Zest On A Government Claim / Henry Maguire
I WAS WORKING when the UC called, behind the bar in an Irish place on Denmark Hill.
‘Hello Thomas this is Laura from the Forest Hill Jobcentre.’
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Are you still in need of income support?’
‘Yes,’ I lied. It came out easy.
‘That’s fine, expect payment to be made on the 29th of April.’
Today was the 27th. I exhaled deeply as the relief carried me high. I hadn’t realised what dread had been clinging to me like a zombie infant. There had been a gorilla on my back and he was called the Rent. The phone had euthanised him. Off he slumped, all the way down to the juicy pavement
below. I was broken from this stupor by a man shouting ‘Oi Geezer’.
I turned and looked at him.
‘Fucking rum and coke,’ he said.
‘You want a big one?’ I replied without thinking.
My mind was still on Rent, the splattered gorilla. The man looked stunned and his eyes grew wide and then narrowed like they were breathing.
‘You’ll getcha fucking head kicked in saying that kinda shit in here.’
Now I had another gorilla in front of me. I remembered where I was and laughed. I went down to the cellar to skulk around and found half a bottle of whiskey from a cash and carry with the price sticker still on and a heavily worn copy of Zarathustra— The fuck it was doing there I will never know. I punched in the code on the small wooden door that led to the office that was down there. The floor was littered with copper coins, receipts and bits of cardboard. I made myself at home behind the cheap wooden desk. Sitting back with my feet up, I drank and read. Half an hour or so later, Sac came into the office. Sac was a Bangladeshi family man who was doomed here. He acted like the boss but he had just been there for years. He was painfully unaware that no matter how seriously he took his meaningless post, he would never be given any respect upstairs. I don’t know if he got any satisfaction from it. I couldn’t imagine him taking any pleasure in anything. He must have fucked his wife with the same expression he had stocking the fridges.
‘Callum what are you doing?’ he never remembered my name.
‘Taking a break,’
‘No, no, no, no, you need to tell me whenever you go anywhere. For a piss, for a cigarette, to the cellar- Anywhere.’
I felt deeply sorry for Sac.
‘Well you won’t need to worry about where I piss anymore, Sac. Tell the big man I quit and he can shove his job up his tag rugby, dwarf-sized arsehole.’
The dignity a man had when he wasn’t going to starve. I felt like I had discovered fire. I walked out and marvelled at my genius. Hear my magnum opus: Work is dead. Hallelujah on the bum. Now onwards to live my parable. Deliciously.
I came back first thing the next day as the pub was opening. I saw Molly, the nursing student, putting out the menus and squatting down to turn on the quiz machines. It was thanks to her that I had gotten the job. She was one of the good ones. On my first day I had been drinking rum with the boss and he said she had vouched for me. She had a twin that also worked there but I could never remember her name. Molly saw me at the bar and came straight over. She was short and plain with long brown curly hair, pale skin and thick black glasses.
‘ I didn’t know you were on today Tom!’ she smiled.
‘I’m not. I quit,’
‘You’ve got the right idea. Why are you here then?’
‘Well, I came in to see you didn’t I’.
My glass remained filled for a couple of hours.
By now it was early afternoon and the pub had slipped deeper. Half a handful of regulars sat in the sad harmony of the congregated loneliness, that only existed for a brief few hours before the evening revival of stagnant men. Sun glared through the large windows that filled most of the wall in front of the bar. In the silence, I could hear my temples pulsing softly, the creaking of the floorboards and the bleating half-arsed sermon of my beer drunk soul. Whilst leaning back on my stool I smiled to myself and thought that this was the life, or this life was at least better than the one I had yesterday. That would do for now. I wondered why I hadn’t done this months ago. Yesterday, those able bodied folk who refused to work had been parasites. Leeches who didn’t need a hand up but grabbed it anyway. They would rather stew in idle privilege than sell their time. But now I saw that they were great men of leisure and I was determined to be one of them- A great man with things to do. I was never going to waste another hour on the clock. The things people put themselves through didn’t make sense to me anymore. The sheer amount of shit they had to eat just to get by. I could no longer hack the eight hour slog of nothingness. The human spirit was not equipped for it.
