Steelie 8

‘Right, that’s it,’ growled DI Griffin. ‘You’ve taken the piss wance too often. I’m taking you in.’ He muttered to himself while searching behind his back for a set of handcuffs.

Two ambulances screeched up with blue lights flashing lights stalling traffic on the main road. Four paramedics bundled in through the door. A tall woman carried a stretcher, one-handed, and walked into the back of her colleagues.   

A man’s muffled voice came from the bar. ‘For fuck sake, they’ve sent Olive Oil. Where’s Popeye?’ His gag was met with laughter and a murmur of sympathy from the regulars.

‘I better deal wae this fuck-up.’ DI Griffiths glared at Steelie. ‘Don’t think aw goin anywhere.’

Steelie picked up his empty glass and Brodie’s and stood up. ‘I’m goin tae the bar for another drink. Unless buying a round is against the law noo tae?’

‘Smartass,’ DI Griffiths spat at him, striding away from the table and towards the paramedics.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Brodie. ‘Funny that an ambulance turning up, when you don’t need it.’

‘Mind get doubles.’ Steelie sank back into the seat, watching the paramedics shuffling out the door. ‘It’s no a bad thing them turning up like that. It shows that somehow and somewhere the whole system isnae fucked. Them just turning up oot the ether shows that just below the sorrow and pain, something works. Even when it doesnae work, like noo. It’s a kindness.’

‘I seen something too,’ Brodie said, casual like. ‘When I came out the toilet. I don’t know how to explain it, but I seemed to have slipped out of time and place. I was here and not here. I was a young lad in Berlin.’ He scratched behind his ear. ‘And I think I was called “Mole”. My family were Jewish and we were being hunted by the Nazis.’

‘Whit dae you think about it?’

‘Dunno. Thought I was going mad. But it was so real.’

Steelie interrupted him. ‘When yer goin bonkers it’s always so real.’

‘But no like that.’ Brodie sat down in the seat beside him as he tried to explain. ‘I know there’s billions upon billions of things that can happen at any one time. But I don’t understand. Not really. What’s it all about?’

Ambulance doors slammed shut and some of the cops were already leaving. DI Griffiths was in conclave with his younger colleague at the bar. Both of them had a drink in their hand. From where Steelie was sitting it looked like pints of lager.

He licked his lips. ‘You said Berlin and Nazi Germany. What language were you thinking in?’   

  ‘German, I suppose.’ Brodie’s eyes narrowed. ‘And Yiddish. And I could speak a bit of Hungarian, from my father’s side.’

Steelie’s throaty laugh had Brodie smiling too. ‘And dae you speak any of they languages?’

‘No as far as I know. Even if I picked up a smattering of languages on my travels, Yiddish wouldn’t be one of them.’

‘Aye, it’s called xenoglossia. Xeno for foreign and glossia…well, basically, speaking in tongues. That well known Christian phenomena were some people babble away tae themselves and another person translates. Christ it was hard. But noo wae Google you can translate, it hardly seem worth yer while when some daft cunt can dae it cheaper and better on their phone. And they can take pictures and stick themselves babbling away on TikTok and Fakebook.’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t just talking. It was something else entirely. It was real-er than sitting here with you.’

‘I’m no wanting you sitting here wae me. I want you up at the bar. You know when somebody says “Honestly?” And you know they’re lying? I’m taking you very serious. You might be goin a wee bit loopy. But yer in the right place for that wae us daft cunt in here. Or it’s jist a big con.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

He reached into his pocket and tossed a crumpled tenner onto the sticky table. It fluttered like a surrender flag and he smoothed it out. ‘This place has got roots for me. You rip them oot and I bleed. We bleed. So why ur you bleeding?’

Brodie ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m not.’

‘Well, some folk under hypnosis claim tae speak languages they’ve never learned. Wan wee woman spoke fluent Swedish, a language she reportedly had nae knowledge of. Then there’s Matej Kus. A Czech motorcyclist woke up after a crash and began speaking fluent English. He reportedly said, “Get tae the fucking bar!”’

‘I’m going.’ Brodie chuckled.

‘Aye, but yer no moving. Matej Kus was so embarrassed wae his affliction he reportedly moved tae London, where naebody will talk tae you in Czech, Slovak or English, because they ur English, and ur possibly Tory cunts tae that don’t like foreigners, even when they ur foreigners themself. Matej Kus never went to the bar after his accident because he considered himself English, unnaturalised and pauperised.’

He pushed the tenner towards Brodie but he nudged it away. ‘I’m going. I’m going. I can take a hint.’

‘It’s no a hint, I’m gi’en you. It’s a deadline. Then there was that case fae the1970s. An Indian woman, Uttara Huddar. She began speaking fluent Bengali while in a trance-like state. She said she was “Sharada,” a Bengali woman fae a past life. The first thing the resurrected Sharada said was “Has Brodie been tae the bar yet?”

Steelie rubbed his nose and chin to conceal his smile. ‘And I hud to tell her. “Sorry Sharada you’ve been deid for o’er fifty years. I know it’s a shock tae you. But Brodie’s still no been tae the fuckin bar. So everything is relative. Even though aw yer relatives are deid noo. Live wae it.”’

Brodie scrunched up his eyes. ‘Yeh, it was a bit like that. What was the woman’s name again?’

‘Whit wan? There’s millions of them. Aw the same. Aw different. Most Eastern religions incorporate elements of reincarnation.’

‘But I was a young German, Jew. Why now? Why here?’  

‘I’ll explain it tae you in a jiffy. But first I want tae ask you something?’

He snatched the tenner from the table. ‘I’m keeping this as evidence you exist.’

‘It’s no my tenner. You gave it tae me, mind?’

‘Did I?’ asked Brodie.

‘That’s no reincarnation. That Alzheimer’s.’