opinios

It was a clear fresh day and the sun shone crisply and Geoff, being unemployed, had a lot of time to enjoy it. He was still standing in his dirty underpants, fresh from bed yet fusty and unshaven, a crop of ginger hairs poking through his chin. He had just finished his first cigarette of the day and tossed the butt into a used coffee cup. He then went outside and sat in his small garden and shut his eyes. The sun pressed on his face so that inside his eyelids burned red. His mind wandered toward Bosch's last request and the red and blue sports bag that lay inside the kitchen door. As he dozed a little fly landed on his arm and walked between his hairs in short jerky sets. Quickly he slapped it flat and flicked off the pancaked corpse. "What did it matter?" he thought, "Bosch was dead. He wouldn't ever know whether it happened or not. Surely he couldn't care. He was dead, right?" He looked down at the folded fly's body lying on the step by his foot and a little wave of guilt swept over him, yet only he alone knew that the fly was dead. Then he realized that perhaps it was him alone that had known that Bosch had been alive.

As the rich, red velvet curtain fell softly around the coffin and slid back silently on polished silver rollers, Geoff considered what a violent man Bosch Windsor had been. With the chapel all wrapped in heavy organ chords, and the pews and scant well-wishers half concealed in a mourning that hung low like a fog, it was difficult to remember the anger that had howled in Bosch. Now the body lay silent in the coffin, emptied like a blown egg, and so too, had the violence abated. Geoff pondered whether or not this had in fact, been his soul.

The first part of the task had been gruesome yet achievable. He still recoiled from what he had done but he felt like he was beginning to complete Bosch's will. The second part would be much harder. He picked up the red and blue sports bag and put it in the fridge, then he flopped down on the sofa to make a phone call.

"Maidervale Football Club. How may I help you?"

Geoff sat with his mouth open. Speechless. He put the phone down.

"What am I going to say?" he panicked. He went back outside and had another cigarette before returning to the phone.

"Hello, Maidervale Football Club. How may I help you?"

"Er yes. Um, I wanna, I want to speak to, erm Peter Josling."

"Peter Josling the player sir?"

"Err, that's right."

"Could you tell me what it's regarding?"

"Well I have to ask a favour of him."

"For something of that nature sir, it would be best to put it in writing and send it to the public relations department. Would you like the address?"

Geoff did not have time to enter into correspondence.

During his life a love had blossomed within Bosch, planted incongruously by his father, who in all other respects had never really featured in Bosch's life. His father had not been a bad man, just tough. Tough as his leather palms that had worked for ten hours a day in the wool mill. Sometimes those huge big paws had gently cuffed the back of Bosch's head as slept under the rough hew of stolen blankets. Not a bad man but a man trapped in his life at the factory. The factory kept him alive to work, to work to be alive, until finally he was deaf and his body was wrecked lying discarded at the side of the road like a skateboard, the edges cut, worn and used. The markings of its original design were barely recognizable.

However, this tired body had not stopped him getting to the game religiously every Saturday. Maidervale Hotspur at Brenchly Park. When he saw the flash of blue shirts on green turf a life stirred in him of a similar intensity that his then dead wife had stirred in him a long time before. For the last forty years he had had a season ticket but he had been a life long supporter and the roar of the crowd was like a open hearth to him. It was this love of football he had given to Bosch who he had bounced up and down on his knee two seats up from the touchline. Bosch's 'ABC' had been Maidervale chants but the violence had entirely been his own.

He stood in the foyer of Maidervale Football Club, the stadium towering behind it, hemmed in on all sides by rows of terraced houses. Behind the desk sat a young girl nonchalantly filing her nails.

"Excuse me?"

The girl looked up slightly, raising her eyebrows disdainfully.

"Would it be possible to speak to Peter Josling please?"

"He's in training."

"Well can I speak to him?"

"If you're going to do training."

"Well I'm not going to be training am I?"

"Well I guess you're not going to be speaking to him then are you."

Geoff clenched the bunch of keys in his pocket tightly and swallowed his anger.

"If you could tell me, how, I can speak to him, I would be very happy."

"Public Relations, and you'll have to write."

"There's no other way?"

The girl stopped filing her nails and looked long and hard at Geoff.

"I guess not then."

From his early days Bosch had always liked to punch. What the attraction had been was Bosch's private affair. Maybe it had been the exertion followed by the sound and the gratifying response. Perhaps if he could have, he would have likened it to scoring outside the box in front of the home crowd. The chance, the kick, the ball fizzing down the back of the net and the following roar of the crowd.

Bosch had pretty much punched everyone he had ever met. He had punched Geoff once. It was in a pub on the east side and it stank of stale beer and the walls were as yellowed as the punter's fingers. Geoff had wormed his way to the bar and squeezed in next to a large man with a fat bald head. The man looked at Geoff, extinguished his cigarette by crumpling it in half and grinding it into the tray, then punched him in the face. It had not been a particularly hard punch but it had been enough to recoil him away from the bar and so spurred an indignance in him, that he came back raining punches at the big man. From the big man's head erupted a raspy chuckle and with one final punch he twisted Geoff's head round like a barn owl making his world go dark. When he came to he still had the imprint of a big sovereign ring on his cheek, but for some reason he had been given the seal of approval from Bosch. He never punched Geoff again.

Geoff waited for two hours behind ten foot steel poles which fenced him out of Maidervale Football Club car park. He monitored the comings and goings of the cars and the people. A tall sandy haired man strolled towards a red BMW.

"Peter!" cried Geoff, his arms straining outstretched through the steel poles. "Mr Josling! Just a minute!"

"Fuck off Ginger!"

"Please!"

The door to the BMW slammed shut and with a puff of poison it sped off. Geoff clung to the pole slowly drooping his head until it rested on cold steel.

"Please." he whispered.

