Ape Night Afterdusk: Part Two

'So, you're saying,' Steve hazards, 'that we might as well pack it all in, disband, and--horribile dictu--encourage our dispersed membership to report to their respective local Gunners'-fan-club recruiting offices?'

'No, I'm simply suggesting that, out of respect for those of us who regard an Arsenal-spearheaded English UEFA championship as the least of eight evils, we should postpone our next meeting till Arsenal are eliminated from the rounds, or till May 17, whichever comes first.'

About midway through the preceding sentence, I start to sense through the table and the hams of my hands a vibration such as you might feel during the initial seconds of a Richter-Level Nine earthquake, and notice that the surface of the Hoegaarden in my half-empty pint glass is gently seesawing a few degrees upwards and downwards of the parallel. Taking cognizance at once the catastrophe these signs portend, I spring to my feet just in time to catch hold of Ochs's canteloupe-circumfrenced, shirtbound right forearm, wrestle it back down to table level and throw the full weight of my arseward-orientated carcass on to it; whilst on Ochs's left flank Lou, having been likewise tipped off, does the same to the other forearm. During the next few seconds, as I'm fighting the opening round of an undoubtedly hopeless bout against Ochs's still shirtward-hankering sinews, I cry out as loudly as I can do, 'CODE PUCE, JIMMY!' in the general direction of the bar.

Then, Cyril continues, a bit antsily, 'I foresee no alternative to my plan other than our splitting permanently into insular and Pan-European factions--unless, of course, I'm being overly presumptuous in speaking of an "us," and this grudging support of Arsenal as a pis aller is my own execrable private perversion, in which case I shall gracefully secede from the Bashers on my lonesome and withdraw to the nearest well-appointed hermit's cave. But I suspect that the Baron is right. [The italics on the phrase the Baron signify the condescending smirk through which Cyril can finally afford to utter it, now that Jimmy has arrived on the scene and is beginning to force-feed Boddington's to Ochs through a massive two-litre bottle stoppered with a rubber nipple.] Indeed, in my view, his estimate of the number of us potential insularists is shockingly conservative.'

By and by, as Dave is downing the second litre of his serving of Boddington's, the five-strong column of steel girders under my arse cheeks assumes a texture more akin to that of an uncountable column of modelling-clay or bubble-gum ridges; and when at last Jimmy is withdrawing the nipple of the empty bottle from the Baron's lips, I feel secure in relinquishing my seat on the forearm, and in signifying to Lou with a nod to do the same on his end. Then, reaching behind Dave's shoulders, I fold the two arms together crosswise on the table just in time to let them serve as a pillow for his downward-pitching forehead.

Meanwhile, Jake, having doubtlessly taken heart from Och's progressive incapacitation, has started to chip in his tuppence's worth: 'No, you're not alone, Ruhl. Don't get me wrong, I fucking hate the Gunners. Cor, you know, last December I was losing so many hours of peaceful sleep to nightmares of hand-to-hand knife fights with Thierry Henry and Jans Lehmann that I had to ask my GP for a fucking Xanax prescription (luckily, being a ManU fan, he was more than sympathetic to my plight). But unlike the vast majority of you lot, I remember the last time we Brits found ourselves stewing in this particular jar of pickle juice. I'm speaking, of course--or, rather, FYI--of the spring of '95, when Arsenal were last in the running for the old European Cup. I hated the Gunners back then every bit as much as I do now, but when it came to a toss-up between them and an assortment-pack of Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts and Dagoes, I bit the so-called bullet and cheered 'em on alongside the Arsenlophilic riffraff at my local. Of course, like I was saying, most of you lot were still in short trousers back then, so you just wouldn't understand.'

'There you have it,' concludes Cyril with cuntish triumphalism. 'Exhibit B: Insularist Arsenalophobe Number Two. Might I solicit the testimony of a certain Mr Ian Three?' [Ned raises his hand.] 'Excellent. And is Mr Ian Four present? [Same hand-signal from Ted.] What about Messrs Five and Six? Seven and Eight? [Here so many hands go up that I lose track of the identities of their respective owners.] You may lower your hands, gentlemen. I trust I've made my point. We insularist Arsenalophobes constitute, at minimum, two-fifths of the membership of this chapter, a substantial minority to say the least. And if secession is the only recourse you Pan-Europeanists are prepared to offer us, then secede we reluctantly shall do. But I believe that our very presence here tonight attests to our collective preference for keeping this particular bone of contention well hidden within the bosom of the family, so to speak. Look, sooner or later every organisation devoted to a great cause has been faced with a crisis of this kind. And it is on the basis of its capacity to weather such a crisis that it has either thrived or withered and died. Take the Catholic Church, for example: forty-some-odd-years ago, they confronted a groundswell, a veritable tsunami, of angry voices issuing from the great unwashed masses of their communicants, and calling for the abandonment of the traditional Latin liturgy in favour of texts in the vernacular languages. So, Pope What's-His-Nuts caved in, tossed out the missals chock-full of Kyrie Eleisons and Credos and printed up new ones chock-full of Lord-a-mercys and You-bet-your-fucking-cunt-I-believes. And look at the bloody Papists now. They need state-of-the-art irrigation systems just to pipe in enough holy water to keep up with the christenings. And take as another example the Anglican Church: back in the 80s, one Anglican in three was like, "Ordain women priests or I'm fucking turning Unitarian." So the old AB of C caved in, consented to the frocking of a couple hundred female vicars and curates, and twenty years later the C of E are...well, they're hanging in there at least. So, I submit, must the Great Church of Aresenalophobia heed the stirrings of Insularism within its breast; lest it pitch over stone-dead of a Pan-Europeanist-induced arythmia whilst lounging complacently in the shagreen-upholstered armchair that is this very room. In short, my fellow Bashers, if we want things to stay the same, things will have to change. I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Tottenham [meaning Mitch].'

