Gavin Broom

This is how my mornings go.

It’s still early. The beach is quiet, the sea even more so. It’s early July and hot and humid and thunderstorms never seem too far from the horizon. Somehow, lightning flashes without the need of a cloud.

Dad and I are in the water, throwing a battered and faded pink Frisbee back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We did the same thing yesterday. We’ll do it tomorrow. We’ve been doing this for a while. We’ll be doing it for a while yet before Dad’s hangover subsides enough for him to face the rest of the world. In the meantime, he’s kneeling down so his head and shoulders and arms are the only parts of his body above water, his eyes hidden behind shades, stubble prickling from his face.

Despite what he calls his ‘tender condition’, he’s very good at throwing Frisbee — we both are — and despite its signs of age and the fish nibbles around the edges, the disc normally flies parallel to the surface of the sea, straight into my hand from his and vice versa without either of us remarking on it. I like to imagine sunbathers on the beach watching us, whispering to each other about how good those two guys are at throwing a Frisbee to each other. That’s how good we are. Sometimes, though, a gust will take it higher, like it’s taken a step upstairs, and it’ll carry it over my head.

“Jump, Andy,” he’ll say when this happens, usually while I’m already jumping, full-stretch, my fingers inches short of the rim. “Andrew,” he’ll say when this happens, more disappointed than before.

While I go to retrieve the Frisbee, wading through the sea like it’s treacle, depending on how far he’s through what he calls his ‘recovery cycle’, he’ll start eyeing up the young women in bikinis until he gets to the point where he’s chatting to them, making them laugh, and I become a fifteen-year-old-boy standing in the Caribbean Sea with a faded pink Frisbee, looking for someone to throw it to.

That is how my mornings go.

This is how my afternoons go.

Afternoons, Dad works. His bank is in George Town somewhere, lost in a forest of other banks. I’m not sure of the name. I don’t know the address. I’ve never been. I’ve never seen it. I asked one time, a couple of years ago, if I could see his desk and see what he does for a living, but apparently no one takes their kids to work. I haven’t asked again. I haven’t asked why he doesn’t take more time off while I’m here because the last time I asked that he reminded me that he takes every morning off. This is true. Every single morning. We stand in the sea together.

After he leaves, I hang around the beach for a while. Sometimes, I’ll read a book. Sometimes, very occasionally, one of the women he’s been chatting to will try to chat to me. She’ll ask me if my dad really is a banker on the island. I tell her he is. She’ll ask if he’s a millionaire. I tell her I have no idea. Usually after that, she’ll quickly realize I’m not blessed with the same gift of the gab and, uncomfortably, she’ll wander away.

By two o’clock, the sun is so hot that the guy who drills umbrellas into the sand gives up for the day. At that point, me and the Frisbee head back to the hotel and take up residence at the pool bar. The servers always remember me from previous years, and remember Dad’s tips, and they do their best to keep me company while the jukebox plays the same six or seven reggae tunes in a random order.

“Whatcha want, Andy?” Serena asks me once she’s made sure every other glass along the bar is full. “Another Coke?”

“Rum punch,” I tell her.

She laughs.

I slide a £10 note across the bar. “Rum punch. Heavy on the rum, light on the punch.”

She gives me a Coke and leaves my money on the bar until the ceiling fan threatens to blow it away and I put it back in my wallet. Later on, round about five o’clock, earlier if there’s a thunderstorm, when people leave to get ready for dinner and the pool bar is quieter, she slips me a rum punch that’s maybe ten percent rum. When she does this, she sends me a wink that’s code for ‘on the house’.

“Don’t tell your dad,” Serena says.

“I won’t,” I promise. And I never do.

I down the drink in one gulp, hoping that I’ll get at least half a quick buzz on my empty stomach. Sometimes I do. At some point, I’ll grab the Frisbee, leave the hotel and head to his apartment, which is across the street. I’ll let myself in, maybe take a shower if the heat and humidity have been especially bad, and I’ll sit on his balcony just to get away from the small rooms, and I’ll watch the taxis and minibuses bustle their way along West Bay Road while the sun makes a hasty exit over the horizon.

