Free Dead or Alive by Ken McCoy

squeezed his eyes shut and heard himself growling. He was a pressure cooker at its limit. He put down his newspaper and got to his feet. He was a hefty man, six-feet-two and sixteen stone of mainly muscle. His size and strength had gone against him at his disciplinary hearing. He could be menacing when he wanted to be, and he wanted to be right now. He walked over to the noisy table, making his presence instantly felt, despite him not saying a word. The laughter subsided and seven pairs of eyes looked up at him. One youth had a patch of hair under his bottom lip. Sep pointed at it.
    â€˜What’s that?’
    He knew what they called such things. He just wanted the youth to set him up for his next line. The youth didn’t answer, one of the girls answered for him.
    â€˜It’s called a soul-patch.’
    â€˜On him it looks like an arsehole patch.’
    He pointed to a second youth who wore his hair in a ponytail. ‘I suppose you call that a ponytail do you?’
    By now the menace in his eyes and voice was frightening the group.
    â€˜Do you know why it’s called a pony-tail?’
    No answer.
    â€˜Because when you lift it up, you see a horse’s arse.’
    To Sep this was a better joke than the one that had had them screeching but it didn’t raise a flicker from them.
    â€˜You’re giving me earache. I want you all to leave.’
    His rage was suspended on the finest of threads. The youngsters had come here for a good time, not for trouble. One of them put his palms up and said, ‘OK, OK, we’re leaving.’
    They got up to go and had all reached the door when a voice shouted. ‘You lot can stay! He can go.’
    All eight of them turned to look at Joyce, the landlady, who had heard what was going on. She came from around the bar and, with folded arms, she confronted Sep.
    â€˜You might be able to scare these kids but you don’t scare me. I was married to a bully like you – kicked him out. I know you used to be a copper and there’s a bit of a mystery as to why you left the police in such a hurry, but you can’t come in here and tell my customers to leave my pub. If anyone’s leaving it’s you, and you don’t come back. You’re barred!’
    Sep stared at her with wild eyes. She backed off, thinking she’d been a bit too brave for her own good. He snarled, picked up a chair and smashed it, repeatedly, on the heavy table, adding to its scars. He then hurled the chair at the stained-glass window that had been a major feature of the pub for over a hundred years. It had been salvaged from a chapel that had previously stood on this site since the reign of William III. It was known as Willy’s Window but it was there no longer. The chair was now jammed in the window frame, wedged among the broken lead strips that had held the stained glass in position for over three hundred years. Outside, shards of David and Goliath were strewn all over the car park, in hundreds of coloured pieces.
    The landlady was back behind the bar now. The youths and their girlfriends ran out of the door. Sep sank to his knees, weeping and hyperventilating and pounding the stone floor with his fists. The landlady picked up the telephone and dialled 999. She asked for both the police and an ambulance.
    Sep went outside and sat on a low wall, staring into space. The weather was as foul as his mood, with black and grey clouds stampeding across the sky, driven by heavy gusts of wind. In the distance he could see the mist of descending rain and it wasn’t long before the first drops lashed into his face. It didn’t occur to him to take shelter. This was no more than he deserved.
    A marked police car arrived first with its blues and twos flashing and blaring and, as if to add to his ignominy, he was arrested by two of his erstwhile very junior colleagues; two young constables who had been in awe of him when they had first arrived at the station, such was his