'Well,' Mitch says, 'inasmuch as there's no precedent in the annals of our common law for coping with a crisis on this scale, I suppose by default we should defer to the opinion of our Chief Executive on the matter.' Thereupon he turns, with a glance over the rims of his spectacles, towards Reg, who throughout all of the foregoing proceedings has been uncharacteristically silent, his attention and fingers wholly absorbed in poring over and riffling through a midget's-pocket-sized book placed alternately, from one minute to the next, on the uppermost knee of his crossed legs, and on the patch of table directly in front of him. As neither the allusion to the post of chief executive nor the glance suffices to rouse Reg from his readerly lucubrations, Ned, who is seated to the latter's immediate left, takes it upon himself to prod Reg with a well-aimed forefinger to the ribs.

'Che?' Reg queries, laying the book open and face down on the table, and craning his phiz jerkily and hapharzardly about like that of a startled bunny rabbit.

'We were all wondering, Reg,' says Mitch, in a world-weary tone that I somehow associate with that of an Oxbridge-accredited pedant of yore entrusted with the tutelage of a particularly thick and unpromising scion of the poshility, 'what your thoughts were on this matter of Insular-versus-Pan-European Arsenalophobia.'

Whereupon, Reg shrugs nonchalantly and replies, 'Sono italiano. Questo soggètto non m'interessa. [Then, setting the book face-up and briskly riffling through a few pages.] Sono del Turino. Sono grande fan di Juventus. Spero che noi diámo martedi prossimo un grande colpo di piede ai vostri culi inglesi. [Riffling again, at a more furious pace.] Scusa, signora. Dove è il prossimo medico prottologistico? Mi cola sangue dallo sfintère. [Chucking the book on to the table in disgust and cuntsternation.] That's not right--fuck it. Might as well fess up in my native tongue. Lads, in view of the Gunners' late success on the continent, I can no longer in good conscience remain a resident or subject of this Kingdom, let alone a member of this Association so long as it remains based here. I've booked a compartment on a Turin-bound train leaving Waterloo Station at 1AM. Any of you lot care to join me?'

Well, I dare say I for one did very much care to join him. Problem was, I couldn't very well afford to do so, in view of my conflicting obligation to report to Proctologitex HQ bright-eyed and bushy-schlonged next morning. Oh, it was all very well for Reg to take the high tone, coming as he did, as they say, from money (as he had had occasion to let slip to me in an unguarded moment during one of our butcher's-half-dozen post-adjournment cul-a-culs); he'd find it well within his means to loaf about Italy right on into the second quarter of the century if it came to that. In any case, it would be an understatement to say I was not alone in my non-up-taking of Reg's offer. In fact, whether owing to motives of parallel nobility to mine own, or to sheer cuntishly craven cowardice, none of my butcher's-dozen fellow Pan-Europeanists evinced any more willingness than I did to board the presidential protest train--indeed, our table-flush palms, laid tumb-to-thumb-to-pinkie-to-pinkie, would have sufficed in the aggregate to onanise a largish sperm whale; and the one bloke who I assume would have signed up, if only out of sheer gormlessness, Ochs, was dead to the world at that moment.

And so, Reg, newly animated, it would seem, by our (in his okies) cuntish indifference to the Cause, rises, reaches over to take up his Italian phrase book, kicks his chair clean on back to the wall and resumes speaking whilst beginning to stride slowly, purposively, deliberately, clockwise round the table, like General Patton or some other such martinetish military cunt reviewing the troops, with arms folded behind his back, and hands fanning his arse cheeks with the phrase book, all the while: 'I thought as much. You're nothing but a pack of yssups, and believe you me, I'm hardly likening you to the bloke who wrote "The Ant and the Cicada" (sic) [sic]." That said, the question is, what's to become of you yssups after I'm gone? Oh, TBS, it's a bit perverse of me even to deign to preoccupy myself with such a subject--rather as it would be for God Almighty to preoccupy himself with a local by-election in Hell. But let's fantasise just for a moment that I actually still shiv a git about the north-canular destiny of the Bashers. That fantasy having been granted a due degree of indulgence, I can picture to myself no more suitable a candidate for carrying on the Reggian spirit of Arsenalophobia--albeit in a radically etiolated form--than Rugger here.'

By this stage of his circuit he is, in fact, standing right behind me, and he takes advantage of the presumably well-timed coincidence between his position and the allusion to my name to give me a coupla hearty thumps on the right shoulder (the last of which thumps happening to round itself out in a none-too-gentle burst of thumb-kneading that sets off my schlong's tortoise-head-retraction reflex at full panic speed, such that in two seconds flat I can feel the glans flush against my lower abdomen like a second navel.)

'Yes,' Reg continues, mercifully letting go of my shoulder and resuming his gait after a merely suitably rhetorical span of pausage, 'what Rugger lacks in seniority he more than makes up for in passion. On the other hand, unlike some of our other more devoted members [again leaving off walking, and with a glance of scornful repugnance down at Ochs], he can keep his hands clear of his shirt front when the occasion requires it.' [Finishing his circuit of the room at a brisk near-trot.] 'Well, I've said my piss, such as it is. Here's hoping at least a few of you grow a pair of coglioni between now and next Tuesday, and that we meet again in Turin. Arrivederla, voi fottente fichelle!' And with that, after pocketing the phrase book and cuntemptously waving at us a fist penetrated by a thumb between the first and middle fingers, he makes a beeline for the front door.

