Diving into an Ocean of Lager (3)

Pete went to the bar and saw the barmaid was on the cusp of refusing to serve him.

Could picture the words forming on her lips.

He knew he was smashed. Didn’t need her to give a lecture about the wisdom of topping up from the night before with lager, plus the hat-trick of ciders for breakfast.

Lethal.

Rather than deal with the aggravation of not serving him, she angled the glass under the tap, pulling the pump.

Fans in footie tops were coming in to nab tables ahead of the next live match. He paid, took the pint and went into the beer garden for a fag.

Mandy had thrown him out for being an alcoholic, but what did that even mean? Alcoholics drank every single day. He did not. They stood on street corners, raving incoherently about the price of cheese and asking for small amounts of change for unexplained journeys. Or did they? Getting confused. Harder to pin a thought, an idea, a concept as the units of alcohol invaded his bloodstream, formed a squad, platoon, company, battalion, brigade, regiment, division, an entire army intent on fighting a war against his liver, kidneys, lungs, eyes, mind, until he was comatose, prostrate, coughing blood, B1 deficient, wet-brained and ga-ga, fucking brown bread. Dead. No, not yet. The perennial alcoholic hid bottles of booze in the house, the flat – doesn’t matter – so as to sneak a drop when the girlfriend or boyfriend or whoever wasn’t looking. That was an alcoholic as per the stereotype. Drinking vodka because supposedly it doesn’t smell. Pouring whiskey on cornflakes which in-fact nobody did. He hated cornflakes and those straw parcels of Weetabix was for twats. Never trust someone who likes Weetabix. He used to eat Coco Pops as a kid. Turned the milk chocolatey and he liked the monkey with the baseball cap in the advert. Made him laugh. Not these days. Fuckers advertising to children. But no. He never ate breakfast as a rule, not a guideline. Preferred to wait until lunch. He wasn’t tipping a snifter of brandy into his morning cup of coffee either when he got to the desk, sorry, work station, or telling Mandy he was popping to the shop and sitting on a random bench by himself, necking loony juice. That was the alcoholic for you.

Whereas Pete, he wasn’t that type.

Not exactly upstanding or necessarily a classic role model when it came to boozing but generally, as a guideline, not so much a rule, from Sundays to Wednesdays he wouldn’t drink. Thursday was a distinct possibility. Friday and Saturday certainties. And the volumes consumed ranged from moderate to shitloads. What could he say? He liked a tipple. A laugh and a joke. Everyone needed a vice. A way to unwind. To cope with the insanity of life as an exploited white-collar worker in the digitised cogs of the capitalist machine. In a world of war and destruction. Babies born and blown to smithereens. The geopolitics of suppression and oblivion. It did his fucking head in. It really really really did. This planet. The state of it. The persecution. Ethnic cleansing. Poverty. Hunger. Starvation. Refugees drowning. Dictators and billionaires with no fucks to give. Plutocracies and technocracies. All the fuck’ocracies. Global warming too. The earth on fire. And he was the smallest of cogs. More of a nut. Never a bolt. A tiny piece. Going to his desk and staring at a spreadsheet and pressing keyboard buttons like a fucking Coco Pops monkey and creating formulas / creating formulas / creating formulas to compute why the company he worked in was losing money hand over fist. Fucking accounting. How had he ended up there? He once had dreams. Played in a band. Sang songs. He was a lead singer. Fuck sake. Had a punk spirit. A punk soul. Two-fingered salute to the monarchy and corporations. Except no cunt liked their three-chord bangers. His shouty-style singing. What he did. Derivative shite. Punk karaoke. And it fizzled out and was going nowhere. Another sorry tale of shattered, broken dreams washed down the dirty drains of Camden Town. R.I.P. crap band. So he did a CIMA course and studied to be a management accountant. Still not fully qualified, which was as punk as he got nowadays. Fucking exams. The stack of books in the spare room taunted him about the knowledge he needed to advance and did not possess and therefore he stayed in his rut of zero progression, much to Mandy’s disdain and the higher powers of the company in which he was employed and in servitude to as they paid for his studies.

Cogito ergo fuck it.

He pulled out his phone. Again, no message from Mandy.

His mum hadn’t replied to his text, which was rude. He didn’t want to go to his mum’s now. Probably not a smart move. He sort of realised he was too pissed to rock up at her door with a cabin case and sportsbag. The new beginning would start off badly because his mum would tell him off and say this was in no measure a new beginning but the same old story. The two of them would row about the new beginning versus a continuation of dysfunctionality and chaos and wasting of days-month-years and existence, mixed with his perpetual lingering realisation of the ageing process and going nowhere and serving no actual purpose, other than to drink this pint and smoke this cigarette and his mum would argue that was the fucking problem, Pete, if you just listened for once. Used your ears. And she wasn’t having a go. She was trying to help him.

Alright, mum, stop with the shouting. 

Time goes so quickly. You’re old in the blink of an eye.

Okay. Enough. Fuck sake.

Mandy didn’t kick him out solely because of alleged alcoholism.

There was the cheating too.

He wondered if sexy Samantha might be around for a drink.

