Unexpected Polish Inquisition / February 20 2008
It is no wonder I sometimes feel paranoid.
Walking past the market place at about 8am this morning, I heard a gruff male voice call out, ‘Hey, Steve! You dog bloody bugger!’
It was one of the small congregation of Polish immigrants who assemble every day outside the cake shop awaiting the minibus that ferries them to wherever it is they work. Short and scruffy and with a pronounced astigmatism that made it seem as if he were looking in three different directions at once, he was pointing at Audrey and did not appear to be very happy with the world.
‘Is dog, you know, Steve,’ he continued. ‘He shit in garden. I bloody disgusted, Steve. Steve is bugger dog.’
Trying to sound as ingenuous as I could and ignoring the fact that he seemed to believe that my name – and Audrey’s, too, for that matter – was Steve, I explained to him that he was mistaken, that Audrey does not do such things and neither would she be allowed to.
He was having none of it and, egged on by his compatriots, was becoming quite aggressive as he continued with his accusations. ‘Is not Russia, Steve. Is clean country. Is not dog toilet for Steve.’
Bewildered, I just shrugged and hurried along.
I am slightly flabbergasted; even the previously polite and mild-mannered Polish inhabitants of the village are now beginning to hector and threaten me. I wouldn’t mind so much if we were to blame, but Audrey was not the culprit on this occasion. Unless, that is, she is leading a double life as a bugger dog called Steve who takes delight in evacuating her bowels in the gardens of cross-eyed angry men of East European extraction. Who can say with any certainty? I mean . . . you know . . . there is another dimension out there, unknowable and wrong and full of triangles.
Filed under Audrey / East European / English Village Life / Migrant Workers / Paranoia
Comments
2 comments on “Unexpected Polish Inquisition”
Jo Beaufoix / February 24th, 2008 at 1:48 am
But even if she was in another dimension she would never answer to the name Steve, because she is a girl.
Napoleon Fantastic / February 24th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Jo,
Who knows what names dogs have in other dimensions?
Questions like that keep me up at night. Welcome to my life.
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