Straight Outta Chippenham Extract

This is an extract from my novel Straight Outta Chippenham. This is a fictional work and not an autobiography. All people and places are fictional except for the name of the town. Oh and Schwarz Brothers is a real and very delicious burger bar in Bath.

Crabby always looks like the most stressed man in the world
when he walks in the pub.

He always takes off his hat and shakes his head. As usual
he’s covered in batter stains. If it wasn’t for the logo of the chip shop on
his polo shirt you’d think he was a plasterer, judging by his trousers. The lad
behind the bar tries selling him a pint of Guinness that he poured for someone
about 20 minutes ago that fucked off without drinking it. Obviously he refuses.
Every Saturday he comes over for a pint at half eight while Zack’s shutting the
shop. Then he drives Zack home at nine . That half hour is Mike Crabbe’s
Saturday night out, the poor sod. Like I said, he always looks stressed but
tonight he’s got a look on his face like he’s been given a guided tour of Gary
Glitter’s holiday snaps. I offer him the rest of my bag of crisps. Worcester
Sauce flavour, supposedly. Fuck All flavour is more like it. My fault for
presuming that a bag of crisps is going to be a culinary delight jut because
there’s a black and white photo of a fucking plough on the front of it. Crabby
has them anyway, which is surprising when you remember that he works with
potatoes all day and should be thoroughly sick of the sight of them. As he digs
into the bag of blandness he says:

“I just heard a fucking horrible story, mate.”

“Let’s hear it then,” I say, cos Crabby’s a man of the world
so the story will be properly horrible.

“Right, four lads go to Bath…” he begins, screwing up the
empty bag of crap crisps.

“Is this a sex story?”

“Hmmm. Yeah. But the sex isn’t the horrible bit. Anyway,
four lads…”

“Is this a Helen story?”

“Ha ! Ha! No. These four lads meet up in Bath..”

“Chippenham lads?”

“One from Chippenham, other three are from Bath…”

“So it’s really more like this bloke from Chippenham goes to
Bath and meets three lads.”

“If you like, yeah. Anyway, they meet up by the falafel
place. You know where that is, don’t you?”

“No. Where is it?”

“Surely you must know. By the taxi rank.”

“I don’t know it. Is it relevant to the story?”

“Not really.”

“Can I pretend they met up by Schwarz Brothers? Just so I’ve
got an image in my head.”

“Yeah. Totally. Anyway, they meet these two girls, right?
Local girls. And one of the lads…”

“The Chippenham lad?”

“No. One of the Bath lads. He asks her to suck his cock. And
she just does it. Right there and then, gets his cock out and puts it in her
mouth.”

“In the middle of Schwarz Brothers?”

“Well, no, in the falafel place. But in your mental
scenario, yes. In the middle of Schwarz Brothers she sucks his cock.”

“Right.”

“Anyway. One of the other lads. One of the other Bath lads
asks her mate to strip.”

“Is the guy from Chippenham Barry?”

“No. Not Barry.”

“Cos usually when I hear stories like this, Barrry’s in the thick
of it. Even if he’s just stood watching whatever sordid capers are going on.”

“Agreed, but it’s nothing to do with him. But this girl
strips off…”

“In the middle of Schwarz Brothers?”

“No…Yes, in the middle of Schwarz brothers. It’s honestly
not relevant, mate.”

“Yeah, but I like to have a mental image. Especially if it’s
girls stripping.”

“Anyway. The girl who gave the lad from Bath the blow job.
She says she’s got a flat over by Vicky Park. You know where Vicky Park is,
don’t you?”

“Of course I know where Vicky Park is. Everyone knows where
Vicky Park is.”

“Alright. Alright. It’s just I would have thought that
everyone knew where the falafel place is too.”

“I don’t care for falafel. I went backpacking when I was
about 20 and that was like all there fucking was to eat in Denmark and
Amsterdam and it didn’t soak up the beer very well. People go there for the
draw but they forget how good it is for getting pissed. I met up with this guy
from Portugal there and we..”

“Can I please finish this horrible story?”

“Yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

“They walk over to her flat.”

“By Vicky Park?”

“Yes, by Vicky Park.”

“Is she still naked?”

“Is who still naked?”

“The girl who stripped off. Was she just walking through
Bath in the nuddy or what?”

“I doubt it.”

“How much did she take off to begin with?”

“I don’t know. I just know that she stripped off in the
falafel place.”

“Schwartz Brothers, you mean.”

“Look ,it’s honestly not relevant. I doubt she got totally
naked and I doubt she walked down to Vicky Park naked.”

“It wouldn’t shock me that much to see a woman walking naked
through the streets now. I’d be taken aback I guess, but not shocked like I
would have been say ten years back.”

“I know what you mean. But anyway. They get to the flat.
Now, before they go in the girl whose flat it is tells them that her brother’s
upstairs asleep and that she thinks it’s only fair to warn them that he’s a
bummer.”

“A bummer?”

“A bummer.”

“So is she just being homophobic, or is she warning them
because he just goes round indiscriminately bumming anything in his path, man
woman or animal? Like what you think a bummer is when you’re 11.”

