# The Jilted Sally Fool.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

Approaching the final year of my service at the Salvation Army hostel in Fore Street, in Ipswich, before my retirement, one of the residence was having a violent and noisy argument on the phone in the reception lobby. He was shouting and screaming at his ex-wife or partner, calling her all the names he could think of. Even through the glassed-in partition of the reception office, I could hear her yelling back at him.
I could imagine the scenario... I'd heard it so many times before... a resident sobbing his heart out over his ex-partner not letting him talk with his children. There was always another man's voice in the background shouting, " If he doesn't pay his child support, then he's not talking to his kids. So tell him to do one!" What must have peeved him more was that even I could hear his children shouting in the background.
This guy was well over six feet tall, and twice as heavy as I was... and some fifteen years younger. He smashed the phone receiver back onto its cradle over and over again, calling her all the obscenities he could think of. I gathered running out of coins for the payphone was the final straw. He marched across the entrance lobby to the stairwell and kicked it open with his boot, disappearing up the stars. All was quiet for a while as I ate my dinner, watching a television programme on the set.
My namesake came puffing up to the counter of the reception office after running down the stairs, shaking his head in dismay. "Namesake," he called out to me. "You have to get up there, quick! That fat pig is smashing up all the furniture in the second-floor TV lounge and piling it up in a heap." He had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. "It looks like he's going to set fire to the hostel!"
I reluctantly put down my knife and fork, shaking my head at my namesake... I was really enjoying my meal. The one thing you could say about our chef, Steve, was that you got a good feed when he was on duty. "Here we go again!" I told him. "The bastard won't even let me get my grub down before starting more of his bull-dirt." I left the reception office, heading for the lift, and Namesake followed me. "What have you been up to?" I asked him on the way up.
"Nothing much," he replied. "We were all watching a game of footie, until that bastard came in and switched off the set. He was shouting at the top of his head, calling someone some pretty bad names." He looked up at me. "What are you gonna do about him?"
"It's time me and that asshole had a square-up," I told him. "He's really been pushing his luck lately."
As I stepped from the lift onto the second floor reception lobby, I could hear his shouting through the glass wall of the TV lounge. There was a large crowd peering through the glass at his antics. I opened the door and stepped inside. Steve Smith was on his own as everyone else had left the room. When he saw me, he picked up a four foot square table and hurled it at me.
I parried it with my left arm, and then parried a blow to my face with my right, swinging his arm out wide. Before he could recover and grab something else, I gripped his windpipe with my right hand and squeezed as tightly as I could. He froze in front of me, trying to verbally abuse me as I gripped his throat... but he couldn't speak. I manipulated my thumb and fingers each side of his windpipe and squeezed until they met behind his windpipe, pulling it away from his neck.
He was having trouble breathing, but I gripped even harder, with my fingers and thumb interlocking, and only the skin of his neck between them. I then backed him into the room. There was a pile of furniture in the middle of the room, mainly upholstered wooden armchairs used by the residence to watch television. I could clearly see that some of them were broken, and the pile of broken furniture almost reaching the ceiling.
As I couldn't be sure if he'd soaked them with an accelerant, I ordered him to walk backwards into the room, without loosening my grip. When I reached the back of the room, I ordered him to kneel down, and then lay backwards onto the floor. He was sputtering for air, trying to speak while trying to breath, so I eased my grip a little.
"You bastard!" he swore at me. "Just you wait until you let me go, and I'll punch your sodden face in... you soddin get!"
I tightened my grip on his throat again until his eyes started to water. "The simple answer to that one is I won't let go. You savvy me, dirt-box?" I gripped him even tighter, until my fingers and thumb meshed together. "Want some more, jerk-off?"
Irish-John and Namesake came up to us... I was kneeling on Steve Smith. "We'll look after him, Richard," Irish-John told me. "You go down to reception and call the police."
I moved clear, still gripping Steve Smith's throat so they could sit on him at the same time. Irish-John and Namesake sat on an arm each, so I released my grip. Irish-John was ex-army, and Namesake worked part-time as a night club doorman, so I knew they could handle themselves.
"You bastard!" Steve Smith swore at me again. "Just you wait!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! And the rest," I told him. "Why don't you give your mouth a rest and save it for the police?"
Two other residence came forward and sat on his legs, so I got up and inspected the pile of broken furniture in the middle of the room. As there didn't appear to be any accelerant used, and any paper or soft clothing to start the fire, I left them to it and returned to the reception office to call the police. Afterwards, I phoned the duty officer and reported the incident to him.
After Peter Bellis was satisfied that everything was under control, he asked me to list what damage had been done to the second floor television lounge and its furniture. He told me to ring him immediately if Steve Smith kicked off again.
When the police arrived, I took them up to the second floor in the lift. The residence must have been able to quieten Steve Smith down, as they'd replaced all the furniture in its proper place... except for one badly broken chair, which they'd placed to one side for inspection by the police, and by Peter Greene... the manager... in the morning. I knew that he'd be extremely upset, as this new furniture had only been purchased the week before, and was quiet expensive. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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