Debaser

by Max Frick

unclipped a thick length of red rope that hung between the two barriers.

  The front four spilled into the buffer zone and hurried in through the double doors. The neon sign was glowing radiantly now against the evermore threatening sky.

  ‘NEXT FOUR, PLEASE,’ called the doorman again.

  Tony could scarcely contain himself, all but rubbing his hands in diabolical anticipation. Despite the waning of his intoxification his grip on reality was clearly none the stronger. The next four were called forward, then the next four and the next, until finally the next four included them. The pressure in the air had built now to such an intensity that it seemed to stop up their ears and deaden the voices of everyone around, like being under water.

  ‘NEXT FOUR, PLEASE,’ called the doorman.

  And Tony strode forward. He must have felt then as an emperor or a tyrant feels when his dream of world domination, a dream which had never, not even for a second, seemed to him anything less than feasible, is, at long last, about to become a reality. The bouncer stopped him dead in his tracks.

  ‘Not you!’ he said.

  Billy was hustled into the buffer zone by those behind him. Tony had glanced at the hand on his chest and was now looking anxiously up at its owner.

  ‘What?’ he pleaded. ‘What? I never done anything!’

  ‘Keep moving, please!’ said the bouncer over his shoulder, and Billy took one or two hesitant steps towards the entrance.

  ‘I never fuckin done anythin!’ repeated Tony. ‘What did I do? I’m just here to enjoy the gig like everybody else! I’m not lookin to cause any trouble!’

  ‘NEXT FOUR, PLEASE,’ called the doorman.

  ‘What did I do?’ continued Tony. ‘Is it because I was arguin with your mate there? Is that it?’

  ‘Move back, please,’ directed the bouncer.

  ‘Was it the Walkman line? ‘Cause I was only fuckin jokin!’

  ‘Move back, please! Let the people through.’

  ‘Is it because I skipped the queue? What? Tell me what I’ve done fuckin wrong!’

  ‘No trainers,’ said the bouncer. ‘House rules.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No trainers. House rules.’

  ‘NEXT FOUR, PLEASE.’

  The sky rapidly darkened. Tony looked down at his own feet, then at those of everyone around him – dress shoes to a man.

  ‘What?’ he cried. ‘You must be fuckin jokin! It’s a fuckin gig!’

  The bouncer stared straight past him as expressionless as a palace sentry.

  The storm finally broke and a flash of lightening followed by a loud crack of thunder elicited from the crowd yet another enthusiastic burst of clapping and cheering and whooping and whistling. Tony cast a desperate look towards Billy, who could only shrug apologetically before going inside.

  Some of the other bouncers, sensing a disturbance, or, more likely, hearing it over their headsets, closed rank around their colleague.

  ‘NEXT FOUR, PLEASE,’ called the doorman.

  Tony was utterly exasperated, seething now to such a degree that he feared his voice too might break if he dared to protest further. He stood for a time scowling at this impervious wall of steadfast professionalism, but his hard stare was met with half-a-dozen even harder and he was left with no choice but to turn and limp away.

  The first drops of rain were just starting to fall.

  20

  ‘There he is there, look. AH HA HA! HERE, DRAKO, MAN, SIGN THIS FOR US, WILL YOU?’

  Pabs’s near-skeletal bared arse, ghostly white against the lowered waistband of his jeans, was pointed in Tony’s direction from the opposite end of Books, Picture Frames and Stationery. Coshy was with him and was that wee Ricky Balfour from the Groves? Buoyed by the promise of a slaughter they were now strutting jauntily towards Tony up the aisle. Pabs was re-buttoning his jeans.

  ‘Jesus, Drakes,’ he said, shielding his eyes with his forearm, still a yard or two from the desk, ‘they lights are vernear blindin me, man! I can hardly see where I’m goin!’

  ‘What lights?’ scowled Tony, looking upwards at the interminable rows of strip lighting suspended, amid the ductwork and pipes, from Asda’s unadorned ceiling.

  ‘The lights your fuckin name’s up in, eh? Ha ha! Pure dazzlin, man!’

  He was pointing at the blackboard in front of Tony’s desk.

  Coshy lifted a CD from off the desk, scoffed at it front and back, and put it down again. Pabs glanced this way and that.

  ‘Are we in the way standin here, mate?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t want to get trampled in the rush, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know about anybody else,’ deadpanned Ricky, ‘but I’m hungry. Em, can I have the fish and chips, Drako?’

  ‘Aye, ha ha! Two sausages, two eggs, mushrooms, hash browns and toast for me,’ Coshy joined in. ‘Does that count as eight, big man?’

