The Good Servants

by Johnny Brennan

  a relic of Brian Boru.

  Yes, ‘twas an ancient old Irish French-letter,

  made of elk hide and just one foot tall,

  with a wee golden tally on the end, sir,

  with his name and his stud fees and all.

  Well, I cast me mind back through the ages,

  to the days of that horny old Celt,

  when Queen Mary she lay on the bed, sir,

  and Brian stood there in his pelt.

  And I heard him remark rather sternly,

  ‘now listen dear, we must get this right,

  you had it your way last night, dear,

  it’s the hairy side outside tonight’.

  Ah Ha Ha Ha, good one. A bit shit, but good.

  “Hoooraaaaayyyyy Henry.”

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are The Shamrock Mist! Thank you and goodnight.”

  Cheers and shouts for more followed but we’d played well over two hours with only a piss break so we felt like a deserved rest. We split up, one to the bar, one to the jax, one to the English lads and I stayed where I was. Whereas the other guys had drunk themselves into a state of advanced wobbliness, I had just managed to get myself back on level ground. I didn’t know if we were staying above the bar or in some hostel but I was eager to get there as soon as possible.

  Spud came back from the jax with a doobie skinned up and invited the English guys outside to partake. “Foy, you coming? It’s happy hour in the car-park,” he said waving an albino carrot in front of my eyes. There were about ten of us so the spliff was spread pretty thinly and was smoked quickly. Back inside there were more pints and more banter until Brian was called to the bar, actually called behind the bar which was more serious as it turned out.

  “There have been a series of misunderstandings,” said Brian with a suspicious looking grin when he returned.

  “Like wha’?”

  “Well, we don’t get paid, we’ve nowhere to sleep and we’re way over our drink limit.”

  “Why? How much did we drink?”

  “What do you mean ‘nowhere to sleep’?”

  “How much are we not getting paid?”

  “Very much ... he has some agreement with Helmut. This comes under our agreement with him. He either paid Helmut or will pay Helmut, but he’s not paying us, that’s the deal.”

  “Where is he? I’ll talk to him, sort this fuckin’ thing out,” slurred Spud getting mealy-mouthed and shirty.

  “Forget it Spud, you’re locked, he’s sober, right? He won’t talk to ye,” slurred Brian being responsible and cool.

  “What do mean by ‘nowhere to sleep’?” my voice had a sound of resigned desperation to it.

  “What do you want? A dictionary? He thought we came in a car or van or something, an’ anyways he didn’t hear anything about putting us up ... and now he won’t.”

  “Because we exceeded our pint quotient?”

  “Exactly, he has us down for over sixty pints and he’s pretty up the fuckin’ wall about it too.”

  “Sixty pints???”

  “Each?”

  “No, not fuckin’ each, that’s wha’? Fifteen each.”

  “No fuckin’ way did we have fifteen pints each.”

  “That’s what I said, and then it dawned on me ...”

  “What?”

  “The Sasanach!!”

  “Oh Jaysus ... don’t tell me ...”

  “Yeah, those cunts were gettin’ in the rounds and sticking them on our tab.”

  “The fuckers.”

  “... then that’s the barman’s fault, not ours.”

  “Klaus doesn’t give a shit, he has us down for sixty-plus pints and that’s it.”

  “Who’s Klaus?”

  “The Minister for Education! … who the fuck do you think Klaus is? The boss!!”

  “Yeah, Santa Klaus.”

  We decided to have a quiet word with the lads and they were very good about it as it turned out. They thought they were getting the drinks put on their tabs not ours. Then they offered to go straighten things out with Klaus, take half of our tab and pay for it, but some quick calculations by Tony figured it differently.

  “Wait a moment, what time does this establishment close?”

  “On a Sunday? About two, maybe a little after.”

  “And at what time do you plan to vacate?”

  “Same answer, Ha Ha Ha Ha.”

  “Well in that case, as I doubt Klaus is going to furnish us with more beverages anyway, we would all be best served if you gentlemen could just see us right for drinks until closing time. We wouldn’t have to spend any money on pints and your existing tabs are absorbed by our band expenses. We would all be starting from scratch. We are a little borasic at the moment so that would certainly be of great benefit to us.”

