farlanhardy.net The Wayward Way - News - Contact - Home - About My Dad's Music - Arifah's Site - Buy CD Extracts From "The Wayward Way" A novel by Farlan Hardy The Wayward Way Book Two Stories from along the Wayward Way. Chapter Two. Me and my mate Terry had lot's a great chats about art and other things. Sometimes me other mate Max udd come an all, and we'd sit in me candle lit attic studio talking into the early hours. Terry ud be smoking is pipe, Max ud be coughing. I'd be wizzing about moving me paintings outa Terry's reach, so he din't strike is matches on em. We'd be drinking cheap wine from the barrel or bottled beer. Oh yes dear reader...happy days.. To be so young Hay? I'm talking here about a period of some eight or nine years from when we was all teenagers into our early twenties. In the fifties it was and early sixties. Yer happy days. Oh boy between us three we tackled every subject, every problem upon God's earth. Fearless we was. Afraid of nothing and no one, cept maybe my mother? Me and Terry din't think much of music, but that Max he love'd the stuff. He was potty about it. Got ter be a real bore sometimes he did. Always trying ter get me and Terry round ter is place ter listen to is records. Terry ud say with a disappointed look on his face. "Ah! Bloody hell Max, , I'm sorry I got a bleeding union meeting. I gotta go, what a drag hay. I'll have ter miss all that great music." And I'd say. "Oh! dammit Max, I've gotta get on with this ear painting." But one night Max said, "Nah, Nah, never mind yer fucking union meeting and yer bloody painting, yer gotta hear this guy. Bleeding brilliant it is. I only got it yesterday. Nobody's heard of the guy. He's bleeding amazing!" "OK. OK" sez Terry giving in a bit.. "Who is this guy?" "Little Richard, is name is. It's amazing! I mean his like." Max turned ter me here for a bit of support. "His Van Gogh, he is reborn, only instead of painting he sings...Bleeding great." "Van Gogh!?" I sez, "He's like Van Gogh?" "Yer" sez Max eagerly "That's right, that's right!" Terry puffed on his pipe. I was getting a bit worried about him. He was looking a bit enlightendish. Ah, but that boy Max had played out is line and me I was the fish about ter be hooked. "What's he sing then?" I said, "This little Pilchard?" "Little Richard." Said Max patiently. "Oh really Farlan yer gotta hear him. It's Van Gogh reborn it is, with a voice instead of a paint brush!" "So!" I sez, "I'm hooked. I wanna know. WHAT'S HE BLEEDING SING??" "Great Balls of Fire!" Said Max, in a quite proud voice. Terry choked on his pipe. I was stunned.. Max looked quite humble but proud like he'd just made the loudest fart in the world. "Great Balls of Fire?" I said in a voice I hoped was as cold and as ice. "GREAT BLEEDNG BALLS OF FIRE" I repeated, me cool momentarily blown away by shock. Terry was coughing and spluttering and kinda laughing in a sobbing kind of way.. "Yer shouldn't smoke sa much!" I said in a kindly aside. "Now listen Max." I said calmly. "listen, are you trying to tell me Vincent Van Gogh, one of the three major post impressionists has been reborn and is now singing a song called Great Balls of Fire?!*" Terry was on his hands and knees looking for is pipe, he was still coughing a lot. Max was looking really chuffed. He swigged back is pint and grinned at me "S'right!" he said. "Well!" I said in what I hoped was a mature, wordly voice. A seen everything, done everything voice.. "Well!" I repeated cus the first one souded so good .."Well." Terry was back in his chair, looking enlightenedish again, but I noticed he din't light is pipe... "O.K.!" I said in me most man of the world voice "I'm game". I said "Let's go and hear it now!" "Right!" Sez Max happily "Come on old son." He sez ter Terry. "Yer on!" sez Terry "Let's just make sure I got me ear plugs." Several hours later we arrived at Max's place. Now Max's house was in fact only a ten minute walk from my place. But there was a few pubs on the way see? Then Terry remembered this working man's club, where the booze was dead cheap..Then we got into this really tedious argument with a big guy (Foundry worker he was) Really, really tedious argument about the French existentialist philosophers. Well my mate Terry udd just finished reading Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy, but he weren't to genned up on the French existentialists. Still he saw his chance fer a bit of dialectical debate, and was trying to get away from Jean Paul Sartre into a bit of Karl Marx. Now this foundry worker want intrested in Karl Marx who he called a commie bastard. Terry bridled a bit at this, and I thought we was in for a punch up.. But then two of the foundry worker's equally big mates came up ter stand next ter im. Max who'd a mad reckless streak but had bin quiet up till now took it into his head ter say, he'd read some a Sarte's stuff and he thought the notion that action preceded essence was utterly untenable. This rash statement was to much for the massive foundry worker. He reached out his bulging right arm and picked Max up by the lapels and held him up in the air about three feet above Terry's head. "Let us." He said in a booming voice "Reconsider this proposition!" Hah, Hah, dear sweet reader, that had my mate Terry worried, cus he could see the wit behind the foundry worker's action. And he could also see it was gonna be really difficult ter get Max ter buy the next round a drinks. I'd