The Man Who Said N’Gloop

The Man Who Said

N’Gloop

Charles Morgan

Smashwords Edition

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Books By Charles Morgan

NOVELS

Knights of The Secondhand Stew

Mister Winner

The Man Who Said N’Gloop

Heroes Of The New Eden

THE MORNING BLISS TRILOGY

Grand Conception

Morning Bliss

(Youthful Folly to be published 2013)

SHORT STORIES

The Weapons Counter

For more information about Charles Morgan’s books

visit him at www.charlesmorgan.net.au

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The Man Who Said N’Gloop

Copyright © 2012 Charles Morgan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organisations and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN:  978-1-742842-7-14 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

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Acclaim For Charles Morgan's Books

Reviews For Knights Of The Secondhand Stew (originally published as Secondhand Porridge)

SUCH a different style of writing. Refreshing, confronting, free-flowing, new. A story that just grips you from the very beginning and takes you on a ride not yet built by Disney. A dispossessed young man called Gavin is the catalyst to this story of discovery, of his own family roots, and of the political machinations of a big world. Crazy, zany, good reading.

– Wendy O’Hanlon, Australian Provincial Newspapers.

A witty surreal, well written novel without precedent. A comic literary magnus opus sui generis …. with a profound and remarkable silliness which can only be the product of genius or insanity. It is a hyperbolic, apocryphal and apocalyptic feast of snickers, giggles, smirks, and the occasional guffaw out loud.

– Jan Sherpenhuizen Lynk Manuscript Assessment Service

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DEDICATION

For my magnificent women Shelagh,

Liffey and Jennifer and,

of course,

Ann who taught me so much about humour

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Chapter One

Disaster can strike anybody at any time in any place. It doesn’t see the need to wait for some precipitous situation, some heroic event when the human condition is up for grabs and monumental events hang poised on the cliffs of chance.

Disaster chose to strike Kerry O’Day one Saturday morning in the UBiRite SupaDome where his wife Beryl had taken him to buy underpants. It didn’t strike with the smell of thunderbolts or spent cordite either, but to the smell of tired, over-fried grease and Gleeem-U-Eeze floor polish.

Your underpants have all gone through in the seat, Beryl had told him on the Friday evening before that fateful shopping expedition to the Supadome. She sat next to him on the couch, darning his trousers. We’ll go shopping tomorrow and pick up some new ones.

Kerry saw little to fear in the plan, unaware of the consequences that the trip to the shopping centre would entail. On the contrary, he always looked forwards to an excuse to drive the Holden Utility which he had modified with such an astounding level of technical expertise. He loved trying his skill against other cars, and had built radar and infra red devices into the panels of his Holden that could pick up the behaviour of the traffic around him and speakers that could alter that behaviour with loud noises and simulations of trouble. In the evenings he often worked late into the night on the data he had gathered, hoping to advance his various theories relating human behaviour to the laws of nature.

The next morning he drove his wife to the Supadome, expertly forcing his canny vehicle through the traffic. When he finally arrived at the multi-story car park, he swung the ute around the ramps, barely aware of the other cars as they bleeped and braked for him. He seldom concentrated on his driving, letting a profoundly apt subconscious do the most logical things required to get from A to B through the eddies of traffic. The main part of his superb brain normally wrestled with some aspect of mathematics as he drove. On that fateful Saturday a set of equations sat in his mind. They would be part of the switching software for an underground mass transit system in China.

Inside the shopping mall, still in his own world, he let Beryl lead him from one shop to the next through the smell of Geem-U-Eeze floor polish and the herds of humans out and about on their own inexplicable meanderings. Kerry was happy to let his wife take the lead. Despite his lean strong figure and genius of a brain, he had spent his fifty years on the planet in body only, living for the most part in the universe of the mind. At the same time he had developed the ability to keep a periscope continuously sweeping the outer world for signs of interesting human behaviour.

