— Right.
— I was having a problem, but it is all finished with now.
— Right.
Martin John did not expand on the problem. The Manager fella repeated the word Right. It ended the way these conversations always ended between the two of them. The Manager fella reminding him he was the most reliable person who worked for him and Martin John maintaining he took great pride in doing a good job.
Martin John again to the Manager fella.
— Could I have a word?
— Yes.
— I was having a problem, a medical problem.
— Right.
— I was having a problem like you know, going.
— Right.
— So that was how I was caught short.
— Right.
— It is fixed.
— Right.
Martin John supplied no further details. The Manager fella said Right one more time. His phone rang. He disappeared. He returned. Martin John made no further effort to converse, choosing to announce he was due a circuit and wouldn’t want to get behind.
He left with his pretend swipe card, faster than the Manager fella could express confusion or muddle out words such as What exactly are you on about?
Martin John realized on the 23rd floor that the Manager fella had returned to speak to him after the phone rang. He interrupted his circuit to go and find the man. Arrived at the 13th floor on foot and changed his mind. He climbed the stairs again to the 23rd floor repeating the words Rain will fall, Rain will fall, at the summit of every floor ascended.
Complaints were subsequently raised about Martin John’s personal hygiene. Martin John maintains poor hygiene because he wants the putrid smell off him to drive Baldy from his house. If he smells bad enough, the man will have to up and leave. This olfactory battle strategy seeps into his day job where smells trail him and oust him there.
Because Martin John had worked 7 days that week, including one double shift, the Manager fella did not pass along the complaints to him. Instead he did what the dentist does and put a watch on the tooth.
Martin John observes the Manager fella leaving the office much more than usual. Each time the Manager fella approaches the guard’s desk, Martin John — never doing anything more illegal or illicit than reading the Bible to keep Dallas happy — brightly tells the Manager fella that Rain will fall.
Rain will fall, he’ll announce even when rain is indeed falling and has been falling for the past 7 hours. His choice of the same statement troubles the Manager fella, who is actively patrolling for signs of poor body scent. Martin John is onto him. And onto them. And onto talcum powder. Lily of the Valley. Every orifice dusted with the stuff. Shoes lined with it. He is springing lily puffs, if he moves swift. Martin John is onto them. He even pats a layer of it into his underpants.
The thing none of them factor in is the thing none of them know.
THEY DON’T KNOW THAT BALDY CONSCIENCE IS AFTER HIM FULL-TIME. He is on the run from Baldy Conscience even in his own home. Baldy Conscience wants to be the landlord. He doesn’t go upstairs because mam said she didn’t want to hear another word about him upstairs. Gary told him to tell Baldy Conscience to move out. They don’t understand Baldy Conscience. He will never move out. The earth could stop spinning. It could turn upside down and that fucking flump will remain at his kitchen table.
This is why he has stopped washing.
This is why he is holding in his urine.
The plain person cannot understand the punishing details of what the random man who has Baldy Conscience AFTER HIM must endure.
Martin John comforts himself with the prospect that Baldy will ever be after someone, someplace, thus any man or woman who scorned or doubted Martin John was a mere spot behind him in the queue. I’m keeping the fucking seat warm, he would tell them if pressed. It’s a fucking charitable act. This man would have his hands around your neck if he did not already, metaphorically speaking, have his hands kept busy around mine. You understand me now?
All Martin John’s sentences start terminating with you understand me now? If he’s buying a ticket or asking the time or even saying hello he leaves nothing to false interpretation. Occasionally a person will respond that, in fact, they do not understand him. He will nod a few times and immediately make haste. It indicates Baldy’s gotten to them. They’re tainted. Stained with Baldy’s stump if you like.
He has made mistakes
Baldy Conscience was a terrific mistake.
He was a blood clot of a mistake.
On account of Baldy Conscience
He only rented if he had to.
He only rented if he had to.
On account of Baldy Conscience
He only rented if he had to.
No more women.
No more women.
There would be no more women.
This was how Baldy Conscience slipped by him.
He preferred the upstairs empty with the windows wide open. Rooms free: life good. He shut them only if he used the telephone, after which they would be promptly opened again. In the empty rooms he walked in circles. Sometimes he just stared at their ceilings. A negotiation between him and the plaster: Do you see you are empty? You are empty because I have made you that way.
When things were going grand:
The upstairs rooms were empty.
Each day he followed his rituals on time.
Letters and circuits matched as they should.
His walks were a pleasure.
The newsagent had his papers.
The pork pie did not leave a greasy taste on the roof of his mouth. His urges stayed quelled. Hidden deep under a mental duvet.
He knew things would be grand if he put his head down, kept to himself and stayed in at night as she had told him to. Then they would not come for him because there was nothing to come for.
When things were bad he felt they were coming for him. He felt it every minute of any day when things were bad.
~ ~ ~
Whenever things sour down on the job Martin John heads to Euston.
Whenever Martin John is anxious about going home to face Baldy Conscience, Martin John hits Euston station. Rabbits go home to their warrens. Bus drivers take the bus to the depot. Martin John, in a state, takes his state to Euston. No one is entirely sure why — including Martin John. It’s where I got my head screwed on about what was going on with him — do you understand me now?
That’s all he’ll say on Euston.
At Euston, opportunities prevail.
Legs, flesh, feet and trains.
Circuits.
Rain can’t fall indoors.
All this heading to Euston means Martin John is sleeping less and less.
Walks more. Sleeps less. Walks more and more. More and more walks with a full bladder. More and more full bladder. Less and less sleep. He has started drinking certain types of water. Believes it fills his bladder faster. More and more he likes his bladder stone-full, pressing against the band of his trousers. Sometimes he pushes it to insist upon pain.
Once he carried an empty water bottle inside the band of his trousers. The top of it peeking up like a reminder. He begins travelling this way, several water bottles sticking out of the top of his waistband. People eye them, they look at the bottles. He smiles. He has caught them looking. I have you now, he thinks. He has their gaze away from Baldy Conscience. Sometimes he’ll rapidly rip a bottle up and out and towards his mouth, while looking at the looker, who inevitably looks alarmed, then looks away. Once a woman held his gaze. He didn’t like that. She forced him to open the bottle and drink from it by looking and continuing to look at him. One of Baldy’s team. No doubt.