TOMMY THE CAT SPEAKS HIS MIND

It was the morning of the day that faithfully comes between Tuesday and Thursday every week. I don't know the name of the day. I used to have it written down on a piece of paper, in case anyone asked me, but like a fool, I went and left the piece of paper in the pocket of my strait jacket before I put it in the washing machine. DOH! What a fool I felt, when the day came round again and I got a text from the Queen asking what day it was!. I bluffed her by texting back that my computer was broken. When in a tight corner you've got to think fast and breathe shallowly.
Tommy my cat and I were bored out of our skulls. A skull is a very important thing, it keeps your face from falling in on itself. Over in the corner sat Howard Hughes our television set. We call it Howard Hughes because it never leaves the house or clips its nails. The TV, or-Howard sat there, all gloomy and dark. Due to the number of repeats it had spewed out over the years, it was suffering from acute indigestion. Until it got better, all we could do was let it rest, keep in warm and make sure it got plenty of liquids. Every two hours, Tommy or I would pour a pint of orange juice through the vents in the back.
Oh how we missed Howard the TV, he used to keep us amused with programmes like, "How clean is your coal shovel" and riveting documentaries like, "My granny ate my face."
For three days, Tommy and I had been sitting on two hard milkmaid's stools staring at each other. No words were spoken, just hard scrutinising stares. The pressure was getting to me. Anyone who has sat on a hard milkmaid's stool for three days, staring at a cat will know what I mean. I could take no more, I knocked my knees together and yelled, "STOP IT!"
"Stop what?" said Tommy.
"Stop looking at me!" I yelled.
"I'm not," said Tommy "you're looking at me!"
"You looked at me first!" I yelled.
"I did not," said Tommy, "you looked at me first."
"I did NOT!" I screamed."You looked at me first. I remember thinking to myself, Tommy is looking at me."
"I remember thinking the same," said Tommy. "I remember thinking to myself, as you do, she's looking at me."
"You're a liar!" I roared.
"So are you!" screamed Tommy.
In the silence that followed, we both stole a glance at Howard the TV, oh he didn't look well at tall. His screen was blank and the little red stand by light was still not flashing.
As Tommy and I went back to staring at each other, Tommy gave a little smile and muttered, "I never would have believed it."
"You never would have believed what?" I cried.
"How ugly you are," said Tommy. "Sitting here staring at you for three days on a hard milkmaid's stool, has made me realise just what an ugly, horrible, frightful old bag you really are."
"How dare you!" I yelled. "I will have you know that during the war I was crowned Miss Shrapnel 1942."
"How did you get so ugly?" said Tommy. "Did your mother wash you with ugly soap?"
"She did not!" I yelled. "Every Saturday night, dearest mummy and darling daddy would tear the clothes from me and my 16 siblings. Then dear mummy would hold us by the big toe, under the kitchen tap. She would then hand us to darling daddy, who would dry us by rolling us along the floor with his foot. Then they would sew us into pillow cases, pile us up in a big heap and fling us into our beds. As dearest mummy put out the light, by blasting the bulb with a shotgun she would smile and say, "Sleep tight children and do let the bugs bite, because fleas are God's creatures too."
"What an idyllic childhood you had," said Tommy.
"Yes!" I said. "Just imagine if I had landed up with the Christian Brothers?"
"Bummer," said Tommy.
"You're SO right," I replied.
In the silence that followed I whispered, "Am I really--ugly Tommy?"
"No," said Tommy. "No, your face has--character, the criss cross lines and furrows on your face, the freckles, the moles, the warts, the way one eye droops, all denote a certain kind of raw, savage, animalistic, horrible, terrible-beauty."
"Thank you Tommy," I said. "Every single line on my face is a laughter line."
"I never though life could be so funny," muttered Tommy.
Then Howard the TV gave a creak, a groan, a horrible crackle followed by a shower of sparks and burst into life. Tommy and I whooped and cheered and pulled our hard milkmaid's stools closer for a good dose of fun, frolics and merriment. But when we saw the Steven Nolan Show was on, we turned Howard off again and went back to staring at each other.

