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A Quiet Pint!
By Joe Cicero, 1999
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What a day!
What a crazy fucking day. First off Bobby Lomax pays me a visit
from my bed I recognise his pert knock and shrill coughing
but am too lazy to get up and greet him - and posts a nine-bar
thru the letterbox which thuds onto the welcome mat before he
finally abandons the call. I wonder if someone's dropped me a
morning letter-bomb, then decide I'm not that vital to anyone
and go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
Awoken by the missus she's back from her work and's tripped
over the delivery letting herself in ----
"I thought you said you were giving that up! You said you
wouldn't sell it anymore, I'm sick of your bombhead mates coming
'round and making my curtains smell" and off she goes on
another rant I'm off out, though not before taking the bar
and securing it in a regular hidey-hole in the house.
*
The streets are chaos, half term and there's nippers abounding,
you're tripping over them and getting caught in the crossfire
of countless street-side ball games while up and down the terraces
mothers shout hoarse from well trampled hallways and jobless fathers
tinker with ire-fuelled passion at various rust-buckets beached
at irregular points along the gutters. Modern chaos I think,
turning the buckled hamster wheel of urban existence with frenzied
pace and irresolute determination. I imagine I'm not built for
this, yet I figure I'm as much an ingredient as any in this futile
soup, which when supped tastes like something concocted on Can't
Cook, Won't Cook. Like a walking crouton, a reluctantly mobile
split-pea floating with current amidst the broth of bodies and
shops, steered now by intangible shocks of momentary enlightenment,
next by the terminal hammer-blow of profound disillusionment.
Some of the faces that I encounter sicken me; others make my
swede pivot on my neck as if magnetised. The tight, round backsides
of confident women yards ahead of me, the dirty yet faultlessly
pressed grey trousers of coughing old men, the pathetic rattle
of poxy shopping trolleys clutched by scarf-headed pensioners
possessed with Kwik Save purpose and family-owned fruit-shop dreams,
the essence of medicated tedium streaming from the doorways of
two-bit chemists' shops, the distinctly 1960s desolation and end-of-the-world
oppression of dour laundrettes filled with freaky old punters
and disaffected students, the heartfelt carpet smell of eleven
o'clock conservative clubs now there's a thought
"Pint of Export please"
*
Sat at the bar it's difficult not to pick up on a conversation being held by two flat-capped gents speaking in broad Cardiff accents at a table to my left. I have some trouble picking up many of the slurred or grunted utterings beneath the onslaught of the overly loud student-fuelled jukebox but the gist of it is the two men's disgruntlement at the visible rise in crime around the area, taking particular exaction over the drug-active fraternity, now infesting and sullying a district which was once before a homely utopia of open front doors, community spirit and street parties around twenty-foot long tables. The pair chatter on this topic for a good hour or so while I listen on indifferently, occasionally glancing away to clock the few other punters or a single shot played by the lunchtime students at the pool table.
Finally tiring of this ecouterism I drain my second pint and head
around the bar to a door marked TOILETS.
Same old tricks I empty my font and then latch the cubicle
door. I take a cigarette paper from a pocket and lay it on the
cistern's smooth convex, fish a lump from another pocket and extract
a lighter from yet a third.
Some four minutes later I emerge from the toilets and take my
stool at the bar again, signalling to the stocky barman for another
lager. At this point the fellow nearest me rises and shuffles
weightedly to the toilets, whereupon the other man also stands,
engages in a small bout of horrendous coughing, and makes for
the front doors. With some joy I notice one of the men has left
a fresh rolly beside a half depleted SA. The moment the barman
goes thru into the lounge I skip off the stool and dart to the
table, deftly swap the rolly for my one-skinner and get back to
position just as the second departee bustles back thru the front
doors with a newspaper under his arm. He sits down and shakes
the newspaper out, eyeing the front page with visible scorn, and
taps the cigarette on the table. The first man returns from the
toilets and reclaims his seat.
"Have you seen this Bob? More bloody drugs, look. Everyday
it's more bloody drugs"
"Aye, aye Jim." with a nod of the head and forrid wrinkled
regretfully. The old man lays his paper on an adjacent seat with
tired disgust and lights the cigarette contemptuously, puffing
exaggeratedly to indicate his despair.
