The Reconquista

I'm sure by now you've heard the sad news about comedy duo Cannon & Ball.

If you don't know, Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball were a traditional comedy double act, big in the 80s. The Wikipedia entry hasn't yet been updated to reflect recent events - I might do it myself.

Last night, at a show in Bury, Tommy Cannon apparently had something of a breakdown. The act started as normal, but he stopped mid-joke.

"This isn't working, Bobby," he said.

"Uh..."

"We used to be big! And now where are we? BURY?!"

"Tommy," whispered Ball. "Are you ok? Why don't we discuss this backstage?"

"No! We're gonna talk about it now! We were on I'm a Celebrity...! Now what?" He grabbed Ball by the lapels.

"Tommy, please!"

"We've lost focus. But not any more."

He called for a spotlight to be turned on. His face was blank, ecstatic - the bright, white beam cast his hollow sockets into darkness.

"We've lost ourselves, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I hope God will forgive us."

Bobby tried to diffuse the situation by playing his little plastic trumpet, but the breath died in his throat.

"Purity!" Tommy bellowed, rigid as a marble preacher. "Who are we?"

The crowd was silent, unsure if this was part of the act.

"Who are we, Bobby?"

Bobby shuffled into the spotlight, wincing under the glare.

"What are you talking about?"

"Who are we?"

"I... uh... "

"We're Cannon and Ball!"

The crowd applauded. It sounded like moist bubble-wrap.

"We're... Cannon. And Ball," he repeated, nodding. He began to pace. "And we should act like it."

Bobby Ball was frozen. Repetition and undemanding audiences had robbed him of the spontaneity that used to be his trademark. Thirty years ago he would have riffed on the impending disaster - turning it into a bit of business. But Ball was too tired and too old to do anything now. His shoulders sank: the epitome of the defeated man.

Cannon ambled off stage, but returned quickly, dragging a large barrel behind him. He pulled a crowbar out of his back pocket.

"How long has he had that?" Bobby pondered. He was in denial. Tommy had carried a crowbar on stage every night of this tour, but Bobby had been afraid to ask why.

Tommy wrenched the lid off the barrel. The stench of sulphur hit the first few rows.

"Tommy?" Ball ventured forward. "What is that?"

"It's gunpowder, Bobby." He let some of it fall through his fingers like hourglass sand.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Tommy shivered.

Tommy Cannon looked into Bobby's eyes with a mixture of love and pity.

"Who are we?" he asked again. "Who are we?"

Slowly, inevitably, Tommy began to take down his trousers.


"Remember the Reconquista, Bobby?"

"Jesus, Tommy. What are you doing?!"

Tommy's trousers pooled around his ankles. His Y-fronts began their descent.

"Please, Bobby. No blasphemy," said Tommy. "The Reconquista was a Holy War in the Middle Ages, Bobby. A noble war. A war for Jesus."

Bobby began to weep.

"The Christians, with the will of their saviour - our saviour - behind them, recaptured the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim hordes. We won. We won for Jesus."

"Tommy..."

"Jesus saved us, Bobby. He saved me. And he saved you."

"Yes, but..."

"He saved us." Tommy bent over and splayed his buttocks. "Fill me up, Bobby."

"What..."

"The gunpowder. There's a little trowel, there. Do you see it?"

"I... yes. I see it."

"Fill me up."

Bobby was appalled.

But he grabbed the trowel with no hesitation. He felt a physical certainty wash over him - an angelic hand was guiding his.

"You know what won the war for the good guys, Bobby? The Reconquista, I mean?" Tommy's face was pinkening, upside down, his anus pointed skywards. "It was the cannon."

Bobby couldn't hear anything now.

"The cannon, Bobby. It was the first major western conflict to use cannons. The cannon was a Holy tool, you understand. The cannon did the work of Jesus."

Scoop after scoop of gunpowder was loaded into Tommy's orifice. It overflowed, but Bobby kept going.

"The cannon is a weapon of the righteous".

With no warning, Bobby stopped shovelling, dropped the trowel, and dropped to his knees.

"Who are we, Bobby?"

A trickle of blood slid from Bobby's nostril.

"We're Cannon and Ball."

Throughout it all, the audience were frozen: transfixed (also, most of them were quite elderly).

"I'm Cannon." A deep breath. "And you're Ball."

Bobby twitched to his feet; a cypher, a saint, a celestial marionette.

"Time to load, Bobby."

With no fuss, Bobby climbed in, feet first, his toes embedded in the tinderbox colon of his oldest friend. Tommy grimaced - a grimace of vindication.

Bobby looked towards the roof of the Bury Met arts centre. But all he saw the clear, blue sky.

"Just need to light the fuse," said Tommy, fumbling for his lighter. It was a Zippo. "I love you, Bobby."

"I love you too."

The flame cracked into life. Tommy brought it to the tip of his (sadly non-flammable) penis. It began to singe. "Just need to light the fuse," he repeated.

Sweat ran down his face. Epiphanic pain fell out of his pores.

"I just couldn't wait, Bobby. Heaven is calling. The righteous tool of the Lord is coming home."

The pain increased, the lighter slipped, and the gunpowder overflow ignited.

***

This story was pieced together from various eyewitness accounts given by the members of the audience.

None of them were injured, though the resultant human debris had racked up the dry-cleaning bills (to be paid by the estates of Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball, as stipulated in a previously undiscovered will).

Not one of the spectators asked for their money back. There was a general consensus that the performance had been "deeply moving" and in one case: "revelatory".

A real tragedy, I think you'll agree. But personally, this doesn't tarnish my memories of the great duo.

Although I wish they were still with us, I saw a quote in the paper from Tommy's former personal trainer.

"It's what he would have wanted."