Artwork – Iain Laurie (formerly One Neck)

WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND SCENES OF DRUNKEN VIOLENCE.

Anthony
Steadman’s pint had begun to loudspeaker to him before he’d even had
the opportunity to take a beverage of it. To be more exact, it was the
face that had appeared in his pint that spoke, the quite unpleasant
face of a rather bad one that he didn’t recognise. The face broadcast
an aggressive accent of Edinburgh origin.  The voice said “Alright
Anthony c*nt, how’s it going?” As this was the first time that
Anthony’s pint had spoken to him, Anthony was a bit lost for words. His
head was engaged in processing the visual information. It was as if the
face was superimposed on the head of the lager, as if it was that a
video projector was hidden in the ceiling directly above, except when
he moved the glass around the image remained, with the features of the
face altered lightly with the twists of the smoothly wavy beer against
the sides of the glass. Now all he could eventually think to say was
“Are you talking to me” but not in a De Niro in the Taxi Driver cool as
guns and mohican of manner, more of a whimpering, stupid nervous one
can believe not that this happens to me type of manner. He hoped the
barman, the unique one another person in the present dive, didn’t see
or hear him engaged in conversation with the pint, but luckily his
table was at the far corner of the room and said barman was busily
occupied looking at satellite repetition of The One Squad on the TV.

“Course
I’m f*ckin’ talking to you, Pr*ck. Whae did ye think I was talking
tae?” the pint replied to his inane line of interrogation. Steadman 
could only manage to stutter random syllables in reply. “Are you gonnae
drink us, or wha? I’ll be f*ckin’ flat in a minute” continued the face.
Steadman definitely required a large mouthful of the pint to strengthen
his nerves, but he felt a bit strange about drinking something with a
face on it with which he was engaged in conversation.  He raised the
glass up to his mouth uncertainly. “On they goes son, drink on. Dinnae
worry aboot me.  Willnae injure me” encouraged the face, now looking
fixedly up at Steadman from the uncomfortably close proximity of just
below his nose.  He took a drink and for a minute it seemed the face
would slide downward his throat with the beer, but once the contents of
the glass settled, the face also returned to how it had been a few
moments before.

The pint tasted barely legal, that was for
sure. Just what Steadman needed after another day in the excrement of
full-time employment. But he wasn’t too satisfied with the new
development of the floating face in the pint. It wasn’t saying anything
at the moment, just kind of there, staring fixedly at him. Maybe if he
finished it, the face would go away. He picked up the pint and started
towards downing it throatwards.

“Woah there, wha’s your
impetus, sonny?” protested the pint’s facial appendage, but to this
Steadman just drank swifter. With the final version of many mouthfuls
it was as if the face evaporated away.  He breathed a sigh of relief
and permitted a belch to erupt, created by the gaseous lager.
Obviously, he had just had a moment of insanity, brought on by his
all-consuming hatred of work. Things would go back to normal now. He
decided to have a second pint to celebrate. He already felt a bit
giddy, well it was premium lager on an empty stomach, he told himself.
His vision was slightly blurred with a fog alcoholica and he assumed a
bit of a swagger as he made his way barwards. 

The barman
dragged himself away from the TV as Steadman leant his elbows on the
bar, not quite avoiding the various puddles of beer.  “Same again
companion?” asked the barman. “Please” replied  Steadman,  inspecting
on auto-pilot the empty bar as the barman stretched another pint of
Gewissen and placed it full frontal, saying “There’s a good head on
that one for you, Companion”. Steadman’s attention came back to the
pint. To his horror, the face was back, staring at him, with a sparkle
of ridicule in his eye. Could the barman also see the face? Anthony
wasn’t sure. He hastily paid for the drink and returned to his seat.

“Didn’t
think you’d get rid of me that easily did ye?” gloated the face. “I’m
here to stay, sonny. Every time you drink a f*ckin’ pint, I’ll be here.
And soon, you’ll grow to love me. I’ll be your best friend afore ye ken
it”. Steadman experienced nausea. Why did this have to happen to him?
The only time he was ever in a good mood was when he had a pint in his
fist. Now even that was affected by outside forces outside of his
control. “Ye dinnae look too pleased aboot that son. Whit you dinnae
realise is, I can tell you things that no-one else can tell ye. I can
help ye. It is better to bow to the knowledge”. Steadman was
unconvinced. He didn’t trust anyone who claimed they could help him.

“How
can you help?” he asked. As he asked it, another customer entered the
pub. One of the pub’s typical customers, this individual was rough as
f*ck. He looked like he’d kill you as soon as look at you. His face
looked like he used Hydrochloric acid as a moisturiser, it was gnarled
and twisted and he had more pockmarks than a leather pin cushion. His
eyes were like the proverbial p*ss pits in the snow, pure black and
bad. His head was shaved and every contour of his skull was apparent,
it was so uneven that it looked like it had been beaten into shape with
a hammer. His mouth was like one of the holes the planes made in the
side of the Twin Towers. What was left of his teeth were like jagged
bits of blackened steel and his tongue darted in between them like
flames. He sneered at Anthony as he went to the bar.