It was irrational and rewardless: It was pure subjugated self harm. I had stuck it out somewhat and given it a go, but there was no going back. I heard the front door open from behind me and knew it was John. You could always smell John. John was one of the most disgusting men I had ever met. He was a pisshead who lived above the place since the 80’s. He had wispy grey hair that stuck to his round hamster face, black fingernails and the saddest eyes I had ever seen. When I first saw him someone warned me not to shake his hand as the last person who did quit with pink-eye. He was a man who had been spotted in all sorts of shameless and self degrading instances. Once, he had left his door open and had been found unconscious, naked and covered in his own shit. The bartenders had to close the place around him and you could always smell the sodden rot of a man who had truly given up. He would always be glued to the quiz machine prodding the screen with his fag and shit stained fingers. One time I saw a group of young professionals have a go on the machine after he had spent the better half of a day on it and my heart sang. There was no way I was going to take the smell and self pity so I got up and sat on the other side of the bar next to a vaguely familiar old man. A few minutes passed before he turned to me.
‘You don’t remember me do you?’ he said.
‘No.’ I replied without moving much.
‘You tried to bar me the other night but you got it wrong. You got the wrong bloke.’
‘Oh, well you’re here now.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Tom.’
‘They call me the Beast or at least they used to,’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ he pulled on his foam for a few seconds.
‘I used to be a fucking nutcase.’ he said
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, the chef here said to me, here the other day I found a bit of a naughty weapon under one of the counters. I asked him about it, if it had a red handle and that and it turns out it was the machete I had stashed here about 28 years ago now.’ he said.
The old man was trying to make sure that he wouldn’t be forgotten.
Chatting this shit to younger men must have been his best shot at legacy.
‘We working hard?’ he asked, eyeing up my pint.
‘I quit.’
‘Why you here then?’
‘Compensation,’
‘Owe you money do they?’
‘Time. They’ve probably taken a thousand hours off me,’
‘Time?!’
‘Yeah, it ain't natural.’
‘It’s work.’
‘Yeah well, I’m never gonna work again. It’s over. Anyone who does is a fool. It’s like you’re just stuck grinding away in a little machine. You’re not even a cog in it, you’re just the grease. I don’t wanna be grease anymore so I’m just gonna sit here.’ I told him.
The old man couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘It ain't even proper graft you lazy cunt!’ the old man scoffed, shaking his head as he went out for a fag.
The evening soon came and through the hum of my pissedness I felt truly clever. I looked up at Molly now glowing like an angel floating over the copper taps.
‘Molly, baby, you destroy me. That’s the wrong side of the bar you’re on you know. You shouldn’t be there anymore. It’ll stunt your soul and your hair will all fall out.’
‘I don’t finish until six, and I need the money. What are you gonna do for cash?’ she asked with her eyes on the pint she was pulling.
I grinned and raised my glass.
‘I am all set to thrive on a government claim baby!’
She looked confused and awkwardly wandered away to the end of the bar to stack glasses. After a few more I went out into the side alley where you could have a fag undisturbed by the endless freaks of the high street.
There was a slight calm that was hidden away from the infinite traffic of the night. I popped my knuckles and took a long toke in the cold. With the scrape of a footstep behind me, I heard ‘HERE LOOK IT’S THE YUPPIE FLU!’ I turned around and was met with an ear-splitting crack and then all I could see was grit. I looked up and something came crashing down through my eye. Then the boot came, twice into my stomach before I was splayed out on my back like a dead moth in a dull museum. The old man was out of breath. He held up a sock and a red snooker ball fell out onto the ground. He kicked it behind a skip before making his way back inside.
I woke up in my bed two days later. I couldn’t remember how I got back or when I had stopped drinking. I got up and made my way out to go and collect my winnings from the state. I whistled on my way to the cashpoint in the rust tasting glory of my pre-hangover meridian. A brief ceasefire in which my head was hollowed but the drink still filled my blood, keeping at bay the relentless tide of fear that would soon occupy my mind like a warlord, until the failed state of my body was blessed with sleep. I punched in the numbers but the screen would only show zeros. I rang up the number that had called me a few days before.
‘Hello, I haven’t been paid.’
‘What is your name?’ presumably Laura replied.
‘Thomas, you know, from the other day.’
There was a brief pause for ten or so seconds, filled with breathing and a few clicks.
‘Thomas, the reason you haven’t been paid is because you failed to confirm your identity on the website.’
‘My identity?’
‘Yes. Please go onto the website and confirm your identity. Only then will your money be ready on the 29th of next month.’
I hung up and suddenly became aware that I was on a street filled with people on their way to work. It appeared I had joined the dead eyed commute by mistake. I ambled along a few streets kicking litter until I began to see HIRING in every window. I took a left and then a couple more before trying the rights. No matter which way I went, I was always met with the same sign. After a while, I stopped at a dark blue door and looked on up at the HIRING. It hung there ignored like those human billboards that fanatics wore with doomed warnings of the end.
Henry Maguire (b.1995) is a British writer based in South London. His work uses black humour in response to menial jobs, pub realism, tarmac romanticism and cornershop misanthropy. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel.
