Q - Tic

So I'm sitting in this bar with a friend of mine, Dave Enderby. Dave
has a nervous tic that makes the right side of his face dance about
like crazy from time to time. I've known Dave for a while so it doesn't
bother me anymore. It scares the hell out of other people though. I've
seen it happen. It takes them by surprise. One minute he's chatting
away, the next his face is all over the place and he can't even talk
properly. I just wait for it to go away, but other people, they don't
know how to react.

He looks pretty normal, he's tall, has dark hair. Sometimes he has
stubble when he hasn't shaved. A woman he used to work with told him he
looks like Clark Gable, without the moustache mind you, so I suppose
that means he's attractive. Only, because of this tic, he has problems
meeting women. Well, he can meet them okay, the problems start when he
tries to hold a conversation lasting more than five minutes.

If I was him I'd warn people beforehand, mention it in passing or
something, but he says that if someone can't accept it, then he doesn't
want to know them. It's a fair comment I suppose, but I sometimes think
it's a bit of a dirty trick if someone knows they have a nervous tic
that makes their face suddenly start twitching and they don't tell you
about it before you start talking to them.

Usually he likes to draw attention away from his physical make-up. He's
an intelligent person all in all, he did okay in school from what I can
gather and is a good conversationalist. We get on well. All until his
tic starts up that is. Then there's no talking to him.

Anyway, we've been in the bar for about twenty minutes or so and for
once he's talking about the way he looks. It happens every now and
then, but not often, so I'm listening and pretty interested in what he
has to say. Sometimes I look at him, but other times I can't. I look
anywhere but at him, the bar that's in a sort of circle just inside the
front door, the steps leading up to a balcony above us, our table
littered with empty glasses, this big wooden statue of an Indian riding
a horse to the left near a pretty paltry dance floor. It's hard to look
someone with a tic straight in the eye when they're talking about their
appearance. I'm listening though.

He's saying to me, "I wonder if I'll ever find true love, what with
this tic and everything. I know it puts people off when they see it for
the first time. You've known me for a while now so you're probably used
to it, but can you imagine that shit on a first date? Of course you
can't."

He's right. I can't. But I have seen it happen to him, where he's been
talking to women at the bar or on the dance floor and everything seems
to be going great. Then his face starts up and they're away from him
faster than you can blink. I don't especially blame them, his attacks
can sometimes last for minutes on end. It's a shame too as he's a
pretty good talker when his face isn't screwing things up. I've heard
some of the lines he uses and they're not what you would call great or
anything, but it's all about delivery. Man, he can really deliver a
line, whether it's corny or not. Some of the stuff he says I couldn't
get away with even if I did look like Clark Gable, but he's good at
what he does. He never gets very far though. Maybe it's God's way of
evening the odds for people who don't resemble film stars.

We're in the bar because it's happy hour. Neither of us has too much
money, on account of being unemployed for so long, but the drinks are
cheap so we thought we'd give it a go, get out among people for a
change. The offer at the bar is two drinks for the price of one. I
asked for a double whisky and coke but the girl serving me would only
give me two singles in two separate glasses. I said it amounted to the
same thing but she said it wasn't up to her. It goes over my head, she
said.

I look down and see Dave has finished his drinks already. He says he's
going to the gents then he'll go to the bar and walks off. I light a
cigarette and watch as he makes his way around the side of the bar over
to the steps that lead to the toilets. The toilets are downstairs and I
watch as Dave slowly disappears from sight.

I take a drink from my remaining whisky and coke and look around. The
bar is pretty empty. There are a few people dotted here and there,
making the place look bigger than it really is. Usually, on a Friday or
Saturday night, there isn't much room to move around. Most of the time
the dance floor is literally heaving so you don't so much dance as get
moved about by the waves of people. It's a good place to meet women
though. We're out looking for women today. It's been a while.

I'm thinking that when these two good-looking girls walk in. It must be
raining outside as they both look like they've been caught in a shower.
I give them the quick once over but look away when two guys walk in
right behind them. All four of them go to the bar, the two girls
getting drinks between them, and the guys doing the same. They look mid
twenties, the girls, maybe older, and while one has this short black
skirt on, the other is wearing dark suit trousers. They're both blonde.
The one with trousers has longer hair than the other but her hairstyle
has been messed up by the wind and rain and doesn't look as
sophisticated.

