The crack

We had been together just four weeks when he told me he loved me. And I'd said it back right away. The drug like feeling of falling and surrender. Of being seen and appreciated and held. He had started out by putting me in taxis, hugging me hard and pressing money into my hand for the fare. So courteous, so respectful. Not even leaning in for a kiss just leaving me breathless with his charm.

I think we went on two dates like that. Our first date of far too much wine, of personal connections, laughter and recognition.
Our second date was at a gig I'd done locally. I surprised myself by inviting him along. I think very early on it didn't matter much, what he thought of me... I was doing a gig,  I mentally shrugged and invited him, no big deal...
I was wearing my big honey monster boots and turned up early to soundcheck and chat to the other musicians at the bar. I remember the freedom of it, turning up to a place under my own steam, the autonomy of making friends easily, chatting happily and sipping my brandy (for my vocal cords you know). I looked up and there he was, gazing at me from the bar warmly and I felt a surge of happiness at seeing him. He'd come over and sat so close, making me laugh, appreciating the music, buying me drinks.
Afterwards, when he'd told me how he was amazed by my set and that I clearly didn't know how good I was, he walked me up the road to the taxi rank and again, gave me a big hug, a kiss on the cheek and pressed a tenner into my hand. I protested, he insisted, and I went home filled to the brim with a warm glow. No one has ever done that, before or since. But if they did it now I would run and run and run...

Our first kiss came late late in December after coffee when he'd dropped a bombshell that should have set alarm bells ringing for miles. But it's what they do, I've come to understand, to tell you something so groundshakingly awful that they are so remorseful of and have turned their lives around from.
It added a depth to his character that on reflection was clearly lacking.
We met again round the corner at the Portuguese bakery for coffee and natas. I now remember him making a big production of how amazing this little hidden gem was and taking cake back for his co workers. How thoughtful, I thought at the time. How very calculated.

He asked me about my ex, my son's Dad, why I left, what had happened at the end and I told him about the difficulty of living with his alcoholism. I said that I only suspected it, that I didn't actually know for sure but at the end, when I had no money for shoes for our son, his dad was buying crates of beer and wine on a credit card.
His face took on a grave, concerned look, that I took for compassion at how difficult it must have been to live with someone like that.
But it wasn't that at all... and he began to tell me a story...

Lee had been living in Devon before he had to move away, very quickly, about ten years previously. He had, it turned out, been importing cocaine and turning it into crack cocaine and selling it on the Grenville road. His nickname at the time had been Grenville Slim and he had made an absolute ton of money... he had so many friends always hanging out, making music in the basement of his enormous house where his partner, the mother of his small daughter, turned a blind eye.
He was able, he told me, to take his daughter on lavish holidays, helicopter rides, host parties where those west country based bands of the day hung out.

He wasn't an addict though, was he? I asked. Of course, yes. He had even smoked a pipe in the toilets of the national express bus to euro Disney while his wife and daughter were upstairs. But he functioned. Very very well it seemed.

And then it all came crashing down, the police began to circle and suspect, they pinpointed the source of supply and it seems gave him an ultimatum: a massive fine, the names of contacts and get out of Devon for good or go to jail.
They left everything and moved to West Wales within the week.

Obviously things were left out of his story. The lives he ruined by selling people crack. His ruthlessness in keeping that patch to himself, how he enjoyed the respect and social standing of what he did and who he was. That he never went to an NA meeting. Instead he told me that he just went cold turkey, became a labourer and then took his probation officer and social work training. "two degrees in two years". Impressive.

And what did I glean from his character in all this? That he was brutal, addictive, ruthless and adept at lying? That he could manipulate people to bend to his way of thinking just by clicking his fingers?
He somehow managed to pass the DBS checks, in spite of his history and gain a job working with some of the most twisted people this world had to offer. Wife murderers, paedophiles, abusers, drug sellers... like him. And his job was to control those people. Did I see it?

No. I didn't see any of it. I saw someone who was honest enough to tell me everything he had done and lay it out, making himself vulnerable and open to rejection.
Nothing in my arsenal told me to get up and walk out of that bakery as his story unfolded. I was hooked in and amazed, but that was his past. It was done and here he was using his powers for good. It was a very well crafted story.
He told me how he used to put on raves in Devon and Cornwall and acoustic nights everywhere... mentioning that I was one of the best he'd heard, like he was some kind of authority...
To get his job as probation officer he had to do a presentation. He gave a ten minute talk on how to put on an illegal rave. The problems you would encounter, the issues with drug use, police presence, sound, lighting... everything... he got the job. And his hilarious retelling of it got me hooked into this creative problem solver who it seemed could do just about anything.

He gave me a lift home in his tiny red car... I liked that the didn't give a shit about what he drove around in. Too many times in the past my sons Dad had spent everything we had on a car, or a car part, a radio, an hands free bullshit something, for him. Never for us.
And though he apologised for the mess I was happy to sit with tools at my feet as he drove me home and parked outside my house.
I didn't actually want to kiss him there. I'd wanted to save it for a slightly more salubrious surrounding. But as I leaned in to say goodbye and our lips were locking. He whimpered as we kissed. As if the emotion or feeling of it were too much for him. But he sounded like a child and it was unsettling.
I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment, that kiss.