Iron Bar Motel

Write a story that starts and ends in the same place.

Iron Bar Motel

Slam!

Johnny’s heels had no sooner cleared the doorway when the heavy metal frame slammed behind him. Standing outside, wearing an evil grin, the overweight police officer turned the key to the cell door with irritating slowness.

“Righto, Curly, welcome to Peaceville’s Iron Bar Motel. If you go disturbing the peace in Peaceville, you won’t get much peace from me. Haha, pun intended, little man.”

Earlier that evening, Johnny had got caught up in riotous celebrations following his football team's come-from-behind win in the end-of-season decider. The opposition’s supporters, out-of-town and long-time rivals, had taken the loss with ill grace and instigated several fights with home fans.

After receiving several calls, local police moved in to quell the disorderly behaviour, resulting in Johnny being thrown into the back of a paddy van. On the outskirts of the fracas, the arrival of law officers escaped his notice. Had he done so, he was unlikely to have reacted in the manner he did when grabbed about the neck from behind.

Believing it was a rival fan, Johnny resisted angrily and swung his fists around. Unfortunately, one of the wild haymakers collected an officer flush in the face. He now sat in the cold cell charged with assaulting a public officer and resisting arrest.

Slumped alone in his jail cell, Johnny noticed that the other three lockup cells were empty. He had the place to himself and received no visits from the officers or duty lawyer.

As darkness began setting in, an elderly police officer brought him his dinner: a slice of bread, some baked beans, and a metal mug of lukewarm coffee.

“Excuse me, officer, but when am I getting out of here? Johnny asked.

“When and if the judge decides you can.”

“What about bail? Surely, I’m allowed to have bail.”

“Not when you smack a cop in the face, pal. When that happens, we decide if you get bail or not.”

“Well, I want a lawyer.”

The officer laughed and said, “Same answer, pal, as I gave to your last question.”

“It’s cold here, and you have that exhaust fan going flat out. That makes it all the colder.”

“Tell someone who cares. I have the fan going to get rid of the stink in here. Now pipe down. Someone will speak with you in the morning.”

*

The following day, Johnny got to speak to a duty lawyer. A plea-bargaining deal saw the assault charge dropped by police and replaced with one of acting disorderly. He pleaded guilty and stood before the judge as sentence was passed on him.

“You are sentenced to twenty-eight days in jail. I shall order it to be suspended for six months. If you commit a further offence in that time, you shall be returned to this court and made to serve the twenty-eight days. Do you understand what I said?”

“Yes, sir,” uttered Johnny with an audible sigh of relief.

*

Johnny, an only child, lived with his ma in a small house in the far reaches of the town. Because he had not returned home the previous night, he feared the reception he’d get from his God-fearing mother. Once before, some twelve months ago, he’d done the same thing when drinking too much and falling asleep at a friend's place.

That he had in the past month, turned twenty-one mattered not to his ma. She treated him as she’d always had: like a wayward child in constant need of guidance.

Johnny strolled along the main street, delaying his return home and the inevitable grilling he knew to expect. He’d taken no notice of anyone or anything around him until distracted by the sound of someone yelling, “Hey, arsehole. Yes, you in those pansy colours.”

Not having been home following the previous day’s football match, Johnny still wore his team’s regalia of purple and yellow. The garden flower, the pansy, had a species of those two colours and rival fans had nicknamed Johnny’s team ‘The Pansies.’ Though the colours may have matched, the word ‘pansy’ in slang represented a male of effeminate nature.

“Pansy, pansy, pansy,” resounded from an old Ford as it cruised along the road, keeping pace with Johnny. Wearing the colours of the previous day’s beaten team, two young men occupied the front seat and rained insults upon him. They kept doing this until Johnny, on the verge of throwing his fist through the open driver’s side window, turned and backtracked towards whence he’d come.

He chastised himself for his near lack of control. Had he committed such a hare-brained act of foolishness and ended up back before the judge who’d dealt with him earlier, he’d have no one else to blame but himself.

The sound of a vehicle revving close to him alerted Johnny that the rival fans in the old Ford had returned. He tried ignoring them, but his inattention failed to distract the pair of hecklers. A narrow cycleway provided him with the opportunity to detour from the main road and cut across parkland to a shopping mall.

Not able to access the cycleway, Johnny’s tormentors drove off in a direction that, if they continued, would lead them out of town. The ordeal had left Johnny humiliated and frustrated. He had taken the belittling abuse without retaliating.

Johnny feared that, if goaded into responding, the situation might have escalated into a physical confrontation. He held no undue concern for his well-being but dreaded the outcome should the police become involved. He didn’t imagine they’d afford him leeway after his appearance in court that morning.

