ROAD RAGED

He got out the car came towards me shouting, ‘Go on then, get out the car, go on, you cunt, get out the fucking car.’
Opened the door of my car which already that morning I’d used to transport materials to her studio in Mivart Street, pop into Charlotte Keele to order a prescription, and drop her off wherever it was she wanted dropping and now to get to work.
‘I’ve got your number,’ I said not really thinking he’d collapse in a heap and beg me not to make more of this incident.
What had happened was I’d turned into a side road and this was his gripe - as he was articulating it loudly accompanied by small flecks of spit a couple of them I felt on my face and recoiled wiping them away – that I hadn’t stopped to let him pass but instead had made to pull into the space of the triple driveway on the left a little further into the road than he thought acceptable considering, I imagined later having not managing such activity during my public berating, his speed and superiority and indeed moral right to the road at such time as he wanted it…NOW NOW NOW.
As I was saying, ‘Get out the fucking car,’ he shouted.
There was a vein running up the side of his neck I noticed and he was going red. I decided not to get out of the car and later was annoyed at myself for stopping and giving the opportunity for this man to share his thoughts about what I’d done. And later still I admitted to myself some culpability for the rage he expressed when I angrily pointed at the space I intended to use to let him pass and tapped the side of my head suggesting ignorance or thoughtlessness or stupidity on his part for not realising what I planned as we sat the front windows of our cars adjacent and looked each other in the eye.
I was scared and remain shaken even now. He was younger and fitter and could if he'd so wanted hurt me. I am embarrassed I allowed myself to be vulnerable in a situation unnecessary and avoidable in so many ways.

THE EGG

‘Is it an egg?’ he said from one of the low walls in St. James Barton roundabout.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it hasn’t got shell.’
The man got up from the wall and walked stooped over to where the egg lay midway between the phone box and where the plane tree stood until chopped down a few days ago. He crouched down, reached slowly, picked the egg up.
We stood together when he squeezed the egg.
‘Is it real?’ I said, wondering if it was a rubber copy, and not wanting to touch it again like I did before taking a photograph which is when the man said, ‘Is it an egg?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to eat it.’
‘I thought it was laid by one of the pigeons,’ I said. ‘They left it there, you know?’
‘But what about the shell?’ he said. ‘Why isn’t it on the egg?’

HOME

‘Shake my hand,’ she said to me halfway up Thomas Street as I made my way back from an Occasional Cinema at Magpie, top of Picton Street.
I approached her shook her hand warm, clammy, weak grip.
‘I heard you earlier,’ I said, ‘where the film was showing. You shouted, “I’ve been in the valley of death and I’m still standing.”’
‘I’ve just got out of prison,’ she said. ‘How long you think I did?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Eighteen months and I’ve just got out.’
‘You said,’ I said.
She was using crutches, her feet were bare and the middle toe of her right foot was bandaged.
‘That’s my son,’ she said pointing at the young man wearing a stripey shirt and standing nearby astride a pushbike.
‘Look at my toe,’ said mother, and I did, ‘You want to know what happened?’
‘What?’
‘The police jumped me, got me down and held me and chained me, they did, then one of them hit my foot, look at it, it’s horrible isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said about the cut and bruised foot the skin of which was red and tight with swelling.
We didn’t speak for a moment with the traffic on Stokes Croft and voices from Hamilton House.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Yes, but that’s my son,’ pointing again at the young man.
‘You said,’ I said. ‘Is he looking after you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need looking after.’
We Said goodbye, and as I neared Dove Street she shouted, ‘Hey,’ and I stopped and turned, ‘I’m in court on Tuesday.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said.
‘I’m giving evidence against a paedophile.’
‘Good luck,’ I said and with that made my way back home.

