It was the
unwelcome sound of squealing tyres that penetrated my alcohol-induced
slumber that dull grey day in January. Forcefully dragging me from the
safe warm unknown yet tantalizingly familiar place I dreamed of often
and always after a heart to heart with a good bottle of single malt
whisky. Either some poor sap was late for work or he’d fallen asleep
where he shouldn’t have. Either way; he was in a bloody hurry and was
the sole reason I was blindly fumbling for my cancer sticks via the
travel clock beside my bed. I could have happily throttled the selfish
bastard with my bare hands!
10:58. O.k. So it was a little later than I’d thought, but then it had been a very late night and everyone, me included, is entitled to a lay-in once in a while, it’s what makes Britain great! I closed my eyes against the cold grey glare of the day and shook out a cigarette onto my bedside cabinet, retrieved it, mouthed it and lit it all without re-opening my eyes or moving my head from the pillow. That could wait a bit longer. I took a long drag on the cigarette, inhaled deeply and immediately fell into a violent seemingly endless coughing fit that soon began to feel like it was gonna turn out to be the cough that would carry me off, the son of a bastard just didn’t seem to want to call it quits so I heaved myself off my pillow throwing my legs out of my bed kicking over an empty discarded bottle of Chivas Regal on the floor. I sat hunched forward willing the cough to stop, trying to hold my breath, eyes streaming, chest raw, but after a short while the spasm finally began to abate. I would live it seemed! No nice little trip with the grim reaper that day. Things were looking up!
So that was my regular morning routine done with, another day another dollar I thought miserably. I was just about ready for the second drag on my cancer stick, I believed my lungs might have stopped bleeding and my heart had slowed to somewhere near to it's usual rate, so I went for it and this time it felt ok. My head thumped but at least my lungs had decided to stay inside my body for a while longer. I sat awhile smoking and gathering my thoughts, replaying in my mind the regrettable events of the day before which had led to my good self getting a sound kicking from assailants unknown in the dark of night outside a seedy dive that I’d been led to, which was either directly related to the current case I’d been working on which had been leading in ever decreasing circles, or just been a really bad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which of late seemed to have become a bit of a bad habit of mine – among others. My ribs ached like hell and my face felt two sizes too small. I tentatively explored it like a blind man who’d forgotten what he looked like and had concerns he may look like Wayne Rooney. I tentatively prodded my swollen left cheek a little too vigorously unwittingly unleashing an explosion of pain both intense and shocking, ‘Aaaargh… Fuck’s sake!’ I spat angrily, it had hurt like a bloody bastard and my eyes watered even more, I sure wouldn’t be doing that again any time soon! At least my right hand was tender and the knuckles grazed indicating I’d managed to get at least one good one in before succumbing to the flurry of punches and kicks that had rained on yours truly like an avalanche! Small comfort I suppose, but then small comfort is better than none. I flexed my hand and made a fist. Yeah it was tender all right. A half smile danced briefly across my face then the nausea smacked into me like a train, sending me crashing in a headlong rush through the bathroom door.
So then, a pretty typical morning described in the life of myself, your good friend and narrator; Jimmy Two-Tags, 1950’s / 60’s style private investigator at your service. Ruggedly handsome, quick witted and supremely modest, borderline alcoholic! Annoyingly pessimistic man-about-town hopelessly devoted to a career spent wading through the milk of human kindness on the heart warming streets of south London and the capital as a whole. “Have legs, will travel” that's my motto. Jolly nice to meet you I’m sure! Well I think I am! But now you mention it… Anyway, incase you’re wondering, the suffix ‘Two-Tags’ had been born of a pair of now legendary Levi jeans I’d once owned - back in the dim and distant fog of my youth – which had somehow made it out of the factory with two red tags sown into the edge of the back pocket instead of one, a small thing you might think in the world such as it is, but a big thing to a young skinhead trying hard to impress his piers and more than happy to be the envy of his mates. Those jeans had been the making of me, literally! From the moment the extra tag had been spotted I’d thenceforth been known as Jimmy Two-Tags and the moniker had stuck and with a name as memorable as that, people remembered it, so by default I became “known” and that had been a good thing, a very good thing. By the way, mine’s a single malt! So where was I? Oh yeah, I remember, wiping bile from my chin whilst pondering the blind alley my current case had led me down! I stared at the reflection of my ghostly pale face in the bathroom cabinet while I held onto the sink for balance. I was in a bad way, pretty fucked up. Battered and bruised, hung over to hell and more than a little depressed. I needed a drink,that much was clear, but that would have to wait, I needed to take a shit oh so more!
