[True Life Tales] bar fights

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I was probably as angry and pissed off as I have ever been the other day. I was still, still fuming about the doctor and Si, and I had a shitload of pressure with my work. Not to mention all the stress of my day job as a cater waiter who sold his soul to make some money. I had been doing dishes in a café all morning. It was pure hell. The café was one of these local council run things so it was a tip and the staff were a joke. There was a whole toodoo about a gas leak and there was all this stress and blah. Drove me mad. Then I had to sit on the bus for 1 hour and a half, with 2 of the freaks I was working with back into the city. I was 30 minutes late for a meeting with my other work, but only 2 others turned up out of ten expected to come, so I had to do all the work in the meeting.

I was pretty mad, I don’t need to recount every detail but by the time we had finished our meeting (me still in a kitchen porters boiler suit rolled halfway down) and actually come up with what we wanted, one of them thought we should go for a celebratory drink. Great idea I thought.

Turns out they wanted to go to the LGBT centre, which is a like a gay café and bar thing. Its where me and the doctor had our first date. For some reason I don’t like the place. The first time I ever went there was with the doctor, and Ive only been a couple of times since. The place is kind of pretentious and full of pricks, but then again that’s the people I work with!

We get there, and who else is there except 4 of the other folk who should have been at the meeting. My rage levels peaked up again and a drink just got me simmering. Half hour or so later who decides to turn up with his little wanker mate. The fucking doctor. If I hadn’t had just swallowed the cider in my mouth I actually would have spit it out. Instead I kind of sputtered and choked then had a fit of coughing, making me incredibly obvious to everyone in the bar whereas I mite have got away with sitting in the corner and the doctor not noticing me. I kind of slouched all the way down in the chair to hide behind the glass but for some reason it didn’t work and he seen me. He walked along the room rite to the opposite corner, watching me all the way as my head slowly followed him. He bednt down to say something in his mates ear then turned away from me, in that deliberate way that made me feel completely insignificant. I wasn’t that involved in the conversation at my table. I don’t really like any of the people I work with in this particular project. For one their professionalism always seems to be lacking, and they pretty much coast. Someone has an idea and they all coast on that one rather than look at it critically and come up with the best course of action. Not that the ideas they have are all that great to begin with. So I accepted drinks as apologies and continued to secretly spy on the doctor. Not really spy seeing how he knew where I was and him and his mate kept talking hushedly and looking over there shoulders towards me.

I wondered what they were on about, neither of them seemed happy and neither of them seemed happy at me. I began to feel incredibly akward and out of place. I had never felt that this place was mind or I belonged to it before, and even less now that the doctor had come and pissed all over his territory.

They were huddled over their drinks like two Nazis in a 1930’s Berlin bar, and I was the one Communist still brave or stupid enough to show their face, and the those thugs were working out how to best beat me to a pulp. My mind imagined the place as the bar from Cabaret, and I saw this one fat, skin head bull dyke jump on a table and belt out that song that Liza Minneli sings at the beginging of the film. It made me laugh to myself, but that was a mistake because that was the moment that the doc and his mate look back round at me and I was sitting their smirking to myself. Not good.

It was like that had resolved the doctor to get up firmly, down the rest of his pint and march over to our table. Hes 25, but looks and acts much older, whereas the average age of our table was about 17, the mental age about half that. But the good thing was as the doctor marches over, the folk im with stop their laughing and shrieking and give the doc the collective look that a gang of hard ass schoolgirls gives a geek that tries to chat up the leader of the pack.

I felt supported.

He looks at me, tall and ginger and with that northern irish accent that you could just as eaily imagine wearing a big orange sash and screaming obscenities at the pope. Before he can even open his mouth to say anything, I stand up, grip the base of my half empty glass and say:

‘you owe me 40 quid you bastard’

And hurl the half pint of cider square across the table. It was like slow motion as his mouth opened at indignation at what I had said, but unfortunaltly it was a large target for the cider. There was a lot of it, so it got splashed his entire face and half way down his shirt. A good thorough soaking.

No body else apart from the people around our immediate corner noticed the harrumph, but my table did. They looked at me, then looked back at the doctor, who continued to look at his wet self. I didn’t move from the spot. In fact I was frozen in the same position with my arm holding the glass outstretched.

I kind of muttered an oh oh. The doctor wiped the drink off his face with one hand.

‘you little bitch.’

That fucking got me. His hand smashed across the table and he grabbed my t shirt with his fist. This made my crew of school girls jump up and go a little mental.

‘get your hand off me and give me back my money you prick!’ I yelled, and the school girls jumped up and down giving a chorus of get off him! Give him back his money!

I did a pre emptive strike and smacked him rite in his wet face. I kind of shocked myself as a red smudge appeared on his face and grew into a blob which started streaming down his face. He looked as shocked as I did. His mate over the far end of the room saw what was happening, as had a few others he must have known who flew over to our corner. The school girls made a kind of human wall between me and the bloody doctor and his mates. Insults flew and the squaring up started. The doctor and I exchanged glances through our walls of support, I kind of apologised with my eyes, he considered it, considered a truce and trying to calm the situation, but he turned away and let it fall to pieces.

I very skilfully escaped from the bar. As soon as I got out I leaned against the wall with relief and lit a fag as all hell broke loose inside.

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