Jurassic Car Park
Adam Millard
1
“Let us start at the very beginning,” said the doctor whose eyes overlapped. He was a funny-looking fella, for a doctor; the kind of bloke more suited to circus performances than interviewing people in straitjackets. “Is your straitjacket too tight? I could loosen it a little if you’re having trouble thinking.”
“It’s fine,” said I, which was a lie as I could hardly breathe and I was fully aware that one almighty sneeze would, more than likely, tear me in three. “The beginning?”
“Always a good place to start, in my professional opinion,” said the doctor.
“Unless you’re writing an epilogue,” I said, which was meant to be clever but sounded ridiculous. “Okay, well, let’s see now. It all started when John and I were getting shitfaced in The Fox with Two Dicks.”
“Is that a pub?” interrupted the doctor, who was already scratching away on his notepad, making notes with which to condemn me to ruination later on.
“As opposed to a real creature?” I said, sarcastically. “Of course it’s a bloody pub. Formerly known as The Fox with Three Dicks—”
“What happened to the third dick?”
“During the great riots of 2009, Roger Plonk thought it would be fun to take one home for his front room,” said I. “Can I continue?”
“Please do.” And back to his notes he went.
“So there we were. John and I getting pissed in The Fox with Two Dicks—”
“This would be John Mackey?” the doctor interrupted yet again. Truth be told, he was getting right on my tits.
“Of course it would be John Mackey,” I said through gritted teeth. “How many other Johns are in this damn story?”
“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “We’re at the beginning.”
He had a good point, which was probably why he was sitting where he was, and why I was strapped to where I was. “There’s just one John in this story,” I said. “And that John is John Mackey, who I was getting shitfaced with in The Fox with Two Dicks when this all started.”
“See,” smiled the doctor. “Doesn’t it feel good to be getting somewhere?”
I didn’t know whether he was trying to wind me up or what, but I could have swung for him (had I not been otherwise subdued). “So there’s me, and there’s John, and then there’s Sid on the one-armed bandit, but he didn’t really have much to do with this particular scene so the less said about him the better…”
2
“Whose round is it?” said John, slamming his empty glass down onto the wooden table, eschewing the intricate beermat system laid out there altogether. Bald of head, round of face, small of eyes, and large of gut, John was the kind of man you could find in any pub the length and breadth of Britain, usually with a St George’s flag draped across their shoulders and a tattoo of a bulldog with a St George’s flag draped across its shoulders etched permanently upon their hairy forearm. John didn’t have a flag or a tattoo, but he was saving up to get one or the other.
“Yours, I think,” I said, which was the same thing I’d said last round. In fact, it was the same thing I’d said for the last four rounds. I was fairly pushing my luck with it, in all honesty.
John was halfway to standing when he came to an abrupt halt. “Wait a minute,” said he, and my sphincter tightened, the way it often does when I’ve been caught red-handed. Everything seemed to slow down, for I knew I only had a couple of quid left in my pocket, and I wanted to get a packet of johnnies from the lavatory and take another run at Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid. “What you drinking again?” said John, and everything resumed at normal speed, including the loosening of my sphincter, though not too loose, thankfully.
“Pint of the black stuff,” said I, and of course he knew what I meant, because we were best friends – mates of the highest order, buddies to the end, pals forever, though I’d drop him quick as anything if Marla the Stereotypical Bartender accepted my proposal for a night of unmitigated passion and optional romance back at my bedsit.
“You mean Guinness?” said John, who wasn’t, it seemed, on the same wavelength as me at all.
“Well I didn’t mean Bovril,” said I, for I was in a right mood, and it was only going to get worse as the night wore on.
And so off John went to the bar, and I kept my eye on him as he went because I knew he, too, was thinking of propositioning Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid. It was while I was watching John watching Marla watching my Guinness that Sid, who was playing on the one-armed bandit a few feet away, decided to engage me in conversation. I told him that he didn’t have a lot to do with this scene and it was best not to get involved, and he agreed and went about his business of losing pound coin after pound coin like a regular gambler.
