The Flower Man

On occasions, I have felt bad not to have bought my girlfriend flowers more often. Various factors have prevented me from buying them as often as possible, but the most decisive one has been that I don't pass a flower seller on my way home.

Now, I do. Well, I don't quite pass him, but he's just around the corner from what would be on the way home. On Friday, I met him for the first time. He is 45, white, with white man dreadlocks and a voice as gravelly as 30 years of constant smoking.

"Alright, babe, how much do you wanna spend?"

We decided on the right price, the right bouquet, and then filled time with some talk as he prepared the flowers. He told me that two kids had nicked some of his flowers earlier that day. He then told me that by the weekend, something nasty would happen to them. He knew where they lived. I believed him.

"Been doing this since I was 15, mate. 15. What a job."

He has an assistant who speaks intelligible cockney through a cigarette. They have been working together all that time in different shops around London.

"Those kids. Fucking shits. Don't you worry, mate, they'll be kidnapped by the weekend. Oi, smell that. Fucking beautiful, innit?"

Before the bouquet is secured, strung together by a rough bow, he tells me how one of his friends was shot by a gangster, about the riots down at the council estates.

"Lovely, what's your name, mate? I wanna see you back here in 2 weeks. Me? They call me The Flower Man. Or John..."