‘Jack, how was your stag night? You went to Mexico, yeah?’
‘Not good, I’m afraid. Dennis Long, the best man, is still in hospital and the insurance company won’t pay to ship him home because they say it was all his own fault.’
‘Good grief. What happened?’
‘Well, to be honest it’s all a bit of a blur to me. The thing is, it became a serious booze-up the minute we landed. Whisky and sun and wild, wild women. You know how it is. No sleep, long sessions at the beach bar.’
‘So what happened to him? Alcohol poisoning?’
‘Not exactly. We ended up at some notorious river with piranha fish. Some of the locals started taunting us about the Brits being wimps and not as macho as the local hombres. Dennis had the hots for one of the girls and she was winding him up saying the Brits were just big babies, crying at everything. Anyway, she said if Dennis was brave enough to jump into the river she would give him anything he wanted.’
‘Good God. He didn’t …’
‘Well, everyone was egging him on, yelling and jeering and calling him a wuss. And suddenly he was in, and you should have heard the screams. There was skin and hair flying in all directions. He wasn’t in there long before they dragged him out again, all shredded and yelling like a demented banshee. But the girl was delighted and she ran over to him, telling him what a real macho hombre he really was. ‘What can I give you,’ she asked him. ‘What do you want?’
Dennis looked up at her with his one good eye and groaned. ‘I want the b*****d that pushed me in!’
Brendan Gerad O'Brien 