*

Upon seeing the Ford heading out of town, Johnny headed for the McDonalds restaurant in the shopping mall. He’d eaten nothing during the past twenty-four hours, bypassing the inedible offerings at the police lockup.

A limited number of people used the mall that Sunday. Most present appeared to be families window shopping or buying their children an ice cream cone. From a distance, Johnny spotted two young lasses he knew.

The girls, aged nineteen, were better known to him than he was to them. One girl named Sally, with honey-blonde hair, had been his heartthrob for the past two years. Two years! Two years and he’d still hardly spoken a word to her. Whenever in her presence, he acted like a bumbling nerd with blushes and stuttering. She knew he liked her because word had got back to him from friends of friends.

Her companion, Jenny, a confident brunette, caught Johnny’s eye and signalled him to join them.

With his heart in his mouth, Johnny joined the girls, and to his surprise, he greeted them without blushing or showing outward signs of nervousness. “Hi Jenny, hi Sally. It’s nice to catch you both. Did you go to the game yesterday?”

“Yes, we did. But luckily for us, we’d left before the trouble started. We hear a few guys got arrested by the police.”

Tongue-tied for an answer, Johnny asked, “Can I buy you guys a coffee or a cold drink?”

Jenny looked to her friend for guidance, but Sally replied, “No thanks, Tommy. I’ll start to squelch if I drink anything more today. But we’ll walk along with you if you are heading home.”

Tommy felt elated to be strolling with the two pretty girls. Maybe his luck was changing for the better. But the old Ford's arrival dashed those thoughts as it drove alongside them and matched their pace along the footpath.

“Hey, little man,” came a voice he recognised from earlier, “I hope you’re not getting into any more fights and punching policemen. What was the inside of the jail like? Have you been to court yet?”

Sally stopped, turned to Tommy, and asked, “What is he talking about, Tommy? Were you mixed up in that fight at the match yesterday? Did you get arrested? Tell me it is not true.”

Before he could reply, the Ford pulled up against the curb, and the driver and passenger climbed out. The driver, the taller of the two, placed himself in the centre of the walkway and sneered, “I notice you have gained two attractive companions to guard you.” That’s what we come to expect of you, Pansies, nowadays. You’ve been running away from us all day. Will you continue to run, or do you want to sort matters out here and now?”

Johnny felt he was on a hiding to nothing. If he gave in to the two agitators, Sally and Jenny would perceive him as a coward. If he got into a bout of fisticuffs and the police got to hear, he’d end up back in jail. What to do?

The big mouth standing on the footpath decided for him. He sneered, moved a couple of paces towards him and said, while spitting a goblet of spittle towards him, “You’re a coward, as your pretty girls well know. Go on, go running home to mummy.”

*

Johnny could take only so much. He may have reacted differently had he been alone, but the presence of Sally and Jenny changed everything. From the taunts of the two rival fans, the girls now knew of his arrest and overnight jail time. That was bad enough, but he couldn’t walk away and lead them to believe he was a coward ….. as well as a jailbird!

 With a snarl of anger, he launched himself at the nearest harasser and rained blows upon his head and upper body. His buddy jumped on Johnny’s back and wrapped his arms around him to quell the blows Johnny was throwing.

Johnny managed to grab hold of the big-mouthed dude, and with the other clinging to his back, the three lurched off the footpath and crashed into the plate-glass window of a stand-alone butcher shop.

The combined weight of the three combatants shattered the window. The noise, the broken shards of glass, and the girls' screaming jolted Johnny back into reality. He disengaged himself only to witness his two opponents run to the Ford and hightail it out of town.

What now? He couldn’t do what the two rival fans had done. No, he couldn’t run and hide. Sally and Jenny had witnessed the whole sorry affair. The shouting and noise of the shattered window had alerted nearby residents, who then phoned the police.

For the second time in two days, Johnny found himself a passenger in the back of a police van. The station’s custody sergeant eyed him up and down and said, “Are you a slow learner, or what? The judge released you this morning on a six-month good behaviour bond. And here you are, back here the same day. When you front him again tomorrow, the judge will have your guts for garters. You’ll get the twenty-eight days from yesterday, plus what he gives you for smashing poor old Billy Poe’s shop window. Some people never learn. You can look forward to a lengthy stay in the state’s Iron Bar Motel.”

Johnny reviewed the day's events as they led him down the passage to his cell. And the one that kept appearing front and centre was what a fool he’d turned out to be. He’d started the day off in a jail cell. Where was he going to finish that very same day?

Slam!