Cigarettes and Alcohol: Confessions of a Stag Weekend (13 page)

Chapter Nineteen: Playing One Handed Pool

The game of pool is mainly the domain of the true ‘geezer geezer.’ It takes years of practice to be any good at the sport which really means years of hanging about in the nearest pub drinking while honing all the skills needed to be a top pool player.

There’s
so much to think about, like your stance, the way you grip the cue stick, where the balls are on the table and where you want them to end up (in the pockets obviously!)

The
cue stick must have a smooth shaft (sounds a bit rude) with a well chalked tip (‘Oooooh Matron!!’) and held so your right arm is at a right angle. That’s ninety degrees to you thick bastards without a GCSE in Maths.

Basically
you need to sink your seven balls and then the black before your opponent does, to win the game.

By
keeping a positive mental attitude, all will be good. Breathing techniques to ensure you stay relaxed and calm during the game are also available and should be used regularly.

Me,
I ignore all the good advice above and just whack the balls as hard as I can in the vain hope that one will go down making me look like I did the shot on purpose. To be honest I just do not have the patience to play pool and find that it just gets in the way of a good pinting session.

However
if you are skilled at the game there is the added bonus that it is a fantastic excuse to get out of the house and into the local drinker whenever you want. The words ‘Sorry my love I’ve got a pool match this weekend’ are a guaranteed fully stamped up pass to freedom.

Reading
through all the tips and demonstrations available online what I could not find was one person that suggests playing the game with just one hand against a herd of maniacs who want to clatter you unconscious.

So
the stage is set for a huge game of pool with possibly our very survival at stake.

It’s
time to watch the Bubonic versus Amnesty pool grudge match of Edinburgh town. Like a one-legged man entering an arse kicking contest our Amnesty is setting himself and us, up for a mighty fall.

Bubonic
can’t believe his luck and thinks you can’t play pool with just one hand. In his mind he is already spending that twenty spot on his next bag of draw.

‘It’s
my boozer so I’m breaking,’ Bubonic crows as he powers the cue ball into the fifteen balls at the other end of the table. It is a fantastic break with two striped balls and one spotted ball all falling straight away. Bubonic is right good. This game is not going to take long.

‘I’ll
give you a chance and be spots,’ he decides before sinking a further three of his balls until he leaves one of the spots covering the middle pocket making it even harder for his opponent.

Now
it’s Amnesty’s turn. I can see this going bandy straight away and imagine him tearing the green baize of the table with his very first shot ensuring that claret is spilt within seconds.

He
steps up to the table holding the cue in a vice-like grip. He takes his time then hits the cue ball which kisses one of the striped balls sending it into the top left pocket. There is a stunned silence from the plague lads.

Amnesty
takes another shot one handed and another ball goes down. The cue stick seems to have become an extension of his arm and he knows exactly how hard to hit the ball. Whack! Another striped ball goes down.

By
now the plagues are applauding his skill with comments like ‘He must be some sort of Paul Newman Hustler motherfucker.’ Even some of the old school gangsters by the door have wandered down to see what all the fuss is about and they cannot believe what they are witnessing.

They
are all impressed and so are we. No-one has ever seen Amnesty’s party trick before. What a talent. Where did he pick this skill up from? Has he actually sold his own soul to save all of ours?

Two
more shots are sunk and he is on the black already. Bubonic still has three of his balls left on the table.

Amnesty
has become that evil liquid metal T-1,000 killer robot from the future in
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
. The cue stick must have been fused into his body creating a whole new arm/cue type thing enabling him to hit these amazing trick shots. He is playing out of his skin.

His
brain must be chock full of physics shit to be working out all the angles and pulling these shots off one-handedly.

But
then, disaster strikes, he hits the black ball but does not give it enough legs and it stops just short of the pocket.

Bubonic
steps up confidently and starts to sink his last three spotty balls. Whether it is the spliff that he has been smoking all night or the shock of getting his backside whupped by a bloke playing with one hand, I could not tell you but his game is well off and he has a shocking visit missing his last ball, leaving a gift of a shot on the black for the Amnesty Android.

