Tales of the City - Part Three - GLASGOW - Black and Blue

She hovered on the threshold of the hotel doorway. Red thick plush carpet and brass runners and rods, it just oozed "welcome". As I looked closer, I could see a woman, by the light of the spot lamps on the side of the hotel building combined with the light from the dying sun, and that she was clothed in a leather jacket and wore blue denim jeans, long hair, red painted nails. She caught me looking at her and smiled. I looked away embarrassed that I had looked for so long. I was in a nearby coffee house deliberating over a Vente Latte, just opposite the hotel.

When I looked again it was due to the screech of a Glasgow corporation bus coming to halt, she turned to look, and as she did, I could see on her face the unmistakable signs of a beating; black and blue, with a touch of feint yellow. She saw that I was watching again and quickly stepped away and was gone from sight among the last minute shoppers catching buses.

I wondered who she was?
Why she was there?
Who had done this to her?
What she had done to deserve such treatment?
Was it a cat fight?
The blows of a man's fist or worse.
Was there other signs of last weeks beating, carefully hidden beneath clothes, bruises already on their way to healing.
What did she feel? NUMBNESS!
Was she trapped?
Unable to make a break?

Where are you tonight "Black and Blue"?
In whose arms do you rest?
I hope it is with someone who will cherish and treat you right.
I hope that you will never become again a "Black and Blue" leather punchbag.

(Written in Glasgow - February 2009)