All of us [the regulars] have been drinking in pubs for a number of years (and obviously the staff and quite a few of the regulars have the added experience of having both worked and drank in pubs for a long time), and that long experience gradually brings with it the ability to tell a Wrong ‘Un within a matter of a couple of seconds.
[Wrong ‘Un – noun, definition: bad or potentially deviant person: somebody regarded as having a bad character or deviant/criminal tendencies]
As soon as that person comes in you can tell. Conversations falter for a moment and glances are silently exchanged as everyone realises at the exact same moment that that person is a horrible bastard.
You can just tell.
There’s a certain ‘I’ve taken loads of drugs in my life and have been in lots of fights, and now I’m going to be an obnoxious cunt all evening’ look to their faces which everyone immediately recognises.
You can tell that look. It’s cruel and hard and ever so slightly glazed. Sometimes their features are slack from years of drug and/or alcohol abuse (although not always), but what is always present is a certain belligerent bristling which emanates from them like an attack dog with its hackles up.
You can tell the moment it happens because everyone goes quiet for a bit, while they evaluate how drunk, big, horrible, loud, and dangerous the person is and the implications for the evening which all of those factors entail.
And I was just thinking what a terrible thing that is.
Not the fact that people make snap judgements like that in the first place, because no matter what your mum says about not judging books by their covers, there’s nothing wrong with doing so. In fact it’s a millennia old defence mechanism. What is wrong, however, is when you treat people differently simply based on how they look. Although frankly, when it comes to my own personal safety, I maintain the right to treat someone who looks like a wrong ‘un with a good deal of circumspection until they prove otherwise.
What I think is terrible is that there are people out there who the moment they walk into a room people know that they’re a Wrong ‘Un. The very second. What must that be like? I mean imagine it. Imagine being such a wrong ‘un that you don’t even need to do or say anything for people to immediately know there’s something wrong with you.
I was outside smoking on Thursday night talking to Gary
I knew it, and Gary
And when he did open his mouth? A total bloody Wrong ‘Un who spent the next five minutes telling us some ridiculously implausible story about the safe he’s got hidden in his wall which he’s plastered over and keeps 20 grand in at all times in case he needs to do a runner from the all the people he’s got after him.
I mean, how unbelievably shit of a person must you be that people know you’re a scumbag just by looking at you? What must it be like to go through life like that? I mean was there a definite point when the transformation took place or was it a gradual barely perceptible thing?
And before anyone starts on about how I’m unfairly stereotyping people based on how they look, just remember this is nothing to do with someone’s clothes or hair, or accent or tattoos or piecings or colour. I spent many happy years drinking in the Enfield Arms where people of every sort (and you had to have experienced it to really understand what I mean) got along with one another based solely on whether people were decent or not. That was the criteria.
I’m talking about an attitude of belligerence and air of scumbagness that floats around them like perfume. That reeks and pervades the pub until everyone is on edge; wary and watchful.
I wonder if it’s something a bit like the Queen and that old aphorism regarding how she must think that the world smells of fresh paint.
That is, that he goes into a pub and thinks to himself, ‘whoa, bit of a dodgy atmosphere in here tonight!’
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