The Saga of Ernie Plugg's Bust

Sunday morning, the story so far:

Ma was feeling a bit below par.

Pa was feeling a bit below Ma as well.

Suddenly mother said,

"Father dear, get out of that bed.

I thought I heard somebody knocking at the bell."

Standing in the hall among the potted plants

Saw a big detective constable advance.

"Mr. and Mrs. Aloysius Plugg?

We got your son down in the jug.

Arrested him on a narcotics charge."

Well this story's tragic and it's sad

There was a barmaid and her name was Glad.

Let me tell you about the bloke she dug.

She worked down at the Brace 'N Bit.

Although she was a brazen bit,

She had a man. His name was Ernie Plugg.

With his great big boots and his tartan braces

He liked to beat up freaks and other races.

But this night he'd given Gladys thrills.

Brought her plastic daffodils

Stolen from the Brompton cemetery.

Now Shooter lived up in 'The Gate.'

Man I don't exaggerate.

He overdid all you could overdo.

He popped pills. He sniffed glue.

Tried inhaling Harpic too.

It nearly sent him round the bend that's true.

That night he'd been out to score some shit.

He was far far gone when he reached the Brace 'N Bit.

He wandered in. He stood quite still

'Cos he saw the plastic daffodils.

And he said, "Oh man them blossoms turn me on."

Well they looked him up. They looked him down.

Gladys said, "Oh I like his gown."

And Ernie said, "Well you can have it Glad. Gladly."

Picked up Shooter by the hair

And stripped him 'till he hung there bare

And Shooter said, "Oh man this strip is bad."

He turned quite green and shuddering with fright

He went and ran out naked in the night.

Then Ernie said, "Let's try it first."

He put it on then in there burst

MacLagan and the drugs squad through the door.

MacLagan said, "Don't be afraid.

It's just another routine raid.

If no-one breathes no-one will get hurt.

We'll start with Joseph and his coat."

And seizing Ernie by the throat

He ripped his pockets out and tore his shirt.

Then he smiled and said, "'ello, 'ello, 'ello.

What's all this then aspirins I suppose?"

Then he tripped him up and kicked his face saying,

"Sorry to disturb your inner space.

What you need my lad is a rest. You're under arrest."

Sunday evening at the Pluggs.

Father blames the curse of drugs.

Pa is drunk, Ma is tranquilized.

Ernie's got six months in jail.

Glad is left to tell the tale.

By the plastic daffodils she cries.

Father blames the younger generation.

"Ain't got no bloody respect or veneration."

Sunday evening at the bar.

Ma is feeling a bit below par.

Pa is feeling Gladys all over now.

He's feeling Glad it's all over now.

(c) Mike Absalom 1971

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The Saga of Suzie Grapevine and Pusher Joe

Outside a rich apartment in a luxury hotel

Suzie Grapevine hesitated reaching for the bell,

"Before this night is over there's a thing I must complete

I know it's going to hurt me but you know it hurts so sweet."

Chorus: Benzedrine, you'll never win. You'll do me in, Benzedrine.

In his fifteenth story penthouse Joe Bananas turned to see

Who was ringing on his bell at thirteen minutes past three.

"Is that Suzie Grapevine? Tell me what you mean.

Have you come to beg or come to buy my Benzedrine?"

"Well I need some Joe," said Suzie, "But I haven't any bread."

Joe said, "Then you need some like a hole right through your head.

You've used up all your chances Suzie, all that you will get."

Why Suzie Grape' is so burned out they call her Crêpe Suzette!

"In that case Joe..." said Suzie her handbag opened wide.

She pulled out a fat revolver and shot him in the side.

She shot him in the stomach. She shot him in the head.

And she pushed him out the window to make sure that he was dead.

Constable MacLagan, renowned for taking bribes,

Was beating up a student as the police code prescribes.

Down behind the apartment he heard an awful crash.

He didn't wait to finish he was off there like a flash.

"Well I smell fuzz," said Suzie. "That's just what I need.

But I shall make my getaway 'cos all I need is speed."

She jumped out of the window. Escape was in her head.

But as she passed the thirteenth floor this is what she said:

"Benzedrine, you'll never win. You'll do me in, Benzedrine."

Well down she went bouncing off the window ledges and the little concrete

gargoyles put there by the Notting Hill Housing Trust. Down, down, down,

Suzie Grapevine was going down for the first time in her life.

Splat!

Listen to me people. You've all got time to spend.

This story has no moral. It just has an end.

Kill yourself with Benzedrine with bullets or with scotch.

But tell me when you do it so that I can come and watch.

(c) Mike Absalom 1971

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The Saga of Peaches Melba and the Hash Officer

Outside a rundown building not far from Notting Hill

A passer-by kicked a passing cat more from habit than from skill.

It was a summer's evening with music in the park

But in her thirteen bob hotel, Peaches' room was dark.

