A Tiger in Eden Read Online Free Page A

the other two who were standing back all shocked.
    Take it easy, mate, one of them shouts, thinking about coming forward.
    Shut your gobs, I goes, or youse’ll be next. I slammed the one with the pinched face down on the bar, sure his face was even more pinched after that. He was trying to scratch me with his long fingers so I grabbed his bollocks with my other hand and crushed them real hard. My name’s not Paddy, I goes. I let him go then just to see if he’d drop it at that or if he was a fighter and all credit to him he come at me real furious like. I let him punch me a couple of times but he’d more spirit than experience ‘cos he kept trying to hit me exactly the same way over and over.
    Come on, Dave, get stuck into him, one of his matesgoes and I actually laughed.
    Aye, come on, Dave, I says, you’re such a big man, why don’t you try and hit me like one. I fucking hate cunts called Dave, I don’t know why, I just never met one I liked. It’s funny how you get hung up on wee things like that. Anyway I could see Claire holding her hands over her mouth looking a bit upset, I wondered what was wrong with her, then I realised I was just standing there letting this piss-weak English cunt punch me in the head and I wasn’t doing nothing. Sure I could hardly feel it anyway, I was just killing time hoping maybe his pals would join in so’s I could get a proper fight but they were too feared.
    Come on, Billy, Claire squeals and by the sound of her voice I realised she was worried about me, she thought I was taking a beating. That pushed me over the edge then and I snapped out of it. I laid into the three of them big time, sure they didn’t stand a chance. I put the back of my hand across Dave’s face, swatting him like a fly sort of thing, he never saw it coming and fell back against the bar. Som darted in to lift a glass out of the way not so’s Dave wouldn’t hurt himself just so’s it wouldn’t get broke, it was quite comical watching him in the background, he’d seen it a thousand times before I suppose like all barmen.
    I stepped up to the other two then and for a laugh grabbed their heads to bash them together. I thought that would be dead funny except it was a bit cocky of me and the one on the left wriggled free and spun roundto jump on my back. Even though he was a bit of a fat fuck he moved fast so he did and the weight of him on me was something fierce, he must of been shovelling the aul green curry in like nobody’s business. Anyway he started clawing at my eyes from behind, fuck he near blinded me I was so preoccupied trying to shuck him off of me that his pal had a free go to start laying into me from the front. When your blood’s up sure you can’t feel nothing, he could of been stabbing me with an aul broken bottle for all I knew. I put one big paw on his chest and shoved him away dead hard, he staggered back and fell over one of the stools and cracked his head on the way down, probably a concussion I was thinking, good that’ll learn ye.
    Yer man Dave came charging back then and I windmilled round, he kicked me one in the thigh sort of karate-style, I think he was aiming for my balls. Good job he missed, that would only of pissed me off even more. Fuck that I was thinking, I’ll show ye some proper moves. I squatted down a bit and tensed the aul leg muscles then threw the fat fucker on my back right over my shoulder, it was amazing actually I’d not thrown someone like that for ages, never a fella as big anyway. You should of seen the shock on his face as he went over, if I hadn’t of been so busy I’d of laughed. He sort of half landed on Dave, not like in the movies, a bit messy like these things always are in real life.
    I was fed up by then, my Claire was squealing like she wanted to step in and help me by smashing a pot plantover one of their heads or something, course there wasn’t any geraniums to hand and I raised a finger to warn her off, if one of them had of slapped her or