  “Borasic? We’re shit-faced,” said Spud.

  The sense of it slowly became clear to the remaining English lads and so we effectively had a free bar until closing time.

  “Good thinking, Tony.”

  “Yeah, cheers Mr. BBC, jolly well done sir.”

  Brian and Spud were straight up to the bar for nine pints of roguery. The tables had turned and we could now stick rounds on the Brit’s tab.

  “Revenge for Skibereen!”

  A bell rang behind the bar and Spud goes “fuck me, they’re closing already, we’d better get a double round!”

  I got half my double round and then retired to a small vacant corner with a big comfy chair and fell fast asleep.

  Next thing I know I wake up with a crowd around me, actually, a crowd and more than half a pint of flat German beer. The beer got my attention first despite the fact that I was still in the process of being roused. The rousing became forceful and heavy handed so I fully came to and sat up as well as I could. The crowd was actually the three lads and some guy I didn’t recognise. Besides waking me up they were also getting their instruments and coats together and falling around the place, knocking into tables and each other. I could only join them, even though I was still half asleep and fully drunk. I was in a sleepy stupor, trying to get my wits about me and get organised at the same time. The pub seemed suddenly quiet and dark and I wondered how long I’d been asleep, a good hour at least I reckoned.

  We eventually got our shit together and were escorted off the premises by the barman, who was the last man in the house. The guys seemed to be on relatively good terms with him and we grunted our farewells. What kind of terms we were on with Klaus remained unmentioned. The door was shut forcefully behind us and we pulled at our collars and buttoned up. It was after three AM, freezing cold and we had nowhere to go. We were up to our necks in a thick swirling mist.

  It didn’t for a second escape my attention that just five minutes before I’d been sleeping in a big comfy chair, it could hardly get worse. We stood and swayed, all of us slit-eyed and just this side of drooling.

  “What the fuck is happening?”

  “We’re going to a park.”

  “Yeah, we’re goin’ knacker-drinkin’ Ha Ha!”

  Spud had spent the last of his money on a bottle of Jeigermeister and he was fuckin’ delighted with himself.

  “This has disaster written all over it,” moaned Tony as we picked up our gear and headed off in search of some greenery with a park bench.

  “Hey, here’s a wall we can sit here,” slurred Spud after about fifty metres, “fuck this fucker, I’m fuckin’ fucked!”

  There was a space of waste ground that was guarded by an old broken wall that was about waist height. Spud sat on his guitar case and started pulling at the bottle eagerly.

  “Here, givis that here for fuck’s sake.”

  “DON’T bleedin’ drop the fuckin’ thing.”

  “Have you tasted this shit before?”

  “... UEARGH!!! Fuck me! It’s bloody kiddy cough mixture!”

  “Here, gis a swig.”

  “Wait your bleedin’ turn ... this shit better be strong.”

  It was strong enough and w
e settled into passing it back and forth.

  “Here, I have the last of the spliff, will I get a number together?”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  “Well ... I think the better option would be to save it until the morrow, when our need will be greater.”

  “Do you have to put a bleedin’ downer on fuckin’ everythin’, wha?”

  “Listen here, Pavlov’s pet, we hardly need to smoke gear now, with a full bottle of Jeigermeister, out in plain view at half past three in the morning on a windy wall. I am of the opinion that we would be better served saving it for a more appropriate time and setting,”

  “Alright, fuck it ... here, it’s my turn.”

  “Pavlov’s pet?” I said turning to Brian. Was this some new term of abuse?

  “Yeah, you missed that, Heh Heh Heh ... there’s a bell behind the bar that the bar-staff ring every time they get a tip, right? Heh Heh, and Spud thought it was closing time every ten minutes (hic) ... and ran up to the bar.”

  “Yeah, that fuckin’ bell, I thought it was for bleedin’ last orders.”

  “Then one of the English guys goes ‘Fuck me, he’s like Pavlov’s dog, every time a bell rings he gets a round in’, plus he was drooling too, Heh Heh Heh.”

