TATTING AT THE FLATS

I thought I might have some incident to report something more to say at the end of the month I hoped but ‘no’ as I come in at the top entrance to the flats there’s rubbish broken up and I remember earlier seeing two people riding away on their bikes after clearly tatting at the bottom way in.
Tatting at the flats.
I thought, ‘oi, fuck off, me and the rest of us who live here got first go at the thrown outs.’
I picked up an armchair once after giving it a good smell checking if it had been pissed on by animal or human to be told later when I’d said what I’d done that it had belonged to someone I knew who’d moved from the block to a maisonette in Armada. I was relieved and pleased and so was she.

HAVING A WORD

Me and my daughter got out the lift on the floor we live and saw through the glass seperating the quadrant from the stairs a man sitting on the steps and with a syringe in his upper arm, he saw us. I said to my daughter, ‘here take these,’ gave her the shopping bags with the shopping we’d bought from Tesco’s Express just opened near us and said, ‘I’m going to have a word.’
She went in the flat and I went through the two doors to where it was and said to the man and a woman who I seen around and knew had a scam and was sat just below him, ‘do us a favour...’
and the man said, ‘...take it with us...’
and the woman said, ‘I’m watching to making sure he’s ok...’
and I saw blood running down the arm he’d been using first before now when he was pushing the needle into his leg which was bleeding also
‘...clear up after you...yeh...?’ I said
and he said, ‘yeh, ok I’ll do that,’
and I said, ‘thanks,’ and, ‘take it easy,’ went back through the two doors and into my flat where I apologised to my daughter who said, ‘alright,’ and lent my head on my arm against the coats hanging on the hooks.

SEEN NOT SPOKEN TO BEFORE

Met a man waiting for the lift on the ground floor said, 'I was unlucky, I was just about to press the button and up it went.'
'Yeh,' I said, 'it happens then goes all the way to the thirteenth floor.'
'I send it back down again when I get out,' he said, 'I know there's always someone waiting.'
The lift came down.
'You first,' he said and then, 'what floor?' and pressed my button.
He was breathing wheezing said, 'this daily walk kills me. I only go out the back round and down to the bottom but if I didn't do that I'd just sit inside like a vegetable.'
'It's good you make the effort,' I said, warming to this man I'd seen but not spoken to before.
The lift stopped he got out said, 'bye now,' and I saw him walk to his front door.

THANKS LOVE

Left the flat to go watch football at the Eclipse. A man and woman waiting for the lift near my front door backs to me were kissing. I walked down the stairs.
Out the bottom door I heard come from a group of young men some standing a couple sitting on bikes ‘...nice pussy man...’ and, ‘shut up, man, shut up,’ about the young woman wearing boots and blue eye shadow who’d passed me on her way up the stairs to the third floor it sounded like.

Got to the pub.

‘Haven’t got any Gem, love, it’s off, we got Doonbar,’ the barmaid said when I asked for a Gem.
‘That’ll do,’ I said.
‘Ok darling.’
She gave me the pint said, ‘that’s £2:30 love.’
‘How much?,’ I asked (not incredulous).
‘£2:30 darlin’.’
I gave her £2:40 (two £1 coins and a couple of 20p’s) and said, ‘thanks love,’ when she gave me the change.

THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY

I came out of the lift on the Fifth Floor and saw a man sitting in the doorway immediately to the right. It was the man who a few days ago I’d seen coming out of the bottoom lift with Half Haircut.
As I took my clothes out of the dryer I was thinking about what he was doing there and if he'd still be there when I went back.
I left the laundry and the lift was at the 13th floor so as I stood waiting I turned to the man in the doorway and said, ‘you waiting for someone?’
‘Yes, for B,' he said. 'I said I’d be here about half eleven quarter to twelve but he must be at the chemist getting his scrip.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes he’s ill like me so we look out for each other.’
Pause.
‘Seen many people come by?’ I asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, come past here since you’ve been waiting?’ I said, gesturing with my hand.
‘No, though I’m here a lot and I must know most people in the block.’
‘You don’t live here then?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘You look out for each other,’ I said.
‘That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?’ he said.
The lift arrived and I said ‘bye.’
When I got out at my floor I realised how anxious I'd felt about that man being there in the doorway and how hostile my questioning of him had been.

