Stray Dog Blues

Book summary

"Stray Dog Blues" by Paul D. Brazill is an engrossing collection of short stories that delves into the lives of underdogs yearning for a taste of the high life. These tales feature a cast of small-time criminals and full-fledged gangsters, each seeking their own version of fame and fortune. Brazill takes readers on a gritty journey, exploring the dichotomy of life in the gutter and the allure of reaching for the stars.

Excerpt from Stray Dog Blues

The winter night had draped itself over Warsaw like a shroud, and a sharp sliver of moon sliced the death black sky. I was in the depths of a crawling hangover and feeling more than a little claustrophobic in Olena’s cramped, deodorant-soaked apartment. I poked my trembling fingers through a crack in the dusty slat blinds and gazed out at the constellation of neon signs that lined the bustling avenue. Sex shops, peep shows, twenty-four-hour bars, booze shops, and kebab shops were pretty much the only buildings that I could see, apart from The Westin Hotel, with its vertigo-inducing glass elevator. Looking at it made my stomach lurch a little. I fought back the acrid bile that burned my throat as I watched a black taxi jump a red light and cut across the road, narrowly missing a rattling tram. A police car’s siren wailed and pierced my pounding head like a stiletto. Another cop car joined the chase, quickly overtook the cab, swerved, and screeched to a halt in front of it. The taxi driver tried to stop but the taxi skidded back across the icy road, just missing another tram before stopping on the pavement outside a garishly painted peepshow. A tall blonde dressed only in red high heels and suspenders looked out of its front door, saw the police cars, and went back inside, slamming the door behind her.

A massive, bull-necked man with a bald head wearing a black leather jacket raced from the taxi towards the front of Olena’s apartment block but, before he could get close to the front door, a swarm of policemen swiftly surrounded him and dragged him down onto the snowy ground, attacking him with truncheons before handcuffing him and hurling him into the back of a police van, giving him the occasional kick. I turned back towards Olena. She handed me a glass of bourbon. The smell made my stomach roll. I took a furtive sip and balked.

‘So, you are not a Maker’s Mark fan?’ she said.

‘I prefer Jack Daniels,’ I said. ‘And usually with cola. Though, to be honest, I usually only drink whisky when I’m so drunk I shouldn’t be drinking anything at all. When I’ve drunk the pint of no return.’

I winked and Olena grinned as I persevered. After a while, the burning sensation was cleansing. I turned back towards the window. A mob of English football fans wearing West Ham UnitedT-shirts were staggering down the street singing loudly,

Olena came up behind me.

‘When the Pope—the Polish one—died, the whole of the street was lined with multi-coloured candles, in tribute,’ she said, looking almost tearful.

Her English was perfect, but her Ukrainian accent was as dark and as bitter as the Galois cigarette that she deeply inhaled. ‘It was a thing of rare beauty,’ she continued, a halo of smoke floating above her, though she was no angel. She’d previously worked for my sister in London, doing a bit of pickpocketing, shoplifting, and lord knows what else.

She switched off the flickering light and switched on a small lamp with a dusty red bulb. My mouth was dry, and I felt as if my heart was caged tightly within my chest and ready to burst free. Olena finished her drink and carefully placed the glass on the rickety bedside table. She handed me a bunch of keys and I gave her a wad of notes of mixed denominations.

‘Are you ready?’ she said.

‘Yes, let’s skedaddle,’ I said.

I could hear the thump of a bass line coming from one of the pubs across the road and for a moment I wished I was there. There was loud banging on the door.

‘Who the bloody hell is …?’

Olena put a finger to her lips.

‘Quiet. It’s only Bronek. Wait,’ she whispered.

‘Who?’

‘Oh, he’s just a customer who has problems separating business from pleasure.’

The banging continued. And then the shouting began. Well, it was more like the cry of a wounded animal. Repeating Olena’s name over and over again. She shook her head and leaned close to me.

‘Wait until he has gone, eh?’ she said.

She kissed my cheek and poured the last of the bourbon into my glass. She held up a finger and stepped into the bathroom.

Olena showered and dressed in a black polo-necked sweater and leather skirt. She cracked open another bottle of bourbon, sat next to me and we slowly drank in silence until, just before midnight, the noise stopped.

‘I think you can go now,’ said Olena, standing, stretching, and yawning.

‘Are you sure? Is it safe?’ I said.

‘Yes. He will be at mass now and then he’ll return home to his wife and children, full of guilt.’

I stood up, a little unsteady. Olena produced a handful of business cards from her bag and sifted through them.

‘Maybe we can get a taxi together?’’ she said.

‘Safety in numbers, eh?’ I said, and I forced a smile which Olena didn’t return.

‘Oh, I think we’re outnumbered where Bronek is concerned,’ she said, with the hint of a smile.

