The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (37 page)

“
Well, look
what we have here,” a figure suddenly stepped out in front of me.
“I’ve been waiting for a long time to catch up with
you.”

It was Dave.

Before I had the chance to
react he grabbed me and swung me towards the fire exit, and the
impact forced the door open and sent me sprawling out into the
alleyway at the side of the bar. I heard the door slam and looked
up to see Dave and three of his goons looking down on me.

“
You have been
ducking me for a long time,” Dave said. “But now I have you just
where I want you.”

I was completely trapped.
Dave’s cronies had already moved into position to block my only
exit from the alley as I got back to my feet. Why was this
happening, now of all times? I made a run for it, hoping I could
force my way past his friends, but they grabbed me and hurled me
towards Dave who caught me square on the jaw with his fist. I hit
the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“
Get him up,”
Dave said, and his three stooges dragged me to my feet. Dave
grabbed hold of the top of my shirt and pulled his fist back. “I’m
going to enjoy this,” he said in a menacing tone.

“
Let him go,”
a voice came from nowhere, but a voice I knew. Dave took a step
back and looked to his right. “I
said
let him go.”

It was Rob. He glared at Dave,
his fists clenched at his side.

“
You’re
outnumbered, mate,” Dave sneered. “You think you two can take on
all four of us?” Dave sniggered.

“
That’s why
we’re here,” Ollie appeared, followed by Jack.

Dave looked at me, and then
back at his friends. He nodded to them and the stooges released
their grip, and I staggered towards my friends rubbing my swollen
face. “This isn’t over,” Dave threatened me.

“
Come on, Dan,
let’s go,” Rob said. But I was tired of running. Just as I had to
face Kelly, I knew I had to face Dave. I had to lay this ghost to
rest and put this problem to bed.

“
No,” I said
turning around. “Let’s end this now.”

“
Are you
crazy?” Jack said. “Look at the size of him!”

“
I’m not going
to keep running,” I said to Jack before turning back to Dave. “You
ready to do this?”

“
My pleasure,”
Dave smiled and stepped out to the middle of the alleyway. I was
clearly the underdog but I just didn’t care anymore. So what if I
took a beating? At least I would walk away with my
pride.

There was just one small
problem – I had no idea how to fight.

The last time I had even hit
someone was in the playground when I was 12-years old, and that was
because Duncan Valentine had tried stealing my yo-yo. I had smacked
him in the nose and got detention for a week.

We circled each other before
Dave took full advantage of my clear and apparent lack of
arm-to-arm combat skills. He grabbed me in a headlock and squeezed
so tight, I thought my head was going to pop off. I tried forcing
him back, but he just laughed and threw me to the ground like a rag
doll. I scrambled to my feet as my friends offered words of
encouragement, but it was hopeless. I was a dead man.

“
The power of
the Warrior,” Ollie shouted at me. For a moment I wondered what the
hell he was talking about. Who did he think I was? But then I
remembered –
WrestleRage
!

I ran full-steam at Dave,
taking him by surprise and hitting my very own version of a Warrior
clothesline, catching my forearm across his throat. He coughed and
staggered back. I had absolutely no chance of pressing him above my
head so I opted for a fireman-carry style lift instead. I threw him
over my shoulder and slammed him on to the concrete. I got to my
feet and watched Dave writhing around on the floor. I took one step
back and then launched myself at Dave, belly-flopping him!

I lay on top of him for a
while, not really too sure what to do next. It wasn’t like I had a
referee to make the three count. After a few seconds I decided to
get to my feet. The problem was Dave also started getting to his
feet. He didn’t do it with quite as much gusto as Flex Bruiser had
done, but it was clear he was on the road to recovery.

“
Get him,”
Jack shouted as I threw my best punch. Unfortunately my aim was
completely off, and my fist bounced off his shoulder. Dave laughed
as I attempted a second punch, merely side stepping out of the way.
He even gave me a Bruiser-style finger wave to let me know I was
really in trouble and crashed a hard blow into the side of my face.
And another. And another!

