MY LOGIC IS FAULTY,
THEREFORE I AM A WHEELBARROW
Around that time, a garland of roses which framed it in either pritty pritty tweeness or luvly niceness, according to degree of cynicism or naïveté, Twitch arose, abandoning his original idea of hibernation in order to make a coffee, and took the opportunity to wonder who had been hammering at his window at 3 o'clock this morning. Twitch had the front room ground floor bed-sit and was often conned into answering the door just because he was closest to it, but having no friends save Switch, whom he had not spoken to for ten years, but who was nevertheless his bestest friend, it was never for him. He did, however, go to check the post.
It was still there, standing proudly three feet tall, and widely regarded as a yardstick as it was in the front yard and quite sticky, this because a group of jolly pranksters after a night out on the shandy had recently decorated it with several flavours of chewing gum, lending it a merry festive air of raspberry, peppermint, okra and running shoe.
Having completed this duty and turning to re-enter his domicile, Twitch noticed in the porch upon the welcome mat which he had flipped over to convert it into a sodoff mat a smudged crumple. Being the public-spirited citizen he was and the orderly tidyman he wasn't, he picked it up for a more proper disposal, and in doing so perceived amongst the footprints and oil a legend in orange crayon which appeared to resemble his name TWITCH.
"Oh," he deduced, "This must be for me," and unfolding smoothing read.
Dear
Twitch
We
is gone to Lumpen We is going on Hart of the Charts Can you cach us up plees It
is recordin this aftanoon Hear is buss fair
The
Other Martians
A small tinkle of silver and copper lay on the floor, amounting to £1.38.
"But I don't know what bus to catch!"
"And that's not enough money!"[1]
"They've gone without me!"
"Love children!"[2]
"Look at that spelling!"
There was only one thing for it. Well, there were more things for it: he could have gone back to bed and pulled the covers over his head; jumped up and down in rage smashing his head against the wall; painted an elephant green and posted it to a random pick from the telephone directory[3]; any number of things, many not related to the situation. There was only one thing he did though.
He made that coffee he had got up for. Aah, is there anything better to start the day than a refreshing dose of caffeine rush? As the first tongue-scorching sip slid down his groat the disgrumpolated scowl he had worn since debedding, as was his custom, morphed into a maniacal desperado grin. No longer the philosophist of what's-the-use-it-make-no-diff, the 1:3:7 trimethylxanthine stimulus transmogrified our tatterdemalion hedgerow into a noprobkandoo sort of guy. Inspirified, he snatched up his duffle, packed for travel just in case - although of course it was fair in duffle - and raced through door to make his way.
Begins the saga of Twitch the Hitch!
*
"Heart of the Charts" was broadcast from an old warehouse in SN10, a postal district which means nothing to those outside Lumpen, but is in fact a wharf on the capital's river Shimmy. The Masked Martians sat on the edge of a jetty dangling their feet over a strangely glutinous and rainbow-sheened liquid. Where that Twitch go eh? What to do? Will said not worry, he take care. Must have phoned him. Him got no phone! How so? Great mystery, call that Hemlock Soames, he know how to work it out, Barking Street not far from here, or is it? Anyways he friction.
The roar of traffic assured them that there was, indeed, life around, but none of it seemed to be here. It was most different from the multi-coloured excitement and madly jovial exercise in puerility they had seen on their televideo sects, for all was brown and grey and cobbled old, highly unredolent of the youthful celebration they had expected. They had investigated their dressing room, which they shared with a ventrickolist and his purple cabbage doll (who were due to perform their Number 27 stayer I'm a Poor little Cabbage (But We All Love You, GrenBlift)) and the entire St Botulism's School for Weeds Choir, who had just released a tribute to Uncles called You're the Bestest Uncle, Uncle, in the Whole Wide World, Uncle. The suite next door was occupied solely by international megastar Algie "Big Nob" Stangbarkle, who wasn't actually appearing on the programme but was being accorded maximum worship anyway. Having failed to get near the coffee machine, which was blocked off behind rows of gap-toothed cherubs, and being rather scared by the ventrickolist who was engaged in an apparently continuous argument with his cabbage about who was the real talent in the act, they had opted to take the air until paged for rehearsal. So this was being a pop star eh! Not many drugs about though, are there? And where are the screaming fans?
