Rafferty Rises

By Chas Tuchel

Rafferty has chanced in to a life of petty crime, so low on the career totem pole they have to pipe daylight down to him. He just about gets by, as long as 'getting by' can be defined as waking up with roughly the same number of limbs he fell asleep with in approximately the same configuration. This is fine with Rafferty. Paying the rent and staying under the radar are the twin poles of his ambition. That is, until one particularly fateful morning when after hitting the town with his customary verve Rafferty wakes up next to a lady who, for all intents and purposes, appears to be Snow White and every bit as dead. Adding to his understandable concern, local crime lord Kenny Burns has developed a recent and distressing ability to remember Rafferty's name. These two seemingly unrelated events spiral in to a state of chaos beyond even Rafferty's normal operating conditions. Rafferty and his friends - ‘known associates’ to the local constabulary- bob and weave their way to the climax in a continuing effort to retain breathing and walking as a regular part of their day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chas Tuchel
• Release date: Nov 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311506030

Chas Tuchel

Chas Tuchel was born and raised in St. Andrews, Scotland, eventually attending The University of Edinburgh. He studied English Literature with the ambition of writing fiction but found himself sadly distracted for many years by the siren song of capitalism. He has now taken steps to correct this and has been in remission for quite some time. His carers report occasional periods of extended lucidity.Chas currently lives in Edinburgh and in the Bahamas, which avoids confusion.

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Rafferty Rises

Chas Tuchel

Published by Chas Tuchel at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Chas Tuchel.

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Chapter 1

Sleepy

Rafferty awakes. For the debauched, this is not guaranteed. Ingestions and inhalants of all manners and strength from the prior night need to have been incorporated, combined, or rejected in proper measure. Fights, many that would have been better left unfought, need to have been fought and won. Fights with wronged women, with oncoming traffic, with mouthy pub landlords, with men of differing opinion, with officers of the law. The dice have to roll sweetly if the night patrol of the dissolute is to end with the benison of safe sleep. For this they are not grateful, for they have little of no memory of the journey that has returned them home. The immediate price for the trip is a dulling, dark ache between the temples, a taste in the mouth one prays is no indicator of what has passed that way, a gap in a young life that may, or may not, be filled in later by the words of others, gleefully or dolefully relayed as the next day develops. In the morning the chance of grace more often than not hangs torn and bloody on the shards of hangover.

Fuck, says Rafferty.

He is not sure why he says this yet, but life so far has given him the sure knowledge that in short time the sentiment will be fully justified. The slight but recognisable odour that fills his morning space assures him that he has made it home last night without the need to open his eyes to prove it. Once again, the series of small miracles required for survival in the places where bad boys play at night have danced for him. Such angels as exist in Tollcross, the part of Edinburgh where much of the derring-do of the previous evening disported itself, have given him yet one more dispensation. No matter they take their tribute in hurt, treating the inside of his head as if they were preparing to paint it, with a good scraping followed by a thorough sandpapering. No matter the ragged insistence of pain. Hangover is a familiar land to Rafferty.

Fuck, says Rafferty, with a growing conviction of the necessity so to do. He opens his eyes and page one of the Book of Daily Ordure presents itself. He is not alone. She- for it is a she- lies there on top of the bed, pale, still, stately. Her shoulder length, shiny black hair is bobbed perfectly on the pillow as she lies on her back in a blue sleeveless dress with a black bodice, under which is a white blouse. Spotless black shoes buckled over white silken hose complete the picture.

Snow White? Snow White? Of all the things Rafferty cannot remember from last night, not remembering taking Snow White to his bed had to figure pretty prominently. That she was fully dressed and on the bed, rather than in it, was some comfort.

Fuck, says Rafferty, now with increasing justification. For now he says it quietly, lest the fictional character he appeared to have indeed taken to his bed breathe life into itself. His dulled brain starts trying to figure the permutations that would lead to Snow White coming home with him last night but fails to reach a result. If experience had taught Rafferty one thing it was to deal with issues quickly, before they became bigger issues and just got out of hand completely. This is what experience has taught him. He just had a life long problem meaningfully responding to the teachings of experience. His issues always got bigger and out of hand completely. Even small, easy to resolve issues that in a resolute mind would never have become issues at all. And this, on the face of it, appeared no small, easy to resolve issue. A cartoon character in your bed, albeit without ostensible carnal complications, remains a cartoon character in your bed and needs to be dealt with if the getting out of hand bit was not soon to follow.

