I SAW A MOUSE

As I lay in bed drifting in and out of sleep I listened to the radio a man reading ‘Goldfish.’ Thought of going down town for a coffee but instead washed-up a few large plates and some cutlery.

Last night me and two friends came out the pub and I saw a mouse running in the gutter then across the road.
‘Look a mouse,’ I said, ‘I’m going to stamp on it.’
‘No don’t do that that’s horrible.’
‘I wouldn’t really.’
‘Well if you do I’m going to stop you.’
‘I said I won’t.’
‘You said you would.’
‘Yeh, but I said I wouldn’t.’

One of my friends went home on his own. I went back to the other’s house and had a cup of tea and a bowl of cold soup made with vegetables picked from his allotment then rode back to the flats on a bike I’d borrowed earlier that night because mine’s still damaged from the accident I had a week or so ago.

INTIMIDATION

Out the block’s bottom entrance saw four youths walking like they must’ve left the flats just before me. Slowed down to see the line they took as one not for me.
Went straight along Dove Street and King Square crossing the top entrance of the park before a man with long hair and wearing a flourescent green jacket was up the steps out the exit behind me.
Down the outside of the park with the cobbled street a man, whose eyes met mine as he appeared from behind a parked white van, smiled and walked up the hill.
Turned right along Jamaica/Deighton heard a woman, coming toward me and wearing a full length black coat, say into a mobile phone, ‘look, I have to tell you I’m pregnant so I’ll be taking some time off.’

EXCHANGE

Walking out of town saw a man sitting top left of the incline leading to the subway to the pit.
He said, ‘got any change mate?’
I said, ‘I haven’t mate,’ because what I did have was going to pay for some photocopying.
‘Go on, just a bit for a hot drink.’
I turned round said, ‘ok, I haven’t got much but you can have what I’ve got,’ reached in my back pocket got the change and tipped about seventy/eighty pence into his upstretched hand.
‘Thanks mate, I’ve had a real bad day, thanks.’

Walking back to town later along City Road saw a one pound coin tails up on the pavement, bent down took it, used it to pay part of a return bus fare to Redfield.

THE LIFT IS A SHIP

After I’d called the lift One and Two came in stood behind me, daughter, TD.
One said, ‘it was at eight then up to eleven so someone called it from eleven they must be coming down...I used to live here.’
Lift coming down
‘It’s so slow,’ said One, ‘isn’t there another lift?’
‘Thought you used to live here,’ said Two.
‘There’s one,’ said TD pointing to where, behind the reinforced glass, the stairs that went to the top of the block began.
One turned around, so did Two, ‘what? where?’ said One.
‘There,’ said TD, ‘it’s a manual lift,’ and laughed.

Lift - arrived - doors - opened - the get in - me and Friend between daughter and One and Two.

One said, ‘it’s a bit small in here.’
‘There’s always that space,’ said TD.
‘The coffin hole,’ I said.
Two said, ‘they’re going to be doing them soon...’
‘...anytime now...’
‘...yeh, six months each lift turned off...’
‘...there’s going to be a lot of noise making them bigger...’
‘...there’s room in the shaft...’
‘...they’re going to widen it...’
‘...and faster too...’
‘...they’re fast enough,’ said One, ‘how much faster they need to be?’
TD said, ‘if they were faster it’d be like in a sci-fi film when the ship goes into hyper-drive and the skin on your face’ll get pulled down as you go up,’ moving hands from forehead to chin by cheeks showing what he meant.
Silence...
...then
I laughed.

WAITING AT RITA’S

It was cold.
Two men eating chips from bags they held up close to their mouths were to the right of where I waited outside Rita’s for daughter stood inside waiting for her veggie burger to finish cooking. We’d come from a drink with a friend’d been in town to work for the day and on our way to meet someone else we'd stopped for food.
A man I see at the flats walked past and asked, ‘you got a cigarette or a roll-up?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t smoke, sorry.’
I watched him walk down the street towards town seeing who else of the people he passed he asked. Not the woman with her head down who almost stepped into the road, or the woman wearing a tee-shirt sat in the doorway of the cafe where I often meet a friend for coffee.
Daughter came out with her burger. I phoned and told him where we were that we’d be there soon and he said, ‘ok, bye.’