A newspaper headline caught his periscope’s attention as he passed a newsagent:

BRONCO’S INJURY WORRY

KARMTHORNE SPRAINS GROIN

Pictures inside

Excited by the arcane message and eager to dissect it, he bought a paper but then retreated back into his mental world, content to decode the news when he got home.

As things turned out for them, they found their daughter before they found their underpants. She had positioned herself outside a butcher’s shop and now stood there attempting to change the world.

Kerry hadn’t seen Mazowie for some weeks and now thought how unkempt and ragged she had become since then. She had cut her red hair short and her normal plump ripe loveliness seemed to have become curiously understated. Adding to this devalued appearance, she had an arm draped on the thin shoulders of a youth, a black-haired thing, youngish, more or less male, possibly human and significantly without charm, but with éclair lips and a pointed chin. He had a nose that Kerry would have expected to see on a cockatoo and he wore a black teeshirt, and grey shorts. To go with the nose, he had a thin white face, thin hairy arms, thin hairy legs, knees that seemed a lot more complicated than necessary, thin and hairy things not suitable for public viewing. Black boots framed his thin sockless ankles. Kerry found no difficulty disliking him on sight. But then he disliked most people on sight.

Down with the corporations and their peurile money geeks! the grotesque youth suddenly shrieked as they approached. The various humanoids passing the butchers looked at him with blank expressions, they had seen his type before. Kerry felt he could almost see the exclamation remark that accompanied the outburst, standing erect in front of the youth, a surrogate phallus to make up for his own inadequacy.

Poor boy, look how white he is, Beryl crooned.

I admit, one would have expected green, Kerry agreed.

Beryl’s own face glowed with warm pink health, the excess flesh promising copious gifts of love. The concept of round described Beryl, round body, round face and round limbs. She had curly brown hair down over her collar to complete the effect.

But they do care, the darlings, she hummed with her soft voice. They’re concerned about the global warming thing. Who wants this lovely world to flood over?

Beryl stepped right up to her warrior daughter and threw her wide arms around her. How nice to find you, darling, she moaned. Then she turned with no apparent loss of momentum to the youth. I think you’re very brave to get up and try to save the world, she told him. Round and satisfactory in every way, she only came up to the youth’s chin.

The boy pulled away embarrassed, but Beryl had a fat hand grasping his thin shoulder. Her big face nodded up and down only a lick away from his, as if trying to polish him up with her fat smile.

Down with the bum structured high ups and formulation tricksters, the boy shouted over her shoulder in his thin-bladed voice, the words zipping out like so many fighter-bombers in an evil empire. We of the Anti-Deluvians espouse a clean slate.

Mazowie said nothing, evidently grieving over the misfortune of owning parents. To either side of her, a number of duffy looking youths watched on with open-mouthed indecision. Kerry now realised that these were all part of one greenie hit team. One of the youths, sporting a black workingman’s jacket, held a guitar. Kerry could only hope against all hope that he wouldn’t try to play it. Another youth proffered a fistful of leaflets. Mazowie regained her fighting spirit before any of the others, as if suddenly released from her own inner grief-counseling session.

We offer you too a chance to save the world, she shouted, not actually looking Beryl in the face, but peering this way and that at the crowd, as if begging for release. Join us now, the Anti-Deluvian Movement. Here is your chance to hack and gripe at the greed-crazed corporate mad machine. She looked at her boyfriend and nodded, seeking his approval.

Kerry hardly believed his ears. Was this his little girl?

Down with the vile money markets and their consumer tag alongs, shouted the boy at a woman leading a toddler. The little boy looked accusingly at his mother.

Gosh, said Beryl. She peered into the youth’s ghost-like face as if trying to see right through it. Would you like some fish?

Nobody spoke. The guitar’s strings lay idle. Kerry himself moved closer, but to one side of the little group of activists and his meddlesome wife. He had felt the downdraft from the wings of disaster. The word ‘fish’ confirmed its presence.

Why don’t you come and have a bite to eat with us? We’re going to buy underpants for Kerry, Beryl explained loud and clear.

