A Collection Of Dirty Little Stories

A Collection Of Dirty Little Stories

By

John Porter

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by

John Porter at Smashwords

A Collection Of Dirty Little Stories

Copyright © 2012 John Porter

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Natural Justice

A Tall Story

Perfect Soldiers

Blind Freddy

Dust Cloud

The Old Bloke

Ebb And Flow

Digging Up The Dirt

Dirty Business

Dirty Rotten Thief

About The Author

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A COLLECTION OF DIRTY LITTLE STORIES

Preface

Sorry everyone – there’s no erotica here! That’s not at all what I meant when I wrote Dirty Stories.

This is a book as diverse in its contents as dirt is in its consistency. Each of the ten stories has a loose theme of dirt somewhere in it. In some it’s quite obvious, and at other times you might have to do a little digging of your own before you find it.

A number individual stories have humour at their core, some will take you on a journey of one kind or another, and others will leave you baffled, but the best way to experience the filthy little tales for yourself is to start reading…

…and get down and dirty!

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Natural Justice

How does this sort of thing happen in a small town like this? Pondered Doctor David Emeritt as he put the final touches to the incision he was closing in the young girl’s abdomen. Methodically he closed the neat vertical slice, and without thinking swabbed the area to prevent infection. Force of habit, he thought. He wasn’t usually called in for autopsies, but there were no other doctors available. and although he was technically on leave, the hospital Administrator was aware that he wasn’t going away anywhere. He had been asked to remain on-call, and he’d agreed.

As he strolled from the doctor’s parking area past the flowers of the Crepe Myrtle trees along the hospital’s drive he regretted making himself available. It was a great day for a round of golf, and he glanced over his shoulder to the course on the opposite side of the road, where several groups were hitting their way round the third and forth greens in the bright, warm morning sunshine. He shrugged and carried on walking to the entrance. He’d be finished in five hours – there’d still be time for nine holes later. Maybe Dennis would be free for a round then.

Thought you were on holiday doctor, the wardsman had said as he handed over the notes about the girl.

Messy divorce Dennis – lots of alimony to catch up on – I need the overtime, he’d quipped in reply. He got on very well with Dennis, both at work and socially. Their wives were close friends too, and Dennis smiled at the joke, knowing that David was very happily married.

He glanced at the notes and turned back to his friend.

Who’s on this afternoon then?

Suzanne is the charge nurse – and Di’s with her, with three of the new lasses from down south – they seem very professional. Casualty’s open of course, but being a Tuesday it’ll be very quiet I expect – usually is midweek unless there’s a smash somewhere. Are you doing the ops?

Yep – there’s only one – gotta go straight to it after this autopsy – appendicitis apparently. Then home I hope. What time are you off?

I’ve only just started.

Pity – I was hoping we could hit a few balls around over at the club.

Nope – not me – I’ve got eight hours of it before they slip my leg-irons off! So the autopsy’s first for a change eh? Why the hurry on it – he’s not going to get any worse is he? Who is it – anyone we know? – it was already in the morgue before I came on shift.

Not a He Dennis – it’s a young girl. Police business mate – not sure what it’s about, but I’ll have a fair idea when I’m finished I suppose. They said they wanted quick results – it has a bearing on what they called ‘other police matters’. So here I am, working for a pittance in my holiday time!

My heart bleeds for all you poor, starving, lonely, divorcee doctors David. We wealthy, happily-married wardsmen with our flash cars and big homes don’t know how good we’ve got things! I’ll be hob-knobbing with the Admin soon!

They laughed together for a moment, and David sent his best wishes to Dennis’ wife, then pushed open the door to the mortuary.

As he entered he was aware of the irony of Dennis’ parting jest. All the regular staff held some private suspicions about Mr Jenkins the hospital Administrator and his handling of the institution’s finances. Jenkins had only arrived from the United Kingdom a little over a year earlier, and the State Executive Leadership Team, under the Director General, had appointed him Chief Administrator in spite of his questionable qualifications and experience.

It was common knowledge that Jenkins had never worked in the health system before. He had a master's degree in public administration, which was just enough to slide him into the position at a time when there was a shortage of well-qualified administrative staff willing to take comparatively low-paid positions in the few remaining New South Wales small country-town hospitals. The more usual qualification would have been a degree in health services administration, with at least a little previous field experience.

When the hospital staff received his introductory profile from the State Administration Board, the joke went round the wards that his previous position was as an accountant in a cleaning company with a contract for five British schools, but that he had been caught stealing the kids’ dinner money and been transported to the penal settlement. It wasn’t true of course, but in an odd irony, there was more than a glimmer of reality in the tale, as became apparent fairly shortly into his tenure.

Jenkins, unmarried, slight of frame, hunched, hook-nosed, and with pale, bird-like features was not well liked by the existing staff even before his first day on the job.

An outsider might have thought it was because he was from out of town – overseas even – but that had no bearing.

Others might have resented the fact that upon learning of his appointment some two months earlier he had purchased the three-story house opposite the post office and promptly fenced off the old orchard that was attached to it.

Many people in the town had played in the orchard when they were young, and were pleased to see their own children climbing the old, gnarled citrus trees, laughing, playing in the shade and helping themselves to fruit with the blessings of the previous owners. The orchard had come to be thought of as common land – an informal and safe play area.

