Fit for Beasts

But let me take you back to last summer. The nights were as hot as our pissing-down days; it had been chucking it down since the Spring. The air was so thick you could drown in it. Yet all the rads were jammed on, every wall in the house was slick with grimed condensation and our clothes steamed gently off our backs. But still we kept ourselves well wrapped up, for our clothes are our armour against the vagaries of the world. And if you pile enough on, they make you look big.
We slept in them. 
Threw up in them.
 Got food, blood and beer on them. Pissed ourselves. Shat ourselves. Went out and came back, soaked and sweaty, and then fought, fucked and slept in them again. If you were lucky. You get used to the smell, when you are part of it. But enough of what I’m wearing this season. 
 Come rain or shine the house would spill its guts every morning - habits don’t resolve themselves – and that morning Lucas was out all earlybird to catch the early punter. A gutter-stream rich with condoms, sticks and dead insects slooshed past the drive, pooling down below on the main drag, and the night’s rain was steaming off the tarmac. 
 Lucas stared hard into the mist, willing the trade to emerge out of the haze, for this was the hour they would converge upon our piece of hill, strolling up with the cover-story family dog, umbrella brandished like a cane clicking on the pavement, one hand in pocket, ersatz casual, a carefree whistle. The pre-work rush, the moneyed chippers, scoring before the commute.
But on this morning – as Lucas would later report – the first thing out of the mist was a different stripe of animal. Lucas heard it first - the low chug of a big engine – then a slow-moving black beast of a motor slouched out, the size of a tank. It hugged the kerb, stopping down near the rat-runs between the old estates, engine still purring, waiting. Lucas sat tight. Those in need came up to us, we didn’t go down. 
He knew it wasn’t police. The Met couldn’t afford a new hat, let alone a top range four-wheel drive. It wasn’t a Shark, they’d all gone electric and Lucas could hear this engine. Sometimes, a search party of family, friends, and the professionally hired would fetch up, seeking their wayward loved ones. The sharper few would go for the softly-softly, door-to-door, befriending, offering money, doing covert research. Nothing came of either approach, they never left with who they were looking for, even if they found them. 
But Lucas could still rinse a pound note out of the situation.  He could spot them. 
This was not them.
Lucas knew he should hold his post but caution and patience, etiquette and good sense crumbled in the face of his tugging need and the fear that someone else would steal the catch so he jumped off the wall to seize the day. But no sooner had his plastic-bag covered feet hit the pavement than a tiny figure scurried out of one of the rat -runs and straight up to the motor.
Lucas had been usurped. By the stamp of the fella he guessed it was Ritchie - no-one else he knew was that small, and Richie would also be looking this time of the morning. Although angry at having lost the edge, Lucas refrained from kicking off; it would only scare off all future punters, and Lucas would later get kicked up and down the hill for ruining business.
 Maybe he could grab the next one.
 But as he continued to watch, the scene didn’t unfold as it should, or not as he would have played it. Lucas always made them wait. We all did. It was de rigueur. We never had far to go. There was no need to take them with, or accompany them anywhere. But, down below, the back door of the car was opening, and Richie climbed in. Maybe something else was transpiring, some other transaction. Maybe Richie had changed his ways; maybe he was for rent. But that didn’t seem to fit with Richie, although you never knew how people were gonna go. The car pulled away, up the hill, past Lucas, who tried to clock the driver, but the windows were dark tinted, giving nothing away.
Odd, but not worth mentioning, except in hindsight. Because we never saw Richie again. Not all of him anyway. Just bits of him, found up on the Heath. That’s worth talking about. In hindsight. 
And if a tale’s worth telling it’s worth telling well, but not round here. In the present climate, it’ll get you medicated.