Chapter three - Jake

We've been at Maggie's for a couple of weeks now and as unusual as she is, I'm pretty sure the boys are safe with her when I'm not around and it's been nice, her place actually feels like a real home, which is a first in what seems like forever.

For the last few days I've been wandering around looking for a job, figuring if I can pay her some rent, she might let me stay in the house after I turn eighteen and I won't lose my brother's again.

I've come to realise it's not the easiest of tasks when I look the way I do, I get that I'm not overly approachable, but it's frustrating when I'm filling in application after application and as soon as they see me it's "we'll call you if anything comes up" with a look in their eye that says they definitely won't be calling.

Last night Mason actually came up with a good idea and that's security, so, even though I'm not yet eighteen, I'm scouring the pubs and clubs for work. So far I've come up with nothing, but I actually believe it's because there's nothing, rather than because they don't want me specifically.

"T'fuck di' you say t'me?" A drunk bloke slurs at another drunk bloke at the pub next on my list.

"You 'eard me." The second drunk shoves at the first, sending him into a table.

"Oi, t'fuck's goin' on?" Drunks number three and four join the party, each taking an opposite side and puffing themselves up to try to intimidate the other.

It's none of my business and I should walk away, but even though my head's telling me that, when the second drunk swings at the third, I find myself walking towards them.

"Hey, guys, relax." The moment the words leave my mouth, the first guy struggles to his feet and all four turn towards me. 

My mistake is obvious, I should have kept my mouth shut, instead of fighting each other, they've decided to band together against their new target. Me.

One comes towards me, stumbling slightly, with his fists raised, while the others watch, laughing and openly discussing how long I'll remain standing against "Bob".

He stops in front of me, lowering his fists and smiling, displaying chipped off white teeth.

"I'll gi' ya one for free lad." He laughs, turning his face to the side and offering me his cheek.

By the looks of the three behind him, I'm going to get my ass kicked regardless, so I need to at least try to better my odds and try to knock the guy out.

He's watching me out of the corner of his eye and I'm not sure if he really is giving me a free hit or if he's waiting for me to lower my guard and sucker punch me. He nods when I raise my fists in front of my face, his own fists clenching by his side, letting me know I've got this one chance.

Putting all my weight behind it, I launch my fist at his face. He gives a surprised grunt as my knuckles connect with his jaw, sending him off balance and thankfully his eyes roll back and he's unconscious before he hits the floor.

The three behind him watch in stunned silence until he hits the floor, their eyes moving between him and me as if they can't quite believe what's just happened.

I'd hoped at least one would move to help the guy on the floor, but instead, all three circle me, fists raised and fury in their eyes.

Time stands still and it feels like they move almost in slow motion, each of them lashing out as I spin, hitting back at random, no escape plan except the vain hope that someone might come along and help me out at any moment.

No one comes. I'm exhausted, my body hurts all over and I'm fairly sure if I looked under my clothes I'd see deep bruises forming all over me.

I don't know how I managed it, probably due to the sheer amount of alcohol the men have consumed prior to my arrival, but I'm still standing while the other three have fallen back into chairs, laughing to themselves.

"You're alrigh' lad." One of them says, pressing his hand to his face and inspecting the blood there. 

"Whatcha doin' 'ere anyway? Bi' young t' be 'angin' 'round 'ere, aren't ya?" Another, who's prodding at his swollen eyebrow, asks me, and in complete contrast to when I first saw them, he seems almost friendly.

"Looking for a job." I say, expecting them to laugh or mock me somehow, but instead, they gesture towards the bar door that's firmly shut. Oblivious or uninterested in the altercation that just happened.

"Ya comin' or wha'?" The men say, walking on ahead of me, their friend groans from the floor but they don't react.

"What about him?" I ask, wondering if they didn't hear him.

"Bob? Don't worry 'bout 'im lad, 'e'll be 'right in a bi'. Jus' think 'e fell off 'is chair 'n' carry on drinkin' 'is pin'." They push the door open to inside and when I follow them, I'm shocked to see how welcoming it is.

Two older blokes nursing pints in the corner turn to look our way before going back to staring into the fire that burns in a huge fireplace between them. 

A group of guys who look like bikers are playing darts in the corner, cheering each shot and dutifully recording the scores on a blackboard on the wall next to it and finally, a couple of guys sit on stools by the bar, one of them slumped over with his head on his arms like he's asleep.

"Derek. Lad 'ere i' lookin' for a job." One of my escorts shouts and the entire pub goes silent, staring my way with renewed interest.

