Sticks And Stones

Chapter 1: The beginning

There was a man sat there in that Café with a phone in one hand and a Latte in another. He was tall, always had been since he was a child, at a glance you could guess he was between six feet and 3 inches to 6 feet 5 inches tall. He had short, brown, cropped hair and stubble from where he hadn't shaved in a few days. He wore a leather jacket and Jeans with a red Ralph Lauren shirt and an England Rugby cap on his head. I know all this because that was me.

That morning I was going to my band rehearsal before our show that Saturday. I got there at 11:30 on my Kawasaki motorcycle that morning, It was a pouring, miserable day on a Wednesday morning, I was 19 at the time and fresh out of the school system working a job at a bar with a boss that I hated.

When I arrived I saw my friend Jay get there at roughly the same time, (he was the guitarist and vocalist whilst I was on the drums) he was short at about 5'9 and wearing a long trenchcoat and Nike tracksuit bottoms. He showed up in his Fiat Panda, it wasn't much to looks at but with insurance making the average person skint until their next paycheck. Either way it was all he could afford.
Where we had arrived was at my friend Neil's studio which in reality was just a converted garage in his parents house with a few microphones and just enough space for all our equipment including but not limited to: guitars, drums, bass guitars, microphones and some amplifiers.

My friend Neil was our Bass guitarist, He was 5'11 (but claimed he was 6'0), he was slightly younger than me and Jay, he was 17 and still in college, he was learning to be an electrician (sounded like a solid back up plan to me.)

We went into Neil's garage and practiced for about 90 minutes until we were all exhausted we had practiced our songs. After that we said "Hello Mrs Daniels!" To Neil's mum and opened some cans of Coke from the fridge, it called us all down as the cool liquid slid down our throats and we all burped soon after. We went back to our own jobs and classes after that.

I was working for 8 hours until 10 that night when some loud mouth came in he was about 22 with his friend and  (I presume) girlfriend or partner trying to show off. He was insulting some younger guy that was about 18 and was with his younger brother that looked to be in secondary school maybe 15. The 22 year old came over, seeming rather intoxicated insulting the younger guy who tried to ignore him until the older man threw a Punch.