SLASHER RYAN AND THE GLASS COFFIN

Opening shots are of a long terraced row of two up-two downers at night. A squally rain blows across the side alleys. Figures emerge from the lit end of the row, dodging puddles. They move like abandoned chip papers in the wind. Their feet all converge on the Regal Cinema building. Behind its neon lit fascia you can just read the older Edwardian lettering of 'Electric Theatre at People Popular Prices'. Money is tossed with a brief but friendly aside to the hunched figure of the timeless doorman, known to friends as St Peter. Inside the veil of smoke parts to show the warm up act rounding off his stint with a patter of one-liner jokes. "The tearful Irish Kathleen has just blurted out the news that she is pregnant, and her mother's first question, grasping at straws of hope, was 'are you sure it's yours?'". Some laughed, but most waited to see what they had come to see several times that week. Many had traveled a long way by bus or car. For once the phrase Talk of the Town was the absolute truth.

A certain mystery and magic had invaded the former pit town. And the talk or Craic, as they termed it had spread to adjoining villages." It is so sad, such a fine strapping figure of a man. And they say he will never awake again, ever". The craic was spreading even now. The national press had been quick to spot a good yarn and the News of the World had run the story. "Boxer to stay in Glass Coffin Forever" backed by the newspaper's own tame medical professor pontificating on how the human mind can stay in a coma either dreaming or actually hearing events as an unplugged voyeur.

Among those who had suffered the diesel grinding ten mile bus ride over the switchback road to tonights show was Sally. A Sally who joked and pretended to enter into the spirit of the trip. She was with her fellow nurses from the new hospital. On the bus Sally found it easy to continue with her usual brash, three pints of lager style approach to life. But she actually had her own secret reason for joining the high spirited group. This she quietly hugged to herself. For she and Peter Ryan, who even now lay in the glass coffin, were blood brothers, or so they had declared to each other in a traumatic pin pricking ceremony all those years ago. They must have been about 12 at the time in the 1960s when cowboys and indians were just blossoming in British childhood culture thanks to US TV imports. The fact that she came from a large family with several brothers and no sisters meant Sal was always "One of the Lads". She scorned pretty dresses and much preferred to range over the fields than stay around the kitchen helping her mum cope with the daily battle to keep the brood fed and clothed. Her mother was to later watch non-plused as Sals brusque physical approach led her through a quick succession of easy, bed-hopping, flings as a teenager.

Peter had not been one of these almost casual physical fumblings. They rarely crossed paths, but whenever they did they seemed to treat each other with a relaxed familiarity that outsiders may have detected almost a reverence. Yet the usual sexual imperatives of wandering hands and restless hormones never seemed to touch either of them at this time. Even Peter's occasional flings were taken from him when he bowed to the iron will of his trainer, Joe Tunstall. Joe had kept him back at the gym one evening "for a word"he had meekly obeyed. At the time he was seeing the raven haired Louse Brown. He had to cope with her tears as he clumsily tried to justify himself."He says I can become the middleweight champion of the North if I want to. But we will have to stop seeing each other, he says you are stopping my training."

And as if to confirm his trainer's predictions, within two months he had punched his way through to the regional finals. Sally had been strangely shocked when she read of the fight in which he had been poll-axed into a twitching figure on the canvas of the boxing rink. Her mother had watched spellbound as Sally stared long and hard at the television shots of the doctors frantically gesticulating about his body. Sally herself was unaware of the tear that quietly ran and then dried on her cheek. But her mother suddenly had one of those rare moments when something she hadn't noticed became as brazen as a billboard screaming out its message..."This is What Love Looks Like."
That was two long and numb years ago. And now she was awakening some of those recesses of her mind that had been quietly hidden. Sally had known that body and its very scent. And she could not explain it to her own public self but her sub-conscious self knew she had to see him. She felt almost a lightness of pleasure as the bus wound its way over the moors. None of this she mentioned to her cheery group as they shuffled forwards through heavy drapes to pass the man in the glass coffin. The lighting was theatrically dimmed. And there was a heavy closeness in the room. There had been a short outburst seconds earlier as a boy had slipped under the rope around the coffin and stuck a pin in the boxer's thigh. The only response this had caused was a fierce slap from his mother."I think it stinks, showing him in this way. Making a spectacle out of such a tragedy." Her fellow nurses were shedding their sparky mirth as the enormity of the exploitation sunk in. "Let's get out of here, we should never have come...It's just that I couldn't believe they would do such a thing."

Sally wanted to linger, to be there alone, but the press of people behind and her friends sudden squeamishness meant she had the briefest look in the glass coffin. They fled outside and she followed in their wake to the lounge bar across the street. They quickly forgot the supposed reason for their visit to the grim town. But Sally could not settle and pretending to need the toilet she smuggled her way out.
She knew it was Him. It was as if there were untied shoelaces in her mind, nagging and trying to trip her up. It was later than she had thought and the neon lights were out at the cinema building. Activity briefly illuminated along the side of the cinema drew her through the gentle drizzle. She came up behind a wheezing and stooped man hauling a chest through the fire doors."Joe, Joe Tunstall. If only he had't listened to you." "What, who are you? Oh, It's you, I didn't.."
" Can I see Peter please."
" Of course, we have to get the Dormobile set up before we can settle him for the journey."Inside the lights were full on, showing the sad scene of the dusty theatre seats and the strange tableau. She walked over to the glass coffin not knowing what exactly she had in mind. His slender hips were dwarfed by a broad leather prize belt, a sort of sick joke of a reward. His eyelids were closed and the only sound was the faint rise and fall of his chest, She recognised the scent of his body, his body overlaid with an almost unpleasant stale echo of the training gym. It was only now that she realised what she had come for.

She leaned deeper into the coffin and grabbing his hair, she fiercely pulled him to her and kissed him. It bruised her lips, so fierce had been the realisation of what he meant to her. His lips were warm, yet impassive. She was about to let his head fall back when she felt his lips respond faintly and then more deeply. She drew a shocked breath and took his head in both hands as if to cradle the flickering flame of life and love.
"Oh Sally, it's you, sorry I must have dropped off.."

David J.Siddall