** My first attempt at a longer piece - do let me know what you think! **
*****
I was always a patsy for being sent to conferences at short notice, the price I paid for being single, childless and pet-less. This particular conference, my boss reasoned I could drop everything and head to Liverpool at short notice, with a couple of hundred quid as a sweetener, put through the books as subsistence for my travels and a first class train ticket.
I worked for a company that sold office stationery -- pens, staplers, anything that could solve your filing problems and I'd been here for just under a year. It was okay, I was paid well and on time each month, but it really wasn't how I envisioned my career developing after graduating from University -- I'd imagined glamour, expensive trips abroad and being wined and dined by the heads of massive multi-nationals. Not being sent to Liverpool for a conference set up by chair companies to show off the latest in office chair technology.
My boss had also assured me this conference would plunge into levels of debauchery and hedonism to rival the Rolling Stones in the '60s, or Caligula at his finest. He told me to pack condoms, my best shirt and extra pairs of pants. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but if there were wild and loose women, I was going to make sure they would be wild and loose with me.
Ten minutes was all it took for me to realise I'd been sold a crock of pure bullshit. There were two women there - Michelle, my area manager was one. The other was a PA for one of the speakers, who was also his mother. The speaker was a guy I'd been ordered to try and schmooze, trying to score with his mother would have been career suicide.
The first night, the evening entertainment was a quiz. I got put onto a team with three guys, each of whom offered a disturbing glimpse of my future. Phil was in his fifties and spent the evening stuffing cheese-and-onion crisps into his mouth and resting his vast stomach on the table. He had been in sales since his twenties and spent the downtime between questions telling us about his porn habits and regaling with stories of previous conferences, full of sex, drugs and booze. He was a heart-attack waiting to happen.
Gary was in his late thirties and heading for a messy divorce. He'd not seen his kids in a month and spent most of the evening looking at the photograph he kept of them in his wallet. The final piece of our quizzing jigsaw was Olly, a four-year sales veteran, who remained convinced that he'd finally get the Big Sale and make enough commission to live out his true dream of owning a BMW. Or an Audi, or just something with four wheels. He was going to get his whip pimped out (his words) with big rim tyres, sound system and all the other car accessories to warn all other road users you're a shit driver.
Don't get me wrong, Phil, Gary and Olly were friendly guys. It's just that they were enough to help me decide to get the hell out of the office stationary industry as soon as I could. They were also enough to persuade me the following evening to avoid the planned karaoke night. I was going to head out into Liverpool and see if I could find my own fun.
I took a stroll along the street. The hotel, one of a well-known brand of chain hotels in the UK had been put on the outskirts of a business estate, close to the M62. I was surrounded by car parks, processing plants and not much else. I dug my phone of out my pocket, Google-mapped the closest pub and headed there.
I found it easily enough. A ten minute walk from the hotel, the pub was situated at the end of a row of identical houses - front door and big window downstairs, two windows upstairs. The street looked old and worn-down, tired of life. It was early February, dark enough for the streetlights to be on, and yet everything still looked grey. The pub was the fulcrum of the street, the only smattering of life and colour I could see. Music and laughter emanated from inside. On cue, a guy pushed the doors open, staggered into the evening, laughing and shouting 'Fuck off ya cunts!' over his shoulder as cheers followed him.
Inside, it looked as it should have done. No trendy wine-bars around here, it was wooden tables, wooden stools and stickiness. To my right, a couple of guys were playing darts, one guy arguing about why Liverpool should sack Klopp and the more sensible elements of his group were telling him not to be such an idiot. I ordered a pint of lager at the bar from a barmaid in a white shirt and sweat patches and surveyed the scene in more detail.
There was a pool table with a group of teenagers sat around. One guy in particular took my attention, swaggering around as if he owned the place. He was with three other guys, all of who seemed to be barely tolerating him. He was loud, obnoxious and a damned good pool player. I knew this because he made a point of loudly announcing it to everyone in the pub whenever he sank a ball. I watched for a while as he soundly beat all his friends, before offering guys in the pub a match for money. No-one seemed keen to take him up on his offer or to even acknowledge his existence.
Every so often he did stop to talk to a girl who was sitting close to the group. She barely looked up when he spoke to her, eyes not leaving her phone. Looks-wise, she was cute, but really not my type -- her hair was slicked back tight to her scalp, big gold hoop earrings and a puffa jacket that masked her frame completely. She was chewing gum and clearly very bored.
The guy sank the black and vanquished another of his friends, then looked out into the pub to challenge someone. Our eyes locked and he nodded at me.
'What about you, pal? Not seen you here before. Fancy a game?' he challenged me.
Please don't start thinking I'm some kind of pool hustler. I'm not. I'm really not. I hadn't played for a couple of years, not since University. Don't get me wrong, I knew which end of the cue to use and how to get the ball the screw back when needed, but was I a hustler? Not a damned chance!
'Sure, I'll give you a game,' I replied. I ordered another pint. The barman told me he'd bring it over before whispering I could have one on the house if 'you can beat the gobshite!'.
I slung my jacket over the back of a chair near the girl, who didn't even raise an eyebrow. The guy racked up the balls and introduced himself as Luke. I introduced myself as Steve and explained I was in Liverpool for the conference. My accent gave me away as a Southerner, and more questions. Who did I support (Brentford. No-one cares about Brentford), what did I think of England's chances in the World Cup, and most importantly -- how much did I hate Manchester United?
Luke racked the balls up and settled to break. Just as he drew his cue back, he stopped and stood up.
'How much we playing for?' he asked.
'A Bet? Money?'
'Aye. I only play strangers for cash. How much have you got?'
I had most of two hundred pounds burning a hole in my wallet. I nearly blurted that out then realised very quickly that might not be the smartest move as a stranger in a pub, many miles from home. 'Tenner sound good?'
'Twenty?' he counter-offered.
'Yeah, sure,' I replied. Twenty pounds wasn't much and was a small price to pay to avoid karaoke.
He settled down to his break. He thumped into the cue ball with a meaty stroke, splitting the reds and yellows and black over the green baize. That was as close as I got to the table. A red dropped into the bottom left pocket, followed by the other six as I watched, before he rolled the black into the middle pocket.
'And that's how it's done, motherfuckers!' he bellowed as I handed him £20.
'Another game?' I asked. I pulled another note from my pocket. 'But I break this time.'
He slapped his winnings back onto the table and agreed. I settled in to break, sank a yellow and then missed my next shot. Somehow, I ended up putting the white right behind the black, and Luke fouled. With my extra shots, I managed to sink another four yellows before missing a straightforward shot. Luke potted his seven reds on his next trip to the table, then missed the black. He was trying to show off, going for a bank shot to the middle pocket. I managed to sink the final two yellows and then the black to win my money back.
