Ever had one of those days? When the world smacks the shit out of you and leaves you on the road? Your worst enemy selflessly scrapes you into his new car and takes you to hospital. The nurse falls in love with him. One of those days. Very few things stop you feeling weary and open the ‘other life,’ in fact only one thing regularly fulfills its promise to rescue you from taxes and typewriters and deliver you, content rather than safe, into a better world, of taxis, tangos and tequila. We’re always pleased to see you, Toots, and almost always ready to serve. In fact this is our motto for the week, and hangs in the thick grey air of the bar where we refuse to nanny you and stop you guzzling poisonous answers to pointless questions. Here, you really can please yourself. Welcome to Mike’s Place – to Neglect and Serve.

Superhero actor George has been in. He's in bad shape, a fondness for the cigarettes and the cakes and ale have done in that superhero body and left him poured into a corset which clings and sieves out sweat. He used to drink on the profits he made from a libel case, some cunt journalist said he was past it, did an unkind retrospective. That sorry motherfucker had a chance as well, a chance to return on a high. Just when his dreams were forgetting him, he sees a road accident drawing together on the street outside this very bar. Lady walking into the path of a speeding truck, all the kinds of things he vaguely recalls from his scripts. This is his moment of clarity, the all-or-nothing, the make or break. This is going to be his tabloid moment, get him some elderly grace parts on the screen. He sweeps her into his arms, rather than shouting, because this deluded motherfucker wants to take his chance. Ah, you got there before me. That's right. Fat cunt makes it to the kerb and his body lets him down, he puts her down sharply on the kerb, knocks a link out of her spine. She's in a chair now, and sued him for everything he made from the paper. I let him drink for free now, I guess I admire the completeness of his failure and anyhow I hate litigation culture. Never forget, toots - a chance of redemption is just that. A flipped coin, a hand of cards, it's not even worth as much as hope, because at the end of the day if the result wasn't out of your hands you wouldn't be in a mess in the first place.

Two of our regulars have been discussing matters morbid this week, with notes from the underworld being scrawled on beermats and cigarette packets by those of our more literary regulars who keep their memories in their pockets and wipe their hearts on their sleeves. Shy Sam and Mr. Once-A-Month have been mulling on death and the afterlife, because the one thing people do quickly here is age. Shy Sam takes it up, pulling on this week’s recommendation from the ‘baccy tin, which is Marlboro Menthol. You think I’m joshing? Smoke one and bolt down some cheap pastis. See? Your mouth’s as cool and sweet as an angel’s ring.

“Way I see it, you’re never really on your own. Even being like I am, I reckon you get to the bit of the journey you’ve been most frightened of and then it’s like being in Blondin’s barrow. A little trust and you’re over the scary bit. You’re done and everyone’s waiting for you on the far side.”
Debs huffs and falls off her stool.
Mr. Once-A-Month nods slowly, then disagrees.
“I hope not,” he says, and takes on his drink with a slow quaff, his throat bulging like a toad.
“Best I can think of is towards midnight on a hot summer’s night. Bar, lounge, office, friend’s apartment, whatever. Falling towards twelve and everyone’s said ‘Good-night.’ You let go a long line of smoke that fattens out and curls on a draught. You knock back the last of your drink and pour a fresh whiskey on new ice cubes. Stir it round with a finger. Take a sip, curse Frances and sigh. Push out into the warm, dark water of the night.”
“Fuck off. Who’s Frances?”
“Generic term.”
“How so?”
“Okey, you know those guys who come around and fill in for me while I’m here? I let them into the house in exchange for tips on how to fuck her, how to make her happy?”
“Aye.”
“They’re called Frances. Each and every one of them is called Frances, as far as I’m concerned. Irritates the fuck out of her, shouldn’t think they mind it of course.”

I clear my throat of the sticky film of catarrh and cigarette tar that’s gathered there, swallow it down with a mouth of wine. Mr Once-A-Month looks up, his better half has come into the bar. He taps the bar with a finger and I reach for the gin. She smiles.
“Play the piano, Shy Sam,” I whisper. He struts off with his bottle, a tumbler and one of my cigarettes. A couple of wooden thumps join hands and suddenly You Don't Know My Mind starts snapping things into a brisk 4:4.

“Take off your shoes,” says Mr Once-A-Month. They start jigging, in a booze-weighted daze across the filter tips, making sand-prints in the dust and ash.
“You blamed him, yeah?” she asks.
“Sure. You thought about me while you were doing him?”
“You know I did. What is it stops people being together, huh?”
Mr Once-A-Month grins at the ceiling.
“I guess other couples just don’t talk like we do, baby.”

Sure, leave them to it. Come and light up, sit down, I'll the drinks and you do the chat. There's always the possibility that this will be the last place you end up. Special thanks to the Quicksilver Kid, you know why, sir. We're taking something of a barman's holiday once again, so the bar will left to its own vices for a couple of months. I'm sure you'll cope. Life goes on, and then it doesn't, and that's all that ever really happens. Drink heavily, now. 'Night.