The legend of Dick Spacey.
1. The comedian.
‘Knock Knock’, said Spacey avoiding a carefully aimed orange that his fellow fifth graders delivered.
Answering the meek, ‘Who’s there?’ that Cassey would not have dared venture if she hadn’t been bribed with a handsome fistful of plastic lizards and bugs, ‘Orange’ said Spacey.
Another quick dodge. It was a ripe tomato this time.
‘Far better than an orange. They’re warming up to me.’, Spacey convinced himself.
‘Orange who?’ said Cassey half hiding behind the second row of fifth graders.
‘Orange you glad I didn’t say banana!’
That was the end of the show. To a distant spectator a batch of students at a talent day show that have been served some of Spacey’s best can’t look too hard to handle. It is on being offered the baton, that the spectator who no longer finds himself in the safe distance realizes he would rather police a bevy of harmless murderers and rapists.
Spacey made his way home with hope in his soul. ‘They actually let me complete my joke today mama I’m on my way to a successful and bright career as a stand up comedian’, he said.
‘Dicky baby (he hated it when she called him that) I believe you can achieve any thing you set your mind to. Wash up and come down for tea, your friend Cassey has dropped by to play’.
‘Hey Assey’, Spacey greeted her, ignoring the shift in her eyebrow at his use of her nickname.
‘Spacey, You suck.’ she said not mincing words.
‘I just dropped by to tell you that Ms. Smelly wants to see you tomorrow. Said something about you dodging fruit well. Anyway I’m off. Hope you break a leg’.
It was with trepidation that Spacey entered Ms Smelly’s office the next day. Smelly it was known, could make the bravest of the lot shiver with fear. Her weapon, a pen and a piece of paper. Not just any piece of paper mind you. A very strong one, designed by Smelly herself. It was an application form, whose applicants made themselves available after classes in school for ballet lessons.
With the courage of a thousand tigers Spacey was heard by a surprised bunch outside Smelly’s office, refusing to part with his signature. They looked at him with the kind of look a stupid person receives, but the admiration toward his standing up against Smelly was not hidden. Many years down the road it would be spoken about at Notso High, ‘There was the brave but foolish spacey Spacey.’
‘I don’t believe you. No one makes you eat chalk just to make you part with a couple of John Hancocks’, Assie said.
‘Oh yeah, there was that, but I think Ballet lessons will be fun’, replied Spacey.
Assie was as some might like to put it, chubby. Amidst a lot of lard, one could make out the faint features of a large person, What she lacked in terms of aesthetic quality however she overcompensated with brogue. It was for this reason that Spacey, as illustrated above a usually brave young lad, was shaken by the look of avarice that overcame the visage of his dear friend.
‘You son of a bitch, you recommended me didn’t you.’
‘To be honest, I didn’t really have to recommend. Your beauty and grace during the women’s rugby matches this season made sure the great Smelly was aware of your presence.’
‘There’s something to that.’
Assie while not extremely feminine had a small weight problem. One would venture that ‘If Helen’s face launched a thousand ships; Aussie’s weight pretty much sunk them.’
2. The Dancer.
It was a good thing architects of today’s world are made to attend school, and give the sternest of regard to foundations. It would be harsh to the self respecting foundation of Notso high if we said it was put through bad times during Assie’s adventure with ballet.
‘Why can’t they find taller people for this stuff. They take in smaller people and then make all of us stand on out toes!’, observed Assie.
‘At least we have each other for company.’
‘I hope you rot in hell Spacey.’
‘Shut up before Smelly makes us do a dance around at the front for talking.’
‘Hey Assie, let’s go to Ford rock after ballet. You can help me train for my big performance this weekend.’
‘You’re not going to try another one of your stand up comedy thingies are you? Pineapples may be sweet, but they really hurt when hurled at you.’
‘May be this time I’ll include my new autistic joke’, Spacey said trying not to focus on the negativity that was being dished out to him. ‘What was it that fellow said about trying?’
‘Try and try until you succeed?’ Assie tried. ’Though I have no idea who. It couldn’t have been old Shakespeare. Not enough haths and giveths in it.’
Ford rock was a piece of nature’s finest, a small hillock that overlooked a river. It was a distance students at Notso high found convenient to leg after school hours. The view was one very clichéd. Attractive though the picture created by its description is this particular river is incomparable in size to any other in the regions of Gott-hill-a. It could at best be called a rivulet, but if one wants to be picky about it, we will have to refer to it as a trickle. What drew Spacey and Assie to it was the complete silence that overwhelmed one when at Ford. It allowed them to discuss Spacey’s plots of stand-up, without the officious fifth graders who could convert the most corporate of meetings to a veggie fight.
‘Okay Spacey, out with it. The sun god takes more kindly to your jokes than any of the nocturnal chaps.’
‘What’s the square root of sixty nine?’
‘What?’
‘Ate something.’
‘You’d want me to cry out “my hero” at this juncture?’
‘No, but if you uttered so much as a ha, you can have the rest of my plastic bugs.’
‘Hahaha’, Assie curtsied.
‘Not now fat ass, on the big day.’
‘Don’t call me fat, dumb ass. Anyone who applauds your attempt at humor has an identity crisis as a not too intelligent hyena.’
3.
The next day was a hard one for Spacey. Following his first ballet class, came the inevitable discourse about his manhood. Unfortunately it was the persons involved in delivering it and manner in which it was delivered that affected him. To say that his classmates “ripped” on him all day would be putting it mildly. Chance so often plays bad tricks on its recipients. Spacey was having a bad day. Assie his friend through thick and thin, was bowled out with a cold. She would not be attending classes today. Spacey found himself sitting next to the only student in class who would tolerate him.
Subrothshorba Bannergee bore that saccadic look that so often found its presence on the faces of those lesser mortals of our scholastic system, termed “nerds”.
‘Want to hear a joke?’, Spacey offered.
‘Why certainly Spacey. Do you want to hear about the new discovery SpaceX made after that?'
