Welcome To The Real World
'I need more money.' Tilting the glass in my hand, I pull yet another pint of beer.
'Don't we all, man.' My dear friend Carl looks at me through the fog of his cigarette smoke, eyes barely slits. He's propping up the bar opposite me and I smile across at him, mainly because the hubbub of noise in the pub makes it difficult to be heard and I want to save my voice.
Carl is a man out of his time—I'm sure he would have been much happier as a 1970s rock god. His battered denim jacket, shoulder-length hair and tendency to say, 'Yeah, man,' don't sit comfortably with current ideas of personal styling. But Carl and I go back a long way. A long, long way.
'No. I really need money,' I say. 'This time it's bad.'
'It always is,' Carl remarks.
'Joe's swimming in a sea of unpaid bills. I have to do something.' Joe is my older brother, but somehow I've become responsible for him. I don't mind at all. He needs all the help he can get.
'You work two jobs already, Fern.'
'Tell me something I don't know.' The till does its digital equivalent of ker-ching again and, grinning insanely at the next punter, I reach for another glass.
'How much more ca ... read full excerpt from Welcome to the Real World ebook