Well, some blokes, as the saying goes, thrust their well-lubricated schlongs into the cunt of Greatness; whilst others have the schlong of Greatness thrust into their all-too-poorly-lubricated schphincters. Obviously, as I then realised, the moment of Reg's egress from the Ape coincided with my initiation into the second coitional rite, and on account I thought I'd best rise to the occasion toot sweet, lest my flaccidity should encourage the insatiable yet fickle hermaphrodite to withdraw and go off in search of a more accommodating fuckbuddy. The handiest, so to speak, means I could contrive just then towards the attainment of the aforesaid state of tumescence involved the timely claiming or exercising of my already-official prerogative as Sergeant-at-Pints with a suitably presidential bearing; such that (so I hoped) having caught the deferential bug in the act of rendering unto me what had already been mine for a month running, the rest of the lads would succumb altogether to the virus when I subsequently began to throw my weight around on matters not strictly within the bailiwick of the SAP.

So, even before the two slices of air brought into existence by Reg's departing carcass had resandwiched themselves together, I took it upon myself to query the room, in a tone intended to suggest a Reg-worthy obliviousness of the political cuntretemps that had just befallen us, 'Is everyone OK pint-wise at the moment?' [An all-too-brief apathetic murmur of Yeahs ensues.] 'Well then, how are we for popperage? I can't help noticing that the bowl at the far right end of the table is in sore need of refreshment.'

'That's all right,' says Jake, who's seated a mere cunt-width's remove from the aforesaid bowl. 'We're all [hiccup] poppered out over here.'

'Right, then, what do you lads say to our proceeding forthwith to the ceremonial lighting of the Arsenalabrum? Lou, would you care to do the honours? ['Delegate, delegate,' is, after all, the cardinal rule of executive leadership.] I'm afraid I'm all out of matches, myself--'

'Not so fast, Rugger,' says Mitch, whisking off his spectacles in the cuntishly effective, albeit cliched, rhetorical fashion vouchsafed only to the four-eyed tribe. 'You're not President yet. Let us not forget that, by tradition, the Presidency of this association reverts to the longest-standing member. And now [repeatedly thwacking his upper shirty-front with all five diggits of his right hand] I am that member. Reg himself implicitly deferred to this tradition when he remarked that what you lacked in seniority you more than made up for in passion. Well, with all due deference in turn to Reg, I ask: "What does passion count for in the absence of experience?"'

(YFCT, cue-cummer-tempratoored): 'Nada mucho, Mitch, I admit--again with all due deference to Reg. But as a matter of fact, I've got scads of experience. I'll have you know that I was talking shit about Arsenal when you were still in...well, when you still had half a thatch of hair and a non-bifocal ocular prescription.'

(Mitch, wincing, then shaking his head more in sorrow than in stroppiness): 'Late blow, Rugger, late blow. But that's beside the point. The point is, as far as this club is concerned, hours clocked in at non-official Arsenal-bashing, number though they may in the thousands, do not count as transfer credit hereunto. Christ, for all of the half-schlonged Arsenalophobic broadsides you've seen fit to let fly over the past few months, do you have any idea of what a risk to life and limb being a member of this association constitutes--and in this chapter more than in any other? It's all very well being, say, a Croydon-based Arsenal-Basher. Down there, across the river, it's a number-league never-neverland. Down there, they could burn a Thierry Henry wicker man as tall as the fucking Gherkin and no Aresnal supporter would bother to make the crossing for the sake of pissing on the fucking thing. But up here, a stone's throw from Highbury, it's a whole nother bowl [sic] of wax. We could be barged in on by a pack of Gooners at any moment. You weren't around yet the last time that happened, Rugger, and I think the four or five others who were will back me up when I say it wasn't exactly a love-in, or a toad-in-the-hole-recipe-swapping session. I've got the scars to prove that it wasn't. See this here mark on my arm? [He holds up the back of his right forearm to the light and with the forefinger of the other hand traces a crescent-shaped white mark stretching practically all the way from his wrist to his elbow.] That's from when the doctors sewed me up after re-setting my ulna. The bone was jutting three inches out from the flesh. And then, [standing up and reaching for his flies], I've got another scar down here...'

'...That's all right, Mitch. I hope I'm not being prematurely presidential in urging you to keep your trousers zipped. Well, lads, Mitch has certainly got a case for contesting my candidacy. I can't say as I find it at all convincing, but there it is. So then, what say ye? Do any of you lot cotton to the notion of a Mitchian presidency?'

'I'm certainly all for it,' says Stu, before I've even properly re-stoked my lungs with the first post-interrogatory draught of air. 'Mitch has drawn blood in the cause of Arsenalophobia, which in my eyes, at least, counts for a helluva lot more than passion or pure verbal bashing-experience. TBS, he's got my vote.'

Now, although I was as at least as shocked as the next Basher at Reg's departure, now that he was gone I couldn’t very well say the same on the score of this particular post-Reggian development, viz. the splintering off of a newly-whittled Anti-Ruggerian faction under the leadership of Mitch and Stu. I could hardly in good conscience say Et tu, Mitch or Stu to either of them; or affect to suppress the slightest soup’s son of surprise or disappointment in face of my discovery of this here coup or putsch. For I had always got a decidedly so-called negative vibe from the two of them from the earliest days of my membership; a vibe that was easily up-chalk-able to their shared roots in that supposedly elite fraternity of lifelong Tottenham supporters, 'born' as neither of them tired of boasting, 'within the sound of the halftime cheer at White Hart Lane'. Native-born Tottenham fans, let it be said, constitute by far the most cuntishly snobbish subspecies of Londonogenetic Arsenal-bashers; the most unapologetically jingoistic or racialist National Party agitator or Ku Klux Klansman can’t hold a protractor to their noses when it comes to looking down on those people hailing from the wrong side of the postcode boundary. Hence, I had always simply assumed, at no great cost either to my imagination or to my goodwill, that Mitch and Stu harboured fantasies of transforming our association into a kind of puppet or client statelet of the Spurs' fan club, and that they could be counted on to take advantage of any political crisis chaise nooz towards the effecting of that selfsame end. I had indeed been known to muse, on more than one occasion, in hearing of Ronnie and Lou alone and strictly on the LD, that if it ever came down to a choice between, on the one hand, remaining an official Arsenalophobe under the aegis of a Spursophilic administration and, on the other, going it alone once again as a freelance Arsenal-basher, I would very probably plump for the latter alternative. Little did I know how soon, and in what cuntishly deadly earnest, this very choice would be forced upon me.

