toward Cockfosters
Charlie lived on Gillespie Road just past Plimsoll Road, so I walked from Trafalger Square where she and I had gone separate ways, leaning heavily on my cane, and made my way, indirectly, in the direction of the tube stop at Leicester Square. Portuguese university students struggled to film the traffic. A frustrated man chased late leavers from the portico of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and loudly clanged the gates shut and locked them with chains. A gaggle of Irish women, Newry if my accent-tracker was working, rushed past gushing about Judi Dench in the play they had just seen. Outside the Coliseum two French twenty-somethings appeared on the verge of orgasm even if they remained mostly clothed. Near New Row I paused, exhausted, pain spreading from my leg through my body, and I stumbled toward the door of The Angel and Crown, while reaching with my free hand for the small box of meds in my pocket. A barman held the door for me. "Need a pint?" "And perhaps food." ...