GOOD THINKING

I met K in the laundry.
She said, ‘it’s a lovely morning isn’t?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
Blue sky...sun out...it was warm.
‘It’s warm now,’ she said, ‘but they say there’s cold weather on the way but we hardly ever get it here because of the hills.’
‘Well yeh that’s true but I remember snow on Brandon Hill and the council banning sledging.’
‘Yes that must have been the early eighties...three or four.’
‘That’s the year I came here,’ I said.
‘The last time it was as bad as that was sixty-two and before that forty-seven so it’s about every twenty years...we should be due for some bad weather soon.’
‘Either that or Winter’s gone,’ I said.
‘I like the snow,’ she said, ‘like how it looks but I don’t like to go out in it not since I broke my wrist...mind you that was October and it was wet leaves on the steps over the road when I went to feed my mother’s cat...I didn’t know what to do lying there then I took off my shoe and banged on the railings ‘til someone came to see what the noise was...anyway I stock up on food now when I hear it might snow.’
‘Good thinking,’ I said.

GOT THE LIFT DOWN

Got the lift down stopped at the 9th floor. Two men got in. Young I'd said 'hello' to and sometimes more. Older I'd not seen before.
Young said, 'it was light stuff but okay.'
Older said, 'yeh, maybe that's why I fell asleep.'
'You knew it was okay when you cooked it up.'
'But his is better.'
'yeh.'
I wondered why those things were being said in front of me.
At the ground floor they got out first and held both doors open as I walked through.

'ACTUALLY, IT WAS YESTERDAY'

I went to the pub to watch football on the telly. There was two of us watching.
A group of men who were there last Tuesday and buying jugs of beer as they did then seemed, as they did then also, interested in being an exclusive group of men in the pub more than anything else. At one point they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to one of themselves who I heard a short while later say, ‘actually, it was yesterday.’

BATH

I went to Bath today walked along the towpath that runs beside the Kennet and Avon canal. Two people came towards me I thought it was two older women but it turned out to be a man and a woman. I kept my head down thinking about what I was going to be doing later not looking at them as they got closer then went by me. The man who walked behind the woman said, ‘hello,’ I turned my head toward him not looking at me and said, ‘hello.’

Later on my way back in the dark along the towpath to the station a man carrying a shopping bag in each hand and weaving round the puddles like I was said as we passed each other, ‘it’s like a maze isn’t it?’ ‘It is indeed,’ I replied.
I wondered why he’d said something to me.

DARTS

I’ve been watching the World Darts Championship streaming live on to the computer. My friend Barry said, ‘I’ve got enough to think about.’
I said, ‘well, I’ve got to find someone to analyse it with.’
I play darts at work with one of the tenants, it’s quality time. I keep score, writing it down in an old A5 page-a-day diary. Four games a page was two then three but we’ve improved so the scores take up less room. Today I used the last page available to write the score of the game that ended the first book.

THE FIRST TIME

I met with some colleagues today and for the first time in the four years we've been meeting as a group went to lunch with three of them. We ate at the The Bristolian in Picton Street. I had a sandwich, a bag of crisps and some home-made coleslaw and a black coffee.
When we'd finished I stood outside waiting for the others. I was looking at the wall of the house opposite the cafe when a man stopped in front of me. He had tattoos on his cheeks and forehead and carried a can of White Lightening.
He said, 'can you give me a cigarette?'
'I haven't got any.'
'Well I've got some hash.'
'Ok,' I said and he walked off.

FIGURED

Figured who nicked my stuff.
Came out the flat with a friend and the man opposite came out his flat wearing a new leather jacket and he looked and me and I said, 'hello,' and he smiled and went back in. I knew he was involved one way and he's asked me for money in the past came knocking asking not just bumped into me.
I'm thinking what I'm going to do.

WENT DOWN THE BELL

Went down The Bell and met my mate Ian for a drink.
We played here togehter as NO a fews years back when Martin had the pub. He liked us and booked us a few times at The Bell then The Queen’s Head, Easton when he moved. He said after our second gig there didn’t bring many beer drinking people in, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

I GOT BACK TO THE FLATS

I got back to the flats and stood waiting for the lift with first one man then another. The lift at 10 went, 13, 11, 7, G.
Three men got out.
The first had clearly had recently a half haircut which made it all the same, you’ll know what I mean if you know who. The man after him looked me in the eye as he walked past on the shoulder of half haircut. I remembered the voice on the phone of the man who was selling my guitar in the music shop when I rang to ask if they’d look out for what’d been taken from my place during the night or that morning a week ago.
I got in the lift first with my bike and got out the floor above the two men who went to seperate front doors.

ALSATIANS

Walking down Stokes Croft saw a pack of dogs, alsatians, roaming. They ran towards me I stood still scared they'd bark at me and bite me but they jumped up and made to lick my face and I stroked one or two of them and they went away.
In the subway a man sitting on the ground against the wall asked me if I had some spare change, I said, 'no.' Since being burgled last week I'm not giving money to people on the street. I was done over I think by a couple of junkies, I don't know this for a fact but that's what I think so I'm tarring them all with the same brush, the one they didn't nick.
In town I had a coffee, read my book and wrote some.