Vessel In Vain by Nick Gerrard

I looked up from my paper, found the barman and ordered another cognac and beer. I was sat in the tap bar of the Coach and Horses, an old Birmingham pub, not changed much since the seventies, which was good. It was quiet, no TV, no music; just perfect for a late morning drink.

I had come from my meeting with the Psychologist; I had problems with drinking and depression.

I took out my electronic ciggie and held it up to the barman, and he nodded, so I puffed away. I thought about what the Psycho had said. That I was responsible for everything I had done, good or bad. Everything I had said, everything I had seen. And I looked around the boozer which was like so many others I had got pissed in before and thought-no, I’m not!

It just came to me like that. I wasn’t responsible. It wasn’t my fault, any of it. All I am is an out of control tug drifting on the ocean, and what waves life sent me on had nothing to do with me.

I liked this idea. It wasn’t my fault! Any of it. I take no responsibility whatsoever! It was just the sea of life that I rode on with no control.

And I started to picture people sitting in front of my table.

The guy I had punched at Coventry for his scarf. The guy whose nose I had broken in a bar in Lisbon. The guy we had beaten and robbed at school for his dinner money. These figures sat and I waved them away. Next were a line of woman. Some I had cheated on, some I had conned into sex with empty promises and bullshit chat up lines. The simple but beautiful girl I had pretended to be a model agent to, who I got to strip for me in a bar I was looking after when it was closed. The dwarf I fucked just to say I had fucked a dwarf. The line was long and one by one they came to the table and I waved them away. The guy whose house we had robbed. The landlord whose furniture we had loaded up on a lorry and fucked off with. The owners of the Irish club whose safe we had robbed. They kept coming. And mostly more women. Another girl who I had got drunk and taken back to a caravan in Yarmouth and screwed when she didn’t know much about it. More and more girls. The ones I had swindled my way into their beds and then hounded them to do something they didn’t really didn’t wanna do. And lastly, the hotdog salesman from outside a gig in Leicester where I had ordered twenty dogs off for everyone and then ran off.

I wasn’t safe but I felt no fear. Images came and I dismissed them. It wasn’t my fault! Don’t you see?
It was life that did it, the turbulent waters of life that tossed these people my way and what I did or said wasn’t my fault…that’s just how it is, I sat and smiled and supped my beer and sank the brandy.

‘Another cognac my good friend!’

‘You seem to be in a good mood?’

‘I have discovered the secret to life.’

‘No, shit, and that is.’

‘You see it doesn’t matter what you do or say, we are but empty vessels floating on the sea of life and whatever has happened none of it was my fault, that’s just the way it goes!’

‘So, you are saying that every bad thing you have done, every shit thing you have done to someone is not your fault; you are not to blame?’

‘Preciously! I am not guilty of anything. None of it was my fault. I take no blame for all my mistakes and bad deeds. No blame for the people I have fucked over and done wrong.’

‘You don’t think you have to take some of the responsibility for your actions?’

‘That’s just it you see, I take no responsibility at all, none of it was my fault. Life is to blame not me!’

‘So, with that logic I can basically do anything I want and not feel guilty about it?’

‘Sure!’

He took the glass from my hand and punched me right in the face.

‘Not my fault!’

I finished my drink and dabbed the blood from my nose, put the paper under my arm and walked out.

Originally from Birmingham but now living in Olomouc where he writes, proof-reads and edits, and in between looking after his son Joe, edits and designs Jotters United Lit-zine.

Nick has been at one time or another a Chef, activist, union organiser, 

punk rocker, teacher, traveller and Eco-lodge owner in Malawi and Czech.

Short stories, flash and poetry have appeared in various magazines in print and online including Etherbooks, Roadside fiction, The Siren, Minor Literature and Bluehour magazine

Nick has three books published available on Amazon

twitter@nickcgerrard

https://nickgerrardauthor.wixsite.com/books