Stags

Six of us went to England for my stag- do: Alfie was in with Sharpie. Markie was in with Kev. And I got landed with Wee Rab. He was a tosser, the worst kind of mate, but still my best man. One of those kind of guys that sat on the edge of things until the very last minute, before finally dipping his hand in his pocket and getting one up. We were in the Ballroom or something. I was never very good with names. I’d got a round up, but Wee Rab came up to the bar with me. It was about eleven o’clock, but whether it was in the morning or at night I wasn’t particularly sure. I’d written the name of the hotel we were staying in-I think it was called Blackpool something- on my left hand. I’d also written it on my right hand. But it didn’t look like the same place and it didn’t look like my handwriting. I was thinking we would be needing a better system of finding our way home, something like dog-tags, that would clink, reassuring us that we knew where we were going, or at least where we were ending up, unless we didn’t, of course, and at least that way we would have something to take back to show my fiancée; a little reminder. We’d been drinking in the place that long that they’d changed the barmen a few times, some of them were even women, but the rounds stayed more or less the same and they poured them without asking. It was easy enough. Five double vodkas with Red Stripe and one with Cranberry juice. That was the poofs’ drink, but Sharpy said it was good for cystitis, which kinda clinched it, as definitely a poofs’ drink. Wee Rab took the drinks I’d bought back to the table. That was his idea of getting a round.

Markie wanted to move on, not go somewhere else, but start getting trebles instead of doubles. He said that he’d drunk himself sober. I’d worked the doors at nightclubs with Markie for about five years and I’d never seen him sober, but I’d never really seen him drunk either. He always seemed half scooped. Life was a battlefield for him and he liked to hit back first. He was a big bruiser. I didn’t really want to invite him to my stag-do, because if there wasn’t trouble he’d invent it, like a new wheel, but I couldn’t not invite him. That would have been a liberty. Not that I was frightened of him. I could handle myself. He was a mate, after all.

Kev was sitting beside him; bent over the frame of his chair; sleeping beside him, would have been a better description. He was more Markie’s mate than mine, one of those shaven haired gym bunnies, always flashing his pecs, always looking past you to see if there was anybody better than you waiting to speak to him. The birds loved him of course, with his Italian tan and Hollywood smile. Every time somebody got a round in Markie nudged him awake. He’d about eight doubles in front of him on the table and they just kept piling up like red lights on a traffic jam. He’d eye us wearily and snatch at a drink as if it was a 200lb weight and let it crash onto the table again, his eyes unable to take the strain and closing again. He didn’t even notice that Markie had unzipped him and taken his knob out of his trousers and just left it sitting like a squashed mushroom against his leg. There was a lesson for us there. All that fitness fanaticism and black belts in this and that and he held his drink like a 12-year-old girl.

One of the barman noticed when he was collecting empties. We watched him whispering to the other older guy, the one with Joe 90 specs. He’d the hotel livery on, was obviously something big in polishing bar glasses. We weren’t worried, just curious to see what they would do. It was one of those victimless crimes. It was not as if he could have proved anything. The only way he could have done was by taking a photo with a camera phone. And only a pervert would do that. Nobody likes perverts. He reached for the phone. He’d that pervert look about him. I sent Sharpy up to have a word, just to tell him we were having a bit of fun. And that it was my stag- do. He wouldn’t want to spoil it. Sharpy was good at that kind of thing.

Sharpy came back to the table with a one of his smug fuck-off smiles on his face, clinking the doubles glasses together on the tray. It was on of those moments that just happened, nobody planned it, we just held up our glasses to Joe 90, in salute, for buying us a drink for my stag-do, before downing them. Even Kev rose from the dead and tried a lop-sided grin, before crashing down and knocking a chair over. We left him lying on the floor. It was the best thing to do. At least his knob was hidden; shrunk from view.

‘If the barman bought a round for us, you should have said take one for yourself.’

Only Alfie cracked a smile at that one. He was quicker than Sharpie and wore a suit, even when he wasn’t working the doors. He was always picking at the cuffs of his sleeves, correcting them, putting them in line. There was something old fashioned about him, the way he handled his drink and the way he never seemed to give a yes or a no answer, always waiting, figuring out the angles. He looked like a dreamer, but behind those eyes, there was always something ticking.

I don’t know who put it on the Jukebox, or if it was on the radio. Everything was just a background noise. Then it was Blondie’s Denis-Denis. I could see the heads going, nodding like daffodils in the sunshine of our youth; sitting in Dario’s café, only able to buy a plate of chips between us.

‘She was fuckin’ lovely.’ Markie ambushed our thoughts.

‘Yeh, beautiful.’ Wee Rab, flung his arm around my shoulder, all emotional, as if he was going to start all that drunken greetin’ like a wean.

Alfie stood up, unrumpled in his suit, ‘I’m goin’ to get a Jacks.’ There was no slur in any of his words. It was as if the world was fifteen again, when he used to steal Jack Daniel’s whiskey from his uncle and share it with us down the causeway at the canal, beside the sewerage plant. I always associated whiskey with sewerage ever since.

‘I’ll have a Jacks.’ I couldn’t let the occasion pass.

‘I’ll have a Jacks’ said wee Rab.

