At War With The Mystics.

Saturday morning at the pub; the perfect way to start any weekend - the sun rising over the glistening piles of vomit, the smashed glass casting a sparkle over the beer garden, and the postman bringing the usual assortment of absolute crap informing us that new company policy is that we must now get ten pints to a gallon (in between sessions of squeezing blood from a stone and piling straw onto a camel's back), or that we may already be a winner in the Reader's Digest draw. When I started, part of my extended job description was vetting the "useful" post (letters from the brewery) - I'd been doing this more or less since I started, but since Henry came along, he picks up the post in the morning (Stephen was never awake in time to get the post first-hand and never wanted to read it anyway); so in the past, when people would send out a cover-all letter to every pub in the area offering an act or service, that would be diverted straight to the waste-paper basket. We don't really have the facilities to put on live entertainment and make a profit - we were offered "the best" of the four current Boney Ms doing the rounds (I believe this one is the Boney M that was set up by one of the women, not the dancing lunatic who would often sweat it out in full Russian tsar getup - if he had been involved we would have said yes quicker than Rasputin got his end away), and we were once given first refusal on "a Kraftwerk-style tribute to the musical genius of Abba" - and we used that refusal for all it was worth. But now that Henry's the gaffer, he's very keen to get this place up and running as a venue, despite the fact we don't have a stage, we don't have lighting, we don't have sound and we don't have customers. Finding performers is the absolute least of our worries.

That was all set to change with Henry's first proper booking - yes, William LeForte, mystic to the stars, was offering us the opportunity of a lifetime. Or at least his agent was. William LeForte's agent (Emily LeForte) was in the process of booking a tour of pubs and clubs in Wales. The cover letter was almost enough to win him our custom:

"William's powers have not once been questioned, leaving respected scientists and other mediums alike baffled."

Yes, it would seem that William's ability to cold-read a room full of gullible old women reduces scientists and other mediums (whether this implies that science is on par with mediumship I'm still not sure) to mind-blown wrecks as they cower in blubbering deference to William and his vice-like grip upon the leash of the supernatural. The letter went on in this fashion, positively goading us to book him, daring us to invite such a paranormal powerhouse onto our premises (because I doubt our building insurance covers the roof against being blown off by acts of awesomeness) - and it wouldn't cost us a penny. Yes, it was this part of William's letter that most interested Henry - William asked for a £3 fee to be paid on the door by each gullible prick, all of which went straight in his satin-lined pocket. Oh, I almost forgot to mention - his letter accompanied a photo, which won around the rest of us to the idea.

"This is fucking sick," I proclaimed as I piled a set of darts into the board and Eddie caught up on a discarded copy of OK Magazine. "Getting somebody like that in here to pray on the fears and superstitions of people. It's not right." Skepticism doesn't even come close to what I feel for these various psychics, mystics, spiritualists and other such morons who seem to take some kind of perverse delight in spitting in the face of science and common sense. I absolutely abhor anything with even the faintest whiff of "the paranormal", especially that which attempts to play on the hopes and fears of grieving relatives in order to spin a quick buck. These people have no more idea of what happens to people when they die than anybody else, but because they can spin a series of guesses and assumptions into a "message from the other side" they're suddenly an authority on what becomes of your relatives once their clogs have popped. These people don't have any idea - Houdini wrote a fantastic book called "A Magician Among The Spirits" in which he debunked the whole notion of spiritualism, yet these people are still allowed on daytime TV to make blind assertions based on people's appearances. It's a fucking guessing game and it shouldn't be permitted.
"True," nodded Eddie, peeling his eyes from the page as he went rummaging in the ream or two of paper that coats the back bar. "But have you seen the picture he sent us?"
"No?" Eddie pulled a glossy photo from the pile with a wobble and handed it over, and I immediately changed my mind - get him in, I thought, because there is absolutely no way he can top this promo picture. The picture, set on a fog-laden moor, showed William - in a velvet purple suit with a Clockwork Orange-tastic single fake eyelash (sadly no codpiece or criminal record, because that would've been interesting) - holding a sword in the air, which had obviously been somebody's final project in a Photo Manipulation For Dummies course somewhere, as the sword was on fire and had lightning coming out of it. Horrible, pixelated lightning. Everything about William screamed "class", from the long, yellowy-gray hair (complete with slight bald spot) to the extensive metalware adorning his fingers. William looked more like the kind of person who runs an "alternative lifestyle" clothes stall down a covered market (flogging knock-off Fall Out Boy hoodies and cheap eyeliner to confused teenagers) than a psychic.