SIRENS

Was in The Eclipse with my daughter and a friend of mine watching Villa play Man City in the cup.
Sirens
I turned left to look out the window to see what and saw three fire engines go up towards Dove Street and daughter said, ‘I hope I turned the cooker off.’
I said, ‘I saw it was off when you’d done.’
She looked at me and I said, ‘you sure you turned it off?’
'You trying to freak me out?’ she said.
Siren - look - ambulance
‘You sure?’ I said - she read the paper.

When my friend’d arrived he said, ‘here’s something for you - coming here two women on the bus were talking about a man they knew and first said, “...yeh, but how can he afford it?” and second, “he’s been dealing crack,” and first, “oh, I thought he was dealing smack.”’
‘Don’t they know people’ll hear them?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said my friend, ‘they were at the back of the bus and I was at the front so everyone must’ve heard.’
‘Well they can’t think or they want to be heard.’
‘Yeh, well, maybe.’

BIKE VERSUS TAXI

Coming down Park Street on the bike after work this evening a taxi making a u-turn cut in front of me forcing me towards the back of a parked car and a lamppost. I shouted, ‘no,’ loud as I could, hit the kerb to the left of the lamppost, went over the handlebars, landed on the pavement, slid a good ten metres and heard something clatter in front of me might be a lens from my glasses was my front light and batteries.
A woman said, ‘you all right?’
I said I was ok - lying there.
‘What a bastard,’ she said, ‘they’re all bastards,’ and a man asked, ‘you all right?’
I got up, got the bike, front forks brake lever bent, limped down the hill to where the police who’d been coming out of a side turning’d seen what had happened and pulled the taxi over round the corner on Unity by Sue Sheppard.
A man came towards me, the taxi driver I thought and started to have a go but he was the fare who’d seen it too and was on my side.
The police took details and a brief statement from me stood on the street and the driver sat in the police car.
I went to the BRI on my way home, signed a form authorising access to information about my cuts and bruises and got given a tetanus/diptheria jab I’ve to tell my doctor about.

A MAN SPOKE TO ME

A man spoke to me in the laundry this morning. ‘That’s not unusual,’ you might think but the last time this particular man spoke to me was in the front lift after I’d mentioned him pushing the liftcall button repeatedly wouldn’t make it come any faster and he said,
‘...well I’ve been here for nine years...’
going up in the lift a friend of his stood in one corner by the door a woman in the other,
‘...oh, think you’re funny do you? look at the way you’re dressed...you look like a tramp...’
smell of alcohol,
‘...how old are you? you think you’re better than me don’t you?...and your breath, yuk...’
I breathed in his face, he turned to his friend,
‘what floor we at? shit we’ve missed it...’
‘Shame,’ I said.
‘press the next one, go on quick.’
The lift stopped and the man and his friend got out.
‘Bye then,’ I said and watched them walk towards the stairwell.
The woman said after the lift door closed, ‘well, what about that...’
I said, ‘bye,’ when she got out, floor below mine.

...AND THEY SAID

...and they said, ‘if they want your top entrance find some way to I could plastic.’
Sooner sooner offload the block making horse. My doctor phoned the flats I thought of giving drink and said, ‘well, when you said, “I don’t want a call and put think...
crackhead...
drunk..."
I thought, "me?”’
I said, ‘I’ll sort you up the medication.’
He said, ‘I’m not.’
I said, ‘ok then, I’ll phone them sarning they about it.’

...meanwhile the bank robber said nothing but thought, ‘the paralizing nerve ceased risk of getting gas wits cursed.'
The day didn’t look skill when Gruesmouth, in an epic toy outside, found plastic knowledge wishing me back from the intant to be known.
‘You don’t mind,’ he said, ‘...but pieces leave, max the shop, pent the money, it’s 7:08pm.’

