Time!

© Tom J Vowler 2005

Let us pray…

Consider the congregation around me: these fellow drinkers; these contemporaries. One hundred faces, one hundred stories. A hundred reasons for being in this converted church. Most are sanguine, Friday folk purging the week, leaving troubles behind in offices, factories, call-centres. Look harder and there are pockets of sadness; wretched faces on a couple in the corner. They’ve tried to leave an argument, a mood at home, but it’s drifted in behind them like an unwanted aunt. They sup beer solemnly beneath stained glass, desperate that others’ joy will prove contagious.

Some resist the times, lighting up, a fug of smoke billowing above the social outcasts, giving them up. This is a place of drugs now, and tobacco is still just about legal. A fix; we are here for our hit. Nicotine, alcohol, anaesthesia. Some need more than others; some hope to leave their sins in the bottom of a glass. People come here to worship and to forget.

Anger stews within a couple of the men, who will look elsewhere for satiation. Their proud chests, their sea-black eyes hint at what’s in store for some poor bastard later. But that’s later; they’ll be your best friend for the first few pints. For now it is frugal skirts and the pangs of desire that occupy them, for this is also a hunting ground. A casual shag before a casual fight. Both would be perfect, but these boys were born a thousand years too late for such consequence-free utopia.

Bar staff run out of arms, thanklessly scurrying in front of a thirst four deep. They are the guardians of the drug; this is their parish. I wonder where they get their fix?

A man sits alone, face creased, eyes lucent – he’s part of the furniture. He’s a warning from our future of past abuse. Gnarled yellow hands roll cigarettes; his wedding band is long since pawned. His pint looks like thin treacle as it slips into him, coursing through veins, buffeting the memories, gorging itself on what’s left of his soul. He watches the pub, his pub, ebb character as youngsters bring chrome and light with them. It’s going to be a wine bar soon.

He seems curious at their drinks: a multitude of viscosities, colours, shapes; some frothing, others lifeless as forgotten coffee. They are slammed down throats, one mouthful, then on to another. He can’t see the pleasure in it. How can they savour the taste? (Of course, they gulp them to avoid the taste; the more repellant the drink, the better.) He spots my bloody mary and we almost share a moment.

Between drinks the choir type messages into phones, their thumbs working as extra tongues. The old man shares nothing with their generation, except the need to attend service, to give praise.

Habit draws his eyes down to a space on the floor, and for a second he struggles to remember if Jack isn’t there because it’s a Friday, or because Jack is no longer there. Too old to get another one, and soon there’ll be no pubs for dogs left. He told me all this last week. I’d join him but his world is an infectious one. I half smile, but he looks through my eyes rather than into them. We’re ghosts to him, as he is to us.

He watches girls lose their balance, their dose matching the men’s these days. Their lithe bodies and honey skin remind him of something forgotten; echoes from a repressed past. Occasionally one snaps at him, giggles, chastens him for his solitude: Come on, love, join in…He must have a thousand stories she’ll never hear. He must have seen it all.

At last my mood lifts, chemical joy kicks in and I return to the service. The table welcome me back with mock scorn. For now, just for tonight, these friends love each other more than anything. They share little away from here, but you can suspend time in this place, postpone your departure. You can watch your troubles fuse with others’, watch their potency dilute. People have been worshipping here for years.

A cacophonous cheer greets my walk to the bar. A Hallelujah.