Gone

GONE

I hate people who can only talk about one thing and how brilliant it is. Man United fans tend to be a bit like that. It's maybe not just one thing with them, sometimes it stretches to two or three, Man United and themselves, maybe something else dull, sales technique perhaps, or improved salaries. I knew a lad called Ben exactly like that, he only ever referred to shagging and how much money he was making, which I knew wasn't a lot, so it made me dubious about how much shagging he was doing. Someone told me they'd seen him recently in Broomhill, pissed up and telling two slags he was going to join the army. I've not seen him since I leant him thirty quid.
The other Man United fan I know comes in the pub. He's called Bob Brown and claims to be from Belfast, but I've only ever heard him use the accent after too many double malts. He does make frequent bigoted remarks about Catholics though, and celebrates blue victories in Auld Firm games. Actually, he makes bigoted remarks about lots of people, and says he can't be racist because he's married to a Welsh woman. She came in one time, looking for him. She found him at the bar and he bought her a lemonade, because it was a hot day, he said. Then he necked the whisky he'd just bought for himself, winked exaggeratedly in my direction and said he had to go and see a man about a dog. I didn't care what he did and carried on pretending to read a paper. She said she'd go with him then, she didn't need the drink anyway. His face went all nasty and he pulled a massive sneer that made his top lip curl grotesquely downwards and flared his nostrils. It was his eyes that scared me, all the compassion and false empathy disappeared and were replaced by pure hate. I was glad his missus didn't see it. He said, "No. Then his face changed its expression to banal irritation and he ordered his wife, "You stay there. I've paid for that bloody drink so you drink it. He sounded a bit Belfast then. He walked out. She stayed at the bar and read The Daily Express, occasionally commenting on what she read in a very high-pitched Cardiff accent. She seemed nice enough, bit thick maybe.
Another time Bob came in he must've been at work or something in the morning because he was wearing a suit and tie. He'd told me that he had all his suits hand made, but that just meant he'd bought them in the Far East. I know he's been to Hong Kong a lot. He was wearing a Rolex too, and seemed to shake his wrist a lot as he was reaching for things, making its chunkiness rattle. He confessed to me once that it wasn't genuine, but the quality was almost as good. He'd got that in Hong Kong and said he had a real one at home.
His son was actually a regular in the front bar. He used to do a bit of dealing, pills and weed, bit of charlie sometimes. I didn't buy off him regular, just when I was bored and it was easy because Tom, that was his name, was in the front bar or out in the car park with the spliff smokers. Tom was sound. His dad was always slagging him off, especially for being scruffy. That was out of order really. Tom never wore a suit, but he wore good gear, expensive, Stone Island, Aquascutum, not my sort of thing, but I can't afford it.
Anyway, Bob had a cheques in his pocket that day. For twenty grand. Most of the rest of us wouldn't see that in a lifetime of Statutory Sick Pay. Fuck knows what it was for, I didn't give a fuck, but all the other dickheads kept asking him. He was waving it around, kissing it extravagantly and that, buying trebles not doubles, really doing my head in, so much so that I nearly asked him. I made do with overhearing his snippets to others about it being a "first instalment and "part of a settlement. He'd obviously fallen arsebackwards into good fortune. I was too jealous and angry to speak to him for the rest of the week.
He must've been there about half an hour and had had two trebles whilst the rest of us sipped lager. He'd put the cheque in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, but as he was buying his third drink he pulled it out again and kissed it because Margaret, the landlady, had only just started her shift and hadn't seen it yet. He was explaining it all again when his son came through from the front bar with a line of stoners heading out back for a smoke. Tom stopped behind his dad and peered over his shoulder. His dad hadn't noticed and carried on talking to Margaret who was smiling without saying anything.
"Mine's a Beck's then! Cheers dad! The son interrupted the father's flow by accompanying his request with a hand on the shoulder he'd been looking over. Bob immediately twisted away like a child escaping a Chinese burn. I noticed his face change again into the nasty, pitiless mask I'd seen before and stay like that as he snapped, "When you start working for a living! I¦I'll buy you a drink! Fair play to his son, he just laughed and followed his mates out back. It must've been more fun to be out there in the sun with a smoke anyway.
As his son left, Bob asked Margaret for a top up. Jeff, a regular who sat in the corner and could get away with saying anything because he'd had throat cancer and was fitted with a voice box, said, "Your lad's got a point though, Bob, we could all do with a pint!
Bob said, "Fuck off, and put the cheques back in his pocket.
About a year after that he came in with two young women. They were really pretty, about thirty or so, a good twenty-five years younger than him and at least fifteen than his wife. He sat very close to one, a brunette with a husky voice who laughed loudly, attractively and frequently. I asked Jeff and Jewish Dave what the score was with that. Jeff told me that Bob's Welsh wife had left him and now he was renting the house to two nurses whilst he lived in the converted attic upstairs. That seemed a bit too civilised to me and I expressed my envy graphically and colloquially. I lived downstairs from a weirdo who banged on the floor if I played music. Jeff laughed at me silently, he was too old for envy and they hadn't rigged up his box to make laughter sounds.
A week or so after that Bob won the pub fantasy football league. He'd never made any transfers or changed his team at all and he won the 300 quid first prize. I'd really wanted to win that. I tried really hard. I knew more about football and I needed the money.
"He's a fucking spawny bastard that one, I complained to Jewish Dave.
Dave took a theatrical drag on one of the eight roll-ups he always carefully prepared for the pub. He never brought his tobacco with him. He said it was so he could ration himself. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled smoke with a sigh. Ash had dropped into his unkempt black beard. I noticed he'd not had a haircut for a while and the small curls over his ears had been slicked back with some kind of grease. He continued to hold the roll-up between his thumb and index finger, close to his mouth, as he spoke.
"Not that lucky though, he told me, making a slurping noise as he sucked air through a gap between his left canine and a molar. The canine was paler than the rest of his teeth and it looked sharp and white when contrasted against his beard.
"Why's that then? I asked.
Dave carefully rested his roll-up against the edge of the ashtray on the bar and swivelled on the heels of his old, shiny shoes, drawing himself up to his full 5'5 and raising his hands above his head like a wizard as he began his explanation.
"Well, he's missing some vital equipment.
"Eh? What?
"He's got an important gap between his legs. He's got no wedding tackle.
"What?! I had to spit a mouthful of lager back into the glass.
"No bollocks. Or very little of them anyway. Dave's educated Kent accent made the word 'bollocks' sound dreadfully official. He had been a civil servant.
"What the fuck happened? I asked. I was interested in Bob Brown for once.
"Some kind of work accident. He got trapped between two vehicles somehow and¦ Dave made a squelching noise by sucking air past his pale canine again. He had a sadistic look in his eyes and brought his arms down suddenly, his hands crumpled into dramatic fists. The canine tooth, beard, wired eyes and arm gestures made him look like a ferocious gnome, like something from an 16th century German forest.
"Really? I asked blandly. Dave nodded.
"Ask Jeff. He gestured over to where Jeff was sitting staring at Sky Sports News.
"I might do. What vehicles were they?
Dave didn't know exactly. Neither did Jeff. A few weeks later, on a day when I'd shifted from Carlsberg to Strongbow I'd asked Tom in the car park. He'd laughed really hard, then said, "Chainsaw, wan't it? and looked up at the group of lads he'd been smoking with. They all laughed and didn't look at me.
Dave was always bullshitting, I couldn't work out whether what he'd said was true or not. I just didn't know how fair it was.

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