Boomtown

Podge clutched at the soft fitting on the chair and it helped pull himself upright. Glanced at the pints and tumblers on their table and lifted a glass with a shadow of gin to wet his lips. He used his elbows to help him balance on the edge of the seat. His belly giving him ballast.  He swilled his pint of heavy and gulped down the dregs at the bottom of the glass. Brushing a tuft of grey hair sideways to cover his shiny pate. A faded checked shirt and denims which had a musky smell overlaid with a coating of Player No. 6, rollies, and fag smoke.

Old Jock rolled a dart between his fingers. The brass barrel warm from his grip. He breathed in last-night’s beer, decades of smoke and chalk dust and pawed the toe dip where sisal disintegrated. The dartboard was at the end of the world. He threw three darts in quick succession with gusto and a few grunts in between as they thudded into the board.

‘180,’ he bawled. A lopsided grin and a cackling laugh turned into a cough which shook his squat body and made his eyes water.

Eric the Hun sighed, sucking on his thin lips. He wore what he always wore. Selected from a crumbled rotation of less-than-white, nylon shirt and thin pale blue tie, polyester jacket and trousers combo with shiny shoes. Dapper, well dressed and considerably taller, he was everything Jock wasn’t and out of the three of them could be trusted to mark the scores on the slate board at the side of the board and cabinet, without honestly cheating too much.

He marked up 295 in white chalk. One dart hit the wire and bounced onto the scuffed floor near the pub’s side entrance. ‘Six,’ he said, glancing at the two darts in the board each side of the 20.

Jock scoffed. ‘Yeh must huv moved the board.’

Eric stepped out of the comfortable gloom of timber-panelled mufflers. ‘The only thing I moved was  tae the side, in case yeh hit me, again.’ He emphasised the last word. ‘Yer a danger to everythin within range, but the dartboard.’  He bent down in stages to pick up the stray dart.  A shiny monk’s crown glowed pink and red hovering beneath a faux metal shaded brass lamp that hummed faintly inside a hard circle of light. The missing dart had bounced onto the scuffed wooden strip were hesitant toes and confident feet had faced faded glory.

‘Warmin’ up.’ Jocky poked a finger in his ear and looked around to see where he’d left his pint and who was watching as he made his way back to their table. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Better than never.’  

Podge was next up for the short walk for a game of darts. But first a necessary detour. He nipped sideways to the bar to get a round in for his two mates. Regular punters in Bernie’s automatically put a hand over their pint as Podge passed. He’d more often than not nip out the bookies across the road or the bakery a few closes along, or when he was going to toilet, or for a fag outside. There would be no telling when he’d come back or when the dart’s match would start or finish. The long old-fashioned L-shaped bar was more his living room than the one in high flats near the station. He kept his false teeth handy in the top pocket of his shirt and dropped them into an unwatched pint of a guy sitting at the bar, nicknamed, The Brain of Scotland who had his back to him and was staring into incomprehension with The Sun newspaper on his lap opened to the sport pages.

Neither nature nor Fate had smiled kindly on The Brain of Scotland. When The Brain’s hand found his pint and the teeth flob-a-dobbing at the bottom, he tutted and wheezed and gently fingered his own mouth for missing molars. He traced the curvature of the line of the pink gums and teeth in the condensation at the bottom of the glass, pulling his stool closer to get a better look as if lager was a sparkly jar. His cross-eyes almost in alignment and agreement as the pub sloped slightly towards the fruit machines. Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats hit the pinkly piano notes of I Don’t Like Mondays in the background lull of conversations and were coming to a punkish crescendo.

The Brain of Britain stood in anticipation and kept a watery eye on the glass and the lights of the gantry behind his head. Arms out and leaning on the counter, he waited for someone to point him in the right direction.

Podge said, ‘That’s where they got tae’.

He adjusted the slanting specs on his nose, the bridge repaired with gaffer tape. Rolled up his shirt sleeve from his wrist to where the shirt sleeve doubled back on itself. Raise his arm and elbow and make his unwashed hand into a claw that threatened to dive in and retrieve his wandering teeth.

‘Fuck sake!’ Bernie, the pub owner, glared at them. Ghost-grey eyes and pouches of soft skin flickering back and forward before making a judgement at odds with the anti-establishment message stencilled on his too tight and over-washed T-shirt. ‘That’s fucking mingin. Whit did I tell yeh before? I should fucking bar yeh, if I’d any sense.’

Sliding the glass away in exaggerated disgust as the Brain of Britain flailed at his missing pint.

Bernie pointed a wavering finger at Podge, while setting up the taps for his round. ‘Whit did yeh dae that for?’

‘Cause my teeth need cleaned mair often than yer pipes.’ Podge bestowed a gummy smile, with a rotting front tooth kept for nostalgic reasons, to wee Mary sitting at the end of the bar nursing a half lager. ‘Alcohol is a well-known disinfectant but my o’er teeth when they’re being aired and in circulation, tend to bounce like a dud cheque off quarter-gill glasses. Their preference is heavy but they didn’t mind a dunking in lighter ales such as lager or cider too much.’

Bernie reminded him, ‘Yer paying for the Brain’s pint tae.’ He pulled on the lever, tilting the pint glass, and raising his unshaven chin, letting the first level off before topping it up too. ‘And I’m confiscating yer teeth until it’s time for yeh tae go. Sooner, rather than later, I hope tae fuck.’

He banged the first pint down at Podge’s elbow and plonked a fresh lager in front of the Brain to emphasise his point.

Podge fingered the notes in his pocket and pulled out a tenner. Waited to gather his change. Let the glasses of beer and gaseous lager bubble and froth and drip with condensation on the counter beside neat quarter-gills of gin and shots of whisky. In a mazy stagger, carrying pints pushed together into a moving triangle of clinking mixed beverages protected by his hunched shoulders and shuffling feet defying gravity, he offered a throaty parting shot.

‘Yon fucking new-fangled preference for bottled beers is no only a scourge on the brewing industry but also fucked up humanity, generally. I’m aw for multiculturalism.  After aw, we’re aw Jock Tamson’s barins. But I’d rather own a dildo than a bottle opener. If my Ma had wanted me tae be a fucking walkin and talking Swizz mountain knife she’d huv bought me a red shell suit instead of a school uniform—and nay cunt will convince me o’erwise. So go fuck yersel and don’t try switching my o’er teeth wae a cheaper version, the kind yer granny wore in her coffin.’

‘Go and lie in yer ma’s pish, yah old cunt.’

‘I will. It’s a classier joint than in here. And I’ve seen mair than the like aw you off. If yer thinkin of upgrading and getting a classier clientele,  I’m no for drinkin bottled beer, yer probably a poof, but I’ve nothin against poofs generally, although yeh don’t really look like wan. But they say yeh ne’er can tell. Look at that moron’s moron, Donald—where’s yer trouser--Trump.  Yeh might be a paedo instead. I mean, he’s talking about getting elected tae be President and nae cunt seemed tae mind, he’s brainless as a barman, but without yer well-known charisma.’