Those That Failed to Make the First Team by Carl Halling (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

heard them for the first time,
Despite the colossal changes
Brought about not just in my own life,
But the lives of all those of my generation.

Hence, I was confronted at once
With the devastating transience
Of human life,
And the cataclysmic effect
The passage of time exerts on all human life,
And it was a profoundly unsettling experience.

Such a Short Space of Time

I love not just those
I knew back then
But those who were young
Back then,
But who’ve since
Come to grief, who,
Having soared so high,
Found the consequent descent
Too dreadful to bear.

With my past itself,
Which was only yesterday,
No, even less time,
A moment ago,
And when I play
Records from 1975, Soul records,
Glam records, Progressive records,
Twenty years melt away
Into nothingness.

What is a twenty-year period?
Little more than
A blink of an eye.
How could
Such a short space of time
Cause such devastation?
I love not just those
I knew back then
But those who were young back then.

An Autobiographical Narrative: 2000s

To be continued with further layers and additions.

Book Two – Those That Fell Far Short of the First Team

Chapter One - The Revenge of the Feral Dogs

Introduction

Another name for a feral dog is a pariah dog, although the term tends to be applied exclusively with respect to a handful of countries, notably India, when in fact feral dogs are to be found all throughout the world. They are widely believed to be the descendants of discarded domestic dogs, although unlike the latter, they are hostile to humans, which is understandable, given their history of abandonment. If one is to believe the news, attacks on humans by such animals are more common today than ever, although the truth is they have always existed, as the following tale attests.
It was based on actual incidents that took place, and I know this to be a fact because the character of Sean is based on myself, while all the other characters
also existed, although their names have been changed to protect their privacy. That said, what follows is a somewhat sanitised version of the events as I remember them, and I do so thanks largely to a short story I based on them in about 1977 and which forms the foundation of what follows.

