After the Storm

The Proposal (Part 2)

"Aye my good man! Give me another pig ear!" I slammed down the tankard and bellowed.

"Coming!" The bartender yelled from the small back room.

I impatiently waved my fist in the air. "Hurry you tosser! I ain't got all night!" I was in a considerably horrid mood and every little thing annoyed me at that moment. "If you don't have pig ears then sheep tails or cow snouts are fine!"

"Wait you bloody git! Are you mad or what?" The man behind the counter growled and slammed another cup down before me. "You better be able to pay for all this."

I gulped down half the contents of my fourth drink in one large swig. My hand waved carelessly at the other tankards I had emptied and a scornful laugh escaped my lips. "Don't worry I ain't a miser unlike some rich ass bastards."

The face of a certain rich ass bastard popped up in my head and I snarled. That knob head was the death of me. He and his beastly wife-to-be could go lick a donkey's arse.

The three men next to me stopped their conversation to blatantly stare at me and my teeth gnashing.

"He's a nutter that one." One of the men glanced at me then leaned in and mumbled to his friend. They laughed and clanked their crummy mugs together.

"Who are you calling a nutter?" I swung my body to face them.

Those dirty bastards with their dirty mugs and their dirty jokes and dirty faces. I scoffed. Did I mention that they were dirty?

"I ain't no nutter!" I roared and sloshed my beer. How dare those filthy beasts insult me? I stood, ready to give them a piece of my mind, or fist. I had the disposition of an irritable harpy that had too few children to eat, all thanks to that maggot named Ambrose.

"Calm down mate." The man who spoke was large and meaty. He had an impressive beard that could give Karim a run for his money, and overgrown eyebrows that seemed to hang down over his eyes like curtains.  A good natured laugh resounded from the giant fluff that covered the majority of his face. "We ain't insulting you. Nutter ain't always a bad word."

I stopped shaking my fist at them.

"Ye could be a good crazy ye know?"

I contemplated his assurance. Nutter actually sounded like a fairly friendly term. I couldn't exactly recall what it meant in my befuddled state, however I knew that it was commonly used as an insult. "Well but I ain't any nut or acorn! I'm a good man, I am!" I pounded my chest for effect.

The middle-aged men guffawed. "Yer seem like a cool lad, just a lil' barmy." The scrawny guy whose limbs seemed squeezed out from a tube, complimented. "Yer wanna drink with us?"

I grinned jollily, mood significantly better as I agreed. These men didn't seem too bad company.

The small crew stood up, all of them stumbling around like drunken sailors. The hairy one told me when I gave them a confused look, "Wer gonna go to te other room to drink some more booze from 'ose small cups."

My bewildered frown got him explaining. "I 'ave no goddy idea what it is but it's alcohol. A pretty darn good one in fact."

"Ahhh, I get it." I didn't get it at all.

We floundered our way to the other end of the bar in which the bearded man had kindly pointed out to me. It seemed vaguely familiar.

Why was this place so recognisable?

A lightbulb went off in my head. Wasn't this the room I had drunk that throat-burning booze when Ambrose and I were searching for the file?

At the thought of my employer, I slapped myself. Not mentally but physically. My cheek hurt, but it was a good reminder not to think about that man.