They all think....

They all think Mikey's mad, but Mikey isn't mad. Let me tell you about Mikey. Mikey's the kind of guy who has too much energy to contain in a smaller than average frame. Always on the move, sitting at the pub table, legs jittering, fingers fiddling; Mikey has a way of converting beermats into...well, into bits. He looks around while you are talking to him, like there are other things he should be doing, if only he could name them. Looking around for other people he knows and Mikey knows everyone. He's a sound bloke.

I first met him peeing up the door of a bank after closing time. That is he was doing the peeing, not me. Most blokes I knew around that time and that place would have been doing this as a futile gesture of anarchic protest against the greed orientated tyrants of debt laden third world despair, but Mikey? He was doing it because his bladder was full. I did not speak to him on this occasion. It is kind of an unwritten law, an understanding between the male group collective that one does not engage in conversation with another male while both or either of you is emptying a bladder. There are exceptions, drunkeness in either or both parties being one of them. This exception was in operation at this particular juncture, but I exercised my right as a free individual to walk past Mikey with just a nod of the head. It was a week or so later when I was using the pub phone that we first engaged in anything resembling conversation, the phone was eating money and I was mugging my own pockets in a pointless attempt to fish out some change. "Here, take this quid coin mate", Mikey to the rescue. Once I had broke into a fiver I drifted over to where he was drinking with two or three girls to give him back the pound, "No worries, mate, it's only money..not a concern or hang up of mine, generosity is a state of mind" was the reply I received along with a refusal to accept the coin I offered him. It was only in the following weeks after we had gone through the saying hello a few times, to sitting at the same table, to getting to know him as a mate that he informed me that all the "generosity is a state of mind" stuff was an attempt to seriously impress one of the girls he was with on that night who had just got into Buddhism and was still experiencing the first flush of enthusiasm for a new life path. The fact that one of the other girls had handed Mikey a tenner to get her round in as she did not like going to the bar, and it was some of her change he had generously donated to the cause presented him with no inner turmoil. That it turned out that the budding Buddhist had gone for a trial period of celibacy did cause some internal angst for Mikey, but like most things in his field of awareness it didn't last for long.

So why do they think Mikey is mad? Well, I suppose it is because he does make his point in strange ways. He does this deliberately, he says, to make a statement about aspects of our society. Case in point: Bloke in the pub rattling on about how great satellite and cable TV is, the sport and all that. So Mikey stands next to him, brushes invisable specks of dust from his baggy check trousers and with malice of forethought inquires, "so if I come round your house grab your television, video, CD player, microwave, etc, and then offer to sell it back to you, that'll be alright then?". This bloke puts down his pint considers this in a silence that is just short of long enough to gain effect and replies, "what are you going on about Mikey?" Mikey deals with this foreseen outburst by simply repeating his question. This time, however, there is no pause before the reply of "No, it wouldn't be alright, you knob, Why would I want to pay money to you to buy something I already own?" comes this bloke's considered reply, said with deliberation and emphasis in all the right places. Mikey looks up at him, slowly drinks the remainder of his lager top and says, "I dunno, but the satellite companies’ managed to get you to do it", turns and walks off grinning to the gents with the words left sinking into to the uncomprehending skull of the bloke at the bar.

That was Mikey at work, making social statements that most of his intended pupils failed to understand, such were the subtleties of the metaphors in his parables. I do not think I shall ever lose the image of the four teenagers swigging expensive designer beers straight from the bottle after Mikey had informed them in detail about the brilliant restaurant across the road that sold food of a lesser quality than it had before, but for twice as much money and made you wash up all the dishes after you had finished. Yeah, I know, it took me a while to get the point, but think of a pub that had all it's customers drinking from bottles. No glasses, no washing up, less money spent running the pub, you would think that would be reflected in the prices wouldn’t you?; and a bottle isn't even a pint.

Mikey's not mad, maybe a lot of us are, but Mikey? Nah.