They take off their coats and I see the girl with the short skirt has
this bright blue top on that shows off her back. She has a good back,
one worth showing off. She's the one I'm focusing on as they get their
drinks and start looking for somewhere to sit. They have a number of
options, but the girl with the trousers starts walking to a table just
two tables away from the one Dave and I are sitting at. I look at them
as they walk over but they don't seem to notice. I take another drink
instead. Then the guys come over holding some fancy looking bottles of
beer with limes sticking out of the top.

The two guys are these real boy-band types, or rather, types who think
they should be in a boy-band types. Dark spiky hair, and I notice one
is wearing a sort of leather necklace round his neck. They don't seem
too out of the ordinary, but I've got nothing else to do so I move my
body around so I can hear what they're saying.

"I'm telling you, I don't think I can take much more of this," the one
with the necklace is saying.

"You've got to calm down Steve," says the other guy. "Try not to be so
confrontational all the time, please. You get too worked up."

"I don't want that bastard turning out like all the others, that's
all," says Steve before taking an exaggerated drink from his
bottle.

He makes this noise after drinking like it's the best drink he's ever
had in his life before near enough slamming the bottle back down on the
table. I look up for a second to see what the girls are doing while all
this is going on and notice they seem like they don't know where to
look. Their eyes are all over the place, from the drinks in their
hands, to the table, to the dance floor, to the guys sitting with
them.

Then the one with the trousers says, "Why do you need Francis anyway?
You were doing fine before he came along."

"You see?" says Steve, looking triumphant.

"No disrespect Charlotte, but when the fuck did you start to know
anything about anything?"

"There's no need for that Kyle," says the other girl. "Charlotte's only
trying to help. Come on Charlotte," she says and they both stand up and
walk off towards the toilets. I watch them as they walk away and see
Dave coming back up the stairs.

"Looks like it's not just me who has to watch what he says," says
Steve.

"She's crazy," says Kyle.

I take another drink and watch Dave ordering four more at the bar.
Being unemployed has its moments from time to time. Whenever I come to
a bar in the daytime and see people like the four near me I wonder what
the hell they do for a living that means they can be in a bar in the
day. Maybe they think the same thing about me, but I'm beginning to
think I look unemployed these days. It's weird, but it isn't just old
stinking drunks with huge guts and straggly day-old food-filled beards
that drink in the daytime, there's all sorts of odds and ends. I never
would have guessed until I stopped working.

I was working, at one time. I quit my job about eight months ago. I was
working for the refuse department and hating it, taking calls from all
sorts, mostly people complaining that the rubbish outside their houses
wasn't being picked up and taking it out on me. I tried telling them
there was a strike on, but do you think some people care?

Anyway, I came home again after another terrible day and starting
taking it out on Jinnie, who was my girlfriend at the time. She said
the only thing that would make me happy was to write and that I should
quit my job and try and write for a living, then I'd be happy. I was
too for a while. But then the rejection letters began to flow and the
ideas started drying up and the fights got worse and worse. Jinnie was
still working and supporting me and I suppose she didn't need my
problems on top of her own every day. She left in the end. The whole
thing took about two months. Dave never has anything to do. He's been
on the social for over a year and we met one day down at the jobcentre.
He'd just split up with his partner and we got talking. Then we got
drinking. We've known each other since. And, because of the fact that I
couldn't think of anything to write today and we just got our cheques,
here we are.

I look up and see Dave coming back from the bar with our drinks in his
hand. He's just been to the toilet and he has four fingers of one hand
in each of the four glasses so he can carry them more easily. I'd say
something, but I'm not overly worried about hygiene anyway. You always
see these programmes on television about the unseen horrors of public
toilets, bacteria, viruses, that sort of thing, but what can you do?
You can see cars but it doesn't stop people getting killed by
them.

I noticed Dave sneaked a glance at the girls when they walked past him
and I noticed too how the one in the blue top sneaked a look back at
him. It's always the same. He'd be a total lady killer if it wasn't for
that tic of his. Dave puts the drinks on the table and starts in on one
of them.

"Good looking girls," he says between drinks.

"Don't look now but they're with the two guys sitting behind you," I
say, even though I know he's going to look anyway. He turns round but
the guys don't seem to notice. They're talking again but I don't try to
hear what they're saying.

"Why is it that guys like that always end up with good-looking girls?"
he says. "I bet they're loaded."