With
one last smash of the cue ball Amnesty is victorious. He snatches up his winnings from the table and yells ‘OK who the fuck wants a shot of tequila?’

Unsurprisingly
the whole bar takes him up on his offer. The ice is well and truly broken as we start chatting to the plagues and the older nut jobs. We find that their hearts are all in the right place, unlike their eyes, ears, noses etc.

They
all want to play Amnesty the one armed king of the pool table but no one can defeat him. During a break between games I ask him ‘Fella how the hell did you pull that off?’

‘Dunno,
I have been doing the one handed pool hustle for years. I won some big dough over in France once playing for cash against Johnny Foreigner. I have to be in the zone. If I’m sober I can’t relax enough and hold the cue properly. If I’m paralytic I’m worse than if I use both hands. However when I stick just enough alcohol in the tank I seem to be able to see everything clearly in my head and can whip anyone who steps up to the table one handed. Maybe I should go pro and bug out of the nine to five grind.’

Amnesty
gets his five minutes of fame and we get matey with the locals. They gave us daggers when we walked in because they are fed up of boozy wankers taking over their pub during The Fringe Festival and who can blame them?

Soon
the final bell rings and it is chucking out time. The barmaid yells out the old line of ‘Ain’t you got homes to go to?’ which is a polite way of telling everyone to bugger off.

The
plagues invite us on to a nightclub called Zen where they know the bouncer and will get us in for nothing. Result! Sure that was the club that those hens from earlier were going to end up in.

After
seeing ‘The Shite Pyramid of Geezers’ we are convinced the ladies will at least buy us a couple of pints each and/or give us a snog. Our luck must be in.

Gentlemen
lead on……With only our beer blankets to keep us warm we wander off into the cold Scottish night.

CIGARETTES
SMOKED IN THIS CHAPTER: 11…..71 TO GO

BOOZE
BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS, A LIGHT & BITTER AND AN ADVOCAAT

Chapter Twenty: I see the shit storm rising

We’re back in Sweaty Sock Land in the guest house in Edinburgh run by the fella with the most unconvincing rug on his head. It’s six a.m. Sunday morning and all fourteen of the stag party are at last in their beds giving it some heavy duty ZZZ time.

Some
have been asleep for hours like Light and Weight in Room #1 who avoided the whole Saturday night of dodgy strippers, one handed pool matches plus moody scum bags named after The Black Death. The pair of them are both recently married with young babies and are well chuffed to get to spend so much time in the Land of Nod away from early morning feeds, endless sterilising of milk bottles, plus the constant nagging from the enemy (wife) about how they can’t go out and enjoy themselves now they have a new born who cries every hour, on the hour. This night is pure luxury to these boys and the only reason they bothered to get a pass stamped for the weekender was to finally get some unbroken SLEEP.

In
the largest room in the place Room #2, four of our heroes are kipping. Kid L the groper of the poor working girl, Deviant the king of the crusty moleskins, Burke with half a concussion after head butting a lamp post and finally Kid J who has two fingers bandaged up that got broken in The Great Pyramid of Geezers topple in the afternoon. He finally sobered up after spending eight hours in the local A&E department waiting to get his digits fixed.

Room
#3 sleeps three, Village, Euro and Kid M. Of the trio Kid M and his lack of being able to have a clear out in a public lavatory has had the most rest. Village and Euro went off clubbing with The Plague Kids until four o’clock meeting up with the filthy hens from the afternoon session. Village even managed to get a snog and cop a feel off some poor inebriated lass who to be frank, had a body off Baywatch but a face off Crimewatch! Mind you he is no oil painting himself. Still at least he pulled a real live woman in front of witnesses and for once no money changed hands.

