The next thing I remember I’m in my bed and bloody glad to be there. I lay there and tried to piece together the getting home. I still had my clothes on. I was starting not to notice the hangovers. I lay there listening to Tony’s heavy breathing and contemplated the next seven days. Surely they would be drunken ones and I wondered what would happen if I continued like this. I’m only carbon and water after all. Ethanol comes from further up the chemistry ladder than either of these two and I reckoned that it would easily own them both in a fair fight.
Last night for example ... I was having trouble remembering the twelfth round ... maybe it was all over in the sixth.
A door slammed somewhere, then stairs, then the bedroom door swung open and Brian slid in.
“Vidi, Vici, Veni,” he said raising his arms triumphantly.
“Urgh, good man, did ye give her one for me?”
“I gave her one for ALL OF YIZ!!!! HA HAAA!” He then ran over and ceremoniously sat on me like I was a sofa, the cunt!
“Look at me! I’m sitting on two arses, Heh Heh Heh.”
“Fuck off,” I said extracting my face from the pillow, “go sit on your own arse.”
“Is he still asleep?” he said pointing to Tony, “fuck’s sake, lads, it’s lunchtime.”
He went over and sat on Tony.
“Ok OK.”
“... but she was a big ‘Free Willy’ of a thing, ye beer goggled goon ye.”
“A gig is a gig, lads, a gig is a gig.”
Brian went to the jax and me and Tony roused ourselves, sharing jokes and memories from the night before. It seemed that I didn’t miss too much.
Suddenly the jax door swung open and Brian slid out. Brian was obviously in a very good mood today, much too good for me just yet.
“Tony, is this yours?” he asked pointing to a bottle of ‘Head & Shoulders’ shampoo.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“Head and Shoulders, To-nys, To-nys,” he sang doing the pointing actions, but with the knees and toes backwards.
We all broke our bollixes laughing.
“Head and Shoulders, To-nys, To-nys, he puts it in his hair and the dandruff isn’t there, Head and Shoulders, To-nys, Tonys.”
Ah Ha Ha Ha! Good one, just the tonic.
When we managed to prise Spud from his mattress we went to the pub and got the number of a pizza place and we rang for lunch. Two big fuck off pizzas later and we sat back, well sated.
We’d established that Brian had got his hole last night but as yet he was unforthcoming with juicy details.
“Good craic last night,” said Spud sucking his teeth.
“I didn’t get any crack last night, did you Brian?” I said lasciviously.
“Let’s just cut to the point Brian, did you take her up the shitter?”
“I did, Spud, but I was thinking of you.”
“Oh, ye dirty minded fucker ye.”
“I hope the irony of that statement isn’t lost on you,” said Tony with an incredulous grin.
“Did ye? Up the muck-chute? On a first fuck? You’re a legend, Ha Ha!”
“No, I didn’t,” he confessed.
“Nice crack?”
“Good grief, Spud, you’re the only person I know who judges a woman on the particulars of her nethers.”
“It’s relevant!!”
“Ah Ha Ha, well, Brian, had she a nice crack?”
“I dunno, ask me dick.”
“Hello, Mr Dick, how was the pussy last night?”
“Like a good embouchure,” said Brian putting on a voice he imagined that a dick would have if it spoke.
“Mmmm, you smell a bit fishy,” said Spud putting his head closer to Brian’s crotch.
“I hope the irony of that statement isn’t lost on you,” said Brian in his dick voice and we all cracked up.
Spud was becoming more and more the whipping boy for our jokes, but he was thick skinned and, more often than not, gave as good as he got.
Suddenly Spud remembers he has some gear. There was brief excitement and we sprawled out around the room in preparation. Tony started reading.
“Oh shit!” exclaimed Spud gathering assembling equipment, “who’s got papers?”
We looked at each other, each look saying ‘I don’t! Do you?’
“Shit!!!”
Brian was sent to search out and retrieve, with extreme prejudice.
He came back but minutes later with a handful of giant papers explaining that he’d met two guys in the hall who looked like spliffers so he asked them for papers.
Fair play. The guys didn’t even presume it was for a fag and just gave him big skins.
Spud got the spliff together quickly and efficiently. I wasn’t sure if was going to kill me or cure me, but it was worth a go.
“Where does she live?”
“Who?”
“Yer one from last night.”
“Somewhere near ... oh oh, get this, the lift in her building is made by a company called Schindler!”
“Wha’?”
“... and your point being?”
“Schindler’s Lift!!”