I sat slumped dejectedly on the toilet to do what we all gotta do – yeah even the queen God bless her - while nuclear waste fell from my guts splashing noisily into the water begging the question; how could something so rancid and evil fail to be the side product of some terrible terminal illness? I felt utterly doomed!
Afterwards, staggering zombie-like from the bathroom I headed into the kitchen area of the small but more than adequate SE27 bedsit that served as my crash drum. I spent most of my life at the small office I rented in Tulse Hill or out pounding the streets day and night, so I hardly needed a palace did I? The object on the floor by the door caught my eye immediately, it had no right to be there so I spotted it immediately. Even in the half-dead state I was in that morning my observation skills were pretty damned sharp, but then being in the game of investigation, private or not, you tend to hone certain skills to the point of…. Who am I trying to kid? A vinyl 45 record had been shoved under my door no more than ten feet away from where I stood, the label was blue and any idiot would have spotted it half a mile away instantly! It just so happened that the idiot had been me! Who else? It was my drum after all! Anyway, I digress! Back in the day when young Jimmy Two-Tags still proudly wore his magical jeans-of-dreams and skinheads gathered in great numbers in various run-down flea-pit nightclubs across this once great nation, punching each other's lights out, dancing, pulling birds or simply getting pissed whilst watching everyone else do all the aforementioned things, there were many things likely to send my hand diving into my sky-rocket in search of the old heard-earned, wonderful things such as clothes, gig tickets, more clothes, football tickets, train tickets to the coast, beer, more clothes, tattooes and of course records. Blue beat or Trojan mainly, though there were many labels for a discerning skin to go in search of. The record on the floor between my feet was such a record; Rocksteady Skins by The Undetectables the Blue Beat label proudly proclaimed! I reached down for the record and the somehow reassuring weight of the thing sent me briefly back in time for a moment or two. Nostalgia is a powerful thing to a soppy fucker like me! ‘1968’ the label was dated. Smack bang in the middle of the Rocksteady age, to me, the golden age of Jamaican music. Funny then how I’d not heard of either the group or the song. I took another look at the record in my hand. ‘2010’ the date read. Was I still pissed or what? A trick of the light? A trick of the mind? Not owning a record player, Playing this little sucker would have to wait, but more importantly, what the hell was it doing shoved under my door?
…To be continued.
10:58. O.k. So it was a little later than I’d thought, but then it had been a very late night and everyone, me included, is entitled to a lay-in once in a while, it’s what makes Britain great! I closed my eyes against the cold grey glare of the day and shook out a cigarette onto my bedside cabinet, retrieved it, mouthed it and lit it all without re-opening my eyes or moving my head from the pillow. That could wait a bit longer. I took a long drag on the cigarette, inhaled deeply and immediately fell into a violent seemingly endless coughing fit that soon began to feel like it was gonna turn out to be the cough that would carry me off, the son of a bastard just didn’t seem to want to call it quits so I heaved myself off my pillow throwing my legs out of my bed kicking over an empty discarded bottle of Chivas Regal on the floor. I sat hunched forward willing the cough to stop, trying to hold my breath, eyes streaming, chest raw, but after a short while the spasm finally began to abate. I would live it seemed! No nice little trip with the grim reaper that day. Things were looking up!
So that was my regular morning routine done with, another day another dollar I thought miserably. I was just about ready for the second drag on my cancer stick, I believed my lungs might have stopped bleeding and my heart had slowed to somewhere near to it's usual rate, so I went for it and this time it felt ok. My head thumped but at least my lungs had decided to stay inside my body for a while longer. I sat awhile smoking and gathering my thoughts, replaying in my mind the regrettable events of the day before which had led to my good self getting a sound kicking from assailants unknown in the dark of night outside a seedy dive that I’d been led to, which was either directly related to the current case I’d been working on which had been leading in ever decreasing circles, or just been a really bad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which of late seemed to have become a bit of a bad habit of mine – among others. My ribs ached like hell and my face felt two sizes too small. I tentatively explored it like a blind man who’d forgotten what he looked like and had concerns he may look like Wayne Rooney. I tentatively prodded my swollen left cheek a little too vigorously unwittingly unleashing an explosion of pain both intense and shocking, ‘Aaaargh… Fuck’s sake!’ I spat angrily, it had hurt like a bloody bastard and my eyes watered even more, I sure wouldn’t be doing that again any time soon! At least my right hand was tender and the knuckles grazed indicating I’d managed to get at least one good one in before succumbing to the flurry of punches and kicks that had rained on yours truly like an avalanche! Small comfort I suppose, but then small comfort is better than none. I flexed my hand and made a fist. Yeah it was tender all right. A half smile danced briefly across my face then the nausea smacked into me like a train, sending me crashing in a headlong rush through the bathroom door.
