Just a Peach Schnapps Kiss by Nick Gerrard

-You need to move to Brno my friend. 

This was a psychiatrist in Vyskov who I was seeing because of my alcohol problems. Basically, I was drinking my face off. What else was there to do here? A soldier’s town with a few bars and two shit discos with bad strippers. I had come here from Birmingham via Lisbon where, after two years of hedonism, I had cried out for help from someone to set me up somewhere else. So, I ended up here working and living in an agricultural school. My room was next to my classroom, and sometimes the students had to come in and wade through the bottles and books and pizza boxes to wake me up to teach them.

-Really, you think that might help?

-If you stay here you may die!

Fair enough, I’ll move then. So I did. 

Someone lent me a flat but I wasn’t allowed to use it. I had no electric or gas or furniture, so it was just a place to crash. My drinking didn’t stop; I found the worst bars and took my lunch of cheap soup and cheap beer amongst the alcos in the train station bar. I got some work, so started to go to better bars like The Hobbit and The Two Goats, where there were cool young people, so I behaved myself more and tried to get to know people; well, women to be honest. 

The guy who owned the flat gave me two weeks to get out after I set my mattress on fire after a bender. I had fallen asleep with a fag in my mouth but thought I had put it out and put it smouldering onto the balcony and went back to my drunken slumber. I got woke up again by the fire brigade banging on the door and rubbed my eyes to see the bed blazing away on the balcony. So, I had to get out.

It wasn’t easy to find flats back in 95, I asked around and got a job in a language school and put an advert up…Room wanted! I got no replies. And I asked every class I had if anyone had a room to rent. I got no interested faces. 

One day a colleague was sick so I had to cover for him. At the front of the class was this interesting-looking woman; huge rolled-up jumper and flared trousers and mad jewellery, and short hair. She stood out amongst the mini-skirted high healed, big bouffant hair brigade. 

So, I spent the lesson trying to engage a lot with her, but she just flipped me off with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers, so I gave up. During the lesson I did my usual pitch about needing a room, after the class the girl approached me.

-I have a room you can rent.

-Really? That’s great.

-I share a panelak with three guys, we are all croupiers, so we are not there much, but you could rent the living room.

-Ok, that sounds fine.

-Just one thing, you’ll have to share the room with Kevin.

-Who’s Kevin?

-Kevin’s our rat.

-Is he a friendly rat?

-Yeah very friendly, but we don’t keep him in a cage, I mean when I say share, you really will be sharing.

-Well, I’ve shared rooms with worse people than rats, I’ll take it.

-Here’s the address you can move in today, here’s a key, I’ll be home about nine, after my shift.

So, I moved my stuff in and made some food and waited for the strangers who I would be living with. The three guys arrived about seven. All cool guys, into good music, though too much metal for my liking, and sports and drinking. We got to know each other over shots of Slivovice and some beers. 

Dasa arrived at nine with a bottle of peach Schnapps. We retreated to my room, the living room and Kevin’s place of residence. We had a good chat, though her English wasn’t that good as she spent a lot of time in the pub with a gang of suitors who followed her around all the time, I was to find out. With the bottle nearly empty she leaned in and whispered…

-Would you mind if I kissed you?

-Not at all.

We kissed, not too deeply, but it was a good kiss.

And that was it; we went to bed, separately. 

The next day at school I told the guy who I had substituted for that the move seemed great! I got drunk and a kiss from my landlady.

After some classes Dasa and her gang of guys approached me.

-Don’t ever talk about what I do out of school understand?

-Yeah sure, sorry about that. 

She went off in a huff. The teacher had mentioned the kissing and drinking in his class and she was well pissed off. I went home and she was aloof and abrupt with me. I thought that this was a big mistake and was going to be a nightmare place to live in; what with this stuck-up housemate.

She continued to be aloof and snobbish, and I started to really detest her and dreaded going home to be in the same flat as her. The guys were Ok though, and we went to pubs, and to see Boby Brno play. 

Things changed after a few weeks when I lost my job because I wasn’t turning up for work because of hangovers. Dasa then shaved her head and consequently lost her job too. 

Here we both were, jobless, skint and stuck in the same house as each other; nightmare!

-I am going to a new art exhibition if you want to come?

-Sure, why not.

And actually, we had a good time; we went for a coffee after and chatted and got on OK, not best buddies but OK.

In the next few weeks, we went to loads of different places; hidden gardens, museums and our favourite art house cinemas. In Lisen amongst the rows of panelaks was a shopping centre and in the middle of it was a cinema restaurant. This was a great place to see a film. The tables had comfy sofas and chairs and all raised a little higher so everyone got a good view. They bought steaks and wine to our table as we watched Frankenstein and Natural Born Killers.

Over those weeks we began to get to know each other better and started to like each other more. I had thought she was a stuck-up snob, and she thought me an arrogant over-confident dick. But spending time together we changed our views, I saw she was an intelligent, funny and caring woman, and I think she thought the same as me. After one night out we ended up in bed together and from there our relationship blossomed. We spent loads of time together and eventually, we both got new jobs. And I used to watch her walk to work or come back from work through the window and I adored watching her walking in that red coat. Gradually, over time, we fell in love with each other, and we became a couple. 

