chapter 3 part 2

With me running the show, I could take it all the way into the big time. I was the one who canvassed all those clients, so I figure they’re more mine than yours anyway.’ Barry’s fat face was right in the intercom speaker now, shouting and spitting. ‘I cannot believe this! I was going to buy you some chocolates as a thank you, and not no cheap stuff neither, Milk Tray or Quality Street for all the good work. I might have even splashed out on some Thorntons. Well Sir, you can kiss them goodbye.’ With this last exchange of dialogue, Barry was so furious he head butted the intercom. While Barry was busy damaging his head, inside his new flat Peter had long turned off the connection to his old boss, preferring to resume enjoying the company of a delightfully-naked young lady instead. Outside Barry was shouting so loudly though he could still be heard, the whole tower block could hear him, ranting and raving like a lunatic, and repeatedly head butting the intercom for a good ten minutes before the police came. Even when this fat, crazy-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth man was being taken away in handcuffs, he was still hopping up and down on the ground with rage. On a positive note it was the most exercise he’d had in months. Spending a night stewing in a police cell helped calm Barry down. He was also subdued by a vivid and disturbing nightmare where he had to go crawling back on his hands and knees to a high-flying Peter, whose business had taken off spectacularly since his old boss’s departure. He had to beg to be given a job, wrapping his hands around his ex-apprentice’s ankles and sobbing like a newborn baby. Peter was a merciful tyrant, granting a job to Barry, but not before he’d made him kiss the shoes of his new master.
29 The two of them drove out to a customer where Peter setup a deck chair and watched as Barry began to climb the ladder. The woman who owned the house then came out to offer the two of them a drink. Peter said lemonade would be fine for him but his apprentice was not allowed to have anything, as he’d been a very naughty boy. It being a sweltering day, Barry could have desperately done with one of those icecold lemonades. Resignedly he tried to forget his thirst by getting on with his work, but was halted when Peter shouted at him almost immediately. ‘In my company we don’t clean lead windows with a cloth.’ ‘But that’s how you clean lead windows,’ objected Barry. ‘Who’s the boss here? No, in my company you have to clean windows with your tongue.’ ‘I’ll get lead poisoning and die.’ ‘Occupational hazard my friend, it’s the only way to get them spotless. I demand the very best for my customers so get that tongue out and start licking— unless you wanna get sacked of course.’ Barry proceeded to run his tongue up and down the glass, while at the same time nervously straining his eyeballs sideways to watch as Peter examined his work. ‘You’ve missed a bit.’ ‘What? You can’t expect me to…’ Peter was pointing to a large lump of bird faeces. ‘You’re not a window cleaner anymore, you’re a window licker, don’t forget it.’
30 Waking up covered in sweat, Barry shuddered at the thought of carving a new career as a window licker. He thought that maybe it was time to try something else, something that was non-window related; something altogether different. ‘This could be a blessing in disguise,’ he thought positively. ‘After all, they say every cloud has a silver lining.’ Barry wanted to invent a new Barry Broomfield, feeling a desperate need to ditch his current—loser image—behind. He felt it time for his metamorphosis into a sleeker, meaner, all new and improved butterfly, even going so far as to consider having his name changed in order to help mentally solidify this new image. A couple of these new names he considered were: Tyson Fury, and Blade Razor. Thankfully under his Mum’s stern advice, he realised that those names were infinitely crap and that he’d be better off sticking with his existing one. The first thing for Barry to do, after signing on for the dole and inventing a new self, was set about applying for jobs. The first interview he got was for a lifeguard at his local leisure centre. The previous Barry had never enjoyed physical exercise, so this was his first visit to the facility. In spite of feeling like the interview was going great, there was this nagging worry at the back of his mind. ‘Obviously for the job of lifeguard you’ll need to be a strong swimmer, that’s why we’ve asked you bring some swimming stuff. I need you to show me you can swim to a good standard before I progress with your application any further.’ ‘Right okay, no problem,’ said Barry, kitted out in a tight-fitting pair of Speedos that revealed his unsightly amounts of pubic hair.
31 When Barry then proceeded to pull out of a carrier bag a pair of water wings the man interviewing him was wholly unimpressed and said: ‘You must be joking?’ ‘No, you can’t be too careful.’ ‘Nah I’m sorry mate but you’ll have to do the swimming without those.’ Never having in his whole life swum without the aid of water wings, Barry tentatively began to enter the shallow end of the pool. ‘Actually mate, we like to start the test at the deep end.’
What! Go in the deep end without any water wings on, that’s suicide, thought Barry. He knew there was no way he could swim in the deep end, as soon as he got in he’d need rescuing. This would be an unsavoury predicament at the best of times, but seeing how he was the one trying for a career as a lifeguard it would make the situation skirt dangerously along the border of farce. ‘I’m suddenly feeling a bit ill; I think I’ll have to take a rain check. Maybe some other time yeah.’ Back home Barry discussed his failed job application with the only individual that would sit and listen to his woes, his rabbit. ‘I need to play to my strengths. I was never the athletic type, it was silly to try and apply for a job like a lifeguard. But what am I good at? What are my strengths?’ Bob couldn’t think of any and neither could Barry. ‘Damn I haven’t got any have I? Well this is the new me Bob so I’m gonna have ter create some.’
