Ali was engaged in deep conversation with his hair stylist. ‘I know darling,
you can’t trust men. They’ll only leave you for some other woman the moment your
back’s turned.’
The hair stylist nodded her head knowingly.
Ali recognised Barry the moment he walked thorough the door and welcomed
him with jubilant surprise. ‘Oh my, it’s you. What’re you doing in here?’
‘I—err—was thinking on getting a haircut and a shave if possible.’
‘Fantastic! I have to say you could do with one; I mean that Supertramp look
died back in the eighties.’ Ali turned to his hair stylist. ‘Betty, this was the man who
beat me in the chess tournament.’
‘Was it?’ said Betty, raising an inquiring eyebrow towards Barry.
Ali patted Betty playfully on the arm. ‘Don’t be like that Betty; he beat me fair
and square,’ before turning back to Barry and asking: ‘Who won the final in the end?’
‘I did.’
Ali’s big brown eyes lit up. ‘Did you? Hear that Betty, I lost to the winner.’
Wanting a simple short back and sides, Barry was instead coaxed into
purchasing a ridiculous, spiky, blonde-highlighted mullet that was apparently the
height of fashion. Having acquired his new do Barry was then given a shave, after
which Ali talked to him of the benefits of having a manicure/pedicure combo. Feeling
like he had nothing to lose other than his masculinity, Barry decided to go for it.
‘My my, you could grow potatoes under those Mr Broomfield,’ said Ali in his
distinctively feminine voice.
Barry didn’t have an answer to this; he preferred to sit in silence while Ali
nattered to Betty about the latest celebrity scandal, what was happening on Big
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Brother, Coronation Street, Eastenders and then finally, how many calories there are
in a vol-au-vent.
‘Well darling, I suppose it all depends on the filling.’
We all know what filling you like, thought Barry, hiding a smirk. Pathetically
he was trying to bolster his sense of being a man because he was fairly certain your
average macho lumberjack didn’t go in for pedicures.
In spite of enjoying the pampering he’d received sitting alongside Ali, Barry
hoped he wouldn’t next be persuaded he needed his bikini line done. Thankfully he
wasn’t, because upon seeing the bill for hair removal and nail polishing, he nearly
passed out. He didn’t have the bravery to voice a discontented word as he coughed up
the dough however, accepting that high living came at a high price.
Taking leave of the salon, Barry was treated to an excessively pleasant
farewell by Ali.
‘Seeya honeykins. Love the suit by the way.’ The moment Barry had left the
salon and the door had closed behind him, Ali’s face turned sour and he said: ‘What a
bitch.’
Betty nodded her head in agreement.
What a thoroughly nice guy that queer was, thought Barry.
Now sporting a silly hairdo, immaculate toenails enclosed inside hand-stitched
Parisian crepe-soled shoes, and a beautiful Italian white suit crafted using Mamma
Gianesi’s secret recipe, Barry felt it time to get the drinks in. But before he let his
mind get drenched in alcohol, he thought about Jenny and wished she was there with
him to enjoy his spending spree. His buoyant mood sank slightly.
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Sitting by himself in a bar with some obscure name to make it sound exotic, Barry
began to drink with enthusiasm, though not for enjoyment, rather just to get blitzed
for the sake of it. Sitting on his bar stool, rapidly descending into a drunken stupor, he
felt lonely, and it didn’t matter that he had twenty-five grand in his pocket because
paper can’t keep you company.
Just as Barry began to think the downright untrue, that money can’t make you
happy, an attractive young woman noticed him pulling out his gigantic wad of cash to
pay for his latest drink. The pound signs of that money flashed in her eyes because
here was an opportunity for her girlfriends and her to have a good night at this bum’s
expense.
‘Hey there stranger.’
‘Plesokdefdess,’ replied Barry.
‘You are a smooth talker aren’t you? Hey Sandra, come and meet my new
friend.’
Sandra was a fat and ugly woman, but was also the owner of a consolatory
large pair of breasts that were highlighted by her tight-fitting outfit.
She eyed her friend with a look of, who’s this loser?
‘He’s minted,’ whispered the attractive woman, ‘and he’s blind stinking
drunk. Get the girls over.’
Now accompanied by a gaggle of slags Barry no longer felt lonely. He loved every
moment of the female interest, even though in some deep layer of his alcohol-soaked
brain he knew his new friends were only using him for his cash.
‘Wepip Bulub,’ said Barry nonsensically.
‘Wepip Bulub, what does that mean?’ asked Sandra.