Well, in short, I certainly saw no point in keeping my piss-stream clear of this particular third rail, as Ochs might have put it. So, addressing the group in toto, but with both okies joined pointedly to Mitch's now-re-spectacled pair, I say: 'I'd have expected as much, Stu. Let me amend my last proposal: "What do the rest of you lot think of the notion of doffing your respective colours and donning the lilywhite livery of Tottenham?"'

'N-n-n-now, Rugger,' Mitch remonstrates, the gathering beads of sweat standing out on his pate like drops of quicksilver, 'I th-th-th-think you're being just a wee bit p-p-p-paranoid. It h-h-h-hardly follows automatically from the fact that Stu and I are Tottenham supporters that we wish to transform the Bashers into a Spurs-only association.'

'Oh, really?' chimes in this teenage bloke name of Eddie (who usually keeps his gob well zippered), with a mystifyingly crestfallen phiz. 'You two had really got my hopes up.'

'But Eddie,' I say, in mingled befuddlement and cuntsternation, 'You're wearing a Liverpool shirt.'

'And you're wearing a Wigan shirt, Rugger. What of it? We're both just conforming to Reg's barmy club regulations. Fact is, I tried to join up with the Spurs, but they wouldn't have me. They said that, seeing as how I was from Highgate, I didn't qualify for membership in their club. So I joined up with you lot instead. I know this line of quizzing is getting a bit old at this point in the evening, but WTF: "Am I really alone in wishing this club were a de facto annex of the Spurs?" Show of hands, please?'

And fuck me with one of those wiry, ten-inch-circumfrenced bottle brushes they tamp down cannonballs with if two-fifths of the right hands in the room didn't immejiately all go up in unison at the instigation of Eddie's query. After factoring the insularists out of the tally of non-raisers, I concluded with no small amount of dismay that the surviving army of pure Arsenalophobes comprised a total of, at most, four souls: Ronnie, Lou, myself and, most probably, the still-out-for-the-count Ochs.

(Eddie again): 'Right, then. I am pleased hereby to announce that the inaugural meeting of the North London Shadow Spurs will convene in 45 minutes, at midnight sharp, at the sign of my local, the Indolent Lemur, in Highgate. Mitch, you can be our President; Stu, our Secretary and--if there are no objections--I'll be our Sergeant at Pints.'

And with that, Eddie rises and exits the premises, followed by a practically goose-stepping procession of his eight-strong Spur-humping minions. As the last coupla pairs of jackboots of the aforesaid detachment are clearing the Ape's blessed threshold, I turn to Cyril and say to him, with a phiz marked by lines of pure desperation and contrition, 'I don't suppose you're having second thoughts about your insularism?'

'Not at all,' says Ruhl. 'If anything, the secession of the Shadow Spurs has topped off the petrol tank of my first ones. What do you say, Rugger? Shall we call it a night, and play it by result-ratio between tomorrow and mid-May?'

For the briefest of time-spans, amounting to a butcher's coupla hummingbird-eyeblinks, I find myself groping, however tentatively, towards the ignition switch of Cyril's newly re-tendered hatchet-burying steamshovel. Then, fortunately, I remember Reg's parting words, and am thereupon assaulted down under by a veritable fusillade of pins and needles, as my scrotal tissue smoothens itself out as though newly injected with 50 ccs of Botox; and fuck me once again with the above-mentioned cannon-brush if I don't feel my chin-stubble extending its length by a micrometre or two. And I answer Cyril in a voice well within Ochs's upper range:

'Not just yet, Ruhl. I revert to the last tabled item on the agenda: the ceremonial lighting of the Arsenalabrum. Lou, do you still fancy doing the honours (as I'm afraid I'm still out of matches)...?'

Lou, gorblessim, is game enough to take his cue, and begins Harpomarxically patting down his pocketless shirtyfront, turning his trouser pockets inside out and taking off and knocking against the table one of his shoes, all in ostensible search of 'tches. Cyril, practically exuding visible steam, patiently if stroppily sits out this panto up to shoe-knock number two or three, then says:

'I suppose you two must have your little joke. Very well, have it. But not at the expense of my party. [Turning to Jake qua nearest-to-hand-fellow-traveller.] What do you lads say to our adjourning to Redford's up in Chipping for the inaugural meeting of the North London Insularist Arsenal-Bashers' Association?'

Well, I need hardly say that Cyril's fellow insularists answered this question pretty much as they would have done if it had been an announcement that, say, Scarlett Johannson was about to pull up stark naked on horseback out front; in their devil-take-the-hindmost-spirited stampede abandoning Lou, Ron and myself for a trio of disconsolate Ochs-sitters. In finding myself so suddenly in this hyperpathetic condition, I didn't know whether to cry, rend my JR-emblazoned mantle to shreds or wax philosophical. So, with a WTF-ish sigh, I opted impulsively for the third alternative:

'Whodathunkit a mere two hours ago?' I pontificated. 'That it would have come to this: our twoscore-strong phalanx reduced to a puny scouting party of four? That three-quarters of the pride of North-London Arsenal-Bashing would turn out to be Tottenham-lovers or cuntinental Arsenal-fellators? Och, it's a dark day in the Kingdom of Arsenlaphobia indeed when counterfeit Isabelas outnumber the coinage of the Royal Mint three to one.'

'Well, Rugger, there is at least one bright spot in all of this,' says Ronnie.

'What's that?'