‘Me too,’ said Sharpy.

I wondered if he’d put poof juice in it.

Markie toyed with Kev on the floor, flicking at him with his shoe. ‘The fucking wankers peed himself.’ I could tell from the rough grain of his voice that he was desperate to batter him senseless, but, as I said, he wasn’t a liberty taker. He bent down and shouted ‘PRICK,’ in Kev’s ear, full volume. Lucky for Kev he just turned over and never got up. Markie- boy had been the one that was especially mad on Denis-Denis. He’d have done anything for her; apart from talk to her.

Alfie handed Markie a Jacks without asking. The way he cocked his head I could see him looking back.

‘To Denise-Denise Ross.’ Alfie, officiating, held the Jacks up to the light.

We all stood up, as best we could, holding our drinks up like amber candles, hollowing out our faces, making them seem younger once more, with Markie grinding his heel into Kev’s ankle.

‘You fucking loved her.’ Wee Rab slurred his words, his arm back around my shoulder as if that was the place that it should be, that marked sincerity from insincerity, but he wasn’t that drunk he’d have said the same thing to Markie.

‘Yeh, I loved her right enough.’ I took a drink of my Jacks and held it in my mouth, letting it ease down so that I didn’t spew it back up. The words hung in the air.

‘I loved her too.’ Wee Rab clutched at my shoulder, holding onto the beauty of the love he carried all those years in his voice.

Alfie sipped at his Jacks. ‘I don’t think you loved her in quite the way he did.’ His left eyebrow lifting a little, like a question mark. I could tell he was impressed.

‘You’re fucking kidding.’ Sharpy pushed at my shoulder and playfully made a grab at me as if trying to pick up some of my good luck. ‘When was it, that party in Albert Street, when you were drunk and telling her you loved her and trying to get aff with her all night?’

‘Some of us has been there. And some of us hasnae.’ I looked into my whiskey glass and nodded, watching Alfie nod as if to say touché out of the corner of my eye.

Markie scrapped his chair back, the sound sending a shiver up the back of my neck. ‘That’s fucking it,’ he said, ‘I’ve had it up to hear with that fuckin’ankle-licker.’ He took a run and booted Kev square in the head. If we’d been back playing football in the street it would have been a top corner strike. Kev wasn’t really one of us.

Alfie eventually pulled at Markie’s sleeves. ‘That’s enough,’ he sounded bored, he looked at the barmen, people started leaving as if the place was on fire, ‘you’ll kill him.’
*******
We were sitting in our room that night. Wee Rab was sitting on the bed edge of the bed, wittering a lot of shite as usual. ‘I’d have married her,’ he said. ‘I’m telling you, big man, I’d have married her. You didnae shag her. Did you? You didnae shag her. Did you?’ He kept going on and on.

‘Alright then, I didnae shag her.’ I pulled the pillar over my ears.

He turned the big light on. I could feel his eyes looking at me, burrowing through the cushions. I’d need to lamp him one.

‘You didnae shag her. Did you?’

I sat up in bed and put my serious face on. ‘Aye I did. And I’m getting married next week so fucking shut-the-fuck-up about it.’

‘Did you?’ he said, but it was no longer a question, even as he tumbled onto the bed and into comatose sleep there was pride in his voice. I’d done it for him. I’d done it for all of us. I’d shagged Denis-Denis Ross.
*******
I’d been working on the door of The Primrose Park with that prick Kev. We were having a laugh eyeing up the women and knocking back the men. ‘Sorry mate-too drunk.’ ‘Sorry mate-too bald.’ ‘Sorry mate-too ugly.’ Some skanky dog was talking to him trying to get in, but he was having none of it, he had her by the wrist and was practically had to drag her down the stairs. He stopped half way down and they looked up at me and he started laughing and let her wrist go. She fluttered back up the stairs and she was looking at me. I was looking past her at Kev to see what the score was, but he’d already latched onto a little blonde number, with a mini skirt.

‘Jim,’ she said, ‘it’s me. Denise Ross.’

I had to really look, but it was her. ‘Fuck me,’ I said, ‘Denise I never recognised you, how’ve you been?’

‘I’ve had my troubles,’ she said and she did that thing with her hair, flicking at it, which used to drive us all mad. But it was more a rat brown than blondie by that time.

Kev came up the stairs pawing at his latest. ‘I don’t fancy yours,’ he whispered in my ear.

‘Fuck off,’ I spat at him, but I followed him up the stairs. ‘Keep an eye out. I’m taking her into the function suite.’

The function suite was no longer used. It was were we kept all the shit that didn’t work, like old speakers, bits of broken chairs. All that kind of crap and floating jetsam.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding,’ he said. And he’d a smile on his face that, karate expert or not, made me want to punch him out.

I hustled her up the stairs, but instead of turning right, I pushed her left into the function suite.
*****
Alfie was sitting reading the paper in the lounge area of the hotel at breakfast. Sharpy sat across from him munching toast. Me and Wee Rab squeezed in at their table.

‘Denis-Denis,’ said Wee Rab. He was still half drunk.

‘Good one,’ said Sharpie, food falling out of his mouth.

‘Yeh,’ said Alfie, carefully folding his paper. ‘I wonder whatever happened to her?’