People to Meet!

 (vol. 13: Braintree, Essex)
(text only: printed edition contains collages and sheet music)

Nota bene: The “People to Meet!” Stamp Card(™) that was to accompany this booklet has been removed per City request. Please do not ask citizens for commemorative stamps. Also, the “People to Meet!” Flexi Disc(™) is no longer a fiscally viable option. Please turn pages at your own discretion or set an alarm to chime each minute. Crayons not included. Use of unauthorized crayons voids any warranty of descriptive accuracy. Sheet music is intended for the gifted. Lastly, the “People to Meet!” series and its publisher (Brussels Ward) do not condone tourism, nor children.

Series Editor & Collagist:

Jif Johnson, Esq.

Music by Mrs. Lynn B. Johnson

Welcome to Braintree, _____________! 

                                        (your name)

How was the train ride, kiddies? Did you know the railway system in the UK is the oldest in the world? Toot toot! Mr. Joffrey at your service. I’ll be your travel guide. Wave goodbye to your lovely parents. Or text. Now place all of your phones in this safety bag. 

Quick, queue up, here’s our coach! I must insist you now pay strict attention…  

MEET THE MAYOR

First stop! Inside this drab, horrifically soporific grey-matter of a Victorian, you’ll find Miss Mayor, First Citizen of Braintree. Born under a disagreeable star, she likes to be called “The Waltzing Corpse.” We call her “Mademoiselle Mairesse.” She dons bleached fox skins, which she believes are coronation silks, and hoards kerosene lamps she declares are typewriters. Boys, give a little bow; girls, cover your ears. Unlovely overall, the Mayor yet possesses a teenager’s hands, placid and pinkish, and tells visitors between biscuits and beans that life “is a sh*t sandwich and every day is another bite.” Miss Mayor looks like a glass that somehow you could also squish. My buddy Peef once asked her to dinner but she said no she is too important—and on this we can all agree. Peef had the last laugh though. He left his top hat in her hamper. Nice house, no? But still, it’s like a held sob, with arthritic settling, fly spottings, dust dogs, standing mould. 

MEET STINKY SYLVESTER

Stinky Sylvester sells quarters, which we call 20p. He needs to work on his business plan because one can’t sell money for more than it’s worth. You’ll find him with his feet in the river. He puts his socks in his boots and dunks his feet in the water. This is why we can no longer be a spa town. It’s his right, just ask Ibsen. Sylvester says, “You get coins when you die.” His head looks like a deflated sports object and he always wears a jogging outfit with a vest over it. Just be cool, and if things get out of hand there’s a complimentary hose on the footpath you can use to spray him. The setting on the nozzle is up to you, but I’d go straight for “jet.” He’s an avid birdwatcher, Stinky Sylvester is. Ask him about the western marsh harrier while you chase him off till he’s exhausted of all but shame. He also frequents the Namco Funscape bowling alley where you’ll spy him nursing an egg cream and plugging the jukebox with those quarters we call 20p. Sing along if you’re keen on local band “The Prodigy.”

MEET MOOK

To my left, a 13th-century building with a brick dome for a hat. But I prefer the Partyman World of Play (formerly Crazy Kids), near the Screwfix hardware store. Tell your parents this is a lush place to “get the children all worn out before teatime.” £5.95 per runt, off-peak. Try the jacket potatoes! At the Rainbow Slide, you’ll happen upon Mook. She doesn’t speak because once she was forced into talk therapy. Also, you’ll find she has a nihilistic affect, but she’s easy on the eyes. A doll, she is, a doll. Mook once said, “It feels like silk knots inside me so I don’t need to eat,” and then I saw she had some sweet missing teeth and well my heart melted. This said, I admit Mook wears old Nazi memorabilia. But don’t let some hobnailed jackboots keep you from admiring her retroussé nose. I assure you the Partyman World of Play wouldn’t hire just anyone to tear tickets at their prized slide. Her legs are like a good day at the stock market. Whisper to her Joffrey sent you for a free minute in the ball cage!