“No, she’s just saying that he’s gay.”

“And she’s warning them because?”

“Well I suppose she’s ignorant enough to think he might bum
them all.”

“On a whim?”

“Yeah. So they go up to the flat and the girls get naked and
everything and start, you know, lezzing up and stuff. Now, one of the lads…”

“Is this the lad from Chippenham?”

“This is the lad from Chippenham. He starts robbing the flat
while they’re busy lezzing up. He takes the playstation and sticks it up his
jumper. He has the girls’ credit cards out of their jeans, and then he goes in
the bedroom to see what he can rip off from in there, and when he walks in
their there’s a huge fucker fast asleep on the bed.”

“The brother?”

“The brother. The bummer himself.  So the Chippenham lad walks over to the
bedside table and there’s a blackberry so he skanks that too and then he goes
back into the living room where he finds one of the girls.”

“The blow job one or the one who stripped?”

“The one whose flat it is.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t establish which one of them it was
that owned the flat either.”

“I don’t know, it honestly doesn’t matter which is which but
one of them is getting fucked by all three of his mates.”

“The Bath lads.”

“The Bath lads are all fucking her.”

“And her mate?”

“Watching telly, apparently. She must have seen her mate
fucking multiple guys a lot, and therefore isn’t bothering to watch. It must
have become tedious to her.”

“That’s pretty fucking bleak. Is that the story then?”

“No, not quite. The Chippenham lad goes back into the
bedroom, if you can believe this, to get the wire for the Blackberry. So he has
to walk past the brother again.”

“And he wakes up?”

“No. He steals the wire and then he fucks off with all the
stuff he’s nicked and gets the train back to Chippenham.”

“What happened then?”

“That’s it. That’s the story, mate.”

“Really?”

“Yep. really.”

“To be honest, mate, I was hoping for a better ending than
that. I thought that the brother was going to wake up…”

“And then bum rape him for robbing him?”

“Well, yeah. I thought it was one of those cautionary bum
rape tales like that one where someone says that their mate’s cousin’s
neighbour went to a sex show in the Dam and they put him in the stocks and then
a woman rubs her tits in his face and asks him to buy her champagne and he
can’t afford it so the MC guy clicks his fingers and this bloke comes out
and…”

“Yeah. Well it’s not one of those”

“Still pretty grimy stuff though. Who told it to you?”

“That new lad that started working for me last week.”

“So he’s the lad from Chippenham?”

“The very same.”

“He’s like 16 years old, though.”

“Tell me about it.”

“And this is supposed to have happened when?”

“Friday night.”

“Bollocks.”

“What do you mean bollocks?”

“He’s talking bollocks is what I mean by bollocks. I put it
to him that none of this ever happened and he’s making an ill-judged attempt to
ingratiate himself in his new job by painting himself as some kind of horrible
sex adventurer.”

“Why do you think it’s bollocks?”

“Cos of the falafel place”

“Why does that make it bollocks?”

“Cos I can’t see any of the participants in this story being
in a shop that sells nutritious vegetarian cuisine. The location has let him
down. Even if it was Schwarz Brothers I wouldn’t believe it. In fact the
setting being Bath, which is full of poshos, is highly dubious too. Tell him to
change it to Swindon and a fried chicken place if he’s going to tell this in
future.”

“I think it’s true, mate. You’ve got a funny view of Bath if
you think that couldn’t happen there.”

“Well, if it’s true then I’m presuming you’re going to give
this little fucker his cards.”

“Sack him? Why?”

“Cos he’s a fucking thief! An unrepentant thief at that. A
thief who likes to tell boastful anecdotes of his disgusting sneak thievery on
his lunch break. He’ll rob you, mate.”

“He won’t rob me. He wouldn’t shit on his own doorstep. If
he was planning to skank me he wouldn’t have told a story like that.”

“Who else was he telling this story to?”

“Zak and Charlene.”

“What was their reaction?”

“They think he’s a cunt.”

“As do I. You are now in the unenviable position of having
an actual factual cunt on your payroll.”

“That is true.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I dunno mate. You can’t sack someone for being a cunt.”

“They’d take you to a tribunal.”

Poor old Crabby. He really thinks this little urchin won’t
fuck him over. Mind you, Crabby knows a lot of people, so fucking him over would
be unwise in the extreme if you ask me.

At this point Jason Lamberts, another actual factual cunt,
walks in. Nutbar. I remember once I was in the Fours having a piss right at the
end urinal and Lamberts is at the opposite end. I’m terrified that he’s going
to start on me but then this guy walks in who I’d seen about, but didn’t know
him. Aged about 40-something, probably. Anyway this guy starts pissing in the
urinal right next to Jason Lamberts, which is utter madness. I’m wanting out of
there but I’m having a seemingly endless piss. So I’m looking dead ahead at the
wall essentially being held hostage by my own urethra when I hear Lamberts go:

“Are you looking at my cock, matey?”

