Swords in the Gutter are a funny thing. Still make a point. But they don’t hold a candle to a good blaster.
Intergalactic metaphors aside, you still live by them, you die by them.
Intergalactic metaphors aside, you still live by them, you die by them.
He'll Have to Go by Paul D. Brazill
Frankie fidgets on the wobbly barstool. Takes a swig
of Guinness, then a sip of Jack Daniels. Grimaces. Shuffles his shoulders.
Feels a joint crack. Sighs.
“Me and my big mouth, eh?” he says. “Another case of
foot in mouth disease.”
He chuckles to himself. Takes a pork scratching from a
half empty bag. Stuffs it in his mouth and crunches.
“Well, we’ve all been there, Frankie,” says Big Pat,
the barman. Sweat soaked his white nylon shirt. “Let our tempers get the better
of us, and that.”
Pat picks up a remote control and switches on a plasma
screen television that is hung askew on the back wall. He flicks channels until
he finds an old James Bond film. A Duran Duran song suddenly blasts out.
“Bugger that for a game of soldiers,” he says. He quickly
turns off the sound. Puts in a Jim Reeves CD.
Frankie catches a glimpse of himself in the dusty Johnny
Walker mirror that hangs behind the bar. Brushes dandruff from a shoulder.
Messes with his dyed black hair.
It’s late evening and The Blue Anchor’s only other customer
is a saggy old man who sat at a table in the corner nursing a half of bitter.
He’s playing Sudoku and squinting in the wan light.
“Look at that old fucker?” says Pat, pointing at the
television screen. “Still getting away with it.
Jammy twat.”
Frankie looks up and sees Roger Moore in a romantic clinch
with a much younger woman.
“Still, I don’t mind getting old so much,” says Pat. “Beats
the alternative, eh?”
He chuckles.
Frankie goes grim.
Pat leans over the bar and looks Frankie in the eyes.
“So, have you told Wolf yet?” he says.
Frankie avoids Pat’s glare. Looks up at the
television.
“Well, not as such …”
“Yeah?”
“Well, not at all.”
“Best get it out of the way, if I was you. You know what
he’s like … remember Harjit?”
Frankie knocks back his whisky.
“I most certainly do remember Harjit Singh,” says
Frankie. “The grass. If I remember correctly, Wolf nailed Harjit’s turban to
his head, inspired by a documentary he’d seen about Vlad the Impaler. To make
his point even clearer, Wolf decapitated Harjit and put his head on one of the
spikes outside Singh’s Essex home for his missus to see when she got up.” He
forces a grin.
“Well, then,” says Pat. “So …”
Pat’s mobile buzzes. He glances at it and heads outside
the pub to answer it.
He listens, nods and sighs. Sighs and nods. He goes
back behind the bar.
“Yeah but, you know,” says Frankie. “Me and Wolf, go
way back. We’ve got history.”
“History repeats,” says Pat. “Like a Poundshop pork
pie.”
He winds up and whacks Frankie on the back of the head
with a baseball bat.
Frankie collapses to the floor.
Pat leans under the bar and pulls out a machete. Hopes that Wolf remembers to bring the bleach with him this time.
Pat leans under the bar and pulls out a machete. Hopes that Wolf remembers to bring the bleach with him this time.