The Chiang Kai-shek Gold Bond Scam: Get McClafferty

By Patrick Farnon

A TONIC FOR DESPERATE READERS IN DESPERATE TIMES. These unexpurgated tales of Bones-the-Dog McClafferty, mastermind behind the Chiang Kai-shek Gold Bond Scam, reveal how he also got involved in a bunch of other dumb stuff during his miserable life. As he tried to stay one step ahead of the law. In company of his faithful mutt Rupert, pursued by his Probation Officer and a host of misfits and crazies washed up by troubled times in the Scottish Badlands. Scrupulously researched, they include the lowdown on how Fuck Sake Harry topped the Kinky Kash twins, self-appointed traffic warden, bum and vagrant Hughie the Bear got elected mayor of Sunny Groodge and McClafferty got caught up in the nappy rage. Regressed to babyhood, diapers and dummy tits. Got his poor old mom feeding him baby food. In his cot. His chequered career, pieced together from horse’s mouth revelations and eye-witness accounts, reveal new aspects to the man. Driving force behind the nationwide Sunny Dog Haircut and Shampoo Parlours, he also did a stint as a private eye in the Blue Diamond affair involving psycho Horseshoe McCann and the sleezy Duke of Magoiyle. Victoria Teague, who hired him for the job, was nearly his undoing. Goggle-eyed, till he discovered she was into S&M and specialized in horsewhipping clients with barbed wire in the dungeons under the mayor’s office. But it was not all bad. He also helped locate Mrs. McGreevy’s runaway parrot, got Lobey Dosser, the legendary dopey sheriff of Sunny Groodge, rehabilitated historically. After his tomb (and his two legged-horse Fidelo) was unearthed deep under the ground. A tragedy that the Great Sunburst blew out the energy grid. He was destined for greatness. No conclusive evidence has been uncovered by the author of Rupert’s alleged psychic powers. Ditto his gift of the second sight. So far.To date.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Farnon
• Release date: Mar 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311266736

Patrick Farnon

Patrick Farnon is a Scottish journalist and author. His short stories have been published in magazines such as Barcelona Ink, The New Edinburgh Review, the Collins Book of Scottish Stories, Stand magazine etc. The Scots Way to Santiago, a 2,000 kilometers trek along the pilgrim roads of Spain at a time police were hunting the thief who stole the Holy Book of St James (the first travel book) from Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. According to the Holy Book, the unsavory Navarrans wore kilts and were descended from the Scots. Published in 2015, it reveals other connections between Scotland and Spain in Medieval Times. Under Dali Skies, (madder than the wind) chronicles artist Salvador Dali's life from spoiled childhood in Figueres to his glory days in New York where he degenerated into a seedy old Wizard of Was.To inject a modicum of reality (and relief) into the artist's extravagant life, the author (who lived in Dalí Land for more than a decade) — also includes some tales of village folk and the raging Tramuntana wind. Reputed because of its ferocity to drive locals mad, it shapes the character of the people on this windy coast. Scheduled to appear in May 2019. Over 70,000 words, two thirds of the text is devoted to Dalí and his doings. Scrupulously researched, it contains much new material on the Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (from Spanish and Catalan sources) as well as on his manager, muse and wife Gala.

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The Chiang Kai-shek Gold Bond Scam

Get McClafferty

Patrick Farnon

Copyright © 2016 Patrick Farnon

All rights reserved.

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One phrase will suffice to describe modern man: He fornicated and read the newspapers (Albert Camus, The Fall)

Contents

Chapter 1: Rupert is One Smart Dog

Chapter 2: A Winged Horse is Not an Adequate Thought

Chapter 3: Understanding Quantitative Easing

Chapter 4: You Are What You Eat

Chapter 5: The Foster-a-White-Baby Plan

Chapter 6: The Sunny Dog Shampoo and Haircut Parlours

Chapter 7: Pearly the Panda does a Runner

Chapter 8: Concerning Sunny Groodge.

