Dai Rees – The Legend who had a lounge named after him
Let me put you in the picture. I am sitting on an ex-crimson old chair crushed against the flock wallpaper of the crappy ‘Dai Rees Committee Room’ at poxy Cwm Rhymney Golf Club. It feels like we’re still in the 1940s. I’m feeling uncomfortable wearing a suit and tie and my head is full of words and words. I’ve endured the Chairman’s verbal report, the Secretary’s verbal report and the verbal report of Dai Dogs (Handicap Sec) standing in for the green keeper who was unable to attend due to his hay fever being particularly troublesome at the moment.
But, beyond all this – Beyond. All. This. Iesu Mawr – I am so bored.
Let me tell you precisely where I am. I’m in the aforementioned crappy ‘Dai Rees Committee Room’ of the aforementioned poxy Cwm poxy Golf poxy Club. – a speck of a village the size of a baby ant’s arse in the north edge of the Ebbw valley in the south east quarter of the south-east quarter of the ancient country ( principality if you’re going to split hairs) of Wales.
Why? Because I’m waiting for my turn.
‘Next item – Flags.’ said Tommy.
There was total silence. The seven attendees dropped their seven heads in one synchronised swoon. The speaker was the President. El Presidente. Tommy the President. Tommy the Pres. Tommy the Cat. Tommy the owner of a chain of, brackets three, count them, one, two, three, bread shops in this region of the northern Ebbw Valley. Tommy the impresario, as he liked to be known, or Tommy the wheeling-dealing, money-grabbing, ‘tight as a duck’s arse’ little shit as he is commonly known when out of earshot and gunshot. Tommy the Cat. So named because a long time ago – a long time ago – he was the more than half decent Cwm goalkeeper. Trials with Brithdir, allegedly. Tommy the Cat. Now, a man universally hated and despised in equal measure. A man of whom his closest friend would say to me a few hours from now –
‘It would be easier really to give you a list of the people who wouldn’t want to kill him. And as his best friend I’d certainly put myself on the ‘I’d rather kill him than not’ list.’
Tommy the Cat was discussing flags. Tommy is a bully. Full stop. A Fatty Aruncle lookalike cliché of a man. Fatty Arbuncle nasty twin brother..
I’m sorry. How rude of me. I haven’t introduced myself. The name is Sam, Samael K. Watcher P.I. Or to be truly bilingual as is the fashion slash law these days – Y.P. Ymchwilydd Preifat.
I’m a fully licensed Ymchwilydd Preifat. and have been for a year or so now. I’m a lone fox, unmarried,young, gifted and poor. I don’t do divorce business. I like whiskey and women and golf and a few other things. I’m a native son, born in Cwm, both parents dead, a pain in the arse sister called Seren. Oh, and there was a decade where I have no memory of anything that happened. It happens – but I’m over that now and like I said I am attending a committee meeting at Cwm Rhymney Golf Club. In a non-professional capacity, I hasten to add. I am here under duress. Well, under compulsion really. I was due to attend the disciplinary element of this surreal cabaret but had wandered in early and been wordlessly directed, by Tommy’s eyes, to sit and observe the whole performance at a discrete distance from the main stage in a shoddy, battered, crappy old chair under the frequently unwashed window at the edge of the ‘Dai Rees lounge’.
I heard the word ‘flags’ again, louder, and awoke from my revere. Is it revere? Or reverie? Is that even a word?………………
byron kalies 