by Ian Black
He’s still conducting, while negotiating the next corner at speed, and is taken completely by surprise as his pupils focus onto a barrier of steel spreadeagled across the road before him. Furiously applying clutch and brake, he attempts an emergency stop, which only locks up the wheels, sending the car into a straight-lined skid.
•
George watches a screeching sports car plough head first into the steel-framed underside of an uncompromising trailer. The low bonnet disappears, wedging itself completely beneath the structure. The car stops dead, when the front windscreen stanchions impact, crumple and lodge firmly against the trailers horizontal frame.
Both vehicles sit hissing; George moves towards them. The juggernaut seems barely scratched, whereas the car is a complete write-off. Both doors are crumpled, incapable of opening; it’s a tangled mess. But then, on realising the driver’s still inside, George drops his rucksack and sprints towards the car.
The juggernaut driver climbs down from his cab, and looks back, as the car’s wedged-in engine catches fire. Flames lick along the car’s bonnet and up the side of the trailer, as George takes a kind of running hop, skip and a jump, enabling him with several strides to leap onto the boot then the roof of the low car.
The lorry driver yells, “YOU’RE TOO LATE! GET OFF! IT’LL EXPLODE!”
Oblivious to the shouts, George crouches on the roof, peers inside, and through a rain-speckled sunroof sees the driver slumped across his chest, restrained by a seat belt (that the police forced him to wear earlier). Feeling heat from the flames intensifying, George stands, and slams his booted foot powerfully into the sunroof, and as the glass shatters Strauss’s “The Second Waltz” blares eerily from the car.
George drops to his knees and over loud music shouts, “Hey, mate. Mate!” No response from the driver, so screwing his face against the heat, George stoops his head into the car and repeats, “Hey, mate!” Still no response, so he reaches in and lightly slaps the driver’s cheek, but neither slapping, loud music, crackling flames nor pounding rain alert the unconscious man, as pandemonium surrounds him.
As George leans his body inside further through the sunroof, he’s startled by shrill ringing from a mobile telephone placed between the driver’s legs. The telephone is linked via Bluetooth to the car’s hands-free kit, which automatically nullifies the music and amplifies the phone’s ringing through the speakers.
While loud ringing blares, George focuses on the red release button on the seatbelt clip restraining the driver. He slides his upper body further through the sunroof, and supports his own bodyweight by placing his hand on the seat in between the driver’s legs, but in doing so accidentally touches the phone’s keypad, which inadvertently answers the call.
Through the speakers a cheerful American woman greets the driver, “Hi, handsome!”
George knows the greeting’s not for him, and ignores it, while successfully gaining enough purchase on the button to release it, but in doing so he grunts, which the woman hears and questions, “James?”
With the seatbelt released George backward-crawls himself up, while sliding his hands beneath the woozy driver’s armpits, and attempts to hoist him upwards, as a minor explosion blasts from the engine, which finally wakes James. Regaining consciousness he sees flames licking through the shattered windscreen and yelps.
The woman hears his yelp, “JAMES! What’s going on?”
James can feel heat, singeing his fringe, and thinking his hair’s on fire, slaps his own forehead, but slaps George’s hanging face instead.
“Keep still, James!” George commands.
“WHO’S THAT?” she screams.
George gets a better grip beneath his armpits. “I’m going to pull you out, James, but you need to help me.”
“WHO IS THAT?” she demands to know.
Sensing her panic on the phone, George replies, “It’s George!” as he heaves the man inches from his seat.
“George?” She’s desperately trying to make sense of the situation. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO JAMES?”
Straining with the weight, he answers, “Saving him.”
“SAVING HIM FROM WHAT?” she’s hysterical.
With little help from James, George furiously attempts to summon up strength to weight-lift him free, and grunting while he lifts gasps, “From the dragon!” Bemusing her totally.
“Now you listen to me… George!”
The juggernaut driver watches, as a combination of George heaving and scrambling from panic-stricken James sees both men emerge and stand upright on the roof, before George grabs hold of the dazed-looking driver and yanks at him. They leap together through a roaring ring of flames.
James hits the wet bitumen, and collapses on his back… concussed, shocked, exhausted. Looking up he feels cool soothing refreshment from cold rain showering upon his face. He’s happy to be alive. A police siren wails, as two concerned faces peer over him; the same two police Officers from earlier. He’s pleased to see them now, and as they lift him further from the flames, James scans around looking for the man who saved him.
He’s nowhere to be seen… as the car explodes.
•
Chapter: 12
Seemed Somewhat Saintly
The following day in hospital, James and his girlfriend are going over the car crash events with both policemen, for their report.
“Saving him from a dragon?” Officer Two pulls his face.
“That’s what he said!” confirms thirty-year-old Millie, holding James’s hand at his bedside, while her heavily bandaged English boyfriend lies with a broken leg suspended in traction.
“That man saved my life,” points out James. “I must thank him. And while I think about it,” he addresses the officers, “thanks for insisting I wear my seatbelt. I’d be dead meat without it.”