Obviously the guy has made the fatal error of looking
downwards and Jason Lamberts is convinced that he’s the subject of an impromptu
penis examination. Before the guy can open his mouth to say that he was doing
nothing of the sort, Lamberts pisses on him. Turns round and aims a jet of
Blu-WKD-infused-urine at the poor sod. Hoses him down like. The bloke sort of
stands there looking at his now-piss-soaked-clothes, and he’s obviously coming
to terms with what has just happened. Then he looks up and his face suddenly
goes properly Phil Mitchell purple and and he grabs Lamberts by the scruff.

Now, the weird thing was that Lamberts suddenly became
enraged. He’s angry because he’s pissed on someone and they’ve violently
objected. That’s the sort of bloke he is, in case you hadn’t already guessed
from the pissing thing. So I zip up and leave shortly before two grown men with
their cocks out come barrelling down the stairs in a sort of embrace of
thuggery. I was like Indiana Jones with a boulder of violence rumbling after
me. The bouncers come over, and of course they’re Jason’s chums, aren’t they,
so they grab the poor pissed-on bloke from behind and let Lamberts pummel him.
That’s what passes for justice on a Saturday night round here.

Anyway the arrival of
Mr Lamberts is our cue to fuck off. We finish our drinks at speed and put our
coats on.

“You want a lift up
the top of town?” says Webby.

“Hmmm. I’m gonna go to the Duke.”

“Why the fuck would you want to go to the Duke?”

“They’ve got that nice cider in there. Cheddar something. I
had some ages ago and never got round to going back in there.”

“That’s cos it’s a shit pub.”

“Nice cider though.”

So I bid Crabby farewell and walk over to The Duke. The whole
town’s dead as usual. The Oak haven’t even bothered opening. It’s a Saturday as
well. This town is truly becoming like a ghost town. Neville Staples came here
to do a gig about 5 years back and I’m betting he hasn’t had such a response to
that song since the Thatcher days. When he was singing Concrete Jungle and it
got to the line “Can’t dress just the way I want, I’m being chased by the
National Front.”

He sees me stood down the front, Mohawk, eyeliner, leopard
print trousers and Teddy Ruxpin T-shirt, and reaches out to shake my hand.
Fucking ace mate. This town has got two hearing aid shops and no record shops.
There are NINE fucking mobile phone shops and six kebab shops. Idiocy.

The Duke  used to be
jam packed on weekends. When I was about 15 it was the pub that all the cool
kids in my year could get served in. In the sixties there was a lot of acid
dealing going on in there, so my Grandad, who was CID at the time, went down
there with his partner disguised as hippies. His partner was the huge mofo. I
forget his name but even as an aged man he was an intimidating presence so fuck
knows what he was like previously.  Any
way this guy’s been told to cut out beer by his doctor and drink wine instead.
So he goes up to the barmaid and orders a pint of wine. Couple hours later the
barmaid sidles up to my Grandad and asks if he’s Old Bill. He asks her what
makes her say that and she takes him upstairs where the big fella’s led on the bed
in one of the guest rooms spark out and saturated with vino vomit.

Of course The Duke is far too dull for any ace capers
nowadays. I walk in and there’s two aggro looking twats in rugby tops playing
pool and a couple of bikery grebo types at the bar. There’s Brian Johnson era
AC/DC blaring out of the speakers. Not “Back In Black”, which is the only good
record he made with them, but one of those shit ones like “Fly On The Wall” or
“Flick of the Switch”. Bon Scott spinning in his drunkards grave. The barmaid
looks at me like I’ve got two heads, of course. You’d think she’d be less
contemptuous given the horrendously bad trade they’ve got. The two grebos are
also looking at me like I’m some sort of cunt. I never know what to make of
that lot. They seem a bit right wing to me.
The Iron Crosses and the Hell’s Angels volunteering to go to Vietnam and
all that caper. I’m probably reading too much into it.

“Yes, please?” says the barmaid and I can’t remember what
the fuck the nice cider was called. So I foolishly say:

“What kind of cider
have you got?”

To which she gives the dread reply:

“Strongbow.”

“Just Strongbow?”

“Just Strongbow.”

“You haven’t still got that nice cider? Cheddar something.”

“Cheddar Valley?”

“Yeah, that was it.”

“No. Just Strongbow.”

Now the grebos are glaring at me, so I do the most stupid
thing in the world and say:

“Ok, pint of Strongbow it is then, please.”

I fucking hate
Strongbow. It’s an affront to cider. I should have just gone somewhere else.
Now I’m stuck with a pint of what tastes like quite literally piss and vinegar.
I don’t fancy leaning on the bar cos of the grebes and I’m not sitting by the
pool table where the rugby shirt twats are playing. That leaves the quiz
machine so that’s another quid spent. Why did I come here? There’s no Family
Guy game on the machine, just the far inferior South Park game. This is like a
horrible parallel universe version of the . The Bizarro world or something. I
drink just under half of the foul chemical pint and fuck off. Never going there
again. Even if they bring back the nice cider. I blame the grebos. I’ll decide
later on what grounds, but I blame themhttp