Chapter Three

Okay, so I’m walking. And it’s dark. And I’m cold. And to top it all I am lost. I don’t know why I always do this but I always do, I think of side roads as short cuts between main roads – they never are. I tend to get lost easily enough when I’m sober so now, drunk as I am, it’s hardly a surprise that I’m lost. And now I’m in a thicket of side roads seemingly going nowhere but to more side roads, it’s all very incestuous. I hate to admit it but I’m beginning to whimper like a little lost kitten – that is, if little lost kittens also mutter obscenities under their breath.

I’m done with walking. Time for a smoke. So finding a handy garden wall to park my butt on I do just that. Unfortunately it’s also occupied by three snails, two of whom are fucking with the third very much trying to get in on the action. I don’t have the heart to flick them away so don’t. Besides, they have just as much right as I to the garden wall. I look at my watch which blankly tells me it’s 2:47am, Jesus, I’ve been walking for almost two hours!

Well, fuck it, if I don’t get home I don’t get home but I am going to have a smoke. I light up a cigarette and draw the smoke deep into my lungs and the relief is instantaneous. Now I know it’s poison to the body and might well send me to an early grave but it’s manna to the mind. Or perhaps that’s just the nicotine addiction. Still, I have to quit next year. I’ve told all and sundry that I will, emphasized it in point of fact, that this would be my last year. So it has to be. Or my word means shit. Me and my big mouth. And propensity to feel guilt – guilt about what? it’s my life and money isn’t it? Because do I want to stop? no I don’t. Oh well, committed now, my word and honour. Nothing to be done about it except to enjoy these last few months.

And it’s while I’m enjoying this smoke that I notice a black taxi cab double parked in the street. The driver’s door is wide open and the interior light is on. Odd, I think. But then think to myself that he probably lives in this street and has just popped home for something. But still. Taking an awful risk. Is just asking for it to be pinched. Not that I’m contemplating any such thing – well, not yet.

I leave the snails to their fucking, noticing that the third one appears to have given up trying to get in on the action and has gone off to sulk somewhere, and approach the taxi. Noticing the “for hire” sign all lit up tells me that the taxi is still open for business. Now the question is, do I get in or wait out here for the cabbie’s return? It beginning to rain decides my question for me and I get in. But the moment my head hits the back of the rest I fall asleep. I had only intended to close my eyes, to rest them, but remain fully alert. But you know how it goes, how it always goes, and I was, as I said, soon fully asleep, snapping awake suddenly a full hour later.

Something wasn’t right. In fact, to put it another way, something was very, very wrong.