If it is your life

I am as Putty

Things had been desperate for the last couple of days but I had to be at the Agency for 11 o’clock. The usual crackdown. That is what they call it, officialdom. Fucking officialdom man I hate it, I detest it with a vehemence, total vehemence. And I had to prepare. It is up to you how you approach the whole thing but if you dont try you dont succeed. A good thing was the woman that worked there. She had her own little place. An office I think, quite comfy as I recall, a desk and chairs, and just so warm, maybe too warm. You felt like telling her to turn down the heating system. But in a lot of these quasi-government places the heating gets controlled by a central body and you dont have any power to turn it down because they keep the fucking temperature the same all over.

These bureaucrats man they would do it everywhere if they could get away with it. Imagine they ruled the world, you would get the same temperature in Greenland as the Mali desert.

She was a bureaucrat too, the woman that worked there. No point denying it.

At 9 o’clock I entered the mall and into a large department store. I was starving but the choice was mine.

It was dead quiet. Monday morning I suppose. In the gents’ outfitter section I squandered the remaining cash on an individual underwear pack comprising socks, boxers and tee-shirt. Preparation requires that. In the mensroom they had paper towels: excellent; that is what I hoped. Nobody was around so off came the shirt for a wash; I soaped and rinsed the armpits, doused the head with warm water, had a shave. Then to hell with it, whipped off the socks and washed my feet in the basin, squeezing the soap through the old toes, oh man, such fucking heavenly bliss man what a sensation, what a truly amazing sensation. One felt like a Lordship. Yes your Lordship?

One’s toes, there is a good fellow.

I dried them with the paper towels which were not ideal, but so what man so what. It wouldnt be my fault if matters turned sour, were the world of work and sweat to look unfavourably upon one. Responsibility was mine!

The skin was damp when I pulled on the new socks but they felt so damn comfortable that I thought of wearing them alone. I could tie together the laces of the boots and carry them round my neck.

Ah but the trusty old socks, boo hoo, they were finished now, the time had come to bid farewell. They had been through thick and thin together them two but I had to make the hard decision. Farewell old fellows. I stuffed them behind the pipe behind the lavatory bowl. Hey! Maybe I could wash the bollocks? Now that was a thing. The washhand basin in the public area. Could I risk it but that was the question, if somebody came in, they would think — well, I do not know what they would think. Ach, ye only live twice. No doubt they would phone the trusty old bobbies; that is what foreigners do, given it was me that was the foreigner.

The washhand basin was a bad idea if not out the question. I checked the cisterns in the cubicle. This was the place for a wash. The water from there is used to flush the bowl but is good clean water. Not clean enough for drinking except if you boil it but good enough for the genitalia. If the cistern is the right height from the floor — roughly hip height — then you can even dip them, just depending. Not today though, too risky. An intuition was strong upon me and I sensed a need: caution. Mondays are quiet but one may feel ‘a presence’ on such a day. Maybe it is in-store training and you are the Guinea Pig. You dont know you are, you are just a customer browsing about and doing what you do but all the time you are being surveilled, unbeknownst, a crowd of store employees are observing your every movement.

So dont tempt the luck. This is the essence of the human condition, we always fucking tempt the luck. Why not leave? There is a time to walk away. It isnt quitting it is walking away; to walk away is not to quit. It is a different thing. I was clean enough, just leave it at that

The mensroom had been a hundred per cent spotless when I entered, it was spotless when I left, even more spotless given the soapy-water spillage. Also myself; theretofore I was a soiled creature, now I was wholesomely clean, 95 per cent at least, the genitalia would have made it a hundred per cent and nobody can improve on a hundred per cent, not even God.

Some would argue that I am the property of — and thus belong to — ‘my’ Maker but I dont accept that He is my Maker, even if He does exist and whether or not I believe in that ‘existence’. I reserve that right and regard it as inviolable.