“We usually know best, sir… but you’ll need to find the tramp to thank him,” states the irksome over-efficient-expert-at-stating-the-obvious Officer Two. “We arrived on scene as he pulled you off the car… We ran to where you’d landed, looked around, and he’d gone… For the record, can you confirm… it was that tramp who hassled us?”
James nods, but offers a different description, “You mean that man who offered to help you catch serious criminals?” Both officers choose not to reply. He confirms, “Yes it was him. The man’s a saint!”
Officer Two mumbles sarcastically, “Saint?”
James hears it. “Mock you may, but as he pulled me from death… he seemed somewhat saintly to me!”
“Saint George it is then!” Officer Two suggests smugly. “Case solved!”
The bedbound man detests the condescending way this officer spoke to George yesterday, and his arrogant manner now, and replies, “Seriously, officer, he was trying to help you yesterday, then he saved my life! Have you any idea who he is? I need to thank him.”
Officer Two nods at his colleague, “Show him!” Officer One places George’s rucksack on the bed and says, “We reckon the tramp was carrying this.”
“He was,” confirms James.
Officer One continues, “Well, there’s no form of ID inside, just smelly old clothes, a plastic sheet… and this!” he slides out George’s crumpled old storybook.
“Saint George and the Dragon!” murmurs Millie.
James looks surprised too.
“Exactly!” exclaims Officer Two.
Officer One offers an explanation, “A lot of these tramps are barmy… probably kicked out of an asylum.”
Officer Two nods his agreement while picking up the rucksack, and concludes, “We’ll let you know if we find him.”
“Thanks!” smiles Millie as the officers leave, then leans over and ruffles James’s singed fringe.
“I can see it now,” he jokes, “your report on CNN World News… Breaking News: American reporter’s brave British boyfriend plucked from certain death-by-dragon… by Saint George reincarnated!”
Although scruffily dressed without make-up, and wearing her hair lo
osely tied up, Millie still has that natural knack of looking good in anything. She continues to smile and replies, “I don’t really think it’s quite world shattering enough… Do you?”
“I do…” he confirms, tongue in cheek.
•
Chapter: 13
Dragon Slayer
Later that day, George rummages through bins behind the Dirty Duck public house searching for grub. To his dismay no rich-pickings can be found. He’s then distracted by the sound of grown men singing. George is particularly interested in what they are singing about.
He walks around to the front and sees a noisy group of grown men huddled around wooden benches on the pub’s front patio. They’re all adorned in red and white England football supporters’ gear: hats, scarves, shirts, flags etcetera, and appear to have already quaffed copious amounts of ale before the game. Examining them more closely George notices that their gear all bears England’s national emblem, that of the nation’s patron saint, the red cross of Saint George.
He’s delighted, having never before seen such adoration of his boyhood hero, and becomes even more intrigued as the men begin chanting a football supporters’ anthem in unison, “With Saint George in my heart keep me English. With Saint George in my heart, I pray. With Saint George in my heart keep me English, keep me English ’til the day I die…”
Then, as the men suck in deep breaths preparing to belt out the chorus, George mingles in amongst their crowd and interrupts them. With a gormless smile and deep slow voice, he tells them, “I like Saint George!”
His words cut through their chorus like a knife. Half the men burst out laughing while the other half look bemused.
One quick thinker offers the tramp his pint, “Congratulations, mate, have a drink!”
George doesn’t understand their reactions: the laughter, bemusement, or being offered a drink, so he holds his hands up, shows them his tattoos and confirms, “I’ve always liked Saint George!”
“Go on, have a swig!” encourages the man.
Now George looks confused, “I don’t drink!”
“Bollocks!” retorts the mouthiest one, who appears to be their leader. “A tramp who don’t drink?” He thrusts his nearly empty pint glass into George’s chest, “Drink!”
George ignores his bolshie offer, and seeks clarification of their connection to the Saint; it’s important to him. “You all believe in Saint George… like I do?”
An awkward silence descends, mainly because George has rebuffed a drink offer from the mouthy man/lout. Plus, no one really knows what to say now, except their leader, who is all mouth, “You’re doolally, pal!” He pulls out several copper coins and scatters them at George’s feet, “’ere, get yourself some chips!”
The tramp looks down at the change, then back into the eyes of The Mouth. Now George doesn’t know what to say. He’d like to connect with these men, to learn about their connection to Saint George, but he can’t see anything in these men that he wants to connect to. They all appear like Frank: self centred, arrogant and brash. George ponders these thoughts, while staring back in silence.
But The Mouth reads George’s silent stance as a contemptuous stare, a disrespectful spurn in front of his troops, so shoves him over onto the floor, and follows it up by showering George with the remnants of his pint.
His pathetic crew laugh out loud as the lout shouts, “You looked like you need a drink!” then turns to his cackling allies and rallies them, “Drink up lads, Wembley’s waiting!”
From his strewn position on the floor, George sees the landlord in the doorway making a phone call on his mobile.
•
Meanwhile, as the same Officers One and Two patrol the streets in their police car, an announcement is made across the radio regarding a disturbance at the Dirty Duck pub: a minor altercation between drunken England fans and a tramp.
