When I was a junior journalist another guy said if you get into a fight in a pub always kick the other guy in the balls first because if you don’t he will do it to you.
Will he, I asked? They always do he said.
Another guy showed us a gun, an automatic. Have you a licence, I asked. Yes, he said. Maybe they were easier to get then, pre the blood and murder days of the seventies. Have you any shells, I asked. I’ll have to get some of those he said. Why do you want a gun? Someone might pick a fight with you in a pub he said.
I told this to a European barman. So you shoot them, he said.
The postman, also about my age, was a friend or acquaintance. A drinking buddy. Though well able to drink on his own. He told me this.
That fellow staying at your digs came to the post office to collect a packet. He opened it, it had bullets in it. He took out a gun and loaded it at the counter. We thought we were going to be held up. Then he walked out.
I told this to a relatively sane acquaintance. He must have been mad, he said.
Who isn’t?
Did I ever get into a fight in a pub? More or less, though it continued outside. Someone objected to something I said. In mitigation, I was drunk. That was a long time ago, I tell it now for the historical record.
I apologise for using the word balls. Perhaps I should have said testicles. Female readers, adjust as appropriate.
There’s more where this came from.
Ireland.
Love lives here despite the odds.
I live to tell the tale.
Tich Ennis
24th May, 2016
