MALKY'S BOTTLE OF CHRISTMAS
By Gary Marshall
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011 Gary Marshall. All rights reserved.
Malky’s Bottle of Christmas is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Malky was a bastard. He wasn't a bad bastard, not really, but he was a tight bastard. He was the kind of guy that if he dropped a two-bob bit he'd be down so fast it'd hit him on the back of his head.
Tonight, Malky was feeling lucky.
We were doing the usual Saturday thing. A couple of pints in the Caley, a pair of fish suppers from Fryer Tuck's chippy, then down to the Wee Hut to pick up a few cans of cooking lager. If we were feeling flush we'd get a quarter bottle of whisky as well, whatever no-name crap Graham had got from Makro that week, but we weren't flush very often.
It wasn't a bad night. The rain had stayed off and the sun was still up. You could see right across the valley, see the wind turbines on the hills between Dalry and Largs. Me and Malky used to go to the dancing in Largs, hoof it down to Glengarnock and get the train, steering clear of the Kilbirnie boys so we didn't get into a rammy. We usually ended up in a rammy.
Imagine us dancing now. That's a laugh.
We used to do Glasgow too, get the bus up, get a few beers in the Horseshoe bar, maybe go and see a band. Not so much these days. The cost of the bus and the beers and the bands just went up and up and up. Eighteen miles? Might as well be eighteen thousand.
We cut across the public park and went to the Co so Malky could pay his idiot tax, me outside with the cans in a pair of blue and white stripey carrier bags. Malky played the same six numbers every week. Lucky numbers, he called them. Lucky numbers? He'd get a tenner every six months or so and act like he'd beaten the bookies, like the tenners were magic tenners that didn't really count and he was ten quid up instead of thirty quid down.
"I've got a lucky feeling the night, Raymie." I've been Raymie since forever. Raymond's for bills and bailiffs.
"Lucky my arse. Bloody waste of money."
"You won't be saying that when I win it."