Tattie Masher
by Brian Morrison
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: One strong one only.
Description: He was a tramp, but that's not to say he didn't know a thing or two about certain kitchen utensils.
_____________________________________________________________________
John Lawless had Teflon shoulders. Nothing and nobody fazed him. Verbal abuse being hurled in his direction was the usual order of the day. He could also dish the abuse out in large quantities. There were very few locals who relished the opportunity to take him on in a verbal slanging match. The ones who did try often came off worse, for the simple reason that Lawless knew more expletives, knew more insults, knew more than anyone in the town how to belittle a person’s character. He was an expert in the field and more than willing to take on all comers. At other times he could be surprisingly polite and even sociable, although never to such an extent that he would be seen sharing a drink with some regulars in the town centre bars. He was banned from entering any of those anyway. Not just because of his unruly behaviour and his rough appearance, but mainly because of who he was. Everyone knew of John Lawless; the shop owners, the kids, the pensioners who sat on the benches outside the post office, and most of all – the local cops.
Lawless lived in an attic flat. A vagrant having a home was a little bit of a contradiction, but it was true in his case. It was perched high above a bookmaker’s shop in the town centre. It was a squat, of course. Not fit for habitation. No electric power. No gas supply to speak of. He shared the flat with around a dozen or so other inhabitants. His flat mates tended to be noisy though. Cooing in the early hours of the morning and the sound of them flapping their wings in unison as they took off from the open window was like a thunderous round of applause. Pigeons have no toilet skills either, so the smell was rather rich and almost crusty. At some point in time many years ago the flat would have been labelled ‘well appointed’. Indeed, there were fantastic views to savour, if the glass in the windows weren’t so thick with years of grime and dust. From the single bay window Lawless had three bird’s eye, or in his case, ‘pigeon’s’ eye views of his home town. The main window looked down on the pedestrian precinct. It was a superb vantage point for Lawless. He had unrestricted views of the precinct’s waste bins. He could visit any one of them in under two minutes from this position, should he see something tasty being disposed of. The right hand widow looked directly towards, and was level with, the town hall’s Big Ben lookalike clock face. Many of his feathered flatmates had twin residencies. One home in the clock tower and a second home shared with Lawless. The left hand side of the bay window had views down towards the Saltcoats harbour. In the summertime from this window he had excellent views of the fairground rides that took ownership of the Braes car park for six weeks. The fairground area at that time was yet another provider of sustenance.
A bare mattress on the floor provided him with a place to lay his head. No sofa, no chair and only a camp stove for cooking on. There was a damp cardboard box in the corner which held a couple of saucepans, a solitary dinner plate and a few utensils. The ceiling was broken in many places, showing the old fashioned timber strapping from a bygone age. Mushrooms clung to the whitewashed plaster. Lawless had half a mind to taste one of these, but the pickings from discarded food containers in the precinct’s waste bins was always his preferred option. The only other item in the single room flat was a large decorator’s trestle. It sat in the middle of the room like a giant capital ‘A’.
His pram was parked just behind the door. It was full of scrap metal, destined to be stored with the rest of his stash in a secret compartment under the floorboards. This of course was only a buffer store. He would make a fortnightly trip to the scrap merchants in Stevenston and haggle with the proprietor for the best price. He checked his pocket for spare change, decided he had enough for his needs, then steered the empty pram back out the door and down towards the street.
Usually, the sight of Lawless appearing at the top of the pedestrian precinct was like what one would term ‘The Moses moment’. Sure enough the pedestrians parted like the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the tramp ample space to wander through the town. He stopped outside the butcher’s shop and nodded to the young female assistant inside who was pushing a joint of cold ham through the slicer.
‘Awrite, big yin,’ he said to her through the window. ‘Fancy a date?’
He got zero response from the girl. She was used to the proposition from Lawless. He had been repeating the same line to her every day for weeks. He popped his head in through the door entrance. ‘Hello, dear,’ he said. It was directed to the same girl. ‘Can I have two wasps and a bumble bee, please?’ He thought for a second and then added, ‘To go.’
‘Beat it, Lawless.’ she said.
‘And don’t tell me you don’t have any,’ he continued, ‘because I can see them in your shop window.’