And this is why I loved him - this vague sense of gender confusion (and evident misunderstanding of the fundamental differences between "psychic" and "Jonathan Ross Meets Gothic Merlin, The Mega-Magical Super-Pimp"), plus the fact that he was obviously going to be a heap of festering turd. I practically leaped over the bar to consult the staff holiday manual to discover that the date he was set to arrive was already fully booked off, leaving muggins here to fend off the paranormal alone. Henry, Frances, Christine - even Elaine was ducking out of the kitchen early to watch Superfly Psychic cast his slightly seedy magic on a pub where the average punter has both a bus pass and a prosthetic joint or limb. Oh, and...

"Eddie!? Don't tell me you're into this nonsense!" He said nothing, and simply tapped the picture. I understood. What red-blooded male wouldn't sit amongst a group of menopausal women to get so much of a glimpse of a man so thoroughly immersed in his own hype that he is willing to take pictures of himself wielding a flaming sword of lightning?

One week after Henry had confirmed the deal, we received a gigantic brown envelope from Mr. LeForte. Now, I wish I could show you the promotional pack William LeForte sent us. William has clearly put a lot of effort into his act, and therefore relies on his heavily-guarded mystique to create a sense of wonder. This is probably why he sent us:

- Twelve autographed copies of the original sword picture, "to distribute to interested parties". Before they could be swept up and promptly flogged for a small goldmine on eBay, I kept one, and intend to keep it indefinitely (I have put it in a box in which I put all significant job-related items, including every nametag I've ever had, the cork from the first bottle of wine I opened here, the letter I was sent detailing why my seasonal position at a large department store was not to be made permanent - which was not so much a constructive criticism as a poorly-punctuated punch in the mouth - and now, "Who knows what the future holds? All my love, William LeForte x x x").
- Four A2 posters of him, on horseback, in his magical superpimp outfit, peering into a crystal ball. A mixed message at best.
- Four T-shirts, intended for the staff, with "William LeFort" on the front - the extra "e" had been taken care of thanks to the magic of iron-on transfer paper. Henry wore his with gusto, but seeing as three of the four current bar staff are rather generously portioned - except for Christine, who is so very thin that she most likely halves her body weight every time she wipes her nose - these medium-sized shirts were kept by medium-sized Henry.
- A set of tarot cards. We were not instructed on what to do with these, but I sincerely hope to whatever God is out there (perhaps it's William LeForte) that he expected us to provide impromptu tarot readings to punters in between hosing the vomit off their crotch after one too many pints of foul ale and shoveling horse shit into a gigantic sack. We've been doing this for some time now - the horse riders never clean up after themselves, so we're going to keep hold of it until we have about twenty sacks and then we're going to barricade the main offender inside his home under cover of darkness by piling the bags against his front door. William, luckily, did not turn up on horseback.

As soon as the tickets went on sale, there was a frenzy - we put one of the posters up on the village noticeboard, and before you know it, every single woman in the village wanted a slice of the action. I was at a loss to explain the estrogen-heavy nature of the ticket purchases - some of the male punters were dragged along by their spouses, but the night soon came along and all I saw were a troop of late-middle-age women willing to trample over their mothers (whether they were dead or not) to get themselves a nice fat slice of psychic pie. They say ignorance begets ignorance, but let me tell you something, that's bullshit - ignorance begets money. Big, gigantic, burlap sacks, so packed full of moolah that it's a wonder LeForte didn't do his back in half carrying them out to his car. His brand spanking new car.