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TIE A YELLOW RIBBON ROUND THAT POOL OF PEE

After I had swept the darkness of the night out of the door with a sweeping brush, the light of the day crept softly and carefully into my home looking warily all around for trips, snares or gin traps disguised as small boys wearing short trousers. Finding none of the afore mentioned, the light flooded into darkened nooks and crannies, driving the dark out into the street, with shrill cries of, "Get out you remnants of the night and never show your black face in here again!" I patted the light on the head murmuring, "Good boy" and set down a saucer of Ribena and oil of Ulay. "Has it gone?" yelled Tommy the cat. "Has the horrible dark night departed?" "Yes, it has!" I roared in fluent Pinafore. "The night has gone and the light of another day is here, to guide our wayward step, as we turn, yet another page in the book of life". Tommy crawled out from under a blacksmith's anvil, gave a shudder and said, "I hate the night. The long, dark, never ending night. Each night," said Tommy, "I lie in bed, shivering, shaking, and trembling as I listen for the footsteps of the Bogey Man, who will put me in his deep, dark sack and take me away to his dark, gloomy house in the forest, where I will spend my time gathering faggots for the fire and cooking wombat stew for the Bogey Man, his bogey wife and his ugly brood of young bogies. I can't stand it!" yelled Tommy. "Do you hear me? I can't stand the night, when everything is, dark, dark, dark!" I threw a bucket of semolina round the quivering feline and yelled, "Pull yourself together Tommy cat. How dare you stand there on my Paisley patterned rug, exposing your phobias to the vulgar gaze of the rude and mocking multitude!" Tommy wiped semolina from his feline slitted green eyes and said. "Thanks for that. You are a true friend. Who else would throw a bucket of semolina over me when my fear of the night turns me into a slobbering, wretched, disoriented, vulgar grovelling wretch of a pussy?" "It's the least I could do Tommy," I said ."After seeing the state you were in, the bucket of semolina was your just-deserts." Oh how we laughed. Outside our window a group of workmen began to dig up the road with a large digger. As the house shuddered and nick-nacks flew from the tall boy, Tommy and I gave a WHOOP, clasped hands and danced the Mason's Apron as plaster from the ceiling fell on our jigging heads like snow. Ah, Irish dancing! What would we do without it? We would have to invent it by tarring the roads with tacks! In the afternoon, which always comes if you have patience, Tommy and I dressed up as Susan Boyle and set off round Belfast. "Come into the garden Maud!" I screeched, "The long dark night has gone!" "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls!" screamed Tommy. A busker who was singing, "Sweet Caroline," picked up his guitar in disgust and thumbed a lift to Lisburn on a passing Chinese rickshaw driven by a sweating coolie called, One Hung Low. I threw back my head and shrieked like a cat kittling, "All I Want Is A Room Somewhere, Where I can Boke When I'm On The Tear! With One Enormous Po, Oh, Wouldn't It Be Luvvly!" Suddenly, a figure rushed out from behind some wheelie bins screaming, "NIGH-NIGH-NIGH!" It was little Jim Rodgers, complete with biros in the breast pocket and the crest of Belfast city tastefully embroidered on the fork of his Armani khaki shorts. "Stop that noise!" screamed Jim. "Belfast is a city of culture and not a city of catheter induced caterwauling." "How dare you, you phlegm filled Philistine!" I yelled, "I will have you know that I studied under Caruso." "Robinson Caruso couldn't sing for toffee!" screamed Jim. "Sling your hook, or by the sacred thong of Lady Silvia Herman I'll call the police." There was a deadlocked silence. Then Tommy began to softly sing, "Every breath you take." I snapped my fingers and joined in, "Every move you make." Tommy and I stood there like Peters and Lee warbling, "Every breath you take, every move you make." It was too much for Jim. He began to dance and scream, "I'll be watching-YOU!" So now, Tommy, Jim and I have formed a Police tribute band. You may well ask, who is-Sting. Well, it's the audience. They get stung every night Jim, Tommy and I take to the stage, wearing PSNI uniforms singing into microphones that look like batons. Jim is a bit hit with the chicks. Some put it down to his singing, but I think it is the exciting forkal gyrations the wee man goes through every night. We can't keep him in trousers! Well, Jim does get very excited!

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TOMMY THE CAT TAKES ON THE ESTABLISHMENT

