Booze and Burn

by Charlie Williams

  ‘Oh…you sure about that?’

  ‘Aye, I fuckin’ am.’

  ‘Knows who I am, does you?’

  ‘Course I does. Royston B—’

  ‘I’m Royston fucking Blake, and I can stick me knob where I fucking wants to. Right?’

  ‘Aye all right. Let go me ear, please.’

  ‘So woss she doin’ here if she ain’t puttin’ out?’

  ‘She’s…er…dunno, really.’

  ‘Dunno? Fuck off. Tell us.’

  ‘Ask her yerself.’

  ‘Fuckin’ cheeky…’ I picked him up and dangled him by the ankles, twenties and tens raining down on the carpet. Half a dozen other younguns jumped in and cleared up the mess, clocking nary a glan at their helpless comrade. I held him by one hand and lit a fag with the free one, watching em all. Scrag-ends, the lot of em, just like this one here. Nothing like in my day when you had to be born with bricks and mortar in your blood to even walk past the arky. Either folks had been spawning a lot of runts of late or the arky were attracting a lower class of punter. And going by some of the young shite-houses I had to contend with on the door at Hoppers, I reckon it were the latter.

  I let go his ankle, landing him plum on his swede. He lay on his face, rubbing his conk for a bit, then up and scarpered soon as I looked away. He were shouting summat at us from the doorway as I made me way to the last aisle, but I weren’t paying no heed. He’d only peg it if I went after him anyhow. And I’d already showed him who were boss in Mangel. Besides, I’d just that minute spotted her, leaning against a wall over there, sharing some sweets with her pals.

  I flicked me ash and strolled on up.

  ‘All right, love,’ I says.

  She clocked us up and down, making out like it were an effort to do as much, then turned back to her scrag-ends who was stashing the sweets she’d just gave em. She weren’t fooling us, mind. I’d seen the way birds eyed us down at Hoppers. Couldn’t keep their fucking eyes off of us, they couldn’t. I dunno what it were about us. I were a big lad, course, and that always goes down well with the skirt. Plus there was some reckoned us a ringer for Clint Eastwood, if you can picture him a bit more fleshed out, like. So all in all there were no fucking way she didn’t fancy us. Especially what with me being head doorman and manager of Hoppers, and her being a healthy young lass and all.

  ‘I says all right, love,’ I says.

  Her eyes flicked at us and she says: ‘Piss off.’

  Course, I were as surprised as you by that. No bird ever spoke to us like that except Fat San just now, who ain’t a proper bird anyhow. ‘Come again?’ I says.

  ‘Piss off,’ she says same as before, only a bit louder and narkier now. The scrag-ends slipped past us, greasy and shifty as they was. She tried to follow, holding her head high and leading with her shoulder. I stuck me arm out.

  She walked into it. Just like the other night outside Hoppers. But this time she looked up at us and says: ‘Move this fuckin’ arm.’

  She weren’t so bad to look at, now I got a good gander of her. I reckon there’d been summat up with her the other night, like the feller had said. Her ginger hair were all shiny and done up today, and the way she used her pale eyes set me groin area astir summat chronic. My arm were crossways over her chest so I moved it around a bit.

  She stepped back. ‘What d’you want?’ she says getting a smoke out.

  I held a lighter out before she could get her own. ‘A sweet,’ I says. ‘Got a sweetie for us?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Go on, giz one. I knows you got em.’

  ‘Sweets? What the—?’

  ‘Aye, seen you give em to them lads just now. Come on.’ I held out my hand. ‘I got a sweet tooth.’

  ‘I don’t care about yer teeth—you’ll get nuthin’ from us. Move.’

  ‘Who’s gonna make us, eh?’

  She said nothing to that, sense finally seeping through her strop and hushing her up.

  ‘That’s better,’ I says, relaxing a bit. ‘Now, I’ll let you off the sweets. I knows how younguns ain’t meant to give sweets to strangers and I wouldn’t want you gettin’ in no trouble with yer old feller over it. Wouldn’t wanna upset him, would you?’

  She were looking at us different now. Not quite a smile, but she were interested.

  ‘All right, fair play,’ I says. ‘Change the subject, shall we? Who were that feller dropped you off outside just now?’

