The Usual, by Peter Morford

You would have to say that Mr Jock Birnie is the most reliable and predictable of men. For six days a week, fifty weeks a year he will close his front door and march the quarter mile to his outfitter’s shop, “Birnie and Son, established 1975.” The staff will arrive at 9 o’clock, have just thirty minutes for lunch and leave at 5.40. Mr Birnie will be home at six. Fiona will offer him a glass of sherry and, fifteen minutes later, they will have dinner and a chat.

Fiona likes her soap operas and game-shows. He doesn’t, so at five to seven he always walks the hundred yards to The Rose and Ragwort for his evening drink, his routine for as long as anyone can remember.

I’m looking out of the window now, knowing that Jock’s on his way. I check my watch. He’ll be here any minute now. Dead on time, he comes in, nods to his friends, hangs up his coat, walks to his usual place at the end of the bar. He hauls himself onto the stool, leans against the low back. Elbows on the polished top he smiles at the little brass disc with his name on it. Mr Birnie’s seat.

Joe Partridge, the landlord greets him. “Your usual Mr Birnie?”

“It’s my birthday today. Exactly forty-five years ago, my father bought me my first legal drink in this pub. Your dad served us. You were a baby then so you won’t remember.”

Joe said “I know about it though. Your usual is it?” He knows that Mr Birnie will want a double scotch, single malt. He’ll probably play a game of darts. At eight he’ll treat himself to another double before saying “Good-night all,” at nine sharp. Joe prides himself on knowing his customers.

Jock seems to be thinking. “I’ll make a change tonight,” he says.

“A different scotch ? I’ve got a nice Bourbon.”

Jock growled, “American dishwater.”

“Gin?”

“Tarts’ ruin.”

“Vodka?”

“Russian bilge-water.” Jock leans forward and says “Between you and me, Joe, Doctor Pearson told me I drink too much – what rubbish – and that I should think of retiring. Maybe he’s right. I’m, 63, I can afford it. My assistant could buy me out. I’d keep the premises for the rent. I could take Fiona to New York to see our son. Do a world tour perhaps.”

“So what will you have?” Joe says yet again as two couples come to the bar.

He calls his daughter to help. “So what’s it to be?”

“A coke. Cherry flavour, no ice.”

Joe rummages for a bottle and wonders what the world’s coming to.

Happy Christmas!

 

 

A charming Nativity grouping from the church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Beaumaris, Anglesey. 

A potential story, by Peter Shilston

One of the leading gangsters in New York in the Prohibition era was neither Sicilian nor Jewish, but was born in England. His name was Owen Madden, and he came to New York as a child, to live with his aunt in a notorious slum  on the west side of Manhatten, known as "Hell's Kitchen". He joined the local street gang, the Gophers, and rose to be their leader. He was known as "Owney the killer".

   In the 1920s he made a fortune in bootlegging and the "numbers"  gambling racket; he owned the elite Cotton Club in Harlem, and was nicknamed "The Duke of the West Side". But in the early 1930s he retired to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he founded a hotel and casino that played host to many of his fellow-gangsters and sheltered Lucky Luciano when on the run from the authorities.

Madden remained there until he died peacefully in the 1960s; long enough to have met the young Bill Clinton as he was growing up in the state. Clinton's mother certainly encountered Madden, since she once had to prepare him for surgery, and recalled that the old bullets in his body lit up the x-ray screen "like stars in a planetarium!"

Although there is no reason to believe that Clinton himself ever met Madden, wouldn't an imaginary meeting make a splendid story, as the aged gangster imparts to the future president his advice on how to become a success in life!       

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