23/01/2017
It's stories like this that make what we do here at FHCG So rewarding.
Thanks Cain Sherlock for the touching story.
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The spring carnival always gets me blue, yet at the same time I smile inside as its where I met my mate Darryl Jimmy Laskin.
Flemington race track 2013.
I'd just dropped $3,000 on a trifecta a jockey in the know had told me was gonna come good. As fate would have it, the horse who was to bring me my fortune 'Serendipity' was spooked on the final bend. 'Serendipity' "a certain winner" bust through the railing broke a leg and with that my fortune.
I had recently just broken up with my girl friend, was working a job I hated and now suddenly broke.
What an idiot, what a fool I was.
Rent was due in a week, I'd just blown my cash and in the weeks prior all the good will I had with friends and family.
My chance meeting with Daryl happened in an instant, I was exiting Flemington race track and devouring a meat pie when, suddenly some drunken peasant knocks into me, slamming the meat pie and sauce all down my pressed white shirt.
'Twas the straw that broke the angry camels bum. My reaction was one filled with venom and vitriol. I cursed the intoxicated Buffoon who staggered before me, questioned his class, pressed his buttons and unloaded one horrible month of my life on the poor chap.
He reacted accordingly, he began to press towards me, not so staggered but more direct, eager to not just spill tomato sauce down my front, but to remove my teeth with his knuckles.
I wanted the pain, I wanted to be wounded, I wanted the sympathy, I wanted to feel something.
Yet before the brothel creepers fist could smack my jaw, a forceful yet caring arm was placed around my shoulder and a deep soothing voice echoed in my ear "come on mate, you're better than this".
I followed what seemed to be the only genuine voice i'd heard in some time.
Daryl Jimmy Laskin sat me down on a park bench out the front of Flemington. He didn't say much, he just listened. He was an ear, a shoulder and a bloody funny Barstard.
He told me he was over from Washington, was a tattoo artist, was living in Fitzroy and was on his way home. He suggested we go grab a beer and chill.
That beer and chill saved my life.
Since then Daryl and I have become mates for life. He's one of the most remarkable humans you'll ever meet. Kind, generous, incredibly perceptive, one of the best Tattoo artists in Melbourne and a big fan of fried chicken.
Thanks for the friendship, you're the coolest and hottest fitzroy guy I've ever met.
Xox
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