'You were promoted to President.'

'What makes you say that? In the first place, nobody ever seconded Reg's nomination [here I cut him a dirty, guilt-trip-shanghai-ing 'I'm not gonna name any names'-ish look"]; and in the second place, even if that nomination on its own counted as a de facto appointment, I don't see how there can be so much as a cunt's-shadow of significance to the notion of being president of a defunct club.'

'What d'ye mean a defunct club? If memory serves me, neither the Tottenham-lovers nor the Insularists walked out of here with a club charter in their hands.'

'That might be because we hadn't got one.'

'Hear me out, Rugger. That was a sort of...an...er...metaphor, that bit about the club charter. ['Sure,' I can't help remarking as a withering aside to my nameless, faceless and arseless wax dummy of a second wheel, 'if the natural habitat of the metaphor is the rectum of Ronnie Livingstone.'] What I meantersay is, er...well, didn't I catch each of their spokesmen announcing that they'd be meeting under the aegis of a different name-- the North London Shadow Spurs and the North London Insular Arsenalophobes, respectively?'

'Yeah, and so?'

'Well, that means they're Bashers no more; that they've effectively excommunicated themselves from our church, and that, as far as the parent organisation can in future be concerned, the Arsenalophobic archbishopric of North London remains in our--or, rather, your--possession.'

Fuck me a third time with the old cannon brush if he didn't have a point. 'Well and persuasively argued, Ronnie. You really ought to try out for a Barristership at the Old Bailey. '

(Ronnie, blushing tweren't-nothing-ishly): 'Maybe someday. Right now, I'd settle for a post as Sergeant at Pints of the North London Arsenal Bashers.'

'Well, then, Sarmajor, ten-hut! Forward march to the bar and order us a round.'
'Soitanly, Mr President.' But just as Ronnie's rising from his chair, I hear Jimmy reminding us that it's about that time (and then some) as follows:

'YODLEAY-EEE-FUCKING-HOO, MY FELLOW MOUNTAINEERS AND BLUEGRASS ENTHUSIASTS! SORRY I'M A BIT SLOW ON THE DRAW TONIGHT, VOLKER--YOU CAN BLAME IT ON THE BASHERS. IN ANY CASE, THE SEDULOUS APE IS NOW CL-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-SED! SLAM-'EM AND SCRAM-UM NO-O-O-O-O-O-W'S ALL I'VE GOTTA SAY, OR YOUR PINTS IS...ER...MY-NTS!'

So, in the next few seconds, as per usual, Jimmy makes his way round to our area, and, gesturing towards Ronnie's erect person, I say:

'I assume there's time for another round, Jimmy, and that we and our'n are welcome to stay on.'

'You'll have to snip my head off to untie me, Rugger,' says Jimmy, in more stroppy tones than are his wont, 'cos I'm a frayed knot. Fact is, you lot have been securing yourselves a chapter a minute in Mr Sedule's bad books since eight o'clock. First there was that bout of French-bashing towards the beginning, then there was that Code Puce episode with your friend here--which I, for my own part, could have done without--then, finally, there was all that talk about the possibility of a pack of yobbish Arsenal fans barging in and causing a ruckus. In short, from here on out, and starting about five minutes ago, Mr Sedule wants Fannie Adams to do with the Bashers.'

'Oh, come on, Jimmy. You and Sedgie are making fountains out of old mills. In the first place, that so-called bout of French-bashing was over faster than you could have said 'zoot all oars'--plus, the sole perpetrator of it footered the camp a while ago. Secondly, you'll have no cause to fear anyone's barging in here and getting shirty with us once that front door's locked. And thirdly, with regard to Ochs, well, that earlier outburst of his notwithstanding, he's normally as harmless as a kitten. Our former clubmate just happened to have touched a raw nerve, you know, with all that talk of backing up Arsenal's continental ambitions.'

Speaking of touching a raw nerve, it was certainly gormless beyond belief of me to carry on so freely like this, practically repeating Cyril's speech verbatim, without having beforehand taken at least a toking gander down at the table to make sure all of Ochs's nerves were still well and truly cooked. Whether it was my words alone, in wending their way down the Baron's aural canal and into his snoozing sensorium, that were responsible for touching off the mini-catastrophe that followed; or whether he would have begun bestirring himself at that moment anyway, even in their absence--courtesy, say, of the importunities of his distended bladder--I cannot say. All I know is that, no sooner had I rounded out the peroration of my case for a Bashers' lock-in, as full-stopped and unquoted above, than I was much alarmed to begin registering a familiar tremor through the hams of my feet, and that by the time my okies and fingers had finally repaired to the appropriate rendezvous point for the follow-up, Ochs, still slumped forwards but at least nominally conscious, was already reaching across the table for the candelabrum; and that by the time Lou and I succeeded in wresting the latter away from his clutches, he had already seized and devoured the upper half of the Arsène Wenger candle from the head clear on down to the waistline. Luckily, this curious snack run did not quite mark the beginning of Ochs's catching of his second wind; luckily, all it took to send him back on a second package tour of the land of Nod was a gentle re-folding of the forearms and a slightly less gentle tableward shove of the head, but I realised after the conclusion of this episode that we were only living on borrowed time as far as bearing the eventual full brunt of the Baron's shirtiness went. And thus I was almost relieved when Jimmy, who'd been spectating on the whole thing in a wide-okied state of bemusement bordering on apallment, finally came round and said:

'So much for your pussycat in Ox's clothing, Rugger. I'm warning the lot of you: if you don't want to be banned from the Ape qua private indiwiduals on top of qua Arsenal-bashers, you'd best get going.' And hitching up his trousers with one hand like a fucking gunslinger with a chronic case of builder's bum, as if to say 'Nuff said,' he steps off and back towards the bar.

