Bag of Weasels. Chapter 3

Right about now I reckoned Ralph would be stamping out his mission-from-god, daily crowd clearing path up Richmond Hill, holding up his precious object like a piece of the true cross. London has its ways, and some of those ways - the less trodden, the hidden and meandering - are now mine: and so I weaved my own way across.
I arrived on the hill in the early morning. Soon the town would swarm over it, but for now it was empty, sunny and clear. This was Ralph's stamping ground. His beat. There was no sign of him yet - Ralph had his own cracks to disappear into - but since they'd left him here broken, back when, he'd turn out every day to walk the hill, brown skin turned black, black hair turned grey, battered by sun, wind and authorised chemicals.
Ralph didn't want to hurt anyone, he wanted to warn them, tell them; he just couldn't get it straight in his head what it was all about any more. Trouble was, he looked so scary, whole crowds of people would cross the street when he came strolling up. It marked him out from the average shopper, made him easy to find.
So I watched and waited from the top of the hill. True to form I saw patterns again: the crowds came swirling up to me, and washed over the hill like tides, but they never broke open to reveal Ralph storming through.
Three days on the trot, sun up to sun down, I came and watched them reel around.
Some little thing that I could never quite catch kept breaking up the patterns but I knew it wasn't Ralph: if it were Ralph it would be unmistakeable.
He had been knocked out of orbit.
I edged my way down by sticking to the walls - I'd been here so long that the crowds were getting to be a headfuck - but once again this scuttling pest was scratching at my peripheral vision, flitting in and out.
I tried to lock onto its movement but it was nippy like a rat - scuttle and flit, weaving through the crowds. A proper oddity; like myself.
I'd stepped into a side street to breathe easy when out he popped and I recognised the bastard: it wasn't a rat; it was a Flea.
Nasty Little Flea with his nasty little ways, biting and kicking his way through our spaces. Four foot high and head shaven clean so his pointy little ears matched his pointy little nose; more goblin than man. I hadn't seen him for ages, which was not long enough, and what he was doing here I daren't guess, his motives were always questionable, but Flea got around and saw all sorts of stuff; if he'd been infesting this hill for a while, he may have seen Ralph, or know where he was.
The crowds spat him out and he sped up my street. He zipped past my nose, and he stank.
I stepped out: "Hello Flea."
"Sunny! You streak of piss. Got any snout? Give us one."
Fucking Flea.
"Don't smoke, Fea."
"Christ, no-one fucking smokes anymore," Flea shoved his hands into the pockets of his greasy mackintosh and pulled out a fisful of cigarette butts, stuck the biggest one in his mouth and padded himself down looking for a light.
"Least I won't have to offer you one."
Like he would have done. I'd have loved nothing more than to pick him up by the throat and squeeze real hard, but I daren't: Flea may have been tiny but he was streety and sharp, and truth be told, i was scared of him. He knew it, and could make things embarrassing. I would have to wheedle.
"Have you seen Ralph?"
"Ralphy? The Mad Maori? Resigned his post on the hill, I notice," he grinned.
"Do you know what's happened to him, Flea? How long have you been hanging round? Did you see if they came and took him back?"
"Fuck no, wish they had. The cunt through me in the river yesterday. No reason, I was just being friendly." A good sign at last, I thought.
Flea continued: "I saw him in front of me, and went 'Oi Ralphy!' He spun round sharpish, picked me up by the throat, and fucking flung me straight in. The cunt."
More than I could ask for: Ralph was about and Flea'd got his throat squeezed.
"The cunt's still probably up the river somewhere," volunteered Flea.
"Thankyou Flea," I said, in all sincerity.
"you want to eat something, Sunny, " said Flea, as he made to dive off, "You look like you're dying of something."
Cheers.
"And watch yourself, they're sniffing around. I've seen 'em. They'll be on you if you hang around too long."
"Who?"
But he'd dived back in and was gone.
So Ralph was up the river which was great but strange: he should be marching up and down Richmond Hill. They'd fucked him up especially. But chucking Flea in the river sounded like the old Ralph. I hadn't seen him in a long time; I wondered what had brought him back. Like I said this was great, a real break. But very strange.
Acting on Flea's info I followed the street down to the river. It was very genteel round here; green grass and towpaths and cafes with parasols, boats for hire and bread for the ducks. And lots of people. I'd had enough of them, and maybe Flea had planted the seed but there were eyes on me, I was sure, and shadows circling round, so to shake them off I headed left down the towpath where the river flowed out of Richmond and cut through fields with cows in.
When it was like this, with no direction and no home to return to, I clung to my actions and played them out. Like kids at bedtime I found it comforting to have something to hold onto. So I clung to the search. I followed my feet. But I felt all played out, at the end of a whim. It was nearing time to go back in.
Then I was grabbed.