As I hung from a hempen rope in the sitting room, pretending to be Tom Dooley, I glanced into the kitchen and saw Tommy my cat hack at his ear with a butcher's knife, Tommy was pretending to be Van Gogh. What a restfull creak and groan the hempen rope made as I swung in the wind like a flypaper. Everything was so quite, so silent, just the creak of the rope and a hissing sound, as gouts of blood spurted from Tommy's mangled ear. I smiled at Tommy, Tommy smiled back. I winked at Tommy, Tommy winked back. I danced a horn-pipe in the air, Tommy threw his feline legs around him as he lay in a pool of blood and gore. As I swung gently to and fro, I looked out of the window. What a lovely day it was. The rain was pouring down from a slate grey sky. A freezing North West wind knocked over wheelie bins and old age pensioners. People ran from car to shop, holding small children over their head to keep from getting wet. The raging gutters were full of crisp packets, cigarette butts, old socks and smiling cadavers who had been washed out of their graves. There was no doubt about it. It was Summer, Summer in Belfast. Ah, Belfast, the last bastion of ignorant, stupid-bastions. I eased myself up on the hangmans rope and croaked. "Imagine Tommy, some fools are sunning themselves in Spain, when they could be at home enjoying the temperate climes of Northern Ireland".
"Fools! cried Tommy, as he tried to staunch the blood by holding the national flag of Burundi to his bleeding ear. All good things must come to an end and at 27 minutes to four I called a halt to the fun. I lay gasping on the floor, looking at Tommy who was getting paler by the moment due to loss of blood. "Tommy old son" I said "We find ourselves in the direst of straits. We need to go to casualty and we need to go-NIGH!" "Shall we go together?" asked Tommy "No!" I said "It would not look good and might frighten the earwigs. Why don't you go first and I will follow". "Why don't YOU go first" yelled Tommy "Why is it always me that has to go first?" "Oh all right" I roared "I will go first, stand back until I get the big 196 page book that tells you how to open the door". "Not so fast!" yelled Tommy "There's something funny going on here, not funny tee-hee, but funny as in GIVE MY HEAD PEACE". "Make up your mind" I yelled "One of us must go to casualty first". "And by the same token" roared Tommy "One of us must go-last" "Listen Tommy" I said "You can run faster than me. Why don't you speed off to casualty, sign in and then run home and get me?" "At last!" yelled Tommy "The voice of reason". I watched as Tommy ate a three course meal, changed into a lovely three piece pin-stripe suit, with white shirt, red tie and Italian shoes and gallop off, post haste to casualty. I whiled away the time until Tommy returned for me, by trying to pull my lips over my head. Once again my attempt ended in failure, it was the ears, it's always the-ears.
"Well, well, well then" said the doctor. What happened here? One of you half hung and the other one with the ear hanging off" "It was a freak gardening accident doctor" I lied. "Ah, very common at this time of the year" said the doctor. "Do you see that pile of amputated legs in the corner? I cut those off only this morning. All the result of strimming accidents" said the doctor "and the funny thing is, all the accidents happened near lupin beds". "How queer" said Tommy. "Two decapitated men were rushed in here" said the doctor. "Both were trimming their hedge, one man at one side of the hedge and the other man at the other. Well blow me down" said the doctor "If they didn't go and cut the head of each other". "Did you patch them up Doc?" asked Tommy "Oh yes" said the doctor, "Nothing to it, a little stitch here, a little stitch there. But the real problem was knowning which head belonged to which man. Only one man was white and the other was black, I would have to resorted to, Eenie, meenie, miney, mo" AS tommy and I skipped out of casualty, we met Tubby Nolan limping in. "Greetings blubber boy" I yelled "What happened to you then?" Tubby groaned and muttered "I had a nasty-freak gardening accident. I was carefully pruning my sweet pea". "A dangerous thing to do, if you don't have a mirror" I said "Hey Tubby!" yelled Tommy "Did you lop off something? Eh? did you lop off something lard boy?" "I did not lop off something" yelled Tubby "I was admiring my handiework, stepped on the spade and got an awful dunt in the hollyhocks". Tommy and I jeered and laughed, as Tubby climbed the steps of casualty, holding the fork of his trousers in both hands. Then a doctor, dressed as a Dalek, grabbed Tubby and yelled, "AMPUTATE, AMPUTATE, AMPUTATE". Some of those foreign doctors have a cracking sense of humor.

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THE MYSTERY OF TOMMY THE MYSTICAL CAT

