Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Tramp Chronicles: Insufficient Funds

Wheel chair guy rolled onto the close, making that weird noise with his lungs, he negotiated the small step into the block using a nifty pivotal manoeuvre with his one good leg and his amazing balance which he had developed as top school gymnast back in the day. It had taken a while to master this move, after countless occasions of getting stuck in between the doors on the bus, and bussin his face on the curb but it was worth it.

As he got into the block, he called Albert’s name in the usual fashion, “Alberrrrrt”, his voice didn’t hold a great deal of impact, due to his breathing issues but Albert’s super human tramp capabilities were heightened at the prospect of wheel chair guys earnings. Albert sauntered down the stale stairwell and looked at wheel chair guy with an eerie smirk on his boat. This sent a shiver down Leemo’s crooked spine and his breathing became even more irregular, he knew that smirk only too well.
Albert grabbed wheel chair guy by his one good arm, and with his other hand took hold of his chair, he marched up the stairs, dragging his disabled associate behind him.

By the time they reached the doorway Leemo’s breathing had become erratic and he was having some sort of mini fit as Albert dashed him on to a chair which was placed precariously in the middle of the front room.
Trev and Albert’s girl were cracked out on the sofa at the back of the room, and Albert walked through his beaded curtains, to the kitchen where he was cooking up some beans. Leemo thought to himself, from the smell of it, that they must be some doodoo beans, knowing Albert however, the smell wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t surprising but it did add to the multitude of other anti-fragrances, it created what can only be described as an oppressive stench.

He came out of the kitchen, with what looked to Leemo like a bowl of excrement in his hand and stood over him, clearly disregarding any sense of personal space that wheel chair guy had left.
“What you got for me?”, Albert asked in a very menacing tone of voice, at this point wheel chair guy sunk even further into himself, looking behind him at the two cracked out entities, clearly unable to help him and then looking at the floor, searching in vain for some sort of escape.
He knew what he was sent out on the street for and he knew that he had come back too many times with insufficient funds according to Albert’s high tramping standards. Today he had nothing.

“I said WHAT you got for me?”, Albert repeated himself while spooning the ‘doodoo’ beans into his mouth, some of them were spilling out the side of his face and dripping on to wheel chair guy’s useless leg. Albert put his hands in wheel chair guy’s pockets; he searched his every orifice and found nothing but a lighter and some red Rizla. At this, he breathalysed wheel chair guy’s face which unsurprisingly knocked him out cold, he then picked him up by his collar and threw him onto the ground mumbling something to do with sitting in a big mans chair and being worthy.

The door knocked, strange because no one ever knocked.

No comments: