Sunday, January 17, 2010

Kenny

I suddenly remembered Kenny the other day. He was a big, black bastard. The kind you only saw the eyes of late at night when we usually did business. He lived out in the sticks with wife and kids and we were partners in scallop shucking. We had seven boats and no money so I used to work my arse off all night long opening and packing scallops so Kenny could leave at first light to sell them in the city and bring the money back to pay the fishermen for the next days catch. One day he didn't come home. I was left with seven irate fishermen and six months of hard labour to pay them back. He greeted me on the street like a long lost brother some time later, offering me boxes of crayfish to settle the debt. Of course when I opened them up they were undersize and worthless. Liked him though. It was all a game, sometimes I won but most times he got the better of me and I had my eyes open. Last I heard of him he was on a hunger strike in prison. With the size of him he's probably still on it!

2 comments:

Jon said...

Ha!

Funny how some people slip back into the mind, eh?

Sounds like you've given up on moralistic judgments of his kind of behavior... maybe a good creedo...

Somehow I get the impression he's the kind of guy you wouldn't want on your bad side!

Dave said...

I knew what he was like and still did business with him so I can hardly be moralistic. He just made up the patchwork life I've had and I remember him fondly.
Lessons learned.