So I say: 'I suppose we'd better do as he says. Looks like your inaugural sortie as Sergeant at Pints'll have to be postponed till our next meeting, Ronnie.'

'That's all right, Rugger. I can wait. 'But in the meantime, what do we do about him?' (Meaning, pah de merde, Ochs.)

'Dunno,' is all I can come up with for the moment by way of a possible solution. Thankfully, though, Lou is more resourceful; for, in virtual synch with my gormless verbalised reply, he's got one hand positioned at his ear in the classic hang-loose configuration, whilst with the other he's miming the dialing of an old-school rotary telephone. Next, air-cradling the imaginary receiver, he glides his right hand along the tabletop palm downwards for a foot or so, jerks out its thumb, and marches the first two fingers of the other hand up to it. Finally, he thrusts these two fingers into the thumb-and-forefinger hatch of the flat hand, clamps the latter fast about them; and sends the two newly united hands off on another foot-long spell of glideage. The whole post-telephonic part of the performance reminded me, on the whole, of various ethnic sign-language shorthands for buggery, but nevertheless, I got the picture:

'You think we should call a minicab for him?'

Lou nods emphatically.

'Good idea. But we don't know where he lives. How will we know where to tell the driver to take him?'

As during the preliminaries to the abortive lighting of the Arsenalabrum, Lou turns his pockets inside out.

'I was afraid you were going to suggest that. But you're right: it's our only choice. Well, Lou,' I add with a cuntish smirk, 'do you fancy doing these honours?'

He draws the diggits of his right hand up to his mouth, and begins timorously miming the biting of their nails.

'Fair enough. How about you, Ronnie?'

'No, thanks, Rugger. That's all you, as they used to say.'

'Yssups,' I mock-mutter as I approach the rear of Dave's sedentary carcass on half-bended knee (and with half-slackened schpincter). And like a young third-world medical student called upon to administer his first two prostate examinations simultaneously, I gingerly insert three fingers into each of Ochs's trouser pockets and begin probing for his wallet. Luckily, that foreign object proves to be lodged pretty shallowly in the right-side cavity, and to be extractable without my drawing anywhere near the trigger-hairs of the old family jewel-bombs. Still half-kneeling, I open the wallet and commence my search of its contents. Eventually, at the very bottom of a stack of the usual bill-foldial paraphrenalia--credit and debit cards, business cards of takeaway establishments, so-called valued customer cards issued by the likes of Sainsbury's and Tesco's--I discover a document that I suspect might just answer our present purposes, viz. a folded-up scrap of ordinary ruled notebook or scribbling-block paper. Unfurled to its full length and breadth, this here scrap turns out to be inscribed, in a seemingly feminine hand, with the following message: How d'ye do. My name is David Ochs, and I have been diagnosed as a clinically morbid Arsenalophobe. If I am at present unable to communicate my wishes or intentions to you vocally, I would greatly appreciate your telephoning the following number: ********** [diggits of the aforesaid omitted out of respect for the privacy of the Ochs family].'

Re-secreting the wallet and rising to my feet, I hand the paper over to Ronnie and, having granted him the obligatory ten seconds of perusage, ask, 'So, what do you make of it?'

(Handing the paper back to me:) 'I'd guess it was written by his wife, or, more likely, by his mum.'

'No chance this is some kind of Gooner-instigated prank, is there?'

'Sure there's a chance it is. But we might as well try ringing the number. It's our only lead, after all. Do you happen to have your mobile on you? I left mine at home, I'm afraid...'

...Which doubtlessly explained his uncharacteristically charge-taking stance at this particular moment. But no matter: I was game enough to do the honours yet again, and whipped out my phone and made the call forthwith. The first ring-tone had barely sounded before I was greeted by a woman's voice speaking in a foreign accent I at first had trouble pinpointing:

'Halloh?'

'Er...yes. I'm calling regarding a message I found in...er...David Ochs's wallet.'

'Och, Gott in Himmel, mein Bub!'

'Your...boob?'

'My child! Is he okay?'

'Yes, he's fine. I mean, he's not quite conscious, but, as near as I can tell, a good night's sleep'll put him to rights.'

'Och, Gott sei Dank! [There follows a pause of a butcher's-dozen seconds, in which I (now) retrospectively imagine Frau Ochs narrowing her eyes and placing her arms akimbo suspiciously.] Warte, nur...Where have you found him? You are not, by any chance, one of those verwuenschte Arsenal-bashers?'

'No, ma'am. Me and my mates were just walking along the pavement here in...er...Highbury, and we happened to come across your son propped up against a shop front.'

'Gott sei wieder Dank! If I give you an address, you will call a minicab, yes?'

'Jawoh--er, yes, of course.' So I flip the paper over, set it flat on the table, and, taking up the ballpoint intuitively proffered to me just in time by Lou, scrawl down Dave's lower-Barnetian address, as dictated to me by Frau Ochs. After I've read her Royal Mail coordinates back to her, and thereby verified them, she says:

'You need not worry about the charge for the cab. I will be waiting out front with the money.'

I should hope so, you fucking Krautess, is what I sort of want to say at this point. At the same time, I also sort of want to say, Gott sei Dank for your thinking of the bleeding obvious, which is more than most people can be counted on to do, when they can hoover an extra Isabella or ten out of you by not thinking of it. As it happens, I end up signing off by saying, 'And don't you worry, Mrs Ochs, he'll be home within the half hour.'

