Mac Fecker, The Pig And The Spy (Part One)



  MAC FECKER, THE PIG AND THE SPY

  BY

  PETER MORRIS

  Copyright 2012 Peter Morris

  MAC FECKER THE PIG AND THE SPY

  Jack Mac Fecker was bent. Not bent as in hairdos, handbags and high heels. He was bent as in bare chest, bare arms and bare fists. Jack Mac Fecker was bent, as in bare knuckle fighting. It was a stance that too much time in the ring had taught him. Jack’s body was ticking over in neutral, but his mind was jammed in high ratio gear. He was waiting for an attack, a blow, a swing, a punch, whatever it was that might come his way and he was ready. Ready to duck or sway, to side step, stab forward, whatever, he was ready to respond.

  He was naked from the waist up, apart from his cap, which, like the old cinematic cowboys, only came off for one thing, although in Jack’s case it was a haircut. The air was cold and puffs of steam rose from his strong broad back like an Icelandic rock pool, on a good day. His eyes were fixed on his opponent. Experience had taught him never to look away, not even a glance, it was worse than golf. They faced each other and paced around the perimeter of their imaginary circle, their ring, cage fighting without the finesse. A fist swung at him and he stepped back, out of range, pleased that his opponent was tiring, no more skill, no more style; he had seen the punch coming from the moment the fingers had tightened into a fist.

  Jack’s mind now went into attack mode. With your opponent tiring, now was the time to attack, now was the time to finish it, but how? Body first then head, or simply concentrate on the head? Jack told himself to wait, just a few seconds longer. Then it happened.

  “Come on, our Dad!” Called Sean, a lad so simple that he was unable to recognise what was going on before him. It wasn’t exactly a lover’s tiff.

  Jack ducked.

  “Hey!” argued Jack, as his right foot and both hands shot out in an attempt to keep his balance, a response that was more successful at making him look like a Russian folk dancer.

  “That’s cheating, that is,” protested Jack. But it was too late, for as Jack Mac Fecker had turned to watch the toaster skim past his skull, then smash against the kitchen wall, Aoife Murphy laid into him with the chopping board.

  Holding the chopping board as if it were a distended table tennis bat, with corners, she cracked it against the back of Jack’s neck. He staggered. Aoife dropped the chopping board and using her fine womanly figure added to his forward momentum and crushed him face down onto the kitchen table with a move that Big Daddy would have been proud of.

  “Where’s Butch?” demanded Aoife, as she forced Jack’s right arm up along his back.

  “I’m warning you, Aoife Murphy!” gasped Jack, who knew that it was at least one year’s supply of toast crumbs, that has poured out from the bowels of the toaster when Aoife had lifted it to throw at him, that made the tables surface feel like coarse sandpaper against his naked chest.

  Aoife moved the arm an inch higher. Jack screamed.

  “Stop!!” he pleaded and Aoife did, but she held his arm in the centre of his back letting him know that she was ready to inflict more pain, if and when it was necessary.

  “He’s on camp!” said Jack, expecting to be released

  “D’you mean our Butch like boys instead of girls?” asked Sean, who himself had kissed neither.

  “No, Sean,” sighed Jack, who, through Sean and his behaviour, knew that despite the numerous claims, morning television did not educate as promised, as the only skill Sean had learned, after watching hour upon hour of morning telly, was how to make a non-alcoholic, low-calorie, cocktail called ‘Two Dogs Shagging.’

  “What’s he doing there?” asked Grainne, as she lifted the toaster and shook it, knowing, from the resulting loose metal rattle, that until it was fixed or replaced, toast for them, from that moment onwards would taste like paraffin, despite the fact that a blow torch was ten times more effective than anything driven by an Oriental printed circuit.

  “Come on, Jack, said Aoife, moving his right arm up a fraction of an inch, which was enough to kick start the vocal chords.

  “We was collecting slops from the dump,” began Jack.

