15 May 2012
I’m free, I’m clear, and once again, I got away with it.
It feels strange to be drinking in a bar where I’m paying but Carlo was right the drink actually helps, just a pint mind you, I’m pretty sure that after last night’s somersaults my stomach couldn’t handle spirits. So over a pint Carlo begins to probe me about the recent change of heart. “So who is she this time? Not the girl from the other night?”
“What do you mean who is she?”
“Listen, Felix I’ve known you long enough to know when you’ve met a new bird. The only time I’ve seen you pull shit like this was when you first met Ali and you went and worked at the fucking bank, like a prick.”
“Well thanks, but I’m not that predictable I’m afraid. I’m serious, Carlo I just want to be with my family and I don’t want to end up dead or in jail.”
“What? When have I ever put you in danger?”
“You haven’t, that’s not what I mean, I mean the lifestyle. I keep spending all that time in the bar I’m going to need a liver transplant or a heart bypass in five years.”
“You just need to stop smokin’ them fuckin’ cigarettes, I always told you.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, you not think I get that from Ali every day no? Anyway so this is it at the moment, I’m putting Caleb at front of shop, he’s been a good worker now for years, he knows all the regulars and the staff like him.”
“Probably more than they like you!” There he goes again with his laugh, only happy to be putting someone else out. Don’t hit him, don’t hit him...
“Whatever, anyway that’s what’s going to happen, I’m going to still make the big decisions obviously. Everything will be run past me but he’ll be the acting manager when I’m not there.”
“So what do I get out of this?”
“It’s my fucking bar, what do you think you should get out of this?”
“Well frankly I’m a bit insulted, Felix,” he pauses and drinks half his pint, “that you didn’t ask me to run the place during your brief hiatus. Cause that’s what this shit is, flash in the pan bullshit.”
I have to laugh, “Come on, Carlo. Are you joking? No fucking way, it’s a bar not a brothel, and if I let you do that it would no doubt become the latter. And I’m serious about this anyway. Plus you’re too old anyway why don’t you just retire and move to the South of France or something?”
“Hey I’m just saying, without me there’d be no bar. And can you really ever see me retiring? You need a job to retire from anyway and I don’t have one.”
I take a large drink. “Okay I’ll tell you what I’ll do, we do the Executive Night. Your friends coming over from wherever, we do it, have a send off, you were right it’s better to go out with a bang. Then whatever we make that night we split right down the middle, minus costs obviously.”
He sits there and thinks for a while but before long his face cracks out a smile showing his beer stained teeth and squinting so the whites of his eyes almost disappear leaving only the black holes of his pupils. “Alright, better be makin’ this one a big’un then eh? Knowhaimean!” Followed by more of his obnoxious cackling.
We drink two more pints, each that is, because neither of us fancies the thought of going back home, him to be alone and me to be with my family. When we leave we hug, as is our custom, and he tells me to go home, have a shower and brush my teeth. Then he tells me that he has some things to sort out, as usual, and we part ways. He immediately glues his phone to his ear and walks off chattering loudly down the street. I too pull out my phone but not to make a business phone call but just to call Ali and let her know that everything went okay, that business with Carlo is coming to an end, and that business in general is about to undergo a drastic change.
Daddy's Gone 5.1 • Opuss № I