Our usual route after town was the number two tram to Zidenice then a trolley bus up the hill to the rabbit hutches of Vinohrady. In the shopping area, there was a bar that stayed open all night. It wasn’t a cosy bar; a lot of metal and Formica, and terrible music played on a tinny tape player. So, not that pleasant but always good for a couple before bed.  

One night we arrived late or early according to the clock and went in for one; it was never one. This night the place was empty apart from two guys at the bar. One was really short and the other a big bear of a man. We stood at the bar to drink and started chatting. Turned out it was the grizzle’s birthday. So, the drinks flowed as we celebrated with them. The midget guy spoke English so I stood chatting with him while Dasa was left with the drunken ramblings of the bear. She was sat on a stool and he leaned in more and more as he got more and more drunk. I asked him politely to stop getting in her face so much but with little effect. In the end, I got pissed off and warned the midget that if his brother didn’t stop bothering Dasa then I would smack him one. But, this guy kept leaning in and leaning in. 

-Look, man! I won’t ask him again. Tell him to back the fuck off or there’s going to be trouble.

-It’s cool man, calm down, I’ll tell him; he will be fine. 

After another five minutes, he wasn’t fine at all, in fact worse. I got off my stool walked behind him and tapped his shoulder and as he turned I smacked him one, a right beauty, right under his nose.

He fell to the floor. Suddenly, the dwarf was on my back, punching anywhere he could. I rolled over and over with this guy on my back and we smashed a couple of tables flat as we rolled. Next, the bear got up and dived in. Now, I had two of them punching and rolling and flattening every table in the place. 

Meanwhile, the waitress had called the cops and they arrived and pulled us all apart. The waitress then explained that it was all mine and Dasa’s fault for the whole thing; the place was a wreck.

So, me and Dasa got handcuffed and thrown into the back of a meat wagon. 

At the cop shop, we were searched and had our shoes taken away and thrown into a cell. At least they let us smoke, and we sat there still drunk contemplating what would happen. Dasa was worried; me not so much, it wasn’t my first cell visit.

After a while, we were led into an interview room with a guy behind a typewriter at a desk. He was wobbling a bit and had clearly been drinking; shots of Slivovice behind his locker door no doubt.

-So, you started the fight in the bar.

-Wait a minute!

The guy rolled off statement after statement where we were said to be the sole perpetrators of the fight.

 -Sign here! 

-No way, I am English and I don’t understand anything and demand a translator.

Dasa translated for me. She spoke firmly and it seemed to have the right effect. Things got serious all of a sudden and we were put back into our cell. We were there for some hours until we were taken again to an office and had a guy read the statement to me in English. We refused to sign it and we dictated our own statement denying everything.

After a couple of more hours in the cells, we were given a load of paperwork and our shoes and let go. 

It was almost midday. And we now had hangovers and had not slept. What to do? We went to the nearest bar for a beer and to think things over. For some reason, I really fancied some Chinese, so we hopped a few trams to our favourite restaurant that was just opening. It was Dasa’s first time drinking in the morning and she went with the flow. We drank a few bottles and wolfed down some food and started to feel better. Her initial shock and fear started to disappear a little. We took a tram and had some drinks at the terminus, took the trolley bus up the hill, fucked quickly, and at last went to sleep. 

 A couple of days later the Midget and the Gorilla appeared with a cop at the door, their brother-in-law. They gave us a warning that things could get very difficult for us, but with some cash paid, it could all go away.

They came a couple of more times and the guys in the flat said I needed to pay these guys or I might have to go to court or even get done over by the cops; or even, both!

I looked at my options; part with cash was not an option, and hope for fair justice was not on offer either. 

-I think I should get the hell out of here.

The guys agreed; with me, out of the way Dasa wouldn’t get into any trouble.

In the Two Goats, I told Dasa.

-It’s our only option.

-I’ll come with you

-You’ll come to England with me? To live? That would be great. I mean you’ll have to give me some time to get set up, you know, somewhere to live, a job and that. 

-Nick, I know you by now. It’s not going to be easy but it’s definitely going to be interesting.

A week later I packed my bag and took a rickety old bus to London. 

After a few months, I was set up with a job in Cambridge and a room in a shared house, so Dasa packed her bag and got the same rickety bus and we hugged each other deeply in Victoria coach station before taking the train to Cambridge and beyond.

Nick writes Gritty realism or social realism or as he likes to say 'Working-class kitchen sink drama! ‘ His short stories, flash, poetry and essays have appeared in various magazines and books in print and online. Nick has five books published available on Amazon and elsewhere. His short novel out last year, Punk Novelette is all about a group of friends growing up with punk in the 70s in the UK and the effect the movement had on their lives. His latest short story collection is Called Struggle and Strife; fifteen short stories covering the political and personal struggles of today, yesterday, and the future. Stories of casual workers, holocaust survivors, refugees, slum dwellers, and trade unionists. Tales of protests and fight-backs against oppression, and the daily battles of ordinary people. https://nickgerrardauthor.wixsite.com/books