Cos Bar, formerly The Goose at the Castle (Blackfriars)

Shoeless Joe Jackson (Field of Dreams)

Life is all about learning from mistakes, embracing new experiences. You screw up, you bounce back. Just the way it is.

Death, now that's an entirely different matter.

Take my situation. As a living, I was a schmuck, 'cause I had the world at my feet. A major league talent and darling of Chicago set; shoot I was revered across the whole of the States. Then I got involved in that business throwing the 1919 World Rounders Series; it was bad, bad, bad. But I learned - and moved on.

Outside the world of the living, things are a little different. There ain't so many opportunities to shape your destiny 'cause – how can I put this – there are forces at work shaping them for you.

The Cos Bar certainly wouldn't be my ideal of an eternal field of drinkin' dreams. Sure I liked a shot in my time - who didn't. But here? And with these buddies?

Well, you just gotta embrace the hand death throws at you, so here I am.

It all started after that Iowa cornfield business. I had been kinda tasked with sorting a screwed-up father-and-son situation. The whole thing was pretty lame, not the kind of gig I wanted to be involved in at the start, but like I said, there are forces at work and you don't argue with them.

Anyways, I got to like the mission as it progressed. So did the other guys who came to play. What wasn't to like? They banned me in 1920, then seventy years later I got the chance to play a little ball with my major league buddies because I'd put the zap in this crazy farmer's head – and he'd flattened a corner of his field. Created a real-live baseball pitch in the middle of nowhere!

It sure was bizarre, but who gave a toss; we played some ball over the summer and the crazy guy and his daughter watched us. It was one big party until time came for pop to make his entrance.

I was told to get the pair back together – heal their pain - all that balls. And once that was done, no more ball games; I had to get my sorry ass back into the corn and say goodbye to that patch of heaven for ever.

So, dad and Ray kissed each others asses, then I was back in the corn, wandering around with this guy called Mann. He wasn't a ball player; he's a writer and he's a living. One moment Mann's walking with me chewin' the fat about batting averages, the next he vanishes. I figured he'd gotten cold feet about getting hot feet, if you get my drift, and dashed back to Ray and the land of the living.

As I'm pondering the situation, abruptly the field ends. And I'm standing in some whacky looking bar in Great Britain.

Not that I knew it then, but it's the Cos Bar in Blackfriars, and the interior has been decorated to look like Alice in Wonderland does Hammer House of Horror. The place is freaking me out, so I turn round to get back into the field, maybe find Mann. But the field's gone too. I'm stuck here.

I look around and there are no livings in the bar, but on the balcony sitting among furniture that looks like it's been dressed by cows-are-us, are four figures, all deceased. Five if you count the puppet

It sure is a weird, freakin' line-up, that's for sure. First, there's a manic-looking dude with crazy hair and one hand up the puppet's ass; the puppet looks like big-bird's muppet brother with blue feathers and an orange beak.

Next to puppet sits a disgusting little old man with his snarling son. The pair of them smell of horse-crap and speak like they inherited vocal chords from the gutter.

Finally there's this overweight broad. She's friendly-enough, but she's dressed up like a tight-ass nurse and is eyeballing me like she wants to jump my rotting bones there and then. It's a comedy mis-match of the deceased, all shapes and sizes, but I gotta admit, sure goes with the décor in this dive. 

Well, that was then and this is now. How long have I been here? Who knows. I know all my dead buddies' names now and it seems I'm just another addition to this ghoulish freak-show; I've even got used to the pub in a way. Had to, because this may be it - here for all eternity.

"Is this hell?" I asked the puppet freak the first time I walked up the stairs.

"Oh no guvnor," he replied. "This is the flippin' Cos Bar, innit mate!......  Ah, look, he likes you …ahhhhh……. er …...no …. no ….. no emu … no emu …. stop it …….get off him!

Shoeless Joe Jackson's rating for the Cos Bar – 3 / 10

Sputnikski

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