Pirate Jenny

As seedy waterfront bars go, the Brazen Head used to be my favourite. Before, when I was a man, I used to frequent here to hear ribald tales of a perverse religion centred around football and violence. Oh there were characters in those days; city councillors and MPs mixing with dollymops and doxies, cracksmen and fawney droppers. Sit long enough and you’d meet every kind of rogue and villain, all joined in the one cause: Celtic, a football club. I drank there as a respectable journalist and campaigner for the rights of these curiously tribal people in order to further my Celtic Minded credentials – more’s the better in order to advance in the media in Scotland these days. Then, while not exactly accepting me as one of their own, at least they humoured me.

Now, having been fired from the Times and turned into a woman by Peter Lawwell for some nefarious purpose, I can’t get work anywhere and tired of moping around my Ayrshire hideaway, I came into the city and got a job in the Brazen Head as a cleaner. Nobody recognised me as the previously dashing, corduroy clad champion of the downtrodden. They watch me as I’m scrubbing the floors and they never know who I am. They growl and snarl at me if I get in their way and they never know to whom they’re talking. The night of the Celtic win over Rangers I was there, on my hands and knees as usual, scrubbing vomit and urine from under the tables when I heard a contingent of the Green Brigade wondering aloud how they would have reacted had it been a Celtic goal not given in the manner Rangers had a perfectly good goal ignored. Such an innocuous query and yet it led to such scenes of violence as the very thought of it happening brought out the beasts in them and they began fighting amongst each other; blows were traded, chairs were smashed, one chap called Macheath even pulled a knife and I got caught up in it all, pushed from one groping ruffian to another until my shirt was half off and my bra ripped. The sight of one of my poonts popping out quieted them for a moment and then a lascivious look came over them as one and I was backed into a corner as the crowd advanced on my, their thoughts being most ungentlemanly. Not even the zombie Neil Lennon smashing his way into the Sky broadcasting room at Parkhead live on television could distract them and I feared that I was about to be gang raped until everyone stopped and looked up as reports were heard from the direction of the Clyde and a whistling sound heralded something coming towards us. I grinned. ‘What’s she got to grin for?’ asked one green and grey clad flimp. Then there was a scream from outside and I gazed out the window. ‘Who’s that kicking up a row?’ asked a doxy.
‘What’s she got to stare at now?’ cried a glocky.
‘I’ll tell ya,’ I said. ‘There’s a ship, the black freighter, turning in the harbour,’ and as they all rushed to the windows to look, a great crashing explosion tore the room apart. Down in the Clyde, Richard Gough’s Nautilus was firing mortars from its gun ports and his Sikhs were streaming onto the wharf and pouring up the street towards the Brazen Head. All their thoughts of raping me were now gone as everyone dived for cover or fled in the face of impending massacre but it was too late, the Sikhs were upon them and every man jack of the Green Brigade and all the assorted villains rounded up and held among the burning timber, the flames the only illumination in that horrid place. What was left of the door was kicked open and in marched Gough.
‘This is for Donald Findlay’s housekeeper, from now on you don’t attack us with impunity. Spiers, I can see you cowering there, come out.’
I pulled my torn shirt over my breasts and walked towards him, eyeing the chained men who moments before were about to molest me.
‘Kill ‘em now or later?’ was all Gough asked me.
A fog horn sounded miles away and in the quiet of death I said, ‘Right now.’
The bodies piled up and I said, ‘That’ll learn you,’ and as Gough and his Sikhs returned to the Nautilus I walked with them and as the ship disappeared out to sea, on it was me.