Last night, after their work colleagues – winking and sniggering – had left the pair them together in a bar, they had a couple of cheekies and headed to a watering hole that stayed open to 2am, only they staggered into an alley to snog and fondle. And she said she loved him. Called him The King in a horny whisper. Leader of the fucking monarchy. Steady on. A snog and a hand shoved into lacy underwear for saucy fingering did not amount to a coronation and roses, thrones and valentine’s declarations and heartfelt pledges to the crown and the unmapped principality of marriage, whereby she would become his queen, the pair of them unified in regal nuptials. And death to the parting part. You may kiss the bride. Dah. Dah. Da Dah. Hearing her gasp as he worked the middle finger back and forth. Do you love me? Dodge the question. Push harder on the magic button. And she had a boyfriend too, a sparky who had asked her to move in with him. Everybody a fucking snake. Deceiving and cheating. Two-timing. Saying one thing. Orgasming another. He had to admit he hadn’t expected such behaviour from a yoga practicing vegan. Thought they were more ethical by nature. When all’s said and done, the lager and the wine and the G&Ts and the sambucas and tequilas were to blame but then, no, not really—the absence of moral fibre, honesty, loyalty and self-control were the issue here, the fundamental core of the catastrophe of breakups and divorces and hurriedly packed cabin cases and sportsbags upon being told to get-the-fuck-out.

These character flaws affected vegan and carnivore alike. 

Mandy, she wasn’t wrong.

All these fibs. The deception and sneaking. A double-triple-quadruple-fatty-extra-portion of conniving bastardness in a kingdom of greedy traitors.

Enough to make anyone puke.

He called Samantha.

Three rings.

She hung up. 

He gave it another try.

One ring.

Hung up.

Message from Samantha: DON’T CALL!!!!

No kiss. No friendliness. He thought about dialling to spite her.

Second message: YOU WERE A TOTAL A-HOLE. WILL WHATSAPP TOMORROW.  

Such disobedience.

Off with her head.

Finish the pint.

He wondered what he had done. His memory was shredded after the alleyway. Blackout drunk. Sort of recalled getting his knob out, saying he had a stalk on. Hopefully not, though. He left the beer garden, strolling back into the pub. Tried to pull himself together as he went to the bar, not wanting to give the impression he was battered. It was a relief to see the disapproving barmaid had gone and a new barman was on duty. They must have changed shifts. He waited his turn and ordered a pint and a bag of cheese and onion, no wait, make that salt and vinegar crisps. He was hungry but knew he couldn’t handle anything heavy like a gastro burger and chips. The barman placed a pack of cheese and onion on the bar. Fuck sake.

A pint with a foamy head was set beside the erroneous crisps.

The barman held forth the card machine.

Heaven was in a full pint. An eternal sea of bliss.

Pete felt strangely energised. Supercharged. He stepped back from the bar and bounced up and down on his toes. Wiggled his fingers. Raised his arms.

The barman was ready for the card to be tapped.

Pete sprinted forwards and jumped high into the air, arched his back and, at the last moment, straightened himself to execute a plumbline perfect dive into the pint glass, piercing through the cloud-like head and into the chilled yellow lager. He swam deep down, moving his arms and kicking his legs, aware of the dimming of voices and chattering in the pub. He smiled at the serenity of the liquid underworld he was in as seals bulleted past him with their whiskers and pointy noses. He gave a little wave and went deeper still, where it was so quiet and peaceful, away from the lads, and the affected language of football commentators, and the barman asking to be paid.

He saw figures swimming in his direction, two shadowy specks growing larger. The fear that they might be killer whales or sharks dissipated when he recognised Mandy and Samantha. They were holding hands, wearing skimpy bras, singing ever so softly, their song carrying merrily through the lager. They came up close to him, smiling coyly and blowing kisses. He reached for them, wanting to hold hands too, but they giggled and teasingly kept at arms-length. He noticed the scales on their skin from the waist down and their glimmering fishtails.

Alarmed by something, they speedily swam off.

As he called out for them to stay, he swallowed mouthfuls of lager and realised he couldn’t breathe. The fish-girls darted to the far side of the glass. He tried to holler, gesticulating and thrashing as he sank lower, feeling the deadweight of his body drag him to the depths.

The seals had returned. They now had vaguely human faces, but kept their soft marine mammal eyes. He recognised the features of his manager at work, the Chief Financial Officer, David Rockbridge, and Irene Siles, who worked in Purchase Ledger, and a geography teacher from his school days, Mr Clarkson. His mum was among them too, only she was a walrus with hefty tusks.

They circled round him, signalling that he was unwelcome in their territory.

Mr Clarkson had called him a foul-mouthed youth. It happened when Mr Clarkson heard Pete yelling at other pupils who had jumped the dinner queue. Pete recalled the stinging sense of shame at the teacher’s words.

And lager was flooding his airwaves.

He gagged. Choked.

So, this was what it’s like to drown.

Losing consciousness.

The seals would never save him. He couldn’t expect anything less from their sort, but what about the mermaids? And the walrus?

Why were they unable to find forgiveness in their hearts?

 

(part IV here https://www.abctales.com/story/mark-burrow/journey-bottom-pint-glass-4)