My Man Mickey

“I didn’t ask for a cocktail,” I said, skewering the barkeep with what I hoped was my most withering look.

“It’s not,” the young pup responded with alarming civility. “You asked for a whisky, right?”

I’d seen the blighter’s hand pass over several bottles of dubious concoctions barely fit for human consumption before settling on the depressingly ubiquitous Johnnie Walker.

“I asked for a scotch, my good man.”

“Right.”

“And your response was to produce this.” I gestured towards the offending item.

“Right.”

“Wrong!”

His smile remained, but I detected a faint tightening about the eyes, as if his American-bred duty to customer service were being stretched to its very limits. Scenting blood, I moved in for the kill.

“What is it that makes you think I’m an American?”

“I don—”

“Is it the cut of my Harris Tweed?”

“No—”

“Perhaps my oxblood brogues?”

“Really, I—”

“Or maybe it’s my aristocratic nose.” I turned, allowing him the opportunity to size up the old de Lacy honker in profile.

“Sir, I can see you’re not American.”

“So why, by Jove, do you insist on putting ice in my whisky?! I can see why one might want to dilute that sickly-sweet gut-rot you lot drink, but you have polluted my Scotch.”

Now, I’ll have you know I’m not usually in the habit of bullying service drones; it’s simply not in my nature. Why, by English standards I would be considered rather a good tipper – admittedly nothing like those American coves whose generosity overflows until it is in danger of leaving an unsightly puddle at their sneakered feet, but generous nonetheless. Then again, after the tottering couple of weeks I’d endured I felt more than vindicated in this venting of spleen.

I warn you in advance, dearest reader, that this is the tricky juncture in a narrative where the raconteur risks alienating a good portion of his audience, for, in order to explain the cause of my current malaise I must assume you are au fait with the circumstances that led me here. Should I proceed with gusto, hoping those of you who haven’t previously followed the trials and tribulations of CDL are erudite enough to fill in the gaps, or offer a recap, thus drawing the ire of the “but we know this part” types?

I prefer to err on the side of caution, so allow me to ladle out a bit of the old exposition regarding my man Mickey, who is undoubtedly the protagonist (or, more recently, the antagonist) of these reminiscences and I’ll try and keep it as zippy as possible. I, more than anyone, know that sinking feeling provoked by the simple words “It all started when…”.

I suppose it all started when my father, the right honourable Cuthbert de Lacy saw fit to squeeze me out of my monthly allowance, leaving me in a state of fiscal distress that could only be described as both tragic and entirely my own fault. You see, I am not above cursing the man’s name while conceding that he was quite justified in his actions.

Who was the fellow that wrote that maudlin little book about the chappie that throws lavish dinner parties? You know the one – a Jazz-Age thingumybob where everything is a riot until the woman driver mows someone down and causes the whole thing to unravel. Gatsby! Well I think it was him who said that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s mind simultaneously and still retain the ability to go about one’s business. Well if that’s the marker, sign me up for MENSA. I’m constantly bemoaning my shortcomings while proclaiming to all and sundry my everlasting genius.

Anyway, I digress. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of meeting my old man, don’t. Put simply, Pa Cuthbert is a truculent old swine – not so much happy-go-lucky as furious-with-a-purpose, which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is a rather different kettle of fish altogether. Allow me a quick character study. Having always wanted a fitting heir to the de Lacy fortune he’d never quite forgiven my mother for having produced me: an inherently gentle soul with all the temperament of an artist yet sadly none of the talent.

Artistic temperaments are anathema to my old man, who, despite his wealth, adheres to the most Protestant work ethic. While my mother was more inclined to cajole my sensitive sensibilities with the metaphorical carrot, my father favoured the stick, dispensing discipline with all the gleeful abandon of a best man mercilessly eviscerating the groom in his speeches. Why, it was during these not infrequent thrashings that old Pa Cuthbert betrayed his own poetic nature, lambasting me with increasingly inventive epithets: “lazy little fool,” “soft-headed dreamer,” “moping, sentimental wretch,” “good-for-nothing dawdler.” He really did have a way with words.

As his disillusionment grew, so did his conviction that were I to achieve anything in this life I would have to be set on the right path. My own aspirations for a life of leisure – minimal effort, maximum pleasure – were dismissed out of hand, and in their place I was to be forged into a man of business: sober, industrious and with all the imagination of an abacus.