“Oh yes, how very droll.”
“Will you see her again?”
“Yeah, I’ll see her tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, she works in the bar.”
“Oh shit, that’s you nabbed now. You can’t be picking anyone else up now, in front of her anyway.”
“Nah, she’s cool.”
“Anyway ... good craic last night,” continued Spud where he’d come in.
“Yeaaah, nice place, what’s it called? The Barbershop? Something like that?”
“Oh yeah ... mmm, oh, ‘The Stable’ I think.”
“Is that the actual name of the establishment or is it just a colloquialism?”
“No, it’s ‘Stable’, but in German, not English, ‘Der Schtall’ or something like that.”
“Oh, I have a new one coming,” said Brian in deep thought.
“Well get yourself to the jax before it arrives then.”
“Spud, do you remember getting home last night?”
“Most of it, yeah.”
“Any craic?”
“Nah, just the usual street-singing and car-jumping ... oh ... and by the way guys, I gave Scott twenty squids for the gear last night, so that’s five each.”
“Grand.”
The spliff didn’t do me any good at all, but just sort of refocused my attention to the nervous trembling in my belly. It felt like there was a washing machine inside me, whirring away. It was very unpleasant. I curled up on the bed and refused the next passing.
“Here it is ...”
“Go on then if you must.”
“Alright, here goes ...
We went to a bar called ‘Stable’,
where I drunk meself under the table,
I’m not sure how,
but I pulled this fat cow,
and Jaysus, was she able.”
“AH HA HA HA! good one!”
“... though a little disingenuous for my taste, I must say.”
“You old smoothy, Ha Ha!”
We were all tired, hungover and now a little stoned too, so we went slowly back to our beds, as much for the silence and solitude as for the rest or reading.
We hit the bar about seven. It was fairly quiet but there was already a group of people sitting on our impromptu stage.
“Fuck’s sake, wouldn’t you know it.”
“Of all the stools and all the tables in all the pub and they have to sit at ours.”
“Go over and shift them Spud,” I said.
“Fuck off, you do it.”
“Go on, it could be your only chance to shift something tonight.”
“SCOTT!! Fancy a shift??”
“Jaysus, who’s wearing perfume?”
“It’s not perfume, it’s a cologne. Why? Do you find it pungent?”
“Ye smell like a bleedin’ hoor’s handbag.”
“It’s a robust masculine aroma I’ll have you know.”
“Like flies around honey, you’ll have honeys around your flies. It says so on the bottle, I swear, I saw it.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Why? What does it have? Hypnotic properties?”
“It’d want to be fuckin’ chloroform before he’d pull anything.”
Brian’s quare one from last night came in and donned an apron.
“OOoooooh, Brian, it’s yer girlfriend.”
“And she’s walking funny.”
“Let’s start off with ‘Merrily Kiss the Old Bush Behind the Barmaids Apron’, eh Brian? Ah Ha Ha.”
Brian shushed me.
A few glances and subtle waves were exchanged.
I waved at her.
She waved back.
I waved at her again, this time with four fingers and she got the message.
We found ourselves to be tearing into the vouchers, but as kick-off time neared and the bar filled up, the nerves kept the drink at bay, or maybe, the drink kept the nerves at bay? Never can be sure...
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are ‘The Shamrock Rovers’ from Dublin, [Applause]. Is anyone here from GERMANY??? [YEAHHHH], das ist gut. We are going to play a few tunes for you tonight, and a few songs too, hopefully, well I’m not, he is, and we hope you enjoy it. Remember to dance if you feel like it, and if you have any requests please write it on the back of a twenty euro note and send it up here, it’ll be taken care of. We’re going to start off with ‘Kiss the Merrily’... what was that Foy? Heh Heh.”
“Get on with it,” someone shouted from the back of the stage area, and we did.
Our repertoire has always been somewhat limited to the tunes that Tony played. Pipes are unimaginably difficult to both play and maintain, and frequently drive their drivers to distraction, alcoholism and ultimately, Tourette’s syndrome. Pipers, it is said, need seven years learning, seven years practice and seven years playing before they’re considered real pipers ... or they could just whack out a few rounds of ‘The Bucks’ with all the frills, that pretty much makes you a real piper in my opinion.
