“Right, look, I’m just gonna start,” said Rog, “and if anybody else turns up, well, they’ll.. be.. late. I guess.” This seemed like a perfectly logical observation, if a little redundant. It was also a little worrying. I was sitting in a room full of men and I’d been assured that this would definitely not be the case.
“So, I’m Rog,” said Rog, for about the third time that evening, “and I’ll be your, well tutor I guess, or teacher, one of those anyway.”
“Excuse me Roger, may I ask a question,” said a small weedy man in a sleeveless pullover and glasses.
“Just Rog,” corrected Rog.
“Oh, right you are then, ‘Rog’.” Said the man, beaming from ear to ear as he repeated Rog’s name.
“What is it ?” Asked Rog.
“Will anyone be able to give me a lift home ?” Rog said nothing. In fact he said nothing for a good few seconds. Long enough for me to give the weedy man a name. I decided on Wilf. Weedy Wilf. It suited him.
“A lift home !” exclaimed Rog.
“Yes, you see I got the number 12 bus here, but the bus home isn’t until quarter to ten, and that’s quite a wait after the end of the class..”
“Where d’you live mate ?” Said a huge man with no neck, “I might be able to drop you off.”
“Oh that would be very kind, I live at the bottom of Silverdale Avenue, near Fairfax drive, do you know it ?”
“..hang on !” Interrupted Rog. “So you haven’t got a car then ?”
“Well, no,” said Wilf, suddenly becoming very concerned “Is that a problem ?” I shook my head in disbelief. It was a reflex action. I hadn’t intended anyone else to notice but unfortunately Wilf had seen it and as a result launched into a prepared defence statement “Now look,” he said, “I did ask the nice lady when I enrolled, whether the lack of a motor vehicle would be a problem, and she assured me..”
“But how are you going to do the homework !?” Said Rog, becoming ever so slightly more exasperated than I thought was professionally acceptable.
“Oh.” Said Wilf, thoughtfully.“Will there be homework ?”
“Of course there’ll be homework !” Said Rog.
“Really ?” he said “and we need an actual car for this do we?” asked Wilf.
“We’re here to learn how to maintain cars !” exclaimed Rog. “That’s why the course is called ‘car maintenance’.” I watched as the twelve strong class of would-be motor mechanics rippled with a mixture of stifled smirks, huffs of impatience, or the occasional burning stare of barely-concealed aggression. I was beginning to develop a sense of sympathy for the Wilf. Ok, so granted, it takes a special kind of person to question the likelihood that ‘car maintenance’ would require, at least access to, a car engine if not the whole vehicle, but it really wasn’t that difficult to sign up for evening class that, in those first few moments, turned out to be quite different from what you had envisaged in your minds eye. In Wilf’s case I imagine he was expecting Rog to be a more like Professor Heinz Wolff from that quirky science programme on TV, surrounded by blackboards full of diagrams explaining the inner workings of the internal combustion engine, enough notes and handouts to satisfy the cerebral requirements of his students for the next ten weeks, and little less like Rambo’s second cousin with a monkey wrench.
Me, I wasn’t quite expecting a car service area full of beautiful perspiring buxom lasses.. just about dressed in over sized dungarees that were being held in place by one strap only.. perhaps the occasional smear of grease on a bare shoulder or cheek.. a deep penetrating look that suggested they thought there was something vaguely sexual about a large socket set ..but I was hoping for one or two female classmates who might be vaguely attractive, in my age range, and might have attended the class for complimentary reasons to my own.
“Barmy,” said Alex. I sighed and brought the pint class up to my lips. I was at that ever-so-familiar crossroads in a conversation with my best friend where I could continue to try explain my thought process behind an idea that I’d had, or I could forget that I’d never raised the subject and buy him another pint of memory erasing fluid. The third option, one where Alex not just agreed with me, but offered whatever support he could, was, as usual, barricaded with barbed wire and guarded by men with guns. A small sign said ‘road closed’, just in case you hadn’t got the point.
“Women don’t attend cookery classes to find a bloke.”
“I realise that,” I said patiently. “They are however, full of women !”
“Yeah, old women.”
“I like the ‘older women.’”
“Mate, these aren’t ‘older women’, these are old women – with granddaughters.”
“Well, maybe they’ll try and set me up with one of their granddaughters then!” I shook my head at the stupidness of my comment. I was reinforcing Alex’s sweeping generalisations about cookery classes.
“That’s the most stupid idea I’ve ever heard.” Said Alex.
“Ok then Einstein, if you’ve got a better idea..”
“Actually I have.” He interrupted.
“You have?” I said, taken aback. Alex never had ideas. His job was just to shoot mine down in flames.
“Yeah.” He said matter of factly. “Not that you’ll be the slightest bit interested.” He drained his pint.