Dazed, I fell towards Dave who
grabbed me by the arm and threw me into the wall. I bounced off the
brick concrete and crashed to the floor. I could hear my friends
urging me to get up as Dave circled me, victorious. I had put up a
good fight, but I knew I was beaten.

But Dave wasn’t finished with
me yet. It wasn’t enough for him to win the fight, he wanted to
seriously hurt me. I heard the blood-curdling scream from my
friends first and in what seemed like slow motion I twisted my face
to see Dave leap into the air and angle to bring his knee crashing
down against my skull.

The last eight months flashed
before my eyes; everything that I had gone through up until this
point. I thought of Stacey and our break-up. I thought about my
friends and how they had been at my side through the good times and
the bad. And then I thought of Kelly, and how I would never get the
chance to tell her how I really felt.

I couldn’t let
that happen. I
wouldn’t
let that happen.

Summoning every last ounce of
strength and energy left in my body, I managed to roll clear at the
last second, just like the Warrior had evaded Bruiser’s Knee Drop
that night at New York's Madison Square Garden. There was a
terrible crack as Dave’s knee crashed against the concrete floor. I
bounced off the wall and hit Dave with another big splash. This
time Ollie jumped to the floor and counted – one... two...
three!

I’d done it! I had defeated
Goliath. I was a warrior after all. My friends hoisted me up on to
their shoulders as Dave’s stooges could do nothing but try to
comfort their fallen friend who was howling in pain, clutching his
right knee. They carried me to the end of the alley. There was a
new champion in town. I jumped down from their shoulders. “How did
you know I'd be here?”

“
I just had a
feeling you'd do the right thing,” Rob said.

“
Thanks,
mate,” I said embracing my best friend in a complete unashamed
display of bromance.

It was time to make things
right. I led the boys around the corner to make our way back
towards the pub entrance. Nothing could stop me now.

“
Thanks for
tonight, guys, I’ll miss you,” I heard a voice say that I knew all
too well. Kelly was hugging her friends and climbed into the back
seat of a taxi just 30 yards from where I stood. I tried calling
out to her and ran towards the taxi, but Rob grabbed me by the arm
and pulled me back.

“
Wait, you
don’t want Kelly to see you like this,” Rob said pointing towards
my bloodied and swollen face.

I watched Kelly’s taxi
disappear into the night, hoping that I hadn’t missed my chance.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter 24:
The Betrayal

Sunday, September 13 -
10.47am

Drought Clock: 255 days, 19
hours, 26 minutes

Jack slumped onto the sofa,
holding his head in his hands. His rucksack was on the floor to his
left, with just enough clothes to keep him going for the next
week.

“
I can’t
believe this has happened to me,” he said looking at me through his
fingers.

“
I take it you
told Anna?” I asked, bringing him a cup of tea.

“
My plan was
to get down to the clinic, get treated, and get the all clear
before she had a chance to find out,” Jack said taking a sip of his
hot tea and placing it on the table. “I thought I could then avoid
sex with her for a couple of weeks and then suggest to Anna we both
get ourselves checked out. You know, just so we knew we were both
clean. I would obviously be given a clean bill of health, but the
doc would tell her she has a dose. I could play the nice guy – tell
her I’d stand by her even though she had obviously cheated on
me.”

“
Please tell
me you are not going to do that,” I interrupted. I had laughed off
a lot of despicable things Jack had done to that poor girl over the
years but making her think she was the one who had brought an STD
into the relationship was crossing the line.

“
Not exactly,”
Jack said. “When I got back last night she was sitting in the
living room and a real terrible sense of guilt came over me. I knew
I had to come clean; she deserved that at least. As soon as I told
her I had chlamydia she burst into tears and started to
apologise.”

“
Apologise?” I
said baffled.

