Saturday 24 January 2015

Fred and Me

Relationships are tricky.

It's something I've never really understood, how people can fall in and out of love every day of the week and still want more of it all.

As far as I can see, all that happens with relationships is that people get hurt from misunderstandings, miscommunications and an unwillingness to simply let the other party be. Every time I have started seeing someone, from Doctor Mark Lees to other less notable men, the moment that you have been seeing them for more than a few weeks, they start trying to change things about you.

From the smallest things like trying to make you eat something different for breakfast to much bigger things, like changing your hair, dress sense and even the time you spend with your friends.

Okay in fairness to the last point, the people that I would consider my friends are not the kind of people that most respectable men would want to associate with and then of course there is Fred, it being painfully obvious how Fred feels about me does have a habit of making any lover feel somewhat threatened and insecure.

But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't spend any time with him.

There are many, much better reasons that I shouldn't spend time with Fred and yet I still do, so why on earth would a man that is unlikely to stick around for more than 3 months have any say in who I do and do not see?

Harry is constantly telling me that relationships are all about compromise, which is why he doesn't stay in them more than one night, but what these men keep asking for isn't compromise - it's a complete change to what they want.

Surprisingly when these relationships end, the reason that is always given is Fred. Fred, who always has a girlfriend whenever I am dating someone, Fred the lurking threat.

It doesn't seem to occur to any of these men that if I wanted to be with Fred, then I would be. It's not like we haven't had plenty of opportunities to be together and it's not like Fred hasn't pushed and tried at every one of those opportunities to get us together.

The thing is with Fred, whenever I look at Fred I see everything I have lost, I see that one horrific night when I first met Kevin Metis and I see a future trapped. Trapped in a house in the suburbs, trapped in triviality because Fred needs me to be safe. Safe. Safe from these streets I have walked and survived on all my life, safe from the underworld as much as I can be.

But the problem with that is, it doesn't matter where I am, I won't be safe. Being safe is just an illusion. Bad things happen to people every day in this broken world. I wouldn't be shot at every day and twice on Sunday, I will give him that, but that doesn't mean that I would be safer - especially with the way people in suburbia drive.

Fred is the very best man I know, probably ever will know. He's attractive, some would even go as far as to say handsome, and no matter what, he is always there - always. And I suppose if I really understood what it was that made people fall in love, what it was to actually be in love and want to be in love; in a perfect world then I guess I would choose Fred.

But the world isn't perfect and I know there are far too many women out there who could make him far happier than I ever could. Of course me knowing that is one thing, trying to convince Fred of that is quite another.

Sunday 18 January 2015

Salsa Lessons

Dancing is something I like, I don't do it very often, but I like it.

I like it because dancing gives you a chance to let go of all your emotions and focus on nothing except the music and moving to it. That and if you really don't like your partner you can stand on their toes in high heels repeatedly and pretend it was an accident.

I much prefer ballroom dancing to anything else though, street dance, ballet, tap, jazz and modern are all very well and good but they just don't have the same feel to them. Then there is salsa. Salsa just isn't for me, the attitude and people that you end up dancing with at salsa lessons are not the kind of people that I go dancing to mix with - yes you've guessed it, Harry does salsa.

Ah, you thought it was going to be Fred, but no, Harry loves to salsa. It's a great way to meet women apparently...I've never thought that Harry needed help meeting women, but then again, I guess that if you go to the same bars, pubs and clubs all the time there are only a small amount of women to go through before you run out - at least if you go through women the way that Harry does.

The only time I've done salsa it only took around thirty seconds before I slapped Harry and threatened to shoot him...I may have gotten thrown out for that.

Going back to ballroom dancing was the only sensible thing to do after that it rekindle my love of the sport after salsa left a bad taste in mouth and a red mark on Harry's cheek. It was then that I discovered that Fred had decided to start coming to my ballroom dancing class. Turns out he is much more of a gentleman when it comes to dancing than Harry is and that he's actually good at it.

