At 5.53 on a Tuesday night
I bought my pint too early.
The potential for connection exists
It’s not a problem with my adapter
Which sometimes suffers from
identification errors and self-destructive
tendencies. We are simply
Unable to connect to this network.
The cloud will only pass over and
around and through me invisibly –
It will not permit me access to the internet,
Even as the signal is strong, even as
the potential for microwave damage rises
With every new G. There is no wifi in
the Wetherspoons. No music and no
sound from the TV, and the promise of
something yet to be. I bought my pint too
early. It has now been allowed to interrupt
my workflow. I am quickly becoming
a stranger aware of his strangeness
No longer protected by the excuse
of social media connection – I also
have no phone signal here in the back
booth. The odd figure at a table with
three chairs, sitting with only his laptop
and his coat for company, and no-one on
the laptop. Regulars see me as an unusual
kind of familiar. Even the youth of today,
they see, can be lonely and pint-dependent.
It is both too early and too late to arouse
their enthusiasm for inebriate conversation.
The morning boozers left at least two hours ago.
The evening boozers have not yet passed
the mark. There is no wifi in the wetherpoons
and I’m forced to see, through my peripheral
vision, a scene I had not asked for. My eyes
should be drawn to the action in the centre
of this screen. Words are too liberal for that
and their composition leaves me with enough
inattention or wonder to gaze, vaguely,
at the noise from the other table, the laughter
the clapping, the incomprehensible joy
of hops, barley and such. I can’t pretend I’m
working now. I can’t send my emails. I can’t
hypnotise with the right youtube sound track.
Two regulars, in after work, keep looking at
me. One, in telling a story, points here, as
one points at nothing while explaining
a tale, a compass direction, a metaphor.
The other has looked past the finger,
instinctively, and noticed that there is
something in this nothing. He keeps
turning his head by reflex. I’ve been
there before. Over there, an old woman
on the slots – or whatever these new machines
are called – and a baby sat at table, quiet, staring
at parents or carers I can’t see, eating his own
fingers, now the fingers steadily drawing more
of his attention. I bought my pint too early.
I didn’t want to go into Costa, and all the
independents have closed. Home is too far to
travel before the meeting. The pints beckon
and my wallet and liver bemoan still further
minor injustices and the table of happy drunks
do not look my way as they leave. Someone
looking like Jesus has joined the after-work
table, blocking their anecdotal point trajectory
and drawing any absent-minded attention back
to the centre: he has triangled their circle.
The finger-chewing baby is leaving and waving
at the bar staff at the behest of a young mother.
Ahead of me the space opens out, absence
reminiscent of a certain wifi connection,
empty tables full of unrealised possibility.
A technician is fixing the computerised slot
machine – perhaps the old woman won?
I think I heard a sound like a police siren –
the theme of that game’s victory, I suppose.
Jesus has been temporarily abandoned and
reads a copy of the Metro. I’m not sure
whether his trains run on time, but you will
often hear people complain of poor trains
and signals and reading the Metro. Some
train companies make a deal with the Metro
that only copies of the Metro will be stocked
on their platforms. One of Jesus’ companions
staggers up from the broken slots and slurs
about “the system”. Jesus’ commitment to
his Metro steadily declines and it is passed
over to the companion who seeks out the
star signs as Jesus leaves for the toilet. I
find out the banks are raising the interest
rate on arranged overdrafts to 40% and
meanwhile, as I sit in a measure of
discomfort, two couples appear behind the
screen, and the Jesus crew are now all
present and correct, discussing how to
get a million. Followers or sterling? It’s
all the same I suppose. Somewhere
behind me “it’s meant to be the ultimate
burger, is it not…you forgot”