Suddenly two-metre tall chain-link fences were in place, and sometimes a few of the youngsters were allowed to enter and play, more or less if Jenkins happened to be watering the standard roses in the front garden, and invited them through the gate for a short while.

But even that was not why he was roundly disliked by the hospital staff. The resentment began in earnest three weeks before he officially took up his position, when his memos had started to arrive.

Jenkins had been prowling around the hospital’s grounds and corridors for a month or so, claiming that he was orientating himself. From the memos it was instantly clear which part of his orientation was most important to him. The role of a hospital Administrator is to ensure hospitals operate efficiently and provide adequate medical care to patients. Jenkins was very keen on the first point, and had little regard for the second it seemed.

So even before his appointment officially began, the little crow-like man had already put in place recommendations to reduce the gardening and cleaning staff, change the nature of the food provided to patients, and to make a full inquiry regarding the viability of the minor surgery procedures that the hospital performed.

His memos suggested that flower beds should be removed and lawn areas should be concreted to allow more parking, reduce gardening requirements, and raise revenue from the pay-to-park zones that would be created as a result.

The kitchens, he suggested, should be closed, and cryovac foods brought in weekly from an out-of-town contractor, for thawing and reheating as required. It was obvious that all the present kitchen staff would lose their jobs, and local suppliers of meat, vegetables and other groceries would see their trade dwindle dramatically. In addition, the hospital staff (many of whom were married to butchers, supermarket workers and other local traders) were well aware of the constant string of complaints about bland food when such systems had been instigated in other hospitals. But the memos kept on rolling in, explaining the high nutritional values of cryovac meals, their convenience, on-demand availability, and other budget reductions that could be made by introducing the new system.

Cleaning services were to have their contracts changed, reduced, and new guidelines put into place. The details were unclear, but it was apparent that the thrust was once again to reduce costs.

If the new Administrator’s proposed alterations to the gardening, cleaning and kitchen arrangements at the hospital weren’t enough for the tight-knit community to hate him for, the final straw was when he decided to change the nature of operations. Literally.

The country hospital had always performed minor surgery – gall-bladders, appendix operations, correction of bone fractures, hernia repairs and so on. Jenkins’ proposed that all such operations should be assessed on a profitability basis, and should there be a shortfall over the first year, they would thereafter be referred to one of the larger, regional hospitals.

When a response from the State Administration Board addressed to Jenkins was intercepted by one of the senior nursing staff, it indicated that the board was very much in favour of the cost-cutting procedures the new Administrator had outlined, and were likely to support the proposed changes. Unrest in the staff had become rife, and many nurses, as well as kitchen staff were actively seeking new positions elsewhere.

Over the following months a number of things around the grounds did change, although they were minor matters – garden staff numbers were reduced from four to one, and the mowing was out-sourced.

Inside the hospital too, the proposals began to slip into place, and the freezers were filled with cryovac dishes in neat little single-serve containers, with only the fresh fruit still being procured locally. Although some kitchen staff were offered alternative positions, most took redundancy payments and left when they discovered that the replacement jobs were those of the cleaning staff, most of whom would be retrenched soon anyway as out-sourced contractors took over their tasks.

Full records of private and publically funded payments for minor operations had always been kept of course, but suddenly the doctor performing the surgery had reams of paperwork to fill out

detailing exactly which resources had been used, right down to the last suture and swab. The Administrator was presented with the records at the end of each week for analysis, and his findings were in turn sent to the State Administration Board.

During the following year or so, the local medical community – including, very quietly, even the doctors – began to ask one another questions about the changes and the economies that had been achieved. It was a fact that there was no trace of what actually happened to the state funding and grant money that had been saved from all the cost-cutting. No-one had noticed any improvements in other areas of the hospital’s services, and even regular maintenance staff had experienced cutbacks to their hours, so that paint was peeling, gutters leaked here and there, and several beds had needed to be repaired by the nursing staff themselves.

Suspicion began to grow about where the funds were being directed, and Dennis, as wardsman, had access to every room in the building. He set himself the secret and personal task of finding out what was going on.

For three months he surreptitiously photocopied various documents from here and there, even including some from Jenkins’ own filing cabinet. When his shift finished he would go home and pore over the figures, trying to make sense of the way money was channelled through the hospital’s system. And what he discovered didn’t greatly surprise him.

Dennis had once been a dairy farmer back before the dairy factory had closed down, when he’d applied for the job at the hospital. In those days he’d taken a keen interest in rainfall and what happened to the precious water that ran through the hot, dry valley, and he could see that the hospital funding behaved in a remarkably similar way.

Water, like money, didn’t just disappear. Some was used along the way for irrigating crops, watering cattle, pumping out for the town’s water supply… all that could be calculated. Even the losses from evaporation could be estimated based on weather and the surface area of the water. Similarly he traced as best he could the amounts spent on staff, medical equipment, food, gardening, maintenance, cleaning, insurance, and all the other myriad of small expenses incurred in running the place.

What he discovered was that over the first twelve months of the new Administrator’s appointment, almost eighty thousand dollars simply could not be accounted for. It was be no means obvious, and Dennis had taken considerable trouble to cross-reference records of expenditure on goods with what was actually still in stock, then subtract all the goods that had been used over the period. The discrepancy was too great for him to put it down to ‘evaporation’, and although he had no concrete proof, he strongly suspected Jenkins of quietly