a twenty first story - 'the best value in town'

‘Two pints of ale, and a packet of pork scratching’.  He was tall and thin, with big, mother me eyes, and a rakish beard.  He wore a long, lank blue-grey cardigan over the top of a red T-shirt.  ‘A packet of pork scratchings?’, I repeated, unsure whether I had heard him correctly the first time.  ‘Yeah, mate’.  ‘Right’, I said and took a pack from above the cash register and handed it to him.  He was shuffling his bank cards clumsily, eyes half shut.

‘You alright, mate?’, I asked warily.  He looked up at me, blinking.  ‘Yeah’, he replied, steadying himself against the bar.  ‘Two pints of ale then?’.  ‘Yeah’, he said again, swaying in a circular motion as if he’d just been clubbed on the head by Fred Flinstone.  ‘Sure you haven’t had enough already?’, I ventured, aware he was four sheets to the wind.  ‘No, mate, I’m fine’.  His voice was a stoned slur, but he looked fairly harmless so I poured him a couple of pints and placed them in front of him, beer frothing over the rim of each glass.

‘That will be five pounds, twenty please’, I said.  ‘Five pounds, twenty’ he mumbled to himself, and began searching in his wallet for loose change, his long fingers picking out coppers, and five pence pieces.  A small collection had gathered between on us on the counter, about sixty pence in total.  ‘There you are’, he said, ploughing the money towards me with his outstretched palm, and taking a dizzy step backwards.  ‘I think we’ll need a little more’, I replied, half smiling inside.  ‘A little more?’. ‘Yes, please’, I said and asked him if he had any notes.

Once again, he returned his attention to the contents of his wallet, and presently a pile of scrap paper had been assembled – old receipts that had been through the washing machine, train tickets that had suffered the same fate, a couple of flyers.  ‘Any notes in there?’ I inquired when the fourth or fifth receipt had been produced.  It was as if this was his way of proving he had good credit, and after a little more poking around, he presented me with a dry cleaning bill.

‘Fabric-care dry cleaning & laundry services’, announced the writing in bold italics at the head of the piece of paper, ‘the best value in town’.