....For a moment the whole pub holds its breath as the excitable murmer of voices chatter, fuelled by intrigue as to what has just occurred. An eyebrow arches as a thick-set ginger man with a tattoo of an eagle with a scroll in it's claws turns to Michael and says, "You shagging her or what?" All the eyes turn to him as he draws himself up against the bar and quietly mutters, "It doesn't matter". The ginger man shrugs his shoulder and says despondently, "Only asking mate", then turns away to speculate further with his group of friends, a gruff laugh breaking from them at a comment I didn't hear.
Michael, head bowed, edges himself towards the door, a big man with heavy hands, nails outlined in oil or dirt pats him on the back as he retreats towards the door, the bouncers beady eyes condemning him with each echoing footfall. A group of drunks at the far end of the bar begin a mocking slow applause as he leaves, the brutal falls of their hands increasing in tempo until they're joined by the falsetto screech of a woman who lurches at him, her mascara heavy eyes clouded with alcohol as she crows some crude comment at him then moulds back into the jeering crowd, triumphant at her part in the grotesque carnival they are inflicting on the man.

...A glass clinks by the bar. His low throaty voice reverberates round the room to the eerie swell of the violins and the abrupt crechendo that leaves a void hanging in the air where the voices once chattered. He looks deep into the crowd as he pauses briefly between verses, the strings howl, distorted slightly by the speakers and a bead of sweat rolls slowly down his temple stopping at the damp curl of hair by his ear. His brow is contorted with the violent sorrow he spits into the words as his eyes search the faces before him.
In the crowd stands a woman, her face reflecting the pain of the lyrics as she stares, mouth ajar at him on the stage. Her fingers are twined round her glass, the ice long since melted away and a vivid crecent of lemon mirroring the arc of pale lipstick interrupting the rim. The man next toher is frowning. Teeth glinting behind thin lips, pulled taut in a snarl. A vein, swollen and bulbous, stands in relief against his thick, red neck and the shine on his greased back hair a streak of blue in the dim light thrown out from the screen. His hand quivers and narrow, reptilian eyes brood as on stage the man extends his arm and points theatrically at the woman. The big mans eye twitches and he stiffens. The last verse and with reddenedeyes the singer raises his hand, mimicing pressing his face against a window and closes his eyes. He gasps suddenly as he gulps for breath for thefinale which erupts a torrent of emotion blasts through the speakers as his high hopeless scream is drowned by the battling strings of the fraught coda and he shrins back into the neck of his jacket, head bowed, microphone hanging limp from its cord in his hand as he stands, swaying slowly to the fading music until silence invades the room and every eye is on him waiting, waiting for something to happen. Their morbid curiosity is left unfulfilled as he lifts his head and looks once more at the woman. With a crack the big man slams his glass on the table, turns and stalks out, oblivious to the wet drink stain slowly speading over his sleeve. She stands there in this forced silence and a screech of feedback punctuates the still air with its plaintive exclamation.
'Thank you! Can we all have a big hand for Michael!' The voice of the M.C. is distant in the oppression of the room until the first tentative murmer begins and soon all is well again. Michael steps down from the stage and once more disappears into the heaving, muttering crowd, filling dead space between the clusters of people, noticed only by the woman standing at the table who softly sighs and pushes through the bodies towards the door, a smile just visible on her lips.

...his eyes are heavy with adrenaline, stung with fear and catching the luminous crowns of the ceiling lights in them , like tiny pin-dot halos framing his quivering pupils. His tongue flicks out and brushes his dry bottom lip as he brings his stubby fingered hand up to his chin, loaded with the stubble of lost days, and drags it down framing his mouth in the slow descending V of the crook of his thumb. An eyebrow twitches and he takes the hand from his chin to smooth back a long frond of hair that has crept down from his balding scalp, now held in place by the scattered beads of sweat that had erupted on his forehead under the lights and squeezed out by the pressure of the hostile, drunken eyes that now stared at him up on his stage, the air alive with the wurlitzer reproduction big-band intro. of the song. Shuffling into the line of the screen he gazes far off behind the heads of the drinkers into some unknown horizon, his face illuminated blue on one side by the sickly light of the screen, the other a depth of shadows his eye pricked out among them by that same halo of light as he slowly growls the first line of the song 'I, I who have nothing. I, I who have no-one..'