At some point, I’ll think about calling Mum, but I don’t like using his phone. I don’t like him knowing that I used it. I don’t like Mum knowing that I felt I had to.

That is how my afternoons go.

This is how my evenings go.

Dad gets back from work late, around eight. I’ve suspected for some time that this is because he takes the morning off but he insists he always works to that time.

“It’s a twenty-four-hour world,” he says as though that explains anything.

We go to dinner, usually in George Town, sometimes a little further north nearer West Bay and the turtle farm, always somewhere that has a good whisky selection. Dad tends to know the owners of wherever it is we eat. They give him their chat, he sucks it up. Wherever we end up, we’re usually among the last to leave.

And then eventually one of the evenings will be the last evening and I’ll have to do my packing because regardless of the time of my flight back to England, he’ll drop me off around noon and leave me to go to work.

“Should I pack the Frisbee?” I ask. I ask it every year.

“Sure,” he says.

“I never throw it back home.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Nothing. It just seems to make sense to keep it here, y’know, where it gets used. It sits in my suitcase all year.”

“It doesn’t take up that much room in your baggage, does it?”

“Well, no. It’s just a Fris — ”

“Probably best just to pack it, then.”

That is how my evenings go.

One year, the first year I came to visit, when I was ten, we caught a tiny plane and flew to Little Cayman. Even though I’d just spent eleven hours flying to Miami and then another two hours from Miami to Grand Cayman, all on my own, this little half-hour flight was terrifying. Dad told me the plane was called a Twin Otter. It had two propellers. It sat about twenty people although that day it was maybe half full. Someone had to move over from the left side to the right because, Dad said, there was a fat guy sitting up front throwing the weight distribution off. I’ve never been so sure I was going to die.

Somehow, I survived. We spent six days of my seven-day holiday round about Blossom Village. We swam. We played with turtles in the sea. We hiked to the highest point on the island, a whole forty feet above sea level according to Dad. We didn’t wear shoes. No one ever mentioned a bank in George Town. At that point, I had even less of an idea of what Dad does for a living than I do now.

Thinking back to that year, it was awkward, and things that I didn’t really grasp at the time I realize now were signs that he felt the same, maybe even a bit worse. For my part, I was getting to know my dad at about the same time I was getting to know my step-dad. I had my own issues.

On the last day of the holiday, we went souvenir shopping on the one store on the island that wasn’t a liquor store. I hadn’t touched the holiday money Mum had given me so I splashed out. I bought Mum a turtle brooch and a t-shirt that said, ‘Island Time’ and had a picture of a turtle snoozing on a hammock. I got Ella, my baby half-sister, a toy turtle that was so big I struggled to get it to flatten into my suitcase. Dad didn’t say anything at the time, but later at our last dinner together, he asked who the toy turtle was for. I told him it was for Ella and something seemed to slip from his face for a moment and whatever it was, when it came back, it wasn’t the same. I also bought myself a bright red Frisbee, which was about the only thing in the store that didn’t have a turtle on it.

We spent the rest of the last full day on Little Cayman standing in the sea, throwing the Frisbee back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and I laughed when the wind grabbed it, carried it away from us, far above our heads, and dropped it in the empty sea where I could swim after it, and where the local fish mistook it for something they could eat.

Born in Scotland, GAVIN BROOM now lives and writes in Michigan. His collection of short fiction and poetry, A Documentary About Sharks, is available on Amazon for less than the cost of a coffee. He produces two indie podcasts — Common Language and The Talk of the Street — with his wife, which gives them an excuse to talk to each other. He’ll tell you what he thinks about movies at gaviano.wordpress.com.

by Gavin Broom



Fate was a sock.