Before the punters were allowed into the lounge (the function room was off limits due to "technical difficulties", our cover-all term for when we don't want somebody reporting us to the EHO - this time, it was an apparently abandoned Tesco bag full of rotting steaks that actually required real health and safety officers, not just me and Eddie with tongs and a binbag), William LeForte requested ten minutes to prepare himself - the spectacle was set to begin at 8pm and William was still nowhere to be seen at 7:55. At 8:06, William LeForte stumbles through the back door (he insisted on not mingling with the punters beforehand to "keep the mystique alive"), into the cellar, and before I could open the door and welcome him in, he knocked a barrel of bitter off the rack. Kablump, the 100Kg container hit the deck and the remaining sixteen gallons piled out as fast as it could while LeForte attempted to put the cork back in the barrel - unfortunately for him, those things are pressurized; that bitter's been trying to get the fuck out of that barrel for days and his limp-wristed efforts will not dissuade it. Approximately eight quid's worth of awful felt suit was ruined, as well as a few hundred quid's worth of stock. William paddled over to me apologetically, his entire lower half drenched in the company's best barely-alcoholic barley-strained booze.

"I'm Will, y'alright butt?" This may also be a reason why William didn't want people to see him beforehand; he had one of the strongest valleys accents I've ever heard, which I correctly guessed he would put to one side when it was time to perform (when he finally did get out there he spoke in a manner that wouldn't be unfit for Radio 4). He let out a hand; I shook the bitter off it and decided to just carry on with it, and mention the bitter later (we get spillage allowance and that gets reset at the beginning of the financial year, so if anything, Will probably did us a favour).
"Alright mate. You got a spare suit in your car or something?" I was concerned for William - there were easily a hundred people out there expecting to see a psychic, and that image may be tarnished somewhat if he goes out there looking and smelling like he did.
"Nah, this is my only one." Oh dear. "...you haven't got one, have you butt?" Have I got a spare felt suit that's about ten sizes too small for me? No I haven't, but just let me give my friend Eddie Izzard a call, maybe he can sort you out.
"I haven't I'm afraid."
"Have you got anything at all?" I looked him up and down. I decided to hazard a guess at his size and weight and ruffled through my mental picture book to see if I knew anyone who vaguely matches the description. And I did.

"Why does he need my trousers?"
"He knocked over a barrel and soaked his."
"Fine," said Henry - who had now returned the wheelchair to the hospital (wheeling it into reception while nobody was looking) and was simply walking on the cast with the aid of a single crutch - going so deep into his closet that it's a wonder he didn't find R. Kelly in there, Beretta at the ready. "Take these. Does he need a shirt too?"

"I apologize for the late start... and my slightly clashing wardrobe," announced Will in a completely false middle-English baritone, gesturing to his khaki slacks, navy staff polo shirt (which actually matched the slacks reasonably well) and scarlet felt jacket with some slight flood damage around the base. I never really understood women going crazy for the likes of William - I was way too young to experience Beatlemania first-hand, so I've only seen girls going mad for pop stars of my youth, and what an uninspiring bunch they were too (say what you like, but The Beatles changed music forever; East 17's only claim to fame is being led by a man stupid enough to run himself over with his own car). But the seemingly universal fawning from the predominantly older female audience was a strange thing to watch - I felt two things; a deep disgust for people like William and an intense pity for the likes of Daniel O'Donnell, who apparently doesn't get away from a gig until 2AM because all the old women want to touch his nice soft face and give him nice soft jumpers for singing nice soft songs. I wish I could explain the affinity I have with Daniel O'Donnell but I am afraid it is likely to remain a mystery.

At half past eight, Will looked ready to read some minds.

