I Make A New Friend I Instantly Dislike. As Usual.

I am bored so I go to the pub.

My Local Pub is closed until further notice for reasons I don’t understand so I go to the Rough Pub quite near me despite vowing I never would.

All is quiet.  I purchase a pint of Strong Drink and take a seat. I enjoy my drink without incident.

“Maybe it’s not so bad in here,” I think to myself. “Anyway, I’m off outside for a cigarette. I may actually come back here.”

I exhale a lung-full of smoke outside the door in the howling wind and freezing cold. A massive gentleman clad in t-shirt, trainers and tracksuit-bottoms comes out and, after several attempts, lights a cigarette. I ignore him.

Massive Gentleman: Alright, like?

Me: Mmm? Yup.

MG: Yeah. I’ve just got out of prison, me like. Y’knaw.

“Here we fucking go.” I think to myself.

MG: It was all a mistake.

Me: Yeah? [Deciding it’s going to be LESS trouble to actually engage with him]

MG: GBH wasn’t it?

Me: Right. [I am now thinking of the inside of my house, which is not filled with track-suit-clad radges convicted of Murder whilst claiming it to be Grevious Bodily Harm]

MG: Out of order. Really.

Me: Mmm?

MG: ‘Cos I’m schizophrenic. I was off my meds so you get blamed for everything…

I take another drag on my cigarette and think about how pleasant and not full of mentals guilty of murder the inside of my house is. I look my new friend up-and-down. He’s bloody enormous.

MG: Yeah. So I live with my Mum now. I’m on licence. I shouldn’t really be here, drinking. I knifed him. It was a knife I used on him.

Me: [Exhaling cigarette smoke] Mmm.

MG: I killed him because I thought he was a paedophile. But he wasn’t.

“That’s enough for me.” I think.

I go back inside, finish my drink, go home and vow never leave my house ever again.