Please be patient because this story, (as long as it takes to tell), is worth the telling.

Charm … and a brick.

OK. New Year’s Eve was a bust and, feeling old and irrelevant in the company of so many youngsters celebrating the end of 2023 in my beloved local watering hole, I survived only two pints before feeling a need to just head home by 9pm… so that’s just what I did.

However, January 2^nd, the very next day, was an entirely different and memorable experience where I wandered down the pub at around 6:30pm and walked into a different and entirely surreal environment.

Within seconds of walking into the pub, I noticed a stranger hunched over the bar at the right hand side of the establishment, observing a mess of glasses, cans and random items littering the guy’s personal space before him.

Nevertheless, unperturbed, I headed left to the main bar where I joined a modest half dozen other patrons including “M”, a close friend.

After ordering a pint of pils lager, I chilled at the bar for a couple of minutes and appreciated the familiarity and continuity of a place I had made my home, on and off, for the last 43 years.

Then I walked outside into the beer garden where, without meaning to, I hear a conversation with my friend, “M”, and that same stranger as they chat in the men’s toilet. (Audible from the garden).

“I’m from Birmingham. Done bad shit but … well, that’s behind me.”

I deduce this is the stranger talking and, predictably, my friend “M” responds with a monosyllabic “OK”.

The stranger adds, “You know what I mean?”

“M” responds with “Yeah.”

Silence follows but, already, I recognise that this guy, this wired stranger is, potentially, liable to become problematic.

Armed with the above information, I return to the bar determined to keep my distance from the stranger until … I heard a slurred voice.

“Landlord, have a drink with me.”

I then leaned forward, looked past the pillar separating both bars and caught the eye of the person offering the drink to Dave, the landlord … and on making eye contact with that same stranger, he uttered, “And buy this fellah a drink too,”

That would be me!

And it was at that point that the night took an ominous turn.

Friendship?

Thus, unwittingly, and with little choice but to accept and acknowledge the insistent, almost aggressive, demand to partake in the man’s forced generosity, I found myself, instantly bonded into a situation where social interaction would have to follow.

I learn that the stranger’s name is “W” and, in the following 20 minutes, talking between the pillars of the two bars, I then suffer a disjointed and disturbing rant as “W”, adopting a “Christian”, God fearing diatribe, relates his life story, (too complex and wide ranging to relate here), but with elements including persecution, psychotic illness, a multi-million pound illegal drugs business, claims of belonging to some “elite” social culture … AND a revelation that he was three years out of jail … but a reformed character.

My response?

I took control of the narrative and diplomatically, steered the stranger down from his crazed revelations, normalising his outrageous comprehensions by relating some of my own, (equally distressing), personal experiences of life with the genuine aim of appearing relatable and empathic with his own experiences.

But really?

I recognised that this human being was dangerous, potentially violent and a loose cannon and Jeez, in this 21^st century world we now live in, could he be tooled up or carrying a knife?

Me … Truthfully?

Well. I just wanted to drink up and go!

But I couldn’t.

The landlord and landlady were my friends and, anyway, aside from not even being in the bar, the landlord was suffering ill health so while I wanted to just leave, (and I mean leave out of fear for what this guy seemed capable of doing), morally, there was no way I could walk away.

AND … although it seems a trite and odd thing to say, “owing him a drink”, I was in the weird situation of, somehow, being almost obliged to be friendly and build up some form of a relationship with this disturbed man.

Though, hey, by his own admission, “He had turned over a new leaf” so who was I to judge him?

Now. What follows is CRAZY!

No. (Pause) Rather. What follows is crazy Part ONE and crazy Part TWO!

Crazy Part 1

I find myself outside the pub sharing a “cigarette break” with the landlady and another punter who I’d no recollection of having ever met before.

And … I learn something … err … I learn something very perturbing.

Apparently, “W”, the guy I had first clocked on entering the bar had done time for murder.

13 years.

And Crazy part 2?

The other punter who, there and then ALSO admitted to being psychotic, had done 3.5 years for possession of a firearm!

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Garden, brick, vigilance, intervention, diplomacy, force, dragged out, chat, resolution.