Erratic

Erratic

The Loofah quietly opened the door and walked in, becoming Harold
Zaaman as he did so. He tiptoed stealthily passed his parents door and
down the passage. "Home?" whispered a young voice from behind the
second to last door on the left. "Home", said Harold Zaaman. Then he
turned into his room and softly shut the door. There was still no
traffic out and his slightly open window had let in the smell of coal
from the storage below. It was just light so he flicked on the lava
lamp and sat down on his bed, looking out at the bitter morning. He
stretched his hands into his coat pockets and took out from one his
folded knife and from the other a bunch of receipts and a finger. After
untying his boots, Harold Zaaman fell into a deep sleep.

The geological definition of an erratic is a rock that has been carried
by ancient glaciers from its place of origin to another place where it
is sometimes strikingly (to a trained eye) out of place. Where the
predominant stone of an area is perhaps light coloured and frail, the
erratic among them may be hard and dark.

Harold Zaaman was first christened the Loofah aged fifteen at school on
account of his burn-like acne. The garrulous senior paid for his
comment with his perfectly straight nose and full house of braced
teeth. Once teamed with his partner in downtown debt collection, Ronnie
Tosh, Harold Zaaman reattached his pseudonym, now chiefly on account of
his abrasive character. Each night, Harold Zaaman who lived with his
parents and little sister in a farm-like northern suburb would catch a
neat train to a link station and there he would descend deeply to the
underground and take the tube to wherever he was meeting the
dreadlocked Ronnie Tosh.

Harold Zaaman woke to the heat of the lava lamp on his face. It was
sometime in the afternoon and he was famished. He undressed his thick
set of clothing from the night before, washed his face in the basin in
his room and got dressed. On his way out he nodded at his family who
were taking in something from the telly and had lunch on their laps.
His parents sat glazed, but Selena nodded back. Outside was cold and
gusty and he bit his bottom lip slightly and hugged himself as he made
his way to "Breakfast All Day" for a feed.

Ronnie Tosh had been drinking. He was wild. The small, elderly man he
was kicking was coughing with the blood he was swallowing and the wind
he was losing. " Enough Ronnie, this isn't Marcus White and I doubt
that he knows where Marcus White is." Ronnie Tosh thumped on in his
stupor and his now flaccid victim seemed to mould himself to the boot
each time it ploughed into his midriff. When the Loofah finally
intervened, he did so with his temper lost and his knife unfolded.
Ronnie Tosh reeled from being yanked back by his collar but recovered
quickly and charged back at the Loofah. His splayed fingers met with
the swooping blade as their bodies collided and he collapsed,
quivering. The Loofah noticed a severed finger and not knowing why, he
put it into his coat pocket, before running out.

Fed and sweating from the over heating in the restaurant, he paid and
pushed open the steamed up glass door and headed out. Well-heeled
people, like his parents, walked dogs and even ferrets, pushed old
fashioned prams and tapped pipes on the trees that lined all the roads
and though leaves were definitely falling, there were none on the
ground. He bit his bottom lip and walked home. Home was through a
security gate that he had left open on his way out, not wanting to buzz
his parents, past a pond with a fish and swan and into the lift. Up to
the forth floor and then left, down the marble passage to the broad and
black door at the end, the broad and black door that had a plaster
peeling away but still attached to its polished, brass doorknob.

end