My granda

We were squatting in a horrible housing estate that was scheduled for demolition. But, hey, it was free rent. These junkies used to hang around in the stairwells where we lived, and we always used to find Kit Kats on the stairs. Not the wrapper. Just the chocolate bar. And I used to think, “That’s weird. Why would anybody throw away a Kit Kat like that?”
I really liked Kit Kats.
Then my flat-mate, Branwyn, told me that the junkies bought the Kit Kats from the shop so they could use the foil wrapper to “chase the dragon.”
They unwrapped it and threw the Kit Kat away, and just used the tin foil to smoke their heroin.
“But why don’t they just eat the Kit Kat? Kit Kats are really nice.”
“They aren’t interested in Kit Kats. All they want to do is get high. They’re junkies.”
So one day my next door neighbour happened across this pack of junkies in the stairwell. One of them was having a pee against the wall, so he rather unwisely kicked him up the arse and told him that this was where we lived, and why didn’t he go and pee outside his own house?
This guy was doing a degree in Botany. The junkies were doing a degree in kicking the hell out of anyone who messed with them.
They chased him into the square at Bark Walk.
He was down on the ground and they were kicking him in the head in what seemed like a fairly merciless way.
Myself and my friend Murdoch were sitting in my flat, waiting for our vegetarian spaghetti Bolognese to cook and we heard the commotion. We looked out of the window.
“Bloody hell. That’s that guy from next door. And those junkies are kicking the hell out of him.”
Murd said, “Let’s go.”
So off he went, and I just followed. When we got down there, Abdul was standing at the door of his shop saying, “I’ve called the bloody police. You had better stop this bloody nonsense right now!”
But the junkies weren’t ready to stop. Probably because they knew how effective Greater Manchester Police were.
Abdul, who owned the shop in the square, had immediately phoned the police when he saw the incident (literally) kicking off. Guess when they arrived?
Almost exactly 24 hours later.
They came to our door and said, “So, where are these junkies?”
“Well, they’re gone now.”
And that was it. They didn’t ask for descriptions or any details of the attack. They just went away.
Meanwhile, back in the square, Murd steamed in like Judge Dredd or something and took out the main head-kicking junkie, and threw him to the ground.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to do, but there were two more junkies who seemed to be confused that they were being attacked by Irish vegetarians.
I remembered a thing that my granda had told me when I was about ten. Keep your guard up and use your weaker hand to find your range. Then when you get the opportunity, hit him with your good hand. In my case this was my left hand. So I took on the nearest one and jabbed at him a couple of times with a right. Then he came at me and I took an aim and hit him with the deftest left hook. It hit him on the side of the forehead. I thought he would just come right back at me, but I swear, he went down like a sack of spuds and he didn’t look like he was getting back up in a hurry. So, well done granda. Good advice.
The other one looked at me as if to say, “Don’t do that to me, please.”
I whacked him as hard as I could in the face, and I think I broke his nose. He yelped and fell down.
I turned around to see how Murd was doing. Murd seemed to have overcome his opponent.
He hadn’t floored him as impressively as the way I had with the other two, but I had to pull him off the guy because it was looking seriously like he was going to strangle him to death.
“Murd. Leave it. It’s over now.”
He let him go, and they took off, partly dragging the one that I had seriously panelled with the left hook.
“We might get a bit of trouble off them.” I said.
“Yeah.” said Murd.
But we never did. They never came back.