  “Ah Ha Ha, that’s great.”

  Suddenly Brian stopped laughing, gave an embarrassed look and fessed up. “Actually, I’m not sure I have this straight at all ... who the fuck is Pavlov?”

  “Yeah, I’m not so fuckin’ clear on that either, and why does that make me a dog? Bunch o’ cunts.”

  Tony told them about Pavlov’s dog, but jokes aren’t really that funny if they have to be explained, even if they are funny, so it became less funny when they actually got the joke than when they didn’t.

  “Fuck me, this shit tastes like medicine but it’s making me sick, it’s like ... anti-medicine!”

  “I’m bleedin’ freezin’ too. Let’s go see if the station is open.”

  “Yeah, maybe we can get some anti-freezin’ too.”

  “Yeah, fuck this for a lark, let’s mosey.”

  We mosied on down towards the station and found it as locked as we were, but luckily, it was open plan in the sense that we could circumnavigate the station house and find ourselves on an empty platform. There we sat on a bench for about a short eternity before we discovered there was an open waiting room. We shifted ourselves again, which was becoming tortuous, and set ourselves up on one of the pew-like benches in the cold sterile tiled room with only an old bag-lady asleep on a bench to keep us company. It felt like a chapel in a mental institution, the kind of place that wasn’t cleaned but rather hosed down. I lay down on the nearest bench to me and let my arm hang off the side. We finished the bottle of Jeiger in one more round and Spud gave us an animated and entirely unwarranted all-singing, all-dancing version of ‘The Rare Oul’ Mountain Dew’ until the bag lady roused and shouted something in German.

  “Ah, shut the fuck up, stupid oul’ cow,” shouted Spud waving his arms and unbalancing himself so that he fell backward against a bench and onto the floor.

  Spud was breaking his bollix laughing as Brian helped him up off the floor. He got half-way up then wavered again, half on purpose, and fell sideways taking Brian with him. They both gave up and started roaring laughing as they got onto all fours and slowly and methodically raised themselves into an upright position so that they could plonk themselves backwards onto the nearest bench.

  I think that Tony or Brian went outside at some stage to get some info but the next clear memory I have is arriving back in Heidelberg. The sun was up, our morale was down and we were still slaughtered.

  We found a cab outside the station and spent longer getting ourselves and our gear in than we did driving. At the other end, we fell out of the taxi, someone paid, we got our shit and made a bee line for our rooms without hardly a word. That was some fuckin’ long painful session.

  Needless to say the next day was spent prostrate in bed. Outside the rain pelted down so heavily that it was setting off car alarms. I just lay there, suffering and thinking. My life seemed to be lurching constantly from states of ‘damage’ to ‘suffering’ to ‘cure’, which was unfortunate because in this case the ‘damage’ and the ‘cure’ were one and the same thing thus perpetuating the circle. My dick ached. A heavy session seems to have aphrodisiac properties the day after and little Foy just wouldn’t stay flaccid for more than half an hour. I must’ve had four or five wanks during the afternoon, whenever Tony left the room in fact, which was four or five times. My sock could stand up on its own. I was in and out of the jax all day too. I must’ve shit, and I use the term loosely, six or seven times, each one more liquid than the last, and another few times just to fart because in this state you just never know if it’s gas or liquid, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

  Suddenly, Brian slid in again.

  “Who’s got aftershave?”

  “I do,” said poncey Tony.

  “Give us a quick splash,” said Brian disappearing into the bathroom.

  “Aaaaaahhh, honeys around me flies,” he grinned on his return.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked.

  “I’m going to see a man about a dog,” he shouted over his shoulder as he waltzed out again.

  Me and Tony looked at each other, “... that means he’s going to see a woman about a pussy,” he said as serious as hell.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “If you’re thinking ‘I wish I had some pussy too’ then I am.”

  “I was thinking we should go with him.”

  “That’s infinitely less desirous but infinitely more tangible ... but I want to finish this book,” said Tony dolefully.

  “C’mon ... I’ll finish it for ye later.”

  “OK, let’s catch him.”

