Grim Tales for Gruesome People

Room 302

Hear that? Raindrops, pitter-pattering on cracked stone, on leftover pizza-boxes; on the spruce of a weathered violin, cradled in the arms of a Romany boy who curls up on a step to sleep beneath the fluorescent sign of a continent-straddling banking giant.

The rain I don't mind so much. At least it feels clean.

There's a cat that's been circling for the past hour, weighing me up. His orange coat is sodden, patched with scabs where fur no longer grows. Few whiskers remain intact and discharge leaks from slits of eyes where crusted chunks of gunk have formed in the corners. Sitting beside me on a flattened cardboard box, he licks his paws and purrs incessantly into the darkness. I run my fingers through his fur, rub the spot just behind his ear, and wonder if he has enough remaining lives to survive another night. Like me, he's ignored. Rejected and disdained like the addicts and the drunks; abrasions on this rose-tinted society.

It's all too familiar. It's all too real.

The cat scarpers at the sound of footsteps and muffled voices. I tuck my greying beard into my coat and tighten the toggles on my hood, leaving just enough room to see.

"Excuse me, sir?" I croak at the approaching couple; to the man in the dark, sued coat, laughing as rain bounces from atop his golfing umbrella. "Spare some change?"

He meets me with a disapproving glare, hugs his partner close and kisses the crown of her meticulously styled blonde head. Tailored, calfskin shoes and patent leather heels tread anxiously, avoiding shallow puddles as they proceed into the swallow of the night. I hear him murmuring to her about how he feels sorry for me but doesn't wish to encourage my habits.

That's Steve. He doesn't recognise me. But I've been waiting.

The glance over his shoulder is to make sure I'm not following; to make sure I'm not about to slip a knife into his back and steal his embossed leather wallet and a collection of maxed-out credit cards that are about as much use to me as the lucky condom he keeps stashed in his back trouser pocket.

Steve works on the top floor at TruCell; three streets down, overlooking the lake in Silver Tree Park where they hold remote-control naval reenactments during the summer. He oversees sales operations, prides himself on effective business analytics and attainment planning and takes his coffee black in a Mr. Messy mug. The mug's ironic; Steve's not messy. Steve, in fact, is overtly borderline OCD about the organisation of his office space. 

It's a joke, you see. 

He's a funny fucking guy that Steve.

Steve, who prides himself on positive communication and motivational clarity; who celebrated last year's annual turnover with a luxury yachting trip on company expense; who irons his socks, takes his daughter to ballet class on the weekends, and believes that fucking his former business partner's wife in room 302 at the Premier Inn on Portland Street is still very much a well-kept secret.

Yeah, that's Steve. And I've been waiting.

*

This morning saw newspaper vendors, quick-march feet in Italian shoes, Monday morning business chatter and briefcases and coffee cups and smartphones pressed precariously between lapelled shoulders and twitchy left ears. Smartphones: the ultimate convergence of our vanity, affirmed by the college girl with a flower in her hair and a corduroy shoulder bag who filmed me while her friend placed a grease-soaked Greggs bag and a bottle of water by my feet like she was feeding an animal at the zoo.

I wryly smiled when she said, "Here, take this ... I'm sorry it's not much, but I hope it helps."

"I feel so sorry for them," her friend sympathised, before asking, "Are you going to put it on Facebook?"

After the morning rush, harsh harmonics with glissando cried out from the young boy's violin, abstract tales of time and space and emotions he would otherwise never express. Some people threw money, but none stopped to listen; their duties as parents and husbands and wives leave little time for trivialities such as music and homeless traveller children.

At the stroke of twelve, the square was awash with the stench of designer aftershave and testosterone - the smell of success. The female of the species a harsh minority, the subject of titillation and leering gazes and compulsory company events on how equality in the workplace can help boost profits. But these bright, young men are our future. They are the winners, because they know how to bend the rules. Unlike me, they have places to be: meetings to attend, conference calls to join, dotted lines to sign. They don't stay long, scurrying in and out of chain stores and gluten-free sandwich shops. Like ants, taking their fill before retreating back to their nests.

Ants like Steve, who has a Ferrari badge on his keys and benefits from a complex network of offshore companies to avoid paying his taxes; who lies to his wife, Victoria, about working late and attending conferences on the weekends to cover for his affair; who ransacked his own office, fired three of his staff, and pleaded futilely with the Kojima Group in Tokyo for their forgiveness upon discovering that their personal account information had been compromised during a routine security check.

Remnants of the afternoon bustle marked the evening: street sweepers who ignored my presence when they cleaned up society's mess; a Mother, who grabbed her screaming child by the wrist as he squirmed in an attempt to flee into a water fountain swimming with empty crisp packets and cigarette butts. It's the time of day they don't like to capture for postcards in the gift shop, where gangs of disengaged youth crawl out from cracks in the rotting foundations of a city trying desperately to uphold a fanciful future vision propelled by competitive economic development and entrepreneurial superstars.

Superstars like Steve, who since losing the Kojima contract, engages in high-risk capital investments in a desperate attempt to keep up appearances; who buys his daughter's love, takes prescribed medication to help him sleep and cries into a bottle of Scotch he keeps hidden in a drawer beneath his desk; who is now in debt to gambling, budget hotels and showering his beloved Victoria with exorbitantly priced jewellery to make up for the time he spends away fucking other people's wives.

Steve, who tonight, stumbles out from the White Rhino Casino to escort his worst-kept secret to room 302 at the Premier Inn on Portland Street.

Yeah, that's Steve. And I've been waiting.

*

"Excuse me, sir?" I croak at the approaching couple; to Steve, who laughs as rain bounces from atop his golfing umbrella. "Spare some change?"

The glance over his shoulder is to make sure I'm not following; to make sure I'm not about to slip a knife into his back and stifle his scream with a gloved hand while he watches with wide eyes as I open the throat of his affair.

I wonder if he's still alive to see it.

I can't allow her make-up to ruin, her hair to tussle. I want her to look pretty.

The Romany boy doesn't even stir when I tuck the money from Steve's wallet beneath the strings of his violin. I stroke back his hair, watch the rain roll down his cheeks and hope that his fleece keeps the cold from his bones. His eyes flicker, as if he's dreaming.

It's all too familiar. It's all too real.

Hear that? Raindrops, pitter-pattering on cracked stone, on leftover take-away pizza boxes, and the remains of my cheating wife and my business partner who decided to fuck her.

The rain I don't mind so much. At least it feels clean.

END

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