“She’s done what?” he laughed at the voice on the other end of the line, I could only guess what the reply was but the pubs were busy and I was thirsty so I didn’t hang around. When I got to the Borough Arms Shelly was serving so I got a pint of Hells Bells and stood by the bar next to Big Dave.

“Alright Dave, how’s the training going?”

“He’s doing well, keeps cutting his time but he doesn’t half get through those rabbits.”

Big Dave was a greyhound trainer and was doing well at it, thing is he didn’t have a group of gypsy relatives he was just a bloke on his own with a kennel and some luck, unlike me he had more luck on the track than I’ve had eel pies.

Big Dave was a greyhound trainer and was doing well at it, thing is he didn’t have a group of gypsy relatives he was just a bloke on his own with a kennel and some luck, unlike me he had more luck on the track than I’ve had eel pies. Rocket Jim was running later, it must be Big Dave’s best chance of a win for the week so I reckoned that I could chance my arm and lump on in a big way but I had a bit of an available cash flow problem but a word in the right ear sorted that out so I gave Big Dave a grand as I didn’t like to bet on track as I was too familiar there and had had some angry nights there with so of my old football casual mates, so we just shot the shit with Shelly and joked about her tattoo of Michael Jackson, she had two, one when was he was a kid and one when he was white.

Walthamstow was a shit hole but the electric was on and the stands were busy, I saw some old faces there but never said hello was too nervous, the delivery of kebab meat the Istanbul Grill was expecting never arrived but they'd paid up front so there was no way that they could figure it was me and the driver I'd know since school were the ones that conned them, think Steve gave them some food containers instead and produced the paperwork for them to sign so it was all above board, well kind of, Steve was shagging he owner's bird and fuck me it showed. “Will all dogs please come to the parade,” said a disembodied voice over the tannoy so I made my way to the rails and waited for the race to start. It was all over quickly and Rocket Jim didn’t even finish, fucking died on the track, Big Dave must have fed it on kebab meat to save money the dozy twat I thought as I went back to the Borough to wind Shelly up about her tattoos again.


Ammanford Art
Photographer and Poet