“
Yes,
apologise,” Jack said sharply. “She said she couldn’t be certain
where
she
had
picked it up from.”

“
Where
she
had picked it up
from?” I said even more surprised this time.

“
Yes,
where
she
picked
it up from,” Jack said angrily. “What is there an echo in here or
something?”

I apologised and told him to
continue.

“
She confessed
that she had been having an affair with some guy called Neil. But
she also had a fling with the milkman a couple of weeks back. Then
there was her ex Greg who she had done
stuff
with in the last
month.”

I sat open-mouthed as Jack
listed the guys Anna had confessed to sleeping with. It was
unbelievable. All the time Jack had been sleeping around behind her
back, she had been doing exactly the same thing to him. I couldn’t
work out if Jack was pissed off because Anna had cheated on him, or
because she had been getting more action than him by the sounds of
it.

“
Can you
believe the audacity of the woman? To cheat on
me
?” Jack said looking completely
mystified. “Anyway, thanks for letting me stay a few days so I can
get my head straight.” Jack said nodding towards the
rucksack.

“
No problem,
mate.”

I had never seen Jack like this
before. He looked dishevelled. He resembled what I can only imagine
Jimmy Krankie would look like the morning after drinking a whole
bottle of Sambuca. He was putting on a brave face, but I could see
how much Anna’s confession had taken out of him.

“
You’ll sort
things out,” I said. It was a lie, but sometimes you say the things
you think people want to hear.

“
Nah,” Jack
said shaking his head and sitting back into the armchair, staring
at the ceiling. “Not this time. She has really crossed the line. I
can’t trust her now can I?”

“
I guess not,”
I responded having to bite my lip about the whole trust
issue.

“
The truth is
mate,” Jack said sitting forward, “all those times I cheated on
Anna, all that meaningless drunken sex I had behind her back, it
didn’t mean a thing. Not really. I can see now it was nothing more
than a stupid ego trip.”

Jack bowed his head. I was
worried he was going to cry. It’s bad enough when a girl cries, but
this was a bloke. What do you do in a situation like this? Is it
okay to put your arm around him or is that just too weird? And what
do you say? Getting a tissue and wiping the tears from his cheek
was definitely not an option. There is only so far a man will go
for his friends. My plan was to watch in silence until he was all
cried out. Maybe I would offer him a beer. After all, that always
did the trick in all other moments of sadness in a man’s life.

England have
just been knocked out of the World Cup.
Let’s get another round in.

My son told me
he likes playing with Barbie more than Action Man.
We’d better get you a drink.

My uncle
passed away last week.
I hope they have
beer at the wake.

At least when a girl cries, you
know where you stand. Whether she is genuinely upset about
something, or emotionally blackmailing you, you still feel the need
to comfort her. But a man crying? It is unheard of. Girls cry in
front of their friends all the time, and they will rally around her
to make sure she is okay. But if a bloke cries then he is on his
own, I’m afraid. The only time it is okay for a man to cry is if
his football team has lost in the FA Cup Final, or when she is
using her teeth.

“
Dan, can I
ask you something?” Jack said, lifting his head.

“
Of course you
can, shoot,” I said, while at the same time glancing towards the
nearest exit in case I had to make a break for it at the first sign
of any tears.

Jack took a deep breath. “You
got any porn?”

I shook my
head and sighed. Technically I wasn’t lying. I didn’t own any porn,
but the internet is a wonderful thing. Hey, it had been nearly nine
months. But I was uncomfortable watching porn in the presence of
another man. I normally like to view porn on my own, for obvious
reasons. Besides, Jack was the type of guy who would commentate the
whole way through how he would
ruin
the girl on screen. One time around Ollie’s he
disappeared halfway through
Schindler's
Fist
only to return and proudly announce
how he had just “stroked one off” in the bathroom. I wasn’t
prepared to put my bathroom through that kind of horror.