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‘Serrip Blub,’ said Barry, trying to hard to communicate what he meant.
‘I think he means strip club. Do you want to go to a strip club Barry?’
Barry nodded his head in agreement vigorously.
Sandra cooed in her victim’s ear: ‘Yeah okay, we’ll go to a strip club if you
want, but first can you buy me another drink Barry baby.’
While his new friends walked on towards the strip club Barry crawled on the
pavement behind, attempting to follow. The front of his brand new, dazzling white
Italian suit was rapidly beginning to turn brown as it picked up grime off the
pavement.
With his struggling to keep up, Barry’s friends kindly spurred him onto greater
efforts.
‘Come on Barryy baby, not far now. Give him another kick in the balls
Sandra, that’ll get him moving again.’
Sandra complied with her friends wishes.
‘Yeah that’s done it, he’s moving now. Wow, look at him go.’
‘God, he can’t handle his drink very well can he? He’s only had a couple of
shandys.’
The gang of slags burst into hysterics. Even if they didn’t get anymore free
drinks off Barry, they all thought it had been well worth using him for the
entertainment value alone. They’d had great fun watching an ugly, balding scumbag
with a stupid haircut wriggle like a worm.
From out of a shadowy alleyway a man approached the group of laughing
young women, nonchalantly stepping over Barry as he did so.
‘Hiya ladies, would you be interested in buying some cocaine? Pills? Speed?’
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‘Barryy baby, can we have some money for the nice drug-dealer man.’
Handing over part of his big wad of notes Barry said: ‘Get me some too.’
He thankfully was beginning to sober up and had regained the command of the
English language, although he couldn’t yet say the same for his legs.
Finally making it to the strip club after having crawled half the way, Barry
was treated to a lap dance. It was then such a shame that for all Barry’s effort
expended in making his way there, that he’d actually been led to an all-male one.
Luckily though, he was too inebriated to realise that the stripper presently gyrating on
his lap was actually a man.
Sandra—not wanting Barry to regain his full faculties as it was so entertaining
watching him make a fool of himself—placed a couple of pills with doves on them in
his mouth. Feeling euphoric soon after his ingestion of chemicals, Barry began to
empathize with everyone in the room. Immense pleasure coursed through his body as
he helped himself to a ruddy good time, and the Cuban cigar he now had in his mouth
was a nice touch too.
As the night wore on, Barry spent more and more money on strippers, drinks, drugs
and cigars, before eventually returning to his hotel room in the Empire. It was
mayhem: Barry’s willingness to throw his money at anyone that asked for it had
attracted a number of leaches and sycophants back to his suite. The telly promptly
vanished, there was vomit up the walls, randoms suffering from drug-induced comas
lay unconscious in corners, and from somewhere this motley crew had acquired a
ghetto blaster that blared out obscene gangster rap.
Those that had managed to stave off the coma-producing effects of their drug
cocktails enjoyed each others bodies, creating an atmosphere of sleaze that made big
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ugly Sandra feel lustful and lonely. Under the influence of a myriad of drugs and
drink, she started putting the moves on Barry by rubbing her big mammaries across
his smiling face.
Looking down at his now erect penis (his trousers and underwear had long
since come off) Barry said: ‘Where the hell were you in that Spanish brothel?’
Whilst Barry busied himself snorting cocaine off Sandra’s breasts, someone
that wasn’t a leach or a sycophant crossed the threshold into the room, and it wasn’t
the Empire Hotel staff because they were afraid to even enter: it was Jenny.
Barry, looking at Jenny over Sandra’s shoulder as Sandra clambered onto a
chipolata said: ‘I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO JOIN THE PARTY. COME
ON DOWN.’
The reason for his shouting was that he was trying to make himself heard over
the blare of gangster rap.
Jenny took one swift glance around at the devastation and then looked back
into Barry’s drunken face. Barry had a small traffic cone sitting atop of his head and
was furiously smoking another Cuban cigar. She decided to leave because she didn’t
want the thing she’d imagined was the love of her life to see the tears that had begun
to stream from her squinty eyes.
Waking up late the next morning with his head in a waste paper basket, Barry felt
extremely hung over, but upon getting up and assessing the carnage around him with
an open mouth, he quickly lost interest in his pulsing headache.
‘Poopascoop…’
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The first thing he attempted to do was find Jenny, hoping she’d help him get
the room sorted out, but when he knocked on the door of her suite, to his dismay, he
found there was only a cleaner inside.
‘Where’s Jenny?’ Barry asked the cleaner.
‘She checked out early this morning.’