He sighed. The instinct born of a thousand fuck-ups informs him sighing might too be appropriate and there could be a lot of it to follow. Looking over at her, head still on his pillow, hands clasped together resting on her midriff as if in gentle supplication, legs and feet straight and together, a wave of resolve assaults him. In normal genetic stock this would likely cause stiffening in the veins, a quickening of the pulse. In Rafferty it felt more like nausea.

No, not this time, he thinks, firmly taking a stance in his mind. This time, Rafferty my boy, there will be no Seven Dwarves.

His resolve, such as it was, tires him. He shuts his eyes again with the hope that when he reopens them she will be gone and everyone can live happily ever after, or at least live in different post codes. It is a long shot he is prepared to admit, but long shots and Rafferty were long established bedfellows well before Snow White ever appeared on the scene to take her turn.

Opening one eye is enough to show him the ploy has gone the path of all previous long shots, lying on life's heap of discarded betting slips. There was nothing left for it but resolve. Tricky.

He ruffled himself gently out from under the sheets without causing disturbance. Dressing quickly with clothes strewn around the floor, putting them on in approximate reverse order from the night before, he moves towards the bathroom as quietly as a total lack of physical coordination will allow. First things first: in a smudged plastic beaker he pours some water from the tap, mercifully almost frozen to Scottish ambient temperature. He downs a couple of tablets he finds, hoping they are nothing more pharmaceutically adventurous than paracetamol. He cleans his teeth with a brush he thinks he recognizes. If his day must start with what seems to be now an inevitable confrontation with a Disney character, he intends to do so with uncompromised dental hygiene.

As he moves back towards the bed he cannot help but notice she continues to lie there with a serenity, touching on regality, seen but rarely in the halls with which Rafferty was acquainted and where he took the airs. Her complexion, too, was problematic. In it there was not a suggestion of the fried food, Bacardi or bus exhausts that were the hallmark of his usual female consorts. In short, it was the complexion of no woman the fair city of Edinburgh had ever previously put directly in his path. Rafferty was not totally unannounced to the deadlier of the species, but the lady here was a league apart from his normal traffic in this trade.

He was grudgingly coming to the conclusion there was no avoiding it, Snow White or not, the lady needed to be awoken if life as he knew it and on occasion liked, was to re-establish itself on any sort of manageable course. Steeling himself for the normal response pattern of his conquests when woken up, he cradled her elbow in his hand and shook her as gently as he could. No response. Harder. No response. An awful, no, truly dreadful thought crossed his mind – the type of thought that can strip the air out of a soul.

Fuck, said Rafferty, with an ever increasing conviction for its need.

Her pale pallor assumed a deeper, far more worrying cast in a brain that, if hooked to a fully functioning metabolism, would by now have been whirling.

Please don't let her be dead was the clearest thought he has had as yet this morning and he felt a little whelp inside as he thought of all the ways a dead body in his bed would spoil his day. Not any dead body. Snow White, cultural icon. Loved by all ages, everywhere. Rafferty struggled to keep his mind from considering what the judicial system might do to a person responsible for the death of Good. Yikes.

Please don't be dead. he says out loud this time, directly to what he hopes will not become in due course prime evidence. 'M'lud, the prosecution would like to bring to the jury's attention Exhibit A. Snow White. Dead.'

C'mon doll, ye need to wake up. And there was no denying there was a trace of whine this time in the voice. Not a tremor from Snow White. Yet another nil response from the uncaring gods, the part time casual workers who attended to his destiny.

His mind started achieving a lucidity unusual for him ante meridian. Going over to the dressing table he picks up a small mirror, returns and snuggles softly onto the bed, close to her, placing the mirror under her nose with his arm behind her, supporting her delicate neck. He can smell lavender, faintly. A small patch of condensation appears on the mirror, barely the size of a penny. It's enough. She may or may not be the fairest of them all but she was alive if not kicking and that, in Rafferty's book, was very good news indeed.

