Welcome Home

May have mentioned this at some point, but used to get the crap kicked out of me on a regular basis as a kid. Partly, this was because I was 'the fat kid', partly it was because I was, perversely, 'a posh kid' (had more of a 'received pronunciation' than was normal in the Valleys, and partly, it was because I was a smartarse who didn't know when to keep his gob shut.

Then I went away to college, and came back fatter, and posher, and eeeeeven more of a smartarse, and having walked the late night streets in Southampton, and Glasgow, and the East End of London, I decided to go out for new year with friends in Merthyr.

We laughed, we drank, we got separated, I ran out of money, and ended up walking up the length of the town to get home to my folks' place. I got about three quarters of the way home, when a bloke came walking quickly up behind me, turned me round and picked a fight. I did that fatal thing that you should never do when someone picks a fight with you. I laughed. He kicked the crap out of me. I decided to stop laughing, and decided to give falling down a try instead. That, he decided, was altogether more appropriate. I passed out in the early January frost. That, I'm assuming, pleased him even more because eventually he must have gone away.

I woke up when a couple asked me if I was alright. It was a complicated question. Something in my left ankle was altogether less than alright. It bent in a whole new range of exciting and dramatic directions which it hadn't previously considered. Of course, when it did that, there was a shooting, sparkly pain that rocketed throughout my system, but hey, you can't have everything.

The bloke of the couple told me to get up. I mentioned that something was wrong with my ankle, so if it was all the same to him, I'd just lay here and die of frostbite. No, he said, I'd better get up or he'd kick my fucking head in. I sighed, tried to get up, put a little weight on the ankle, fell over again, and something altogether new went crack. Then, apparently disappointed, he made good on his promise and kicked my fucking head in.

Next time I woke up, a local policeman told me to get up. I rolled my eyes. Told him the story of the evening so far, and - rather than telling me to get up or he'd kick my fucking head in - he got me to the local hospital, where a whole other set of adventures awaited me.

I mention all this tonight for a simple reason. So far, our return home to Merthyr has been pretty fairytale. Tonight, dammit, we fulfilled last night's urge and went for a Chinese buffet meal at the local restaurant. When we came out, there were a bunch of pissed-up lads rolling through the streets, one of them announcing to all the world he was gonna 'have a piss right here..."

They yelled at us, as drunken fuckwits do. We ignored them, as non-drunken citizens do. And then we walked away. We were a few yards away, at the lip of an alleyway, when I felt him coming, fast, behind us. A hand slapped down on my head beneath my cowboy hat (did I mention - I wear a cowboy hat now...cowboy hats are cool...Have owned it for several years, but it didn't quite work until I lost some of the weight. Now...I still don't know if it works for other people, but it works for me and feels like me, so there it is). The hand grabbed at my hat, and d and I both spun around, yelling.
"Sssssanicehat, that!" yelled the drunk, as I grabbed the hat and took it off him.
Then he buggered off back to his pisshead mates, and we went on our way, not going actually down the alleyway until we were sure they weren't following.
"Welcome home, honey," muttered d as we got back to the flat.
"Some things don't change, I guess..." I explained.
"Oh I dunno," said d. "You're still walking, aren't you?"
She has a point of course. Merthyr still has drunken fuckwits who think it's OK to approach total strangers. But apparently, if you're in the company of a yelling American, you're safer than you would be without one.

Then again, in my case, if you're not in the company of an American, you're not home in any case...

Big Disappearing day tomorrow - tomorrow we put in the forms to join a new doctors' surgery, and the leisure centre, with its gym and pool, the visualising of which made Disappearing from home seem a real possibility.