For this reason most pipers had a relatively small repertoire. I’d say that at least five hundred tunes is required to be a good session player, some surpass a thousand, some five thousand. But Tony stuck to the same sets week in week out, year in year out. I’d say about the same fifty to a hundred tunes all the time, so at least I had names for most of them. It was a bit boring and predictable at times but tonight, because we had all played them so many times together, we were as tight as the proverbial camel’s arse. We flew into ‘The Silver Spear’ and then ‘Rossbeigh’ and ‘The High Reel’ and the place was hoppin’.
There were a group of yanks down the back, cliquishly drinking and shouting. One eventually came up, interrupting us just as we were starting to play, and asked us to ask his friend up to sing a song. What can ye do? This American had a horrible condescending look in his eyes, like we were his servants to be bossed around. Military! ... Wanker!
“Is he coming up or not?”
“Well, gee, I dunno ... BRAD.”
“Why don’t you sing a song while we’re waiting?”
“Ha Ha, gee, I dunno about that now, I can’t really ... you guys are doin’ real good up there, you just ... BRAD ... you guys just sit tight.”
After much huffing and puffing and heaving and ho-ing his friend finally came half way up but then chickened out.
“Well, gee, I'm sorry, you guys, maybe some other time.”
“Yeah, with some other band.”
Gobshite!
“Must be a G.I. ... Gee, I dunno this, Gee, I dunno that, Gee, I dunno fuck all!! Ha Ha!”
Normally I can’t stand the bloody ‘Atholl Highlanders’ jig, boring repetitive bloody tune, but tonight it rocked and we got the crowd back on-side fairly sharpish.
We did one more and took a break. At the end the crowd were cheering wildly as we announced a recess. We felt like stars.
I, being the thirstiest, was assigned the vouchers for the last free round and I headed off to the bar trying to avoid admiring stares as I passed through the people.
“Fear beer bitte.”
The two guys from upstairs were standing beside me at the bar. The drink had got to me enough to introduce myself to them as I waited for the pints.
“Hey, you’re the two guys from upstairs, no?” I smiled and winked knowingly. They were both tall, late-twenties. One was broad but skinny and a bit hunched, with light unkempt hair that was in desperate need of a trim, he smiled a lot and looked very friendly. The other was taller, pigeon chested and muscular, with a tight dark haircut so precise he must’ve had it done within the last twenty four hours. He was the talker.
“Yes, from the hostel, you play very good, veeeery good.”
“We think maybe to dance, but not only we, Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
Nice guys.
“If you start dancing then everyone will join in,” I shouted, using the sort of wild gesticulations that only communicating with foreigners can induce.
Then the pints arrived, so I harvested my beer-vouchers and headed back fully loaded. “Talk to you later” I shouted back over my shoulder. “OK.”
We went back up almost straight away it seemed, just time for a piss and a spit. We played over a constant general din but they clapped and cheered at the end of the sets so we couldn’t complain. We tried something a bit slower but it didn’t go down particularly well so we decided to keep it lively, and we went down like a slapper at a debs. Towards the end Spud finally agreed to do ‘The Wild Rover’ and it was something to behold. The whole pub started waving their beers and swaying. They sang along in German and pretty soon drowned out Spud. We started laughing to the point where it was difficult to play. Brian guffawed into his flute and it blasted out like a train whistle. Me and Brian stopped playing, laughing uncontrollably. Then we sang with the audience a bit and waved our instruments. For the last chorus we jumped back in and the place went wild. During the last set, ‘Farewell to Ireland’, the two lads from the hostel found themselves in some space and started lepping about, one like a coked-up rapper and the other like a Russian Riverdancer.
They were given more space.
We looked around at each other with laughing eyes and it was great.
We had mercy on the two lads after a while and finished up a round early. “Goodnight, and thank you, goodnight.”
Of course, we ended up doing a couple of encores and the two guys were up again. We started imitating them while playing, three of us dancing and swaying.
Eventually we finished up and everyone went mad. I think Helmut would be very happy with that.
“Goodnight everyone ... and remember folks, if you’re driving home, make sure you have a car.”
Phew.
I went back over to the two guys. They were exhausted, the poor loves.
“Ah Ha Ha, great stuff guys, well done,” high fives all round.
“Yes, we dance only us, but fuuuuccckkk man, it was fucking great. You should go to Macedonia, your music it’s similar.”
“Ah, you’re from Macedonia? I thought you were German.”
“No, no, not Macedonian, and not shvabe, we are from Croatia.”
“Aaaaaaah,” I went, like it made any difference to me.
I took advantage of the pause to order the round. I asked the lads if they wanted a drink which they did, and our bonding was almost complete.
“I’m Foy.”
“Darko,” shake hands.
