That Night

The Prompt

Write a chapter from the middle of your memoir.

Read more about it here

The music for you to listen to is "Police Car" by Larry Wallis

That Night

Last night one of the lads said he had a spare room, and everyone had been telling me I needed to get out for months but of course that was never going to happen.

Well, now it had.

It was eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, and I was wandering the streets of a very well-to-do area with a black bin liner with all my worldly possessions that I could carry, realising I had a three-mile walk in sub-zero temperatures to get to my friend's house and hopefully a warm bed.

Then something else happened.

A police car pulled up beside me and the driver wound down his window.

I said "I know what this looks like" and they asked me to get in the car.

I got in and told them the full story of why I was there, I said they could look through my bag and showed them my wallet and driving license so they could see who I was and where I had come from.

They were very sympathetic and offered to drive me to my friend's house, which I accepted.

They dropped me off and my friends and I wandered through the gate and knocked at the front door. No answer. I knocked again, no answer.

This was before I had a mobile phone, but I didn't have his number anyway.

It was freezing, so I needed to find shelter, so went to the local park and found a concrete rain shelter but it just had a concrete bench in it. I sat down and got even colder, I realised that if I didn't keep moving I might end up with hypothermia, or even freeze to death, not something that you would expect in a civilised city.

I kept moving and then remembered I had the keys to my office but that was about five miles away, but I could get there if I could find transport. I had survived so far, but had little money and didn't know of any cashpoints near.

I walked up to a main road and knew that buses ran along here to somewhere near my office. I found a bus stop and it was enclosed so gave me a bit more shelter but I was still freezing, though this might have just been me being soft.

Checking the timetable I saw that the first bus was due in another forty minutes, I had a pass so that meant I didn't need money, and I just kept active but cold for those seemingly everlasting minutes.

The bus came, I got on, showed my pass, and the heating was on. I was saved. I thought I could just stay on the bus, but I would probably be in the middle of nowhere when it finally came to the end of its journey.

I got off the bus, back into the cold, and got to my office, unsetting the alarm, then going to settle down making a bed in the common room.

After a few hours of sleep I made my way back to my friends and this time he answered the door. Over a coffee, I told him what had happened and he said he had been out on the lash last night because Newcastle had won for a change (this was twenty-five years ago and was not the Newcastle United of today) and at that point, a new stage of my life started.

Addendum

That night caused me to get the 'flu' and that, in turn, caused my second bout of ITP. This time though, I could tell the doctors what was needed, though they chose steroids instead of a blood transfusion, and I believe that really kicked off my diabetes, but that was exacerbated by other things and I am still here and in good fettle.

Here is my piece about my ITP:

And if you want to know about Newcastle United check out this Amazon Documentary