What's the way to do it?

Sarah Toa just mentioned a Punch and Judy show, and it put me in mind of this bit of a fairy-story I cobbled up some years ago. It's probably far too long for a blog post, but I'm going to post it anyway as a bit of bedtime reading...

"Come on, come on!" Cheap murmured maliciously through his gritted teeth as he looked at his watch for the fifth time. He thought he detected a slight abatement in the screaming outside, and chose that moment to thrust his right hand upward above the wooden board, to introduce the little shits to Mr Punch for the first time.

"OH DEAR OH DEAR OH DEAR! HAS ANYONE SEEN JUDY?!"

"Piss off!" shouted a chubby boy in the back row. Unseen by Cheap, the boy was led away by his mother, only to be returned a couple of moments later having made an unconvincing promise to behave himself. The young ones in the front row were all responding to form, droning out stock answers to rhetorical questions in a monotonous sing-song.

In due course, Judy made her entrance carrying an amorphous white lump that represented the bastard love-child of the two malformed, maladjusted psychopaths who were attempting to amuse the children on stage. There then followed a lengthy interlude during which Judy vainly tried to make Punch promise not to dash Baby’s brains out with a large wooden club while she went shopping for sausages. In fact, Mr Punch did promise not to do this many times, but despite taking the precaution of pretending to leave only to surprise him by returning suddenly as he raised his truncheon over Baby, Judy eventually did leave Mr Punch alone to carry out his foul act of infanticide. She obviously knew her partner well, but seemed incapable of trusting her own instincts. Surprisingly, most of the children actually warned Punch of Judy’s premature returns by bawling out at the top of their voices, and he would hastily conceal the weapon in his tunic before Judy noticed it.

The attack, when it happened, was the frenzied act of a deranged madman, and the baby bounced up and down on the wooden board as the blows rained down on it’s unprotected head. One of these impacts would have been enough to kill a small baby, but not content with that, Punch delivered at least fifteen - each one accompanied by an inhuman shriek of effort. That, apparently, was the way to do it. The young children at the front laughed uncontrollably, whilst the older ones were just bored. Some of them were inflicting similar violence whilst using hand-held computors, but with more sophisticated weaponry.

Seemingly refreshed by his efforts, Mr Punch disposed of the body by throwing it over his left shoulder, and it disappeared from view. Inevitably, Judy returned carrying a large string of brown sausages. The first thing she wanted to know was the current whereabouts of Baby. Blatantly lying, Punch said he didn't know. She could sense that all was not right, and asked him again. The reply was the same as he insolently stared at her with his manic, expressionless eyes. It was obvious to everyone except Judy that this creature was completely devoid of any of the prerequisites that comprise a healthy, well-balanced human being.

In desperation, Judy turned to the children to ask them if they knew what happened to Baby. In ragged unison, they all bellowed out the damning information that Punch had killed it. Punch’s posture and expression remained unchanged. He seemed utterly unaffected by the perfidious change of allegiance by the children. Indeed it looked as if he had expected this outcome in his amoral outlook on life and death. For their part, all the children wanted was as many critical events to occur in the shortest possible time, and if that meant the death of babies, so be it.

Judy briefly expressed her disapproval of Punch’s behaviour by screaming a torrent of mild-mannered invective against him, and he appeared to be affronted by the accusation that he had been very naughty. Then the old glint in his eye reappeared, and he quickly changed the subject by demanding that she cook the sausages as he was very hungry. Judy immediately agreed to do this and ducked off to get a frying-pan, leaving Punch to explain to the children that he had another plan up his sleeve. Soon the kids learnt that it was very important not to kill a woman before she has cooked the sausages, otherwise one ends up having to cook them oneself, which is far from satisfactory. In a situation like this, timing is everything.

Judy returned and busied herself by thrashing around with the sausages in a miniscule pan, singing as she worked. Punch stared over her shoulder monitoring the progress. At regular intervals, she would stop singing just in time to allow Punch to ask if they were ready yet. Six times he asked, and six times she answered that they were not quite ready. Then on the seventh time, she announced that they were just about done. At this, Punch turned conspiritorially to the assembled children, then reached below the counter to retrieve his wooden club. With the club aloft, he quietly stalked up behind Judy, but the children weren't having it and screamed dire warnings at the slow-witted woman. She stupidly asked the kids what the matter was and slowly turned to face Punch, giving him ample time to hide the club from her sight.

This happened four times, and each time the shouts of warning from the kids became more shrill and desperate. They could not believe how long it was taking Judy to catch on to the danger of the situation. At last, Punch became bored with cat and mouse and made his move. He waited for her to turn and face him then rushed in for the kill. Judy - being an adult - took a good many more blows to finish off than Baby, but in the end she lay there lifeless in front of the cooked sausages. He was not stupid.

First things first. He would dispose of the body, then eat the sausages. Judy was a lot heavier that Baby and consequently it would take more effort to chuck her corpse down the abyss, so he heaved and struggled with his back to the frying pan. He had almost succeeded in throwing her over when he was startled by the sound of all the small children screaming at something. He got up and looked round, but noticed nothing unusual. He asked the kids what the matter was, but it was difficult to understand them as they were all shouting at once, so he returned to his grim task.

