Big Trev (P. Hodgson)
I still like to think he was smiling. Even though I couldnt be there to see it, I hope he understood that we were laughing with him, not at him. That there was a fondness amongst us all. He wasnt the joke, he wasnt the monkey in the corner to entertain and dance. He was one of us. And I know this wasnt like the time he played tennis without a shirt on. And I understand that it wasnt like when he tried to sniff the metal in the middle of his ring binder and the pincers closed on his nose. It wasnt even a misheard line retold for the next 10 years or the annoying songs he used to come up with. It was meant well. It was meant as I intended. And when Im standing in supermarket aisles, trying to see whats free in what cereal this week or what sauce isnt the spicy one Im not keen on, the image drifts across my mind. But theres something missing. I can see him standing by his moped in the front garden, school bag open to pull out his high visibility jacket. And I see him pause slightly when he realises that that there is something under the plastic that should have read AMBULANCE on the back. And there, in crude, biro letters (my crude, biro letters) is the phrase BIG TREV. But when I see it there is no face. Not no smile or sneer or scowl, but no face at all. Just blackness. Just nothing. And when I try to imagine it, to force it through with my will, I cant even remember what it should look like. And no matter how many times I tell myself that he was fine, that we was laughing and he was fine, what I really believe is only the black hole where the face should be.
I still like to think he was smiling. Even though I couldnt be there to see it, I hope he understood that we were laughing with him, not at him. That there was a fondness amongst us all. He wasnt the joke, he wasnt the monkey in the corner to entertain and dance. He was one of us. And I know this wasnt like the time he played tennis without a shirt on. And I understand that it wasnt like when he tried to sniff the metal in the middle of his ring binder and the pincers closed on his nose. It wasnt even a misheard line retold for the next 10 years or the annoying songs he used to come up with. It was meant well. It was meant as I intended. And when Im standing in supermarket aisles, trying to see whats free in what cereal this week or what sauce isnt the spicy one Im not keen on, the image drifts across my mind. But theres something missing. I can see him standing by his moped in the front garden, school bag open to pull out his high visibility jacket. And I see him pause slightly when he realises that that there is something under the plastic that should have read AMBULANCE on the back. And there, in crude, biro letters (my crude, biro letters) is the phrase BIG TREV. But when I see it there is no face. Not no smile or sneer or scowl, but no face at all. Just blackness. Just nothing. And when I try to imagine it, to force it through with my will, I cant even remember what it should look like. And no matter how many times I tell myself that he was fine, that we was laughing and he was fine, what I really believe is only the black hole where the face should be.