Equinity

In my capacity as small town flaneur, it’s my job to notice things; things that would stick out in a town that wasn’t this one for instance. People unloading immeasurably heavy objects from unlikely vehicles, the nervous curtain twitch of the house you thought derelict for years and those that pack up, throw down a spent cigarette and move off their patch as soon as you get too close.

Horse boxes and larger horse transporters shuttle in and out of my town like the hard backed flies that swarm around them. The smaller tinny horse boxes bounce on their umbilicals, connected to burnt out non descript estate cars and Land Rovers. Like Insect appendages on wheels, they bottom out with a steely thud on the neglected pot holes and bounce over undigested lumps of concrete dumped by an invisible, unaccountable workforce so that drivers will dip below the speed of gossip. It was my feeling that horses don’t deal with shock that well. Their long limbs are built for speed not stability. I imagined what it would be like to be a horse in the back of one of those cans going over a speed bump at fifty miles an hour and came up with the answer soon afterward; messy. It occurred to me as I watched several pass me by in the space of a few minutes that there were several possibilities. Either the drivers had no thought for the horses and were trying to get them injured, or there was no horse. The vans and trailers were empty or full as most things are but in a town like mine with a racecourse, you had a black market haulage licence.

The characters associated with the equinity as I’ve come to call it – a band of horse brothers – troubles me greatly. Part of my inglorious youth had been spent pouring pints for coach loads of rinses all paying separately, all wanting the same thing – half a lager with a dash, as they stopped off on the way to the races. Occasionally an intemperate punter would lash out at my youth and servile incompetence as he leafed through and paid from brick of notes that destroyed me and my £4.55 an hour.

I remember more coach loads, this time squeezed full of Liverpudlian day outers courtesy of some union or other.

“Pint of Mickey Mouse mate.”

“What?”

“Pint of Mickey Mouse.”

“What the hell is a pint of Mickey Mouse?”

“Half a bitter, half a lager in the same glass.”

“You’re sick, you know that?”

“Eh, come on, just get us the pint would you la’.” Unperturbed, I ask about the origin. “The story goes ‘dat fella bloke in Birkenhead finishes work, desperate for a drink he goes into ‘dis boozer. ‘Dis boozer right was shocking right, sticky carpets, shredded curtains, you know the type. Anyway the barman gives him a pint of bitter right, and dis fella necks half of it. Right away he almost yawns it all over the floor, it tastes so bad. So he makes the barman give him a pint of lager. Once again ‘dis fella necks half of it and almost dyes his shoes it’s so bad. He’s now left with half a pint of lager and half a pint of bitter, both of which almost made him sick. He pours one into the other and looks at the barman and says, “What kind of Mickey Mouse establishment are you running here?” Unthinking he swigs his pint. The pint of course tastes fantastic. Two negatives make a positive and all that and that’s why they call it a Mickey Mouse.”

“That maybe the case and your story maybe impeccable, but I’m another barman in another town, and there’s nothing wrong with my bitter or my lager, so, mate, choose.”

I was warned early. Don’t be caught out by a jockey. But that’s the way round here. Give the warning but not the complimentary advice. It’s like saying to a bomb disposal expert, “Whatever you do, don’t cut that wire,” and then walking off. So when these two boys come into the bar and say “two pints of Guinness please,” in accents that really could have been anything resembling Irish, Cornish, Bristolian, Hampshire, Norfolk or a freaky combination of all five, my first instinct was to ask where they were from. Instead my first question was “Have you got any ID?” His eyes said, “When you finish your shift I’m, gonna stab you in the liver.” His mouth said, “When you finish your shift, I’m gonna stab in the liver.” Fortunately his friend stepped in.

“We’re jockeys.”

“Aah.” I said, but it still took a while to twig. Did they have special underage drinking privileges as jockeys? “And…” I gestured for more with my hands.

“C’mon lets go.” The first jockey said, clearly still annoyed.

“No, you want a drink don’t you? Look were jockeys.”

“I understand that you’re jockeys but what has that got to do with anything?”

“Look.” He was getting mad now; standing with both feet on the bar rail and had both hands on the bar. “My friend and I are jockeys. This means that we are not as tall or as well built as regular people. I am thirty-two and my friend here is thirty-three.”

“I know sir, I just wanted to hear you say it.”