No sooner had he resumed his work when the kids started screaming again, but this time louder. Again he looked up and again he noticed nothing untoward. What on earth were they getting hysterical about? He couldn't understand them. He had to dump the body quickly otherwise the sausages would get cold. This time the kids went ballistic and the noise level rose to an unbearable degree. He spun round just in time to see a huge, green crocodile retreating beneath the section of counter that held the frying pan. It had a big, red mouth and two rows of huge, shiny white teeth which intermittently snapped together with a loud wooden clack. He began interrogating the children and eventually learnt that the crocodile had been trying to steal the sausages whilst he was dumping Judy. Well he wasn't having that. He had worked hard for those sausages and he wasn't going to stand by and watch them being eaten by some reptile and do nothing about it. He formulated a plan which involved not looking at the bangers, but standing by with the club, ready and waiting. At the first sight of the crocodile, the children were to shout that it was coming, then he would run up and give it the same treatment that he had just given Judy.

As it turned out, it was not to be so simple. For some reason, he kept losing concentration at the wrong moment and by the time the screams of the children had reached deafening volume and he turned around, the crocodile was gone. Most frustratingly for the kids, this happened several times before he regained his usual lethal prowess and the crocodile was consigned to the abyss along with Baby and Judy.

It seemed that fate was conspiring to thwart his ambition to eat the sausages before they cooled off, for just as he was about to tuck in, there came a knock from an unseen door.

"WHO DO YOU THINK THAT CAN BE?" screamed Punch, "I THOUGHT I HAD KILLED EVERYBODY!"

"How the fuck do we know?" was the response from the chubby boy at the back. This time he was led away for good.

Next on the scene came a fat, jolly looking policeman with a tiny badge-emblazoned helmet perched on his over-sized head. He was evidently expecting trouble from the start, as he had his truncheon drawn and ready. It was about the same size as Punch’s club, but a shiny, police-issue black. As a formality, the policeman asked if the crazed being went by the name of Mr Punch, and Punch replied in the affirmative. The policeman then solemnly proclaimed that, by the authority invested in him by the power of the State, he was arresting Mr Punch on the charge of the foul murders of Baby and Judy. Punch, however, did not intend to give up that easily, and the two faced each other in a silent stand-off before a ferocious fight ensued, during which Punch sustained as many blows to the head and body as he gave to the policeman. At last, Punch pulled off his master-stroke and sent the policeman hurtling headlong over the back of the stage.

Back to the sausages. He was very hungry now after all that fighting, and he had just got one end of the string to his wicked mouth when, to his immense anger and frustration, there came another knock on the door. Flinging the sausages back into the frying pan, he went to see who was there.

It seemed that the judicial process moved at an incredible speed in this part of the country, for then a large, bare-chested man with a black hood covering the top of his face entered, and set up a wooden scaffold on the board. A noose was dangling from a wooden cross-member at the top. The man announced in a sonorous voice that Punch had been found guilty of murdering Baby, Judy and the policeman, and had therefore been sentenced to death by hanging, which was the job he had come here to do and would Mr Punch please climb the steps and place the noose around his neck so that he could get on with it.

Punch was unfazed, and explained that although this seemed to be a perfectly reasonable request under the circumstances, he had never been hanged before and so needed some expert guidance as to how to go about it. It was quite simple, explained the executioner, you simply walked up the three steps, put the noose round your neck and then he would pull the lever on the side, sending you to your maker. This was not enough for Punch. He didn't want to make a dog’s dinner of it as he would only have one chance to get it right, so he thought the best thing was for the executioner to demonstrate the correct way to conduct oneself at an execution.

Wearily, the hangman agreed, then ponderously trudged up the steps and placed his head in the noose. On the pretext of getting a closer look at the details, Mr Punch moved nearer, then suddenly lunged forward and jerked the lever back with a wicked scream of laughter. The hangman dropped and his neck snapped as Punch observed that that was the way to do it. Just to make sure, Punch beat the dangling, lifeless corpse a few times with his trusty club, then took an almighty swing at the whole contraption, sending it and the hangman down into the abyss with the rest of them.

Those sausages surely must have cooled off a bit by now. Once again, Punch returned his attention to his over-due dinner, but just as he would get close to taking his first bite, those wretched children let out an cacophony of screams and shouts and completely put him off. They were all bellowing at the top of their voices 'Look behind you!', but he defiantly refused to do so until the noise levels became difficult to bear. At any rate, he could not concentrate on the sausages with all that racket, so he turned around to have a look.

Recoiling backwards with shock and surprise, he almost tripped over the frying pan, for there stood a towering figure with red face, cloak and horns wielding a three-pronged and barbed fork. The man had a small, pointed black beard, and the children could make out a pointed tail protruding from under the cloak. There was no saving Punch now, it appeared, as the Devil had come all the way from Hell just to personally take possession of Mr Punch, such was his level of evil and depravity.

Punch feigned resignation to his fate and enquired as to how far away Hell was from there. It was a long way downwards according to the Devil, who indicated the direction by pointing toward the grass with his fork. Well then, Punch reasoned, surely they should both have some sausages before they set off, to keep their strength up. To this, the Devil enthusiastically agreed, so Punch picked up the sausages and marched toward him with them. Before he knew what was happening, the Devil found himself bound from head to foot with the string of sausages and unable to defend himself from the vicious attack by Punch with his club. The last colossal blow which sent him and the meat over the edge was the grand finale, and the children went wild.

The show was over. Punch screamed goodbye to the children then dropped out of sight beneath the board. The forces of unreason, chaos and evil had prevailed once again and Cheap could pack up and go. There would be a few kids waiting at the back flap of the booth as usual, and he would give them short shrift. One boy pronounced his show 'crap' and Cheap had to check himself from taking a swing at the little bastard. On the whole, it hadn't gone too badly though once they had settled down. He was parched, and as soon as he had safely packed the puppets away, he made his way to the terrace in search of some orangeade.