A BOOK

In town a man held out a book for me to take as I passed but thinking he might want something from me in exchange I shook my head. At the Union Street Broadmead crossing I went towards a youger man trying to give the same book and said, ‘can I have one of those?’
‘Yeh, sure,’ he said in Australian or New Zealand accent one or other I couldn’t say which but from Down Under.
‘You want anything for it?’
‘Twenty? thirty pence?’
‘Doesn’t seem much,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you my change,’ took out from my back pocket a twenty pence piece said, ‘I’ve got more,’ and gave another twenty and a five pence coin.
He said, ‘it’s written by a friend of mine? and there’s a website address on the back for people to give feedback? if you want?’
‘Ok, thanks,’ I said and walked off up Union Street reading the back cover of the book...
...and this is what it said:

‘It is the darkest days in the history of the planet. Decadence and disasters threaten to destroy the world. But a handful of faithful believers become the leaders of a mighty worldwide revolution of faith and love that shocks the world. This novel, based on actual prophecies from the Bible, will do more than entertain, more than shock, and even more than inspire. It will give you practical information to prepare you for what lies ahead in world affairs. Be prepared to be deeply disturbed by what it says.’

'DON’T MIND ME'

Went in the front entrance to the flats and stood behind a woman who was using crutches and had only one leg, the right one. I wondered if the loss of the left was drug related and remembered what my friend had told me after he’d visited in hospital a man who’d just had his leg amputated because of drug use. He said, ‘he looked at me and said, “it’s not a game anymore is it?”’
This went through my mind as the lift came down the door opened we got in, her first then me, when a man appeared round the corner and got in too.
The woman asked me, ‘what floor?’ and I noticed she only pressed mine and one other button.
‘How are you?’ she asked the man with two carrier bags I couldn’t tell what was in, who looked rough, red faced, a black eye a few days old and had come with him a strong smell of alcohol.
‘Hell...shit,’ he said.
‘What’s happened, what’s wrong?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ he said.
A short pause.
'Don’t mind me,’ I said and we travelled the rest of the way in silence.

CROWD SEAGULL FIREMEN

When I got to Broadmead 11:48 this morning I saw a crowd of people outside Marks and Spencer looking up towards the roof of one of the shops opposite where when I looked up I saw a seagull caught in the netting put there to prevent pigeons and other birds from sitting or roosting on the ledge just below the top of the building.
The seagull wasn’t struggling had its wings pulled up and slightly behind it. I thought, ‘it must be uncomfortable, maybe frightened too, hanging there like that.’
I walked over, stood at the edge of the crowd and watched a fireman carrying a yellow heavy duty pvc bag climb up a ladder that’d been extended to rest on the roof’s edge just to the left of the gull. The fireman tried a few times to put the bag over the gull’s head but couldn’t do it.
‘The bag’s too small,’ I said to no one in particular.
A woman next to me said, ‘what’s he trying to do?’
‘Get the seagull in the bag,’ I said.
Another fireman climbed the ladder took the bag and managed to manouver it over the gull’s head as the first fireman cut the netting that held its wings.
A man, who I’ve often seen preaching in Broadmead, walking through the crowd said pointing, ‘look at that seagull it was trapped and needed help and if it hadn’t got any help it would have died...it needed help just like you need help...God's help...and you must ask Him for His help.’
As the two firemen climbed down the ladder carrying the seagull in the bag the crowd applauded. ‘It’s lovely isn’t it,’ said a woman passing in front of me with a friend, ‘all this for a bird?’
I asked one of the firemen who’d been on the ground watching his colleagues above, ‘what’s going to happen to it now?’
‘We’ll take it to the RSPCA and let them check it out.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
I left the scene twenty-seven minutes after I’d arrived.

THE ROAD HOME

When I get back I’m waiting for the lift at 1. It’s not moving and I hear a man’s voice from above say, ‘yeh, yeh, ok bye,’ as he gets into the lift. It comes down and I look at the floor so I don’t have to look at anyone getting out when the doors open. But no one comes out. I look up and see a man and a dog. The man moves aside and I get in all the while keeping my bike between the two of us.
He says, ‘sorry.’
I say, ‘thanks.’
He asks what floor and I tell him.
The lift doors close and we start going up when the man turns to me and says, ‘you’ll have to excuse the smell she’s just done one,’ with a nod to the dog.
I say after a slight pause, ‘not lift trained yet then?’
We laugh and our eyes meet for a moment. The lift stops and as the man leaves he and I say, bye,’ at the same time.
‘Come on,’ he says to the dog as they disappear round a corner.

