3 friends dead-in one night.

I had three friends die in one night.

 

I was in a bad mood anyway, just had an argument with someone, after a night of rowing.
I'd thrown a bottle of orange juice on the floor, seen it explode, then turned back the way I'd come and jumped on the first train. Later I found out some hit their face-I appologized for that.

I was all tension. Heated.

Getting off at my stop, I felt to go in the pub to cool down, then found out-
3 friends-dead.

I call them friends, which I think I can becasue I'd seen them everyday for three years. Served them everyday for three years.

I'd started chatting to Sarah. She told me. She said afterwards 'there's been so many recently I've stopped noticing, like, 'oh, another one!''. It started with Steve.

'Steve's died?' I asked.
'What, Misery?'
'Yes' she said.
'What, Steve 'happy feet'?
'Yes'
 Bus driver Steve?
'Yes'
'Grumpy Steve?'
I had to be sure, there's a alot of Steve's around.

A bus driver-we called him, but he never worked, he was in the pub everyday. I'd asked him once 'how did you lose your job?' He'd said 'I walked in there one day and said, fuck the lot of you. Take your job and shove it!'

He's gone. Dead. 45....ish.

I saw him only the other day, walking down the road, he was someonewhere I'd never seen hm before, so I slowed down my bike, mounted the pavement, shouted something to scare him, and started chatting, can't rememer what we'd said exactly, but we'd laughed, I always had a joke with him, I always had a joke with the regulars, it was my way.

Later I spoke to others. Irish Dave reckons he used to pour Special Bew on his cornflakes-I don't think so.

I used to see him walking across the field when I was there exercising. I could always tell it was him. Ralph Lauren jumper-dark blue, timberland boots-badge. And the walk-nothing to rush for.

I'd said to bus driver Andy once 'Steve, he wears Ralph'
'Him, no way mate!'
He did. He wore it everyday.

Gone.

Everyone thought he never had much to say. But I found out he knew a lot about planes. We'd speak about it sometimes, and whoever told me, was right.

 

Me and Sarah carried on talking. Now-Blind Sean.

I'd thought as much, kind of, maybe saw it coming, well, I wasn't overly surprised.

He'd had his foot amputated not long before, gangreen in the leg, he was blind to start with, this weren't gonna help.

'He's died!'

He'd get the bus down everyday, I'd see him at the bus stop opposite my road about 30 seconds after I'd shut my front door.

I'd walk the journey, then see him at the end, getting off the bus. We'd both go into the Tavern, me to work, him to drink.

I thought it was mad how he never knew that, and I never told him.

A few hours later, the cab would arrive to take him home. Jim fussing around everyone with his walking stick, thick glasses and flat cap, moving them out the way to get Sean into the car. He'd always leave with him, but I only found out later that he'd get dropped off with him, help him up his ramp and through his green front door, then walk to his own home.

One day I saw it, after I'd stopped working there, and that's how I know he's got a green front door.

It was odd finally seeing them do the thing they used to do everyday once they'd left and I never even knew.

The doctors hadn't picked up he had gangreen, he was going to sue, or did, never found out; I suppose it was hard for him to notice, so it  got cut off.

I asked Sarah 'did it stop him coming in?'

'No', she'd said. 'He'd come in, like, once a month, in his wheel chair'

That must have killed him. A blind man loosing his independence, must have been.

His table was still there. The small out of place table two steps from the front of the bar. 'Sean's table'.The one that non regulars would come in and sit on and soon get people coming up to them, tapping their shoulder and saying 'that's Sean chair', and without even asking who Sean was, they'd vaccate.

 

Then the third.

'Pete?'
'Scouser Pete'
'Train driver Pete'

I always used to say to him 'shouldn't you be driving a train!' Along with my 'alright, alright, calm down, calm down!' Harry Enfield style, in my best (worst) Liverpudlian accent, doing a 'scouse wiggle'.

Last time I saw him was at Todds funeral, is that ironic?

He looked aweful, didnt ask what was wrong.

Sweaty Nick said the same, after I'd asked 'what's wrong with Pete'. But he didn't know.

We'd gone back to the pub for Todds wake. I kept talking nonsense with pople until they eventually left and when I saw Pete I knew I could chat with him, he's a friend.

The whole time I didnt want to ask, but then I  turned round, when he'd gone to the toilet, found Fosters Aiden and asked 'what's wrong with Pete?'
'Oh, I think it's his liver or something. Looks bad, eh?' And he was right, I was shocked. His belly blotted out, his weigh gone, face shrunk.

Then he got another beer.

 

Todd-Died, dead, gone.

Found in his flat. One day, one morning, he didnt show at the pub.

Like other times, if he didn't come in we used to woner if he was ok. 'Have you seen Todd today, wonder if somethings happened?' Then it did. I wasn't working there at the time, but I found out, went to the funeral.

I wore the same trousers to his funerla that I used to wear when I served him. Is that ironic?

His 'girlfriend' phoned him in the morning, no answer. She phoned the pub, he wasn't there. Went round, found him dead on the floor, from the night beofe.

Regulars had seen him on his last exit of the pub. He walked out that night saying 'good night chaps' as he left. He'd taken his shopping back, put out his food for that night, but never got to eat it. Was that the last thing he'd said, the pub the last place he'd been, most likely, is that ironic too?

His 'girlfriend'-She wasn't actually his girlfriend.

She was with him, years before, when he was a soldier, when he'd served in Armagh

.Then he became a bobby. Got beaten while on duty, bad, given alot of money, from then on spent all his time in pub. All that money and nothing to do, early retirement.

Girlfriend couldn't stay with him, not like that, everyday drinking, but she still loved him.

She'd phone him everyday, in the morning, to see how he was, until that one day, no answer.

 

Steve-Apparently he didint drink alot-apart from everyday, in the morning, through the evening and into the night, he just never looked pissed.

I thought he didnt drink alot, until I thought about it, he drank all the time, never stopped, it would seem.

Sean the same
Pete the same
Todd, the same.

And it makes me think if I had something to do with their deaths.

I served them all, everyday, am I the Grim Reaper? Am I partly reponsible in someway? I know if I hadn't serve them someone else would have, but they didn't, I did.

And it was the drink that killed them.

All those people, such a part of something I held as a solid in my life, gone.

All those jokes, those times, gone.

All those untangible things.

The pub isn't just bricks and mortar, well, technically it is, but not what it was.

People think it belongs to them, all becasue of things you can't see or touch. It's the stories, the jokes, the rituals, all things no outsider would know-known only to the staff and the regulars.

But now parts of it have gone, where too?

Three friends dead in one night. It had an effect. It was a shock. It changed my thoughts.

 

I took out my phone, made a call, appologized again, made an arranagement, then got on a train.