The Revenge of the Feral Dogs

It was a city-port on the Atlantic Coast of France, in the summer of 1975, a time very similar to our own in a vast variety of ways, and yet a million galaxies away.
Then, as today, the youth of the West ran wild to an electronic Rock soundtrack…and even though the Rock and Roll era is now over half a century old where it was yet in its adolescence in ’75, the hedonistic lifestyle it fostered has differed little since then.
In other ways though, it was altogether a different age. There were no cell phones back then, nor personal computers, nor iPods, and if you wanted to hear the latest album by your favourite act or artist, you had to save up for it and march to your latest record store to procure it on vinyl or cassette.
Subsequently, most people only ever heard a fraction of the music that was available, unlike today, when you can hear any song, any album, ever recorded in whatever era you choose through the simple click of a mouse.
It was about 8.30pm, and a quartet of young British naval ratings, hailing from HMS Royal, a minesweeper attached to the shore-based London Division of the Royal Naval Reserve, were enjoying their “run” ashore, which is to say a short period of leave coming in the midst of an exercise at sea. At one point, they decided to split into a pair of duos with one of these returning to the Royal, and the other, setting out into the night in search of whatever delights their temporal city had to offer them.
They were an unlikely pair. 27 year old Kevin was a genial-looking salt of the earth Londoner, while Sean, was an angelically handsome youth of just 19 from a privileged upbringing in Surrey, although not from Surrey per se so much as a little blue collar village that had been swallowed up by London’s urban sprawl, and that was only nominally part of Britain’s wealthiest county.
Yet, they were also unusually akin by dint of their gentle easy-going ways, and all-round nice guy naivety. Things happened to them rather than the other way around…and that was especially true of Sean. With his blond hair and baby blue eyes, he was the antithesis of the domineering macho male, and yet a magnet for attention nonetheless…although not all of it positive.
“Oh, what a pretty sailor,” a flame-haired woman of a certain age proclaimed as she passed him by in the busy, bustling streets.
“And you, madame,” he replied, with typical obsequious gallantry.
“How comes you speak French so well, then Sean?”, said Kevin, “ain’t you German?”
But before Sean had a chance to properly answer his friend, three youths, dressed in battered blue jeans, and sporting long greasy hair, approached the two sailors. One was white, a second black, and a third North African. Their eyes were suspicious, but Sean’s potent pretty boy charm caused them to look kindly upon the sailors
“Hey there, sailor boys,” said the white youth, who was extraordinarily handsome, with long dark eyelashes, and a dazzling smile that revealed broken and discoloured teeth. The single gold earring he wore in his left ear lent him the air of a beautiful romany boy.
“All right?” Sean replied.
“Are you French?”
“No, I’m English,” said Sean.
"Hey, how’s it going with the girls, huh, is everything OK with the ladies?”
“Sure,” said Sean nonchalantly.
“They’re all insane, insane, insane”, said the angel-faced romany, dismissing the entire female race with a drunken wave of his hand, before being borne away by his cohorts, much to Kevin’s evident relief, as he’d already started to distance himself from the trio, despite their friendly intentions.
In time, the two sailors had attained the town’s central square, where a bedraggled sextet of Jazz musicians were blowing Dixie as if their lives depended on it for the benefit of tourists dining on sea food. Many of them looked up from their fishy repasts as Sean passed by. In time, they found themselves in a tavern which had been taken over by a large gang of rowdy revellers, presided over by a strolling guitar player, and a young expatriate Welshman with the burly body of a prop forward.
Needless to say, the sailors were singularly conspicuous by dint of their uniforms, and at one stage, Sean’s cap was removed from his head and passed around the tavern to be gawped at by the assembled clientele like some imperialist curio. It may have been this mortifying incident that provoked the minstrel’s sympathy for Sean, and his subsequent efforts at befriending him.
He was a strikingly handsome man, probably of Spanish extraction, as his name turned out to be Javier, of about 28 years old, at least in appearance. In fact he was 40.
“Give me your address,” he said to Sean, taking his hand in his, “I believe in true comradeship, real friendship…we will be friends.”
“OK,” Sean agreed, whereupon Javier disappeared.
Just then, Sean noticed that he was being intently observed by a beautiful girl of the gamine kind with short lemon yellow hair and distant, pale-blue eyes wearing a strange, melancholy smile, who presently seated herself behind him. She turned out to be Javier’s girl friend, Catherine.
“Bonjour,” she said, “I’m Catherine.”
“Hello, “ said Sean, in his usual shyly charming way, “isn’t Javier a great guy?”
“Oh yes,” Catherine replied, “I’ve been with many men, but this is the first time I’ve been with a real man.”
“Is he really forty?” Sean asked her.
“Yes, forty years old, but he’ll always be young, he’s not aged along with the rest of his generation. We travel together, we’re very much in love.”
Soon Javier returned to engage in further praise of his new found friend:
“Sean is our friend, “ he enthused, “he is our true friend.”
“Oh yes,” Catherine agreed, “he’s really sweet isn’t he, and cute, and nice, you’re our friend, Sean”.
“Thank you,” Sean replied, overwhelmed by their effusiveness.
“You’re going to give us your address before you go, OK?” said Javier.
“Sure,” Sean replied, before getting up to check on Kevin, who was engaged in an intense conversation with the Welshman, Gryff. Realising that interrupting them was not in his best interests, he sat back down and starting sipping from someone else’s wine glass.
Before long, the entire tavern had erupted, and people started dancing around the tables, with some electing to actually dance on the tables. Sean thought it best to leave at this point, and went to say his goodbyes to Catherine, who took hold of one of his hands, while smiling warmly and gazing directly into his eyes.
“Oh,” said Sean distractedly, “I must give my address to Javier.”
He walked over to Javier, but no sooner had he done so, than he was grabbed by the arm, and virtually thrown into the back of a rickety grey fiat being driven by Gryff, which then leaped and screeched through the city’s dingy back streets for a few brief terrifying moments before alighting within a short distance of a discotheque. As soon as Sean was out of the car, he noticed a bewildered looking Kevin among the disco party, of which Gryff had taken charge:
“How are we going to get the sailors in?” he asked out aloud, “they’re not allowed here.”
“Smuggle them in,” someone suggested, “take their hats and jackets off, and sneak them in.”
Gryff set about divesting the tars of much of their attire, with the result that they soon found themselves among the city’s beautiful people, including young heavily made up belles, several executing the most complex and obscure of dance manoeuvres in small groups, and tall, thin young men who punctuated their terpsichorean histrionics with high-pitched squeals.
After a time, it occurred to Sean that unless they set off soon, they’d never get back to their ship, and this time, Kevin was in accord, and so they set about retrieving their clothing. Then, Catherine walked over to them to see them off.
“You should take care,” she told Sean, “I mean…your uniforms, your hats, your symbols don’t mean a thing here. I mean none of it means anything here.”
Sean smiled weakly without answering, and she went on.
“But you’re so cute, you know”, she said, stroking Sean’s cheek.
“Good bye”, said Sean.
“Good bye”, Catherine replied, visibly upset.
Soon, the young sailors were groping their way in the dark towards the city’s main port, with only the crunching of their navy issue boots to break the menacing silence.
“It’s late isn’t it, Kev,” said Sean, as the lights of the disco faded into the distance.
“I don’t care,” Kevin replied, “I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”
“What if we can’t find the ship?”
Within an hour, they reached their destination, although neither knew exactly where their ship was located, and each thin strip of dusty road resembled the last.
Just when they’d turned down yet another one, a feral dog emerged from out of a