Downtown

He sighed and puffed as his brow became richly furrowed. A knee beneath the table kept rhythm to an unheard pulsating beat while the gentle twisting of the head exaggerated his wholesale lack of comprehension. And then, fired as if from a .44 handgun, the atty base flew into the corner of the screen, releasing a crack into the silence and spawning spider leg cracks from the point of impact. Jock wasn’t a happy man before. He was livid now.

The palpitating blood vessels grew as he roared: “Tax? Bloody tax? These gits want to tax me?” It’s fair to say that he was not making himself the most popular client in the library and it wasn’t like he didn’t face stiff competition. Pissy John hadn’t earned his nickname from the staff because of his excellent personal hygiene, but even he would have been welcomed with a warm embrace that afternoon.

“Mr. Tavish, this is the last time we’re going to ask you to remain quite. You know the rules and I…” But Jock wasn’t listening; he was already pacing for the door clutching a bag full of mods and an intention to find someone to share his anger.

He was locked in to the march to Wetherspoons. He was bent on breeding his burning sense of injustice. Trapped in a tunnel vision that rendered him unable to notice the child now lying on the floor surrounded by what used to be the contents of a bag of Haribos; a child who had been selecting their favourite sweet shortly before receiving a blow to the side of the head from his canvas sack full of metal. The record-breaking collection of abusive terms flying from its mother’s mouth were nothing but part of the backdrop of a town’s noise poking through the cloud he trailed behind him.

Three ill-dressed men, that could loosely be described as acquaintances of Jock’s, were nursing pints of Happy Hour lager. “The bloody Europe want to tax us for us vaping!” Flecks of spittle leapt from his tongue as it lashed a tale of unfairness and victimisation before it curled itself around a collection of words that caused one of the bartenders to approach. One F-word, three uses of one beginning with C and an unpleasant form of ‘Go away‘ later and Jock was outside again through the medium of a large doorman’s armlock. Three ill-dressed men exchanged looks and returned to silently cupping their glasses.

“I dinnae get it,” he implored to Steff. Steff spent her days loading plates with stale cake and pouring stewed cups of tea in the café next to Wetherspoons. All she knew of Jock was that he struggled to get into the seats that were fixed far to closely to the tables and that he always argued if she asked him not to vape inside. “It’s not like us vapers are hurting anyone.”