The Way We Heard. Love Was All Around Us Too.

Old Jock, Podge, and that baldie guy whose name you could never remember, were playing darts up the other end of the pub. You were sitting at the table near the puggy. Andy had tried his luck and put a quid in and won nothing. He’d put another quid in later. He was careful that way.

For some reason he started drinking straight gin with his pint. You usually bought a double. Cause there was nothing at the bottom of the glass, not even ice.

Laughing Boy started drinking double gins too. Trying to drown his sorrows. He’d joked that even the fucking seagulls were following him around and squawking, Love is All Around Us, douf, douf douf. He tried doing it in seagull language and was laughing that much he almost knocked the table over.

Andy said with a grin, ‘Yer no right in the heid’. Sticking a big hand out to steady things.  He held up his quarter-gill glass.

We clinked our glasses off his in a toast. Almost together. Not quite.

You were drinking boring, vodka and coke. ‘Happy Birthday,’ you said.

Laughing Boy laughed through his nose and fiddled with his specs. ‘Aye, cheers mate.’ He stared at the bar with naked eyes. ‘That cunt’s getting it.’

‘Who?’

‘Pitzie.’    

Andy interpreted what he was saying for you. ‘He’s the DJ,’ he said.

Andy worked as a bouncer most weekends. Wide shoulders, white shirt, black, dicky-bow tie. Hands folder over his belly. Twenty staggering and blind-drunk guy to every bird. There was bound to be trouble. And that’s the way he liked it. ‘Actually, he’s awright.’

Laughing Boy scrunched up his face. ‘He’s still getting it.’

Andy chuckled. ‘She’s nothing but a fat cow, anyway. Yer better aff without ‘er’

‘Easy,’ you said, glancing at Laughing Boy to see how he was taking it. ‘Let’s face it. We’ll dae aw that mair fish in the sea, shite later, if it keeps you happy.’ You rubbed the side of his sweaty bald head. ‘And you ur the most useless cunt of aw cunts. So it’s no big surprise she ditched you for a DJ. He’s probably got a much bigger cock than you as well.’

You stood up to get a round in. Curled your pinkie finger, mimicking the sign for having a wee dick.

 ‘So you were lucky.’

He tilted his head back and raised his unshaved chin to stare at you. ‘Lucky.’

‘Aye, lucky. If you werenae so thick, you’d have realised everybody in this pub has shagged her, including me.’ You finger pointed at Old Jock, and wavered, but you couldn’t resist it. ‘Including The Brain of Scotland. And he’s got a bigger dick than you as well. And he sure knows how to fucking use it.’    

Love is all Around Us blared out of the jukebox and we laughed.

‘Same again,’ said Andy, pushing the table back to get up and out. He backslapped Laughing Boy’s shoulder. ‘She wisnae a bad shag.’ He added with a low murmur. ‘Some pair of tits on ‘er.’

You laughed it off as just another joke, but weren’t so sure.

Laughing Boy flushed until his forehead was almost as pink as his nose. He nodded and mopped at his head. ‘That fucking song is getting tae me,’ he said as Marti Pellow hit the high notes.

The Brain of Scotland wandered across and just stood between our table and the puggy machine. Daft grin on his face. He was getting in your road as you were putting quarter-gill glasses onto the table.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve a fag?’ he asked you.

‘Nah,’ you replied sharply, reminding him, ‘I don’t smoke’.

‘Maybe you should start,’ he cackled, laughing at his own joke.

Laughing Boy slipped a cigarette out of his Regal packet and tossed it to him. The Brain of Scotland missed his catch and picked it from the gritty carpet tiles. He put the fag behind his ear and threw his arm around Laughing Boy’s neck. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a light and a wee pint tae go wae the fag?’

Andy coming back from the bogs, caught the tail end of it and answered for Laughing Boy as Love was all around us’ was coming to an end. ‘No, fuck off.’

Bernie the barman had been watching him. He leaned over the counter flap, warning the Brain of Scotland, ‘Leave the paying customers alone or I’ll bar you, again’.

‘He’s no daeing any harm,’ said Laughing Boy. ‘Jist gi’e him a pint of lager. I’ll pay for it. It’s my birthday, after aw.’

Bernie turned away to pour a pint. ‘Let it be on yer ain heid.’  

The Brain of Scotland yanked a stool across and sat next to Laughing Boy. Marti Pellow on Top of the Pops when he was holding the mike and mimicking singing their Number 1, international, multi-million selling hit was like a million still photographs speeded up, but The Brain’s back molars didn’t quite fit his gob as he laughed with a bigger and better plastic smile. He was the real deal with added saliva.

