Paul The Bag

Paul is a real person.  I met him on the 2132 from London Victoria to Bognor Regis one evening, where he broke my hand. 

He burst into the train carriage where I was sitting on my own, and demanded that he sit in my seat. Paul was in his mid 60s, and bristling with anger, which he seemed to want to talk about.

Once I moved seats, he calmed down and told me that he’d just lost a lot of money gambling. He then told me that he had previously been a gangster, working in Charlie Richardson’s gang in South London. His gang name was “Paul The Bag” as it was his job to carry illicit goods, and he seemed genuinely surprised that I hadn’t heard of him.

Paul then showed me what a life of working in a gang had done to his hands. He had fingers like a pack of heavily scarred sausages and noted that my hands had clearly never done a day’s work in their lives.

He then showed me what they do to hands like mine in his gang, bending my fingers back until a metatarsal snapped. I have no idea why I let him do this.