Leg Up

Jason Bruce

Description

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, or at least that was the idea the government had when A Leg Up was conceived. The year is 2005, the project, to take thirty homeless men off the streets, train them for thirty days, and get them into work. An independent film maker and his crew employed to record the whole process, taxpayer money to fund it, direct oversight by three appointed government officials, and an all or nothing agenda where failure was not an option. But when things did go wrong, and with so many items of the government's dirty laundry on display, sweeping the whole thing under the rug became the order of the day, all footage of the event seized, never to see the light of day ever again. But the best laid plans of mice and men have a way of coming back to bite one squarely on the derriere, in this case, a transcript of all recorded footage taken down prior to its confiscation and subsequent burial amongst the vast archives which the government has deemed unsuitable for consumption by the public. As with Street Justice, this tale asks you to imagine a world where these goings on might well be closer to reality than you may well have previously thought. So in conclusion, please ask yourself which one is closer to the truth, Bigfoot, or big government making big mistakes, with big chunks of your taxes?

Informations

• Publié par: Jason Bruce
• Date de parution: 22 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912022588
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

2016 Jason Bruce
Jason Bruce has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in eBook format in 2016
ISBN: 9781912022588
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
All names, characters, places, organisations, businesses and events are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contents
Introduction
Author s notes
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Episode Five
Episode Six
Introduction
As with Street Justice, A Leg Up is one of those what ifs in life. We could have started at the beginning, A-Z, etc, but newly discovered documents, evidence, footage, doesn t always pop up in chronological order. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A simple analogy in that this story might represent the egg, in the sense that it came first in a series of such works, and that the chicken represents the end product, that being, Street Justice. In saying that, the reverse, in order of being given exposure in this medium must also be true. However, A Leg Up represents the birth of a giant white elephant, a project where you, the tax payer, pay your money, and they make your choice. A campaign started some years ago, had the slogan, A dog is for life, not just for Christmas , and this applies in the case of this project, which, as you will see should you choose to read on, is described as, Thirty strays, for thirty days . Fiction or not, and laughs aside, the man or woman living on the street exist, as do the white elephant projects which the government creates for political gain, yet will drop like a hot potato, as some might say, and find the nearest rug under which to sweep them. So take off your shoes, put your feet up, and have a laugh at the zany goings on in our little tale, or at the absurd idea that the government would ever keep something as important as this project away from the prying eyes of their employer...YOU!
Warning: If you are under the age of eighteen, offended by strong language, references to drug use, violence, or any other topics which might be considered to be of an adult nature, or what reasonably might be considered offensive in general, please refrain from reading any further. Though some events within this story are based around anecdotes by family members, friends, colleagues, etc, to which the author has been privy over the years, and can neither be proven, nor disproven, thus the story, as a whole, should be regarded as being fictitious, as are the characters, whose comments or opinions do not reflect those of the author.
Disclaimer: Should you choose to ignore the above warning you do so of your own free will, for which the author accepts no responsibility for any offence which may have been taken in have so doing. In short, a clear warning regarding content has already been issued, therefore, in deciding to read further, you are agreeing to accept the above mentioned terms in full.
Author s notes:
Scenes from the documentary footage are described on a shot by shot basis.
Action in conjunction with dialogue is shown in brackets.
Terms such as we see , we return to , or cut to denote the speed at which the scenes move back and forth.
Narration is provided by a Scots lady. (The author s choice, with a close friend in mind during the writing process, though as the reader you are free to hear whichever voice you choose, in much the same way that description regarding personal appearance is kept to a minimum with the same spirit in mind)
The documentary is set in 2005, therefore, for the sake of realism in keeping with censorship regulations of that period, all expletives are BLEEPed out, whilst at the same time, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Meths refers to Methylated spirits, an Ethanol based form of alcohol, stereotypically thought of as the drink of choice for the homeless in days gone by, which can cause severe health problems or even death with prolonged use.
