Side Alley 2 | How to Know A Man by the Cut of His Jib

The Important Questions of Life

The second in a series of vignettes, connections, and reflections that interweave with JellyBread, and perhaps provide some more understanding of some of the characters in it.

In the environment of the bar room, the evaluation of another person - man or woman - must be swift and ruthless. A simple mistake, to be too generous, too forgiving, too desperate, can result in a lifelong connection to someone who bores, annoys, or even intimidates you. Let us take three cases in point to examine the complexities of what at first seems a simple concept.

A rudimentary conversation at the bar, the pub quiet of an afternoon, but the stools more than half-occupied, and the topic moves to the mildly (relatively) morbid field of the “last meal”, the kind usually afforded the condemned before a righteous execution.

Keep it simple, says one. Cheeseburger. The works. Angus beef. None of this Wagu nonsense. Mayo, ketchup, mustard. Fries. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inner. Sesame bun.

A banquet, says another. Like we’d have at family weddings and stuff when I was a kid.

I think you’re getting banquet confused with buffet.

Whatever. I want vol-au-vents.

Steak tartare, says another.

Fuck off, the others say in chorus. Ponce.

But then there is the other guy, new to the committee of bar stool regulars, seems level enough, crew cut and denim jacket, but only half of them can remember his name - is it Joe? - and he’s only edging his way into the conversation - not too keen, which is good.

Sherbet lemons, says this maybe Joe.

Sherbet lemons?

Yeah. A bucket of them. And I eat them slow.

You’d be sick.

I don’t reckon. I reckon the adrenaline of knowing I was about to go to the electric chair would combat the nausea, and I’d be fine.

How long would it take you to eat a bucket of sherbet lemons?

Three-and-a-half-hours.

You’ve thought about this.

Main thing is… well, the main this is I fucking love sherbet lemons… but the second main thing is that when they flick that switch, and normally the whole chamber would stink up like burnt grilled meat as they cooked me from the inside, and I’d probably piss and shit myself because that’s what people being electrocuted do apparently is lose control of their bodily functions, but instead of the smell of charred meat and urine and shit, all that would come out of me would be the fresh citrus of the sherbet lemons. I’d like to leave on a positive note.

So, what about this guy?

Next: after-hours, a Thursday maybe, and a bunch of you have gone down to the rooftop bar down The Shed, and the music being played is mainly 90s American indy like Blind Melon and Sonic Youth and nobody remembers why it starts up - probably to embarrass Med who’s the only girl there - but Vardaman is halfway through an unrehearsed speech about masturbation, and Moses pitches in quoting the Woody Allen line about it being sex with someone you love (maybe this was why it started up, so Moses could quote the Woody Allen line), and Alden is there, laughing, but also wanting to go home to bed, and Vardaman is going for it, Med is laughing but also wanting to go and dance because The Wildhearts just came on, but then at the end of the table, nobody has really noticed Rusty has been sitting with them, tall and gaunt and a head like a Christmas Island statue, and he leans in with that deep hollow voice and he says, Most I ever wanked was fourteen times in one day.

Obviously, this stops everyone dead and as the silence breaks it is with a myriad different reactions. Moses coughs into a laugh, Vardaman splutters, Med walks off to dance, Alden pats Rusty on the shoulder as if he’s just vomited, Hersh says ah fuck man I did not want to know that etc etc.

It’s Vardaman who wants to know more. Why was that such a special day? When did it start to hurt? Was there a moment of transcendentalism after… say… number eleven?

But Rusty just offers to get a round in, and everyone says sure even though none of them can remember Rusty ever buying anyone a drink before never mind a round.

So, what about Rusty 14 Wanks?

And finally, sweetly, warmly, there is Bozz, who Moses once saw at a bus stop in the middle of the day eating an extra large Donner kebab with a love spoon, stands at the bar with all his hunking great mass, those broad shoulders and that forehead that could split granite, and he tells the regulars how, in his flat, when all his plates and bowls were dirty, rather than wash them, he’d simply wrap them in clingfilm and use them again.

After a moment of collective silence as everyone took this in…

But you wash them after that, right?

Nah… just keep wrapping them in clingfilm.

Everyone visualises this. Dishes and plates and bowls scattered around Bozz’s flat. Layers and layers and layers of clingfilm. The dishes glisten like giant oyster shells.

Deadpan, of course. Not an eyelid batters. Bozz, in his own mind, is winning at life.

These are just three tests. But life in The Pipistrelle is many things, not least a daily challenge. How would you do?