Granite Grit (Fighting's in the Blood #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

His deal spot was at the end of Muggers Bridge, beside Hayton road dishing out scores and ounces to his list of clientele in between chases from uniformed police and panda cars. Smoked joints like fags from morning to night, and had the odd dealer scouting him for overdue weed debts. Turning eighteen, he ended up doing a seven-year stint at Shotts prison. Riots outside the Broadsword were common at weekends. Three of us were regular underage drinkers and the older punters didn’t exactly take a shine to us, especially Leroy ‘Gigolo’ Brown. A ladies man who had a black book as thick as a granite brick. Seventeen at the time, he wasn’t a stranger to the single mums in the area, visiting while their men were at work, on the piss or out on the rob. He was useless at defending himself, always said he was ‘A lover, not a fighter’ and that was true, going by the amount of times I had to step in and defuse a situation, knocking-out any cunt in my way, then getting my Dad’s fist for kicking in one of his mates. Other than that, the lad’s club flooded with bodies, beer cans, sexual capers and organized street scraps. Despite the in-house squabbles, people were loyal. Fight meetings like the ones held on Castlegate Terrace seen Tilly gather in numbers, carrying tools like iron-bars and knuckle-dusters, as common as pulling your socks up, ending the feuds in graphic fashion. Even Leroy and Sketchy Bob would get involved. These were great memories from my youth, unlike others I unwelcomely carried around
      On the way to Kilgours, we passed a couple of rusted, burnt-out cars on different streets. This was also a common occurrence, usually a district feud or an insurance scam. This was the reason I did a bolt out of here when me and the wife decided to bring up a family. It was no place to bring up a child. Couldn't let your kids out to play on their own, it was just too dangerous, they could easily bump into a junkie, or be picked up by some paedo roaming around.
      During the day it was a sombre place, all the kids at school or skiving out of the area, so their parents didn't catch them standing in a corner puffing a joint or downing a can. Most of the adults were recovering from the night before, or the single moms struggling with life, many bringing up their kids from the inside rather than the outside.
      As we approached the gym, I saw that it too had seen some rough years. The outside, once so fresh, was now covered in weeds, with crap dumped all around. The walls of the stone-built gym, covered in graffiti, the windows and doors now with steel-shutters, protecting them from the hooligans and thieves. The cladding panels on the roof rattling loosely in the night wind, and the walls soaked with water streaming down from the broken guttering, the building badly needed repair.
      Tommy wouldn’t have been happy knowing his old place had turned into this.
      I followed Tim to the door and cautiously walked behind him, not knowing what to expect. Just inside the door, there was a compact changing-room on the left. The interior walls in my memory were brilliant white with hanging posters of famous boxers. Wooden, shining paneled flooring, a vending-machine for sugar snacks and cold drinks, bins for the rubbish. Now…it was dank, grey and stank badly with stale sweat and mould. No more shiny floor, but ruined with black rubber scuff marks from trainers and littered with empty water bottles.
      We nipped into the small changing-room and changed in the chilliness of the night. The room as damp, cold and sour as the rest of the building.
      “Just come through when you’re ready lad, and grab a rope.” Tim said, then quickly stomped off to the left and through to the gym room where I heard a few people skipping.
      The skipping was soon drowned out by someone turning the volume up on the stereo, blasting out some hard-core dance beat.
      The walk through to the main gym was down a small corridor with more litter