In
Room #4 Hit and Run are snoring away while a very distraught replacement stag, our top man, GAP is still heavily medicated after getting his jaw wired up. His lips are all fattened up, scabby and bloody and it looks like he has been French kissing a liquidiser while it was turned on. He has lost his two front teeth, one of which will soon be hanging from Deviant’s gold chain as a fashion statement. That statement being I have no fucking fashion sense what-so-ever! GAP is having some weird old dreams due to the sedatives bombing through his battered body. It will only be when he wakes up and clocks himself in the mirror that his real nightmare will begin. His Mum back home is going to tear him a new arsehole for ruining his forthcoming big interview day with his mangled up kisser.

Finally
Amnesty the one handed pool king and Mule who is covered in black boot polish are totally sound-o in the final bedroom, Room #5.

Unfortunately
there is a humongous load of faeces heading their way and our happy campers are about to have their R&R very rudely interrupted.

The
door to Room #2 comes crashing open and in strolls the owner carrying a baseball bat screaming ‘Wake up you dirty fuckers!’ To say he is unhappy is an understatement.

‘Get
your stuff and get lost!’ he bellows. The four lads in the room are jolted awake but are totally bemused by his behaviour.

Deviant
says ‘Hey mate take a chill pill. Where’s the fire? Who’s taken a shit in your handbag?’

This
comment does not help as Captain Hairpiece’s face seems to go a shade redder: ‘My handbag? No one has shit in my handbag but one of you bastards has taken a dump in one of my pot plants in the hallway. There is shit everywhere, up the wall and all over the floor. This is a disgrace. My family live here, this is my home and you have treated it like the local lavatory. You have disrespected me. I will not stand for it. I want you out of my hotel NOW!’

Kid
J tries to reason with him ‘Mate calm down. None of us in this room has done a plop in the hallway. There’s been some terrible mistake. We’ll all take DNA tests if you want us to prove that it wasn’t any of us.’

The
owner is still going ballistic. His wig seems to have developed a life all of its own and is moving about all over his sweaty pate. ‘It’s nothing to do with you lot eh? Well explain that then!’ he yells pointing at a trail of shitty footprints encrusted in the carpet leading straight over to the bed that Kid L is sleeping in.

Kid
L takes a sneaky peek under his bed covers and starts to look a little sheepish. The owner spots this guilty glance and rushes over to the bed and pulls back the blankets. It is not a pretty sight. Kid L is lying in what looks like that deep river of chocolate crud that the child with ‘body image issues’ drowned in during the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

(
Actually that’s quite enough of the politically correct old bollocks about ‘body image issues.’ I meant to say the obese obnoxious little fat kid in the original film and not the pointless remake version either.)

Within
Kid L’s bed there is definite proof that shit really does stick to a blanket. Sticky flaky bits of turd are all over him and this instantly gains Kid L the new nick name of DUNG BEETLE, as those insects just love rolling around in their own excrement. There is no need to call in the CSI boys just yet to carry out the proposed forensic testing, our friend Dung has been caught red handed…well brown handed I should say.

The
bed looks like a farmer has unloaded a lorry full of slurry into it. The shite is everywhere. Considering that Dung started in the hallway and then finished off within his pit, the dirty bastard has probably lost nearly half a stone in weight!

To
his credit Dung instantly makes a stab at fronting it out ‘This isn’t my Tom Tit (Shit) I swear to you. I’ve been framed. My Eartha Kitt is a nice reddish brown colour and consistency. This stuff all over me looks like rusty motor oil. One of these other cunts has stitched me up by taking a chod in my bed planting the evidence and making me look guilty. Come on, who was it?’

He
stares at the three other lads in the room, but they are having none of it.

‘Well
someone has to clean all this horrific mess up,’ says the owner.

‘Good
luck with that,’ crows the Dung Beetle Boy. ‘Thems the breaks of the inn-keeping trade, you knew the dangers when you opened this guest house. You are shit out of luck fella. I am certainly not cleaning up someone else’s Top Ten Hit (Shit) I’m off for a shower.’

The
owner is incandescent with rage by now and it looks like he is going to take a swing at Dung with the baseball bat as he skulks off towards the bathroom but instead he just mutters like a broken man, ‘You have five minutes to get the fuck out of here before I call the police.’

