A strange thing happened to me on the way home from Barcelona

2009-08-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

On the plane home from Barcelona I happened to be sitting squeezed into a window seat. When I had reached over to get a sandwich from the stewardess I accidentally dropped it into the lap of the guy sitting in the middle seat. He was some sort of Brit and vaguely reminded me of somebody. Anyway, after I had apologized profusely, we started chatting. Half-way through the flight Eddie, as his name turned out to be, started to tell me the following strange tale about two old friends:

Arthur and Ian had been thick as thieves for years. But suddenly, to the astonishment of their many friends and relatives they were suddenly at each other like cat and dog. They accused one another of one hair-raising thing after the other. Everybody around them was completely confused about what was going on, but slowly the story began to unravel.

Arthur had known for some time that Ian had been accused of raping the odd girl. The first one to accuse Ian was Susan, a mutual acquaintance. But Arthur hadn’t attached much importance to what Susan had said and it certainly did not hold up in court. After all, she had been very drunk and wearing a short skirt, and had tried to pick up Mick just before it happened. For a laugh, Arthur himself used to grab the tits of some girl every once in a while just to hear her squeal. Surely, what Ian had done was not really worse than that.

When Maria, another acquaintance, had claimed Ian had raped her Arthur had also accepted Ian’s assurances that the girl was lying. Maria was an extremely ugly girl. She had probably really wanted it, and then afterward just used it as an excuse to take Ian down a peg or two and attract attention to herself.

Arthur also knew that some other girls had whispered about Ian being a serial rapist. But girls, well, some of them are definitely feminists and greens with a low level of carnal knowledge, and if they really believed it they would have said so openly instead of just gossiping about it.

The problem was the third time Ian was accused of rape. This happened when Arthur woke up one morning and personally discovered that Ian had burgled his way into his flat and was raping …him. Now that really was going too far! Arthur screamed in protest. But then Ian screamed back even louder and got Charlie and Lefty, two old bar room brawlers, to back him up. Arthur panicked. With all the screaming going on perhaps Arthur and Ian’s families and other friends might side with Ian as he was by far louder, especially when they found out that Arthur wasn’t God’s own little angel either. So what to do?

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, an inspired plan formed in Arthur’s head. Firstly, Ian would of course have to immediately agree stop raping him. But then, rather than having a messy row about this and the other rapes, they could discuss the fact that Ian used to insult his own mother.

The beauty of this tactic was that Arthur knew that his friends and family had read some articles about the psychology of rapists written by one of the most authoritative authors of our time, Professor Ludwig Brinkelbrain. The professor had been very insistent in these articles that rapists often started out by having bad relationships with their mothers. Once it was clear that Ian was in fact unpleasant to his mother, then, simsalabim, all Arthur’s friends and relatives would agree that it was time to gently hint to Ian that raping was not a good idea. Everything could be resolved peacefully!

So, Ian and Arthur, instead of continuing to have a major row, started quarrelling politely. Arthur was very definite on the point that calling your mother an old bag was not the done thing. Ian was arguing that it is not so bad, if you say it in a pleasant tone and also promise to take her to a fancy restaurant for her next birthday. And had not Arthur agreed last year, after a long pub crawl, that she was actually a bit of a pain in the ass?

All the screaming had left many of Ian and Arthur’s friends and relatives in a bit of daze, but now they were in better spirits. After all, it was a relief to see Arthur and Ian talking to each other again. And although they were quarreling, at least they were doing it with a friendly tone.

After having told me this astonishing story Eddie asked me what I thought would happen next. I replied that I hadn’t the foggiest idea. Eddie said he wasn’t sure either, but he thought that they could, at least for a period of time, become friends again by together having a bit of fun harassing Jaspie. Arthur and Ian completely agreed that Jaspie was totally lacking in all the social graces and tended to say things at completely inappropriate times. For example, he had this obsession for stating that oranges, even sour ones, are nutritious. Maybe they could even agree on together going for Ivan, a neighbour and old foe of Ian’s. But Eddie was sure that sooner or later Arthur and Ian would be at each others throat again, quite likely on some other issue – perjury, blackmail, or possibly murder.

By the time Eddie had got this far in his thoughts, the plane had landed. I was really looking forward to the end of this flight, to get away from this weird character and to see my family again. However, as we walked into the terminal Eddie shot me another question.

- What do you think the moral of this story is?

- I haven’t a clue, I replied, desperately hoping that my bag would appear rapidly on the belt. But Eddie was not the type to be put off by a polite rebuff.

- Come on, he persisted, you must have some idea. Guess!

- That the friends and relatives should have put and end to Ian’s days of freedom as soon as they heard what he had been doing? I tried feebly.

- Obviously. That is self evident. What else?

- And told Arthur to keep his fingers to himself in future?

- Spot on, he said just before I saw my bag appear on the belt. I grabbed it and prepared to flee, but when I turned round Eddie had vanished. For an old man he had been amazingly fast, or had he just been a ghost? Somewhat uncertain, I decided to write down what had happened to me and publish it on Facebook. Perhaps somebody can make out head or tail out of his tale? Who got head and who got tail?

Jonathan Clyne

A strange thing happened to me on the way home from Barcelona