claptrap

Collecting a plastic medal on his 30^th anniversary. Clenched teeth and a rictus smile. The backslapping goodness of them all. Dry lips. Missing God knows what. Not enough saliva to spit. ‘This is just about the last fucking place I expected to be.’

A few polite guffaws of laughter from the seats below the top table. Sometimes there was a crowd of twenty. Usually, seven or eight regulars. Newcomers sat conspicuously near the door of the backroom in St Stephen’s church hall. Foot tapping. Waiting for salvation. For it all to end.

He spoke to familiar faces. They were on first-name terms. Surnames were meant to be anonymous. But it was all AA bullshit.

He smirked. ‘Let go and let God.’

Sometimes he just wished for a cold beer. Around now o’clock in the afternoon. The Quiet Man on the telly. That celebration of John Wayness. Drinking and fighting and good Irish women that loved them. All that same old pish.

But there was that desire. That simple glowing desire. Sprung forth and given legs like a Biblical plague from the stupidest of places.

John Wayne, for fuck sake, stopping mid-fight. Entering a dark bar and flinging back a Guinness with his brawny opponent, before flinging another haymaker.

Most of the old timers have heard his story countless times, but they indulged him with nods and thin-lipped smiles. He shrugged off the need for Irish bars and Irish colleens. Put it down to nostalgia’s brain-worm mangling his senses, especially his common sense.

He’s pulled that stunt before. Too many times to make cocktails of failures into sobriety. God, or the Higher Power, the AA accredited guarantor. Alkie’s last resort. An invisible minder. All that claptrap.

He’d miss his wife, Mary. And he’d miss the kids—well, they’re adults—but he’d miss them anyway. They’d need an explanation in a way they never did when they were younger.

He ran his fingers over the craters on his bald head, waiting for the laughter. His familiar story, a licking plaster covering old war wounds.  

He pondered the need to scrape out his insides and start again. Out of bare-assed necessity. When he was out there, all the things he had seen and heard would come back to him. How his kingdom will finally come. He’ll come to see the house boozers and his fellow alkies as his wife and sons, his brothers and sisters, his family.

He remembered it too well and it brought a childlike flush to his face. The constant celebratory clink and plink of opening ceremonies. Fag smoke creating cosy spaces around them. Cargoes pushing aside the walls of routines. Living in the moment. Boaking. Settling down for a sixteen-hour day, a twenty-hour-drinking day. Twenty-four hours without daylight. His body on the lash, while the world slept.

The weightlessness of drinking. Bobbling along with a plastic bag. A white buoy keeping him afloat and almost upright.  Breathing hard.  

Musical chairs, without marching music. Without chairs. Everybody was in their sights. In their fun and games. He had to shoplift. He had to keep moving. Had to have to another drink or their world would all fall down. Epilepsy haunted him. He tasted the aurora clearly enough in his head to fit by, but couldn’t fit himself into hospital rote and prison routines.

In a different orbit. Normal life past him by. He was so out of step. His shrinking, drunken brain knew there was something missing. But he didn’t know what it was.  Somewhere in the general clutter of life he needed to get back on track.

His audience fidgeted. He thought he heard his name being mentioned. Old Monaghan murmured something to the young guy beside him. A hand slanted over his mouth. Waited for him to wind it up. So they could get the sausage rolls out of the oven. The tea urn ready. Sandwiches pushed forward, with or without cheese and thin slices of ham. Celtic and Rangers and the Champions League chewed open-mouthed with a mug of tea.

‘Aye,’ he says. ‘It scared the shit oot of me. Tae be honest, I’d gone from cuddling the rubbish bin near the back door tae stauning here.’

They admitted to themselves and others they could talk about anything, but they don’t usually talk about these things. Getting lost. Being alone.

‘My heid was up my arse.’ He spoke from the memory of a memory. ‘Foggy-head syndrome. Ears ringing with feedback like a seventies synthesiser. Conversations jackhammered in my heid. An awful droning noise. I realised that was me being sick in the pan, in the sink, and in the bath. My hauns sticky with my ain shit. I’d brought a present, but I’d ate it or drunk it. I couldnae remember whit it was or who I was.’ 

He took a breather. Scratched and twisted the flap of skin on the nape of his neck. Licked his lips. Could almost taste that cool first drink going down. That settler which gave him fresh eyes. He clearly saw the future. The endless grabbing of pointless things. Piling up new cars in newly built driveways, life stacked like ornaments on shelves. In the endless chatter of getting up and getting on. The weightlessness and the floating. No longer doing some arsehole’s bidding.

He’d tossed his plastic medal away towards the empty chairs, because he knew he didn’t deserve it. He’d been in AA purgatory long enough. Got lost in the last thirty years. The gloop-in-betweeness of AA  meetings after not taking that first drink. Not living apart from the she-said-to-me-and-I-said-to-her-but-she-wasn’t-listening- who gies a fuckness of it all.

 He blurted it out, greeting like a wain. ‘Drink isnae a thing but a feeling of grace. I dream of booze, aw the time. These last thirty years are a fucking sham. A fucking nightmare. I’ve lied and cheated but it’s been my doctor. My dentist. My cook and cleaner up. My hairdresser and my lover. Solace of my sleeping and waking hours. That great fucking leveller. Drink, aye, it’ll  find yeh. Booze, aye, it’ll fix yeh. A litre bottle of pure vodka will be yer fucking Bible.  Everybody will speak in fucking tongues. A two-litre bottle of Thunderbird. Make you fucking insane. Laughable. Unpindownable. A complete fuck-up. Like yeh huv a robotic arm holding a life-support machine tae yer lips. But, at least, yeh’ll still be a stupid honest cunt.’

Old Monaghan adjusted his specs and glared at him. The crucifix he conspicuously wore on a gold chain bobbled underneath his chins. He chuckled and clapped his arthritic hands and other members joined in.