So then, a pretty typical morning described in the life of myself, your good friend and narrator; Jimmy Two-Tags, 1950’s / 60’s style private investigator at your service. Ruggedly handsome, quick witted and supremely modest, borderline alcoholic! Annoyingly pessimistic man-about-town hopelessly devoted to a career spent wading through the milk of human kindness on the heart warming streets of south London and the capital as a whole. “Have legs, will travel” that's my motto. Jolly nice to meet you I’m sure! Well I think I am! But now you mention it… Anyway, incase you’re wondering, the suffix ‘Two-Tags’ had been born of a pair of now legendary Levi jeans I’d once owned - back in the dim and distant fog of my youth – which had somehow made it out of the factory with two red tags sown into the edge of the back pocket instead of one, a small thing you might think in the world such as it is, but a big thing to a young skinhead trying hard to impress his piers and more than happy to be the envy of his mates. Those jeans had been the making of me, literally! From the moment the extra tag had been spotted I’d thenceforth been known as Jimmy Two-Tags and the moniker had stuck and with a name as memorable as that, people remembered it, so by default I became “known” and that had been a good thing, a very good thing. By the way, mine’s a single malt! So where was I? Oh yeah, I remember, wiping bile from my chin whilst pondering the blind alley my current case had led me down! I stared at the reflection of my ghostly pale face in the bathroom cabinet while I held onto the sink for balance. I was in a bad way, pretty fucked up. Battered and bruised, hung over to hell and more than a little depressed. I needed a drink,that much was clear, but that would have to wait, I needed to take a shit oh so more!
I sat slumped dejectedly on the toilet to do what we all gotta do – yeah even the queen God bless her - while nuclear waste fell from my guts splashing noisily into the water begging the question; how could something so rancid and evil fail to be the side product of some terrible terminal illness? I felt utterly doomed!
Afterwards, staggering zombie-like from the bathroom I headed into the kitchen area of the small but more than adequate SE27 bedsit that served as my crash drum. I spent most of my life at the small office I rented in Tulse Hill or out pounding the streets day and night, so I hardly needed a palace did I? The object on the floor by the door caught my eye immediately, it had no right to be there so I spotted it immediately. Even in the half-dead state I was in that morning my observation skills were pretty damned sharp, but then being in the game of investigation, private or not, you tend to hone certain skills to the point of…. Who am I trying to kid? A vinyl 45 record had been shoved under my door no more than ten feet away from where I stood, the label was blue and any idiot would have spotted it half a mile away instantly! It just so happened that the idiot had been me! Who else? It was my drum after all! Anyway, I digress! Back in the day when young Jimmy Two-Tags still proudly wore his magical jeans-of-dreams and skinheads gathered in great numbers in various run-down flea-pit nightclubs across this once great nation, punching each other's lights out, dancing, pulling birds or simply getting pissed whilst watching everyone else do all the aforementioned things, there were many things likely to send my hand diving into my sky-rocket in search of the old heard-earned, wonderful things such as clothes, gig tickets, more clothes, football tickets, train tickets to the coast, beer, more clothes, tattooes and of course records. Blue beat or Trojan mainly, though there were many labels for a discerning skin to go in search of. The record on the floor between my feet was such a record; Rocksteady Skins by The Undetectables the Blue Beat label proudly proclaimed! I reached down for the record and the somehow reassuring weight of the thing sent me briefly back in time for a moment or two. Nostalgia is a powerful thing to a soppy fucker like me! ‘1968’ the label was dated. Smack bang in the middle of the Rocksteady age, to me, the golden age of Jamaican music. Funny then how I’d not heard of either the group or the song. I took another look at the record in my hand. ‘2010’ the date read. Was I still pissed or what? A trick of the light? A trick of the mind? Not owning a record player, Playing this little sucker would have to wait, but more importantly, what the hell was it doing shoved under my door?
…To be continued.