•
A short while later, driving past a row of shops near the pub, the officers spot George rummaging through a bin outside a fish and chip shop. They pull over and discretely observe for a few moments as George retrieves a discarded half empty bag of chips from the bin and begins eating them hungrily.
“That’s hungry!” states Officer Two.
“Poor bastard,” replies Officer One. “Let’s have a word.” They retrieve his rucksack from the back seat and cross the road.
Not at all fazed by their presence, George greets them warmly, “Hello.”
“Evening, George,” replies Officer One.
Surprised that they know his name, George stops munching.
“It is George,” enquires Officer Two, “isn’t it?”
George nods his head slowly.
Officer Two throws a wry smile at his partner, and a good-cop, mocking-cop thing develops as he asks sarcastically, “George… the dragon slayer?”
George’s jaw drops. “How?” he drops his chips too. “How did you know?”
Officer One detects George is anxious, and tries to reassure him “It’s okay, George… we know all about you.”
George picks up on the last statement, and enquires cautiously, “You know all about me?”
“Yes we do,” confirms Officer One. “We’ve come to say thanks.”
“Thanks?” He’s confused.
Officer Two can’t curtail his cruel nature, “We know you saved him… from a dragon!”
George seeks clarification, “And… you want to thank me?”
“Yes!” Officer One exclaims, passing the rucksack over.
“Which dragon?” the tramp enquires.
Officer Two laughs, “Ha!” and replies, “You can kill as many dragons as you want for us, George!”
A look of instant relief floods across George’s face, “Oh… that’s all right then… I thought you were taking me to jail.”
Now both policemen look confused, and glance at each other before Officer Two asks, “To jail… why?”
George replies honestly, “Because I killed them!”
The officers are totally puzzled, clueless to what he’s referring to.
Officer Two probes again, “Which dragons did you kill, George?”
Honest as always, “Frank… and Maurice.”
“Where did you kill them?”
This is the first time George has been questioned on the killings, and replies candidly, “I killed Frank in DC and Maurice when I got out.”
Both perplexed coppers cast glances at each other, then Officer Two keeps digging, “Why did you kill them?”
His answer is emphatic, “Because they deserved to die!”
•
The police became suspicious, and insisted George accompanied them back to the station, where detectives questioned him further. By accident they had stumbled across and solved two long-unsolved crimes. He openly confessed to everything, telling them how, and why he’d killed Frank, Maurice, and the Rottweiler.
It soon became apparent to the investigating officers that he clearly understood his killings were against the law, but showed absolutely no remorse as he had simply followed his own strict moral code: the code conditioned into him from an early age by his mother. He admitted that he hadn’t enjoyed the act of killing… or the trauma experienced before, during and after… but George took great lengths to explain that the two men were aggressors against his mother and a friend, therefore he had purely defended Colin and avenged his mother.
His state-appointed defence lawyer attempted to defend George against both counts of murder by claiming he was insane, arguing that anyone who by choice remains homeless and roams around the countryside spouting off about killing dragons must be insane.
But psychological reports presented by the prosecution stated otherwise, and conclusively concluded that George was in fact perfectly sane. His state of mind and unusually slow manner were attributed to his upbringing, and severe lack of human interaction. And his simple nature was due to him being uneducated and unintegrated. Tests proved that his low intelligence was purely a result of it
never being nurtured to blossom, another contributory factor towards how George processed the learned behaviour instilled into him as a child.
The reports also stated, and warned, that although George presents a childlike persona, and seemingly harmless nature, once he or a friend were ever in danger of attack in the future, he would defend by killing if necessary… George verified this assessment as being accurate in a personal statement (which didn’t help his case). He honestly admitted that though he never wanted to kill again, he could not rule it out… as he may have to.
In interviews it was also noted that he continually referred to his oppressors as dragons, and kept reminding everyone who cared to listen that: Everyone has dragons… and they will visit us all!
George was eventually categorised as sane… but dangerous, and consequently found guilty on both counts of murder and sentenced to serve a minimum prison sentence of twelve years.
•
Chapter: 14
Mutual Respect
Several months after his conviction, George lies on top bunk in his tiny nine feet by six feet prison cell, staring vacantly at flaky-paint peeling back from a drab old magnolia ceiling. Apart from the bunk bed, there is just enough room to accommodate a tiny table with two chairs, a small steel toilet and wall-mounted washbasin. A small window with steel bars faces the door, positioned high up, but on tiptoes George can just about see out over the windowsill.
George was offered a prison haircut and safety razor to shave, but prefers to wear his hair and beard long, it’s less hassle; but now he’s washed and wearing clean prison uniform, George does look considerably smarter than he did during his fourteen years of vagrancy.
He’s quickly become accustomed to prison life, and actually enjoys it, as he did DC. After years of scavenging for food and shelter… guaranteed food, warmth and a bed are positive luxuries for him. And having previously experienced solitary confinement incarcerated inside a kitchenette cupboard, he finds prison a doddle.