a memory from when i was 10 years old

a sudden memory has come to my mind

It's 1996, or 1997?

I was taking part in a weekend school at a nearby secondary/middle school up the road. I heard it had a 'good' reputation, but my parentes didnt know what a good reputation is. They think brunel university is a good university cos their upwardly mobile friends had a son that went there, but I go to a fucking russell group uni and they don't give a shit.

Anyway, so I'm 10 years old, my brother is picking me up from this saturday school. As I'm walking home, there's a couple who are walking a similar route to us. The man is being verbally abusive to the woman. The woman isn't being resistant to any of it, the man smelled funny, he was carrying a can of beer on his person. That smell later I learned to be of cheap booze. It was a smell that ever since then I associated with that man. At first it was just unfamiliar and like anything unfamiliar, it was a novelty. However it became a scent associated with shame, regret, darkness.

I saw that man a few weeks later, when I was 10, he was sitting around looking very sad. He wasn't so triumphant or aggressive anymore. I never saw an adult so aggressive in public, except when we were racially harassed in public, which was often. Back in the 90s I'd see graffiti that would say stuff like 'Pakis go home'.That word has a certain pain when I see it.

that is all