Maladroits Anonymous

CW: As you might expect in a room full of maladroits, there is a lot of swearing in this piece. I ought to apologise, but I won't.

In the lofty interior of a methodist chapel, (it doesn’t matter where), a woman called Simone lays out cheap bottles of wine and various cans of cider and lager on a trestle table, which has glittered blobs of dried glue and scratched graffiti on its surface. The booze is paid for by the weekly subs of the Maladroits Anonymous group. The chapel plays host to many diverse assemblies, and this is but one of them. It is also known to host the occasional religious service.

This evening, we shall take the group from left to right, in the semi-circle they invariably make with the plastic chairs. It’s easier this way, without the preambling fluff. Think of it as a play, if you will, a play in which all the characters are afflicted: whose words come out wrong, whose actions are misconstrued, and whose conduct is called out by those who seamlessly harmonise with societal norms. They are strolling players whom no-one will cast. They are a parade of failure. They are the wet lepers tolling their bells on the dusty backroads of life. Frankly, they’re screwed.

Tony: Hi, everyone. Following on from last week, I can confirm that me and the wife are divorcing. She says I don’t love her —

(Enrico): She’s shagging someone else.

Tony: Feels good, doesn't it? Just to say what you’re thinking. Yep, she has to be shagging someone else. Of course, her version is that she wants to have children, but not with me. She doesn’t agree with my politics, her parents don’t like me and her brother thinks I’m gay. But the real crippler is that I haven’t fixed the leak on the bathroom tap, and the steady drip has released a monster. She thinks I should know how to do these things because I’m a man, and she’s right. Where I work, I am surrounded by men who talk about nipples, olives and flanges: men who could hot wire an EV. I just don’t get any of it, including flat pack furniture .. especially sliding drawers. So, I’m a bloke, but I’m not a bloke. And I’m back living with my dad. Thank you.

Simone: Thanks, Tony. I’m sorry about your marriage. At least you still have your job. Couldn’t you have called a plumber?

(Enrico): She’s shagging the plumber.

Tony: The job? It’s blue-collar. The boss wouldn't fire me - honestly, half the workforce are spree killers. And Enrico, if she was shagging a plumber, the least I would expect is that he fixed the bloody tap on his way out.

Robert: Evening all. Well, it's been many years in the making, but it seems that I am no longer welcome at family events. My brother turned sixty last week and I didn’t get an invite.

Simone: Why do you think that is, Robert?

Robert: Recycling. Last Christmas there were more people than usual - members of my brother’s wife’s clan. One of them, her sister-in-law, is mad keen on recycling. A fanatic. Anyway, I happen to know that those council bastards tip it all in a hole in the middle of the night, so yeah, I took the piss, and it didn’t go down well. I drink too much around my family because they make me nervous. They’re all so bloody perfect. Arseholes.

(Bessie): On a more positive note, you won’t have to buy any more presents.

Robert: Thanks, Bessie. Sometimes I wonder what you're doing here. You always say the right things.

(Bessie): Well that’s just great! Now, I’m the only person saying the right thing in a room full of people who always say the wrong thing. I came here to fit in! Honestly, just bloody sod it!

Robert: Oh, bloody hell!

Simone: You’ll have an opportunity to say the wrong thing in a minute, Bessie.

(Enrico): We should call this Arseholes Anonymous.

Siro: First off, I want to say that these chairs are crap. The chairs in Cuba are bigger.

(Enrico): Well fuck off back there, then.

Siro: I just mean they are too small. I am a fat Cuban. I need a bigger chair.

(Bessie): Aren’t Cubans meant to be skinny? I thought communists were skinny.

(Robert): Got to admit, old chap, those chair legs are splaying at an alarming angle. Puts me in mind of a newborn giraffe.

Siro: Forget about the chair.

(Robert): I’m not sure I can now.

Siro: Enjoy your next Christmas, all on your own.

Simone: Can we get back to it? How was your week, Siro?

Siro: My boss, that cabrón, hauls me into his little office and tells me I can’t talk to the customers like this. There is a woman, a fat woman, filling her face with pie. So, I go to clear the table and she says, ‘I’m not finished,’ and I say, ‘Don’t you think you should?’ I try to tell him it’s because I’m foreign and he says everyone in this damned city is foreign. No excuses. Final warnings for me. I don’t know, things just come out of my mouth.

(Joe): What’s a cabrón?

Siro: A male goat.

