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Wonky
Wheel - George’s Story
Selecting
his trolley from the supermarket foyer with no
more thought than the randomness of choice that
everyone uses, George pulled it free from its
nesting place. Pushing it before him he headed
into the supermarket proper.
He
moved towards the self-opening doors and managed
to get through without anything untoward
occurring, he looked back over his shoulder to
see the doors had closed halfway and then stuck.
He grimaced.
A
folded A-frame sign at the door announced that
today’s customer champion was Jean Gillart, a
middle-aged woman hovered around a small table
cluttered with paperwork of some sort or
another, George couldn’t care what it was and
had no inclination to find out. The lady wore a
badge with her name in black text underneath the
TESCO logo it simply said Jean.
‘Good
morning sir,’ she said with what looked like a
genuine smile. She had a pretty face under the
extra layers of fat, although she was a good bit
overweight thought George in an absent-minded
kind of way. He grunted something that meant
nothing and carried on into the store, leaving
behind a slightly crestfallen assistant who
quickly recovered her professionalism to deal
with another customer approaching her. “Rude
old bastard,” she thought, never knowing that
George would have approved of the sentiment.
George
reached the fresh produce section cursing his
luck that once more he had chosen, at random,
the trolley with the wonky wheel. He was past
the stage of life where he asked “Why me?”
he knew it was always him. He only needed a few
items but at seventy-nine years of age he was no
longer able to carry the small basket that would
have sufficed.
Working
methodically and as quickly as age would allow
he chose the few potatoes he would need before
fighting the trolley every inch of the way to
the bananas.
He
sighed inwardly as he spotted a young man
bearing down upon him wearing a crisp white
shirt and a smart grey tie. Another badge boldly
stated his name - John.
‘Good morning sir, are you having a problem
with that trolley?’ he had watched the old man
battling up the aisle with the trolley that cost
near a grand a go and they still can’t get the
wheels to work properly, he thought. He politely
stood awaiting an answer to his question then
suddenly feeling a bit foolish when only silence
continued to greet him he ventured a solution to
George’s problem. ‘I can get you another
trolley if you wish?’
George
looked up at the young man quickly sizing him
up. Mid-thirties with thinning hair although he
wore it short as the fashion dictated these
days. Laughter lines showed around the eyes and
mouth and the enquiry was an honest one.
‘Bloody
wonky wheel, always the bloody same,’ muttered
George. ‘Bloody life is a wonky wheel mate,’
and with that he moved off along the aisle
leaving the manager shaking his head in
bemusement. John watched the retreating figure
of the old man summing him up as quickly as the
other’s processes had encapsulated him.
The
old man had a tightly drawn face, pinched and
mean looking, with a permanent barrier of frown
lines pulling the forehead down and, as they
would say in the gangster novels John loved to
read, the man’s lips were pencil thin.
John
thought that the old man like a packet of salt
and vinegar crisps with way too much vinegar or
a sweet and sour chicken where the chef had gone
mental and forgotten to add anything sweet into
the sauce. He walked away; life had other
problems for him to solve today.
George
carried on his meandering around the giant
store. His tirade against wonky wheels had
nudged his mind back into the past of his
working life with the local tyre manufacturing
company, the largest industry employer in his
hometown. He had grown up on the outskirts of
the city but had moved deeper into its bowels as
he had grown older. George often thought he had
been ingested in some life draining beast from
which there was no escape. As he had moved
deeper into its central bowel as a youth now he
had moved to its outer fringes in his elder
years. He thought of it as an evolutionary
thing. Guessing it had more to do with being
close to the social life as a youth and then
wishing to get further away from it as he had
settled down to his life pattern and the
excitement of getting drunk on a weekend had
paled. The monster sucked in their youth and
after draining them of their vitality it
excreted them back out, old, used and abused.
His
working life had brought a dour dread to his
mind that had camped overnight then decided it
would stay on permanent vacation. He had gone
into the factory as a young man full of vibrant
expectancy. The great adventure of life lay
before him. He left the industrial cocoon an
embittered and empty shell. He had possessions,
his house, pension, television set and home
comforts, but they provided him with nothing.
Life was just one large wonky wheel to George
and he struggled against it every waking day of
his life.
He
picked up a can of beans and placed it in his
trolley without conscious thought, he was
remembering his succession into the section
known as the “dodgy tyre area”. This was
where all the rejected moulds came and would be
analysed. He loaded the tyres on racks and then
unloaded them onto machines that did things to
the rubber to find out what had gone wrong.
Eventually he reloaded the trolley racks and
took the wonky wheels to be melted down or
disposed of.
He remembered his various trolleys they too had
had a wonky wheel that he never tried to have
fixed in forty years. Fair enough, he thought,
they had brought in new trolleys and machinery
to assist with the task but for some bizarre
reason George would have it for a couple of days
and the wheels would go wonky. Flat tyres,
working in opposition to the man pushing or
pulling the trolley, eventually the technicians
and maintenance guys just left George’s stuff
alone. They admitted defeat and even the good-humoured
banter ceased as they watched George struggle
against all the odds with his wheeled
adversaries.
He
reasoned that many people battled with disease,
death and other serious obstacles all their
life. He knew he had never suffered a day’s
sickness in his life, had never been in hospital
with illness or mishap, he simply battled wonky
wheels. That was his life, he accepted it,
feeling neither gratitude nor annoyance. All
such emotion had vanished as the barren years
had slowly slipped by.
George
had never met the person to share a life with.
Being naturally clumsy as a youth tended to lead
to shyness in female company. Amongst his
youthful friends he had been a good laugh but
they had grown and moved on, whereas he had
stayed still, stuck in his rut of wonky wheels.
‘That’ll be five pounds sixty please sir,’
the voiced snapped him out of his reverie as he
found himself standing at the checkout, his
shopping already packed into a carrier bag and
placed back in his trolley.
He
paid the young girl, accepted his change from
the ten-pound note he had given her then left
without uttering a word. He fought the trolley
along the aisle towards the doors. Once in the
trolley-park he let go of the trolley and left
the store. He climbed into his old Lada Riva
started the engine and began the long fight with
his “excellent value for money buy”, or so
the salesman had assured him, towards his home.
John was duty manager for the early shift and
had watched the old man struggling with his
trolley, although he thought struggling wasn’t
enough, the old man actually fought the trolley
out of the door and into the foyer where he had
left it for the next shopper.
Walking
over to the trolley to check it over, John
pulled it free and was surprised to find it came
away easily. He wheeled it back and forwards
then spun it around in a circle a few times.
Customers
watched as they passed, thinking it strange to
see the man playing with the trolley. John bent
down and examined the trolley wheels and found
that they were moved freely, he stood and pushed
the trolley back into its former resting-place,
deciding to forget it as he turned and walked
back into the store.
George was sitting amidst an air of resignation
within his car, which was lain up at the side of
the road. He awaited the arrival of the RAC man,
whom he had called on his new-fangled mobile
phone, with the stoicism of an Apache. His
driver’s side tyre was almost, apologetically
flat.
The End
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