by Dom Price
“I don't want anybody else, when I think about you I touch myself”.
From that point on as Mr Johnson calmly delivered the horrendous news, Dave realised that his dreams of having a girlfriend in the near future, and especially of that girl being Veronica, had been destroyed. If mix tapes for the girl of his dreams wasn’t going to be his mission in life, something else was. Something he could control easier and something he could be good at. That last episode hadn’t been a success, but he was determined that the next one would be.
***
Chapter Business and Buddies
***
“Nanna, was that you?”
The Marsdon clan collectively and instinctively covered their noses.
Christmas came and went without much drama in the Marsdon house. Grandma was her usual festive self, and managed to continue to blame brussel sprouts for the hideous stench that came out of her without a seconds notice. SBD’s were their code name around the house, standing for ‘Silent But Deadly’. Derek even joked that it could well have been one of those that finally sent Grandad Bob to his grave, and that the government had been in contact to consider using her as part of their battle in nuclear warfare.
As the kids were now teenagers, and Derek and Jane were still trying to be trendy parents, both Dave and Anne were allowed a small glass of Derek’s home brew Elderberry Wine. Derek’s view was that an education in alcohol would serve them well and help establish their pallets, fearing that making alcohol a taboo would lead them to drinking spirits and cheap liquor. Jane’s view was a little more diplomatic and subtle. Having endured years of Derek’s home brew, she had money on the fact that one sip of that would put them off booze forever.
With the New Year in full throw, Dave spent many of the dark nights that winter maintained, buried deep in his new literature. Derek had taken a timely trip to MFI, the local furniture store, for the January sales to equip Dave’s room with a much needed set of shelves on which to house all his new periodicals, biographies and self help business books. Derek had tried to entice Dave into helping him build the flat packed shelves, hoping that it would give them some male bonding time, but Dave was of the view that manual labour wouldn’t help him with his new mission in life. What made his outsourcing of this task to his Dad easier was that everyone in the Marsdon house knew to leave Derek to it when it came to DIY. Whilst bad dancers have 2 left feet, it could be said that for all Derek’s keenness around the house and avid reading of “Readers Digest Guide to DIY”, he definitely had two left hands. Still, the family gathered to watch the performance, like the Romans packing an amphitheatre awaiting a gladiator. All that they got was a lot of huffing, puffing, complaining that the instructions were wonky, and then a laugh when Derek inadvertently shouted “someone open a window. I’m getting warm with all this screwing”. For a cold January day, you’d be amazed at the glow that simultaneously hit Derek and Jane’s faces. The kids now understood those kinds of jokes.
The seasons soon changed and as the nights became lighter, Dave was really enjoying the challenge and guidance that the books provided him, and was getting sufficiently confident in the literature to start to apply some of it. Like all businessmen, his first few ventures misfired somewhat. One of his early businesses involved a rather simplistic “me-too” product, of perfume. He’d noted the strange regularity of the Avon ladies visit, and the fact that his mum still purchased perfume from Boots The Chemist. His apparent niche was providing good priced perfume, to kids at school, especially boys. With Mother’s Day only a few months away, Dave spent numerous weekends concocting a potion, opting for homemade perfume over the expensive stuff you see in the shops.
“So 5 rose petals in this empty fizzy pop bottle. Fill it with water. Boom!”
After 2 weeks of ‘maturing’ in the back shed, unknown to anyone else in the house, Dave was ready to test his secret recipe, guarding the ingredients like the Colonel guards his spices. On revealing the scent to his mother, Dave received what he noted down as ‘critical commentary, with a possibility of purchase. A maybe.’ In truth, all he’d got was a clip around the ear hole and a “so it was you who stole my friggin roses was it?”. By the time he reached his second tester, his confidence was dwindling in this particular idea, and Anne’s caring retort of “well it’s probably a better idea than mix tapes, but it does smell like rotten rose petals in stagnant water”. The Avon lady and Chanel could sleep safely for now.
The business ventures came and went, some with modicums of success, but the majority with underwhelming results. But Dave was on a learning curve, and he noted each failure down in his notebook, just like the autobiographies told him too. One of the self help business books that he was fascinated by kept on talking about competitive advantage, and knowledge being power, so Dave started to analyse the life and world around him, searching for his edge and unique selling proposition.
Over the years Dave’s friendship with Tony had progressed, and he was one of the few people that Dave kept close, often having Tony around for what seemed like days or weeks at a time. There were jokes a plenty from Jane.
“I should call your mother and tell her you are safe and being fed? Has she seen you this week?”
“Yes Mrs M, I go home every night, but your cooking is so spectacular, that it’s something not be missed!”
Tony always delivered his lines with such heart felt sincerity, that you couldn’t help but want to be a part of his life, even though he was a complete brown nose. With Tony in tow, Dave and Anne often frequented the same parties, which were becoming more and more regular as the crowd matured. Luckily for Dave, he never had to bump into Veronica at such events since her family had mysteriously left town a year or so previously.