It was while John was standing at the bar, and while Sid was whistling and looking the other way so as not to impose himself upon a scene which had very little to do with him, that the bell above the door tinkled and in walked The Barry Boys.
Now, if you’re a long-term resident of Buckfutt, you will have grown up with at least one of The Barry Boys. Five of them, there were, each as scabby as the next. They carried with them – as Liam Neeson might put it – a particular set of smells. They also carried a large array of weapons; knives for stabbing, knuckle-dusters for pummelling, there was even talk amongst the regulars that young Billy Barry had managed to furnish himself with a pistol, though whether that was true or not remained to be seen.
“Wotcha, Sheila,” said their leader, Danny Barry, to The Stereotypical Barmaid as he landed at the bar next to John.
“It’s Marla,” said she, for she was a stickler for detail. “And I don’t want any trouble in here today, do you hear me? I’ve only just got the blood out of the carpet.”
Now, I had heard all about the incident which had put the blood into the carpet from John, but fortunately I had been busy sleeping off a particularly nasty bout of genital warts at the time, and thusly missed it.
“Oh lighten up, Sheila,” said Danny, turning to his brothers for approval. They all chuckled along; it was all a bit silly, really. “I mean, what’s the point of Mormons if you can’t have a bit of fun with them, huh?”
Marla – definitely not Sheila – shook her head. “I’m all for a bit of fun,” said she, “but that lanky one lost three fingers. And the little chubby one almost died of bleach poisoning.”
“What can I say?” Danny shrugged. “If it’s any consolation, Willy here lost a tooth.”
As if to prove that he had, in fact, lost a tooth, Willy opened his mouth to reveal…well, a lot of missing teeth. So many missing teeth were there that it was almost impossible to pinpoint the one to which he now referred. Marla would have to take his word for it.
“Any more trouble from you boys and I’ll have no choice but to bar you,” said Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid, and it was such a stereotypical thing for her to say.
“Understood,” said Danny. “Now, can we get five pitchers of your finest ale?”
“You can have five pitchers of ale,” Marla said. “We don’t do anything that could be called ‘finest’.”
John, upon receiving our order, returned to the table with a surreptitious grin upon his countenance, and I knew exactly what he was going to say. Of course I did. We were best friends, after all and, much like that AI-cum-Cyberdyne system commonly known as Google, we finished each other’s sentences.
“Fucking—“
“Barry Boys,” I whispered. John looked at me and I looked at him, and we both grinned, for we were best friends, and the last three seconds had proved it. As John retook his seat, I went on. “So how did it all kick off with the Mormons?”
John wiped the froth from his lips with
the back of his hand (that’s the way it’s done, and not, as some people seem to think, with a hanky from up one’s cardigan sleeve) and leaned in close. “Well. The Barry Boys were playing pool, you see, when in walk this pair of Mormons, one lanky, one chubby. It all starts off relatively friendly, with Wally and Willy Barry taking the piss out of the chubby Mormon boy’s bicycle clips. I was over there, standing where Sid is—”
“I’m not in this scene,” said Sid, somewhat flustered.
“I know that, Sid,” said John. “I’m trying to tell a story here. Do you mind?”
Sid didn’t mind and went back to licking the paisley wallpaper.
“So anyway, Danny Barry challenges the lanky Mormon to a game of pool, and whacks a fiver down on the side of the table.”
“I thought Mormons weren’t allowed to gamble,” I said.
“Of course they’re not,” said John. “They’re not even allowed to have a quid on the Lotto, which is why you never see a rich Mormon. Why do you think they ride around on bikes all day? Give Brother Heinlein a lottery ticket, by the end of the month, he’s cruising in a Jeep Cherokee.”
“I don’t think that’s the reason for the bikes,” I said, “but please continue.”
