Mousetrap Bacon by Norman Szabo

MOUSETRAP BACON
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When old 'Mousetrap' Bacon died, his house was boarded up -- by the authorities, as we reckoned, because Joe, who had once worked as a lawyer's clerk down in London, claimed that he had died 'intestate', and everyone knew he had no living relations. I thought they might tidy up the garden while they were at it -- scythe the grass -- it was too long for mowing -- and cart away all those cement statues to the rubbish tip. Or maybe to a museum somewhere -- you can never tell nowadays. But in the end, they left them where they were. And a proper eyesore they were too.

Of course, none of the local hooligans could resist throwing stones at them -- it was like a coconut-shy down there some days. And I daresay it was the same young hooligans that jimmied the boards off of one the windows round the side of the house. I pointed it out to Joe:

'Look what the buggers have done now,' I said.

It was a Sunday afternoon, winter, and we were on our way home from the Fiddlers Arms.

'Gate's open,' said Joe, by way of a joke -- that gate had been off its hinges and propped up against the railings for as long as I could remember.

And so we found ourselves standing, for the first time ever, in old Bacon's front garden.

'Look at this grass!' said Joe, 'You'd have thought the rabbits would have kept it down.'

We discovered a lot of smaller statues hidden in there -- gnomes and things I suppose. It reminded me a bit of Olympia -- the one in Greece, I mean, not the one in London. I went there once on a package tour. It was just some old broken stones lying in a field. In old Bacon's garden there were a few broken bottles and half-bricks as well.

'Come on then,' said Joe, 'Let's see you get through that window.'

'Hold on...' I said. I hadn't really thought about going inside.

But the beer had made Joe more daft than usual. He made a right mess of climbing through the window too, and I think he got something caught on a nail because he started swearing as soon as he was properly inside the house.

I climbed in after him.

'It's bloody dark,' I said.

'Night vision,' said Joe, 'You'll get used to it. Come on.'

'Don't leave me here, you bugger! I can't see a blind thing!'

I followed his wheezy laugh. It was a fair-sized house, and I didn't want to get lost. And if there was a big hole in the floor, or a dead body in the attic, I didn't mind if Joe found it first. That would wipe the smile off his face. Meanwhile Joe left me behind.

It was black everywhere. Quiet too, except for the odd creak. And rustle. And scratch. And then a squeak...

'Joe, stop arsing around,' I said.

I put my hand out in front of me and touched -- well, all right, it was just a wall, but it was a shock all the same. It's funny the tricks the mind plays -- two seconds ago, I was afraid of getting lost -- now, with the same blackness all around, I felt trapped.

'Joe,' I said, 'Bugger this for a lark. I'm beginning to feel like that mouse.'

~

This was the mouse that old Bacon had brought into the Fiddlers Arms one night in one of those cardboard tubes you get in the middle of toilet rolls. One end was plugged with cement and he had his hand over the other. It was about fifteen years ago, and I'd never seen him in the pub either before or since.

'It's a better mousetrap!' said Bacon. 'I made it -- and it works!'

'Congratulations,' said Joe, 'I'd buy you a drink if you had a free hand to pick it up with.'

'You wait for the mouse to go in this end and then you put your hand over it, like this, and you've got him!'

The whole pub went very quiet.

'So how do we know there's really a mouse in there?' said Joe.

That stumped Bacon for a minute -- 'I caught it,' he said, 'Look!' And he held it higher.

'Show us inside the tube,' said Joe.

But Bacon was as slippery as a Jehovah's Witness -- 'If I take my hand away, it'll escape,' he said. He looked at Joe like he was an imbecile. 'Shhh! You can hear it scratching!'

We listened.

'That's you doing that with your finger,' said Joe.

'It's tickling my hand,' said Bacon, and you could see him mentally concentrating on the tickles. 'Ow! It's biting!' He started shaking the tube. 'Get off you little bugger!' He threw the tube on the floor.

The mouse hung there by its teeth from the palm of his hand.

'Arghh!' shrieked Bacon, 'Get off! Get off!'

I thought he was going to hit it or grab it or something but he just poked at it gingerly with his other hand. Maybe he knew what he was doing though because the mouse sort of lunged for one of his fingers and lost its grip. It landed on a table, jumped down to the floor and ran off.

Bacon helped himself to someone's scotch -- Rector Martin's I think it was -- downed it in one and hurled the glass into the fireplace.

'Oy!' said the landlord, but Bacon flung open the door and stormed off.

'Ugh, what's that?' said the Rector, pointing at a wormy-looking thing sticking out of the crumpled cardboard tube.

It was a piece of bacon rind.

'Bait,' said the Rector.

'Mousetrap bacon,' said Joe.

Of course, it was too much of a coincidence -- I don't think Joe had even meant it that way, but the nickname stuck.

~

And if the wall in front of me had been a hand, I reckon I'd have bitten it too. Luckily I didn't have to -- Joe started crashing and banging around somewhere upstairs. I groped my way towards the noise. From the landing I could see light coming from an open doorway.

'What are you doing now, you bugger?' 'Letting some daylight in.' Joe gave the board another bang and knocked it down into the garden below. 'That's better. All that dark was giving me the willies -- bloody Hell!'

By now it was late afternoon, but there was still enough light to see that all the walls were covered with toilet roll tubes, each one cemented into place. There was an old iron bedstead and a table in there too, both with their legs cemented to the floor.

'I reckon he thought he was really on to something with this cement business,' said Joe. 'Better mousetrap, better bed, better table...'

'Better chair,' I said, pointing to the back of a chair sticking out from a pile of cement. 'Better garden...'

Joe laughed his wheezy laugh. And then we heard someone yelling outside --

'Oy! That's breaking and entering! You young hooligans -- I'll have your guts for garters!'

'That sounds like Pete,' said Joe. 'What's he doing working on a Sunday? Now we're for it.'

We went over to the window.

'It's only us, Pete,' said Joe.

Pete shone his torch in our faces. 'What're you doing in there?'

'There's a window open at the side.'

'Stay there. I'm coming in.'

Joe lit a cigarette and after a few minutes we heard Pete clumping up the stairs.

He was off-duty and he let us off with a warning. In fact once we showed him the walls and the bedstead and the table and chair, he seemed quite pleased about the whole thing. He'd got his camera with him -- tripod and lights and everything -- he fancies himself as a bit of an amateur photographer does Pete, though his pictures are pretty gloomy if you ask me. I'd like them more if he did them in colour. 'Might as well do the inside as well then,' he said.

Joe asked him to take a picture with the two of us in it.

'This is going to make me famous, this is,' said Pete. 'I don't want you two mucking it up.

'Charming!' said Joe.

'You shouldn't be in here anyway,' said Pete.

'Neither should you,' I said. That made him think.

'Hurry up then,' he said, and he got us to pose in front of the toilet rolls. A few days later he gave us one picture each -- he develops them himself.

It was only black and white, of course, and Mary says that you can see that me and Joe are both drunk in it. She also says it won't go in the photo album because it's too big, so I keep it in a drawer.

I took one of the cement toilet rolls too. I don't think that counts as stealing because nothing in the house belonged to anyone. I took it as a souvenir, and because, well, if Pete thinks his pictures will make him famous, then I reckon the real thing will be going one better. Of course, it looks like a piece of rubbish to me, and if you saw it, you'd think so too -- but then these days you never know, do you?

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