John the Barman part 4 (An original short story.)

WAR, DEATH AND COCONUTS

Most bars and pubs have a couple of nights a week when trade is slow. In response, they have things like quiz nights or karaoke to try and tempt in the punters. John never had that problem, if the doors were open and drinks were available, he would have a full bar. As a result, he never needed to do promotion night, special offers and definitely never would he think about investing in a karaoke machine. That really would have been a bad idea, giving a group of drunken Valkyries a microphone each and telling them to sing their hearts out. It would have the same effect in the bar as the sonic boom of a fighter plane happening in a greenhouse. John left all such things for other bars and pubs to do as he was too busy serving everyone and trying to keep up with the trade he already had.

As a result of being busy every night, John had been badgered by his customers, who didn’t like waiting for their drinks, into getting help. So finally giving in, he had hired a barmaid called Melanie to help keep his customers with full glasses. The girl was short and timid and would often blush at the jokes the demons told, but she accepted the strange aspects of the customers without question. The customers all seemed to love her and she could diffuse an argument just by lifting a hand and murmuring: ‘excuse me, are you ready for another drink?’ She was one of those rare people who radiated calm and could make his customers feel like naughty school children, even though she was only perhaps twenty years old and they remembered Adam and Eve as ‘that rude young couple with poor parenting skills’.

John placed the advert for the position in the local newspaper on a whim and hadn’t really expected anyone to turn up for an interview. Although his bar was in plain sight, situated half way down a busy city centre street filled with various shops, very few people ever noticed it was there. Only those with what humans termed ‘the sight’ could really see it and if you could see it, then you knew enough to avoid going in. So when the slight little woman, dressed in black, with strange eye make-up had walked in and asked about the job, John had taken her on just for finding her way into the bar. She now worked five nights a week and would often be in on her nights off, sitting at the end of the bar, (sitting on the stool that had always been reserved for John only) talking with the regulars and helping out if it got really busy.

Tonight was a busy night as a group of Valkyries were in celebrating a birthday. The jukebox was turned up louder than usual and they had taken over the area where the pool table stood. While they were not yet dancing on the pool table, John knew it would happen before the night was over. As a precaution, he had gotten two customers, both large muscular demons, to put the wooden cover over the top of the table. The two demons had marched up and put the cover on but then taken more than ten minutes to escape the attentions of the loud and slightly drunk Valkyries and get back down into the main bar area. Now they sat, getting over the shock of having their bums pinched and muscles felt with a third round of double brandies in the space of ten minutes.

The rest of the bar was packed with angels and demons relaxing and drinking after a day’s work. All wanted to stay in a tight pack because they knew the Valkyries would come down hunting for dancing partners once they had drunk enough. Despite what humanity thought, the inhabitants of heaven and hell were a close knit group, each recognising the essential job they did in maintaining balance in the Christian afterlife. The influence they or any other religion had on Earthly matters was minimal, as humanity kept misunderstanding what they were being told and so messed up everything the various heavens tried to achieve. The general rule now was to work with a few individuals, helping in little ways and then deal with humanity as a whole once they had lived their life and messed it up. If the gods had a catch phrase for modern society it would be: ‘I told you so, but would you listen?’

In the snug next to the stairs sat four old Mayan gods who were over on holiday. They had walked in and taken over the first snug, placing a large decorative water bong on the table. John had managed to explain that they couldn’t light up in his bar but were welcome to get some drinks. The fact that none of the four spoke anything remotely like English - or even Latin - was proving a problem, until the Celtic Gods Esus and Fagus walked in. Fagus ordered a bottle of Jagermeister and six shot glasses and sat down with a big grin. John hadn’t caught the Mayans’ names and as they were now in the middle of a shot drinking session with Esus and Fagus, he wasn’t sure he would. He doubted even they would be able to pronounce their own names soon, at the rate the shots were going down.

