Pigeon Variations - Ch 17 - Unemployed Fortune Tellers
By Mark Burrow
- 505 reads
A solo pub crawl. Three pints in The Basketmakers. A couple in The Heart and Hand. Onto The Cricketers. A G&T. Yeah. Go on. A double. Spending that last twenty. Looking at the note before handing it to the barmaid. And then another.
No one wanting to make conversation. Cheer up. Might never happen. That’s fine. Have it your way. Don’t want to talk to anyone anyway. You’re all boring. Fuck off.
Checking the phone. Nothing from Anne. Silent treatment. Jenna says she’s off to her parents in Nottingham this evening. No joy there. Probably telling porky pies. This inkling about a boyfriend on the go. She’s having a crisis of conscience. According to the Office of National Statistics, 99 percent of people in relationships are cheating, two-faced twats.
He walked towards Brighton Pier. On a one-man jolly. Knowing his luck had run out. Bound to eventually. He bought some pancakes spread with Nutella. It reminded him of Paris. Dodgy vendors everywhere, selling pancakes and paper cones full of chestnuts. Pickpockets circling. Gypsy women begging. Blokes with tragic faces playing accordions. His ex found the gendarmes sexy, with their machine guns and slow, deliberate walk. Holding hands with her by the Seine. Heading to Notre Dame. Pretending the scenery makes you feel special and different, when there’s nothing going on inside. It’s a fucking stone bridge. So what if Joan of Arc walked across in shoes that gave her blisters? Gargoyles – and? What’s the big deal? Religion and war wank. Poisoning minds. Control. Control. Distracting us from the reality of our clueless fucking personalities. Our servitude. The history of Parisian streets have sweet FA to do with anything. Architecture’s a Grolsch marketing con.
Passing booths on the pier. Shut down. What happens to unemployed fortune tellers? No money in this town. Only half decent jobs are at the Council and American Express. No opportunities for a thick cunt. He walked on. Vague memory of coming here with his parents and brother. Rammed with day trippers. Probably ended in a massive argument between his mum and dad. All they did was fight. There’d be something dad did that mum didn’t like, such as him forgetting that she hated salt and vinegar on her chips.
“You don’t know who I am. You never pay attention to me.”
He finished the pancakes and threw the wrappers into the sea, looking for the pub. He needed a piss and a top-up pint. The pub was at the end of the pier. The sea made him think of drowning. Supposed to be euphoric, but how’d they know? What if it was fucking horrible? And then eaten by the fishes. Your body bloated, full of gas. He walked through an arcade. Seeing the fruit machines and driving games and shooting games. The noise of the machines hurt his ears. There was an air hockey table and a girl of about eight or nine was sliding one of the plastic strikers across the surface.
“You fancy a game?” he said to the girl.
She frowned, shaking her head.
“Go on, I’ll pay,” he said, pulling a coin out of his pocket. “One game?”
“No,” she replied, walking off.
“Please,” he said, “Come on, one game?”
She hesitated and then said, “Okay.”
He grinned and dropped his bag. “Brilliant,” he said, “I haven’t played this in ages.” He pushed the coin into the slot and there was the sound of air rising through the tiny holes on the pitch. They held their strikers. “You go first,” he said to the girl, who dropped a puck on the table and smacked it towards his goal. He blocked the shot, nudging it forward and then struck it hard. There was the clack-clacking of the puck darting back and forth across the table as they moved the strikers. He must’ve had more to drink than he thought. He was 2-nil down in a flash. The girl was a shark, laughing at him. “You’re rubbish,” she said.
“I’m lulling you.”
She whacked the puck with her striker and it went in.
“3 nil,” she gloated.
“Bollocks.”
“Swearing.”
He apologised. Took a breath. This was it. Time to turn on the magic. Besides, he had longer arms. He was playing against a little girl and she was whipping him. This couldn’t be happening. She shunted the puck at his goal and he blocked it and then pushed it forward, closer to the halfway line, reaching over the table.
“That’s cheating,” she said.
He rammed the striker as hard as he could into the puck, straight towards her goal. Somehow, the puck glanced off her striker, flicked in the air and hit her squarely on the nose. She immediately started crying.
“Fuck me, I’m sorry, luv, I didn’t mean it,” said Pyser, running round the table.
She was in tears. “Shoosh,” he said, trying to console the girl.
“Oi,” a man shouted, “get your hands off her.” He was a big fucker. He started charging towards Pyser from the far end of the arcade. “Get off my daughter,” he hollered.
“Shit,” said Pyser, grabbing his bag and legging it out of the arcade, back towards the entrance and the promenade.
“Come back here,” shouted the man.
Pyser ran as fast he could. Hearing his trainers pounding on the planks of the pier. Passing a seagull perched on a railing. He ran across the road and was nearly knocked over by a transit van.
The driver had to hit his brakes hard.
"St George’s Cross wanker," yelled Pyser.
The driver flicked a finger.
Pyser ran into The Lanes.
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Comments
Keep 'em coming - enjoying
Keep 'em coming - enjoying
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I hope you post a third one
I hope you post a third one today - I really want to know what happens next!
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Can't wait to read more when
Can't wait to read more when I have time.
Really enjoying.
Jenny.
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