  I reckon she’d been planning it all along, waiting her moment. There’d been no sign of it leading up anyhow. I were a doorman, weren’t I, trained to look out for such things on a nightly basis. But I weren’t on duty now—I were chatting up a young bird in the arky. And I thought I were doing all right until she swung her knee full bore in me knackers.

  She were long gone by the time I came to. Not that I’d been splayed out on the deck nor nothing. Can’t let em see your pain, you can’t. I just let meself fall sideways, standing propped up against a fruitie until the stars in me swede faded a bit and the sap started flowing south again. I made me exit with a dignified gait, ruing the fucking moment I’d stepped in that place not half an hour prior. And with fucking good reason to rue, as it went on to turn out. You couldn’t measure on a weighbridge how much grief I could have spared meself if I’d only steered well clear.

  And a good bit of it were to land on us next, when I went to Hoppers.

  6

  SWEETS DEFY SCIENTISTS

  Robbie Sleeter, Junior Reporter

  Police scientists have completed their tests on the unidentified items of confectionery found on the two youths arrested for burgling Gromer Wines. ‘To be honest with you we just don’t know what they are,’ said Dr G. Gumb in a hastily arranged press conference, attended also by Dr B. Wimmer and Police Chief Bob Cadwallader. ‘Odd little things, they are. Pink and round and quite hard. Look a bit like those old sweets you used to get. What were they called? We can’t remember, can we, Brian?’

  ‘No,’ replied Dr Wimmer.

  ‘Anyway, in composition they are a bit like your typical gob-stopper, with a couple of minor differences. What differences, you ask? We can’t say that for definite because, well…Let’s just say I wouldn’t give them to my children.’

  Standing up suddenly, Chief Cadwallader said: ‘Listen here, if anyone wants to come in and try one of these sweets for us, under proper laboratory conditions and safety procedures and that, we’d be most grateful. And you’ll be performing a public service. Just pop into the station and you’ll be looked after.’

  Asked about the recent crime wave, the chief said: ‘What crime wave? What’s a flipping crime wave? Spot of robbery’s nothing to fret over, is it? Spell inside will sort them two out. And to anyone reading this who’s thinking of getting up to no good, let me tell you this: a spell inside will sort you out and all.’

  ‘Message for you,’ says Rache.

  I were getting started on me fourth pint by way of bedding meself in for the evening. Folks wasn’t up to much yet so I were sat at the bar, taking it casual.

  ‘You know what, Rache?’ I says, shaking me swede and smiling a smile of resignation. ‘She can take her message an’ stick him up her—’

  ‘It ain’t from Sal. It’s from Nathan.’

  I drank half me pint, celebrating it not being from Sal. You might have noticed that Sal weren’t top of my list of folks I wants to talk to. Well, that don’t make you clever. If you was clever you’d know why she didn’t top that list. And you don’t, does you? So I’d better tell you:

  I just couldn’t be arsed with her no more.

  And that ain’t just me being a cunt. She were letting herself go, Sal were. And if a bird don’t care about herself then I ain’t gonna neither.

  So I were glad to hear that the message weren’t from her. Meant she were getting the message. If she wants to be near Royston Blake, she’s got to take a good long look in the mirror and tidy herself up a bit. Quality goes with quality, dunnit?

  But i
t weren’t all good news.

  Idea of having Nathan the barman as me boss had been an all right one at first. Fuck only knew how he’d wangled ownership of the place after the last feller’d carked it, and to be honest I hadn’t been in a fit shape to give it much thought at the time. I were just happy to get back on me door, and with someone I knew paying me wages. But he weren’t half a whinging cunt when he got going. You seen him yesterday at the Paul Pry, going on about this and that. What do you reckon? Could you work for a cunt like him? Course you couldn’t. Not even if he’d have you. ‘Woss he want now?’ I says.

  ‘Don’t fuckin’ swear at me,’ she says flashing fire at us. Been doing a fair bit of that of late, she had. ‘I only took the flippin’ message.’

  ‘Which were?’

  She went to serve a feller, leaving us to sink the rest of me pint and look at meself in the mirrored wall behind the bar. My dicky-bow were a mite straight so I set him askew, just the way it ought to be.

  ‘About fuckin’ time an’ all,’ says someone on me left.

