You broke my collarbone, dislocated my thumb, chipped my tooth, had me hanging on the back of garbage trucks, stamping on the hands of a violinist, sleeping in phone booths, train stations, bundles of rope on harbour walls, waking on the steps of homosexuals carrying poodles, stealing canal boats, swimming through freezing rat shit, wailing in a Holborn prison cell, waking in beds with tattooed Russians.  You had me carrying a dwarf on my back, dropping him headfirst onto the pavement, blood and dwarf tears, kicking down doors, fighting pickpockets, throwing bottles off rooftops, chasing sirens and puking into bloodied palms. Shivering in the morning, red acid on my brain and black fear in my soul. But it is not what goes into man that is evil, but what comes out.  And only you were there under the pier in winter, when fair weather friends locked their doors and dwarfs clawed at my face.  And we laughed with Boscombe tramps, held the hands of tender prostitutes, paid for a widow’s taxi home.  You numbed the broken bones and helped forget the cold. You helped me roll the dice, and I have paid a heavy price but I will drink you still, and will heed your wisdom and ever strive to be ’strong, refreshing and different’. Amen.