Andy had stood in dogshit when he went to the off licence. He plonked the carrier bags outside the front door and removed his shoe so he could scrape it off with the carboard that once made up the front door window. The story had dragged on a bit for God to just sit there and listen and he became parched, he’d also smoked his last Woodbines cigarette, so Andy volunteered to go as he was the bravest of the five of them. Two twelve packs of John Smiths Best and forty Woodbines had been the request for him to sit and listen, “and a pack of pork scratchings” had been shouted to Andy as he left the house on his errand.

He sniffed the sole of his shoe to ensure the last of it had been removed but retched when he realised there was still some left there. What the fuck do they feed the dogs around here? He thought as he scraped off more of the repulsive muck. Once cleaned, he put his foot back in the shoe, picked up the carry-out bags and made his way back indoors.

“And at that point,” explained Freddy to God, “we were transported back in time to the campfire at the festival, into our younger bodies and we realigned with our old life. We haven’t got a clue what to do. As a band, we’re crap, not one bit of talent amongst us. We can’t remember any of the songs we created whilst famous and we can’t figure out what this key is.”

Andy handed God the two carryout bags and he eagerly accepted them whilst licking his lips. “Aww yer good lads so you are good lads,” and he opened a can that sprayed into Mat’s face and began swigging it down. “So tell me, it was Marcus Tullius Cicero, that represented you in Court? He’s a good old friend of mine you know, haven’t seen him since being imprisoned here by me brother. The Grim Reaper was very astute to appoint him as your defence barrister. Look, to be honest, I’ve got two bits of advice for all of you.” He stopped talking as he unwrapped the cellophane from the packet of Woodbines and pulled one out and lit it. He breathed in a large lung full of smoke and carried on talking. “Firstly, practice like fuck so you can at least enter a talent contest, you’d be surprised how easily talentless twats get famous on those things, just look at Jim Davidson as a prime example. Secondly, about this key. Look, the key is secret, the key is sacred. It has always existed since the dawn of time but only a few have ever found it. It cannot be described, only felt and realized, but its location has to be discovered by each one of you otherwise the Devil gets his dues. But if you do discover it, the Devil loses all power over you.”

“What the heck does that mean?” asked Duckegg desperately, he was in tears of frustration. “We came here hoping you could get us out of the contract, but all you give us are riddles”.

“The key cannot be described or given freely; you can get upset if you wish, but this is how it’s always been. Riddles help unlock truths, truths that exist deep within you. You have twelve months to figure this out. Why don’t you spend time with your girlfriends? They can help you practise and give you support; you need them more than you realise.”

God then reached into one of the carrier bags and rummaged around eagerly searching for his packet of pork scratchings. His eyes lit up with excitement as his fat nicotine-stained stubby fingers discovered his longed-for favourite treat. He opened the packet and begun munching on rock hard chunks of pig.

“If you don’t do this, then not only are you lot screwed, but I'm stuck here forever because I need to learn how to beat my brother at poker and I can only do that through you. And if I can’t do that, then the world is screwed as well.”

He finished off the pork scratchings and licked each of his stubby fingers. “Now be off with ye, I’ll be here if you need me, get practising and spend time with your girlfriends.”

*

On the journey back to Scunthorpe the lads stopped off at a motorway Café to grab a bite to eat. Stomachs were rumbling and pisses needed to be had and Duckegg’s weak bladder could take no more.

The car park was full of Police cars and vans of active cops who had been pulled off the front-line riots and given a few hours of breathing space and also a chance to eat and relax. Every single one of them looked as if they had been through the wars. Tired and struggling to understand how their fellow countrymen could descend into such savagery on the streets of Britain.

A few of them knew though but kept it to themselves. Some of the cops grew up in Pit Towns and Villages and fully understood the hatred for the Tory Government and where the feelings of anger came from. These cops were at war with themselves when they were ordered to fight the very people they grew up with and loved.

Not Harry though, Harry’s a cunt. He grew up in Bexleyheath in London where it’s a mortal sin to be anything other than a Tory. He simply couldn’t understand how anybody could not love their glorious leader Margaret Thatcher as he did, God bless her, and expressed openly that all serving Police Officers must vote Conservative or leave the force. The biggest hardship the constituents of Bexleyheath ever suffered, was a hosepipe ban in the summer that ruined their perfect lawns. A far cry from the hardships of Northern England.

“The strangest thing though,” Whispered Freddy, “When we found ourselves back at the campfire, I couldn’t take my eyes off Lara, I didn’t realise just how beautiful she was.”

“Same for me”, gabbled Andy excitedly with a mouth full of bacon. “When I saw Sarah, a could have boned her there and then. Fuck have I missed her, and how the shagging hell do we tell them what’s going on?”

