He smiles, knowing I’m not trying to antagonize him or anything.
“I know. It’s certainly different, but it reminds me of the buzz we’d get back in the day, on the old unit. You never forget it, and while I don’t necessarily miss it—especially seeing as I got shot on my first mission alongside you in God knows how long — it’s nice to change things up every now and again. There’s no place I’d rather be, under the circumstances.”
I notice him subconsciously scratch his leg where he caught a bullet, but I don’t say anything. It might be nothing — he didn’t scratch his chest, after all. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
“Amen to that,” I say, extending my hand across the table. We bump fists and laugh, just as the music changes and Don’t Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult comes on.
“Oh, get in!” he shouts, putting his beer down and breaking out into a small air guitar solo.
I shake my head and smile. If ever there was a man who truly didn’t give a shit what people thought of him, it was Josh.
While he’s completely oblivious, lost in the moment of pretending he’s on stage in front of thousands of people, I hear some of the crowd around the pool table start to chatter and laugh at him. A couple of the guys are being derogatory and some of the girls are laughing along with them. I hear one of the girls say to her friend she thinks he’s cute. He’d love that! Now a guy that’s standing nearby has gone over to her. I’m guessing it’s her boyfriend… he looks pissed. I can’t hear what he’s saying to her, but I can tell from his body language that he’s not happy. He keeps looking over at us as he’s shouting at the poor girl.
I really hope he doesn’t do something stupid… I’m trying to have a night off.
The boyfriend turns, tapping another guy on the arm and gesturing him to follow as he walks over to our table, giving me an evil look all the way across the floor.
Great.
I tap Josh under the table with my foot and he looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I subtly nod toward the pool table and he sees what I’ve seen. He rolls his eyes and puts his beer down on the table next to mine.
The two young guys ignore me as they approach the table, standing directly in front of Josh.
“What the fuck are you doing?” asks the boyfriend, who looks behind him to join in the laughter with his friends, who all seem to think this is hilarious.
Josh completely ignores him and looks at me, questioningly. I simply hold my hands up, gesturing it’s nothing to do with me.
“I’m not the only one who needs practice,” I say with a smile.
He takes a deep breath and winks at me, knowing I’ve got a point. I can spot a bar fight a mile away, and I figure he’s maybe a little rusty when it comes to being on the front line. I’ll let him handle it — it’ll do him the world of good.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, you old fag!” continues the boyfriend.
Josh looks at him with fake confusion. “Am I missing something?” he asks, emphasizing his British accent. “Since when is calling someone a cigarette classed as an insult?”
Both guys look at each other, and then back at Josh.
“Are you fucking retarded?” he asks.
Josh looks at me and gestures to the pair of them. “Can you believe this guy?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah, over here, fag is a derogatory term used to insinuate you’re homosexual,” I say, suppressing a smile and offering some clarification to him as part of the act.
Josh frowns, looking offended as he turns back to the boyfriend. “I apologize for my ignorance, but who exactly are you, and why should I care that you’re even breathing?”
I smile to myself. He should be an actor! He’s very useful in a fight, Josh is, but he can nearly always defuse a situation just by talking. He’s the diplomatic one in the relationship.
“You look ridiculous,” he says. “And it’s offending me and my friends. So why don’t you take your old, faggy friend over here and piss off?”
Did he just call me faggy?
I make a move to stand, but Josh signals for me to stay seated. I do, holding up my hands in resignation.
“Okay, you’re like, what, eleven years old or something? When I was your age, I respected my elders. And if I stepped outta line, my old man would clip me ‘round the ear.”
“He’d what?” he asks, looking confused.
Josh slaps the guy on the side of his head — not hard enough to knock him over, but with enough force that he knows about it. He quickly does the same to the guy’s friend standing next to him.
“I was fighting for Queen and country before you were a glint in the mailman’s eye, you pointless sack of shit,” he continues. “Now come back when your balls have dropped and I might take you seriously.”
The guy’s raging, but as Josh stands and squares up to him, he quickly backs down, as does his friend. They slowly walk back to their group of friends, tails between their legs. Josh sits back down and looks over at the group. The remaining guys are still trying to look intimidating in front of the girls, while the girls seem divided — some look disgusted, either at their friends’ behavior or ours, I can’t tell, or are smiling at us both and giggling.
“And as for the rest of you,” Josh continues. “There’s a valuable lesson to be learned here: never interrupt a man and his air guitar.”
One of the girls catches his eye and smiles, which he returns — more out of politeness than anything, I think. But one of the other guys sees it and rushes over to her, grabbing her arm and dragging her back around the pool table.
“Hey!” I shout, getting out of my seat having gone from zero to pissed in a heartbeat. I vaguely hear Josh say something behind me, but it’s too late. The flash of anger has taken control. I walk over, right into the middle of the group and up to the guy with his hand on the girl.
“Let go of her arm,” I say.
The girl’s an attractive young blonde with naïve green eyes and a red dress her father probably doesn’t know she wears in public. She yanks her arm free, rubbing where he’d gripped it, and looks at me.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice sweet-sounding and full of innocence. “But it’s alright, he meant nothin’ by it, I swear.”
She has an oddly soothing effect on me, causing the sudden explosion of rage I’ve just felt to quickly subside. I back down a little and look at him, pointing a finger close to his face in a silent warning. I turn and walk back to my seat.
I take three steps and hear someone shout out behind me. I turn around in time to see a pool cue coming at my head. Instinctively, I raise my left hand and catch it mid-air, the impact stinging my palm although I know my face betrays nothing. The guy who swung it stands still in complete shock, his eyes wide as fear creeps slowly across his face. I stare at him, allowing the entire scene to freeze.
With a sudden movement, I yank the cue out of his hand, take it in both of mine, and break it across my knee. Again, the impact stings my leg, but I don’t acknowledge it. I throw both pieces of the broken cue to the floor and without any warning, whip my right leg up, and kick him hard in the stomach. The impact takes him by surprise, and both his legs fly out from under him. He face-plants on the ground, making a groaning noise as his head bounces off the sticky floor. I take my time as I look around the rest of the group, eyeballing every one of them around the pool table in turn before walking off and sitting back down next to Josh.
He looks over at me with an eyebrow raised again. I simply shrug.
“What?”
5