Old Prejudice.

I tripped over Old Prejudice when I came over the bridge at the canal. 

‘Whit yeh daeing there?’ I cried. ‘Yeh gie me a fright.’

He looked up at me. ‘I’d be lying if I lied. And yed be none the wiser.’

‘Oh, it’s you?’

‘Who else would it be?’

 ‘Yer wife?’ He looked past my shoulder and then down at the dog.  She usually walks the dog doon this way, don’t she? She’s a bit like, you yeh know? Once an ugly duckling. Noo an ugly nae-neck.’

I wasn’t going to get into a slanging match with his type. ‘How’s yer Gladys?’

‘Very quiet,’ he was quick to say.

I made a hash of mimicking tipping and glugging a bottle up to my mouth. ‘She still on the—’

He shook his head. ‘She’s no been drinkin as much since she died.’

I felt I had to put him in place and explain. ‘I’m walkin the dog, because she’s got a sore leg.’ I meant the dog. Jerking the lead and pulling the poor mutt forward as evidence. It had the same watery eyes as him. They might well have been related. Max sniffed at him. He sniffled too. Then the dog sat and scratched at its haunches with rare vigour and a thumping sound.

‘Whit yeh daeing wae yerself?’ I asked before he could ask me. I didn’t want to get into the grief of it. And if I remembered rightly, he was wont to quote Nicollo Machiavelli. Old Prejudice loved quoting Machiavelli and greeting. For one thing it made him sound as if he could speak a foreign language. And for another, none of the two of us could read Italian unless it was Gazzetta Football Italiazio. The old order of things was being challenged on the telly, but there were no lukewarm defenders of the status quo. Instead, there was Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldinini to get your head around. 

He sat on the bottom step and rolled a fag with one hand, tamping down the tobacco and sticking it in his gob. He licked his lower lip where a stray bit of tobacco came loose. ‘Yeh got a light?’

I pulled the lead and the dog away from where he was sitting. ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Don’t smoke. Don’t you member?’

He wedged a finger in his ear and rooted about, sniffing and yawning with discoloured teeth. Tilting his head as a biker in pink day-glo and a white helmet hurtled towards us. ‘Yeh always were a dentist.’

I stepped closer to the bridge to give the rider more space on the footpath. ‘Whit’d yeh mean a dentist? I don’t smoke.’

He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit his fag. Squinty eyes staring at me, he made a grunting noise. ‘Tight as a deid badger’s arse.’

I pulled the dog away and I should have walked away too. Old prejudice had a way of mixing rhetoric with righteousness and assuming because he said it that was evidence it must be true. But I always got sucked in. ‘Yev already got a light.’

He sucked his lips inside out and deep into his roll-up. Two yellowing fingers grasping the butt-end as if trawling for smoke. His face cloudy and overcast. ‘I didnae ask yeh that. Yeh’ll find oot soon enough. People like you. Tae think yeh were once a milk monitor.’

‘That was only for a week, when Martin Monaghan was aff.’

‘Aye, yer right enough,’ he admitted. ‘Yeh were a shite milk monitor anyways, always leavin it on the radiator. Martin Monaghans sorted it for yeh.’

‘Yer right, it was jist a dumpin ground for kids.’

He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the water. His face broad and broken as an empty orange bucket. Half laugh, full sneer. ‘Whit yeh talkin about?’

‘School,’ I cried. ‘Oor school days.’

‘Yeh ve no changed much. Yeh dae talk some shite.’

Max sniffed at his boots and he clapped him behind the ears. I slackened the lead. The dog pressed its snout against his hand and made puppyish whine noises from the back of his throat.

‘Here,’ he said, straightening up to his full portly five foot two. ‘I could take yer dog for a walk.’

‘Nah,’ I pulled Max by the lead away from him, almost chocking the dog. Had him sitting by my side. ‘We urnae goin far.’

‘That’s good.’ He turned his head to check nobody was listening. ‘Cause yeh hear about the dog nappers?’

‘Nah,’ I glanced at Max and back at him. ‘He’s auld, like the rest o us.  Hardly worth stealin.’

He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Oh, the dog nappers don’t mind that.’ He cackled, ‘In fact they love that…Ransom money, an if some dentist doesnae pay they can feed it tae the fightin dogs.’   

The canal bent past the Masonic Hall and two young guys came up onto the path. One of them was a fat boy with bright colours only a child on Ritalin would wear. His mouth partly open in a loose grin as if Dalmuir was a joke and he was the punchline. He turned his head and muttered something to his pal as they came towards us. A hollow laugh came from below a white baseball cap hiding most of his face. He trailed a dog lead, skipping and jumping it along the ground,  but no dog followed.  

‘Oh, well,’ I cried, in an over cheery voice, smacking my hand against the bannister for emphasis. ‘I better be aff.’

‘Don’t yeh want tae hear about my lottery win?’ he asked, coughing and showing the slate colour of his uneven teeth. He cleared his throat and grogged green at my feet.

‘Much did yeh win?’

‘Won fuck all.’ A lopsided grin to show he thought that was funny. ‘But I wiz selected for jury duty, cause I was such an outstandin citizen.’

‘Whit about aw yer…?’

‘Convictions?’ He finished the sentence for me. He shrugged and swelled up in his old Parker Jacket like a bullfrog. ‘All spent. I don’t bear yeh any grudges. Let bygones be bygones and aw that.’

The two lads came to a stop before me. The fat lad stood near the embankment careful where he put his feet because of the muck and dog shit. His partner had on khaki short and no socks. A T-shirt with the words NO ACCIDENT printed in purple on it with the image of a tower block falling. Thin faced and long jawed, he swung the lead back and forward.  Max started growling.

‘Mister,’  No Accident said, ‘Can yeh keep that dog under control? Or I’ll huvtae. Stupid dogs make me nervous.’

‘Sorry,’ I apologised. ‘Here Max, here!  Pulling the dog backwards, his feet and nails scrapping on the metal panels of the bridge. Whining noises marked out retreat.

The fat lad covered his mouth with his hand as he whispered to old prejudice as if there was a camera on him at a football match, fans chanting WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? And somebody in the crowd that could lip read.

Old Prejudice answered with a grunt, which may have been a laugh.

Then the two lads ambled away past the stairs. I let go of the choke-hold on Max. He started peeing on the struts of the bridge. And squatted down to do a shit. I had to be quick and hauled him by the collar down the steps as if his legs were on castors. He did his business beside Old Prejudice. And raised its dark doggy eyes slowly to meet mine.

‘Bad dog,’ I said. And booted him on the arse.

‘Here,’ cried Old Prejudice. ‘Nae need for that.’ He held out his hand and dangled his finger for Max to lick, making cooing noises. My dog lapped at his cupped hand.  I let go of the lead so it could snuggle in at his leg. Old Prejudice talked to the side of me, rather than to me, as he petted the dog. ‘I said tae the judge. Soon yer Honour, yeh’ll be replaced wae a robot. The prosecution lawyers will be AI. And the defence will run on the same software. The jurors, twelve good tin men or women, will decide the verdict by an algorithmic hum like buzzing bees wagging their communal bums. Yed already know what to expect because you never got aff wae anythin free in yer life. An it all adds up in the end. Yer guilty, in the end, cause yeh don’t add up.’

I laughed. ‘I guess yeh didnae get on the jury, then. Did yeh?’

Old Prejudice laughed too. ‘Nah, I didnae, but I met a few good people.’ He gripped the dog tightly by the lead. The two boys appeared at the top of the stairs behind me. The lead shaped into a noose.