Thousands upon thousands of pounds were poured into the cause, as I lurched from one cloistered public school to the next, all to no avail. It was not that I lacked brains; on the contrary, I had a tidy knack for English and the Sciences, but rather that I failed to see the point of it all. What, after all, is the use of being heir to a fortune if one is expected to grind away like every other Tom, Dick, or Harry? No, my heroes were not the sober, self-made drudges who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps; they were the debauched and bibulous wretches who squandered their fortunes in the noble pursuit of a life thoroughly well lived.

By the time I turned eighteen, my father had all but abandoned the cause, resigned to the fact that his one and only son had discovered his true vocation: professional loafer. Though bitterly disappointed, he remained intent on safeguarding the de Lacy name, and so consented to pay me a monthly allowance on the strict understanding that I conduct myself with a degree of discretion – that is to say, refrain from any public displays of idleness or impropriety that might cast a shadow upon the family crest.

Of course, while I was a little wounded by the implication that I might be the sort to let the side down, I agreed readily enough. After all, it seemed a most civilised arrangement. I was liberated from the tiresome governance of my parents, yet remained safely cushioned by their financial benevolence. In short, I was free to indulge my natural inclinations without fear of starvation, scandal, or, worst of all, honest employment.

And so it would continue for much of my early adulthood, until I stumbled upon the dubious allure of professional wrestling.

“Come now,” I hear you cry. “This is beyond the pale! How does the heir to a family fortune end up tangled in a world of bodyslams and babyoil?”

In truth, my burgeoning interest was not so very far-fetched as one might imagine. For all my indolence in the classroom, I had always shown a certain aptitude for the sporting life. At school I distinguished myself on the rugby field, and was no mean hand with a cricket bat either. There was a certain something in the clash and clatter of it all that appealed to me, not to mention the sheer theatricality, which certainly tickled my more flamboyant instincts. It was, therefore, with more than passing interest that I found myself studying a weather-worn flyer pasted up outside the local town hall one evening:

All Star Wrestling presents… A Technical Masterclass in the Ring! Witness the incomparable Johnny Saint take on the formidable Jim Breaks in a clash of the technical titans.

I attended out of curiosity, and left utterly bewitched. Never before had I witnessed such artistry in sport and, in Johnny Saint, I found a patron of the ring and of my newfound devotion to it. The grace with which he contrived to tie up his opponent, contorting the poor devil like an origamist at full tilt, folding from crane to frog to lotus flower, while simultaneously hamming it up for the sell-out crowd… well, I was hooked. I knew at once I had found my métier. Henceforth, rugby and football seemed the feeble amusements of schoolboys. Wrestling, I decided, was the calling of men.

Alas, my family didn’t share this view.

My first fruitless forays into this business of show were, happily, easy enough to conceal. In time, however, the thing snowballed. Whisper became rumour, rumour became talk, and before long it was generally accepted that a dashing fellow of aristocratic stock was laying waste to the Middleweight division.

Predictably, my father was livid. According to him, I had committed an atrocity so grave that it threatened the very foundations of our name. No de Lacy, he declared with considerable venom, had ever earned his bread by rolling about in tights, and if I persisted in this circus-like folly, I could jolly well fund it myself.

With that, the inheritance, my sole lifeline, a monthly manna from the de Lacy coffers, was promptly and unceremoniously severed. One might have thought they were cutting off an unnecessary appendage, a surplus finger or some such, when in fact they were amputating the very artery of my existence. Having fled the invasive tentacles of Cuthbert’s influence for the comparative freedoms of our nation’s capital, I suddenly found myself ensconced in a Mayfair penthouse flat of considerable grandeur and an equally considerable mortgage. What had once been the high life – champagne breakfasts, late luncheons at the club, evenings spent in idle reflection upon the upholstery of chaise longues – swiftly revealed itself as a financial quagmire of the first order.

Bills arrived with the punctuality of German trains, each one more impertinent than the last. Gas, electricity, telephone, water – all clamouring for attention like a pack of insistent terriers. My creditors, those tireless bloodhounds of commerce, began to circle with the grim inevitability of vultures at a picnic. Debts accumulated in a manner most unbecoming, and I, Charles de Lacy, a gentleman of refinement and no mean standing, discovered to my horror that I possessed barely a cent to my name with which to stem the tide.

“Yes, yes, Charlie old boy,” I hear you clamouring, “but what in the name of all that’s decent does any of this have to do with Mickey?” Quite right, too. Before you fear the narrative has slipped its leash entirely, allow me to usher the aforementioned fellow onto the stage (left, naturally).