32 The next interview Barry got was for the job of a hairdresser. He decided on applying for a wide range of careers, in the hope he’d find his niche and discover what his strengths were. ‘So Mr Broomfield, I take it you have all the relevant qualifications in hairdressing.’ ‘Yeah…’ said Barry, lying through his back teeth. ‘Well welcome aboard then, you can start Monday.’ Over the weekend Barry practiced styling on Bob’s fur and a couple of wigs he’d bought for Penelope, a puerile attempt to ready himself for the first day of his new job. ‘I can blag this; I just gotta make sure I don’t do anything stupid. I mean how hard can it be?’ Even for a brainless halfwit such as Barry, it was wishful thinking to expect he’d be able to pass himself off as a fully-qualified hairdresser. ‘I’ll just say I specialise in skinheads,’ he said in shaky self-reassurance. Monday morning arrived and Barry felt understandably nervous, but so far he was doing a good job of faking it, having perfected the mincing walk, the limp-wrist scissor grip and the effeminate voice. The only thing left to do now was to cut some hair. ‘That woman wants a perm. The perming solution and rollers are in there,’ said the head hairdresser, pointing to a cupboard.
33 The unsuspecting customer sat calmly reading a magazine, she assumed she’d get a professional service, she assumed her perm would be done by a trained expert, she assumed wrong. Barry had seen this hairstyle been done before: in his younger years when he’d had a fuller head of hair he was quite partial to the perm. He put the curlers in and poured on the perming solution. The women’s hair began to change colour, a haphazard arrangement of white patches appearing on her cranium. Barry looked at the container in his hand. Bleach, oh bollocks. It wasn’t his lack of hairdressing knowledge that had let him down, but his general incompetence and poor common sense. When he’d reached into the cupboard he had grabbed the first container that came to his hand believing it to be the perming solution, it could have been sulphuric acid for all he knew. ‘My hair, my hair, what have you done?’ shouted the mortified customer, looking up from her magazine to be confronted with an abomination. Rather than wait around for the repercussions, Barry did a runner, leaving a shrieking woman that had asked for a perm, but instead received a bleached scalp behind. The next occupation Barry applied for was to be a dustbin man. Although it’s a dirty job it didn’t pay too badly, so he felt really pleased when the council decided to give him the job. One small complication with this career that he didn’t anticipate though was that being a dustbin man requires a moderate level of fitness. Not exactly being in the best shape (in fact it is save to say there’s probably residents in your nearest old people’s home that are in better physical condition) Barry had a problem.
34 His first day, as you’ve probably already foreseen did not go well. The lorry Barry was working with moved at such a pace, that the guys outside had to jog to keep up while simultaneously throwing in the rubbish. Barry was okay until he hit what runners commonly refer to as The Wall. Unlike an experienced runner who might hit this barrier of exhaustion after fifthteen miles, Barry’s body hit it after a hundred yards. He’d only managed to collect the rubbish from four houses before his rubbery body began to flag and flounder. ‘Come on Broomfield I wanna get home sometime today,’ shouted one of Barry’s colleagues. The lorry began to pull further and further away. Battery acid pumped through Barry’s veins and his lungs felt like they were churning molten lava. It became all too much, just too unbearable, he had to rest. Leaning over with his hands on his knees he tried desperately to catch his breath. A distinct pain then began to bubble up inside of him. This crushing, vice-like agony gripped onto his chest, every breath he took, every movement of his ribcage would induce more crushing anguish. Also, his arms began to experience a worrying tingly sensation. These were the classic hallmarks of a heart attack. Barry keeled over and lay flat on his face. He resembled a very large piece of roadkill. Waking up in a hospital a couple days later, Barry felt that the most sensible course of action would be to retire from the dustbin man job. The jobs he now applied for began to get less glamorous as he got desperate to make ends meet. He was struggling to pay the bills and his landlord was demanding the
35 rent, he needed money fast or he’d have to return to his Mum’s house. Even Bob was forced to make sacrifices: no longer being bought as many rabbit treats. It was safe to say things had really gone down the sewage pipe since he’d come back from his holiday. It wasn’t that he didn’t like living with his Mum, but it would be another demoralising failure to have to go back and admit that the big bad world had defeated him. The first of the not-so-glamorous jobs he applied for was a pot washer in a pub. There was only one other applicant, an old woman in her seventies. ‘Right you two, we’re going to put you both on trial to see who’s the best, to see which one of yous got what it takes,’ said the portly pub landlord. Those spindly, wrinkled hands of Barry’s adversary moved with astonishing speed and precision. He was bamboozled by the pensioner’s ability to clean item after item in rapid succession. Trying forlornly to keep up, the pile of washed dishes besides Beatrix grew to be far greater than the one next to him. Desperation for money was making Barry do strange things. He knew there was no way he could keep up with this old timer, so he reasoned he was going to have to bend some of the rules of fair play in order to land the job. Beatrix went out to the toilet and while there, Barry quickly began taking clean dishes from her pile and adding them to his. This dastardly scheme he hoped would influence the landlord’s decision in his favour about who to take on. Beatrix came back from the toilet and eyed the two piles of dishes suspiciously. To add salt to the wound Barry was his usual crass, emotionally hamfisted self. ‘You old fogies always needing the toilet—I dunno. The waterworks, not as watertight as they used to be huh?’