He
slams the door to Room Number 2 (ironic really as some posh folks call a poo, a number two) and the three guys howl with laughter, baying like hyenas on mescal.

‘Can
you believe the balls on the Dungster?’ admires Kid J. ‘I almost believed that someone else had dropped that load and that it wasn’t him.’

Burke,
still sporting a huge lump on his forehead just feels nauseous as the soiled bedding stinks worse than the port-a-loo’s at The Glastonbury Festival after a week of hippy faeces has been passed through them, remarks: ‘I think we had better get our shit together and depart.’

Another
round of giggles and then clothes get chucked in bags. These guys know when they have outstayed their welcome. It’s time to leave before the shit really hits the fan, oh arse it already has!

The first thing the three of us in Room #3 know about this crud kerfuffle is when the owner comes and knocks on our door about ten minutes later. He spends a good while hammering on the door before we all finally wake up and Village tumbles out of bed to open up.

‘Right
you lot, OUT!’ says the wig wearer without any ceremony at all.

‘What’s
the problem chief?’ Village asks.

‘Your
mates are animals. One of them has taken a shit in my plant pot, bed and floor leaving me to clean it all up, so the lot of you can just leave, right now!’

‘OK
fella but how is his loose bowel movement our problem? I apologise that he is a massive tosser with a dodgy ring piece but really it’s not our fault there’s a grim old mess. I’ve only been in bed for two hours and I need my beauty sleep!’ Village protests.

‘Look
I am giving you ten minutes to leave and then I am going to call the cops,’ he snaps and then buggers off.

The
three of us get packed to skank off as soon as we can and walk along the hallway to Room #2, the scene of the crime.

The
poor owner is down on his hands and knees scrubbing shit off the carpet and walls with a brush and bucket of soapy water. What he is completely unaware of is that flecks of brown watery shite are now stuck to his unconvincing fake mane.

Kid
M is droning on to the fella about how Dung is a right prick and well out of order. However he stops well short of actually offering any assistance in the clean-up operation.

I
nudge Village and Kid M to craftily point out the poo flakes hanging on to his fake barnet and the three of us are barely able to contain our laughter. I am biting the inside of my mouth so hard to try to stop the giggles that I actually draw blood.

Just
as we are all about to explode a young lad of around seven or eight years of age appears in the hallway. Looking down at his father he says ‘Papa you have some on your trousers.’

We
all look down and sure enough there is a huge patch of Dung Beetle’s brown do-do now attached to the bottom of his trendy slacks.

This
is too much for us to handle, so the three of us leg it down the stairs and out the nearest exit before totally pissing ourselves. Village is near hysterical and will probably need a slap around the face to help him regain control before the yellow stuff flows.

For
years to come the words, Wig, Shit, Papa and Trousers will send any one of us into convulsions of laughter.

We
finally calm down and take a wild stab in the dark as to where the rest of the crew have ended up and sure enough there they all are in the local bar a few hundred metres up the road.

Although
it is not even seven o’clock yet the publican has opened up early for us and the smell of cooked breakfast is in the air. He is even serving up pints of lager to see us all, once again well on the way to Groggsville. Top man, top wages!

Cigarettes
are passed around (I still need to go some way to smoke through the carton of 200) as everyone gets to hear about the open sewer that once was Dung’s bed. To this very day he still denies having an accident and insists that he was set up by MI6 or some other shadowy Government body.

Has
Dung Beetle’s weak arse pipe got him into further trouble over the years with a huge follow through of hot liquid plop laid in the marital bed not too long ago covering both him and a very unimpressed wife in shite?

You’ll
have to ask his wife because I am keeping well schtum. Let’s just say that there was a badly soiled double mattress fly tipped not too far away from their flat recently.

CIGARETTES
SMOKED THIS IN CHAPTER: 5…..66 TO GO

BOOZE
BINGED IN THIS CHAPTER: 2 PINTS AND A FERNET BRANCA