  ‘Oh, all right, Jack,’ I says. ‘Woss about time an’ all? Settin’ me dickie askew?’

  He couldn’t have heard us cos he wiped his mouth and says: ‘Fuckin’ fuckers. Fuckin’ have em, I will, fuckin’ lot of em. Fuckers. Telled him I would an’ all. I’ll have em. Them yonder an’ all. Fuckin’ sew em up proper. Cunts. I’ll—’ He started coughing and I knew he’d be busy with that for five minutes.

  Rache came back looking a bit calmer. ‘Don’t mind him,’ she says, glancing at Jack, who were chewing summat he’d coughed up. ‘He’s been on one since openin’.’

  ‘Aye all right,’ I says. ‘But what about—?’

  ‘He says,’ she says, referring to Nathan now and his phone call, ‘he says, “Don’t forget to keep the stage clear. And remember: no trouble.” You do know what he’s on about, right?’

  I pushed me empty towards her. Rache were getting on me tits now. Always had reckoned herself a cut above. And now here she were trying to make a cunt of us.

  ‘You mean you dunno?’ She were smiling now and all. I’m happy to bring sunshine into folks’ lives, but one thing I don’t enjoy is having the piss took out of us.

  ‘Shut up an’ giz another pint in there.’

  That wiped the smirk off her chops. Then her eyes turned hard and she shook her head slow. ‘I dunno why I bothers with you sometimes, Royston Blake.’

  ‘Eh? But you don’t bother with us, else I’d have me pint by now. Now come on—shift.’

  She pulled us the drink and set it in front of us, slopping half of it over the bartop. By rights I ought to have her up over such shoddy barmanship, but there was other matters at hand by then. Folks was starting to come in, see. I could see em in the mirror. And it were no different from last night.

  I lit one up and drank me pint. I were doing a bit of thinking, see, and beer and smokes helps on that front, I’ve found. What the fuck was they playing at, them punters? I’d fucking showed em all last night, hadn’t I? I’d smacked em black and blue and brown up the back and still they was coming in tonight and getting me hackles up just the same way, doing the thing a feller just ain’t meant to do, unless he’s after a shoeing.

  Looking at us, weren’t they? But not only that…

  They was looking at us…funny.

  And if there’s one thing any self-respecting head doorman won’t stand for it’s funny looks.

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say him again: the number one root of aggro round these parts is eye contact. Sometimes a shared glance can’t be avoided. Eyes is eyes, and clocking’s what they does best even when you don’t want em to. Feller can’t very well walk about with em shut unless he’s aiming to make short work of himself, but anything more than a glance, at a feller you ain’t on glancing terms with, you gets a smack.

  And they was all doing it, them wankers. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I’d have to do em all again for the second night on the trot. I sighed and shook me swede and sunk the lager, trying to wind meself up for it. Don’t get us wrong—hitting folks is always a pleasure. But I were getting a bit knackered. And too much of a good thing’s bad for you. Still…

  It were only when I squared up to the first one that I recalled Nathan’s orders. The thrust of em anyhow. No aggro, or summat. Which meant I couldn’t hardly do me job proper, could I? You don’t really want to mess with Nathan’s orders for several reasons—one of em being that no one ever had messed with him and I weren’t about to be the first. ‘Wanna look at summat, does you?’ I says to the lucky feller who I’d decided against hitting. I held up me right paw anyhow, clenched. ‘Well look at this feller here. Remember him. Next time you comes in here clockin’ us like that you’ll be meetin’ him proper. All right?’

  ‘But…’ He looked shite scared, to be fair. But that didn’t stop him looking us up and down like I were a bird with no kit on. ‘But you just…I mean you…Oh fuck, I’m…Can he…’

  I weighed him up a moment then says: ‘You fuckin’ what?’

  ‘It’s no use,’ someone says into me right ear. ‘He’s J’d up, heh heh. You’ll not get a bit o’ sense out of him.’

  I turned, fists clenching even more. Who were this cunt who had the nerve to tell us what were what in my own place? That scrawny little gobshite from the arky is who it were, the one who I’d dropped on his swede just now.

  ‘Likes glass, does you?’ he says. ‘Heh heh, hang about a bit an’ we’ll give you a glass show. Heh.’