Upon which thought the gates of the yard in which they sat were opened behind them, and excited chatter snagged their attention to what lay at the rear. A gaggle of young persons had been admitted to the premises, lining in a straggle into the warehouse. In their flicks and blints, highlighted trews and hair with turn-ups, this was obviously the studio audience for HOTs, as the prog was commonly known because of its initials (cheerily ignoring that inconvenient C for Charts); dressed in the latest fashions - and some of them were very late, in their drape jackets and dirndl skirts - they blittered intratedly about ooh I hope Flakie Snood is on this week, I'm going to dance right at the front of the stage me and wave to me mum, and right at the back look there's the token Mon Rocker in his smart sports jacket and a joke shop scar across his forehead. And his The Masked Martians T-shirt.
And his Wot? Meanwhile, as the queue passed by, there were a lot of ughs and wot a state to get intos softly bimbling the air, apparently inspired by the Martians' comeasyouare sartorial flair. Wally was dressed entirely in black, and this was complemented by his oily hands and face which he had achieved by topping up oil at a service station. Wally didn't know much about engines but had only to lift a bonnet to look as though he worked in a tar pit. Phoebe was into charity shop chic and radiant in a two-piece her mother might have worn to a wedding some decades ago, plus her favourite seaboot socks tucked into dad's favourite workboots and her old school satchel for a handbag. Flodge had worn a pinstripe suit and knitted tie - no shirt - which had been quite smart when he started out, but hadn't taken to his travelling part of the way on the roof due to his having dined on vindaloo the night before. And Ogg was, well Ogg. It might have been a good choice as the Martians' new look, but for the fact that it wasn't. Even the youth in the T-shirt gave them only a glance, followed by what looked suspiciously like a fashion sneer. One could almost see the thinks bubble above his head with the word "plebeian" in it.
"Coo, they didn't think much of us did they?"
"Neither do I sometimes."
"Ah, but you've got an inferiority complex."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm not really worse than everybody else."
At which they followed the Normal People into the studio; it looked like Things might be thinking of considering starting to get ready to be about to happen.
There was in the inside of the HoTCha! studio a considerable flow of people from hither to thither, and sometimes back to hither again, many without discernible purpose in life. The Martians wandered about the main studio looking at the cameras and admiring the stage sets, which looked so vibrant on the screen but proved to be made of cardboard and struts stuck together with splinters. Image was all in the TV business; even the room itself, which always gave the aura of spaciousness when processed through a camera and shot through the air to a zillion magic lanterns, was only about the size of an average open-plan office. Actually it was about the size of the unemployment exchange, which was the only experience of office life any single Martian had, standing in line watching as young men in ill-fitting suits, young women in unaccustomed white blouses, and middle-aged defeatists performed nameless tasks behind the counter, oblivious to the T-shirt-and-coffee-bar existence of their clientele. Despite this, the difference between the two rooms - one a plywood desert of hopelessness, the other a plywood jungle promising the myriad delights of Making Enough Money To Enjoy A Lifestyle - was enough to thrill the Martians to their very surface. The milling throng about them lent a carnival atmosphere to the proceedings, although it was a bit disconcerting to be ignored by all around them when they were supposed to be pop stars. They decided to find the Green Room, there was always a Green Room, and stopping off at the dressing room to pick up their guitars they began to make their way around the labyrinth which constituted backstage.
They passed a Red Room, which was host to a crew of gingerhairs; a Yellow Room, in which a selection of quiverers could just be discerned inexpertly hiding behind sofas and aspidistras, too timid to partake of the custard-based delights arranged upon the central trestle table; and a Blue Room, of which modesty forbids description. But the Green Room they could not find.
"Excuse me, could you direct us to the Green Room?"
Oh, he had been a happy whistling technician with a beltful of screwers and spandrivers, wires and flax, until a group of travelling minstrils bold as you please poked a stick through his spokes and brought him crashing. As the troubadours watched, his mien ran the gamut from Y to Z to settle at last on a beamless freeze as he spoke his way;
"Oh no, young meisters and meistriss, I don't know nothin bout no Green Room! And them as says I does, well they'm liars or pliers or both lest they'm neither too ain't it just! 'Tis!"
And he walked him on, save a little bit faster so it seemed than upon his approach.
"Talk funny in the big city don't they?"
"Ooh arr, my gar, dunnem?"
"Let's ask this one, she's got a clipboard, she must be brainy."
But…
"How dare you! Hmmpphh!"
The wandering jongleurs collected another "how dare you", several variations on the theme of "I don't know nothin", two "Ask him"s (a double act) and an assortment of individualities including "Three bags of haddock and a family-sized packet of world peace if you please, Mr Wildefrog, and I'll thank you to hand back my legs, thou scampy varlet!" which serves them right for not recognising Fervil Nozz from Auntie Tweezer and the Wombat Festival.
