Bernard the Booze Barrel

This is a statue I noticed perched on the wall of the Stuttgarter Hoffbrau brewery in Heslach, just round the corner from my house. Somebody made it out of bits of trash from the brewery. Old barrels, pipes, and of course a beer mug. I don't know if he has a name, but I will call him Bernard.

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Once upon a time in Stuttgart there was a man who was very fond of beer. So fond he was of the brew that his wife would complain to him. 'Bernard!' she screeched, 'Have you spent our reconstruction money in the Kneipe again??'. Bernard would left the house sullenly to drown his sorrows at Dani's Kneipe, the bar round the corner where he always knew he could escape his wife's naggings. 'And you'd better come back before sundown!' came a voice like the scraping of tram wheels on rusty tracks 'or you're sleeping outside tonight!'

The evening in Dani's pub was the same as always. Fred, Uwe, Nic and the others would all come tumbling in, with some story about the people at work they had given a good talking to, decrying their triumph of common sense over 'the law'.

"And then I told him" bellowed Nic, as he squared up to an imaginary boss at the bar, " 'Look', I says, 'if I need to sit down for a fag next to the machine during my shift, I'm sitting down for a f**king fag, alright? You poncey manager types go to your gyms or do ballet or whatever when you've finished work. If you don't want me smoking here, then you can find another driver', I says to 'im"

Bernard heard out the story and the dozens like it, along with the bawdy jokes, the jokes about the Arabs and the cartoons, and the endless games of darts.

When he appeared at the doorstep around midnight, he gave a soft knock so as not to wake the kids. No answer. he waited a few minutes, and then started fumbling for his keys. He didn't like looking through his pockets for them because it reminded him of all the holes in his clothes that needed repairing. And besides, why couldn't Melinda answer the door? It's not as though she was sleeping anyway.

After a few minutes and a few louder knocks, without any answer, it dawned on him. What if, for the first time, she actually meant it? What if she had really decided she wasn't letting him in? What did it mean? It's not as though she could lock herself in there forever, and she knew what was awaiting her in the morning if she made him sleep outside the door.

Bernard raised his right fist as high as he could, then lowered it, and then held it lower, next to his right thigh, leaning back on his leg, like somebody preparing to throw a stone to the other side of a river. He was preparing to slam the door with a bang that would wake half the neighbours and put the fear of God into Melinda. But he paused.

What if he were to spend the night outdoors? He had never really considered it. It hadn't ever dawned on him until now, but why go back into that depressing, lukewarm flat with its dangling brown tassles on curtains, and its smell of babies and cabbage? Didn't he used to love spending the night out?

But where would he go? He didn't want to go far, so as he could keep an eye on Melinda. He stood in front of the dull green apartment door, with the linoleum squeaking beneath his trainers as he shifted his weight, deep in thought.

And that was when Bernard, a 46 year old cashier with a bald patch and no pension, had the unlikely thought of spending the night in the brewery across the road.