Roy often wondered what would’ve happened if fate had been something else or if that first audition had gone in a different direction. He knew he had a good act. It was funny. It just wasn’t great. The producer told him he needed a hook if he wanted the gig and he needed to find one in thirty seconds otherwise the moment would be gone and he’d be back on that bus, heading home with more disappointment, more rejection.

In later interviews, he’d tell people the idea presented itself while he waited in line but in reality, it was more instinct than plan. He remembered standing centre-stage, thinking about all the auditions he’d flunked, all the good-but-not-quites he’d amassed over the years, all the I-told-you-so stares he’d tried to avoid and how failing here and now would finally put an end to his dreams. In other words, it would be time to get a day job.

The next he knew, an independent force within him was removing his left shoe, peeling off a white sports sock and sliding it on to his right hand. In an unfamiliar voice, he delivered a brand new routine and this time the sock told the jokes and the sock took more risks, the sock was edgier, the sock got more laughs.

Roy and Socko got the gig.

That year, Charlie “Chuckles” Chucklington’s summer show took pride of place on the Central Pier. Chuckles was at the height of his game so the public were literally fighting for tickets and the police prepared for a mini riot each day when the box office opened. An unknown Roy and Socko provided the support act. No one queued for them.

On the opening night, after vomiting up a gutful of butterflies for an hour, Roy was on the verge of pulling out and catching that bus home after all. Despite waiting his whole life for this moment, it didn’t feel right.  Maybe he didn’t have the nerve. The thought of those waiting I-told-you-so eyes kept him clinging to the porcelain and stopped him running for his life. With a determined puff of the cheeks, he got to his feet and slipped the sock on to his right hand. The cold sweats evaporated. The butterflies settled. His shoulders relaxed. He stood proud. He was ready to kick some ass.

“You got the world at your feet, kid,” Chuckles told him over drinks in the private lounge after the show. “I’ve seen everything in this game a million times over but the chemistry you’ve got with that sock… I tells ya, that’s something beautiful right there. Beautiful.”

Before Roy could reply, a young girl approached them, armed with a book and pen, and thrust them at Roy. Chuckles, far from taking offence, gave him a knowing nod and wink.

When he was halfway through scratching his autograph on to a fresh page, Roy noticed he was still wearing the sock.

By the end of the summer, whispers of Roy and Socko’s groundbreaking act were beginning to gain volume. That autumn, a single column feature appeared in Sidekicks Quarterly under the heading, The Most Dangerous Act In The Country. By the winter issue, they’d made it to the front cover. It seemed they were a breath of fresh air and the nation had taken this outrageous, foul-mouthed white sports sock into its heart.

There were photo-shoots, panel show appearances, a weekly newspaper column. It became necessary for Roy to buy an apartment in the city, acquire an agent and a team of people to meet and have working lunches with other people’s people. Then he needed a place in the country to get a minute away from all those noisy people now in his employ. It was madness.

A year after his first audition success and after working ninety-eight days out of the last hundred, Roy stood on the mezzanine level of his converted loft and felt his head stop spinning and the enormous thud of everything as it sank into place. If they were to go shopping right at that moment, they’d be mobbed. If they wanted to dine at the Ivy, they’d get a table immediately and during the meal, they’d attract more work, more job offers, more money, more fame. If there was a party, they’d be invited. They’d made it. Somewhat absently, he wondered when he’d started referring to himself as ‘they’.

“I’d like to write a movie.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, a movie. Maybe star in it, too. Remember we spoke about it? The one about the aliens that’s not really about the aliens.”

“I dunno, Roy. Movies are a big step.”

“I was also thinking about maybe doing some solo stuff.”

“Solo stuff? What do you mean, solo stuff?”

“Well, exactly that. Solo. I’ve had ideas for documentaries I’d like to make. You know, about Nazis and sharks and whatever. And if I’m honest, one day, I’d like to do some solo stand-up. I mean, that’s what I always dreamt about doing from the start and it’s never felt like it’s ever been just me.”

“But you’d just be some shmuck standing on a stage telling jokes. Who the hell’s going to pay money to see that?”