Friday nights used to be family night with a Chinese take away and everyone crowding around the TV, but more often than not, Derek was Taxi Dad as he ferried them to and from various house parties, birthdays and such events. As trendy hip parents, the Marsdon’s were very aware of the drinking that went on at these parties, and with their open minded attitude, much preferred the teenagers to have ‘safe’ alcohol. Derek had sat Dave, Anne and Tony down before one of the parties.
“So come on then lads and lasses. How much of your hard earned pocket money are you spending on booze tonight?”
“Dad!” exclaimed Dave, with pathetic innocence. The silence was enough for Anne to crack.
“We’ve got 15 quid between us, but we’re not sure what we could get with that. Some of the boys at the party drink spirits Dad, but we’d rather have beer.” Anne had acquired her mother’s ability to play her dad like Nigel Kennedy plays the Violin.
“Right, well hand it over then, and I’ll pull in at the off licence on the way to dropping you off, OK. But on one condition. You drink beer and not any spirits?!”
Once at the party, all Dave could think about was the lost margin he could make if only he could get his Dad to buy the booze in bulk and on sell it at the party. The premium to get older kids from school or the local college to buy your booze was about 20%, and Dave would deliver direct to the party for 15% and still have enough to slip his Dad some petrol money. But at the tender age of 15, Dave had promised himself that business should be legal and above board. Dave’s interest in business and fear of girlfriends, meant that he spent the majority of his time supping his beers and talking about either of his new hair brained schemes to a disinterested drunk teen, or chatting about the football and his team, Sheffield United, to one of his mates. More recently though, Dave had noticed that he’d started spending an increasingly larger amount of time with the girls at these parties. His differentiator was suddenly apparent, and as none of them saw him as an object of desire, he was deemed ‘safe’ and therefore was trusted with the girl’s gossip and stories.
The spark that struck that night took only days to materialize. Dave had the vital ingredients for his new business plan, and now it was a matter of time for the supply chain to fill up and his firs
t venture could unofficially launch. It was the Monday morning, just before first period when Joanne Davis approached him, looking sheepish, a tad upset and definitely tired. Dave had been expecting her, but he said nothing. He’d known on Friday night that come Monday, she’d be his first customer of his new venture. Joanne had been getting serious with William Chadwick for a few weeks, and with a good few swigs of cider, vodka and chinzano inside her, she’d confessed to Dave on Saturday night.
“I think we’re going to try it tonight. I think he might be…(hiccup)…the one.”
The last he’d seen of them, William was on all fours, not for effect, but being the only way he could safely transport himself up the stairs into the spare room at Jono’s party. Nor was it foreplay, that his pants were part way around his ankles as he traversed the final steps and made the leap to actually stand up, swaying like a building in an earthquake for about 10 seconds before settling into stillness. William was one of the boys who were also into smoking, so the combination of some light herbals with a little too much drink, meant that his eyes were like piss holes in the snow, and his hand to eye co-ordination was like his brain had been turned upside down and back to front. Definitely the ‘one’.
“I think we did it” cried Joanne through the muffled tears. Her teeth were chattering like she was naked in the arctic, rather than rugged up in Sheffield. Joanne was normally a tall and confident girl, and had been close friends with Veronica until The Cartwright family had moved town the previous summer. Slightly perturbed, she looked like much of her makeup had been applied throughout a bumpy car journey, which was now being compounded as her snivels mixed in with her foundation to make streaks and cement on the top of her lip.
The next hour was the test run for Dave’s new business model, and it ran super smoothly. He was the only one of the boys that girls felt they could approach, as they knew he wasn’t interested. Dave wasn’t aware, but many of the girls found him attractive but would add that “he’s just more like a brother, you know?” As well as the trust, Dave knew from his business books that his real competitive advantage was knowledge, and he’d thoroughly read and re-read all the material that his mother had ever given to Anne. He knew more about the morning after pill, condoms, periods, the coil, and even something called the rhythm technique, than your average teen.
It was the maturity as well as the simplicity of Dave’s model that impressed him the most. The Monday morning trips to the clinic with a variety of girls, served as the loss leader. It would be callous and morally wrong to try and charge these girls for his service. They would be his free PR team as the word of mouth of everything he’d done for them, and how caring he’d been, would guarantee him a steady stream of custom. The prize for him was that with every visit to the clinic, he would be assumed as the offending boy, and be provided with a small bag of extra safe condoms. It didn’t take Einstein to work out that with the number of girls visiting the clinic, that the boys weren’t taking their responsibility too well, and it quickly became apparent that most were too shy to go and buy condoms from the Chemist. Genius. Dave had a near endless supply of condoms and zero cost, that he could sell on to the offending boys, and his market place was the parties that he so enjoyed attending. One book said never to mix business and pleasure, but Dave was sure that this was a safe venture.
