Man Of Few Words

Chapter 35

So, I went for my walk. And I lived to tell the tale.

I did, as expected, fall flat on my face after about three or four spins. But when I looked up I was facing towards Grove Street, which is actually the one my flat is on. Well, the building's on Chapel Lane too, but the front door is on Grove Street.

Anyway, I gingerly picked myself up and stumbled back the way I'd come, past my building, and along Grove Street. No cars came when I was in the middle of the road, which was lucky. A cyclist came past and muttered, "Pisshead!" at me, but other than that, I caused very little in the way of a scene.

I probably did look a bit like a drunkard as I made my way along the dark, wet pavement. At least, I did at first. But after a little while, I began to hit my stride, and could probably have passed for a normal sober person.

A few hundred metres down that road on the right, there's a school. It has a couple of Astroturf sports pitches separated from the street by a high, green-painted steel fence. I stopped and stepped close to the fence. I gripped it with the fingers of both hands and stared across and beyond the dimly lit pitch for a minute or two.

Then I gritted my teeth and started shaking the fence. It rattled loudly, splashing rain water into my face and up the sleeves of my jacket. I just kept going, shaking it harder and harder, breathing hard, almost snarling as I did it. I wanted to pull the fucking thing down with my bare hands. For some reason I felt like I could.

But I couldn't. After a few minutes, I started to get tired. My strength sapped away and my head sunk forwards, my hands still gripping the fence tightly. Rain trickled off my head and down my face, gradually diluting the string of snot slowly extending from the end of my nose.

I just hung there for a while then, one finger at a time, I released my grip on the fence. I pulled the snot off my face between finger and thumb and cast it onto the ground, then I sniffed hard, coughed harder, and slowly continued my trek.

A little further down Grove Street, a police car came past. It slowed down noticeably as it passed me, but didn't stop. I acted as if I hadn't seen it. I barely had.

I crossed over to the other side of the road to take advantage of the overhanging roof of the local leisure centre. That stuff I wrote earlier about being glad of the pain was turning out to be bravado, of a sort. I was getting a little fed up with the pain. Getting out of the rain didn't stop the pain, of course. It just made it... less wet.

Eventually, and uneventfully, I reached the end of Grove Street where it meets Chapel Road, which runs along the length of the park. To my surprise there was an ice cream van parked in the last space before the end of the street. I can't remember ever seeing it there before. But maybe it's often there. It just seemed really out of place in the middle of the night, in the rain, in November.

I'm pretty sure it's not really November, but it felt like it. I think it might have to be May, but I'll need to check to be sure.

I won't check. I don't care.

I approached the ice cream van. I decided I wanted to try and break into it. Not because I wanted the van, not even because I wanted some ice cream. Just because I wanted to find out of it had a regular car alarm, or if its chimes just went off at full volume if someone tried to nick it.

It actually had no alarm as far as I could tell. But I didn't really try very hard to break in. I just tried each of the door handles and shrugged to myself when they didn't open.

Just then a night bus rumbled past along Chapel Road, and I jumped. I'm not usually easily startled. I guess I must've thought it was the ice cream police.

Now I just want to know whether the ice cream police have regular sirens or...

Yeah, anyway. I crossed Chapel Road and went into the park. The gate wasn't open, of course, but the fence was easy for even a borderline cripple such as myself to negotiate. I wandered towards the house in the middle of the park. It's not really a house any more. No one's lived in it for decades. There's a cafe in it, and I think there are more rooms for wedding receptions and stuff like that.

It's a weird looking building. It's basically just a big, brick cube and would look very dull and ordinary if it weren't for the needlessly grand porch framing the front door. The porch is a faux-classical monstrosity that makes you wonder if they had haunted houses in ancient Greece. If they did, then they looked like this.

As I got closer to the house, I saw something red, or maybe dark orange, underneath the porch. Closer still and I realised it was a sleeping bag. There was a snoozing wino scrunched up inside it. I took shelter under the porch, standing over the prostrate tramp, watching him sleep.

After a few moments, I squatted down and started gently shaking him by the shoulder,

"Hey mate... wake up... wake up."

This might seem selfish, if not a little cruel, but it's not like he had anything important to do in the morning. So what does he need sleep for? I just needed someone to talk to, and for some reason I felt like I'd be comfortable talking to this guy who, yes, did smell faintly of piss.