Jimmy!

My New’s Years Resolution is to become a mean,  nasty, bastard.  According to some I have been soft, I have been described as kind but we know that kind is just another word for loser.

It’s got me absolutely nowhere, so can I become a Shark fisherman in Wales? 

I can’t believe it! I have just seen a guy standing outside the Tesco Extra in Grangetown that I last saw twenty odd (very odd) years ago when I was in the flat in Canton. His name was Jimmy. He had lost his arm in a motorcycle  accident. We drank from flagons of cider over Thomson Park. He was stood outside Tescos blurry eyed and mutterring. I didn’t approach him and he didn’t recognise me but I recognised him. I was happy that he was still alive and I was happy that I wasn’t drinking.  I walked on by on the other side of the road.  Good Samaritan, I am not! Not anymore! I had just been laid off from another Printing job! This time from the originally named 'The Printers' in the also aptly named Broadway of Roath, Cardiff. I was lying on the grass in Victoria Park smoking roll ups! " all right guy? "roll one for us would you"? He told me he had just been let out of prison and I pointed at his stump and said "What happened to your arm?" "I left it under a Cardiff Orange guy". The Color of Cardiff  Buses at the time. He had gone under a bus on his motorbike.  He was living in a Flat in Clive Road, Canton. He could tell I was a soft touch! I would pay for the alcohol and smokes and he would tell me about real life. What I'd seen so far, I didn't like it very much!   We knocked about a bit for a couple of weeks and then we lost touch! I saw him again once! Sitting in the corner of the old Custom House pub. It was the night of a big boxing match! We called in to play pool! Myself and another lost soul! The landlady threatened us with a pool cue and it was then that I caught Jimmy out of the corner of my eye. Looking like the Grim Reaper with a hoody over his head, before hoodies became fashionable. Twenty Years ago! Now here he is wobbling outside Tesco Extra. Cheers Jimmy! You were my welcome to Kairdiff.