The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) by Robin Barratt

real bloody night on his nightclub that really bonded us. Back-to-back, we’d come through a nine-on-two encounter with some visiting soccer supporters from Manchester. Two minutes full-on action – bodies dropping at our feet, till we were rescued by a police riot squad, who fortunately were nearby.
    “Yeah, John, I’ll be there for you mate.”
     
     
    The most beautiful girl in the world came into my life when I was four. She lived on the next block to me and her name was Gillian. She was two months older than me, so she was always more mature. She had short black curly hair; round thick clinical glasses; and big teeth that she always tried to hide by not smiling. And she had a mum and dad from Dublin, just like my mum. For me, it was love at first sight. Our destinies were sealed.
    Real manly things were performed by Yours Truly to get her attention, like leaping off park benches and breaking my arm and stuff – she was real impressed, although she just never showed it. Oh yeah! There was that one time when we were playing “footy” in the park and she got me down and bashed me with a big rock that doubled as a goalpost. What-a-gal!
    Every year I’d send her an anonymous Valentine’s card. Her mum and my mum worked in the same shop that sold the cards. They’d make that little shoulders-up smile to each other; “Yeah, they’ll be together.”
    We’d spend Sunday afternoons listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and she’d show me these wonderful drawings of clothes designs and things she’d done. She was the one for me all right. I just knew it.
     
     
    A fair bit of preparation went into this coming encounter. It had a heavy feel to it.
    I went down in the afternoon and got a real short haircut so there was nothing to grab on to, did about an hour’s loose training … loosening up … loosening up … had a sauna, went home and got my gear ready.
    The  nunchaku  is  an  Asian  lethal  weapon. Made of hexagonal-shaped hardwood, it has two pieces about a forearm’s length and joined at one end intricately by a strong, thin nylon cord or chain. It can kill or maim an opponent with short-term practice. I had been training with them for two years.
    I cut a horizontal slash across the inside lining of my jacket, about twelve inches above the bottom on the left-hand side. It was about six inches wide and I sewed both sides of the cut to strengthen it. I then snugly fitted a set of Japanese oak nunchaku into this holster. They were joined by nylon cord, much quieter than the set that Bruce Lee demonstrated with the chain. You don’t want people saying later that they “heard a chain noise clanking around the head of the victim, Your Honour”. I wrapped them carefully with black electric tape.
    In America in the 1970s, when this weapon came to the public’s attention and everybody started making their own, police officers were authorized to use lethal force if confronted by them. They’d been around since the sixteenth century, being used by the Okinawan farmers to flail rice in the paddies. Someone then had the great idea of using them on people.
    I cut up pieces of an old tyre and softened them to give my kidneys some protection and wrapped all my middle with bandage. If I got slashed by a knife or Stanley knife – also called “a Liverpool credit card” – then I might be able to get to a hospital without my guts hanging out for all to see. I put on my groin protector box and belt, bandaged my wrists for support and protection, put a square piece of steel in both my top and inside pocket against knife-thrusts and polished up my steel toe-capped dress shoes. Lastly, I taped a switch-blade to my ankle.
    Checking myself in the mirror: black suit, white shirt, bow tie … polished dress-shoes.
    “Good evening, sir… ladies… Have a nice night.”
    Losing is not an option when you work a nightclub door.
    “Stand by…stand by… Here we go …”
    The door crashed open and it was