Blue Collar Read Online Free PDF Page A

a banger race, an amusement arcade and a darts tournament, all in the name of irony, which presumably
     only left a boxing match, a pie fight and a chimps’ tea party before they could sign off on this whole working-class experience.
    ‘So if we went and had our lunch in the Ritz in our work togs, that would be ironic too, would it?’ Jason wanted to know.
    ‘Yeah, I’m sure they’d love it,’ I replied, my head full of images of posh waiters clapping their hands with delight as the
     pair of us trod cucumber sarnies and Hula Hoops into their carpet.
    ‘And that’s when we met them,’ I think was where we’d got to.
    I cast my mind back and vaguely remembered talking to a few people at the racetrack but none of them seemed to fit either
     Charley or her ‘posh mate’s’ description.
    ‘I’m not surprised, the amount you were knocking back mate.
    You remember when you got that double come up and you started knocking back double everythings to celebrate?’
    I didn’t.
    Anyway, apparently at the end of the evening we’d somehow hooked up with Charley and her mate and I was all Billy Big Time
     with a couple of hundred quid burning a hole in my back pocket so Charley had said she knew a little boozer near by that was
     open late. Jason, apparently, hadn’t wanted to go, but reluctantly tagged along to make sure these two sorts didn’t rip me
     off for my winnings and only felt it was safe to leave me once I’d done the lot. What a mate.
    ‘By the time the other one had disappeared you and that Charley were thick as custard, knocking back the champagne and wowed
     out to fuck that you both had the same phone,’ Jason explained. ‘You really don’t remember any of this?’
    I pulled the same face old Stan pulled when anyone asked him where he lived but none of the previous evening came tumbling
     back. Scary when you think about it. To get yourself into such a state that you could’ve done just about anything without
     even realising it. There must be blokes out there in this big wide world who started out on a Friday night with the intention
     of a few drinks and a bit of a laugh and ended up in prison, or worse still, in the ground, with no idea of how they got there.
     Silly really, the things we do to ourselves. Jason summed it up nicely one time when he said, ‘Imagine if we ever managed
     to explore space and found another planet with life on it and there were these little green blokes who were perfectly sensible
     and hard working for most of the time, then once a week they all went down to a quarry and licked a big green glowing rock,
     then started smashing dustbin lids over each other’s heads and puking up on the night rocket home. We’d think they were fucking
     bananas, wouldn’t we?’
    We probably would, but I bet we’d have a go on the rock ourselves when they weren’t looking.
    Anyway, I’m straying off the point. Nothing bad had happened to me the previous night and I was alive and in once piece and
     grateful for it. And that wasn’t all I had to be grateful for.
    ‘You mean you can’t even remember if you gave her one or not?’
    ‘I can’t even remember if I gave you one or not.’
    ‘Well, do you… you know… feel like you’ve had it?’ he then asked, gesturing downwards with a drop of the eyes.
    ‘No, I feel like I’ve been beaten up by a couple of tramps and dragged through several brewery hedges backwards but I don’t
     feel like I’ve done anything that’ll have the CSA cancelling my Sky subscription any time soon.’
    ‘Not even in the morning?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What did you do then?’
    ‘Just had a cup of tea and went. Have you heard of English breakfast?’
    ‘What, d’you mean like eggs and bacon?’
    ‘No, like English breakfast tea?’
    ‘No. What is it?’
    ‘Well, it ain’t Tetley’s, I can tell you that.’
    ‘Anyway, never mind all that. What about this bird?’
    What about her indeed? I’d taken her phone back and almost choked it