Big Vince, as local vernacular had christened the corpulent cabbie, wedged into his regular table at the antiquated Hackney café where he always met his 2:00 Wednesday pick-up, and flipped indifferently through his Daily Mirror.
'Usual fry-up, Vince?' rasped Maureen, the morose, elderly waitress.
'Yeah - why not?' he responded in guttural Cockney tones, 'and a pot of Rosie. Oh, and make sure me eggs are nice and runny this time, Mo! They was all congealed yesterday.'
His doctor would have despaired, could he see him. He told Vince to drastically curb his cholesterol intake after the last heart attack. The same doc had advised him to cut out the fags as well - but you’re entitled to a few pleasures in life, he reflected, snapping open his dear old granddad’s silver cigarette case and lighting a Malboro.
As Maureen stomped off, tutting, Vince lolled somewhat wheezily into the padded khaki seat and, bored with his newspaper, scrutinised his fellow diners through mean, keen little eyes that never missed a trick. The shoals of lunchtime punters either avoided his gaze altogether or smiled with nervous respect before returning to their chips. Everyone knew Big Vince - or knew of him.
He cut a distinctive figure, attired in casual, ill-fitting but menacing black, with his receding grey hair and sausagey lips. Despite his great weight and waning health, he possessed a muscular bulk that, along with bloated eyelids and contorted nose, were legacies of the boxing career he entered after an adolescence spent in and out of borstal.
When his dreams of world heavyweight titles failed to materialise, Vince hung up his gloves and became a taxi driver. At fifty-four, he liked to think his active involvement in villainy was behind him, but on occasions - like 2pm on Wednesdays - his job brought him into unnerving contact with former associates....
© Leigh Rowley, 2002
Inspiration...
This piece started life as a homework essay set at my creative writing evening class. Each course member was asked to select a magazine portrait from a huge stash brought in by our lovely lecturer Marianne, then pen a 300-word description of that character - not only of their physical characteristics but also the kind of background and lifestyle we might imagine such a person to have.
The photograph I chose depicted a corpulent, tough looking middle-aged chap (a bit of a Ray Winstone type), smoking a fag in what looked like either a pub or café. Everything about him screamed ‘rough diamond Cockney geezer.'
'Vince' looked quite a character. I found myself fleshing out his description into the beginnings of a story - as much as I could within the tight word limit. Maybe one day I will go back and flesh it out into the middle and ending of a story too...