Duckegg picked a piece of bacon off his shoulder that Andy had sprayed on him whilst talking and flicked it back at him. “I finished with Gloria the very second we became famous. Then ten years after splitting with her, I looked her up without her knowing. She’d slimmed down loads and married an insurance broker from Hull. She looked stunning and had two kids and was so happy. She was a far cry from the girl called 7Up that I knew. I couldn’t help wonder if I could have made her happy, what my life would have been like if we hadn’t become famous.”

The lads were finishing off their meal and swigging down the last of their coffee when they heard Harry’s nasal laugh of “nahahaha” and his terrible impression of Jack Regan. Harry didn’t have twenty colleagues to impress this time, no he had fifty to impress with his tall stories of Modern Policing in the heart of London and just how hard he was when five poofters from Scunthorpe attempted to breach the Police cordon earlier in the day.

“So I called em all poofters,” he laughed “then gave the slargs a good half hour going over, they shat themselves.” Nahahaha.

Then the laughing stopped and the Café fell deafly silent. “Ere arry, dem poofters with the strange hair are over there, look.” And a colleague of Harry’s called Simple John, that struggled with spelling and maths at school but still managed to join the Police, pointed at the lads who were now trying to hide their faces with the palms of their hands.

“FUCK”, the lads silently mouthed to themselves.

Harry and the other cops had left their truncheons and riot gear in the cars and vans outside, which made them all feel vulnerable without it, but there was safety in numbers, they outnumbered the lads ten to one so they at least stood a chance against the poofters if it kicked off.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“That one wi der glasses arry is der one dat mouthed off der most to ya, shall we av em?”

Simple John put down his complimentary crayons on top of his colouring book and stood up to point further. Harry was committed now, if he didn’t stamp his authority onto the lad’s heads with the sole of his Police issue Jackboots, he was going to look more like a Juliet Bravo than a Jack Regan. He remembered what Duckegg had said to him and he’d spoken to his superiors about it. He’d been reassured to hear that the new special powers that the Police had been given made them effectively above the law, and he wanted to speak to the lads about it and especially regarding Duckegg’s cocky attitude.

Harry and Simple John, buttoned up their tunics, sipped down the last of their Fanta through curly straws, and strutted their way over to the lads with all the other cops behind them doing their best to look menacing. He was just about to unleash the best impersonation ever given of Jack Regan when two God almighty crashes could be heard in the car park followed by loud shouting of what appeared to be lots of football hooligans on the rampage.

Billy Brown had been fifteen years old during the 1974 miners’ strike that caused the infamous three-day week. He’d watched his dad and uncles on the picket lines defending what they believed in and passionately fighting for a better deal for the backbone of an industry that powered the entire nation. He grew up in the shadow of the collieries, it was his life, it was all he knew. Ten years later with a chance to prove himself, he jumped at the chance to drive one of two, fifty-two-seater buses that day. He didn’t have a licence to drive it but neither did his mate Daz who was driving the other bus and none of the passengers on either coach gave a toss who was driving as long as they got to where they needed to be in time for a royal rumble with the law.

Both buses had been acquired the night before from the local depot and needed use before they were reported stolen to the Police. Each of the two buses was more than overloaded, over seventy in each coach, and all of them screaming, signed-up members of the Miners Union that were sending Flying Pickets around the country to battle cops at the colliery gates.

Billy had been to quite a few riots in the last two weeks, he enjoyed them all especially the camaraderie and the sing songs and began to develop a taste for bricking coppers as his hatred for them spiralled out of control. He’d seen the dozens of cop cars and vans packed in the Café car park and decided that the battle was going to be fought right here and right now whilst the cops could be caught with their pants down.

Without slowing down to enter the car park, he put his foot down on the accelerator when seeing the cops and raced in crashing into the many vans, followed quickly by the second bus driven by Daz. The two thunderous crashes of metal against metal brought Harry and his colleagues’ attention away from our lads and onto the car park as a hundred and fifty bat shit crazy Flying Pickets stormed off the buses, screaming and looking for trouble and began smashing up the Police vehicles with wooden bats that they had all been collecting as weapons.

Harry, Simple John and the rest of their Police colleagues, quickly rushed over to the Café windows to see what the noise and commotion were about, only to witness this rabble kitting themselves out with the riot gear they had found in the Police vehicles. No longer was Harry pretending to be Jack Regan, this wasn’t a scene from The Sweeny, Hill Street Blues or Kojak, this was reality, as real-life Flying Pickets had saved the day for the lads and just in the nick of time.