I respect the intellectual property of others but not beyond the point of reason, and reason is the product of common humanity. Thus far and no more. I would be damned if it went further. How far do people go anyway? And what about ‘damnation’? I cannot believe in ‘damnation’. It is a weird idea. Where would it happen? Christians have all these ‘places’. Especially Catholics. Purgatory. Imagine purgatory! All these unbaptized weans floating around. You would be dodging them all the time. It would be like a huge meteorite shattered in space and all these lumps of rock and dust flying about while you are hoofing it along the street. How the heck could you keep out its way? Not all of it. You would get hit by something, even if you crawled. At least one wee particle of rock. So maybe that was the damnation bit, if that was you for eternity having to dodge about the place avoiding bits of rubble or whatever, flying weans.

The gratuities plate was empty! It was next to the entrance cubicle. That was where mensroom attendants kept them but I hadnt seen it when I skipped through.

Empty. What do we say about that? There is nothing as empty as an empty gratuities plate.

The public are a miserly bunch of scallywags. Some might argue that people do a job and deserve a wage and shouldnt have to exist on gratuities.

Tips is another word. You have to get tipped.

The attendant fellow did his job, he deserved a pay. If you do a job you deserve a pay. That is what I think too. But if people dont get enough of a pay, if your boss doesnt pay you enough, if he is a sneaky bastard, you have got to get money somewhere. If you dont have any you die or get put in prison.

Unless somebody stole the gratuities. That is so unfair. That is one thing people should not do is thieve a guy’s gratuities.

I quite fancied that job because you were out the way and had your own little cubby-hole. You could have your radio and your kettle and your microwave. That would be you. You wouldnt have to come out, you could just stay in there and not be bothered by fools and vagabonds. That would suit me, not having to cope with the brickbats of life. I bet you it suited a lot of guys. Although usually it was women did these jobs. Mensroom attendants. But it would suit a lot of women too, especially ones with abusive husbands, just getting away and being on their own. You could imagine the abusive husbands but if their wives were mensroom attendants. What sort of mischief are you getting up to! Bump, and they would get battered again. So if you were a woman you would want to stay in your cubby-hole forever, for the rest of your life and beyond, hiding away from the entire world with your knitting and your darning, just getting on with things now you have peace; and you could do your work there, whatever it was, rearing the next generation, that is what women do.

What do men do? I dont fucking know. Mind you, I would like to have been first person on that gratuities plate. Just laying the first coin. It reveals an honest bond between producer and consumer if it is possible to use that kind of language in the circumstances. Except if you have no cash. What do you do then? There is nothing you can do except leave a slip of paper to explain that you have no money and sincere apologies. I had a sandwich in my pocket.

But I was amazed at how good I looked on the way back out the door. There was a huge mirror at the exit. In some mirrors you look so good you want to steal them. That happens with me. This was such a mirror mirror on the wall. That was that shave, the best of them all, and the general clean and tidy-up. Even my feet, if I took off the socks and held up my feet man they would fucking sparkle. A bright red, but that bright red is a healthy red. Sparkly feet, that is what they looked like.

Except my toenails were of an extraordinary size and breadth. One time I was sleeping with a lady and during the night one of my big toes stabbed her on the leg. It gashed her and the wound bled. These are the kind of toenails I am talking about, real raggedy fuckers.

Maybe the woman at the job Agency would loan me her scissors. She would have scissors. Most women have scissors. They prepare for emergencies. I dont know one guy that keeps scissors except on the edge of a complicated knife. Women are different. Viva. She was a sexy-looking dame and I liked her. Maybe the same age as me. She had that English accent that once heralded doom for the rest of the world. I knew she would repent of that authoritative position and become as putty in my hands.

I will not say I was looking forward to seeing her. Women don frosty exteriors to keep you at bay. As a man you hope to break through the barrier. You quite fancy the battle but at the same time you think, Oh not again.

If you were married it would be different.

There were steps up to the entrance lobby. I could not remember them from the last time. But they must have been there, and were definitely there now. I walked up and into the lobby and along, and tapped the door into Reception firmly, but no one answered. I saw a sign that said ENTER. So I did. I was disappointed to find a different person at work behind the desk. A woman of indeterminate age, except older by a long chalk. I stated my business, that my presence had been sought by an indeterminate bureaucratic structure pertaining to officialdom. She scanned the diary entries for the morning, hitting a button below her desk in the process.