John supped at his pint before continuing. “So the lanky Mormon, he doesn’t know what so say, since he’s not allowed to gamble, and Danny starts going on about how it’s not gambling, as such, since there was no way he could possibly win. And so the lanky Mormon, much to the chagrin of the chubby one, slapped a fiver down on the table next to Danny’s, picked up the nearest cue (which just happened to be the really good one with the tip and everything still intact) and engaged in a game of billiards with Buckfutt’s resident champion.”
“Things didn’t go so well?” said I, and I knew they didn’t as I’d heard this story before and was only asking him to repeat it for the purposes of the narrative.
“Turns out the Mormon was like shit off a shovel around the pool table,” said John. “He was knocking in balls left, right, and centre, and in the correct order, which was what did it, I reckon. I could see the steam coming from Danny Barry’s ears, and I knew what was going to happen before, well, before it happened.”
“Needless to say,” I said, “the poor Mormons didn’t know what hit ‘em.”
“A pool cue around the head’s what hit ‘em,” said John. “And then Danny went to town on the lanky one’s wanking hand with a rusty Swiss Army knife.”
“Miniature saw?”
“Corkscrew,” said John, and we both sucked air in through our teeth, the way one does upon consideration of another person’s painful misfortunes. “And then the nail file,” added John, and we did more suckings and hissings, and I do believe my scrotum crawled up inside me for a little lie down.
“So how did the chubby one almost die of bleach poisoning?” Of course I knew, but you don’t, so…
“Well this is where Sammy Barry got involved,” said John. “And you know what Sammy Barry’s like.”
I did know what Sammy Barry was like. He was like a rabid little monkey. Just like one, in fact.
“So Sammy goes off to the kitchen, and by kitchen I mean the place beyond the hatch where the cheese-and-onion cobs come from, and when he comes back, what’s he carrying?”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a bottle of bleach.”
“Ten points to that man,” said John, though I’m not sure why. “Willy and Wally held the chubby one down while Sammy set about the poor fucker with the Domestos. After that, things escalated quickly.”
“More quickly,” I corrected my best friend, to which nodded.
“The place was swarming with coppers before Sammy managed to empty the bottle.”
“And yet here they are,” I said, motioning to the five lads at the bar, who were still waiting for five pitchers of fine ale, and would be waiting for quite some time.
“Well, that’s what happens when you’re the town bullies,” said John. “Even the judge is scared of The Barry Boys. He still owes them fifty quid, if I’m not mistaken.”
“So it goes,” I said, which was something I had read once in a Vonnegut novel and sounded so much cooler on paper.
“Indeed it does,” said John, and we both supped at our pints and tried not to make eye-contact with The Barry Boys, who were walking across the pub with their pitchers in hand, looking for somewhere to sit.
And sit they did, at the table right next to ours, which was a bit of a git as there were ten others to choose from. I held my breath for as long as humanly possible, which isn’t that long, it transpires. But the smell wasn’t that bad, not once you got used to it.
“Can I go now?” said Sid, who we had forgotten all about and had been so good at not getting involved in the scene that his sudden outburst came as something of a shock.
“Yeah,” I said, shooing him away with both hands. And off he went, muttering byes to Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid as he left. It was, I thought, more than a bit part, but a lot of it had been ad-libbed, so it didn’t count as far as I was concerned.
And it was while we were sitting there, John and I, staring into our pints and avoiding eye-contact with the goons on the next table, that this whole thing started.
3
“So we’re only just getting to the start?” asked the doctor as he checked his watch. I could hear his stomach growling. “We might have to cut out some of the exposition if I’m going to eat lunch today.”
To hell with your lunch, I thought. This is a matter of national security! Lunch can fuck off!
“You wanted the story,” I said, “I’m giving it to you. Unabridged and exactly as it happened. If I start cutting bits out willy-nilly, it’s not going to make much sense.”
