Ronnie Wheeler is a fool. I’ve always said it and last week it proved true. He’s always considered himself a bit of a clever sod and you can’t tell him anything. I met him in the ‘Pig and Whistle’, Tuesday night it was, and he was holding forth, as he does, about proverbs, it was. I don’t mean that book from the Bible though I dare say it’s got its fair share of wise sayings. No, what I mean is those old saws that everyone trots out when the time seems appropriate. You know the sort of thing, ‘empty vessels make the most noise’. I wonder why I should think of that one because this particular vessel must have had more than a couple of pints in him by the time I got there but he was still making plenty of noise.
’I can’t understand what all these bloody proverbs are about,’ he says, ‘Blood is thicker than water’. Well what’s that supposed to mean? Anyone with any sense knows that blood’s thicker and thank God for that. I cut myself last week and I was bloody glad that my blood was a damn sight thicker than water or I’d have drowned in the stuff.’
‘It means that it’s better to seek help from relatives than from a stranger,’ I said.
‘Not when you’ve got relatives like mine, it isn’t.’ he quips.
‘How about this one then? ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ Well who’d want to? It’s daft, I tell you.’
‘It’s supposed to mean that something might look right but if it’s not right you can’t make it so,’ I said but I wasn’t convinced I’d got it clear in my own head so I had no chance with Ronnie.
‘There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,’ Ronnie said as he took a long swallow of his ale and made it a truism by dribbling down his waistcoat. This got a general laugh but our Ronnie failed to notice. ‘What’s the sense in that? What’s a twixt when it’s at home? Oh yes I know, I had one with a cup of tea this morning.’
‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ I offered to general mirth. I rather thought I’d scored a point but Ronnie didn’t even blink.
‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ I suppose that’s true but then I’ve had a bit of fun with one or two in the bushes in my time.’ He took another swig, burped and wiped his mouth with the back of a rough hairy hand. ‘No, you can’t tell me there’s any use in proverbs. ‘Cut off your nose to spite your face’ who’d do such a thing? Mind you,’ he said, grinning at me, ‘An inch or two off yours would probably do no harm.’
The assembled throng clearly thought that the point had been won back but I didn’t see any reason to continue an argument that I was never going to win.
‘Come on, you, old sod. I’ll get you a cod and chips and see you home.’ I dragged Ronnie to his feet and hustled him into the chilly air.
‘Fish and company stink after three days?” was his parting shot and the laughter faded as the door slammed shut. ‘Bloody stupid, that is.’
I made no reply and we staggered to the chip shop and bought his supper. As we tottered down Warwick Street, Ronnie spotted Maisie Trimble’s dog. It was lying across the path chewing something in the darkness. Now Ronnie hated that dog though I never knew why. ‘Shh’ he said, tiptoeing drunkenly up behind it and giving it a healthy kick in the rump. The dog squealed and shot off into the darkness, leaving Ronnie leaping about and cackling. He’s an evil sod.
When we got to his front door he fumbles about for his door key trying to find the right one in the dark. First, he drops the keys then he drops his supper then he bends down to pick both up. At that moment, a light comes on in his front room and a roller-framed face peers through the nets. By this light I could see Ronnie’s rear end as he searches for the keys.
Then two things happened, one slowly and the other very quickly. The first was the seam of Ronnie’s trousers noisily parting to reveal a garish and grubby pair of boxers. ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ flashed across my brain. At the same instant, the rather grubby part-boxer that belonged to Maisie Trimble appeared and attached itself firmly to Ronnie’s backside. It was Ronnie’s turn to squeal and he didn’t stop squealing even after his missus and I managed to detach the dog and got Ronnie into the ambulance. The dog disappeared into the night carrying away Ronnie’s dignity and his fish supper. Well, at least that fish didn’t get a chance to stink.
I don’t know about blood being thicker than water but there certainly seemed to be a lot of it on Ronnie’s trousers and, do you know, it took exactly nine stitches to repair the damage in Ronnie’s posterior. His wife never bothered with the trousers. She put them straight in the bin.
I couldn’t resist it. I had to have the last word and Ronnie was in no condition to stop me.
‘Well then Ron, perhaps you’ll learn to let sleeping dogs lie.’ He didn’t seem to find it funny. Well, would you?