His lips are inches from her brow now, his senses suddenly awash with the deepest instinct to kiss her. Ever the creature of instinct, he does just that, as much out of gratitude as desire. The smallest kiss. Hardly worthy of the name. Up to that point in an otherwise fairly full life he had never seen a true flutter. Heard the word, yes. Even used it from time to time, mostly in discussions concerning the relative speed of horses. But boy oh boy, did he see a flutter now as her eyes did just that, did it again, and then slowly opened with all the majesty of a dawn appearing over coastline. When fully opened the deepest cases of blue crystal, entirely worthy of her perfect complexion, turned to take in the gaze of Rafferty. For Rafferty is fully into gazing territory now, emboldened beyond just looking.

Oh, she said, in a soft tone that would melt a Panzer division one Sturmer at a time.

Oh, she said again, more awake and with the beginnings of a breaking smile that was just a river of good things already come and better things yet to be, ...it's my perfect gentleman.

Rafferty was disarmed. Apart from all else, the Scottish male does not necessarily know whether to take an assertion such as this as a compliment.

Was I...I mean, am I? he stammers in response, sounding for all the world like Goofy. If he had had it in him he would have said 'gosh' at this point. But he didn't. And to this day, 'gosh' remains unspoken by him. But only just.

Yes, you are, and I must go she said, all in a rush, and in an instant spirits herself out of the bedroom to the flat door and, turning to Rafferty as he follows her, smiles again and asks,

Will you be my prince, Rafferty?

Before he could answer she had opened the door and was down the stairs. Mind you, she could have waited for a bus in the time it would have taken Rafferty to answer that one. He stood, lumpen. Partings when he was parted from were usually more fraught, more often than not accompanied by clear and firm instructions from the departing as to what Rafferty should do next. And now he had been deserted by what could possibly have been a figment of the imagination. A figment who, unless he was very much mistaken — a role not unknown to him admittedly— thought he had the makings of a prince in him. Was a prince a good thing? He would have to ask somebody that might know. Somebody like that did not come to mind right now.

He turned towards the kitchen. To his surprise, as it was full daylight, Gustav the flatmate was there. Gustav had once had a job and had once had a real name. Neither was true now. His loss of his job you could but down to the times in which we live. His gaining of the soubriquet Gustav (Gustav the Flatmate in its full, proper form) remained am mystery to all, as did his real name.

Hey Rafferty, thanks for da'in the dishes, man, ah wis just getting' round tae da'in them masel'.

'Getting round' was measured in the cycles of the seasons at best for Gustav, although he continually effervesced with an honest enthusiasm which never quite made it through to functional activity.

Ah didnae dae the dishes, Gustav.

But someone had.

Fuck, said Rafferty.

As we know now,

Not for the first time

And as will be seen,

Certainly not the last time

That day.

We suspect

With good reason.

Chapter 2

Grumpy

Having made a pot of tea, Rafferty sat down and drank it with a full commitment. It was Tetley's tea. In a world that allowed him few strong opinions and little heeded those he had, he was a Tetley's man. Fate had been sparing when granting him a chosen elixir to prepare for the next round of devotions on the altar of further abuse. He knew this fidelity to be absurd, but he took absurdity as one of this few unchallenged rights. In a little while solid ingestion might be considered, possibly even discussed, if not actually attempted. He couldn't have told you with any great degree of accuracy when he had last eaten but he knew for sure that a diet consisting solely of the liquid phase was not going to help in his growing up to be a big strong boy like his daddy.

The sound of daytime TV was drifting through from the living room and Rafferty, struggling not to concede to it the mind space it craved, was finding it a pain. The smooth mix of the vacuous and condescending got to him, even at low volume. He operated in a different world from the world inhabited by television. He had his likes and he had his troubles, none of them were met or addressed by a medium that seemed to him to have given up, conceded the game to the trite, entertaining only those they had managed to convince this was entertainment, alienating any who retained a scrap of discernment. If it wasn’t for sport he wouldn’t have one in the house and it grieved him he had to pay for the rest of the crap to get that, irked by the presumption football was an add-on for which a premium was due rather than the other way round.

He wanted the TV off. Not wishing to be too assertive and with a real desire not to be heavy handed about his status as landlord, he decided to compromise with the gentle,

Gustav, could ye turn that fucking television off?