"OK, I'm getting a female figure... you there, has your mother passed?" A fantastic observation considering the person to whom he was talking looked like she was practically cut out of the obituary page herself. The walking cadaver confirmed that her mother is indeed dead, and the "medium" goes from his original stance of having a foot in the door, to kicking the door clean off its fucking hinges, dropping his trousers and proceeding to shit all over the carpet.
"I'm getting a T... Ti... Ta...." When the subject quite rightly kept their mouth shut, William made the move onto the blatant questioning. "Is there a T connection to this person, or a T in your family?" Obvious proof that this person has psychic abilities - only a psychic could know that somebody is related to somebody with the letter "T" in their name. Of course, in the hopes of maintaining a contact to a dead relative, the victim (and they are victims) throws caution to the wind and blurt out the name - they should only answer yes or no to really catch these fuckers out, but they can't help it.
"And have they passed?" Of course, this doesn't matter, because this is essentially one gigantic riff on this poor person's entire family history - and if it doesn't go well, hmm, does anybody else here understand these messages? Right, there we go - so you see, the basic premise of being a medium is assembling a gigantic room of people, picking a letter and relation at random and finding somebody to whom that makes sense. It's such an easy gig that if I didn't have a conscience, I'd be doing that instead of this, because frankly, writing is an absolute mug's game compared to the cash these cheeky bastards are walking away with night after night (after tax, of course - heaven forbid these people should just pocket the entrance fee without engaging the proper legal process of declaring it) for essentially laughing in the face of grieving people for a solid hour. It makes me feel genuinely ill. Now, some will tell you that the medium isn't supposed to ask questions. People like Frances, for instance, who submerge themselves in this kind of arsewater so blindly it's a wonder they haven't drowned in it - she came to the bar at the first break with a raging bonk-on for exploitative charlatanism, her boyfriend in tow. Frances' boyfriend for this month was one of the better ones she's had; level-headed, so Northern that he could be located by compass, and as far as I could tell he wasn't a pervert, two novelties as far as Frances' courters are concerned. Oh, but he looked a bit like Bluto out of Popeye.

"Oh, it's brilliant, isn't it?"
"What is? His blind fumbling for answers? Oh, aye, magic."
"No, but it's more than that, isn't it?" wondered Frances, eyes to the roof. "It all feels so spiritual."
"What a load of shit," mutter Bluto (real name Dave) as he took another exasperated sop on his pint.
"What do you think?" enquired Frances, all eyes on me.
"He's just cold-reading, I think it's mostly guesswork myself!" I exclaimed in disbelief as the Carlsberg popped and spluttered to an end. I waded into the cellar and changed the barrel, but by the time I had resurfaced, only one person remained at the bar and that was Ed - even the man who ordered the Carlsberg decided to abandon it rather than miss another gripping minute of William's appalling selection of stabs in the dark.

"This is shit," announced Eddie, tucking into a bag of peanuts.
"Yeah, it is."
"Thing is, during the first bit, he started getting a bit..."
"What?"
"You know. Touchy feely." I had wondered about this, but decided not to say anything - nobody wants to be the guy who thinks the psychic is a pervert so I said nothing. But it must be said, he was using his apparently magnetism to his own diabolical ends rather well. Eddie and I watched the second quarter (there was to be three breaks in his "extended reading") with intent, and sure enough, he zoned straight in on Annwyn, one of our older punters - you know those women that sit in pubs drinking double whiskeys, smoking like chimneys (before the ban of course) and they never seem any worse for it? Annwyn was the original - liver failure? Not an issue. Lung cancer? She could probably smoke used tyres and feel no ill effects. Sadly, her husband - who lived an extremely similar lifestyle - evidently couldn't keep up with the wife and died a while ago; nobody's sure how old Annwyn is but Chris (her husband) was eighty when he died and they were the same age, so she's got to be coming on for ninety. And while her health hasn't suffered from her lifestyle, her face certainly has - skin that looks like old boots sewn together by a blind man, teeth that have slowly but surely wriggled free and escaped their daily rigors, and a glass eye that doesn't even attempt to look real as it swims around the socket, making half her face appear extremely inquisitive indeed. Quite a looker. But it's good to see that William saw through her superficial stresses and saw the goodness inside her, as he was cracking onto her without mercy. Part of the act perhaps, but if so, extremely convincing.

"I'm getting the impression that you're a bit too kind, and you're a creative soul - would that be correct?" Annwyn nodded; she is kind to a fault and what she doesn't know about cross stitching isn't worth knowing. "I'm getting a strong male to your left?"
"Yes, me husband!" She spluttered.
"He's passed."
"Yes!" Exclaimed Annwyn, becoming flustered.
"He said that he still loves you, but he wants you to move on with your life." Yep, move on, out of your gigantic house that the insurance paid for and into William LeForte's shanty shack in Blackwood, where he will reunite you vicariously with all your friends, whose only crime was attempting to drink and smoke as prolifically as you do. Annwyn, at this point, was obviously shaken, but was hooked - straight up, took the bait.

