Tony-Y-Not

I had nowhere to go; all I had were the clothes on my back which were now wet and blood stained with twenty pence in my pocket. Where do you go from here? I had to find somewhere, there had to be somewhere; there just had to be. I had no one to care for or care for me. My life was over. As I am staggering up the street, with my heart in my dirty black shoes that squelched as I walked, I saw a taxi draw up across the street and a lady put out by the taxi driver into the dark night alone. The very sight made me stop and my fuzzy brain starts to wonder. Something I might tell you has not happened for a long time. She starts crying and seems so distressed. The rain and the wind are only making the situation more unbearable for her. The wonder turns to realization and the alcoholic mist clears from my head, the anger subsides and I reach out to help the poor lass. She sees me approaching. She recoils at the sight and smell of me. Fear crosses her face. What have I become? I used to be a married man with a wife, four children and a roof over my head that I called home. I ask she needed any help. She is still very wary of me and she sobs her tale of woe as we stand a foot apart in the darkness of the night. Eventually after speaking with her a little more and keeping my distance, she eventually lets me help her. She lets me call her boyfriend on her mobile and we start walking in the direction of where she lives. I walk 50 yards behind and kept calling out to her in the dark to check she was okay. She did not want to be seen with me. This is the level I have reached. No one wants to walk with me anymore. I am where I am today because I choose to be here. The love of my life has led me down a path I was happy to tread which led to nowhere, it was a dead-end. There was no life, joy or love along this path and the journey was becoming a very painful one. My mistress and I were coming to the end of the road. Just as I was hitting rock bottom, deep within me I hoped there was a way forward. There just had to be!
As we walked over Cuckoo Bridge, the boyfriend turns up and jumps out of the car. He takes her in his arms and all is well in her world once again. She is once again safe. I walk on and sit on the embankment. Tears starts fall down my face and I start to openly weep! Just as I start to slip down in to the darkness once again I hear someone call out to me. I look up. The young lady is walking back towards me! She thanks me and offers me a ten pound note. What would I, a drunken alcoholic, want with a £10 note when all he has is a twenty pence piece in his pocket? Whatever could I buy with that? I look at the money that she is holding out to me and then look back at her face and say thank you but no thank you! I didn’t do it for the money; any human being would have done what I did. She asks me where I will go. I have nowhere to go!