Advantage

I went back to that pub again. Aside from the barman, there were only two others - the same guy with the broken thumbs and Peter Denyer, who played 'Ralph' in 'Dear John'. It was definitely him. He was just sitting in the corner, staring at the frosted glass of the window and not saying anything. "S'fundah," I said, in greeting.

"Sutwe," the barman nodded, in response.

As soon as I reached the bar, thumb-guy jumped off his stool and grabbed my lapels, gripping them between his fingers and the tops of his palms as he couldn't use his twisted thumbs.

"You gotta help me," he spluttered. He looked awful. He was pale, unshaven and reeking of booze. He swayed and shook and the lid of one of his bloodshot eyes was twitching intermittently. "You gotta help me. She says I'm no good to her now. To be honest, I don't know what use she ever had for my hands - the Rohypnol, or whatever it was, always blacked me out completely. But... but when I come to, it's the ash... the ash and the slingbacks. I need it, pal. I need more ash and slingbacks."

I dusted off his grubby fingers from my jacket. "What can I do about it?" I asked.

"You gotta help me." He thrust his broken hands under my nose. I reeled slightly. "Splint 'em. Splint 'em up with something. Look... the cocktail stirrers, you can use those. Splint 'em up, please, quick... she'll be here soon... quick..."

I looked to the barman. We exchanged concerned expressions. Then, hesitantly, the barman reached behind himself to pick up a jar of coloured-plastic cocktail stirrers from the mirrored compartments under the spirit optics.

But we were too late. I heard the door to the street open and felt a current of cold, dry air rush in.

"Aarraght"

We both turned. She sashayed to the bar in a series of short steps, her loose shoes slapping against her heels and dragging on the floor. The barman mixed and poured her drink which she sipped up through twin straws, finishing the liquid, gurgling the air through the crushed-ice mash at the bottom and then letting out a satisfied gasp from the back of her throat.

Peter Denyer chose the moment to quietly get up and absent himself from the saloon, moving to the toilets. As he passed the bar, the barman held out the sieve for him which he silently accepted without breaking his stride.

"Raarrght," she said, "let's see 'ow thorse 'ands er dowin', shall we? See uf they can clamp me topnuts."

"Clamp me..." I saw the man mouth to himself, clearly trying to recall his blacked-out activities from this scrap of a clue. He stepped forward gingerly with a whimper and presented his hands.

"We'll do this fer and skwer," she continued. "'Ere, 'ave that," and she slapped something hard into the man's opened hands. I saw his eyes blink heavily as he tried to hide the wince of pain from her. "An' you an'all," she said to me. Without thinking, I held out my hands. Into them she plonked an identical object. "'Ave that," she said. I looked down and saw it was one of those fuzzy Velcro balls - you know, those toy Velcro balls that you throw against furry hats or bats or soft fuzzy indoor 'dart' boards.

She walked back to the bar, turned around to face us again and, standing with her back against the bar, reached behind and used her arms to thrust herself backwards and upwards. She heaved herself up, wriggling her bottom up the front of the bar in a zig-zag pattern, her legs momentarily jiggling mid-air with the effort, as she lifted herself up to sit on top of the bar. Then she opened her coat and hitched up her mini-skirt from the tops of her thighs such that it served as no skirt at all. She had on no underwear. Shuffling aside the flanks of her coat, she spread her pale thighs wide apart, emitting a little rasping sound which was either her flaccid skin vibrating from the friction as it was drawn over the polished wood, or a small fart.

"'Oo-ever gets 'em to stick the nearest, can 'ave me," she said disinterestedly, shanks akimbo.

With dawning horror, I looked at the soft Velcro ball I was holding and realised what it was for. The other man was already wide-eyed with intent, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth in absolute concentration as he attempted to gauge the shot and line it up with repeated practice swings of his throwing arm. Then, after more careful rehearsal movements back and forth which provoked a bored sigh from the woman on the bar, he threw. The ball arced across the room and hit and stuck, without any bounce, the perimeter of the hirsute target.

He tucked his chin into his chest with a relieved smile, clearly happy at his effort. Both now looked towards me. I hesitated.

"Garrarghn," she said.

"But I..." I faltered.

"Throar!" she insisted, impatiently.

I felt my right arm rise. I watched it, in an agonised, detached, almost hypnotic state. It pulled back to throw, seemingly without my conscious volition, back, back... I mustered all my mental strength and at the last moment, when my arm let loose, I managed to twist my body at the waist, queering the throw and sending the Velcro ball spiralling way off to the right.

Just then, Peter Denyer returned from the toilets, brandishing the sieve. The ball, in mid-flight, bounced off the toilet door as it swung open, hit the slowly rotating ceiling fan, ricochetted off of the time-bell with a single ding and, with a soft plumping thump, hit the exact centre of the target.

"You lucky bugger..." the man whispered in slack-jawed disbelief.

The woman raised an eyebrow, drearily impressed, her stolid phlegmatism reluctantly punctured in that instant by the bizarre trick shot. "That were reet fancy, that. Now, 'ow dark ar'yer nuggets, louv?"

I'm writing this from inside the toilets. I ran to them and locked myself in. I don't even have the sieve. I'm still in them and writing to you on my Dangleberry. Battery low. Signal weak. I can hear the pounding on the door still. Get help! I need help. Get help now! I'll tell you the name of the pub - please just get me help. Okay, the name of the pub is [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT] and it's right on the [M.A.M.A. PRIVILEGED INFORMATION: CUT]. You can't miss it. Bring tazers.


This message was sent from my Wiffi Dangleberry.