Battered and Bruised but I’m ok with that.

“Do you think he’s ok” Brance murmurs to Ang amongst the screams

“Oh yeah, trust me hitting is a good thing”

“Well yeah, but is an elbow to the stomach and slamming his head into the table?”

“Of course, it’s human nature to...”

“But the beer bottle to the…”

“Brance, he’s fine”

“he’s down!”

“He’ll get back up”

“Not with those kinda kicks he’s not” the bartender jests as he tops up Brance’s drink.

“who’s the pretty lady”

“Just a friend of ours” Angela replies whilst shaking the glass in the air for a top up as well”

The sound of shattering glass sets off a chorus of cheers and laughter in the left side of the bar. Brance’s eyes nervously dart to the carnage before making there way back to Angela.

“and you’re positive this is good?” in a concerned tone

“of course, see he’s getting up”

“Only because she seems to have gone somewhere and… Oh my god she’s got a bar stool, run man run!”


It starts with a playful punch at perhaps an over the top comment. It’s returned by maybe a soft shoulder nudge as you pass by, and then before you know it the games have begun. She hides your phone and you pretend the best way to retrieve it is to do the awkward “I don’t want to! but I have to, even though I’d like to, but its too early to tell if you want to” body search rather than just grab your friends phone and call it.

The battling banjos begin to play as you flick her hair in response to a projectile coaster. She takes your seat so you take the last of her drink (instantly realising how much more delicious it is than yours) The stakes are raised a little with a light tap behind her knee as she plays a shot on the pool table, but is shortly responded to by smashing a pool cue across your back as you line up yours.

Nobody flinches as you’re thrown through the concrete wall, pinned down, poked and pinched. You ponder the size versus strength possibilities of this, but really can’t do the math. In fact as you’re lifted from the ground to be body slammed onto the bar counter you give a little jump to assist the manoeuvre because you still don’t comprehend the physics of the situation.

Why do you do this? You do it because through out all the biting and the giggling, the blood, the lust and the Chinese burns. With all the broken bar stools, missing teeth and shattered dreams, you realise that you have been here before, and that her dousing you in whatever it is inside that bottle and lighting up a smoke is supposedly a good thing.

I had an ice cream once… it’s true, and it was delicious. At least it would have been, I got about three licks in when BAM, little Tara Harris blind sided me out of nowhere, slapping the ice cream from my grasp and kicking my shin before storming off into the chaos of the primary school playground. Now I am not so proud to say that I did not take this well and if you must know I was 9 and I cried, I cried like a little girl.

Now what I didn’t know was that the school disco was coming up in a few days, so when that little bitch jumped me, naturally what she was actually saying was do you want to go to the disco? And the answer despite the shooting pain in my shin and the notion that she is a minion of the anti Christ, was yes. Noted it was primary school and the auditorium spent the whole night with girls on one side and boys on the other but we arrived together so it counts…shut up, it counts.

Lesson learned, love hurts. But you learn this as time goes on, although my time in the sun with that one failed to survive the 4th grade. There are only so many doors a 9 year old can walk into if you know what I mean. The nights were the scariest, she’d come home late, breath smelling of cheap whisky and oreo’s, furious that there was no steak on the table. I’d here the footsteps move slowly closer from down the hall mumbling incoherent sentences laced with naughty words, until they reached my door. I would hide under the covers in the early days but it was no good, she was to smart for that. The door would creak open and I’d be left gazing into the darkness at the slouching and half out of breath figure standing in the doorway. She had something in her hand…there was always something in her hand.

Ha, woman right! what are you gonna do?!

But there is a method to the madness, wether it be a non sexually aggressive first contact or an intended mental imprint/physical reminder that the person exists, it works and the dirty little secret is we all know it. Providing of course the setting is right. If you try to snatch a woman’s purse only to discover she’s a champion kickboxer or whatever don’t go misinterpreting the unholy beat down she unleashes as anything other then what it is, your nether regions may receive some attention but not the good kind so I wouldn’t count it as a win.

But in the right setting, completely different story.

The blurry-ness began to fade as I stared up from the floor watching Brance man-ing the fire extinguisher.

“Hey, Brance”

“Hey man” Brance said with a nod before firing off a few burst fire sssscccchhh’s, “I see your nights going well”

“Did I ever tell you that you’re a beautiful man”

ssssccccchhhh, ssssccccccchhhh “Several times, yes” ssssccccchhhh.

“oh”

I flinched, fearing the worst as I felt a hand clasp mine helping me to my feet. But James just smiled as he patted out a small flame on the back of my shoulder.

“When’d you get here?”

“Just now, I got a little held up with some…” he paused as if considering the consequences of his statement and then continued.”…stuff. hey, you got a smoke”

I reached in my pocket and pulled a cigarette out of the now crumpled pack.

“yeah but there a little, you know! It’s been kind of a physically demanding night”

James straightened it out with his fingers before leaning over and lighting it from a small blaze still going on the top pocket of my shirt

“I can see that” he said as he slowly stepped to the side.

Sssssssccccchhhh

“Cheers Brance”

Brance just nodded in approval.

“So how is it coming along then?” James asked as he scanned the bar

“Pretty good I think” I replied as I moved some broken glasses of the bar counter so I could lean on it. James saw this and raised his eyebrows.

“What? Oh, she kind of threw me on the bar and dragged me across it for a while"

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright, my man” James replied as he lifted his hand high in the air. Brance watched with an undeniable aura of confusion as we high fived the said bar dragging incident.

“Are you two idiots serious?”

“What? You don’t think she’s hot?”

“Don’t think she’s!?...” Brance pauses as the confusion continues “Are you insane? You look like you’ve been attacked by some form of jungle cat. and not like one that’s lived in captivity or something, but like a real bad ass, don’t fuck with me kinda cat from Africa, you know that right?”

I looked at James for a second opinion to find him nodding in agreement

“I did not, no! but i’m still pretty certain it’s going well?

“Brance looked at James for a second opinion to find him again nodding in agreement

“Oh come on man, she set you on fire!”

“I know right, I think I’m in with a shot”

James signalled with his head as they approached, we all chatted for a bit before she slapped my drink from my grasp, kicked me in the shin and stormed off into the chaos of the playground. To which I then followed.

“She set you on fire” Brance yelled as I began to disappear, to which I continued onward only replying with a thumbs up, held high in the air as I pressed on.

"Oh to be young again" James sighed as he flagged down the bartender. "Make it strong barkeep"

"And how did your thing go?" Ang asked whilst claiming the adjacent bar stool.

"it doesn't matter"

"sure it does how did..."

"Ang! seriously. Just leave it"

"You're the boss"

Both were left staring straight ahead for a few moments silence

"So you got next round"

it took a second but James turned with a smile

"Barkeep"



I woke up in a dumpster some time later.