My problem was how to launch my projectile without throwing it, because I felt that would have been far too easy.  I went through various combinations, finalising them down to three choices.  I could have tried to spit the coin from where I sat.  Then I thought how messy and inaccurate this might be. 

My second plan was to flick the penny off the back of my hand.  After some careful deliberation I realised that this idea would be less accurate than my first ploy.  The third option to my mind had the best chance of a successful strike rate.  In front of me at the bar was a large ashtray with a hollow interior. 

I placed the copper coin into it and pushed it around with my forefinger and thumb.  It glided from side to side quite freely, offering little resistance against the enamel surface.  The angle of the hollow was roughly 35 degrees from the centre of the ashtray up to the outer rim.  I had a missile, a launch pad and now the use of elevation. 

What I was still searching for was a means of propulsion.  This whim of probability was turning into a full-scale experiment.  I wrestled with the physics of what would seem too trivial for anybody else to be bothered with.

I over-lapped my forearms and placed them on the bar.  Resting my chin on the back of my left hand, I pondered on how I would complete this, to me at least, important test.  At this point the ashtray was right under my nose.  As I exhaled I heard the coin wobble against the shiny surface. 

I blew out of my mouth; to my surprise I made the penny rattle from one side of the launch pad to the other.  The problem now was with the coin laying flat I didn’t have much of a surface area to blow against.  I seemed to solve one problem, only to be faced with another.

As a true Gemini I get bored easily.  I was beginning to wonder whether using all of this brain power was worth the effort.  For something that was so futile, I had become totally obsessed with finding a solution.  I took a breather from my experiment and wished I hadn’t.  While I was occupied the craving for a cigarette had subsided.  All I could concentrate on now was getting hold of some nicotine. 

I scanned the bar like a laser, looking for new, unsuspecting customers.  No such luck, it was just me, the barman, two blokes leaning on the bar and the old man who gave me the roll-up.  Oh, and the little shit with the Benson and Hedges and I wasn’t about to ask him a second time.

I pushed the penny up onto the flat rim of the ashtray, and then knocked it in a few times to pass some idle moments.  I stared at the coin that was now perched over-hanging the hollow of the ashtray.  For know particular reason I blew into the ashtray causing an up-draft.  This in turn knocked my metal missile onto the bar.  I was chuffed to bits, silly sod!  All I had to do now was blow harder, concentrating my breath to a smaller area.

Digressing back to my childhood for a moment, I always liked to know the ‘ins and out’s’ of a ducks arse.  Never happy just playing with a toy, I wanted to find out how it worked, my Dad was the same.  I was given an Etch-a-Sketch on my eleventh birthday, I still have it today.  I did the usual squiggles that everybody did, but I couldn’t draw a perfect circle. 

So one afternoon I sat in my bedroom and painstakingly drew lines from one side of the screen to the other.  This process removed all of the graphite from the inside and left the internal workings visible.  You will have to forgive me.  I have now strayed into the areas of probabilities, percentages and an area called, what’s the chance of that happening first time round.  Bear with me; it is relevant to this passage. 

I dropped a tailor-made cigarette out of my mouth whilst at work.  I watched as it fell onto the floor and landed on its side.  It then bounced back up in an upright position standing on its filter.  I was amazed at what I had just witnessed.  Come to think of it, I have always liked the thought of long odds.  Mainly because of the possibility that it will come off, it must eventually. 

For example, if you spin a coin a given number of times, say 250,000 times, you must be guaranteed an even amount of heads and tails.  But my interest would lie with the probability that at some point the coin would land on its edge.  Back to my glass coconut shy.

I lined my launch pad up with the target area, which was three and a half feet up from the bar and approximately seven feet from where I was sitting.  I leaned over the ashtray and gave one almighty exhalation of breath.  The penny shot high into the air and hit one of the glasses.  It bounced off another, ricocheting off and hit the mirrored surface behind the stack of glasses.  It landed on the shelf with still a few spins left in its momentum before lying down flat. 

Blinding, I couldn’t find a fault with my project, except I failed to smash any of the glasses.  Yet again, I had impressed myself, but not the barman.  He heard the end result of my experiment but hadn’t a clue as to what had taken place.  So acting as causally as you can with two wet socks on, I squelched my way back to a seat near the fire, next to a half open window.

The sun had come out and I watched as the traffic ambled by the pub.  A man with tie-back hair and a goatee beard had begun to collect the empties off of the tables.  As he neared my table he asked me if I would mind leaving the pub.  I looked him up and down noticing on his sleeve was a Tai Chi club badge. 

I just had a gut feeling that he had probably been doing it longer than me.  I came to the conclusion that I had outstayed my welcome.  Picking up my still sodden moccasins, I beat a slow, calm retreat.  Presumably I went straight home, although my mother seems to think I did wonder off somewhere else.  Usual story I’m afraid, I can’t remember.

I suppose I must have lost two or three hours to my illness, and the side-effects of the medication, during that day.  At five o’clock in the evening Dr Gadhvi had come from Claybury to see how I was.  As I recall he was doing his best to persuade me to return to the hospital.  But I was having none of it. 

According to Mum I was so defiant that I ripped up all of my case notes, something I have no recollection of.  My alto ego was obviously taking no shit at this stage of the game.  Dr Gadhvi left saying he would ring at 7.00 p.m. to see if I had changed my mind.  In the meantime a social worker was called as back up, so my Mum wasn’t left stranded.

My next memory of that night was four hours later.  It was dark obviously, and I now had a flat full of people.  Seven o’clock had been and gone and it was now 11pm.  What had happened to the daylight hours, and who was the tall bloke with the leather satchel crammed full of paper-work?

 Final part next week…

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