Ah, son, she says to him, it’s only these oven chips, I never knew youse were coming, otherwise I would have got them in special, like. Never mind, Barney says, I’ll just help myself to this Brussels sprout on Jimmy’s head here. Then he bangs Jimmy in the ribs.

Jimmy’s raging. I didn’t fucking stick a fucking vegetable up my head, he says, this is a serious fucking injury. All the while he’s pointing to this fucking egg thing sticking out his head. You with your fucking baby skin, he says to Barney, you’ve never seen a day’s combat in your fucking life.

Now like I says, your man Barney had anything but baby skin. He looked like he had fallen asleep in the blazing sunshine in a kennel in the Mediterranean. That’s how he got his nickname, The Italian Pit Bull. All the time Jimmy’s ma is just sitting there smiling, I don’t know if she was all there or what. Let me see your hands, Barney says to Jimmy Smalls. Sure, I will not, Jimmy says, and now he’s sitting with his hands under the table. Why, because they’re all soft from doing your ma’s dishes your whole life? Barney says to him. He does his dishes, his ma says. Jimmy’s a good boy. Okay, so she’s out to lunch. Barney leans over to Jimmy and starts trying to grab at his arm. Jimmy’s sitting on his hands now. Let me go, you bastard, he says. I don’t need to show you my hands in my ma’s own house, he says. There’s a tussle. Barney gets up behind him and with his big bear strength he pulls Jimmy’s arms up and this thing goes flying out of Jimmy’s hand and slides along the floor of the kitchen. It’s a tiny little chatsby, a wee fucking snub-nosed handgun. None of us could believe our lamps.

Is this how you fucking welcome us? Tommy says to him, leaping up. With a gun under the fucking table? I came here to save your fucking arse, he says to him. Don’t make me fucking bury it. You fucking shady wee bastard, Barney says to him, you’re a fucking shady wee cunt, he says. Jimmy’s ma gets up. I’ll make some teas, she says, you boys make yourself comfortable. The whole thing is fucking weird. Now even I’m starting to see red. We drag Jimmy out to the garage in the back garden and that’s when I lose it. Fucking hold him down, I says to Barney and Tommy, fucking hold that wriggling wee bastard still. Then I whip out my dick and I take a pish all over him. You fucking woman, I says to him as I’m pishing on his head, you fucking woman, as he’s lying there, crying, like a woman.

That was unnecessary, Barney says to me, you should just have banged him one. I could not believe what I was hearing.

*