"Thank you... thank you," her voice heard around the bar as she leans forward in to the microphone resting her fingerless leather gloves atop the microphone as she sways. A beaming smile across her pale petite face, which sits beneath spiked irregularly cut black hair flecked with lime green highlights, it's certainly not a conventional look.
She rocks the microphone stand, looking every bit the rockstar she no doubt aspires to be as the noisy crowd begin to calm and settle in their response to the last chords of the song fading from the speaker stack thst was set up by the team of staff that accompany her and her band, 'Eroding April'. This isn't my idea, this is the idea of the Brewery's marketing team who view O'Learys as the perfect venue for the bands pre album launch tour. Apparently they're going to be big. If I was booking a band I'd be booking a style of music that wasn't akin to sticking a nail gun to my temple and pulling the trigger.
Steve seems to be enjoying himself as I watch him coercing two blonde girls on the far side of the busy bar. I'll say one thing for 'Eroding April', there music might be shite but it's brought in a bumper Tuesday night crowd that we wouldn't normally see. I can only imagine what a good band might bring in. We'd no doubt be rivalling the Arena on the far side of the City.
"Right... right sadly... sadly this is our last song," she states breathlessly into the Mic. An almost pantomime jeer greets her
"Fuck Off," she responds acerbically "I'd just like to say thanks to you for fucking being you..."
"Don't change," a bald drummer shouts over the din.
"I'd also like to thank O'Leary's for hosting us tonight... they've great... stay behind and drink all their fucking beer."
I welcome the sentiment as I nod to her, but she doesn't notice me.
"This is... Overdone!!"
It means nothing to me, it means nothing to Steve I know full well but he erupts as does the rest of the packed bar. I take a swig from a cold bottle of lager as the drummer counts down the start of the song.
**********
As I'd expected the final chords of the final track had been greeted with delirium. A delirium that did not transfer to, 'lets all go to the bar and get pissed'. An hour later as closing time approaches the temporary stage and its associated equipment are all but packed away. Roughly eighty percent of the crowd hadn't remained much after the band had left stage.
I start packing away the bar myself. Steve's disappeared like a dog on heat after one of the two blondes, probably with aspirations of two of them, likely chewing on a greasy burger on his own down the takeaway mile without even having got a phone number for his fucking troubles. I wonder if he'll put in an appearance again, knowing full well it's a strong possibility.
I look over at Alice the lead singer who's presently involved in deep and seemingly very heated conversation with a long haired guy in of all things a corduroy jacket. I watch her slam her hand against the bar, hissing the word "Fuck," angrily as he backs away on her snarling expression his hands to outstretched as if indicating he takes no responsibility. I note her tumbler is empty picking out a bottle of bourbon I walk over and without enquiring pour a large freehand measure.
"Thanks" she offers.
"Sounds... looks like you needed it," I offer.
"When did creativity die?"
"Fuck," I offer. "Did he... I had no idea he was even ill."
It's a shit joke but it has the desired effect. Her chuckle somewhere between sincere and disbelief at my pathetic attempt at humour.
"Join me in a Whisky Barman... on one condition" she offers narrowing her eyes a little. Swilling the amber liquid in her glass.
"What's that?" I offer genuinely intrigued.
"Don't talk to me about what o do for a living."
**********
She sits opposite me in a booth, a bottle of bourbon sits on the table before us, with no tumblers. The bar is empty the doors are locked, blinds pulled down for the night. The last of her colleagues left around ten minutes ago. All of them off to find a late night curry house. She'd indicated she wasn't keen, promised to see them all in the morning as she was going to head back to the hotel.
"Have you not got a fucking juke box in a place like this?" She states rather accusingly as opposed to an enquiry as she leans forward over the table at me, I can't help but glance down the front of her black vest over a seemingly black bra holding up her small tits.
"Think it's unplugged for the night," I offer
"Irish Bar..." she chuckles "...it's probably full of cliche shit like U2 and The Pogues anyway."