At the first cheep of a hungry scaldie, I leapt out of bed yelling, "Morning has broken, time to stop boaking". I gave Henry the vacuum cleaner a map of the floor and told him to get on with it. As Henry's little motor burst into life, I yelled, "By the sacred simmet of Nigel Dodds!" and leapt out of the way, as little Henry set off, with his rubber hose slithering round the floor like a python. I pulled the blinds by yanking them from their rings and found myself face to face with the rising sun. "Shine on!" I yelled. "Shine on, you spinning orb. Shine on you, crazy diamond. Send down your light on we Paddies as you did on the Egyptians, the Mayan's, the Aztecs and old Hughie McPooter, who had his chronic piles cured by your healing warmth!
The sun responded by sending down a beam of radiation which removed the ugly wart from the end of my nose. I grabbed a torch and tried to communicate with the sun by Morse code. The great shining disc told me it was fed up being the sun. It said it would rather be the moon. No one every wrote songs or poems about the sun. It also said that people behaved themselves in the daylight. It was at night, when the moon shone down, that people got up to all sorts of sexual shenanigans and hankie-pankie. The sun asked me what I wanted out of life. I clicked my torch and told the sun that I wanted to bring world peace, help little children and jump naked out of a cake at a DUP convention. The sun wished me well and said it had to go and get Steven "Tubby" Nolan out of his pit. "Imagine!" I said to the coal shovel. "Me!, talking to the sun. Me!, who always thought the eleven plus should be called-twelve." As I swaggered past a large mirror on the wall, which someone must have hung there as it could not get up there itself, I saw my reflection and shrieked, "GERONIMO!" I looked like a red Indian. The crafty knave of a sun, had engaged me in conversation and cruelly and craftily had burned the whole face of me. "You give your affection to easily," I muttered, as I sank my burning visage in a five gallon drum of Wall's vanilla ice cream, which just happened to be sitting between my tuba and a life size cutout of Ossian the legendary Gaelic poet, who had written the ancient saga, "Tadpoles In My Buttermilk."
By now it was time to get Tommy my cat out of bed. This was soon accomplished by hurling five live hand grenades into the feline's room. "Did you have to do that?" yelled Tommy. "Could you not just knock on the door, like most ugly, smelly old bags do?" "Listen Kid," I said, "I didn't get where I am today by knocking at doors. I got where I am today my hurling hand grenades and wearing my drawers back to front every Tuesday." There was no answer to that, so Tommy kept silent. By now it was pretend time so for the next hour and thirty seven and a quarter minutes, Tommy and I lay panting on the floor, with our tongues out, pretending to be two huskies in the Sahara desert who had taken a wrong turn!
Lunch was a simple buffet. I lured the simple buffet into the house, by telling it I had sweets for it, hit it over the head with a bronze bust of Manfred Man and popped it into the micro wave.
As I dozed in my bean bag, sleeping off the simple buffet, Tommy ran in yelling, "Horrible accident. Horrible accident, out in the street! Come on!". I slipped into a mauve strait-jacket and ran out the door. "WHERE?" I yelled. "Where is the horrible accident?" "There!" yelled Tommy, as he pushed me under a bus. With the help of that lovely man, Will Power, I got to my feet, counted my broken bones, added seven, divided by the number I first thought of and said to Tommy. "Tommy, you're a psychic! You said a horrible accident would happen in the street and it-did!" "It's a gift," said Tommy. "My granny could foretell the future. One day she said, "I see great danger in maternal excessive self-esteem." And Granny was right," said Tommy, "Later that day, she was run over by a Mother's Pride lorry." "Tommy!" I yelled, grabbing him by the lapels of his trousers. "With your psychic gift, we can make a mint. We will tour the country. I can see it now, PSYCHIC TOMMY THE MYSTIC MEG OF THE FELINE WORLD. We'll be rich!" Tommy I yelled, "Rich!, I tell you". Tommy kicked a stone, spat in the gutter and said "Nah!" "Why not Tommy?" I shrieked "Why not?" "I have looked into the future," said Tommy "And it is not written in the stars." "Bummer!" I muttered, as I hobbled into the house. Later that night, as I lay in bed, I thought, "How did Tommy know I would have a horrible accident out in the street?" As I slowly climbed out of bed to consult the po, I got a funny feeling that it would pour all day tomorrow. Psychic or psycho? I leave it up to you.

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Bow your head Kid, close your eyes, clasp your hands as I say, "Oh Lord, we thank you for the great shows we are about to receive this week-Amen." With the sort of help you get Kid from Mr Coyle and the girlies, you need all the divine assistance you can get.

Outside the hovel I laughingly call my home, the wind was blowing, with its two cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog or Dizzy Gillespie. As the wind blew through the letter box, Tommy my cat and I rolled around the floor pretending to be tumble weeds. As I rolled towards the foot of our stairs, I smiled at Tommy as he rolled into the scullery. Suddenly, I rolled to a halt and yelled, "STOP!" "What is it?" said Tommy. "Have you run out of puff?" "Look at us!" I yelled, "Rolling about like two tumble weeds. We have no goal in life, we lack direction, we have no moral compass, we have no ambition. All we do is......"

"Rolling along, like the tumbling tumble weed," sang Tommy. "Exactly," I said. "What have we ever done to help our fellow man?" I yelled. "We gave blood," said Tommy, "But they said the bucket we brought it along in was dirty, even though I washed it out with Jeyes Fluid the night before." I got up, using my feet, which were dangling at the bottom of my ankles. I banged my head against the wall, hoping the wall would say "OUCH!" before I did. I paced the floor, back and forward, back and forward. I cracked a walnut between my knees, furrowed my brow and planted some early potatoes, stuck out my hips and walked like Max Wall. I wriggled like a snake, waddled like a duck, but even I refused to do the Hucklebuck.

