He ordered a drink and everyone seemed to like him, so I thought this retired and talkative Irishman was going to be some nice company on a quiet Monday night shift. I was wrong, he spent two and a half hours explaining his life story and showing every piece of discrimination that seemed to dwell in his aging head. There was no way of telling the true extent of his thoughts towards anyone who was born straight, white and in a country that wasn’t the UK or white-European.
We shall call him Bob because why not? Bob started by talking about all of the people who were originally from countries such as India or Pakistan and how they were all coming over to England and taking over the high street shops. He went on about this for about half an hour before dropping in the casual use of referring to all of these people as “Black Jews”. This was my first clue of his full extent of his discrimination.
After this he went on to tell me about how the Nazis used to make their way into Ireland during the Second World War to buy and sell guns to the Irish. Then to put the nations feelings about Indian and Pakistani people in the country and the connection of that and how the Germans felt about the Jewish people in the lead up to Hitler’s power… There were a lot of red flags at this point, not only is he racist towards people that sadly a lot of older people in the UK are but now he was telling me that Hitler might have had a point. I still had an hour and a half until the end of my shift and there was still no one else I could talk to in the pub as Bob was the only customer.
At this point Bob had decided that he would show all of his homophobic tendencies in quick concession, it started with the stories of when he would go to clubs that would have shows including performances by Drag Queens. At first, he seemed supportive of them except from being unable to call them anything other than “Transies” which was new to me and yet still seemed a bad way to describe them. Even so he would say how great their singing ability was and how good the performances were, but then end it with saying something about how they didn’t do anything ‘funny’ with him as he used to be a boxer…
This then transitioned into his own back story about when he was going to become a singer when he was in his early 20s. He even had a manager sorted, first song recorded and the contracts were almost signed. But it was during the recording that things started to be odd for this man to be telling me after meeting me for the first time a couple of hours before. He went over to the managers house a total of five times and it was at the second visit this story sort of takes an odd turn, apparently the manager, Mr Music, asked Bob questions about whether he enjoyed to masturbate. I really don’t know, nor want to know why he was telling me all of this.
The third visit was fine, no mention of the previous visit’s ending questions. The fourth there seemed to be some ‘odd behaviour’ but nothing really of note as this was when the band was brought in for the recording. It was on the fifth and final visit, the contract was drawn and Bob had signed it, it was only Mr Music left to sign and move forward with Bob’s attempt at a music career. This is when a proposition was made by Mr Music to Bob, quite simply that he would sign the contract if Bob allowed him to perform fellatio on Bob. I still had 45 minutes left to go on my shift.
Bob leant on the bar and said “I’ll tell you the truth, because you seem like a good guy.” and then told me that he let Mr Music perform the act but how he didn’t enjoy it because he’s not gay. Well, he didn’t say gay, he never said either gay or even homosexual but in fact was stuck in his ways of calling any man in his story who was gay pretty much every euphemism or derogatory term imaginable. He also went on to say how all the female celebs in Hollywood who had come forward due to the Weinstein case or any other case similar, should not be complaining as they would have known what fame cost. This man was a walking and talking spout of discrimination and backward thinking.
Mr Music’s story ended with his boyfriend finding out about his promiscuous habits with possible clients, as Bob wasn’t the first, and then shot Mr Music and then himself in a male toilets. When the story of Mr Music’s body being discovered hit the newspapers, Bob’s dad asked him if Mr Music had tried anything funny with him. Which Bob only responded, apparently, with repeating how he was a young boxer in London and so nothing like that could happen. Not sure why being a boxer in London meant no “funny business” would happen.
I was very glad when my shift finally ended and I was able to leave Bob with his pint and hope our paths didn’t cross again.
The Nerdy Bartender 