Engaging Eric

There had been a light shower overnight, followed by a hard freeze. All the footpaths and roads were iced over, and Eric wasn’t the only one to end up on his back that morning. The roads were particularly slippery, as the council gritting department had celebrated Christmas early. Their own Christmas party having taken place the night before, which had completely disabled the gritting fleet, as managers and drivers alike drank into the early hours totally oblivious to the sudden drop in temperature. It was only when Arthur Broadmarsh, the manager of the gritting depot, had rushed to his car just after one o’clock in the morning that the dangerous road conditions had become apparent. Instead of Arthur getting into his car and driving off, he’d slipped and gone feet first straight under his pride and joy, a shiny red first edition Ford Cortina. Arthur’s considerable bulk had become wedged between the underside of the vehicle and the ground. Repeated attempts to summon help had failed, and Arthur remained incapacitated for a full forty minutes before the next batch of revellers had stumbled out of the party. Numerous attempts to physically pull Arthur out had failed. Many potential rescuers had also ended up on their backs, so in the end drastic measures were called for. Polish Joe, as he was known, staggered off to return moments later behind the wheel of the JCB used for loading the salt into the gritters. Polish Joe wasn’t the best of digger drivers normally, but after a few drinks, he was positively lethal. Despite Arthur’s squeals of protest, Polish Joe had placed the front bucket of the JCB under the front bumper of Arthur’s car and was commencing the lift. And lift he did, but unfortunately Arthur wasn’t released; all Polish Joe had managed to lift was Arthur’s front bumper, clean off the front of his car. “Get that flicking lunatic out of that machine,” Arthur screamed. He was never known to swear, and ‘flicking’ was as near as he was going to get. “Try again, I try again, you not worry,” Polish Joe shouted. “NO, NO, NO,” Arthur bellowed. “Its good, I do it again,” Joe assured him, and the JCB surged forward yet again. With a crunching and a grinding of metal on metal, Polish Joe raised the bucket and the front end of Arthur’s car was raised off the ground. His rescuers quickly pulled him out from under the presently crumbling vehicle. Instead of Joe lowering the car gently back to the ground again he inadvertently tilted the bucket forward, and not only did it cause Arthur’s car to drop to the ground very quickly, but it also lurched backwards into the glazed screen that formed the entrance to the office reception. Arthur’s car came to rest partially inside the reception area under a hail of tiny glass pieces that had exploded with a crash from the impact. Arthur’s wailing and sobbing at the sight of his beloved car, covered in glass and wedged in the shattered entrance screen, had almost been drowned out by the high pitched screeching of the burglar alarm. Within minutes the bright red flashing light of the alarm system was joined by the blue flashing lights of the three police cars that had coming rushing through the gates and into the icy yard of the council highways department. They too had under estimated the extent of ice around and all three cars had slid out of control across the yard. Two had come to rest in the carefully manicured landscaped area near the main entrance and the third came to a halt, half way up the stock pile of road salt in the far corner of the yard. All three police vehicles had been abandoned where they came to rest and the officers inside had all sprinted, or rather, skated over to the building entrance to take charge of the incident before them. It had taken some considerable time for the police to be satisfied that this wasn’t a bungled attempt to raid the council buildings, and that Polish Joe wasn’t part of a larger gang of ram raiders. It had taken over two hours to calm the situation down, and many of the drivers had used the time to return back to the bar and consume yet more beer, rendering each and every one totally incapable of taking any of the gritting vehicles out that night. The outcome of the activities within the council highways depot was clear for Eric and everyone else to see, untreated roads covered in a thin layer of ice.