Then he changed the conversation. Near to Christmas he changed the conversation. He talked instead of a suicidal brother whenever they asked him for his ticket. He would talk about his suicidal brother and being on the way to visit him and if they held him here his brother would jump. The passengers behind forced to listen would not push through so fast, nor say mate. They were hungry to hear this story. A story of a man about to jump. Until finally they said things like it was really cruel not to let him on the train. They threatened to buy him a ticket if he wasn’t let on since obviously he had a ticket.
The women, it was the women who always stuck up for him, said it was cruel. In a way this puzzled him, until it did not puzzle him — like all of it he grew used to it. He became what it needed him to become in order to enact what he felt he must enact.
The next time he saw that particular guard he told him
— He died you know. He died that day. He died waiting on me. He jumped from the top of a car park in Birmingham. It did not ever occur to Martin John that no train went to Birmingham from Euston.
— Sorry mate. Sorry to hear that. Have you got your ticket?
For that conversation, without fail, he would have a ticket. He’d buy the cheapest ticket on whatever route. Ride the train. Step off next station and turn right back around on the next train.
They forgot to look for him exiting the train.
He could manage a few circuits when they were not looking for him. That was how it was if he was to manage to do the circuits.
The circuits are the only thing keeping me sane, he’d exhale as he swerved into the corners of the station. Rain will fall, rain will fall — he spoke aloud to diffuse his anger.
Once he took the suicidal-brother story so far that he crumpled down on the floor in front of the ticket man and started heaving. He cried hard. So hard he had no idea what he was crying about. When they, the public, asked him what was wrong, he shrugged and stood up. He knows what’s wrong, he said, indicating the perplexed ticket collector as he began to leave the station.
If he found a girlfriend who worked at the station and who would vouch for him, then they might never be able to ban him from Euston entirely. He likes Mary who works at the bakery, whom he talks to about God and the Bible.
It was a thought he had once. It passed. He remembered the warnings. The many, many warnings. He recalled why it was not a good idea. She would probably be a plant sent by Baldy Conscience. She would probably torment him. She would never ultimately agree to be his girlfriend. She might pretend she was interested and that would be it. Until she’d laugh. There would be a moment where she’d laugh at him. To his face. He’d created alternative moments. Fearful ones. He liked women afraid of him. If they were afraid of him, they were his. If they were afraid of him Baldy Conscience could not prevail. He would only send the kind ones after Martin John, for they’d be bound up in his convoluted and exceptional plan to sink him. The way they had all been, all the way along, from the moment he stepped off that ferry, going as far back as his mother. He firmly believed that Baldy Conscience must have been sourced and solicited by mam. She could call him off. At any point she could say surrender and call him off. Why didn’t she do that?
He phoned mam for the first time outside Euston.
— Call him off, he said. Call him off.
— Call who off?
— Him upstairs.
— If I have told you once I have told you a million times, what did I tell you — stop going upstairs.
— Call him off. Tell him to stop.
— Tell who to stop? What are you saying? And while we are at it, she added, enough with the parcels. Stop sending that filth. It’s disgusting.
— Call him off, he repeated, or Rain will fall.
— You’re telling me, she said. Well that’s the one thing I can guarantee: there’s never no shortage on rain.
After that, he knew they were in cahoots. The way they both made light of the weather. One day early on when Martin John warned him of approaching rain and the need for a hat, Baldy Conscience had laughed at him. Umbrella Man was likely also sent by the two of them. Who’d bring an umbrella to the toilet? Who would do that? Only somebody wearing an umbrella as a uniform. A uniform that had a story attached.
They had lost him his job.
What was the final chapter so? Would it end at Euston?
Mam has been receiving strange brown packets containing a travel brochure with pornographic pictures taped inside them. The pictures are folded into small squares. To properly see them there are flaps she must unpeel first. Even though she knows what they contain she opens every one of them for proof. It’s the signal.
They can only be coming from one person. The next time he phones, she’ll let him have it.
He does not phone.
She waits.
He does not phone.
Another brown envelope lands.
She waits.
He does not phone.
The time has come.
To go over.
And bring him back.
It’s finished.
There’s also the letter in her hall.
From the solicitor.
From the girl.
He can come back and face it.
The pictures confirm the letter.
Her doubt has evaporated.
There’s only one way to deal with such fellas.
The people in the Daily Mail are right.
HE IS CONVINCED THAT BALDY CONSCIENCE WANTS TO SHOOT HIM, PROBABLY AT EUSTON STATION. HE HAS NOTICED ALL THE STORIES IN THE NEWSPAPERS OF HARM DONE. HARM WAS DONE. THERE ARE REASONS ENOUGH HARM IS DONE. BALDY CONSCIENCE HAS FOUND THE REASON TO HARM HIM. HE HAS FOUND OUT THAT HARM WAS DONE.
~ ~ ~
Martin John has decided that wherever Baldy Conscience lives, beside whomever, however he lives, he will, inevitably, put someone in a hospital. Therefore he is committed to suffering him until Baldy Conscience is defeated. It is rabidly unfair that one man can inflict so much misery on an unknowing population. Martin John has come to know this. He knows about these things. He is ahead in this loop. The rest of us are behind him. He has the knowledge. He won’t say it aloud but this is a vision. He is a visionary in regard to Baldy Conscience. Therefore it’s up to him to deal with the BC.
Baldy Conscience has arrived at him in order to be dealt with. Baldy Conscience was sent. Baldy Conscience is now doing the sending. Martin John is the post office in this transaction. He, Martin John, is being transacted through. Evil going in, evil going out, evil going in-between his organs. He will be made an example of one way or the other. He has been made an example of. He conveniently forgets what brought him to this city. He conveniently forgets they are watching out for him at Euston. All these incidentals are spliced inside the Baldy gallop which consumes him. All appetites that govern him are likely controlled by Baldy Conscience. How many more are being controlled? Everywhere he turns he can see elements of Baldy Conscience’s control. The man is legendary in his ability to spread distrust, despair and detritus. On the streets, the buses, the television, the damage that Baldy Conscience is doing becomes apparent.
He, Martin John, will do what the world has requested of him. He will do what ’til now every man and woman has shirked from. It will be unpleasant and it will smell, but it must be done before this man undoes one and all.