Up behind Ladbrookes where Taggy were lain upon the rock things had certainly changed. First off he had made a friend in some dumb little glue-sniffer called Lampton. Lampton was a well known half-wit with Bostick often running off his nose but he said he did not mind running a few errands for Taggy as he lay there on the rock. First it was the booze run, then the fag run , then the dirty mag run and then day after day Taggy got the lad to bring him a paper so he could study the racing form and other sundry words of golden wisdom in that rag. All this back and forth of Lampton costed Taggy a few bob but he had so few outgoings in those days he didn’t really give a shit. Plus one day at mid-day Taggy sent Lampton to Ladbrookes to put 50 quid each way on a nag called WORST CASE SCENARIO at 33-1. Of course the horse came in like a hero and from then on Taggy was laughing.

*

After that it was party time at the rock pretty well day and nite and Taggy was forever surrounded by fawning associates and ex-biker types drinking GUN CIDER and Alcopops. A few Asian lads that were like the Pakistani equivalent of white trash started coming round too – vague mates of Taggy from his time before the rock – and brought a load of bad dope with them and Foolish Marty from the boxing club started bringing his Pit Bulls down to try and scare off the eagles, with no success at all.

Indeed the nightly appearance of them eagles were soon proved to be a major piss head attraction and the landlord of the local pub put up a whole load of plastic tables and chairs out near the rock and a few strings of festoon-type coloured lights stringed up between the streetlamps and that razor wire fencing out the back of Bar-B-Q to create an impromptu Beer Garten. Hot dog stands arrived, und with them a usual miasma of kebab vans, tea stalls und das chip vans. At 2 or 3 in the morning when the eagles arrived, swooping and diving, there were screams of delight and enthusiastic wonder from the crowd and sobs of terror from the many over-tired kids that were wandering around in bare feet.

*

Into this context did John John arrive one fateful night with a reluctant Calita once more in tow and a wheel-barrow full of stuff he’d purloined from the factory hidden under a pile of old sacks. While wurlitzer style music played out from tinny loudspeakers of the Beer Garten and good-for-nothing kids ran in circles squirting ketchup at each other, Taggy lay on his bed of rocks, sheltered from the light rain by a gaudy golfing umbrella what bore the slogan:

Bad Trouble In Paradise

Taggy laughing, Taggy lain right there in the centre of the chaos like the whole of it somehow emanated from him.