"I'll take no offence," I say grabbing the bottle and taking a swig.
"You're not Irish though ...not with that accent" Alice offers.
"Local boy, born and bred" I offer up, "Moved away... got dragged right back home within months."
"Family man?"
"Hardly... it's just me and my brother ...we grew up in the system" I offer being proud of my difficult history but with a tell my hand hovers over another swig from the bottle of amber coloured liquid.
"System?" she offers taking a swig and I note that the bottle is actually getting perilously close to empty.
"Care Homes... Foster Parents," I offer and she gives a down turned smile. "It defined us though... made us who we are."
"Good," she offers, "Fuck we got deep quickly there did we not?"
I grab the bottle and drain the remainder of contents without responding to her.
"Another?" I offer raising the empty glass bottle.
"We don't have to finish it do we she smirks on eyes that sparkle with intoxication as I slip from the booth and walk across the room to the bar, I hear her heavy boots follow me. "You mind if I smoke?" She enquires.
"Be my guest" I offer and watch as she takes a packet of cigarettes from the waistband of her tight black denim skirt, worn over black ripped stockings with the heavy soled black boots lined with buckles and straps. Her face is littered with studs and piercings but it doesn't make her unattractive, equally heavy tattoos are etched in to her shoulders and her left thigh, although even through the ripped tights I can't decipher the design. She wears multiple rings on her fingers and bangles over her wrists along with a thin leather choker collar around her pale slender neck. The most enticing accessory is a pair of brushed steel handcuffs that link run over and under a thick black studded belt. I'd spotted them first as she'd taken to the stage, I couldn't help but dwell on the unusual accessory, unusual but strangely in keeping with her physical appearance.
"So who was that and what was your little disagreement earlier?" I enquire.
"Aww our fucking Label appointed Manager Simon fucking Zachary... fucking Corporates shitbags are blocking my preference on a visual for the Album cover," she offers on a slightly slurred, certainly angry tone as I sense the stir of raw emotion in her words. "You'd think we could be who we want to be wouldn't you?"
"You can't?"
"Like fuck can we... the closer we get to breaking the scene the less of our identity we seem to cling to ... what price fame?"
"Handcuffs over a belt are hardly pop Princess though are they?"
"Don't be another predictable thirsty guy who fixates on my lucky cuffs," she smirks while gently reprimanding me.
"Sex sells," I offer the tired cliche to her, gar too late not to fit the predictable tag, ive visualised her a dozen times or more restrained in as many different positions.
She laughs taking a phone from her waist band also, and I'm conscious that being distracted she hasn't lit a cigarette. Scrolling through screens she thrusts the phone towards me, "Apparently this is overly sexualised."
Cracking open the new bottle of bourbon I take the phone from her slender hand, and look to the image on the screen, Alice stands seemingly in the middle of Docklands or a Port netting and crates around her feet to her waist, she's obviously topless but her arms Cross across her breasts, showing nothing, her skin is littered with words or phrases, either applied by pen or digitally. Pinching and zooming I enlarge the image, reading a sample of the words that litter her skin, 'depression', 'bigotry', 'hate', 'hope' are amongst a plethora of words I skim through.
"I've seen worse," I offer my appraisal.
"Exactly," she offers clutching on to my agreement with her sentiment.
"I can think of worse," my mind immediately snapping to a far darker place as I look up at her across the bar. She finally plucks a cigarette and places it to her lips.
"Like what?"
"You might not wanna know."
"Well fuck me Mister Barman now I want to know," there's a glint to her eye as I reach to the side of the till for an object I'd used only earlier in the day. I pick it up I turn it in my hand, from her back pocket she slips a lighter, with a brief flicker of orange glow she lights up, inhales deeply then blows smoke back across the bar towards me.
"Well Song Bird... sometimes actions speak louder than words."
I slide the black bullet tip 'Sharpie' across the surface of the bar to her.