Momentarily paralysed by this information, Barry didn’t know what to do
until the cleaner broke some more alarming news to him.
‘Sir, do you realise you have no clothes on?’
‘Huh?’
In his desperate haste to find his friend, Barry had forgotten he wasn’t wearing
any clothes. Rushing back to his room, he pointlessly attempted to cover his alreadyviewed private areas with his hands.
Throwing on his filthy white suit and crepe-soled shoes, Barry began in vain
to tidy the suite, checkout being ten minutes away. Believing Jenny must have been
down in the hotel lobby or having her breakfast, he knew there was no time to go and
look for her.
‘WHERE THE HELL IS THE BLOODY TELLY!’ shouted Barry at the top
of his lungs.
This particular item had been furtively removed the night before by a couple
of his more enterprising friends, all of whom had disappeared now that the free ride
was over.
When Barry was discovered attempting to clean what appeared to be blood from the
carpet, his poorly concocted story that it was terrorists who’d done the damage didn’t
wash. Barry hoped when the English Chess Association had said all expenses paid, it
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would hopefully include this debacle. He was wrong, and as a result he was the one
who was billed for the repairs to the room and replacement TV.
In the face of the fact that after his wild night out on the town he’d blown
almost his entire twenty-five grand and only had a few hazy memories to show for it,
Barry didn’t feel too disheartened because he could just about recall having sex with
some woman. But, and this is a big but, he hadn’t yet realised he’d paid a high price
for this pleasure: he’d contracted pubic lice and they were currently having a field day
in his nether regions.
After paying for the repairs to his suite Barry set about locating Jenny. He searched
high and low throughout the hotel looking for her, gradually getting more and more
desperate. She wouldn’t have left without telling me first.
He looked in the laundry room, in dark cupboards, random little cubby holes,
and anywhere else that was large enough to accommodate a small woman. Why he
thought his friend, a person of sane disposition would be hiding in such places was
testament to his confused mental state.
Eventually the painful truth began to formulate in his mind that he had been
abandoned by the one human he’d considered to be his only true friend in the world.
He couldn’t for the life of him think why she’d done it. Unable to remember the event
from the night before when Jenny had walked in as Sandra was passing on her STD;
he mused forlornly, did our friendship mean nothing to her? He’d never thought to
get her telephone number or address, and now she’d gone from his life forever.
Even if Barry had been able to remember Jenny walking into his room, he
wouldn’t have understood his friend’s disappointment. While there was an intrinsic
understanding between the two of them the subtle, unspoken forms of communication
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only flowed one way, from Barry to Jenny. Barry’s mind couldn’t deal with subtly,
and anything that wasn’t spelled out to him in plain English would go undetected. He
couldn’t read the clear signs that Jenny felt more for him than just friendship.
Leaving the Empire for Kensington train station, Barry would only have himself and
his crabs for company on the way home. Without an angel like Jenny to guide him
through the minefield of perils public transport offered, he made an involuntary
detour to Baghdad before reaching his bedsit back in Junkieville.
‘Home at last,’ Barry said to himself as he stumbled late at night through the door and
looked at the mattress that welcomed him.
The inflatable lilo wasn’t a very comely proposition since he’d become
accustomed to the luxury at the Empire, but he slept soundly anyway because the
excursion to bonnie Baghdad had been exhausting.
Waking late the next morning, Barry scratched his now itchy crotch and began to
wonder if Sandra had given him something other than just a smudge of lipstick on his
collar. The other thought that played on his mind was the one about how Jenny had
discarded him as casually as one might discard an empty crisp packet.
Because of his newfound opinion of his chess friend he no longer felt so
inclined to give her, her half of the fifty grand, which worked out quite well because
Barry now needed her share seeing how he’d gone and blown almost all of his in one
night.
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After going to the supermarket and coming back with a trolley filled to nigh on
breaking point, he stocked his empty shelves. The next things he went and bought
were a refrigerator, a television set, and most importantly to him, a proper bed. The
inflatable lilo was deflated and placed at the bottom of a wardrobe.
Sitting on a newly-purchased sofa in his once horrible bedsit, it appeared oddly
cramped to Barry because he now actually had stuff. As he acclimatised to this
turnaround in fortune he got robbed one day by the neighbourhood magpies while he
was out. Leaving his milk bottle lids untouched they’d decided it’d be wiser instead to
pilfer Barry’s new stuff. This reminded Barry all too well that while the interior of his
home was shaping up nicely, he sadly still lived in the ever-dangerous Junkieville.
The last things he purchased were items to assist his budding chess career: a genuine