MEET CASSY CATASTROPHE

Oh, get that sucky sweet out of your mouth and just take a gander at this zagging lightning! Perhaps the snow brings it on, I’m no electrician. I’m your good guide Joffrey! Little visitor, I want to introduce my longtime friend Peef. A person to meet. OK, now don’t make it a big to-do, this isn’t the zoo. Peef says Cassy Catastrophe will be at the flea market today. “Cassy,” he says, “lives near Freeport station and paints houses with her hair.” All unasked for. Alas. You’ll see her at the windswept market with a cartful of glassless picture frames or doors or those metal fans that can chop off your fingers or sadly piled plastic chandeliers. “A chandelier,” Peef feels he needs to add because he is drunk, “is only a thing one recognizes when hung. Like Mussolini’s girlfriend.” Anyway, Peef went to secondary school on Manor Street with Cassy Catastrophe. She was afraid of mirrors and neglected her personal hygiene and so never went to the big ball. The flea market is on a funnily named road: “Bird In Hand Gant,” which connects Coggeshall Road with Cressing. Parking is abundant should you— Well, there goes Peef unsteadily down the street with his crutch in the air trying to get chosen by lightning.

MEET MOM

After a quick slap and compensatory stop at the Cadbury Outlet in Braintree Village, where they sell “rejects” at a discount, we’ll run into Mom who is known as “Joffrey’s Mom.” She’ll accost you below the aqueduct. (I told you to hold all questions until the end of the tour. No, she doesn’t want melty candy.) Mom’s got bluish legs from overusing a mimeograph, and her moustache resembles ant wings at certain times of the year. Please note she declares “human children” selfish and immoral. Stand back. Like the Royal Guard, if you make her laugh she’ll shoot you. Years ago, after the Poohsticks Incident, she filed her teeth to points and started carrying a net gun. She throws feed down, then catches pigeons by the dozen in front of the medieval barns of the Knights Templar where nasturtiums cling. No photography. Pardon? Yes, I know I took your phones.

MEET LILLY LITHE

Good morning, lazy! While breakfasting among the plump goats, taking advantage of the expanded outside seating at The Blue Egg (Braintree Road, Great Bardfield), you’ll meet Lilly Lithe of Lostlooks. She used to be a TV hostess on BBC Four for the show Tergiversation UK. Now she’s a “webcam girl” and down to five stone six. Ah, the cruelty of online life! They say her house smells like a pet store. When not bawling from her balcony about her oblivious sister Lethe, she scatters about like a roach. Actually she looks like a rubber band stretched across a dreidel. Lilly tends to attack at brunch and bark that she’s “condemned to eternal damnation.” Just keep calm and reply, “Aren't we all?” The passing goats have rectangular pupils and will sup cider. Do watch for dung.

MEET CAPTAIN MIGRAINE

Tourism can’t all be fun, and one can’t help but meet Ole Captain Migraine. He dresses like a pirate but all in silk and uses empty bottles as telescopes. There’s something amiss with his parietal lobe, at least that’s what the doctor confided when I got my MRI. Captain Migraine believes he is in Hell, which is not as depressing as it sounds. He hops about like he’s on fire, and the kiddies throw ice cubes at him for laughs. Someone once threw him on the tracks, but he got up and walked away before the White Notley train came along. I think he really was once a sea captain—he sings shanties to compartmentalize his pain. Truth be told, I tend to zone out when drinking with him at the Flitch of Bacon (strictly speaking, in Little Dunmow, nestled in the yale of the River Chelmer). Go for a chinwag, and he’ll tell you himself that this town isn’t a town, and I agree. Braintree is more than just a town.

Haul the winged vessel down to the deep

And in its hull step the mast with our teeth.

Set the purple tatterdemalion sails

And condemn the holy beslobbered whales.

Oars to the straps of the cold rowlocks.

Anchor up and out, out the outraging dock!

Listen to a recording

MEET PENNY PETRICHOR

Once wet, Penny Petrichor smells like a prison of a thousand flowers. If you chance upon her in the English mist, you’ll have your breath taken away. Forever. But beware her undersized yet overwhelming boyfriend PHILIP Phenomenon, from the City Morgue. Penny was cited in a late paragraph of an article in Volume 112 of Comptes Rendus, entitled “Sur l’Odeur Propre de la Terre.” She was also Miss Braintree 1999. And a runner-up in 2001. Her argillaceous odor hangs around the family-friendly Railway Carriage Museum (provided by the Friends of the Flitch Way) on Station Road off Queenborough Lane, where she gives unofficial tours. Oh and she has “Joffrey” tattooed on her upper-thigh so if PHILIP’s in earshot, don’t bring me up. Nor George Geosmin. George wrote on Wikipedia that Penny Petrichor’s scent is adored “because ancestors may have relied on rainy weather for survival.” PHILIP kicked George’s knee backward for this. In fact I think PHILIP is now on the last page of this book waiting for us so please stop turning pages.