"I understand this must be extremely hard for you," whispered Will into a pair of ears that looked as if they'd heard the original Marconi broadcast.
"It is, yes."
"Sssh," said William, putting a cheeky arm around Annwyn. After what can only be described as the sensual caressing of a pensioner's face, he then kissed her on the hand - before he could channel Annwyn's father to ask for her hand in marriage, he was obviously getting a strong message for somebody else. It was such a strong "message" that he had to lean over a bit so he didn't take somebody's eye out with it.

"Eddie, look!"
"What?" Eddie pulled himself out of his daydream and focused just long enough to catch the look in William's eye.
"Look! He's reading her palm!"
"Who? Oh God."

"What's your name, darling?"
"Frances."
"Such a beautiful name..." Will put his hands to his temples, as if to suggest he was calling upon the spirits to guide him. "Is this your partner?"
"Yes, it is." What an incredible deduction considering Bluto had his arm around her.
"Good, good," muttered Will. "Would you be interested in coming to the front for a tarot session?"
"Oh, absolutely!"
"Let me just fetch my deck," said Will patting down his jacket. He approached the bar and asked, under his breathe, for me and Eddie to follow him.

"Corr, she's not a bad fucking piece, is she, eh?" muttered Will in his natural, vile accent as he removed the tarot cards from the inside of his jacket. It was at this point I realized that he made an excuse to get away and collaborate with Ed and myself. I saw the next question looming over the horizon like Frances' ample backside.

"So... you know if she's got any dead relatives or anything?"
"I thought you were the psychic mate," Eddie wearily blurted out with a puff of smoke out the cellar door.
"The spirits work in mysterious ways, they need something to grab onto."
"You'll have plenty to grab onto with her, mate." Eddie's bad moods are incredible and a pleasure to behold.
"Right, can't keep the good lady waiting - sure you've got nothing?"
"Sorry."
"Never mind." He cleared his throat, adjusted his testicles, and strutted back into the lounge.

Will whipped out the deck and began shuffling the stars, the moon, the joker, the thief, the manipulative bastard and the big barmaid, before laying them out and urging Frances - by placing a hand on her wrist and guiding it - to pick a card. She rather unfortunately turned over "the lovers" and things went from bad to worse as Will made his voice deeper, more sultry, and went for broke.

"I'm getting two strong females to your right, do you have sisters?"
"Hmm, no." Frances clearly put a lot of thought into that one.
"Cousins? Anything? I'm getting two very strong women through."
"My grandmothers have passed."
"Just as I thought - and were they both married?" Frances gasped; what man is this that can know such things? Only a psychic could know that somebody's grandmothers had been married!
"Yes!" Here it comes...
"To men?"
"Oh my God!"

Will was in there. In more ways than one.

After another two hours of this behaviour, Will exited via the cellar (with Henry's trousers, although he had gotten a bit excited during the reading so I doubt Henry would want them back anyway) - the general consensus amongst the punters? Shit, absolute unadulterated shit, and "he wouldn't leave that tart behind the bar alone for ten bloody seconds". But who cares - Will made about £200, the pub made an extra load of business as a result, and the customers will hold it against him, not us. As we closed the bar down, I saw something make a zip through the bar - a flash of green lightning, funnily enough the exact same shade of green as Frances' dress. The cellar door opened, it closed, then the loading bay slammed behind her. Two minutes later, William's car went careering around the corner with an additional passenger. I bet William hadn't seen that in his crystal ball(s). Eddie and I, sufficiently amused for the night, took in all the drip trays and and washed up. Twenty clean trays and several jokes at Frances' expense later, we blazed through to see Bluto standing at the bar, looking ready to beat one of us to death with a tin of spinach. We had forgotten to check the toilets for customers before locking up, so we went to let him out. As we unbolted the side door, Bluto turned to us with a fury in his eyes.

"You two haven't seen Frances have you?" asked Bluto. Yes we have, she's gone back to a psychic's house for a night of spiritual wonderment, so you're left with your hand down your dungarees trying to remember what Olive Oyl felt like when she put up a struggle.
"I haven't Dave, sorry."
"Yeah, well when she comes over tell her it's over. She can come around to my flat and pick up all her shit, David doesn't play second fiddle to anybody, especially not somebody like that." By flat, I assumed he meant "boat".
"OK then."

Bluto departed, luckily missing the discarded tarot card on the bar with Frances' mobile number on it.