They went to Fiona’s Fast Fish (Crisp ‘n’ Golden – You Betcha!). There Mazowie introduced her new boyfriend. This is Zenith, she said, beaming at him proudly. "He’s the founder of the Anti-Deluvians. We’re a splinter group of Students For A Fair Go."

Kerry looked away, inspecting the table for signs of a gate into a world free of people. Beryl took a more welcoming line, immediately accepting the thin pale boy as one of her many, many friends.

Zenith, do tell us all about your wonderful work, she asked, as she laid out more and more of Kerry’s underpants money to pay for the cartons of deep-fry for eight.

We strive against the corporate greed and nano nonsense. Stop this techno madness. We say, incapacitate mobile plant and fixture alike.

Incapacitate plant and fixture, chanted the other four Anti Deluvians, speaking for the first time.

What is your position on global warming mate? Zenith asked Kerry.

Ung, Kerry told him, turning red, unable to bring himself to speak in public. Instead of risking further offers of conversation, he fumbled in his pocket for his notebook, laid it on the table and began to write up the solution to his equations. He would need them on Monday and had no ability to join in on the conversation anyway.

Dad! said his daughter, though Kerry couldn’t work out why she had expressed the word with such emphasis.

Zenith prodded at the table beside Kerry’s notebook with a lump of fried potato and drew a salt map of the inundations that would soon immerse the world. The guitar youth spun into action, taking the cue.

Global Warming,

Death is dawning.

Everybody drowned.

And where, oh where

Will the hapless meek be found?

Well where, I ask in all honesty? Zenith squawked above the harsh discords of the guitar, his thin voice made of scrapings and offcuts reminded Kerry of fingernails scraping down a blackboard. The sound caused more than one of Fiona’s clients to fumble their fish and scatter crisp ‘n’ golden onto the mauve plastic of their table tops. You betcha!

Beryl put a fat arm round the boy’s thin shoulders as if to mop up the thin juices of his scalded soul. Why don’t you come to dinner with us sometime?

The words hit the tender parts of Kerry’s soul like a solid wall of rotting cod. His worst fears had emerged triumphant. The lurid horrors of social intercourse would now invade his home. The prospect did leaps and twists on the stage of his self doubt, sneering at his need for Beryl’s warm love.

What price Y fronts now?

It turned out that Beryl had been monitoring the boyfriend situation during telephone calls she made to her daughter on a nightly basis. Apparently, she had told Kerry about it, but he didn’t remember taking any notice. Now, however, he felt compelled to poke his periscope into the strange world of humanity and absorb some of the new data that effected his only daughter

He’s well off, anyhow, Beryl reminded Kerry on the way home.

How do you know?

I told you, dear. His father is some big job in The Regional Bank.

Kerry nodded. A big job? No wonder his son had turned out all twisted and scrappy. How did big jobs manage to sire thin children? he wondered and thought back to the genetics degree he had completed on one of his night-school projects.

How do you think people actually become big jobs? he asked his wife as he swapped lanes and slipped his ute into a space only barely long enough for it. The car behind did some horn play and Kerry pushed the button on his console that would make a loud crashing noise out of the rear-mounted speaker.

Well, I suppose they get promoted, dear. Like you should have been. I think its disgraceful you’re still only level one after all your degrees and clever inventions.

But why would they want to?

For the money, pet.

But we don’t need more money.

Beryl made a huffing sound that Kerry thought similar to the yellow speckled frog fish of Cape Romany that he’d seen of TV. Then she let him have it.

Mazie says Zenith’s father promised to give him a yacht when he gets his degree at university. Isn’t that sweet of him.

Kerry froze. A yacht? Should he have promised to give his daughter a yacht if she got her degree? Clearly he had not even touched on this area of human behaviour. He realised how much more work was needed to complete his analysis of humanity. A cold hand touched his soul and he adapted his driving to suit his mood, encouraging other cars to swerve whenever he could.