It was an old gag, but Lawless enjoyed it all the same. His laugh was filled with phlegm, which he quickly coughed up into his mouth and deposited into the sawdust that powdered the shop floor. No one dared to challenge this act. It appeared that on this particular day, Lawless was in one of his more sociable moods. He moved on a few yards and parked his pram at the Ironmongers shop. This time, however, he applied the pram’s brakes and made his way inside. Immediately, everyone in the shop was on high alert, but Lawless just stood quietly whilst waiting to be served. The store manager was summoned. He dropped what he was doing and made his way to the counter.
‘Can I help you?’ he said to Lawless after the old lady who was being served shuffled out the door with her bag in hand.
‘Yes, you can. I would like to purchase one of your tattie mashers.’
The manager was stunned slightly. Lawless had never been inside his shop for years. ‘Um - a potato masher? Yes, I think we have some somewhere.’
‘Good, well let me see them, please. I want to see them all.’
‘All?’
‘Every wan.’
‘Er – Okay.’ He turned to the assistant. ‘Effie, could you bring a sample of all the potato mashers that we have over to the counter, please?’ There was no way that he intended to leave Lawless on his own near the cash register.
When the assistant came back a few moments later, she had in her hands four different types of potato mashers. She laid them out on the counter in a neat line.
‘Thanks, lass,’ said Lawless. He called her “Lass” even though she was a few years older than he was. ‘Did you know that I was a bit of an expert on tattie mashers, lass?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered, nervously
‘Well I am and that’s a fact. My old granny handed me down an antique tattie masher. Solid beech wood it was. It was shaped like a big dick.’
‘Excuse me, John. Mind your language,’ said the manager.
‘Oh, oops,’ said Lawless. ‘Sorry, pal. That just slipped out. Maybe I should have said that it looked like a polisman’s truncheon. But I was telling the lass here about this tattie masher. You see, lass, you don’t get the wooden ones nowadays. More’s the pity, I say, because it was a belter!’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Effie.
‘You see the thing is,’ said Lawless, ‘they don’t sell wooden ones anymore, lass. Wooden tattie mashers were called “Chompers”. I remember my granny chomping her tatties. She would pummel them.’ Lawless slammed his mitten-covered fist hard down on the counter to reinforce the fact. ‘Pummel the tatties into submission!’
His fist went down hard again, making the four potato mashers that were on the counter dance like puppets on a string.
‘Steady,’ warned the manager, who was losing his patience. ‘Would you please just pick one of these mashers if that is what you are in for?’
‘Aye, okay, pal - calm yer ham,’ said Lawless, ‘I was just making a point.’ He looked at the mashers on display for the first time. ‘Well there you can see my point. Look at this one for example.’ He selected a chrome-plated masher. ‘This is all for show. This isn’t a workman’s tool at all. My granny would turn in her grave if she saw this. I definitely wouldn’t want this one.’
‘Okay then,’ said Effie. ‘I will put that one below the counter. Anything else?’
Lawless lifted another masher. ‘And here is another one, lass. Look at the holes in the masher head.’
She looked.
‘Each row of holes is a different shape. What is all that about? Again, it is all for show. And this one here is just a joke.’ He picked up a brown coloured plastic masher. ‘Can you imagine mashing tatties with this, lass? A pot of steaming hot tatties carries a lot of heat. This thing would just go all soft. There is no way that I would buy that rubbish.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Effie, “I actually agree with you on that one. So that is another two under the counter, which leaves just one.’
‘Aye, so it does.’ Lawless examined the final masher closely. The masher head was made up of one piece of metal rod which had been turned back and forward to create a concertina type shape. Lawless studied it for a long moment. ‘Mmm, I don’t know. This might do the job . . . Then again - I am not sure.’
‘Could you make your mind up, John? We have other customers waiting,’ said the manager.
Lawless ignored his comment and continued to study the masher whilst rubbing his grubby chin. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I will take this one, lass.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘that will be two pounds fifty.’
Lawless counted out the money on to the counter. It was all in very small change.
‘Thank you, lass,’ he said as he took the paper bag from her.
Everyone in the shop breathed a sigh of relief. The store manager thanked Effie for her patience and returned to the back shop to continue with what he was doing. It was just then that the door flew open again. In strode Lawless purposely. He slammed the paper bag with the masher down on the counter.
‘Fuck it,’ he said, ‘Give me my money back. I’m just goin’ to buy a packet of Smash.’
Swearwords: One strong one only.
Description: He was a tramp, but that's not to say he didn't know a thing or two about certain kitchen utensils.
