Rainbows End

I once knew a man called Rainbow he was tall and thin. His trousers hung on to him like a koala bear hugging a tree, his shoes were too big for his feet and he was never without the worst multi coloured jumper I’ve ever seen. It was the colours of a rainbow that’s how he got his name. He told me the jumper was a present from someone he was close to who knitted it especially for him. I imagine he was in love with the person who gave him the jumper but he didn’t move that conversation along.

Rainbow was keen to learn about things he’d never tried, like the game of pool. I taught him how to play and he was better than me within a couple of days. He was older than me but a lot younger in his mind. He unnerved people with his big blue eyes that appeared glazed and lost. He had bags under those eyes that were full of luggage from his past. Rainbow could predict the people he thought didn’t like him and he was never wrong. This made him sad but I used to tell him there was no point trying to make people like you if they have already passed judgement.

Rainbow didn’t like to talk about his life other than to say it was tough and ‘took a long time to rub out’. I think he had spent some of his childhood in a care home or at least that’s what I think he wanted me to believe. Rainbow would disappear for days then turn up at a local bar desperate for a game of pool. I’ll never forget the day he had to play a stranger who didn’t like the strange style Rainbow had when he took a shot. He used to lean towards the green baize on the table almost sniffing the cloth before taking aim with his cue and then lurching back as if he just fired an arrow from a bow. Rainbow won the game the stranger was a bad loser and wouldn’t shake Rainbow’s hand but he did say ‘you’re fucking insane mate’ which Rainbow took on the chin and responded beautifully with ‘if I wasn’t insane how would you know you were sane?’ The stranger swore again and left the bar.

Rainbow disappeared for the last time on a Saturday night. He was drunk and liked to dance but he would bump into people not dancing and piss people off until the miserable landlord asked him to leave. Rainbow never came back. Years later I read a story in a national newspaper of a man who was staying in a down and out hostel. The man, a diagnosed schizophrenic was being seen by a male nurse who was trying to calm his agitated patient there was a struggle and the man stabbed the nurse with a pair of scissors. The Nurse died and the man was given a life sentence. The man was Rainbow, a man who had never shown any signs of violence all the time I’d known him. I read the whole article and prescribed drugs were mentioned in particular a recent change of pills that had side effects. Somebody made a mistake that changed a mild eccentric man into a murderer.

I heard Rainbow didn’t stay long in prison he escaped in a coffin after taking his own life.

©JMcN 2014