Thunder, Gronk and my one true love

Tom Arnold

“So whatever you do.  Don’t look at ‘im” says Gaz.  “Don’t even talk to ‘im,” I mean it.

“What if he asks me something?  Can I talk to him then?” I suggest as we swig back on our Super Tennents and jump off the bus at our stop.

“He won’t ask you anything. Trust me.  You don’t want ‘im to know who you are, Gronk is a nutjob.” Gaz has the fear in his eyes. I’ve only seen that look twice before.  Once when he lost his favourite baseball cap in the Coach and Horses and once when I nicked a chip from his plate down the Elmers.

“I’ll stab ya if you touch another one of my chips,” he said.  And I knew he meant it.  Gaz took his dinners very seriously. So seriously in fact, that he would call his mum half-way through a mid-afternoon beer session, head back round to hers for a 5pm dinner and a tactical shit, and be back out by 6pm.  Like clockwork.

I’ve got a new girlfriend with me tonight.  Sal.  She’s feisty.  Which is a key character trait required of any girl who is set to last more than five minutes down the pub with us. She’s never met any of this lot before. This rag-tag group of inbred mates. She feeds back her initial thoughts.

“Are all your mates total pricks?”