MEET SIR AUCHINCLOSS

“Auchincloss the Candyflossed” is of course rich and toothless. Pity him if you wish, it’s free. Look through the gate: he has a pool shaped like a piano. And he only wears his silk suits once then hangs them on what they call a clothes hanger in an 18-wheeler bed. When it’s full, well he buys another 18-wheeler because minted people are disgusting gluttons yet powerful and dangerous. (An aside: Speaking of danger, PHILIP’s been to the gunsmithy. You should just put down this book and go to bed.) Auchincloss is so flush he’s pink. A tour of his mansion will cost you a long hug. Hug rule: The wadded bastard has weak kidneys so don’t go prodding around. If you decide to go prodding around, his bed has drawers under it that sport nudie magazines, but all the models’ eyes are snipped out. Make of this what you will. There’s a definite smell. Tell yourself it’s “pool chemicals.” Sir Auchincloss is very wealthy because he sold silk (I know who cares about silk but here we are, I can’t explain everything) and could kill you on a whim. He looks like a fat bully who settled into a cheap chair.

MEET “LEGLESS” LINDA

If while racing up a narrow alley in search of a constable or perhaps strolling down a lonely path admiring the cauliflower clouds the dead Queen’s sun alights on our behalf you should stumble upon a loathly old lady who smells of Pimm’s, well that’s squiffy “Legless” Linda. They call her “Legless” because that means “drunk.” She actually has two legs, and is in fact an avid walker. Ages ago, Linda began hallucinating faces screaming while driving so now she’s a real flâneur, always staggering around town when she’s out of her tree. Having wasted many years locked up for cruelty to crows, the cracked crone now lives in an oak strung with windows and drinks more than a pensioner ought. After Linda’s discharge from the hospital, which is a bloody disgusting way of putting it, she still suffers seasonal episodes. Mostly these occur outside of St Michaels Church (12th century, note the Roman traces) during the Little Legs Winter Festival. Sorry boys, only the girls may visit her treehouse, by appointment. Oh, stop your childcrowing. It doesn’t really matter because Linda hasn’t a calendar and anyway thinks everyone an imposter. 

Moral: Don’t drink

MEET HOLLY HARRUMPH

Holly Harrumph is barricaded inside an apartment building near South Braintree Square, which makes no sense since that’s in Boston. Her lock weeps out its one lost eye, like Polyphemus. Still, I’d love to give you a look-see at her spaceship. I don’t know if it works, but it’s in the garage. Imagine a washing machine, digested. She says she went to the moon in it (but she has trouble recognizing familiar places).* Just nod unless you like your tea poisoned. Known for her chronic gumption, Holly once ate a whole ciborium of Eucharistic bread. What else? Oh. She maimed a maid named Abby Dam by moistening her mop with toad sweat, and now her victim creeps from crevices most moonless mornings. Hmm. Best to cross yourself as you hurry by, repeating this schoolyard rhyme:

The sky hurried past,

Holly filled her glass.

The sun went to its room,

After beating up the moon.

*Here’s a page I tore from Captain Migraine’s Log. He and Holly were once “involved.”

Hard pressed, below deck, with Holly Harrumph, in the driven black ship, labouring through salt and rented sail, losing anchor, we delivered the seas to the moon despite our weariness. There silver goddesses with ivory antlers came in crowds to salve their new slaves. A bit of the shipment ghosted away and soon the moon had its first typhoon. Icy pools in the craters awakened the buried whales from the first days. Huge slow cicadas panicked the nymphs. We were left to suffocate, watching the bronze Earth turn in its dirty linens, grey now at the temples. Perhaps the lunar ladies returned to make a pyre of our alien vessel.

