The Chicken Suit
By
Roger Busby
Published by
The Chicken Suit
Copyright 2012 by Roger Busby
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy; recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now know or to be invented, without the permission in writing for the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
For Maureen with love
Table of Contents
Prologue
The Chicken Suit
Mid Point
Other titles
Authors Web site
Connect with me online
Biography
Prologue
When you’re about to get the chop in the dog-eat-dog motor trade and the blonde with a brace of sawn-off shotguns in her bag is eyeing up an ‘80s muscle car, there’s only one thing left to do – reach for the chicken suit! Another short story from Roger Busby that will have you smiling as the story hatches!
The Chicken Suit
Lately Jack Bowen had taken to wearing the chicken suit in the morning. He’d get to work early, before the others arrived, lock the door of his prefab office, take the suit out of the cupboard where it had hung all those years and slip it on, just for a few minutes. So where was the harm in that?The yellow plumage was a little ratty now and when he put the head on the beak sagged forlornly as he strutted up and down flapping the stubby wings. All the same, it felt good; took him back to the old days when he and John Tully were the top dogs at Lomax Ford, beating the sales target every time and picking up the cut glass decanters and all the other trinkets at the end of the month when the figures came out.
Jack had bought the Wurlitzer to hang onto the same memories; picked it up caked in dirt at a junk auction, cleaned it up good as new until the chrome and plastic gleamed. When Betty finally got exasperated and threw it out, he’d brought it to the office, and in his lunch break would plug it in and watch the coloured lights flicker up and down the tubes; press one of the buttons from which the paper slips with the song titles had long since disappeared and feel the thrill of anticipation as the selector arm plucked a 45 from the stack and placed it on the turntable, the needle going down…Ricky Nelson singing “My babe”.
Those were the days. When Big John Tully took the UK Ford Salesman of the Year Award for the third time running he’d put on his big confident smile and told Jack: “Jackie, kid, we’re wasting our talents busting a gut for Lomax when we could be coining it for ourselves!” Gone straight out and sweet talked the bank into a loan to buy Stan Gifford’s place on The Old Kent Road; clinched the deal on the strength of poaching a fair chunk of the Lomax trade. That was John all over, the wheeler-dealer, and Jack, who’d always played straight-arrow to this flamboyant showman, leafing through the Glass’s Guide and shaking his head whenever a punter grew over optimistic, had naturally thrown in with him. “Ha-ha Jackie boy, we’ve got it made,” John told him in his booming voice, arm thrown around his shoulder, “you and me, kiddo, we’re set up for the good life. ”And so they were in those distant days before Tully went over the top, took to wearing cowboy boots and watching John Wayne DVD’s on a giant home cinema rig he’d set up in the back room, leaving Jack to run the business; before he named his only son after the Duke; before he snuffed it on the day Jack sold a blinged-up Bentley to a minor Saudi royal and Tully overdid the celebration; choked himself to death on a T-bone steak with pepper sauce.
Not that the smile of genius ever left that cherubic face, eyes twinkling, hair sculptured over his brow like a Roman senator, forever smiling out of the silver framed portrait right there, like always, centre stage on the desk, the merry eyes following Jack around the crummy office. That was the cruel joke of it. When he gazed into his mentor’s face Jack Bowen felt the same helplessness, the same butterflies of vague unfocussed panic, which had snatched away his self confidence on the day of John Tully’s death. When he could bear the ache no longer he looked up from the clutter of paperwork, the detritus of a dozen deals which would probably come to nothing and saw another face materialise around the door. The shiny vacant face of Jason the car valet poking his dreadlocked Bob Marley look alike head into the office. He had his iPod on full blast and his words were accompanied by the insect rasp of reggae leaking from the earplugs.
“Boss wants you, Jack,” he jerked a thumb to give the summons impact, “better move it, m’man, he’s got the iron maiden in there and, they don’t look too delighted. ”
Ordinarily Jack would have come back with some witty retort, but the blank eyes and vacant grin on the bobbing head protruding from a Wailers “Live Forever” tee-shirt indicated that the youth was beyond the reach of verbal communication so he made a rocking gesture with his hand indicating that he would greatly appreciate a cup of strong black coffee on his desk when he got back from the bullshit session. Raising a thumb to the acquiescent vertical Jason disappeared and Jack levered himself up, collected his branded windbreaker from where he had hung it on the back of the chair slipped it over the similarly branded polo shirt he was obliged to wear and stepped out into the gritty chain linked compound of the used car lot.
The first thing he noticed as he cast an eye over the rows of trade-in bangers, windscreens rippling the reflected glare of the morning sun; the tyre kicker was back. The ash blonde with the Ted Baker sunglasses perched in her hair and the Jimmy Choo bag slung over her shoulder, but as usual he merely smiled and nodded as their eyes met. Pegged her for just a browsing housewife killing time before heading up west for a little retail therapy. Jack passed as she paused to examine a beat up beamer. Just a tyre-kicker, he told himself as he quickened his step and headed for dream world.
The used car lot was a prime corner site on the Old Kent Road just down from the Elephant and Castle where the passing trade was plentiful. Big John had known his onions all right when he’d clinched the deal all those years ago, the value of real estate south of the river had sky rocketed and developers were forever angling to get their hands on it, throw something up to out-do The Shard, and eclipse The Razor which now towered over the Elephant. But that was then, more recently the site had been “gentrified” with a sleek polished steel and smoked glass showroom fronting onto the road masking the used car side of the business with an ultra modern façade cunningly crafted to reel in the punters. The rows of trade-ins with their orange sunburst price stickers in the windscreens were now definitely de trop.
As he entered the showroom Jack felt the sudden chill of the air con and the haughty disapproval of the all girl sales team gathered around the latest models basking under the spotlights, waxed and tyre blacked to perfection. He negotiated the obstacle course between the cream hide horseshoe sofas hugging their dinky glass topped coffee tables strewn with brochures, the little lagoons in the sea of coral carpet where the commission-only execs peddled their low deposit, easy payment dream deals, and made his way over to the office. Jack paused on the threshold, mustering a smile as, in a reflex gesture, he lifted each shoe in turn to buff the toecap on his trouser cuffs. Through the glass he could see Wayne, looking sharp in his midnight Armani behind the desk, which could have served as the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, studying lurid columns of figures, which marched across the putty grey screen of his computer terminal. Beside him, one hand resting lightly on the back of his hand tooled leather executive chair, Angela was similarly engrossed, leaning forward, her silk blouse open to the fourth button, gold chains drooping down into the vee to draw attention to her assets. A storm
cloud of jet-black hair haloed her doll like face sculptured from layers of career girl tough as tungsten make-up; all showy breasts and tight skirt. As they huddled over the computer Little Duke almost had his nose in her cleavage.
Fixing his smile, Jack walked in and broke up the party. “What’s Hirohito want today,” he gestured towards the display on the monitor, “we going to hit Pearl harbour, again?”
Angela straightened and folded her arms. Wayne swivelled around to face him. He didn’t like the look in their eyes.
“Just a joke,” Jack shrugged, “You know,” he extended his arms, “Tora-tora-tora!”
“Not funny, Bowen,” Angela snapped, tight lipped, and sensing a conspiracy, Jack said to Wayne: “So what’s up?”
Wayne’s eyes were back on the screen. The computer was his umbilical, a network station hooked into big brother, which gave him his orders.
“We’re not hitting the numbers,” Wayne said, distractedly. He ran his fingers through his gelled hair and when he turned to Jack there was a haunted schoolboy look in his eyes. “If we don’t make the units we’re going to have to downsize the operation, gotta run twenty-four-seven with zero drag coefficient,