One is fresh from a two-hour book signing and the other just shagged three hookers senseless. Both need a drink. Barry Hilton is behind the bar. Gives them one look and pours five tequilas. When you’re Charlie Sheen and Herschelle Gibbs you don’t fuck around. When you’re Barry Hilton watching Charlie Sheen and Herschelle Gibbs walk into your bar, you make sure you pour yourself a shot too. Five tequilas disappear faster than you can say “alcohol-induced psychosis”. Barry Hilton feels his shot but tries not to show it. Charlie and Herschelle lick their lips and order another round. Charlie slaps his hands on the bar screams, “Rehab is for quitters! The only way I’m staying off blow is if they sow my nose shut. It’s not my fault my name is Charlie!” Herschelle bursts out laughing. Says he can’t believe how successful this book is going to be. Says half the stuff he’s done aren’t even in there: the tot packs under his helmet, the opium binge in Peshawar, the adrenalin shot in Sydney. Charlie says that’s nothing, he once stayed up a week fornicating; snorting half Colombia’s total export. There’s an uncomfortable silence. Both men know when someone starts a sentence with “that’s nothing” a line has been crossed. The question is out there and it’s hanging: who’s more bad ass? At this point action speaks louder than words. Charlie gets up to hit on two smoking-hot girls in a corner but realises he’s still wearing the ridiculous cargo shorts he wears on Two and a Half Men. He sits back down. Herschelle sees his gap and swoops in. Just like in his book he gets straight to the point: “Who’s more bad ass? Charlie Sheen or me?” The girls look Herschelle Gibbs up and down. They take in his baseball cap and the adidas golf shirt. They look over to Charlie Sheen — waving back at them — in his Chino shorts and baby blue button shirt. The lights dim and there’s a chill in the room. Keith Richards walks into the bar wearing a blood-soaked shirt and black leather jacket. He looks like Jack Sparrow come back from the dead. Barry Hilton gives him one look. Pours five shots absinthe. Keith Richards drinks all five. He walks over to one of the smoking-hot girls, kisses her, does a line off her chest and pulls a rat out of his jacket pocket. He rips the rat’s head off and puts it in his mouth. He slides over to Charlie Sheen, looks him straight in the face and asks, “got a light, mate?”

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Hansie Smit

Hansie Smit

Hansie Smit is a self-employed writer. He spends a lot of time in coffee shops tapping into free wi-fi making sure he buys a bran muffin every time to ease the inevitable guilt he feels getting something...

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