“What a
c*nt” commented the face in the beer. Anthony tried to quieten him down
with a Shhh through his teeth. The huge c*nt would think it had been
him loudspeaking, and whip him.  As if the scenario couldn’t get any
worse, the man looked as if he was heading to Anthony’s table. Before
he got there he screamed back at the barman- “Oi, get that crap off and
pit the f*cking psych-ball on!” The barman looked a bit p*ssed off
about this, but not enough to discuss. He begrudgingly pointed the
remote control and the channels changed to show a typical Psych-ball
match. Two psych-ball players stood facing each other, either side of a
white line. A ball floated between them in the air directly above the
white line. They had expressions of concentration on their faces as
they both stared at the ball, trying to move it onto their opponent’s
side of the white line with the power of their mind.

“Mind if
I unite with you, pal?” said the huge c*nt, in a manner which didn’t
welcome a negative reply. Steadman put on the face of an idiot as he
tried to look like he was giving the c*nt a welcome. He was going to
end the pint right-wing quick and get the hell outside. He cupped his
hand over the mouth of the pint in an effort to stop the f*cker seeing
there was a face in it. The face was thankfully quiet so far. “Whit
team do you support?” was the desperado’s opening question, much to
Anthony’s dismay. No matter how he answered this question, he was
heading for a storm of blows. He had little interest in the “beautiful
game” of psych-ball and didn’t follow any team. But if he said this,
the c*nt would want to batter him. If he lied and said Hibernian
psych-ball club, the type could be a Hearts psych-ball club supporter
and have an excuse to give him a kick, and vice versa.

“Tell
him you f*cking hate psych-ball” the face suddenly piped up. Anthony’s
blood froze but the man didn’t show any reaction to this loudspeak.
Maybe the face in the pint was in his own imagination. Was he
subconsciously trying to get himself killed?  For whatever reason, he
found it impossible to disobey the face’s instruction. “I really don’t
have an interest in a bunch of blokes mentally manoeuvring a ball
around a field” he said, at least one more degree condescending than he
had intended. The psycho psych-ball fan pursed his lips and fixed on
Steadman with barely concealed rage. “Wha’s wrong wie ye? Are you a
f*cking faggot?”

The pint whispered to Anthony what he should
say next, and told him to say it with force and conviction. Anthony
stood up and pointed his finger right in the c*nt’s face, and repeated
what the pint had told him to say. “The only f*cking faggot in here is
you, you fat c*nt” he said with a smirk on his face.

 This was
too much for the huge c*nt to take, and he leapt to his feet, ready to
batter Steadman into seven shades of oblivion. 
“Ye F*ckin c*nt!!!  I’m gonnae slaughter ye”, he said, like he meant it.
“Glass this f*cker” ordered the face in the pint.
Steadman
grabbed the pint and smashed it in the nutter’s face. It shattered on
impact, showering blood, beer and glass. A few large pieces of the pint
glass protruded from the man’s face, which was now disguised with
blood. He cried out in pain and rage, and slumped unconscious onto the
floor.  Steadman couldn’t believe he had been persuaded to carry out
this sudden act of violence by the face that appeared in his pint.
However he now felt a sudden surge of empowerment. Thanks to the pint’s
advice, he was now The Man. Feeling like the king of the world, he
addressed the shocked looking barman. “Put the One Squad back on, my
good man”. The barman did so, and obviously had a new found respect for
Anthony, the unlikely victor of the confrontation. “Oh, and another
pint of Gewissen” Anthony asked, without moving from his seat. He took
a deep breath and tried to catch up with what was happening in the
hugely popular cop clone series while the barman poured his pint.

However,
the huge c*nt was not to remain unconscious for long. Anthony didn’t
notice he had awoken until he was towering murderously over him, ready
to exact unmerciful vengeance with a bar stool raised above his head.
Anthony clocked this just in time and leapt out of the way just before
the stool crashed down into the space he had vacated seconds before.
The psycho chucked away the remains of the stool and lurched after him,
his huge hands ready to snap him in half. Anthony knew what he had to
do- get to the pint that the barman had just finished pouring and was
about to bring over to his table. The pint would tell him exactly what
to do to, just as it had before. It was his only hope of getting out of
this situation intact. Breathless, Anthony just about managed to reach
the bar, with his massive attacker close behind. There was the face, in
the head of the pint, just as before.  It’s advice was immediate and
clear; “run like f*ck”.

This wasn’t what Steadman had hoped
for. He bombed it out of the pub, the huge angry psycho in pursuit.
Steadman ran so fast he thought heart failure was imminent, but he
managed to leap over a wall which stopped the oversized nutter in his
tracks, unable to lever his large body over it. Anthony ran for several
more minutes, glancing back in panic, until he was sure he had made a
complete escape. Dizzy with fatigue, he leant against a wall and closed
his eyes, taking several minutes to recover his breath.

 TO BE CONTINUED…?

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