Кен Бруен - A Fifth of Bruen - Early Fiction of Ken Bruen

Jack settled for a moment and lit a Gauloise.

“I’ve never been to France, but every time I smoke one of these babes I reckon I’ll go tomorrow. What do you make of that?”

“Well, I dunno. I smoke Marlboros sometimes, but I’ve no desire to sit tough on a horse.”

“Gotcha! Makes you wonder what Silk Cutters dream about.”

Ford didn’t wonder and cared not at all. Amanda touted the Silk Cut argument and that basically was that. Jack sighed, “I’m well bollixed, you know.”

Did he mean well endowed? An advertisement perhaps. Or was he simply knackered? No reply was conceivable.

“What line of work are you in, Ford?”

“Looking.”

“Gotcha! What’s the previous?”

“Well, I thought I’d social work till an opening occurred as a waiter.” Jack liked that.

“You’re alright. What do you know about cocktails?”

“They’re expensive?”

“That too. Know how to make them?”

“I know how to drink them.”

“Sure, you’re half way there. That’s the hard part. What about ghetto blasters?”

“What about them? I don’t know how to make them. I hate them.”

“Right answer. So, want to be a barman?”

“Here?”

“Yes, Five nights a week, mornings free.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure am.”

“Okay, then. Thank you.”

“A few questions. Are you honest?”

“Mostly.”

“Married?”

“Not any more.”

“A nod to the wise old son. Don’t let on about that to Stella, my missus. She’s big on marriage.”

Ford thought about this and felt Jack’s own extremely irritating reply as appropriate. Cheeky perhaps, to use it, but there you go. He said, “Gotcha!”

“Gotcha! It’s cash in hand, we’ll not get confused with P45s and all of that.”

A man breezed in, semi-respectable. He ordered a large gin and asked, “How far is the tube station?”

“About one and a half muggings from here. Alternatively you could try for the bus which is but one rape down the block.”

Jack seemed well pleased and did a spin shine on the optics.

The man produced a pink two-pill packet, slit the edge and dropped them into the gin. They sank, dead weight. Ford stared.

“Aspirin,” said the man.

“Headache, have you?”

“No, no, I never get headaches. I drop a few of them suckers in everything I drink. Bingo! I’ve never had an illness in my life.”

“Save the serious one in your head,” thought Ford.

The man drained the gin. The pills sat unmoved at the bottom, like bank managers. “’Fraid I threw something of a wobbly this morning,” he said.

“Is that like throwing a Frisbee?”

“Tantrum, actually. Doris. That’s my good lady. She told me my white shirts were all in the wash. Well, I mean... Really! So I gave her ‘what’s for.’ A tad over the top, on reflection.”

Ford shut him out. Grace took centre stage anew. She said to him once, “You’re kind.”

“Thank you.”

“Problem is... kind of what?”

He smiled as he heard her accent. Sometimes, a huskiness ruled and that gave him literal goosebumps. Could you love a voice? Yea, and all the rest too. Weariness swamped him and he bid goodbye to Jack. The aspirin man was still on about white shirts.

As he left, Emmylou Harris on the wireless burned him with the line “And the hardest part is knowing I’ll survive.” He recalled the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” What could you say? Phew-oh, perhaps, and add to that what it was he felt most all the time now, a sadness of infinity.

When he got home, he thought first he’d been burgled. The place was stripped. Even the carpets were gone. He considered checking if any trousers were shorter. Amanda had gone alright and took anything that moved. She’d left him one of everything: one cup, one knife, one towel, one massive resentment.

As the movers had obviously been in a ferocious hurry, care had not been their motto. Heaps of debris lay on the now bare wooden floors. He quite liked the sound of his boots in the emptiness. “I can hear me coming,” he said. The few skinny bones of the sad chicken were in the bathroom. Had it tried for a last shower? A postcard near the upturned mattress caught his eye. It was from Boston and had been posted weeks ago. So, how come he’d never seen it? It read:

“Hi Ford ,

We’ve moved to Boston. New York left me unmoved. Guess what fella, I miss you. Doing any wailing? I think I am. Back one for me.

Gutted! Oh God in Heaven, it was like being shot. Gut shot, and twice. How long had the card been here? How was he to feel? How did this mean she felt? How... Howling. Wouldn’t you know? The Kenny Loggin’s song began to unwind and slow play in his head:

Ah, Jaysus! Gimme a break here. Dollop on shovels of slush. Worse. The version playing was by Tammy Wynette. If God selected the discs from the celestial jukebox, He was in some manic frame of mind.

His career as a barman began, and he was good. A flair for figures helped him with change and, if in doubt, he undercharged. No one questions that. The cocktails he just laced with spirits base, and if they lacked the finer points they delivered a mighty wallop. The demand for these grenades increased. The big factor was his politeness, an art long lost in London. Shop assistants took courses in surliness. His attitude freaked them completely, and even assholes got the treatment. Jack was delighted.

“You’re a good un.”

“Thanks.”

He then produced a baseball bat and swung it slowly. The swish cut a low mean music.

“You hear that?” he asked.

“Hard to ignore.”

“You hear that, Ford, it’s already too late. Do you know what I’m saying? I call it ‘my edge’.”

“Your customer relations act, so to speak?”

“Exactly.”

In fact, the bat had only to be produced and trouble changed its mind. Jack’s wife was almost a caricature of “The Guvnor’s Missus”. A breezy blonde, she wore the mandatory half sovereign rings. Ugly yokes that matched her moods. Cheap and loud. She liked the power and was forever demanding glasses be re-polished, floors scrubbed, the brass fixtures full shines. Everybody was called “darling.” Not from affection, but sheer bloody mindedness. When she called, you did well to count your change. Vodka with bitter lemon was her staple diet, and the bar hummed with litany, “Put a little vodka in that, darling.” In looks she wasn’t unlike the said Tammy Wynette but a somewhat beat up version. That she modeled herself on Tammy was a cruel blow to country music. Lest you hadn’t spotted the vague likeness, she had all the lady’s albums and played them. A lot. Her all time favorite was d-i-v-o-r-c-e — “My d-i-v-o-r-c-e came thru today and me and little J-o-e are going a-w-a-y...”

She’d enunciate each letter along with the bold Miss Wynette. The Boston song wasn’t in her repertoire, else Ford might well have quit. Or brought “the edge” to bear. After a bathe, or two, of vodka, a slight hint of Tennessee drawl crept into her speech. Fair enough, except it clashed with the South East vowels. The customers were nightly bid.

“Ya’ll take care now, and ya’ll come back and see us real soon.”

From badness, Ford introduced her to Kentucky Sour Mash. The mule kicked, and she kicked right along. He felt there wasn’t a whole lot the matter with Stella that a solid shoe in the ass wouldn’t fix. Staggering from the cellar with the crates of bitter lemon one evening, waiting for Ford was a swaying Stella.