Scrap 30

SCRAP 30
Frank spots DC Staples’ car parked outside the club. He parks his own as far away as possible. Most of his drinking buddies have brought their cars and he recognises among others the Hillman Minx belonging to Gasper Gerry. Every panel shows evidence of Gerry’s atrocious driving skills.
Peering through the fog of cigarette smoke, Frank sees Scotty over by the bar and heads towards him, past DC Staples and his cronies who are camped around one of the larger tables on one side of the spacious room. They seem to have picked the best spot to enjoy the cabaret, which tonight boasts a drag act and two strippers.
‘Frank, what are you having?’ asks Scotty, ‘the usual?’ Frank nods and Scotty gets in a round for the group, which consists of Gerry, himself, Ken and Pauline Chapman and Frank. They greet the new arrival and Ken nods towards the pre-cabaret group. ‘I bet I know what they’re after,’ he says with a knowing look. ‘Best mind what you say then,’ warns Frank.
The bar is filling up as the time approaches 9pm. The drummer takes his seat behind a battered bass and adjusts his snare stand before announcing the arrival of the Glorious Gloria with as much of a flourish as he can manage on his meagre drum kit.
Glorious Gloria is whistled and clapped to ‘her’ place at the microphone and the stream of awful old material is greeted with guffaws and cries of ‘Get off, you old Queen,’ and ‘bring on the girls.’
Glorious Gloria valiantly continues her set then swans off to loud applause and equally loud boos, disappearing into the gents which has to double as a dressing room.
The next act is greeted with somewhat more enthusiasm as the two strippers strut onto the ‘stage’. It is actually a slightly raised platform about eight feet square but is the best this club has to offer.
The girls do their best to entertain the pathetic, drooling men then shoot off back to their own ‘dressing room’ as soon as the show is over.
The men turn back to their drinking and gossiping and the drummer is joined on stage by a middle-aged woman who stands up to play the electronic organ because she has seen someone doing the same in a Las Vegas film. They play more or less together, a selection of mostly country and western standards, which are duly ignored by the gathered crowd.
‘Did anyone hear about the raid on Harry Tobin’s yard?’ wheezes Gasper Gerry. All eyes turn to him, the gathering lean in, expecting to hear more. ‘Well,’ says Scotty, ‘what have you heard?’ Gerry shrugs. ‘That’s all I heard,’ he says, ‘I was hoping one of you would know.’
Ginger sidles into the group, eager to be centre stage. ‘I heard he’s been sending stolen plant abroad. The cops took away a load of digger parts from his yard for examination.’
Everyone is keen to learn more, even though they all despise Ginger the grass. He tells them that he has heard that Tobin has been using his fishing boats to get contraband in and out of the country as well. He reckons that since the arrival of the crushing machine at Rosa’s scrap yard there has been increased activity with ‘ringing’ of cars which the law are keen to put a stop to.