The Damned Ignited

Up this corridor. Round this corner. Down the next corridor. The next corner. Kevin Keen at my heels. To the office. The empty desk. The empty chair. Avram's office. Avram's desk. Avram's chair. Four walls with no windows and one door, these four walls between which he etched his schemes and his dreams, his hopes and fears. In his black books. His secret dossiers. His enemy lists- Avram didn't trust people. Didn't like people. He dwelled on people. Hated people. This the office. The desk. The chair. The massage table. In which he schemed and in which he dreamed, with his hopes and with his fears. In his books. His dossiers. His lists. To exorcise the doubts. The codes and the road maps. To obsession. To madness. To here.

Karren Brady puts her head round the door. No knock-
'Any chance of a cup of tea, love?' I ask her.
Mrs Brady says, 'The chairmen are waiting for you upstairs.'
'For me?' I ask. 'Why?'
'For the board meeting.'
I take off my jacket. I take out my handkerchief. I place it on the seat of the chair. His chair. I sit down in the chair behind the desk. His desk. I put my feet up on the desk- His chair. His desk. His office. His vice-chairman-
'They are waiting for you,' says Mrs Brady again.
'Let them wait,' I tell her. 'Now how about that cup of tea, duck?'
Mrs Brady just stands and stares at the soles of my shoes.
I knock on the desk. Avram's desk. I ask, 'Whose is this desk, love?'
'It's yours now,' whispers Mrs Brady.
'Whose was this desk?'
'Mr Grant's.'
'I want it burnt then.'
'Pardon?' exclaims Mrs Brady.
'I want this desk burnt,' I tell her again. 'The chairs and all. The massage table. Especially the massage table. The whole bloody lot.'
'But...'
'Whose vice-chairman are you, duck?'
'Yours now, Mr Allardyce.'
'Whose vice-chairman were you?'
Mrs Brady bites her nails and stems her tears, inside her column for the newspaper already penned, just waiting to be typed up and sent.
'Change the locks as well,' I tell her as she leaves, Kevin Keen with his eyes on the floor and his hands in his pockets. 'Don't want the ghost of troubled Avram popping in now, do we? Rattling his chains, scaring everyone.'

There's a knock on the office door. Kevin looks up from his pens-
'Who is it?' I shout.
'It's me, Boss,' says Neil McDonald. 'I got it.'
I get up from that bloody chair. From behind that fucking desk. Neil comes in, brown parcel in his hands. He passes it to me.
'There you go.'
'What about the petrol?' I ask him.
'It's in the boot of the car.'
'Good man,' I say and unwrap the brown paper parcel- I unwrap the parcel and I take out the axe- 'Stand well back,' I tell them. 'Look out, Kevin!'
And I swing that axe down into that desk, his desk, Avram's desk... I swing it down and then up, up and then back down again- Into his desk and his chair. Into his photos and his files... Again and again and again. Then I stop and I stand in the centre of what's left of that office, panting and sweating like a big fat black fucking dog. Mrs Brady gone. Neil McDonald and Kevin Keen flat against the wall. I'm a dynamite-dealer, waiting to blow the place to Kingdom Cum...

Then Neil and Kevin help me gather up all the pieces of the desk and chair and massage table, all the photos and the files, all the bloody dossiers and every fucking thing in that office, and we take it all outside and pile it up in the corner of the car park, and then I go to the boot of Neil's car and take out the Castrol and pour it all over the pile, then I light a cigarette and take a couple of drags before I throw it on the pile and watch it burn-
To Kingdom Cum...
Burn. Burn. Burn.

Sam Allardyce officially began work as West Ham United manager today. With apologies to David Peace, the above is a fictional account based on that single fact.