TOOK THE CAKE AND MASHED IT

On Thursday in the pub I drank seven pints, like I told you before. He said, ‘You’re mad,’ when I was just playing, spent more money than I meant and had a row with a transsexual sticking two fingers up at him as I left the pub.
The next morning I had a golden hangover stayed in bed ate codeine drifting in and out of sleep ‘til I had to get up to go to work arriving ten minutes late. She said she had a half day and he said he had the flu and I said to him, ‘go home.’
Did the laundry run sitting in the back of a taxi like someone who could afford one. Had some toast, codeine, napped on the office floor threw up the toast cooked the evening meal and said, ‘I’m off, I don’t feel so good...’
At home I went to bed, codeine headache nausea, put two fingers down my throat to vomit olives as a thick black paste that seemed to crawl out of me and into the toilet.
Slept only for half an hour no more.
Woke up with my head hurting mouth dry sipped some water lay on the bed thinking how awful I felt - poisoned - and how I was going to manage the day coming I wished wasn’t there I didn't think I'd get up...
...but I did get up and got out to go meet him'd come kindly from London having left early to get here on time because she was ill and couldn't make it but the cake he brought with him I didn't eat instead I took it and on my way out mashed it with my hands.

I’VE GOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS

Jesus Christ I come back and the neighbour I know has set his own flat on fire says as I walk to my front door, ‘I was wondering who that was and if it was someone else I’d be doing something about it...’
I’m being generous here because I’m writing this after seven pints which is a lot for me and jesus help me I know you had relations with a woman who I was told in school was bad because she was a prostitiute but who now I think of as a woman able to give you comfort...and know that I’m writing this after a lot of pints more than I usually have and can say something though...and the man I bought a pint for (because a £5 limit is in force) went off to score some crack and I said, 'hope you buying local,' and he asked me if I wanted to join him and I said ‘no’ because I don’t want to be known by him more than I am though I enjoyed him before he asked me that he'd said he liked big breasts.
I’m so wrecked I heard him questioned by a voice on the radio and hang up when asked, ‘are you on anything now?’

PIKE

‘Where’d you catch it?’
‘You know the lake at Donnington?’ he said.
‘Donnington, where’s that to then?’ I said.
‘Near Chipping Sodbury you know it’s where they have the horse trials.’
‘Where they have the horse trials? Donnington near Chipping Sodbury?’
‘Yes,’ getting more insistent turned in his chair looking at me, ‘Chipping Sodbury near Yate.’
‘Yes I know where Chipping Sodbury is but I don’t know a Donnington near there.’
‘Where they have the horse trials.’
‘You mean Badminton that’s where they have the horse trials, north of Chipping Sodbury,’ I said.
‘Yeh okay but he called the lake “Donnington Lake”.’
‘Alright but what about it?’ I asked
‘Well I caught it there, the pike about this big,’ he showed me with his hands apart the width of him, ‘and he caught one this big,’ he moved his hands apart some more.
‘Did you eat it then?’
‘He took it off me and took one of the eyes out was this big it was,’ he said making a hole with his thumb and forefinger, ‘and he went with the eye to his dad who was there but he’s dead now so’s his wife think he died of a heart attack maybe twenty thirty years ago...
‘...yeh, yeh, yeh, what did he do with the pike’s eye?’
‘..he covered one of his eyes and went to his dad said, “ah, ah, dad, dad, I’ve lost one my eyes look look”, holding up the eye.’
‘What his dad do?’ I asked.
‘He was pissed off a bit then we took them home and cooked them.’
‘You mean the fish?’
‘Yes, the fish, the ones we caught’ he said.
‘Did you eat it then?’
‘Yeh, I had some but I didn’t like it it had a strong taste and I didn’t like it.’