A muscular bloke who's probably in his late fifties appears from a door behind the bar and looks me up and down.

"How old are you, boy?" He asks, simultaneously refilling the glass of the guy I thought was sleeping and accepting the note that emerges from his clenched hand. 

"Seventeen, but I'm a hard worker. I'll collect glasses, wash them, clean up, whatever you want." I tell him, hoping he'll overlook my age, but my hope disappears when he immediately starts shaking his head.

"Gotta be eighteen to work behind the bar, sorry, come back then." He turns away, picking up abandoned glasses as he goes.

"Derek, 'e knocked ou' Bob Thomas i' one punch." My new friends chime in again and the barman stops, placing the glasses down and really looks at me then.

"That true?" He asks, his eyes appraising me like I imagine a farmer would his cattle.

"The guy outside? Yeah, I guess, I mean he was pretty drunk." I tell him, cursing myself for adding the last bit, since he seems like he might be considering me for something now.

"You bested a drunk Bob Thomas, fuck me boy, that's like taking on Ronnie Kray instead of Reggie." He bellows, choking out a single burst of laughter. I don't really understand what he means, but he seems impressed so I wait. The other blokes in the room are muttering to one another while they openly stare at me and Derek is looking between me and the three guys standing beside me. "And this lot, was that you too?"

"Uh huh." I nod and his face breaks out into a grin. "What's your name lad?"

"Jake, Jake Alworthy." The spark of hope has lit back up inside me but I keep my face emotionless so he can't tell, just in case he's still not going to give me a job.

"When's your birthday, Jake?" He comes around the bar and stands in front of me, looking me up and down. He's an inch or so shorter than me and right now I want him onside, so I try to make myself look less intimidating, something I've not done for years so it feels unnatural. 

"December." My hope dwindles again. He's going to tell me to come back in December.

"Tomorrow you say?" He's still grinning like a Cheshire cat and he slings his arm around my shoulders. "Well, you can start tomorrow then."

"Uh." I'm about to tell him he misheard, when he tugs me closer, lowering his voice. "You'll be off the books and paid in cash until you're eighteen. Pigs don't bother coming down here unless there's someone specific they're interested in, but I'd rather not have it in writing just in case, you ok with that?"

"Yes, sir." I finally let myself smile and he releases me with a clap on my back. Suddenly, he frowns again, narrowing his eyes as he studied me, which wipes the smile from my face as I wait for whatever he's about to say.

"You got somewhere to stay, Jake? There's a flat upstairs. It's only small, but it's yours if you need it." 

Ok, it's fine, he just thinks I'm homeless. 

"Thanks, I'm over with Marguerite Redwood... at least until my birthday that is, so maybe?" I nod, thankful there's already an option if she kicks me out.

"Oh you're at Maggie's? Eh, don't worry then, she'll do right by you, lad. She's a good'un, terrifying woman, but got a good heart." He's back to grinning again, as though he's only got the two facial expressions. "You want a drink now, Jake? I'll give you a quick rundown of what I want you to do from tomorrow."

"Sure, thanks." He points to a stool near the not-sleeping guy, who is eerily staring at me like he's unconscious, right up until Derek puts a glass of coke in front of me and the guy sits up, takes a sip of his drink and lies back on his arms staring at me.

"You three want a top up?" Derek starts filling four pint glasses, before they answer, presumably knowing they're going to say yes. When they're gone, he nods towards them. "Those three are Connor, Rich and Duncan. Add Bob on and they're the ones who give me the most trouble, which is why they drink outside. Less to break and they pretty much sort themselves out."

"Ok." I nod, following his line of vision when he starts giving me names of the rest of the men in the room and telling me what he feels I need to know about them.

"Very rarely do we have anyone else come in. The guys outside tend to put most off coming in here, but sometimes we get a couple young lads who wanna prove they're hard." He chuckles under his breath. "You get any newbies, they pay in advance for their drinks. This lot…" He slaps his hand on a book behind him. "If they offer you money, take it, if they don't, you write it down in this book. They might not look it, especially Simon here who doesn't look part of the living, but they self-monitor pretty well and they'll come pay their tabs by the end of the month, you don't need to worry about that though."

"Ok." I nod again, feeling like one of those dogs a few of my foster parents had in the front of their cars.

"Tell me a bit about yourself, Jake. How did you end up with Maggie?" I must look horrified by his demand to know about my life, because he goes back to expression number two, dropping his grin and narrowing his eyes again. 

Then he nods, jerking his head to the office and walking towards it. I scramble to my feet and follow him, sitting on the swivel chair he points at, while he stands in the doorway. He must be keeping an eye on the bar, but it feels like his entire focus is on me.

