Tyrannosaur

TYRANNOSAUR

He once told me that he could beat up a tyranosaurus rex in a fight. He was convinced of this, especially if he had a hammer handy. Another time he told me that he was able to throw an empty beer bottle so far that it would smash on the moon. 

  I had seen him in fights from time to time, he was the strongest man in the region. Being small it was reassuring to me to have him around. For some he reason he liked me. It would be hard to put into words why. We just liked each other. That's all.

  I had just reached the age when I decided that people should accept that I am not interested in the things that I  am not interested in. I no longer wanted to spend whole evenings feigning interest. However, I've always looked younger than my age.
  A man was talking to me about the demonisation of the working class, in that way that people have a tendency to do when they have nothing to talk about, he had done his thesis on it. I started to think about the demons of the working class. Seeing through my eyes that my ears weren't listening he raised his voice. On hearing the man raise his voice Rex told the man to leave it out. The man finished his drink within the next few minutes and left. 

  We spent all of our time together drinking, we didn't ever do anything else. When he had nothing to talk about, he didn't talk.

  One night he was talking about my parents, he said that they were nice people. He knew them as a little old man and a little old woman going gently into the night, going out to the local pub twice a week. This was not a way of going into the night he could endure himself. He thought he would die out at sea. You see, you cannot beat up the sea, not even with a hammer handy.

  The next night he was telling me about fighting. He believed that fighting is the most intimate act there is. Part of beating someone up was the healing that would ensue if you reached the right level of damage. He believed a fighter should aim for a level of damage which would not be irrevocable, GBH was a sin to him, as bad as rape, if not worse. He believed the purpose of a good fight was to make the other person a better person. 

  The next night as we left the pub at closing time he put his hand on my shoulder and for a moment I thought he was going to ask me if I fancied a quick a fight, as though the previous night he had been building me up to it. However, instead he just finished off his drink and threw the empty beer bottle out into the night sky. We watched it disappear, listening out for the soft sound of glass smashing somewhere out in the far off distance.