“Ivan,” shake hands.
“What are you doing here in Heidelberg?”
“Eh, we’re on business.”
“Two or three days.”
That was so firmly uninformative that I decided not to press further.
“And you?”
“Ah, just to play a bit of music ... ten days. Listen, do you want to come over to the table? There’s lots of space.” I was getting pretty fed up with standing up holding a cold beer by now.
We went over and I introduced the lads and we all sat and chatted. I relaxed and enjoyed my post-gig euphoria ... I took a time out for a second and looked around the table. I felt fantastic, full beers, happy faces, nice few tunes. The world was in proper order and I hoped it would stay that way.
We had a couple of jars with the lads and they told us about the war when they were kids. Very interesting, but more interesting was Spud and Brian on the mooch for any spare minge goin’. They went around trying to make headway on our starring role in the nights proceedings, and not having much luck by the looks of things.
Our vouchers for the night were exhausted and we had itchy feet and itchy dicks so we decided to head to ‘The Stable’, to check out the hooch and the hoors down there.
We invited Darko and Ivan, but they had a better idea.
We all piled up the stairs to have a smoke and then hit the Stable. That seemed perfectly reasonable given the paper exchange this morning. So we all went to my room and squatted or sat wherever we could. Darko immediately took out some grass and said “here, try this, good Bosnian chrava.”
“What the fuck is chrava?”
“Grass.”
“Ah.”
“Great.”
“Variety is the spice of life.”
“Chrava is spice of life,” corrected Ivan out of nowhere, and he was deadly serious.
“I have another one Foy” said Brian with a wry grin,
“Ok, let’s hear it,”
“Rosie’s is the place to be,
if you’re looking for good company.
The Yanks try to catch,
a nice bit of snatch,
and the Micks, a nice bit of gee.”
“Ho hooo, nice one Brian. The bar has been raised yet again, Ah Ha Ha!!”
“Well, razing bars is what I do best,” he smiled.
“It is funny this? Maybe they could put it on the wall.”
“No, no, it’s not very polite.”
“Somehow, I didn’t think so, Ha Ha Ha!!”
Tony was chief-spliff-getter-togetherer. He sat on the edge of his chair and assembled his gear-getting-together kit, grass, papers, a single cigarette and a lighter. Then he’d delegate someone to take care of the roach, assessing any papery material close to hand for thickness and malleability, then passing it to said delegated roach-maker. He took out three Rizla ... this was going to be a biggie.
“Would you be aware of the fact that Rizla originated in France?” he asked us nonchalantly as he worked.
“G’way.”
“Indeed,” liiiiiick, “it was founded by the La Croix family in the late nineteenth century and the original product was a cigarette paper made of rice.”
“Oh yeah? ... and what would be the price of tea in China at this time? and what would be its connection to these interesting facts?”
Tony just ignored Spud, “In French, rice is ‘riz’, and so the paper was deemed Riz ... La Croix ... rice, the cross ... Rizla Cross, that’s why there is a cross on the pack. Here, look ...”
“Is that right?” exclaimed Brian seeming both surprised and shocked, “that’s a fuckin’ great story, tell that again.”
“Not tonight, I’m afraid, my good man.”
Brian went over the story again in his head.
“Jaysus, look at yer man here with his oregano,” said Spud watching Tony eventually assemble three papers with licking, folding, tearing and sticking.
“Tell Darko that it’s oregano.”
“Wha? ... What are ye makin’ a swan?”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about? You insufferable pest.”
“Right,” mumbled Spud getting up with a pissed off look on his face, “I’ll just fuck off over here then.”
“I was just about to suggest that,” mumbled Tony back. I was chewing the fat with Ivan, though I noticed that Darko didn’t call him Ivan.
“Your English is pretty good.”
“Yours too,” he replied with the utmost sincerity. He paused a second then asked me “what language you speak in Earland?”
“English,” I threw back with a ‘duh’ tone that was a bit cheeky.
“Why you don’t have own language?”
“We do, but only in small areas in the west, fishermen and islanders ... but no, we speak English in Ireland.”
“The English killed it off.”
“Well, nearly.”
“Well, practically.”
“Can you speak this .... Earish?”
“Yeah, well, a little bit,” I said.
Brian snorted, “and this coming from the man who thought ‘T na G’ was one of the Spice Girls,” he said, recalling a memorably confusing conversation that I’d rather forgotten.
“What did you say your name was again?” I asked turning to Ivan and changing the subject.
“Ivan.”
