A New Enterprise

At last, some good news about The Chipster! I’ve found a new source of income. You might know about the trouble I’ve been having lately. Since the EU introduced new regulations on thong usage, the exotic dancing isn’t paying like it used to and I’ve been keeping an eye out for alternative means of supporting a Romanian and her twenty seven chickens. Now, the search is over. Two nights ago I was offered a tempting proposition.

I'd just finished doing a routine in the Shangri-La when a guy I knew from the old days came up to me and complimented me on my physique.

‘You’re looking great, Chip. Been working out?’

‘Every day,’ I said, causally flexing a bicep.

He nodded thoughtfully as he smashed a bottle of lager across my head. When I didn’t flinch, he seemed to take that as a good sign. Of what, I wasn’t quite sure.

‘You have thick skin,’ he said.

I said that I hadn’t noticed.

‘I could do with a man of your unique qualities, Chip. You’re strong like a lion, lithe like an eel, and you don’t cut easily.’

‘Like a Tesco chease and onion pastie?’ I quipped.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Want to earn some money? I mean serious cash?’

I didn’t need asking twice.

‘Well come to this address at nine o’clock tonight,’ he said, scribbling a number of a house near the Bangor docks down on the back of a beer mat. ‘You might want to bring somebody to help you. Preferably somebody with a gentle touch and some medical training.’

I had just the person sitting at home, writing obsessive letters of complaint to the Guinness Book of Records about their unwillingness to consider world records involving razor sharp knives. I told Gabby about the chance of work and she was excited and agreed to help. Not only does she pride herself on her gentility but she’s had five years of medical training at the Romanian territorial commando school.

‘It good Chip get job,’ she said, as we left the flat at eight thirty. ‘You be able to buy car like you want. Perhaps get Mini.’

The thought did excite me. I don’t own a car and the fact that I have to walk or cycle everywhere is good for the heart but less impressive when it comes to my employability. Thoughts of money, success and a larger carbon footprint ensured that I was buzzing by the time we reached the old warehouse. The harbour was silent except for a few drunken merchantmen coming up from a Russian trawler moored by the warehouse.

At the warehouse, we were met by two bulky guys standing guard at the door. One checked my name on a list before the other led us inside and through to an office at the back where my old friend met me.

‘Chip! So glad you could come. People were excited when I mentioned your name.’

‘What’s the gig?’ I asked. ‘Some kind of stripping, I assume?’

‘Stripping? No. Not unless you prefer to fight naked.’

‘Fight?’

‘The game’s bare-knuckle fighting,’ he said. ‘No gouging, no punching below the belt, and no elbows. Other than that, you can do what you want.’

‘I won’t let you do this,’ said Gabby. ‘You must protect your looks, Chippy. Let me fight instead.’

Perhaps I’ve been watching too many John Wayne films lately but I couldn’t let Gabby fight my battles. As for my looks, I had enough confidence in my fighting skills to know I couldn’t get too hurt.

I stripped down to my thong and emerged in a warehouse full of punters. It was there that I met my opponent: a Russian sailor, six three, and probably seventeen stone. He had a scar like a sickle running down his face and into his bottom lip. His name was Sergei and a tattoo on his arm boasted that he’d taken the lives of ten men in the ring and at least two dozen more outside.

I won’t deny that the first three rounds were painful. I’ve not fought in years. I studied the martial arts back when I was a rather wayward teenager. It’s to my shame that I was once considered the best street fighter in Bangor. That’s before I discovered dance and changed to the ways of the thong. This, however, was different. There was money at stake and the continued happiness of a Romanian pop star and her feathered companions.

I held in there, my guts making up for my ring rustiness. Gabby gave me good advice but my reflexes were too slow, honed to the drunken mauling of overweight legal secretaries on a pub crawl. Not ex-Soviet merchant marines with a perchance for headbutting.

About the fourth round, I began to regain my edge. I’d cut the Russian over his eye and I was bruised but fine; my friend's observation about the thickness of my skin proving a good one. A few jabs set up my right hook which lifted the Russian off his feet and set back Glasnost by a decade. The fight was over and the cries of ‘Chipster’ rang around the old warehouse.

I’m fighting again on Sunday when I’ll be up against the Welsh gypsy bare knuckle champion. You’re all invited but the location is still a secret. I’ll try to email you with details sometime on Saturday, so those of you who can make it, I’d welcome your support.