They all have these buttons, especially for use in emergencies. They think we dont know! Almost at once a door opened and my woman came out to get me, came out to get me.

I smiled. Yet I was disappointed, which was unexpected.

She was surprised to see me. Now that too was unexpected. At this point I realized I was not who she thought. She had my name and details and now here was I in person. I had emerged from the brackets. She recognized my person but not as a function of my clerical position, and I refer here to office rather than pastoral matters.

This was becoming a tricky encounter. She was studying me, not in a direct confrontational manner but I could see that my presence engulfed her. Or was it the other way about? No, how could it have been? But maybe. Bureaucrat women exercise a control on your very life spirit. You expect the dead hand from a male but when a women does it you are doubly dead. Really, that is what I believe. But it is also contradictory. You get left in that limbolular position. You want to improve, you want to do your best, you want to impress and stand up for yourself, and show that you can do it too; you can be a proper person and enter into your rightful station within society.

You do want to improve yourself. I did and would, if given the opportunity. All I needed was a chance! I think she appreciated that.

She returned behind her desk and I sat opposite. She was tapping the keyboard before having settled on the chair. My details would have appeared on the screen. The thought pleased me. I lowered my gaze modestly. But it was enough. She glanced up from the keyboard. The power of my fancy had entered her inner psyche. What a smile she gave me! Was it a smile? Yes, and I would say glorious. If smile it was then that is the word. What is that exchelsis stuff or does that only apply to celestial creatures? This woman was just really I dont know man I would say beautiful or even better than that, and a slightly peculiar thing about all this was how the smile, if smile it was, occurred at an early stage in these proceedings, or is that relating to wish-fulfilment? I had hoped to make her smile. Was she doing it of her own volition? I had to look twice, and a third time. Seeing her smile made me look over my shoulder before allowing myself the luxury of smiling back. Luxury is the wrong word because I did it in a furtive way, and furtive things are not a luxury. Luxury is out in the open. Who smiles out in the open? People who smile out in the open are the ones we should all try to be. Yet she smiled to see me, she did, she was overpowered by the vision, this wonderful-looking guy with the clean feet and the new shave. Lips and her nipples, lips and nipples, hands and satiny breasts. No wonder you shiver. I could feel her beneath me now raising herself; and me raising myself onto my elbows; her gaze upwards studying me and me smiling down at her, moving slowly man I had to relax, relax. Especially here, especially with her, here with her, and how my life had been. This was not the past.

Although there was something. Yes I liked her; but this was more than that. And from a recent occasion. It was not the first time I had been in her presence. Not at all, otherwise I would not have been anticipating actions and reactions. Yes I liked her but there was a subtlety here that demanded of acquaintance. Of acquaintance?

Was this déjà vu? No. I had been here before. When was I last here?

But I knew I had been here before.

Because I expected to see her. I had been here before and had been expecting to see her.

Now I was remembering. It was no comfort. If I thought it might have been I was wrong. Not badly wrong. It was only a thought after all. Not even a thought, more the glimmer of one.

And then the short-term memory, or memory span. Why in Heaven’s name was she working in this Godforsaken den of bureaucracy? Maybe over late-night supper and a nightcap I could ask her and she could relax and explain herself. There was a place I knew, located less than two miles from the Agency; I could stretch to two cartons of soup and tea. But even her smile. What was it about her smile? that way people smile; men or women.

Because they know something. They know something you dont know. That is the fucking truth, horrific truth. That is how people smile, they are putting one over you, over on you.

Here was this woman, Clerical Officer, not to beat about the bush, and I was to have done something. I should have. What should I have done? My mind clenched in its effort to recall.

Something.