In the evening, within the blue walls of his sitting room, he set about putting his equations to the test on his PC. The problem of how to buy a yacht for his daughter hadn’t evaporated though, but grew in volume until he felt hardly able to work at the mathematics that his software needed. Would he really have to get promoted and make money? It was a new thought, a fresh concept that had never entered his mind before and it had a cold terror about it. He would have to enter the world of humanity and grope with the groin injuries and money market tag-alongs and all the wild strangeness of the social whirl.

Beryl, in the kitchen, had got busy with lumps of pork, putting them to the agony of chilli and the wok.

I am a lump of pork, put to despair by the wok of this world, Kerry mused. He went over to hug his one true friend now that his daughter had left home. In the wok the pork lumps were having a bad time, some going down without resistance while others fought back, hissing and spitting.

Do you really think I could? Get promoted that is? He asked, feeling that if he were a lump of pork he would probably NOT go down without resistance. The idea made his mood all the worse.

Of course you could, what with your degrees and clever inventions, Beryl said over the screams of the pork, which she had just doused in soy sauce.

Kerry remembered how only last week Darren, bland Darren, had been promoted over his head. Once his own laboratory technician, Darren was now the Manager of the Safety Department at Zinad Corporation, charged, by his own proud admission, with the responsibility of designing a safety check-list for the use of the company car park.

I suppose if other people can do it, so can I, he mumbled before returning to the safety of his notebook and its scrawled lines of symbols.

That night Kerry dreamed about his island again. It’s fragile banks broke away and slid into the fast-moving current of the river. His daughter sped past in her boyfriend’s ferry ship, calling out the various slogans of blame, while a thin featherless bird stood on the bridge, lunging at the air with an exclamation mark and flashing his nano knees for all to see.

Kerry woke and lay on his back. I’ll have to get on in life if I’m going to be able to give Mazowie a boat, he thought, clueless to why she needed one but accepting the wisdom of his wife. The idea slipped through the cogs of his forensic department and there turfed up yet more obstacles. I shall have to speak to people! The horror of the idea leapt about in Kerry’s brain like a demented tiger with its tail on fire. I must face it though. If Mazowie needs a yacht then I shall just have to face it.

When Kerry got into his ute on Monday morning the burning tiger leapt in to sit beside him, reminding him of his resolve to put his life into a higher gear and get promoted. Part of his mind ignored it, but enough of him knew it was there reminding him that retreat can’t go on for ever.

He reversed his ute out of the carport at five past eight and accelerated down Sunnyripe Street, making some effort to avoid the school kids in their green uniforms as they wandered off to spend their day learning about everything other than maths and physics. It intrigued and humiliated him to realise that the brick veneer and Alu-Klad houses that he passed contained such brave members of humanity. There inside those walls lived people who could easily afford yachts and who, even as he passed, would be mugging up on their skills with stellar navigation, the use of the sextant and GPS. How was he ever to emulate these ocean-maddened creatures? The burning tiger growled at him to take some action but never let on what that the action might be.

As he approached Radley Road, the lights changed to yellow. He hit the accelerator and had got only half way through as they went red. Wild now, he entered the mainstream traffic, free of the suburbs. But the tiger of promotion had decided to come to work with him. He drove as rashly as he could, running away from it, overtaking at the slightest provocation and nicking from lane to lane, as much for the hell of it as to gain any advantage. Past the service stations, the yellow windowless cliffs of the Supadome, then down the ramp and onto the Pacific Freeway, to join the other cars making their morning migration into the city.

At eight twenty, Kerry forced his way into the inside lane, then hit the exit ramp and swapped the freeway for Sherwood Road, the wooden noise barriers and glimpses of neat roofs for the solid honesty of light industrial buildings, car parks and dumps.

The Zinad Research and Development complex stood off to the right of Sherwood road, an eight story building, all windows. As he approached the familiar scene, past the grey warehouses of the vegetable markets, he found himself in the left lane, unable to edge over to the right so he could make his turn. His problem? A light fawn Holden Executron, a king vehicle made to transport big jobs, the corporate greed maniacs and power fetish lookalikes. A huge purple head, solidly resting on hunched shoulders filled the drivers side of the windscreen while a smaller head with close cropped brown hair occcupied the passenger’s side.