"Ay Bob, this baccy tastes funny"
"Aye well Jim it's that cheap bloody stuff you smokes. Tastes
bloody awful that stuff."
"Oh sod off. This tastes funny to me."
"'ow dyou mean funny?"
"Well, like, sort of 'erbal, like bloody 'erbs or those daft
medical fags they smokes"
"Ay I can smell something now Jim. A strong smell, like
perfume or summin."
"It's bloody strange go on Bob, have a couple of drags
on that and see." I spark my own cigarette, Jim's stolen
handiwork. Bob takes the spliff from Jim's shaky fingers and
duly takes a tremendous pull. He holds this in his old steel
lungs for several seconds and exhales, spluttering only slightly.
"Well, what d'you say?"
"Aye you're right Jim it's got a funny taste."
Bob raises the mysterious wand to his blue lips for a second
intake, this time savouring the smoke for a few seconds before
emitting it with a raucous hack, the leathered air bags finally
giving in. I chuckle at this and in turn choke on my own smoke.
"Christ Bob, you alright fella?"
"That's a fuckin' killer that is Jim."
"Sounds it Bob." Nevertheless the rugged Bob takes
several more equally dissatisfying tokes before moving to stub
the smoke out in the ashtray.
"'ang on fella, I never said you could fuckin' finish the
cunt. Give it ere before you does that". Jim finishes the
spliff while Bob rambles on about the enigmatic qualities of the
questionable smoke. I notice with high amusement both men slipping
into a dreamy stupor, each looking ironically thru glazed eyes
into the depths of their respective pints, silent and profound
for a few minutes then attempting a discourse with unsure voices
and long pauses where basic words had before been inserted effortlessly.
Laughing quietly I turn to face the back wall of the bar and
ponder the spirit display, until a shock of raised voices coming
from the direction of the pool table causes me to spin around
and clock the action. A middle-aged man decked out in a darts
shirt and slacks who I take to be the landlord is engaged in a
war of words with the students who stand in a rough crescent around
him, leaning on their cues with harangued expressions.
"bringin your bloody waccy baccy in 'ere, I won't 'ave it
lads, I'll 'ave the bastard police up 'ere in a shot."
The tallest of the accused, a particularly foppish specimen with
blonde flops of hair almost obscuring the narrowed eyes is acting
as spokesman for the group. "Look mate, the only thing we're
smoking is fags. You must have seen me get a pack from the machine
then!"
"No you look son. I knows your type, you comes in 'ere and
spends enough alright but you always gotta spoil it with that
stuff. This is a quiet club and I looks after my members. What
about those two poor blokes over there 'avin a quiet pint?"
The landlord gestures toward Bob and Jim, who have also become
aware of the argument and are staring dopily back on the scenario,
Bob particularly wearing a look of dazed incomprehension on his
drooping head. "Thirty years or more they been comin' in
'ere and they shouldn't 'ave to put up with this"
"Aye, thirty years Paul and I never 'ad a pint like that
before either." Jim's voice is cracked and slightly trembling.
"I don't know what was in that SA but it made the fags taste
funny and I don't feel meself like."
"You alright Jim?"
"I'm alright mate, I'll have another one when you're done
and all."
"And me Paul." Bob and Jim cackle into their glasses.
Paul turns back on the students.
"Look, see what you done now? They've 'ad your fumes and
they don't know what they're up to now, poor bastards. If you
don't get out now I won't even call the police, me and Dave'll
'ave you in the back room."
"Come on mate, all we're doing is-"
"DAVE!" The original barman comes quickly thru from
some lounge conversation and makes his way briskly to the pool
table. "Bit of trouble with these boys Dave, student lads
they are, smoking their joints in 'ere. 'Ave a look at Jim and
Bob over there, they're addled off of it!" A round of rusty
chuckling comes from the table of Jim and Bob right on cue.
"Alright mate we're going. But we haven't done anything."
"Look boys, just get the fuck out now before Dave loses his
rag." The dejected lads leave in a rustle of sports jackets
and rucksacks and Paul and Dave disappear in the direction of
the lounge once more. Bob and Jim look happy enough now, certainly
nothing would suggest the dour and disgruntled pair I encountered
on entering. I drain my pint and leave the bar, plunging back
into the maelstrom of the busy streets.
