Countdown To Major Tom

Manchester after dark is like a cattle prod in the ear for the Monkey Voice to scream DRINK at you. I was tempted to lock myself out of harm’s way. But this was the perfect chance to see if anyone could rise to the challenge of The Mission.

All I had to do was find a cocktail bar where the barkeep was game. No mean feat.

The Northern Quarter is everything I love about the night. The Corporation haven’t left too much stink across it, and the art is there for art’s sake. Big, shiny mega-bars don’t exist here.

I bounced around street and alley avoiding hopheads and other undesirables. This night I needed something close to the dives of nonbei yokocho in Tokyo and the only pure way to find such holy places is by randomly wandering.

I sidled past a strip-lit window behind which sat bearded and fuddy types. They were so far dug into what looked like a Dungeons & Dragon’s tournament they were oblivious to observers. For a fleeting moment I wished I was in there with them. They wouldn’t care about The Mission. Shit, they probably didn’t care about drinking.

Onwards.

Restaurants. Pubs. Parlours. Closed things. Drunks. Lost people trailing suitcases looking for Portland Street Ibis.

And then : Dusk til Pawn.

Inwards.

Becky listened while I tried to explain the Rules to her over the impossibly high bar. Her response: “Fuckinell you don’t want much do you?”

No; I don’t, I thought. I want a fucking drink with no fucking alcohol in it that doesn’t taste like a kid’s drink.

I thought I’d wasted the trip and was ready to settle on a virgin mary riff. Becky had disappeared to the other end of the bar and was throwing things around in a cocktail shaker.

“Try that.” she beamed. The that was a huge glass with what looked like a VM in it. It wasn’t, I needn’t have worried.