She ain't gonna let them send her down.

Then detective constable, without his friends in blue,

Was standing on the landing thinking what to do.

"It is the law," MacLagan said, "You gotta knock. Well that's the worst.

Well that's too bad 'cos I'll be glad to bust the door down first."

I'm gonna get this gal and send her down.

Constable MacLagan cast his eyes around the room.

Says, "I can smell marijuana. You know that that spells doom.

We're gonna get you this time. You know you've gone too far,

And if there's no marijuana here I've plenty in my car."

I'm gonna get you gal and send you down.

Peaches got up from the bed, tying back her hair.

Quite a lot of her was hid, quite a lot was bare.

She looked him in the face and said, "Search me if you must."

And she flapped her bra straps at him saying, "This must be a bust."

She ain't gonna let him send her down.

"Well is this just a shakedown or a stickup?" she remarked.

And then she stripped quite naked like a statue in the park.

MacLagan coughed and spluttered and tried to interrupt

But he was so very, very, very, very, verily corrupt.

And he ain't ever gonna get to send her down.

"Come on, come on constable. Please make up your mind.

What I can't give you in cash I can rectify in kind.

Now firemen like fires, frontiersmen the front,

But as you are a cunstable...

I guess you want some down payment don't you MacLagan!"

'Cos I ain't ever gonna let you send me down.

MacLagan undid his truncheon and flexed his hairy knees.

He went through the Karma Sutra like a butter knife through cheese.

He was doing up his trousers when he heard a camera click

And realised with horror that they'd photographed his corruption.

He ain't ever gonna get to send her down.

It was Wheeler, used-car dealer, and little Willie Brown.

They sell rude pictures down in Kent and run a garage up in town.

Oh they'd been waiting for MacLagan for days and days and days.

Now he's sinned in cinerama -- 57 ways.

He ain't ever gonna get to send her down.

Well now all you story tellers no matter what you say

About Abdul the poor fakir or the burghers of Calais

Well you'll never beat the pure suspense of the crime detection book

And if you ever find MacLagan's prints, let me have a look.

'Cos I ain't ever seen him take them down...

(c) Mike Absalom 1971

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Ecclesiastical Cheesecake Walk

When Mrs. Fanshaw fantasized things often got romanticized.

There was, for those who liked the rock cake, no bolder cook.

By grave mistake she put cement dust in the spice 

and Fanshaw said, "It's very nice."

And ground his teeth and coughed and sighed and very soon thereafter died.

Now though England's a pagan land some citizens still make a stand.

While Fanshaw's faith was lapsed R.C. his wife was Christmas C. of E.

Yet down the years she had forgot what an arse he was

And what funerary pomps were meet and which were poison for her sleep.

A representative of Rome was summoned quickly to the home

To explain the Catholic rights and wrongs and ways and mays and mights.

Father Ignatious twenty-nine not only godly but divine.

Within minutes of the time he met her she found love at first sight in a

biretta.

Unchecked by ultramontane guilt her love ran wild and at full tilt.

From that day forth she planned full spate to swallow up this celibate.

The very night her spouse chose to knock off in, she danced with glee upon

his coffin

And by his box was not a dirge she sang but praises for the clergy.

With an ardour mostly found in latins Mrs. F. turned up at mass and matins

And from the second row of pews tried to communicate her views.

Rattling her rosary in her best clothes and hosiery,

With sad unconsummated sighs Mrs. F. unfrocked him with her eyes.

Her fantasies began to grow. She thought she'd die she loved him so.

What a man so strong and chaste. What a chest, oh what a waste.

If he could only leave his pedestal and clasp her close or even better still

Inflamed with lust and satyriasis, chase her naked 'round the diocese.

But Mrs. Fanshaw's guile and gaiety, though it might have laid the laity,

Sometimes coy, sometimes salacious, never did ignite Ignatious.

Her passion always animated blew up one Sunday when he stated,

"Today I have this news to dish up. I'm leaving to become a bishop."

Mrs. Fanshaw blanched. Mrs. Fanshaw paled. 

Mrs. Fanshaw cried. Mrs. Fanshaw wailed:

"My love won't die. My love won't cease. How can he leave the diocese?"

She didn't even get a kick from thinking of his bisho-p-rick.

"A fallacy," she said "That's it," and threw a most unpleasant fit.

They saw her raise her head and shake it. No truth had ever seemed so naked.

Since Adam's first defoliation, no Buddha nor other holiation

Could have harmed the rage that boiled up in her breast now she was foiled.

Voicing vulgar unromanticals she kicked him soundly in the canticles.

The congregation rose in wrath to avenge this insult to the cloth.

Not lacking for a precedent, to burn her at the stake they went.

Hymn books and psalters soon caught fire. 

They threw her screaming on the pyre.

And she remained, though quickly slaked, ever afterwards half-baked.

(c) Mike Absalom 1972

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