_____________________________________________________________________
John Lawless had Teflon shoulders. Nothing and nobody fazed him. Verbal abuse being hurled in his direction was the usual order of the day. He could also dish the abuse out in large quantities. There were very few locals who relished the opportunity to take him on in a verbal slanging match. The ones who did try often came off worse, for the simple reason that Lawless knew more expletives, knew more insults, knew more than anyone in the town how to belittle a person’s character. He was an expert in the field and more than willing to take on all comers. At other times he could be surprisingly polite and even sociable, although never to such an extent that he would be seen sharing a drink with some regulars in the town centre bars. He was banned from entering any of those anyway. Not just because of his unruly behaviour and his rough appearance, but mainly because of who he was. Everyone knew of John Lawless; the shop owners, the kids, the pensioners who sat on the benches outside the post office, and most of all – the local cops.
Lawless lived in an attic flat. A vagrant having a home was a little bit of a contradiction, but it was true in his case. It was perched high above a bookmaker’s shop in the town centre. It was a squat, of course. Not fit for habitation. No electric power. No gas supply to speak of. He shared the flat with around a dozen or so other inhabitants. His flat mates tended to be noisy though. Cooing in the early hours of the morning and the sound of them flapping their wings in unison as they took off from the open window was like a thunderous round of applause. Pigeons have no toilet skills either, so the smell was rather rich and almost crusty. At some point in time many years ago the flat would have been labelled ‘well appointed’. Indeed, there were fantastic views to savour, if the glass in the windows weren’t so thick with years of grime and dust. From the single bay window Lawless had three bird’s eye, or in his case, ‘pigeon’s’ eye views of his home town. The main window looked down on the pedestrian precinct. It was a superb vantage point for Lawless. He had unrestricted views of the precinct’s waste bins. He could visit any one of them in under two minutes from this position, should he see something tasty being disposed of. The right hand widow looked directly towards, and was level with, the town hall’s Big Ben lookalike clock face. Many of his feathered flatmates had twin residencies. One home in the clock tower and a second home shared with Lawless. The left hand side of the bay window had views down towards the Saltcoats harbour. In the summertime from this window he had excellent views of the fairground rides that took ownership of the Braes car park for six weeks. The fairground area at that time was yet another provider of sustenance.
A bare mattress on the floor provided him with a place to lay his head. No sofa, no chair and only a camp stove for cooking on. There was a damp cardboard box in the corner which held a couple of saucepans, a solitary dinner plate and a few utensils. The ceiling was broken in many places, showing the old fashioned timber strapping from a bygone age. Mushrooms clung to the whitewashed plaster. Lawless had half a mind to taste one of these, but the pickings from discarded food containers in the precinct’s waste bins was always his preferred option. The only other item in the single room flat was a large decorator’s trestle. It sat in the middle of the room like a giant capital ‘A’.
His pram was parked just behind the door. It was full of scrap metal, destined to be stored with the rest of his stash in a secret compartment under the floorboards. This of course was only a buffer store. He would make a fortnightly trip to the scrap merchants in Stevenston and haggle with the proprietor for the best price. He checked his pocket for spare change, decided he had enough for his needs, then steered the empty pram back out the door and down towards the street.
Usually, the sight of Lawless appearing at the top of the pedestrian precinct was like what one would term ‘The Moses moment’. Sure enough the pedestrians parted like the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the tramp ample space to wander through the town. He stopped outside the butcher’s shop and nodded to the young female assistant inside who was pushing a joint of cold ham through the slicer.
‘Awrite, big yin,’ he said to her through the window. ‘Fancy a date?’
He got zero response from the girl. She was used to the proposition from Lawless. He had been repeating the same line to her every day for weeks. He popped his head in through the door entrance. ‘Hello, dear,’ he said. It was directed to the same girl. ‘Can I have two wasps and a bumble bee, please?’ He thought for a second and then added, ‘To go.’
‘Beat it, Lawless.’ she said.
‘And don’t tell me you don’t have any,’ he continued, ‘because I can see them in your shop window.’
It was an old gag, but Lawless enjoyed it all the same. His laugh was filled with phlegm, which he quickly coughed up into his mouth and deposited into the sawdust that powdered the shop floor. No one dared to challenge this act. It appeared that on this particular day, Lawless was in one of his more sociable moods. He moved on a few yards and parked his pram at the Ironmongers shop. This time, however, he applied the pram’s brakes and made his way inside. Immediately, everyone in the shop was on high alert, but Lawless just stood quietly whilst waiting to be served. The store manager was summoned. He dropped what he was doing and made his way to the counter.
