VP by Brian Heys, espresso martini

  

When you tell someone you’re a Vice President, they usually ask one of two things. ‘What’s that?’ or ‘which country?’ I wondered which way this girl would go.

“You mean like Mike Pence?” Her eyebrows raised.

That was a total surprise. I didn’t know the name but guessed Mike Pence was Vice President of the United States.

“Not really. I’m in consulting, not politics.”

“So, you’re like second in command of your company, right?”

“No. I’ll explain, but first, would you like another drink?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

I took the glasses back to the bar, which was still quiet, as most hotel bars are on a Monday night.

“Two espresso martinis. Make them large ones this time.”

The barman paused. “They’re one size, sir.” He held up a cocktail glass, two of which I’d already seen that evening.

“Right. Two double shots of tequila then, while we’re waiting.”

I checked my hair in the mirror, then carried the shots back to the table.

“I hope you like tequila?”

“What happened to the espresso martinis, Mister Vice President?”

That made me grin. “They may take a while. I thought you might be thirsty.”

She laughed and flicked her hair. First real good sign.

“So, what brings you to San Fran?” she asked as I sat back in the chair.

One of the staff came over and lit the candle on our table, throwing warm catchlights into the girl’s eyes. Suddenly I could see she was much prettier than I first thought. I needed to up my game.

“It’s a conference. Every year we take over the city.”

“I think I’ve heard of it. Every fall, right?”

“We call it autumn, but yes, every fall.”

“Autumn. That’s a weird word. It doesn’t mean anything!”

“Sorry.”

She laughed again. “You Brits. Always apologising!”

“Yes, sorry about that.”

She laughed again. “It’s kinda cute.” Another big tick.

“So where are you from?” I asked. “Which city do you live in?”

“I live in the Mission, just a couple blocks away.” She nodded.

“Really?”

She widened her eyes. “Yeah, really!”

“So … why do you drink alone in a hotel bar near your house?”

“It’s an apartment, not a house. And I like meeting interesting people.”

“Fuck,” I said. “And you ended up with me.”

She laughed and flicked her hair again. Big smile this time.

Over at the bar, the espresso machine was whirring. I could hear the relaxing buzz of quiet conversation at other tables, and the constant chime of lifts arriving at ground floor to swoosh people up to their rooms, showers, and beds.

I was used to the process. Catch someone’s eye, exchange a few glances to measure interest, then move on to longer gazes to establish intent. Next came the approach. Bold, confident, modest. Those three words were in fact three of our corporate values, instilled into me over the last fifteen years.

“Where in England do you live?”

“Chalk Farm, just north of Primrose Hill. Not far from Camden.”

“Is that anywhere near London?”

I laughed. “Yes, it’s actually in London. Sorry, I should have said.”

“There you go apologising again.” She shook her head and smiled.

“Have you ever been to London?”

“Yeah! It was awesome. We went to Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Tower of London, London Bridge …”

“Tower Bridge. You must mean Tower Bridge. London Bridge isn’t very exciting.”

The espresso martinis were being shaken now. I watched as the barman poured through a strainer into one glass then the other. He added a few coffee beans to the top, then picked up a silver tray on which he set our drinks.

The waiter came over, weaving through the tables with the tray balanced on one hand above his head.

“Charge to the room?” he asked.

I nodded as he placed the girl’s drink down first, then mine, followed by a small dish of shiny brown spheres.

“Chocolate-covered coffee beans,” he said. “Great with the martinis.”

“Cheers.” I raised my glass. “Forgive me, I believe it’s customary for us to at least know each other’s names before we start our second drink together.”

She laughed. “Nicole. Technically it’s our third drink. You forgot the tequilas.”

“Technically it’s my fourth, I’d already had one of these before I saw you.”

“Wow, I’d be pretty juiced if I had three of these.”

“Well, I used to say three glasses of wine and I’m anybody’s.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I paused, wondering.

“Your name?”

 “Oh sorry, how rude of me. It’s Christopher.”

She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you Christopher!”

“Likewise.” I grabbed a few chocolate-covered coffee beans.

There’s a disrespectful expression in England – beer armour – which refers to the uncanny way a person’s attractiveness increases in proportion to the number of drinks the viewer has consumed. I thought Nicole was beautiful before I’d even started, so by the time I’d finished my third espresso martini she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. No beer armour required.

I was trying to decide whether she would have another, but my intuition told me that would be one too many. I’d made that mistake a few times, bought a girl that one extra drink that pushed her over the edge. That was the point when they either started crying about an ex-boyfriend, fell asleep, or turned neurotic.

“I’m going to need a coffee,” I said, sighing.

“Me too. I’m a little woozy.”

It was time to close the deal. This was what they called the make or break moment. I had to ask for the business if I wanted to get the sale.

“There’s one of those Nespresso thingies in my room. George Clooney drinks them, so they must be good. I haven’t a fucking clue how to work it though.”

She laughed and gave me a sideways look through narrowed eyes. “And you’re telling me this because…”

“Well, I’ve already blown my expenses budget on these drinks. If you want a coffee, you’re going to have to join me in my room, no alternative.”