MEET DOCTOR BADNEWS

My friend Peef likes to say, “Joffrey, where will life take us?” Or when. The town prescriber is Doctor Benjamin Badnews and Peef is a regular. Peef’ll tell you with a fair impression: “The doc is of an ’erring stench but thinks ’imself an Eton mess when ’e’s not busy dropping ’is aitches.” The doctor’s office is off Coggeshall Road behind Sainsbury's Petrol Station. You’ll find him drunk, un-practicing his handwriting. Boys and girls, a doctor is a good person to meet, usually. This one wears a bunny mask and heavy lead coats. His office is full of plastic owls he nicked from The Notleys Golf Club. What is a doctor, really? A clock with a bloodshot face. I digress. Peef says the doctor will tell you that you have a missing organ after a few clumsy pokes. So please don’t ask. To make an appointment, ring Nurse Catheter. +44 1376 320055. Or why bother? There are ’ummingbirds outside. Enjoy your youth. But festina lente!

MEET BART BORING, ET AL.

Most people are bald who wear caps and stare unashamedly at barmaid t*ts. Just saying. One such bloke is Bart Boring. Hopelessness and somnolence not to mention insouciance have done a number on bald Bart. Not sure why you’d bother, but if up for a pub challenge, try your patience and catch him at the Green Dragon, a heavily beamed 18th century building just outside the hustle and bustle. Well good luck to you! Bart will slur your ear off about how our TV show One for the Road uses the same scripts as Tony Danza’s Who’s the Boss. He likes to drink Old Growler. Hmm, what else? He used to be bowling buddies with Stinky Sylvester, but they had a big falling out over a BBC phone-in competition. Who cares? While at the establishment you just might meet Margie Mythology. Girls, if you skip off to the loo, you’re likely to find her on the pot with ambrosia all down the front of her dress. The town is mostly supportive of the medical team’s decision to take her to court for treatment over objection.

MEET SICKO STAN

Likely when walking around the Kelvedon Hatch Nuclear Bunker (25km SW of Braintree; access is from the A128 Chipping Ongar) you’ll meet—Ah! In the distance, the black corn parts to expose dread PHILIP who loathes us. Quick! Here’s our cab. Off to St Michael’s sanitarium, formerly the Braintree Union Workhouse (erected 1838). The heavy handlers, all in white like termites, like to sing this song about a pesky regular nicknamed Sicko Stan. I recorded it on one of your phones while watching them stock their glorified dogcatcher’s van with fishing nets and lemniscate-sleeved jackets.

Stan Sycophant is very elephant.

Has angel’s wings, ’tis very very sad.

They just can’t loft him; that is very that.

Yet he tells each dope, each blowhard boss, and cad

That yes! They’re largely right and quite correct.

Ee-aye, Ee-aye, Ee-aye-oh

(The doctor blames his mum for child neglect.)

And vroooooom! The awful attendants are off again in their padded-wagon. You can race them to Jubilee Oak and try in vain to tear poor brown-noser Stan from the exasperated postmen who know, yes, yes, they know, that they are right about God knows what. But to warn Sicko Stan to flee is to watch the blob collapse to his threadbare knees on the sticky floor and slobber over your cute boots. It’s senseless, so to speak.

Sing along with Scott Saxophone

MEET SOME LADIES

Likely no one yet loves you, flimsy moppet, but I’m very successful with the ladies. For example, there’s Paula Pockmark, whom you’ll find lovelier than she sounds. Like the word “pulchritude.” When Paula’s skyclad, she looks like the moon. Giggle all you like. You know Flaubert once wrote, “Pock-marked women are all lascivious.” And now meet Lacy Lattice. She’s scarred from a fall upon an outdoor grill but she, too, has a heart. Then again, she thinks she’s a witch—there’s a lot of that lurking around Essex. One request: If Lacy asks about Mook, pretend you never met her. Another love of mine you will meet is Miss Frieda Fish. She has a hook in her mouth so don’t get any ideas. Or do, what do I care with all my options? Last but not least is Misty Meat, the butcher’s daughter. She has a black halo, which is a tad presumptuous. But she also can’t see herself in the mirror so I guess it evens out. She loves the dark and will give you a h*nd j*b with a blank stare if you say you’ll one day take her to the cinema. Visit all of my lady friends at Wolseley Plumb & Parts, between 12 and 12:30, when closed up for lunch. Cash only.