  We managed to catch Brian on the stairs and got him to agree to hold up for five minutes and take us with him, but only on the condition that we politely fucked off if it was just him and the fräulein.

  “Maybe she has friends ...”

  “... or sisters ...”

  “... or more than one hole!”

  “Heh Heh! For fuck’s sake lads.”

  Yeah, Spud was with us by now. He was born ready.

  We followed Brian to his rendezvous point, some café place, but immediately saw that it was a little cosier than anticipated so us three headed straight on towards ‘The Stable’ without breaking stride and left Brian heading towards a becandled table.

  “It’s good to see him back in the game. He was fucked up over some bird for the last six months.”

  “Kelly Kerry! ... or the other way around?”

  “Yeah, that’s her, some stupid brasser she was.”

  “Ha Ha! Was she?”

  “Yeah, like Phoebe from ‘Friends’, only without being funny. Hardly knew where she was half the time ... but ... she had big tits!”

  “Aha ... and therein lies the rub.”

  “And she knew it as well, she’d come out with these really low cut dresses, and then go ‘oh Brian, everyone’s staring at me tits’. Well, of course they’re staring at your tits! If I take out me dick and walk up Grafton Street and go ‘oh, everyone’s looking at me dick’, I mean, what the fuck ...”

  “Sounds like a femme fatale.”

  “A wha?”

  “Ah Ha Ha, Brian says to her once, ‘I think we’re not compatible’ and she goes ‘maybe you’re not compatible, but I certainly am!’”

  “Haw Haw Haw, or maybe a ‘vache stupide’!”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Jaysus lads, I’ve a thirst on me that would kill a camel.”

  By now we were in The Stable with big beers to a man, but hardly ten minutes had passed before in walks Brian and his bird, both grinning from ear to ear. It turns out she wanted to meet us, and had a ‘beery breeze with the boys’ in mind rather than a romantic tête-à-tête. That suited Brian too, who didn’t mind being observed in his
natural environment. All of which, I suddenly realised, meant that I was face to face with Andrea and would have to apologise very sincerely in front of everyone for the other night.

  Shit!

  “Andrea, listen, I’m deeply and heartily sorry for being who I am and I offer my sincere apologies for ever being born. I was way out of line, that Croatian moonshine really knocked me sideways ...”

  “Oh, don’t worry, it’s ok, you were very drunk.”

  “Yeah, I don’t remember anything after drinking that shit ...”

  That went well, though I don’t think she quite got the existential subtleties I snuk in. My sincerity carried me.

  “... anyway, won’t happen again ... yeah, I barfed in me sleep too, I could’ve died ...”

  She looked confused.

  “Y’know ... barf, vomit, effluvia, eeaauurrrghhh!!!”

  “Ahaaaa, you ver ill?”

  “Yeah, on the floor.”

  “I knew a guy once who puked in his sleeve,” threw in Spud casually.

  “Ah for fuck’s sake.”

  “Yeah, he had to carry it down to the jax with his arm in the air, keeping his elbow warm. Ha Ha! It just came up on him and it was the first place he could get to, luckily his coat was waterproof.”

  “Good grief!”

  “Ah, you all talk so fast!!”

  “I’m quite sure that the guttural Dublin dialect doesn’t help much either.”

  “Yes, you must speak very slowly, and vave your oms a lot.”

  We all laughed and waved our arms about.

  We slowed down and chatted with Andrea. She was a good laugh, a bit straight but good craic. She was a big girl who obviously enjoyed beer and sausages, in large quantities, and you got the impression that she would have no trouble throwing you over her shoulder to carry you out of a burning building, but she was rideable for sure. She laughed and at least pretended to get our jokes, and we were four nice charming young men, each trying to be funnier than the other, kinda like ‘The Beatles’ on top form. All in all a very enjoyable state of affairs indeed. She was also a good drinker and introduced us to German shot rituals, which are the same as Irish shot rituals in that you knock it back in one, and then order another.

  Well, there’s no need to explain where that ended up. Suddenly the hours flew by and it was Pavlov’s bell time. A last round of both pints and shots were ordered.