Ain't No Tears For a G

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Jimmy sat on the edge of his bed and lit a cigarette, taking in puff after puff, as he watched the smoke snake towards the chipped dirty ceiling in thin slow tendrils, swimming around the dull green emergency light.

He sighed deeply and pushed himself up, losing the cigarette from his mouth in the process, and giving a sharp yelp of pain as it landed on his bare chest.

‘F-’

The verbalisation of Jimmy’s annoyance was cut short by the thudding of his front door. It wasn’t a police thud – no, Jimmy was familiar with a police thud – nor was it the thud of his step-brother, for that thud was laced with the arrogance born of Jimmy’s step-father’s sole affection. It wasn’t even the paradoxically aggressive, yet formal, thud of a rotund bailiff with the might of the small claims court behind him. No, this thud wasn’t going to be easily identified.

Jimmy relit his cigarette and slowly meandered to the window, taking time to hum the chorus of ‘lose yourself’ as he made his way through small hillocks of clothes and shoes. Had he realised what lay in wait at the front door he might have taken that walk a little quicker and hummed that song a little faster – or perhaps he’d have walked slower still and sat down to finish his cigarette; Jimmy was not an easy young man to predict.

He threw open the window and poked out his head, his face breaking into a beaming smile as recognition hit him.

‘Hi guys!’

Two men stood below him on the doorstep. One of them was significantly taller than the other, with a shaved head and a granite jaw sharing a scar that ran the whole way from the top of his head to the nape of his neck. He was a huge man, rippling with coils of muscle, barely concealed by a black bomber jacket in which he always kept two pairs of brass knuckles. These had been used to great effect on the streets of Cape town when he was a young man, and 30 years later, in a sleepy English town, anyone and everyone who crossed him knew that their might had not waned. In fact, it was due to these brass knuckles being so effective that he had been furnished with his nickname: Duster.

The man to his right, though smaller in height, shared Duster’s Herculean physique, but that was where the similarities ended. He had his sandy brown hair pulled back in a tight pony tail, accentuating his sharp features and his bulging eyes, which darted from place to place like two enraged hornets chasing each other around his face.

He wore a denim jacket and a pair of denim jeans, with a cream afghan around his neck alluding to a delusion of grandeur. He went by the name of ‘Pollis’ though it had never been made clear to Jimmy whether this was his real name or not.

The inhabitants of the estate had a different nickname for him: ‘The vet’. This name had a much clearer origin; 10 years earlier Pollis had run a sort of menagerie from his house. From horses to pheasants to turtles, and many more animals in between. This in itself was no terrible thing, but Pollis’ intentions for these animals was less than pure. Love goes by many different names and definitions, and sometimes there is no definitive answer to what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in love, but Pollis’ situation was slightly more black and white. The type of love he had for his animals landed him with 2 years in jail and a menagerie of animals headed straight to therapy. ‘The vet’ was a zoophiliac. Or so the stories said. Jimmy didn’t know for sure. A hairy 200 pound man embroiled in passion with a grouse was not something he cared to imagine. Asking was probably off the table too; a man in a pub once asked The Vet if it was true. Nobody overheard what the Vet told him and it was nigh on impossible to find out from the man after the Vet stabbed him 64 times. Death is the greatest of secret keepers.

'Get down here now or I'll chew your f***ing face off', a deep South African voice snarled up at him. This was emphasised with the launching of a water bottle, which narrowly missed Jimmy's head, smashing into the crumbling red brick to the left of the window.

Jimmy's eyes narrowed as he tuned out his aggressors. He did not like to be threatened - not one little bit.

An idea hit him and the beaming smile returned to his face . He walked from the window to where a kettle was stood on a stool. He whistled as he flicked the switch and the kettle began to growl.

If it was a water fight they wanted, it would be a water fight they would get.

He began to play with the lighter as he waited for the green light on the kettle to herald a boiling point; he ran his fingers along the smooth plastic. Mottled blue, peeling at the side - but his. He had owned it since he was a boy, and had kept it through everything he had been through. He flicked it, hoping for flame.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.