DON’T MEET PHILIP

Don’t be afraid, but I think I spied PHILIP Phenomenon lurking in the library. He was salting an orange in the old stacks. With his little silver fingers clacking. Oh why do you keep fanning his rage by turning the page? I already explained he’s waiting for us at the finish. I don’t know who’s reading you this bedtime story, but you better wake up! It’s like that Little Golden Book about Grover. If you happen to be foolishly brave— Well don’t you care about your poor narrator? And Miss Petrichor is I swear just a friend who is currently sitting on my lap in the pouring rain outside family-friendly pub The Picture Palace, just south of the beautiful District Museum, which is currently exhibiting symptoms of subdural hematoma. 

Nocturnal liaisons in bars and barns, 

scent of flowers and more anon... 

O musk mallow, spring apricot,

grass-of-Parnassus, and forget-me-not!

MEET DOPEY DORIS

After the grisly Bouncy Castle Accident of 1991, Dopey Doris likes to skip, which isn’t the worst thing. It’s hard to skip and also be pessimistic. That said, my young niece L— once skipped while or whilst chanting, “Life is meaningless.” Exceptions prove the rule. I’d introduce you to L— but her parents hate Americans. You know, some say PHILIP’s metal hands were to blame for the jumping castle’s suspicious untethering. Anyway, you’ll meet Doris dressed like a corpse outside Blyth’s Meadow Police Station between the White Hart and the even-whiter, oft “snowing,” almond trees of the well-named B1256 park. She’s the one with a spot like a pepperoni on her forehead. Mind she’s got a Thersites complex about it. There’s a Domino’s Pizza three blocks down so prepare: For a meager slice, Doris will sing “The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea" while or whilst skipping. Boys take note: You could probably get her to lie stock-still in the Keatsian stubble fields for some Stuffed Cheesy Bread. Don’t tell Mum!

MEET HANNAH HUNGRY

I’m rather afraid I’m ravenous for ravishing Hannah Hungry. Because you say, “Is that true?” and she barks, “Scooby-Doo!” She doesn’t think she has a stomach, which is an error. And she lives with a conniving cockatiel. Which is also an error. That’s two errors. Like most, Hannah resembles her pet. (They both wear too much rouge.) It is what it is. I bring her puddings and she lets me escort her through the goosefoot and sow thistle to Great Notley for the bistro and stargazing…but enough about me. You’ll meet Hannah lying facedown on the road somewhere. Getting a head start on being dead. She has an eating and drinking problem. So really, she has everything. It’s true. Local tip: She likes hogget and mutton. If you kiss her don’t dare insert your tongue. Plus, you’re too young to wake up with rouge on your pillow.

MEET SPEEDY STEVIE

What? Well well well, three holes in the ground. Next up, little pup, you’ll meet Speedy Stevie in the middle of the night trying to enter your room at the grand White Hart Hotel with a dirty scheme. Covered in poorly chosen tattoos he did to himself with a pin and ink. Some Braintree local colour: All grey morning he gets on the red bus and then gets off the bus and then gets on the bus so everyone’s late for work. In the afternoon Stevie likes to make no sense. For example, he doesn’t think his bones are his and it’s possible he’s correct. He’ll want passersby to help him dig his grave, and menaces what he thinks is a shovel. It’s a wooden spoon. Just keep moving and avoid telling him to “relax” at all costs. Anyway, ring the hotel concierge if you hear a persistent scraping at your door tonight. Did you know the word “concierge” comes from Vulgar Latin for “fellow slave”? When you go to sleep tonight listen closely and you’ll hear the White Hart staff singing you a lullaby…

Settle down, calmez-vous. 

Think your folks c’ming back for you? 

Hop on the bus, sit for a ride

D’ya know why we stigmatize suicide?

Here comes Stevie, calmez-vous. 

Your folks ain’t c’ming back for you!