...She looked at him with a look of slightly bored scorn, as though she'd seen a hundred fat drinkers do the same thing before. A slow, yellow toothed smirk spread across his face as he eyed her, the anticipation of a reaction glittering in his eyes.
The microphone on the karaoke stage crackles as the m.c. takes it and begins to welcome everyone in his side-show-euphoria heavy voice. This is the most exciting night of your life. ever. The distorted wailings of the music begin to boom from the buzzing speakers as he clears his throat to the deep reggae bass of 'red red wine'. That throbbing line bouncing off the walls as i make my way to the toilet, pushing through the heaving crowd. The intermittant chatter of groups of women interrupted by a deep masculine explosion of laughter at some unheard anecdote. The door swings open as i go to touch it causing me to double take slightly as a cluster of women shriek through the narrow opening and forge their way back to bar, some clutching bottles in red taloned fingers, the chink of their rings on the glass neck a barely audible tinkle.
There is the high, breathless whine of a hand dryer as i go in and the sweet smell of spilt alcopops and not yet dispersed purfume that hangs in a fuzz over the sink. Inside the cubicle the thin partitions vibrate to the plunks of the bass and the m.c.s voice comes through the walls, a cotton wool blur of sound. The bass is hypnotizing as i read the smattering of graffitti that daubs the partition walls and the door, its lock on only two screws. These are the grown-up sagas of the kids who scrawl on the walls of the tower block. This biro scratched philosophy that runs by my eyes like the pointless ramblings of problem page angst; contempory prose of the disaffected and misunderstood. And for all the change in scenery the message still remains. Yes, T.L. is still a slag!
The door opens as i sit in my cubicle bringing with it a burst of bass and a shriek of bridge from the m.c.. The click of a lighter and the fast-talking bitchiness of a woman who has seen a rival and is prickling with jealousy. Their spite-tipped accusations continue to fire from them like bullets, bequeathed to those they despise. A glance as i emerge then hushed voices, the murmer of retaliation and then to the smeared mirrors as i exit, hands still damp from the sink with the cigarette butt pirouetting towards the plughole.
Back into the bar. The strains of 'I Who Have Nothing' and there he is. I knew he'd be here, with dusty-jacketed triumph he takes to the stage.

...the music in the pub pulses through me, and the low almost inaudible whirring of a glass as it vibrates, catches my ear, a thin sound picking its way out of the cacophony that surrounds. The sad looking flat beer that sits, despondant at the bottom of the glass is scored with ripples and the spectral remnants of froth hang, like tired, faded lace in rings round its middle. The sweet alcoholic smell wafts through the sharpness of drifting cigarette smoke and makes me sneeze, to the soundtrack of a drunken jeers, nearly knocking the glass from where it stands and spoiling this overlooked monument to the fat drinker that sits behind it, moustache peppered with the head of its successor. The messy roll-up hanging limp from his fingers taunts gravity with its perilous column of ash, that threatens to fall, sizzling, into the dregs in the glass.
After a slow, wheezing drag he asserts his little finger, adorned with a tarnished signet ring and, as though he knew what i was thinking, gave a swift staccatto tap of the cigarette on the glass sending the ash to its watery grave and feathering the sides with the tiny grey remnants.
The barmaid snorted at this action, pinching her lips and with all the flamboyance of a melodrama villain clattered an ashtray down on the bar. the alcohol saturated beer flannels atop it absobed its immediate blow, but not that which she intended as the fat drinker, eyebrow raised, ground his cigarette into the ash-whorled bottom of the glass ashtray with his nicotine stained middle finger, each twist exaggerating the subtle crudeness of his response.

...His eyes are narrow in his face as he surveys the crowd converging on the pub, he clears his throat with an ominous growl that makes two clucking women giggle. One places a taloned hand on his chest and cackles 'we'll be on our best behaviour, love!' a chink of mischief in her eye that is abruptly extinguished as his fat paw brushes her off and with a curt nod of the head he dismisses them. Raised eyebrows and pursed lips accompany the high pitched, mocking 'oooooh!' that they emit, then wander exaggerating the hilarity of the encounter and weaving a path towards the bar, fixing upon a lone 'project' at the corner and moving in with predatory stealth, nails clicking against the sticky surface of the bar like an executioners drumroll.
the cloying smell of stale beer, cigarettes and too much aftershave hit my nostrils as I pass the bouncer noticing grazes on his knuckles and the slow, repetitive clench of his stubbled jaw as he chews on gum.

...they filter off into the night leaving a void of silence where they were, the distant clacking of their heels fades into the tinny whines that emanate from the pub as i approach.
There it stands with a slow crocodile of drunken disciples beating a path to the door to come and throw themselves at the night and drink away all that clouds their heads when sobriety comes creeping round their fuzzed brains, stealthy and destructive like an assassin. their eyes look out, hollow behind the pink-cheeked revelry and the salty beads of sweat that course down their lined brows, stopping in each furrow as though to momentarily dwell on the troubled tales they hold until smeared away by the back of a hand into the damp halo of their hairline whilst the night procedes under the hot lights and stale air that circulates, thick with the twining smoke of their cigarette smiles and the suffocating wetness of sweet perfume, souring with each breath.
The doorway gapes. The sillhouette of a doorman imposes itself in the illuminated frame.