bin a bit lost. All this philosophy crap want my scene, but it amused me ter see Max apparently defying gravity, with the aid of the big strong foundry's workers strong right arm a course. So I sez ter the foundry worker.. "I bet yer couldn't pick up me other mate with yer other arm.!" "What?!!"He sez "Oh couldn't I" Terry just had time ter give me the ET TU BRUTUS look. Then he was in the air an all! "Look here!" I said ter the big man. "How do you reconcile the existentialist ideas of Kirkagard with the atheism of Sartre?? Hay" "What YA MEAN?" He sez. Terry who was up there with Max now, pulled out is pipe and lit it. Max said "Bleeding Hell Terry can't yer leave that bloody pipe alone for a single minute?" "I need it." sez Terry. "It helps me ter think!" The big foundry worker was frowning "I don't quite see yer point old son." he said. "Well!" I sez "Kirkagard believed in an ominipotent God din he?" "Right!" sez the foundry worker thoughtfully "that's true, yer that's true!" I'd got im now, his great brow was furrowed with the effort of his massive thoughts. Absent mindedly he chucked Max and Terry away, so he could put his great fist under his great big chin and scratch his head with his other hand. He looked very much like Rodin's 'The Thinker' I thought. Terry and Max was picking emselves up and all in all not looking any the worse for wear. They went over to the bar.. "Mine's a pint a bitter." I shouted. "Me too." sez the foundry worker. "Us an all." sez the foundry workers mates. "Now!" Sez the foundry worker, who's name turned out ter be Sean. "let me see if I've grasped the implications of what yer saying. " He sat down in his chair and continued. "Kirkagard who was as you quite rightly say, or" He smiled amused at is self "Or rather imply, was a christian existentialist. Sartre was as we all know an atheist!" His two mates nodded in agreement. Their great brows was furrowed an all. "Now" he continued "Yer also quite righly remind me that Vincent Van Gogh cut off is own ear!" "That's right!" I sez "Yer getting there.." He smiled at me benignly. "So!" he sez "You're suggesting, if I grasp yer meaning, that the dispare inherent in Van gogh's passionate nature can be seen as a paradoxical link between Kirkagard's existential christian pessimism and Sartre's atheism?" "That's right!" I sez brightly. "Yer nearly there!" "Right, right!" He sez getting very excited by these new insights coursing through is brain like molten steel.. "So!" he sez laughing "We're back to the old Janus complex!" "That's right!" I sez.. "Ah fuck!" he sez "That bleeding Janus complex bin haunting and bedeviling western thought since bleeding Plato." "Too right!" I sez Terry and Max ud got the drinks and had bin listening ter all this with there mouth gaping open in amazement. "Well!" said the foundry worker beaming at Terry and Max "Your little friend here's got a fucking great philosophical head on is weedy little shoulder's and no mistake. Be dam'd if I can crack it!" I leaned forward, struck a match on his massive leg and lit Terry's pipe for im. "I think" I said "You've forgotten one little thing old son!" I raised me eyebrows at him quizically, sure of me ground now. "What's that?" he said humbly. "Sartre." I said slowly as if speaking to a child. "Wore spectacles. Kirkagard; had a limp. And Vincent Van Gogh, who is now going under the name of Little Pilchard has recently released a new record called 'Great Balls of Fire'!**" "JESUS BLOODY CHRIST!!!***" shouted the foundry worker "THAT'S RIGHT! THAT'S RIGHT!" He beamed at me and Max and Terry happily "GREAT BALLS OF FIRE HAY????" he bellowed. "GREAT BLEEDING BALLS OF FIRE" he roared to his mate. His two mates came over and patted me on the back and gave me money. "your O.K." they said. "Yer!" shouted Sean joyfully "He's O.K." We did make it to Max's place in the end, but truth to tell dear reader, by then Max and Terry was very pissed. Terry by some kindly act of providence instantly fell asleep in his chair. So he didn't get ter hear Little Pilchard. No such benign providence was working for me that night. Max put his precious record on his record player and there it was. Damaging me poor ear drums. 'Goodness gracious. Great balls of fire! I was in truth a little tipsy. The room was spinning. Max's face was all lit up with a contented smile cus he'd got someone ter listen ter Little Pilchard. Frankly I din't believe for one minute it was Vincent Van Gogh reborn. But me mate looked so happy I din like ter spoil it for him. After about half an hour I took the record off. It had taken me that long to realise it was on repeat. Max had fallen ter sleep smiling. Only I was left awake. I carefully replaced his little Pilchard in it's record cover, smiling to myself and thinking "What an idiot that Max is. Fancy imagining that Little Pilchard singing Great Balls a Fire was Vincent. Hah, well!! Ha, well! I thought that Max is a good mate but well?? They were both asleep. I'm not mad keen on music, but I thought Ah! the hell with it! Let's listen ter me old mate Paul Gauguin! I put Paul's record on repeat and sat back and dreamed of far away exotic islands. And Gauguin reborn sang is sweet song over and over again and I drifted off to sleep.. "Well! that's all right Momma, that's all right Momma. That's all right Momma, any way you please..... ************************ Go to next extract

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