You
have stumbled across the world's first virtual illegal drinking establishment.
It's four thirty on Saturday morning, and I've just got in from munching on a slice of the high life with Trench. The moon's doing all its silvery shit over the gardens and squat, even rooftops of the Brick Town. I'm letting a fat man's finger of Glenmorangie take the strain for a while. The only sounds are scatterpunch typing and the occassional flat chime of bottle neck on glass rim. After hours, Mike's Place is the very best place in the world, blanketed in night-time and whiskey and nearer to reminisences of the heart than the relentless misery-go-round of the working week.
This is trough for troublemakers and the hostelry for the heartbroken. What a year it was. Hope you enjoyed our little Christmas tale. Some of you were handicapped enough to write in and point out that Ouezzane is in North africa and not France. I believe the guy who told your barman that story was well aware. For those of you too fucking idle to find out for themselves, the verse quoted is by Arthur Rimbaud's Song of the Highest Tower and translates as 'I have wasted my life. Let the time come when hearts are enamoured.'
On the jukebox this week has been American III: Solitary Man by Johnny Cash, Among my Swan by smoky heartbreakers Mazzy Star and bitter morsels from the back catalogue of ragged genius by Tom Waits.
This
week's product endorsements are Jos� Cuevera tequila, Lucky Strike Cigarettes
and big fuck-off Cuban cigars.
This week's heroes are Quicksilver for a barman's
holiday in the frozen sprawl of Edinburgh, Becky for champagne and rich nosebag,
Trench for money-making, Sonia's pastry pantry, Barbara's fountain of everlasting
ale. Gold star and free drink to the graffitti superhero who inserted on a billboard
near Newcastle train station that read 'Chris Evans: on the radio!' the
words '...is the biggest cunt...'
Only one really important query this week. Dawn from Bradford wants to know what to drink for breakfast. Well, Dawn, glad you asked. Bear in mind you need to be able to prepare these for yourself unless you're on very good terms with your barman. We all know the feeling, maybe tiredness got the better of us and we took the whitefeather option and nodded off before getting a decent hit of booze. Maybe it's just another shitty Sunday, and we're feeling courageous. Maybe you just fancy it. No-one here's going to criticise you for that. Okay, the most obvious option is Bloody Mary. This is a great, healthy breakfast drink and a good way of spicing your way through a whole mouthful of vitamins and fibre. Make it good and hot with bitters and lots of pepper, this will warm you up and stop you shaking. Make sure it's well loaded with vodka as well. This is no time for nibbling at the cake, toots. You need to hurdle that lip-biting difficult first drink and be thoroughly cunted before you've even thought about the day ahead. Summer promises on it's mother's life to be with us again at some point, which introduces the Roadhouse Blues favourite of beer for breakfast. Certainly, few things are nicer for the posh traveller than pulling the cap off a Budweiser first thing as the sun burns mist off the grass and you feel all cool but alarmed by light. This is England, however, and those of you feeling the shock of cold that makes your limbs ache and your breath hard to come by could do worse than mulled wine. If it's leftovers, just warm it up again and then rejuvenate it with some fresh brandy.
Neil from nearer by wants to know if there's any point to it all. Well, Neil, the short answer is 'no.' It's the long answer, too. But there isn't any point to playing cards, making sandcastles, French kissing or making up funny names for cocktails. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. My advice is that you pour yourself a drink first thing tomorrow morning, and stop being such a miserable undergraduate cunt.
Okay, enough from you new kids. Time to let one of the regulars have a go.
The Ballad of Shady Robinson
This one came in from an old regular here, who trained boxers in the sixties. Now he's in his sixties and the fight isn't in him any more. Now, your barman likes a fight as much as the next man, unless the next man's this guy. I guess I love him, he's a regular and even in the sixties fighting brought big purses with it. I'll put it to you like it came to me.
One of the best fights I ever seen, right? We were in this cellar, under a hotel. Now I'm not telling you which one, but let me say that some of the crowd come down from the restaurant with silk ties and minders and all that shit. The two guys on, they're bare-knucklers each, right? And they're into the same girl. And when I say into, I mean like they were both giving her the dick, right, we're talking bare-knucklers here, not fucking poet pansy fucking long cocktails, right? We're talking muscles and scars like butcher's tenants, right? Okay, so these two wide lumps are in the ring and she turns up. They're sizing each other up and they stop dead, right? Don't even look at each other, either one could have got the finish punch in at that moment and the other one wouldn't have seen that motherfucker coming! Okay, you got these two sweaty warriors in the ring, kicking through the shreds of the warm-up guy's mouth in clots of builder's sand on the floor. In she comes, and these two cunts look like they're in the fucking cinema. Mouths open and shit, just like they say.
