A BLACK screen crackles.


"SO ya boy was still in his late teens or something, and unlike in the United States of REPRESSION, he was already perfectly able to weave his way in and out of clubs and the legs of the biddies that dwelt within. And weave ya boy did. My dick was like a dolphin jumping in and out of wet hole after wet hole.
     What a fucking visual!
     But as my daddy taught me after I caught him balls deep in the cleaning lady; 'always pull out, son.' And I've been pulling out ever since! Including, incidentally, with that same cleaning lady later that same year. Hoes gonna ho.
     Now, little fresh-faced Kieran had no idea that in just over two years time he'd be the XWF Universal Champion. He had different things on his mind. Namely, the aforementioned, bar-hopping for puss.
     Hamilton, New Zealand - widely considered one of the many arseholes of my god-awful country of birth - had plenty of puss up for grabs. Not like, in a Trumpy way. Ya boy likes it when they want to be there, you know? The problem with Hamilton snatch, however, was that you could never quite be sure if the sheath you were sticking your sword in was clean. As evidenced by… goddamn it… why are we still in voiceover mode?"


AS I was saying…
     The filth was practically dripping from a couple of otherwise tight-looking lasses stumbling over a crack in the pavement in their obnoxiously glittering skirts and barely-there halter tops. If my boy (not to be confused with ya boy, of course), Kurt, was here, he'd have shot his shot. He'd have missed - he always missed, but you don't score if you don't shoot either.
      Kurt not being with me… well, that was a part of the problem that I like to call 'the time everybody forgot my birthday'.
     This side of the city centre was rimmed by a conglomeration of bars and pubs. I skipped the first side street known for skinheads looking for a fight, and continued down the main drag. Furnace - a steakhouse that rose on my right - was always the first place to look for Kurt and the others. I didn't fucking get it. Past nine on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday the steakhouse turned into a dance floor that exclusively played late 90s/early 00s pop. We're talking Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Aqua, and the like. To top it off, the boys were always the youngest in the place. Apparently the club was THE spot to go if you were 40 or older, divorced, and looking for someone to fill the gaping hole in your life that was left when your ex traded you in for a younger model.
     Given the uniqueness of the restaurant-cum-club's layout, I could pretty easily peer through the wide open windows and scan the heads of the depressingly lonely sadsacks trawling for companionship within. If Kurt was there, then so would be Chris, Cam, Van, and the rest. And Van was one tall motherfucker.
     I couldn't see his bald-before-he-was-twenty head poking out from above the crowd.
     He could be taking a piss, but more likely he's just not in there. I wasn't about to sully myself by exploring any further.
     Sliding my super-dope-for-the-time flip phone out of my jeans pocket (the first iPhone wasn't even a year old at this point), I quickly scrolled to find Kurt's name.
     'Yo where u at'
     It didn't take too long to get a response.
     'Jims bday'
     Motherfucker.
     I told Jim not to be a cunt and have his birthday shindig today. His birthday was tomorrow - Friday - and he could have his ass grab fest then.
     It was my fucking birthday RIGHT NOW. TODAY!
     Fuck that piece of shit. Never liked him anyway. Creepy motherfucker looks like he should be on some sort of register.
     'Fuckin wat?'
     As I messaged Kurt back, you'd have to forgive the grammar and spelling. It's embarrassing to look back on now, but at the time we all had to learn this other language so that we could be conservative with our characters. I guess Twitter is why that trend has continued today. Or stupidity. Fine line between the two, I suppose.
     Kurt wasn't so quick on the reply this time. He eventually mustered the courage.
     'Shit urs is 2day'
     It was a statement, not a question. I'll give him that. A second message followed after.
     'Biddys?'
     That had been the plan. Or at least, so I thought, until that asshole Jim came into the mix.
     Biddy Mulligan's was an Irish place about a hundred metres down from Furnace, and on the other side of the street.
     'Yep.'
     I kept my message short and sweet but left the period at the end for an added emphasis.
      '10 min'
      'Sweet'
     It wasn't 'sweet'. Not really. But it'd do. And no matter how blitzed he might get, Kurt typically had enough control over the other drunkards that he'd be able to herd them in the same direction.
     Biddy's was like a minute walk away. I could see it from here, in between gaps of cars driving by. It was early enough that I could see that the usual nightly queue had yet to form. I knew Jim didn't live far from here, so the timing would be right for the boys to get there when Kurt said they would. As long as they left now.
     There was a pretty slim chance of that happening.
     Fuck it. I'd have said it's beer o'clock, but that would've implied I wasn't already a little over half-a-dozen deep after a tame as fuck dinner that my flatmates wanted to throw me.
     The bouncer ushered me inside in no time.
     "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
     The entire place exploded the moment I stepped foot in the door.
     It was a goddamn ruse!
     "You couldn' even wait ten fuckin' minutes," Kurt slurred with a big ol' smile painted on his face. He thrust a near-room temperature (and half-empty) pint of the cheapest piss water on offer into my hands. I assumed it was his, but I didn't give a fuck.
     "I was thirsty," I smiled, before necking the beer. Kurt nodded, with an extra dose of enthusiasm.
     He took the glass from me and set it aside on the bar before guiding me further into the venue. Everybody was there. Chris, Cam, Van, Woody, Sloane, Harper, and on and on and on. Even Fuckface Jim.
     "Happy birthday," he said to me, following it up with a sip from his Vodka Cruiser.
     "How the fuck are ya?" I asked, swatting him on the back as we passed him by.
     I didn't care to hear the reply.
     "Vanny!" I exclaimed. Van and I locked together in a hyper-macho hug, topped off with the mandatory double pat on the back from both of us.
     A fifty-something year old goblin hovered in the background.
     "You sly sonofabitch."
     Van just grinned.
     He had already been to Furnace and picked up a digestif for the night.
     "Bro, we saw Jim's mum there!" The gumpy bastard pointed a finger behind me and I jump when I notice Jim standing there like a goddamn poltergeist.
     "Fucking hell, Casper. Don't sneak up on me like that. You look like Dracula's ballsack."
     Jim, not wanting to feel left out, tried to convince himself to laugh. It wasn't enough to keep the hordes at bay.
     "Jim's mum's prowling for the D!" Van and Kurt started working themselves into a tizzy. It was only calmed by the ancient draugr lurking behind Van pulling him away.
     "So here's what I was thinking…" I threw an arm over Kurt's shoulder. "...Shots. Shots. More shots. Strippers. Shots at the strippers. Shots ON the strippers. Fuck some broads. Sleep till lunch. Curry. Then tomorrow night: casino."
     "Fuckin' aye!" Kurt was in. I knew he couldn't resist the call of the table.
     We sealed the deal with a fistbump.
     "Umm… what about my birthday?"
     Kurt and I looked at Jim's ghostly, ghastly face, all sad and mopey. We then looked back at each other and shrugged.
     "Happy birthday, Jim!" I playfully punched him in the shoulder as Kurt and I pushed past en route to the bar.


KIERAN King lifts a glass of brown liquid to his mouth and grunts it down. He leans forward from where he sits on a brown, leather chair. Half its stitches have long since fallen out and by sight alone you can smell the years of spilled drinks and flatulence caked into it.
     "...That was the night that everybody 'forgot' my birthday. Now, it didn't play out how I had planned. The strippers were dogshit that night so we hit the streets again.
     Any guesses where we wound up? And any guesses who I found there?
     Furnace.
     I fucked Jim's mum."
     Off-camera, it sounds like something unzips.
     "Happy birthday, Jim. Let's keep the tradition going, eh?"