I know what he means but I don't say anything. I'd been thinking the
same thing. It doesn't seem to matter what sort of a bastard a
good-looking guy is he'll end up with a good-looking girl if he wants
to. Good-looking guys are usually bastards because they don't have to
try as hard as regular guys. People fall at their feet just the same.
If they have money it's even easier. Steve and Kyle look like they
could have money. I begin to wonder if I'm jealous of them, the way
they look, and whether that makes me shallow or not. It's not like I've
ever had any real difficulty in picking up girls, although I'm not
exactly Don Juan or anything. It's keeping them that's the problem. Too
many rifts start up.

Like with me and Jinnie. She just got sick of my whining I suppose. I
probably drove her away if the truth be known. I suppose I never really
considered her problems, just thought about my own, and when I started
on them, I didn't stop. I never took into account how she might have
had a bad day, that she'd have gripes of her own. Instead, I'd complain
about not having any ideas and then the arguments would start.

She'd say "Maybe you should think about getting a real job, then you
might have something to complain about." And I'd say "What do you think
I do, sit on my hands all day? It's not like it's easy for me you
know."

I'd usually have been drinking too and that never helped. I'd start off
just drinking coffee, but I drink coffee like a demon. I'd have about
six strong ones in a row and then I'd start shaking. When that happened
I'd have a couple of beers to try and calm my metabolism down. Then I'd
have a few more and before I knew it I'd start in on the gin. I used to
think that drinking would take my ideas to a different place, a higher
level, maybe even give me new ideas, let the words flow more freely.
But the more drunk I got, the more the words wouldn't come. Then she'd
come home and the arguments would start. It was like a snowball or
something, set in motion on top of a hill in the mid afternoon and by
the time Jinnie came home it'd be the size of a boulder.

I look up when I hear the girls coming back from the toilets. I look at
the one in the blue top but she looks straight at the table they're
heading for. I finish off my old drink and start in on another.
Suddenly getting drunk seems like a good idea. I often decide this. God
knows why. The mood at the other table still seems a little sour. Dave
isn't saying anything and there's no noise apart from a tinny eighties
tune in the background and some glasses clinking together behind the
bar. The door bangs open again and a couple walk in and order
drinks.

"I don't know why you have to storm off like that all the time," says
Kyle.

"Because you can be a complete pain in the arse sometimes that's why,"
says Charlotte.

"I just don't see why you have to be so melodramatic about everything,
that's all," says Kyle.

"If you don't like it you know what you can do."

"Jesus!" Kyle shouts all of a sudden, slamming his bottle on the table
again. "I don't need this, not after the day I've just had. Let's get
out of here Steve."

"What?"

"Come on, let's go," says Kyle and they both stand up.

I glance over and see that neither of them have finished their bottles
but they're leaving anyway. For a moment I wish the girls weren't still
sitting there so I could take the bottles for myself. Kyle and Steve
walk out in this big dramatic huff and I begin to wonder if maybe
they're homosexual. I watch them leaving and then look at Dave. He's
just looking down at his drinks and doesn't seem very interested in
anything going on outside his head.

"And I'm the one who's melodramatic?" says Charlotte. She attempts a
laugh but it comes out as more of a snort.

"I don't know what their problem is Jinnie," Charlotte says next, and I
nearly drop my drink at the sound of the name. "All the things we do
for them."

Jinnie, the one in the blue top, says, "To be honest Char I'm getting
goddam sick of their shit. Totally goddam sick of it all."

I'm still reeling. The one in the blue top is called Jinnie.
Unbelievable. Dave still isn't saying anything but I'm not one to miss
an opportunity and I can see this is one so I take it. I decide to lean
over and talk to them. I look straight at Jinnie to let her know it's
her I'm talking to really. I don't want to give the other one false
hope. Jinnie seems friendly enough and listens to what I have to
say.

Some good-looking girls don't do that, some good-looking girls
immediately look the other way and blank you when you're trying to talk
to them, as though they feel it'd be beneath them to strike up a
conversation. Not Jinnie though, which surprises me, she looked just
the type to ignore someone when they try to talk to her. She acts
available, but I can't tell whether she is or not. Some women like the
attention, whether or not they have any intention of doing anything
about it.

Eventually I say, "We should go for a drink sometime."

And she says, "We can have a drink right now."

I say, "But you have company right now, maybe we should make
arrangements to meet when you aren't so busy?"

She laughs and says, "I'm not busy now. Those two won't be coming back
if that's what you're worried about."