‘Fuck aff,’ he joshed with Bernie the barman.

Andy ran his fingers through his thick dark hair and leaned forward. ‘When did yeh get oot, Brian?’ he asked the Brain of Britain.

The Brain gave his trademark laugh. ‘About three weeks ago.’

‘See anybody we know? Seen Amy’

‘Nah.’

‘They say you were going with other women.’

‘Nah,’ he laughed again. Gulped down a mouthful of lager. His Adam’s apple bobbling up and down.

‘Yeh sure?’

‘Nah.’

Even Laughing Boy laughed at that.

There it was again. Somebody had put Love is all around us, on the jukebox again. You looked across to the dart board and thought it was Podge taking the piss. But you couldn’t imagine him putting in fifty pence.

‘Reminds me of when I was working in Gartnavel,’ you said.

Andy frowned. ‘You worked in Gartnavel?’

‘Aye, I was there for about three years. I mean worked in a very loose sense.’

Andy ran his fingers through his hair again. ‘Didnae know that.’

‘Och, it was jist wan of these things.  One guy was so crazy, he thought the devil lived in his hair. He couldnae be trusted was scissors, even though he was bald.’

That was something Andy didn’t need to worry about, or Laughing Boy either, in his own way. You were caught in between, hair retreating from your forehead and making your face longer and, in rude light, a glint like fifty-pence appeared on your scalp. The Brain of Scotland’s hair was long and straggly and such a waste made you jealous.

‘Let’s face it’ you smirked and sipped your vodka and coke. None of us could be trusted wae scissors. No even the wee round wans yeh got as a kid and couldnae cut butter.’

Laughing Boy’s chair creaked as he nodded recognising the wee tables and chairs we used to sit around at school.

‘Wan wee woman was so disturbed she thought the nurses were talking tae him. And that  ne’er happened. So they hud tae gee her a largactil jag tae sleep it aff.’

You turned to The Brain of Scotland for confirmation. He was leaned over smoking a fag, curled into himself, adding to the fug as if it was going to be his last hit. ‘That right, Brian?’

And so I love you and I always will, babbled on from the jukebox.   

‘Aye,’ he eventually said, his eyes squinting as if remembering.

The fruit machine blinked and chirped and added to the low murmur and offered a variation to the Number 1 hit with its electronic tune.

‘You said it was a cushy number,’ said Laughing Boy.

‘Aye, too cushy,’ you admitted. ‘There was only so much Crown Court you could watch.’ You nudged the Brain of Scotland. ‘That right Brian.’

‘Aye,’ he gave us the plastic Pellow teeth and the mad laugh. ‘Get us a pint.’

‘Nah,’ you said to quickly.

‘Get him a pint, for fuck sake,’ said Laughing Boy.

‘In a minute.’ You glanced at the half empty glasses and the overflowing ashtrays. ‘It was like that Jack Nicholson movie. Wan flew o’er the Cuckoo Nest. And I was jist, a bit like, that seven foot, mute, American Indian. Only shorter and without the muscles tae lift much mair than my wages.’

You know I love you and I always will spread the word out of the jukebox.

But you were on a roll. Andy laughed and asked Laughing Boy, ‘Whit’s he going on about noo?’

‘Fuck knows,’ he replied, sucking on a fag and leaving a mouthful of polluted air as a pause. ‘You know whit he’s like.’

‘Aye,’ Andy admitted with a nod and tight smile. He pushed his back against the seat to sit up straighter and reached for a glass and waited for you to finish.

You know I love you and I always will…  

‘The white man had gi’ed them every kind of pox. And added another few twist jist tae really fuck them up. They’d raped and murdered wae the the casual impunity of an orange man.

You know I love you and I always will…

‘And whit did the Red Indian dae? The smart wans offered him the Peace Pipe. Soon had the white man lighting up regularly. “Here he said, take these tobacco plants hame wae yeh. Gie them tae yer wife and kids and tell them tae light up as well. It’s great for yeh. Huv some mair. Here’s a box of flints tae go along wae them. Two-for-wan deal. Put that in yer peace pipe and smoke it. See. That’s the long game.”’

You glanced sideways at Laughing Boy choking on smoke and The Brain of Scotland eyeing the douts in the ashtray.

You know I love you and I always will…That song was everywhere and even got into the air we breathed.