***

I took the last of my notes from my wallet and stuffed them into the taxi driver’s sweaty paw while Olena wiped the white powder from her nose and pulled a Zippo from the pocket of her black PVC raincoat. She lit another French cigarette, dissolving into the darkness as the flame flickered out.

‘We made it in one piece, then,’ she said.

‘Just about,’ I said. My nerves were shot.

Before I’d come to Warsaw, I’d heard stories about ‘The Night Drivers.’ Legend had it that they were a group of amphetamine pumped young men who, each midnight, tied fishing wire around their necks, and the cars’ brakes, and then raced each other from one end of the city to the next.

So, when I saw the cut-marks on the taxi driver’s neck and his red, red eyes, I didn’t exactly have the Colgate ring of confidence.

I was relieved minutes later when we pulled up outside The Palace of Culture and Science, Josef Stalin’s unwanted Neo-classical gift to the people of Warsaw, which loomed over the city like a gigantic gargoyle keeping evil at bay. A large red banner stretched across its entrance advertising an avant-garde jazz concert.

‘So, see you next month, then?’ she said.

‘Yes, why not,’ I replied, to the fading sound of her high heels click-clicking on the palace’s wet concrete steps.

I waited a moment until she was inside and then rushed across the road into Rory’s Irish Pub. I headed straight into the putrid smelling toilets to puke.

‘Out with the old, in with the new,’ said a familiar, well-spoken, sandblasted voice from the next cubicle.

I wiped my mouth with toilet paper, flushed, and walked up to the basin. As I splashed my face with water, Sean Bradley stumbled out of the cubicle.

‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at it through the bottom of a rather nice glass of gin and tonic, eh?’ he said.

He swayed as he zipped up his fly, waved to me and walked out the door.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once described London as being a ‘great cesspool into which the flotsam and jetsam of life are inevitably drawn’ and the same thing might reasonably be said of the world of TEFL teaching. A Teacher Of English as a Foreign Language can usually be described as either flotsam—perhaps a fresh-faced young thing taking a break from university -or jetsam—the middle-aged man with the inevitable drinking problem and enough skeletons in his closet to keep a palaeontologist happy for months. And, I’ll make no bones about it, Sean fit rather snugly into the latter category. I literally stumbled into him the first week I arrived in Warsaw. After that, we seemed to orbit each other more than somewhat. Sean was a permanently drunk, dapper, nicotine-stained example of jetsam, who supplemented his teaching income by chess hustling.

I walked into the half-empty bar, ordered a beer and a shot of vodka to cleanse my palate.

‘Oh, bollocks,’ I said, as I realised I had no more folding money left.

‘Can I pay by credit card?’ I said.

‘Yes, of course’ said Blanka, the tiny barmaid with the statuesque, purple Mohican haircut. ‘But there’s a minimum amount you have to spend.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I’ll run up a tab.’

And then I headed towards oblivion like rainwater down a storm-drain. I sat at a chequerboard table with Sean and watched Andy -a big, dumb-looking American I’d seen shuffling around the ex-pat pub circuit -play pool with Rory, the owner. Rory was a pallid, ghostly, prune-faced old man with all the charm of a pit bull.

‘Evening gents,’ I shouted.

Rory glanced up, irritated.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he grunted by way of a greeting.

Like I said, he wasn’t well known for his charm. But, in his favour, he was equally ignorant of the smoking ban that had been introduced in Poland’s bars and restaurants. The air in the bar was as thick as pea soup. Little blue clouds of cigarette smoke hung below the green lamps that dangled from the low ceiling.

A Stone Roses song crept out of crackly speakers as a smoke-smudged TV screen showed an episode of ‘Friends’. Andy sat opposite Sean, sipping a Diet Coke, and keeping an eye on the door.

‘The thing is, some people absolutely loathe the place,’ said Sean, jabbing a yellow finger at a postcard of The Palace of Culture and Science that Andy had been using as a beermat. ‘The locals call it the Russian Wedding Cake, you know? And, indeed, that’s what it looks like: a wedding cake plonked in the middle of the road.’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Andy, who quite clearly didn’t.

The night staggered on. Andy bailed out pretty quickly and then the cloak-room attendant left. Sean and I were soon in our pots, sat at the end of the bar smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky, watching the ice cubes glimmering and shimmering in the wan light. Blanka had gone home, too, and Rory clearly wasn’t enjoying Sean and I exploiting the Polish tradition that a bar can only close when the last customer has gone. I was about to order another round of drinks when I heard a loud bang that seemed to send seismic tremors through the pub.

I turned and saw a stunningly beautiful blonde woman burst through the frosted glass door and rush into the bar bringing a trail of snow behind her. Her wet hair hung down like party streamers. Even in my drunken stupor, just looking at her was like lightning hitting a plane. She was tall, with long blonde hair and a slash of red lipstick across her full lips. She was wearing a long black raincoat which flapped in the breeze behind her.