Trestle

Chapter 6 - Teach a Man How to Fish

Chapter 6
Tuesday 9th July, 2024
The Ditch, Crockenhill, London

Zola puts Golden Nuggets cereals down on the table for Miss Greta, as always, and begins cutting blood oranges into slices for Stassi when Angel hurries downstairs, readjusting the collar on his Stone Island shirt.
Stassi: You're only going to see seven 'o'clock once today, Angel. That's not like you. Are we ropey after yesterday's day session?
Angel scoops Greta up and kisses her toothy grin. He nods and plonks her back down, feeling tonnes better already for having cuddled her, and flicks the kettle on.
Stassi: A good, Irish whiskey doesn't give ye' any hangover, not like all that syrupy, molasses shite ye' sup. Honestly. You youth's are showing yourselves up needing caffeine and painkillers to function properly the morning after.
Zola: Youth? Where's his youth? Ha! Yo' clock is ticking, Angel baby. You need to find a nice, strong, young woman to be spending your days with.
He kisses Zola's plump cheek flirtatiously.
Angel: I'm already surrounded by enough of those, thank you.
She laughs him off but blushes at his touch, all the same.
He looks in the fridge to find milk for his coffee.
Angel: May we know them; may we raise them; may we show mercy when they use all the fucking milk.
He settles for a RedBull out of the fridge instead and leaves the kitchen.
Greta turns to Zola, smiling with the utmost sass.
Greta: I used all the fucking milk.

Angel walks outside The Ditch but Kit is nowhere to be seen. Angel isn't too surprised.
Angel: If he turned up as early as yesterday, he's probably melted into a puddle of skin on the hot concrete by now.
Nevertheless, he clearly didn't hang around long and that doesn't bode well with his new manager.
Angel cracks open his Redbull, contemplating what Kit would look like without a left incisor, but before he takes a swig, he hears what sounds like the clashing of metal plates. He walks around the back of the bar and see's Kit sat on the ground, on top of Angel's grey North Face hoodie.

He has a metal beer barrel between his knees, and a coupler pipe hung around his neck. A YouTube demo is playing called 'How to change a beer keg,' and Angel is absolutely baffled, but humbled that this kid may have just proven him wrong.
Angel: He clearly isn't work shy, unlike his bum father. Points to you, kid.

Kit feels Angel's devilish eyes burning through the back of his head whilst he is familiarising himself with the equipment, and jumps up, dusting his jeans down.
Kit: I knocked round the front and then again at the back door, but no one answered.
His explanation sounds apologetic, and if his whiny voice wasn't so annoying, Angel might pity him. But it is. So Angel doesn't.
Angel: They won't do. Not to you. Or to a postman, or window cleaner, or anyone else for that matter who does not know the knock.
Kit finds something amusing about a fully grown man, who supposedly puts holes in hearts for fun, having a secret knock, but doesn't dare let this show on his face. It would be the last thing he ever did, laughing at Angel O'Hare.
Angel, also hearing the slight immaturity in his own statement, demands that Kit rolls the empty barrel back to the bins, sharpish.
Angel: Bring the pipe. And pick my fucking jacket up, will you?

Kit follows, terrified of what other use a long, hollow cylinder of plastic has if not for connecting to a beer barrel. He has a few things in mind and instantly wishes he was back driving one-hundred pints of cow's milk around the town; how fickle he feels for presuming he was living out his sentence, innocently pulling pints.

It only takes seven minutes to drive to the block of flats where James 'Fish' Gough is staying. Rumour has it, people call him Fish because he spends most of his life getting battered; others say it's because he's a slippery little fucker who doesn't get a pasting often enough. But today that's going to change.