Hamilton

Chapter one

Hamilton highly disliked people touching him. He did not understand it when other people hugged each other. He always wondered how the gesture could relieve tension or make people feel better. Then again, his mother was shot right in the head while she was giving him a hug. That was the last hug he ever got. From anyone.

That was a long time ago anyway. The only reason he was contemplating the oddness of the hug was because he was watching a rather odd movie called 'Magic Mike'. It was a rewind at the cinema and apparently there was a sequel to it. What he couldn't comprehend though was why the women wanted to touch the men like that and how the men let them touch them. They seemed pleased about it too.

"Hamilton," a voice whispered to his left. "You watching the movie, or you watching the people? Get that guy off his phone."

"Oh, sorry," Hamilton apologised to Kyle his co-worker as he made his way over man scrolling through what looked like Instagram posts on his phone. The cinema was dark but Hamilton could see that the man had an army buzz haircut and an athletic build.

"Excuse me sir?" Hamilton began, but the man paid him no attention. "Sir, excuse me?"

The man looked up, his face marked with irritation and annoyance towards Hamilton.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to turn that off," Hamilton suggested as his vision connected with the man's piercing blue eyes. He didn't look very pleased with the interruption of his scrolling session through pictures of almost naked women. His girlfriend sitting next to him was too engrossed in the movie to notice.

"Please," Hamilton tried again. "Your phone needs to be turned off so as to not disturb others around you."

"Excuse me, could you please shut up?" A middle aged woman aimed the question at Hamilton.

"Yeah," her friend agreed. "You're ruining the movie."

"Sorry ma'am I was only trying to--"

"I'm sorry, is there a problem here?" Kyle asked, stepping into the conversation. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to turn that off."

The woman shook her head to answer his question and the man willingly obliged leaving Kyle and Hamilton both returned to their posts at the back of the theatre.

"I don't get it," Hamilton wondered aloud. "I've been working here at least three times longer than you but you can earn their respect so easily."

Kyle smiled down at his skinny pale acquaintance, his reflection bouncing off Hamilton's glasses. "I think we both know we two are completely different kinds of people. Now shut up and let these guys watch the movie."

Hamilton, who still didn't understand how Kyle could assert so much confidence so precisely and accurately, remained silent but confused.

As the movie drew to an end, people began to file out of the theatre and Kyle and Hamilton began to clean up. These customers were relatively neat, spare the one column near the front where someone had spilt a whole tub of popcorn.

"You clean it," Kyle told Hamilton. "I got a date tonight and I need a little time to freshen up."

"See you tomorrow."

Kyle grunted his farewell and exited the theatre, leaving Hamilton with the heap of golden popcorn lying ever so pathetically on the carpeted floor. In the end, it was too hard to pick up or sweep, so Hamilton grabbed one of the vacuum cleaners and sucked up the entire mess.

***
Work ended at 5:30 in the evening for Hamilton and he usually finished off with a walk in a park with a warm cup of coffee. Coffee drinking later on in the day such as during the evening or towards the night is ill-advised according to the doctors. It usually interrupts sleep patterns, but the substance did not affect Hamilton. It only helped him keep warm as he took his evening park walks.