Ok, man, nae problem.

Gustav could say these things; say them honestly and without irony, without actually doing anything at all to address the request at hand. It was a special ability. Until Gustav understood how special it was he would continue to be one of the serially unemployed. He lacked the improvisation and moral ambivalence that was required to make forward progress in Rafferty's world. In a harsher world he would be a true victim. In the Soviet Socialist Republic of Scotland he could just about get by.

The TV remained on and in the kitchen Rafferty could visualize Gustav still otiose on the sofa, the only change a slightly more puzzled look on his face due to the recent addition of one more thing he couldn't remember. Rafferty shouted through again.

Gustav, ye might have misunderstood me. When ah said 'could ye turn the fucking television off,' what ah really meant was, 'turn the fucking television off.' Sorry if ah didn't make maself clear.

OK man, no problemo.

That phrase, no problemo, could have been the last straw but were there not many last straws for Rafferty, he had never had that luxury. His words had also been harsher than intended, it was the TV that was annoying him, not Gustav. He went into the living room, turned the volume down a little bit and smiled.

That's better, is it no' Gustav?

Aye man, yir right, ah wis just getting’ round tae dain’ that masel’"

Rafferty wondered when it was exactly that Gustav the Flat Mate had crossed over the line from tenant to dependant. There had been no flashing lights or sirens, trumpets, nor tears, just an increasing absence of rent cheques. Gustavs’ solitary talent was to be liked by everyone. If you are only allowed one, it’s not a bad one to have. It was if he served to remind all those he knew that there was still a place, amidst all the cheating and the blight, for a gentle soul. Throwing him into the street over a simple matter like money owing would have been an offence to nature.

Gustav, do you remember me coming home last night, by ony chance?

Naw, ah wis asleep early, wis thir a problem, Rafferty?

Ah wis just wonderin' if I wis with onyone with me ye might have recognized, mebbe?

Naw. Wouldn’t you have kent them yirsel', like Rafferty?

In a perfect world, possibly Gustav, in a perfect world.

Aye, yir right there, man.

**********

It was Saturday, and Saturday meant early doors at the Albion Bar, aka ‘the Skinners’ by the clientele in memory of a tannery across the road that none of them could actually remember, said business having tanned its last sometime in the 19th century. For some years the site lay fallow, if fallow can mean picking up chip papers, empty bottles of Lanliq and frequent showers of reconstituted Lanliq from the people kind enough to leave the bottles afterwards. Edinburgh City Council then graced it with an assisted living housing scheme built in the High Municipal Style which is what you get when you give a architect eighty per cent of the budget required to do it properly and declare 'bleak' as the house style. As is typical of buildings ordained by the Council, it was prematurely becoming a slum despite the valiant efforts of the residents and the staff. The scheme supplied the bar with a lunchtime clientele for whom the half-pint glass had to be re-invented. If drinking slowly ever became an Olympic sport, the Albion bar had within its walls, on any given weekday lunchtime, a team of Galacticos that would sweep the medals for Britain.

There was also a core of regulars, repeat offenders might be more accurate, at the Skinners, of whom Rafferty was one. Like all good pubs it had gentle comforting glow at its centre as you walked through the door. Around this radiant core, with its sparkling wood and glowing brass lay pools of darkness, where each could lurk and be his own. One of the great myths is that the pub regular wants the barman to be his friend. This would put intolerable strain on customer and bar staff alike. Rafferty like many of his ilk started out each morning secure in the knowledge that of all the things he needs to do that day, making new friends was not going to be high on the list. And making friends with barmen could lead to all sorts of unwarranted complications. All in all, it was a relationship best kept at the professional level.

The Skinners head barman was Wullie. He had rejected the title of bar manager years ago to avoid the taint in his mind of being associated with the managerial classes. He had not been brought up that way. Wullie was a case in point. Wullie was friend to no one. As head barman, of all the responsibilities and privileges he carried he cherished none more, held nothing closer to his heart, than the authority to decide who could drink there and who could not. The power to bar, to exclude, to banish. This could include regulars and the casual visitor alike and to say that it was entirely at Wullie's whim was to perhaps bestow the process with