"Shouldn't there be a specified person? A floor manager or something?"
"Wally, your trust in human doings is an inspiration to us all, except Flodge who prizes his downslanting misanthropismy, Ogg who has trouble understanding language, and me, Phoebe, who feels you to be somewhat naïve in your innocence."
"What about that woman with the whip and the chair?"
She was glaring at the ground with a commanding stance upon her face, her order "Stay!" burning indelibly in the air. Her subject staunchly neglected to pick up its skirts and flee, remaining instead in position where it posited. She was certainly managing the floor.
"Excuse please, where is Green Room in which place that it is?"
"You wish to go to the Green Room?" she looked up swivelling her attention, "Or is your purpose to avoid stumbling into its presence by mistake of not knowing the whereabouts not to go?"
"Er…"
"Don't even think about it!" but this was to the floor, which must have borne the expression of one considering the seizure of chance to give the slip. "Whatsoevermost. If you wish to either, whom am I to say the nay? It's over there."
"Thank you…"
And sidling off, discussed… why the mysterious, the C-movie dialogue, it's only a room innit? "Oi!" jumped and turned the band;
"I didn't tell you anything, right?"
Nods.
"Let's go and see what this is all about!" Wally the Hero, chest out-thrust, socks around ankles, strutting like a veritable matchstick man took control of the situation. "Are we not The Masked Martians? Do we not even now stand in the studio of a squidillion dreams? Have we not in our time solved even greater mysteries and stood up to even more perilous dangers than this?"
"Not the last one, I don't think," Phoebe, ever the surrealist, a queen prawn circling her bouffant.
"Then have we ever quaked in fear quailing from the challenge before us?"
"There was that gig at Tuffnut Youth Club…"
But Wally was having none of it, and raising his guitar above his head as the standard-bearer of rock'n'roll, strode weedfully forward. "To the Green Room, my fellow Martians!"
Looking at one another in time-honoured mode, the remainder triple-shrugged and trotted after.
*
Trotting after the bright red Fried Fiasco which had pulled up at the verge, Twitch reached gratefully for the door handle, flashing a gringe at the young driver. But just as he was about to grip the car slid forward, leaving Twitch's grasping paw clutching at the vacancy. He caught sight of the pilot, cheesing it for all he was worth, as the penny tinkled to the stage.
"Ha ha hee hee ho ho hardy har har har!"
And a mighty revving scorched the air, the evil one pulling away at acceleration, looking back over his shoulder to mouth some wicked words, the inaudible gist of which Twitch gathered, having heard it all in his time. The proper response was ignore as contempt being above, but frustration combined with his spasmodic tendencies compelled him to bounce and gesture, sending the piece of cardboard on which he had scrawled "LUMPEN! QUICK!" spiralling into the hedge where it disinterated into degenegration. Damn and hellnation! Now even if he got a lift he might find himself carried to Marningpool, Hammerton, back home or even the Moon. It had been a rough night, filled with flossing and gurning, so much so that although he had slipped away in his bed, by the time he had battled his way through nightmares of shopping centres, dried-out drowning pods and alternate landscapes he had woken up on the ceiling.
Twitch knew in the back of his mind's eye, which was a director's eye, that he should be standing stock still smouldering, clenching and snarl, which would have been particularly effective in this event as the heavy cloud of the morning had opted to deliver its payload while Twitch was racing at top speed across town to here, Bogpot Roundabout (Gateway to the Rest of the World), in his trademark high-stepping foot-slapping gait, interspersed with twirls and somersaults as the tics which had christened him periodically built up into small explosions, which downburst lent his progress the bonus of skid and skate; for in the precipitation his rancour would surely have caused him to steam.
Posterity was however denied this arresting image and was treated instead to the spectacle of Twitch shrugging shoulders, jabbing elbows, bending at the knees, kicking himself in the back of the head and performing a pied-à-terre, all in a puddle. What could have been a classic cinema moment was turned into a disposable cartoon clip. Life just weren't fair.
"Hey! Isn’t that an authentic Kernish Rain-Stopping Dance?"
It was a Filkswiggle Dozemovan, painted squiggleflower and cycledelicatessen, all the colours of the sunbow and more besides. Peace and love radiated from the radiator and it surely ran on corn oil, protecting the environment while punishing the eye. The enquirer smiled out of the front passenger window, a young lady of long blonde, sparkly blue and red star painted on right cheek.