You see, while my school days suggested a certain flair for the humanities, mathematics was never my forte. The mental gymnastics required to keep the books in balance proved altogether too much for my poor brain to fathom. Thus was I propelled, willy-nilly, into the company of certain less-than-savoury financiers. Men whose approach to accounting owed rather more to brass knuckles than to double-entry bookkeeping.

My initial excursions into the London underworld were heady affairs. One almost felt that one had stepped into a world of faded glamour, where romantic folk heroes such as the Kray Brothers ruled London to a soundtrack of Michael Caine flicks and 1960s beat-pop, all swathed in cigarette smoke and the faint tang of rebellion.

The illusion did not endure. It was not long before I encountered a very different breed, the Diamond Daves of the world, whose chief currency was not cunning or charisma but flick-knives and four letter words. The poetry of the streets gave way to the profanity of the proletariat, and I quickly discovered that myth and reality are often separated by rather more than the narrow span of a headline.

Chief among the latter camp was one Mickey Finn, a rough-hewn Cockney reputed to specialise in the art of gentle coercion. Our first auspicious meeting found me perilously close to having both thumbs snapped – a particularly pointed threat, as any gentleman would appreciate, given how essential thumbs are to handling cash, documents, and, indeed, one’s own dignity. I had grown quite fond of those old digits over the years and felt decidedly irked at the thought of losing them. I think it was this instinct that led me, rather breathlessly, to suggest that Mickey might profit more by entering my service than by pulverising me on the spot.

“What, like a bleedin’ butler?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously, a curl of scepticism twisting his lip.

“No, no, no,” I assuaged him, laughing nervously. “A gentleman’s personal gentleman.”

“I don’t swing that way, fella’,” he replied, arms crossed, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“You misunderstand me,” I said hurriedly. “A gentleman’s personal gentleman is… well, exactly that. One who attends to his master’s needs, discreetly, efficiently, and with… discretion. Think of it less as servitude, more as employment of the highest calibre. One might even call it a partnership.”

He snorted. “A partnership, eh? You mean me, scrubbing your floor and fetching your slippers?”

“Certainly not!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air. “Nothing so ignoble! Your talents, your particular… skills, would be preserved, even celebrated. You would be, if I may be so bold, a most distinguished assistant to the de Lacy name.”

He squinted at me, unconvinced. “Distinguished, right. Sounds to me like a fancy word for mug with a tray.”

It became clear that words alone would not suffice. I drew a deep breath, steeling myself, and reached into my pocket. “Then perhaps we may speak in a language more to your liking.” I produced a small bundle of notes, letting them fan out invitingly. “Consider this a retainer, a sign of my earnest intent. Your security, your comfort… your pride, if you will. All yours, should you agree to lend me your… considerable talents in a more lawful context.”

Mickey’s eyes flicked to the money, then back to me. There was a pause before he finally cracked a grin. “Right, fella’. I suppose I could give it a whirl. But one false step and those thumbs of yours… remember, I’ve got a memory for detail.”

From that moment, Mickey traded in debt-collecting for valeting, though the transition was hardly as smooth as one might have hoped. Years of ingrained habits do not vanish with a retainer or a title, and I spent many patient afternoons disabusing him of his roughhousing ways. It was, I assure you, a delicate process, requiring the utmost tact, endless encouragement, and more than a few subtle bribes to redirect his enthusiasm from thuggery to servitude.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the unfortunate events of REVIVAL 72 and my match with Nate Colton. I was under no illusions about the task at hand, but having meticulously constructed a contingency plan for the likely eventuality of the contest getting away from me, Mickey – neutered after countless hours spent deprogramming his more feral instincts – proved either unable or unwilling to intervene, rendering the whole thing redundant. And just like that, my PRIME debut was ruined.

Was there any way back, or had I, through my own meddling, truly robbed him of his last remaining superpower?

“Everything alright, boss?” Mickey inquired on viewing the Mexican standoff between me and the young barman.

“Bit late for all that now, don’t you think?” I responded tartly.

I could see I’d wounded him, but in the foul mood I was in, I felt little sympathy.

“Please, boss. How can I make it up to you?”

I gave him a long look, weighing the damage, the lost opportunity, and the loyalty that stubbornly remained.

“You can start by accompanying me at REVIVAL 74 next Friday.”

His eyes lifted, cautiously hopeful.

“And while you’re at it, order me another Scotch.”