(Joe): Really? The English language has gifted the world the option of fucker, fuckwit, wanker, knob, knob-jockey, twat, the majestic C-word, and I could go on and on, but the best you can come up with is … you male goat?

Siro: OK, Joe. You know what? If the British spent same time making good chairs as they do swearing, you can have your bloody empire back! Mierda!

Simone: Thanks for sharing, Siro.

Bessie: Nothing specific this week. I’m just disappearing bit by bit.

(Enrico): Could have fooled me.

Bessie: Shut up, Julio.

(Enrico) Enrico.

Bessie: Same thing. You know, when I was nine, the girl two doors along had a birthday party. Naturally, I thought I’d be invited, so I spent my pocket money on a book, Swallows and Amazons. As it turned out, I wasn’t invited, and I stood at the window and watched all these happy, rosy-cheeked bastards running up the drive with their presents. That feeling has never left me. I just don’t seem to belong anywhere, and now that I’m old, I’ve just become another grey woman in a shabby coat who has absolutely no one to talk to. On the rare occasion I bump into someone I know, I blurt out such ridiculous things. I have just forgotten how to talk to people - if I ever knew in the first place.

Simone: You have us.

Bessie: And yesterday I noticed that my left boob is now much bigger than my right one. Even my tits are falling out with each other.

(Joe): That’s quite sad.

Bessie: My whole life is sad. Yesterday I was at the supermarket and I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in years. I asked her how her family was, and she told me they mostly all died in an avalanche years ago. Anyone else but me would have known that. And then I said, ‘Oh dear! I hope it was towards the end of the holiday.’ And once, I knew a girl at typing college who came to classes one day in tears because the doctor told her she had two vaginas, and I said, ‘Oooh, you lucky cow!’ But of course, it meant that she might not be able to have children. I could go on.

(Enrico): Please don’t.

Enrico: You know what? I can’t top Bessie this week. Is there a prize? We should have a prize.

Simone: The purpose of the group is to try to find ways, with mutual support, to become more integrated with society. To be … normal. Awarding prizes for the most outrageous admission of the week would defeat the object.

Enrico: OK. So here’s how I don’t fit in. I hate Italian food. I left Naples to get away from it, but it’s even worse here. Why doesn’t anyone understand that it’s the most over-rated cuisine in the world? And everyone expects me to throw a pizza and do something magnifico with a chicken leg. So I married an English woman, you know, thinking she would make me cottage pies and fish and chips, and she’s angry with me because I put cream in carbonara. She says real Italians don’t do that. I’m also expected to like opera, which fucking sucks, and ice-cream, which hurts my teeth. I am not an Italian person. I was born into the wrong country. And the English are disappointed with me for not being Italian enough.

(Siro): Go to Cuba. We have good chairs.

Enrico: You see, everyone expects me to be something I’m not. They think I know the words to O Sole Mio and I have a big, jolly mama who kisses me on both cheeks every time I go home.

Simone: And does she?

Enrico: No. She hates me.

(Joe): Seriously? You don’t like pizza?

Enrico: No.

Joe: Some of you will remember from last week that I started a job on Monday.

Simone: How’s that working out?

Joe: They fired me today. We had an induction. I remember when an induction meant showing you where the fire exits were, and how to do the job. Nowadays, the sole purpose is to tell me that I was born a wanker and that everyone else in the world is a nicer person than me. I just can’t figure out if these people actually believe what they’re saying, or they’re just suggestible. To me, they’re the same people who thought Hitler was a bad guy until the Anschluss, and then they’re ratting out the Bernsteins next door. You know, unless you’re prepared to kiss ass, you can forget a job. A rolling eyeball is all it takes: a chance comment to another inductee who goes and squeals to HR that some of your views don’t conform. I just feel isolated and paranoid. Why can’t I just let it wash over me? Just pretend they’re not talking divisive shit? Jeez, I’m only thirty and I’m already unemployable. All my mates have jobs, and now I’m the guy who doesn't go out because I can’t afford a round of drinks anymore. I just can’t see a way out of it.

(Siro): Cuba. They can never have enough losers.

Cleo: Hi everyone. This is my first time here, and it’s been so interesting listening to you all. It’s hard, being like us. I know it’s not as hard as being in a wheelchair or having a disfigurement, I know that, but it’s just like everyone else is pointing due north and we're north by northwest. We know what we’re supposed to do, and what we’re supposed to say, but it just doesn’t work out. I hate the summer. I didn’t used to, but now it’s like a rebuke; those long nights when everyone’s in their gardens having barbecues. I just hate that.