Melanie was not due to work tonight so it was a relief when he saw her jump onto his barstool at the end of the bar. After finishing serving an angel a round of bottled brown ales, John quickly looked to see if anyone else was waiting to be served before he went over to her.
“Hi Melanie, want a drink?” John asked.
“Just a coke please, do you need a hand with anything?” Melanie asked, looking around at the busy bar.
“I’m on top of it at the minute, apart from the glass collecting round the pool table. I asked Azraile if he would do it like normal but because of the Valkyries up there getting a bit fresh, he refused. Even when I offered a couple of free drinks, he still wouldn’t go up there.” John said as he picked up a glass for her drink.
“I’ll go up there now while you get my drink, won’t take me a minute.” Melanie said with a smile and jumped down from the barstool. John watched her walk into the midst of the partying Valkyries and he heard the cheer as they noticed the barmaid. The Valkyries had all taken to Melanie and she had become an unofficial member of their ranks. Without the calming influence of Odin, the Valkyries had become a law to themselves and almost everyone stepped gingerly around them. Not many could now calm them down once they started partying but Melanie was one of the few that managed it. Still, it would be a while before she managed to escape them and John doubted she would be totally sober when she did. With a shrug, he walked over to a strange little man who had jumped on to an empty barstool.
“Hello, not seen you in here before, what would you like to drink?” John asked the newcomer.
“Did you know that there are more chickens than people in the world? If the chickens ever unite in a single religious belief system then their god would be the most powerful on Earth,” the stranger replied. The angel who sat next to him looked down, confused.
“Are you this chicken god then?” the angel asked with a slight slur to his voice.
“No, I’m the God of Useless Information,” he replied and smiling, he held out a hand, that was rewarded with a strange look from the angel.
“Angels don’t shake hands,” John explained to him, the strange new god dropped his hand.
“I’ll remember that, a good piece of information for me to add to my list,” the God of Useless Information said with a broad smile.
“So how long have you been in the God business? I’ve not heard of you before,” John said as other customers around him stopped talking and looked at the strange little god.
“Only for the last few months, it’s all down to the internet getting me up to the number of followers needed to become a deity. I just got my official papers through last week from the union. All signed and sealed,” the strange little god replied with pride.
“So what is your belief system then?” asked a demon who was standing beside the seated angel listening into the conversation.
“Not fully sure yet, but I know I have to impart useless information and facts to people, like did you know a cat has thirty two muscles in each ear.”
“No way, how could you have all those muscles just for a tiny ear?” the seated angel said, amazed.
“Tell us some more stuff.” This got a murmer of agreement from the group of people that had gathered around the strange new God of Useless Information.
“Well let me see, an ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain,” the god said, looking around at the fascinated and growing crowd.
“John, get me a refill and a beer for our new friend,” the angel sat said, lifting up his empty glass.
John took the glass and placed it in the pot washer, reaching onto the shelf; he grabbed two more and began to fill them with beer. He returned to the group with the beers, just as the God of Useless Information gave out a new amazing, but useless fact.
“A flamingo can only eat when its head is upside down.”
This drew gasps and comments of ‘no way’ and ‘get out of here.’

Placing the two glasses down, John looked up and was surprised to see War push his way through the crowd to the bar, Death followed behind him. A couple of angels turned to say something at being pushed but saw the expression on War’s face and decided to move and stand somewhere else to finish their drinks.
“Not seen you two in here on a night time for a long while. I thought you were working in the Pacific tonight?” John asked as War bent forward to lean on the bar.
“Supposed to have been but it fell through, after the day I’ve had, I really needed a drink before I went home. Two lagers please John,” War grumbled.
Death stood next to his brother. “Seems the new army and navy of Chuuk had a couple of problems on their way to invade Pohnpei’s Oroluk Atoll. One of their boats sprang a leak and had to return home with fifteen members of their army on board. The other two boats continued on, carrying the rest of their invasion force though. It was all very daring,” he explained brightly.
John placed the two drinks before them. “So the invasion still went ahead then.”
“They landed on the Oroluk Atoll and as they moved off the beach and under the trees, a dozen coconuts fell out of the trees onto them. They ended up with ten dead and two with serious injuries, the lack of helmets made it a disaster. They had to withdraw back to the beach as they had lost half their original fighting force before even meeting the enemy.” War explained about the disaster of the invasion and then looked at his brother who sat inspecting his glass.
“It was very suspicious.” War added, scowling at him.
“Coconuts kill more people than sharks each year, about one hundred and fifty people get coco-nutted every year. You really need to watch those coconuts, they are very dangerous so it’s a totally normal event for a coconut to fall out of a tree and hit anyone standing under it.” Death replied innocently.
“Apart from the fact they were not standing under coconut trees.”
Death’s eyes bulged slightly as he took a sip of his lager. Carefully he placed the glass back on the bar. “They weren’t coconut trees? How can you tell? All trees look the same to me.”
“Thousands of years of humans using trees to make weapons, my brother. Plus the fact that there were bunches of bananas in the trees. You ruined my war didn’t you?” War demanded.
“What makes you think I did that?” Death asked, trying to sound innocent.
“The fact that as the Chuuk forces retreated, an American nuclear submarine surfaced to arrest them all. A great big submarine built to hide in war zones and strike unseen just happened to be in an area of ocean that hasn’t seen as much as a cross word since the nineteen forties,” War growled.

Thanks for reading, upvotes and comments welcome.
Missed some of the story? read it here:
Part 1 https://steemit.com/writing/@alienbutt/john-the-barman-part-1-an-original-short-story
Part 2 https://steemit.com/writing/@alienbutt/john-the-barman-part-2-an-original-short-story
Part 3 https://steemit.com/writing/@alienbutt/john-the-barman-part-3-an-original-short-story