Rain Don't Never Stop, It Does.

"There's something special about you” Big Gruff says when I’ve finished wiping the wet wooden bench with a beer towel.
I grin and pull the other towel off my shoulder, lay it on the bench, sit down and sip my Guiness.
“You could have got one for the boys too” Ems says, squinting over this cigarette butt.
“I’m an ideas man”, I say, “I’ll show you the way, but I won’t hold your hand.”
For that bit of cheek I earn a paw to the side of the head. These are tough working men, men with big, calloused hands who build stone walls for a living. A friendly push is like most people’s right hook. I dodge most of it and stretch my legs out, sighing in pantomime comfort. The others lean on the low wall and watch me. Big Gruff ducks into the pub, the light and sound from inside loud as the door opens, quiet again. He comes back a moment later with four more beer towels, throws one to each of the other men. They sit back and arrange themselves on the bench, like dogs in the shade of a sunny afternoon, except it’s nearly ten and raining softly.
We’d smoked some of Gruff’s North African hash on the way down, walking through the woods in single file, ground ivy and tall oaks. As the high crept up on me I became suddenly aware of how many times we’d walked that path before, how boyish we were still in our confidence and overgrown pecking order. Boys with kids to feed and mortgages. Boys never the less.
It was strong, that hash, and we’re still stoned now. I guess that’s why we stayed out here, away from the noise and damp warmth of the bar, where we can smoke and watch the rain fall, orange in the street light.
“Who was that German guy who shook my hand when we got here?” I ask, pulling weed and Rizla out of my pocket. There is a pause, someone sighs, someone else spits. No one wants to explain because they think I should already know. They don’t approve of the years I’ve spent away.
“Teddy met him years ago”, Ems says eventually, “He’s a copper.”
The he settles into story telling mode, we settle into listening:
“Teddy and a few of the boys were driving to Berlin in Teddy’s old Ford Fiesta, remember that?”
The lads grunt and murmur appreciation.
“It was a real shit box. A fucking crap heap. They were doing ninety past a school bus on the autobahn. Someone had his arse pressed against the window, cos it was girls on the bus, see? Then this copper pops on his siren, he’s right behind them like, and pulls them over. He walks up to the car, which is full of god knows what and stinking of skunk, with his PPK out and starts his speech. But Teddy gives him the old ‘we’re good Welsh lads’ bit and eventually calms him down and invites him to stay with him in Wales.
Well. They got away with it- you know what Teddy was like- and forgot all about it, except in a few months this German copper and his wife turn up at Teddy’s house. Teddy opens the door like ‘who the fuck are these old farts?’, but they stayed and loved it and they’ve been back every year since. Even came back for the funeral and everything. Mad about Wales they are. He’s even got himself a dragon tattooed on his arm.”
The others nod and smile. I turn to look through the condensation smudged window at the German and his wife, chatting to some locals. The boys start talking about Teddy’s old Ford Fiesta, other cars they’ve known. I sit back and chuckle, lighting the joint I rolled while Ems was telling the story. ‘There’s something special about you lot’, I think, passing the joint to my left and shifting my already numb buttocks to a more comfortable position on the wet bench. ‘Something old and odd and utterly unique’.
And I smile again and sigh contentedly, this time for nobody’s benefit but my own, and the rain falls softly down on us, unheeded, orange in the street light.