She smiled at me for five long seconds.

“Of course, if you’d rather …”

“Sure. Let’s go.”

The lift chimed it’s welcome to the fourteenth floor and the doors slid open. I took out my phone and found the digital key app as we walked down the corridor.

“1417,” I said and held my phone to the door.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.”

“Let me see that.”

She took the phone and the door beeped as the lock opened. This girl obviously had the magic touch.

“Ladies first,” I said, as she pushed the door open.

I heard the door slam behind me, and her hands were already on the back of my head. Our teeth knocked as unfamiliar faces came together.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Just shut the fuck up.”

Ker-ching. Deal done. Signed on the dotted line.

 

About the author

 

 Brian Heys grew up in Lancashire, in Northern England, during the 1970s and 1980s. His first short story was published in a local newspaper when he was eleven, which was a proud moment for him. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel, A Different Path. Website: brianheys.com. 

 

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Buried

 

by Brian Heys

espresso, or possibly a dirty chai

 Some people have happy memories of school, forever wishing they could return to those carefree times.

Not me.

I hated school, especially sports. Each week I got Mum to write a note about a sprained ankle, sore back, or ingrowing toenail. The games teacher recognised the weak excuses, and made me watch in the cold, where I stood, wishing I could be normal, running after the ball like the others, without my belly jiggling under my shirt.

Hugging my trombone case brought comfort, knowing I was good at music. That, and chess. I would look at my watch every few minutes, worrying I might be late for computer club. When Sir blew his whistle, I hurried to the changing room to collect my school bag, which stood out among the smart Gola and Head ones, a cheap, nasty thing, like my Tommy Balls shoes.

I was a typical target for a bully.

It began on the bus. I had my trombone case between my legs, cradled in my arms. There was a thump next to me as the boy who was about to become my bully plonked down and dropped his bag on the floor. I had never noticed him before, and he didn’t speak. He had no reason, until the bus turned onto the main road out of town.

The driver was going too fast, hurrying into a gap in traffic. I had let go of my trombone to push up my glasses, and as we swung to the left, the case fell and struck the boy on the knee. He yelled in pain, then punched my arm.

I was practising with the Junior Band in the music room during lunch break when that same boy came in, looking uncomfortable. Our music teacher made him wait in the corner until we finished playing.

‘Sir, I’ve done them lines.’

‘Read the first one out.’

‘I must. I must not disturb. Disrupt. The class by talking in lessons.’

He handed over pieces of paper, then noticed me in the brass section by the window. Our eyes locked until Sir tore up the lines without checking them.

‘Get out, Barnes. Next time it’ll be four hundred.’

The boy looked back through the glass door and bunched a fist at me, his cheeks flushed and hot-looking. I glanced at Sir to see if he had noticed, but he was busy handing out the sheet music for the next piece we were going to play.

When he got on the bus a few days later, I knew this boy was going to make my life difficult. His eyes sought me out among the other pupils, and he walked past several available seats to sit with me.

‘You were laughing.’

I hadn’t been laughing, and told him, but he wouldn’t hear it, just as he refused to hear my initial apology when my trombone case fell onto his knee.

‘No bugger laughs at me.’

I could smell breakfast on his breath. To take my mind off it I wiped away a patch of condensation as the bus drove over the River Calder at Cock Bridge. I loved seeing the morning mist that floated along the shallow valley in winter.

When I stood to get off the bus at school, my trombone clattered out of its case. He must have flicked open the catches while I wasn’t looking. I had to crawl under the seat to retrieve the mouthpiece which had rolled into a discarded Monster Munch packet. Pickled onion flavour. I hated pickled onions. Still do.

The bullying continued.

Several times a week, he sat next to me on the bus and whispered how disgusting I was, how fat I was, how I was gay, worthless, and how he was going to batter me if he saw me outside school. I tried to ignore him, almost succeeding.

I heard him though.

Everything went in. Some days he invaded my space, squashing me against the side of the bus when it turned and the centrifugal force pushed him into me. Then he would whisper again, digging his elbow into my side.

‘You’re nowt but a fat turd.’

He got on the bus after me, so I couldn’t avoid him. If I wanted to board after him I had to walk halfway across town. Too far. I sometimes wondered what would happen if I stood up to him. I was bigger, and could probably overpower him by weight, but aggression wasn’t an ingredient in the ongoing formation of my young character. I was never a violent person.

Until I eventually did run into him outside school.

 

 

At the start of Summer holidays, my friends and I had discovered a small hole in the ground on the old town tip. It looked like a fox burrow or badger sett until we returned with a torch and shone it into the hole, realising it was the open sunroof of a buried Bedford camper van.

We widened the hole and climbed in. Most of the interior was stripped, including seats, beds, and units. The dashboard was intact, but the steering wheel had gone. I was afraid of rats, but we soon discovered nothing lived in there except spiders and beetles.

The van made a great den until the novelty wore off and we discovered the excitement of sifting through the tip for old pots and bottles. We marked the entrance with a discarded red fire bucket so we could find it again, but that disappeared after a few days, and we forgot about our den.