"Maggie takes in troubled kids, so I can guess you weren't an angel, it doesn't matter to me. No angel would get those guys outside to speak up for them." He crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at me. "I need to know if I'm going to have the pigs turning up at my pub looking for you."

"No sir. Not in any trouble with the police, right now." I shake my head to emphasise my point, because it's the truth, but when he looks at me, I know he wants more. "I beat up my brother's foster dad, that's why we're with Marguerite. He was a nonce and if I hadn't, he would have assaulted my youngest brother. I needed to get him out of that house."

"What did the pigs say?" His eyes, though still narrowed, have turned firey.

"No evidence to support my claim. The word of a seventeen year old kid who he said had been harassing them isn't enough. Thankfully the guy didn't want Kian in his house anymore, I'd been sleeping in his garden every night anyway, even with the police trying to take me back to my foster parents, so he knew I wouldn't let him touch him." I don't know why I'm telling him all this, even Kian doesn't know why I beat up his last foster dad. 

"So he's still fostering kids?" Derek seems filled with a rage that would terrify the person it was directed at and I can see why he doesn't need anyone else working with him here. 

"Yeah, him and his wife have been fostering for years with no complaints, the police told me." I grit my teeth, the anger from that night filling me. Gordon's smug smile when the police tried to make me apologise for hurting him. Even with his face covered in bruises, he knew he'd won.

"I'll need a name and address." Derek, suddenly calm, picks up a pen and notepad, I don't ask questions, I just reel off the information he wants, right down to the postcode. He nods, pocketing the paper, then he's studying me again. "That it? You beat up anyone else, or any other trouble?"

"Not really." Again I shake my head. "A lot of runaway allegations, I needed to check on my brothers. But, aside from that I've always kept my grades up in school, kept to myself."

"Where'd you learn to fight? You gotta be good to beat Bob Thomas out there, he was a professional boxer before the drink found him." 

Well, that makes sense.

"When I was about ten, I had this foster dad who wanted to adopt me. Only me, his wife said she couldn't cope with four of us boys. She wanted this girl that lived with us, but anyway… he said he worried about us in the system, so he put us in all sorts of classes, karate, boxing, jiu jitsu, capoeira, basically anything going on." I shrug as though it's nothing, but I loved living with Mike and Julia, she was kind to me, so, even though she didn't want my brother's, I couldn't fully hate her.

"Ok, good to know." Derek nods, back to grinning again and I'm already starting to get used to the abrupt changes. "You planning on walking home?"

"Uh... yeah." Assuming I'm being dismissed, I stand up, finishing my drink and automatically taking the keys he's offering me. "Thanks, what time do you want me tomorrow?"

"Woah, hold your horses, let me show you where it is first." I frown, but he's already striding away, forcing me to follow. "Simon, I'll be five minutes, keep an eye on things would you?"

We walk out the front door, passing the four guys who are all laughing together, with Bob now conscious and drinking as the other guys predicted. 

"Jake, buddy." They cheer loudly as I walk past and Derek laughs, telling them all to behave or he'll set me on them again. 

Although I'm the butt of the joke, it kind of feels good natured, so I say nothing and follow Derek down a narrow street until he stops by a car and holds his hand out until I put the keys in it.

"If you haven't got your license, drive like a fucking angel until you get it, ok?" I nod, telling him I got my license a month after turning seventeen, leaving out the part where I learned by driving a car at the age of thirteen for a foster mum who liked to drink. "Good, ok, this'll do you then. It's nothing fancy, but it'll get you back and forth to work. I'll get the paperwork sorted with you tomorrow. Be in the bar by eight, ok? Welcome to the Cat 'n' Fiddle, lad."

After unlocking the car and checking it starts, he pats me on the shoulder and strides away, leaving me standing there, only just realising this guy has given me a car.

As appreciative as I am, I'm not comfortable with gifts like this, so I G****e it's worth so I can pay him for it. I've got a little bit of savings from the odd jobs I've done for various foster parents over the years, it should cover it and I can replace it with my earnings from the bar.

~*~

The next day I pop to the bank, withdrawing the cash for the car before heading over there.

When I got in last night, I told Marguerite about my job. she insisted I tell her how I managed to get in with "grumpy old Derek", so I reluctantly told her what happened with the guys outside, praying she wouldn't suddenly refuse to let me go back.