Listen to a recording

MEET DOROTHY DOUBLE-DECKER

Dorothy Double-Decker started out as a bit of a horse snort but once helped buoy the Braintree jet set with an idea as contagious as table tapping: nothing exists. Pottering around became de rigueur. Shocking transplantations and Saint-Bernard-avalanche brandy suddenly ruled the bicameral roost of the posh and tony mind. Then things went south and Dot stopped speaking. Not a doddering peep. She’s since, like magic, become beautiful. Like some iridescent parrotfish one might spy while snorkeling off a green-sands beach. You’ll meet Dorothy at The Gables mental health clinic. She thinks she’s the Wife of Bath. But she’s no longer a sardonic bore… They’ll bring her ’round in a bit... Sit still... While we’re waiting, here’s a joke to raise a dry smile: How do you dress a student? As soon as possible to allow the carcass to cool faster and help prevent the meat from spoiling. In lighter news, Peef went for a visit to old Dorothy last week and is now sporting a hickey. So just play along I guess. 

MEET AMBROSE & ELDRICH

Ambrose Ack and Eldrich Eek are joined at the head. So, for those travelling on the cheap, this is sort of a meet-one-get-one-free. And save your pity. Luckily, they believe they’re already dead. They survive on Tikka Butter Delight and Kati Rolls from The Ruby, a swank spot on High Street near the Crop Hair Salon and Pizza Town. Well, Ambrose is a very dapper man. He dresses all in corduroy (whip, whip, wept) and sports a Belgian tie and Tyrolean hat special-made and I’m sure long negotiated. He smells like wet crisps. Moving along, but only by about a half-metre, in the shriveled, powdered, devious Eldritch you’ll find the finest chef in the culinary world. So says The Ruby on their website. Look it up. He likes to stab you with tiny knives so tiny you’ll just think you have a splinter later when you can recover from seeing conjoined people. What’s most fun to ponder is that they are not even brothers. And yet are horribly deformed and attached at the head. One yanks this way, one hankers that. One hems, one haws. “And not a brain between them,” as they say in what passes for humour here.

MEET LUCKY LLOYD

Recently widowered, Lucky Lloyd and his long roulette addiction can be located at the illegal casino below The Nags Head pub. It’s the three-storey with beautiful brickwork. Lucky is drained of romance, so go ahead and hop on his lap. Don’t be a spoilsport! He feels he’s wrong by definition, and suffers serial yawning. He is not able to complete his work tasks. So you can count on him being at the green gambling table. He has a boisterous moustache and stinks of pistachios, which he keeps in his many pocketed puce overcoat. One side of the coat is for the shells. The clicks of the pried-open nuts and the clatter of the spun wheel work in sad counterpoint. Lucky has red fingers. Most days, you’ll also get to meet his eyeless cat Jonathan. Peef says Jonathan forfeited his eyes for usage in the roulette wheel on occasions when marbles were lost.

MEET THE TRIANGLE

There’s a sizable triangle that bobs, bobs, bobs in the bewildered barn at Grays Farm, in the nearby village of let’s say Wethersfield. No one knows the polygon’s name, and it cannot speak. In a pinch, call it Sputnik 2. It looks like a drawing on a blackboard. Or skywriting at the air show. If the triangle likes you, it might follow you around, poking up and down in the air. Even back to your hotel. Just shut the door in a jiffy, right behind you. When you wake up it might still be there. If the triangle follows you to the train station, worry not. The otherwise obtuse constable there knows his geometry. Do you?

MEET FRANCINE FAMOUS

I was just thinking, “What’s my tongue doing in my mouth? Where’s it resting, the beast?” How odd. And these aren’t the dull teeth I woke up with this morning! Are they PHILIP’s? Nonsense. Friends, do you ever dream your blood’s not real? Not quite yours? 

In “due time” you’ll find out why! 

Here comes the barber to leech you dry! 

Anyway, withinnen the five (thridde), local semi-celebrity Francine Famous will sing this to you in real chanson française style at The Swan Public House & Restaurant. She’s seven feet long (in heels and tiara) and rocks an Edelweiss dirndl. Drop-dead cosmopolitan. You’ll last meet her when both of you exist on horseback, all rugged and boggy along the Frank Way. She’ll offer an aluminium tray of shredded carrots, and denture-safe fishcakes, and some odd pastry called a “Trebizond.” Do not eat if you like life. And do not mention “King” Charles. Francine is covered in figurative doorknobs, and burps like bubble wrap. This is easy to overlook. Peef says she has “nice boobs.” C’est vrai.