Only a hundred metres to the turn off. Kerry felt the naughtiness intensify. He stamped the accelerator to its limit. At the same time, he reached a hand out to his customised dashboard. Immediately the high wattage speakers in the doors roared out recordings of screaming sirens, wheely noises, explosive car crashes all overlaid by human screams. Then he lunged the wheel to the right.

Briefly, as he shot across the bow of the furiously-braking Executron, he got an impression of the purple face with its huge round mouth. Then he was in Zinad’s car park, a calm place, big enough to host a minor tank action. He cruised, and the tiger cruised with him. He parked and the tiger slunk out of the ute with him.

Inside the building, unaware of the deferential good-mornings from his colleagues, he made his way up the safety stairs to the seventh floor, went straight to his cubicle and got on with writing the software for his mass transit system.

Biffy Dolmen, hit his brakes and jerked his right hand to put the Executron into a swerve. The truck behind, loaded with vegetables, braked too and let out a long loud blast of horn rage. The heavy car flashed within inches of the kerb in the centre of the road, lurched to the left as Biffy fought to regain control, then slowed, still taking blasts of irritation from the vegie truck behind.

Fucking Nerd! Biffy shouted to Steve Middler and Rollo McClean, his passengers and subordinates. He had missed his turn now and would have to find somewhere to do a u-turn and go back.

Stupid science jerk! observed Steve Middler – Manager of Sales (Cookware) – from the back seat, eager to win approval from his Managing Director, outraged at anybody behaving with such disregard for seniority

I’ll screw you, you bunch of science feebles, Biffy Dolmen hissed through his round mouth, as he slowed and turned into the driveway of a tile emporium, then reversed back into the road.

Steve Middler realised how enormously angry the incident had made his super boss, but could find no words adequate to express his sympathy.

Biffy used a fat hairy hand to smooth his light brown suit over his chest, realigning his yellow tie at the same time. Shaken, Biffy drove slowly back to the Zinad turnoff, into the carpark and then followed the signs to the admin building. A woman in a red suit emerged from the doors of the building to meet the group of execuives from the Exac Corporation. She appeared to Steve to be perfectly deferential to her visitors, as she certainly should be.

Mister Dolmen, welcome to Zinad, she said, her mouth the very picture of a jam bun.

But Middler knew that Biffy’s heart now crawled with the weevils of cruelty and that Zinad’s days of ease and contentment were over.

Two hours later, The Executron drove out of the thin off-peak traffic and into the underground car park of Exac Corporation’s head office in the canyons of the CBD. Biffy levered himself out of the car followed by Rollo McClean, a fit looking forty-fiver, and finally Middler emerged, a fleshy man, designed for storing buzzwords in.

Well, Huffed Biffy Dolmen. "That’s is certainly that. Perfect morning’s work. Thanks chaps.

Congratulations! Steve put in as they entered one of the lifts. More points scored.

Quite said Rollo, sounding to Steve as if he regretted not offering his own congratulations just that little bit quicker.

I’m reporting to the CEO right away, Biffy boomed. You chaps better be on the ball over this one. Exac’s reputation’s on the line."

Never fear. We’re up to the challenge, said Rollo the General Manager (Sales).

At floor twenty-nine Rollo and Steve nodded goodbye to Biffy Dolmen and strode out of the lift as if intending to march all the way to Georgia. Instead, they headed over the green carpet, aimed for the glass wall of the Sales and Marketing Division. It didn’t seem to surprise and delight them that the glass door opened at exactly the right time to let them through.

I want to see the managers of all departments, Judy, Rollo rumbled to the receptionist, as he strode past the gold and grey reception desk. Twenty minutes time, in the conference room. That’s ten fifteen sharp. He checked his watch, a device large and complex enough for calculating the meaning of life.

Judy made a noise not unlike a sponge cake imploding.

Rollo arrived at the conference room twenty-five minutes later, still marching for Georgia. There he found his managers, Steve amongst them, sitting inside two rows of grey suits. They had positioned themselves along a plastic tabletop supported on thin black legs. Around them the matt light-green EezeeClad walls offered no cause for distraction.