  Mercifully, Pabs intervened.

  ‘Aye, all right, boys, all right! Go easy on the guy, eh? You can see he’s a wee bit upset. He’s obviously havin a very bad day... So we’ll just make it tea for three, Drakes, mate. Keep it simple, eh? Ah ha ha!’

  ‘Can I see that marker a minute, Drako?’ asked Ricky.

  Tony neither helped nor hindered him and Ricky took the marker pen from off the desk. Crouching, he removed its lid and made a few alterations to the writing on the blackboard, and then moistening a finger made another. The others looked on and laughed.

  ‘Don't worry, Drako,’ said Pabs. ‘Some of the biggest stars in the world have had a pretty shaky start. So just, eh, you know, chalk this up to experience, eh? Ah ha ha ha ha!’

  Tony, for his part, remained silent. He sat and of course seethed but his position was indefensible and the abuses were allowed to continue unchecked. He had little choice but to take it on the chin. Until, that is, fortune, in the guise of an unsuspecting shopper, quite literally smiled on him and provided him with a convenient escape route.

  This shopper – about ages with Tony and not significantly bigger – was leisurely browsing a nearby rack of alphabetised and categorised CD’s. He had his back to the group and, wandering and stopping, at whichever band name took his fancy, would go through the available selection. With a file clerk’s fingers he would flip forward one CD after the next, pausing occasionally to peruse the track listings on a flipside, until the category was exhausted and the index card reached; then, righting the selection entire, he would wander and stop once more, at the next band name or the next letter of the alphabet, and repeat the procedure. He was browsing the W’s under Rock and Pop, well within earshot of all the jocularity, when he inquisitively turned his head towards it and allowed the faintest of acquiescent smiles to play upon his face, before turning back to browsing.

  If you could even call it a smile. For it had not in any way altered the set of his mouth. In fact, it had scarcely, if at all, even revealed itself in his eyes. It was more as though, on hearing the laughter, he had merely, and not inappropriately, ever so briefly entertained the vaguest notion of smiling.

  It could not, under the circumstances, go unpunished.

  ‘HO!’ shouted Tony. ‘WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKIN LAUGHIN AT?’

  By now Pabs and Coshy had their arms draped around each other’s shoulders and, swaying back and forth, were howling mock-soulful Deeebaaasers at the tops of their voices, while Ricky accompanied them with an a cappella impersonation of a synthetic pounding bass. They all fell instantly silent and, looking to Tony, determined the target of his outburst.

  ‘AYE, YOU! LAUGHIN BOY! I’M FUCKIN TALKIN TO YOU!’

  Pabs, puzzled to say the least, freed himself from his and Coshy’s mutual embrace.

  ‘Take it easy, Drako, man, eh?’ he urged. ‘The boy’s just lookin at the CD’s.’

  But his efforts were of course in vain.

  ‘Naw, wait a minute, man!’ protested Tony with a palm. ‘If this CUNT thinks he can stand there laughin at ME and I’ll just sit here and FUCKIN TAKE IT, he's got ANO
THER THINK FUCKIN COMIN!’

  He was now turned sideways in his seat to better berate this scapegoat, whose demeanour, though to all intents and purposes unchanged, was, at one and the same time, greatly altered.

  He continued to wander all right, but were his wanderings now not a little lock-legged? He continued to browse the discs, but his fingerings were stilted and the fingers themselves appeared to be trembling. He persisted in going through the motions but, all in all, his leisureliness now seemed a lot more laboured, and it was obvious, even from the back, that he could no longer concentrate on the task at hand. But what really gave him away, and betrayed the fear that Tony’s sudden onslaught had struck in him, was that of all the people in the store, or at least in this section of it, he was the only one among them who never turned around to wonder at the shouting.

  ‘FUCKIN CHECK HIM OUT!’ bawled Tony, rising from his seat. ‘STILL PRETENDIN TO LOOK FOR A CD! NOT FUCKIN LAUGHIN NOW, CUNT, EH?’

  And he began swaggering laddishly towards the CD rack.

  With each splay-footed step he let fly with fresh taunts, loud enough for almost the entire store to hear...

  ‘YOU CAN SMELL THE FUCKIN SHITE FROM HERE, MAN!’

  ...and so threatening in tone...

  ‘C’MON THEN, CUNT! ME AND FUCKIN YOU, EH?’

  ...that they were bound, he felt, to inspire, in at least one of these lily-livered bystanders, such an all-consuming fear of the impending brutality, that it would override their tendencies towards self-preservation and transform them...

  ‘FUCKIN PRICK!’

  ...into a have-a-go hero, greater than the sum of their parts.