Blakey on Tour - Part 26

(An ongoing story. Part one here. Bear in mind it starts as a blog post and doesn't seem like a story. It quickly turns into one...)


Comes a time in each man's life when he knows it's got to end.

My time came just after the last bit, me halfway up the stair and slowing down, realising them Egyptian cunts weren't after us. And when I says things have got to end, I ain't on about the events of the past couple of days, the shoving and tugging and rumbling and what have you. All that shite were par for the course and I quite enjoyed it, except where pliers was involved. Anything worth doing, you got to shed some blood for it. Your own blood and that of other folks, else you ain't showing like you really wants it. And if there's one thing I really wanted, more than ever now, it were that expensive caravan holiday.

I could picture it now – me at the wheel of the hearse, Kirsty by my side, passing us sarnies, cans of lager and little smiles. And fags. I'd be pointing out features of the landscape that were rushing by. She'd be appreciating my knowledge, enjoying my jokes and laughing in that way of hers that sounds like the gentle tinkling of a crystal glass when you drops it, spilling sparkling wine all over the place and firing little bastard shards all around that you forgets about and treads on a couple of weeks later, cutting your feet to fuck and swearing like Billy-o. But in a good way.

Again, I ain't saying none of them things had to end. All that, it's the good stuff. I felt like I were getting somewhere with it, moving steady towards a goal, clearing shite up for folks along the way and making my prize all the more sweeter once I got to it. But one particular thing did have to end, like I says, and here were the moment.

I'm on about my appearance.

I were in my room. The door were gone, like you knows, as were the back of the wardrobe that Bean had helpfully put there to fill the space. And it were the same as a door anyhow, cos you just had to step through the wardrobe and push the doors open and swing em shut behind you. I were stood in front of them doors, looking at meself in the long mirrors on em. For fuck's fucking sake, I were thinking... how had it got so bad? And it weren't just the trousers, which didn't even stay up no more.

I stepped out of em, half expecting em to scurry across the axminster and escape out the window.

Now I could get a proper look at meself, and I found it hard to ignore the toll all them hard years had took on my body, the effects of not eating right and the damage inflicted by cunts in the last couple of days. And I'll tell you summat.

I looked alright.

Aye, my throat sported a cut going right across from lug to lug near enough. And I had a couple of fat lips and an even more squashed hooter from the lamp-post just now. And my arms was scratched to fuck from brambles and shite in Hurk Wood and falling down that gulley, getting caught by Jock. And there were a gaffer tape-shaped area of stubble and skin missing from me face. Plus I had dried blood all down my front and on me face still. But it were all in a good way, you know? Overall, appraising meself in the merciless light of that morning, or whatever fucking time of day it were, I thought I looked the business. And I'm coming back to the Rambo thing here.

Also Jean Claude Van Damme in Cyborg, the bit where he gets crucified.

Saying that, I did need a shower. To highest heaven I did stink, plus the blood were starting to flake all over the shop and rain down in little burgundy bits that looked like fish food. And that made us think of the koi carp, the ones in the pond behind the nice big house I had earmarked for meself, gravel crunching on the drive and a couple of younguns tumbling about on the lawn. You don't get none of that shite from Cyborg and Rambo. You wants the finer things in life, you got to dress the part.

I'm talking community pillar.

I opened the wardrobe doors and peeped out into the world at large. Bathroom were down there on the first floor, but I didn't fancy venturing that way just now, not with them two cunts with the pliers and the knife. Not that I were afraid of em, just gearing meself up into pillaring mode, which is a lot calmer and more respectable than I'd have to be if I bumped into Squid and Corpse again and had to ping their swedes. So I shut the doors and went to the little sink I had in my room.

I got a dirty T-shirt and wet it, then started wiping all the shite off my chest and everywhere. But that made it worser, so I just sprayed some deodorant under me pits and brushed me gnashers. The toothpaste was empty so I had to use soap. And I ain't sure if the spray can had some left in it or was just pumping out gas. Smelled alright, mind. So I sprayed some in my mouth and all. I finished up by flaking off as much of the blood as I could and splashing on some aftershave where it counted. I used a lot of it and got meself way wetter than I'd aimed, but sometimes you cannot take shortcuts.

I stood savouring the tingle of the Brut as it dried on my skin, looking at my face in the small mirror above the sink and wondering how it could be, how I'd ended up living in this fucking dump when I deserved so much better. You only had to see the cuts and the scars and the lines around my eyes to know all about the efforts I'd made over the years, the work I'd put in to haul meself up a ladder, only to have some wanker shove me back down a fucking snake. But you've got to take em as they comes, don't you? Everyone has a path mapped through life, and mine just happened to pass through the town dump, taking the long route through it and looping around a few times, coming back on itself. But I weren't lost in that dump, no fucking way. Some time soon I'd be breaking out and hitting the fucking boulevard. And then they'd know.

Finally, and with my scrotum all dry now but still tingling with the Brut, I pulled on my pillaring kit.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)