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John Thomson had been up to a bit of juggling. There was the woman he stayed with, his wife, although she wasn't really his wife. That was just what he called her. Round the corner was another woman. Ever romantic, he called her his girlfriend. She wasn't really, but that didn't matter.
Even the best jugglers are liable to drop the balls and when John Thomson noticed the lump in his girlfriend's belly, he was out the door before they hit the ground. His wife, suddenly, got the benefit of his undivided attention.
A month later, she too told him that she had one in the oven and, what, was he not happy?
'Delirious,' he said, shuddering at the thought.
He was snookered.
They popped out boys.
He heard about the girlfriend's on the grapevine. It was a small world when it came to news like that. His name was Daniel.
The wife called hers William.
John Thomson watched William grow up. Sometimes, he wished it was the other one because William was a useless lump, but consoled himself with the idea it would probably have been the same either way. He didn't like weans, bottom line.
It wasn't his fault.
One day he snuffed it. He'd put the paper over his face for forty winks while the wife was out for a couple of bits and pieces. William, who was supposed to be at school, found him in a heap. 'I'd better phone the pigs, in that case,' he said to himself.
There wasn't much love lost between father and son.
The only thing Daniel Kearney knew of his old man was that he was a louse. Still, his mother nicked off to watch the funeral through the railings. She shed a silent tear for the dirty bastard that she'd always carried a torch for and, through blurred vision, caught a glimpse of William. It crossed her mind that maybe she should tell her boy about his half-brother when she went up the road.
'Actually, I won't bother,' she said, putting the key in the lock and the matter to bed.
The boys rarely met, hardly passing in the street. For school, one went this way, one went the other. Geographically, they lived around the corner from each other, but their realities were a million miles apart.
After school, they never strayed far from their own neighbourhoods. It was the sensible thing to do in certain parts of Glasgow. Too far one way, or the other, and you might come back with two black eyes and shoeless.
On a bad day, you could end up scalped.
Both nurtured the gift of musical talent. Daniel picked up a flute, while William opted for the drum. Around this point, William turned to Billy and Daniel became Dan.
It was common for the area.
They shared an interest in football but, ever contradictory, they watched from different ends.
After a match in 1994, they communicated for the first time. The World Cup Finals were approaching and America was the host nation. The only country from the British Isles to qualify was the Republic of Ireland. Scotland and England had failed to make the grade.
Dan and Billy were returning from a fiery Old Firm encounter. There were no other kind; they came in only one flavour.
On the way home, a malicious policeman misdirected a Celtic supporters' bus through the throng of Rangers fans snaking their way from the ground. Naturally, it found itself surrounded.
Billy, in a taunting gesture, touched his left shoulder with his right hand, followed by his forehead, his chest and finally his right shoulder. It was the Sign of the Cross, inside out and upside down.
Annoyed by this, Daniel stood on a seat to jeer through the skylight, 'At least we're going to the World Cup. You're no, ya English bastart.'
Only certain people could understand the complexities of this exchange.
Had you emerged from a spaceship that morning, forget about it.
The policeman, who had witnessed it, allowed himself a wry smile. These people, they could be next door neighbours for all you know and never a one of them been out the effing country.
Aye, he thought to himself, as Rabbie Burns would say, we're all Jock Tamson's weans right enough.
He was wrong on many levels but, still, he had his finger on the pulse.
© Jimmy Wilde