‘Can I help you?’ he said to Lawless after the old lady who was being served shuffled out the door with her bag in hand.
‘Yes, you can. I would like to purchase one of your tattie mashers.’
The manager was stunned slightly. Lawless had never been inside his shop for years. ‘Um - a potato masher? Yes, I think we have some somewhere.’
‘Good, well let me see them, please. I want to see them all.’
‘All?’
‘Every wan.’
‘Er – Okay.’ He turned to the assistant. ‘Effie, could you bring a sample of all the potato mashers that we have over to the counter, please?’ There was no way that he intended to leave Lawless on his own near the cash register.
When the assistant came back a few moments later, she had in her hands four different types of potato mashers. She laid them out on the counter in a neat line.
‘Thanks, lass,’ said Lawless. He called her “Lass” even though she was a few years older than he was. ‘Did you know that I was a bit of an expert on tattie mashers, lass?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered, nervously
‘Well I am and that’s a fact. My old granny handed me down an antique tattie masher. Solid beech wood it was. It was shaped like a big dick.’
‘Excuse me, John. Mind your language,’ said the manager.
‘Oh, oops,’ said Lawless. ‘Sorry, pal. That just slipped out. Maybe I should have said that it looked like a polisman’s truncheon. But I was telling the lass here about this tattie masher. You see, lass, you don’t get the wooden ones nowadays. More’s the pity, I say, because it was a belter!’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Effie.
‘You see the thing is,’ said Lawless, ‘they don’t sell wooden ones anymore, lass. Wooden tattie mashers were called “Chompers”. I remember my granny chomping her tatties. She would pummel them.’ Lawless slammed his mitten-covered fist hard down on the counter to reinforce the fact. ‘Pummel the tatties into submission!’
His fist went down hard again, making the four potato mashers that were on the counter dance like puppets on a string.
‘Steady,’ warned the manager, who was losing his patience. ‘Would you please just pick one of these mashers if that is what you are in for?’
‘Aye, okay, pal - calm yer ham,’ said Lawless, ‘I was just making a point.’ He looked at the mashers on display for the first time. ‘Well there you can see my point. Look at this one for example.’ He selected a chrome-plated masher. ‘This is all for show. This isn’t a workman’s tool at all. My granny would turn in her grave if she saw this. I definitely wouldn’t want this one.’
‘Okay then,’ said Effie. ‘I will put that one below the counter. Anything else?’
Lawless lifted another masher. ‘And here is another one, lass. Look at the holes in the masher head.’
She looked.
‘Each row of holes is a different shape. What is all that about? Again, it is all for show. And this one here is just a joke.’ He picked up a brown coloured plastic masher. ‘Can you imagine mashing tatties with this, lass? A pot of steaming hot tatties carries a lot of heat. This thing would just go all soft. There is no way that I would buy that rubbish.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Effie, “I actually agree with you on that one. So that is another two under the counter, which leaves just one.’
‘Aye, so it does.’ Lawless examined the final masher closely. The masher head was made up of one piece of metal rod which had been turned back and forward to create a concertina type shape. Lawless studied it for a long moment. ‘Mmm, I don’t know. This might do the job . . . Then again - I am not sure.’
‘Could you make your mind up, John? We have other customers waiting,’ said the manager.
Lawless ignored his comment and continued to study the masher whilst rubbing his grubby chin. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I will take this one, lass.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘that will be two pounds fifty.’
Lawless counted out the money on to the counter. It was all in very small change.
‘Thank you, lass,’ he said as he took the paper bag from her.
Everyone in the shop breathed a sigh of relief. The store manager thanked Effie for her patience and returned to the back shop to continue with what he was doing. It was just then that the door flew open again. In strode Lawless purposely. He slammed the paper bag with the masher down on the counter.
‘Fuck it,’ he said, ‘Give me my money back. I’m just goin’ to buy a packet of Smash.’
About the Author
Born in Saltcoats, Brian Morrison has a day job at the Hunterston Power Station. But in his other life he is well known as a caricaturist and comedy sketch writer. More recently, he has become a novelist and a writer of children's stories. His dark comedy, Blister, is available on Amazon.