Despair
“Hey! Wake up, you can’t sleep here.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, up!”
“Okay, okay, give us a sec’,” he said, wiping
sleep from his eye.
“I’ve told you before you can’t sleep here. If
I catch you again I’ll arrest you. Understand?”
He pulled himself up into a sitting position
and nodded. He glanced up quickly at the uniform and looked away quickly,
unwilling to make eye-contact. It was not just the guard, he rarely made
eye-contact with anyone anymore.
“This is a public park not a doss house, how do
you think it looks to a young mother with little kiddies coming for a play in
the park only to find you sprawled all over a bench?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled an apology.
“Look at the state of you, I could smell your
stink before I saw you.”
“Sorry.”
“Five minutes… if you’re still here when I get
back I’ll have your sorry arse before a judge.”
He nodded once, but the policeman had already
turned on his heel and moved on. His head throbbed, his throat was parched, his
stomach felt queasy. It was a warm summer’s day and yet—despite wearing a heavy
winter coat—he shivered from the cold. He brought a hand up to his temple, it
came away sticky with blood. How had that happened? A fuzzy image came to mind
of being heckled and pushed around by a gang of faceless youths, dressed in
hoodies and tracksuits.
His arms, legs and back ached, a cramp knotted
in his stomach and lower abdomen, he wasn’t sure if he needed to eat or shit,
or both. He reached for the bottle beside him, cooking sherry, he held it by
the neck and tipped it back, he wretched and then drank some more, draining the
bottle.
“Eww! Mummy, that man is so smelly.”
He no longer flinched with shame when young
mothers pulled their children out of his way. It hurt at first, cutting him to
his very core, especially the little ones, the fear and disgust in their eyes.
Blocking out the memories was the first thing he had to do, the booze helped
with that.
“Keep walking, you’re scaring the
kiddies.” The guard was back. He nodded
and shuffled on his way, keeping his eyes low. He wondered where he would sleep
tonight, best not come back for a day or two.
He walked on, leaving the calm and peace of the
park behind. All around him the sounds and smells of the city assaulted his
senses, buses and trucks belched out noxious fumes, people hurried past all
giving him a wide berth. A car screeched to a halt, the driver shouting and
gesticulating at him. He hadn’t even realised he was in the middle of the road.
He shuffled on, not answering, not looking back.
“Oi, you, fuck off!”
He looked up from the skip, a man dressed in a
chef’s aprons had come out of a doorway into the alleyway and was shouting at
him, he dropped the leftover food back into the bin and moved on.
He rummaged through the on-street bins for
whatever he could find, scavenging whatever food he could get his hands on or
anything he could use. A piece of cardboard he dragged from one bin would make
sleeping on the cold streets a bit more bearable.
He felt dizzy and disorientated most of the
time now, his body ached for food and sleep, his mind craved drink. Drink to
take him away, drink to help him find the oblivion he constantly sought.
“Malone?” He looked up from the bin. “Jesus,
Malone, is that you?” A man dressed in suit and tie addressed him.
Malone? That was his name once. Not anymore. He
shrugged off the man and shuffled on. The man followed.
“It is you, Malone. What the hell happened to
you?”
He pushed him away and tried to move on, but
the well dressed man was persistent.
“This used to be my boss,” he laughed, turning
to his friends.
“Come on, Freddie, leave him alone, he stinks,”
a woman’s voice said.
“Seriously, this was my manager at the bank. He
got fired when he came into work drunk one day and told all the customers to go
fuck themselves. Apparently his wife had taken the kids and buggered off with
another man.”
“Please, Freddie, I want to go.” He could hear
the fear in her voice.
“Jesus, Malone. Here,” the man said and shoved
a tenner into his hand.
He looked up when the couple walked away, tears
blurred his vision. He looked down at the ten euro note, he wanted to run after
them and tell them to keep their fucking money, tell them he didn’t need it, or
them and tell them to go fuck themselves. He scrunched the note up tightly in
his fist, his knuckles turned white. A sob escaped his throat, a harsh guttural
noise, a mournful wail of despair.
He wiped away the tears and snot and unfolded
the note, calculating how much booze he could get with it.
He wanted to forget.
