Posted by ARFIUS on 8/13/2006, 2:03 am
Board Administrator

It was 3.37am and I sat at the stained wooden bar, the scene was an illegal drinking den known as Ringers. It was more of an abandoned snooker hall with small wooden tables where the pool and snooker tables had once stood. The marks were the heavy wooden legs still barely showed up on the filthy matted carpet. This once gleaming 1960s snooker hall was now a shadow of its former self, now everything had become stained with a dark yellow and brown film. The once lush red carpet was now a faded crimson colour with a mass of whitish and black gum stains and cigarette burns. The air smelt of smoke, stale beer, cheap perfume and a faded vomit smell. As you entered the room via a set of freezing cold rusting fire escape stairs you were in a large rectangular room with the bar in the bottom right hand corner, covered windows on the left hand wall and a flickering green ‘toilet’ sign on the right hand of you. It was dimly lit and a blanket of blue smoke covered everything like a hovering silk blanket. The walls were covered barely in nicotine stained 1960s wall paper that peeled and cracked away from the wall as through it was attempting to leave this place a rot like all the other rubbish outside in the damp alleyways. At the small round tables were various characters ranging from a group of 5 well built men in tracksuits playing cards, drinking and rolling joints. They were big men with beer bellies and all dripping in gold jewellery. Occasionally one of the younger men would snort lines of cocaine from the table and laugh out loud at the jokes being told in a raucous laugh that make me cringe. Nearer to me and there was a lone women in her 50s, she was dressed as though she had been trawling the streets for clients and was now recharging on vodka and tonic and 20 Lambert & Butler, opposite her was a thin old man in a pork pie hat and raggedy miss matched suit. His skin was sagging and deep brown, his cloths dull tweed and his fingers and teeth as yellow as the wallpaper. He occasionally looked up at the thighs of the lonesome women only to suddenly twist his head away when she would look up. She would then lower her head slowly with a smile as the yellow toothed man would continue his cycle of watching her and sipping his pint of mild. I sipped my drink and beckoned the bartender. The Rastafarian man poured me another Jack Daniels and nodded before wandering in to the back room into a haze of sweetly smelling smoke, I could here another man in there and the tinny sound of a pocket radio, but the tinny radio was nothing comparison to the low muffled thud of hard house music filtering through the cracks in the fetid walls like a constant sound track from the dark city. I could just see outside into the maze of roads and alleyway through a small gap in one of the fly posted wooden boards that covered the large windows. The roads were shiny from the constant drizzle of rain and the street lights reflected off them giving the world an orange tint to it. The pitter patter of the rain was soothing, even though I was in this little pocket of hidden city. The faded shouts from outside a Kebab shop opposite only added to the tension of underlying threat. This place oozed dangerous company and everyone, whilst appeared to be in there own little worlds were in fact on the brink of turning on anyone who dare try and upset there little world. Everyone eyed everyone else up in an automatic street defence system. Me on the other hand, I was already lost and had nothing to fear. These people who were scattered throughout the room were the lowest of the low. I sat amongst the thieves, street walkers, perverts, dealers and thugs but I was not one of them, I was merely a wanderer that had strayed to far off the beaten track and could never go back. This was my departure lounge. I pushed myself from off my barstool as it let out a loud creak and headed for the toilets, the flicker of the green sign pulled me towards them. I strolled past the lonesome women as she gently looked up, smiled and took a drag from here cigarette. I walked on past the group of tracksuits as two of them looked up menacingly from their cards, drinks, cigarettes, various little plastic bags and scattered Rizlas. I looked straight at them then bowed my head and kept walking, the carpet was sticky and felt unpleasant even through my nicely polished shoes. I put my hand out palm first and pushed the grimy door open with a high pitched squeak from the tired hinges. I walked a few metres to be greeted with a cold, urine smelling toilet. The room was tinted by the buzzing blue fluorescent light above me. I stood at the cracked urinal and unzipped. As I took care of business I was enthralled by the cracked tiled walls in front of me, a message board for the underworld. It was a collage of names, numbers, insults and drawings from the past 40 years. One stood out in faded red marker, “Show me the way Lucy, you can see the path” It had me in a trance just thinking about what possible situation the author could have been in, I was trapped in a trance. I stood staring at the mysterious cry for help. I stood enthralled only to be released from my trance a few seconds later by the thud and squeak of the toilet door being opened. One of the tracksuits walked in and stood next to me. “You alright mate?” he said in a deep voice as he glanced at me. I looked straight ahead and zipping up, “Not too bad mate” I replied before turning and walking out back in to the warmth of the snooker hall. The characters looked up in unison and then went back to their business. I retreated to my safe haven at the bar as the main door suddenly opened. A vastly overweight man entered in grey suit pants and a half open shirt. The shirt was covered in remnants of the man’s dinner and a large gold chain with a large gold boxing glove on nestled in his grey chest hair. He waddled over to the track suits to a rowdy round of applause and various insults. The corpulent man’s big red face beamed a toothy grin as he stood over one of the tracksuits with a hand on each of his shoulders. They talked and laughed as the other tracksuit opened the toilet door with that unforgettable high pitched squeak. “Mike yer dirty sod not up to yer old tricks I hope?” he shouted as the rest of the tracksuits burst in to an overwhelming applause. They all sat down and proceeded to continue there game of cards, drinking, smoking and rolling of joints. One tracksuit got up and swaggered over to me at the bar and demanded a large brandy for Mike. He stood next to me eyeing me up and down as I looked straight ahead at his reflection in the dirty mirrors behind the bar shelves. The Rastafarian shuffled from his back room poured a massive brandy and shuffled back to his friend and their tinny radio. The tracksuit picked up his glass and swaggered back to his table. The lonesome women glanced over at me, not knowing that I had her reflection in view. She eyed the back of me up and down with her cigarette smoking away in one hand and the other hand underneath her chin supporting her head. She suddenly turned to the yellow toothed man as he jerked his head round to the look at the entrance. There was a distant police siren and the rain still pattered against the windows. I remembered the air being so different from the outside when I first arrived. I had come from the light cool crisp air of the night to the heavy smoky hot air of this dismal room. It had hit me when I first came in but now I was inhaling without a thought in the world. I liked the cool air of the city, it made me feel so in touch with the everything around you. A feeling I would miss as I knew they were here. The ever growing sound of boots on that rusty metal fire escape. They grew louder and louder like a machine clanking towards me. There were shouts from the man outside who acted like the bouncer, a smash of a glass and more shouting. An almost overwhelming sickness knotted my stomach as I felt beads of sweat run down my back. Then a sudden thud as the door flung open and smashed the plaster board behind it. “Nobody move!” roared a voice. I swigged back my Jack Daniels stood up and breathed out the warm fumes from my nostrils I lifted my head and looked straight at them. I stood there and thought of how I had got here, the choices I had made in my life and then realised that this was inevitable. I opened my eyes and accepted everything. I was right this was my departure lounge. --ARFIUS ARF LordARFIUS@Yahoo.com