"TOMMY!" I yelled, "I've got it!" Tommy clasped a mask over his feline face and cried, "Unclean, Unclean, keep away! I don't want your old pig flu." I put Tommy right, by jabbing my left fist into his gub and bringing my knee up into his groin. Tommy went down like a sack of brussel sprouts. I helped Tommy to his feet with a riser and said. "We must help the under privileged, let's go to UTV LIVE and help the poor unfortunates who have to work there." When we got there...well, it would take tears from a stone. Poor Lynda Byrons was on her way out to sell matches. Logie was curled up in the foetal position in a corner, with his thumb in his mouth and a look of inexpressible fear and horror in his big Tyrone eyes. A ragged figure gibbering and jabbering like the ancient mariner, turned out to be poor Frank Mitchell. Paul Clarke was locked in a press yelling, "And then Nelson Mandela said to me." Tommy and I looked at each other in horror, "We got here too late," whispered Tommy. "They are beyond help." "Poor wretches," I murmered, "Poor pathetic-wretches." "Let's run over to BBC Newsline1" yelled Tommy. "We may be in time to help them." I put one foot forward to run, then I ordered it back and said, "NO, I refuse to help Noel Thompson over stiles in the Mournes. I will NOT wash Mark Carruther's red socks and as for Donna Trainor, she can fix the slow puncture on the back wheel of her bicycle herself. Let's run home, jump into the washing machine, put in on fast spin and pretend to be Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on their way to the moon." Which we did. It was one small step for man, but a giant leap for a cat.

All this and more have I seen in the sally gardens, where even Lily, Rose, Iris and Daisy are called--Sally! Sign of the times I suppose, but I don't like it, like the late Brian Clough used to sing, "There may be trouble ahead!".

The MLAs

Well Kid, you've only gone and done it again. What a great show the Thursday show was! Tommy, my cat, who was wearing a mask to ward off Mexican swine flu and people stealing his false teeth, raised his fist in the air and yelled, "YESSSS! another great show, that's four in a row, how long can this winning streak go on for?" I turned off the radio by running sideways to the zoo and getting Steven the elephant to sit on it.

When I got home suffering from jet lag and hives in the oxters I looked at Tommy and said, "The amazing thing is, Gerry has to do everything himself. Mr Coyle is sitting with his feet up reading the paper and Emma and Janet are tee-heeing over some foul, disgusting smut on the Internet." "I found out what they were looking at," said Tommy. "It's a new site called, MLA's as you have never seen them before. Apparently Michael McGimspy gets a lot of hits. He sits nude looking over the back of a chair like Christine Keeler and a bubble above his head reads, "You have to laugh, don't you?" "I knew there was something about Michael McGimspy!" I yelled. "All the laughing, the chortling and going round Stormount dressed as a jester, with a balloon on a stick." I licked my lips, gazed at Tommy and said, "Is the back of the chair made from bamboo strips by any chance?" "No," said Tommy. "The back of the chair is made from solid oak." "Bummer!" I muttered, as I punched the face off myself for entertaining bad thoughts.

"There's too much of it going on!" I yelled. "Everything today is lewd, crude and rude." Tommy laughed and said, "What's got up your hooter, is that you ain't getting any." "How dare you!" I yelled. "You youngsters think you invented sex, well you didn't. It was the BBC. When I think back to the things old Doctor Cameron and Janet got up to, I still blush. I can close my eyes and hear that old trollop Janet saying, "You're tea's ready Doctor Cameron. Would you like it in the kitchen?" Would you like it in the kitchen indeed! That's when the country began to go down hill. Then we had Rumpole of the Bailey. The very name's a give-a-way. But by far the worst was old Jess Yates. There he was every Sunday, sitting leering behind his organ and saying things like, "This is for Mrs Bunty Slack, who has been-bedbound for two weeks. Sodom and Begorrah!" I yelled. "That's where the BBC has brought us." Tommy grabbed me, pushed me down on a cucumber green bean bag and said, "Calm down, calm down, have a nice cup of James Earl Ray Jones tea and I'll put on this DVD called, "Everything you wanted to know about Steven Nolan but were afraid to ask." Filth, pure-filth!"

All this and more have I seen from behind the tinted glasses of Peter Robinson. "Iris, Iris, get this snowman out of here, he is an abomination of an abominable snowman. And bring me in the Messenger, I want to see how my adopted child in Africa is doing."