  “What dump?” asked Aoife.

  “The dump on the military camp,” hissed Jack. “Ye know, the one with the big golf ball thingamabobs, well, we’ve just been given permission to collect the slops.”

  “Since when?” asked Aoife, maintaining pressure on Jack’s arm which she knew would elicit the truth; eventually that is.

  Jack wasn’t exactly a filthy liar, or as modern people, especially modern people with a leaning towards political correctness like to say, economical with the truth. He just had a habit of keeping the facts and figures and details about his plots and plans and schemes to himself. But Jack wasn’t a clever man; he did know how to do one of those Mensa puzzles that seemed to appear under every Save The Donkey advert in certain newspapers. Jack simply needed time to make sure that he answered what he had been asked, unlike politicians, or was it like politicians?

  “Well?” growled Aoife, who could tell as he relaxed the muscles on his face that he was ready to talk. “Since how long have you been collecting slops from camp?”

  “Since about ten days ago,” whined Jack, who was about to go into overacting mode.

  “Go on then,” said Aoife, whose coy smiles informed Grainne that Aoife really did know about the slop collecting on camp, she just enjoyed tormenting Jack now and again, it helped balance their relationship, she read that in a magazine once or did somebody tell her? Whatever. It worked.

  “There’s something happening on the camp,” explained Jack. “They’ve got a red alert or the like, so all the slops are dumped at the station dump where we have to pick them up from, instead of us going round all the kitchens.”

  “And?” asked Grainne who knew Jack, in the conversational department, was like an old gramophone and constantly needed winding up.

  “Well, we was almost finished when this siren thing went off. Ye know, like ye see on war films.”

  “Are we at war, Dad?” asked Sean, who through hunger, picked something from his coat and tasted it, showing perhaps that he had enough sense to realise that the serving of breakfast may be delayed, as Grainne stepped out through the front door and sent the toaster, like a German shot putter going for gold, to that great big kitchen table in the sky.

  “Nah!” growled Jack, angry that Aoife gave him no quarter. “It’ll be one of them exercise things.”

  “Oh Jack,” gushed Aoife, letting him go and proving that she really never did listen to what he said. “Did ye manage to find me one of them exercise bikes so I can have a more womanly figure and wear that leather stuff you like?”

  “Dad…?” began Sean.

  “Shut it, our Sean!” interrupted Grainne, who was in the kitchen area pumping up the pressure in the blow lamp, but knew that talk of romance was private, even though she too was dying to know what the well-worn studded belts with silver buckles were doing under the marital bed, especially when they had never owned a show horse.

  “Listen!” said Jack, as he took a clean shirt out of the washing machine. “We went straight back to the guardroom, like we were supposed to, and our Butch was handing in the keys when a bunch of men, with rifles mind you,” said Jack, emphasising ‘Rifles’. “A bunch of men with rifles sort of jumped on Butch and took him away.”

  “What for?” asked Sean, who was listening but wondering if he would be allowed to strike the match for Grainne who you could tell, by the colour in her cheeks, had almost primed the blow torch. Sean wasn’t normally allowed near the matches. They were dangerous.

  “I bet
they thought he was a soldier,” said Grainne, who was staring at Sean, then, by opening her eyes wide and nodding at the loaf of bread, knew she would have Sean bring the bread over and lay six slices out, neatly, on the bread board, which would allow her to continue with the conversation and the priming of the blow torch.

  “What, our Butch a soldier?” laughed Aoife. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “I know,” said Grainne, who was forcing the plunger down with the heel of her hand. “But he always wears them stupid soldier clothes.”

  “Ye mean his camouflage suit!” gasped Aoife.

  “Yeah!” said Grainne.

  “I bet they think he’s a spy or something,” said Sean, who had made a lovely neat line with six slices, one each and was now Karate chopping the air.

  “Jack Mac Fecker!” barked Aoife, as Jack forced his right arm through a twisted sleeve that, like any