Another Night of Drudgery

I’m considering chucking my bloody mobile at the wall. It would crunch against that fucking cold Welsh bluestone, and even in a thousand electronic turds it would be as useful as it is in perfect working order.

The Carlsberg clock seems to be stuck at ten to two, over the heads of the last bums left in the pub. I’ll have to hike up to the stone circle if I want even half a bar of service that’ll give me a couple of minutes of connectivity, barely enough to publish this post, much less talk to anyone.

“You goin' to hang about all night, lookin' sour?” My grandfather just tapped me gently between the eyes, smiling. “That mug o' yours flattens the lager.”

“Nothing happening here, Taid,” I reply, swiping at his nicotine-stained fingers (and keep typing — I can at least pretend I’m connected to the outside world).

“Nothing's happened here since your mama flew off to South America, Amelia.” He pours an umpteenth round for the craggy bastards at the end of the bar. “Ever since then, the mams and dads keep their children locked away at night—”

“—and their secrets they whisper only to the stove in the empty first light of morning,” I finish, rolling my eyes. I dump a sack of peanuts into the empty bowl. “I'm not my mom.”

Gwyn Jones downs half his pint in one gurgling swallow. “Too right. Your mom were the sweetest thing ever walked the shores of Anglesey.”

I grab his glass and tug it out of his reach. “Gwyn Jones, you tell me one more time how you snogged my mother in high school, and you'll not get another pull from this bar so long as I'm behind it.”

He has the presence to look abashed for a moment, his graying hair falling over his soft pale face. Then he lurches for the pint in my hand, yanking it away like a triumphant child. He eyes my grandfather. “Nope, not a drop of yer mam, but you sure got a bucketload of your granddam in you, chit.”

Taid Gwion laughs behind me, joining the rest of the middle-aged peckerheads in the place. I mutter in my native Spanish, knowing none of them understand a curse word unless it’s filled with the ratcheting sounds of Welsh, and my grandmother isn't here to thwack me on the back of my head. She's sharp in any language.

I slump back on a stool, tapping my smart phone next to a soggy beer mat on the bar. “Taid Gwion, I believe these old buggers have had one too many, and are in danger of committing acts of public drunkenness, drunk driving, or being just plain unmanageable unless we cut them off and send them home to their wives and children.”

Taid raises a white eyebrow as the drunken idjits spew beer-frothed protestations in my direction. “You sure you want to inflict them on their innocent wives and kids?”

“Better them than me.”

Taid Gwion sighs, pulls me back through the bar to the tiny kitchen, where he fries fish and chips and not a damn thing else, no matter what the fancy pubs closer to the mainland serve. “Take the rest of the night, hey?”

I drop my head and start to stick my phone in my pocket, a strand of purple hair covering my eyes. “Sorry, Taid. It's okay. I'll close up.”

“I'm 63 years old, not 90. I don't need you here every night.” He pats my cheek and kisses me on the forehead. “Go on, go wherever you go when you're ready to scream your little Latin head off, and come back fresh tomorrow. Maybe plan a weekend in the city soon, huh?”

I nod. “Thanks, Taid.”

So now I’m off, up the hill, to those three precious bars of mobile service, to broadcast publishing capabilities, IMing, and Tal.

Hasta pronto, sheeplovers.