AT THE CASHPOINT

At the cashpoint adjacent College Green and the bottom of Park Street a man begging sitting on the ground with his back to the wall asked if I could spare any change and I gave him what I had.
He said, ‘thanks,’ and asked, ‘had a good day?’
‘I’ve had better...
...you?’
He sat looking in the direction of up Park Street and didn’t answer I thought because he hadn’t heard me ask as I put my card in and PIN but when the noise of the traffic passed he said, ‘I’m alive.’
‘That’s good is it?’ I said.
‘Yeh, when I was younger I had a social worker who said, “as long as you’re alive there’re possibilities in this life” that’s what he said.’
‘They useful those words?’
‘Yeh, but the sad thing is six days after I last saw him they found him dead four days after he died.’
‘That’s a long time,’ I said with a memory of the man in the flat next to mine they didn’t find and then only because the smell got so bad three weeks after he od’d one summer.
‘Yeh, no one cared but I’ve not forgot what he said.’
I finished at the cashpoint and walking off past him said, ‘bye.’
‘Yeh, cheers man, have a nice day.’

THERE’S A BABY ASLEEP

- Oi, there’s a baby asleep
- Jesus will help you, you’ve tried for years to do it on your own
but you haven’t done it now you know you need Jesus
- Oi, can you go and do it somewhere else?
- Jesus can make a difference

singing - surrender our lives to you

- Alleluya - I want to tell you about the love of Jesus - Alleluya
- Jesus can help the drug addicts, the alcoholics

standing holding arms aloft, speaking through a megaphone

- we were drug addicts here once, we found Jesus
- Jesus loves you
Jesus loves you
doesn’t matter who you are
drug addict, alcoholic, prostitute
- Holy Spirit go your way
and we will follow

walking up the path between the maisonettes and the block, singing, up the hill, up the steps

- we want you to know Jesus Christ loves you

SOUNDING LIKE...

He said, ‘she couldn’t handle me getting to know her so she started saying, “I’m going to get Free J to kill you,” and she went on like that for a while then I said, “you’re beginning to sound like his bitch,” which she didn’t like at all but she was threatening to have me killed.’
‘Well I guess they won’t be asking you to negotiate with Iran,’ I said.
‘I couldn’t do much worse than they’re doing and anyway all I said was, “you're beginning to sound like his bitch,” I mean she said she’d get Free J to kill me.’
‘Who his Free J?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I’ve never heard of him but she was sounding like his bitch.’
‘Yes you said.’
‘I reckon she only said that because I turned her down once and she didn’t like it...I mean I’d never get involved with someone who lived in the same house or building as me you’re asking for trouble.’
‘Yeh, if it went wrong...’ I said.
‘If it went wrong you’d still have to see them, couldn’t get away unless you moved out and I don’t want to do that. There was someone else who tried it on with me - she was trying it on with everyone when she first moved in - but I said “no, it’s my policy not to sleep with anyone I live with”, and she was okay about it but not her sounding like...’

STEP AND SUITCASE

From a window of my flat high up in the tower block where I live in the centre of town I saw one of the estate caretakers walking up the path bend down pick up some rubbish from just under a bush walk a bit further then left up the steps.
Yesterday coming home up Kings Square a woman pulling a suitcase crossed the road in front of me without looking and apologised as I passed behind her.
I was waiting for the lift to come from the tenth floor it’d taken three people I’d said to, ‘I’ll wait if you send it down,’ because it would’ve been a squeeze with them and me and my bike and I wasn’t in a hurry. I heard someone come through the front doors and turned to see who it was and said, ‘hello,’ to the woman’d been pulling the suitcase and who now stood smiling a little way back from me.
When we got in the lift I said, ‘mind where you tread,’ and pointed to the spit on the floor. She minded where she stood and as the lift took us up she said, ‘I haven’t lived here long and I like it but I wish people would respect the place.’ I agreed said, ‘I agree,’ to let her know.
The lift stopped at the floor below mine and the woman got out minding her step and suitcase and said, ‘bye,’ and I said, ‘bye.’