Like all businesses, Dave was aware that it didn’t have endless longevity. It didn’t take long for most of the guys to realise that 1 quid a condom was extortion and quite a premium to pay to save embarrassment. Others realised that they could sneak into the toilets at the local pub and buy them from the machine in there. Most importantly though, as everyone grew up a bit, the need for clinic visits quickly depleted, which was an unknown relief to Dave. Unbeknownst to him, the lady at the clinic, gently referred to in his business plan as his ‘supplier’, knew his mum through one of the various Women’s Groups that existed around Sheffield and had actually approached her with her concerns at the numerous visits Dave had made.
“I wouldn’t normally say anything Jane, but he’s been over 10 times this year, and I’m just worried for his health. We’ve given him sheaths as part of every visit, and plenty of leaflets, but he appears to be a serial offender?”
“Marj, thanks for your concern. I’ll have Derek sit him down for a chat, but I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye.”
The real knife in the coffin of this prosperous business was at one of Julie Jackson’s summer bashes. Her parents made Derek and Jane seem positive archaic, and they’d left JJ their large house for the weekend and catered for most of the visitors, whilst also providing some booze. A molatoph cocktail of late evening summer sunshine, free flowing alcohol and enough festering hormones to restart mankind were set to make for a great night. Dave was taking advantage of the sun drenched patio, supping gently on a privileged bottle of Stella. He only ever drank it when someone else was buying. As he chillaxed in the evening, he was hurriedly approached by Tony, bending in a nervous fashion and practically kneeling to propose.
“Don’t ask any questions OK, and I should know better, but it pains me to ask you this OK. Do you have any condoms left?”
“Ha, Tony, are you for real? You’ve finally found someone. There was me thinking we’d be virgins together forever…well not together! You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a while, but the moment never seemed right…you know?”
“Don’t worry mate. Happen you’ve found someone you like, and at least you are being sensible. I’ll do you mates rates eh? 50p each!”
“You cheeky git. Here is a quid. Are you OK with this?” Tony was hesitating and waiting for confirmation.
“Go for it fella. Give her one from me! And make sure you take notes and tell me what it is like!”
Completely dumbstruck and slightly surprised, Tony was amazed at how well Dave had taken things. He really was focused on business, but Tony expected more of a reaction than that. Still, the relief was evident as he relaxed and sneaked into the spare bedroom in JJ’s lush pad.
The harsh reality however hit the following day, when the three teenagers were sat around the Marsdon table gossiping, sharing stories filling in the gaps about the night before. Dave didn’t want to jeopardise his friendship with Tony by bringing up the condom story, especially in front of Anne, but sat back and weighed up the hilarity of the story versus the temporary mood that it would put Tony in. Leaning back and assessing the situation, it was then that he saw it. Rarely lost for words, Dave saw the profits of his work in a whole new light with a mesmerizing combination of shock and joy, like sweet and sour. His brain computed the scenario way too quickly, and gave him both an unwanted mental image, shiveringly washed down like cheap warm Tequila, with the memory of his final words to Tony.
“Give her one from me!”
Tony and Anne were holding hands underneath the table. Dave felt sick. Still, he’d made a quid from it. Maybe the loyalty card idea was a good one after all.
As the three of them all silently reached the same shuddering conclusion at the same moment, it was a standoff as to who spoke the next words. Casually and business like, it was Dave who leaned forward and without emotion, resolved the moment.
“Every silver lining has a cloud they say?”
***
Chapter Ability versus Potential
***
Making his way up in the lift, Dave was ready for another successful day in the office. His adaption of the “Rule of 3” had practically become a religion or a cult for him, but it was providing him with an edge in what he saw as the finishing straight. It was 3 months until the promotions were being announced at CEC Services, and not only did Dave feel like he was in pole position, he was pretty convinced he had a far superior car than everyone else.
Dave never openly mocked the other guys in his office, but nor was he overtly subtle with some of his opinions. Whilst these guys were his peer group and his competition
for the position of Partner, he honestly struggled to empathise with them. Their lives were all so different, especially when viewed through Dave’s corporate tinted spectacles. Firstly, they all had girlfriends, fiancées or wives, which was not only a major cause of differentiation, but for Dave, gave him one essential piece of armoury in the war for promotion…cutting edge.
Over a beer with Tony, he’d often monologue for minutes at a time.
“I just don’t know how any guy who has to miss a conference call coz he has to rush home to watch some reality TV drivel, or even worse, attending some kids birthday party, can have any cutting edge? I mean, I’m not saying I’d step on any toes to get where I want to be…well not unless the person is in my way and clearly not deserved of the role…I have my limits…I just know what I want, and I’m going for it…you know?”
Tony was ploughing through his beer and fretting that maybe he’d forgotten to set the cable to record Anne’s favourite TV show. He’d lose major brownie points if he had. Their friendship had stood the test of time, though they each had different views as to why. Dave was pretty certain that Tony saw him as a role model and someone to look up to. Dave was Tony’s inspiration. Tony’s view was slightly different. He was more than certain that he was Dave’s only friend, and that if he’d not married Dave’s sister, their friendship would have parted ways many years earlier.