  ‘You fuckin’ what?’ I says. No one were making no sense and I were getting a bit sick of it. I made a grab for him, but he ducked and slithered away, and just when I were thinking of going off after him someone else took me arm.

  I threw it off and faced em, ready to drop my head. I didn’t like the way the evening were unfolding, and the only way to make it better were to make an example of some fucker. But it weren’t no fucker.

  It were our Sal.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Wha…wh…’ I were so taken aback I couldn’t spit the words out. ‘What the fuck is you doin’ here?’ I says at last, moving close. She had an inch of slap on her face and smelled like a tart’s window box come spring. Least she had her coat buttoned up proper, mind. If there’s one thing I couldn’t abide it’s fellers peeking down my bird’s cleavage. ‘I telled you don’t come here. Puts us off me work, it do.’

  ‘Your work, eh? Well I’m workin’ tonight an’ all.’ She started unbuttoning her coat, which set us on edge.

  But I weren’t letting it put us off. ‘You? Work?’ says I. ‘Don’t make us laugh. You don’t fuckin’ work. I looks after you. An’ I’ll tell you summat else…’ I stopped there cos…cos…

  Music started up somewhere. Sort of music I hadn’t heard in Hoppers in a long time.

  Tie a yellow ribbon round the…

  But that weren’t why I shut up. I shut up cos…Ah fucking hell.

  She plonked her coat across me shoulder and made off toward the raised drinking area. Fellers was already taking notice—cheering, clearing a passage for her and then getting off the stage when she reached it and started swinging her hips. They was roaring when she turned her back and fiddled with the catch of her yellow bra. None of em was bothered about me no more. But to be honest I’d rather have em doing that than clocking my bird up there, turning round with her hands covering her bare bosoms, which was getting quite big of late, I must say. The music were swinging and so were her tits when she threw her paws up. I knew where I’d last heard the song now—strip nights we used to have down Hoppers in the old days, when the Muntons still ran the show. Hoppers hadn’t seen a pair of nips in nigh on four year, but it were seeing em now all right, as our Sal rubbed em up all pokey and pert. And when she stuck her thumbs down the ribbon sides of her yellow knickers I knew it were set to see a lot more besides.

  ‘Hoy,’ I were shouting. ‘Hoy, fuckin’ cover yerself up and get down here now.’ But
Sal couldn’t hear us with all the cheering. I couldn’t even hear meself. I shut me eyes for a bit. When I opened em again it were worse. It were about as bad as it can fucking get, mate. She were bending over backwards and…she were…you know, her knickers…

  Ah, fuck.

  I pegged it.

  Rache were hoying us as I steamed past but I couldn’t stop. If I stopped for her I’d have to look her in the eyes, which were summat I didn’t reckon I’d ever be doing again, the way things was going for us. I ran past her and headed for the door. Which were where I found me second problem.

  ‘Royston Blake?’ he says.

  I looked up at his head. Then I looked from shoulder to shoulder, craning me neck. Aye, he were a big lad all right. But he were standing nice and quiet outside the door like a good boy, waiting to be let in. So I weren’t fretting too much yet. ‘Who the fuck is you?’ I says.

  ‘You Royston Blake or what?’ he says. You couldn’t actually see his eyeballs, so high up were they. Which were starting to make us a bit nervous if I’m honest. But I knew his face to look at, just about. He’d been a little scrag-end last time I’d seen him, which must have been a year or so prior. Aye, I’d turned him away from the door on account of his looking no older than a young ten. We never let younguns in Hoppers. They could go to the Forager’s. But he’d grown a bit since then. Big cunt he were now, about four times his former size. Looked a bit like Frankenstein, with his bulgy forehead and tree trunk neck and that.

  ‘So what if I is Royston Blake? Who wants to know?’

  ‘You lamped our bruvver just now,’ says Frankenstein, all matter of fact like he were just telling us the time.

  I scratched my head. ‘Did I?’

  ‘Aye, you did.’

  ‘Where…?’ I were still scratching.

  ‘Outside the arky.’

  ‘Arky, eh? Well I can’t say I—’

  ‘Knocked two of his teeth out you did.’

  ‘I honestly ain’t—’

  ‘And bust his lip.’