A Gambler Born and Bred 8

I found a job at Milford Chest Hospital washing dishes, working all shifts over Christmas and New Year by doing speed from the moment I woke up.
I’d started going to London, nightclubbing at the Kit Kat Club and Fouberts’ The Batcave, where everyone was on some form of stimulant.
I’d gamble most nights on my increased earnings.
After a month, I was fired for telling Jan, my boss, that I’d been done for possession of cannabis (it was actually two roaches in a car-ashtray, weighing 0.025mgs).

After that, I’d work anywhere but it never lasted long. Once, I started as a food preparer in a restaurant. After only an hour, I excused myself and rifled through the pockets of clothes in the staff-room. I ran out when I’d stolen enough for a flutter and went straight to the pub to blow it.

I worked at McDonalds for four hours, got bored and asked the manager for a word.
He asked ‘How many?’ (meaning words), so I said ‘I… want… to… leave; four,’ so he said ‘Fuck off, and leave your uniform.’
So I got changed, rifled through the pockets of other workers and took my uniform.
This came in handy for when I needed money, because, in those days, staff came and went through a side-door without locks. There were no hi-tech pincodes and security guards then, so I’d arrive with my uniform on, enter the staff-room, rifle through pockets and leave, all in under a minute.

When there was no other way of getting cash, I’d check for unlocked cars in pub car parks and try and sell them in the pub. Thinking back, I should have been caught doing that. I may have tried to sell the goods back to the owner!
My head was mashed with speed and my ways of funding a gambling habit had nose-dived into dangerous territory.

One morning, when a pal and I had found ourselves stranded in the Surrey countryside after crashing at a party, we realised where we were when we arrived in Witley, a small village in Surrey.
At the bus stop, we saw that there was a bus to Shalford in half an hour, but we only had fifty pence between us.
I noticed the pub across the road and asked my pal if he minded me trying to win our bus fare on the fruit-machine with the fifty pence.
He’d always failed to see what I found so attractive about gambling but, being in the pickle we were in, he agreed. If we lost, we’d hitch.
We walked across the road and into the pub. A surge of fluid raced to my brain as I approached the machine next to the entrance for the toilets. I looked at my friend and kissed the coin before dropping it into the slot.
On our second and last go, we won the jackpot! Ten quid! My pal couldn’t believe his eyes.
‘That’s why I play these things! That’s why I do what I do!’ I shouted, trying to put some of our winnings back in.
‘Mate,’ said my pal, holding my arm. ‘We won. Now let’s go.’

I agreed, but it felt very strange.

We ended up larking around at the Queen Victoria, playing pool and listening to music on the jukebox for the rest of the day. That was a good day.

In spring, at the ripe old age of eighteen, I took a job as a stone-picker at a turf farm.
We had to remove as many stones as we could from the growing turf in order to allow the grass to grow without hindrance.
On the down side, it was an early start and quite cold. Sure, it was mundane, but it was better than sitting in an office pushing bits of paper around. Anything was better than that.
The plus sides were that it was cash in hand, we could smoke dope, be outdoors and, most importantly, there was a pub down the road called The Cyder House.
About three times a week, we’d go there and have a sandwich or sausage, beans and chips for lunch. On the Friday, we’d always drink a pint of snakebite (lager and cider) and fool around in the afternoon.

When I was in Guildford one time, I found a book called ‘I, Jan Cremer,’ by Jan Cremer.
It was an autobiography, all about the exploits of this delusional anarchist/ Romeo/ revolutionary. As I read it, over and over, almost becoming the author, I realised that I could do anything in this world, and I fully intended to. I took the book with me to work, to the pub, to parties but no one seemed interested. To me, it was the best thing I’d ever read. I was Jan Cremer.

I made a decision to leave England and live in Rome. I gave my trusty companion (the book) to a friend, asking him to guard it with his life. He had to read it and he’d understand about life.
He wasn’t interested, so I left it at Mum’s.
God knows how, but I’d saved up £250 and Mum said that she’d add the same to the amount that I saved.
I had to find out what life was like without fruit-machines and knew that, for the most part, Europe was free of them. Plus, all of Jan Cremer’s escapades were in Europe.
Did he take on Hitler? Of course he did! Was he caught? Of course not! He just shimmied out from the clutches of evil and moved on to his next sacking.

The speed had made my body wafer thin, almost skeletal, and my mind was playing tricks with me. I’d see a post box in the distance and think it was an old man crossing the road.
I became paranoid of people at parties, thinking they were laughing at me for unknown reasons.
The acid and the hash weren’t helping matters, but at least the drugs took me away from gambling. Drugs were far less expensive than gambling. If I’d taken as many drugs as I spent on gambling, I’d have been dead in a year.

Some of my friends from the punky speed gangs had progressed to heroin, which I never enjoyed.
One by one, people I’d seen days before would pop their clogs.
In a lavatory, on a train, at home, in a squat, a back-alley, a party, a pub, a car. Heroin was killing teenagers from all sections of life, but mostly those from broken homes.

I’d got myself fired for having too many snakebites and throwing turf all over the place on a Friday, and one of my friends had died from an overdose of pills that he’d stolen from a chemist, so Mum and I thought it best for me to leave for Rome earlier than expected.

It was a bright day when Mum woke me up with bacon and eggs.
I remember her looking at my emaciated body as I got out of bed to greet her. I think she must have cried because I gave her a hug and told her that nothing was the matter, that I’d be absolutely fine and make her proud of me one of these fine days.

We drove down to Newhaven and shared a plate of fish and chips together.
I could tell how worried she was because she kept on bursting into tears and breaking up her words.
Mum told me that she would always be there for me, that no matter what happened, I would always have a mother who cared and loved me.
I promised that I’d write to her and call after a while. Dad had given me some numbers of friends who lived in Milan and Naples and I had more than enough money to tide me by before finding a job.

‘Especially with no fruit-machines around,’ I said, half-joking.
Mum wept in my arms when I said that.

She could take no more pain. First, her father had ripped her heart out, then her husband had left her for her best friend and now, her son, the light of her life, had become a hopeless gambling drug-fiend, traipsing from dead-end job to dead-end job.
I took leave and waved goodbye from the ticket-office, scrawny bones in full view, as she stood by the car.