Lionel Hilton stretched, farted and went to the bathroom.
His face was a mess, with dried blood over cuts and one eye almost closed from being punched multiple times.
As he urinated, he remembered being in a punch-up with a guy and two of his mates. The Arsehole was unnecessarily upset that Lionel had invited the guy's girlfriend to accompany him to a bedroom.
The irony of it was the girl had accepted the invitation and appeared more than interested. But the boyfriend jealously lost it and began swinging and yelling to his mates to help him sort out 'this motherfucker'.
Lionel's first retaliatory punch landed on Arsehole's chin and that decked him with his lights out.
Bar security guys pulled off the two mates from further mauling Lionel and threw them out of the bar. The sweet girlfriend helped battered Lionel to the street, kissed him and pointed to Arsehole's motor-scooter and told him to flee on it but to leave it where the cops could find it.
Lionel wasn't a bikie but managed to putt-putt along and around the first corner but lost concentration and overlooked turning at the second corner and crashed into the side of a warehouse made of concrete. The gutless motor-scooter appeared a write-off and the 2x3-year-old took Arsehole's girlfriend's advice, albeit delayed, and fled, leaving the scooter where the cops could find it.
Still suffering the effects of drinking numerous glasses of beer with Navy Rum chasers, being unfairly assaulted by three guys and then rolling off a dumb motor-scooter before it was stopped in its tracks by an uncompromising concrete wall, Lionel weaved his way home and entered the kitchen.
"Hi folk," he greeted his parents cheerfully.
They looked glum and that signalled a telling off. But it became heavy.
"You shamed this family last night by waking the immediate neighbourhood when you threw a garden rock through the picture window of our living room and yelling 'open the fucking door someone."
"Oh."
"Yes, Lionel," snorted his mum. "This time you have gone too far. I let you in, you kissed me smearing me with blood and then you vomited over my nightdress, you pig. Your father and I require you to vacate this property forthwith."
"What?" Lionel said, appearing dazed.
"You don't appear to understand the Queen's English, you no-hoper who'll never amount to more than nothing," said his father, a poorly educated butcher. "Your mother means we want you to fuck off and never enter this family home again."
"Oh, understood. I'm being sent to Coventry."
"Go to Coventry, Reading, Luton or anywhere else but preferably somewhere far from here."
"Okay, dad, mum. Sorry to have embarrassed you. Perhaps I should drink less. How long must I stay away from here?"
"Until you turn into a fucking Saint. Now clear off before I cut your skinny throat," exploded his meat-fattened father.
A week later, Lionel found work in a motor vehicle garage near Croydon, on south-west London.
He'd gone to Croydon after contacting the only person he knew in London, Jenny Mack, now married to Dr Bruce Armstrong. Jenny had been his older sister's best friend at high school and university and in the summer after he finished high school, Lionel sampled Jenny carnally on three occasions.
He told Jenny he'd been kicked out of his home and he'd thought his best chance of finding a job would be in London. Jenny asked where would he stay and he said he'd find a doss-house. She told him she could live with her and her 2-year-old baby until her husband returned from the US where he was studying for higher medical qualifications.
Lionel asked was she sure about that offer and Jenny said yes, and if he undertook to babysit Harry at least two nights a week, he could sleep with her, if he wished.
Surprised, he asked was she for real and Jenny said yes, didn't he know females like having regular sex too.
He found Jenny had put on weight but she remained her easy self of old and she said Lionel had aged splendidly and appeared as if he could go all night. Lionel knew what that meant.
He applied for a job advertised on the door of a vehicle garage workshop in the Croydon area. It was fairly low paid and involved replacing tools in their proper places after mechanics left them where they dropped them, and he had to keep the floors clean and run errands which mainly meant buying cigarettes and buns and sandwiches for fellow workers, at their expense of course.
Jenny took him to bed that first night and fucked him into near-exhaustion. During the night, she pushed him out of bed and told him that wee Alan was crying for his bottle and did he remember how she'd shown him what to do.
"Can we have sex when I return?"
"Of course, and should I be back into deep sleep, just help yourself."
When clutching the infant and holding the bottle steady for him, Lionel marvelled that this was far better than living at his former home. Neither his sister nor his mother invited him to have sex with them and they were dour females compared with Jenny. He'd landed on his feet, he mused.
* * *
In his second week of living with Jenny, Lionel made a break-through at work.
He saw five mechanics standing around a Korean SUV practically scratching their heads.
"A problem?" he asked.
A senior mechanic said yeah, but nothing Lionel could help them with.
"Try me. I began tuning old banger motor-cycles and cars around our neighbourhood from the age of thirteen and became pretty good at it over the years."
"What are your qualifications?"
"None apart from keenly reading tech books, articles about new vehicle launches and gaining experience."
"Well bugger off them."
Willy Evans said, "What is there to lose, Clarence?"
"Okay," Clarence said after scratching his moustache. "Have a go kid but go carefully with our expensive computerised testing gear."
"You guys have tried that, and without success it appears. I'll do it the old-fashion way."
He listened to the idling motor and sped it up.
"I think I've got it," Lionel said.
"That's like a quote from the Musical 'My Fair Lady'," Clarence joked and everyone laughed.
"The firing order sounds good apart from cylinders 3 and 5 and I'm unable to tell which one is slightly faulty, or why, but suspect it's five, and possibly the reason for the almost imperceptible lag in the firing is slight fuel starvation, otherwise it would be mechanical-related.
"Okay, you've heard Lionel, get on to it Thomas and thanks for your input, everyone. Come with me Lionel."
Lionel told the service department manager what had occurred and ended by saying, "I suspect we have a surprise genius here in Lionel."
The manager asked Lionel what were his qualifications in vehicle servicing and grinned when the young man said experience and plenty of it.
"Then alas, you can't work on our clients' vehicles mechanically. However, you may start as a car and van valet on vehicles we score for re-sale as soon as you are replaced on the workshop floor."
"Aw."
