Better to hedge your bets

Joe was fully aware of how cold the winter morning was because his breath lingered in the air longer than some of his recent relationships had lasted. Had Joe been born and christened with the extra letters ann in the middle of his name he might have found a supportive group of female friends who'd say something along the lines that their friend was just unlucky in love and that their soul mate could be waiting around the next corner, even if they didn't necessarily believe it to be true. You know, sugarcoat it because that's what friends do and what they're there for in times of crisis. Instead Joe had friends like Barry whose speciality in life was brutal honesty. Joe had recently told him over a pint, or few, the ins and outs of how Mary, just the latest in a never ending line of women, had suddenly decided Joe wasn't the one for her. Feeling unusually sorry for himself he had been busy seeking some support and guiding words of wisdom. However the reaction he received was short, succinct and very much to that aforementioned brutal point and nothing like what a female friend would have provided to another woman in her hour of need and search for some much needed comforting. 

- Maybe you could try being less of a cunt?

We'll what can a man say to that from someone that's supposed to be one of your best friends?

- Well thank you Barry for those truly magical and wonderful words of wisdom. Maybe you'll do me the honour of having them engrained on my tombstone after you pull the knife out of my back and leave me to bleed out on the pub carpet?

To which Barry had simply said in response 

- Well you did fucking ask. What were you expecting me to say? It's your shout by the way. 

To be fair Barry did have a point, he had asked and it had indeed been his round and his name wasn't Joanne, Barry wasn't a woman and men aren't generally renowned for forming support groups to help one another through things such as failed relationships. What could he possibly have been thinking? 

Back in the cold morning air Joe lifted up the arm of his left coat sleeve to check the time and stared in disbelief for a few seconds at his bare wrist that was the traditional home of where his watch lived. Somewhere the alcoholic fog lifted enough to remind him that he'd pawned it. Then another memory pushed that aside, one of him losing it in the small hours on a sure hand in poker that had proven to be not so sure after all. He banged the sides of his head hard with the palms of his hands which re-energised the alcohol in his system which was probably enough to have sunk an Albanian navy ship if they laid claim to having such things. 

- FUCK!

He exclaimed aloud to no one but himself and a cat who meowed from somewhere in close proximity in agreement, swiftly followed by the voice inside his head of his late mother who told him to stop swearing Joe. 

- Sorry mum.

Joe said looking up to the sky as he did so. He sucked in a large gulp of air before puffing it back out and he watched it stick around for a few seconds and then vanish like his watch. 

- Four Queens and the …

He went to swear again but found himself self editing upon the thought of upsetting his old mum a second time in quick succession, even if all that was left of her was a voice in his head.

- And that …so and so… had…

He didn't say the rest aloud because there was only the cat for an audience who didn't care what he had to say anyway. Besides Joe didn't believe in God, and a heaven, or that his mum was really watching down on him, but like any good gambler will tell you, it's always better to hedge your bets just in case you're wrong. Joe wasn't a good gambler and he didn't believe in God because his prayers were never answered, especially in matters concerning where his money had been on the line and then been lost, which happened as frequently as it rained in England. He did at least always reason with himself that if heaven was real, then his mum would be there because she at least had been a bonafide diamond angel unlike himself who was not much more than something unwanted that you might step in accidentally when not looking where you're going. And so his inner monologue took over for him and recanted the tale of his latest reason for misery in all its glory for only himself to listen to ‘...and that so and so had tossed the 4 of hearts down on the table like he was discarding a piece of rubbish and then waited deliberately.’ He found himself so riled by the memory that he couldn't self edit the language anymore.

‘Fucking prick. Fucking Charlie. Then the 5 of hearts and then the 6…’ He stopped, wondering why was he now reliving it and torturing himself but couldn't find an answer and so he continued on ‘...The 7 and he might as well have punched me in the face rather than lay the 8 down, it would have hurt me less.’ There it was sat staring back at him, the mental image as clear as if it had been taken with a Leica on Kodak film, a flush, which basically made his four of a kind a busted flush. Define irony. The big smug grin that had sat on his face not twenty seconds before when he'd laid down four beautiful crowned ladies of the finest royal standing, had magically transposed itself onto Charlie's face instead. Then it grew even further into a big shit eating grin. 'The…’ 

So there he had been sat, pants pulled down firmly around his ankles on a pile of shit that he couldn't wait to see the back of, but instead watched both his money and his watch vanish before his eyes like the plumber had visited, took one look at what he’d been sat on and just taken the money without fixing the job. ‘...cunt! Fucking Charlie! I'm really sorry mum,’ he added for good measure, suddenly once more aware he was swearing again. It was probably the use of the c word reminding him which his poor mum had detested the most in the days when she'd been alive.  

If Joe had been telling Barry what had happened he'd have added a line to the busted flush part trying to explain the plumber reference because Barry would have been sat in stoney cold silence and Joe would naturally have assumed that the reference had been lost, but Barry wouldn't have been lost. Barry would be busy trying not to tell him what a stupid cunt he'd been again but upon hearing Joe's unwarranted additional explanation for a reference he'd have easily picked up on, would have most definitely lost his rag and called him at the bare minimum - a cunt. Barry might have been many things but stupid wasn't one of them and neither was being a support animal in times of Joe's crisis when his ship started sinking again. 

Joe telling Barry would come later in the day. Instead he was now remembering the sight of Charlie lifting up the watch and slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket which had been slung over the back of his chair. Then the pain on seeing him tidy up the large wedge of bank notes that had been under the watch, which had previously been burning a hole in his pocket, waiting for the next sure thing to arrive to be wager against. If someone tells you it's a sure thing the best advice is to believe the opposite. Maybe someone in his past had told Joe exactly that and he'd failed to listen to it or more likely, simply refused to listen. It could have been Barry. He was the type of man to know they there's no such thing as a sure one. Keep your hands in your pockets Joe and keep on walking. Ironically that's what he did now in the cold of the winter morning and the cat meowed, maybe to wish him luck but it was probably feline and another lady to add to the list of those annoyed at him. 

If he still had his watch it would have told him that it was sometime after 7 am as he took his latest walk of shame back to his poky little one bed flat in which there wouldn't have been room to swing the cat who'd meowed at him had it chosen to follow him home. Joe couldn't tell you if he'd been walking for five minutes or for five hours he was that numb from the combined loss of the money, the watch that was the only thing he had of value and worth relentlessly pawning until by some minor miracle he hit a winning streak and get it backs and of course, not forgetting the winter air. He felt his face tighten in the same grimace that had replaced his grin like the flick of a switch when he'd lost it all. For an average Joe it would have been a sobering experience but not for this one. It probably didn't help that banging his hands against his temples had been like shaking a bottle of Lucozade and twisting open the lid. Everything he touched he made a mess of. 

Eventually he found his way home having switched to autopilot and kept his feet moving in an unsteady manner. He managed somehow to fish out the key to his poky little flat from his jeans pocket despite not being able to feel a thing with his frozen fingers and force it into the Yale lock and then to somehow turn it until it clicked open. Joe then had to fight to get it back out and briefly considered leaving it in there because there was nothing worth stealing anyway. Eventually though he got it out, kicked off his boots into the tiny hall and made his way straight to the bedroom. He tossed the key onto the little side cabinet by his unmade bed and laid himself down and pulled the duvet cover over himself despite being still fully dressed compete with his coat. Somehow with his head still spinning like he was on a merry-go-round that he couldn't get off of, even if he'd wanted to, he drifted off to sleep. Perhaps his mum was sat by his side stroking her hands through his hair to help him drift off like when he'd woken up as a child from having a nightmare.