A Quickie

There is nothing for this man. He drops his cigarette and he takes to walking again and people push into his way. Get out of his way, all these anonymous people and he wants to find something and he’s going somewhere but he doesn’t know where
Maybe to the book-store and look at all the books he doesn’t want to read or maybe he could go to the centre and stand outside the electrical shop and watch all the tv that he doesn’t want to watch
Maybe go to a club and dance to all the songs he doesn’t like and drink all the drinks – now that’s something. He likes a drink, but a man can’t make a life for himself out of pint glasses and cigarettes
The city’s pretty loud today and all the men and women they care less today than they did yesterday, but more than they will tomorrow.
Get out of his way, he doesn’t know where he’s going, but leave him alone, just for the moment
People screaming about something, and an ambulance screeching past and a woman thumping her fist against a manhole cover
‘Watch out!’
Someone walks into him and they look at him and that’ll be the only words that they ever say between them unless, by some chance, they meet in a garage or over the telephone and they have to argue about how much they’ve been charged or how long something will take.
He walks into a café and takes a seat, opposite a woman
She’s fat and useless but does she care? There’s a man opposite her and he looks alright so why should she care any more?
He starts talking, talking about anything that comes into his head
‘Do you know,’ he says, ‘that the chances of humans making it another hundred years is virtually non-existent?’
And she decides that she likes this guy because he’s not like you or I, and it’s not because he knows the survival chances for the human race. It’s just something about him.
The steam and the grease from the café is choking so they leave together and they walk through the streets. Get out of the way and let them through.
And down a street she turns to him and says she wants to fuck and he looks at her. Is this what he was looking for?
Yes. Maybe. So he fumbles over her shirt and lifts it and cups her tits except now he freezes and he wants to cry but he's too embarrassed to move and too ashamed to stop and she doesn’t want to have sex any more but she sees him and isn’t he sad? But does she care? Who knows, maybe she’ll know after, maybe she’ll know but the experience gets more awkward and she wonders if she’s falling in love.
For some reason he thinks back to when he was a kid. Why did no-one tell him about sex when he was a kid? Then maybe he might have thought about fucking girls instead of lying next to them, holding them in his arms and hoping that no-one would find them and stop them. And then he thinks something else, he thinks about his dad saying “you’re a druggie and a faggot.” He knew he was one of them and now he wonders if he’s the other
and he looks at her and asks if she can wank him off because his brain isn’t there, it’s locked away inside himself and he’s sorry because he really wants to do it but he can’t but maybe if she wanks him off this time, maybe something will change in his head and maybe later they’ll fuck
She says no but says they should go and get a drink and she’s a pretty nice girl, for this city and this place she’s alright but you and I don’t really see that because you and I don’t see a lot and we bump into her and we bump into him and we think ‘fat bitch,’ and we think ‘fucking loser’ and we get annoyed because they’re not looking where they’re going.
They go to a bar, one of those dead ones, not dead because there’s no people, but dead because it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t make you happy and it doesn’t make you sad. He shrugs. You have to have low expectations these days.
So he takes himself a seat in the corner, he doesn’t care if he drinks or not – although a drink would be nice. She goes to the bar, waddling and awkward as she walks and everyone’s looking at her and they think that she’s a bit of a shit and they know everything about her already. One look, that’s all it takes. Fat bitch.
But she smiles to the barman. What is she doing? Not in this bar you don’t. No smiles at the barman. And when the barman catches her smile she goes red and she hates herself for going red and the barman turns his lip up. It amuses him.
She brings back the drinks to the table.
He’s been watching the tv for the last few minutes. Sitting and sighing or not sighing at all but rather just breathing. Because what is there to sigh about? It’s not like he gives a fuck. Twats in suits telling him about the world. Bold words telling him about the world. Is this the way it is, is it?
He spits into an empty glass and looks up. What’s he doing here? Why didn’t he fuck her and fuck off? He got himself an ugly piece of trash and everyone’s looking at him and thinking ‘that’s about right – he couldn’t do any better than that.’
And everyone in the bar was at school with him and they all knew that he was gonna do fuck all with his life and end up trying to plead for a wank off some useless fuck in a back-street, while all the other kids were roaming round the streets with handbags and Gucci and pieces of machinery he never liked anyway. So screw them. It was none of their business who he sat down with. Hundred years and they’d all be gone and all their kids and all their kids’ kids. Every last one of them.
She sits down and hands him the drink
‘What’s your name?’ she says.
He snarls. Name? Give me a name. Give me a name and track me through useless jobs and useless weddings and useless unemployment and then stick it on a useless piece of stone to show the world that this was my useless story and laugh at me as I lay in the ground. He spits
She pushes the hair behind her ear and looks around the bar.
They sit there for the whole evening and everyone makes a lot of noise and they listen and maybe they don’t want to listen but they listen all the same.
They leave the bar at closing but the city is still awake and waiting to look at them and maybe he should walk her home but why should he give a fuck about her anyway? There is nothing for these two but he starts to talk. Just when it seems that nothing will ever be said between them he says that he’s scared about the end of the world and does she know why he’s scared of the world ending?
No, she doesn’t, but she smiles and she walks beside him along a park that’s not the way she’s meant to go, not tonight when the morning brings an early start and she has to look her best for all the people at work that don’t give a fuck about her.
‘It scares me,’ he says, ‘because that’ll be it then. Everything I do. It’ll show that’s it useless and I don’t want it to end because I don’t want to know that it’s useless.’
She turns to him and kisses him and maybe this time he can fuck her, if they go over to the swings maybe he can fuck her.
She doesn’t think it’s a good idea but she goes over and lets him fondle her tit and this time he gets it right and he slips a finger in but with every moment she knows he’s getting further away. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she says.
‘I know,’ he says and he stops and looks at her. She pulls up her knickers and he walks her home.