Martin: The vinegar Bottle
Every once in a while a character appears in my life that quite simply beggars belief. One such character appeared one summers day in the shape of Martin. He stayed in full time employment with me for roughly six months before his untimely disappearance and I am almost convinced that he just appeared from the depths of outer space or beneath the ocean. None of his aquintences actually knew anything of his past history or where he lived. I can just imagine the scene at any one of his friends houses, a group of mates sat in front of the tv drinking cans of beer and each one thinking that Martin had arrived with someone else but no one quite plucky enough to ask who. It appears he was born in his twenties, had no childhood whatsoever and had this incredibly vacant stare that got you thinking that no matter how you worded the question, he would inevitably get his name wrong.
A basic instruction to hand the mechanic any sort of tool in the workshop was always met with a look that is normally reserved for unfortunate people who dress in the latest strait jacket and send jets of foam from the corners of their crooked mouth.
On the Keld scale of hopeless cases, Martin was a ten (even though the scale only goes up to eight). I should have realised immediately what I was dealing with when I noticed the lack of skin on both knuckles where they had been dragging consistently along the floor. One of Martins many talents, and he did have many many talents albeit not one of them any use to the modern world, was the abilty at any time of day or night to smell of vinegar. The name Martin was eventually replaced in all conversations by Vinegar Bottle. I could imagine on many occasions that if someone in highest authority were to ask his name,say, in the unemployment office,Manchester airport customs office or similar institution the reply would be 'Bottle, Vinegar, Sir'. We could only presume that he was bathing in the stuff hence the overpowering odour but some months later it transpired that Martin had not bathed,washed,combed his hair or cleaned his teeth since around 1973. A good twenty years of body odour culminating in the odour of Britains favourite condiment, I suspect in another twenty years it wall have morphed into mushy peas.
Another of Martin's talents was the ability to consume incredible quantities of alchohol that would normally be more than enough to kill an African elephant. I found this 'talent' to my financial expense. You see, every Christmas I treated my staff members to a party in the local bar on me…a sort of liquid Christmas bonus. I had Terry and Judy of the Station Hotel in Pocklington put on a few rounds of sandwiches and sausages on sticks and other assorted buffet related items and place them strategically around the pub with the hope that no one could find them and I could take it all home and eat until I was violently ill. I did manage to get twenty two cocktail sausages in my mouth at once until I coughed on the last one and sprayed the lot acroos our living room.
The afternoon was proving to be a success with everyone in good humour, although I had little chance to sit with the staff and chat about jovial subjects like how much this was all costing me and the extra hours that would have to worked to pay for it, instead I was to tread a permanent route between the bar, Martins table and the most interesting gents toilet in existence. Allow me to explain, having taken a pint of best beer to Martin I then had make my way over to the Gents toilets and what an experience that was. For a start the lights never worked, the tiles were arranged in a kaleidoscope pattern from where victims heads had been bounced from them and your feet were constantly swimming in urine. If you were in the unfortunate position of wanting to clear your bowels you had to sit on a seat that was not attached to the pot and had a nasty crack in the front. One leg had to be raised to keep the door shut (no lock) and invariably as my weight was distributed unevenly the crack on the seat would open and shut and attach the seat to my *** with a lobster like grip, at which point the I would leap to my feet pulling the seat from its invisible moorings and stand in full view of all the giggling youngsters with trousers down and a mouldy old toilet seat swinging profusely from my testicles. It was a regular occurrence and the sounds of screaming and sobbing could often be heard above the sounds of glasses being broken in the bar area. The whole process of going to the toilet in the Station was simply renamed as 'It’s a Knock Out' after the popular Seventies television programme. It was an assault course with unpleasant smells.
Upon my return to Martin's table I would find him clearing his throat and the vacant stare changed to puppy dog eyes ready for yet another beer, so it was back to the bar to battle through hordes of Christmas revellers. This happened a total of twenty two times that afternoon, twenty two pints of best bitter without having any affect on his stability at all.At close of play he stood up and muttered something about thanks for the drink and happy Christmas before mounting his bike and riding off into the night. I have never seen anyone drink such a large amount of alchohol and be so unaffected by it. Had I drunk twenty two pints of water I would the hangover to match the Chernobyl meltdown.
Martin was fortunate enough to own two motorcycles, a distinctly rust coloured Suzuki GT380 and an extremely rare Norton Hi-Rider that was in need of a total restoration. His technical knowledge began and ended at the ability to inflate a tyre, anything more complicated than that and the good old vacant stare was employed just to let anyone in the immediate area know that the brain had ceased to engage first gear. Consequently he was left in charge of such vital duties as sweeping the workshop floor and lifting heavy objects. His punctuality was directly linked to the reliability of the Suzuki. On the days he was absent it was not through anything remotely as fun as a hangover or similar self inflicted state of mind, it was usually down to the bike's reluctance to start. A basic fault such as an oiled sparkplug would have Martin in a state of total confusion and disarray. On more than one occasion my chief mechanic, General, would call at his house to offer technical assistance only to find Martin standing by the bike staring at it as if a venomous look would replace a spark plug.
Both bikes ultimately ended up in our workshops, the Norton was way way beyond Martin's grasp and the GT finally looked like it would respond only to an engine rebuild and not harsh language. His attendance suffered as a result and it was only General who managed to get him to work at all. He insanely volunteered to collect him on his bike and ferry him the twelve miles o the workshops. He would arrange to meet him at a pre-determined point in York, but frequently Martin would not appear, friends would later claim to have seen him standing on the wrong street corner only two or three streets away waiting for his lift. The situation was soon to take a downward spiral. He would frequently turn up with no crash helmet and was astonished when it was pointed out that it was impossible to ride twelve miles minus headgear. When he was sent home to retrieve his helmet he would more often than not simply never return, so I ended up with one staff member late and one not there at all. After General had waited every day in vain for two weeks and he had not appeared I presumed that he had finally gone to live with fairies at the bottom of the forest. No one ever answered the door when I called at his flat,he had no phone so it was impossible to contact him for an explanation, or indeed to return the bikes and pay his wages. Six months passed without any communication from him, to either me or his circle of few friends. The months turned to years and after two years a collegue in the motorcycle trade in Lincoln sent me a newspaper cutting which featured a grainy photo of someone remarkably alike to Martin. This guy who was not named and of no fixed abode had been found running hysterically along the hard shoulder of the M1 motorway…naked at midnight. The Police could not make any sense of what he was saying, a fact which was starting to confirm my own suspicions of the naked runners identity, but when I read that the poor beggars knuckles were skinless I knew the Police had our man.
We never heard from Martin ever again and eventually we sold his bikes for a substantial amount which went into bank account marked Martin's Beer Fund. Cheers