Stuart Millard
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Bonus Post: 2019 Beach Diaries #3
🕑 Added 2019-06-22 18:38:47 +0000 UTC
A group of giggling kids loudly ask Siri if Yoda's circumcised.
I'm out walking a dog, and on our return journey, an alleyway we often use is roped off with yellow tape, guarded by a pair of policemen. As is my wont as a busybody, I take a look down it as I pass. The ground wears the heavy stain of dark blood, spread over a large area, like someone dropped a milkshake from a first floor window. That explains why the police helicopter was taking low passes over the river fifteen minutes earlier. As we get to the high street, one of the town... characters, sprints past me, over to the bench they all congregate, and relays to his slumped pals with a gossipy urgency; though I don't catch the name; that someone's “been stabbed!”
As I find out when I get home, the road had only just reopened, from a barricade of six police cars and an air ambulance. By now, it's made it to the Facebook 'Spotted' page, where every unexplained incident is a shooting, though there's never been a gun in this town beside the plastic Uzi attached to the old Terminator game in the arcade. People love to think they live in The Wire. This one's a shooting too, apparently, though Twitter scuttlebutt has it pegged as “some bloke tried to cut off his own dick.” When the sun's out, who can blame him? But they're half-right, according to a breaking story in the local paper.
And people say the rolling news cycle's a bunch of useless waffle.
Still, I guess it's not every day you see an alley full of groin-blood. The following morning, we walk past there again, and the ground's still stained a deep, Giallo red. I thought they'd at least hose it down. I guess it'll stay until it rains. If we get another heatwave summer, it'll become as much a part of the local geography as the clock tower or the boarded-up Waitrose, and decades from now, kids will be swapping tall tales about how Dick-Blood Alley got its name.
On a night-walk with the dog, we see a van bearing the business name Alan's Plumbing. Sounds like part of a conversation between two old ladies. “Alan's plumbing is dreadful these days. Half a dozen times, he was up last night. I didn't get a wink!”
A young dad replies to his baby's gibberish noises with aggressive “Yeah, mate. That's right, mate. Uh?!” like he's in a noisy pub discussing the previous weekend's tear-up against a rival firm.
There's a Big Issue seller on the high street, calling to passers-by, all “hello, lovely,” and asking how they are with a genuine warmth. She's got a Spanish accent, and an admirable, ever-constant cheeriness in the face of being blanked at every turn. I suppose I could receive one of her greetings, for a rare bit of the old human contact, but I don't carry money and it feels awkward, so I switch sides of the pavement to purposely be out of her range.
I pass her again on the way back home, where she's stood in the same spot she occupies day after day, calling out to a man of about 60. They obviously share a familiarity, as she tells him he looks summery today, and asks after his new grandson. He replies to each of her friendly comments as he strides by, albeit somewhat workman-like, as though he's got somewhere to be. But once he's no more than a foot away from her, in a voice much louder; theatrically so; so that everyone can hear – “There's no British beggars anymore. Where's all the British beggars? All the beggars are bloody foreigners!”
I don't have it in me to glance back at the girl and see if she's still smiling.
