Smart
By Matthew Green
Shifty G stood on the street corner, shifting uneasily, when Harold approached him from out of the shadows.
"Hey, what’s with the late, man? I waitin’ foe mi cheese," complained Shifty.
"What?"
"Money, jack, a want ma money."
"Hey, first things first," said Harold, raising his hand, "show me the stuff."
"Hey, no need for scouts onna wi’ me, man, a got ya stuff."
Shifty G reached into his pocket and produced a small vial of sickly looking yellow liquid.
Harold reached out for it, but shifty jerked it away.
"Not so fast, ma man, first you show me the green."
"You want vegetables now? That wasn’t part of the deal."
"A talkin’ about cheese," said Shifty, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together in front of Harold’s face.
"Oh right," said Harold, "wenslydale or red leicester?"
"Just gimme the money, alrigh’," G demanded, testily.
"Okay, okay," said Harold, handing the money over and receiving the vial of liquid.
"So this is pure, is it? Actual smart?"
"One hund’ed per’ent pure, man."
"So, it’s definitely not lemon juice, then?"
"No way hosay, I aks ma boy before he give it to me, it the real thing, king," assured Shifty.
"Your boy?"
"Yeah, me home boy."
Harold considered this for a second.
"What you get up to in the privacy of the bedroom is your own business, I suppose. So this will actually make me smart enough to beat all those other jokers out of the job?"
"Gua’anteed make ya genious wi’ th’ sums, daddyo."
And at this note, both men grew tired of the dead end routine and went their separate ways.
It took Harold hours to pluck up the courage to inject himself in the arm. It was such a disgusting concept, actually sticking a needle in your own arm! Eventually, of course, he did do it. And now it was time for his interview.
The manager peered menacingly over his half moon glasses at the pathetic excuse for an applicant who was sat opposite him.
"So, young man, what makes you think you are worthy of a position with B&B Breakfast and Bed products?" he sneered.
The youth opposite him squirmed uneasily.
"Y’ know, like, I left school and me mam said, Steven, she said, Steven, get yerself a job, so I just went for the highest payin’ one goin’, y’ know.."
The manager nodded.
"Go on," he prompted.
"Well, y’ know, accountin’ seemed like a good skive, y’ know, all it is is addin’ up numbers ‘n’ stuff, y’ know, any Tom can do it, y’ know."
Harold didn’t like the sounds emanating from the interview room, they made him most uneasy. It sounded like somebody was being bawled at, akin to when the headmaster took you into his office for ‘ten of the best’. They weren’t allowed to do this anymore, but at Harold’s school they’d done it anyway, he’d been beaten many a time for forgetting the one times table. He’d chosen to take a job in accounting because it seemed like a good skive, all he needed was some smart to get past the interview, and then the job was nothing more then using a calculator. Anybody could do that.
Steven exploded from the office, the manager waving a cane in hot pursuit.
Harold recognised Steven as an old school chum.
"Oh, hi Steven," he said.
"Hey," said Steven, huffing and puffing onto the street.
The manager gave up his chase on account of his heart condition. He turned to Harold.
"Next," said the manager.
Harold wowed the manager with his flair and intelligence, but the thing which really tipped the balance was his coherent grasp of the English language.
Harold arrived at work the next day (having got the job and all) and was told by the manager to ‘get started right away’.
Harold asked what exactly his job was, but his only reply was a merry chuckle.
"Oh Harold," said the manager, "the way you performed at the interview, you practically invented accounting! In fact, you could create a revolutionary new system, why, you’d be able to cut your work in half, you’d be doing practically no work at all!"
And that’s precisely what Harold did for the whole of the first week on his new job.
After two weeks of not knowing what he was doing, Harold decided it was time to get another fix of Smart, even start up a regular trade, Smart generally wore off after only a few hours, and he’d need enough to get him through every single working day.
Harold met up with Shifty G again, where they exchanged the usual a’rights and mans and aks and cheese.
Just as the transaction was about to be completed, the police showed up and handcuffed both Shifty and Harold.
"Hey, what the beef, man? It nothing but lemon juice!" insisted Shifty.
The constable opened one of the vials and tasted the liquid inside.
"He’s telling the truth, sarge," he said.
The sarge was a bit downhearted by this.
"Lets take them any way," he suggested.
"Sarge, we can’t arrest them, they haven’t broken the law."
The sarge considered this a moment.
"Shifty G, I arrest you on charges of loitering on a street corner," he said, as he carted him away to the nick.
Harold was left standing alone in the street.
"Hello?" he said, "You just going to leave me here?" he continued.
He started to walk away, then added as an afterthought: "At least take these handcuffs off me!"
As Harold walked home he reflected on the reality that he hadn’t been taking real Smart. He’d passed the interview on his own merits, he could do the job.
And tomorrow he was going to become the best accountant B&B Breakfast and Bed products had ever seen!.
The next day, B&B Breakfast and Bed products went bankrupt, because for the past week, no customers had been charged for anything they had bought. This was put down to computer error, and Harold received a huge redundancy cheque, which saw him through to retirement (fifty years later).
THE END