Sing along with Francine Famous.

Listen my child to your sad Francine,

lonely as an endless quarantine.

In “due time” you’ll find out why!

Here comes the barber to leech you dry!

DID YOU KNOW?

TOP 3 HISTORICAL FACTS OF LOCAL IMPORT

1.     We’re the botanical-drawing-forgery capital.

2.     Peef found an East Saxon’s gold tooth in the BP parking lot.

3.     “Flitch trials” once tested the woe that is in marriage after a “twelvemonth.”

TOP 3 CURSES FROM LOCAL PASTORS

1.     Chip your front tooth when you take to the bottle!

2.     May no one ever say of you, “He would have been 100 today.”

3.     You’re why Aristotle thought women had no teeth!

TOP 3 THINGS TO DO IN BRAINTREE

1.     Enjoy wearing glasses.

2.     Pour water on your shoes.

3.     Learn German.

I must ask, are you without inner resources?

MEET SOFIA SKELETON

Sophia Skeleton, née Accurso, will inevitably slip you a card at the Sainsbury’s grocery. Just unfold it, stare at her with a stiff upper lip, say “I don’t know what this says.” Sophia’s a handsome bird, a tad thin; she washes her hair with eggs and eats dirt. I tell you, there’s sumptin in th’ water ’ere in unparished Braintree. Ain’t fish. If you need to practice your introductions, Sophia’s ideal. She lost her fusiform gyrus in a poker game with Lucky Lloyd, and now she can’t recognize faces. Anyway, absent that, follow my lead and forget Miss Skeleton for the solemn wonders of our Town Hall or take a pleasure jitney to nearby Bocking, described by HG Well Well Wells himself thusly: “indistinguishable from the urbanity of the Braintree side; it is just a little muddier.” Bring your own nibbles.

MEET OLLIE & FRANKY

Local drinking buddies Ollie Olanzapine and Franky Fluoxetine are a Braintree must-see. They deny the existence of their wives, so look out little ladies! You’ll find them properly sauced below the fountain of the patinated manservant holding a droopy flounder. Buy them a meal at one of our traditional pubs (pork scratchings are recommended for quick mates), and they’ll pretend to be jousting knights. Right out of medieval times! Out on the back patio of The Horse & Groom, Ollie and Franky will entertain all night with violent Morris dancing and mummers’ plays. My pal Peef says with zeal, “They’re twin angels!” Those in open-toed shoes should keep an eye out for smashed pint glasses. Cheers, kids! Have an imaginary friend? Then buy it a drink! But hush now—a customary colloquy is breaking out! Give me £12.

A Dialogue:

Franky: Ollie, one kembes his head here in Braintree, me thinks. And if we chaunce to see a straunger amonge the croud…

Ollie: Straunge children, p’raps…without neatnesse or clenlinesse… Yea mary suche toorists as these you speak of, could fill the River Brain.

Franky: None of them kyds knowes the Facion of the countrye. And this (I tell you) is the poynte! 

Ollie: How so, Franky? I pray thee hartely tell me.

Franky: We might gallup them fa’ off, and loose them up i th’ Woods. 

Ollie: Oh! Tell why? What is the poynte?

Franky: To alay and pacify Philip’s pore hongry and crookling stomacke! Ha!

Ollie: There is a neatnesse and clenlinesse to your Plan, I warraunt you.

Fare wel gẽtle reader!

MEET MR HATCH

Hop up on the stool at the Ole Adam & Eve! You see that big shell in the cabinet behind the bar? Ask the bartender, Mr “Down-the” Hatch, to take it down and hold it to your ear! You’ll soon decipher in the whoosh a mermaid singing:

Ah, you hear the town clock chime!

Boys and girls, don’t fear, it’s time

we wade into the always darkness.

River Blackwater in its starkness.

Lovely it is to twitch a book;

But it’s pain and game and gobbledygook.

“Now give back!” will snap Mr “Down-the” Hatch. And you’d be wise to obey. Mr Hatch has snakes in his bladder. Doctor Badnews advised him to drown them in bleach, but Mr Hatch prefers beer.