“With all due respect, you’re somewhat biased.”

“Of course, I’m biased. I’m also the voice of reason, pal. Perhaps you’re forgetting what pays for the roof over your head and the organic tofu in your many fridges.”

“I’m not forgetting, but is this it? Is this how things are going to be for the rest of my life?”

“Sorry, I didn’t realise you were a slave.”

“I’m not saying that, I’m just thinking that maybe at some point in the unspecified future, perhaps I might like to write my alien movie script or something.”

“Okay, well why don’t you try and write that movie script? You sit down and get yourself a compelling narrative, some memorable characters, give them a conflict to resolve, obstacles to overcome and you write that damned movie script. But I’ll tell you now, I want nothing of it.”

“Aw, come on.”

“No, I want nothing of it, Roy, and you know what that means. If you’re writing that stinking movie, you’re going to have to take me off your hand first.”

The movie idea never found itself on paper and the documentaries about Nazis and sharks were eventually made by other people. Night after night, while Socko went through his increasingly offensive repertoire, Roy stood bored and wondered what Socko’s blood might look like or what would happen if he tugged on that loose thread at the heel.

Of course, it was Socko’s idea to phone Charlie Chucklington and call him a decrepit old bastard and a paedophile on live on national TV. It would be a brilliant laugh, Socko insisted. A white cotton sports sock had never done crank phone calls before. This had cutting edge written all over it. This was the new direction Roy had been bitching about. What could possibly go wrong?

Charlie Chucklington had been in the business for longer than Roy had been alive. Charlie knew a lot of people. In turn, those people knew an astonishing number of people and not all of those people were friendly. If you were anybody whomsoever in the field of showbusiness or organised crime, you’d either know Charlie, one of his people or you’d actually be one of those people.

Within seven minutes of hanging up, Charlie had made a phone call of his own. One phone call was all it took.

And as quickly as it came, so it went. The loft in the city, the Saturday night slot on BBC1, the offers, the newspaper columns, the nationwide tours, the voice-overs; they all dried up. Filling the void were recriminations, outrage, hatred, death threats, all fuelled by a media whose owners, at their most distant, were friends of a friend of Charlie Chucklington. And once that all died down, what came next was even worse. Apathy. Anonymity. What was the big deal in the first place, the public asked. And excuse me, but wasn’t it just a sweary bloke with a sock on his hand? Now you mention it, what was the guy’s name again? Rodney, wasn’t it? Oh, it doesn’t matter. And anyway, didn’t he die or something?

For weeks, Roy sat at his rusty old typewriter where he used to write sketches as a child and for weeks, he stared at the blank page. The ideas were still there but he couldn’t find the first word, so he sat with his fingers hovering over the keys, never having the nerve to punch out a letter in anger. The muffled cries from the sock drawer wouldn’t let him.

The lawn outside Roy’s council house flashed red and blue while arcs of water battled pointlessly against the inferno.

“Anyone alive?” asked the chief fire-fighter.

His deputy wiped sweat and soot from his brow. “Too early to say,” he said. “But if anyone was inside, they’re coming out stuck to the bottom of our shoes.”

“That’s too bad,” the chief said. “He used to be pretty famous. I liked his act. I stole a few of his gags for my turn at the mayor’s ball, you might remember. Wasn’t as good as the original, of course.”

“Everyone remarked at how sparkling your routine was, sir.”

“You’re too kind.”

The chief dismissed his deputy and had turned to leave when he spotted a single white sports sock at his feet on the grass. He removed his helmet and crouched down to pick it up. The sock, despite sitting on cool grass for at least thirty minutes, was warm. The chief smiled and when he was sure no one was looking, and even though the sock carried more than a hint of lighter fluid and sulphur, he couldn’t resist slipping it on his hand.






GAVIN BROOM lives and writes in Scotland. He’s had over fifty pieces of poetry and fiction published in print and online. He’s still holding out for that house at the beach.