So, no sooner have I ended this call with one thumb-flick, than I'm speed-dialling the number of the local minicab company with another. And once the request for service has been made, the three of us--Ronnie, Lou and myself--find ourselves embarked on a whole new leg of the journey of this seemingly neverending night; for, of course, the matter of getting Ochs from the table to the pavement out front constitutes an ordeal in and of itself. After conferring for a bit, we conclude that it would be best not to try to walk him out, that it would be best, insofar as it's possible, not to disabuse him of the notion that he's still sitting at the table even as his arse cheeks are settling into the back seat of the cab. So, Lou hooks him under the left armpit and I hook him under the right; and betwixt the two of us we manage to lift him clear of the chair just long enough for Ronnie to come to the rescue with his extra billion kilojoules of manpower in the form of a third arm cupped across and under Dave's thighs, just behind the knees. Our progress to the front door is, TBS, slower than that of treacle in June (or January, or whichever fucking month the expression calls for), and made none the easier by our being spectated upon all the while by Jimmy and Mr Sedule, standing cross-armed in front of the bar with well-positioned toothpicks jutting from their their scowling gobs, and tapping their feet in unison, as if to say, 'We're not getting any younger, or less stroppy.' But at least for the full length of the crossing we can thank our lucky Stellas--er, Hoegaardens--that Dave is still fast asleep, and, indeed, snoring unreservedly like there's no tomorrow--or a coupla days after it, for that matter. Just as we're drawing within kicking distance of the door (the kick in question being subsequently administered by Lou), I feel against my left co-jone the welcome vibrations of my mobile, notifying me that our cab has arrived. Talk about perfect timing! I don't think I, let alone my schphincter, could have served out more than another millisecond or two of my commission as one third of Dave's human sedan chair. Wellsir, out front, no sooner has the driver caught sight of the whites of our six okies, than he's out on the street and dashing round the arse of his vehicle to open the kerbside back door, with all of the professional expedition of a bloke who's accustomed to running these sorts of errands. Leaving Lou to take up the hookage of Dave's right armpit for the duration of his installation in the back seat, I step off to the kerb, fish Frau Ochs's leaflet from my right trouser pocket and walk on over to the window of the driver, who is by now re-seated and ready to take off. And during the ten-odd seconds in which I'm handing the paper over to the driver and explaining its purpose to him, with the bony edge of my forearm resting against the blade of the half-open front window, I can't help but detect a palpable swell in the vibrations coursing through the body of the car, a swell that cannot be accounted for by the ambient hum of the engine. Thereupon, withdrawing my fingers and spastically massaging my lower lip into a requisite degree of slackness, I say to him:

'Roll down your windows--all of 'em all the way.'

'Cor, are you fucking barmy, mate? It's two degrees centigrade (36 degrees Fahrenheit) out there.'

'For the love of God, man, just do as I say!' I bawl peremptorily and dash round again to the back, where I encounter Ronnie and Lou spectating on a now merely-somnolent Ochs through the still-open back door and from the relative safety of the pavement. 'Where are they?...Let me at 'em,' he keeps muttering, his voice, register-wise, dipping every now and then below the threshold of audibility; and his hands clawing constantly, if feebly, at the hem of his shirtyfront.

'Code puce, Rugger?' Ronnie quizzes me helplessly.

'Yes, un-frayed-knottedly. But there's nothing for it. We're locked out of the Ape and bottle-less.' So saying, I kick the back door closed and, catching the driver's okies through the arse-view, I give him the cuntishly optimistic thumbs-up-cum-closed-mouth-smile signifying, 'All systems go!' Whereupon the car peels out and heads down the southbound lane of the High Road at a none-too-speedy 50 mph. But ere they drove out of sight, we--along with, I'm sure, the rest of the postcode--heard Ochs exclaim, 'WITH ME...WITH ME...NO NIGHT WILL BE TOOOOOOOO LO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-NG!', followed by the shuddering of the perspex-and-brick fronts of all the shops along the way, like a coda rendered by a full orchestral complement of accompanying cuntrabasses.

'So,' says Ronnie, effectively and (doubtlessly) intentionally putting the kebosh on the most obvious question--viz: Will Ochs, his driver and their shared conveyance make it home in three pieces?--asks, 'should we head on up to Redford's for a nightcap?'

'Sure thing,' I say, stiff-schlonged enough, whilst Lou starts nodding and grinning with his tongue lolling out like a dog's. Then, Foreskin-Smite-Inducing Thought Number One pops into my gourdita. 'Wait: the Insularists are meeting up there. I dare say we shouldn't be welcome. And even if we should be...'

'Yes?'

'Well, there's the principle of the thing. We can't just chinwag amongst ourselves, and fully shirted, in sight of those cunts. It'd be like a chapter of the Anti-Defamation League holding a meeting at their local Shitler Youth HQ--or London City Hall, for that matter.' Then, recalling that the original idea of our going to Redford's was Ronnie's, and editorial note to self--insert copy of above passage reading 'narrowing her eyes...suspiciously,' adjusting personal pronouns as required: 'You weren't by any chance thinking of making nice with the Insularists, were you?'

This question brings Ronnie as close to the brink of shirtiness as I've ever seen him: 'Course not, YFC! If you only knew how near I was to following Reg out that door tonight...'

(No, I hadn't; but now that I did, I was blushing to the roots of my pubes for shame and remorse): 'There, there, there--it was cuntish of me to ask, and I'm sorry.'

(Ronnie, with a brisk downwards tug or two to his Sunderlander's shirty front): 'Apology accepted.' Then, after a butcher's coupla seconds of companiably silent strideage, he says, 'I'm curious to know what you make of this notion of clinically morbid Arsenalophobia, Rugger. Do you think it exists--I mean, as an officially recognised medical condition?'

'I doubt it. But even if it does, who shivs a git? Nowadays, practically any pursuit or occupation or pastime that can't somehow be tied into helping the godawful little nippers of the world is liable to have the dishonorific of medical condition clapped on to it. That Ochs might very well be morbidly obese I'll grant you; but as to whether he's morbidly Arsenalophobic, well, at arse, the question itself is of no significance whatsoever. They say with certain other of these alleged conditions--like alcoholism or drug addiction, for example, that the most important criterion for determining whether you are a sufferer is whether it interferes with your life ...' [Witness here McGyver Signature Rhetorical Ploy #52: the Tactically Pretended Petering out of Train of Thought]

'Yes?' says Ronnie.