(Joe): Yep. Barbecues suck. I never get invited to them.

Cleo: I used to, until I realised that I wasn’t like the other women, constantly clearing plates and offering to wash up. My mum wasn’t sociable and I guess I didn’t learn the basics from her. I usually end up drinking too much, because I feel out of place, and it’s not like I ever did anything really bad, but over time, well, the invites just stopped coming. The longer you’re outside the loop, the harder it gets. And then you start to justify it by telling yourself that everyone else is horrible —

(Bessie): They are.

Cleo: — when really, they’re just ordinary people who sense that we’re not one of them. Anyways, that’s all for this week. Thank you.

Anya: Just what everyone’s said, really. I’ve even given up social media. I post something bland and I get thousands of dislikes. It’s bad enough in the real world without fending off red arrows in your bedroom.

Simone: Do you have an example you can share with us?

Anya: There’s this big thing on Netflix at the moment and everyone’s raving about it. All I said was, ‘Really? I thought it was shit.’ I mean, it's just an opinion, right? I had to keep checking my post to make sure I hadn't drunkenly threatened to slaughter everyone's firstborn by mistake.

Dean: Cleo’s right. Eventually, we’re all going to just hate everyone because we’re not in their club. We’re just not clubbable people.

(Enrico): We are all arseholes.

Louis: I’m only twenty, and I don’t understand the world. Maybe we’re the real people? Maybe everyone else is just scrapping around getting likes, pouting, flexing, talking crap. I have one mate, and that’s all. He’s deaf, so everyone thinks he’s stupid. No one ever thinks a blind person is stupid. But he’s got loads of mates, a lot of them deaf like him. He’s got a club, and all I’ve got is him.

Simone: You shouldn’t be this lonely at your age.

Louis: There’s a lot of spite out there. You say the wrong thing and that’s the end of you. And I can’t find a job. I’ve got hardly any qualifications, no references, and I don’t get their interview techniques. ‘What’s the thing you’re most proud of?’ they ask. I just tell them I ain’t got nothing yet. Ask me in twenty years.

Minnie: Our faces don’t fit.

Lydia: But we are in a club. So it’s not the golf club, or the book club, or the Ramblers, or the darts team, but it’s still a club.

Simone: Well said, Lydia. Good note to end on! Right, folks, we need to leave. There’s another group booked in ten minutes. Anyone fancy the pub?

*****

Outside, where the air had turned crisp and the sky had darkened, Simone asked where they should go.

‘The Mardyke, on the docks,’ chipped in Joe. ‘It’s a tosser's paradise in there. We’ll blend in.’

‘OK, but we’re all buying our own drinks,’ said Louis.

The pub was painted black, both inside and out. The bar was sticky and the man behind it had the taut features of a screaming skull. Incongruously, a row of dusty corn dollies lined the shelf beneath the optics. The agricultural theme jarred against the maritime docks, where the world’s first iron-clad steam ship was moored.

‘Valhalla,’ whispered Minnie. ‘This is where we will come when we die.’

At a large table, at which Siro, Goldilocks-ey, found a suitable seat, the group toasted their lack of success. Lydia’s words, as few as they were, had soothed their hapless souls. They were in a club. And with this newly-formed, alien sense of belonging, there grew a feeling that they might have found their own tribe: that they were no longer consigned to be pot-carriers at the back of the trail, staring at the buffalo’s swaying backside in the scorched prairie while everyone else perched on the wagons.

Robert felt emboldened to ask Simone whether she was a recovering maladroit herself. After a moment of reflection, perhaps considering whether it was wise for her to reveal her own inadequacies, she told them that she was far from it: that she was just as socially inept as everyone else in the group. And as she was gathering the words to make a motivational speech, (which would not include her belief that the affliction was without cure), her face went white.

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh my God.’

A dozen voices cried out ‘What?’

She looked at them in turn, at their dear, incompetent, unloved faces. ‘We are about to be uninvited,’ she said. ‘Again. The methodists are going to kill us.’

A dozen voices cried out ‘Why?’

‘Because we didn’t clear up,’ she said.

‘I never do,’ said Cleo. Simone looked at her and shook her head.

‘You don’t understand. We didn’t clear up the booze.’

Bessie offered to go to the chapel in the morning and collect it. ‘Unless the next group drinks it, of course. Who’s the next group?’

‘Alcoholics Anonymous.’

Simone’s phone began to ring. Lydia reached over and turned it off as Enrico enquired about the whereabouts of the nearest Quaker meeting house.