What the hell was it? Was I to have returned to this very Agency and forgotten? This struck the chord. Last Tuesday. My God. That is the horrific truth I had to face. No wonder officialdom had sought my presence. My memory had let me down again and quite badly this time, not short term but mid term. Although I was too young for Alzheimer’s. As far as I know. Plus that other thing that relates to the effects of heavy intoxicants, the one with the Russian name, what the fuck do you call it — Kolnikovs or something. Probably it had to do with vitamins. I didnt eat enough fruit and vegetables. That was a simple fact of my life. An old guy I knew swore by used tea-bags; for some reason he regarded ‘recycled tea-bags’ as a close relative of fruit and vegetables. If you said to him, Have you had your daily apple yet? He would point at the used tea-bag and say, No, but I am going to eh ah …

He ended the sentence with a meaningful nod of the head.

But an interesting snippet arises here: a side of me that was not surprised by what had and was happening. I was not surprised. Why not? Because there was the vague expection of bad news. Me. I was expecting it. I now realized that and it explains my sense of disappointment at finding the woman in the office when at the same time it was my wildest hope.

Because she was the very woman. It was her! I had given it to her, the contract, bond or promise! I said that I would come along for a job interview and forgot all about the damn thing — life had intervened. It was she to whom I had rendered the promise, for Tuesday last.

Although I would not go so far as ‘promise’. I would not call it an actual promise. I know when I promise and that was not a promise. I just said it. I shall come for the interview. That is what I told her. I did tell her that. So it was an interview! Yes!

I had to confess. The quicker the better. This ties in with the situation that obtained. She was no longer smiling but perusing my details on the computer and it was as if I had not existed, me personally: she had me conceptualized on a flat screen and was neglecting the very being that gave rise to the conceptualization.

I interrupted her when I spoke. But I had to. My memory is not great but it does work. I need to apologize, I said, because of last Tuesday.

She studied the screen as though I had not spoken.

I was trying hard to keep that appointment and I just failed. It was for a probable job of work and I want such a job, especially one that offers a pay. I need to clear off my debts and return to the fold. I require to get back on my feet and that job would have been ideal.

Now she replied: You gave me to understand that you would be here. I didnt expect you to let me down.

But I didnt let you down.

You didnt return.

Yes but I didnt let you down.

To not return is to let me down. For two days I kept this job alive. Others might have conceded but I thought it suitable for you, for you alone. The Office Manager spoke to me about it, she called me into Central Office. It was by way of a reprimand. I said you would be here and you were not.

She looked at me when she spoke. I found that difficult, and to distinguish her verbal utterances required a concentration beyond my own.

I was not used to being looked at. I dont want to be unfair to people of the female gender but this is my personal experience.

She was talking to me again. What in God’s name was she saying? She was a forthright lady. Aged thirty-three. I knew she was. Thirty-three is an age I regard positively. She had a small face. Women I go for usually dont have small faces although I have got nothing against them, it is circumstances. But it may operate in reverse, that women who dont have small faces tend to be more interested in me. I am as putty in their hands. Women with small faces tend to go for other fellows, they go for obvious lookers. I am not an obvious looker. I would say for most women I am barely on the planet until if ever there comes a time, when that time arrives I shall be everywhere; look into my eyes and quiver ye lowly mortals. I shall have passed over but this is a form of transcendence and not a metaphorical reference to death man when I refer to death I make no bones and although I am being facetious that is truly what I believe, I hate all that fucking stuff; let us be honest between people, and more especially ones to whom we are attracted, and that includes male to male, I would never be exclusive about matters existentially crucial. It is what I am talking about.

She had finished and was waiting for me to respond. I nodded. What happened is I was actually robbed, I said. I had my bag, I said, it was the day after I left here. I was walking up by Roebuck Terrace and that little park they have there, they use it as an occasional music venue.

She frowned.

You dont like it there? I do. It is quiet; office workers and shop workers take in their sandwiches at lunch-time. Some feed the birds. They see the birds flying off into the blue sky and they have to return to the office. I was in the little park and I sat down on a bench, man I was tired, it was a while since I had slept. You know my circumstances. I think you do.

I waited for a comment. Instead she resumed from where she left off the last time.