Ned, Mike, Sean, Lisa, Pete, McClean said, as he headed for his seat at the table’s end. As I’m sure Steve has already spilt the beans, you’ll know by now that something big is coming down the line, guys.

McClean’s voice had adopted the approved standard tone that Exac Corporation liked its senior staff to use when conversing together. A speaker of this dialect had to take a shallow breath, start to hum softly and then talk quietly in long treacley spasms. If done properly, each breath ended with an understated explosion, as if the speaker had expelled the last word with the very last of his available breath. The intended effect was of an expensive powerboat engine, idling and misfiring occasionally. Steve himself had practiced it in the toilet at home and while driving to work, But he knew in his heart that he was still not as adept at corporate speech rendition as his boss.

To put it neatly, Steve and I’ve been on the prowl with Biffy and I can tell you that this time there’s nothing iffy about Biffy.

The managers fell about at their boss’s joke. McClean nodded for a while but then reverted to the serious mode, lips pressed together, arms folded on the table.

Steve Middler, Manager of the Marketing Projects Department, smashed his own lips together, stifling the laughter before any of the others. Points there.

Look chaps. Something’s up. The CEO’s on the warpath again. I do want you to have no illusions about the gravity of the situation, so that when the flag falls you’ll be able to generate a maximum commitment to a top-down assessment of options. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we are going to see some raised eyebrows around this building in the forthcoming days. Any questions?

I take it you’re asking all hands to man the pumps then? asked Rosalee, jerking her tightly plasticised bundle of hair in a show of barely suppressed orgasm.

Too right! McClean shouted, slamming the table with the flat of a big hand.

I thoroughly concur with Rosallee’s obvious resolve Rollo, said Greg, nodding his glasses down his nose, his excitement threatening to ignite the neatly stacked pile of notes he had already taken during the meeting so far. I’m quite sure I can speak for all of us when I say that you have total group acceptance from the team and only have to give the green light to see us to spring into action and start to make tracks.

More than that Greg, McClean said. He leant forward as if expecting that the seat of his chair had been booby trapped with superglue and wanted to test the hypothesis. I want to get the wheels rolling right away and set up a condition red here and now.

Low whistles of amazed awe greeted his pronouncement.

Look. I’m going to be feeling prit-tee dubious about anything in my division that doesn’t look the tops in the coming weeks. Appearances are everything, I hardly need to tell you that. Shape up. That’s an order.

Heads nodded and tight lips grew yet tighter. Foreheads threatened to meet chins. Steve felt that only his nose kept them apart now and that was buckling dangerously under the strain.

I want Sales to get the top marks. Don’t hesitate to use the slip-ups and rough corners on the other divisions to highlight our own appeal. Any ideas? Feel free to speak your minds. Come on now.

Couldn’t we hide the uglier members of staff, Rollo? I’ve seen the odd scruffy dressed body here and there. said Sean, his small mouth having difficulty with the various O’s in his boss’s name.

Good thinking Sean.

And some of the women aren’t exactly madonnas. Transfer them to the regional offices, suggested Ned, nodding at the power of his perception, anticipating a storm of approval."

What about affirmative action Ned? Isn’t that so Lisa? Can’t insinuate about a woman’s looks. Come come, Ned.

Heads turned to enjoy Ned’s idiotic mistake.

Steve Middler made a mental note to have his PR secretary Gloria transferred to another job. She was a supremely able woman but not a cock teaser.

That’d be artificial insinuation, Mike drawled, then watched horrified as his GM completely missed the joke.

No. I was thinking of that odd looking creature Yaxley, McClean said. All head and red cheeks. Dresses like something out of the nineties. Get rid of him, Steve.

Steve Middler nodded vigorously. Yaxley constituted the one member of his staff with any real ability at comprehending the more obstruse statistics and accounting practices. He couldn’t operate effectively without Yaxley, red cheeks or not. Fine, great idea, he agreed. "Yaxley goes today,