Steelie 10

Rain lashed against the windows and brought a clatter of feet from the smokers outside. A man with a scar bisecting his chin, swaggered over to their table. ‘Is he sleeping? he growled.

Steelie turned his heads slowly, Brodie was lying prone against his back, snoring. ‘Nah Jock, he’s jist resting.’

 ‘Cause there’s nae sleeping in here.’

‘I know Jock, but he’s jist got tired eyes.’ He lifted his pint to wet his lips. ‘We aw get that, don’t we?’  

Jock’s Adam’s apple bobbled up and down. ‘I was jist saying.’

Brodie’s nostrils flared. The sour tang of spilled beer and the stale stench of old sweat mingling with over-damp wood. A sense of flying. He sucked in the air, his breath ragged and uneven as he jerked upright. Steelie’s hand shook as he knocked against him. He chuckled while studying the pattern the beer made as it spilled onto his trouser leg. He pawed away the splash on the underside of their seat.

‘See,’ said Steelie taking a gulp of beer before setting the glass on the table. ‘He was jist resting.’

Brodie tried to piece together where he was, and why he was here while keeping the remembrance of Mole in his head, while watching a stocky man slouch towards the bar. A fluorescent light above the Juke Box flickered with the rhythm of some daft song and his stiff neck and headache. Disinterested punter leaned into their drinks and conversations, as if he was invisible but Steelie kept talking and it spiked what he could remember.

‘He’s the most boring man in Dalmuir.’ Steelie nodded in Jock’s direction. ‘Even his poor wife shuts her eyes and turns the telly up when he speaks and agrees wae everything he says. His kids smash windaes and ask the police to drop them aff at Borstal. Cause it’s easier that way.’ He took a sip of his pint and made a half-scoffing sound. ‘Tae disagree wae him. Well, that’s jist fucking hard work. It’s like listening tae a Tory trying to work out how much tae dole oot tae the poor. It’s a never-ending pile of shite.’

‘I’d a dream,’ muttered Brodie as a reminder to himself. ‘I think I died in it.’

An older woman nearby chuckled under her breath, and Brodie stared at her before shaking his head. His hands clawed at the table and he picked up a drink and swallowed a whisky and shivered. ‘Black. Verhaftet. Like...arrested. I’m hiding, Steelie. Hiding, and I think it’s all my fault. Ma Schuld.’

‘Och for fuck sake,’ said Steelie. ‘I’m tempted tae shout Jock back for some decent conversation. Yer talking shite again.’

Brodie took a deep breath and eyed Steelie. ‘Maybe somebody spiked me.’

‘Come back Jock,’ Steelie held a hand to his mouth, mimicking he had a microphone. ‘All is forgiven.’

‘I died, Steelie.’

‘Death is our most deadly disease or worse a shameful secret. They don’t live on in dungeons of cellars unless they’ve lived there before. They walk among us. Largely indifferent. Everybody dies.’  A wave of laughter crested and fell on Sharon behind the bar. Steelie smiled too, even though he couldn’t hear the joke. ‘It’s like Dante’s Inferno. Guy doesnae jist write about heaven and hell. He needs tae tear the words out of his soul and put them doon on paper. Some people think it’s a pile of pish. Of course, it’s better in the Terza rima of Tuscanny, but who am I tae talk?’

Brodie let out a small, hiccupped laugh. ‘I’ve been taught by the best about counter- interrogation techniques but really they should talk to you.’

‘Cheers,’ he took a nip and sloshed it around before finishing it. ‘We lost the propaganda war. It’s no jist the moron’s moron Trump and all his right-wing attack dogs. You slip a wee suggestion into the right heid. Tweak a few dials. Any stage magician worth his salt can dae it. Next thing you know, yer dreamin Gestapo boots and betrayin yer ain family. They did it in Korea? Had lads waking up convinced they were on the wrang side. Proper MK-Ultra shite. And Vietnam—sleep deprivation, white noise, pumped full of chemicals till they couldnae tell their own thoughts from the ones drilled intae them. And that was there ain side.  Even now, Ukraine, mate—whole villages in shifting borders, militarised. Convinced their neighbours are spies, folk disappearing after a whisper. It’s all the same game, just wae drones, fancier internet connections and the sleaziest, dumbest President in living memory.’  

Brodie fell silent, staring into his half-empty glass. Slow to comment. ‘It wasn’t like that. It was so real.’

‘Course it was.’ Steelie slapped the table, rattling their glasses. ‘Cheer up, Brodie. You huv the guilt of Job withoot the boils and lack of sleep and sheep. Yer imagination running riot is always fertile ground. Watch this.’

Brodie’s fingers tapped an unsteady rhythm on the table. ‘It felt real. The smell, man. That’s something you can’t fabricate.’

Steelie wiped at his mouth, took a final swig of his pint and stood up. ‘Listen!’ he croaked, his voice raw. ‘Listen tae me, you stupid cunts!’

A ripple of laughter, then a hush until somebody farted.

‘Clydebank… it’s dying,’ his voice gaining strength and power. “We’re all dying. We’ve forgotten what it means tae fight, tae care for each o’er. We’re aw just… drifting. Sleepwalking.’

A few snickers from those at the bar. A few nervous coughs. But some eyes, he saw, were filled with a flicker of something. Recognition? Hope?

‘Whit are you on about noo, Steelie?’ Sharon asked, her voice laced with a sense of yearning.

‘I’m telling you what I see!’ Steelie’s voice ringing out. ‘I see us. A toon and a country that’s lost its way, and, in us, I see a chance to find it again!’

He sat down again to a silence then a slow hand-clapping that built up, with whistles and cheers. Brodie looked at him and was the only one to notice him winking.