An eighteen-year-old male, short, face of a cherub that was partial to a drink, kiss curl, and large succulent lips employed no doubt for kissing the damsels and smacking pleasurably after imbibing. He fancied himself as a journalist, did he? The editor studied the new employee unenthusiastically. Another cub reporter who head-to-toe would prove to be unsuitable for the Evening Post.
‘What do you know about crime, Thomas?’ he asked.
‘I try to avoid it.’
‘There’s a crime wave about to hit Swansea.’
‘Oh? Best tell it to wipe its shoes before entering town then.’
‘Go to the four corners of our city and sniff out a report. Skewer it. And have it on my desk tomorrow morning.’
The cub exited and soon was entering a mucky pub.
‘Jack,’ he called to an elderly tippler. ‘Give me the goods on Swansea’s crime wave.’
Pudgy Pugh, a retired copper drinking off his pension, belched, then said:
‘Nothing happens in this cemetery of a city. Fights on Friday and Saturday nights, a spot of jay-walking if you keep your eyes pinned, and the odd spat of clothes-line pilfering by persons of a perverted persuasion. Swansea is off-limits to crime. Closed. Ar gau.’
‘Our – magnificent – boys – in – blue – ’ said the cub, composing his story aloud, ‘have – such – a remarkable – clean-up – rate – that – crime – has – been – virtually – eliminated – in – Swansea. Hats – off – to – our – officers!’
‘There’s no crime. None. But if you write that, know what’ll happen? You’ll be arrested.
‘The – first – arrest – in – Swansea – this – year – ’ the cub said, still composing his report, ‘was – witnessed – by – this – reporter.’
‘Are you listening? They’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace: the peace of the boys in blue. They’ve nothing to do. From Mumbles to Morriston not a hope of larceny, voter personation, sheep stealing, sexual shenanigans, illegal hooch, grand fraud, bigamy, trespass. Zilch.’
‘What am I going to write then?’
‘Know what I’d do in your position? Describe a typical night-out for you and your boozy literary mates. It’s wild, so you claim.’
The next morning the editor picked up the cub’s report from his desk and read:
Swansea’s sordid, shameful, Sodom and Gomorrah streets are awash with drunks. A wave of alcoholic behaviour is about. Last night this reporter observed a bacchanalian orgy of drinking by a group of young men in Wind Street. They trailed from pub to pub for ‘kicks’. After leaving bars, they shouted smut at innocent young females, and one was violently sick in the gutter. Another crawled on his hands and knees on the pavement, imitating a dog. His companion, in an act of blasphemy, pretended to be a priest blessing him. This reporter is forced to ask a difficult question: are we living in a sinful city?
Flowery but promising, the editor thought. Might make a writer of him yet. Get him to rewrite it.
‘Send Thomas in here,’ he said down the phone. ‘Which Thomas? The new one. First name’s Dylan, I think.’