“No, no” I said, my curiosity aroused. “I’m listening.”
“Let’s get another beer first.” Said Alex getting out of his chair.
“In a minute – it’s my round, sit back down.”
“I’ll have a Spitfire then,” he said retaking his seat. “I’ve had enough of this muck. What kind of pub doesn’t have any Guiness..”
“Right after you tell me your ‘big idea’.”
“Beer first.” Said Alex.
“Idea first.” I countered. We stared at each other across the table. I was just as thirsty but I knew I could hold out longer than Alex.
“Ok, ok..” he relented after all of three seconds. “Motor Mechanic classes.”
“Sorry?”
“Car mechanic basics..” he continued. “Home.. car.. maintenance.. or something similar.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jesus mate, it’s not difficult.. most evening class places have them: Car mechanic..”
“No, I get that part,” I said before Alex tried to find more words that essentially meant the same thing “I just don’t see how this has anything to do with a good place to meet women.”
“Well it’s obvious ain’t it.”
“Not really.” Alex threw his head back and looked up at the ceiling like he hoped someone in the room above would drop a rhino through the floor right onto his head.
“Ok,” he said leaning forwards. “Imagine you’re a woman.”
“Ok,” I said.
“You’re doing that?” Asked Alex, clearly troubled at the ease at which I’d performed his request.
“Yes, get on with it.”
“Right, well, so you’re a woman. And you want to meet a man. Right?”
“Ok.”
“So, you decide an evening class might be a good place to do just that, right?”
“Yes..” I said slowly.
“So there you are!” He stopped. Both palms flat on the table, leaning forward, his eyes pleading with me to buy him a beer.
“An evening class for car mechanics..” I said slowly, trying to fill in the blanks.
“Not a class for car mechanics, a class where you go to learn the things that car mechanics know!”
“That’s where I would find women?”
“Yes!” Said Alex urgently. If beer wasn’t forthcoming in the next few moments he was going to rip my head off and throw it across the bar.
“Because, that’s where women looking for men would go?” I asked, seeing if I’d followed the logic correctly.
“Yes! Yes!”
“Ok.” I said brightly, “pint of Spitfire wasn’t it?”
“Yes please!” Said Alex with relief.
I stood at the bar and pondered the idea. What Alex basically seemed to be proposing amounted to nothing more than good marketing. Take your product (in this case “me”) and place the product in a location where your potential customers (“women looking for a man”) might be (“an evening class where women would naturally assume there would be a lot of men”). It wasn’t quite the reverse of my suggestion, it was taking the original premise and building on it. I’d suggested attending a cookery class because that would be a place where there should be lots of women. What Alex seemed to be suggesting was that out there, right now, maybe in a pub somewhere, was a lonely, desperate, but beautiful woman thinking along the same lines as me. And unless she had a friend with the same screwy logic as Alex, she’d be thinking of what evening class she should attend to meet lots of men. And, she wasn’t going to come up with cookery. She was going to come up with “car mechanic basics” or something similar. And all I had to do was to ensure that I was at that class when she turned up looking for her single man.
I returned to the table, handed Alex his beer and sat down with a magazine I’d produced from my inside jacket pocket. I started to leaf through it.
“What’s that?” Asked Alex after satisfying his thirst.
“Evening class prospectus.” I mumbled, flicking through the pages quickly.
“What you looking for?”
“This!” I said, turning the page round for him and stabbing part of it with my index finger. “’Car Maintenance.’ Starts next Thursday.”
“Well, in that case I think I’d better go,” said Wilf. “If I leave now I can still make the ten to eight bus.”
“Right,” said Rog. “Good idea.” He added with a little too much venom.
“Actually,” I said, my heart in my mouth, “I think I’m going to make a move too, if you don’t mind.” Rog looked at me like his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.
“You haven’t got a car either?” He said. I felt vaguely insulted. I wasn’t that stupid!
“Yes of course I have.”
“What sort of car have you got then?” Rog asked, the suspicion in his voice pissing me off still further.
“It’s the red MX5,” I said gesturing towards the window. I vaguely heard someone mention the phrase “hairdresser’s car”, followed by a small ripple of laughter, but I let it go.
“So why are you leaving?” Asked Rog as I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks as all eyes turned to me, including Wilf's.
“Well, erm, no reason really..” I mumbled.
“No reason!?” Asked Rog. I vowed right there and then to kill Alex the next time I saw him.
“It’s just, not really what I was expecting..” I ventured, and moved towards the door.
“Not really what you were expecting?” Repeated Rog, his voice getting progressively more shrill with each passing word. “What were you expecting, a fucking cookery class?” I relaxed and smiled.
“Actually, yes.” I said. And closed the door behind me.
By Peter Jones (c) Copyright 2006
First Draft: Check back for revisions / additions