That took me by surprise: I hadnt finished what I was going to say about how I hoisted up the old legs and fell asleep on that damn bench, so that is how the robbery took place, when I was asleep the dirty cowardly scoundrels: at least do the loathsome deed face to face etcetera etcetera. Except if the robber had been some poor bastard down on his luck, I suppose you could make a case for him. How was he to know I was in a bad way? in an even worse way than him. He would not have known. Why the hell didnt he ask! Especially if I was sleeping on a bench. Benches are not hotels. Then too the apparel, one tries to keep up but fashion tends to pass one fucking bye bye, the old catwalk and so on. Then if music is playing, music seems to play at important stages of my existence; at these times I am doing my utmost to concentrate on moments unconcerned with music, with non-musical moments, and there is a tension in this struggle, and this tension appears to impact psychologically. Normally I hear big extrovert symphonies. Schubert’s Ninth. That is me, that is a day in my life. One actual day! It is like a whole world of human experience, it is just like goodness me!

Instead of me saying all that the bureaucrat woman stole the initiative and was doing the talking in her upper English accent. Maybe she was related to the Queen of Britain. Some of the Queen’s relations are required to earn a crust in blue-chip defence ventures. She referred to important clients. On one’s behalf a client was kept waiting for a period of three hours.

Who was this client?

She tapped the keyboard and I glimpsed a light flickering on my details, imprisoned forever. Certain phrases shimmered upward from the hard drive. I tried to read them before they vanished: clients are impressed by qualifications; promotional opportunities arise; salary scales are pleasing.

I shook my head in wonder. I was observed doing so. Would you be interested in less attractive options? she said, as though these existed. She did not wait for an answer but smiled remotely, tapping the keyboard and studying the screen. Here is one, she said. This is a provisional position. Opportunities for advancement do not exist, which is normal practice. Do you understand that?

Yes, I said, where I come from we take early steps in life.

Even should you indicate a willingness to learn and improve your all-round workskills superiors will not waive normal practice.

We dont begin with giant strides.

She stared at me. I smiled. I was not being sarcastic. My language, however, was a challenge. People use language of this nature rarely. Not unless they themselves are in an advantageous position. Advantageous.

When I left school I attended night classes and was fortunate that one class featured the place of linguistics in theories of economic psychology, being a grey area loosely associated with traditional philosophy: Celtic Continental as opposed to Roman. Roman forms are by nature imperialistic, especially at the personal level where ‘the negation of the other’ is the key to survival if not the ability to learn. The class was an aid to intellectual life and this had a negative impact on my capacity to serve and thereby earn a living in this country where non-thinking automata have been the vogue for for

For nothing. Since the dawn of the Holy Empire, that deadening blanket of wrong reasoning, governed governed and governed again.

I thought the bureaucrat woman intriguing and hoped it was mutual. She gave me the address and interview card, advised me of the bus I could take to get to this place of provisional employment. I stared at this card which was a pale green; lined, numbered and strongly luminal. I brought out my wallet, crushed the moths and blew off the dust, inserted the card into a compartment.

Then it was interview ended.

How had that happened? One minute I was sniffing her perfume the next I was stepping out onto the pavement.

Such is life. I am just so fucking trusting an individual. I always was. There is that bottom line with bureaucrats and some of the tools of their trade are tricks of deception. They get us doing things of which we, as it were, are unconscious. We seem to be unconscious. Yet we walk about and act in the world of other humans. It is not so much depressing as something less so, less depressing. I would have said it was not depressing, not at all, when I left the Agency on this occasion.

And it was this occasion and I was going to have to remember it was this occasion. And not forget.

She had diverted my attention. She had.

Here I was outside the actual building, and I had had plans.

I never leave buildings unless all internal possibility is sealed off. One wanders corridors. One has a look here and there. One makes discoveries. Too late now.

One’s defences are there to be lowered. This problem is singular. It exists for all individuals. The bureaucrat woman and myself were of an age. I had reckoned on a kind of I dont know man honesty. From her. Something. Is ‘solidarity’ too absurd a concept? Even using the word makes me turn my head a little, as though disguising my own naivety.

I shuffled along, then frowned and walked properly.

I felt like a think. There was a little grassy square with benches. I glanced to the sky then sat down.