“Then what does he keep calling you? I said taking the doobie from Darko.
“Aaah, Bootso, that’s his joke name,” explained Darko exhaling, “everybody call him that.”
“His nickname? Well why didn’t you say that? Here I am calling him Oivan like a gobshite. What’s Bootso mean anyways?”
“It’s a name of one cheese in ex-Yugoslavia, it’s a picture on the box of little boy with blond hairs and blue eyes and Bootso was like that when he ...”
“Yeah, when he was a kid,” I interrupted, “and what do you think of all this Bootso?”
“Ah, is ok with me. Is true, I look like him, HA HA HA.”
“Brian,” said Spud, “would you buy a cheese called Bootso?”
“Heh Heh, yeah, Buy Our Lovely Cheese, It Smells Like Old Boots – oh.”
“HA HA! Smells like old Boo ... no, not you, Bootso.”
“Ah Ha Ha.”
“What was it? Goat cheese?”
“What?”
“Goat cheese? Cheese from the goat?”
“No, no, it is in a little box with ...”
“Yeah yeah, with the little Bootso on it with fuckin’ blond eyes and blue hair on it ...”
“Ah Ha, did you say blue eyes and blond hair? No, blond ... eyes and blue hair.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did, didn’t he Foy?”
“Dunno, read it back.”
“And you,” said Bootso, pointing accusingly at Spud, “what means your name?”
“Spud? It means ‘Potato’.”
“Why? Because you are ugly?” said Darko without the slightest trace of humour in his voice or face.
“HEY!! I’m not fuckin’ ugly!”
“Ah, I don’t know, you’re not my type, sorry,” this time he was kidding.
“Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
“Why they call you potato?”
“Murphy, that’s my name, Spud Murphy is a famous name, from a poem ...”
“Eh? ... in my country we call you ‘Krumpitch’ Ha Ha Ha.”
“or ‘Krumpiritsa’ Ha Ha, you sound like a brandy made from potatoes.”
“Hey, that’s poitín, brandy from potatoes.”
“You have poitín in Croatia?”
“What is this putcheen?”
“Irish moonshine.”
“Homemade potato whiskey.”
“NO SHIT!! You drink this??? Pitchku matrinu!!” he said with a disgusted look on his face.
“Hey Darko,” enquired Brian, “is it true that in your language you have the same word for shepherd and pimp?”
We had a couple of smokes and then went out to hit the town, though in actual fact we were closer to hitting the pavement, face first. Darko and Bootso brought us to a bar they knew that wasn’t too far out of the way but it was a bit up market and civilised for the state we were in so we only had the one drink and headed off again towards more familiar territory.
By this stage, it was after one and ‘The Stable’ was a riot, being Saturday an’ all.
There was no chance of a table or any chairs so we squeezed into a corner that had a shelf lining the wall so at least we didn’t have to stand there holding our drinks.
“Good thing too,” said Brian, “you were never one for either standing or holding your drink, Heh Heh Heh.”
“Good one.”
Bootso and Darko weren’t long about taking up mooch positions on the makeshift dancefloor and Spud wasn’t long about joining them. Brian took his drink and went around ligging with whichever of the locals he recognized.
Myself and Tony were left standing, shitfaced.
Tony looked at me and said “I think I shall make my way back to the hostel.”
“Yeah?” I said, “Why? Did you follow through?”
“Well, let us just say that the evening’s bonhomie has given way to an arousal of misanthropic sentiments and I would rather spend the rest of the night at the residence.”
Whatever the fuck that meant.
“Are you in possession of the gear?” he asked.
I wasn’t, but I wasn’t long in getting some of it off Spud and giving it to Tony.
“Are you sure you can remember the way back?” I asked him, actually wondering if I would know the way back myself.
“Oh, yes,” he said in all seriousness, “I left a trail of breadcrumbs on the way here.”
Tony headed off and I went to the bar, collecting Spud and Bootso on the way.
“Where’s gick-face?” asked Spud looking around.
“I think he’s going home to have a ménage-à-un, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, but fuck it. MORE PINTS FUCKER!!!”
We were outside for a while and things started to fade in and out, sitting on a car bonnet, talking to a German couple, pissing in some alleyway, Riverdancing.
Spud was starting to wane for a while but after voiding his stomach between two parked cars he found a second wind and got another few in.
We were probably there a couple of hours, inside, outside, drinking, smoking, dancing, but it felt like a relatively short time.
Dancing. Good grief, no!! not dancing ...