Chapter 9: Jumpin’ Jack Flash goes Nappy

Chapter 10: Fuck Sake Harry Meets the Kinky Kash Twins

Chapter 11: Hughie the Bear is a Class Act

Chapter 12: Bet on Stewball

Chapter 13: The Chiang Kai-shek Gold Bond Scam

Chapter 14: Back in Sunny Groodge

Chapter 15: Hard Boiled and Dirty, Low-Down Mean

Chapter 16: Prodigal Parrot

Chapter 17: A Man without a Plan is Spam

Chapter 18: Under the Ground

Chapter 19: Of Sunbursts, Disclaimers and the After-Life

Chapter 20: Maybe Baby

What the Press Say

About Patrick Farnon

Chapter 1

Rupert is One Smart Dog

Dogs just want to have Fun

Rupert the dog was sitting stock still on the bed, his two big Great Dane ears pointing straight up at the ceiling. McClafferty, the dog’s owner ̶ Mac for short ̶ was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. He had passed out. First he couldn’t get the key in the lock and had fumbled around for what seemed like half an hour trying to get in before staggering into the hallway, blood dripping from the handkerchief round his knuckles leaving a long, red smear on the wall as he made his way to the kitchen where he disappeared from Rupert’s view.

McClafferty had been trying. He had been trying hard for years to get his show on the road, trying to get beyond the dope and the drugs to that higher state of enlightenment described by Sari Wang in his bestseller Enlightenment and the Seven Steps to Lasting Peace.

For a while it had worked and he meditated every day sitting in Buddha position on the carpet, feeling the blessed light come through the blinds to caress his closed eyelids and drive away the demons. He’d take Rupert out faithfully every day to the park, twice a day normally, morning and afternoon. And Rupert had enjoyed that because McClafferty would usually take a ball and throw it and Rupert would chase after it and bring it back. Then McClafferty would take the ball and throw it as far as he could down the field and Rupert would run faster and faster after it.

Rupert could have gone on and on forever like that. Other times, when the weather was good, Rupert would dive into the pond and paddle around in wide circles on the black, still water while McClafferty lay flopped out on the grass. Once or twice, because the bank was slippery or he got the wrong spot, Rupert couldn’t get out of the water so McClafferty would have to pull him out.

Rupert was grateful to McClafferty for that and believed it gave them a special bond. It showed in any case that McClafferty was a caring, conscientious owner, of a kind generally prized by dogs. Rupert was under no illusions however. On one occasion McClafferty dozed off on the park bench while Rupert was in the water but when he tried to get out, he couldn’t because the mud on the bank was too slippery to heave out his big brown thirty-kilo Great Dane body. He had to swim around for half an hour to find another spot and get out under his own steam.

Rupert hadn’t exactly forgotten that small omission on McClafferty’s part. He simply took McClafferty’s character into account and discounted the transgression. He did it without complaint. In the same way as he accepted the bones. The bones McClafferty got from Simpson’s the butcher’s. Mostly they had no meat on them because Clafferty got them for nothing. Bones-the-Dog-McClafferty, was the name the boys in the butcher’s gave him. Or variations on the theme. Like McClafferty-the-Bones, or Bone-Dog-McClafferty.

Rupert took no offense. He’d crush the bones just the same between his big grinders, cracking and splintering them to get at the marrow. But he was nobody’s fool. He could tell the difference alright between a meaty bone with traces of juicy red flesh and gristle and one of those shiny bald knobs that come from the cow’s shin bone that most mutts grind at feverishly because they’re so stupid they don’t know any better.

Whenever they went up to Simpson’s at the top of the High Street, Rupert would sit outside on the pavement tied to the lamppost. His eyes would follow McClafferty into the shop. His ears were pretty good, so good in fact he could pick up the sound of all the voices in a half mile radius with his antenna. Not to mention the smells his big wet snout could detect. Smells that went with the voice. So when McClafferty stepped into the butcher’s that day, Rupert smelt the blood when Davy put down the gutting knife on the block and wiped his hands on the red-striped apron. Davy was standing behind the counter at the back of the shop, watching McClafferty come through the open doorway.

‘Here comes Bones-for-the-Dog McClafferty,’ Davy muttered.

That’s how it started. That’s how McClafferty got the name. Maybe McClafferty heard it too. Maybe not, but he ordered a couple of Scotch pies that day before leaving, which was pretty unusual since he never bought anything. Couldn’t. Never had a tosser. It all went on fags and booze. Perhaps he wanted to show he had his pride. Let them see he wasn’t taking something for nothing.

As they headed down the hill towards Pringle Street on the way back to the flat, McClafferty stuck one of the pies into Rupert’s open, panting mouth. Which was fine.

But this time McClafferty had flunked good. Had flunked big time. Rupert knew something was seriously wrong from the way he heard him fritter with the lock to get into the flat, the way he staggered down the hall with his bleeding hand into the kitchen, bottles rattling in the fridge, knew in his marrow McClafferty’s movements were seriously out of tune.