Before we knew it, our mums were buying us new uniforms for the autumn term, and the end of the holidays approached like a speeding school bus.

It was early morning, and I was down at the tip for the last time that summer. Heavy drops of dew hung from the rosebay and cow parsley that grew in thick, tangled patches. My friends weren’t due for a couple of hours, and I was alone, far from home. Despite working solo, I had already found a few old poison bottles and laid them out on the bank where the rest of our day’s finds would collect until it was time to go home.

‘I said I were gonna do you if I saw you.’

My scalp tightened at his voice. I whipped round and lost my balance, tumbling down the slope, stopping short of a dense clump of nettles that swayed in anticipation.

He laughed. ‘Where’s your gay trombone today?’

I scrambled back up so he didn’t have the advantage of height. My hands clawed at the earth, and grainy soil compacted under my fingernails. My bleached jeans were stained with dirt that Mum would struggle to wash out, and my breath became gulps of air with the effort of climbing.

What I saw in his eyes changed everything.

Fear.

The only person who knew I was being bullied apart from Mum, was an old fellow who lived a few doors down our street. He once saw me crying at the bus stop, and tried to cheer me up, telling me all bullies were cowards. That was easy for him to say. Adults never got bullied. I hadn’t believed him at the time, but at that moment on the tip I wondered if he was right, and Ewan was a coward too.

That was my bully’s name. Ewan Barnes. He was older than me, but shorter, slighter, and possibly a little bit scared of me without anyone around to back him up, if he needed it.

My fringe stuck to my forehead and my glasses had slipped down my nose. I pushed them up but the sweat on my greasy skin made them slip back again.

‘I’ll count to ten. Start running. Or are you too fat?’

I faced him at the top of the bank, noticing his cheeks were full of freckles. Songbirds began issuing warning calls in the scrub that bordered the tip, joined by the cackle-laugh of a magpie. The sun slid under a cloud and Ewan glanced up, distracted.

‘Is there owt between them ears besides shite?’

‘My friends are coming in a minute.’

‘You’ve no friends. Except fat gaylords, like you.’

I never intended to kill him. Only teach him a lesson.

My heart thudded harder in my chest and my ears. Muscles in my arms went rigid and trembly, and my breath came faster. To my right, I spotted a steel fencing pin sticking up from the ground. The attached tape had snapped and fluttered loose like a red and white ribbon. I reached out and tried to haul the pin up, but it was stuck.

Ewan jumped on my back and locked his arms around my neck. I fell backwards but kept hold of the pin, and our combined weight freed it as I collapsed back on top of him. He gasped, winded by my weight.

The fence pin was lying next to us. I rolled and grabbed it, using it as a lever as I staggered to my feet. Ewan crouched like an athlete on invisible starting blocks. He rose in one slow movement and beckoned with his hands.

‘Have a go if you think yer hard enough!’

He stepped back, and I swung the heavy pin at him. It swished inches from his chest, and he swayed, wide-eyed, then stumbled over an old piece of rubber tubing. I swung the pin again, and he fell.

I stood above him, with the point to his stomach.

‘I were only joking…’

‘Get up!’

I noticed Ewan’s arm bleeding as he stood. I jabbed the pin towards him again.

‘Get lost! Don’t come back!’

He walked backwards, keeping his eye on me and the fence pin. At first, I didn’t notice it, but after about twenty feet I saw the hole that was the missing sunroof of the buried van. Ewan was heading straight for it.

I could have warned him. Should have warned him.

Instead, I let him step into it.

 

 

The fencing pin had been one of many marking out sections of the tip, and a couple of weeks later, bulldozers and excavators appeared, accompanied by big yellow tipper trucks with wheels as high as grown men. The area was landscaped by Christmas, and a gentle hill buried the old pots and bottles, and of course, the van.

Apart from the nightmares, I had shut away what happened. The report in yesterday’s Evening Telegraph brought everything back. The remains of a body had been found by surveyors taking ground samples for a new business park being built where I played when I was twelve. The remains were identified as those of a teenage boy. After a brief inquest, Lancashire Constabulary issued a statement saying they were closing the case relating to the disappearance of Ewan Andrew Barnes who was reported missing thirty years ago, aged fourteen. The final verdict was death by misadventure.

I woke in the early hours of this morning for the first time in months, my chest soaked with sweat, the bottom sheet stuck to my back. In my dreams, the sequence of events is always the same. Ewan, stepping backwards in the direction of the hole. I advance with the fence pin. He falls in, his jaw hits the edge as he goes down.

I hear something snap.

After long seconds, I approach. My eyes adjust to the light, and I see him lying inside, his neck bent at an angle. Blood comes out of his mouth. A lot. I wonder if he has bitten through his tongue.

Then I notice his eyes, shining but unseeing.

Staring up at the open sunroof.

About the author 

Brian Heys grew up in Lancashire, in Northern England, during the 1970s and 1980s. His first short story was published in a local newspaper when he was eleven, which was a proud moment for him. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel, A Different Path. Website: brianheys.com.