Brian’s quare one came in a one stage and he latched himself onto her in hope of an easy ride.
Lucky cunt!
Me and Spud were having the craic with Darko and Bootso.
“So, what are you lads doin’ here anyways, business? drugs? Ukrainian girls? Ah Ha Ha,” I was hoping I was joking.
“Ah, we have some business here, transport, that kind of thing.”
Their vagueness made Spud all the curiouser and he wouldn’t let them go with that. Spud could nag a priest into revealing a confession, if only to make him fuck off, so eventually they fore came.
“... but you can’t say anything, OK?”
“OK,” this had better be good.
“My brother, OK?” started Darko to OK nods, “he works in Zagreb for one big German company ... Sometimes they send machines to Germany ... they send with a post company and it is very expensive, they must pay travel and osiguranye, eh, insurance, it is very bloody expensive.” I was losing interest now that it wasn’t drugs or girls, but he continued and I had to feign interest from here on in.
“My brother, he doesn’t send it with this company. He keep the money and we bring the machine here in our van ... we get money and my brother get money. The company, they get their machine in Germany, everyone is happy.”
“Wow.”
“So ... no Ukrainian girls?”
“I’m sorry Mr Crumpir, no Ukrainian girls, Ha Ha Ha.”
Good scam.
Brian appeared,
“There was a young fiddler called Foy,
who let out a big long sigh,
said, as I lie here,
after a fifteenth beer,
I can feel that the end is nigh.”
“Hey, good un, thas not badaoll.”
Brian was, by now, well ahead in the Limerick stakes.
The next thing I remember me and Spud are chatting up these two young ones at the bar, pretty unsuccessfully it must be said. You always know two minutes into a chat-up if you’re goin’ to get anywhere or not, and we knew bloody well that it was going nowhere, being in an advanced state of drunkenness and all. But hope sprang eternal and if they hadn’t got bored and left we’d probably still be there trying not to slur our speech or dribble for their amusement. As it happened we suddenly found ourselves alone and too pissed-up for decent society so we decided to fuck off home.
Spud was great drinking company, constantly entertaining and unpredictable. First he started to goose step down the middle of the street with his finger under his nose which was probably not a very smart thing to do but it seemed funny at the time and the streets were thankfully empty anyway. Then he launched into a full blooded rendition of the national anthem ...
“DEUTSCHLAND DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES ...” and I took it from there ...
“ALLES! ALLES! WHO THE FUCK IS ÜBER ALLES?” we both stopped and creased ourselves over in stitches, “AH HA HA HA HA.”
Then a voice came from somewhere above that echoed around the street, presumably telling us to shut the fuck up and that the police were on their way. Whatever he said we shut the fuck up and scampered home, half running half staggering, still breaking our bollixes.
When we got back to the gaff we went straight to our rooms with a ‘seeyendemornin’, but when I tip-toed noisily into the room I found that Tony was still awake. He was after being roused by Brian, on a spliff hunt, who was now in with the Croatian lads having a smoke.
Supper! Super! Us two loopers!
I tip-toed back out and crossed the hall, I entered the guys room without knocking. The three lads were there in a thick cannabis fog, with the barmaid clinging to Brians arm as he told some story to entertained ears.
“Fuck’s sake,” I said, “it’s a Moroccan sauna.”
“Hey Foy, you made it home, what were the chances eh? You want some of this? ... Hey, can you explain what ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ means?”
“Dunno, but I think I’m having one, cheers.”
“Fuck, where’s Spud? Don’t tell me he got lucky.”
“Fuck no! He went to bed with an ice-pack on his liver,” I said after inhaling deeply, “HOLY JAYSUS, what’s that?” I’d spied a bottle.
“This is me new best friend, rackya, otherwise known as Jacob’s ladder. Here, try some, you won’t be disappointed.”
“This is a very good rackya from my friend in Slavonia,” growled Darko as he passed me half a bottle of clear liquid.
I put it to my nose but before I could smell it it burned my eyes.
“Whoah, what the fuck ...” it was obviously alcoholic so I took a swig and it immediately burned the whole inside of my mouth and then body, leaving my teeth sizzling. I must’ve grimaced because Darko and Bootso cracked up and Brian just nodded knowingly.
My first thought was that I’d been set up and I’d just drank fuckin’ anti-freeze or something, but then the lads each took a swig so I took another one just to confirm my first impressions.
I felt funny. I looked at them and then around the room. Everything tilted back and forth. A line had been crossed.