Twitch was not so much taken by the vision as snatched, repainted, registered under a false name and fobbed off onto an unsuspecting. Suddenly he was acutely conscious that he was wearing his comfy grey shirt (which used to be his comfy white shirt), the remains of a pink satin tuxedo he had liberated from Robill Snord (and his Happy Dance Orkestril) at the Art Skool Ironic Disco[4], and lime green baggies, and that he was standing on one leg in a puddle. In sandals. For standing he was, in surp and shockrise, suddenly entranced into ceasing gyration. And right on cue, left on hockey bat, the rain stopped.
"Wow! It worked! You must be an authentic Kernoid!"
Even in the misty gauze of hypnothrall and through the greasy window of embarrassment, Twitch had enough common nonsense and vulgar jurisprudence to realise that this situation called for a riposte that was clever without seeming arrogant, amusing yet not fatuous, self-effacing enough to show himself modest but not so downbeat as to give the impression that he was a miserable git who hated himself and the whale wild walrus whirl. Gears ground, synapses sparked and little lights flashed on and off as he prepared a sentence; also, spots erupted on the back of his neck and a rash broke out in his armpit as his mouth panicked and said;
"Argle bargle foo!"
"You speak Kernish too! Many miles away and not visible! You looking for a lift?"
"Yrghh"
"We're heading for Lumpen, hop in."
Obediently Twitch obeyed to the letter, having no option as his left leg had locked in position wrapped around his right knee.
*
Wally's right leg wrapped itself around his left knee as his courage leaked out of his ankles.
The door to the Green Room was black, but it was certainly the door to the Green Room because it had "GREEN ROOM" on it in cerise. There was also a small disclaimer written on a stickitt note attached: "The management denies all responsibility".
"This does not bode well," he delivered.
"I think it bodes very effectively," picked Phoebe, "also concisely, succinctly and without actually stating any rhythm or season. While not condoning the corporate attitude, one must admire the techsneak."
Ogg disagreed. "Binbartz!" he said.
Flodge merely wried.
The three looked at Wally expectantly. It was his turn again. Would he wally out?
"Never let it be said," he said, saying it, "and may it never be thought by those who would, for even if so, then otherwise, heretofore hencewith notwithstanding and nevertheless."
"I am unable to discern any content in that context."
"I'm not keen on fish," Flodge carped.
"Hnaarggh!" Ogg decided to use his second go to spoil the game, by seizing the initiative and barging through the door. Phoebe followed, but being more accustomed to the conventions of civilisation, opened its remnants first.
So that's why it was called the Green Room. It was red, yellow, blue, white, black and maroon, but the floor was on the ceiling, while the ceiling was on one wall. Luckily, one of the walls was on the floor, and it was here the seating had been place, although the coffee table was at right angles to gravity, explaining the stain to be avoided. This room was obviously very inexperienced at being a room.
It had, however, cracked the hang of having people in it, for apart from the newly arrived it already contained a figure in a leather comfy watching on the monitor the preparations in the outer world, the glow dramatically silhouetting as it rose to greet.
"Hi! Nice to meet you! Isn't this great? I'm…"
"FINBO WIDGER!"
Only Flodge, who was wearing his shades, was able to recognise, the others flinching in the glare of Finbo's famous teeth. It was rumoured that he wore wire hooks inserted into the corners of his mouth and looped about his ears, such was the omnipresence of his Smile, though nobody had yet been able to fight the dazzle and get close enough to confirm. It was Finbo who had begun the nation's weekdays on Radio Fun for ogod it must be centuries, with his hilarious jokes, cheering chat and humorous dialogue with recordings of chickens, thus ensuring his listeners got off to work and school in good time by driving them out of the house. He was also one of the rotating hosts of HoTCha! along with Arnie Flizzbode, Johnny Vassil and The Corny Furball.
"The very same! Hey, isn't it a shame about Mon Rockers? There's no need to be so glum! Wouldn't it be a better world if everybody sang about trees and flowers and little fluffy bunnies instead of all this doom and gloom and wallowing wartiness? You know, I heard a song the other day by a group calling themselves the Marked Mastians, and it seemed to be all about wanting some boring belchers to go away! But I think we should welcome everybody, don't you? And they couldn't play their instruments very well. If I ever meet the singer, I think I'd have to sit him down and give him a jolly good talking too! Tell him a few jokes, maybe tickle him a little bit until he blooming well cheers up! Pardon my Anglo-Saxon, but sometimes I just get so dashed peeved! And you are?"
This monologue had given time for the Martians' eyes to adjust and the full horror to sink in, but this was going to be tricky. Still, they had lots of pretty lights floating in front of their eyes, and the assault had imbued them with a pervading numbness. This was better than drugs... although the side effects were probably going to prove a sight more unpleasant.