The doctor settled back in his chair; his stomach whined at me. “Please, go on,” he said. “Just try to skip over the unnecessary bits.”
“There are no unnecessary bits,” I said.
“Sid was unnecessary,” said the doctor.
“I’ll tell him that the next time I see him,” said I. “Now, can I continue? We’ve got a lot to get through, and these ankle-shackles are starting to chafe.”
“Go on,” said the doctor.
“Thank you.”
4
“So I was thinking about asking Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid out,” said John, which was not what one might expect from a best friend and I do believe my face said as much. “What?”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’ve heard that she doesn’t like it when patron ask her out. You’ve heard the old adage, ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep’.”
“Awfully messy,” said John.
“Exactly. And I believe Marla is a firm believer in it.” I was being a dick. I knew I was being a dick, but there was no way I was letting John sneak in and pluck my beloved Marla away now, not when I was so close to asking her out for myself.
“Thanks, mate,” said John.
“Hey,” said I. “That’s what best friends are for.” And I necked half of my pint in one go. “Besides, there are plenty more fish in the sea. What about Joan? Joan’s single.”
“Joan’s a thrice-divorced husband-beater,” said John.
“Rumours,” I said with a wave of the hands.
“Not the kind of rumours likely to draw me in,” said John. “I’m more likely to go for a woman whose rumours are, ‘Hey, I hear she can suck a golf-ball through a hose-pipe,’ or, ‘I hear she’s a huge fan of Pink Floyd’.”
While it was nice sitting there, discussing what my best friend looked for in a woman, I couldn’t help overhearing the discussion taking place at The Barry Boys’ table. I kicked John about the shins to silence him, and after calling me a cockwomble, he realised that I was trying to hear what was being said a few feet away.
“We’ll have to do it tonight,” said Danny Barry. “It’s the kind of thing you do in the dark, after all.”
“But what if it’s gone by then?” asked Billy Barry.
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“I don’t think it will be,” said Danny. “It’s been there for a few days now, and nobody’s seen anybody anywhere near it. I think it’s been nicked and dumped.”
“Who nicks and dumps a DeLorean?” said Wally Barry, lighting a cigarette.
“No smoking in here,” said Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid, holding up a sign which said as much.
Wally Barry extinguished his cigarette on the edge of the table before continuing. “I mean, it’s not like a Vauxhall Velox, is it? DeLoreans are rare as rocking-horse shit.”
“All we know,” said Danny, “is that there is a DeLorean – the car made famous by that film with the shaky-hands man and Uncle Fester – parked up in an abandoned car-park on Charlie Chaplin Street. We know it’s been there for a few days because of all the tickets stuck to its windscreen. And we know we want it, because we’re sitting here talking about nicking it right now. Ergo—”
“Great film,” said Sammy Barry. “Anything with Ben Affleck is awesome.”
Danny slapped Sammy about the chops before continuing. “Therefore, when it gets dark, we are going to take that DeLorean and see what it’s made of.”
“Aluminium and rubber would be my guess,” said Wally, and so Danny took to slapping Wally about the chops too.
“Until tonight,” said Danny, “we need to keep this hush-hush. If anybody gets wind of that DeLorean…” And that was where he trailed off. And also where he noticed John and I leaning toward their table like a pair of ADHD meerkats.
Now, there are moments in life where you simply have to accept you’ve been caught red-handed. The child with the sweets stuffed down the front of his shorts in the newsagents; the armed robbers in a bank surrounded by SWAT; the dieting fat woman with cream and chocolate all about her jowls. In times like these, it’s best to hold one’s hands up and admit one’s mistake. It would be best if I apologised to The Barry Boys for the intrusion, offered to buy them a round of Marla’s Finest, and then made my exit by way of the door as opposed to the window, which Danny Barry was wont to evict patrons upon occasion. It would be best if I did that, indeed, but for some strange reason, I did not.
Jurassic Car Park Page 1
