So, to these last six months…

I met the aforementioned ‘Danny’ on the back end of a barroom brawl. I’d been with a few friends at the University Leavers event back up in Manchester and, aside from getting plastered; I turned into a bit of a lech for a girl in hold-ups and a hipster skirt. The rest of her in unimportant, I hardly paid that attention anyway.

Turns out that the reason she was alone at the table wasn’t because I hadn’t done her the pleasure of introducing myself it was actually because her lanky piss-stain of a man-boy had gone to the bar to purchase another round. Well how was I to know? I mean those bar staff are far too efficient! I was looking for two glasses, so at least I tried to take precautions!

Anyway, she was quite a sadistic siren. It was Greek tragedy from the start and for me there was no mast in sight to strap myself to. After she lured me in with a smile, she kept me engaged; basically she chatted shit about being newly graduated and I stared at her legs.

The man-boy wasn’t impressed upon his return, not only had he just shelled-out a packet on a pint (for her) and a Smirnoff Ice (for him), he had come back to find a slick geezer like me smoothing in on his broad.

After shouting the odds at each other, and a shove or two later, we were all asked to leave by a bull-dike of a barmaid. Once outside it was clear neither of us was in the mood for a scuffle, so we both backed off and walked in opposite directions down the road. Funny sight it was too, looking back at them, him storming off out front and her trotting along behind him squealing her apologies. And they say Manchester is a rough place!

So brawl it wasn’t, not butch at all, but I’m hardly going to admit, right off the bat, that it was a slagging-match and bitch-slap at best!

Late as it was, I fancied calling it a night and made heel homeward. I hadn’t got over three or four roads before I’d forgotten my lesson from the bar and another siren entered my headlights.  This one was alone, without doubt, so being the plucky little fellow that I am, I made my way over to ask if she’d had a good night – an hour later, when she climbed off me, I guessed she had.

She was the face that launched a thousand fists.

These last few months have see me move mountains (of her stuff) halfway down the country, spend a night in a holding cell (for being ‘drunk and disorderly’) and beaten so many times that I can’t believe I’m still not black and blue. Most of the other cliché I’ve avoided. No transmitted infections, impregnations or abortions; thankfully.

I made a mess of myself mentally and physically, until I got up the energy and money to make a run for it. I didn’t have to run far because without my income she had to run further.

So now I’m held up in Bath in a job as an admin monkey, answering phones. I live in a nice-enough place, but all my savings were eaten up on ‘our’ move down here; hence my procurement of funds from Danny. Yes, by less than reputable means! But it made sure I had enough for a deposit.

I’m comfortable but miserable. Day by day waiting the reloading of my finances and a change of luck. As my dad always said though, and I hope is true, ‘Don’t worry son, you’re a Mitchell.’

~ by Nicholas P. Mitchell on February 4, 2008.