Sitting on the bed, Rupert absorbed his master’s fall from grace with his big brown eyes. His translucent ears were erect and tense like those big saucers at Jodrell Bank that probe the outer reaches of the universe for signs of life, meaning and hope. Rupert sat stock still on the bed, studying the back of McClafferty’s head, wondering how his young face had got all smashed up. What had happened to him before he came in? Before he hit the floor?

McClafferty would wake up later, around midnight and wouldn’t be able to see. He’d think it was dark. Then he’d look around and wonder why he couldn’t see the big green neon sign outside the window pulsing out the word Hotel. Or the lights in the street. Or the lights in the houses and the flats beyond the windows. Or even the little blue circular light that flashed on and off day and night on the CD player. McClafferty would wake up and discover he was blind. Or as good as makes no difference.

Under the circumstances Rupert didn’t want to. He wanted to hold it in. He would have preferred to pee outside in the park. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not now. Not for the moment. So he jumped off the bed, padded through to the kitchen, lifted a leg to the cupboard door under the sink and gave a squirt. For good measure, he gave the corner of the fridge the message as well. Then he padded back through to the living room and sat beside McClafferty on the carpet, gazing down on the back of his master’s badly gashed skull.

The blood had congealed in a dark blue patch that contrasted strangely with the rest of McClafferty’s dyed blond hair. Being a human being was one bum deal, Rupert reflected. And associating with humans was dangerous. No wonder there were so many neurotic dogs out there. But Rupert was beyond considerations of that kind at the moment. Rupert had seen the light when McClafferty came in through the door. He saw the future. How it would be. He saw himself leading McClafferty by the leash out to the park, seating him on the bench. Saw McClafferty slip the leash and Rupert running up and down happy as a sandboy, sniffing the behind of every bitch on the planet. It wouldn’t be quite the same of course, what with no ball and that. But Rupert discounted that too. He’d run about to his heart’s content. Then he’d come back to the bench and nudge McClafferty and McClafferty would feel about with his hand and clip the leash back onto his studded collar and Rupert would lead McClafferty through the streets back home to the flat. That’s how it would be.

There was the doctor and the police to contend with in the meantime but once that was out of the way and McClafferty getting accustomed to the fact that the dark side was now a permanent feature of his wretched life, they’d get along dandy, you bet. Just fine and dandy. Rupert would take McClafferty out to the park for walkies and Rupert would get to decide when it was time to go home. And another thing, when they went to Simpson’s, likely as not the butcher boys would feel sorry for Bones-the-Dog-McClafferty and give Rupert better bones, big juicy, drippy bones with bags of meat on them. So whatever way you flipped the coin, he was onto a winner.

And that’s approximately how things turned out after we were sent out by Socio & Rehab to oversee the rake’s progress. We’d drop round to see him regularly, my assistant Grazyna and I, and take him and Rupert for a walk. In the park we’d wrap the leash round McClafferty’s fingers and let Rupert walk him around for a bit waving his white stick with his left hand. It was quite touching. But if you were heading up hill to the butcher’s you had to be careful. When Rupert got a sniff of the bones he’d lose his self-control. Pulled McClafferty to the ground once. Dragged him for twenty yards. Uphill. Fortunately the street was deserted that morning and nobody saw the incident. But you don’t want a black mark against your name, do you now? A compensation claim on your hands. Or a hand scribbling dereliction of duty in the margin of a document somewhere. Putting it in a folder. Filing it away. Up at Socio. Or someplace you didn’t even know existed. With your name on it.

Chapter 2

A Winged Horse is Not an Adequate Thought

Without a built-in shit detector you are well and truly fucked

Over the years, McClafferty had accumulated a great volume of junk. Shit. Trash. Junk food, junk dope, junk ideas, junk gee-gaws from market stalls and department stores. And when I looked down at him now, strapped tight to the green leather bench in the processing room of the Rehab Clinic with his eyes closed, sinking into oblivion after I gave him the shot, I was thinking of the random junk floating in orbit round planet earth, the bits and pieces of weird metal and weird synthetic objects colliding with each other, and whose names we’d never know, splattering into millions more pieces out there in space. Looked at from the moon, where the fools were also dumping their junk, planet earth was obscured by a cloud of fine dust. All the bits and pieces of useless trash that have been rocketed up for some so-called scientific purpose or other and had advanced mankind not one iota. That about summed up the state of McClafferty’s consciousness: Worse than useless.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of the intake of toxic junk food, it was our job at Socio & Rehab to neutralize the mental noise accumulated by patients from a diet of