Regarding dialogue, authenticity was the goal, thus, sarcasm, stereotypes, etc, reflect the way in which, like it or not, a vast number of people speak, or at least think, outside the PC realm, and behind closed doors. In simple terms, in this story, please don t expect an apple, which looks like, smells like, and tastes like an apple, to be anything other than that.
A Leg Up
By Jason Bruce
Dedicated to Paul
Episode One
We see the following scenes through the camera lens, similar in fashion to a modern video game walkthrough, whilst moving along the last fifty feet of a corridor, doors along both sides, three of which are open, and one directly ahead which is closed. We stop at the first open door on our left, turn toward it, and see an outdoor scene of a bearded homeless man sitting on a street begging, a mangy looking dog at his side.
Narrator: Helpless.
We turn, and continue down the corridor, then stop at the next open door on our right. Looking inside we see an indoor scene, as two homeless men sit next to a small fire in the corner of a dank room, the window behind them boarded up, sharing a bottle of spirits.
Narrator: Hopeless.
We turn back toward the end of the corridor, and continue until we reach an open door on our left, turn toward it, and see an outdoor scene in the early morning, where a young homeless man emerges from under a tarpaulin inside a doorway with a sign above it reading Job Centre , and yawns.
Narrator: And jobless.
We turn, and continue until we reach the door at the end of the corridor, and pause for a few moments.
Narrator: Thirty strays , for thirty days .
The door starts to open slowly.
Narrator: Or as it is better known by its sponsors ...
The door opens all the way, and we see a wooden desk on the far side, a red leather upholstered chair to its rear, a wooden plaque sitting on its front.
Narrator: A program named...
We zoom in at speed until the plaque on the desk comes into full focus. The plaque reads, A Leg Up .
Narrator: A Leg up.
Darkness.
A title reads, Day One-Getting To Know You .
We look out from a platform at the back of a white marquee, where the thirty homeless participants on the program, all looking disheveled to varying degrees, all males of various ages and ethnicities, sitting five to a table, eating buffet style food, sandwiches, pork pie, sausage rolls, etc, like it s going out of fashion. The cameraman slowly pans around.
Narrator: So, it s half past nine , and time to...
The cameraman stops at one of the tables, and zooms in on a shifty looking participant in his mid to late fifties, as he takes a quick swig from a bottle in a brown paper bag.
Narrator: Dine?
We cut to a scene in an ally, where a middle aged man, wearing a green waxed jacket and stained beige trousers, rummages through one of two dustbins.
Narrator: Say hello to someone else who enjoys a little hair of the dog to compliment the most important meal of the day. He didn t wish to give us his name, but said that he was a close friend of our good friend...
We cut to an arrest photo of the man with the bottle in a brown paper bag from the previous scene in the marquee, his eyes glazed over, his expression vacant. A subtitle reads, Jack .
Narrator: A man, who by this man s account, has a certain way with the ladies. A bit of a dark horse perhaps?
We return to the ally, where the middle aged man sits next to one of the dustbins eating one half of a limp looking sandwich, a large plastic bottle of cider nearby.
Jack s friend: (Continues chewing throughout) You wanna know about Jack ?
Narrator: Err, I think that s why we re here.
Jack s friend: (Swallows food, then belches) I can tell ya all about Jack.
Narrator: Yes , now we re getting somewhere.
Jack s friend: (Opens the bottle of cider, has a swig, belches in the general direction of the camera lens, then laughs inanely) Jack...Jack the stripper, yeah?
Narrator: A skilled profession. Maybe we can get him back into the workplace sooner than we thought.
Jack s friend: I ll tell ya how he got the name, shall I?
Narrator: We re all ears.
Jack s friend: Well, I ll tell you a joke, yeah?
Narrator: (Sarcastic) It must be nice having so much time on your hands.
Jack s friend: Three old women sittin at a bus stop...(burps) Flasher walks past, opens his coat...Two had a stroke, one couldn t reach.
Narrator: So, in essence, you re saying?
Jack s friend: He popped his c**k out in front of some pregnancy clinic, or whatever.
Narrator: So he exposed himself in front of an anti-natal clinic, correct?
Jack s friend: Oh, and a private girls school...But you need to understand, he was s**t faced when it happened.
Narrator: Which makes all the difference.
We return to the marquee, where all footage is recorded via remotely controlled hidden cameras, one to each of the six tables, unless otherwise specified, and all audio at the tables is recorded using microphones concealed inside centre pieces on each.
Narrator: Righty ho then-one street performer down, pardon the pun, and twenty nine more to go. So let s meet the rest of the gang at Jack s table, shall we?
We see all of the participants on table five, as they finish the last of the food on their plates. A hidden camera zooms in on a participant in his early to mid sixties, with no teeth, as he tries to sw