DON’T

Waiting for the lift when JJ came out his flat carrying a rubbish bag he put down the rubbish chute. Out of the chute room I said to him, ‘You been using my laundry time?’
‘What?’
‘You been using my laundry time?’
‘Why?’ he said, defensive.
‘No problem,’ I said, ‘just I know you’ve used it in the past…’
‘…no I haven’t.’
‘I know you did and I got pissed off with you, remember?’ I said. ‘I was stood outside round the corner and you walked up the street and we had a discussion about it and I said I was pissed off.’
His face was red and looking up at me.
‘Anyway,’ I said not wanting to dwell on the conflict past. ‘Why I’m saying is I’ve changed my time so that time, the time you used…okay, the time you say you didn’t, it’s free now and I thought you might be interested.’
‘My time’s at eight,’ he said. ‘When’s yours?’
‘Ten,’ I said. ‘You might want it is all, is what I thought.’
‘Even if I did,’ he said, ‘you’re bigger than me,’ backing off, smiling at last.
‘Oh,’ I said, gesturing with my hand as I made my way into the lift had arrived, ‘Don’t.’

FOR B

‘I have some sad news,’ she as she sat down opposite.
His seat was empty again. He’d been unwell.
‘Very sad news,’ she said and paused slightly before saying, ‘He died yesterday, unexpectedly.’
I started laughing and Lavender next to me said, ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Fizz said, ‘I wonder if he knew how much he was loved.’
‘You loved him?’ I said, wary of one sided epitaphs. ‘He irritated me sometimes repeating himself the way he did. It was like underlining everything, making his point more than he needed.’
‘He had a history of not being listened to,’ said Lavender.
‘That’s true,’ I said, listing, ‘His mother, wife, and sons both who gave up on him.’
‘He gave up on them too,’ she said.
Silence.
‘I was thinking about how I’d say goodbye to him,’ I said.
‘What would you say?’
‘That I respected him for deciding to do what he did at his age, that he thought something was worth doing something about, that I noticed he’d changed the years I knew him.’
‘I thought he was very brave,’ said Fizz.
He’s the second man I’ve known has died unexpectedly the last two weeks. I wouldn’t say anything about either if they were alive but they’re not, they’re dead and this is for B.

UPDATES

Received text: At plough watching manc Derby
Sent text: Troopers hill. Any score?
Received: 1 all. 20mins
Received: 2-1 united
Received: 2-2
Received: 3-2 untited
Received: Three all
Received: 4-3 owen 96 mins. You missed a cracker
Sent: Sounds like it. I’ll watch it later, thanks for the updates

SCREAMING

‘You know how people say, “I’m free,” or, “I’m well,”?’ he said.
‘You mean when you ask, “How are you?”?
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and they say it in a different language like Hebrew.’
We were drinking coffee. Comfy sofa is why we chose the café.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He said, ‘They invented eight, then five and then three.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Descending?’
‘Eight was the best,’ he said. ‘So it was downhill from there.’
He went into a stream of repeats before returning.
‘The number eight is about renewal,’ he said. ‘The leaves fall off the trees and know they’ll be back.’
‘What, reincarnation?’ I said.
‘Rebirth,’ he said. ‘They always come back screaming.’

TANTRUM

‘Got any spare change, mate?’ he said. ‘I need something to eat.’
I’d just crossed Stokes Croft on my way to leave a copy of the SC at the top of the steps the drinkers often sit and shout at passers-by when they’re able to see beyond their self-referential limits, when interrupted.
‘Yes,’ I said, stopping, taking change from the left back pocket of my jeans. ‘There you go,’ giving him a pound fifty.
‘Thanks mate,’ he said and we began to go our separate and opposite ways.
‘I might as well throw this away,’ he said, voice raised, and I heard the coins hit the ground. One, the pound coin, rolled long enough for me to see it come to rest in the road a metre or so from the pavement on which the fifty pence piece now lay.
‘What the fuck you doing?’ I said.
‘What’s the fucking point?’ said the man, his face more red than when we first met. ‘I’ve been asking for change for an hour and a half and that’s all I’ve got…’
I walked past him to pick up first the fifty then the pound coin the traffic narrowly missed.
‘You ask me for help and I give you some and then you,’ I said warming to my theme, ‘basically tell me to fuck off by throwing it down like a child having a fucking tantrum.’

