Pissed on by a Russian

Date: 10 August 2007 22:05:13

To the pub for a quick one at closing time. There are a few more folk about that this time last week, and there is one man I don't remember seeing before. Rather odd-looking. Small, dark, not very clean, looks a little drunk or stoned. Shifty-eyed I would call him if I was a crap novellist. Well I'm not any kind of novellist at all but if I was one maybe I would be crap, so I'll say he was shifty-eyed. And from what little I can hear from the other side of the bar, doesn't speak English.

Chat to J for a few minutes and then I go to the toilet. Small man is in there urinating. As I walk behind him he is finishing, apparently shaking himself to get the last drops off, and he turns round and faces me, still hanging out. And gets piss all over the place, mostly on the floor, but some on my hand and arm. Only a few sprinklings, not a torrent, but its not very nice. And he stands there looking at me with his willy in his hand and a very strange expression on his face.

I don't know what to do. Its not a social situation that Miss Manners advises on. My fist though, egged on by the strange and not very pleasant expression, is that he's trying to pick a fight and wants me to react aggressively. My second is that he's totally pissed and incapable. I go into a cubical, bolt the door, don't come out till he's gone, and take care to wash my hands very thoroughly

A few minutes later we go out the back to smoke a fag. Z. is there talking to one of the locals, S, another small man who often looks a bit aggressive. Very jerky movements and determined look on his face. Odd bloke comes out and smokes then says "sorry" to S in very broken English. I suspect he doesn't mean that he's apologising for anything but he;'s just trying to start a conversation and can't handle the language.

And all of a sudden we are nearly in a you-looking-at-me-mate situation.

"What are you apologising to me for? You aint don't nothing bad to me. If you've done something wrong you did it to yourself, say sorry to yourself..." and so on at some length. I'm sure the strange man doesn't understand a word.

And then he asks "What you professional?" By which I think he meant "what is your job, what do you do for a living?" Trying to make polite conversation. But it gets taken as a reference to the army (I think - the man who can speak English was almost as hard to interpret at that point at the one who can't). And apparently that was not a good subject to raise. "I can look after myself. I'm self-sufficient. There's no-one taking care of me but me. I can handle myself"

Back indoors and sit and chat with someone else for a while. Then voices are raised on the other side of the bar. And before we know it we're in a full-blown macho sizing up for a fight situation. Prancing from one side of bar to the other. Jerky movements. Nose-to-nose face-offs. Drawings-up to full height (which isn't very high on either side) Apparent moments of calm and good humour and clappings on back and hugs. Separations, reversions, lookings around for allies.

Listening to a one-sided rant from S about odd bloke who he is convinced is Polish and is determined to insult him. Any replies are incoherent, not really in English, and slurred.

"Did you hear what he just called me?"

"He said he's in their army and he's going to bring his mates round and do me over!"

"He just insulted my mother!"

Others in the pub trying to calm him down while trying not to seem bothered. In the end the barmaid ordered the probably-not-Polish-at-all odd man out and it took about five men and ten minutes to gently manouvre him to the door, with brief ructions of macho on the way

And right at the end: "I Russian! I go now! Stanko! Wanko Stanko!"

"Is he calling me a wanker? I'll have him...."

So we reassure S that he is not calling anyone a wanker but he's just telling us his name. He mist be a Russian called Stanko. And I almost believe it. I'm about 2/3 sure that he was some lonely Russian immigrant who wnated a drink and a chat but whose grasp of English language and English ways just wasn't up to dealing with a touchy Millwall supporter who has a chip on his shoulder about the army and isn't very good at understanding broken English.
l
But then he did piss on me. Maybe he really was trying to wind people up and start a fight. Maybe I'll get back to Lewisham tonight and find that the pub's been done over by a dozen ex Red Army men working in London as crack bodyguards for crack dealers. Who can tell?

Then talking to the two J - the Buddhist and the mountain-climbing lighting engineer. One with white hair and a long beard, the other shaved as short as I am. Middle-age in the first years of the twenty-first century is an odd thing. Whatever happened to neat haircuts? By the time I get old you will be able to spot geriatrics because they will be wearing jeans and T-shirts with the logos of old heavy metal bands on them. Maybe all the kids will be dressing in frilly blouses and getting their hair permed.