#28 – Knights of the Round Table | The Weekly Kook Series

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

There was no missing it. The yellow Nissan Micra pulled up in the car park of Tesco with the driver leaning across the passenger side to open the door.

“No word of you fixing that?” I asked, getting in and placing the plastic bags at my feet.

“No word of you passing your test and sortin’ your own lift?” he replied, as we set off. “Mind those.” He pointed at the clinking bags, swaying with every sharp turn. 

We arrived a short time later at his parent’s home. They were – wisely – out for the evening, and when we walked through the house to the back garden, we were greeted by boozy cheers.

Morgan, the only qualified driver, was a slim nerdy sort with curtains that may have been fashionable a decade earlier. There was Mike, the smallest of the group, but the most experienced drinker and by extension, the most fun. Tots – a nickname given for his penchant for eating Jelly Tots – who was painfully shy except when he was drunk, with a one track mind for women. And myself,  a late starter to the booze scene, was the social glue that brought the misfits together.

Looking back in years to come, they were in many respects the highlight of our nights out. Drinking at someone’s home and experiencing the various shades of inebriety together. Young, carefree and making our first tentative steps in the party scene, we were too innocent to know better and everything back then was new and shiny. It helped matters that we were bonded by our virginities, lack of self-esteem and proclivity for drinking games.

“Did you get cards?” Mike asked, already on his third Smirnoff Ice.

“Of course,” I said. “Did you think we’d be playing Twister? Tots, you deal.”

Tots, fidgety without a drink in his hand, seemed pleased to be able to contribute and we promptly cleared the circular table of plants and flowerpots, pulling it closer as we seated ourselves around it.

“So, what we playing?” Mike asked. The bemused expressions gave the answer. “Knights of the Round Table it is.”

The cards were shuffled, and spread face down on the table.

“Got a container?” Mike asked.

“This’ll do.” Morgan leaned over and took a small ceramic pot off his mom’s rockery. He gently teased the small spineless cactus out of its home and set it to one side.

“Loser eats the cactus?”

“Only if it’s you Mike,” Morgan replied. “My da got that imported from Peru. Hasn’t grown in a year. Think it’s a dud.”

“Make sure you wash the cup. There’s soil in that.”

“What?”

“It’s dirty!”

“No it’s not.” Morgan, who always seemed to have the bottle of water strategically placed near him in such games, rinsed the pot out quickly and turned it up.

“There we go. Right, a few drops to baptise the game.”

Each of us tipped some contents of what we were currently drinking into the container. Beer from Morgan and Tots, alcopop from Mike and wine from myself.

“Anybody need the rules again? Tots?” The shy man nodded at me. “OK. Take turns pulling one card from off the table. One to Five means drink that many fingers of your drink. Six is toilet card. You can’t go to the toilet without that card.”

There was a nervous laugh from Mike.

“You touching cloth already mate?” Morgan asked, watching his friend squirm, bringing a fresh wave of laughter from our host. “That’s gotta hurt.”

 “Seven is multiples of seven. We go around the table and give numbers that don’t contain a 7 or multiple of 7, like 17, 21, 27, 28. Eight is trivia, like we take turns to name characters in Baywatch. Loser takes a big drink. Nine is thumb card. Put your thumb on the edge of the table, like that, at any point in the game. Last person to do it has to down their drink. Ten and Jack are social drinks. Queen reverses the direction of the game. King is social. Ace means you tip more of your drink into the centre, but the Ace of Hearts,” I say, pausing for dramatic effect and looking from face to face, “the Ace of Hearts means you down the bonus drink. In one.”

“Ready Knights?” Morgan asked.

“Let’s get fucked up,” Mike said, snapping the lid off another alcopop.

Thirty minutes into the game, we had gotten through all our beers and made a dent in the reserves, namely Goldschlager, Malibu and Aftershock. It wasn’t long before we got through the entire deck of cards. As usual, at some juncture in proceedings, Mike had dangled his penis out his zip and had a crafty piss unbeknownst to all until a river was spotted crossing the garden patio. Punishment without a toilet card was severe and he was the first to down the goblet of fire, the concoction of beer, wine, spirits and anything else we could find.

In the next game, myself and Tots shared the unwanted prize. Holding the most powerful card in the deck during the drinking game – a toilet card, I bartered with my friend who risked shitting himself. In return, he helped take the cup of suffering from me.