MEET GRAN GRAVES

Popular death doula Gran Graves is quick with a caring careerist keening—and, it’s whispered, when there’s a will, quite quick with a quill. The frilly barmaids at Ye Olde Albion (once primed with a bit of sniff from the shady scent shop) told my pal Peef she uses the last healthy sup of each pint to swallow a baby tooth fished from her fanny pack. Gran’s either at the pub or down the street having a kip in a back pew at Stisted: All Saints, a must-see grey-bricked church with a girthy pipe organ and our sprawling Warren McKinlay Cemetery. The belfry looks like it’s wearing a witch’s hat, and legend has it that to read the time off its blue-faced clock (motto below) is to know when you’ll catch a case of oblivion. Fear not, advises Gran, she’s your midwife for this important part of life.

The Greek motto carved around the clock face translates:

“May the dark come whirling clockwise, blinding down your eyes. 

Then you’ll fill the dogs and birds with your fat and flesh, and die.”

Είθε το σκοτάδι να έρθει στροβιλίζοντας δεξιόστροφα, τυφλώνοντας τα μάτια σας.

Τότε θα γεμίσεις τα σκυλιά και τα πουλιά με το λίπος και τη σάρκα σου και θα πεθάνεις.

MEET MISERABLE MARY

Once upon a time, I took a cane and beat a little boy to death for moping. Then pinned it on PHILIP. So listen up. He’s a real threat and you shouldn’t ever go to sleep. And stop f*cking turning pages! He’s going to kill us at the end, you dope! Anyway, Miserable Mary will find you as you pass the Bocking Windmill (built in 1721). Mary has blind hair and 10 visible mouths because of evil magic. Her spine stretches down to her feet, but I think that’s just hereditary. A sad old history, sad old Mary has, of luring with gingerbread and then yammering your ear off about Brexit. Nasty business. She’s always complaining about a little Devil in the roots of her front teeth. And if you think about it, that’s where crying begins. Peef says to just move on. Instead, how about a quick stop to meet my main gal Lynn at the Onley Arms? It’s on a street named “The Street.” You just wait in the lobby. Here’s some oyster crackers. Lynn’s in her “blooming stage” so every day is precious. No crying. Sit.

MEET CHRISTIAN CRUCIVERBALIST

Christian Cruciverbalist studied enigmatology at the Colchester Institute Braintree Campus. Since his graduation, no hat will fit him. You’ll notice him without ado at China Dynasty on Coggeshall Road, nursing his bottomless oolong tea, coughing his loose cough. His head is enormous, hunching his back like a bunch of quinces does a slender branch. He’ll have the newspaper crossword on the table, inches from his spectacles, and just turn his face toward you should you want to test his mind. Perhaps ask him about the Cotard Delusion. He won’t mind, he thinks he’ll live forever so long as there are sublunary brains to be racked. Local tradition is to rub the gold Buddha’s belly on the hostess stand for luck on your way out. Zài jiàn! (Tues–Sat, 11–8)

MEET VICTOR VICODIN

While in the area you must need meet Victor Vicodin, because you can hardly breathe. Good gosh is he short, and no one loves him by which I mean everyone does. He makes or lays bricks or both. He is mad that he is full of blood. All he does is rub his trowels, shovels, scutch tools, gauges, levels, bolsters, and buckets with a Nottingham-rose-embroidered doily. But he has a too generous prescription. Try to catch him behind the Bocking Arts Theatre. Without asking, he’ll tell you in sloppy language what “eating out” means. Think of the Queen if dirty talk isn’t your thing. After a palmful of pills a lad or lassie your size should be walking on pillows all the way back to the train station, I give my word. Sorry, your phones were lost. Cell phones are only good for plot holes. Bon voyage, tips in the jar, etc.

MEET YOUR MAKER

God blind me! Kids, don’t turn the page.

Old PHILIP’s waiting for us backstage.

*      *      *

I am PHILIP. You understand.

Four-feet tall with metal hands;

Got you in my slurry grip;

Poisoning your rosy skin.

Leaping through the full of night

To glut my mulish appetite;

Bursting ’pon Braintree beds;

Feasting on your sleepy heads.

Hungry for bones!

Hungry for blood!

Hungry for dreams!

This book is done!

THE END OF YOU

Jif Johnson

San Francisco, MMXXIII

Bedtime reading service: jifjohnson.com

Music by the lovely Lynn B. Johnson