By the end of the evening, I left Fred alone for less than a minute and found that he was surrounded by women clamouring to give him their phone number. I only hope Harry doesn't find out about this - I don't want him coming here once he's gone through all the women at his salsa class.

Friday 2 January 2015

Murder in the First - Day 4

Finding the crime scene wasn't very hard. There are very few alleys in the city that are surrounded by police cars, police tape and people lined up to see what gruesome crime had been committed on their doorsteps - you just have to be willing to drive around long enough to find it. 

Unfortunately I ended up at four different crime scenes before I found the right one, the problems of living in a city with a high crime rate and only two or three competent police men – those being Fred, Harry and a handful of men who still worked in uniform.

So by the time I found the right crime scene, Ellis and Turndune were waiting for me. This wasn’t wholly unexpected after I ended up at the second and third wrong crime scenes, cops talk to each other, and seeing me touring crime scenes when Ryan Barlow was the number 1 suspect in a murder case – doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what I was looking for, or for that matter, what I was doing.

When I stepped out of the car, the first thing that happened was that my door was slammed shut by Turndune and Ellis pushed me up against the car. If it had been anyone else, or almost anyone else; then I would have broken their jaw without a second thought for pushing me up against my car. However with Ellis and Turndune they were both just looking for an excuse to arrest me, and assaulting a police officer was the perfect reason to lock me up so that I was out of the way whilst they steamrolled over Ryan.

So after being threatened, taunted, subjected to Ellis’ terrible halitosis and several references being made about what both of them wanted to do to my deceased mother – they forced me back into my car and had me escorted home by a very loud, and I must say unnecessary, group of police cars.

Of course what neither of them had realised is that the whole time they were taunting me, I wasn’t paying any attention to them, but was instead looking at the crime scene.

What I saw was something that looked remarkably staged and all too familiar, something that jogged some rather unpleasant memories.

In my short number of years on the earth, I have seen some of the worst that humanity has to offer. I won’t say I have seen the worst, as I am pretty sure there is someone out there who is disturbed enough to plunge to new depths of horror without even trying; but never-the-less, there are times when what I have seen before comes back to haunt me in very real ways.

What I began to realise when I actual saw the scene was that firstly Fred and Harry hadn’t seen it and secondly, this crime wasn’t just about Fred and Ryan. It was about me and Harry too. More importantly, it was mostly about Harry.

Harry has always been a ladies’ man, the string of women that he was wined and dined over the years is probably worthy of a Guiness World Record, but not every woman that crossed Harry’s path ended up sleeping with him. Something I am very proud never having stooped to myself.

One of these women that was oblivious to his charms was a girl in her early twenties that had tried to rob Harry’s apartment and had been caught in the act by the owner returning home early as someone may have thrown tomato sauce all over him when he complained about how long it was taking them to make dinner. I still maintain that I slipped.

The girl had been called Amy Barstow and after arresting her, interviewing her and letting her go, Harry had decided to help the unfortunate girl get back on her feet – or to find her feet in the first place. She had run away from home at a tender age and found herself at the mercy of some of the city’s more notorious villains, setting her up for a life of crime that was a vicious circle that would end in incarceration or death.

Having seen this happen many times before, Harry was a man on a mission to save this girl in a way that I have only seen Fred practise before.

Two weeks after Harry had helped her get out of the criminal life she had been found raped and murdered in an alley. The crime scene and positioning of the body had been identical to that of Sonja Lesner. Amy had been murdered as a message to Harry and he hadn’t tried to save anyone else since.

I still couldn’t place where I knew the name Lesner from but I was sure it would come back to me. What was keeping my mind occupied at the moment was who this message was for and how Harry would react when he found out.


I thought it would be best if I told him before Ellis or Turndune brought it up and caused Harry to start a riot in the station. Though it had occurred to me that was exactly what the perp had in mind when he set up the scene.