Lockdown Day 39: Thursday 30th April, 2020

We drank.
We drank some more.

Inevitably the stilted conversation with the stunted cousins drifted onto football. Partick Thistle were not on their radar so, I regaled them with my sodden tale of a grey evening at Hampden the previous month watching Beckenbauer lift the European Cup as Bayern Munich sneaked a single goal on the counter attack and ruthlessly stole the game from St Etienne. We were drunk. Sie waren betrunken. Jeder war sinnlos betrunken. An alcoholic declension never tutored at school. Not even in Glasgow. Unfortunately, mia san mia, they were Bavarians through and through. The conversation became louder, more animated. ‘Their team played methodically to win. The French deserved to lose for exposing their defensive weakness. They forfeited all sympathy by crying when they lost.’ All perhaps true, but 50,000 people in that crowd felt the more exciting team had lost that night. Still the bars were open till 3 a.m. that night, to either savour the sweet taste of victory or drown bitter sorrows.      

  The stool was wobbling badly now. At least, I assumed it was the stool and not my legs. Sometimes you just don’t know for sure. One way or the other it felt like I was going to hit the deck.

  I shifted my weight to the right to see how that would help.

  Suddenly the stool collapsed as the offending leg parted company with the circular seat. I leapt up rapidly to avoid landing on my arse. As I slipped forward onto my own two feet, the stool-leg began to fall. Bending low, I swooped and grabbed it before it clattered onto the floor. As I stood up drunkenly, blood–soaked alcohol rushed to my head. I wobbled forwards, waving my arms around to regain my balance.

  Spooked by the crashing chair, seeing me hefting a three foot wooden stave, the neonAzi, threw a wanton punch my way. It glanced across my jaw as I wobbled back.

  “No,” I started, “I was just…“

  He swung again before I could finish. Seeing Max throw a blow, Mosel launched himself pavlovian at Dan, reacting impulsively. It was that kind of place. The world is that kind of place. 

  Max swung again, left, right, left. Each wild swing missing the mark. I shoved him two-handed, backwards across the bar. Before I could say a word he rushed back over, grabbing a stool and swinging it wildly above his head.

  I dropped to the ground and rapped my stool leg hard across his shins. Like a fractured marionette, he danced sideways towards the door, cursing, “Fotze!”

  Darting across the floor, I cracked the chair-leg over Mosel’s shoulders to make him release Dan, then spun to ram the point down hard on Max’s toes. As he hopped back yelping, I kicked his legs from under him. He hit the deck hard, the bar-stool he had been swinging flying backwards towards our now attentive audience. He wrenched my left leg from under me as he fell so I axe-heeled him in the gut with my right then struggled to my feet. He grabbed my long straggling hair and dragged me back down again, smashing an arm across my nose. That hurt like fuck and I thought for a moment I’d black out. I kneed him in the kidneys as I gasped for breath. He hit me. I hit him. He hit me again. I uppercut his chin and thought he was going to black out but he swung wildly in blind defence, connecting hard a couple of times. I elbowed him two or three times on the chest and chin then he grabbed me and we grappled, rolling around on the floor like a couple of showgirls in an oiled-up catfight. Gathered around, the big bad Bosche bikers cheered us on until it became blatantly obvious that neither of our hearts were in it. Max passed up an opportunity to smash my skull into the floor. I ignored a chance to elbow him in the eye. Our fight ended not with a bang but a wimpy whimper as we squatted exhausted on hands and knees. I thought I was going to throw up.  

  Seeing this, the cheerleading Teutons moved on to Desperate and Mosel. Mosel was lean, mean and certainly not green. Dan was as tall, but, like me, lacked the hard-packed muscle that comes with years of grafting that teenagers just don’t have. Both well over 6 foot they were still going at it, drunkenly lamping each other, bouncing around the bar and scattering the punters – although the bikers just bounced them back in if they came their way. Although it was well past dark o’clock, the street was now packed with expectant spectators cheering them on. Where do these people come from? Panting heavily as we hauled each other to our feet, Max wrapped his arms round Mosel and I grabbed B as we wrestled them apart. Job done I thought, as I gasped for breath.

  But… just as we pulled proceedings to a close the nightwatch stepped through the inadvertent audience, smiling leerily.

  “Steh!”         

  ‘Fuck’ Two skip-capped Polizei lounged almost louchely in, ordering everyone to stay where they were, to calm down, to not move. While instinct took over and we looked for a route to run, the bikers, being good honest bikers, took the statutory offense and faced off to the troll-patrol.

  Being a face-saving gesture, this would only last so long. Behind the leather palisade, Beef and I stood unsure and uncertain.

  Max rapped me on the shoulder, “Hier. Diesen weg. Kom!”  I grabbed Beef. Max threw open the rear exit and called us over, “Schnell”. We raced through. “Geh!” he pointed down the alley, “Schnell!” and legged it.

  “Thanks” I panted to his shadow as Dan and I bolted in the opposite direction.  

  Straight down the alley.     

  Darting round the corner.

  Straight into the two backup Polizei waiting out of sight.

  Nicked in Nurnberg. Magic. That was all I needed. Not how I had intended spending my sweet sixteen. Especially not after my fifteenth in Norway.