So I buy her a double rum and coke, which arrives in two separate
glasses, and Charlotte a couple of gin and tonics. I think of asking
the guy behind the bar to put their drinks in one glass each, but I
decide I probably shouldn't get into the whole argument while I'm
trying to talk to a girl.

"What's up with your friend?" Jinnie suddenly says when I get back to
the table, looking at Dave. "Does he not talk or something?"

Dave says, "I talk," but doesn't say anything else. I can tell he's
nervous and probably concentrating like hell to keep his tic from
starting up. I don't know if he can consciously do anything about it
but I can tell he's trying.

"So what happened with your friends?" I say. "I couldn't help but
hearing what you were saying. Sounded pretty heated. What are they,
big-shots or something?"

"They think they are," says Charlotte, looking straight at me. I look
back at her wishing I was looking at Jinnie instead. Whenever you try
and talk to one girl though, it's always their friend who keeps butting
in. "Can't we talk about something else?"

"Sure we can," I say, noticing Jinnie's expression has changed after I
mentioned the guys they were with. I decide to change the subject to
keep things on friendly terms.

"So what do you girls do?" I say, trying to avoid the look Charlotte's
giving me.

"Do?" says Charlotte.

"Yeh, you know. What do you do?"

"You mean, like a job?" says Charlotte.

"Jesus, don't you work either?" says Dave, which makes me jump.

"We're buyers," says Jinnie. "We buy things."

"What sort of a fucking job is that?" Dave says. He hasn't looked up
once, he just keeps staring at his drinks.

"It's a job," says Jinnie, defensively. I can see she's getting snooty.
I don't know what the hell is up with Dave. "Who do you work
for?"

"I work for the state," says Dave, and gives off a little sman.
"Better than the sly shite you do I bet."

"Who the hell are you to think you can talk to us like that?" says
Jinnie.

"I'm not anyone, I'm just me," says Dave. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Dave," I say, but I can already tell this has gone too far to be
gotten back now.

"Fucking men! You're all a bunch of bastards," says Jinnie. "Let's get
out of here Char."

"I think you'd better," says Dave.

Charlotte and Jinnie both stand up to leave, almost as dramatically as
Kyle and Steve before them. I'm still sort of in shock about the whole
thing. I don't know what to say or do, so I don't do anything, just
watch them both put on their coats and leave. As Jinnie walks off I
hear her say "To think I pay taxes for losers like that to get
drunk."

I suddenly think maybe I should have looked at Charlotte more, that
maybe I could have had a chance with her. She was looking at me an
awful lot. Instead I talked to the other one and Dave blew it for both
of us. I don't know what to say to him and whether or not I should say
something. So we just sit in silence for a while. I wonder if maybe
Dave did what he did as a sort of pre-emptive strike, dismissing them
before they dismissed him. Anything's possible. I keep on drinking.
What Dave says next takes me by surprise.

He says, "She was beautiful."

I say, "Then why the hell did you talk to her like that? You might have
had a chance."

"Did you not hear what they do? No girl looking like that and working
like that is going to take an interest in me. She was way out of my
league."

And I say, "No way, she kept looking at you for God's sake. Besides,
people aren't beautiful. There's always something that messes up the
outer beauty of any person - some flaw that might take years to find,
but when you do, the beauty's gone."

"If you say so," says Dave. "She was a looker alright."

I say, "I'll tell you what's beautiful. I remember once looking out
from on top of a hill over a town. It was night time and all the
streetlamps and lights from buildings were on and they were shining
through the darkness like thousands of orange jewels. There was a fire
burning somewhere nearby too. I couldn't see it, but the smell was
incredible. There was this nice breeze blowing, not too cold, just
right, and that and the lights and the smell. That was
beautiful."

I think I've made my case pretty well, but Dave says, "But you know
that somewhere in that town someone was being raped right at that very
second. There was a house being burgled, an old man being mugged, and a
kid being beaten up by his drunken father. Where's the beauty then? If
you look under the surface of anything, any person, any picture
postcard, there's always scars underneath, always shit lurking in there
somewhere."

Dave stops talking and takes a drink. I'm thinking what a depressing
bastard he can be sometimes, but I also think he's got a point. I
wonder if people's reactions to his tic have made him like this and
whether or not he'd think so darkly about stuff if he was just a
regular Clark Gable lookalike, if he'd be happier, or if he'd be
arrogant and conceited. I wonder if he'd even speak to me at all.