He picked up the local paper on the way home and upon returning flopped down onto the sofa to reflect on the disappointments of his day. He read the front page. 'Factory closes.' He quickly moved to the sports back page. 'Maidervale 0 Balmforth Town 5.' He decided to move back to page 4. He skimmed over the page until his eyes rested on a small article at its foot. 'Striker strikes out!' He read on, 'Last night local hero Peter Josling was arrested for brawling with two Asian youths in what appeared to be a racially motivated disturbance. Mr Josling returned to his luxurious abode on the Longfield Estate after spending a night in Maidervale Police station...'

Bosch died from smoking and drinking. His body finally collapsed like logs finally shuffling from wood to embers, which slowly burned fainter and fainter. In the final glow, Geoff visited Bosch in hospital. By then the big man's body had withered, eaten away from the inside, so that it looked like discarded bones pushing out the sides of a bin liner. Bosch beckoned Geoff to him and rasped in his ear, "I ain't never had many friends, so I's asking you to do this for me..." And he whispered Geoff his last request. Geoff nodded. "Alright Bosch, I'll do it," he said. But by this time Bosch had already died.

Geoff stood again outside the car park at Maidervale Football club looking out for a red BMW. When it arrived he scrawled down the registration number with a pen and paper. He looked up to see Peter Josling glowering at him from across the way. Geoff raised his hand meekly but did not say anything. Josling turned and walked to the stadium and swung open the doors like a saloon.

That night Geoff caught the bus up to the Longfield estate. There were only two roads, admittedly long, but Geoff thought, "How many red BMWs can there be?" Eventually he saw Josling's car parked outside a house with a very long leafy drive. He ducked in behind a bush and had another cigarette while he drew his courage together. Then he self-consciously walked up the drive to stand in front of a big wooden door. He knocked twice with a big steel ring that lay in the mouth of a lion. The door opened ajar and a pretty face peered out.

"What do you want? If you're a reporter, you can fuck off!"

"I'm not a reporter, I just need to speak to Peter, just for five minutes."

The door began to close. Geoff stuck his hand into the disappearing crack.

"Please!" he pleaded.

The door bit his hand.

"Argh! Please! It's my friend, he died and..."

The door stopped closing enough for Geoff to pull out his hand, which he held tenderly.

"He died and he asked me to do one last thing for him. Please can I speak to Peter, please!"

The door opened a little wider and the features on the beautiful face softened ever so slightly but the voice didn't.

"Wait here." The door shut.

The door opened fully and Josling stood wild eyed, filling the frame.

"Look mate this better be good, 'cos I'm going through a rough time at the moment and...."

Josling stopped midflow.

"It's you! What the fuck do you want?"

"Just listen please, I just need to ask a favour of you, from a dead man."

"A dead man? Are you taking the piss?"

"No, no, no. He was my friend and he gave me like a last request, which has everything to do with you.... he thought the world of you." Geoff garbled on, whilst rubbing his hand that the door had bitten, looking pathetic.

"Stop!" Josling cut in. "That's enough! Why don't you just shut up and tell what you want me to do." Geoff bowed his head.

"He just wanted you to score a last goal for him."

It was early morning and the air was full of purple mist, swirling across the lawns, hanging in the trees, collecting on leaves. At the far end of the common, two wooden goal posts loomed out of the fog, ghostly. Geoff waited on the penalty spot in front of the goal mouth holding the red and blue sports bag, slowly soaking. Peter Josling emerged through the mist in a long black overcoat, the collars folded up against his face. He carried a pair of football boots. He barely acknowledged Geoff, he merely mumbled, "Lets get this over with then." Josling bent down to change into his boots while Geoff unzipped the red and blue sports bag.

"What the fuck is that?!"

From the bag Geoff had pulled out a large sealed jar of formaldehyde and Bosch's grey, white softened head.

"What do think it is? It's my mate's head isn't it."

"What the fuck? The fuck? You?"

Geoff walked over to the penalty spot and emptied Bosch's head onto it. It sat with a squelch and stared vacantly. Josling stared in disbelief.

"Are you having a fucking laugh?"

"Look that's what he wanted. He wanted you to score a goal with his head."

"You want me to kick his head into the goal?"

"That's what he wanted."

Josling considered. He had scored many headers, yet nothing quite like this.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he concluded.

"Just kick the head will you?"

Josling turned, "I ain't kicking no fucking head, for you or your dead mate neither."

Geoff turned too and stared at Bosch's head. It hadn't moved.

"Look Mr Josling. Peter. I didn't want to get mixed up in this either, but that's just the way it happened. You said my mate left me with a burden, but you don't know the half of it. It cost me fortune to get the undertaker to look the other way and after that I had to cut off his head with my own hands. I'll be sick thinking about that for the rest of my life. That head has sat in my fridge since he died, so if you think you're sick of this then I am beyond. So if you could just kick the bloody head into the goal then we can both piss off and forget about it."

Josling began to walk away.

"Please!"

Josling stopped. He turned and looked at Geoff, and then at the head. The wind blew in the trees. With a scream he began to sprint towards the penalty spot. The head disintegrated upon impact due to Geoff's poor pickling technique, spraying flesh and alcohol into the air. It blew back in a fine mist over Josling.

"Arrrgh! You fuck!"

He held his hand to his mouth as little pieces of flesh pattered to the ground several metres in front of him. He took a moment to compose himself and then walked over to Geoff and punched him hard in the face. Geoff landed on his back on the wet grass. His nose began to bleed as Josling towered over him.

"If I ever see your face again I swear I will kill you!"

Josling picked up his shoes and disappeared into the fog.

Geoff propped himself up onto one elbow and dabbed his nose with his hand, red blood on his white skin.

"Thankyou," he called out.

Submitted by Nicholas Prothero