The Old Pub

When I was 16 I began working as a waitress in the local pub. Carrying wobbling trays of sparkling pints to eager recipients. Smiling faces with round red noses, their grins cutting through the thin veil of smoke that surrounded them. Thick, hearty laughs were carried through the pub windows. Overthrowing the low, buzzing hum of conversation.

My black tray lay on my flat open hand adorned with pints of cider and lager. Slowly stepping towards the door, my eyes were fixed on the fizzing liquid these punters treated as gold. Relying almost entirely on my peripheral and muscle memory, I follow my feet to a wooden bench standing directly in the sunlight. The table was decorated with fag buts scattered around an overflowing clay ashtray, and empty glasses painting the sun’s refractions across the aged wood. I stooped down and began unloading my cargo, placing each glass before familiar faces. As I lifted the penultimate glass, I failed to adjust to the new weight composition. The last remaining pint teetered on my tray. I felt their eyes watching the predicament. My breath held sharp behind my teeth, only allowing itself to be exhaled after it was confirmed I had only displaced a few unfortunate drops of the precious fluid. My eyes rose to meet the gaze of the owner of this now slightly shallow drink and I raised a shakey smile.

“Sorry Jim-” I started.

“Well you owe me a kiss now don’t ya.” He retorted, to the amused approval of his peers. His eyes locked on me, his laugh thick with grease.

“Well for that you’ll have to tip me,” I replied. This was met with a raucous reception from the spectators of the little exchange. Laughing into their cigarettes until the smoke fell out of their mouths in tumbled clouds. Toppling over each other.

Trouble they used to call me. I quite liked this nickname. Fond and poking fun at the unpredictability of my mouth which still continues to carry me into the arms of trouble. I think it’s quite a common term of endearment. Pertaining to young girls who are mischievous or outspoken. It wouldn’t take much to convince me that this is only infantilising girls who dare not comply with the comfy expectations of the obedient and quiet maid.

I felt my eyes dart to the recipient of my little quip. Habit. Ensuring I hadn’t accidentally twirled over that imaginary line painted between cheeky and rude. He had already resumed his natural position. That being holding his pint in one hand and fumbling around in his pocket with the other, jostling past loose change in search of his cigarettes. Turning on my foot, I headed back inside the pub. The lost cider swirling in a pool on the tray I carried. I placed it down and started unrolling some blue roll to mop it up. Leaning absent-mindedly against the bar, I recounted the moments just passed to my boss. She chuckled. She had one of those faces that joy just seemed to radiate from. She glowed. Her peroxide-blonde hair was scraped back into a ponytail, the escaping strands hanging in curls around her face.

“You’ll be just fine here.” She said, smiling reassuringly.

What she meant by this, of course, was that my strong, juvenile and cheeky demeanour would be essential to working at that pub. Remarks, retorts and jokes made at your expense littered the days. Many harmless, many vulgar, and some spiteful. I found those that carried the most aggression were often provoked by the dealer feeling somewhat challenged; their authority was questioned. I made conscious efforts to keep my lips pursed into a smile. This was after one specific incident in which a walrus of a man launched a flailing arm in my direction. I learned that insults would not always be empty.

Walrus man was composed of mounds of flesh stacked on top of each other and seeming to melt into one another. His face housed deep creases, valleys drawn into him following a life of just as many scowls as smiles. He was a rather large man, standing at around 6-foot. On this occasion, I stood struggling with the remote control as he barked orders at me. Precious minutes of his sacred football match slipped through his fingers before him, at the mercy of an incompetent barmaid. He made a swipe for the remote, to which I instinctively stumbled backwards. Such an act of defiance was not allowed and would not be permitted. He rose from his chair, looming above me. His arm lurched toward me a second time. Colliding with my shoulder. Continuing his crusade towards me, I turned and began to run away into the adjacent function room. Hearing the commotion, my colleague came to intervene, sliding into my view as he placed himself in between myself and the walrus man. The table he left behind seemed to have erupted. His meat-headed companions all leapt to his defence and jostled over each other to prove their loyalty.

I stood there staring at them all. Walrus had his eyes pinned on me, long strings of saliva swinging from his mouth as he continued to shout in my direction. His mouth seemed to move in slow motion and it was almost impossible to discern his slurred speech from the rest of the bellowing overlapping. I remember thinking he perfectly emulated some kind of bulldog at that moment. Although of course, I would never share that with the poor dog I compared him to.

All the commotion summoned the landlady of the pub. She stood bold as brass, hands on hips and chin jutted outwards, her eyebrows furrowed together. Her hair bounced around her as she shouted at the litter of unruly punters. Disgraced looks fell across all of their faces as they turned around to find the 5-foot northern lass at the foot of the bar. She marched up to King Walrus and demanded he return to his seat. As to not seem too complicit, he barked some vile sludge once more in my direction and began maniacally laughing as he strolled back to his table as though nothing had happened. His hand clamped around his drink before he had even landed in his seat, knocking back the liquid and slamming the glass back down. His pack retreated with him and began bickering over whose round it was.

“You’ve gotta bar him.” My colleague almost pleaded to the landlady.

“He hit maya for fuck’s sake.”.

She turned to me and scouted my face for any sign of physical injury.

“He didn’t hit you did he love, he was just reaching for the remote wasn't he?”.

She seemed to be telling me what to say. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with this information. I could still feel where his fist smashed into me. It felt red hot beneath my sleeve. If I was a cartoon character I was certain it would be illuminated in red with squiggly lines flying outward from the crash site.

The day washed away, concluding as unspectacularly as it had begun. My arm harboured a dull ache rather than a pain by the time I headed home. The real pain was in my pride. It stung. I had to continue my day, handing him his drinks and taking his money from his sweaty palms as though nothing had happened. This wasn’t to be the last of my battles with the great walrus either. On another occasion in retaliation to me telling him off for stealing a stranger’s push bike and parading it around the victim like a school bully, he yelled:

“Oh fuck off you fucking rug muncher.”.

The comment itself was fine. It was the bounds of comments and questions that came cascading afterwards from the attending audience that was annoying. The phrase hung in the air. It felt as though it was written in swirls of cloud above my head. Even as I walked away I could still feel it there. It seemed as though everyone else could see it too. I couldn’t quite shake it after that, so I chose to embrace it instead. What I hoped would act as a deterrent only seemed to thrill the middle-aged men I was surrounded by even more. One even took it as an invitation to tell me explicit stories of his love-making with women who too claimed to be lesbian until he was able to persuade them otherwise. It was revolting quite frankly. Trapped behind the confines of the bar, I stood emptying the glass washer. Attempting to lose myself in the clinking of the glasses and the feeling of the warm glass in my hands but it was no use. His perverted, oily voice snaked into my ears. My daydreaming defences were futile for once.

Just like that, I was christened anew. The pub's very own d*ke. And boy didn't they let me forget it.