One could only sigh.

Next thing I woke up! How long had I been sleeping! Who knows! No one. No one but God, and God is not a one, God is a all.

Still daylight. A bus; I spied it trundling round a far corner. On its near-side front window a sign read: ‘World Freedom From Exhaust Day’. Until midnight all bus travel was free. What luck! I took the address and interview card out of my wallet, then flung away the wallet!

Why did I do that. The current proceedings, they induced in me trauma, the nature of luck and divine providence.

I read the address. Yes. This bus was mine! I would ‘take it’. I would take this bus! Schubert’s Ninth. I would visit my future workplace.

There was no necessity of doing this but with time to kill and no money to do it why not make use of the free travel? Woa me hearties. I broke into a trot as the bus hove to.

Travel allows the chance to think, to think to think to think; consult with oneself. I relished the prospect.

The driver was a hopeless rascal, I should have known: a fellow of my age, and with someone else’s beard, not so much Lenin as that elderly chap with the full head of the stuff, Morris or Kropotkin, Bakunin. One presumes characters such as he hold revolutionary-grounded politics similar to one’s own. Whenever I board their bus I give a conspiratorial twitch of the head. But it never works man it just never fucking works. An authoritarian right-wing arsehole; that is what he was, somebody who would rather lick the boots of the bosses than join a comrade in acts of liberation. As soon as I boarded the fucking bus he wanted to kick me off. It was no misunderstanding. All I did was seek directions allied to matters temporal. I had a sandwich. There are people in this world who exist in a state of siege. They construct a moat round themselves and are continually raising the drawbridge. He was one of them. Why be a bus driver if one refuses to answer questions concerning time and place? These should be matters of fact, not issues for debate.

One seethes.

Later I alighted. I located the place of provisional employment although it appeared deserted. It was an unprepossessing building altogether. I could not imagine being tethered within such a structure.

Nearby was a building site. It wasnt a massive operation but big enough for its own purposes. This would have suited me. Guys were strolling around with lengths of wood and assorted tools. Building sites were out in the open, unlike factories; desperate places wherein we humans might perish forever. I had been employed in the building industry before. Much the better option. Perhaps there were vacancies. I could cross over the road to ascertain the likelihood. I was about to do this but recognized it as a psychological manoeuvre. Yet again I was trying to escape the true path. There was a path, why avoid it. Such was the mark of the coward. No, I would not run away. I would remain. I would confront the dark forces, perhaps foment a situation, take part in an epoch-changing strike.

The entrance gate into the parking area of the unprepossessing building lay ahead. Inside was a trailer but not much else. There were warning signs on Trespassing and Security. Suddenly a uniformed male appeared with a cup of tea or coffee in hand, a newspaper beneath his elbow, he yawned and spat to the ground. He had not seen me yet directed the spit towards the space into which I headed.

That boded ill. It meant he knew I was there. Probably he saw me from the trailer window and here he was keeping me at bay. I was tempted to return to the inner city. Mid to late afternoon. I would need a place soon. There was a cinema whose early evening entertainments provided a panacea for parties exhausted by life’s travels. Persons dotted themselves about the hall and might sleep. Management’s attitude was benign. When the programme ended the ushers roused individuals in a tentative — not to say sympathetic — manner. On one occasion one such usher panicked when unable to rouse me. I apologized for snoring. The usher apologized for wakening me. She had feared the worst, an inference drawn from the manner in which my head lolled. That to me was appalling. A lolling head at my time of life. I was a mere boy. (Sometimes I dreamed I was a man.)

But you needed money for the cinema. During mid-evenings I had access to a secret hidey-hole but a snag existed therein. I had to not-snore. This hidey-hole though secret lay within earshot of ‘the existent other’.

Immediacy. Needs and necessity.

Meanwhile the uniformed male security stared in my direction. He knew I was there. I had a sandwich in my pocket. I could eat it while pondering a course of action.

