Thinking Back to How He Got Here

The man’s propped up on the sofa
Struggling with the stories in his drink.
“He just fucking stuck him with the glass.”

There was no full time at the bar up there
And you never sang the same songs.
“It flowed out of him like lads after the match.”

His wife stands over him, with dinner on the table
In another country, his feet watch telly by themselves.
“His face was never the same. I’ll never forget it.”

He won the bingo on the way up, asleep
by the time they got to Buchanan station
“It took fourteen hours on the coach to Glasgow.”

But they got there in time for the anthems.

Tic Tacs at the Track

They stood out beaconed on their boxes.
I could only see them from the shoulder up.
White gloves weaving those magic numbers
Out their ear, top of their head or on the nose.

Punters would follow their line as if to see
an Up-the-arm, an Ear’ole, or a Major Stevens
flying overhead. The bookies’ Morse code
is what my dad called it, though I didn’t know

what that was back then. The odd time
a Double Carpet flew past the line
by a short head the bookies cracked a smile,
plus the punter whose pin had pricked

the right spot for once. The serious men,
long coated and cigarred, were the quietest,
watching the tic tacs’ hands till still. Then
up they’d stride with bags of sand in hand

and take on a short one; if it weren’t odds on,
it’d be straight up, a shoulder maybe, a bottle max.
And I’d watch them walk back to their corner,
pick out their bins and scan the track like Churchill.

My old man had less money but was no
less serious. The tic tac’s actions could make all
the difference and he would often lose me amongst
the legs when he spotted an attractive odd.

With some nous and a sky diver or cock and hen,
the lowest he took was top-of-the-head,
carpet, or Burlington Bertie, up to a cockle,
max. Odd occasion when a top jockey

was on a macaroni he’d drop a couple on.
Each way he weren’t going to win enough
for a long coat. But he always tried to leave
with a cigar blowing smoke at a lost stub.

He rarely came home brassic. The one time
he dropped a wad on the carpet with a thud,
he tapped his nose and gave me a wink.
A tic tac even I understood back then.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter – [email protected]
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