Mr. Chumley

Imagine the coldest person you know and add a hundred icy arctic winds on top. Mr. Chumley is a horrible, hard man. The worst thing about him is that he has no warm feelings for other people or for animals and absolutely none for his son. He actually thinks that Rufus Chumley might not even be his own son, that perhaps the baby was swapped by mistake in the hospital.

He imagines that if Rufus were his real son he would be more like him. Mr. Chumley would have liked a son that picked fights and won, one who was in charge in the classroom because he bullied everyone, a son who hated the world as much as he does. Then they could have sat in his office venting their hatred of everything together.

As it is he has a son who is quiet and in his opinion very weird. Mr. Chumley doesn’t understand why Rufus likes shooting things, but not working in his abattoir killing bull calfs. He can’t stand the sight of Rufus, because Rufus often looks so miserable in front of him. This makes Mr. Chumley even angrier and colder that he normally is. He thinks that his son needs fixing and does this by telling him how useless and pathetic he is. He buys Rufus anything that keeps the boy out of the house. He can hardly bear the sight of Rufus.

He doesn’t know what is, as he has never received it or expressed it or felt it. As a child the young boy, Rufus used to come towards him to be cuddled but Mr. Chumley found this very alarming and would leave the room immediately as the ‘cuddle’ things were, he thought, sickening, soft things and he wanted nothing to do with them. He wasn’t sure where the boy had picked up the idea of a cuddle. He thought perhaps he had seen other children being given cuddles by the school gates or something. Ghastly, pathetic stuff was what he thought of that.

Mr. Chumley owns a string of abattoirs and is happiest there, killing the bull calves for the farmers, so that the meat can be sold to the butchers. He really likes the money that can be made from meat. He is very rich and intends to get richer and the abattoir business is where he plans to make his money.