saturday, 13 October 2012

Short Story - The Dream of Andrew Johnson by Steven Frank McHugh


Up on the stage was Andrew Johnson, a casual man of sorts. He seemed an average man, an everyday man in most ways. So as he stood on the stage that morning unable to compose his planned speech he decided to let his thoughts roll out. To clear his head so to speak, in I suppose a kind of stream of consciousness. Bellow is the actions and thoughts which then flowed.

I feel like I have to tell this. I don’t know what it is that’s made me feel like this but IL explain it as clear as I can. It was a dream you see, or nightmare, but they’re the same thing really aren’t they? Dreams and nightmares? I don’t know anyway back to the story.

It was a dream I had and in it I was standing down a back alley. I don’t know what took me there but I know I was waiting for a friend who lived in a flat not far away. Anyway there were a few things happening in the alleyway. Prostitutes were lined up one end, whereas at the other were drug dealers.

Honestly you couldn’t make this up. Well, while I was there this gang member shows up you see. And him, he’s making the rounds you see. Shaking down the others, making sure him and his boss get there proper cut. Well anyway he’s pacing back and forth and me I’m just trying to keep myself to myself. Let him get on with his own business I was thinking, then he has no reason to but his nose into mine. But the problem is he’s a bit of a riley type. It doesn’t matter if you put your nose in his business, if there’s anyone around he’ll always take a pop to put his nose in their’s. So anyway he starts acting up with this gorilla type with him, he was a right manta. But the Gorilla, he doesn’t want anything to do with it. He’s like,

“No, leave it out man. He ain’t done nothing bro,” Said the Gorilla

But he responds back you see, bigger and louder like a real hard man has to.

“No I ain’t having this! I’m not taking this crap, he’s got to go!” Says Mr Hard Man.

Anyway he pulls out a gun at this point and you know what? I was craping my pants. So like anyone with a brain between there head in this situation I legged it. Bullets kept flying from behind me but I just hid and knew I had to stay still. A few more bullets fired and footsteps followed.

I was trapped in the alley where I was and knew I had to move. So as he’s coming round the corner I barged past him full tilt as fast as I could. So now I am legging it, never run so fast in my life, but still the hard man catches me.

So now I’m right near the entrance of this alleyway. The Gorilla has run off probably to get his boss and all I have to do now is run to escape. But now Mr Hard Man has got a knife and he’s eying me up. I on the other hand am clutching and crawling, ducking and diving to avoid this blade heading through my belly. And it was about then that I saw this lighter on the floor. You know, there was nothing else at hand so I try manoeuvring myself to reach this lighter on the floor. So, after a bit of a struggle I finally claw it over with me foot. I pick it up and finally manage to hold his arms down before burning one of the bastard’s eyes with the lighter.

Now you got to understand that the main aim for me was to make sure I didn’t get killed by this lunatic. But the lighter didn’t seem to do much to him cause now he was flailing more, up and down, all around he was with the knife. So I grab him again and I’m thinking ‘this has to stop him this time.’ So I swing the light into his other eye.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Again he shouts, but he still doesn’t go down.

So now I’m fighting for my life, I boot him in the stomach and keep working on him until I’ve finally beaten him down. Only now I don’t stop see. You see now I’m so tired with fear and pumped with adrenaline I keep going until the Gorilla comes back and pulls me down.

Now I’m still going calling off all F’ and blinding but I soon realise my situation and calm right back down. You see I’m now not only faced with small fry on the floor over there but I’m now faced with Mr Big and Gorilla on the right. So after over looking the situation and trying to gather his where’s about, he asks me my opinion of what happened here now? So you know, I say,

“It was that nutcase there, that asshole just tried to fucking kill me!!! Piece of shit, you try anything like that again with me IL do more than just kill you, mark my words sunshine!!!”

Mr Big after my little outburst there kept looking on intensely at me. He then looked at Mr Hard Man on the floor who was whimpering away into what sounded like a small puppy crying. Then back to me.

“Sorry about that old man.” He responded, “And if you’re willing to wait sir I can most certainly reimburse you?”

Now although that was phrased like a question I can tell you it was most certainly a command. With men like that, they don’t really take no for an answer.

In a few minutes three heavies came in and picked up Mr Hardman and took him away to what one of them described as,

“A proper seeing to.”

So anyway, my mate comes down in this time and I tell him to wait in the car, so I can leg it if things go wrong. Another ten minutes go by and the boys come back down with this large suitcase, they hand it to me and say it’s a present of condolence from their right nice boss as they put it, Mr Big. So I take it down the alley to one of the dead ends so I can open it all discrete and that. Anyway I start pealing back the zip and it seems a bit stiff at first but slowly I get it open and inside the case is something that at the time almost made me sick.

In the case were three things, the first the knife of Mr Hard Man now covered in blood. The second was an empty can of petrol whilst the third was the charred remains of what less than half an hour ago was some gangster hard man taking shots at me down this very alley way.

I jumped back from the case terrified of what I had just seen and turned to leg it for my mates car sat just outside the alleys entrance. I jumped in the car and it soon sped off.

“Now with dreams like this, how can you explain that?” said Andrew Johnson, 

the counties premier high school academies PE teacher. The assembly audience was in shock and awe with both teachers and students standing in shock. No one really knew now what to think of this strange man or his even stranger little story. Although I must say to those of us who witnessed it first hand certainly never forgot it. Always making sure to pass it on if the opportunity ever rose to tell it.

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