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Bobbin Monologue By Iain Maloney ____________________ So there I was just the other day, sitting in
the Bobbin over a quiet pint with Dan, the funny one you'll remember. So anyway,
I turned to him and said something along the lines of, "Do you remember the
days of our youth lad, those crazy first year days when the sun was a distant
memory and the low grade Spar vodka flowed freely in our veins and rooms, when
students were students and the Loft was called The Elf?" "Vaguely," Dan replied, sharpening
that legendary wit on another Murphy's. "Those were the days of Dickens,
Hamlet and Monday nights with Irish John. Them were great days. Whatever
‘appened to ‘em?" "We grew old lad," I replied thinking
that now, at almost twenty and one I was nearly fully grown up and therefore
nearly dead. It reminded me of a time years before, when I
was sitting in our local, a dirty little den that made its income chiefly from
exploiting underage delinquents like myself, and I turned to my mate Barry, who
had just made an even bigger tit of himself by smashing a beer glass with a
stray cue ball from the ever ripped pool table in the corner beside the bandit
,and said to him, "God, lad, we'll be teenagers soon. Ain't the days passin'
right quick. It seems only yesterday that we nicked that forklift and drove it
down the road at a heady but still quite safe speed of fifteen miles per
hour." To which Barry, ever the realist, replied,
"It was fookin’ yesterday ye daft twit. Look I've still got that bruise
from where the you caught me with the forks." He was right an all, there it sat raised and
purple like the heather on some far flung Yorkshire moor, highlighted by the
dull glow of his Lambert and Butler Light. I was brought back to the Bobbin by the sound
of Dan's exclamation that it was my turn to brave the obstacle course of rugby
players in order to procure us another round of the black stuff. "Aye,
we’re getting on a bit now, lad, sooner or later you'll find us in some smoky
pub nursing pints while we sit and reminisce about our youth." Groaning as I forced my tired old legs up from
the stool, recently converted from a beer keg I received a monetary note slipped
into the palm of my hand by the ever-ready Dan. “My round,” he said, “I
just wanted to see if you’d go for it.” I wasn’t impressed by his cheek but it had
taken me long enough to stand up so I thought a may as well make the trip now.
Anyway my bladder isn’t what it used to be and I felt that a trip to the
lavatory was an increasing necessity. I stood at the bar contemplating the random
factor graffiti of “Beware the Caribou” which adorned the wall above the
urinal, an unusual warning in central Aberdeen but I heeded it with due care and
consideration and, upon receiving the two pints of Murphy’s which I had
instructed the bar person to prepare for me, I looked both ways before setting
out into the throng of Bobbin customers. It had now been some ten minutes since I had
left Dan at the table and he greeted me with the same introspective left wing
look he gives to anyone brave enough to approach his table. “Here’s
your change lad,” I told him, placing the pints on the wobbly table surface,
careful not to waste any of the beverage and handing him his change. “£1.20 out of a fiver. Not bad.” he said
looking pleased. “But when you were walking back you carried a beverage in
your right hand which is two fingers.” I had forgotten that we were playing
International Beveraging Rules and pretended to curse as I was forced into
downing a small but welcome portion of my drink. “Oi, you mentioned the d- word in your
monologue,” Dan butted in, forcing me into taking some more of the non-bitter
liquid. “Still we’re only third years at the
moment,” I said to him after swallowing as much as I could. “Not passed it
yet.” “And at this rate we’re not going to pass
it,” Dan replied unleashing his semantic flexibility with rapid and effective
force. “Oh you little wit,” I replied, mumbling
the ‘w’ of wit in order to make it sound similar to shit, which was what I
was trying to say in my aged, round about sort of way. Still, we’d probably
last a bit longer if we just stayed away from the bar and its caribou. Which, of
course, we won’t. ____________________
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(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2004