'...Well, I submit to you, Ronnie, that Arsenal-bashing is Ochs's life. Life without Arsenal-bashing, for Ochs, would be no life at all--a living death, if you will.'

'And the same could be said about us, right, Rugger?'

'Even so,' I answer unthinkingly, only to realise a few seconds later that for Sinatraness's sake this rejoinder deserves a spot of qualification: 'Of course, though, speaking only for myself, and swapping this here Wigan shirt for an anorak of the same hue, I would consider myself only 63 per cent Arsenalophobe, the other 37 per cent of my ethical constitution being comprised by my Kenophobia. But sure: that particular mutato having been duly mutandied, you're spot on.'

As I'm rounding out this rather half-arsed, off-the-shirtycuff rationalisation of the Kenward-yearning component of my weltanschlong, we arrive at the intersection of Woodside Avenue and Woodside Park Road, whither we all three instinctively tacked as soon as it became clear we wouldn't be going to Redford's, and at which it seems likewise instinctively obvious that there should be a parting of the ways, with Lou and I heading northwards to the maisonette (whence he and I will carpool our way up to Potters Bar next morning), and Ronnie heading south-southeastwards to his flat on Lodge Lane. So, re-assuming my old presidential mien, I say to my two mates:

'Well, lads, Ape or no Ape, Redford's or no Redford's, Arsenalabrum or no Arsenalabrum, we must adjourn this meeting properly--to wit, with the singing of our fight song. Ready?' [Ron and Lou nod and grin with apparent enthusiasm and relief.] 'On the count of four: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!'

(Gnu twah [Yes, Lou included, that mime bidness of his being pure schtick]):

Arsenal, oh Arsenal, they should have named you Cuntsenal!
Your side is such a farce and all,
It's time you died for once and all.
Down with Arsène! Down with Thierry!
Down with Jemmy Aliadiery!
Storm the stands at Highbury
And scamper down below.
Slash and burn and salt the turf
So that NOTHING--W-I-I-I-I-I-LL--GRO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-W!

By club tradition, we're supposed to hold that last vowel in grow as long as we are physically capable of doing so--in other words, until we're more or less on the verge of fainting. Well, in this case, long after my own lungs have given up the ghost on the vowel in question, have let it expire in a quiet, death-rattle-ish gurgle, I'm flummoxed to continue hearing it issuing steadily, and at its original pitch and volume, from the larynx of one of my neighbours.

'All huh-huh-right, Ruh-huh-Ronnie,' I gasp out the obvious, 'cut it out.'

(Ronnie, wheezing and gasping a mini-fit in his own right): 'Huh-huh-it's not-huh-huh me, Rugger.'

'Huh-huh-Lou?'

Lou, conveniently reverting to his schtick, windedly nods 'NO!'

At which point, as if on cue, we all swivel our respective phizzes towards the spot of streetage to our collective immejiate left, where our respective pairs of okies happen to alight on an indiwidual who could creditably serve as Ochs's stunt-double, a mighty 22-stone bloke in a red zip-up hoodie, who, to judge by the still-rounded orientation of his lips and the faintly purple tinge of his facial complexion, cannot but be the very meejium of this ever-perduring O. After holding the note unflaggingly for another cuntishly protracted half-minute, during which I can't help but detect a mischievous twinkle rising to the surface of one, if not both, of his okies, he cuts himself short, wipes his upper lip with a sleeve of his hoodie in a cuntishly perfunctory manner, and puts his two hands together in a cuntishly condescending round of well-nigh-poncily understated applause.

(Aforesaid bloke:) 'Well sung, my friends, well sung! Of course, the lyrics could do with a bit of updating: in terms of sheer scoring-power, Cesc Fabregas clearly outranks Jeremy Aliadiere nowadays; and for "Highbury" should you not have substituted "Emirates" to reflect the imminent change in home venue?'

The cunt had a point--well, let's say three-quarters of a point; for any attempt at taking account of that whippersnapper CF's late ascendancy in the club would indubitably have destroyed the song's rhyme scheme. But even as for the incipient anachronism of the reference to Highbury, I had a riposte ready to shirt, courtesy of some recent Bashers' chingwags on the subject:

'Yeah, well, we've decided to postpone the switchover to "Emirates" till after the date of the last match at the old digs, May 7.' Then, gormlessly galvanized by the stranger's petty fault-finding vis-a-vis our signature chune, I ask the okie-burstingly obvious--if no-less-okie-burstingly-imprudent--question: 'How comes it that you're so well acquained with our fight song? I don't recall having seen you at any of our recent meetings.'

'Well,' says the stranger, 'it's a bit of a long story. Howsabout I shorten it for you a smidge?' Whereupon he unzips his hoodie to reveal a red undershirt sporting the number 15 in large white numerals, surmounted in equally large characters by the name FABREGAS. 'Allow me to introduce myself,' he grins, proffering his right hand to me in the form of a fist: 'Michael "Row the Boat" O'Schorr, veteran Arsenal-basher-basher, class of '03.'

'Run for your lives, lads!' I manage to squeal out just in time to receive a glancing chin-dusting from Em-Oh-Ess in place of the leering jaw-wrenching I would have received had I tarried a microsecond longer. Wellsir, Lou and I sprint the 500-odd metres leading to the maisonette in unofficially world-record-setting time, and Ronnie, for his part, manages to make his way chez his own Louie with commensurate expedition. In conclusion: to those of my readers who have the hoot's pah to compare the performance of the surviving North London Arsenal Bashers of March 23/24 unfavourably to that of the NLABs of yore, all I have to say is, He who bashes and runs away lives to bash another day.