Chants and screams of “All Coppers Are Bastards”, “Down with Thatcher”, echoed around the car park as the Flying Pickets suited and booted themselves in riot gear and helmets and armed themselves with truncheons and shields.

Harry and his colleagues each sucked in air through their teeth, as they weighed up the prospects of being outnumbered and getting a damn good hiding. Whilst the cops calculated their chances of an honourable survival if they went outside, our five lads saw this as an opportunity to slip away unnoticed and off they fucked.

“Hurry up you fat cunt,” screamed Garry to Duckegg as he tried to squeeze his fat arse through the toilet window. He was the last one out and the twat was holding them up, everyone else was sat in the revving van eager to get the hell out of there. Freddy had parked the van at the very front of the Café when they arrived, as the car park was full and overflowing with Police vehicles which made it easier to slip away unnoticed. But Duckegg was holding up the great escape by getting stuck. With one last push, Duckegg slipped out the window and fell face-first on the ground.

By the sounds of it, round at the car park, the Flying Pickets had begun smashing their way into the Café and had begun dishing out retribution to Harry and his cronies, they would have loved to stop and watch but decided to get the hell out of there whilst they could.

“Come onnnn!” screamed Andy out of the side door of the moving van. Freddy didn’t need to have the van moving as Duckegg ran towards it, he just wanted to see him panic and run after them, but that’s mates for you. He stopped the van to let Duckegg catch up and then began moving off again before he reached them just to piss him off some more.

“Fucking hate you, bastards.” Joked Duckegg as they sped down the motorway on the way back home. If it had been him driving and Freddy chasing the van, he would have done the same, so no hard feelings.

“You know something about today?” Asked Freddy as he turned to the lads in the back of the van trying not to laugh.

“What?” Came the reply.

“We’ll remember today and that load of bollocks that went on back there forever. We didn’t have to be famous or rich or owt, but that memory will be priceless, forever”.

As their heartbeats began to slow down after the excitement of their great escape. The five of them began contemplating their futures and how they were going to tell their girlfriends about what had truly happened when they sold their souls. Each of them had broken off their relationships and Garry had done so violently in a jealous rage when a member of another band chatted up Lucy in front of him. She’d done nothing wrong other than be four months pregnant to him and be caught talking to someone else.

A part of him died that day when she lost the baby, a part that would never heal. So he threw himself into the Rock and Roll lifestyle and did his best to block it out. But in this reality, none of that happened, in this reality, he began to realise that life could be different. All they had to do was beat the Devil and get out of the contract.

“Tell you what,” remarked Garry. “I haven’t cut anybody’s hair in forty years how the fuck am I gonna cope at work?”

“Me and Freddy will have to get back into law again,” replied Duckegg. “We both have jobs at the law firm and bills need to be paid whilst we sort this shit out. I could only just remember where we lived the other day. It was weird going back to my old flat.”

Matt didn’t say a word, well he never did. The only person who ever connected with him was Ina, and he finished with her by being caught in bed with four groupies in the first week of becoming famous. She didn’t say a word when she walked in on them in their plush London hotel room. Four beautiful models giggling, squealing and writhing naked all over her beloved Matt. But Matt was too far gone to give a toss as he’d already entered the dark state of the Rock and Roll lifestyle.

Ina picked up her bags and simply walked out of the room, never to darken his door again, but her heart had been ripped into two, a heart that would never heal. He’d only ever seen Ina once after that moment, at the band's twentieth-anniversary gig at Knebworth.

It was a strange experience that he never forgot, an experience that awoke a feeling deep inside of him, a feeling of deep regret. The band was having a blinding gig and the atmosphere was electric as they reeled off hit after hit. The music flowed as it always did from the lads when playing live, and then suddenly, Matt began to play quite poorly, he missed a couple of cues and the lads noticed, and so did their loyal crowd who were unaccustomed to such mistakes. His mind became pulled to a certain area of the screaming crowd just to the side of the stage. And there she was, dressed in a beautiful white dress with her hair flowing freely and her stunning piercing eyes staring straight at him. She could have been a ghost, or maybe even an Angel but decided it was definitely Ina and a radiant glow of light surrounded her. Images appeared in his mind, images of them both together, happily married and with two beautiful children. Images of a different life, a different world, and a different reality.

As quick as the images appeared, she was gone, no more flashes of a different life and no sign of her in the crowd. Garry threw a drumstick at Matt’s head to bring him back to reality and he continued playing a beautiful concert, but the feeling of regret stayed with him, even to this day. But one thing about this whole experience excited him just as much as being back with Ina, he was going to meet his Dad again. His father had passed away not long after that concert, where he’d seen Ina, and he’d hoped she’d show up for the funeral, but she didn’t. He was going to get another chance to spend time with him, and that was priceless.