However, after she finally stopped laughing, she gave me some painkillers just in case, and sat with me while I ate the dinner she'd put back for me, telling me all about Bob Thomas, Connor Harris, Rich Lee and Duncan Andrews, as well as quite a bit about the other blokes who'd been inside the pub.

I don't ask how she knows, I've come to realise that Marguerite knows far more about everything than she's letting on, so I simply accept what she's saying, storing it in the back of my mind in case I need it.

She told me Derek wouldn't accept the money for the car and she's right, he waves it away telling me he neither wants it or needs it, then, as if I'd never offered, he shows me how to pull pints and use the till.

By the end of my first night, it feels like I've always been here. The guys greet me by name and tell me pretty much everything that's going on in their lives, even the four outside treat me as though I'm one of their own.

My third night here, a group of lads in their early twenties waltz in cockily, taking up around the pool table and, if they notice the looks they're getting from Derek and the locals, they don't acknowledge it. 

Two of the guys come up to the bar, talking loudly about Simon as if he wasn't watching them.

I've learned enough to know that although he looks like he's unconscious, he's very much aware of his surroundings. I made the mistake of leaving his beer empty when I thought he'd passed out and had to spend the next hour listening to him complain about the lack of work ethic and responsibility of my generation.

He's topped up regularly from now on.

Instead of greeting them like he does the regulars, Derek merely cocks a brow at them and waits.

"Six pints and six shots of whiskey, my good man." One of the guys laughs like he's made a joke and the others all laugh along.

"ID's boys?" Derek asks without moving.

"Are you serious?" The guy laughs again, slapping the bar next to Simon's pint and knocking it over. Derek doesn't move, but he flicks his eyes at me and I refill the glass and place it back in front of Simon without a word. "Fine, here."

The guy reaches into his pocket and passes Derek his ID.

"And your friends?" He says, turning towards the book and quickly scribbling down the guy's name and address. 

I frown at him, but he gives a subtle shake of the head before taking the other ID's and handing all of them to me. "Thanks, that's forty-three pound forty, you get on with your game and Jake here'll bring them over."

"Thanks my man, keep the change." The guy hands over fifty pounds and they all go back to the pool table, unaware that Derek is recording their names and addresses.

"They're going to do something, not tonight and probably not here, but I've got the cameras going and their names and addresses so that we can get them for it, just in case." He places the IDs, neatly stacked, on the tray with the drinks and motions for me to take them over.

"Jake, my man, thank you." I glare at the guy when he slaps me on my back like we're friends and he holds up his hands like he's surrendering, laughing as he backs up a couple steps. "Ok, I get it, there's a reputation to uphold here. This is a scary place."

He cackles this time, grabbing a shot and throwing it back his throat.

"You know, you'd probably get some girls in here if you loosened it up a bit. Get more guys in here then too, everyone wants some good pussy." One of the other guys calls as I walk away and I pause, turning to stare at him. It has the desired effect and he shuts his mouth, blushing deeply as his friends all laugh around him.

"Fucking pricks, girls would need to be desperate or unconscious to fuck them, I swear." Derek mutters when I get behind the bar, he leans back against the fridge next to me, both of us watching the idiots pretend they can play pool. 

All of a sudden he strides towards them, grabbing a pint and handing it to the laughing guy. "Drink it."

"What? Nah, man, this one's mine." The guy lifts another pint up but his eyes have widened just a touch.

"I said, drink it." Derek's voice lowers just a touch and the guy starts shaking his head, taking a couple steps backwards. "I don't put up with people spiking anyone in my pub, friends or not, you do it again, you'll be banned from here and the rest of the places in town, you hear?"

"Y...yes." The guy stutters, then tries to recover as Derek carries the glass away and pours it down the sink. "I mean, yeah, sorry man, it was just a joke. Just a joke."

"Pricks." Derek says again, loudr this time, then turns and leans back against the fridge, his eyes back on the group while I serve everyone else. Taking beers to the four outside, rather than have them come in in case the idiots playing pool say something stupid and cause a fight with them inside.

It isn't long before the group at the pool table call their goodbyes to us like we're all friends, promising to come back again and then leaving quickly, allowing the calm atmosphere to return, amongst the derogatory comments the locals have about the group.

"You sure you're going to be ok to do the next couple nights by yourself? I can call a friend in if you need it?" Derek asks as we start to close up.

"Nah, I'll be fine, honestly." The job's been a lot easier than I expected, I'm quite enjoying it if I'm honest.

"Ok, good lad. His name's Tommy, I'll leave his number here just in case those idiots come back and start anything." He scribbles down a phone number in the book, then shows me again how to close everything down for the evening.