Whether his alcohol problem was caused or exacerbated by his illiteracy is unclear but his social worker decided that a remedial literacy class would be just the thing to help him.
The first book attempted at his class was titled the tooth fairy, the content was a touch twee but the words used weren’t too difficult and the illustrations colourful. Having been brought up in institutions he had no concept of the tooth fairy and was therefore intrigued.
He was troubled by the word ‘shilling’ and asked for clarity, on being told it was a small coin from long ago he asked what the fairies going rate for a tooth was these days. His teacher said that she did not know precisely but thought it was somewhere in the region of two pounds.
On his way home he practiced his mental arithmetic.
He failed to turn up at the following weeks literacy class.
He missed an AA meeting.
He failed to attend a psychotherapy session.
He had no friends so could not be missed anywhere else.
His neighbour alerted the social services when the smell emanating from his bed-sit became intolerable.
He was found by the police and paramedics lying in a mass of his own blood on his filthy bed. On the floor was a bloodied pair of pliers. As they lifted the body onto a stretcher, the pillow, glued to his head with congealed blood, came with him.
Where the pillow had lain was a pile of mutilated teeth and a piece of paper torn from a children’s book. On one side was printed “The Tooth Fairy’. On the reverse was a child like note written in pencil. It said:
Deer tooth fary. Sory to trubel you but cud you bring vodka instead of muny. I have 23 teeth wich make 46 pounds. Enuf for 3 botels I hope.
Stan.
No comments:
Post a Comment