“One…more round?”

There was a loud belch from the speaker which brought subdued laughter from the group. The heat was rising to my cheeks despite the cool breeze that evening. My vision was swimming, but I locked a firm hand on my partner’s forearm.

“Ye speak true, Tots of Shire Wood. One must draw events to a close soon thereafter. For we shall not tarry in the morn, while the enemy draws near.”

Slow nods from those seated. Squinting my eyes against a low hanging sun, the men looked weary and somber. Thankfully, we were already dressed in our best finery for the evening. Various flannel shirts, coupled with dark trousers.

“Men?”

A battlecry from Tots which took us by surprise; the man beating his chest with a closed fist. Morgan, hunched and concentrating all his focus on the water bottle held between his legs, mumbled incoherently. Mike, who was now swallowing at a rapid rate, chin tilted skyward, was fighting his own private battle, face white as a sheet.

Surprised at my own sober control for once, I poured the dregs of the bottle of Goldschläger into a shot glass. The tiny flakes of gold reflected off the dimming sun, snuffed out as I quickly threw it back, the aniseed comet burning a trail along my throat, soon vanquished in a sea of gastric juices.

“That was a close one,” Mike said. He hadn’t spoken for a while. His face was a slightly creamier shade of pale. “Back down ye get ye wee vomit bastard.” He inserted a straw in the opening of his Blue WKD, pinched it and within three seconds, had tipped it up and glugged the bottle’s contents.

“Better?” I asked and received a nod. “How about you, Sir Tots?”

No response was forthcoming and when we glanced across at the quiet man, his face had a determined look fixed on a specific corner of the garden.

“Scrote?” Morgan piped up, nursing himself from the bottle of water.

“I spy thee a fair maiden.”

This would normally have led to laughter but the slow seriousness in his voice led us to look in that direction.

“In thar corner. Yonder. Beside the well.”

A distant part of my brain, which had now been bathed in alcohol, failed to grasp what he was saying. But, yet… My eyes narrowed further still. As the sun dipped below the wall, shadows shifted around the garden. There was a well. Shrubs partially covered the brick hollow but it was there alright. Amazed I hadn’t spotted it before, I looked around and was surprised to notice how tall the trees and plants were. Their shapes blurred in the dusk light, became standing pillars, gently swaying in the breeze. Like soldiers. Standing to attention.

“My fair Maiden.” Tot’s voice broke with angst. “She has come to me. She calls me from the well. She has come to warn me. I will not fall.”

“No,” the others cried.

“Not today, Maria.”

“No!” We cried louder.

“Not ever!”

“Never!” We shouted, clinking mugs over our table and spilling our frothy beers.

My friends became sullen as the night encroached. There was a shiver in the air and we wrapped our animal furs around our bodies. Huddled around a crackling fire, we placed our palms out to warm ourselves. The howl of coyotes in the distance only added to the party’s sombre mood, broken suddenly by the sound of weeping. It was Morgan.

“Pray tell, brother, what ails thee?” I asked.

“It is despair. The dry and arid lands of the battlefield thirst…” The man cupped his hand to his face, and swiped away the tears, before continuing. “They thirst for the blood of those newly conquered. Our time approaches.”

“It cannot be.”

“Nay?”

“Nay!” Mike, Knight of Errenstock exclaimed, rising from his chair. “We shall fight. We shall fight,” he repeated and saw hope light his companions’ faces, “and we shall win! For we are Knights of the Round Table!”

Suddenly, light flashed above our heads. A head emerged from the doorway.

“You boys not gone yet? Your bus to the Elk is supposed to leave at 9, is it not?”

We looked at each other. The empty bottles strewn on the ground. A small candle in the centre of the table catching the wind. Morgan rubbed his face. Tots, scanned the garden for something, or someone. Mike, gripping his seat back to steady himself, sat back down.

“What have you done with that Peyote cactus?” the woman said. “Your dad will kill you if he finds out. That cost a bloody fortune. Hope you didn’t take any of that. Anyway, clean up and I’ll drive youse there.”

This story was written for the ambitious creative project, ‘The Weekly Kook’, where I release a brand new short story every week for a year, totalling…yep, you guessed it – 52 stories.

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