Tales of the Underwood: Roadkill

It was just a normal Tuesday night for me as I dangled in chains from a basement wall, naked but for a Celtic scarf tied around my manhood.  Well, it was more of a ribbon…  Oh alright, it was a Celtic club tie.  The sweating figure of the man who had been lashing me approached out of the darkness – he was completely naked except for the gimp mask that obscured his face.

‘Had enough yet, cock-squeak?’ he asked, panting.

‘No sir!’ I shouted in reply.  ‘Please may I have some more?’ and so my punishment went on.  What was my punishment on this day?  Well that depended.  If, as I suspected, it was Peter Lawwell behind the mask then it was for being caught lying on record again but if it wasn’t Lawwell then it could only be one person, Peter Kearney and that could only mean that I was being punished for being a damned dirty Baptist.  At least I think that’s what he said to me that night I tried to cosy up to him in the Polo Lounge only to be rebuffed and left to the mercy of a lovely man in a red dress called Bob.

Then the man in the mask sidled up to me and with garlic breath, whispered in my face, ‘Are you seeing Chris Graham behind our backs, eh?  Are you stepping out with him?  Are you girlfriends?’  My face must have betrayed my confusion because he removed the face mask and spat in my face, ‘Then why do you keep letting him shag you up the arse on live radio and television?’

It was Lawwell and I knew what he was talking about.

I’d been on Radio Scotland on Saturday evening and got into another altercation with the man from the Rangers Standard and I foolishly allowed myself to be lured into an exchange about whether or not Rangers are a new club.  Obviously I don’t believe they are and frankly, the whole thing has become a bit of a bore and the domain of only the most rabidly confused and moronic of the Celtic support so of course I had to take that line.  Unfortunately for me, Graham confronted me on the issue, quoting the SFA, SPL, UEFA, FIFA, throwing in a couple of Law Lords for good measure.  I admit, I panicked and reached into the deepest recesses of my intellect, found nothing so scrabbled about in the bare cupboard of my imagination, brushing aside the dead skin and spiders and made do with saying flippantly that I’d spoken to a few financial experts who said otherwise.  As soon as I said it I knew I’d made a mistake and so I gulped and wheezed until pressed to name my sources and before I knew what I was saying I was shouting out Neil Patey’s name.  Across the studio, Tom English put his head in his hands and I could almost read his thoughts, his entire face seemed to be sighing, ‘why do I associate with this dolt?’

And that’s how I fetched up in a dungeon underneath Hampden Park being whipped by Peter Lawwell although these days, there’s nothing unusual about that, indeed there was a queue of Scottish sports journalists waiting outside for their turn when I left. 

‘Hi Tom, hi Keith, no trying to skip the queue there, Chris’ was all I said as I sauntered past, holding my buttocks, flinching and vowing revenge on Chris Graham.

Later as I took a coach home to Ayr to rejoin the country bumpkins and inbred retards who are my neighbours (well, I implied as much on Twitter so why not reiterate it here?), I stopped off at the King's Arms for some bread and cheese with a glass of ale and who was sitting in his usual corner but Donald Findlay, tugging his whiskers over the Times crossword in front of the fire.

‘Well met, Spiers!  Come and join me for a heat although I’m sure your arse doesn’t need it after Lawwell’s been at it with his horse whip, what?  Eh Spiers, what?  Ha ha ha ha ha!’

I grabbed a cushion, placed it on a chair and sat down, slowly.

‘Have you heard of the Roadkill Beast, Spiers?’ he asked immediately, leaning forward and sucking on his unlit pipe.  I shook my head, trying not to look too stupid but Findlay chuckled, ‘Ha, you look stupid, boy – here’s a tip: don’t try too hard to look as if you know absolutely everything, nobody likes an arrogant bastard, Spiers, do they?  Look, the Roadkill Beast is a clever monster, been operating around these parts lately, mainly on the Humbie Road; it captures foxes, rabbits and the like, holds ‘em by the side of the road in the hedges until a car approaches and then let’s the poor things go and they run for their lives, right in front of the car.  As soon as the driver steps out of the car to investigate the damage, the Roadkill Beast pounces and drags ‘em off.  Totally random people abducted but all on the same stretch of country road.  What do you make of that then, eh Spiers?  What do you make of that?’

‘It sounds like arrant nonsense,’ says I but he sighed and sat back in his chair.  I get that a lot, people sighing when I speak – they must be intimidated by my superior wit and knowledge.  I was thinking this when I realised that Findlay was speaking again and I hadn’t been paying attention.

‘…only to me, it’s the randomness of the abductions that are worrying, especially when it’s a road taken every day by the Rangers CEO.  You see, when you’ve seen enough of the wild and outlandish schemes of your friend from Hampden, you begin to suspect his hand in everything and most of the time?  Most of the time I’m bloody right.  Who’s to say Green isn’t next to fall victim to the beast only for him to be disregarded as just another random victim?’

‘Who’s to say it isn’t Rangers fans fed up with his constant sticking of his foot in his mouth?’ I ventured which did get a brief smile from Findlay.

‘Yes, quite.  But no, Charles is a buffoon but there’s no one at Rangers or in the support capable of such sinister machinations, no that’s the realm of Lawwell, no one else.’

It was my turn to guffaw now, ‘What about Souness you purblind fool?’ but before I could finish, Findlay was across the table, a dagger pulled from within his walking stick, holding it against my throat.

‘Be careful, Spiers.  You don’t want to make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.’

‘I don’t like you when you’re happy,’ I whispered as I walked away after he let me go.  We settled our bill and left the inn and I was just about to set off for Bumpkinland when Findlay climbed in beside me, ‘Where are you going?’ he shouted, knocking his cane on the ceiling of the coach only for the driver to turn the horses and we set off towards the Humbie Road.