Gin Genie
Cam ran his thumb along the key, again, as though the motion could banish the key itself. It wouldn’t, the bar belonged to him now.
Uncle Dan’s Bar, both the reference to the bar by relatives and the bar’s name, had worn every iteration of meeting place, eatery and drinking den for as long as Cam remembered. Gastro Pub, Gay Bar, Wine Bar, Olde World Pub, you name it, nothing worked!
“Now it’s mine,” Cam mumbled.
He released a sigh that almost accompanied the gust of autumn wind roaring past Cam and round the bend, ignoring this bar on the corner of the street, like punters had done.
“Shittin’ ell, Cam,” Todd’s amused voice interrupted the quiet, his younger brother stood at Cam’s left shoulder, running his eyes over Dan’s Bar. Behind those eyes lay a mile a minute, hustle on a hunch mind that caught Todd out for a duck as often as it caused him to hit a six. Cricket metaphors aside, when Todd did hit it out of the ground, the ball went bloody far! The stare’s appraisal communicated what Cam already knew would leave his brother’s mouth, “you know what, you’ve got some prime real estate on your hands here.”
More wind ghosted along the road, dumping autumn’s promise of coming winter chill over them like an Ice Bucket Challenge.
“Let’s not speculate out here, eh? It’s brass monkeys,” Cam answered.
The door did not give at first, as though the spirit of Cam’s uncle refused to admit the inevitable collapse of decades with his head buried in the sand over this bar’s fate. It soon relented with enough pressure and reality that caused the door to open, one of those metal and glass efforts that belonged on a 50s American diner. Any pretence to any era or style fled as the heavy dust scent seemed to slap Cam on the nose, it was so strong, the weird, acrid dust smell of accumulated boxes that has a cheese whiff to it. Todd of course, couldn’t keep the observation contained in his head, “Christ on a bike, why do old boxes and that hum dink of cheese?”
To curdle any peace, like you, Cam nearly answered, opting for silence and its heavy dread accomplice to set up camp in Cam’s stomach as he surveyed the chaos. Boxes! Everywhere boxes! An empire of boxes and him an interloper of freshness in the midst of this orgy of slow decay and lamentation of its own failings.
Failings that are now mine, Cam thought, the heavy dread sinking even further in his belly, Todd exhaled at his shoulder.
“Wish I could stay and help, bruv,” he said, “but people to be, places to see and that, #L8rz!”
“Mmm,” Cam replied as Todd turned and left as the door groaned shut, “#ThankFuckForThat,” he added. The last thing Cam needed was Todd bending his ear about renovating the place into flats, or AirBnBs, or flogging the place to developers, or worse, Todd’s insinuations that he “invest” in the place with Cam. If his little brother put any of his ill gotten gains into this place, give it three months and the pair would probably be knelt before their own hastily dug graves somewhere in Epping Forest with a gun to their head.
Cam wandered through the interior, torch from his phone tracing sharp passages of light that the dust shrank away from as though it had been rebuked, even artificial light can be a disinfectant.
He knew he let his mind wander, but the task was massive here, the room was massive and his lack of enthusiasm to take this white elephant on was equally, well, massive. Cam reflected how he was often told he veered from words of whimsy to wordlessness, by the very uncle that had owned this bar, Uncle Dan, a man who was the Wizard of Whimsy himself. The uncle who was the essence of fun and ricocheting through life as though he knew there would always be a crash barrier somewhere - whether it was my mum and dad’s settee or a hotel room in Vegas he’d won. Dan Dare by name and nature (mum insisted on it being pronounced Dar Ray) possessed just by the right dose of luck like his namesake, that paid off as much as it failed, this bar was now a tomb to that legacy.
“At least I got shot of Temu Todd, eh Uncle Dan? A younger you, he ain’t!” Cam muttered and grimaced at the thick, almost damp layer of dust on the bar that he’d put his hand in. He looked about for something to wipe his hand on, his coat would have to do, a light put paid to any hapless attempt to clean dust away. A glint, like the sun off glass, drew Cam towards the back, through a slight gap in the doorway, now dragging his hand through the dust on the bar obliviously. The torch on the phone faltered a little as he pushed the door open, spinning out from his hand as he stumbled over a piece of carpet poking up in front of the door that he hadn’t noticed in his stupor.
“SHIT!” He cried, shoulder going into a flimsy plastic shelf that some knobhead - probably Uncle Dan - right near the door for reasons unknown.
“This is probably what fucking killed you!” he snapped to no one as his eyes caught the bottle the light had been glinting off, also flown off the shelf, unscathed. Inert, peaceful, except for a blue smoke that began belching from the top; his inner dread went cold, with a bit of fear but mostly grim resignation… “or this smoke is what killed you,” Cam whispered as it enveloped him!
He should have sent Todd in here first…