This lady's Loose Susan, and she's with Tony Flip. The Flipster. Just starting that habit of flipping a coin for all his important decisions. Goes on to desert the army on a head, knackers his first business in a bet on the strength of a tail. Now, this chickadee on his arm is familiar to all, married all over town but I don't think Shady knew this at the time. He's staring at Tony with all his world falling into shit. Tony Flip does his coin trick, it comes up whichever way was going to make him do this crazy thing. He pulls off his overcoat, gets into the ring. Unbuttons his shirt and folds it, passes it to the girl who chalks up the names and numbers on the wall. Shady looks a little bemused, but ready for some fucking swinging. The other guy senses something up, and although he's got the same beef with Tony that Shady's got, he steps out of the ring and lights a cigarette.
Now Shady was well into this bird. She was something special to him, he'd fucking worked for her official husband, the guy who lined her wardrobe and replaced all those dresses that got torn in the line of desire.
He thought of Loose Sue as his best friend. Never seemed to mind that whilst she was out knocking back the booze with Shady, at home there was a thunderstorm in a suit drinking at home, with an empty cocktail glass on his bar and a full acotch tumbler in his fist. It did on occasion occur to him that were she not depending on this guy for her life she might jive full time with sordid old hound Shady, but he didn't really think about it that hard. Thinking wasn't a race that Shady ever won. I'd have despised the purse with all the hateful passion my black little heart could muster, but Shady quite liked him. Sue found Shady easy maintenance, he didn't get into these big old whining conversations about love and all that shit, he was too thick. She was the one called him Shady, on account of his sunglasses he wore to hide his bruises when he was looking for work. Which was all the time for Shady. So they're facing each other, and Shady starts off. They know each other's punches well, Shady's a lot faster, but Tony wears rings, and they're having the rind off Shady's face every time he gets one to connect. They knock away at each other for maybe two minutes when Loose Sue comes back from the bar. Shady catches Tony a big fucking knock on the jaw, an uppercut that lifts him onto his toes and nearly puts him out. Loose Sue screams Tony's name, and Shady turns around to look at her. They square up and set to.
Shady Robinson suddenly pulls away from Tony, just stands back with his mitts down and Tony takes Shady's right eye out with one punch. It fucking bursts or something, half the lid rips off. There's blood and this treacly clear stuff like a big teardrop on his cheek. Tony shatters his fucking eye, and Shady just reels back. There's a pause, then Shady leaps at Tony. He's obviously provoking him to finish it off. Shady eventually goes unconscious after another five minutes. Tony sits down hard on the floor, Loose Sue lights him a cigarette and puts it in his mouth. Neither of them look at Shady.
I saw Shady again once, in the eighties. Sitting in a bar, drinking gin with his patch on and all wasted. His face looked like he did carpentry with it. He didn't see me.
At
this point, the story just ends, with him staring into the blueish vines of smoke
coiling in the oily air of Mike's. 'Another?'
I asked him. ENDS
So, it's closing time once
again. Those of you who are invited to the lock-in know who you are. The rest
of you; don't make too much noise leaving.
He picked a pound coin from the scatter of change on the bar.
Flipped it high and caught it smooth.
'Heads,' I called. He showed me tails.
'Never mind, yer fucking beer's warm anyway. And yer gin's watered.' He slid off
his stool.
'Goodnight Tony,' I called to his back. 'Good story.'
'Fuck
off,' he said, with his wet, scratchy coughing muffled by the door swinging to.
He left his change on the bar. Always was a flash cunt.
Call again soon, except for the filmstar namesakes, pushy urban cunts and the office mice that make London so horrible for the rest of us.
The top picture is Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. Cheers to Brett for turning down the lights and fixing the sign above the door. Cheers for the nice emutters. A spite-filled 'fuck you,'to the critics. Evil Friend and Quicksilver, I hate not seeing you more regularly. Goodnight then, sweet ladies. Walk these gentlemen back safe now. See you all in a week or so.