A brainwave. What if I hoofed it back to the Agency? The bureaucrat woman probably worked until very late. I could invent a pretext to reenter the building and see her, then be dismissed by her. But this time I would concentrate very hard and not discover myself having exited the building. I would find a secure wee spot and bed down for the night. I didnt even need to see her, I could just secret my way into the building, maybe find a spare settee someplace.

Ah but this was the stuff of fantasy. I recognized it for the hollow ruse it was. I was about to lose myself in the subterranean depth of the subconscious. I had embarked on a shifty stratagem that would result in the bureaucrat woman mentioning her spare settee, that I might bunk there for the night and snuggle into her and be as one, we two, and raising myself onto my elbows, her below me, her eyes

*

It is amazing what our brains get up to.

I had no foolish dreams about sharing her bed. It didnt matter how presentable I was in my individual underwear pack. No point being silly about it. Such women have suitors. She could have been married. Probably to a Duke of England. I had noticed a number of ‘high-quality’ cars parked in the vicinity of the Agency. All had metallic fashion accessories, heraldic designs as befitting the class of vulture. What are these designs called again? I always forget. Perhaps her aristocrat suitor drove one such … car. One hesitates to call them ‘car’. He would have a sentry employee watching the door who would have recognized ‘the prowler’. Me. I was the prowler. A ‘high-velocity’ rifle would be trained on my very skull. If I made the wrong move my brains would be blown away by the male security. And the powers-that-be would defend him to the very marlow, this being a society structured on sinecurial wealth and the veracity of inherited inequality.

But what if the bureaucrat woman was away home? Perhaps she had a husband and weans to feed? Perhaps she languished in spinster’s quarters, bemoaning her lack of a man, and that man might be me.

There was an ATM across the road from the Agency. I could stand near there and watch for an opportunity to enter the premises. But what if a domestic security appeared? He might assume a ‘high-level’ burglary was in operation, that I was standing guard for a gang of bank robbers, then below street level and burrowing their way down to the vaulted dungeon wherein lie riches beyond one’s wildest dreams. Gold bars and stocks of bullion. It would be better walking apace than standing guard. But even that reeks of suspicious behaviour and the domestic security would seek answers to awkward questions.

What to do? The rain the rain.

Goodness me the fucking rain!

I was standing outside the entrance gate to the car-park of the unprepossessing building and had yet to approach a decision, my brains a complete mess, and the rain! a fucking downpour. Not just rain! This was more than rain! Them big heavy dropulet gobs of that what do you call it when you are running for cover — water water all is water, water water where do you run? I hurried back and forth but found no place. I was fucking drenched to the skin. A matter of moments, that was all it took! I shrieked at the sky but to no avail. That huffy feeling came over me: why hasnt God presented me with a convenient doorway?

Inside the carpark I saw the light in the security trailer. Perhaps this was a benign intervention. I pushed open the gate. The rain beat down on me as I splashed through the puddles. Another sign read

WARNING KILLER DOGS OUT THE BACK

I stepped up to the trailer door, about to chap it, but I didnt. The uniformed male security would have been waiting there, concealed behind the door. He had seen me and would have watched my approach. But ye Heavens the weather! The rain maintained volume, pattering off the tin walls and ceiling. I needed shelter man no two-ways about it. I chapped thrice. He answered immediately but did not stand aside that I might enter the trailer. His hand hovered above the butt of his gun. He carried himself erect, shoulders stiffly back. This was to warn me that he could handle himself in an emergency. I had a sandwich in my pocket. Maybe I could feed him the fucking thing. I should say he was about sixty or something like that, seventy. My father was fifty-three the last I saw him, five fucking years ago though why I refer to him I dont know except, well, I was not about to have a physical scrap, not with a gun-totin stranger, elderly or not, especially one who reminded me of my so-to-speak daddy.

He gazed sideways and down over my head, seeking accomplices after the fact. I stayed silent. Now he waited. Eventually I gestured at the unprepossessing building, and realized the place was deserted. And that the rain had stopped, it had. Pools of water lay on the ground. It was no figment. His attitude had tempered. Something about his shoulders, a weariness.

Who sent you? he said.

I was wondering that myself but made no reply. I think I must have smiled slightly.