I'm not pissed

I think working behind a bar should be National Service, it teaches you so much.

You genuinely never know who's going to walk through the door, or what they're likely to say or do when they get there. You learn to think quickly and keep up with the banter, because if you don't you'll be eaten alive. You learn to listen, to be a confidant, an entertainer and occasionally a referee.

You learn how to read people.

Not always successfully.

One lunchtime at the Goose, there was a man staggering around the pub. And I mean properly staggering. Bumping into tables, clipping pillars, bouncing off fruit machines. He looked rough: grubby joggers, Lonsdale vest, thick gold chain. He had neck tattoos as well, which were generally the reserve of the absolute urchin back in the early 2000s. He eventually staggered up to the bar and asked me for a drink.

"Nah. No chance, mate. You've clearly had enough already."

To be fair to him, despite having just ricocheted his way across the pub, he looked at me and said, very clearly, "I'm not pissed."

"Well, you fucking look it."

He told me to walk to the end of the bar.

"I'm not doing that."

In my head, the situation was fairly obvious. He wanted me out from behind the safety of the bar so he could chin me.

"Walk to the end of the bar."

"No."

"Walk. To the end. Of. The. Bar."

Eventually I agreed, on the condition that he moved away first. He staggered back about fifteen or twenty feet while I walked to the opening at the end of the bar where we'd come through with empty glasses and plates.

"Right. Go on then. What's the problem?"

He rolled up the leg of his joggers.

Oh, fuck me to dust.

He'd had a new prosthetic leg fitted that morning.

He wasn't pissed at all. He was learning to fucking walk.

There are moments in life when you'd quite happily climb inside your own arsehole and pull the hole in after you. This remains very high on my list.

In fairness to eighteen-year-old me, I'd correctly identified that he shouldn't have another drink, just for almost every conceivable wrong reason.

I ended up barring him a couple of days later anyway, after he stood opposite the bar and lit up a joint the size of a traffic cone while making full, unwavering eye contact with me.