Why I don’t support Windies

Dancing Brave brings  you today an extract from the trial in which Supporting Jack, who has never known his father, is suing the mighty West Indies Cricket Board for asking him to support the West Indies team as a father figure during his formative years and thus causing him mental and emotional distress by reminding him of his absent parent. Read about the evidence given on the stand by Mr Wannabe, chairman of  West Indies Cricket Board Cards company, which sends only good greetings to the West Indies team.

Counsel: Tell me, Mr Wannabe, has it never occurred to you that your apparently harmless little West Indies  greetings cards, with their idealised little drawings and jejune little verses, might be the cause of suffering? Moreso, in light of the nonchalance of the West Indian players.
Wannabe: “How can a four-line verse offend anyone? It can only make people happy. “This little card to you  West Indians, I send, with season’s greeting at the batting end, hoping all the best results to all of  you, to both your children, even those you do not know and hoping I do not have to  Sue.”
Counsel: Did you just make that up?
Wannabe: Yes.
Counsel: But you still haven’t told me how you cater during Test matches for abject batting and slipshod fielding by the West Indies team. Especially for those who worship the West Indies team and remain awake whatever the hour to listen and view their team and worse what about   people (like Supporting Jack) whose fathers ran off years ago?
Wannabe: This little card to you supporters we, the West Indies team send,  hoping it will make amends for failing you so many times now and even  long ago. We have been a rotten team, we know.
Counsel: That might be a good card for an absent-minded team to send, one that plays good cricket most of the time, but what about the persons abandoned by their father after birth, like Jack who grew up on a diet of cricket rather than provisions? Cricket became his father and when the West Indies failed, he would go out and take his anger out on some poor soul. Thankfully he does not have a gun, like members of the West Indies team.
Wannabe : I would recommend them to send a few of the West Indies players a “Wish You Were Here” card, so that he could express his frustrations in the daylight.
Counsel: Hmm. And what about those people whose fathers vanished before they were born out of frustration with the West Indies team, and after losing another bet ?
 Wannabe: I would recommend them to buy a “Whatever Happened to You West Indians, You set of  Old Bastards?” card.
Counsel: There is such a thing?
 Wannabe: Certainly. The card trade has moved a long way. When I joined Birthmark Cards, people only wanted the most innocent of cards. A “Happy Birthday” card looked much like a “To My Favourite Nephew” card. But now one can get satirical cards, blokeish cards, rude cards, film cards, great master parody cards and gay cards.
Counsel: Gay cards?
Wannabe: We have two ranges. There is the “Who’s A Big Boy, Then?” rude range, and the Michelangelo’s David Range in which we use gay icons of the past.
Counsel: Why gay icons of the past?
Wannabe: Because they are out of copyright.
Counsel: And do you now have a “To My Favourite Gay and Happy Cricketer” Range perhaps?
Judge: You There! Counsel for Supporting Jack!
Counsel: Yes, my lord?
 Judge: Please stick to Father’s Day.
Counsel: Certainly. Mr Wannabe, let’s return to those who have no fathers. Father’s Day is a very cruel time for them, is it not?
Wannabe: That is like saying that Independence Day in Trinidad and Tobago is a cruel day for the Queen of England. Is Christmas a very cruel time for Muslims? I think not.
Counsel: There is a difference. Father’s Day, unlike Christmas, was created by the greeting card, advertising and flower industry. You must bear responsibility.
Wannabe: Then the Christian Church should bear responsibility for the ill effects of Christmas.
Counsel: Oh? And what are these ill effects of Christmas?
Wannabe: Bankruptcy, obesity, appalling lack of  West Indian industrial output in late December, not only in cricket but all over and a grim lack of AA batteries in the shops.
 Judge: Counsel, I think we are straying from Father’s Day again.
Counsel: Yes, my Lord. It’s just that for those of us without fathers.
Wannabe: Ah ha!
Counsel: I beg your pardon?
Wannabe: Did you say, “those of us without fathers?”
Counsel: Yes, I may have.
 Wannabe: So you are in the same state as the man you are representing? You, supposedly the impartial advocate! You too feel a grievance against my card firm because you have a father who let you down!
Counsel: Grievance? No. That is too strong a word.
But it is true that my life has been coloured by the absence of a father. He left my mother and me when I was three, and all I remember of him is a tattoo of a mermaid on his shoulder and a smell of Bruno pipe tobacco.
Wannabe: Mermaid? Bruno? Good God! May I ask you a very personal question, young man? Was your mother called Iris?
Counsel: Yes, she was. But —  
Wannabe: Then I am your long-lost father! My son!
Counsel: My father!
Judge: Oh God, I can’t bear this. Court adjourned!
Wannabe: Before we adjourn, may I just say this? “Father’s Day is here again, with such a thrill for you, for the man here in the witness stand is the dad you never knew!”
The case continues, though not in this column.
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