WITH A SMILE

Decay.
It’s happening. Picking up the feather sent my back into spasm, biting into an ice cream broke a front tooth. What it left was a stub and sharp edges and soon the inside of my top lip sore. It wasn’t long before she noticed like everyone else would when I said anything, opened my mouth. Who’s going to want to fuck me now?
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m your dentist this evening.’
‘We’re just up from the arches,’ she said when I phoned to get help.
‘The old city?’ I said. ‘I know where you are.’
He told me the options when I leaned back in the chair: capped; an implant; a plate. ‘The cap’ll last ten years or so then you might have to think again but I’d keep your own teeth as long as you can. When they’re gone they’re gone.’
He packed the stub, covered the sharps, shaping cement with his finger. ‘It doesn’t look pretty,’ he said and then again after saying, ‘But it’ll do until you get someone else to finish it off.’
At home with a mirror, wondering what I thought about how I looked with a smile.

TWENTY FOUR SEVEN

‘It was unprofessional,’ I said tomorrow morning.
I’ve been around town. Birmingham. I know it a little, family here. It’s a big city with a busy centre, I like it. Why don’t I live somewhere else? Why didn’t go when I had the chance? I stayed when I had the chance and became a friend in a high place.
Women walking on high heels and pulling short skirts down. Men walking with them protecting hopeful, together or not.
‘Paranoids can be cunning,’ he said.
‘Vigilant,’ I said. A psychopath is cunning, looking for advantage.
The receptionist signed me in was on duty when I left the hotel. Crossed a couple of roads the first in front of a bus broken down at the lights before lighting the joint I’d rolled earlier in my room. Kept to the edge of the crowds until I finished the smoke.
‘Hey mate,’ said the young man with ash blond hair and carrying a holdall over his shoulder. ‘You know where the National Express bus station is?’
Stop. Look like I’m thinking. ‘Er, no.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
Taxis, a bus, a burger bar. The same four people I’d seen on my way out.
The double doors open on my way in. Collar up, attention on the carpet, my reflection in the mirror adjacent to the lift. They can’t see me, did they see me?
She asked if I had room service and I told her, ‘Twenty four seven.’

NN

He died in pain, that’s what it looked like, clawed hands and a screwed up face. The autopsy said the hernia killed him, a twist in the bowel stopping things getting through. She said it was dried blood looked like coffee but it was his own shit he brought up.
If I hadn’t found him she would have and as it was she cried all day. I dreamed about it the night before like I dreamed a plane flying into the flats the tenth of September.
We made a notice about his death said when the funeral was. We asked to put it up in shops and pubs and the bookies near where he lived.
Some people didn’t want to hear what had happened and someone came round to see how he was, was upset when we told her. She’d known him forty years she said. ‘He was a lovely man,’ she said. Other people said that too.
The woman stood between the parked cars however, said, ‘Fuck off,’ to the man leaning on his bike. ‘Fuck off and die,’ as she walked away towards us. He rode the opposite direction to her and never looked back.

APPRECIATION

‘Can I change my laundry time?’ I said.
‘Permanently?’ said the caretaker I often saw in the laundry early Tuesdays.
‘Yes,’ I said, absorbing the self-inflicted impact on my routine.
The caretaker came over to where I stood by the glass fronted box the laundry times are displayed.
‘I’m here at the moment,’ pointing, ‘and I want to move here,’ pointing.
He took an old hinged glasses case out of the left side pocket on his shirt. He opened it, took out a tortoise shell framed pair of glasses. He put the case on the folding table near the window and the glasses on his face. He opened the time display box with a key on a bunch he got from the back pocket of his trousers.
He is a small man, hunched back stiff neck. We had a conversation last year and he told me he was going to retire in a few weeks but I never noticed he had and said soon after, ‘I thought you’d be retired by now.’ He didn’t seem to hear me, maybe he’s a bit deaf, it wouldn’t be unusual a man of his age, but he mightn’t of wanted to talk to me so ignored the question.
Today he was helpful.
‘Do you need a letter of confirmation?’ he said turning to me as he closed and locked the display box door.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your help, appreciate it.’