dddk 1 - 73 bell tone

‘When it’s like this - dingy and wet - and everybody’s bloody miserable. I wonder what brought me back to Deptford.

Been about a bit I have. Seen a few things in my time.

Spose I must have missed the place. Had some good times here . Friends and everything.

Course I’m under the bloody arches now, but I still get to see stuff.

I saw her yesterday, didn’t I.

2 quid left from me last emergency payment and I decide to go down to that cheap supermarket at the bottom of the high street. ‘Can I leave me trolley here love?’ I ask her.
‘Course you can, I’ll keep an eye on it.‘ She says, smiling. ‘Lovely girl,‘ I think. So anyway I get to the checkout and I realise I haven’t got enough. They’ve only gone and put the bloody prices up and I’m standing there like a lemon, with a tin in me hand, five pence short.

‘Go on’ she says, ‘I’ll make it up’, and I’m standing there looking down at her thinking , what a lovely girl when the boss sleazes up. He must have been the boss, all suit and smarm.

‘You can’t do that - Marsha’ he says to her. Then he turns to me . ‘The management reserves the right to refuse custom.’ and he takes the tin out of my hand, gets two pound coins out the till, throws them on a pile of plastic bags and turns back to the girl. And I can hear him going on at her as I fish the money out, take me trolley and start walking towards the doors.

It must’ve been the cold wind, but I could feel my eyes pricking. I so wanted to be so very far away.

Better take a turn round the market, thinks I. Take meself back to the souks...A different kind of desert, different kind of shyster.

Packing up time when I got there. But I like it like that. Everyone getting on with their occupations. I’ve got all the time in the world. So I took it.

Didn’t find much, less than a quid in change, a few decent butts. ‘I don’t know what made me pick it up. It was just, sort of sitting there, under a pile bin bags and soggy newspaper. Red it is - now who’d throw a thing like that out I wondered - Beautiful it is.

Red.

So anyways, I thought. I’d like that. So I picks it up and puts it in me trolley.

It’s getting dark early these days. And cold. I reckoned it was maybe time to start getting back to the arches - if I wanted a good pitch. So I turn out of the square and start making me way back up the high street. And I sees her then. Trying to start her car she was. And not doing very well either. I gave her a little smile as I passed, ‘ you finished then ?’ says I, nodding in the direction of the shop, and she gave me one of those rueful little smiles and started leaning over to unwind her window.

That’s when he comes out. ‘fuck off’ he says. ‘I have already told you to fuck off once today.’ Fuck off! Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could say much to that. ‘Fuck off ‘ he says to me, so I turns round and fucks off. But I can still hear him as I’m going.

‘Let me take you home’ he’s saying and she’s got out the car now and saying ‘No,’ and laughing, embarrassed like.

’I like to look after me staff’ says he - slimy git - and I can hear him going on and on and she’s saying ‘No’, and starting to get a bit whiney. And I’ve crossed the road by now, but I have to stop, and I’m looking round and I sees him, pushing her up against the car and he’s got his hand up her skirt and I think he sees me, but then I realise, no-one sees me. And she’s starting to moan like and she’s crying and pushing him away and I don’t think about it I just start walking up the middle of the road towards them.

The next thing I know its in me hands and I’m heaving the thing towards his head.

I can still see it now. In slow motion like. All gleaming curves and corners, slamming through the air. The edge a circa 1973 bell tone desk phone clunkin’ an clickin’ just above his left ear.

I picked it back up quickly, put it in me trolley.
Can’t imagine who’d throw a thing like that out.

Beautiful it is.

Red.